The Pacific Film Archive reopened after it’s usual late-spring hiatus last night, and I was there. They had two programs, one of which was a double-bill. The double bill was the winner. Franchises are nothing new, and The Whistler series of low-budget film noirs ran from the mid to late-1940s. Based on a radio show, [...]
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Few people know Kurosawa’s dark, contemporary, and suspenseful tale of corruption and revenge—perhaps because it was made around the same time as his three lightest and most entertaining sword-and-kimono flicks. Commercially speaking, it can’t stand up to its predecessor, The Hidden Fortress, or the two action comedies that would follow it, Yojimbo and Sanjuro. But [...]
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Twice this month I saw, projected digitally, an older, arguably classic film, originally intended to be screened in 35mm. One was a major disappointment—technically, at least. The other was perfectly acceptable. Both films were new “director’s cut” versions. I’m guessing that the owners of these films chose not to spend money on a 35mm print, [...]
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The schedule for this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival is up. Running, as usual, at the Castro, the festival has been expanded from three days to four. Author, filmmaker, and archivist Kevin Brownlow will be in attendance, making this his second Bay Area festival appearance in a little over three years. As usual, all [...]
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The latest restoration of Fritz Lang’s silent sci-fi epic Metropolis won’t play the Bay Area until the The San Francisco Silent Film Festival in July. But I’m currently in New York, and I saw it Friday night at the Film Forum. I’m finally willing to call it a true masterpiece. I can no longer say [...]
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For some time now, the Balboa has been the only theater I regularly cover here with only mono sound, but that’s changing. The theater’s new Dolby sound system officially launches Friday with the opening there of the new Robin Hood. According to the theater’s newsletter, Robin Hood will be screened in “Dolby Stereo.” I’m not [...]
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If you remember that the Japanese term for what we westerners call a “samurai movie” actually translates closer to “costume picture,” then The Hidden Fortress was the fifth and last such film Akira Kurosawa made in the 1950s. His four previous samurai movies were an existential exploration of the limits of human knowledge (Rashomon), an [...]
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