Links

Bayflicks lacks a links page, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love other web sites. Here are a few:

SF360, a sort of local news site for the independent film scene, officially launched this week (this is called a news hook in the journalism biz). It’s still taking form, but it already looks good, with short but interesting articles on current film festivals, links to articles elsewhere, reports on film people who’ve made local appearances, and a blog page with the good sense to put Bayflicks at the top of its list (even if it did spells my site as “Bay Flicks”—better than Bayflix).

Right below my listing on that page is another local movie site worth checking from time to time, Hell on Frisco Bay. This is simply one cinephile’s discussion of what he’s seen. Brian (if he’s posted his full name on the site, I haven’t found it) seems aware of everything going on and has opinions on much of it. A good read.

Moving beyond the local, there’s always indieWIRE, which is sort of a Variety/Associated Press for independent cinema. Here you can read about upcoming films that AMC isn’t booking into 800 theaters, find out about film festivals outside the Bay Area, and examine a weekly calendar of festivals and releases. indieWIRE, along with the San Francisco Film Society (which I will discuss here in two weeks), co-sponsors SF360 .

I’m not only a movie geek, I’m an obsolete movie technology geek. I could bore a stone to death talking about Todd-AO or 3-strip Technicolor. But Martin Hart never bores at his American Widescreen Museum. Here you’ll find the history and technology of the widescreen formats that sold movie tickets in the 1950’s and ‘60’s (as well as some that failed to sell tickets), pages on early color and sound, and a collection of strange movie posters, all illustrated with interesting photos and witty yet informative text.

But if you’re going to spend hours starring at a screen, at least get out of the house and stare at a really big one. Here are some screens worth staring at this week, including some promising presentations (I haven’t actually seen them) at the Asian American Film Festival.

Recommended, with Reservations: CSA: The Confederate States of America, Roxie, ongoing. Kevin Willmott’s mockumentary starts with a quote of George Bernard Shaw’s: “If you are going to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh. Otherwise they’ll kill you.” Willmott better watch his back, because his alternative history of the South winning the civil war hits painfully close to the bone as it examines our country’s cultural and institutional racism, but it just isn’t all that funny. It tries, with mock commercials for slave security devices and fake clips from imaginary movies, but only succeeds (the Home Shopping Network parody is priceless). Still, it’s nice to see someone do a mockumentary about something more important than dog shows and musicians.

Recommended: Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Parkway, opening Friday, and ongoing at the Rafael. Laurence Sterne’s 18th-century novel (which I haven’t read) is reputed to be funny, complex, digressive, and so self-referential that it’s really about writing that very book. It’s also reputed to be unfilmable. So Michael Winterbottom has made a film version of Tristram Shandy that is actually a film about making a film of Tristram Shandy, starring Steve Coogan as Steve Coogan, who is starring as Tristram Shandy. It’s all very silly, and very, very funny.

Not Recommended: Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Act 1 & 2, Friday and Saturday, midnight. Oh, how Terry Gilliam has fallen! Monty Python’s token Yank made three of the best movies of the 1980’s, then his career collapsed and took his talent with it. Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas reeks; a confused, ugly, and meaningless exercise—which would be forgivable, if it also wasn’t boring and witless.

Noteworthy: The Gay Divorcee, Stanford, Friday through Sunday. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen what is arguably the first Astaire-Rogers movie (certainly the first where they were the real stars). What I remember is a flawed entertainment with one great dance number, a few funny lines, and some historical interest. You could easily mistake The Gay Divorcee for an inferior rip-off of the very similar but vastly-superior Top Hat. The reality is that Top Hat was the rip-off, but one that improved on the original. On a double-bill with After the Thin Man.

Recommended: The Conformist, Balboa, opening Friday. It takes more than good men doing nothing to create fascism. According to Bernardo Bertolucci’s haunting character study, it also takes mediocre men with career ambitions. Jean-Louis Trintignant is chilling as a bland cog in the wheel, ready to use his honeymoon in homicidal service to Mussolini. With Stefania Sandrelli as his not-to-bright bride and Dominique Sanda, in a star-making performance, as the object of everyone’s desire. Showing now in a new, 35mm restoration that promises to restore Vittorio Storaro’s lush Technicolor cinematography.

Noteworthy: The Crimson Kimono, Castro, Saturday, 3:00. I’ve never seen this 1959 Sam Fuller cop buddy picture, but I’ve yet to see a Sam Fuller movie I didn’t like. James Shigeta and Charlie Bancroft play detectives working on a murder and falling in love with the same woman in an interracial love triangle—a courageous plot in 1959. The Asian American Film Festival is presenting The Crimson Kimono as part of its tribute to actor James Shigeta, who, along with documentary filmmaker Arthur Dong, will take part in an onstage discussion after the film.

Noteworthy: Dreaming Lhasa, Castro, Saturday, 6:30; Pacific Film Archive, Wednesday, 7:30. A Tibetan-American filmmaker visits Dharamsala (a community of Tibetan exiles in India) and becomes involved with an ex-monk, a charm box, and, from what I’ve read, the CIA. It doesn’t sound like your run-of-the-mill spiritual-and-unworldly look at Tibet. Part of the Asian American Film Festival.

Noteworthy: Water, Castro, Sunday, 6:00. This Canadian film from director Deepa Mehta, set in India in 1938, concerns itself with that country’s non-violent revolution against British rule. Only instead of concentrating on Gandhi or Nehru, it concerns itself with a young widow who must rebel not only against the British, but also against the narrow confines of Hindu orthodoxy. Part of the Asian American Film Festival.

Noteworthy: Colma: The Musical, Kabuki, Tuesday, 9:00. Yes, you read that title right. If you can name a musical Brigadoon or Oklahoma, why not Colma? Part of the Asian American Film Festival.

Recommended: Dr. Strangelove, Parkway, Thursday, 9:15. We like to look back at earlier decades as simpler, less fearful times, but Stanley Kubrick’s “nightmare comedy” reminds you just how scary things once were. Thank heaven we no longer have idiots like those running the country! It’s also very funny. Part of a new Onion AV Club Film Series.