Movie theaters and screenings in Philadelphia
Your guide to all things film-related in Philly, whether you're after the latest blockbuster or an indie flick
New movies we love
Bisbee '17
In a Faustian bargain struck way back in 1917, the lawmen of Bisbee, Arizona, a small town on the Mexican border, rounded up approximately 1,300 copper miners—most of them immigrants on strike—to load them on cattle cars and deport them. Decades later, in 1975, the mining company shut down, turning that original sin on its head and leaving behind an economic hole into which the deporters’ grandchildren stumbled. No one thrives in Bisbee anymore, not even the tour guides. It would be enough for any documentary to tell this piece of hushed-up history, but Bisbee ’17 is onto something more radical; watching it is like witnessing the defusing of a time bomb from a foot away. For some reason (maybe it’s the presence of the camera crew itself), the guilt-stricken residents of today’s Bisbee have decided to re-create the incident on the day of its 100th anniversary. Descendants of the original evictors, including a pair of brothers whose elders were on opposite sides, cosplay with rifles and scowls, while local actors take to the streets chanting labor slogans (among them, Fernando Serrano, a gay Mexican-American who comes to symbolize much more than century-old socialism). How filmmaker Robert Greene got an entire town to ham it up remains a mystery, but his gift for inviting self-interrogation (also on display in his equally fascinating Kate Plays Christine, a 2016 hybrid about an actor’s plunge into the life of a suicidal newscaster) marks him as an innovator who may become a f
Crazy Rich Asians
“We’re comfortable” says Nick Young (Henry Golding, mega-confident in his feature debut), a handsome Oxford-educated NYU professor, when he’s asked about his background by Rachel (Fresh Off the Boat’s Constance Wu), who knows nothing about how loaded he is after a year of their dating. Like Rachel, we’re a touch taken aback about nonchalant he is, especially when “comfortable” turns out to be a fortune, but Nick isn’t snobby about it—it’s just family money. Meet the family. Crazy Rich Asians, the 2013 literary sensation by Kevin Kwan, is finally a Hollywood movie, the first with an all-Asian cast and director since Wayne Wang’s The Joy Luck Club 25 years ago. Seeing this kind of onscreen representation is incredibly satisfying, especially via Kwan’s rich page-turner (loosely based on the author's real life), loaded with cattiness but also plenty of Asian diversity, from wholesome friends and wise confidantes to jealous mean girls and scheming parents. Fittingly, the movie follows suit: It’s a reinvented romantic comedy, sassy and fun, that doesn’t necessarily rely on obvious tropes and is worth the wait. In a deeper way, Crazy Rich Asians is truly groundbreaking (especially now, in our xenophobic moment), paying attention to cultural nuances that rarely make the multiplex. To hear your mother’s regional Chinese dialect spoken in a major Hollywood film is an occasion for no small amount of pride. Nick plans a trip back home to luxurious Singapore for his best friend’s weddin
Searching
What to call this fiercely original movie? A Facebook thriller? A Google noir? Uniquely, the missing-girl mystery at its heart plays out almost entirely on computer screens, using social media apps and chatrooms in the same way Raymond Chandler used dive bars and dark alleys. The footprints being followed here are the digital kind, and they’re all the scarier for that. You’ll walk away with a new awareness of just how exposed we are to malign forces online. If you’re a parent, it may feel like a horror movie. The missing girl is L.A. high-schooler Margot Kim (Michelle La), a 15-year-old budding musician who seems like any other well-adjusted, plugged-in teen. But in a touching, Up–like opening montage of family photos and videos, we toggle through her childhood years and discover a sorrow that lingers like a shadow over her life and the film. When Margot vanishes without trace, her dad, David (John Cho, terrific), turns to her search history for clues as to her whereabouts. He quickly finds out that things are not what they’ve seemed. Not even close. From here, debut director Aneesh Chaganty shifts through the gears, dropping in the odd tension-breaker (look out for a killer Justin Bieber gag) and enough visual trickery to keep his extremely limited conceit cinematic. Strip away Searching’s tech trappings, though, and you’ll find the same propulsive joys that fueled classic ’90s thrillers like The Fugitive and The Game: red herrings, a tireless detective (played here by Deb
BlacKkKlansman
If you’ve been pining for the return of the fiery, political Spike Lee of Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, good news: BlacKkKlansman is the director working at his electrifying best. Maybe the optimism of the Obama era robbed him of some of that righteous fury (which would be one explanation for his limp Oldboy remake), or maybe middle age mellowed him; either way, Trump’s America—Charlottesville, Black Lives Matter and everything else—has brought the old mojo flooding back. Veering from a blaxploitation spoof to an undercover thriller and ending with a no-punches-pulled real-life coda, BlacKkKlansman is riotously fun one minute, savagely biting the next. The story, as the opening credits declare, is based on some “fo’ real, fo’ real sh*t”—the kind that’s hard to believe actually happened in early ’70s Colorado, yet it’s all true. Black police officer Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, son of Denzel) joins the local force, where he’s warned that he’ll have to “take a lot of guff.” Sure enough, the guff comes thick and fast as he’s exiled to the storage room and harassed by a racist colleague. Spotting an ad for the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and taking the initiative, Ron phones the “Organization” (as they vaguely describe themselves), clears his throat and claims to be a vitriolic white supremacist, thus setting in motion the most unlikely undercover operation in law-enforcement history. His first thrill of contact with the enemy is only slightly diminished by
The Wife
Glenn Close is the power behind the throne in this absorbing study of a complex marriage. She’s Joan, the wife of a feted novelist, Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), who’s soon to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Together with their sulky son David (Max Irons), the American couple fly to Stockholm for a whirlwind of press, functions and rehearsals—but the most telling moments happen when they're alone together in their hotel room. While Meg Wolitzer’s source novel is written in Joan’s voice, The Wife resists narration and allows Joan to internalize her feelings, ranging from affection, concern and duty to bitterness and rage. It’s a smart move: Close’s piercing eyes dart around with telling expressions while Joe blusters on obliviously, enjoying the attention of sycophants. Not much, though, gets past Nathaniel (Christian Slater), a writer planning a biography on Joe. He shadows the couple and waits for his moment to pounce. Slater gives what could have been a stereotypical role plenty of spark, and his scenes with Close are riveting. The Wife is also very funny, not least when the Castlemans are woken by a group of traditional singers belting out "Santa Lucia" around their bed. Less successful are the flashbacks to the couple’s past in the late 50s. The younger Joe (Harry Lloyd) doesn’t seem nearly charismatic enough to sweep Joan (Annie Starke) off her feet. That said, these scenes play an important part in a story with a satisfying sting in its tail, one that mak
