Reports are saying that officials are planning to release the names of the six victims in yesterday’s building collapse later today.

Mayor Michael Nutter in a press conference this morning said a full investigation will be launched to find out what caused the collapse on 22nd and Market streets that killed six people and injured 14.

Late last night, Nutter announced the death toll had risen to six. Shortly after, 61-year-old Myra Plekam, of Kensington, was rescued after being buried under rubble for nearly 12 hours.

Read Metro’s coverage here:
Six dead in Center City Philadelphia building collapse
Woman rescued from Market Street rubble
PHOTOS: Philadelphia building collapse

Follow us on Twitter: @MetroPhilly

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Most U.S. tweens, 10- to 12-year-olds, have at least one social media account and many go online without any supervision from their parents, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Facebook is the most popular platform among tweens. Although the site says users must be at least 13 years old to log on, 85 percent of tweens said they have an account and a similar number admit they use it every day.

“Younger and younger kids are going out there really unsupervised,” said Michelle Dennedy of the online security company McAfee, which commissioned the poll of 1,173 young people aged 10 to 23 years old and 1,301 parents.

The threats to children of unsupervised use of the Internet are well known and range from identity theft, cyberbullying and sharing photos and videos to pornography and sexual predators.

But despite the dangers, 82 percent of preteens say they think social media sites are very safe, or somewhat safe, and 79 percent of parents agree.

Nearly half of youngsters also report sharing personal information online such as their email address, and 28 percent have revealed the school they attend.

Many parents are also unaware of the time their children spend online. The poll showed 52 percent of youngsters spending five or more hours a day online but most parents think they spend only one to two hours.

Dennedy said many parents are overwhelmed by the onslaught of technology available to their children and feel like they can’t keep up with their tech-savvy children.

More than 80 percent of the parents of preteens say they don’t have the time or energy to keep up with everything their children do online. Only 9 percent say they know how to find out what their children are doing online.

Children are also skilled in hiding their online activity from their parents. More than half of tweens, 58 percent, say they know how to keep their online use a secret and a quarter admitted they had cleared or hidden what they have done online.

“There’s a lot of positive stuff out there, and what we have to do as adults is really separate the good from the bad,” Dennedy said.

She suggested parents have regular conversations with their children about using the Internet and that they educate themselves about online safety.

Although 71 percent of parents questioned in the poll said they had talked to their children about online behavior, only 44 percent of children agreed that they had.

“It’s still the Wild West out there and because they are digital natives, our youth are engaging in all kinds of unsafe behavior without the benefit of how their actions will affect their lives,” said Dennedy.

Other popular sites for teens, tweens and college-age youths include Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr, the survey found.

It was conducted from April 3 to 15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

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From Friday to Monday, the men’s and women’s NCAA lacrosse championships will be held at Lincoln Financial Field and Villanova Stadium.

Semifinal matches for the men’s divisions I, II and III will be held Saturday. The championship games will be held Sunday and Monday.

The women’s Division I semifinals will be held Friday, with the winner advancing to the national championship game Sunday.

According to the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, the economic impact to the city will be about $25 million.

“We are delighted to be welcoming so many lacrosse fans to Philadelphia this weekend,” said Larry Needle, executive director of the Philadelphia Sports Congress, a division of the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau in a press release.

The men’s division I semifinal games will be televised live on ESPN2 and WatchESPN at 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m., Saturday. The division I final will be played 1 p.m., Monday and will be be aired live on ESPN, ESPN2, WatchESPN, ESPN3 and ESPN MobileTV.

The women’s division I semifinal games will be aired live on ESPN3 at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Friday, with the championship airing at 8 p.m. on ESPNU and WatchESPN on Sunday.

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UPDATE 4:45 p.m.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion doctor who yesterday was found guilty on three murder charges, agreed today to waive all appeals rights in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of the death penalty, said officials with the city district attorney’s office.

Gosnell was immediately sentenced for the deaths of babies known as “C” and “D.” He will be sentenced on the death of baby “A” at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

A press conference will be held at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow.

The gag order in place for Gosnell remains until after tomorrow’s sentencing, the DA’s office said.

Original story:

Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell will receive life in prison—not the death penalty—after he waived any rights for future appeals today, several media outlets are reporting.

A jury yesterday found Gosnell guilty of murdering three babies in the now-shuttered Women’s Medical Society Clinic in West Philadelphia that serves low-income women looking for late-term abortions.

Read that story here.

Stay with Metro as more comes in.

Follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute reports. @Metrophilly

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Imagine tying a string to all the nostalgic souvenirs of your past and looping the whole mess around the present day.

Artist John Y. Wind is doing just that with his assembled keepsake collages that simultaneously reflect on the past and mirror modern day. In his upcoming solo show, The Making of a Modern Man, Wind will explore masculinity, the passage of time, and how outside pressures like the media and societal expectations can decide what it means to be a man.

Busts of influential men, like Beethoven, are adorned with necklaces of handheld appliances and tangled wires. A sculpture of David is decked out with pearls, watches and Elvis paraphernalia.

Wind’s creations highlight found objects, whether they are vintage baubles or the artist’s old toiletries. “It’s the stuff of my life, and this is an attempt to encapsulate my journey,” he says. “These are things found during my travels, objects from my past, pictures from magazines. The objects become stand-ins for the passage of time.”

His day job involves a different type of art: Wind is a jewelry designer. His company, Maximal Art, sells necklaces and bracelets with charms and monogrammed lockets.

Wind, who was born in Israel but moved to Philly in first grade, says that he fell into jewelry making accidentally, when he went to the Slade School of Art in London after graduating from Penn, in the early ’80s. “I became a club kid, a party animal by night. The scene was just so dynamic there, everyone was being creative in a different way,” says Wind. “I was making jewelry for my friends — crazy brooches we would wear. By the time I graduated, I was supporting myself on the jewelry I was making.”

The Making of a Modern Man is his first public fine arts exhibit. “It’s like I’ve stepped into a time capsule,” Wind says of setting up the show. “Suddenly I’ve picked up and it’s London in ’85.”

If you go

“The Making of a Modern Man”
James Oliver Gallery
723 Chestnut St., fourth floor
May 17-June 26 (opening reception May 17)
267-918-7432
www.jamesolivergallery.com

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Carol Wisker has been what she calls an “obsessive sew-er” since she was a teenager: The patterns on the fabric, the endless details in the fibers, and the feel of the textures under her fingers are still a form of rarefied bliss to her. And, now at 62, she’s attempting to share that simple pleasure with her audience.

Her latest collection of fabric sculptures, “Densities,” will open this week at 3^rd Street Gallery.

“I wanted to make sculpture with form, but almost more important to me is that they’re sensual to touch,” she says from her home in Bala Cynwyd. “I love things like velvet. Or moss. Just take a second to consider all the things that are floating in a body of water. I love how tangible these things are to us.”

The 12 pieces in the show range in size from about three feet in diameter down to 12 inches, constructed – somewhat obsessively – down to the microfiber of the material. Among Whisker’s favorites are hand-tufted furniture piping and recycled T-shirts. There is a circular quality to these freeform sculptures, and – although the themes of environmental destruction are present – Whisker has discovered a distinctly feminine quality in this collection. She’s not shy about it, either. When describing the title piece of the collection, she says:

“Well, it’s like a vulva, but I’m not sure your readers want to read about that,” she says with a big laugh. “But I try not to think about any specific object when I’m working. I’m more about dealing with the surface and textures, as opposed to recreating an object. It just happened to take that shape.”

At the PMA

Before her retirement in 2002, Carol Wisker curated numerous exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art featuring artwork by incarcerated Pennsylvanians. And, for over a decade, she led the PMA’s effort to make the museum more accessible for people with disabilities.

If you go

“Densities”

May 1–June 2

First Friday reception:

May 3, 5–9 p.m.

Artist reception:

May 5, 1–4 p.m.

Free, 215-625-0993

www.3rdstreetgallery.com

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Police charged a North Philadelphia man with the murder of retired boxer Tony Martin.

Shaquille Henderson, 20, was arrested on Thursday on the 1400 block of Cecil B Moore.

Martin, a retired welterweight fighter turned North Philly landlord, was fatally shot on March in Hunting Park. He was 52.

Police said an argument outside of one of his rental units at the 1300 block of West Butler Street preceded the shooting.

A St. Louis native, Martin moved to Philly in the mid-1980s to work on his technique. He ended his career in 1997 with a record of 34-6-1 with 12 knockouts.

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There’s a lot more to summer camp than bunk beds and campfires. Mason Griffin, head of YMCA camps in New York, has the encouraging spirit and enthusiasm that seems to embody everything that camp represents. He answered some of the most common questions that parents have about summer camp.

How can parents choose the right camp for their children?
It’s important for parents to go to the camp and meet the camp director — they should meet the people that will be caring for their child. That’s a great way to make the decision as to whether or not the kid should go to sleep-away camp, actually. Many times, the child will have a reaction that they’re going to have fun and are ready to take the plunge with sleep-away camp after visiting.

What do children take away from camp?
One of the biggest things we do for kids is have them demonstrate that they can learn. They learn that they can develop archery skills, that they can make more baskets in basketball than when they first arrived, that they can climb up a really scary-looking tower and go through their fear. The child may not be doing well in school, but in camps they are taught that you can learn, you can do things that are hard for you.
There is very little bullying at a good camp, it’s a really corrective emotional experience.

How can parents decide whether sleep-away camp or day camp is the right option?
Often, the child knows what he or she is ready for, so listening to the child is a good idea. Often a precursor is that the child feels secure staying with friends. Does the child have experience sleeping away from home, away from mom and dad? If the child is not comfortable doing that, then they wouldn’t be comfortable at a sleep-away camp just yet.

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Most people might know Michael Shannon best for his portrayal of former federal agent Nelson Van Alden on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. From here on out, however, we’re going to know him as “that guy who did that amazing dramatic reading of that crazy Delta Gamma sorority letter.” Because that’s what this Funny or Die video [NSFW, natch] is: amazing.

The emailed letter, which immediately went viral after being leaked to the internet last Thursday, reads as a searing satire of how approximately every person in the world who is not in a sorority imagines that sororities operate. Except it was real, ya’ll. And, in its own horrible, ‘example of all that is wrong with young girls today’-way, it was also sort of amazing.

Shannon’s reading, now similarly gone viral, got us thinking about other awesome dramatic readings the internet has birthed. Like this one of Gary Oldman reading from R. Kelly’s autobiography Soulacoaster.

And this one of David Sedaris reading from Fifty Shades of Grey.

Hey, and Gilbert Gottfried reading from Fifty Shades of Grey. (Warning: you can never unhear Gottfried saying the words  “stroking the front wall of my vagina.”)

What other awesome dramatic readings are out there floating around the world wide web? Post ‘em in the comments, we’d love to watch them.

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The magic of Philadelphia music often happens in a small club, tucked away, with players whose names you might not immediately recognize but whose music you’ve definitely heard.

West Philly-raised James Poyser of The Roots is bringing a little of that magic to the Kimmel Center’s Commonwealth Plaza on Wednesday. The jam session, Sittin’ In: James Poyser & Friends, is part of the Philadelphia Festival of the Arts.

“This is something we used to do all the time coming up in Philly, at Silk City, Wilhelmina’s and the Black Lily,” Poyser says. “A bunch of like-minded musicians — we all know and listen to the same things — we’d get together, park it, and someone would play a melody or a riff or a DJ would play a record part and we’d get an idea and just go from there.”

That Philly sound has seeped into all kinds of contemporary music, and Poyser has had a major role in it. He’s produced or played on records for everyone from Adele to Common, and he’s an integral part of The Roots sound on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”

“It’s very rare to find a band on the road that doesn’t have a musician from the Philly area,” Poyser says. “I’m proud to be a part of that.”

Poyser’s “friends” for the Sittin’ In session include Steve McKie, the ace drummer who has produced Bilal, along with whoever else is in town for the night.

These days, Poyser doesn’t get to spend as much time in the city as he used to. His gig with The Roots on “Late Night,” along with producing and playing, keep him in the 212. Yet, he’s excited about moving to the 11:30 p.m. slot of NBC’s “The Tonight Show” when Fallon and crew take over from Jay Leno in 2014.

“It’s definitely a blessing and God’s favor,” Poyser says. “You know, it’s an honor. … We’re waiting to see — we’re not sure what it entails and we’re anxious to see what happens. The Fallon show is great. We get paid to play music and act like idiots.”

“Sittin’ In: James Poyser & Friends”
Wednesday, 10:45 p.m.
Commonwealth Plaza, Kimmel Center
300 S. Broad St.
Free, 215-731-3333
www.kimmelcenter.org

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The Founding Fathers came together to make the U.S. Constitution 237 years ago at Independence Hall.

The Sons of Ben took to the stands of Lincoln Financial Field three years ago to see the Union embark on their franchise’s first soccer match.

Both are very different events. What they symbolize isn’t all that different: banding together as one to accomplish something great. Union forward Jack McInerney weighed in on the growth he’s seen from the organization in just three years.

“I think the team’s come a long way,” said McInerney, who has been with the Union since its inception. “I think we’re doing things on and off the field better and better each year. Last year was a rough year, but we’ve bounced back so far this year and we’re happy with where we stand.”

The Union stand at 2-2-2 after finishing 10-18-6 and missing the playoffs last season. Through six games, McInerney has four goals, third in MLS. He was named to the league’s Team of the Week this week.

“I think my leadership just comes by how I play on the field,” he said. “It’s weird to me to be considered a leader just because of all the older veterans who are on teams throughout the league. They’re the ones who really know what to expect and push the younger guys every day. My goal is just to put a good performance out every weekend so that guys continue to trust me.”

The Union face one of their biggest rivals, D.C. United, Saturday at RFK Stadium. The last time the Union faced one of their rivals on the road, the New York Red Bulls, the Union fell behind early and were handed a 2-1 loss.

“We’re trying to grow as the season goes,” he said. “We’re taking things one game at a time. There’s still 28 games left so we’re just trying to learn from our mistakes. Towards the end we expect to be in the playoff race.”

McInerney has four goals this season, third-best in MLS.

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Kelli Moshen, artistic director of the dance company Project Moshen, is going to prison. On stage, at least.

“Trapped” will debut April 20 at the Performance Garage on Brandywine.

“I like a lot of action movies and I always wanted to bring that to the stage,” Moshen says. “I’m into the whole mystery of why is this person is in jail. You make your own story within the story. We start with a women being thrown into jail and you don’t know why she’s there.”

She’s either very misunderstood or very bad.

“The audience can make up their own story alongside my own story,” Moshen says. “I like to get the audience involved and feel that what’s happening on stage is happening to them. You’ll feel like you’re locked up.”

Mind you, this isn’t a campy “Reform School Girls” prison Moshen is talking about.

“It’s more of an Alcatraz kind of feel,” says Moshen, a  graduate of the University of the Arts. “It’s inside a type of military prison. She’s in there for a hardcore crime and she’s in there for life. You have to pay your dues.”

Life in this case is the 45 minutes the jazz dance program runs. It features the cinematic mood-setting music of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard.

“Trapped” will be performed by the five members of the all-female Project Moshen, plus two guest dancers. The company has been around for three years, performing in local  showcases and experimental FringeArts shows.

“I like my audience to take in what they see and make their own plotline,” says Moshen. “We like to keep it opened ended.”

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Tiger Woods again found himself at the center of controversy and a target of Twitter-verse on Saturday when he avoided disqualification from the Masters after taking an illegal drop in the second round.

While golf’s rules are clear that a disqualification was in order, Woods escaped with a two-shot penalty even after admitting in his post-round interview on Friday that he failed to drop his ball as close as possible to the original spot after it ended up in water at the par-five 15th.

Social media immediately exploded to life as golf fans, Woods’ fellow players and even the 14-times major champion himself contributed to the debate.

Anger was directed at both Woods and Masters officials for the ham-handed way in which they handled the entire episode, many upset at a perceived double standard with one set of rules for Woods and another set for everyone else.

The day before, China’s 14-year-old amateur Guan Tianlang was assessed a one-stroke penalty for slow play during the second round.

“The rules of golf are clear. Tiger took an incorrect drop so there’s only one outcome. Guan Tianlang will have to be disqualified,” chided BBC sports correspondent Andrew Cotter on Twitter.

Many urged Woods, who entered the year’s first major as the hot favorite to claim a fifth green jacket, to fall on his sword and disqualify himself from the tournament, adding some polish to a still badly tainted image.

But Woods seemed to defuse any such suggestion when he took to Twitter to give his own view of what had happened.

“I was unaware at that time I had violated any rules. I didn’t know I had taken an incorrect drop prior to signing my scorecard,” Woods tweeted.

“Subsequently, I met with the Masters committee Saturday morning and was advised they had reviewed the incident prior to the completion of my round.

“Their initial determination was that there was no violation, but they had additional concerns based on my post-round interview.

“After discussing the situation with them this morning, I was assessed a two-shot penalty. I understand and accept the penalty and respect the committee’s decision.”

WOODS’ AID

Fred Ridley, chairman of the Masters competition committee, also came to Woods’ aid on Twitter as he explained the reasoning behind the decision which allowed the world number one to remain in the tournament.

“The penalty of disqualification was waived by the committee under Rule 33 as the committee had previously reviewed the information and made its initial determination prior to the finish of the player’s round,” tweeted Ridley.

That explanation did little to calm the building storm on Twitter.

“This is a joke. In my opinion anyone else would have been DQ’d. When you sign for the wrong score that’s what’s supposed to happen,” said Irish golfer Shane Lowry.

Angela Stanford, one of the top players on the women’s LPGA Tour, added: “If I tell a rules official I wanted 2 more yards, I’m on my way to Dairy Queen for a blizzard.”

Woods ended play on Saturday at three-under but, after the two-stroke setback, will start the third round at one-under, five back of leader Jason Day of Australia.

As it became clear that Woods would continue his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors, the conversation veered towards the American’s eventual legacy which could be irrevocably tainted if he were to come back and win.

“Tiger is the judge and jury on this. He said he moved the ball back two yards to gain the right yardage,” Faldo, a six-time major winner, told Golf Channel.

“The rule clearly states he has to drop it as near as possible. Our rules are black and white: That is a breach of the rules. Simple as that.

“He has to sit down quietly and think about this – the mark this will leave on his career, his legacy.”

As always, many in the Twitter-verse were not taking the decision with the same gravity.

“85% of all golfers are taking illegal drops, hug for u tiger” tweeted former Major League Baseball home run king and self-confessed drug cheat Jose Canseco.

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‘42’
Director: Brian Hegeland
Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford
Rating: PG-13
3 (out of 5) globes

It begins like a parody of an inspirational sports saga: after a cheesy montage catches viewers up with Jim Crow America, grizzled baseball GM Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) peers up from his newspaper and growls that he’d like to bring the first African American to the Majors. Surely the real scene wasn’t this unimaginative, and from there, “42” — the first Jackie Robinson biopic since 1950’s “The Jackie Robinson Story,” which starred Robinson himself — can only go up. Eventually, it does.

The narrative predictably plows through Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) ascent from the Negro League to getting the Brooklyn Dodgers into the World Series (where they lost to the Yankees, which is probably why the film stops there). There is a constant stream of silly biopic scenes that turn reality into kitsch — Robinson even crosses home, in mega-slow-mo, to the strains of a “Thus Sprach Zarathustra” soundalike — plus a persistent syrupy score that infuses even the most perfunctory moments with Importance.

But it’s no “Remember the Titans.” This isn’t a mere comforting history lesson of racism overcome, its actions tucked snugly away in the past where they can’t hurt us. Although sometimes comically simplistic, other times it heads right into the thick of it. Boseman’s Robinson is more symbol than character — but then, Robinson, as seen here, was treated less like a human than someone designated to be the anger magnet for a country undergoing violent growing pains.

Robinson remains stoic against perpetual verbal (and sometimes physical) assaults; there are at least as many N-word-drops here as in “Django Unchained,” and is still only PG-13. It’s not because he wants to, but because he’s been tasked by history, or at least by Rickey. He has to suffer the invective of a redneck Phillies manager (Alan Tyduk), who later claims he’s only doing shtick. (He did the same to Hank Greenberg, after all.) Rickey claims such abuse is important on getting people on the side of the abused, thus tricking the populace into wanting progress.

It’s times like these “42” seems savvier than it tends to let on. A stiff production, it’s still enlivened, as it were, by the hilarious stiffness of Ford, who’s only now fully coming into the grouchiness that for the last two decades has often smacked of mere indifference. He soaks up his dialogue with a lower register that makes him sound like Sam Elliott, uttering old-timey patter like “Judas Priest!” and “What in Satan’s fire?” Chewing scenery while barely moving his jaw, he’s the film’s real MVP.

The post Film Review: ’42′ appeared first on Metro.us.

Roy Halladay is struggling. He’s losing ballgames, but he hasn’t lost respect.

“I have to admit that it was surreal going up against Roy Halladay,” Mets pitcher Matt Harvey said. “I grew up watching him and it was just amazing competing against him.”

Harvey, a young, right-handed phenom, dominated the Phillies and beat his idol.

“No matter what you say he’s still Doc,” Mets catcher John Buck said. “He’s been a great pitcher for years and he’s still a great pitcher.”

Buck blasted a three-run homer off Halladay that proved to be the difference in Monday’s Mets win but he still speaks of the scuffling starter with reverence.

The same goes for manager Charlie Manuel, who will continue to pitch Halladay every fifth day even though he is 0-2 with a 14.73 ERA.

“I saw David Price the other day and as good as he is, [the Indians] started whacking him around,” Manuel said. “When that bat, that Louisville starts talking to you. Sometimes you can’t get it off of you.”

Halladay is not missing bats with his arsenal of pitches like he used to be able to. But count on Manuel to allow Halladay to try to work his way through his horrific start.

“[The media] used to get on me about [using] Brad Lidge,” Manuel said. “Lidge was the best I had and if I was going to lose the game, I was committed to Brad Lidge.”

Manuel hopes Halladay can rebound the way he did in 2003.

“I heard Roy talk about what happened to him in Toronto [a decade ago]. He was 0-5 and his velocity was between 82 and 86 [mph]. He won the Cy Young [Award] that year. His stuff came back and he started locating the ball.”

Manuel hopes it’s déjà vu again for Halladay. It’ll be more difficult at 35 years old than 25 years old, but Halladay is going to go out there every fifth day and battle.

“I wouldn’t bet against him,” Harvey said. “If anyone can bounce back it’s Roy Halladay.”

Game notes

» Michael Young, who had a big game Sunday against the Royals, feels comfortable.

“I love where I’m at now,” Young said. “I feel really good. I think this team is ready to bust out on a winning streak.”

» Roy Halladay’s eight-game winning streak against the Mets was snapped Monday.

“All things have to come to an end,” Mets catcher John Buck said. “That’s baseball.”

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Singer Eva Cassidy inspired the new River North Dance Chicago show.
Credit: Cheryl Mann

Like many listeners, Frank Chaves didn’t discover the music of Eva Cassidy until after her death in 1996. The singer, whose repertoire ranged from jazz standards to blues, pop, folk and country tunes, passed away at the age of 33 of melanoma. Since her untimely death, her stunning voice and tragic story have led to much wider recognition.

This weekend at the Annenberg Center, River North Dance Chicago will premiere Chaves’ new piece, “Eva,” which was commissioned by Dance Celebration for its 30th anniversary season. Chaves, River North’s artistic director, was first exposed to Cassidy’s music through Randy Swartz, artistic director of Dance Celebration.

“I fell in love with her voice,” Chaves says. “She has the voice of an angel and a gift for making you really hear and understand lyrics in a new way, a very clear and intense way.”

“Eva” features four of Cassidy’s covers: Sting’s “Fields of Gold,” the blues classic “Stormy Monday,” the jazz standard “Autumn Leaves” and the gospel favorite “Wade in the Water.” While Chaves was more interested in responding to her voice than to her story with his choreography, her loss is felt through his use of vocal snippets as transitions between the songs. “It was challenging because Eva wasn’t known for talking,” Chaves says, “but I wanted to create the sense that you were attending a live concert. It’s a little haunting, but I think it’s also tender and warming to the soul to hear her voice as if she were there.”

The remainder of the program comprises three Philadelphia premieres and a pair of return performances. “The Good Goodbyes,” set to an original solo piano suite by Chicago Children’s Choir director Josephine Lee, is about relationships within the dance community, while “Renatus” is a striking solo for a female dancer wearing a scarlet evening gown with a 30-foot train. “Three” is a male trio dance with an Asian-inflected score, created by Robert Battle shortly before he was named artistic director of the renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Finally, Chaves’ “Forbidden Boundaries” features the entire company playing tug-of-war with a stretchy, ripped shirt.

The full program, Chaves says, represents the diversity of River North Dance Chicago. “I don’t want people to just come see River North; I want people to feel River North,” he says. “Our mission is to create and present a highly artistic program that is also accessible and entertaining, even for an audience who might be afraid of dance.”

River North Dance Chicago
April 4-6
Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
3680 Walnut St.
$20-$55, 215-898-3900
www.annenbergcenter.org

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1. Miami Heat (60-16, previous No. 1) – LeBron James is back, but word is that Dwyane Wade (knee) could be out until the postseason. The Heat don’t need him now, obviously, but that’s certainly something to monitor.

2. Oklahoma City Thunder (56-21, previous No. 3) – The Thunder are just one game out of the top spot in the West, which would line them up with the Jazz in the opening round. Tuesday, in Utah, could be a preview of that one.

3. Memphis Grizzlies (52-25 previous No. 4) - Often times it’s the toughest team – not the better team – that advances in the postseason. The Griz have “grit and grind” on their side. Is that enough to carry them?

4. San Antonio Spurs (57-20, previous No. 5) – The Spurs’ last three losses are to the Thunder, Grizzlies, and Heat. That’s not a good way to prove you belong as the No. 1 seed. Health, as always, is the main concern.

5. Los Angeles Clippers (51-26, previous No. 6) – The good news: The Clippers are healthy and determined to leave the Lakers’ shadow. The bad news: More shots of the Kardashians (and Kanye!) sitting courtside.

6. New York Knicks (50-26, previous No. 9) - Twelve straight wins, including the latest over Oklahoma City on Sunday. Melo looks great. Maybe this team is “realer” than we gave them credit for … maybe.

7. Denver Nuggets (53-24, previous No. 2) – Danilo Gallinari blew out his ACL last week, which is an absolute shame. It’ll be tough for Denver to compete in the postseason without him. *sheds a few tears*

8. Indiana Pacers (48-29, previous No. 7) - The Pacers clinched their first Central Division crown in nine years on Sunday after the Bulls lost to the Pistons. This team has bigger goals than that, though.

9. Houston Rockets (43-34, previous No. 8) – If Denver remains the No. 3 seed, it’ll come down to Houston or Golden State as its first-round opponent. That’s a matchup both of those team want now with Gallinari out.

10. Brooklyn Nets (44-32, previous No. 10) - If Brooklyn is to play Chicago in the first round, The Prokhorov will make sure that Derrick Rose is nowhere to be found. But can he make the Heat disappear the next round?

11. Golden State Warriors (44-33, previous No. 11) - Warriors Head Coach Mark Jackson desperately wants his team to be tough and “old school.” We aren’t quite sure they’re either of those things, especially if they hope to make noise in May.

12. Chicago Bulls (42-34, previous No. 12) - Derrick Rose is still keeping the option of playing this season open. His return would help an offense ranked dead last in points per game (92.8). Dude, decide already.

13. Boston Celtics (40-37, previous No. 14) – The Celtics say they don’t care who they play in the first round. With Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce returning on Sunday, you have to take them for their word. Give them this – they are fighters.

14. Atlanta Hawks (42-36, previous No. 13) – Losers of three in a row, Atlanta isn’t doing much to instill confidence in anybody associated with the team. They’re going in the wrong direction, and will be put to rest by the Knicks or Pacers in the first round.

15. Los Angeles Lakers (40-37, previous No. 15) - The Lakers go into Tuesday a half-game behind the Jazz for the eighth seed. Utah has the Thunder. L.A. has the Hornets. This battle could go down to the final game.

16. Utah Jazz (41-37, previous No. 17) - You have to hand it to the Jazz. It appeared that the Lakers were going to take the eighth seed from under them, but they are 7-1 in their last eight games. Can they hold off L.A.?

17. Milwaukee Bucks (37-39, previous No. 16) – The only way Milwaukee will have a chance to beat the Heat is if Dwyane Wade really is injured. And LeBron James. And Chris Bosh. And … you get the idea.

18. Dallas Mavericks (38-39, previous No. 18) - Losses to the Lakers and Nuggets just about sealed the fate of the Mavs, who will most likely miss their first postseason this century.

19. Washington Wizards (29-48, previous) - The Wizards were bad – really bad – without John Wall. But since the star point guard’s return, they’ve gone 24-20, which is very respectable.

20. Philadelphia 76ers (31-45, previous 20) - Good news for Sixers fans: Andrew Bynum has been playing a ton of NBA 2K13 on XBOX in preparation for next season.

The post NBA Power Rankings: Gallinari injury sends Nuggets down the ranks appeared first on Metro.us.

Singers Miranda Lambert and Luke Bryan led the winners at the Academy of Country Music awards on Sunday, while leading nominees Taylor Swift and Hunter Hayes came away empty-handed in a night honoring top achievers in country music.

Swift, 23, lost out on all five categories she was nominated in, including Female Vocalist of the Year and the fan-voted Entertainer of the Year, a surprise for the country music favorite who won the award for the last two years.

Newcomer Hayes, 21, who was nominated in six categories, also went home empty-handed.

The night’s top award Entertainer of the Year went to the show’s co-host Bryan, 36, a surprise to the charismatic host who said he had only just started headlining shows.

“What I always wanted to be is just a country singer who got to ride on a tour bus and perform every night. … This is the defining moment of my life, it means the world to me and I’ll never take it for granted,” Bryan said tearfully.

Lambert, 29, picked up four awards in three categories, including Female Vocalist of the Year, beating Swift, Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves and Martina McBride.

Lambert also won Song of the Year for “Over You,” written with husband Blake Shelton, who was co-hosting the ceremony, and thanked her peers for recognizing her songwriting talents.

“As a songwriter, having your songs and your lyrics recognized by your peers is pretty much as good as it gets. … Thank you for accepting me as a songwriter and not just as a singer, that means the world to me,” Lambert said.

Shelton, who married Lambert in 2011, thanked his wife for making him a better songwriter.

“I used to think I was a decent songwriter until I started hanging out with her (Lambert) and she taught me so much,” Shelton said in his acceptance speech, pulling his wife in for a big hug.

Jason Aldean bested Bryan, Shelton and one of the night’s top nominees Eric Church for the Male Vocalist of the Year award, while Church picked up Album of the Year for his 2011 chart-topping record “Chief.”

LIVELY PERFORMANCES

The three-hour show televised on CBS featured performances from old and new names in country music including Church, Dierks Bentley, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Lambert, who performed “Mama’s Broken Heart.”

“The Voice” judge Shelton joined co-host Luke Bryan to kick off with a rendition on Shelton’s “Boys ‘Round Here,” on which they were also joined by Sheryl Crow.

Oklahoma native and former “American Idol” winner Carrie Underwood, who was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year, performed her single “Two Black Cadillacs” while fellow “American Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson sang “Don’t Rush.”

Following ACM awards tradition of pairing veteran and new artists together, Tim McGraw and Keith Urban sang with Swift on “Highway Don’t Care,” while Brad Paisley and John Mayer teamed up to perform “Beat This Summer,” ending with a crowd-rousing guitar riff.

Hayes performed with Motown legend Stevie Wonder on Hayes’ new single “I Want Crazy” and Wonder’s song “Sir Duke.” Wonder closed out the show with his classic track “Signed. Sealed. Delivered.”

Singer Reba McEntire introduced a tribute to late television host and producer Dick Clark, with country music artists George Strait and Garth Brooks singing Brooks’ “The Dance” and Strait’s “Cowboy Rides Away.”

Newcomer duo Florida Georgia Line, formed by Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard, picked up the fan-voted award for New Artist of the Year and performed their hit single “Cruise” on the show.

Husband-wife duo Thompson Square won Vocal Duo of the Year, while Alabama group Little Big Town won Vocal Group of the Year.

The post Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert lead country music awards appeared first on Metro.us.

Carey Mulligan stars as Daisy Buchanan and Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jay Gatsby in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ drama “THE GREAT GATSBY,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

Today writer/producer/director Baz Luhrmann reminded anybody with internet connection of his unique skill at taking old texts and modernizing them in cinematic majesty. As a new trailer for “The Great Gatsby” hit YouTube, it revealed a colorful, lush and melodramatic universe not too far from the ones he showed us in “Romeo + Juliet” and “Moulin Rouge!” One interesting difference between the upcoming “Gatsby” production and Luhrmann’s earlier works is his collaborator Jay-Z, who supervised the elite soundtrack, the lineup of which was also revealed today.

In an attempt to update the sound of Fitzgerald’s story, Jay-Z and executive music consultant Jeymes Samuel (aka Bullitts) have assembled a cast of some of music’s biggest names in an attempt to create the modern day equivalent of the Jazz Age.

As director Baz Luhrman notes, “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel is peppered with contemporary music references specific to the story’s setting of 1922. While we acknowledge, as Fitzgerald phrased it, ‘the Jazz Age,’ and this is the period represented on screen, we—our audience—are living in the ‘hip-hop age’ and want our viewers to feel the impact of modern-day music the way Fitzgerald did for the readers of his novel at the time of its publication.”

That being said, Jay-Z and company do not disappoint. Available on Interscope Records on May 4, the album includes a collaborations between Andre 3000 and Beyonce, Fergie and Q-Tip, as well as tracks by Jack White, will,i,am and Jay-Z, himself.

The full track listing is as follows:

1. 100$ Bill – JAY Z
2. Back To Black – Beyoncé x André 3000
3. Bang Bang – will.i.am
4. A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got) – Fergie + Q Tip + GoonRock
5. Young And Beautiful – Lana Del Rey
6. Love Is The Drug – Bryan Ferry with The Bryan Ferry Orchestra
7. Over The Love – Florence + The Machine
8. Where The Wind Blows – Coco O. of Quadron
9. Crazy in Love – Emeli Sandé and The Bryan Ferry Orchestra
10. Together – The xx
11. Hearts A Mess – Gotye
12. Love Is Blindness – Jack White
13. Into the Past – Nero
14. Kill and Run – Sia

The post Star-studded ‘Great Gatsby’ soundtrack details announced appeared first on Metro.us.

Skaters are built from the remnants of the Boston band Dead Trees. But there’s a bit of map-hopping to their story. After leaving Boston for Oregon and then to L.A., losing members along the way, singer Michael Cummings and drummer Noah Rubin finally settled in New York to regroup — sonically, mentally and literally.

Forming a new band with a sound to capture the excitement of their new surroundings, they acquired Josh Hubbard (ex-Paddingtons, Dirty Pretty Things) and Dan Burke (Viva Viva), and began making demos for a free EP that began a whirlwind of good fortune.

“When we got to New York all the stuff I was writing was a totally different style,” says Cummings. “We took that and formed Skaters around a few choice songs. This is the first band where I’ve gone into it knowing exactly what sound I wanted to get out of it. With the Dead Trees there was always a confusion because I liked some many styles of music. I wrote songs because of how I was feeling. There’s more of an identity to Skaters. I think that the name, the vibe, the time, the guys — it all kind of dictates what kind of music we’ll be playing.”

Over the years, Cummings’ songs have evolved from quiet ballads to high-energy, melodic punk, but the songs have never skimped on lyrical content. After listening to their EP and upcoming single, you get glimpses of The Clash’s “Sandinista!” mixed with the feeling you had when you first heard the Strokes’ debut. These are exciting, guitar-driven songs that make you move and make you think. Their bombastic energy segues into brief emotional comedowns before jacking the songs back into danceable, head-bobbing anthems.

“They’re all New York-based songs,” says Cummings. “There’s a vibe that we want to capture. We’re a guitar-based band, but there are definitely a lot of loops and beats and electronic elements to take it out of superfamiliar territory.”

From DIY to WB
Metro learned about Skaters when the band was just a DIY dream with a motivated vision and no expectations. Cummings was gracious enough to give us their first-ever interview after their intimate Boston debut in 2011, as well as allowing this writer into the crowded confines of Electric Lady Studio last month while they were recording.

In between the two interviews, a lot has changed. Their unsuspecting beginnings, satisfied with self-release or possible indie interest, led to a mystique that had major labels intrigued, with several offers on the table before the band signed to Warner Brothers. With nothing more than their free EP and fervor for their future, the band was soon selling out shows in the UK, being played on BBC, and in the studio recording their debut with John Hill at the controls.

While Hill has gained notoriety producing music for Rihanna, Santigold and MIA, Cummings says he was the perfect fit because “deep down he’s a rocker at heart.”

The record, slated for mid-summer, will be preceded by a campaign of 7”s, a promotional endeavor that Warner hasn’t attempted in some time. The first will be released on Tuesday.

The post Skaters: From the ashes of Dead Trees comes a sound that glides forward appeared first on Metro.us.

After giving the food at Urban Outfitters headquarters a fresh, healthy spin and enjoying a stint cooking at Tria, Brett Naylor landed at the popular Oyster House last May. We caught up with the South Philly chef and learned about his bicoastal vacations, how his young son influences where the family hangs out and, of course, what’s new at Oyster House.

Oyster House is hosting an oyster shucking competition April 6. What will that be like?
We invited a whole lot of amateur shuckers, shuckers from all over the city. There will be competitions for who’s the fastest, the cleanest and the overall best shucker. The whole dining room fills up with customers for a few hours and it gets super loud in there. And you get to meet people who are into oysters, so it’s awesome.

You’re approaching your first anniversary at Oyster House. Any celebration plans?
My wife and I just went to San Francisco for a week, so we’ll call that my celebration. We ate at a ton of different places. The restaurants and the big outdoors were so inspiring. Plus, the whole time we were there it was 75 degrees and sunny.

Do you go to the shore in the summer?
Oh yeah, we always go down in the summer to hang out. We have a 2-year-old son who loves the ocean and the sand. One of my favorite things is going down the shore and eating on the dock. There are a couple places we like. There’s Mike’s Seafood, which might be in Sea Isle [City]. It’s right on the bay and there are boats all around. We go there pretty religiously.

When you’re down there, you’re not cooking?
No way. I rarely cook on vacation!

Are your going-out habits different now that you have a young son?
Well, we don’t go out in the city all that much. It’s really just a question of how valuable our time is. My son can only really last in a restaurant for about a half hour. He cooks with us at home a lot, though. He helps clean veggies and stirs things.

Where do you take him when you go out?
We like to go to Morris Arboretum or Longwood Gardens, go hiking maybe. Or we’ll go to flea markets. We just try to maximize our days off when we can.

The post Hot Chef: Brett Naylor gets his hands dirty at Oyster House appeared first on Metro.us.

Hey, Philly and Boston, you can’t always get what you want, but you can see the Stones this summer.
Credit: Brian Rasic

When the Rolling Stones initially announced live dates last year and called the tour to celebrate their 50th anniversary “50 and Counting,” most people assumed that there would be more dates to follow the few fall offerings. But with a band that has been together for twice as long as most chart-toppers of today have been alive, playing it safe by not announcing all of the dates at once makes more sense than having to cancel a number of them, in the event of, say, a broken hip, or the guitarist falling out of a tree. But now the band are making good on the “and Counting” part.

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  PHOTOS: Rollings Stones keep on rolling

The band announced Wednesday that they will kick off their tour in Los Angeles at the Staples Center. (Date TBA pending NBA/NHL playoff schedules.) The tour debut will be followed by performances in Oakland, San Jose, Las Vegas, Anaheim, Toronto, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia.

The Stones were recently crowned Best Live Band at the NME Awards in London and released a new greatest hits collection, “GRRR!,” a groundbreaking documentary film “Crossfire Hurricane” and a photographic book “Rolling Stones: 50.”

“’50 and Counting’ has been pretty amazing so far,” said singer Mick Jagger in a statement. “We did a few shows in London and New York last year … and had such a good time that we thought … let’s do some more. It’s a good show. Lots of the classic stuff everyone wants to hear … with a few little gems tucked in here and there. The stage is shaped like lips and goes off into the venue so I get to run around in the crowd. It’s great fun to be able to get that close to the audience.”

“From day one at rehearsals it sounded so fresh. You could tell that everybody was dying to get their teeth into it. It was like … open the gates … let us out!” said Keith Richards, the aforementioned guitarist who has been known to fall out of trees. “’Cause man, it is the life and blood of us to play in front of people.”

Mick Taylor, who was a member of the Rolling Stones from 1969-74, will be a special guest throughout the tour.

The band will treat their generations of fans to an evening of classic Stones hits like “Gimme Shelter,” “Paint It Black,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Tumbling Dice,” and “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” curated with lesser-known gems, and a cover or two.

’50 AND COUNTING’ TOUR DATES

TBA Los Angeles Staples Center

May 5 Oakland Oracle Arena
On sale April 8 @ 10AM PST

May 8 San Jose HP Pavilion
On sale April 8 @ 10AM PST

May 11 Las Vegas MGM Grand Garden Arena TBA
May 15 Anaheim Honda Center TBA

May 25 Toronto Air Canada Centre
On sale April 8 @ 10AM EST

May 28 Chicago United Center
On sale April 8 @ 10AM CST

June 12 Boston TD Garden TBA
June 18 Philadelphia Wells Fargo Center TBA

The post Rolling Stones announce ’50 and Counting’ tour dates appeared first on Metro.us.

A Herrs delivery truck was stolen outside a 7-Eleven convenience store Tuesday morning in Frankford as the driver made a delivery.

The driver entered the store, at Bridge and Large Streets around 7:30 a.m., and left the keys in the ignition. As he dropped off the snacks, someone jumped into the truck and drove off.

The delivery truck and the thief are still on the loose.

The post Herrs truck stolen outside Northeast 7-Eleven appeared first on Metro.us.

As Lady Gaga continues to recuperate from hip surgery, she is reportedly celebrating her 27th birthday today with a tea party of sorts. According to the Sun, she is hosting a “Mad Hatter Party,” because the star isn’t able to drink alcohol yet. She is still on painkillers though, which might explain the whole “Mad Hatter” thing. It would be so very Gaga if a caterpillar sitting on a giant mushroom administered her painkillers via hookah.

In honor of Gaga’s recuperation, we thought it would be fun to examine other musicians who have famously had to take a little time off.

Bob Dylan had a motorcycle accident in 1966. While he fixed up in West Saugerties, NY he explored a different side of his music and collaborated to great effect with The Band.  (PHOTO CREDIT: Douglas R. Gilbert/Redferns)

Weezer mastermind Rivers Cuomo was born with one of his legs almost two inches shorter than the other. After the success of his band’s debut in 1994, Cuomo underwent a procedure to correct the difference. While he recuperated he worked on the songs that would become what is arguably Weezer’s masterpiece, their second album, “Pinkerton.” (PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

The post Lady Gaga celebrates her 27th birthday appeared first on Metro.us.

The Schuylkill Action Network is hosting its annual Schuylkill Scrub, a two-month-long series of cleanups between April 1 and May 31 along the 130 miles of riverbank in Berks, Chester, Montgomery, Philadelphia and Schuylkill counties.

“What sets the Schuylkill Scrub apart is how it fits into anyone’s schedule,” Schuylkill Action Network coordinator Tom Davidock said in a statement.

“Instead of a single, one-day event, we have dozens spread across two months and more than five counties.”

Anyone hosting a riverside cleanup in that time frame is invited to register online, where they can receive free gloves, trash bags and safety vests and will be eligible to win a free rain barrel or $100 toward the purchase of indigenous plants.

Volunteers wishing to pitch in can also find opportunities in their area on the site. Participating landfills will offer free disposals during Pick It Up PA Days, which run from April 20 to May 6.

The Schuylkill Scrub was founded in 2010 by the Green Valleys Association and the Hay Creek Watershed Association. It last year included over 2,000 volunteers at more than 90 sites.

“Volunteers cleaned up over 600 miles of Pennsylvania’s shoreline and waterways last year – roughly a three-fold increase over 2011,” Great American Cleanup of PA program coordinator Michelle Dunn said in a statement.

“This would not be possible without campaigns like the Schuylkill Scrub and the volunteers they rally to our cause.”

The post Thousands expected to participate in ‘Schuylkill Scrub’ cleanup appeared first on Metro.us.

There’s no get-rich-quick scheme when it comes to blogging. Creating a website, building an audience and eventually garnering revenue is an exhausting process — which is why most successful blogs are labors of love. A good blog stems from an unwavering desire to do the thing you most enjoy and share it with the world.

Lauren Lilling had a degree in finance, but Wall Street just wasn’t cutting it for her. A year after starting her blog, Keep It Sweet Desserts, Lilling left the world of finance and devoted her time to a new business: a blog and “e-bakery” where users can order treats like her seasonally appropriate “Matzo-crack” salted chocolate matzo.

Like any savvy business owner, Lilling drew on what she knew. “As someone who worked in finance prior to starting a business, I was able to use skills from my previous career, leverage the social media buildup I had from blogging and build on the relationships in both places,” she says.

Babette Pepaj runs TECHmunch, a conference for food bloggers to help them do  what Lilling has done. Pepaj travels around the U.S. to help food bloggers make their work more financially rewarding, she says.

“The unsuccessful bloggers I’ve seen are the ones who are short-term planners,” says Pepaj. Most important, she says, is keeping the blog active to attract interest from advertisers: “You can’t expect a brand to look at your blog that hasn’t been updated in four weeks and think your community is engaged,” she says.

Tips for making a blog into a career:

•    Have a clear focus. In this case, casting a wider net will not necessarily get you a wider audience.
•    Be patient, but be persistent. The money isn’t going to come rolling in, but regular posting and diligence will certainly help.
•    Use social media. Utilize different platforms in order to promote your brand and drive traffic to your site.

The post Make money by blogging all the way to the bank appeared first on Metro.us.

The Denver Nuggets overcame a five-point deficit with less than 10 seconds to play Thursday night to beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 101-100.

His team ahead 100-98, Sixers forward Evan Turner failed to convert either of two free throws with 7.1 seconds to play in the game.

Denver’s Corey Brewer was then fouled by Damien Wilkins while attempting a three-point shot with just 2.1 seconds to go. Brewer, who scored a game-high 29 points, sank all three foul shots to give the Nuggets the one-point win.

The win was Denver’s 14th in a row. The Sixers have dropped two in a row after winning three of their prior four contests.

Wilkins lead Philadelphia with 24 points.

Former 76er Andre Iguodala, who was traded last summer in the Andrew Bynum deal, scored 13 points and pulled down four rebounds in the contest.

The post Nuggets top 76ers with late rally appeared first on Metro.us.

‘The We and the I’
Director: Michel Gondry
Stars: Michael Brody, Teresa Lynn
Rating: NR
3 (out of 5) Globes

Ang Lee just won a Directing Oscar for shooting most of a film in and around a small boat. Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) goes one step further: a few moments on the street and a handful of Gondry-esque fantasies aside, his latest, the collaborative “The We and the I,” never leaves the inside of a city bus taking high schoolers from one side of the Bronx to the other. In real life, this ride takes considerably less time than the length of an average movie, even in rush hour, but the film, like most Gondrys, exists in an absurdist, heightened version of reality, albeit one with its second foot firmly in reality.

Gondry created the film over four years with high schoolers enrolled in an afterschool arts program. They play “themselves,” which is to say heightened versions of their slightly younger selves (some were already in college by the time Gondry scored the funds and such to shoot). Set after the last day of school, “The We and the I” piles them on an MTA bus, which they immediately make their temporary home. A series of plotless hang-out sessions ensue, the camera jumping between teens of varying backgrounds and social hierarchies, and sometimes into flashbacks that resemble the director’s storied, playful music videos.

It’s one strain of energy fused with another. The kids are rambunctious, even blue, while, Gondry — nearly 50 but eternally kid-like, who once made a documentary self-portrait entitled “I’ve Been Twelve Forever” — brings his own, splicing in Young MC and his usual makeshift contraptions with today’s youth and cell phone apps. This is the Frenchman’s fourth NYC and vicinity movie — including “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party” and the Passaiac-set “Be Kind Rewind” — and he has a way of bottling up the city’s polyglot energy with an ever-curious set of eyes.

As with all of Gondry’s work, there’s a melancholy buried in the whimsy and anarchism. It’s a touch too pronounced, with the film going from freewheeling, freeform fun, fueled by energy and filmmaking as fast as its chatter, to a sad, sober, talky conclusion. There’s ways to delve into character depth without making ruining the fun, as “The We and the I” very nearly does. Although, like the characters — or more specifically, actors — the film is too lovable to engender anything approaching disappointment.

The post Film Review: ‘The We and the I’ appeared first on Metro.us.

Lily Tomlin plays Tina Fey’s feminist mom in “Admission”
Credit: Getty Images

“Admission” is a romantic comedy, not an action movie, so it comes as something of a surprise that one of its stars wanted to advertise their physique with a scene in which they chop wood bare-chested in the forest. Even more surprising? That star was comedy legend Lily Tomlin. “I wanted to be in the woods chopping wood with my shirt off,” Tomlin reveals about her character, a septuagenarian feminist whose adult life has been devoted to activism. “The character has a double mastectomy, and I think, I’ll get a breastplate made like I’ve had a double mastectomy and I’ll tattoo it to show another expression of her empowerment and how she’s completely at ease with herself and accepts her female body.”

Unfortunately, the actress landed the role too late to be able to follow through on her plan. But even without the requisite hardware, she wanted to bare her body onscreen. She reached into her own experiences in order to bare her character’s soul. “I am a feminist, and I lived in those days of the movement,” Tomlin explains. “And I know what it is as a human [to believe] in a certain philosophy or some doctrine — and you do not want to betray it.”

As Susannah, Tomlin plays the mother of Tina Fey’s Princeton admissions officer, Portia, who’s fumbling her way through a romance with an alternative high school principal (Paul Rudd) while simultaneously dealing with the revelation that an applicant just might be her long-lost son. The 73-year-old actress says that she loved the parallels she saw between mother and daughter, particularly since like her daughter’s long-concealed pregnancy, Susannah had Portia under dubious circumstances that she has since reimagined as an emblem of her feminist values.

“My character got pregnant from having sex with a guy she’s attracted to on the train, but she doesn’t want to admit that she was so attracted to this guy that she was vulnerable to him,” Tomlin observes. “So she creates that mythology that she chose him and she was empowered enough to decide when she was going to have a child and who she was going to have it with. And then that mythology isolates her from her daughter most of all.”

Tomlin especially liked that the film possessed so many layers while still managing to deliver on a visceral level. “Aside from the feminist aspect, it’s just a human story about people not being their authentic selves,” she says. “Every one of us was living some kind of inauthenticity.”

“The metaphor of admission, in the course of the movie we all have an admission,” she says, punctuating the film’s title. “I love the slug line: ‘Let someone in.’”

The post Lily Tomlin discusses playing Tina Fey’s mom in ‘Admission’ appeared first on Metro.us.