No festivals this week.
B Alps, Roxie, opens Friday for one-week run. I’m not exactly sure what to make of Alps. It has just enough continuity to make you try and follow the story, 
but there’s no story to follow. Many of the characters (primarily the female ones) seem sympathetic, yet their motivations and actions are often entirely opaque. There’s absolutely no mention of politics or government, yet I think it’s about totalitarianism. It’s often boring, yet more often its utterly compelling and strangely funny. Read my full review.
C+ Robot & Frank, Embarcadero, Albany, opens Friday. This moderately entertaining comedy, set in an easily-recognizable near future, stars Frank Langella as an aging cat burglar 
sinking into dementia. His worried son brings him a servant robot to care for him. That he will grow to like the robot is obvious–this is a movie, after all. The twist is what makes Frank like his robot: the realization that this machine has no scruples about burglary. The result is entertaining and reasonably (but not exceptionally) funny. Both Frank and the audience tend to anthropomorphize the robot, which is to be expected. But it’s nice that the robot occasionally reminds Frank that, although he sometimes appears to have emotions, he really doesn’t have any. Not bad, but inconsequential and forgettable. Read my full review.
A The Band Wagon, Stanford, Saturday through Tuesday. Singin’ in the Rain’s producer and writers teamed up with director Vincente Minnelli to make the one great Fred Astaire vehicle without Ginger Rogers. Their trick? They blended a small dose of reality into the otherwise frivolous mix. For instance, Astaire’s character, an aging movie star nervously returning to the Broadway stage he abandoned years before, is clearly based on Astaire himself. The result is a sly satire of Broadway’s intellectual aspirations, lightened up with exceptional songs and dances including “That’s Entertainment” and “I Love Louisa.” On a double bill with You Were Never Lovelier, which I have never seen.
A High Noon, Kabuki & various CineMark Theaters, Thursday. Gary Cooper discovers who his real friends are (just about no one) in Carl Foreman and Fred Zinnemann’s simple fable
of courage under fire in the old west. On the day of his wedding and his resignation, the town’s sheriff (Cooper) finds out that hardened criminals are on their way, presumably for vengeance. But when he tries to form a posse, the people he thought he could count on turn their backs on him. Foreman’s last produced screenplay before getting blacklisted, High Noon can be interpreted as a parable to a Hollywood gripped in McCarthyite fear.
A+ Silent comedy double bill: City Lights & Sherlock Jr., Castro, Thursday. The A+ goes to City Lights, where Charlie Chaplin’s little tramp falls in love with a blind flower 
girl and befriends a suicidal, alcoholic millionaire. The result is funny and touching, with one of the great tear-jerking endings. Cinema has rarely achieved such perfection. Released a year after everyone else had stopped making silents, City Lights has always had a recorded score (composed by Chaplin) and needs no live accompaniment. There’s nothing new about special effects, and in Sherlock Jr., Buster Keaton used them to comment on the nature of film itself, entering the movie screen and finding the scenes change around him. Since it’s Keaton, Sherlock Jr.is also filled with impressive stunts and very funny gags. I have no idea what music will accompany the second feature. Update: On 9/23/12, I corrected an error in this microreview.
Pandemic Double Bill: Contagion & Panic in the Streets, SF Film Society Cinema, Tuesday. Two thrillers, both by major directors, about germs threatening everyone–and the films were made more than 60 years apart. I haven’t seen them, so I won’t say anymore.
A Chinatown, Castro, Tuesday. Roman Polanski may be a rapist,
but you can’t deny his talent as a filmmaker. (Not that that in any excuses his actions as a human being.) And that talent was never shown better than in this neo-noir tale of intrigue and double-crosses set in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Writer Robert Towne fictionalized an actual scandal involving southern California water rights, mixing a few personal scandals in, as well, and handed it over to Polanski, who turned it into the perfect LA period piece. On a John Huston double-bill with Prizzi’s Honor, even though Huston merely acts in Chinatown.
B 2001: A Space Odyssey, Castro, Sunday and Monday. I used to worship Stanley Kubrick’s visualization of Arthur C. Clarke’s imagination, but it hasn’t aged all that well. We’ve all
seen the actual year, and know that Clarke and Kubrick got almost everything wrong. Yet there’s no denying the pull of 2001’s unorthodox storytelling and visual splendor–if you can see it properly presented. 2001 was shot for 70mm projection on a giant, curved, Cinerama screen–an experience that’s simply not available in the Bay Area today. The Castro can and has presented it in 70mm (although on a flat screen), as well as in 35mm. But this time, they’re presenting it in DCP, which I suspect will be better than 35mm but not as good as 70mm (if they had a 4K digital projector, I’d probably feel differently). Sunday it will play with two shorts, including George Méliès’ “A Trip to the Moon.” On Monday, it will be shown by itself.
Filed under: Weekly Newsletter | Tagged: Buster Keaton, charlie chaplin, Fred Astaire, Kubrick | 2 Comments »
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performances, showing us the villain in the hero and the hero in the villain as the Captain Bligh figure in this western variation on Mutiny on the Bounty. The character starts out as your classic Wayne hero—strong, stubborn, a man of his word who is quick with a gun. But these traits prove his moral undoing as he leads others on a dangerous cattle drive. To make matters worse, it’s his adopted son (Montgomery Clift in his first major role) who leads the rebellion. David Thomson will introduce Saturday’s 7:30 screening. On a Howard Hawks double bill with O. Henry’s Full House, which I haven’t seen.
lot of long epic movies in the 50s and 60s. Many of them were shot in large formats, and initially presented in 70mm 
dangerous. Lust, greed, and fear hung heavily in the air. It was enough to drive you crazy. On one dark and scary winter day, I sat through two double bills of vintage noir, all about people who were out of their minds (a festival-long theme last year). I loved three out of the four movies, but the best was easily Don’t Bother To Knock, which gave Marilyn Monroe one of her first starring roles. She plays a babysitter who really should not be trusted with a child. She shouldn’t be trusted with a grown man like Richard Widmark, either.
presentation of what is still the best 3D movie I have ever seen. Only Werner Herzog would think to ask a scientist about his dreams, and that’s precisely why Herzog was the perfect choice to make this documentary about very ancient cave paintings. And 3D allowed him to capture the way the paintings worked with the contour of the cave. You can read my 
In 2011, the Festival gave its 
Last year, the Jewish Festival gave its Freedom of Expression Award to Hollywood star, living legend, executive producer, and stroke survivor Issur Danielovitch—better known to the world as Kirk Douglas. The stroke slurred his speech but not his enthusiasm, and didn’t keep him from talking about the importance of free expression in a democracy, and that how without it we are all slaves. Then they screened Spartacus–one of the great roadshow productions of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Like Lawrence of Arabia, this picture requires something like the Castro to make it work its best. My only regret: They screened it in 35mm as no 70mm print is currently available.
charming, and sweet-natured romantic comedy. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, the main character answers a wrong number and discovers that World War III has started and Russian missiles are on the way. He spends the rest of the movie trying to find his new love and bring her to the airport in time to escape the coming holocaust. Without a doubt, this is the best dark and suspenseful romantic comedy I’ve ever seen about the end of civilization as we know it. the director and star were in attendance and answered questions after the movie.
about the death of silent movies, that is also a warm, funny, heartfelt, and occasionally sad story of a Hollywood star’s fall from grace. That sad tale is counterbalanced by another, of a struggling actress who becomes a star in the new medium of talkies. But what made the presentation so special? Two days before the film’s theatrical opening, I attended a special screening hosted by the 
