If you attended last year’s Philadelphia Geek Awards you might have noticed how polished our visuals and animations were. It was a direct result from a close partnership with local studio Klip Collective and we will never stop talking about how awesome those guys are. They deserve all the hype they get, and this time around we’re particularly proud of their involvement at Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier.

In a world of big Hollywood digital effects and slick animation techniques it’s refreshing to see that use of stop-motion (and a friggin cow tongue) can send shivers down your spine. It’s a good mix of quirky and creepy and yes, it is absolutely a reference to the Tom Waits song. You should check it out, not only because Roger Ebert said so, but because I guarantee you won’t see anything else like it today.

Additional photos of the installation can be seen on Klip Collective’s Blog.

Local film and comic book collective South Fellini (comprised of Tony Trov and Johnny Zito) are launching an East Coast / Mid-West screening tour of their latest film ALPHA GIRLS. The independent horror film, which was shot entirely here in Philly, follows new sorority sisters as they discover and attempt the hidden rituals of their first college society in a attempt to gain evil power. But things do not go as planned and their curiosity ends gruesomely.

As an added bonus, Southwork, the band that did the soundtrack for the movie, is joining the tour and will be playing a set after every screening! Southwork will be entertaining audiences with songs from ALPHA GIRLS in addition to the first album, Arise.

The tour, beginning Jan 25 and running into late February, will hit 18 cities as far South as Savannah, GA and as far West as Chicago, IL. And you know the boys of South Fellini and Southwork have to travel in style.

They have tricked out a school bus just for the occasion, complete with suspended hammocks and a bed (more pics available on the Southwork Tumblr)! Johnny Zito of South Fellini says about this epic tour: “The 7 of us on the trip (between the band and I) have been friends since we were teenagers. This is something we’ve talked about doing out whole lives.”

See below for the full list of tour dates and if you’re in the area of any of these shows, be sure to check it out! More info can be found at the official ALPHA GIRLS website. Continue Reading…

Get ready, fans of humor. The hallowed halls of the Philadelphia Free Library are about to echo with the pleasant sound of booger jokes.

Longtime humor columnist Dave Barry, who began his career in West Chester, will appear at the library system’s central branch on Thursday, January 31 to promote his new novel Insane City.

The Pulitzer-prize-winning humorist spent over 30 years with the Miami Herald and authored numerous books. Among his non-fiction titles are Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys and I’ll Mature When I’m Dead. Among his novels are Lunatics and Big Trouble, the latter of which was the basis for a 2001 movie starring Tim Allen.

For more information, visit the event site.

Lask week we had the chance to visit our good friends, Technically Philly, at their hip new abode in West Philly. The technology news behemoths are all settled in at their new HQ in the First Round Capital building (40th and Locust). Historically, the space was home to an original Urban Outfitters location and more commonly remembered as Strikes Bowling Alley.

The 10,000 square feet now houses several other tech organizations, including Technically Philly and First Round Capital, like Curalate and a small startup group of UPenn students. Though First Round are considered the official leasee of the building, it is important to note that not every organization inhabiting the space are part of First Round’s portfolio.

“The interesting part is that in the past–in traditional news ethics–you would want to be far away from the people you covered. And, increasingly because you can be so transparent on the web, it makes more sense to be right around the people that you’re covering,” says Christopher Wink, co-founder at Technically Philly.

While the location change isn’t much to discuss, the more defining change has been the physical accessibility the new space affords the Technically Philly team. Continue Reading…

Founded by Dan Liebner and Mike Gnade in 2012, Indie Game Stand offers a familiar “pay what you want” buying experience with a few unique hooks, and tends to focus on games that may be overlooked by larger programs. Each game is on sale for four days, with buyers able to pay the listed market price or whatever they want. Think Humble Bundle meets Groupon.

A portion of the proceeds from each sale go to the charity of the game developers’ choice, and every game is offered DRM free. When they’re available, purchasers who spend over $1 on a game also receive Steam and/or Desura keys. Indie developers who want to get their game on Indie Game Stand can do so all on their own through a slick system the guys have set up, and you can read more about each featured game over on the blog.

Dan, Mike, and Matt have been kind enough to offer us a handful of download codes for free games from the service, and we’re gonna pass them along to you! Just leave us a comment below with your favorite indie game of 2012 OR the indie game you’re most looking forward to in 2013. We’ll pick a few of you at random to receive a free download! Good luck, geeks.

Welcome to another exciting edition of the Geekend! This week, we’ve got some very special events, including one hosted by Geekadelphia this Sunday! Read on to find out what you can do this weekend in the City of Brotherly Love.

First up, spanning the entire weekend, is Global Game Jam! Join game developers from Philadelphia and New Jersey as they work together for 48 to create games, both video and table top. This year’s jam will be held at Camden County College. Check out details on the jam site to register.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25TH

Friday is the El Viaje de los Ninos (The Journey of the Children) Opening Reception at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens. The reception is from 6PM-9PM, and is part of the Free Library’s One Book, One Philadelphia, in which the city is currently reading Julie Otsuka’s Buddha in the Attic. (I read this in my book club a few months ago – it’s very good!)

The exhibit “tells the stories of Mexican children who have crossed the border to immigrate to Philadelphia… The children created large-scale dioramas and recorded audio tracks illustrating their journeys and the effects of immigration on their lives and identities.” You can catch it until February 24. No price is listed, but I’m assuming it’s free with admission, which is $7.

Start friend plug: if you want to spend Friday evening rocking out to some geeky music, check out It’s a King Thing with Windsor Park Walkers and Clamfight at Johnny Brenda’s. I went to high school with a lot of these guys, so you should spend $10 and go see them! Doors open at 8 and the show starts at 9:15. /End friend plug

The International House will be screening the movie Teza, with the director, Haile Gerima, on hand for a discussion. The event begins at 8PM and costs $10. Check out the International House write up for a trailer of the movie.

And finally, starting at 11:59PM, there’s a Magic: the Gathering Gatecrash Prerelease Sealed Deck Tournament at Redcap’s Corner. It costs $30 to enter, and runs until 5:59AM, with the sealed events and open dueling continuing all weekend. Sign up at the Facebook event page for more info. Continue Reading…

It’s that time of year again, for the great free film series Unknown Japan to grace our fair city with its biannual lineup. Screenings will take place at the The Bellevue, 7th Floor (first half) and at PhilaMOCA (second half), with all films beginning at 7:30 PM.  Films will be screened digitally in Japanese with English subtitles; admission and popcorn are free.

The series is curated by Cinedelphia.com in association with the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia (JASGP).

Check after the jump for the full list of titles and dates.

Continue Reading…

The short film Who Do You Think You’re Fooling? makes the convincing argument that Quentin Tarantino, um, borrowed concepts from the 1987 Hong Kong actioner City on Fire for Reservoir Dogs.

But what other films did the wildly successful auteur draw inspiration from? That question is answered in Karharine Rife’s If You Like Quentin Tarantino, a entertaining reference guide that has the uneviable task of examining works that have either influenced or been influenced by QT.

Spanning chronologically from Reservoir Dogs to Django Unchained, the book suggests a Netflix queue-busting amount of movies that span from the original Taking of Pelham 1,2,3 (from which Tarantino took the idea of naming criminals after colors) to the blaxploitation spoof Black Dynamite.

By contextualizing each of these films within a different part of Tarantino’s career, Rife is clearly looking to immerse readers into the world of unknown cinema that the director has found so much guidance from. Elsewhere in the tome, she provides an appendix of exploitation and cult releases from Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder distribution hub, offers up a rundown of every film ever to have been screened at his QT Fests, and even finds time to pay tribute to Grindhouse’s under-appreciated Planet Terror.

If You Like Quentin Tarantino won’t win the director any new fans, yet for those who are caught in his cinematic web it is yet another opportunity to learn about lesser-known films that could become obsessions.

Want to win a copy? Leave a comment with your favorite Tarantino film. We’ll pick one of you at random at the end of next week. 

Philadelphia has a vibrant local comic book scene and artist Jamar Nicholas is an integral piece of that community.

Nicholas’ adaptation and illustration of FIST STICK KNIFE GUN, Geoffrey Canada’s memoir on young adult violence, has won many awards and is taught in schools around the country. Nicholas himself is an educator, teaching at local colleges.

We talked with Jamar about his newest projects, his geek obsessions, and Philly of course. Read on!

Tell me about your most recent projects, the webcomic DETECTIVE BOOGALOO: HIP HOP COP and the comic adaptation of Geoffrey Canada’s FIST STICK KNIFE GUN.

My webcomic, DETECTIVE BOOGAOO: HIP HOP COP was a weekly comic strip I began eons ago in 2002 (That’s 40 years ago in internet-time) for filmmaker Kevin Smith, on his site MoviePoopShoot.com, famous for being the website from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but so many people actually tried to visit the site online, that Kevin made a real place.

The quick and dirty elevator pitch is: break-dancing Detective gets superpowers, – fights super villain rappers. It goes deeper than that, but that’s usually all I need to get a raised eyebrow. Boogaloo is my love-letter to Hip Hop, and is at its’ core the ages-old Cain and Abel story, with a rap wallpaper. In 2006 I moved the strip to www.detectiveboogaloo.com but has been on ice for a few years. I plan on bringing it back with new content in late spring of this year.

FIST STICK KNIFE GUN was an amazing story by educator Geoffrey Canada that I had the pleasure of adapting and illustrating into a graphic novel, shining a light on Canada’s childhood in the South Bronx in the fifties, growing up and being trained to survive in the streets of a violent city – where that fight begins on your front stoop, against the kids on his block.

I like to call this project ‘The Secret Life of Boys’, who are taught at an early age that to exist outside of the sanctuary of home, you must fight. The problem is, that societal violence is at a point now where young men don’t fight anymore, they solve their problems with guns. It won several awards in 2011, and was also on the YALSA Great Graphics for Teens book list, as well as being taught in several schools and universities in the classroom.

I also have a podcast about being a professional comics artist called COMIC BOOK DINER, which I host with my two virtual studio partners John Gallagher and Rich Faber. I also do product reviews and interviews for DRAW! Magazine.

Beyond that, I’m also a professor at Moore College of Art and more recently had my second term teaching Writing for Comic Books at Drexel University. I spin a lot of plates on tiny, tiny sticks! Continue Reading…

Home Depot has a ryobi 10" for only $115

Our very own Philadelphia Film Society is once again partnering with XPN to present the 2013 Music Film Festival.

The Music Film Festival will run from April 11th to the 14th, and will be chock-full of music themed shorts, features, documentaries and performances. This year in an effort to get the Philadelphia film community more involved, they are putting out a call for submissions.

If you would like to submit your film you can do so using Without a Box, submission link below. If this year is anything like last year you can bet your films will be in good company. Submit here.

If you are a fan of the local publisher Zenescope and their Grimm Universe titles, you may have noticed that, ever since the first issue of Grimm Fairy Tales, something has been missing. It hasn’t been obvious, but it’s been there, a hole in the world they have built that just seems… off.

And you may also have noticed that over the last year, the Grimm Universe has become a more cohesive place, with events and situations leading into one another with more regularity, almost like there is a plan afoot. It began with the Dream Eater Saga and has continued, with the overreaching feeling that something was coming. Something big.

Really big.

It turns out that the answer to both questions has been answered with the announcement of Unleashed, the mega event hitting the Grimm Universe this summer. Continue Reading…

Last week I got an opportunity to interview Andrew Greenblatt, the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Film Society, and chat with him a bit about their plans for The Roxy Theater.  Ever since they announced they were taking over the space in Rittenhouse Square last October, I have heard a lot of things about what folks thought The Roxy would eventually come to be.

It was a great conversation. Read on and find out what the future holds in store for not only this great little theater, but The Philadelphia Film Society as well.

I know there were some rumors going around during the Philadelphia Film Festival as to when The Roxy would be finished, care to give us an update?

The target month is March, which is really only 7 weeks away now.

There has been a lot more work than we anticipated; I guess this goes with any construction project. We have been still raising money as well, so we have been slowed down a bit by that and we have a lot more to go.

But I would still love to get it open in March, so that is my target, sometime in March hopefully.

I know you have said The Roxy will be the home for both the Philadelphia Film Society and Festival, but exactly does that entail exactly?

The Roxy will operate as a typical first-run theater, so it will be just showing two films at time. It may do split-runs as well; we will have to see how much we can do that with smaller films.

But we will have one off events, some educational classes, we will look to do midnight screenings and we will also be doing some retrospectives as well.  Stuff that we have spent the last three years doing at other venues; we are going to try and do at The Roxy as much as possible.

Now there could still be some bumps with that. We don’t know how distributors are always going to respond to having interruptions in their runs. I guess it depends on the size of the distributor, but we are going to work with them to make it possible.

That is on the outset what we are going to do with The Roxy.

Then of course we will use it for the festival, we will be using both screens and it will probably be the primary ticketing outpost leading up to the festival.  We really hope all this will bring some other stuff to that neighborhood as well. Continue Reading…