Short answer: Both! Neither! Long answer: Later this month, a film called The Raven starring John Cusack will be unleashed upon the public. (Confession: We never stopped loving him, even in the face of diminishing returns.) In The Raven, Cusack plays none other than Philly’s own Edgar Allan Poe, to whom it falls to capture a serial killer who’s been going around murdering up some folks, all the while totally biting Poe’s style by doing said mur-dah very much in the style of macabre shit that happens in Poe’s own work. (Shades of Eli Cash’s literary classic, Old Custer? Very much so, yes!)

Important note: This never actually happened. But bearing in mind the age-old debate about whether Poe was a dark genius Philly PIMP or some crab-eating chump from Baltimore, here is what we can tell you with regard to question posed in this post’s headline. Research indicates that Poe got started on The Raven during the years (1838-1844) he lived in Philadelphia; and indeed, a publication out of Philly called Graham’s Magazine was the first to refuse its publication and throw Poe $15 instead as a sympathy fuck. (Dumb, dumb, dumb. Sidebar: Struggling Philly writers today can take a sad sort of pride and comfort in this, though, no?) But all of that is fact which, again, the movie The Raven is not. In the movie, the action is set in Baltimore, where Poe moved after his days in Philly, only to contract the common grip of Baltimore ailments such as delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation, cholera and rabies. Oh, and death, too. To simulate 19th Century B-more, the directors shot The Raven in Belgrade and Budapest. So there, both cities lose. The Raven is set to open nationwide on April 23.

After the jump, check out the trailer.

And, if you found yourself dorking out on this post as much as we just did, perhaps you should join The Raven Society. You might meet a friend!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2012 at 12:24 pm.