Betty Nguyen's Two Eyes

Since my own two eyes were not nearly enough to see and evaluate all the repertory/revival film screenings here on Frisco Bay, I'm honored to present local filmgoers' lists of the year's favorites. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from independent curator/art director Betty Nguyen, editor-in-chief of First Person Magazine:

1. If I wasn't a total zombie after our Holiday fundraiser at Living ARTS Fund, (I don't get out of bed for anything the next day after I throw a party) I woulda tried my darndest to get to the Roxie Theatre's benefit w. John Waters. That would definitely be top on my list. He's wonderful and so is that theatre.

2. I watched a great screening of a film by artist Lawrence Jordan, animator, with a new soundtrack by a local Bay Area drone band at this new little hole in the wall, called Musical Chairs Gallery. The venue located on Geary and Hyde street downtown was being curated by someone local who programmed a month of performances and screenings and I caught this one. It was small and everyone sat on the floor, but the film was so inspiring and charming.

3. Hauntology at the Berkeley Museum was an event program curated by local SF artist Scott Hewicker. It was on Oct. 29th and began with a procession of ghosts and an eerie single violin that echoed throughout the cavernous concrete space but what really kept me engaged were the several screens he set up with different short films. He cleverly also hung pillow cases up like ghosts on a clothes line and made a slide projection of what resembled the swirls of Edward Munch's "Scream" painting for the backdrop to define the area of play for one of the bands. A lot of the L@TE programs this year at BAM were entertaining bits of music mainly, but Scott's was a great integration of sights that one could immerse into a filmic experience of black and white visuals.

4. Jonathan Grothman is a new Bay Area artist whose films are abstract and simple in form, restrained but poetic. I might categorize them as repertory as they repeated all night long during the Living ARTS Fund's Holiday party in the Excelsior for which he made them. But it his projections washed the space in colorful shapes and patterns that never tired and transformed the 1,700 ft venue into something tactile, alien and larger than life as performers became a part of his designs. It reminded me of the iconic visuals of the Velvet Underground shot for their album cover in dots. Or even the psychedelia of Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore with their oil visuals done live. As Director for the space we didn't want any incandescents in the space, so projection loops proved a powerful medium of setting the tone for mystery, event, and secrecy when you walked in from the lit storefront back into this warp of technicolored sand and kaleidoscopic figures.

5. I've decided to live my life, starting with this New Year beginning right this very night, like the film Pina in honor of my favorite artist of all time Pina Baushch who filled me with laughter, tears, desire and thrills. The film shot in 3D by Wim Wenders is "for Pina Bausch", one of the most extraordinary choreographers of our time who passed away in 2009. Last year, the only film program I saw that paid homage to her was by Joel Shepard, of course, at YBCA. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the screenings but I was elated that he put this together. The new film has just released a trailer and looks spectacular. Wim and Pina worked on the film together, but she was diagnosed with cancer a few days into the shooting, but is now completed. I look forward to its release in 2011. I think it may debut at the Berlinale.

6. Ryan Trecartin kinda slayed it this year. Adored, embraced by art establishment but repping a generation of texters, ravers, and tweakers who talk a mile a minute about life, about getting somewhere and about their consciousness. His art videos are everywhere not just museums but splashed throughout the tabloids of life. The psycho babble of wisdom his characters ramble on is filled with gen NOW savvy. Their makeup, closeups, digital editing quick cuts and filters are what not to do's in the cutting room and made it exactly right for ART that made its own system of rules and broke every one along the way. I love his films and the way they look totally wrong everywhere I've seen them - at the Whitney Biennial to the SFMoMA right now on the 5th floor. Amongst a quiet stark room of minimal colors and formality, lives in this small screen with exposed wire, his mayhem and life with friends shot in nightvision or low res. Its relevancy to our culture is breathing.

7. I almost puked watching Enter the Void for the first hour in the daytime. I couldn't finish it. I couldn't stand it. But it's in my memory.

8. I found out about this Parking Garage show in the Mission and literally bands were playing while cars were pulling in and out. My youthful days of going to guerilla shows was sparked again, and I felt really special to be there. Most of the bands had visuals and the two I remember was one duo, who just had their laptop projecting a video of the moon. It was jarring and effective. Nothing fantastic or out of the ordinary, but like their music, it was simple but a little bit off in a good way. The moonlight kinda danced ever slightly as their music seemed cut off in square waves. And another artist played blaring keyboards while showing a flicker of portraits he made. It was intense like the flicker films genre can be, reminding me of the Vasulkas and artists that Nate Boyce had turned me onto while curating films for the SFAI. Hypnotizing...

9. My friend works at Opera Plaza and it's always great to have a friend who works at a theatre. He invites me from time to time to come watch a film and I saw the Tom Ford film A Single Man. I liked its uncomplicatedness. I liked the story of the neighbors played by Colin Firth and Julianne Moore when she said something like, "You're fucking this up by being gay. We coulda been so right for each other." There was a lot of build up to nowhere in particular. It was a bit rigid, but probably the best part of this filmic experience was when my friend snuck in and handed me a huge box of buttered corn. He's so sweet.

10. Well, the last one, I kinda wanted to really thank the invention of the internet for allowing me to see all kinds of things whenever I let my fingers do the walking. From Gossip Girl episodes to Madmen, most recently Louie on Netflix streaming, Agnes Varda's The Gleaners & I, and my friend suggesting John and Mary and Seraphine. Sometimes not being able to know when something's coming out, etc. even torrenting stuff. I hope I'm not being a bah humbug, but gosh, the movie going experience in bed is a great one! In my Tumblr blog, I've enjoyed countless shared music videos by bands, fashion fans, and sharing is caring when you come to think that millions of people out there are taking the time to upload any of this stuff. It's not ego it's like hey youtube let's put up this rare video, or my cat chasing itself, or gosh, endless hours of that shiba inu puppy cam got me through some shitty days. So, thank you to everyone who posts something. Cuz you never know how it's going to affect someone else - inspiration, wisdom, entertainment, career opportunity. The internet is a good tv and film screen.

Lincoln Spector's Two Eyes

Since my own two eyes were not nearly enough to see and evaluate all the repertory/revival film screenings here on Frisco Bay, I'm honored to present local filmgoers' lists of the year's favorites. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from critic Lincoln Spector of Bayflicks, where this list has been cross-posted:


Half of these were silent film screenings. This was a great year for silents–dominated by Metropolis and The Passion of Joan of Arc. I saw two silent films accompanied by full orchestras this year. That’s as many as I’ve seen in my previous 40 years as a silent film fan. And this year, they were better movies.

10 Marwencol, Kabuki, May 2. Serendipity sometimes leads me to the best festival screenings. I saw this documentary about a brain-damaged artist only because was that it was in between two other docs I really wanted to see at the San Francisco International Film Festival. It turned out to be better than either of them, and the best new film I saw at the festival. I’m glad it got a theatrical release in the fall.

9 Mon Oncle, Pacific Film Archive, January 20. Until last year, I’d never seen this particular Jacques Tati comedy. With this one screening, it instantly became my favorite, quite possibly the funniest visual comedy made since Charlie Chaplin reluctantly agreed to talk. Bright and colorful, it works both as a satire of modern materialism and a great collection of belly laughs. Too bad the PFA presented a print dubbed into English, although with Tati, ruining the dialog doesn’t do much damage.

8 Rotaie, Castro, July 17. There’s nothing like discovering an old, wonderful movie that you’ve never heard of. In this 1929 Italian drama, a young couple, broke but very much in love, find a huge wad of cash and start living the good life. We can see the character flaws that left them destitute in the first place, and will leave them that way again. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival screened the only known existing print, with intertitle translations read aloud and Stephen Horne accompanying on piano and other instruments.

7 Cinematic Titanic: War of the Insects, Castro, August 3. I’ve been a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for a long time. Here was a chance to experience it live. From the opening shot of an H bomb explosion, with Mary Jo Pehl’s comment, "Sarah Palin’s first day as President," the jokes flew thick and belly deep. There were times I couldn’t breathe.

6 The General, Oakland Paramount, March 19. I’ve seen Keaton’s Civil War masterpiece countless times, in classrooms, museums, theaters, festivals, and home. I once rented it on VHS, and have owned it on Laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-ray. Yet this was probably my best General experience. Why? A great, 35mm print, terrific accompaniment by Christoph Bull on the Paramount’s pipe organ, and an enthusiastic audience of symphony goers who didn’t know what they were in for and were very pleasantly surprised.

5 The Gold Rush and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Davies Symphony Hall, April 16. I finally saw Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush properly—a good print with live musical accompaniment–by the San Francisco Symphony, no less. The only problem: Davies Hall really isn’t built for movies.

4 Kurosawa All Over the Place. Akira Kurosawa was born in 1910, so last year saw a whole lot of retrospectives of my all-time favorite filmmaker. Naturally, considering my East Bay residence, I stuck to screenings at the Pacific Film Archive. I started my own personal retrospective, watching the films on DVD late in 2008. The PFA allowed me to finish them in 35mm, on a large screen, and with an audience.

3 Metropolis, Castro, July 17. Setting aside my own experiences, the restored "Complete" Metropolis was the motion picture restoration event of the year. I’d already seen it in New York before it played the Castro in the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, but the Castro screening was the better experience. Part of that was the theater itself. But more credit goes to the Alloy Orchestra’s very electric score, which brings out the film’s overall weirdness and the third act’s excitement better than any other Metropolis score I’ve heard. Too bad that score was not, as was announced at the festival, included in the Blu-ray release. (You can buy it separately from the Alloy Orchestra’s web site.

2 Three live presentations at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Castro and Kabuki, April and May. I’m putting these events together for brevity’s sake. Three of my top, living, English-speaking, cinematic heroes got a chance in the spotlight at this year’s festival, and the results were as entertaining and educational as any movies screened. Editor and sound designer Walter Murch gave the State of the Cinema Address. Screenwriter/producer/studio head/Columbia professor James Schamus answered questions from B. Ruby Rich and the audience as the winner of this year’s Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting. And Roger Ebert was honored with this year’s Mel Novikoff Award.

1. Voices of Light & The Passion of Joan of Arc, Oakland Paramount, December 2. This was definitely the greatest film/live music experience of my 40+ years as a silent film aficionado. It jut might be the greatest experience I’ve had sitting in an audience. Not only was it a brilliant film (and one I’d never seen before theatrically), but it was accompanied by Richard Einhorn’s "Voices of Light, An Oratorio with Silent Film," and a great work in its own right. Mark Sumner conducted the 22-piece orchestra and approximately 180 singers from multiple choruses. The overall effect was powerful, entrancing, awe-inspiring, frightening, and beautiful.

Victoria Jaschob's Two Eyes

Since my own two eyes were not nearly enough to see and evaluate all the repertory/revival film screenings here on Frisco Bay, I'm honored to present local filmgoers' lists of the year's favorites. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from film researcher/writer Victoria Jaschob, who has written for Film International and the SFSFF.

15th San Francisco Silent Film Festival: Highlights - Panorama pris d’un train en marche, a George Méliès short taken from the top of a train in 1898, accompanied by Stephen Horne's haunting piano, moved me to tears with its glimpse of a vanished world, just before the century turned and it all went to hell; Rotaie - a revelation. Once of the best films I've seen - period - in its effortless, timeless storytelling, again accompanied by Stephen Horne - on piano, flute AND accordion; L'Heureuse Mort, hilarious and witty film made by Russian emigres in Paris, accompanied by the sublime Matti Bye Ensemble in a perfect synthesis of image and sound. The composer told me he was trying to evoke the feeling of being on holiday at the seaside in the south of France - if this was his intention, he certainly succeeded. And lastly, "The Complete Metropolis" - not so much for the film itself, which I've always found a bit over-wrought, but for the talk given by the pair of Argentinian film historians who spent 20 years trying to find it. Their dedication was truly inspiring, as was realizing they would be viewing their efforts for the first time that night, along with the other 1,400 some-people in the theater.

Noir City 8 at the Castro: Highlights were Serena Bramble's Endless Night - A Valentine to Film Noir - set to a soundtrack by Massive Attack, and Cry Danger with Dick Powell and Rhonda Fleming. But the best part for me was hanging out in the back room of Tosca afterwards, listening to the owner Jeanette's stories about hanging out with real gangsters in Palm Springs in the 50's.


Radical Light series at the PFA: Highlights for me were George Kuchar's Wild Night in El Reno (another great image/music marriage), Bruce Baillie's Valentin De las Sierras and Bruce Connor's A Movie, which never fails to astonish and move me, no matter how many times I've seen it. I love the shot of the beaver at the end.

Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc at the Paramount: I don't know which impressed me more - the quality of the print (including scenes I'd never seen before, since the last time I'd seen this film was in the early 80's, before this print was discovered in a mental hospital in Norway!), or the fact that on a rainy Thursday night, almost 2,000 people showed up to see a 90-year old film!!!

Lastly (and I know this doesn't really qualify), Beggars of Life at LACMA - I'd been wanting to see this film for 30 years, but somehow always managed to miss it. It just happened to be showing when I was in LA for the weekend. On my birthday. One of my best birthday presents EVER.

Rob Byrne's Two Eyes

Since my own two eyes were not nearly enough to see and evaluate all the repertory/revival film screenings here on Frisco Bay, I'm honored to present local filmgoers' lists of the year's favorites. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from film preservationist and researcher Rob Byrne. He blogs at Starts Thursday!: The Art And History of Motion Picture Coming Attraction Slides

Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes of San Francisco, 5
Herbst Theatre
Archival celebration of orphan film. Quickly becoming a holiday season tradition. Some of the more amusing segments included public service featurettes describing the wonderful and modern Bay Area Rapid Transit system, and 16mm home movies featuring street scenes in SF neighborhoods.

Kid Boots
Edison Theatre, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
A delightful comedy starring Clara Bow and Eddie Cantor. It's always nice to find a little gem that for some reason you've overlooked.

A Trip Down Market Street
Edison Theatre, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum [screening during 60 Minutes taping]
So great to see film research and archiving making news in mainstream media. David Kiehn and the Niles Film Museum on 60 Minutes! Who could have predicted that?

Rotaie
Castro Theatre, presented by San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Beautifully atmospheric, wonderfully evocative. Loved it, just loved it.

The Passion of Joan of Arc
Oakland's Paramount, presented by SF Silent Film Festival, Pacific Film Archive, and Paramount Theatre
An amazing film anyway, but adding an orchestral ensemble and 200 voices elevated the experience to an entirely different plane.

A Century Ago: The Films of 1910
San Rafael Film Center, presented by California Film Institute
Randy Haberkamp's annual compilation. Marvelously researched and impeccably presented. The program was almost exclusively one-reelers. The two most memorable being The Sergeant, a Selig picture filmed in Yosemite Valley; and Aviation at Los Angeles California, an amazing document of a 1910 air show outside Los Angeles filmed by Essanay.

Diary of a Lost Girl
Castro Theatre, presented by San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Reveals something new every time you see it. Not a surprise that it was never released in the US, nothing would have survived the censor's shears.

Rain or Shine (the sound version)
Pacific Film Archive
Seems too good to be an early talkie, Joe Cook was a revelation, talks faster than Groucho Marx and a great physical comedian as well. One of those films you want to share with other people just so you can see their reaction.

The Shakedown
Castro Theatre, presented by San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Excellent gritty drama directed by William Wyler.

King Kong
Oakland Paramount
Say what you want, seeing King Kong in a packed house in the glorious Oakland Paramount was movie-going (as opposed to "cinema-attending") at it's best - especially when preceded by a cartoon, newsreel, trailers, and a raffle.

Michael Hawley's Two Eyes

Since my own two eyes were not nearly enough to see and evaluate all the repertory/revival film screenings here on Frisco Bay, I'm honored to present local filmgoers' lists of the year's favorites. An index of participants is found here.

The following list comes from cinephile/critic Michael Hawley. He blogs at film-415, where this list has been cross-posted:

The Bay Area continues to be an incredible place to experience repertory cinema. There are few places on the planet where it's possible to see a film every day of the year and not watch a single new release. In 2010 I caught 47 revival screenings at various local venues. Here, in no particular order, are 10 of the most memorable.

Showgirls (Castro Theater)
What better way to celebrate the 15th anniversary of my fave film of the 1990s. Peaches Christ brought an expanded version of her infamous Showgirls Midnight Mass preshow to a sold-out Castro, complete with exploding on-stage volcano and free lapdances with every large popcorn. It inspired me to inaugurate my iphone's movie camera feature and create a YouTube channel to post the results. Apart from Peaches' Castro world premiere of All About Evil, this was the most fun I had at the movies in 2010.

Armored Car Robbery (Castro Theater, Noir City)
I was blown away by this taut and tidy 67-minute slice of obscure 1950 B-Noir about the aftermath of yes, an armored car robbery outside L.A.'s Wrigley Field. It would be brought back to mind months later with the Fenway Park heist of Ben Affleck's The Town. Other 2010 Noir City highlights included the double bill of Suspense (1946) and The Gangster (1948), both starring British ice-skating queen Belita, and 1945's San Francisco-set Escape in the Fog, which begins with a woman dreaming about an attempted murder on the Golden Gate Bridge.


Pornography in Denmark (Oddball Cinema)
There's something weird and wonderful going on each weekend at Oddball Cinema, a funky alternative film venue tucked inside the Mission District warehouse digs Oddball Film + Video. In the spring they screened a 16mm print of this landmark 1970 documentary by local porn-meister Alex de Renzy, which became the first hardcore to show in legit U.S. theaters and be reviewed in the NY Times. Introducing the film was writer/film scholar Jack Stevenson, who was on tour promoting his book, Scandinavian Blue: The Erotic Cinema of Sweden and Denmark in the 1960s and 1970s.

Freddie Mercury, the Untold Story (VIZ Cinema, 3rd i's Queer Eye Mini-Film Festival)
3rd i is best known for the SF International South Asian Film Festival it puts on each November. Back in June they packed SF's snazzy subterranean VIZ Cinema with this revival of Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher's 2000 documentary – seen in a new director's cut with 43 extra minutes. The audience went nutso at the climax of "Barcelona," Mercury's soaring duet with Montserrat Caballé from the 1986 summer Olympics. Further repertory kudos to 3rd i for bringing an exquisite 35mm print of 1958 Bollywood classic, Madhumati, to the Castro.

Mädchen in Uniform (Castro Theater, Frameline)
A whole lot of LGBT folk must've played hooky from work to catch this mid-day, mid-week revival from 1958 – itself a remake of a 1931 queer cinema classic. Romy Schneider and Lili Palmer are respectively radiant as a student obsessively in love with her boarding school teacher – to the extreme consternation of battleaxe headmistress Therese Giehse. Shown in a gorgeous and rare 35mm print, with the inimitable Jenni Olson delivering a dishy intro. Frameline34's other revelatory revival was Warhol's 1965 Vinyl, in which Factory beauties Gerard Malanga and Edie Sedgwick dance a furious frug to Martha and the Vandellas "Nowhere to Hide." Twice.


The Aztec Mummy vs. The Human Robot (Pacific Film Archive, El Futuro Está Aquí: Sci-Fi Classics from Mexico)
If anything's capable of luring me out of the city on a Saturday night during Frameline, it's bunch of Mexican monster movies from the 50's and 60's. This was double-billed with Santo vs. The Martian Invasion, which had a little too much rasslin' for my tastes. But it boasted a hilarious opening scene in which the Martians explain why they happen to be speaking Spanish. It killed me to miss Planet of the Female Invaders and The Ship of Monsters, also part of this series.

Metropolis (Castro Theater, SF Silent Film Festival)
"When you've waited 83 years, what's another 40 minutes?" Eddie Muller quipped to the antsy, capacity crowd awaiting the Bay Area premiere of Fritz Lang's finally-complete expressionist dystopian masterpiece. In spite of the late start time and disappointing digital format, this was still the repertory event of the year. The Alloy Orchestra performed its celebrated score live and Muller conducted an on-stage conversation with Paula Félix-Didier and Fernando Peña, the Argentine film archivists who discovered the 16mm print of Metropolis with 25 additional minutes. The Alloy Orchestra would return to the fest two days later to perform their heart-stopping score to Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera.

The Cook/Pass the Gravy/Big Business (Castro Theater, SF Silent Film Festival)
Each year this festival invites a filmmaker to program a Director's Pick – and past pickers have included the likes of Guy Maddin and Terry Zwigoff. This year Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc., Up) assembled a program of three comic shorts titled The Big Business of Short Funny Films, each of them screamingly funny. First, Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton had a go at each other in The Cook, followed by some hysterical nonsense involving feuding families and a prized rooster in Pass the Gravy. Finally in Big Business, door-to-door Christmas tree salesmen Laurel and Hardy declared war on a disgruntled customer, taking tit-for-tat to absurd heights.

The Boston Strangler (Pacific Film Archive, Criminal Minds)
This ranks as my personal discovery of the year. Director Richard Fleischer employs a wry tone and magnificent use of wide and split screen to tell the story of 60's serial killer Albert DeSalvo. A restrained Tony Curtis, whose title character doesn't appear until the midway point, gives what must surely be the best dramatic performance of his career. Oscar ® didn't care. With Henry Fonda, George Kennedy and an early appearance by Sally Kellerman as the one girl who got away. Double-billed with 1944's The Lodger, a compelling Jack the Ripper yarn starring Merle Oberon, George Sanders and Laird Cregar.

Johanna (Roxie Theater)
I was woefully resigned to never seeing Kornél Mundruczó's 2005 filmic opera about a junkie performing sex miracles in a subterranean Budapest hospital, which had never screened in the Bay Area or been released on Region 1 DVD. Then the Roxie answered my prayers by showing a gorgeous 35mm print for two nights in November, double-billed with the director's follow-up, 2008's Delta. Earlier in the month, the Roxie revived 36 Quai des Orfèvres, a gritty and stylish 2004 policier that had also inexplicably gone unseen the Bay Area, despite starring Gérard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil.

Honorable Mentions
Traffic (1971, dir. Jacques Tati, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts)
Insiang (1976, dir. Lino Brocka, Sundance Kabuki, SF International Asian American Film Festival)
Black Narcissus (1947, dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, Pacific Film Archive, "Life, Death and Technicolor: A Tribute to Jack Cardiff")
Hausu (1977, dir. Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, Castro Theater)
A Night to Dismember (1983, dir. Doris Wishman, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, "Go to Hell for the Holidays: Horror in December")