This Week At the Movies
May 9th 2008webmasterWeekly Newsletter
I posted a lot this week–no surprise. Go to the site and you’ll find short reviews and festival reports on Time to Die, Stranded, Orz Boyz, The Art of Negativ
e Thinking (the best movie I saw at the festival), Wonderful Town, Shadows in the Palace, Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, and Up the Yangtze.
In addition, there’s a festival-inspired discussion of Films You Can See Again and Films You Can’t, reports on Robert Towne’s appearance and Kevin Kelly’s State of Cinema Address, a full review of Standard Operating Procedure, and a little something called You Know You’re Spending Too Much Time at a Film Festival When…
Without the San Francisco International Film Festival, the site…and the newsletter…can return to normal.
Blade Runner + Screenwriter Q&A, Lark, Friday, 7:00; the movie itself continues through the week. For the opening night of Blade Runner: The Final Cut (until the next one),
screenwriter Hampton Fancher will be on hand for Q&A. Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner is surprisingly thoughtful for ‘80’s sci-fi–especially of the big budget variety. It ponders questions about the nature of humanity and our ability to objectify people when it suits our needs to do so. Yet it never preaches. The script’s hazy at times; I never did figure out some of the connections, and a couple of important events happen at ridiculously convenient times. But art direction and music alone would make it a masterpiece. See my more extensive write-up.
Standard Operating Procedure, opens Friday at the Shattuck, Kabuki, Aquarius, and other theaters; and at the Rafael Thursday. We all
know Lynndie England…or we think we do. She’s the young, seemingly carefree soldier photographed taunting prisoners in those infamous Abu Ghraib prison photos. Errol Morris wants you to see England and many of her former companions in a different light. He interviews them extensively in Standard Operating Procedure, shows us the letters they wrote home, and uses actors to re-enact some of the most gut-wrenching scenes they witnessed and committed. The result isn’t an easy film to watch. It has you squirming in your seat, trying not to turn away your eyes. It also forces you to ask yourself some very tough questions. See my full review.
The General (1926), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30. Buster 
Keaton pushed film comedy like no one else when he made this one. He meticulously recreated the Civil War setting. He mixed slapstick comedy with battlefield death. He hired thousands of extras and filmed what may be the single most expensive shot of the silent era (then used it as the setup for a punch line told in a simple close-up). The result was a critical and commercial flop in 1926, but today it’s rightly considered one of the greatest comedies ever made. Accompanied by Jon Mirsalis on piano.
Office Space, Cerrito, Thursday, 7:00. If you’ve ever worked in a soul-killing office at the mercy of a boss who was evil-incarnate, you’ll like this one. A benefit for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.
A Clockwork Orange, Clay, Friday and Saturday, midnight. Stanley Kubrick’s
strange, “ultra-violent” dystopian nightmare about crime and conditioning seemed self-consciously arty in 1971, and it hasn’t improved with time. But several of its scenes—the “Singin’ in the Rain” rape, the brainwashing sequence, Alex’s vulnerability when he’s attacked by his former mates—are brilliant, as is Malcolm McDowell’s performance as a hooligan turned helpless victim.
Institute called it, the greatest American film comedy yet made. But Billy Wilder’s farce about desperate musicians, vicious gangsters, and straight men in drag definitely belongs in the top 20. And its closing line has never been beat. On a United Artists 90th Anniversary Double Bill with Tom Jones–a movie I haven’t seen in a long time but recall liking a great deal.
out author/con-artist Norma Khouri justified them beautifully. None of the events recreated in the film actually happened, and Broinowski reminds us of that by showing us the freshly murdered girl, covered in stage blood, sit up and laughi with her “murderers” after a take. Not only is it just a movie, but it’s a movie about lies. Khouri became famous when she wrote a memoir about the honor killing of her best friend in Jordan. The trouble is that she grew up in Chicago, her real name is Norma Bagain, and she left the US one step ahead of the law, wanted for defrauding an old lady. Extremely entertaining, with jokes, old film clips, special effects, and rock and roll, Forbidden Lies takes on a journey with, and about, one hell of a con artist. Several times, even late in the picture, a new revelation would have me thinking “Maybe there is some truth behind what she said,” only to discover that no such truth exists.
human heart in Lance Hammer’s directorial debut. Set in a sparsely-populated piece of the Mississippi Delta, Ballast brings us into the lives of three troubled souls struggling with loss and a need for family. Hammer avoids professional actors, music, and artificial lighting, creating a reality that Hollywood could never match. Hollywood would have turned Ballast into an uplifting celebration of the human spirit (I can almost hear that line narrated in the trailer). That would have been a good movie, but Hammer made the story into a great one. This Film Will Have a Theatrical Release After the Festival.
filthy rich. We accept this empty and amoral theme because the movie is funny and visually pleasing, but even more because Ivan Barnev is engaging and likeable as the story’s ambitious waiter protagonist. But just as the fun and games begin to tire us, the Nazis arrive. Jan falls in love with a German girl, collaborates with the enemy, and shows us just how low he can go. Told mostly in flashbacks, I Served the King of England maintains its light tone throughout. This Film Will Have a Theatrical Release After the Festival.
version (and the Bay Area version) of Before Sunrise. A man and woman wake up together, hung over and embarrassed (they don’t even know each others’ names). We discover the two characters as they discover each other, maneuver around their mutual attraction, and talk about their very different attitudes about life and race. Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins make attractive and likable leads, and it works beautifully for the first hour before it runs out of momentum. Read my 
Although Kingsley gets top billing, Josh Peck plays the lead roll, a pot dealer fresh out of high school, and one of the doctor’s patients (he’s paying his shrink bills in marijuana). But while The Wackness entertains, it never quite jells. As a character, Josh lacks the depth and interest needed to fill a movie, while as an actor Peck lacks the charisma to carry one. Kingsley has the charisma, but his talent can’t raise Dr. Squires much above the one-joke character of the script. The Festival’s Centerpiece presentation. This Film Will Have a Theatrical Release After the Festival.
second feature, made years after he donned those horn-rimmed glasses, Harold Lloyd finally found the shy, scared, but clever and ambitious character to go with them. Harold is too much of a coward to face the bully or win the girl, but a fairy tale lie from his grandmother helps him find the courage that was always inside. This sweet fable about the power of self-confidence avoids excess sentimentality by the simple (but actually quite difficult) trick of never letting up on the laughs. I’ve seen people almost asphyxiate from laughter during the mothball scene. Five years later he would return to the rural setting, and the theme, for his best film, The Kid Brother. With Jon Mirsalis on the piano.
character-driven films feel like epics, so there’s no surprise that he’d eventually try the real thing. Or that he’d get it right. Based on a Upton Sinclair novel called Oil! (the name change makes no sense), There Will be Blood is big, sprawling, and spectacular, and captures not just a moment in history but a 30-year transition. 
l you about the movie anyway. Pretty tame by the standards of writer/director Catherine Breillat, but still very erotic, The Last Mistress concerns itself with the sex lives of the rich and noble-born, all done with the sumptuous costumes and scenery one expects in such a period piece. The film works best in a long flashback that dominates the middle of the picture, where we really get to know Vellini for the strange and impulsive person she is. Unfortunately, The Last Mistress sags horribly before the flashback begins, and not-so-horribly-but-still-not-so-good after its over. The good parts don’t quite earn it a B, but they’re close.
4:00. Feature films weren’t Laurel & Hardy’s strong point; something about their humor worked best in the short form. But no exception proves the rule better than Sons of the Desert. This simple tale of married men trying to have a good time is loose, leisurely, and very funny. In what the Museum is billing as an “All-Talkies Matinee,” they’re screening “Sons of the Desert” with one of Laurel & Hardy’s best shorts, “Helpmates”–a movie that really shows what the team was all about. Give them a simple job (cleaning a house, in this case), and watch the disaster.
was a comedy about unintentional pregnancy that was more truthful, more insightful, and just plain funnier than 
on at this event. There’s a conversation with 1906 author James Dalessandro and Rome creator (that’s HBO’s Rome creator James Hirsch. There’s Dalessandro’s documentary, Damnedest Finest Ruins. And there’s the 1936 MGM spectacular San Francisco. A big, silly, melodramatic special effects vehicle made before people thought of movies as special effects vehicles, San Francisco is a classic example of code-era Hollywood trying to have it both ways. It celebrates the non-conformist, hedonistic, open-minded joy that, at least to the screenwriters, symbolized the Barbary Coast. But it covers itself in a thick layer of Christian moralizing that’s as annoying as it is laughable. Still, San Francisco has considerable pleasures, especially in the last half hour when the earth shakes and the fires break out. And let’s not forget the title song—the best ever written about a city.
still strikes a considerable visual punch. The images—workers in a hellish underground factory, the wealthy at play, a robot brought to life in the form of a beautiful woman—are a permanent part of our collective memory. Even people who haven’t seen Metropolis know it through the countless films it has influenced. But the beautiful imagery only make the melodramatic plot and characters seem all the more trite.
certainly an excellent and an important movie. Iranian/French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi based Persepolis on her own autobiographical graphic novels (Vincent Paronnaud shares screenwriting and directing credits). Through the eyes of young Marjane (I’m calling the artist by her last name, the onscreen character by her first), we see Iran go through oppression, revolution, hope, worse oppression, war, and even worse oppression. The story covers the war with Iraq, a late adolescence in Vienna, a return to an Iran now at peace but still under the clergy’s thumb, and a romantic life made difficult by pressures internal and external. If you’re still not convinced, 
April 13. This sort of snuck up while I was taking a break from this site, and I really don’t know much about it. So if you’re curious, just click the link above.
films of the 1980s, and both about cyborgs. RoboCop, which I haven’t seen in many years, mixes extremely violent action with smart and funny social/political satire. The Terminator lacks RoboCop’s wit, but its thrills keep you on the edge of your seat. And it maintains an internal logic rare in time travel stories. Besides, it offers a now-rare view of our Governor’s naked butt. Part of the Castro’s “Second Dark Age” series.
pacing, a mix of muted and striking colors, and unusual camera angles. Yet the plot sounds like a superhero comic-book movie. If Francis Ford Coppola had stuck to this odd mix of style and story, his first film in eight years might have become his first good one in nearly 30. But just as the cat-and-mouse game heats up, the plot drops out from under you. The second part of Youth Without Youth meanders without direction, trying to say something existentially profound, but without anything really profound (or even interesting) to say. 
om his five-year-old son (Connor Maselli) that he leaves the child home alone–and that’s in a house with an unfenced swimming pool. Looking for a way out of his responsibilities, he asks his estranged 21-year-old daughter (Katherine Celio) to move in as caregiver. Slowly, they work out some of their problems, but by no means all of them. Adams made Around the Bay for very little money, shooting it on standard-def video. The low budget shows, but thanks to an excellent script and cast, doesn’t hurt the film. 
funny, Ozu focuses his seldom-moving camera on two brothers adjusting to life in the suburbs, and their realization that the father they look up to must kiss ass to achieve success. One normally doesn’t think of realistic character study as one of silent film’s strongest assets, but in 1932 (by which time Japan was pretty much the only country still making silents), Ozu proved just how much the medium could do. 
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return once again for an evening of old-fashioned analog special effects and discussion. No feature, this time, but a lot of clips are promised, both from the master himself and the digital artists he influenced.
screen. Click 
