No more apologies for not posting. If I don’t have time to write for Bayflicks, I don’t have time–even if two icons of world cinema die on the same day.
Okay. Some interesting events on the way:
This weekend the Castro celebrates its 85th birthday. On Friday night, the theater will host a live concert featuring Amy Hanaiali’I Gilliom, “Hawaii’s Ambassador of Music.” Among the movies screening Saturday and Sunday are The Wizard of Oz (as a sing-a-long), the original Phantom of the Opera (with organ accompaniment), and Gone with the Wind (no live music). Plus a double bill ofSan Francisco and The Maltese Falcon–two movies set in San Francisco but shot on Los Angeles soundstages.
Just before the birthday, the Castro will open Dead Channels, a science fiction and fantasy festival that moves on Friday to the Roxie, where it will play until Thursday the 16th. The festival begins with the film version of Kurt Vonnegut’s play, Happy Birthday Wanda June. Other presentations include the 1953 version of War of the Worlds, a sexual Frankensteinish thriller called The Secret Life of Sarah Sheldon, and (I didn’t know such a thing existed), a recent Gamera movie.
And if that’s not enough sci-fi, the Pacific Film Archive will show you the future and the fantastic from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Their From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema series starts Friday. It includes both well-known serious classics like Solaris and probable oddities like the silent Aelita, Queen of Mars (just the title makes me think of Zsa Zsa Gabor ruling Venus in the much later Queen of Outer Space).
I saw one of the lesser-known movies in the series, To the Stars by Hard Ways, many, many years ago. I remember being impressed with the first half of this environmentally-themed space adventure, but less so as it went along. According to the PFA’s description, an English-dubbed version called Humanoid Woman appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000, although I never saw that episode.
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