The Greater Philadelphia Film Office should send copies of John Hindman’s The Answer Man to every producer and director even remotely thinking of coming here to shoot. For a city still suffering from a collective case of low self-esteem, this so-so rom-com – with Jeff Daniels as a burnt-out bestselling author of spiritual advice books and Gilmore Girls’  Lauren Graham as the chiropractor who brings him back into alignment in more ways than one – is one big City of Brotherly Love morale booster.

 More so than even the most-dashing moments in the M. Night Shyamalan oeuvre, The Answer Man shows off the striking urban beauty and cool of Philadelphia. From the stately brownstone manors of Delancey Street to the cafes and shops of Old City, from a shot of Daniels crawling on all fours past the WPA-era tableau of the post office at 9^th and Market Streets to scenes of Rittenhouse Square and scullers on the Schuylkill, the film celebrates the city’s cinemagenic strengths. Locations include the Warsaw Café, the Newport apartment building, McCall Elementary in Society Hill (redubbed the Robert Frost School) and the Book Trader on 2^nd Street -- the used bookstore gets a huge, huge plug.

Director of photography Oliver Bokelberg, who shot The Visitor and the Meryl Streep-starrer Dark Matter, clearly saw something he liked in Philadelphia. Lou Taylor Pucci, Kat Dennings, Nora Dunn and Olivia Thirlby also appear in Answer Man (called The Dream of the Romans when it was in production here in 2008), but the real star of the picture, without a doubt, is Philadelphia.

Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and Italian bean purveyor Illy Coffee have joined forces in celebration of Almodovar’s many-times star and long-time muse, actress Penelope Cruz.

Images of the Live Flesh/All About My Mother/ Volver actress adorn a new cup and saucer, part of the “Illy Art Collection” series that has famous artists (Koons! Schnabel!) designing chinaware to drink your espresso out of.

Almodovar shows Cruz in a set of Warhol-like photo images, promoting the Spanish siren’s moody beauty and, coincidentally, Almodovar’s upcoming fall release,  Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces).  Yes, Cruz stars.

The limited edition cup and saucer combo is signed by Almodovar, and is yours for $60. Click here to have Cruz show up in your kitchen, too.

By the end of its seventh weekend of release -- that’ll be Monday, July 20 – Todd Phillips’ The Hangover will have passed Beverly Hills Cop’s $234.8 million box office take to become the top-earning R-rated comedy of all time.

Who’d have thunk?

Not Phillips, who steered Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms through the blotto bachelor-party-gone-amok comedy.

“We had a feeling, once we started screening to test audiences, that it was going to do all right, but who knew?” says the director, on the phone just before Hangover topped $200 million.

Nonetheless, the director -- a specialist in male-bonding comedies (see Old School, see Road Trip, see Starsky & Hutch) – had a feeling he was onto something. There they were in Las Vegas last year, he and his cast (and the tiger and the baby and the chicken), and already Phillips and company were volleying possible scenarios for a sequel.

“We’d been talking about doing Hangover 2 while we were shooting Hangover,” he confirms. “And that’s not because we knew the movie was going to be a big, breakout success. It was more because, well, when you’re on the set of a movie it’s fun to talk about that kind of stuff. You know: `Man, if we did another one we could do this, that, the other thing.’

“So we do have ideas, and it’s something that we’re going to work on and hopefully shoot not this fall -- but probably shoot next fall.”

Not coming in the near future, however, is Old School 2 (or Old School Dos, as IMDB has it listed). The original Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson comedy was a big hit back in 2003, but the logistics of regrouping has proved daunting.

“We’re not actually doing Old School 2,” Phillips says. “That’s been a hard project to put together…. These guys are so big, it’s tough to get all the planets to align on that one.”

Pixar's Up increased its tally to $264.8 million in 38 days. It flew past The Incredibles to become the second highest-grossing Pixar movie." -- Brandon Gray, Box Office Mojo, July 6, 2009

A few weeks before Up opened in theaters on May 29, the Times’ ran a story in its Business pages about how shareholders were irked at Disney – and Pixar – because there was no way a movie with a septuagenarian hero, a grumpy widower voiced by Ed Asner, was going to do the kind of box office that previous Pixar titles like Cars and The Incredibles did.
The demographics were all wrong. Kids won’t want to see it. Twentysomethings? They’ll stay away in droves. Toys? What toys?
If Up was even a modest success, it wasn’t going to do the shareholders any good.
So there's the Box Office Mojo report, and the Variety headline from last week: “Up Figures to See Incredible Sights,” with a forecast that not only will Pixar’s Up pass The Incredibles in business, it might even get to Finding Nemo numbers -- the CG animation studio’s top money maker at $340 million. Like its protagonist and his balloon-buoyed domicile, Up continues to ascend.
“I wasn’t sure whether I should be offended or gratified by that article,” Pete Docter, Up’s director and co-writer, said, referring to the Times piece, in an interview a few days before the (yes) mega-hit’s release. “Because they sort of went out of they way to say, well, all signs point to this being a really great film, but we have this issue with the marketability. And I guess I can understand that if you’ve not seen the film.
“When you just pitch it — you know, it’s a 78-year-old man who floats his house — you’d say, `What!?’ But our job has always been the same, and it’s very clear: Don’t worry about marketing. We never approach the films from, `What’s going to appeal to the 8-to-12 year-old-set, blah blah blah.’ We just make movies that speak to us as an audience, knowing that we want to reach everybody else. And (Disney chairman) Bob Iger and (Disney-Pixar animation chief John Lassiter have both said, `Just make great films, that’s your job. And if it happens to work out well with marketing and toys and whatever else, then, great.’ But you know if you put the cart before the horse that way, if you try to just sell toys, I think you know where that goes.
“Our job is just to make sure that the audience feels the movie and is entertained by it, and everything else will fall into place.
“You know, even Toy Story, I remember getting a memo from some marketing folks saying we don’t see the marketing potential in this film!.. I think I still have that somewhere.”

"Pixar's Up increased its tally to $264.8 million in 38 days. It flew past The Incredibles to become the second highest-grossing Pixar movie." -- Brandon Gray, Box Office Mojo, July 6, 2009

A few weeks before Up opened in theaters on May 29, the Times ran a story in its Business pages about how shareholders were irked at Disney – and Pixar – because there was no way a movie with a septuagenarian hero, a grumpy widower voiced by Ed Asner, was going to do the kind of box office that previous Pixar titles like Cars and The Incredibles did.

The demographics were all wrong. Kids won't want to see it. Twentysomethings? They’ll stay away in droves. Toys? What toys?

If Up was even a modest success, it wasn't going to do the shareholders any good.

So there's the Box Office Mojo report, and the Variety headline from last week: "Up Figures to See Incredible Sights," with a forecast that not only will Pixar's Up pass The Incredibles in business, it might even get to Finding Nemo numbers - the CG animation studio's top money maker at $340 million. Like its protagonist and his balloon-buoyed domicile, Up continues to ascend.

'I wasn't sure whether I should be offended or gratified by that article," Pete Docter, Up's director and co-writer, said, referring to the Times piece, in an interview a few days before the (yes) mega-hit's release. "Because they sort of went out of they way to say, well, all signs point to this being a really great film, but we have this issue with the marketability. And I guess I can understand that if you've not seen the film.

"When you just pitch it — you know, it's a 78-year-old man who floats his house — you'd say, 'What!?' But our job has always been the same, and it’s very clear: Don’t worry about marketing. We never approach the films from, 'What’s going to appeal to the 8-to-12 year-old-set, blah blah blah.' We just make movies that speak to us as an audience, knowing that we want to reach everybody else. And (Disney chairman) Bob Iger and (Disney-Pixar animation chief John Lassiter have both said, 'Just make great films, that’s your job. And if it happens to work out well with marketing and toys and whatever else, then, great.' But you know if you put the cart before the horse that way, if you try to just sell toys, I think you know where that goes.

"Our job is just to make sure that the audience feels the movie and is entertained by it, and everything else will fall into place.

"You know, even Toy Story, I remember getting a memo from some marketing folks saying we don’t see the marketing potential in this film!.. I think I still have that somewhere."