Revolution Summer, Roxie, opens Friday. Young people looking for sex, drugs, and violent revolution wander through a predominately-white Oakland in a film allegedly set today but feeling like the early 1970's. The acting by young unknowns is uniformly excellent, especially Mackenzie Firgens in the starring role. But the slow pace, overuse of close-ups, and clumsy … Continue reading This Week’s Movies

The Cerrito Classics series looked like a big hit when the theater launched it late last year. The very first presentation, The Wizard of Oz, sold out both shows. If the first screening I attended, Rear Window in January, didn't sell out, it was close. Audiences seemed to appreciate the fact that, even if a … Continue reading Less Classics at the Cerrito

To the Stars by Hard Ways, Pacific Film Archive, Friday, 8:45. I saw this environmentally-themed space adventure, the Soviet Union's answer to Star Trek and Star Wars, many, many years ago. I remember being impressed with the first half but less so as it went along. According to the PFA's description, an English-dubbed version called … Continue reading This Week’s Movies

England in the '60's. Cross dressers in the --˜20s. Gay bars in the --˜80s. All in September and October. Some interesting stuff on the way. First, there's the new Pacific Film Archive schedule, which includes Look Back at England: The British New Wave, a series of 17 then cutting-edge English films from the late 1950's … Continue reading Previews of Coming Attractions

No End in Sight, Rafael, ongoing. You may think you know how badly the administration bungled the war in Iraq, but Charles Ferguson's documentary tells the story so carefully, so dispassionately, and so authoritatively that you’re awed by the enormity of these people’s incompetence and the tragedy of its results. And you feel in your … Continue reading This Week’s Movies

Since I write about technology professionally, I should be used to my prose going out of date quickly. But Sunday just took the cake! In my full-length review of No End in Sight, I guessed that Karl Rove has already seen this film as he likes to keep tabs on his enemies. So what happens … Continue reading My Effect on the Government

I'm tempted to say that someone should force the people running the White House to watch Charles Ferguson's riveting but depressing documentary. But what would George W. Bush get out of it? He knows that neither he nor his loyal advisors make mistakes, and therefore everything in this film must be wrong. And I suspect … Continue reading No End in Sight

Double bill: San Francisco and The Maltese Falcon, Castro, Saturday, 7:00. The Castro celebrates its 85th Birthday with two studio-era classics set in San Francisco but shot, of course, in Hollywood. The big, silly, melodramatic special effects vehicle San Francisco tries to have it both ways, celebrating the non-conformist, hedonistic, open-minded joy that--at least to … Continue reading This Week’s Movies

I wasn't going to write anything about the two great icons of European cinema who died last week. Why join the chorus of mourning bloggers writing about the same thing? Besides, I've often found Bergman's films easier to admire than to love, and I've never cared for Antonioni. But some of the idiocy I've been … Continue reading Death of the Masters