I wasn't going to write anything about the two great icons of European cinema who died last week. Why join the chorus of mourning bloggers writing about the same thing? Besides, I've often found Bergman's films easier to admire than to love, and I've never cared for Antonioni. But some of the idiocy I've been … Continue reading Death of the Masters

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 … Continue reading Birthdays and Science Fiction

Live Free or Die Hard, Parkway, opening Friday, and Cerrito, continuing. Look, if you've got a brilliant plan for bringing the country to its knees for your own illegal profits, don't murder your employees when they cease being useful; the ones you still need will stop trusting you. And if you're going to murder them … Continue reading This Week’s Movies

Since I've posted all of the Jewish Film Festival descriptions before, this time I'm placing them at the end of the listings. She's Gotta Have It, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Saturday, 7:30. Spike Lee jumped from film school to the big time with this low-budget, extremely sexy comic drama about a life-embracing woman … Continue reading This Week’s Movies

Let me start with a list of titles: 1984 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Catch-22 The Great Gatsby Moby Dick The Old Man and the Sea The Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man Ulysses And now, another list: The African Queen Ben Hur The Godfather The Graduate Jaws M*A*S*H Psycho Sparticus At a … Continue reading Novel Thoughts

I spent Friday night and all day yesterday at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. I hate missing it today, but life sometimes gets in the way of movie-going. Have I told you about the costumes? A great many people, mostly women, take the trouble to dress up for the festival. It's great to see … Continue reading Silent Night, Day, and Night Again

Ten Canoes, Lumiere, Shattuck, and Rafael, opening Friday. Don’t expect a conventional narrative made exotic by a pre-contact, aboriginal Australian setting. Ten Canoes feels more like a piece of native oral tradition recorded on film. While a heavily-accented, English-speaking off-screen narrator explains the people, actions, and motivations, we watch ten men build canoes and use … Continue reading This Week’s Movies

Since I last wrote you, I attended screenings at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Film Forum. Last night, MOMA screened a selection of D.W. Griffith Biograph shorts, with piano accompaniment, in one theater, and Alfred Hitchcock's only romantic comedy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in the other theater. A difficult choice, but schedule … Continue reading NYC2: MOMA and the Film Forum

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. I've been having Internet-connection problems (not to mention laptop hardware problems), and I decided that enjoying my New York vacation was more important than dealing with connectivity issues. Of course, the very idea of this vacation brings up a question: Why visit NYC in the … Continue reading Reporting from New York–Finally!

I'm writing this at 37,000 feet, enroute to New York, hoping my laptop's battery holds out. The inflight movie, The Last Mimsy, is drawing to an end. I didn't watch it, but my eyes are naturally drawn to moving images on a screen, so I glanced up every so often. I can't stand inflight movies--censored … Continue reading This Week’s Movies