Prince Music Theater

CASH-STRAPPED Prince Music Theater (1412 Chestnut) had a pretty good idea to raise revenue. Starting with "Toy Story 3" tomorrow, it's offering first-run films. The Prince's Summer Cinema Series is part of its strategy to keep the theater self-supporting, with more movies to open there throughout the summer. The theater's live-music and theater events will still take place. We hear the longtime girlfriend/business partner of a local hipster blogger whose relevance continues to decline has finally come to her senses and left him. "Jersey Shore" star Pauly D will be at The Deck (101 Taylor Ave.)

After working as a documentary filmmaker for several years in Canada, Shanti Thakur decided to go to school for her master's in fine arts to explore other kinds of cinematic storytelling. So what did she win first place for in the NextFrame Festival, a touring show of student films that runs through Sunday in Philadelphia? A documentary, of course. The Temple graduate (and now visiting professor) took first place for her 10-minute film, Seven Hours to Burn, in which she explores her Danish mother and Indian father's experiences in two wars based on ethnic and religious purity.

In Germany's charged and sometimes violent political atmosphere, Turkish immigrants have more to fear than discrimination. For gay Turks, especially cross-dressers, life is almost suicidally dangerous. In Lola and Bilidikid, directed by Kutlug Ataman, there is another hostile front for young Murak to deal with - his intensely traditional, deeply religious Muslim family. These exterior and interior forces create unbearable pressure on 16-year-old Murak, who is nervously coming to terms with his gay sexuality.

It remains one of the indelible images of Sept. 11, 2001: five New York City firefighters carrying the body of the Rev. Mychal Judge, the Fire Department's chaplain, from the World Trade Center. The Franciscan priest could have remained on the sidelines, but instead he joined his men and lost his life inside the doomed North Tower. That Saint of 9/11, a new documentary film about Judge's life and death, will have its Philadelphia premiere next Friday at the Equality Forum, the annual weeklong program about the civil rights of gays and other sexual minorities, is not unusual.

Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) is the director's most overanalyzed and least-seen film. Tippi Hedren plays the title figure, a blond and blank slate, whose sexual unresponsiveness fascinates her employer, Sean Connery. Talk about men who love difficult women: After Marnie steals from him and shrinks from his embrace, he proposes marriage. In this movie, suggesting both that theft is sex sublimated and that sex is theft of the soul, Hedren and Connery warily circle each other in one of the stranger courtship dances on film.

Two events highlighted in last week's calendar were postponed because of Hurricane Irene's torrential rains last weekend. Philly's Big Beautiful Women Pageant has been rescheduled for 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Renaissance Philadelphia Airport Hotel, 500 Stevens Drive. Tickets are $30-$40. Call 215-222-7127, www.wilkes productions.com. And the play "VI Degrees," written by Philadelphia's Kash Goins, will be staged at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. Tickets are $20, $15 in advance.

In its second and final weekend, the 2006 Philadelphia Film Festival keeps its reels rolling with a host of timely and provocative films. Tonight, the Cinema at Penn will present a 90-minute documentary about the contemporary use of the definitive four-letter word. In Marc Brodzik's documentary, Hard Coal, which will be shown Saturday at International House and Sunday at the Prince Music Theater, filmmakers journey into the anthracite mines of Northeastern Pennsylvania and the lives of coal miners.

Philadelphia is the Mesopotamia of movies, home of the first film mogul, Siegmund Lubin, who built the world's first movie studio here in 1911. Lubin is the focus of one of the film festival's wealth of locally connected programs, "Saluting Siegmund Lubin," hosted by scholar Joseph Eckhardt on Wednesday (International House, 7 p.m). What makes a film Philadelphian? Irv Slifkin's enjoyable book Filmadelphia suggests that a picture has Philly provenance if it's set here. Next Friday, Slifkin himself will present The Burglar (1957)

Set in a ravishingly beautiful notch of France's Rhone-Alpes region, Three Dancing Slaves is a tense triptych of men without women. Christophe, Marc and Olivier are brothers and motherless. The film details their experiments with sex, crime and an emotionally distant father. Director Ga?l Morel tells his three-chapter story from the perspective of each brother. Christophe, the eldest, is an ex-con who wants to go straight, both in his social and sexual orientation. Middle child Marc is a skinhead who acts tough and gets roughed up by drug dealers.

BEBE NEUWIRTH doesn't do the fluffy stuff. Neuwirth's stance makes sense to anyone who only knows her as Lilith, the icy, monotone psychiatrist and eventual wife of Kelsey Grammer's Frasier Crane — the iconic role that made Neuwirth famous on the beloved sitcom "Cheers. " But it means something different when it comes to compiling songs for her cabaret-style shows, like the one which Neuwirth will perform tonight at the Prince Music Theater, "Stories with Piano #3. " For those shows, the fluffy stuff means the songs that Neuwirth doesn't deem emotionally hefty enough.

Repertory Films Ambler Theater 108 E. Butler Ave., Ambler; 215-345-7855. www.amblertheater.com . Hoot (2006) $4. 3/17. 11 am. Bryn Mawr Film Institute 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr; 610-527-9898. www.brynmawrfilm.org . Going Gaga. $7. 3/21. Colonial Theatre 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville; 610-917-1228. www.thecolonialtheatre.com . Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) $8; $6 seniors and students; $5 children 12 and under. 3/16.

A World War II thriller, a love triangle set against the backdrop of 1960s Poland, an Anthony Hopkins-narrated documentary about controversial Las Vegas newspaperman Hank Greenspun, a South American coming-of-age saga, docs and shorts and narrative features - all are part of the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, which begins this weekend with a characteristically strong lineup of films exploring diverse facets of Jewish culture and history. Between now and May, 22 films from a dozen countries are set for screenings in Center City and surrounding environs.

OPENING LAST night and continuing through Tuesday is the fourth annual Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, sponsored by HBO and Comcast and screening at various locations around the city. The festival comprises 10 features and 18 shorts for all audiences, from romantic comedy to documentary. Today's Asian American filmmakers target broader audiences by exploring more universal themes while retaining an Asian American flavor in their work. "Enforcing the Silence," for example, explores themes of discrimination as it focuses on the unsolved murder of San Francisco Vietnamese activist Lam Duong in July 1981 by anticommunist extremists.

Joe Kim spent most of his 20s suffering though "survival jobs. " "I worked as a temp, once even at an insurance company," the 33-year-old Cheltenham native recalls. His Dilbertian labors helped support his passion for filmmaking. Kim has yet to make his first feature, but he already has made his mark with the dozens of movies he has hosted as founder of the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival. Now in its fourth year, the festival runs through Tuesday with screenings of 10 feature films and 18 shorts.

Two events highlighted in last week's calendar were postponed because of Hurricane Irene's torrential rains last weekend. Philly's Big Beautiful Women Pageant has been rescheduled for 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Renaissance Philadelphia Airport Hotel, 500 Stevens Drive. Tickets are $30-$40. Call 215-222-7127, www.wilkes productions.com. And the play "VI Degrees," written by Philadelphia's Kash Goins, will be staged at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. Tickets are $20, $15 in advance.

BALA CYNWYD NATIVE actor Gideon Glick is one of the "Geek Chorus" members in "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," a musical opening on Broadway on 1/11/11. The chorus of four narrates most of the show's first act. "It's a very daring production and very exciting to be a part of it," Glick told us yesterday. "I like comic-book movies. I'm a big X-Men fan," he admitted. In 2006, the same year he graduated from Lower Merion High, Glick was in "Spring Awakening" on Broadway when Bono complimented his voice to music director Kim Grigsby . Grigsby is also music director for "Spider-Man," for which Bono and his U2 colleague The Edge wrote music.

In "Night Catches Us," playing this weekend at the Philadelphia Film Festival, ex-Black Panther Marcus (Anthony Mackie, "The Hurt Locker") returns home to Philadelphia after the death of his reverend father. It's 1976. Labeled a snitch by his former Panther brethren, Marcus finds solace in Patty (Kerry Washington, "The Last King of Scotland"), the widow of a Panther shot by police, who is now a lawyer with a young daughter, Iris (Jamara Griffin). Marcus and Patty's budding love story is contrasted by Patty's disillusioned cousin, Jimmy (Amari Cheatom)

John Lennon: They Say It's Your Birthday From Carrie Rickey's "Flickgrrl" Not ordinarily a fan of anniversary journalism. But on the occasion of what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday (and nearing the 30th anniversary of his death, on Dec. 8) come two movies, the melancholy Nowhere Boy , a memorable portrait of teenage John torn between his reliable Aunt Mimi and unstable mother Julia, and LennonNYC , an account of Lennon's final years in his adoptive Manhattan.