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Worried that October doesn’t have enough film festivals? Here’s another.
The 11th United Nations Association Film Festival runs October 19-26 in various Bay Area location. It will screen 41 films from assorted countries. This year’s theme is Blue Planet, Green Planet.
I have not seen any of the films listed, and between other festivals, Jewish holidays, a [...]

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I saw two movies today after Mishima, but didn’t get a chance to write them up until now.
It’s hard to talk about Burning the Future: Coal in America as cinematic art. This documentary about the environmental effects on mountaintop mining is propaganda, pure and simple. But as I’m in complete sympathy with its message–that coal [...]

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Odd how these things work. I’ve lived in the Bay Area for 33 years. I even lived in Marin County the first 17 months of that (around the corner from the Rafael, actually). Yet until today, I don’t believe I have ever been in downtown Mill Valley. (Up until this year, every Mill Valley Film [...]

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I’ve been able to preview two films screening at the upcoming Arab Film Festival. One of them is also playing at Mill Valley.
Captain Abu Raed, Mill Valley: Sequoia, Friday, October 10, 7:30 (rush only); Rafael, Sunday, October 12, 4:45. Arab Film Festival: Clay (San Francisco), Friday, October 17, 4:00; Camera 12 (San Jose), Saturday, [...]

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Tracking all the Bay Area’s film festivals is a full-time job. And if anyone’s willing to pay me, I’m ready and qualified.
In addition to to the big Mill Valley Film Festival, all the festivals I told you about on the 23rd, and the additional two I mentioned on the 25th, there are two other [...]

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I told you there were a lot of festivals coming up. I missed two:
Dead Channels, October 3-9: In its second year, Dead Channels celebrates independent and international fantasy films, with an emphasis on horror. It’s clearly going for the same audience as Hole in the Head. Mostly at the Roxie, it moves to the Parkway [...]

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A lot of film festivals arrive in the Bay Area in the coming weeks, and not all of them are in Mill Valley. Here are some others, listed chronologically:
Berkeley Video & Film Festival, September 26-28: This three-day festival of extremely independent fare has an interesting ticket policy. A $13 ticket buys you entry for [...]

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I’ve now seen five films getting their local premiere at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival. (Oddly enough, two of them come reasonably close to qualifying as silent films.) Here’s what I think of those five, plus one classic to be screened that I was already familiar with. I’ve listed the films from best to [...]

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What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush?
Lipstick.
I know. That has nothing to do with the subject at hand, or even with cinema, but it occurred to me this afternoon and I had to share it.
The 31st annual Mill Valley Film Festival runs October 2 through 12 in San Rafael, Corte Madera, [...]

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I’ve seen a record eight movies coming to the Jewish Film Festival (okay, one’s actually a TV series). Here’s what I think of them, in order from Masterpiece to What were they thinking?
Emotional Arithmetic
In the best performance of an excellent career, Susan Sarandon plays an American-born Holocaust survivor (the story is set in 1985) trying [...]

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