Bring Your Own Philly, a networking event sponsored by Brolik, a branding and interactive agency here in Philly, has their next meetup scheduled this week. And you’re invited.

The event runs this Wednesday, November 17th, from 5:30 to 8:30pm, with wine and cocktails provided by Palateur Imports and Saint Max. I’m not sure who either of those beverage companies are, but I’m sure they will be perfectly capable of knocking this Geek on his donk. Guests can also look forward to fancy hors d’oeuvres. Nom.

Want to learn more about BYOP? Check out their website. And be sure to scope out Brolik. Hilarious name, fantastic agency.See you there.

Bring Your Own Philly @ Studio Christensen
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010, 5:30pm, $25
333 S. 20th St., Philadelphia PA 19103
www.byopphilly.com

At the next Movie Monday at the Trocadero, your favorite geek blog will be showing one of their favorite films of the year… Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And you should really be there. Really.

In celebration of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World hitting DVD and Blu-ray we are giving you one last chance to check this film out on the big screen and win some great prizes while you’re at it; thanks to Brave New Worlds and Universal Pictures.

How do you win, you ask?

Well dress as your favorite character that’s how! We will be giving away comics and DVDs for those that truly represent, and yes if you were Scott and/or Ramona for Halloween you can totally wear that costume again, we wont hold it against you.

So lets recap, $3 gets you into one of the greatest films of the year. Come before 7pm and get a free beer and bag of popcorn. Don’t forget to dress as your favorite character to win some prizes! See ya there!

Oh, and sorry Knives. The event is 21+.

Special thanks to Ben who did the epic poster art for the event, check his blog out here http://graphitebite.blogspot.com/!

It doesn’t matter what your opinion of M. Night Shyamalan is, because there are a few inescapable facts that you can’t deny about the man: the first being that although The Last Airbender will probably live forever in fan infamy, to his credit he has still made some amazing films like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. Second is, he is one of the greatest directors from our fair city and he is one of the few directors that continue to shoot his films in and around Philadelphia.

One of the most anticipated showings at the Philadelphia Film Festival was the 10th anniversary showing of Unbreakable. I was lucky enough to be on the red carpet and got to ask M. Night a few questions beforehand. Full disclosure? Unbreakable is by far one of my favorite films and a film I feel didn’t get its just due when it was released. I feel if it was released today with the dark and gritty super-hero genre firmly in place, it would have done much better than it did originally.

After we watched Unbreakable we were treated to a rather lengthy Q&A with the director where he spoke about everything from his shooting techniques in Unbreakable, to almost helming one of the Harry Potter films.

Find the entire Q&A after the jump, enjoy.

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TEDxPhilly is hitting the Kimmel Center next Thursday, November 18th, and the crew at Geekadelphia are excited. Specifically our own Nicole Kline, who will be attending and blogging about the event. Unlike the traditional TED talks, according to a release from the organizers, this is an “independently organized TEDx event, an offshoot of the TED Conference and its mission of Ideas Worth Spreading.”

There are some fantastic speakers lined up to chat with the eager audience, with talks that will last no more than 18 minutes. The theme of the conference, Right Here, Right Now, will be explored “through multiple lenses: political, cultural, artistic, technological and economic.” No word as to whether or not they will incorporate the Fatboy Slim music video anywhere. One can only hope. Speakers include:

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Author & poet
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-founder of B Lab
Nic Esposito, Sustainable practices activist
Billie Faircloth, Research director for KieranTimberlake
Tanya Hamilton, Writer/director of Night Catches Us
Simon Hauger of the West Philly Hybrid X Team
Chris Lehmann, Founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy
Evan Malone, Founder of NextFab Studio
Robert J. Moore, Founder & CEO of RJ Metrics
Iyad Obeid, Director of the Neural Instrumentation Laboratory at Temple
Stephen Powers, Artist of A Love Letter for You
Ursula Rucker, Poet & performance artist
Michael Solomonov, Chef & co-owner of Zahav
Zoe Strauss, Executive director of Philadelphia Public Art Project
Stanford Thompson, Director of Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s Tune Up Philly
Dallas Vietty of the Musette Project

You can read all the biographies for each speaker at TEDxPhilly’s official website. Scope that out, here. While the deadline to apply for tickets has long since past, they’ve been releasing tickets on the website. So check back regularly to score a pair.

TEDxPhilly
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
www.TEDxPhilly.org

The creative folks at MakePhilly are only having one meeting this Fall, and they’re looking to make it count.

Interested in product design and design thinking in the context of a startup? I’m looking at you, Technically Philly. Well, the next MakePhilly meeting plans to cover just that, with a special appearance by Peter Bressler. An award winning designer and the former President of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), he’s kind of a big deal. In a “many leather bound books” sort of way.

His talk, entitled Product Design in Entrepreneurial Ventures, will… well, here’s what MakePhilly has to say about it:

Peter Bressler, the founder and leader of the award winning design firm Bresslergroup will be giving a talk entitled Product Design in Entrepreneurial Ventures in which he will explore the following questions: What is the value of design to an entrepreneur? How should an entrepreneur use design? Can an entrepreneur afford design? In the process he will share experiences and case studies from his over 30 years of design experience spanning the consumer, medical, and industrial spaces. Peter’s expertise includes user research, human factors application, manufacturing processes and innovative criteria conflict resolution.

The meeting takes place this Thursday, November 11th, and kicks off at 7pm sharp. And as always, the event is free. Be there!

MakePhilly & Peter Bressler
Thursday, November 11th, 2010 @ 7PM sharp
University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad Street, Terra Hall, 5th Floor
Cost: Free

One of the most talked about films of the Philadelphia Film Festival this year was Srdjan Spasojevic’s already infamous A Serbian Film. It challenged people, I had seen the film once before and halfway through the film 8 people walked out. Plain and simple, this film is an experience in the most extreme kind of way. Because after you see A Serbian Film you are a different person, you can’t un-see what you’ve seen. Don’t take this as a challenge. This film is not for everyone.

I’ve been fascinated with buzz about the film for almost a year, and it lived up to and exceeded my expectations. It does this by committing things to celluloid that are almost unimaginable with polished production values. Like a lot of people I had some questions and luckily I was able to get an interview with the production manager on the film Nikola Pantelic.

He gave me some great insight into the production and the ideas behind the film. Enjoy.

A Serbian Film took the festival circuit by storm. Can you tell me how the film came about, and eventually came together?

The initial idea came from Aleksandar Radivojevic (screenwriter) and Srdjan Spasojevic (director).  They had been writing the script for two years, and presented it to me. I usually like to quote Spasojevic…

“Writer Aleksandar Radivojevic and I almost started from scratch on this one, adamant to make a picture that will express our strongest personal sentiments about our region-the last two decades of war and political nightmare, and the world today-sugarcoated in political correctness, but which was actually very rotten under that facade. We also wanted to make a film that would represent everything we love in terms of genre and our own cinema preferences”

I fully agree with this statement.

What were your first thoughts when you read the script?

I was professionally upset. I faced the screenplay as a challenge.  The main reason for me to work on the project was to have a film that will open many questions. We are living in the world with a lot of boundaries. Some of them are here to disable freedom of speech. I am sure that artistic freedom is priceless.

More after the jump!

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Surprise! The annual Indy Hall & Geekadelphia Halloween bash was a massive success. Folks came out dressed to the nines (some to the Johnny Nines), tasty beverages were consumed, and fabulous prizes were dished out.

I’d like to thank Rob from Tattooed Mom, for (always) being a gracious host, the kind folks at Brave New Worlds for the fantastic prizes, the crazy crew at Indy Hall for again inviting us to join their costumed evening, the CityPaper for highlighting the party, and of course, everyone who came out and made the night special.

Vince Brown, known to the Internets as Attila, was our official photographer for the evening (after I yelled at him to get his camera from his car), and took some great images. Have a look at the Flickr gallery below, and visit Vince’s website.

Hire him or something, because I paid the guy in tater tots Saturday night.

I also may have ate them.

Alright. I wanted to post a nice photo of Jim Fowler on here to go along with this post… but there are just WAY too many Photoshop disasters of the guy floating around Google images. No seriously. Look at this image of him with a tiger cub. That background is killing me.

Anyway.

You can see a non-Photoshopped version of Jim Fowler, one of the world’s best known wildlife conservationists, this Thursday at the Academy of Natural Sciences. You might have seen him on television over the years, since he’s appeared on a number of wildlife programs, late night shows, and served as NBC’s wildlife corresponded for the Today Show.

At the lecture, Jim will talk about his life, conversation, and his work saving endangered species and threatened habitats.

You can register for the free lecture via the Academy of Natural Sciences’ Eventbrite page. Go ahead. Let them know you’re coming.

An Evening with Wildlife Conservationist Jim Fowler
Thursday, November 4
6pm (Reception), 6:30pm (Lecture), Free
jimfowlerwildlife.eventbrite.com

Filmmaker and cinema commentator Mike White will be in town this Wednesday, November 3rd, signing copies of his new book Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection. Swing by Brickbat Books at 7pm to meet the talented writer and film buff.

I first became aware of Mike White when I read about a short film that was circulating on the tape trading circuit. A young director named Quentin Tarantino was just starting to make a name for himself with his heist epic Reservoir Dogs.

Turns out Reservoir Dogs was heavily inspired by a Chow Yun Fat film called City on Fire. Mike documented some of the glaring similarities in his short film called Who Do You Think You’re Fooling and stirred up quite the controversy while Dogs was still doing the festival circuit at the time, showing us what the word “Homage” meant to Tarantino.

Mike is coming to town in support of his book, which is a compilation of his zine (remember those?), which ran from 1994 to 2007 called Cashiers du Cinemart. The book is filled with some amazing essays and articles that every film fan and cinefile needs resting on their bookshelf.

He will be joined by long time contributor Chris Commins, and this looks to be a night any self respecting film fan shouldn’t miss.

A few weeks ago, Geekadelphia gave away tickets to Dorian’s Parlor, a monthly steampunk event held at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Philly. I had been wanting to go for months, but this past October was the first time I actually got a chance to attend. I am now kicking myself for each Dorian’s Parlor that I missed.

Dorian’s Parlor is basically a once-a-month Victorian/steampunk nightclub, with a dash of fandom convention thrown in. The main ballroom has a full stage for the various bands that perform, along with a killer lighting and sound set up from production company Circuit Six. There are snacks, a bar, and tables set up inside, with real candlelight to set the mood.

More after the jump!

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Next Thursday, Dr. Clint Springer, Assistant Professor of Biology at Saint Joseph’s University, is giving an illustrated presentation about global warming at the Wagner Free Institute of Science…

Unfortunately, that adorable global warming ice cream is not part of the presentation, which is entitled Looking Into The Future: Global Climate Change & Ecosystems.

According to the Wagner Free Institute, Springer is “on the forefront of climate change research.” During his lecture, he’ll “discuss the necessary background information for public understanding of the causes of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations as well as the consequences of climate change. He will focus on the impact on forest ecosystems because of their valuable role in the global carbon cycle.”

The lecture kicks off at 5:30pm, next Thursday, November 4th. There will be a Q&A with Springer after the talk. For more info, visit the Wagner’s official website.

Looking Into The Future: Global Climate Change & Ecosystems
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
www.wagnerfreeinstitute.org

Even though, tickets for Tron Night in IMAX 3D this Thursday October 28^th are now gone and simply a fond memory, I have been told by Master Control himself that there will be plenty of room in the stand-by lines for people who haven’t registered for tickets. That’s right, you can catch the 20 minute free sneak preview of Tron: Legacy nonetheless.

Want to take advantage of these open seats? Simply show up.  There should be 2 lines at the event of your choosing, one for those that have tickets and pre-registered and those that don’t.

With all events like this people often book and overbook seats and simply do not bother to come. I remember being in the Avatar preview that was only 3 quarters full just because people didn’t bother to show. So get there early to check out what looks to be one of the biggest films of the winter season.  See ya there!

AMC Cherry Hill

Thursday, October 28

7:00pm

AMC Hamilton

Thursday, October 28

7:00pm

AMC Neshaminy

Thursday, October 28

7:00pm