Tuesday's Festival Preview was supposed to be my last piece on the Mill Valley Film Festival before opening night. But I attended a press screening Wednesday for a film that I didn't realize was in the Festival. It is screening in the Festival. So here's one more capsule review: A Human Flow The world we live … Continue reading Mill Valley Film Festival Preview, Part 4: Human Flow
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Revisiting Schindler’s List
I loved Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List when I first saw it in 1993. It blew me away. Within a year or so I bought the Laserdisc (used), and watched it two or three times over the next decade. I recently revisited it for the first time in maybe 15 years - this time via Netflix. … Continue reading Revisiting Schindler’s List
Mill Valley Film Festival preview, Part 1
The Mill Valley Film Festival doesn't just screen new movies that haven't yet played in the Bay Area. It includes a few classics, as well. So, I'm splitting this report between classic and new films. Oddly, five of the six films below have some connection to the 1960s and '70s. The outlier, however, is the … Continue reading Mill Valley Film Festival preview, Part 1
Mill Valley Festival reaches 40 next month with 204 films, & one of them will probably win Best Picture
The Bay Area hosts a ridiculous number of film festivals, but two of them stand above the others: San Francisco International in the spring and Mill Valley in the fall. These are the festivals where you can see the newest independent films before they get a regular theatrical release. More importantly, you can see many … Continue reading Mill Valley Festival reaches 40 next month with 204 films, & one of them will probably win Best Picture
Machismo faces the Holocaust: My Blu-ray review of Seven Beauties
Lina Wertmüller's 1975 masterpiece, Seven Beauties, is a Holocaust film (with no recognizably Jewish characters), an examination of Italian machismo, and a witheringly sad and disturbing drama. And at times, it becomes a very funny slapstick comedy. Giancarlo Giannini stars as Pasqualino, a charming but somewhat dense egomaniac. He lives in Naples with his mother … Continue reading Machismo faces the Holocaust: My Blu-ray review of Seven Beauties
Movies I’ve Recently Seen: Stalker, Bad Education, Bardelys the Magnificent, & Carry on Cleo
Four more films that are new to me. As usual, I'm sorting them by quality. A Stalker (1979), Filmstruck This slow, strange, allegorical fantasy from the great Andrei Tarkovsky gets under your skin. A guide, called a stalker, takes two other men on a journey into a strange place called The Zone. We never find out … Continue reading Movies I’ve Recently Seen: Stalker, Bad Education, Bardelys the Magnificent, & Carry on Cleo
Lawrence of Arabia and the Third Coming of 70mm
I've seen two new blockbusters this summer, and both were projected from 70mm film. Fifty years ago, that wouldn't have been surprising. Thirty years ago, that would have been normal. Ten years ago, it was unthinkable. Today, it's back, five years after theatres were supposed to stop projecting physical film of any size. From Edison's … Continue reading Lawrence of Arabia and the Third Coming of 70mm
