IOHTE: Michael Guillén

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Michael Guillén is the schoolmaster of the essential blog The Evening Class, and contributes to many other online and print publications.

Perhaps not surprisingly, whenever I return to San Francisco from Boise I am keen for repertory programming over contemporary theatrical releases.  Between Boise's art house cinema The Flicks and the ubiquitous multiplexes, I can catch plenty of the latter; but, there is absolutely no repertory programming in the Gem State's capitol. None. So when I return to the Bay Area, I eschew most press screenings to focus on the Pacific Film Archive, the Roxie Theatre, the Castro Theatre and miscellaneous community-based film festivals to sate my thirst.  Kudos to Brian Darr and Hell on Frisco Bay for celebrating repertory programming in San Francisco and environs.  Never take it for granted.  Take it from one who knows.

Despite mournful complaints to the contrary, the advent of digital projection has afforded opportunity for increased repertory programming, particularly at venues like the Roxie and even an archive like PFA, but nothing starts the year out like the annual Noir City Film Festival and its dedicated emphasis on 35mm film.  In its 12th edition, Noir City offered two rare Latin-American gems.

In the Palm of Your Hand (En la palma de tu mano, 1951)—I first caught Roberto "the Ogre" Gavaldón's lush melodrama at the 2013 Morelia Film Festival during their sidebar tribute to Mexican actor Arturo de Córdova and was delighted that this restored print made an appearance in San Francisco.  I brought several friends to this rare screening, which—as noted by Mexican scholar Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro—showcased not only the work of de Córdova and "the pure style" of Gavaldón, but marked an apex in Latin American film noir and "the immense capabilities" of cinematographer Alex Phillips.

The Black Vampire (El Vampiro Negro, 1953)—Connective tissue fascinates me, not only between mediums, but between films.  Argentine director Román Viñoly Barreto's The Black Vampire, based on Fritz Lang's M, premiered in Argentina in October 1953—the month and year I was born—but didn't arrive on North American shores until January 2014, 61 years later.  Talk about waiting a lifetime to see a film!  No shot-by-shot remake, Barreto stages his own interpretation of this sordid tale of child molestation and murder with moody, lustrous cinematography by Aníbal González Paz.

Screen capture from Sony DVD

T-Men (1947)—Although I've seen Anthony Mann's T-Men several times—introduced to the film by noir historian Alan K. Rode as a representative of the fine work of actor Charles McGraw—I never tire of catching it.  PFA's February 2014 series "Against the Law: The Crime Films of Anthony Mann" afforded the opportunity to watch an archival 35mm print introduced by Mann biographer Max Alvarez, who offered impressive insight into the film and its director.

A Hatful of Rain (1957)—Fred Zinnemann's Hatful was just one of several entries in Donald Malcolm's curated Roxie retrospective profiling the career of Don Murray.  Significant in emphasizing the perhaps over-earnest style of drama peculiar to the time, this study of addiction and its effect upon a young married couple addressed urban concerns with head-on honesty.  Murray acted his ass off here and it was a pleasure to watch.

Boggy Depot (1973)—Yerba Buena Center for the Arts offered a program of five shorts by San Francisco legend Curt McDowell, hosted by his sister Melinda and local film critic Johnny Ray Huston in conjunction with YBCA's seventh edition of Bay Area Now and in collaboration with Margaret Tedesco's [ 2nd floor projects ].  The entire evening was an archival delight; but, Boggy Depot was a laugh-outloud send-up of the musical genre.  Watching George Kuchar not-really-sing was almost more than I could handle.

A Kiss For A Killer (Une manche et la belle, 1957)—Donald Malcolm returned to the Roxie with a curated selection of French noir rarieties ("The French Had A Name For It") that packed the house in unprecedented numbers, proving that there is life after 35mm, and that there's a definite market for titles unavailable elsewhere.  There were several winners in this program—Bardot in La vérité (1960), Édouard Molinaro's docu-drama Witness in the City (Un témoin dans la ville, 1959), the two Robert Hossein vehicles Highway Pickup (Chair de poule, 1963) and Blonde In A White Car (Toi Le Venin, 1958), the coiled ferocity of Daniele Delorme in Deadlier Than the Male (Voici Les Temps Des Assassins, 1956) and the truest Christmas noir ever Le Monte-Charge (1962)—but the king of them all proved to be handsome Henri Vidal in the Gallic amalgam of Sunset Boulevard and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Daughters of Darkness (Les lèvres rouges, 1971)—Euro-horror came to the Castro Theatre with a double-bill of Don't Look Now (1973) and Harry Kümel's bisexual vampire cult favorite with Delphine Seyrig as the sensuous if perverse Countess Bathory.  LGBT film studies have never been the same after this glorification of the "other" as nighttime's hungriest denizen.

Screen capture from Warner DVD

The Curse of the Cat People (1944)—Val Lewton, my favorite producer-auteur, took a title given to him by a poverty row studio and turned it into a classic tale of childhood psychology with the lovely Ann Carter as a melancholy child with an imaginary friend.  I never dreamed I'd get to actually see a 35mm print of this film, and to see Ann's plaintive face in close-up on the Castro's giant screen made for perfect entertainment and a moment of thrilling cinephilia.  Not really noir, of course, but a welcome entry to announce the upcoming program and poster for the 13th edition of Noir City.

The Astrologer (1975)—Nothing in the stars could have possibly predicted that 1975 would see two films entitled The Astrologer released on an unwary cinema public; nor that Craig Denney's film—not to be confused with the James Glickenhaus film—would reappear like a Tarot card from underneath a sleeve to pleasurably befuddle audiences at a one-off screening at Another Hole in the Head.  Mike Keegan deserves a big shout-out for delivering this print to Holehead and treating SF's diehard genre fans to such a whacked-out tale of prognostication: the rise and fall of astrologer-to-the-stars Alexander (Denney), which—as Nicolas Winding Refn stated in his introduction to the film at this year's Fantastic Fest—is a movie "that pushes 'auteurism' to a whole other level."  The film has been described as "wanton megalomania" and an "auto-biopic" and a plot synopsis would only prove more confusing than the film itself, which hacks its way through the editing room with a machete.  Great fun to watch this faded-to-pink piece of delirium with fellow 35mm enthusiasts Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, Jason Wiener, David Wong and Maria Fidel.

IOHTE: Lincoln Spector

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Lincoln Spector is the proprietor of the Bayflicks website, where the original version of this abridged list was first posted.

Screen capture from Criterion DVD

9: Paths of Glory & The Killing 
Pacific Film Archive
Eyes Wide: The Films of StanleyKubrick
DCP  
To my mind, Paths of Glory stands out as Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece. This World War I tale of ruthless generals and the common foot soldiers shows the budding auteur at his best. The film he made just before it, The Killing, is a wonderful little noir; a classic heist thriller with a complex plan that goes horribly (and entertainingly) wrong.  The DCPs, supplied by Park Circus, looked great. Whoever supervised the digital mastering respected the film look and the grain structure. They kept the original mono soundtracks, without trying to convert them to 5.1

8: Too Late For Tears & The Hitch-Hiker
Castro
Noir City
35mm
Lizabeth Scott plays that paragon of mid-century American virtue, the housewife, in Too Late for Tears, but she plays her as a femme fatal-. Willing to do anything to hold onto an illegal fortune, she proves herself smarter and meaner than everyone else as she sinks into depravity and murder. The Hitch-Hiker is a quick, efficient thriller that’s simple, suspenseful, and based on a true story. Two men on a fishing vacation pick up a hitchhiker, who turns out to be a psychotic killer wanted by the police.  Both films were shown in recently restored 35mm prints. Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation explained the problems in restoring Too Late for Tears, which admittedly suffered from uneven image quality. Shy of an expensive digital restoration, it’s not likely to look any better. 

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7: Duck Soup
Pacific Film Archive  
Funny Ha-Ha: American Comedy, 1930–1959
35mm
The Marx Brothers at their purest and most perfect. What makes it so pure and perfect? First, it’s comedy stripped to the bone; there’s scarcely a minute without at least one good laugh. Second, the Brothers were always at their best when up against the stuffy, respectable protectors of the status quo, and the richest strain of that gold can be found in the halls of government. As the absolute ruler of Freedonia, Groucho Marx encourages graft, refuses to take anything seriously, and starts a war on a whim.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Duck Soup, but the day before this screening, it had been at least 30 years since I’d seen it theatrically. Watching this great comedy in a theater, with an enthusiastic audience, made it come back to life again. Over the years, I’d forgotten that even the name Rufus T. Firefly gets a laugh. 

6: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 
Lark
Mill Valley FilmFestival
4K DCP  
Here’s an epic, sardonic, semi-comic western quest motivated purely by greed. Three violent and deadly criminals set out to recover $200,000 in stolen gold. None of them knows exactly where the loot is hidden, but individually each has a piece of the puzzle. They constantly change allegiances, sometimes collaborating with and then double-crossing each other. Meanwhile, the Civil War rages all around them.  MGM recently gave this classic a new, 4K restoration, which included the original mono soundtrack. it was a great presentation, showing the deep colors and heavy grain expected in a Techniscope production of the 1960s. Unless there’s an archival dye-transfer print from the original release somewhere, this is as good as the picture can get. A great audience as well, and my first visit to the Lark. 

Screen capture from Music Box DVD of The Story of Film

5: The Best Years of Our Lives 
Castro
DCP
There’s no better movie for Veteran’s Day. A huge commercial hit and the Best Picture Oscar winner for 1946, it’s now all but forgotten. That’s too bad, because Best Years is not only an excellent film, it also deals with an issue that’s unfortunately still with us–integrating war veterans back into civilian life.  This was my first chance seeing Best Years theatrically, and it was worth it. Before the film started, the Castro entertained us with a slideshow of coming attractions and music appropriate to the immediate postwar period. Then came the organ concert, followed by The Best Years of Our Lives. The digital transfer was mostly excellent, although a few scenes had clearly come from low-quality sources. 

4: Another Fine Mess: Silent Laurel and Hardy Shorts
Castro
San Francisco Silent Film Festival‘s Silent Autumn
35mm, with live music   
Laurel and Hardy’s onscreen personas were probably the dumbest reoccurring characters in the history of cinema. Stan appears incapable of having a thought or remembering an instruction. But Stan at least knows he’s dumb; Oli considers himself smart. Their comedy is extremely violent, but the slow, methodical, and absurd nature of that violence makes it enduring. The festival screened three of their two-reel silents–Should Married Men Go Home?, Two Tars, and Big Business. All three were extremely vengeful and destructive–and extremely funny.  Donald Sosin accompanied these shorts on a grand piano. All three films opened with the MGM lion, and Sosin managed to recreate the roar musically. His lively music also  helped keep the laughs coming. The Festival screened archival prints from the Library of Congress and the UCLA Film Archive. Aside from some bad titles in Should Married Men Go Home?, they looked excellent. 

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3: Die Hard
Castro
DCP
What makes a great action movie? A strong plot, a likeable and sympathetic hero, a fun but scary villain, great fights, and the willingness to spend nearly half an hour on character development before the first violent act. NYC policeman John McClane (Bruce Willis) arrives in LA hoping to reconcile with his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia). She’s a rising executive; he’s a working-class cop. Then a dozen well-armed bad guys take over the building, kill a few people, then hold everyone hostage.  Die Hard was originally released in 70mm, but up until a couple of weeks ago, I had only seen it on Laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-ray. But between the big screen, the powerful sound system, the excellent DCP transfer, and the enthusiastic audience, it was a whole new experience. I used to give Die Hard an A. Now I give it an A+. 

2: The Big Lebowski
Pacific Film Archive  
Rude Awakening: American Comedy, 1990–2010
DCP
As with Die Hard, I had never seen the Coen Brothers’ cult hit theatrically before 2014. But unlike Die Hard, I had never really appreciated it before. This comedy really needed the theatrical experience to come alive. Imagine a Raymond Chandler story where Philip Marlowe has been replaced with a happily unemployed, perpetually stoned, thoroughly inept slacker who calls himself "the Dude" (Jeff Bridges). Behind the laughs, you can find a thin, barely grasped sense of Zen–as if you could throw yourself to the universe and everything will come out okay…unless it doesn’t.  The well-packed audience made the film special, allowing me to discover that a film I thought was pretty good was actually pretty great. But the presentation had a very big flaw: an over-processed DCP. It looked like video, with film grain removed and everything smoothed over. Considering the quality of this transfer, I would rather have seen this movie in 35mm. 

Screen capture from Warner DVD.

1: The Gold Rush
Castro
San Francisco Silent Film Festival‘s The Little Tramp at 100
DCP, with live music
In this epic comic adventure, Chaplin’s tramp travels through the frozen Yukon of the Alaskan gold rush, gets marooned in a cabin with two much larger men, nearly starves to death, nearly gets eaten, and falls in love with a dancehall girl who scarcely knows he’s alive. This seemingly serious story contains some of Chaplin’s funniest set pieces, including the Thanksgiving dinner of boiled shoe, the dance of the rolls, and my favorite–the fight over a rifle that always points at Chaplin. It’s not my favorite Chaplin feature–that would be City Lights, but it’s a close second.  This was unquestionably the best screening of The Gold Rush I’ve ever experienced. The digital image quality was uneven, but most of it looked very good, and none of it looked dreadful. Timothy Brock conducted the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in his adaptation of Chaplin’s score, adding some wonderful musically-created effects. And the large, enthusiastic audience made it even better.

IOHTE: Terri Saul

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Terri Saul is a visual artist and writer; she sometimes comments on new films on Letterboxd.

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1.   A Touch of Sin (China, 2013), Jia Zhangke, Saturday, March 22nd, 2014, 8:15pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA, screened as part of the “A Theater Near You” series.

A Touch of Sin is a well-choreographed chain of reenacted current events exposing, through martial dramatization, the everyday violence of life and livelihood in pockets of contemporary China.

2.    The Adversary (India, 1970), Satyajit Ray, Sunday, March 30th, 2014, 5:15pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA, was one of the films in the “The Brilliance of Satyajit Ray” set.

More political than the other Rays I’ve seen, the Adversary reveals the small-scale warfare of everyday joblessness and revolutionary politics in the chaos of late 60s Calcutta. Literal heat inflames heated brawls and renders nightmarish hallucinations, via pitta in the chitta.

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3.    Photographic Memory (US, 2011), Ross McElwee, Tuesday, April 1st, 2014, 7pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA, was part of the “Ross McElwee and the Cambridge Turn” series.

This documentary touches, too, on the 60s and exists in the no man’s land between memorabilia, conversations, uniquely narrated musings, research, interviews, and observation. Photographic Memory travels between modern-day Cambridge and Brittany, France, then and now. A game of catch-me-if-you-can intergenerational grasping and sporting youthful play develops bit-by-bit between a father and his son. Not finding his son, he looks for himself; the son, avoiding his father in order to find himself, searches for entries and exits to and from the peering lens of his father’s world. The son and father both employ ever-more daring techniques to capture the kind of attention they both want, maybe not so much from each other, but perhaps from those outside familial bounds. McElwee has an unforgettable narrative voice-over style I find simultaneously charming and invasive.

4.    The Grapes of Wrath (US 1940), John Ford, Wednesday, June 18th, 2014, 7pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA. This show was a celebration of the restored 75th anniversary print with and introduction by Susan Shillinglaw in conversation with Gary Brechin and Harvey Smith.

New Deal preservation, related projects, and Stenibeck Studies enhanced the audience’s experience. I, for one, had never seen The Grapes of Wrath on a big screen. For a poverty-conscious Californian with Okie roots, things got pretty vérité. Look under the freeway overpass near the Albany Bulb, here in the Bay Area, for the next chapter.

Screen capture from Polart DVD

5.    Night Train (Poland 1959), Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Sunday, July 6th, 2014, 5pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA, was part of “Martin Scorsese Presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema,” a digitally restored print.

Opening in the Polish city of Łódź, this cool train mystery unspools like a 35mm film print, each secondary compartment squeezed in its own intangible rectangle rushing past until the film reel jumps its platter and hurls itself into a field with the force of a heavy truckload of film stock come unbalanced in the projection booth.

6.    A Geisha (Japan 1953), Kenji Mizoguchi, Friday, July 25th, 2014, 7pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA. This, and the other Mizoguchis on my list, were presented as part of “Kenji Mizoguchi: A Cinema of Totality."

Are there some seeds of feminism in Mizoguchi’s version of a postwar floating world? Young women’s rights and their obstructions begin to emerge in this film about the bonds of apprenticeship, money lending, servitude, trickery, and the haunted beauty of Kyoto in the 50s. Some would call it melodrama, but the film’s theatricality and overtly political subject matter is quietly observed by Mizoguchi in his standoffish style.

7.    Office Space (US, 1999), Mike Judge, Friday, July 25th, 2014, 8:45pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA. Part of the series “Rude Awakening: American Comedy, 1990–2010”

Where it all started and where many of us ended up.

Screen capture from Masters of Cinema DVD

8.    Crucified Lovers: A Story from Chikamatsu (Japan, 1954), Wednesday, July 30th, 2014, 7pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA.

A whirlwind, sometimes slapstick, mistaken-identity tale, like a lover’s version of the “who’s on first” routine, but this time it’s “who’s crucified first?” Mizoguchi’s adaptation is based on a 17th-century story that has come a long way from its puppet-play roots. It now has a 50’s era film noir vibe but it maintains the feeling of a morally complicated folktale on parade in the stage of the streets. The spoiler of a title doesn’t ruin the story’s arc.

9.    The Taira Clan Saga (Japan 1955), Kenji Mizoguchi, Thursday, August 14th, 2014, 7pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA.

A dance of underfunded samurai and selfish monastics, a Mizoguchi in color—what could be more perfect? This film is like story candy. It leaves me not quite satiated, and with a noisy, guilt-inducing wrapper in my pocket that, for some reason, I keep as a memento of a night when I ate dessert first.

Screen capture from Warner DVD

10.  East of Eden, Elia Kazan (US, 1955), Friday, September 5th, 2014, 8:50pm, at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA. A part of “James Dean, Restored Classics from Warner Bros.”

Here comes James Dean, not the way he looked on the family TV, but digitally restored, in CinemaScope, and larger than life. East of Eden was a gritty follow-up to the earlier lesson in Steinbeck Studies after the Grapes of Wrath screening and discussion of Weedpatch Camp in Bakersfield, last June. East of Eden there’s more dirt and less dust, this time in Salinas.

IOHTE: Ben Armington

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Ben Armington self-describes as "Box Cubed Box Office guy for many Bay Area Film Festivals; watcher of movies"

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1.    The Shanghai Gesture (Castro, Noir City)

A humid colonial melodrama with a very noir heart, oozing erotic obsession and creeping hysteria from it’s every plothole.  My favorite from a fun line up of international films at Eddie Mueller’s great Noir City film festival.  Legend has it that sultan of cinematic sultriness Josef Von Sternberg directed most of this hallucination while lying on his back on a cot (he was sick, the story goes).

2.    Je t’aime, Je t’aime (Castro)

 Alain Resnais’ death-haunted sci-fi head trip up, down, around memory lane is strongly reminiscent of his sometime collaborator Chris Marker’s masterpiece La Jetee, but has a heartbreaking sense of despondency all it’s own embedded in it’s flawless montage.  Featuring the weirdest time machine ever to grace the big screen.

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3.    Goodbye South, Goodbye (PFA, HHH retro)

All seven films I saw at the travelling retrospective of director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s work that landed at the PFA towards the end of the year were worthy, even revelatory, experiences, but Goodbye South, Goodbye was the one I plugged into the most so it’s getting the shout here.  Something about the hard-luck inertia the characters are mulishly wading through combined with images of fleeting, exhilarating motion rang very true, very affecting.  Here’s hoping that Hou finishes his new film soon!

4.    The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (Roxie, I Wake Up Dreaming)

A nifty, fleet-footed gangster saga with a pretty grim view of what we’ll call the success ethic.  Directed by Budd Boetticher with the same lean and mean precision that can be found in his celebrated Ranown cycle of westerns and co-starring Warren Oates as the sickly brother.

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5.    Don’t Look Now/Daughters of Darkness (Castro)

Diabolical, super-stylish double feature of films often classified as horror but which strike me more as gothics, in the sense that they are about past traumas haunting the present and repressed sexual tensions bubbling up screaming to the surface more than the wheezy hack and slash dynamics often associated with the horror genre... anyways, I love them both and was thrilled to see them on the big screen at the Castro.

   

6.    Ora, Plata, Mata (YBCA, Filipino Film Festival)

A rip-roaring historical epic in the Gone With the Wind mode following two upper-middle class families’ travails through the strife of the Second World War in the Philippines.  I went to this one mainly because friends were going only to be helplessly sucked into it’s entertaining embrace.

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7.    Popeye (Castro, M4M)

I wouldn’t want to make a case for the subversiveness of this oft unfunny major studio release from noodly autuer Robert Altman, but I do find it’s ornery bizarreness captivating, and enjoy Altman’s anarchic refusal to focus on  plot points in favor of letting the rhubarbing cast squawk at each other.  It was very poignant to watch Robin Williams mumble his way through the lead role with characteristic good nature and grace.  This was his film debut.  With songs by Harry Nilsson.

8.    Side Street/Une Femme Marie (PFA)

A seemingly random double feature of less-heralded films by filmmakers I compulsively return to (Anthony Mann and Jean-Luc Godard) that seemed to speak to each other in subliminal and nigh subterranean ways.

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9.    The Long Riders (Castro)

I’m a big fan of westerns and director Walter Hill, so this one pretty much had me from the opening credits.  A re-telling of the familiar James/Younger gang myth colored in with the stunt casting of real-life brothers as brothers in the narrative (the brothers Keach,  Carradine, Quaid and Guest all saddle up), the film really comes alive in it’s interstitial dialogue with other westerns (most plainly The Wild Bunch) and in Hill’s dynamic staging of the breathtaking and bloody action scenes. 

10.  The Violent Men/40 Guns (Stanford)

More westerns!  The fun of this double bill was how, even though both films are in the same genre and thus speak the same language, they were completely different in execution.  Rudolph Mate’s The Violent Men is like a smooth ride in a stately carriage, comfortable and serene, whereas Sam Fuller’s 40 Guns is like jumping on a careening roller coaster and realizing that the brake man is passed out drunk.  You arrive at the same place, basically, with both films, but the difference in delivery is illuminating.  Also, it was a high point in my cinematic year watching Barbara Stanwyck spit out Fuller’s rapid fire dialogue.

IOHTE: Margarita Landazuri

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Margarita Landazuri writes for Turner Classic Movies, International Documentary, and other outlets.

screen capture from Le Video rental DVD

I loved the Roxie's French Noir festival, and unfortunately was not able to see as many films as I would have liked, because most of the programs sold out quickly. I did make it to the streeetwalkers double bill of Dede d'Anvers and Love is My Profession, and enjoyed the contrast between Simone Signoret's womanly poule, and Brigitte Bardot's sex kitten. After seeing Signoret, world-weary and wounded in the foggy waterfront shadows in the former, Bardot seemed boringly pouty and petulant in the latter. However, the always-watchable Jean Gabin as the middle-aged lawyer ensnared by Bardot made that film worthwhile.

As usual, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival's four-day summer program offered an embarrassment of riches. My favorite was also the most surprising: Yasujiro Ozu's Dragnet Girl, a 1933 gangster film with deliriously kinetic camera moves from the master of static camera and quiet family dramas and comedies. Another discovery for me was French comedian/auteur Max Linder, whom I'd heard of but never seen. Seven Years of Bad Luck showed why Linder's genius for physical comedy influenced comics as diverse as Chaplin (who called himself Linder's "disciple") to possibly Lucille Ball -- Ball's "I Love Lucy" mirror routine with Harpo Marx is uncannily similar to Linder's in the film.

At the Silent Film Festival's one-day Autumn event, the standout for me was the restored Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with Donald Sosin's superb synthesizer accompaniment. The clarity and the detail of the images, and the expressionist-style intertitles are impressive. As Michael Atkinson wrote in his program notes, it's almost like seeing a brand-new film.  

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I really enjoyed the Don Murray retrospective at the the Roxie last summer. The two double bills I saw demonstrated the range of this vastly underrated and overlooked actor. He played a drug-addicted veteran in A Hatful of Rain, a restless, married office worker in The Bachelor Party, a tortured gay senator and blackmail victim in Advise and Consent, and a boisterous cowboy opposite Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop. Now in his 80s, Murray attended the screenings and spoke thoughtfully and insightfully about his career.

IOHTE: Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Jesse Hawthorne Ficks is the Film History Coordinator at the Academy of Art University and curates/hosts the MiDNiTES FOR MANiACS series at the Castro Movie Theatre, which showcases underrated, overlooked and dismissed films in a neo-sincere manner.

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10. The Astrologer (Craig Denney, 1975) The only 35mm print in existence @ The New People Cinema part of "Another Hole in the Head" Film Festival. If only audiences would have allowed the film to work its magic before they started making fun of it. There really is something quite daring and motivated by Denney's descent here.

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9.My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964) 
One of the most beautiful 171 minutes (11 reels) projected from an anamorphic 2.35:1 IB Technicolor 35mm print ever experienced @ The Castro Theatre

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8. A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989) Perhaps the last time this 35mm will screen in the US, @ Pacific Film Archive

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7. People's Park (Libbie Dina Cohn, J.P. Sniadecki, 2012) Part of Harvard's ongoing experimental documentary film program "Sensory Ethnography Lab" @ The Black Hole (in Oakland)

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6. "Off the Screen: Let Your Light Shine with Jodie Mack" IN PERSON! Watching five beautiful 16mm prints of Mack's masterful collages was utterly inspiring including: New Fancy Foils (2013), Undertone Overture (2013), Dusty Stacks of Mom: The Poster Project (2013), Glistening Thrills (2013), Let Your Light Shine (2013) @ The Exploratorium in Pier 15.

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5. The Violent Men (Rudolph Maté, 1955) and Forty Guns (Samuel Fuller, 1957) Made on either side of John Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, these two melodrama westerns not only showcased one of my favorite actresses Barbara Stanwyck, the films themselves are now firmly two of my favorite westerns of all time. Screened @ The Stanford Theater.

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4.Two Seconds (Mervyn Le Roy, 1932) Film Noir connoisseur Elliot Lavine gave me an historical beating with this "proto-noir", "pre-code" performance by Edward G. Robinson. Truly left me gasping for air. Screened @ The Roxie Movie Theater part of "I Wake Up Dreaming 2014" series.

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3. Chan Is Missing (Wayne Wang, 1982) As soon as this deeply moving 16mm print ended, I went home and watched it again. Joe and Steve's relationship is truly priceless as are all of the San Francisco insights, which still relate to the city to this day. Screened @ The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts part of Joel Sheperd's "LEST WE FORGET: Remembering Radical San Francisco" film series

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2.Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Anderson, 2003) Life changing restored documentary. Sent me spiraling into all sorts of films made in Los Angeles from the "L.A. Rebellion movement" to Gregory Nava's El Norte (Guatemala/Mexico/US, 1983). Watch at any cost. Screened @ The Castro Movie Theatre

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1. Park Row (Sam Fuller, 1952), A Fuller Life (Samantha Fuller, 2013) and Pickup on South Street (Sam Fuller, 1953) Planned on only watching the rare 35mm print of Park Row but ended up staying for the whole mind blowing Triple Bill. Seek out his daughter's documentary. It is beautifully structured by stars reading huge passages from his book. Favorites included Tim Roth, Jennifer Beals, Joe Dante, Bill Duke, James Franco, William Friedkin, Mark Hamill and Buck Henry! While my mother fell in love with Richard Widmark during Pickup on South Street, I fell just as hard for Thelma Ritter as Moe which truly has to be one of the most amazing characters in film history. Screened @ The Castro Movie Theatre (Note the gust of wind that embraced my mother when taking the photo. We're pretty sure that it was Mr. Widmark himself.)

IOHTE: Michael Hawley

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Michael Hawley blogs at his own site film-415.

Ten Favorite 2014 Bay Area Revival Screenings

Screen capture from Kino DVD

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany, 1920, director Robert Wiene), Castro Theatre, San Francisco Silent Film Festival's Silent Autumn, U.S. premiere of a mind-blowing 4K digital restoration)

Noir City oriental-ist triple bill of Singapore (1947, director John Brahm), Macao (1952, director Josef von Sternberg) and The Shanghai Gesture (1941, director Josef von Sternberg), Castro Theatre, Noir City

Queen Margot: The Director's Cut (France, director Patrice Chéreau), Kabuki Sundance Cinema, San Francisco International Film Festival

Curt McDowell double bill of Taboo: The Single and the LP (1980) and Sparkle's Tavern (1985), Roxie Theatre, with Melinda McDowell in person)

Son of the Sheik (1926, director George Fitzmaurice), Castro Theatre, San Francisco Silent Film Festival's Silent Autumn, world premiere of new score by The Alloy Orchestra

Julien Duvivier double bill of Highway Pickup (France, 1963) and Deadlier Than the Male (France, 1963) at the Roxie Theatre, "The French Had a Name For It" French film noir series 

IOHTE: Lucy Laird

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Lucy Laird is the new Operations Director of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
 
My two eyes were removed in a painful procedure three years ago, but I'm happy to report that they began regenerating in 2014. My doctors predict a full recovery in 15 years' time—i.e., when my daughter turns 18. So forgive me when I list nearly every repertory screening that I attended this past year. And with that caveat, here they are, in chronological order:

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Sunday, July 20, 2014: Lotte Reiniger's Mary's Birthday at the Pacific Film Archive Little did I realize that this would be my last chance to savor the curatorial finesse of Steve Seid at the PFA—now retired from his position there, but, I hope, not from film programming—with the "cheat" addition of this Reiniger short within a series devoted to adaptations of children's picture books. Bonus: The whole family could attend! There is nothing more delightful than a theater full of little kids in good moods, exclaiming at the onscreen wonders of their favorite books and artists come to life. (And no, that certain Disney film with two princesses that shall not be named doesn't count!) And even more delightful is a certain two-and-a-half-year-old proclaiming over the following weeks and months: "That movie with the flies is my favorite movie!" You can see why here.

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Saturday, September 20, 2014: Laurel and Hardy in Two Tars at the Castro Theatre, as part of the Silent Film Festival's Silent Autumn Event Full disclosure: I was working this event and therefore wasn't able to watch the full program of three L&H shorts (the other two were Should Married Men Go Home? and Big Business), but I did manage to duck in and enjoy the gumball machine and traffic jam scenes in Two Tars. (And yes, this was another screening that a toddler could attend, shushing seniors be darned!) But having grown up watching Stan and Ollie's sound films on television, I couldn't believe that I was finally able to watch them on the big screen. Could the traffic jam scene be the first cinematic treatment of road rage? I don't know, but I am pleased to report that in my daughter's wise judgment, "Mama's work movie" slapsticked its way to the #1 spot on her list, knocking out Reiniger's "fly movie."

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Thursday, November 20, 2014: Leo Esakya's Amerikanka at the Pacific Film Archive The Georgian cinema series runs for a few more months, through Spring 2015. Go. And be sure to see all the silents you can. The one I've listed here, Amerikanka, is a mesmerizing, rhythmic, tension-filled ode to an underground printing press of the revolutionary period. "Amerikanka" or "American Lady"—as explained by Peter Bagrov of Gosfilmofond, who was there to introduce the screening—probably refers to the make of the printing press itself. And print is what dominates this film, from the montage of satirical personal ads at the start ("Light armour, resistant to any revolver, for sale. Tested...Good-looking count in his 30s wishes to meet a rich lady with a view to marriage.") to the revolutionary pamphlets streaming off the press, to the notes and maps of the soil analyst trying to uncover the rebel print factory, to the letter dictated by an unseen Lenin to the typist's clacking keys. It was exhilarating and exhausting for this American lady, as I read the translation of the fast-paced text and intertitles to the audience over a microphone. One of my friends in attendance likened my performance to that of a bid caller at an auction. Oof! Sorry about that, comrades.  (Picture for this blurb: Google Street View of the underground printing press—with a fruit wholesaling business as a front—still in existence today as a museum at 55 Lesnaya St, Moscow.)

IOHTE: Veronika Ferdman

"IOHTE" stands for "I Only Have Two Eyes"; it's my annual survey of selected San Francisco Bay Area cinephiles' favorite in-the-cinema screenings of classic films and archival oddities from the past year. An index of participants can be found here.

Contributor Veronika Ferdman wrote in 2014 for Slant Magazine, In Review Online and elsewhere.

That nine of the ten films on this list are ones that were viewed at the Stanford Theatre is a two-fold reflection of the incredible (miraculous) programming that occurs there and the fact that living in the South Bay also makes this one of my few "local" rep theatres.

A strong part of me wants to create an alternate ballot of an imaginary top 10 of the best rep films I would have seen if distances were shorter and I was better at managing time. Surely, many of the Hou Hsiao-hsien and Georgian films played by the PFA would be there, as would the Castro's screening of Chelsea Girls, and the William Lustig Maniac Cop trilogy shown by the YBCA, and, oh, so many others.

Screen capture from The Story of Film DVD, Music Box Films

But, to leave the imaginary ideal and get back to the films seen in the physical world..

The last rep film I saw in 2014 was Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner, which had the simultaneous and divergent effect of making me want to run out of the theater and have ecsatic conversations with people on the street while also pulling me back into the darkness ever-desirous of more images. The best pieces of cinema have that effect - pushing us into the real world with a new way of viewing or approaching it while also joyously propelling us back into the fold of images and sounds.

My Top 10:

screen capture from Warner DVD

1.) The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (Stanford Theatre)

2.) The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Stanford Theatre)

3.) Clash by Night (Stanford Theatre)

4.) Night Nurse (Stanford Theatre)

5.) Underground (Castro Theatre)

6.) Jeopardy (Stanford Theatre)

7.) There's Always Tomorrow (Stanford Theatre)

8.) Remember the Night (Stanford Theatre)

9.) The Reluctant Debutante (Stanford Theatre)

10.) The Shop Around the Corner (Stanford Theatre)