One of my favorite groups in the city, the Mural Arts Program, is throwing their big fundraising gala, The Wall Ball, tonight at the Loews Hotel. Your $150-$500 ticket gets you lots of food and booze, dancing to the Latin sounds of Trio Crisol, cool mural-making activities (the panel you paint on will actually be hung as part of a real mural), and a short film narrated by The Wire’s Isiah Whitlock, who will be on hand to introduce it. Oh, and of course, that great feeling you get when you see those spectacular murals around the city and know that you made it all possible. Or, at least a very little bit of it.
On Sunday night at the Borgata, legendary mascaraed diva Diana Ross kept the capacity crowd of 2,400 on their feet as she wriggled and writhed her way through the best of her catalog — from her days with the Supremes to her channeling of Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues to her stab at being a disco queen — and through a series of garish, glitzy, high-slitted gowns (in which the impressively bottomed 63-year-old still looks damn fine).
Former treacly rapper-cum-movie star Will Smith is infuriated by the way a comment he made about Hitler has been perceived in tabloid media, and now he’s coming out to defend himself. The quote, published in The Daily Record of Scotland, went something like this:
“Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today’ … I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was good.”
Taken out of context, it’s a pretty dangerous quote. Some gossip websites and other mainstream outlets chose to hammer on it and, well, use headlines like “Smith: Hitler Was a Good Person.” Smith, incensed, embarrassed, and just not gonna play dat, bit back with this remark:
Yesterday the Inquirer reported that competing proposals for a three-day-long music festival in Fairmount Park have been pulled off the table for 2008. (One of them, from the organizers of Lollapalooza, has morphed into a more woodsy event in beautiful Vineland, N.J., home of traffic circles and scary-looking cornfields.) But, according to one member of the Fairmount Park Commission, some date and logistics problems were the only things that kept the event from happening here. Next year they’ll plan better, and we might just see Lollapalooza on Belmont Plateau in 2009.
“We needed to be on the same page from the beginning with the organizers,” Joe Manko, a board member on the Fairmount Park Commission and newly minted member of Michael Nutter’s transistion team, tells the Daily Examiner. Manko says he’s already discussed the benefits of having the three-day concert in the city’s back yard with the soon-to-be mayor. “As a commissioner, if I’m seeing $500,000 or 7.5 percent of the gross and the promotion it’ll give to the city and the park, it’s a no-brainer. I think this is a good idea, and I hope we can make it come to life next year.”
While Hollywood players hustle to fill holes in their production schedules thanks to a possibly lengthy Writers Guild of America strike, this may be the perfect time to dust off that crappy screenplay you started working on in college or to formulate that brilliant new reality show about bisexual dwarfs: Agents, producers and other surly big shots that have hung up on you in the past just might be willing to listen to what you have to say.
“On the film side, [the strike’s] clearly an open door for the local independent project,” says Justin Wineburgh, Cozen O’Connor’s entertainment lawyer wonderboy. “Most of those writers aren’t part of the guild, and pretty soon the distributors are going to be dying for content. It’s a great opportunity for them — they don’t have to worry about being blackballed.”
Budding Mark Burnetts should also start formulating their ideas. Wineburgh points to Philadelphia’s active reality-show production run-up, singling out four deals secured by Old City production facility Shooters Post and Transfer in just the last month.
“There’s no question that reality-based content is picking up because it’s outside the scope of the strike,” he says.
Just think that you can finally put that useless communications degree to good use.
UA King of Prussia Stadium 16 traded its usual curbside crowd of baggy-pant-wearing 14-year-old loiterers for a big white tent, spotlights and red carpet last night for the premiere of Bella, the first producing cred for local financiers Eustace Wolfington (a St. Joe’s grad) and nephew Sean. Although the mall traffic did little to add to the less-than-glam festivities, the usual opening-night crowd of real estate suits and the occasional horned-rimmed film type were in attendance. Sean was out shaking hands, and Eustace was spotted outside the theaters, which, rumors swirled, needed to add an extra screen due to the larger-than-expected guest list.
Director Alejandro Monteverde spoke before and after the festival-winning film, and the stars, including to-die-for leading man Eduardo Verastegui, were out and shining, asking for Philadelphia to fill the theaters for the next two weeks; this low-budget baby
needs to hit big numbers in the next 14 days in order to secure bookings in other theaters across the country. So do your part and buy a ticket. Not only will you see the most uplifting, feel-good film since Little Miss Sunshine, but you’ll also be able to say you saw it first and get a hit of Philly pride when these local faces walk across the stage come Oscar time. — Jenna Bergen
On Sunday night at the Borgata, legendary mascaraed diva Diana Ross kept the capacity crowd of 2,400 on their feet as she wriggled and writhed her way through the best of her catalog — from her days with the Supremes to her channeling of Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues to her stab at being a disco queen — and through a series of garish, glitzy, high-slitted gowns (in which the impressively bottomed 63-year-old still looks damn fine).
Former treacly rapper-cum-movie star Will Smith is infuriated by the way a comment he made about Hitler has been perceived in tabloid media, and now he’s coming out to defend himself. The quote, published in The Daily Record of Scotland, went something like this:
Yesterday the Inquirer reported that competing proposals for a 
While Hollywood players hustle to fill holes in their production schedules thanks to a possibly lengthy Writers Guild of America strike, this may be the perfect time to dust off that crappy screenplay you started working on in college or to formulate that brilliant new reality show about bisexual dwarfs: Agents, producers and other surly big shots that have hung up on you in the past just might be willing to listen to what you have to say.
UA King of Prussia Stadium 16 traded its usual curbside crowd of baggy-pant-wearing 14-year-old loiterers for a big white tent, spotlights and red carpet last night for the premiere of Bella, the first producing cred for local financiers Eustace Wolfington (a St. Joe’s grad) and nephew Sean. Although the mall traffic did little to add to the less-than-glam festivities, the usual opening-night crowd of real estate suits and the occasional horned-rimmed film type were in attendance. Sean was out shaking hands, and Eustace was spotted outside the theaters, which, rumors swirled, needed to add an extra screen due to the larger-than-expected guest list. 