The Balboa starts its Samurai series today. That's as good an excuse as any to talk about my all-time favorite filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa. No one else combined as full a technical and artistic mastery of the medium with such a deep and sympathetic understanding of the human condition. At least no one else did so … Continue reading Kurosawa

Projecting 35mm motion picture film is a violent, potentially dangerous act. (Dangerous for the film. Not, thankfully--for the humans involved, although it was before acetate film replaced nitrate more than 50 years ago.) Every minute, 90 feet of expensive artwork passes through a complicated, gear-and-sprocket machine. For the purposes of sound, it must move at … Continue reading Methods of Projection

The MPAA's movie rating system--the one that brands a film R, or G, or NC-17--is very much like democracy. It's only redeeming feature is that it's better than the alternative. The alternatives to democracy and the rating system are totalitarianism and the Production Code that kept movies in line from 1934 through 1968. Not much … Continue reading The Ratings Game

If you're a subscriber, I hope you've been getting the newsletter. My Web and mail host, IX WebHosting, had some trouble with one of its mail servers that was finally resolved Wednesday night. I don't know when the problems started (sometime in October) or if if it actually effected the mailings. If you didn't receive … Continue reading Rufus T. and George W.

As the holidays pass, life returns to normal. I even managed to get out and see some movies. And one of them challenged a long-cherished belief. Good Night, and Good Luck. (the comma and period are part of the title) is based on well-documented historical events, and it follows those events"”as near as I can … Continue reading Smoking in Black and White

Things are slowly getting back to normal around here. I'm preparing a schedule for the week of October 30, and will post it this coming Sunday. If I'm really lucky, I may even find time to see some movies. Two movies that I did manage to see recently were Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromit … Continue reading New Motion on Stop-Motion

I’m taking the week off of Bayflicks, but here are a few movies that I felt I had to mention: Recommended: I Live in Fear (AKA Record of a Living Being), Pacific Film Archive, Friday, 8:50. Perhaps it’s the dreadful American title, or maybe it's the lack of swordplay, but Kurosawa’s 1955 gem (made in-between … Continue reading Movies for the Week of October 14, 2005

I can't think of a historical figure more challenging for an actor to play than Truman Capote. You can't do that voice without it sounding like a broad comic Truman Capote impersonation. Capote himself sounded like a broad comic Truman Capote impersonation. But Philip Seymour Hoffman pulls it off--with major help from screenwriter Dan Futterman … Continue reading Capote

It's not Cannes, but in 28 years, the Mill Valley Film Festival has earned a great deal of local respect. It doesn't have quite the size or status of the San Francisco International Film Festival, but it's way ahead of everything else in the neighborhood. This year the festival runs from October 6th through the … Continue reading Mill Valley Film Festival