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| Saturday, October 3, 2009 03:46 PM |
| Film Fest Picks |
 by Fëanor |
The two organizations which used to work together to put on the annual Philadelphia Film Festival - the Philadelphia Film Society and TLA - have gone their separate ways and are now planning to each put on their own festivals. The Philadelphia Film Society still owns the name "Philadelphia Film Festival," so TLA, the company with most of the money and resources (if I understand correctly), will be calling its festival Cinefest. In what I assume is an attempt to steal TLA's thunder, the Film Society has rushed to put together a shortened festival the weekend after next, instead of waiting until April of next year, the normal time of the festival. They're calling it the 18 1/2 Philadelphia Film Festival. So far I can't say they're doing a fantastic job of putting it together, which doesn't really surprise me. Multiple times over the last week they announced, on their Facebook page and via Twitter, that the full schedule was available, only to provide a link at which there was no schedule available. But finally, a day after they had promised they would, they successfully posted the schedule - a schedule which at first was almost completely lacking in plot summaries of, or details about, any of the films. Thankfully they've since added a lot more information, and I find I actually like a lot of the features of the b-side interface they're using, which allows you to build your own schedule right on the site. I thought it was a little odd that you couldn't just click a button to dump tickets for all the movies on your schedule into your shopping cart, though. Not only does that seem like an obvious feature that people would want, it would also make spending money on the site easier, which is something they should always encourage. Speaking of spending money, I was pretty shocked that tickets for the opening night film are $20, especially since the movie (Law Abiding Citizen) will be out in regular theaters around the country at exactly the same time. If I can go to a theater ten minutes away and see the movie for $8, why would I go see it at the festival for $20?
But despite my various complaints, I still found a number of interesting movies on the program and I went ahead and bought some tickets. Below is my schedule. When you look at it, you'll notice a couple of good things about this smaller-than-usual festival: every movie is at the same theater, so there's no need to worry about traveling in between screenings. Also, it's only one weekend, so there won't be enough time to get burned out!
Anyway, I hope I'll see some of you at the screenings listed below. Let me know!
Saturday, October 17th
2:30 PM
Stingray Sam
61 min.
Ritz Bourse E
5:15 PM
A Town Called Panic
Ritz Bourse E
7:00 PM
Rembrandt's J'accuse
86 min.
Ritz Bourse C
9:15 PM
Red Cliff
146 min.
Ritz Bourse C
Sunday, October 18th
12:00 PM
Red Riding: 1974
102 min.
Ritz Bourse E
2:45 PM
Red Riding: 1980
93 min.
Ritz Bourse E
5:00 PM
Red Riding: 1983
100 min.
Ritz Bourse E
Monday, October 19th
7:15 PM
Men Who Stare at Goats
90 min.
Ritz Bourse A
9:15 PM
Bronson
92 min.
Ritz Bourse E |
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