Results tagged “buti”

Dear Philadelphia:

I like Jason Statham. I think he's a really talented guy. But let's face it, besides Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, he hasn't been in very many decent movies. Just look at his filmography: Transporter 2, that Uwe Boll Dungeon Siege thing, The One. Ugh. For that reason, I went into my screening of The Bank Job with pretty low expectations.

Penelope is explicitly a modern fairy tale—even to the point of opening with "Once upon a time..." and ending with "...and they lived happily ever after"—about a young woman named Penelope (Christina Ricci), who is cursed. Her family is very old and very rich, and many years ago, a male of their number thought he'd fallen in love with a washerwoman, but ultimately broke his promise to marry her. When the woman subsequently committed suicide, her mother, a witch, put a spell on the family so that the next daughter of their line would be born with the face of a pig. Penelope is that daughter, and the only way she can break the curse is to find true love with one of her own kind. Her mother, Jessica (Catherine O'Hara), is determined to achieve this for her, and so fakes her daughter's death and then locks her away in the family mansion and brings handsome blue-blooded males in one by one, always hoping the next one will be the first to look upon Penelope's face and not run away screaming in terror.

I'm a bit of an Anglophile. I love British just-about-everything, except for the food. But I especially love British humor. And after attending and enjoying a staged reading of Roy Smiles' last spring, I figured I'd really love the fully-mounted production at The Wilma Theater.

Three weeks ago the Super Bowl heralded the end of another football season.

The act I went to review last night, Black Mountain, totally killed it from song one of their set. At first I wasn't sure how well Vernon's stripped down aesthetic was matched with Black Mountain's bombastic psychedelic rock. Yet the common thread between the two was the sense of something spiritual, not in the sense of religion, but in terms of being in touch with spirit and that which lies beneath the surface.

Andrew in Society Hill

UPDATE: Digg this, please!

I don't have kids, so I may not be the most qualified person to write about today's topic. But I have a mom and a dad, and I'm young enough to remember living under their parentage, so I'm not completely unqualified. Especially because I'm not writing this column on where to change diapers, whether breastfeeding in public is okay, or how to generally raise your kids. Instead, I'm only going to mention that, when you're out in public with your offspring, you should keep yourself in check. It's not that I don't think you should be strict with your children (I do) – it's just that you should be aware that to the eyes and ears of the general public, there's a fine line between disciplinarian and asshole. Take, for instance, this actual conversation I overheard in a food court recently:

Hey There Philly:

It's that time of year folks, when we all lay down plans for the new year before promptly "forgetting" about them a month later. I'm hoping that making mine public will force me to stick to them... but check back with me in February.

At this point, I guess most of you readers out there know that I don't eat to live – I live to eat. So it stands to reason that I've had a few dining experiences this year that have been especially memorable. Some of them appeared on Phillyist, and others did not. But gourmets and gourmands alike rejoice: they're all here, in all their mouth drooling glory.

Y'all have a Merry Christmas? Good. I'm glad. Mine was nice, too.

Raise your hand if you don't love YouTube/Viddler/Google Video/etc. Okay, that one guy raising your hand? You probably just want to scroll past this post, because it probably won't interest you in the slightest. To the rest of you, here are the fifteen videos we've posted in 2007 that I'm still entirely too proud of myself for finding. (The video embedded here didn't make it to the list, but deserves honorable mention if only because it's a locally-produced response to one of the best SNL musical numbers in a decade.)

With apologies to those readers who don't celebrate Christmas, I'm going to indulge myself a bit here. I love just about everything about Christmas. I actually enjoy Christmas shopping, stressful though it may be. (Which reminds me of the one thing I really don't love about Christmas: my January credit card bill.) I love all kinds of Christmas music, classical, the Bing Crosby standards, and Christmas rock. I also (Amazon).

Keep in mind that despite the "top ten" designation, these are in no particular order. Also, most of these bands have been around for a few years, but I only discovered them this year. And just a quick warning: I use some NSFW language in this post. So sue me.

You wouldn't know it from looking at me, or from looking at Ross, but this Phillyist has always had a thing for bad boys. Somewhere near the top of my list of dirty, sexy, hunky sits Anthony Bourdain. Sure, he's got a history of substance abuse, smokes like a chimney, is far too fond of fried foods, and, oh yeah, is old enough to be my father. But I'd run off on a culinary adventure...

Dear Philadelphia Winter: The fact that I've started putting on a scarf for my walk to work means you're right around the corner, and there's no stopping you. For a significant portion of my life, I considered you a necessary evil. After all, without you, there would be no Thanksgiving, no Christmannakkanzaa, no New Year, right? But about three years ago, I decided that was a ridiculous idea. After all, people in, say, San Diego...

Sorry there was no Eagles Diary last week. I turned on the channel the game was supposed to be on, saw a team in a blue-and-yellow get up that a Division Nine college football team wouldn’t wear and assumed that the game got canceled. But anyway, I was wrong. The game took place and the Eagles actually scored 56 points and obliterated the Detroit Lions. So I had high hopes for the Eagles latest square-off against the hated New York Giants. And I was not disappointed. Because the Eagles gave me plenty to rag on. So back by popular demand (or at least by demand of my editors), here is the minute-by-minute account of last night’s Eagles flop.

When Ross and I walked into St. Stephens Green (17th and Green Streets; no website available) on Sunday, Jason, our more-or-less regular server, gave us a big smile and said hello. It was the first time that we felt he remembered us from our previous visits.

Performances: Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical (To The Wall Productions) (Future Showtimes)

3:10 to Yuma is another entry in Hollywood's current favorite genre: the remake. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at such things), I can't compare it to the original, as I've never seen it. But I have seen this film, and it's about a down-on-his-luck fellow named Dan Evans (Christian Bale) who's trying to hold onto his ranch, even though a powerful local businessman is trying to drive him off the land so it can be sold to the railroad (a favorite plot device of Westerns). Evans has a bum leg from the Civil War, and a family that includes an older son who doesn't respect him (Logan Lerman), a younger son who looks up to him as a hero, and a lovely supportive wife (Gretchen Mol). As he sees it, they're all counting on him to protect them, to be a good role model, and to give them a good home and good life, and he's failing. So of course he agrees to come along when local lawmen need another man in their posse (which includes Byron McElroy, played by Peter Fonda, and Doc Potter, played by Alan Tudyk of Serenity fame) to help them transport the infamous, vicious killer and robber, Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), to the train that will take him to the prison at Yuma. The job will pay Evans the money he desperately needs to keep his ranch, and it'll make him look like a hero to his kids. The problem is, Wade's gang, now led by his loyal and brutal second-in-command, Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), is determined to rescue him before the train can take him, and they'll kill anybody who gets in their way. And Wade himself isn't exactly a peach either.

That is not a hyperbole.

It said here that Silverchair had a devoted, thriving fan base, despite limited touring and declining radio play in America. But I had no idea that Saturday night’s Fillmore at the TLA crowd would be that into it. Several minutes before the band took the stage, chants of “Sil-Ver-Chair, Sil-Ver-Chair” drowned out the house music, and the sold-out crowd roared when the Australian trio took the stage.

Those who routinely fly in and out of Philadelphia International may have noticed some recent changes in both the arrival and departure flight paths. An exhaustive list of documents on the motivations and effects of possible flight path changes, part of a redesign of the larger NY/NJ/PHL airspace, is given on the FAA website. Basically, the FAA is trying to reduce noise impacts on the region while improving arrival and departure capacity of the airports. Figure 39, at the top of page 75 in this report, shows that this is no simple task.

On my way out to Columbus last Monday, one of the new departure routes provided some of the best skyline views I've ever seen. Unfortunately, my camera was tucked up in the overhead bin. But I kept it in hand on the return flight, and although the skyline wasn't visible from this route, there were some pretty impressive views of the airport.

Dear Radio 104.5:

to the end of the film.

This one comes straight from Ma Phillyist (aka Mamaist, aka Mommy, aka Mom, aka Mother, but only when I'm mad at her), who's been visiting the past few days. She's the one who always stressed the importance of manners to me. She also thinks that, in spite of my weekly manners column, five years of living on the East Coast has taught me a few manners that she wishes I hadn't picked up.

A Quirky Column about Dog Walking Adventures in the City of Dog-Owning Love

A Quirky Column about Dog Walking Adventures in the City of Dog-Owning Love