South Philly Review

Share this Story:

More than 120 films are set to be screened at seven venues in an around the city during the 20th Philadelphia Film Festival (PFF), a 15-day movie event that runs through Nov. 3. Teeming with buzzworthy titles that are sure to catch the eyes of film buffs who follow the festival circuit, PFF continues to exhibit exciting curatorial excellence under Philadelphia Film Society and PFF executive director J. Andrew Greenblatt and artistic director Michael Lerman.

Culled from top industry launchpads like Sundance and Cannes, this year’s selections include the opening-night film “Like Crazy,” which walked away with Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and Best Actress award (for newcomer Felicity Jones, who’s scheduled to appear), and “The Descendants,” director Alexander Payne’s long-awaited “Sideways” follow-up that stars George Clooney as a Hawaii landowner struggling with fatherhood. Both movies should be firmly penciled into your festival schedule. Here’s the rundown on six others that will likely play for packed houses:

The Artist

(Director Michel Hazanavicius)

A good candidate for best film of 2011, Hazanavicius’s silent, black and white beauty “The Artist” pours over with humor, heart, nostalgia and timeless cultural commentary. Focusing on a 1920s Hollywood star (Cannes Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin) who becomes rapidly obsolete when the industry makes its shift into talkies, the movie blows a kiss to the biz while speaking to our collective obsession with barreling forward in our technological pursuits. That it exists and is being widely embraced is evidence that newer and faster isn’t always better. That it’s grounded by an endearing and hugely entertaining story doesn’t hurt, either.

7:15 p.m. Oct. 21 at the Prince Music Theater
7:20 p.m. Oct. 27 at the Ritz East

My Week with Marilyn

(Director Simon Curtis)

In “My Week with Marilyn,” the ever-extraordinary Michelle Williams, who’s fast becoming one of the very best actresses in the entire business, takes on a whale of a role that many performers wouldn’t dare attempt: The immortal Marilyn Monroe. Co-starring Eddie Redmayne as an aspiring filmmaker who falls hard for the blonde icon during  her first-ever London production, this fact-based movie is a whole lot of comfy garbage, the kind of thing you can see any night on cable. Yet, Williams is so blissfully good in the title role that nobody should dare miss it.

The cliché is to say that the all-but-certain Oscar nominee avoids mimicry and offers an embodiment. But what’s truly incredible is how well-defined of a character emerges from Williams’s vocals and physicality, to the extent that you get lost in it, and no longer feel as though you’re watching either actress, but somebody new.

5 p.m. Oct. 28 at the Prince Music Theater
2:15 p.m. Oct. 29 at the Prince Music Theater

A Dangerous Method

(Director David Cronenberg)

The latest from mind-body maestro Cronenberg, “A Dangerous Method” charts the blossoming of psychoanalysis as we know it, presenting the friendship — and eventual falling out – between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). It almost never feels as though there’s enough bite to this movie, like Cronenberg is keeping his usual verve at bay to strive for something more prestigious. But it is indeed fascinating to observe characters who are only still in the process of learning what drives them, and whose actions and discoveries will affect the way we assess what drives all of us.

The film’s ferocity is largely reserved for Keira Knightley, who wildly transforms into the Russian patient driving the two doctors apart. Some have criticized the performance for its excess, but it’s raw and arresting.

7:40 p.m. Oct. 22 at the Ritz East