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5 Questions for Philly Filmmaker – Adam Lippe
Synopsis: On the hottest day of the year, an unknown virus spreads throughout inner-city Philadelphia. The infected victims, crazed by dehydration, begin attacking other residents of the neighborhood in gruesome ways. When the military is brought in to contain the situation, but realize they can’t come up with a vaccine quickly enough, they fence off the area and let everyone die.
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Radioactive (Marie Curie Story)
Like so many historical biopics, most recent example “Tesla” “Radioactivity” feels surface, too many montages to depict passage of time, too glossy. I’d really like to see a gritty movie about a notable person of history. One that’s intriguing and reflective of the person, not just marking beats of their life’s résumé. And one not so romanticized and glamorized.
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Selah And The Spades
The film centers around a 17-year-old black female, Selah (Lovie Simone). She’s an A student who captains a spirit squad, and doesn’t have sex, but these things don’t make her a good girl. Good girls don’t deal drugs, and Selah is not only an experienced dope pusher at the prestigious boarding school she attends somewhere outside Philadelphia – she also runs a tight ship. Making certain the Spades are the most dominant school clicks or what they call “factions” around campus. There is a tenuous truce between Selah’s Spades and the other factions, which often hints of an interesting backstory from their sophomore year.
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FIRST COW
Otis “Cookie” Figowitz (John Magaro) finds himself in this uncompromising wooded land having signed on to be a cook for a couple of hard to please trappers. While foraging for truffles he finds King-Lu (Orion Lee) hiding in some bushes, naked and hungry. He’s been trying to outrun some Russian trappers who he unintentionally wronged. Cookie feeds and shelters him for the night, unbeknownst to his rough companion/employers. King-Lu leaves undetected in the morning. The two meet up again later, Cookie now unemployed. The two soon strike up a bond of friendship.
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IRRESISTIBLE by Writer/Director Jon Stewart
As you might guess, “Irresistible” is a political satire making commentary on the exhausting and corrosive constant election cycle, media consultants, campaign finance and political party machinery. Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) is a Democratic campaign spinner, consultant, strategist in Washington DC, one of his staff brings him a YouTube video of a guy in the heartland of Wisconsin, retired Marine Colonel Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper), shown making an impassioned speech during a Town Hall meeting about caring for those fallen on hard times since the closing of the town’s military base, which shrunk the town population from 15,000 to 5,000 practically overnight, destroying their economy.
