New Icons; Berlin & Beyond
Dec 29th 2006webmasterUncategorized
You may have already noticed a change in the weekly schedules. I’m now grading movies like a school teacher. If I place an 
in front of a film title, it’s not to be missed. If I give one an 
, missing it is a top priority. And when I mark a film with a 
, I haven’t seen it, or haven’t seen it recently enough to reliably grade it, but I still have something to say about it. As before, click on any of these icons for a short commentary.
Within the next two weeks, I hope to grade at least a few of the 38 German-language films
showing at the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival, which opens January 11 at the Castro with Summer In Berlin, a study of a friendship stressed by life’s difficulties. The Festival ends a six days later with The Fisherman and His Wife, which the program describes as “a contemporary romantic comedy [wrapped] around a Grimm’s fairy tale.” In between there’s a drama about a once-successful model, a documentary on the first American soldier to die in Iraq, and a family-friendly fantasy about a revived Neanderthal.
As usual, Berlin & Beyond will also present a silent feature screened with live accompaniment. This year, it’s Nathan the Wise, a 1924 call for religious tolerance based on a 1779 play. Dennis James will accompany the film on the Castro’s Organ.
Next week I’ll give you my Top Ten Films of 2006. In the meantime, here’s some movies to catch, and to miss, in theaters this week:
Baraka, Red Vic, Friday and Saturday. Strange, haunting, beautiful, and terrifying, Baraka defies description. Without plot, narration, or explanation, it simply presents images of nature, humanity, and humanity’s effect on nature. Even if you don’t see a message (there is one), you’re captivated by the music and the clear and perfect visuals. Baraka was one of the last films, and one of the few art films, shot in 65mm. Because the larger film format so enhances this picture, I grade Baraka A when presented in 70mm, but only B in 35mm.
Charlotte’s Web, Balboa, ongoing. New rule: If a movie makes me cry, I have to give 
it an A. By the end of the latest version of E.B. White’s classic children’s tale, my tear ducts were in full spigot mode, despite such “hip” additions to the tale as fart jokes (hey, the film is set in a barn). The story, concerning a piglet destined for the slaughterhouse and a kindly spider who befriends him, deals honestly with issues seldom touched in big-budget Hollywood family fare, including our own mortality. The technology of computer animation makes us believe that a spider and pig can talk; the art of computer animation makes us care what they say.
Night at the Museum, Presidio, ongoing. Yes, it’s predictable Hollywood family fare (Why must every children’s film preach about believing in yourself?), and half the jokes fall flat. But the idea is cute, most of the performances are lively, and a reasonable number of jokes stand up. As much as I disapprove of product placement, it’s nice to see a movie that works as one big commercial for New York’s Museum of Natural History.
Little Children, Presidio, ongoing. Good films don’t have to tell you what a character is
thinking or feeling; you sense it from the dialog and the performances. But Todd Field and Tom Perrotta didn’t trust their characters or their actors (which is too bad because the cast couldn’t have been better) and filled Little Children with detailed and annoying narration. Every time the story and performances build dramatic tension, Will Lyman’s omnipotent voice destroys it by telling you what everyone is thinking and to why they’re doing what they’re doing. Things improve after the halfway mark–there’s less narration, giving you a chance to truly appreciate the good performances–but there’s still the overabundance of subplots and some unbelievably idiotic character behavior.
His Girl Friday, Castro, Saturday. Director Howard Hawks turned Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s hit play The Front Page into a love triangle by making ace reporter Hildy Johnson a woman (Rosalind Russell), and scheming editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) her ex-husband. And thus was born one of the funniest screwball comedies of them all–with a bit of serious drama thrown in about an impending execution. On a double-bill with The Women.
Woman of the Year, Castro, Friday. One of only a handful of Hollywood films (Annie 
Hall is another) that accurately conveys the ups, downs, and sideways motions of romantic love as a long-term commitment. Sexist by today’s standard, this love story between two independently-minded professionals was cutting-edge feminist for its time (or at least as cutting-edge feminist as MGM would allow). And its sense of two people who love each other but can’t easily stay compatible never ages. It also started one of Hollywood’s most famous real-life romances–that of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Directed by George Stevens from a screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin. On a double-bill with The Philadelphia Story.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Elmwood, Saturday and Sunday. An eccentric inventor, his long-suffering dog, snooty aristocrats, cute bunnies, and whole lot of clay make up the funniest movie of 2005. I vote for putting this G-rated, claymation extravaganza on a double-bill with that other hilarious British comedy with killer rabbits, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Black Orpheus, Castro, Monday through Thursday. It’s been decades since I saw Marcel Camus’ retelling of the Orpheus myth, set in Rio during Carnaval. I remember exciting music, eye-popping color, and a strange mixture of joyous celebration and tragedy. I also remember liking it very much. The Castro presents a new 35mm print.
The Wizard of Oz, San Jose California, Friday, 7:00 and Saturday, 2:00; Oakland Paramount, Friday, 8:00. You don’t really need me to tell you about this one, do you?
struggles to reunite his family, separated when evil rebels sack and destroy his village. Solomon is a sort of third-world version of the sympathetic everyman that filmmakers have centered thrillers around since Hitchcock refined the genre. Except that he’s a saint–too perfect and virtuous to identify, or even sympathize, with. And since he’s black, African, and played by an actor with a difficult-to-pronounce name, Hollywood provides us with two white movie stars (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly) who fall in love while helping Solomon.
and scary. But that makes it all the more ridiculous when our heroes come out of one battle or massacre after another unscathed. Maybe the bad guys need to arm themselves with kryptonite.
fantasy trilogy (eleven hours in the extended editions, which won’t be shown here) is surely one of the most ambitious film-making projects ever completed. And he pulls it off, sticking close enough to the books to keep most literary fans happy without getting ridiculous about it. Whereas Tolkien makes you believe in Middle Earth by offering detailed histories and languages, Jackson depends on art direction, special effects, and the natural beauty of his native New Zealand. The films are massive, spectacular, and action-packed, yet always focused on a handful of decent, simple souls forced to become unwilling heroes.
the 4Star has been a movie theater for nearly a century, and that carries its own sanctity. I wouldn’t be happy if one of San Francisco’s great old churches was turned into a multiplex.
lives of an American tourist couple in Morocco, a Mexican nanny in the United States, her family in Mexico, an alienated deaf-mute teenager in Japan, and the boy’s own family. Writer Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro González Iñárritu weave a complex, four-strand tale of love, tragedy, parental responsibility, and the borders–political, economic, linguistic, and emotional–that separate us all. In the end, Babel (an appropriate title for a film told in Arabic, English, Spanish, Japanese, and Japanese sign language) hails the incredible human ability to heal. The cast, which ranges from major international stars (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Kôji Yakusho) to complete novices, is uniformly excellent. Emotionally draining yet exhilarating, and filled with an intense love of humanity that never ignores our weaker selves, Babel is easily the best new movie I’ve seen this year.
insights into American bigotry; only a couple of scenes show unknowing local folk spouting bile (including the frat boys now suing the studio). Instead, 90% of Borat’s jokes attack writer/star Sacha Baron Cohen’s sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and completely idiotic Kazakhstani journalist. Most of the remaining 10% take pot shots at the ludicrous customs of the utterly fictitious society that Cohen and his collaborators have named after the real country of Kazakhstan. The movie is offensive, grotesque, cringe-inducing, and completely lacking in any sense of decency. It’s also side-achingly funny.
totally bizarre one-family lifestyle. Helen Mirren is perfect, brittle yet human, as the monarch Bette Midler once called “the whitest woman in the world.” Concentrating on the week after Princess Di’s death, the film focuses on Elizabeth’s failure to react to or understand her subjects’ affection for her son’s estranged ex-wife. But there’s a coldness to The Queen, as if the film, like its central character, is keeping everyone at arm’s length. And it’s strange to watch a movie that asks you to root for Tony Blair. This isn’t a must-see movie, but you won’t regret going.
happened when Dixie Chick lead singer Natalie Maines spoke her mind during the lead-up to the Iraqi War. But if you haven’t seen Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck’s documentary, you probably don’t know the group dynamics that helped the trio, their management, and their families cope with the hatred, lost revenue, and death threats that followed. Or how the experience helped them grow as people and as musicians. One complaint: Kopple and Peck should have let us hear and see at least one entire song, performed from beginning to end.
10) Berkeley, 
9) Zozo, 
8) Iberia, 
6) Local Call!, 
who’ve just had incredible sex but don’t know what to say to each other. Eventually they say a lot. Writer Julio Rojas and director Mati as Bize catch the intimacy that casual sex can produce in near-total strangers in this talkie and erotic two-person character study.
2) Facade, 
Hollywood, feel-good drek. But Anders Thomas Jensen’s tale of a hate-filled neo-Nazi who learns compassion with the help of an optimistic minister and some oddball eccentrics is actually the blackest of black comedies. That minister and those oddballs should be locked away for their own safety–and ours. On one hand, this is a profoundly religious picture, built on redemption and filled with miracles. On the other, I never laughed so hard at a man shooting a cat.
conventional narrative rather than a mockumentary, For Your Consideration still feels much like director/co-writer’s Christopher Guest’s previous works like Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind. It stars the same Guest repertory company (including Fred Willard, Parker Posey, and Guest’s writing collaborator, Eugene Levy), examines a show business subculture (in this case, independent films), and delivers a hearty supply of honest laughs. And like A Mighty Wind (still Guest’s best), it mixes a bit of pathos with the humor. Catherine O’Hara makes the movie her own as an aging actress who’s head is turned by an Oscar rumor.
action movies are mindless escapism, you need to set aside 3½ hours and watch Kurosawa’s epic masterpiece. The basic story—a poor village hires warriors to defend them against bandits—has been retold many times since, but Kurosawa told it first and told it best. This is an action film with almost no action in the first two hours. When the fighting finally arrives, you’re ready for it, knowing every detail of the people involved, the terrain that will be fought over, and the class differences between the peasants and their hired swords. One of the greatest movies ever made. Part of the Archive’s 
Giulietta Masina brilliantly plays a simple, innocent girl sold by her parents to a coarse, crude, and violent traveling strongman (Anthony Quinn in another strong performance). But for all the great acting, Fellini’s 1954 heartbreaker comes off as shallow. Even worse, it manages to romanticize child abuse. (Or is it spouse abuse? The movie is never too sure about that.) Part of the Archive’s 
stands Shakespeare on his head with this haunting, noh- and kabuki-inspired loose adaptation of Macbeth. Toshiro Mifune gives an over-the-top but still effective performance as the military officer tempted by his wife (Isuzu Yamada) into murdering his lord. The finale–which is far more democratic than anything Shakespeare ever dared–is one of the great action sequences ever. Another part of the Archive’s 
right. Stanley Nelson’s documentary takes us into the heart of the left-leaning, San Francisco-based Christian cult that ended in mass murder and suicide in 1978. Nelson shows us, and survivors tell us, why people followed Jim Jones, how the good things he did (including creating what was perhaps Indiana’s first integrated church) attracted so many, how he robbed his followers of their facility for critical thought, and finally, how he robbed them of their lives. Through archival footage, photos, and audio recordings, Nelson does more than tell you what happened; he makes you feel it, understand it, and shiver all the more for the reality of it.
should have been. According to director Clint Eastwood and screenwriters William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis, raising the flag on Iwo Jima wasn’t a particularly heroic act. Plenty of people acted courageously, and many of them died that way, in the horribly bloody 40-day battle. Yet the actual flag-raising (the second flag-raising, actually) happened in a safe, secured location. But the famous photo made it look heroic, and the War Department needed heroes. The filmmakers cut between the battle itself and a War Bonds tour starring the three flag raisers who survived the rest of the battle, contrasting the horrors of war with the absurdity of wartime propaganda. It also shows us three very believable young men trapped both in carnage and in what they see as undeserved hero-worship.
tells three stories about AIDS and poverty, set in China, Canada, and South Africa. But the farther Fitzgerald strays from Western Civilization, the less sure his storytelling becomes. The opening Chinese section is a complete washout, confusing as pure narrative and lacking any emotional punch beyond the simplest of manipulations. The closing South African tale improves on that one, but largely misses the point by focusing on white missionaries. Only when Fitzgerald returns to his native Canada in the middle section does he tell a good story, this time about of a porn actor (Shawn Ashmore) hiding his HIV-positive status from his co-workers, and the moral dilemmas his actions thrust upon his religious mother (Stockard Channing).
Many years ago, I attended a double bill of the original King Kong and Jean Cocteau’s haunting retelling of the famous fairytale. The audience, mostly young children, ruined Kong by running, playing, and talking throughout the screening. I cringed, imagining how bad those little devils would behave when confronted with a slow-paced, atmospheric film with subtitles. But when Beauty and the Beast came on, they sat quiet, spellbound by a story they all knew but had never imagined it quite like this. The Archive will screen a new, 35mm print as part of its 
Sunday, 6:40. Absolutely the best samurai film not made by Akira Kurosawa. A samurai (Kurosawa regular Tatsuya Nakadai) comes to a fort and asks permission to kill himself, then tells a harrowing tale of poverty made unbearable by the strict samurai code. Director Masaki Kobayashi had no love for feudal Japan’s social structure, which he shows as cruel, arrogant, and hypocritical. Part of the Archive’s 
late twenties were a fond memory of an innocent time, and nostalgia was a large part of Singin’ in the Rain’s appeal. The nostalgia is gone now, and we can clearly see this movie for what it is: the greatest musical ever filmed, and perhaps the best work of pure escapist entertainment to ever come out of Hollywood. Take out the songs, and you have one of the best comedies of the 1950’s, and the funniest movie Hollywood ever made about itself. But take out the songs, and you take out the best part. Just don’t take its story—about the talkie revolution—seriously as film history. For what it’s worth, screenwriter Betty Comden died last week (her creative partner, Adolph Green, died a few years ago), so you can think of this screening–booked before she died–as a memorial to one of musical comedy’s most talented teams. Part of the 
panned this Coen Brothers gem as a disappointing follow-up to the Coen’s previous endeavor, Fargo. Well, it isn’t as good as Fargo, but it’s still one hell of a funny movie.