RECOMMENDED:The Woman in Black, which is the scary movie starring Harry Potter. Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, it kind of feels like GAME ON right now in the battle of a lifetime wherein Harry Potter is done being Harry Potter, but is going to have to do all of this shit for like ten years to prove that he can be and has the right to be someone other than Harry Potter. (Going dong out in Equus, check.) Personally, I’m rooting for the guy. Being Harry Potter had to be one of the sweetest gigs ever, but it probably also has got to feel, after a while, like the Beatles felt in 1970 when they knew they’d be Beatles forever but also had a very strong desire to be heroin addicts and divorcees, just like everyone else. For young Harry Potter over here, there’s two ways to achieve this: Either making movies so awesome that, eventually, everyone will be like, “Man, do you remember when dude was Harry Potter?” OR, making movies so shitty that eventually, dude just says fuck it and buys a pub somewhere and screws whoever he wants until it’s time to drop. Either way, THINGS ARE LOOKING PRETTY SWEET RIGHT NOW FOR HARRY POTTER.
ALSO NEW IN THEATERS THIS WEEK:Declaration of War, which looks really good, but should also have a big sticker on the poster that says “WARNING: HEAVY FRENCH MOVIE ABOUT A BABY WITH CANCER”; Chronicle, which should have been called Bros Icing Bros… WITH THEIR MINDS!; and Big Miracle, oh fuck me, it’s a movie with Drew Barrymore and The Guy From The Office doing nice white people things like saving the fucking whales, which will come in handy sometime next year when you are desperately hung over and need nothing so much as an image of pure, unadulterated niceness. It’s not anything like what pure, unadulterated niceness really is in real life, but it’s like the man says: You need a busload of faith to get by.
“I was just a guy that liked chicken,” says the ‘Dor. Sadly, however, Morris did not call this short filmThe Fog Of Wing. Also, in related news, Kobayashi won, and yes, there were sluts. Come, come, come, nuclear bomb.
We’d like to give Young Jimmy Adair a special shout-out for getting these done this week through a nasty cough and cold and one of Sweeney’s thrice-monthly “Yo! I got too wasted at BAR last night so can you do all the posts today?” things earlier this week.
We’re told that starting as soon as next week, there will be a $10 minimum for all Philadelphia taxi card swipes. This could be apocryphal, given the historically and notoriously plastic-reticent nature of Philly cab drivers, but good luck finding anything about it here, in any case. The more you (sort of) know!
If you watched last night’s Jersey Shore (no comment is an acceptable response), you might’ve caught a familiar face on the tube right after. Regular feature at Helium Comedy Club and UPenn grad, Josh Rabinowitz (Comedy Central’s “Comics to Watch” 2011) made a very convincing appearance as “the virginal intern” on Episode 2 of I Just Want My Pants Back, a new MTV series based on David J. Rosen‘s novel of the same name. Rabinowitz also snagged a much-coveted role on Season Two of the unparalleled comedy series, Louie, on FX. Let’s hear it for Philly comics moving to New York and not moving back in with their parents six months later. (On the Brain Drain scale, that’s still an even score.)
Just a week ago, Mayor Nutter announced that he had put a $20,000 “bounty” on the heads of murderers in the form of reward money for tips leading to convictions, or as we like to call it: $tart $nitching. Along with saying “assholes” on TV, this seems to be part of his “I may sit behind a desk and wear a suit, but that don’t mean I won’t come find you myself” mission.
According to Newsworks, the plan might not be without its flaws (ahem … DUH!). Experts such as Lawrence Sherman, a professor of criminology at Cambridge University and a former University of Pennsylvania professor, said the money offered in bounties could be used better. Sherman told Newsworks, “To use computers, to use statistical forecasting, rather than to rely on the sort of payback, revenge motives of dropping dimes on people, which is what you get when you ask the general public to provide information and pay them for it.” Alexandra Natapoff a law professor at Loyola Law School, and author of Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of Criminal Justice said, “We have to ask what effect the promise of financial gain — what effect that might have on the information that the government is getting. When we inject money and rewards into any dynamic like that, we just have to be very careful.”
We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out, but we expect there will be a lot of tips now coming into the PPD, many of which may be looking for a quick buck.
BRB’s proposal, while not as intense as this, would put ads would be on about 1,200 buses. According to CBS Philly, “the plan prohibits alcohol, tobacco or political ads on the buses, and Reynolds Brown says prohibitions on other products may be needed.” In defense of the plan, BRB said, “We have to do some things differently, and we cannot be stuck in old ways of doing things, when the problems we’re looking at are so big.” Plus, if they’re anything like the ads already seen on most SEPTA buses and in stations, it’ll be all Tom Joyner and soon-to-fail ABC Family shows.
On 13th between Arch and Filbert, every morning, the bike lane (“no stopping any time”) is filled with vehicles. This is pretty frustrating for bicyclists, because the police are showing a blatant disregard for bicyclists and the law.
Weirdly enough, these are some of the best parking jobs we’ve ever seen in the city. They’re all so neatly in line and spaced perfectly, it’s like the Jedi mind trick of bike lane parking. “We are parked legally.”
Seeing something around town of note? Cameraphone it to: tips[at]philebrity[dot]com.
This morning good old Punxsutawney Phil predicted 6 more weeks of winter. However, his rival groundhogs (feel free to read those words again) disagree.
According to the LA Times, Dunkirk Dave and Staten Island Chuck predicted spring coming shortly, and our research tells us Phil is only accurate 39% of the time (but doesn’t a .390 batting average sound pretty good?). As much as we desperately want spring to come as soon as possible, our heart says to side with Phil. Especially over Dave and Chuck, who frankly sound like assholes.
You know, we’ve had a lot to say about Arlene Ackerman, but when all was said and done, she lived every Philadelphian’s (deep, dark) secret dream: she got paid to leave the city.
But, we still can’t let her go just yet, which is why when we were sent her LinkedIn profile, we couldn’t help but take a look. And it was helpful, because we now know what her new company, Ackerman Education Strategies Group, does:
The Ackerman Education Strategies Group provides district and school leaders, as well as, policymakers with specific educational strategies designed to accelerate student achievement, reduce violence in schools and promote parent and community engagement.
That sounds very specific and helpful. Also, we weren’t aware that the Philadelphia School District was part of the, “Apparel & Fashion industry,” although she was a snazzy dresser (just look at that coat).
Today, we lost a truly alive woman. At the age of 101, the surrealist artist, costume designer, and — in her 80s, a burgeoning poet — ended a lifetime of doing with an eye for the strange.
Tanning rubbed shoulders with all the major post-modern players and writers of her time (Balanchine, Duchamp, and Orson Welles, to name a few) while holding her own in a world that did (and still does) discourage female weirdness. Tanning’s Brithday (1942) is on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the museum’s website observes that in the self-portrait, seen above, “She is precisely set in space, but it is more fantasy than reality.”
No doubt, she will continue to exist in exactly that way.
Fox, who directed the documentary about fracking, Gasland, was ordered into custody by House Republicans earlier today after attempting to film a hearing on fracking on Capitol Hill. Developing story at HuffPo.
Is this a story? We honestly don’t know. PhillyMag conducted a lengthy (four pages!) investigation of a relative non-issue: Trendy boutique shops that are cannablizing one other’s signature marketing flourishes in an effort to capitalize on the Be-Unique mantra of Generation Why. After Wanamaker’s shut its doors in 1995, the article says, all was chaos and upheaval in the boutique industry (a pretty specious claim to begin with, not for nothing):
“While borrowed details may seem like small snags in the complex fabric of running a successful store, ask any retailer in the city: Too much of a good thing in Philly’s delicate world of independent retail—a product, an idea, even a branded hanger—leads to oversaturation, which leads to desensitization, which leads to, well, empty stores.”
This is a typical David-and-Goliath story, except that the Davids are multiplying via cell division, and since not one of them can aim his leather slingshot carefully enough at the giant’s head without getting it stolen and re-packaged as a novelty toy for xenophobic children, they’re all turning against each other!
The spotlighted novelty: Wooden clothes hangers branded with the name of the store. If you’re not gonna slap a bird on it, we guess you might as well put your own fucking name on the damn thing. Better yet, make it smell like country backroads, firewood, saddles, and the nicotine-stained fingertips of a George Jones type. (Now there was a cat who was true to himself.) Anyway, what were we talking about?
Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown (or: BRB) has 
You know, we’ve had a lot to say about Arlene Ackerman, but when all was said and done, she lived every Philadelphian’s (deep, dark) secret dream: she got paid to leave the city.
