Need more silent films in your life - on the big screen with live accompaniment? You'll find the first weekend of December very satisfying. First, there's A Day of Silents, a one-day festival at the Castro on Saturday, December 2. Then, on Sunday, December 3, the Rafael will screen Buster Keaton's last silent feature, Spite … Continue reading A Weekend of Silents in Early December
Category: Silent Films
The Last Laugh on Blu-ray
In F.W. Murnau's 1924 masterpiece, The Last Laugh, an aging man - proud of his job and the uniform that comes with it - is demoted to a lesser position by a heartless manager. It will break him. Aside from being a powerful story centered around a great star performance, The Last Laugh is one … Continue reading The Last Laugh on Blu-ray
The Parade’s Gone By: Sunday, the last day at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
I love the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, but it can be tiring. You spend all day, three days in a row, watching movies. Sometimes the breaks between films are less than half an hour. But the movies, the music, the discussions, and the people you can talk to make it very special. This year's … Continue reading The Parade’s Gone By: Sunday, the last day at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
A Million and One Nights: Saturday at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
It's Tuesday, so it's time to tell you about Saturday at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. I'm won't discuss every film screened that day; just the ones I want to talk about. A lot of the films, not just on Saturday but throughout the whole festival, were new restorations. It seemed as if every … Continue reading A Million and One Nights: Saturday at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Spellbound in Darkness: Thursday and Friday at the Silent Film Festival
I can't possibly cover the San Francisco Silent Film Festival the way I do the San Francisco International Fest, reporting every morning on what I saw the previous day. SFSFF is too compact and concentrated for that. Most days, it starts at 10:00am and ends around 11:00pm. Breaks can be short. I have a long … Continue reading Spellbound in Darkness: Thursday and Friday at the Silent Film Festival
Silent Film Fest coming in early June
Let's step away from the Festival opening next Wednesday, and take a look at a very different one that opens in early June. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival provides an intensive, four-day immersion into the first decades of the cinema. The festival brings rare prints and new restorations of classic and obscure silent movies, … Continue reading Silent Film Fest coming in early June
Buster Keaton Weekend
Movie audiences first saw Buster Keaton on the big screen in 1917, with the premiere of Fatty Arbuckle's short The Butcher Boy. To celebrate the centenary of Keaton's first cinematic appearance, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum turns its theater over to the Great Stoneface with a mini festival of 11 shorts and four feature-length … Continue reading Buster Keaton Weekend
Keaton great and mediocre: My Blu-ray review of The General and The Three Ages
Between 1920 and 1928 - the only years where he had complete control of his own films - Buster Keaton created one of the greatest bodies of work in silent movies. All his comedies from that period have been available on Blu-ray for quite some time, but that doesn't mean they can't be reissued with … Continue reading Keaton great and mediocre: My Blu-ray review of The General and The Three Ages
Louise Brooks at the New Mission
I confess. I was wrong. I gave G.W. Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl a B+ in this week's newsletter. I should have given it an A. Pabst's second film starring Louise Brooks is a better film than I had recalled. Or maybe the movie seemed better because the music was better. That can happen … Continue reading Louise Brooks at the New Mission
3 Views of America: What I saw in theaters this weekend
I saw three movies in theaters this weekend. Free State of Jones at the Elmwood Being a history buff, and particularly one interested in the Civil War and reconstruction, I couldn't help rushing out to see Gary Ross' Free State of Jones. I caught it at the Elmwood. Matthew McConaughey stars as an actual historical … Continue reading 3 Views of America: What I saw in theaters this weekend
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