Philadelphia Film Festival

The Philadelphia Film Festival started a few days ago. Despite living in the area my whole life (and a love of movies), I’ve never actually attended the Philly festival (or any other film fest, for that matter). So I’ve decided to change that and make my way to a few screenings this week and next. Naturally, I’ll be blogging my thoughts on the festival and the films I see. Depending on traffic and time, I’ll probably be able to catch a few screenings, but not a ton.

In any case, there are definitely a few films that have caught my eye (particularly in the Danger After Dark category, all horror and action films)

  • A Bittersweet Life: It looks like a rather standard Korean gangster flick, but part of it’s description intrigued me – it apparently features “shootouts that make vintage John Woo look like romantic comedies by comparison.” Sounds good to me. I’ve already bought my ticket for Wednesday night…
  • The Descent: There’s a lot of buzz claiming this British flick is the scariest horror film of the year. The last few years have been filled with lots of enthusiasm for Asian horror cinema, but from recent horror offerings, it looks like the UK is now leading a charge to challenge the Asian masters. There are a couple of other British horror flicks being featured this week, and I intend to check a few of them out…
  • Lady Vengeance: Well, I won’t be able to see this film because there’s only one showing and it’s already sold out, but that’s not so bad because I haven’t seen the first two films in director Park Chan-wook’s “Vengeance” trilogy (both of which will be at the top of my Netflix queue, when I get around to setting one up). For those interested, Samael (loyal Kaedrin reader #5) reviewed the first film of the series, Sympathy for Mr. Vengence, not too long ago on the Kaedrin forum. I would have loved to have seen this one, but alas, it was not to be…
  • Two Days: Another film which caught my attention solely because of the description: “Blood Simple meets True Romance in this witty modern-day film noir where a marriage proposal rejection sends a hunky poet on a bloody path of unexpected revenge.” Also from the description: “The inventive screenplay will keep you both guessing and laughing and the exceptional cast of quirky characters – including a voyeuristic Mexican motel owner, a wandering hippie-like seeker of the truth, a cackling but duplicitous gay man, and an alluring femme fatale – make this tragi-comedy a true standout. ” Sounds like a good one to me…
  • The Forth Dimension: Interesting sounding supernatural science fiction. Seems reminiscent of Pi, a film I loved. From its initial showings, it appears to be rated rather highly, so perhaps I’m in for a treat (if I can find a showing that fits my schedule).

I’m also going to try to make the Adult Swim 4 Your Lives show (featuring the Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Dana Snyder (aka Master Shake) and Jay Edwards (ATHF director)), which a friend went to last year and highly recommended.

There are probably a hundred movies I’d like to watch this week, but I’m not even sure I’ll be able to make my way to the ones listed above. Anywho, stay tuned, it should be a busy week…

Update 4.3.06: I saw The Descent last night and I was quite pleased with the film. A full review will be posted on Tuesday.

Update 4.15.06: I’ve created a category for all posts from the Philadelphia Film Festival.

2 thoughts on “Philadelphia Film Festival”

  1. Color me jealous- we don’t get very many (read that as “any”) film festivals in my area. Certainly none featuring a lineup that looks as interesting as that, and not with any Adult Swim goodness.

    Curses and drats!

  2. Yeah, and The Ritz (a small chain of movie theaters in Philadelphia) is actually pretty darn good at highlighting offbeat films all year round too…

    I’m definitely intrigued by this Adult Swim show. I really don’t know what to expect, but a friend went last year and sait it was absolutely crazy. Should be interesting.

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