IOHTE: Claire Bain

"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 Claire Bain is an artist, filmmaker and writer. She is a frequent contributor to the Artists Television Access blog, and most of the links below lead to her writings on the  screenings there.

Screen capture from Frameline DVD

Screaming Queens: the Riot at Comption's Cafeteria (directed by Susan Stryker & Victor Silverman, 2005), A.T.A. January 25, 2014

30 hour marathon, A.T.A. September 5-6, 2014

Marya Krogstad, A.T.A. July 14, 2014

U-Matic Night, A.T.A. July 3, 2014

Fred Alvarado, A.T.A. April 4, 2014

Thick Relations, A.T.A. March 21, 2014

Speaking Directly, Alley Cat Books presentation from SF Cinematheque. February 14, 2014

Reaching For the Moon, A.T.A. August 21, 2014
 

  And one last one, not from a blog:

Screen capture from Warner DVD

One cool Saturday April morning I drove my tired ass to meet a friend at the Balboa Theater's Popcorn Palace, their true Saturday matinee ("matin" means morning in French) where 10 bucks gets you admission and endless popcorn. I met a friend who is a Ray Harryhausen fan, to see The Valley of Gwangi. I expected kids to be running up and down the aisles, but there were only adults, more than a handful of fully mature ones. The movie had a compelling mix of intense characters, including a badass cowgirl boss, a miniature horse, and then some dinosaurs. The epic battle near the end had spellbinding cinematography and nicely blended (not digital, no no no this was long before) effects that occasionally had alluring rhythms that made me think of loops in the optical printer (analog re-photographing apparatus for creating/blending special effects on film). Hilariously creative, it's a movie worth seeing, especially if you can catch it in a theater on some rare occasion. But I do recommend the Balboa Theater's Popcorn Palace!

IOHTE: Carl Martin

"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 Carl Martin is a film projectionist & keeper of the Film On Film Foundation's indispensable Bay Area Film Calendar.

jan 22 @ the castro: the fortune: taking its place among the best '70's prohibition-era-nostalgia pictures (at long last love, the night they raided minsky's), this screwball delight channels preston sturges, embracing the escalatory power of the long take. in one memorable scene, jack nicholson, warren beatty, and stockard channing get upstaged by a flying sandwich.

jan 28 @ the castro: death is a caress (døden er et kjærtegn): presented as a norwegian noir, its characters are damned by their own choices, not by fate or censorship board. a refreshingly frank film.

feb 7 @ pfa: strange impersonation: strange indeed. a dozen b-picturesworth of absurd plot contrivances are packed into one movie. the female scientists are guileful and beguiling, the men all bumbling fools. surely it can't be real!

march 26 @ the roxie (16mm): the argyle secrets: this is a mean and nasty little movie! when the hero's progress is impeded by a perfectly innocent woman--and he knows she's done nothing wrong--he punches her lights out. whoa!

june 1 @ the castro: harbor drift (jenseits der straße): i only remember bits and snatches of this slice of society's underbelly: a necklace, a man reading the paper. but it was dynamic and beautiful and it moved me.

Screen capture from Blue Underground DVD

aug 15 @ ybca: vigilante: i checked and i didn't include this one in 2009. in this underachieving year, it makes the cut. once again william lustig's violent revengesploitation film bowled me over. robert forster is a badass and rutanya alda, as his ill-fated wife, is revelatory.

sept 19 @ the castro: coal miner's daughter: sissy spacek, beverly d'angelo (who both do their own singing), the ever-reliable tommy lee jones, and, in his debut dramatic role, levon helm, all turn in stellar work in this most excellent of musical biopics. if there's a sugar coating it's a thin one.

nov 3, private screening: point break: finally caught up with this one. patrick swayze mesmerizes as the leader/guru to a band of new-agey wave riders in kathryn bigelow's strange, mythic vision of surf culture.

Screen capture from Anchor Bay DVD

nov 7 @ the castro: minnie and moskowitz: this filled a hole in my cassavetes viewing. seymour cassel is a madman. in one intense scene, he seems genuinely surprised at his own impulsive action, which ends up messing up the continuity of the picture. no matter, it's a hell of a moment. bonus points for the timothy carey scene.

dec 5 @ roxie (16mm): crime wave: john paizs's wildly inventive, budget-transcending tale of a screen-writer's travails, seen through the admiring eyes of a 13-year-old girl, manages to be sweetly innocent and yet not at all innocent. he avoids solipsism and even steps into lynchian territory, around the time that lynch himself is just dipping his toes in.

IOHTE: Ryland Walker Knight

"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 Ryland Walker Knight is a writer and filmmaker.His latest short film Inside Voices screens at SF IndieFest this month.

Screen capture from Winner World Korea DVD

My favorite repertory screening in 2014 was seeing Streets of Fire at The Castro on 35mm. Somehow, I’d never seen this Walter Hill classic before, and I can easily say it was the most fun I had at the movies in that last calendar. A couple beers helped, as did the presence of my best friend, but the film is a welcome antecedent to whatever it is Tarantino’s up to with his “Westerns”, except this one is pure fantasy in dramaturgy as well as genre tropes.

The other great experience was re-seeing Robert Altman’s The Company, which I have our host to thank for, and a big thanks it is. The last time I saw the film was on a DVD, before I “came of age” in my cinephilia, and as such it felt like a whole new film for me. I want to say I saw it in theatres, but I cannot say that with confidence, so I’m going to tell myself this was the first time I saw it on film, and I love those early-aughts digital films printed to celluloid for how the process transformed the quite common artifacting into rare textures of emulsion—a blown out light source becomes a flash of burnt celluloid where the white bleeds blue and red in an instant. It’s a mistake in a lot of professional registers, I suppose, but what a lovely index of pure presence, announcing the document and its artificiality equally.

My greatest regret when it comes to my 2014 repertory notebook is how thin it is, as seems the case with me each year this decade. I feel at fault, indebted so much to this art, not doing my part to sustain my ardor, especially when the PFA ran so many Godards on 35. Then again, we see what we want to, and I cannot complain about what I did venture forth to seek on screens.

IOHTE: Maureen Russell

"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 Maureen Russell is a cinephile and Noir City film festival volunteer.

There is a lot of noir on my list for 2014.

Screen capture from Strand DVD of Victims Of Sin

1) Noir City 12– The Castro Theatre, Jan. 24 – Feb. 2
The theme of international noir brought rarities and classics from around the globe. Seeing French alongside American, British, rare Argentinian and European selections provided great context, as filmmakers adapted what others were doing and made their own mark. Highlights include the Kurosawa directing Toshiro Mifune double feature Stray Dog (1949) with Drunken Angel (1948) and the wildly fun Mexican musical noir Victims of Sin / Victimas del Pecado (1951) with great music and dance numbers.

2) SF Silent Film Fest
Highlights: the creative Russian film The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, USSR (1924). Musical Accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble

Underground, UK (1928). Directed by Anthony Asquith, Musical Accompaniment by multi-instrumentalist Stephen Horne. This love triad turns dark, set in working class London with beautiful cinematography.   

Also Dragnet Girl, Japan (1933). Directed by Yasujiro Ozu, Musical Accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald

3) The French Had a Name for It / French Film Noir 1946-64 San Francisco's Roxie Theatre from November 14-17
Great festival with many sold-out screenings. My favorite was Witness in the City (Un Temoin Dans La Ville) (1959) for its story, characters, tension, location shooting and chase scenes through the streets of Paris, and beautiful cinematography.

4) A Hard Day’s Night (1964) New 4K restoration for the 50th Anniversary – The Castro Theatre
A double bill with Richard Lester’s next film, The Knack…and how to get it (’65). Seeing the beautiful restoration, I wasn’t sure if I’d even seen this on the big screen. The audience seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the Fab 4 as much as I was. The Knack is a farce set in Swinging London.

5) Marketa Lazarova (1967) – the Roxie 7/14 – new 35mm print Czechoslovakia I hadn’t heard of this classic Czech film before. Medieval setting shot using inventive technique.

6) Double feature at I Wake Up Dreaming noir festival, 5/25 – The Roxie
Brainstorm. Directed by William Conrad. (1965)
The Couch. Directed by Owen Crump. (1962)

Screen capture from Warner DVD

7) The Unknown (Director Tod Browning, 1927, USA, with Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford)
SFIFF – The Castro 5/6/14 – Silent film with live accompaniment by Stephin Merritt 
Shown with Guy Maddin's short Sissy Boy Slap Party (1995) 
I’d seen this film before: great characters, visuals and acting, with darkness and humor that Chaney and Browning can give. 

8) Inland Empire (2006) 
The Roxie 7/22 
David Lynch’s own 35mm print screened. I had never seen this and was waiting to watch it on the big screen. 

Screen capture from Celestial DVD

9) King Boxer (Five Fingers of Death) – Hong Kong, 1972
CAAM Fest – Great Star Theater 3/14/14 – Run Run Shaw Tribute
Released in the USA by Warner Bros. in March 1973, the film was responsible for beginning the North American kung fu film craze of the 1970s.

10) Burroughs at 100: The Films of William S Burroughs
February 3, 2014. City Lights Bookstore, with commentary by Mindaugis Bagdon.
A screening of the William S Burrough's films Towers Open Fire, The Cut-Ups, and Bill and Tony. (early 60s). It was great to be able to see entire short films using the cut-up technique, even if at least one film tested your patience.

IOHTE: Haroon Adalat

"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 Haroon Adalat is a designer, illustrator and video editor. 

From my perch now, my previous year could be characterized as one of recoil. Programming in the area was overwhelmingly lavish: for one, the Pacific Film Archive presenting the majority of works from Satyajit Ray, JL Godard and Kenji Mizoguchi on 35mm certainly left me feeling spoiled! And yet, 2014 was the year I kept my moviegoing to a (relative) minimum. Between a steady increase in digital projections, a constant lack of funds, and -- quite simply -- exhaustion, I stuck to the old-reliables or stayed home; and upon reflection, I missed things I regret immensely now...

Normal Love image provided by contributor

But, what do I remember? In 2014, there were several radiant and sublime and quite singular "discoveries". Sometime in October, Jerome Hiler (not unlike Nathaniel Dorsky) ushered in that magical, sweet, sustained silence that falls on rare screenings at the PFA. Much earlier across the bay, Jack Smith was twitching to life on new prints at the YBCA throughout January. I learned that there is often treachery when returning to objects of our past. I find the word “restoration” to be a bit dubious now. Of the films I revisited -- some for the very first time on a large screen -- my opinion of many slipped (yet, for others my affection renewed and doubled: Fellini Satyricon, the numerous Resnais films that graced local screens). In 2014, I settled on a drag name, GRETA GARBAGE (no, she doesn't have much of a personality or any gigs yet). She does possess a cache of images to cull from, though: few pleasures match the sight of Gene Tierney's darling face lit by Von Sternberg in The Shanghai Gesture, or Marlene Dietrich's supreme swagger as she races atop a man's back across a saloon during a rowdy flashback from Rancho Notorious (lessons to be learned, certainly...). I used "recoil" earlier as my suggestion for all those many things I avoided or merely ignored, but the following list should stand for the strands I still find enriching and confounding - the type of stuff that had me smiling on my bus commute last summer, or helped me pass time while waiting at a bar for a friend the day after that torrential storm in mid-December. In other words, the delightful things.

Screen capture from Cinema Guild DVD

(1)
Los Angeles Plays Itself 
(2003; Thom Anderson; Castro Theatre; digital)

(2)
Flaming Creatures 
No President 
Normal Love 
(1963-1967; Jack Smith; YBCA; 16mm)

(3)
In the Stone House 
New Shores 
(1967-2012; Jerome Hiler; PFA; 16mm)

Fellini Satyricon image provided by contributor

(4)  

Chelsea Girls 

(1966; Andy Warhol; Castro Theatre; dual 16mm projection) 

Fellini Satyricon 

(1968; Federico Fellini; Castro Theatre; 35mm) 

(5) 

Je t'aime je t'aime 

(1968; Alain Resnais; Castro Theatre; 35mm)  

(6)  

Rancho Notorious 

(1952; Fritz Lang; Castro Theatre; 35mm)  

Johnny Guitar

(1954; Nicholas Ray; Castro Theatre; DCP)  

(7) 

Boy Meets Girl

Lovers on the Bridge 

(1984/1991; Leos Carax; Castro Theatre; DCP/35mm) 

Screen capture from Sony Pictures Classics DVD of Apu Sansar

(8) 

Pather Panchali 

Aparajito 

Apu Sansar 

(1955/1957/1959; Satyajit Ray; PFA; 35mm)  

(9)  

Macao 

Shanghai Gesture

(1952/1941; Josef von Sternberg; Castro Theatre, Noir City; 35mm)   

(10) 

The Exile 

Letter From An Unkown Woman 

(1947/1948; Max Ophuls; YBCA/Stanford; 35mm)