It was a strange morning for jogger Charles S., who'd taken to the crisp air at 5:00 am on July 15th 1967. As he inhaled the fresh air into his lungs, two men suddenly joined him, the trio happily bounding along the pathway. Charles noticed that the men had very blonde hair and eyes that seemed to be set close together, and rather eerily they said nothing to him. As Charles slowed to a......

“Can a computer game make you cry?” In 1983, Neil Young, Trip Hawkins and a small band of computer scientists introduced the world to Electronic Arts with a professional looking, black and white ad with this question emblazoned along the top. In the 25 years that followed, gaming has gone from a cheap niche toy for an even smaller group of computer owners to an entertainment industry that rivals movie, music and book production. In......

What's new and/or interesting in local theaters this weekend. Brand Upon the Brain! - Odd Canadian (is that redundant?) indie filmmaker Guy Maddin puts out another puzzler. We don't feel capable of paraphrasing the plot summary; we recommend you click here and read it for yourself. The film appears to be black and white, silent, and very, very strange. But it's also sitting at 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and it sounds incredibly creative and......

Intricate costumes, beautiful chorus girls, large casts and extravagant dance numbers are all techniques that Busby Berkeley employed in his 1930's musicals. Berkeley, a director/choreographer for numerous movie musicals, reached huge success during the Depression when audiences were seeking lighthearted and hopeful entertainment. His career spanned over 40 years with most notable successes: 42nd Street, Babes in Arm, Girl Crazy, Take Me Out to the Ballgame and No, No Nanette. Dames at Sea, a......

Saturday night: Deerhunter at Johnny Brenda’s. It was dark, and we were puzzled. Never have we seen a stage so dimly lit. We wondered why. An added aspect of mystery? An act of kindness to all of the dilated pupils in the room? Then, from the center of the darkness, came a huge wall of sound that almost knocked us on our ass. We were glad we didn’t partake before this show, because had......

Films: Dead Daughters, Trigger Man, Severance, The Burglar, Ten Canoes Future Screenings: Dead Daughters - Mon, April 16, 9:30PM at the Ritz East; Tue, April 17, 9:30PM at the Bridge Trigger Man - Mon, April 16, 9:30PM at the Bridge Severance - Tue, April 17, 9:30PM at the Ritz Five The Burglar - None Ten Canoes - None Whew. Okay. This thing has been going on for a while now, and I don't know about......

At the POPPED! opening night party this Monday, I got the pleasure of visiting the upstairs ladies' room at Johnny Brenda's. This may be one of the prettiest bathrooms I've seen in town. Yup, that's right: the decor in this restroom is simplistically beautiful. The sign outside of the door is made of red glass and has black writing. It always makes me feel like I've magically left the country and stumbled upon the only......

I'll admit it: part of the reason I was so disappointed by this movie is because I'd just recently read the comic books it was based on (reading the source material almost always ruins the movie), and because I had such high expectations for it. But the rest of the reason is because it's just not a very good movie. By now, I assume you know the story, based on the short comic series by......

I worry that you, our readers here at Phillyist, are going to start thinking I'm too nice. I seem to like just about everything. But honestly, that doesn't make me nice. It just means that local theatres are putting up a lot of great work. My Children! My Africa! - the Wilma's current production - being no exception to that. The play, penned by South African writer Athol Fugard, really affected me in a......

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Tue; 8PM-10:30PM; ABC Family) - We've fallen back in love with Harry Potter recently. It's very comforting escapist entertainment. Watching these movies could actually be a fun new holiday tradition! This week we've got the quite excellent film adaptation of the third of the popular children's novels. Of course, the fourth one, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is......

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week. Billboard Music Awards (Mon; 8PM-10PM; Fox) - The 17th annual awards show comes at you live from Las Vegas with performances by Janet Jackson, Fergie, the Killers, Gwen Stefani, Ludacris, the Fray, and Mary J. Blige. Plenty of other stars of the music world will act as presenters including, unfortunately, Flavor Flav. (Link) Monday Night Football: Panthers at Eagles (Mon; 8:30PM-11:30PM; ESPN & ABC [WPVI]) - These......

Jessica Simpson was in Bala Cynwyd on Friday to appear on a radio show, and apparently some people decided it was a holiday and took the day off just to try to catch a glimpse of her. The state has filed a civil suit against a Chestnut Hill-based dating service called Great Expectations for lying to its customers - promising events that never happened and products that were never received. The service wasn't cheap......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: FRIDAY: An Evening with Billy Plympton: Awesome animator Bill Plympton will be onhand to screen his work at the Franklin Institute (222 North 20th Street) as part of The Franklin Institute Animation Festival. Tickets are $8, and this event is at 8PM. (The Plympton show is being listed as appropriate for ages 10 and up.) In the Franklin Institute's Stearns Auditorium. MilkBattle '06: Four high school bands battle......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. What...what did she say? And what the heck is wrong with those guys?? When a cute girl asks you to frug with her, you put down your balls and your papers and you frug! Two players of online game Project Entropia are getting married, both in the game and in real-life. Is it the first live, legal, online wedding? Quite possibly. Appropriately enough,......

As you probably heard by now, Kentucky Derby-winner Barbaro, a horse with a few local connections, had surgery at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center veterinary hospital yesterday for three fractures to his right rear leg which he received near the start of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, a race he had been favored to win. This Phillyist writer was watching on television when it happened, and it was a truly horrific and shocking......

A few weeks ago, we noticed SFist's brilliant SFist Wants You to Find a Friend feature, and we decided hey, we'd like to do something like that too. And, since we already had connections with Cares4Pets, we thought they might like to help us get our own incarnation of this feature started. And so, we'd like to bring you the first edition of Phillyist's Potential Pets (sorry for the alliteration), starring Kelli Ann the black......

Most Likely to Rule: Duck Season (Temporada de patos) - This is a Mexican coming-of-age comedy - in black and white, no less - about a couple of 14-year-old boys who, while their parents are away, settle in for a fun Sunday of video games, snacks, and pointless violence, only to have it interrupted and their lives changed forever by a loss of electricity, an unexpected visit from a young woman, and the arrival of......

Fun and interesting stuff on TV this week: Lost (Wed; 9-10PM; ABC): Thank god it's a new episode - Phillyist got a little upset when we realized they were re-running the pilot last week, and that there would be nothing new from that mysterious little island and its weird and wonderful band of castaways. The new stuff this time is that Claire's baby is mysteriously sick, and she's headed back to the scene of her......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: "An Operatic Tale of Tragic Romance":  The Extraordinaires! present: Ribbons of War!  Live & in technicolor at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut Street).  (Although we'd be slightly more impressed if they were live and in black and white.)  Big Shot: Weekly night of 60's & 70's reggae at The M Room (15 W. Girard); a mere $2 (21+) Comedy Open Mic Night at Helium Comedy Club (2031 Sansom St.)......

Writing for an online journal, one does not get to bring mighty machines to a screeching halt by shouting "Stop the Presses!" when we come upon a new piece of information; which is sad, really, because it always looks like so much fun when those fast-talking, wise-cracking, fedora-wearing journalists in the movies do it. Some times Phillyist really wishes we were still in the days when the world was black and white. Or that we......

Phillyist was privileged to attend the grand opening shebang of Delicious Boutique, Delicious Corsets’ new home in Northern Liberties. The store is tucked away in a recently developed shopping area just off American street; initially, we thought we were hopelessly lost because it’s so off the beaten path. However, when the sign hove into view on the shopping area walkway, we gratefully huddled into the warm inside. A spooky circus theme pervades, enhanced by colorful......

When Phillyist heard about Vox Lumiere The Hunchback of Notre Dame, we thought it sounded way cool. The 1923 silent film, projected above a stage, with live musicians and singers and dancers performing along with it. How friggin’ cool is that? Old and new, sound and silence - we loved the idea. We couldn’t wait to go. And we have to admit, it was really cool. The Creator/Composer/Conductor Kevin Saunders Hayes is a wildly accomplished......

Phillyist knows that some of you find musical theater...intimidating. (It's OK, we're not judging. After all, anyone could be frightened by anthropomorphised, singing cats.) What we want to know is what'll it take to get your behinds back into theater seats? A tale embroiled in lust and tragic love? A little rock and roll? The triumphant return of Lon Chaney? Or are you the type that'd rather just watch the movie instead? Well, either way......

We’re sitting there now, at the Twenty Two Gallery Café. Our laptops are plugged into the conveniently placed power strip and we’re surfing the web on the free wireless internet. The temperature is blissfully cool, in sharp contrast to the 90 degrees plus outside, the heat wave that just won’t quit. It’s Saturday afternoon, and there’s only one other customer. Phillyist wrestled with whether to publish this piece at all, because we love the......

Part road movie, part thriller, and part homage-to-70s cinema, rockstar-cum-auteur Rob Zombie's sophmore effort, The Devil's Rejects, is a character-driven drama about families, destiny, murder and depravity. (Even we can't believe we just referred to a Rob Zombie film as "a character-driven drama" - but there it is in black and white, so there you go.) Sublimely ridiculous, Rejects reunites audiences with House of 1,000 Corpses' creepy clown Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) and his psychopathic......