The Realist (2013)

WHO: Scott Stark. I wrote about another of his films, Speechless, earlier this week. 

WHAT:  Michael Sicinski has already written an excellent, thought-provoking analysis of Stark's new experimental mannequin melodrama The Realist on the eve of its world premiere. Let me extract an excerpt:

through Stark’s manipulations, the mannequins command our attention. They shimmy, seduce; they seem to march in unison, as if preparing to mobilize in some sort of capitalist-couture guerrilla faction; they gaze as us like kitsch statuary.

A very good description. Sicinski also points out that Stark's juxtapositions "disguise the anteriority between and among shots within a single scene". Indeed. Previewing a not-quite-finalized version of The Realist on DVD the other day, it was remarkable to me how this work retains a sense of created "cinematic time" i.e. an illusory feeling of narrative progression as scenes and sections move forward, against all reasonable odds. Stark employs a method of transforming stereoscopic imagery into two dimensions by jumping back and forth between what each eye would individually see, a method I jokingly referred to as the "Ken Jacobs effect" before I realized other filmmakers such as Stark have employed it as well (then again, perhaps the joke holds, as anyone who has seen the right 1950s National Film Board of Canada documentaries knows Ken Burns didn't invent panning and zooming photographs). Though most films are not edited in-camera or even shot in sequence, most do not bear signs that they at least theoretically couldn't be. The Realist literally makes a cut with every frame. Thanks to its generous use of cross-fading techniques, one could say it makes a minimum of one cut per frame in fact. But the rapid alternation between two or more perspectives somehow assimilates in the brain much like a single shot might.

I would also like to mention that the sense of narrative and "melodrama" in The Realist is greatly aided by Stark's musical selection, a work by composer Daniel Goode, a former student of Henry Cowell's. His propulsive, post-minimalist piece from 1988 Tunnel-Funnel sets a very agreeable rhythm for Stark's editing. I'd love to see a small ensemble (the piece was written for a group of thirteen flutes, trombones, string players plus a pianist and a percussionist) take on a live performance to accompany Stark's images someday.

WHERE/WHEN: Screens 5:30 this afternoon at the Victoria Theatre.

WHAT: This screening of The Realist is the centerpiece of a program of Stark's recent work presented by the Crossroads Film Festival which ends today. Because it's a piece with an entirely musical soundtrack, it ought to completely sidestep the sound clarity problems that can trouble screenings of dialogue-dependent films and videos at the Victoria Theatre. I always wish the theatre might channel some of its rentals from film festivals (in addition to Crossroads, the SF Underground Short Film Festival, which happens next weekend, and Frameline are among the more established festivals regularly using the venue) into making improvements to the sound system. Luckily few Crossroads films and performances involve much dialogue at all.

I finally really appreciated why Cinematheque likes to use the space last night during the projector performance piece Tejido Conectivo presented by the Spanish duo Crater. What began as a diverting single-, dual- and triple-projected presentation of birth, backyard & travel home movies running against an electronic musique concrète soundtrack opened out into a glorious display of illusionism, seemingly the entirety of the human condition spilling off the screen and onto the cavernous white walls via no fewer than seven 16mm and super-8 projectors. I expect The Realist to have no less epic an impact in that space.  

HOW: Made and screened via digital video.

The Master (2012)

WHO: Joaquin Phoenix deserved every accolade he got for his performance as Freddie in this film, in my opinion.

WHAT: The Master is a film that, in the words of my friend Ryland Walker Knight, is "practically all interiors, mimicking the space of the characters, and mapping it yet closer by living in the close up." This visual scheme makes it all the more audacious that its director Paul Thomas Anderson decided to film it in the large-format Panavision System 65 and to release it in 70mm to certain theatres, a treatment traditionally reserved for outdoor-oriented epics like Lawrence of Arabia or Cheyenne Autumn, and not tried since Kenneth Branagh's 1996 version of Hamlet. Anderson's camera goes about as far as physically possible to penetrate his characters' expressions in the highest practical resolution, as if to demonstrate the sensory limits to detecting the real motivations and computations of a complex human being. Apropos for a film about minds and their meetings, for all of these close-ups we never really get more than hints at what's really going on inside Freddie's or Lancaster's or Peggy's heads. 

WHERE/WHEN: Screens tonight and tomorrow at 8:00 at the Castro Theatre, with additional showings tomorrow at 2:00 and 5:00.

WHY: When I placed The Master at #4 on my list of top 10 films of 2012, published at Fandor, it was really a provisional ranking based on having seen the film only once. I missed the Castro's advance benefit screening of the film in August, and was only able to make it over to the gorgeous Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland to see it projected in 70mm once. I had little interest in seeing it projected digitally or even in 35mm knowing that a 70mm print was surely destined to show at the Castro at some point relatively soon. Now soon is now. I'm psyched to finally see The Master again and on a screen even bigger than the Grand Lake's.

HOW: In 70mm.

Memories To Light (2013)

WHO: Mark Decena (director of Dopamine among other films) has edited together home movies for the closing night presentation for this final evening of CAAMFest.

WHAT: I must admit I'm a bit unclear on some of the specifics here. I know that Decena has edited a film from his own family's home movie footage which is entitled The War Inside, as he talked about it on KALW radio earlier this week; the seven-minute interview can be heard here. 

But the Center for Asian American Media is also using tonight's event to launch a project they're calling Memories To Light, which intends to collect home movies from all over the United States for digitization and potential presentation. The rationale for this is best described on the still-under-construction website: 

Since the mainstream media has given us so few authentic images of the Asian American experience, home videos become the most real way to see how our grandparents, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles lived their lives.

A more worthwhile and interesting initiative is hard to imagine; home movies can tell us so much that they weren't necessarily intending to communicate across time when they were filmed; not just about culture but about geography, ecology, fashion, and even the evolving relationship ordinary people have had with the camera over the decades. Although this project is Asian-American specific and I'm about as Anglo as they come, I'm tempted to dig back into my parents' reels of home movie footage to see if there are images of me playing with the many Asian-American friends I made growing up in the diverse Richmond District of San Francisco, that might be of use to CAAM.

I'm under the impression that CAAM already has collected quite a bit of home movie footage aside from Decena's, and that he may have been responsible for the editing of this other footage together for tonight's presentation as well as his own. Perhaps this compilation should be thought of as a film entitled Memories To Light, like the CAAM initiative. Those with tickets to tonight's event will soon be able to untangle all of this and report back; unfortunately I won't be able to attend myself.

WHERE/WHEN: Screens at New People tonight only at 5:00 PM. Advance tickets are all sold but there may be "Rush" tickets available for attendees willing to wait in line at the venue about an hour beforehand.

WHY: The festival program gives special thanks to archivists Rick Prelinger and Antonella Bonfanti, both of whom I've become friends with over the past year or two, but that shouldn't make me, them, or you feel awkward when I decide to highlight their excellent work here on this blog. Bonfanti is interviewed about her role in digitizing home movies used in tonight's presentation in the organization's brief promotional video, which also features CAAM executive director Stephen Gong speaking about the project. 

Prelinger is Frisco Bay's, and perhaps even the country's, leading advocate for increased prominence of home movies in cinemas and in our conversations about moving images. He annually puts together the extraordinarily popular Lost Landscapes of San Francisco events at the Castro Theatre, and his passion for home movies is perhaps most succinctly and eloquently expressed in words in this Open Space blog post from last year. I'm very excited that on May 5th the San Francisco International Film Festival will host the hometown premiere of his brand-new film No More Road Trips? also at the Castro. This film (which I've seen a brief but powerful excerpt from) is compiled from home movie footage and intended to spark a dialogue about the connections between the car culture of the past century and that of today, whether it's sustainable into the future, and if not, what that means.  Preferably this conversation will be carried out during the screening itself among the audience, as like his Lost Landscapes shows, he has designed the presentation to be an interactive one for an audience encouraged to provide a kind of crowd-sourced benshi soundtrack of comments, questions, and other verbal expressions.

HOW: Memories To Light will be a digital presentation with live "performance controlled" music by Davin Agatep. I'm not sure if the audience will be encouraged to interject during this screening like they are at Prelinger's, but I'm sure they'll be told one way or another beforehand.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

WHO: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

WHAT: A little over two years ago, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives played a brief run in Frisco Bay cinemas, and I was interviewed by Sara Vizcarrando for an episode of her much-missed show "Look Of The Week". You can hear what I had to say by viewing this (my segment begins shortly after the five minute mark), but here's a brief transcribed excerpt:

[Apichatpong is] really exploring veils. There's the veil between life and death, of course. All these ghosts coming back. And then there's the veil, which he's always been interested in in his films, the veil between cinema and reality...  

WHERE/WHEN: Screens at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive tonight only at 7:00 PM.

WHY: As pleased as I was that CAAMFest chose to bring Apichatpong's Mekong Hotel to the festival this year, I realize this pleasure comes as a loyal fan of the Thai director, interested in following him on any artistic journeys he decides to take. But Mekong Hotel is not a particularly good introduction to Apichatpong's oeuvre, or even as satisfying an experience for a confirmed fan; it's formally stripped-down and not nearly as aesthetically luxurious as a film like Uncle Boonmee. Watching it at the PFA Saturday was a treat, but left me wanting to see one of his more eye-popping films. Thankfully the opportunity has arrived just a few days later; it's unclear whether this is really a CAAMFest screening or not, however; the PFA site indicates it is, but it's nowhere to be found on the festival website or in its printed materials.

Both Mekong Hotel and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives deal with "hauntings"- a theme and a word that has characterized Apichatpong's filmmaking for much of his career, but find more explicit expression lately. The reason the filmmaker was unable to be present at this weekend's screenings is because he was in the United Arab Emirates, presenting films picked by himself and a number of other curators (including at least a couple familiar to San Francisco cinephiles: Tilda Swinton and Steve Anker) to screen at the eleventh Sharjah Biennial (yes, this year's iteration of the event that had a vexed interaction with Caveh Zahedi two years ago). For this event, Apichatpong asked curators to pick works that have "haunted them" and his own curatorial selections include "haunted" films by Georges Méliès and Osamu Tezuka among others I haven't myself seen; the full list is found here.

HOW: 35mm print.

The Cheer Ambassadors (2012)

WHO: Linguist and photographer Luke Cassady-Doiron makes his documentary directing debut with this. As a US citizen living in Bangkok since 2005, he could qualify as an "American Asian" filmmaker included at a festival that specializes in films made by Asian American filmmakers. Close enough, right?

WHAT: The Cheer Ambassadors is a documentary as peppy, poppy, and eager to inspire audiences as is its subject: the Bangkok University coed cheerleading squad, which made a splash at the 2009 Universal Cheerleaders Association international competition in Orlando, Florida. 

Like a stereotypical cheerleader, it's an attractive film full of enthusiasm, but is not intellectually deep. Heady topics relevant to the story are touched upon but not really explored. Is cheerleading a real sport or a form of performance? Is there a difference? What is it like for male and female athletes to compete on one team together, especially in a country that considers itself conservative with regard to relations between unmarried men and women? What does it say about globalization that such an American activity has caught hold so firmly among young people half a world away? These questions may be raised but not much progress is made toward helping the audience come closer to answers to them. That's okay. Cassady-Doiron does a good job of making an engaging entertainment out of his material, taking a more emotional than intellectual route to resonance and depth by spending time interviewing the Bangkok cheerleaders about their own dreams, life histories and personal struggles trying to stay focused on their training and development as athletes and teammates.

What most interests me about The Cheer Ambassadors is how it was constructed. The various aspect ratios, levels of resolution, and styles of camera movement suggest that many different cameras and cinematographers were used to capture footage in the film. Clearly some shots come directly from television broadcasts, while others appear to be handheld, consumer-grade (perhaps even cellphone) cameras. Yet the interviews and much of the training footage appears to be shot in HD by Cassady-Doiron himself. Though all the footage is edited together deftly to create a clear narrative, with the addition of some handsome animated sequences to fill certain gaps (the latter technique used by Caveh Zahedi among other seasoned documentarians), an attentive viewer may wonder if the director and his camera were even on hand for certain critical moments, including the Florida culmination. All documentaries are chronicles of history once they hit the screen of course, but might this one be, like Budrus or Grizzly Man, a film in which the director got involved in its making after the story was already over, and more a feat of collecting and editing pre-existing footage (while adding supplemental contextual material like the interviews), than a feat of embedded documenting, like in Restrepo or The White Diamond? If so, perhaps it also explains why my friend Adam Hartzell in his otherwise-positive review noticed that demonstration of the specific innovations the Thai team brought to international cheerleading felt missing from the film. And it makes the all-but-seamless construction of the film seem all the more impressive an achievement on the part of Cassady-Doiron and his editor Duangporn Pakavirojkul.

WHERE/WHEN: One last CAAMFest screening 8:30 tonight at the Kabuki.

WHY: If you've been watching too many slow-paced movies on grim subjects (as there are certainly some in the program, though not unworthwhile) at this weekend's CAAMFest, The Cheer Ambassadors might be just the right pick-me-up. Not that there aren't moments of darkness in the film, but it certainly maintains an appropriately cheery outlook for most of its running time. 

It's an extremely tenuous connection, but yesterday the latest issue of the Australian film journal Senses Of Cinema dropped, including my new article on a completely different film featuring an American-style performance/athletic activity imported to an Asian country: Carmen Comes Home, starring Hideko Takamine as a striptease dancer visiting her traditional Japanese village for the first time since her career change.

HOW: Digital screening of a digital production.

When Night Falls (2012)

WHO: Ying Liang directed this, following-up on his previous films Taking Father Home, The Other Half, Good Cats and the short Condolences.

WHAT: Sometimes the most austere movies can become political fireballs. This video-film about the repercussions of a young man's violent acts upon representatives of the Chinese state upon the man's mother Wang Jingmei, has created its own state repercussions on its filmmaker, documented up through October on this website. Now it finally has its first screenings inside the United States, and I was able to view it. Nothing I could say, however, would be as cogent as what Michael Sicinski wrote on the film last summer. A sample:

Part of what makes When Night Falls excel as a work of cinema, as well as a political intervention, comes from Ying’s harnessing of isolation and pathos for the express purpose of displaying, through spatial articulation and physical bombardment, what it feels like when the entire apparatus of the Chinese government bears down on a lone individual. A great deal of this results from Nai’s performance as Wang, whose slow, hunched movements through Ying’s deep, recessed compositions return a specific social valence to Antonioni/Tsai architectural imprisonment. One particularly fine shot finds Wang walking alone through a street towards the camera as an unseen loudspeaker trumpets the “splendid” Olympic Games. A woman bikes past her quizzically. The scene would be Kafkaesque except there is no paranoia, only bone-aching sorrow.

WHERE/WHEN: Has one final CAAMFest screening today at 3:00 at the Kabuki.

WHY: If you haven't yet had a chance to sample the wave of micro-budgeted video features coming out of China, this is a good opportunity to start. Though some of Ying's prior films have screened at local festivals before, most of the examples of this wave seen by Frisco Bay cinema audiences have been documentaries like those presented at showcases at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and New People. Though I got a sense of Taking Father Home as less evidently excited about the possibilities of oppositional filmmaking than some of the best of these documentaries I've sampled (notably Ghost Town and Disorder), it helps round out a more complete picture of the kind of image-making being performed well outside the sanction of the Beijing government, and would give a newcomer to the movement a strong sample of the political and aesthetic strategies being utilized in the world's most populated country.

HOW: Digital presentation of a digital production.

Vertigo (1958)

WHO: Alfred Hitchcock.

WHAT: In the moment from Vertigo frame-frozen above (though better discerned when in motion), Kim Novak casts two separate shadows on the bed in her Empire Hotel apartment. As B. Kite writes in the script of his video collaboration with Alexander Points-Zollo entitled The Vertigo Variations, Novak "steps out of the bathroom into a lime-green sea spray of light; a little intimation of eternity inducted through a neon sign." This scene that plays a crucial role in practically every analysis of Vertigo from Chris Marker's to Roger Ebert's to Kite's. But I've yet to come across a reading or review that mentions the twin shadows, despite their resonance with the themes of the film, the character, the scene.... These shadows are not simply Novak's of course; they are also Judy's and Madeline's and perhaps even Carlotta's. 

There's so much to say about Vertigo, so much to see in it. I know not everyone thinks of it as Hitchcock's greatest masterpiece, but I do. I always try to take advantage of opportunities to revisit it in a cinema setting.

WHERE/WHEN: Vertigo screens this afternoon at 3:10 PM at the Pacific Film Archive as part of a lecture & screening series; tickets for all screenings in this series are sold out, but to quote the PFA ebsite, "A limited number of rush tickets may be available at the door." It also screens there tomorrow evening at 7:00 PM, and also at the Stanford Theatre six times between March 21 & 24.

WHY: So far I've been using the PFA's Hitchcock series to see films I'd never gotten around to seeing before, like Saboteur and The Paradine Case. But, to quote B. Kite once again, "we only begin to see Vertigo when we already know it; when its plot holds no surprises. When every moment is already locked into a cycle of repetitions it assumes a living-dead weight comparable, for once perhaps genuinely comparable, to Greek tragedy." So although thanks in part to its Frisco Bay setting, it's probably the most frequently-shown Hitchcock film in these parts, it's also one I'm most eager to see again on the big screen, especially at the PFA. Read on...

HOW: Vertigo is screening at the PFA in a now-unusual format: an IB Technicolor print struck prior to the controversial 1996 restoration prepared by Robert Harris and Jim Katz. According to a Moving Image article by Leo Enticknap, Harris and Katz embarked on their project with the aims to create "preservation elements to take the film well into the next millennium" as well as "an entertainment which would work well with modern audiences." In their quest for the latter objective, the pair decided to make substantial changes to Vertigo's soundtrack, turning a mono mix into a stereo one and even re-recording sound effects. For many Vertigo enthusiasts, this tampering harmed (I've even heard one purist use the word "destroyed") the experience of watching the film. Yet the Harris/Katz restoration (should I put scare quotes around that word?) provides the basis for most versions of Vertigo that people see today, whether the 70mm prints that periodically come to the Castro Theatre, the 35mm prints that have played other venues in the past fifteen years or so, and even most DVD copies (a mono -soundtracked Vertigo disc is only available commercially to purchasers of a box set). 

So the PFA screenings of Vertigo this week are rare anomalies. Will they provide noticeably better viewing experiences for those who attend? I suppose that's a matter of opinion, but they'll surely be more authentic to the experiences audiences prior to 1996 had watching the film. If you don't believe it, take a test; attend the PFA this week and the Stanford (which is sticking with a print struck from the 1996 restoration) next week and see what you think.

Man's Castle (1933)

WHO: Frank Borzage is still underrated. Given his importance to Hollywood during the 1920s and 30s (he was the first person to win two Academy Awards for Best Direction), and his distinctive mastery of the medium, his name should be as recognizable as Frank Capra's or Ernst Lubitsch's, but for some reason none of his films have entered our cultural memory like some of those directors' have.

WHAT: My friend Ryland Walker Knight wrote a fine appreciation a few years back, that included these lovely sentences:

Man's Castle takes on characteristics of its male lead, a young Spencer Tracy, unspooling with patient bemusement and gruff shades of guile. Tracy plays Bill, a man who lives clean and free, taking whatever job will feed him, living most nights under the stars.

Bill and Trina (played by Loretta Young) represent two very different outlooks (gendered, perhaps) on poverty during the worst year of the Great Depression; their struggle to reconcile their philosophies as they form a family unit is at the heart of this film (the heart is always at the heart of a Borzage film), and as Ryland notes, makes this story a universal one applicable to any era or area.

WHERE/WHEN: 8:00 tonight only at the Roxie.

WHY: This week's Pre-Code series is not only an opportunity to see American society reflected in a mirror unclouded by the paternal haze of the censor, but a chance to see how some of the best Hollywood filmmakers responded to the rapid changes in available technology during the first several years of sync sound-on-film. Already we've seen how experimenters with cinematic language like Rouben Mamoulian, Robert Florey, Josef Von Sternberg, and William Wellman responded to the challenge of making images that could keep up with the provocative dialogue their actors were speaking, and tonight we get to see another confident hand at work on this problem.

Borzage is generally less ostentatious than these others in this period, but there's no doubt his stylistic flourishes play a major part in the feelings he evokes from his scenario. The last time I saw Man's Castle, in the midst of a Borzage retrospective, I was inspired to write an article on his contributions to Hollywood style, later republished here; it's one of my most-frequently-referred posts, which I think says a lot about the paucity of writing on the formal qualities of this director's work. I've read and watched a lot more since, and am not sure if I'd take the same line of argument. Who knows what I might be inspired to say after another viewing tonight.

HOW: Tonight's double-bill of Man's Castle and Virtue (starring Carole Lombard) is all-35mm.

Safe In Hell (1931)

WHO: Starring Dorothy Mackaill, a leading lady for First National throughout the mid-to-late 1920s, but who became destined for near-obscurity when her contract failed to be renewed in the process of that studio's envelopment into Warner Brothers. This is the final film she made for First National; the majority of the rest appear to be lost. Oh, and it would be her 110th birthday today.

WHAT: "Fallen woman" Gilda (played by Mackaill) flees New Orleans to escape a manslaughter charge after setting fire to the hotel room of the man who set her on her "fall" in the first place. She ends up on a godforsaken Caribbean isle infested with centipedes and, worse, other criminals trying to avoid extradition. As "the only white woman on the island" she has to fend off their lecherous overtures using methods that just might backfire. Mackaill makes quite an impression in this, the only film of hers I've managed to see, but so do many of the terrific character actors stocking the rest of the cast. Of particular note is Nina Mae McKinney, who you might recognize from King Vidor's 1929 black-cast parable Hallelujah; here she's the proprietress of the hotel where the island lamsters congregate. Making a musical number out of a dinner-serving scene, McKinney turns what could have easily have been just a glorified maid role with a tropical twist into one of the film's most memorable and forceful characters, just with a few extraordinary gestures and line readings.

William Wellman directed five films in 1931 including Night Nurse and The Public Enemy, but for my money this is an even better film than those far more famous ones. (I haven't seen Other Men's Women or The Star Witness yet). For more on Safe In Hell check out Alt Screen's fine round-up.

WHERE/WHEN: Screens tonight only at the Roxie. Showtimes are listed as 6:20 and 9:00 but that can't be quite right as the 71-minute co-feature Torch Singer is supposed to start at 8:00. I'm guessing that, rather than running Torch Singer early to get it finished in time for Safe in Hell at 9:00, the latter will in fact have a delayed start time around 9:15 or so.

WHY: It's a highly underrated movie that I don't believe has screened in the Bay Area in many years. And it's one of the most characteristically "pre-code" titles in the Roxie's series devoted to such films, ending this Thursday.

HOW: The bad news: although Torch Singer will screen in a 35mm print from Universal, Safe in Hell is now a Warner title and thus is being shown via DVD. In an extensive conversation with Michael Guillén published at Keyframe, series mastermind Elliot Lavine explains how Warner-controlled films are no longer available for his Roxie programming because that company is trying to force a move to all-digital distribution. 

One could hold out for another venue to try to book Safe In Hell in 35mm; it appears the Pacific Film Archive still has some access to such prints as they're playing (for example) Warner's I Confess this Friday as part of their Alfred Hitchcock series. But is the PFA likely to bring this title any time soon? And how long will even its ability to get 35mm prints from digitally-minded companies last, anyway? (Note that their print of Lifeboat for next Sunday comes not from Fox but imported from England.)  I'd love to see the PFA or someone else reprise the extensive Wellman retrospective that played (almost entirely in 35mm) at New York City's Film Forum a little over a year ago, but I'm not holding my breath for that.

The good news is that a DVD of a pre-code movie can look pretty good on the Roxie screen. This weekend I attended three series screenings, each using different formats. In terms of image and sound quality, the 16mm print of Blood Money left the most to be desired; I've seen much better 16mm projections in that space (though I've seen much worse as well.) Given the rarity of the film, I wasn't about to complain. Of course the 35mm print of Murders in the Rue Morgue was by far the best-looking of the weekend. But the Saturday night DVD projection of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (though made by Paramount, this is now a Warner-owned title, long story short) surprised me in its image quality. It didn't look like film, but it also didn't look like the inferior digital image I'm used to seeing at that venue. I heard there were snafus at the afternoon screening of the same title, however. Here's hoping tonight's presentations of Safe in Hell are as trouble-free as the one I saw the other night; Mackaill's heroine has enough problems to deal with on her own without having to worry about temperamental modern technology.

Five Star Final (1931)

WHO: Edward G. Robinson stars in this. He's something to behold.

WHAT: I wrote about this film for Senses of Cinema nearly ten years ago. Allow me to quote myself (although I might like to make a few modifications in word choice, I won't):

Five Star Final is perhaps the darkest in the cycle of journalist-themed films produced in Hollywood during the early 1930s. The central character, a self-destructive tabloid newspaper editor named Randall (Edward G. Robinson), manufactures so much enthusiasm for an assignment to dredge up the Nancy Voorhees case for a sure-fire hit serial that he destroys her in the process.  

WHERE/WHEN: 8PM tonight only at the Roxie.

WHY: Five Star Final and its double-bill-mate Blood Money from 1933 kick off a week-long series of early-1930s features that the Roxie is entitling Hollywood Before The Code: Deeper, Darker, Nastier!! Dennis Harvey has crafted a typically helpful overview of the "Pre-Code" concept and the series, highlighting some of its best titles like Josef Von Sternberg's Shanghai Express and William Wellman's Safe In Hell, but he doesn't mention Five Star Final. If ink-stained wretchedness appeals to you as a cinematic topic (and why wouldn't it?), don't miss it!

HOW: Five Star Final is a digital screening, and Blood Money screens on 16mm. The rest of the series uses about half 35mm sources, half digital; all formats are listed on the series website.

Upstream Color (2013)

WHO: Writer/director/etc. Shane Carruth's long-awaited follow-up to his 2004 time-travel movie Primer.

WHAT: It's rare for a truly independent film to arrive on a Frisco Bay screen so soon after make a splash at the Sundance Film Festival, which wrapped just a month ago. Anyone who loved the mind-boggling Primer (and there are many) is excited to see what Carruth has come up with nine years later, especially if they paid attention to the buzz accompanying its debut. Todd McCarthy called it "beautiful, mysterious, thematically suggestive but dramatically obscure, this is an experimental art film that appealed to exactly the same fan base as Primer and suggests a deeper burrowing" into Carruth's mind. My friend Jeremy Mathews said "the film continually finds new ways to evoke unexpected feelings". I'm cherry-picking vaguely effusive quotes on the advice of Sam Adams, who suggests viewers know as little as possible about the film, "since having the movie wash over me was one of the most transcendent experiences of my moviegoing life." 

WHERE/WHEN: Screening as a sneak preview at the Roxie tonight, and opening there for a regular run starting April 12th. 

WHY: Although tonight's San Francisco Film Society-presented screening with Carruth in person is sold-out, it may be worth camping out in front of the Roxie and hoping for a "mircale" ticket to come your way. Or you can wait until April. It's nice to see the Roxie get an advance sell-out show, especially considering last weekend's Joe Swanberg series wasn't exactly a blockbuster for the venue. The SFFS presents another public screening on Thursday of this week as well: Miss Lovely, the latest feature by Ashim Ahluwalia, the director of the disquieting John and Jane Toll-Free. This will be at the New People Cinema in Japantown.

HOW: Projected digitally, I'm 99.99% sure.

The Wind (1928)

WHO: Victor Sjöström directed this.

WHAT: On a first viewing, I must admit, this film didn't do much for me. But seeing it for a second time at the 2009 San Francisco Silent Film Festival made me realize just what a masterpiece it is. Here's an excerpt from Benjamin Schrom's excellent essay for that festival's program book:

The Wind marked the end of an era. It was the final silent major motion picture released by MGM, the final silent film by one of the era’s great directors, Victor Sjöström, and the final silent film for of one its greatest stars, Lillian Gish. It was also a box office failure, simultaneously panned and hailed by critics, called an “American western” as well as a “European” film, loved by those who worked on it and hated by those who produced it. 

WHERE/WHEN: The Wind screens as part of a two-film Pacific Film Archive screening of Sjöström films that begins at 7:00 PM. The other film was made by the director in 1917 when he was still working in his home country Sweden: Terje Vigen.

WHY: Singling this film out today is my not-so-subtle way to draw attention to the SFSFF's recently-redesigned website. There's lots to explore there, but I'm most interested in pointing out that for the first time, all of the program essays about past festival films and musicians, are easily readable (and share-able) online. Schrom's essay on The Wind is a fine example. If you'll allow me to toot an old horn, I'm excited that seven essays I wrote for the festival are now archived there as well, so if you're interested in reading about Yasujiro Ozu's I Was Born, But..., Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera, Tod Browning's West of Zanzibar, Douglas Fairbanks as The Gaucho, F. W. Murnau's Sunrise, Teinosuke Kinugasa's Jujiro, or William de Mille's Miss Lulu Bett, I've just provided handy links to each article I've written for a SFSFF screening. 

I'm excited to see the films playing at the festival's upcoming (February 16th) Silent Winter, including a 1916 version of Snow White, a selection of Buster Keaton comedies, Raoul Walsh directing Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad, Mary Pickford's final silent film My Best Girl, and Murnau's final film before coming to Hollywood, Faust. Nearly as exciting as that are the live musical accompaniments planned for the day, with the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra handling the Fairbanks, organist Christian Elliot tackling the Murnau, and pianist Donald Sosin taking on the rest. But nearly as exciting as that, is reading the essays on these films by the current SFSFF stable of researcher/writers. The souvenir program books the festival produces get better and better every year.

HOW: Both films at the PFA tonight will run in 35mm prints, Terje Vigen imported from Sweden and The Wind from the PFA's collection. The Wind will feature Bruce Loeb's live accompaniment on piano, while Terje Vigen will feature a live string quartet score.

Lazy Sundays: The Sessions

Cheryl Eddy's contribution to the Bay Guardian's Year In Film issue published yesterday makes it sound like it's already happened, but the 73-year-old Bridge Theatre hasn't closed yet. It closes tonight, with a film I didn't have much initial interest in seeing but felt compelled to take a look at after learning it would likely be the last hurrah for one of Frisco Bay's few remaining single-screen cinemas. (That's assuming no other operator might want to take the Bridge over after Landmark departs tonight; an assumption questioned in this sfgate article). I liked it so much I plan to go back for the final show tonight; it's not a perfect film (it doesn't make my own just-published list of 2012's best commercial releases, but it would be a close runner-up. And I can't think of a better current film to close the curtain on the Bridge, which I attended dozens of times, at first to see modern "tradition-of-quality" films like the German sub movie Das Boot (my 1st Bridge excursion), but made my most enduring memories loyally attending Peaches Christ's midnight screenings of cult films like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Carrie, and Showgirls. The film playing tonight includes a wonderful sequence tributing the midnight movie- specifically the Rocky Horror Picture Show and its live-casts that still carry the midnight tradition today, even if Peaches no longer stays up that late. 

I'm being coy about the title of the film (pictured above) because all this is an extended introduction to a piece by my friend (and new twitter followee) Adam Hartzell, the #1 Bridge Theatre fan I know, who rather than getting all melancholy about his favorite theatre closing, has decided to move forward and redouble his commitment to other Richmond District/Laurel Heights area theatres. And to mention the name of the film playing tonight would spoil a bit of the poetry of his opening paragraph. Here's Adam:

The sign was on the marquee, bellowing the supposed perks of the wallflower weeks well after the film's initial release. Something foreboding was afoot. Then we saw the same perks pitched week after week with no new release on the horizon.  We heard the rumors and this was a neon sign of the coming cine-pocalypse that The Bridge would soon close. And the time has come.

I am bummed.  I regularly attended screenings at The Bridge as part of a self-devised independent theatre adoption program.  I did my part.  But I am but one cinephile with only so much disposable income.  As a result, I will no longer be able to walk a few blocks to The Bridge.  Thankfully, this being San Francisco, I still have options.  I will now jump on the 38 if it's coming, or walk if it isn't, in order to head down to the 4 Star Theatre on Clement or travel further to the Balboa Theatre on its eponymous street.  Sometimes, I'll head in the opposite direction to catch something at The Vogue.  I have consistently patronized these theaters as well, but now I will attend even more screenings than I did before.  My adopted theatre has left me.  It's time to move on to others.

In fact, with my wife having to work Sundays at her new job, I've decided to make Sunday a fairly regular movie-going tradition.  This tradition will be a regular jumping off point for an occasional feature here at Hell on Frisco Bay - Lazy Sundays at the 4 Star or The Balboa or The Vogue.

And an inaugurating lazy Sunday it was.  The air was misty from the typical Richmond District kinda-rain streaking the streets, windows, and my glasses as I walked (the 38 wasn't coming) to the House of Bagels for a pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and sat for a spell to nosh the bagel at Argonne Playground.  After I finished my bagel, I walked to the 4 Star as an escape from the wet weather.  I casually conversed with the ticket-taker as I purchased my small buttered popcorn and small ice-less root beer.  (Independent movie houses rely on a significant percentage of their income from concession sales so I always concede to purchase something along with the ticket.)  The inaugural edition of this tradition found me watching The Sessions (Ben Lewin, 2012) along with a fairly respectably-sized audience. 

The Sessions, as you likely already know due to the Oscar buzz around Helen Hunt's 49 year-old nudity, John Hawkes' Oscar-baiting embodiment of able-bodied disability, and William H. Macy's long-haired priestly-ness, is a film based on an article on sex and disability written by the late Berkeley poet and journalist Mark O'Brien.  This was a topic close to O'Brien's heart, and other body parts, since he himself was disabled by polio as a young boy and lived much of his years in an iron lung, an impediment to developing a considerable sex life.  O'Brien was able to use his mind to write poetry and act as a journalist.  He required the assistance of care-givers to propel him to visits to Catholic confession and secular reporting assignments.  One of those assignments was, as mentioned above, on sex and disability, a 'door-opening' that enabled O'Brien to confront his situation-imposed virginity and the emotions tied up with his sexual longings.

When I came out of the theatre, I was happy in spite of the gloomy weather.  The film was a joy to watch and it left me with hope for the world.  I highly recommend catching it.  But as the film rumbled around in my head, I began to find myself disappointed in the film.  So if you haven't seen The Sessions, stop reading here.  Go and experience the joy the film brings before I possibly ruin it for you.

First, something somewhat positive about The Sessions: it does more than the average dramatic film where one of the lead characters has a disability.  My remark about the Academy of Arts and Sciences privileging able-bodied folks further by rewarding their taking of disabled roles with Oscar nominations is a bit of snark, but that snark is fueled by the frustration that Hollywood rarely provides substantial roles to the Disabled.  As much as I wish they'd made an effort to enable a lead role for a disabled actor, I do appreciate that they seemed to be aware of this less than admirable track record and provided considerable screen time for at least one visibly disabled actress in the film, Jennifer Kumiyama.  The Sessions is an improvement on opportunities for disabled actresses.  In the same vein of more representative representation, Bay Area folk will be happy to see a film about our region that actually includes the casual everyday diversity that motivated many of us to come out here before everyone started claiming they were an entrepreneur. 

Now for the buzz kill.  As much as I enjoyed Helen Hunt's role, my cynicism can't help but wonder if her Oscar-worthy-ness has to do with her being an older women who is often naked in the film.  (Her character is a sex surrogate, so nakedness comes with the job.)  It's as if she's being rewarded for disrobing so late in life.  She's gorgeous and it's nice that Hollywood is slowly starting to realize that older women are beautiful too.  Yet as much as this celebration of almost-50 nakedness, The Sessions contradicts this tale of unshackled bodies by its refusal to challenge another aspect of American puritanism. One would expect a movie like this to be willing to show a little penis if it's so sexually liberated, but even The Sessions makes cuts in order to prevent a little pecker from poking its way through the diegetic frame.  Such censorious constraints limit the impact of what might have been a much more powerful reflection of our bodies, ourselves.

And the films penis-less-ness is what makes an otherwise decent film a disappointment as it sticks in my mind days after watching it.  But that is part of my movie-going experience and that wider experience did not disappoint.  Being in the 4 Star's main theatre with other patrons laughing, smiling, and tearing up is part of the pleasure in the collective experience that is cinema-going.  I don't get that on my computer screen.  But my computer screen can let me know how to get there, to a theatre near me.

September Song

My latest article for Fandor is about Uruguayan cinema, past and present, focusing particularly on three films from the South American country that have been made available by the Global Film Institute to watch on that site's streaming service: Whisky from 2004, Leo's Room from 2009, and A Useful Life, one of my favorite films seen in 2010. A film about the (fictional) closing of a cinematheque, A Useful Life has only grown more poignant in the 2 years since I first saw it, with the threat of mass closures of small cinemas and projectionist job loss looming ever larger on the horizon. The convenience of streaming services is a wonderful thing, especially for those who live in hinterlands where specialty cinema-going options simply do not exist. But I'm glad I live in a city which still cherishes diversity in its filmgoing options, and where this month I was able to once again watch A Useful Life in 35mm, this time on the Castro Theatre's giant, immersive screen.

Like many local cinephiles, I've been attending the Castro even more than usual in the past few weeks- at least considering that August has been a month with no film festivals there. I've made acquaintance with previously-unseen films like Phil Karlson's top-drawer noir Kansas City Confidential and John Huston's phenomenal boxing picture Fat City. I've revisited favorites like A Useful Life and Bruce Conner's explosive Crossroads. And those are just a few highlights I attended. The Castro kicked off its 90th 91st year of operation with its heaviest month of classic repertory in memory: dozens of golden-age Hollywood gems, with a smattering of foreign films and recent cinephile-bait. 3 of the films in the newest edition of the influential Sight & Sound Critics Top 10 announced this month have already played on this screen in August, and before the month ends the new #1 champ Vertigo screens- It plays in 70mm tonight through September 3, and there's no way I'm missing it.  In addition, a 70mm sneak-preview screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's new film The Master made a sell-out crowd of alert PTA fans happy on August 21- one day after the event was announced. If you missed it (like I did), you may be relieved to learn it was NOT the final chance to see Joaquin Phoenix in 70mm, as there is at least one Frisco Bay theatre with the capability to show the ultrasized format and that has it booked for a September 21st opening: Oakland's Grand Lake. And I wouldn't be surprised to see another Castro showing sometime in the future- though perhaps not for a few months or more.

If August's selections at Frisco's most beloved picture palace paid tribute to films from all nine decades of the Castro's history, the September calendar looks more to the recent past, present, and perhaps future, as it seems concocted to reach out to younger movie lovers with cult classics from their own lifespan. With the exceptions of the Vertigo booking (a holdover from August), a posthumous Ernest Borgnine double-bill (Bad Day At Black Rock & The Wild Bunch September 13), and a fascinating-sounding post-war, pre-Neuer Deutscher Film festival selection, every film playing the Castro next month was made after 1970. But it's not a return to the "bad old days" of giving underwhelming Hollywood franchise fodder (and the occasional quality mainstream movie) long runs  that edge interesting selections off the screen. No, the Castro is still programming creatively, like showing five square-offs between the films of Quentin Tarantino and the aforementioned Paul Thomas Anderson, in chronological order (reminiscent of a similar PTA vs. Wes Anderson series five years ago. Speaking of Wes, his latest Moonrise Kingdom plays in 35mm on Sep. 17-18).  There's also back-to-school Wednesdays, a brilliant pairing of new dance documentaries Sep. 25-26, and stints for a couple of festivals: Berlin & Beyond and the 3rd i South Asian Film Festival.

Yes, September brings festival season upon us, and if you check my updated sidebar to the right of this page, you'll see that I've linked to programs for no fewer than twelve Frisco Bay film festivals occurring in this one month. If you wanted to attend a festival every day in September, you'd only be stymied on the 10th, 11th and 12th of the month (and who knows what my detection systems might pick up on before then?) There's no way I can do justice to all of these festivals, but I have seen a few of the features they're bringing already. I saw the 3rd i opening night film The Island President, a worthy primer on the tiny Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives, and its intertwined political and environmental challenges, at Cinequest in San Jose. Also at Cinequest, I saw The Battle of the Queens, a slick Swiss documentary record of cow-on-cow face-offs that's more interesting than it sounds. This unusual Alpine rodeo showcase is part of Berlin & Beyond along with Alexander Sokurov's unpleasant but eye-popping Goethe adaptation Faust, the latest romantic fable entitled Baikonur by quirky German helmer Veit Helmer (who has failed to recapture much of the magic of his feature debut Tuvalu in 3 subsequent fiction-feature tries, in my book), and the Rainer Werner Fassbinder masterpiece Lola, Lola screened the Castro in a 35mm print at Berlin & Beyond 2 years ago, as a last-minute addendum. This time it plays digitally at the Goethe-Institute as part of a 4-film tribute to actor Mario Adorf, who will be on hand for premiere screenings of a "director's cut" version of The Tin Drum and of his newest film The Rhino and the Dragonfly. Perhaps the Berlin & Beyond film I'm most curious about is 4th in this Adorf tribute, which I referred to in the prior paragraph: Georg Tressler's 1959 Ship of the Dead. I know virtually nothing about West Germany's cinema prior to the earliest Herzog & Wenders films, so a chance to see this on 35mm is very appealing. Also of note: opening-night film Barbara by Christian Petzold was just chosen as Germany's selection for the next Foreign Language Film Oscar contest. 

Another geographically-themed festival, the Hong Kong Cinema series, looks like an excellent set of films for both newcomers and aficionados of what some believe is still the Chinese-language cinema's most vibrant production center. 1990s landmarks (Fruit Chan's Made In Hong Kong, Peter Chan's Comrades, Almost A Love Story and The Longest Nite, from producer Johnnie To's Milkyway Studio) share space with enticing new films like To's Romancing In Thin Air, which has largely been shunned by American and European festivals, and Ann Hui's highly acclaimed A Simple Life. The latter played briefly at local multiplexes earlier this year, but I know I'm not the only Hui fan who found out about it too late, so I'm very glad the San Francisco Film Society, which hosts this festival as part of its Fall Season, is bringing it back. Along with a Brent Green installation in the Mission District, Hong Kong Cinema launches a new year of Film Society programming. Major changes are afoot for the venerable institution these days, as a new executive director (Ted Hope) fills the shoes left by Bingham Ray and Graham Leggatt, at the same time that one of Leggatt's most visible legacies, a year-round screening venue at New People Cinema, has been abandoned with the non-renewal of the lease. Nonetheless, several fall events including Hong Kong Cinema will occur at the venue.

Cheryl Eddy's fall film preview article from last week's SF Bay Guardian names more upcoming festivals not yet listed on my site, as their line-ups have not been announced. Her preview also hints at some of the seriously copious goodies revealed in fall screening announcements from institutions like the Pacific Film Archive, and SF Cinematheque. But I'm particularly intrigued by what her article mentions that doesn't appear on the internet otherwise. For example, hints from Craig Baldwin's yet-to-be-announced Other Cinema program (Damon Packard? yes!) and word from Yerba Buena Center For The Arts that in addition to the masterpieces by Luis Buñuel, Jacques Rivette, and Chantal Akerman listed (among other tantalizers) on the venue's website, they'll be hosting a retrospective of films by Czech animation demigod Jan Švankmajer in December. If it's like the retro recently concluded in Chicago it will include each of his feature films from his 1988 masterpiece Alice to his 2010 release (never before screened on Frisco Bay) Surviving Life (Theory and Practice), as well as several of his best short films. But we'll see,

Eddy mentions a venue I've still yet to attend (to my shame): the Vortex Room, which from what I can tell has no webpage other than its Twitter and Facebook presences. (Am I wrong?), and notes that the Rafael Film Center is gearing up for the Mill Valley Film Festival but is otherwise relatively quiet in terms of repertory & special events (as opposed to day-to-day arthouse). And she drops hints about the Roxie that have only appeared on that venue's website since publication. Now we know the full, jaw-dropping line-up for their Not Necessarily Noir III film series (or should I count it as a festival?) devoted to crime and horror films made between 1968 and 2005- "neo-noirs" one might say, if one thought such a term could apply to such diverse fare as John Woo's Hard-Boiled, Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, Jonathan Demme's Something Wild, Carl Franklin's One False Move and Brian De Palma's Body Double -to list some of the better-known titles I've seen before. Rarities abound in this awesome set of films- nearly all sourced from 35mm prints.

What she must not have known before her article was put to press is that the touring series of 35mm prints of films from Japan's master animator Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli cohort, which has been making its way around the country all year, finally visits Frisco Bay in September. Starting September 7th, the Bridge Theatre plays 12 of these films over the course of a week- actually 13 prints, as the truly perfect My Neighbor Totoro will screen in both English-subtitled and English-dubbed prints on Sep. 8. Then, the California Theatre in Berkeley screens 11 of the films, as well as two others, between September 14th and 26th.  All nine of the Miyazaki-directed films, as well as Isao Takahata's Only Yesterday and Hiroyuki Morita's The Cat Returns screen at both venues. Takahata's My Neighbors the Yamadas shows only at the Bridge, on September 13, and his Pom Poko and Yoshifumi Kondo's Whisper of the Heart show only at the California Theatre, on the 25th & 26th respectively. The Bridge and the California are my favorite Landmark theatres in San Francisco and the East Bay, and knowing that the Landmark chain is planning to convert its theatres to digital projection only makes me wonder if this series may be a last hurrah for 35mm projectors at these venues. I hope not, but I plan to soak in as much of the series as I can on one side of the bay or the other.

One last recommendation before September arrives: if like me you are a fan of the films of Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul you must take advantage of the opportunity  to see his installation Phantoms of Nabua at the Asian Art Museum. Made during the process leading up to his completion of his Cannes top prize-winning film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, this single-channel work is just as mysterious, beautiful, and medium-specific as any of his feature films. It has been streamed online, and may still be available to view that way, but it really demands to be seen in installation form, where the figures are life-sized and approximately level to the viewer.  Several friends and acquaintances, including at least one who had never encountered an Apichatpong work before, have told me of being so transfixed they watched the approximately 9-minute piece over and over several times before moving on to another part of the museum. It's such an important work that it inspired the Asian Art Museum name of its contemporary Asian art exhibit: Phantoms of Asia. Unfortunately the exhibit must come down after September 2nd, but fortunately the museum is free of charge on that day, as it is on the first Sunday of every month. I plan to go back myself. See you there?