Wednesday, October 19, 2011

In Anticipation of The Philadelphia Film Festival

This Thursday is the kick-off for the Twentieth Annual Philadelphia Film Festival, and yours truly plans on being there.  Well, okay, not opening day, but I will be attending several screenings, and I will be reporting back to you, my faithful readers and true believers, on all the films I see.  My tentative schedule include the films A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg), The Kid With the Bike (Dardenne Bros.), My Week With Marilyn (Simon Curtis), The Descendants (Payne), Sacrifice (Chen Kaige), Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh) & Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Love).  There may be a few others tossed in there as well.  Sadly though, due to scheduling, I will be unable to see the two most anticipated films (at least in this critic's heart and mind) of the festival.  The Artist, a silent ode that I had to skip at the NYFF as well, and Shame, with my mancrush Michael Fassbender, will go unseen by yours truly.  Alas...I must struggle on.

At last year's festival, due to scheduling conflicts, I was only able to catch two films - Blue Valentine and Black Swan (and back to back at that!).  It will take a lot to outdo that experience - a thing I do not expect to happen, even with the greater amount of films to be seen, and with the aforementioned Shame and The Artist out of reach.  Now some of the more anticipatory films screening at the festival I have already had the pleasure of seeing.  Five in total.  Four of these I got the chance to see at the New York Film Festival late last month.  The links to my festival coverage of these four films (full reviews of each coming upon theatrical release) can be found at the following links.


The fifth film I have already seen is now playing in NY and LA.  It is Joann Sfar's Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life.  My review of that film can be read here.

Well that is it for this short but sweet pregame show.  Throughout the next two weeks I will be posting pieces on each of the films that I see at the festival.  I will of course, be writing full reviews of the films once they get a little closer to their eventual release dates.  These too will be linked here at The Most Beautiful Fraud in the World.


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