I’m afraid I didn’t post much this week. Just a news item about The Film Society and the Kabuki, and one about Another Local Movie Calendar.
Jazz & Silent Films, Castro, Saturday, all day. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Club Foot Orchestra provided many of the best music for silent films in the Bay Area. Their music tended toward the Avant Gard, and it’s no surprise they tended towards the German expressionist films of the 1920’s. They’re back, and performing for three films this day: Sherlock Jr. (their only American film; 3:00), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (7:00), and Nosferatu (9:00).
San Francisco Women’s Film Festival, Cerrito, Sunday, 5:00. The Cerrito web site promises “Short sci-fi, horror, suspense and thriller movies directed by women from around the globe!”
No Borders, No Limits: Japanese gangsters films, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, running now through Sunday. Somehow I missed getting this into last week’s newsletter. Sorry about that. YBCA presents six films from Nikkatsu, “Japan’s oldest and boldest film studio.” All in brand-new 35mm prints.
Frank Ferrante Presents Duck Soup, Rafael, Saturday, 7:00. Actor Frank Ferrante will introduce and discuss the Marx Brothers’ greatest movie, where a blatantly corrupt politician becomes the country’s all-powerful leader on the whim of the wealthy elite. Once in office, he cuts benefits for the working class, fills important positions with unqualified clowns, and starts a war on a whim. But how could a comedy made in 1933 be relevant today?
Cinemasports, Parkway, Sunday, 8:00. I have yet to attend “the ‘Iron Chef’ of Filmmaking,” but one of these days I’ll have to give it a try. Contestants will be told at 10:00am what “ingredients” their short movies must contain. At 8:00, the Parkway screens the results.
San Francisco & Other Earthquake Stuff, Lark, Thursday, 6:30. There’s a lot going
on at this event. There’s a conversation with 1906 author James Dalessandro and Rome creator (that’s HBO’s Rome creator James Hirsch. There’s Dalessandro’s documentary, Damnedest Finest Ruins. And there’s the 1936 MGM spectacular San Francisco. A big, silly, melodramatic special effects vehicle made before people thought of movies as special effects vehicles, San Francisco is a classic example of code-era Hollywood trying to have it both ways. It celebrates the non-conformist, hedonistic, open-minded joy that, at least to the screenwriters, symbolized the Barbary Coast. But it covers itself in a thick layer of Christian moralizing that’s as annoying as it is laughable. Still, San Francisco has considerable pleasures, especially in the last half hour when the earth shakes and the fires break out. And let’s not forget the title song–the best ever written about a city.
Raging Bull, Castro, Wednesday. Martin Scorsese put a cap on 70’s cinema with this study of boxer Jake La Motta. It isn’t an easy film to watch; the experience is not unlike a good pummeling, but it’s absolutely worth it. As part of the United Artists Anniversary series, the Castro will show Raging Bull on a double-bill with Rocky (which I haven’t seen since it was new and didn’t care for much then). Both films will be screened in new 35mm prints.
Metropolis, Red Vic, Thursday, 8:00. The first important science fiction feature film 
still strikes a considerable visual punch. The images–workers in a hellish underground factory, the wealthy at play, a robot brought to life in the form of a beautiful woman–are a permanent part of our collective memory. Even people who haven’t seen Metropolis know it through the countless films it has influenced. But the beautiful imagery only make the melodramatic plot and characters seem all the more trite. Live accompaniment by woodwind/percussion/electronics duo Enuma Elish.
Fight Club, Parkway, Tuesday, 9:15. Strange flick. Edward Norton wants to be Brad Pitt. Who wouldn’t? Pitt’s not only shagging Helena Bonham Carter, he’s also a free-spirited kind of guy and a real man. Or maybe he’s just a fascist? Or maybe–better not give away the strangest plot twist this side of Psycho and Bambi, even if it strains credibility more than a speech by George W. Bush. And Bonham Carter gets to say the most shocking and hilariously obscene line in Hollywood history. A benefit for Hand to Hand.
Persepolis, Red Vic, Tuesday and Wednesday. Can one call a 95-minute, low-budget, animated film an epic? I think this one qualifies. It may also qualify as a masterpiece. It’s
certainly an excellent and an important movie. Iranian/French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi based Persepolis on her own autobiographical graphic novels (Vincent Paronnaud shares screenwriting and directing credits). Through the eyes of young Marjane (I’m calling the artist by her last name, the onscreen character by her first), we see Iran go through oppression, revolution, hope, worse oppression, war, and even worse oppression. The story covers the war with Iraq, a late adolescence in Vienna, a return to an Iran now at peace but still under the clergy’s thumb, and a romantic life made difficult by pressures internal and external. If you’re still not convinced, read my full review.
Singin’ In the Rainn, Cerrito, Saturday, 6:00 and Sunday, 5:00. In 1952, the late twenties were a fond memory of an innocent time, and nostalgia was a large part of Singin’ in the Rain’s appeal. The nostalgia is gone now, and we can clearly see this movie for what it is: the greatest musical ever filmed, and perhaps the best work of pure escapist entertainment to ever come out of Hollywood. Take out the songs, and you still have one of the best comedies of the 1950’s, and the funniest movie Hollywood ever made about itself. But take out the songs, and you take out the best part. A Cerrito Classic.
Bayflicks 