The word went out this morning: Sunday is the last day for the Parkway Speakeasy Theater. This is very sudden. Last night I worked on next week’s newsletter, and looked through the Parkway schedule for upcoming special events. There were several. This morning, I read they won’t be happening. Founded 12 years ago, the Parkway [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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Yes, Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei both give outstanding performances; in Rourke’s case, it was as physically risky as it was emotionally so. And yes, the movie took me into a subculture I had never seen before–that strange pseudo-sport called Pro Wrestling–which I’ll probably never look at the same way, again. These guys aren’t really [...]
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Cinequest runs in San Jose from February 25 through March 8, with "250 screenings, 150+ films, with 80 U.S., North American, and World Premieres." In addition to all the new films they’ll be showing (none of which I’ve seen), here are a couple of interesting events: How often do you get to see D. W. [...]
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How’s this for weird: I was actually in film school when Fellini’s Amarcord came out. And I was a big fan of Fellini at that time, with both La Strada and 8 1/2 high on my list of the greatest films of all time (8 1/2 is still there). But until Friday night (when I [...]
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I saw Wim Wenders’ new film, Palermo Shooting, at the Berlin & Beyond festival last night. I also saw Wim Wenders, who was there to receive a lifetime achievement award. If the Castro wasn’t sold out, it was close to it. After four people came onstage to talk about Wenders’ effect on their lives, the [...]
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After a brief lull, the festivals are starting again. Berlin & Beyond runs January 15 through 21 at the Bay Area’s favorite festival venue, the Castro. In addition to the Blue Angel screening I mentioned earlier and a Wim Wenders tribute, it includes 29 new (at least for America) features. As soon as B&B closes, [...]
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Two movies I’ve seen theatrically in the last few days: The Secret Life of Bees Hollywood makes terrific action movies and romantic comedies, but nothing helps you appreciate independent cinema like a major studio attempt at serious social drama. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd’s novel (which I haven’t read) is well-meant, well-designed, and [...]
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Festivals, of course. The Mill Valley Film Festival continues through the weekend, and the Oakland International Film Festival runs through the week. Plus, the CounterCorp Anti-Corporate Film Festival opens Wednesday, and the Taiwan and Arab Film Festivals open Thursday. I’ve placed Mill Valley screenings at the bottom of this newsletter. Sadko, Pacific Film Archive, Sunday, [...]
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