Cinequest continues throughout the week. And the San Francisco Irish Film Festival opens Thursday for a two-day run at the Roxie. [B] The Birth of a Nation, California Theater, San Jose, Friday, 7:00. A film that’s easy to love, easy to hate, and easy to love to hate. The historical influence of this 1915 Civil [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
I got the new Pacific Film Archive schedule. As usual, there’s a lot of interesting stuff. There’s Women’s Cinema from Tangiers to Tehran, a film-lecture course uses film to understand Buddhism, a screening of Reefer Madness with a “totally dope soundtrack by Cal student DJs,” and a retrospective of Agnès Varda, the one woman director [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
The San Francisco International Film Festival just announced two more revivals planned for the upcoming festival. That’s in addition to The Lost World. The movies are A Woman Under the Influence and Le Amiche. I saw John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence–an extremely harrowing and raw drama about a housewife going insane and a [...]
Filed under: Festivals, SFIFF | Leave a Comment »
Technical problems kept me from live blogging throughout the Academy Awards, so let me hit the high and low spots: Just my luck! When Best Picture finally goes to the low-budget, heavily subtitled movie that normally wouldn’t stand a chance, it’s a picture I don’t even like. Yes, Milk was more conventional, but it was [...]
Filed under: Awards, TV | Leave a Comment »
I apologize for any errors. I’m not checking spelling or even if I’m getting the names right. The usual, extremely brief mention of the previous technical awards dinner. Historical error: The actress announcing it (I don’t remember her name) said that Thomas Edison invented the Kinemagraph <sp>. He didn’t. An employee of his, William Dickson, [...]
Filed under: Awards, TV | Leave a Comment »
I’ve paused the DVR about an hour into the Oscar presentation. A few quick observances: Why do I watch the pre-show, which is about beautiful movie stars in designer gowns? I want one of the interviewers to ask a star “Who are you wearing?” and have her respond “I picked this up at Woolworth.” I [...]
Filed under: Awards, TV | Leave a Comment »
This year’s San Francisco International Film opens April 23, and even though the official press conference is more than a month away, bits of information are trickling in. Here’s one: The 1925 version of The Lost World will screen May 5, with live accompaniment by the “genre-busting pop band” Dengue Fever. Based on Sir Arthur [...]
Filed under: Festivals, SFIFF | Leave a Comment »
I watched the Drunken Angel DVD Saturday night, the most recent film in my Kurosawa saga (Kurosaga?). I had seen it several times before, including a Voom Network HD broadcast a few months ago. In other words, this wasn’t a new discovery or a rediscovery. Drunken Angel represents a major step towards mature Kurosawa. It [...]
Filed under: Kurosawa Diary | 2 Comments »
Still playing catch-up. Kurosawa became a great artist in the post-war years of American occupation, but he couldn’t seem to make two good films in a row. He would make a good, really good, or even great motion picture, then follow it with an out-and-out turkey. He didn’t break this cycle until he followed Ikiru [...]
Filed under: Kurosawa Diary | Leave a Comment »
