Harry Belafonte is a great performer and a great activist. This reverential documentary emphasizes the activism. B Musical & political documentary Directed by Suzanne Rostock My mother was a big Harry Belefonte fan. She loved his singing voice. She very much approved of his political activism. And I suspect she found him very sexy. There [...]
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Last night I attended the screening of ten Vitaphone shorts at the Pacific Film Archive. It was part of their current UCLA Festival of Preservation series. Vitaphone was Warner Brother’s early talking film technology, synchronizing image on film with sound on phonograph discs. The system was used for features—the best known being The Jazz Singer—but [...]
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I devoted yesterday at the Silent Film Festival Winter Event. Great way to spend a Saturday. Here are the details: It’s Mutual: Charlie Chaplin Shorts Before the movie started, I visited the retail section on the Castro‘s mezzanine. At the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum table, I bought a bumper sticker – "Films have a [...]
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A My wife and I caught Nowhere Boy Saturday night. I went in knowing a considerable amount about John Lennon’s life. I went out knowing a whole lot more about how his emotional makeup. Or at least more about how some very talented filmmakers assume his makeup to have been. For those who haven’t heard, [...]
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I saw 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with Stephin Merritt last night (Tuesday night). It will probably be my last event at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival. What a disappointing way to end an otherwise enjoyable festival! Coincidentally, this was the third silent film event I’ve attended in the last two months where [...]
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Friday night, I finally saw Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush properly—a good print with live musical accompaniment. And by the San Francisco Symphony, no less. Definitely the best way to see this wonderful comedy (although in the pantheon of great silent comic features, I still prefer City Lights, The General, and Kid Brother). Like The [...]
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Music Documentary Directed by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte In 1974, many of the greatest African and African-American musicians alive came together in Zaire for a big all-star concert attached to the legendary Muhammad Ali/George Foreman fight. The fight was delayed, but the concert went on as scheduled. But the film version of the Zaire ‘74 concert was [...]
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Completely free of cold symptoms, I finally got back to Festival attendance last night, making my way to the Castro for the screening of the 1925 version of The Lost World. The Cambodian-American alternative indie band Dengue Fever provided the live musical accompaniment. The event was as much about Dengue Fever as it was about [...]
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Musical Documentary Directed by Steven Sebring Steven Sebring spent over a decade following Patti Smith around with a camera (okay, I’m not sure how much of that time he actually devoted to the project), trying to get to the core of the cutting-edge rocker, poet, and generally arty person. He succeeds–with a great deal of [...]
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Music documentary Directed by Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden People don’t recognize the name Anita O’Day the way they do Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, but as a jazz vocalist she’s arguably in their class. She possessed a beautiful voice, a unique and expressive way of making familiar lyrics her own, and a phenomenal sense [...]
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