A couple of weeks ago I told you about some Oscar hopefuls. Here are two more, both not just hopefuls but real contenders. In fact, they’re amongst the best films currently playing in conventional multiplexes. Brokeback Mountain Ang Lee bounces back from the inedible Hulk with a sweeping romantic tragedy. As Ennis, Heath Ledger brings … Continue reading Oscar Hopefuls, Part 2

Good news: The Roxie Theater has found an angel. The non-profit New College of California is taking over the oldest continually-running movie theater in San Francisco, known for introducing new independent films that are truly independent, not Miramax independent. Renamed the Roxie Film Center, it will be, according to the press release, "a non-profit Cinema … Continue reading The Roxie’s Angel

Forget Christmas and Chanukah! December is Oscar Season. This is the time that Hollywood studios release their Oscar hopefuls. To officially qualify, a movie must come out before the end of the year. But anything that opened before November is likely to get lost in Academy members' notoriously short attention spans. Thus, this is Oscar … Continue reading Oscar Hopefuls

The end is near! At least when you watch a movie, the ending is never more than a few hours away. But what kind of ending? The general rule of thumb is that Hollywood movies have happy endings, because that’s what people want, while serious films have sad endings, because life is like that (or … Continue reading Endings, Happy and Sad

The Balboa starts its Samurai series today. That's as good an excuse as any to talk about my all-time favorite filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa. No one else combined as full a technical and artistic mastery of the medium with such a deep and sympathetic understanding of the human condition. At least no one else did so … Continue reading Kurosawa