By Davis Rivera

Nearly three years after being declared persona non grata at Cannes, Lars von Trier has returned with Nymphomaniac Volume I.  Stellan Skarsgård steals every scene he is in as Seligman, the solitary polymath to whom Charlotte Gainsbourg‘s character Joe tells her story.  His endless rebuttals to Joe’s supposed guilt over her joyless compulsion are interesting and usually humorous but, ultimately, one leaves the film wanting to know more about his story rather than Joe’s.

By John Smith

Guilty pleasures are a necessary recourse for any cinephile, no matter what genre or style you gravitate towards. My poison comes in the form of the over-the-top, blood splattering films of the Sushi Typhoon production company. These films barely classify as B-movies, and one of my personal favorites is Mutant Girls Squad. This film is vulgar and has pretty poor production value, but I can’t help but enjoy it just for the pure madness that it has to offer.

By Gary Kafer

It’s often said that you know a Hitchcock film when you see it: the platinum blonde seductress, the motif of mistaken identity, the deployment of famous landmarks, and, of course, the oh-so-oedipal mother/son relationships. Cued in a majority of his movies, these integral elements not only produce groundbreaking moments of suspense, but also signal an auteur at work. It perhaps seems somewhat suspicious, or shall I even say sacrilegious, to consider myself a “film buff” without seeing his 1959 masterpiece North By Northwest, which screenwriter Ernest Lehman reportedly deemed: “the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures.”

By Davis Rivera

In Tim’s Vermeer, inventor Tim Jenison appears to be a man who realizes that stressing over things is a waste of our emotional reserves and inspires the viewer to rejoice instead.  It is this optimism in a world of nonsense that makes it easy to understand why Penn & Teller would be friends with him.  Their bond also allows Teller to direct in a relatively straightforward way, allowing Tim’s enormously engaging obsession to take center stage.

Want to stay up to date on the latest information about the Philadelphia Film Society and the PFS Theater at the Roxy? Follow us on social media!

By Alexander Goodlive

Surrounded by the nostalgic feel of a double-level theater, the 35mm projector, and a hundred fans anticipating a movie they’ve seen more than their fair share of times, the silver screen flickers to life. The cheap blue logo of a film franchise only known for one movie spins its way to the screen, and the crowd cheers its presence. Are we in for another riveting tale of cinematic excellence, guaranteed to take us on a timeless adventure through the magic of celluloid?

Not really.

But are we in for a fun time? You better believe it.

By Davis Rivera

Perhaps not since Eddie Murphy has there been a stand-up comedian who has proven themselves to be as adept at that most difficult art of making us laugh in person and on the big screen as Kevin Hart.  When Hart speaks, he conquers all listeners and in Steve Pink’s About Last Night… he displays a love and command of language so impressive one can imagine that even David Mamet might stand back in awe.

By Davis Rivera

Reading the works of Stefan Zweig has always left me with the sensation that any lover of both literature and film might feel: Why has there never been a modern adaptation of this author’s work that shows a keen understanding of his prose the way Rossellini and Ophüls did nearly a century ago?  Thankfully, Wes Anderson has made the ultimate tribute to Zweig with his masterful and staggeringly gorgeous new film The Grand Budapest Hotel.

By Davis Rivera

If the heart is our most valuable organ then Hayao Miyazaki, with his ability to challenge us and make the viewer feel things we never thought possible, was our most valuable artist working in animation before his retirement.  The Wind Rises, his fictionalized biography of engineer Jiro Horikoshi, is as beautifully told and lushly detailed as his classic tales of a freelance bounty hunter pig or a young Emishi warrior and cannot be missed.

By Caroline Meuser

Though I was exposed to Goodfellas early in life, I did not experience the type of positive introduction that most “cinephiles” probably have. To me, it was one of those films that TNT constantly featured and, while my dad sat enrapt as Joe Pesci pumps seven bullets into his friend’s chest, I classified it as a film I may watch in full eventually, but for the time, I could do without the emotional disturbance incurred by seeing men willfully destroy their lives and the lives of others through organized crime.

Martin Scorsese adapted Goodfellas from the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi. By 1990, Scorsese and Pileggi organized an utterly triumphant cast and screenplay. Ray Liotta narrates most of the film as Henry Hill, an aspiring-turned-successful Brooklyn gangster. In a menacing, poignant performance, Liotta illustrates Hill’s tumultuous existence – from his collaboration with mob figures Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) in 1955 to his dramatic fall from criminal grace in 1980. Within this time period, the glamour of violence and riches blind Hill and company. With each murder, drug deal and robbery, the line distinguishing their actions between dutiful and disturbing rapidly fades.