FILMADELPHIA -- FROM DEMME TO DE PALMA, STALLONE TO SHYAMALAN
Irv Slifkin, a walking encyclopedia of film facts, factoids and trivia, has a new book in stores, and anyone who loves movies, and loves Philadelphia, should check it out. Filmadelphia (Middle Atlantic Press, $17.95) is a handsome soft-cover survey of movies made in, set in, or somehow significantly connected to Philadelphia and its environs, from homegrown megahits (M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, Sylvester Stallone's Rocky) to obscure noirs (Paul Wendkos' 1957 Dan Duryea-Jayne Mansfield caper, The Burglar) and gritty blaxploitation (Larry Yost's 1973 all-over-Philly Trick Baby).
Slifkin devotes page-long essays to scores of Philly titles, including Brian De Palma's Blow Out, with its Wissahickon Creek crime scene and famous City Hall chase sequence. About the 1981 John Travolta starrer, Slifkin writes: "Like a mad scientist in an old Boris Karloff movie, Brian De Palma mixes the premises of Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 arthouse puzler Blow Up and Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 paranoid masterpiece The Conversation with a dose of Watergate conspiracy, a healthy sprinkling of cynicism, and images reminsicent of the Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick incident to make one helluva Frankenstein thriller." (Phew!)
The book includes sidebars on key Philly area locations, a history of the town's storied screen past, and mini-bios of famous filmmakers, screenwriters and stars that hailed from these here parts (John and Ethel Barrymore, Bill Cosby: Philadelphia; John Forsythe and Bruce Willis: Penns Grove, NJ; Joanna Cassidy and Steven Spielberg: Haddonfield, NJ).
For more info, click on www.middleatlanticpress.com. To check out Slifkin's "Movie Buzz" webzine, go to www.moviesunlimited.com
Irv Slifkin, a walking encyclopedia of film facts, factoids and trivia, has a new book in stores, and anyone who loves movies, and loves Philadelphia, should check it out. Filmadelphia (Middle Atlantic Press, $17.95) is a handsome soft-cover survey of movies made in, set in, or somehow significantly connected to Philadelphia and its environs, from homegrown megahits (M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, Sylvester Stallone's Rocky) to obscure noirs (Paul Wendkos' 1957 Dan Duryea-Jayne Mansfield caper, The Burglar) and gritty blaxploitation (Larry Yost's 1973 all-over-Philly Trick Baby).
Slifkin devotes page-long essays to scores of Philly titles, including Brian De Palma's Blow Out, with its Wissahickon Creek crime scene and famous City Hall chase sequence. About the 1981 John Travolta starrer, Slifkin writes: "Like a mad scientist in an old Boris Karloff movie, Brian De Palma mixes the premises of Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 arthouse puzler Blow Up and Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 paranoid masterpiece The Conversation with a dose of Watergate conspiracy, a healthy sprinkling of cynicism, and images reminsicent of the Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick incident to make one helluva Frankenstein thriller." (Phew!)
The book includes sidebars on key Philly area locations, a history of the town's storied screen past, and mini-bios of famous filmmakers, screenwriters and stars that hailed from these here parts (John and Ethel Barrymore, Bill Cosby: Philadelphia; John Forsythe and Bruce Willis: Penns Grove, NJ; Joanna Cassidy and Steven Spielberg: Haddonfield, NJ).
For more info, click on www.middleatlanticpress.com. To check out Slifkin's "Movie Buzz" webzine, go to www.moviesunlimited.com
posted by Steven Rea at 6:47 AM
1 Comments:
well, at the very least my small indie SAINT CHRISTOPHER (aka THE GOOD THIEF) made the book Filmadelphia.
Kudos.
RT
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