I’ve now seen five movies that will screen at the upcoming Jewish Film Festival. Here they are, from the best to the worst. B+ Scarface (1932 version), Castro, Sunday, July 25, 10:00; Roda, Wednesday, August 4, 9:15. The best of the three films that started the 1930’s gangster genre, Scarface tracks the rise and demise [...]
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Check out the Current Festivals section in the right panel of this page, and you’ll see a lot of activity this summer. Playing right now or opening soon, we’ve got festival for the LGBT community and another for Jews. There’s a festival of horror films, another of comedies, and two of silent films. So here’s [...]
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Proud of its diversity, the Bay Area hosts a lot of what I call identity film festivals—geared around a particular way people identify themselves, whether it’s ethnic, religious, gender, or sexual identity. And the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, now celebrating it’s 30th year, started the trend. Being Jewish, this event has more meaning for [...]
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And so we come to Kurosawa at his most entertaining, and his most commercial. Oddly enough for this serious and often didactic auteur, also at his best. On one level, we have one of the most enjoyable action flicks ever made, with rousing swordplay, plenty of moments to cheer the hero, and many laughably inept [...]
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The Bay Area hosts so many film festivals this time of year that it’s scary. It’s not only scary, but it’s also weird. And bizarre. And fantastic. We need another bloody film festival like we need a hole in the head! So it’s appropriate that Indiefest’s Another Hole in the Head film festival is scary, [...]
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I’ve managed to preview three films that Frameline, the Bay Area’s main LGBT film festival, will be screening in the coming weeks. Here’s what I thought of them, from the best to the worst. A- Howl, Castro, Sunday, June 27, 7:30 (closing night). What did you expect–a conventional biopic? Would that do justice to the [...]
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