This Week At the Movies

I posted a lot this week–no surprise. Go to the site and you’ll find short reviews and festival reports on Time to Die, Stranded, Orz Boyz, The Art of Negative Thinking (the best movie I saw at the festival), Wonderful Town, Shadows in the Palace, Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, and Up the Yangtze.

In addition, there’s a festival-inspired discussion of Films You Can See Again and Films You Can’t, reports on Robert Towne‘s appearance and Kevin Kelly’s State of Cinema Address, a full review of Standard Operating Procedure, and a little something called You Know You’re Spending Too Much Time at a Film Festival When…

Without the San Francisco International Film Festival, the site…and the newsletter…can return to normal.

Blade Runner + Screenwriter Q&A, Lark, Friday, 7:00; the movie itself continues through the week. For the opening night of Blade Runner: The Final Cut (until the next one), screenwriter Hampton Fancher will be on hand for Q&A. Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner is surprisingly thoughtful for ‘80’s sci-fi–especially of the big budget variety. It ponders questions about the nature of humanity and our ability to objectify people when it suits our needs to do so. Yet it never preaches. The script’s hazy at times; I never did figure out some of the connections, and a couple of important events happen at ridiculously convenient times. But art direction and music alone would make it a masterpiece. See my more extensive write-up.

Standard Operating Procedure, opens Friday at the Shattuck, Kabuki, Aquarius, and other theaters; and at the Rafael Thursday. We all know Lynndie England…or we think we do. She’s the young, seemingly carefree soldier photographed taunting prisoners in those infamous Abu Ghraib prison photos. Errol Morris wants you to see England and many of her former companions in a different light. He interviews them extensively in Standard Operating Procedure, shows us the letters they wrote home, and uses actors to re-enact some of the most gut-wrenching scenes they witnessed and committed. The result isn’t an easy film to watch. It has you squirming in your seat, trying not to turn away your eyes. It also forces you to ask yourself some very tough questions. See my full review.

The General (1926), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30. Buster Keaton pushed film comedy like no one else when he made this one. He meticulously recreated the Civil War setting. He mixed slapstick comedy with battlefield death. He hired thousands of extras and filmed what may be the single most expensive shot of the silent era (then used it as the setup for a punch line told in a simple close-up). The result was a critical and commercial flop in 1926, but today it’s rightly considered one of the greatest comedies ever made. Accompanied by Jon Mirsalis on piano.

Office Space, Cerrito, Thursday, 7:00. If you’ve ever worked in a soul-killing office at the mercy of a boss who was evil-incarnate, you’ll like this one. A benefit for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.

A Clockwork Orange, Clay, Friday and Saturday, midnight. Stanley Kubrick’s strange, “ultra-violent” dystopian nightmare about crime and conditioning seemed self-consciously arty in 1971, and it hasn’t improved with time. But several of its scenes—the “Singin’ in the Rain” rape, the brainwashing sequence, Alex’s vulnerability when he’s attacked by his former mates—are brilliant, as is Malcolm McDowell’s performance as a hooligan turned helpless victim.