I'm back in form. I wrote four posts this week. On Friday, in Getting Back in Touch, I apologized for not writing (and a few other things), and recommended a couple of excellent films that are playing around but not in my weekly schedules. Then, on Sunday I wrote a full-length review of Knocked Up. … Continue reading This Week’s Films

Four days after the silent films leave the Castro next month, everyone will be speaking Yiddish. The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival opens there on July 19 (my birthday) with Sweet Mud, an Israeli drama set on a kibbutz in 1974. It closes August 6 at the Rafael with another Israeli drama, Three Mothers. (The … Continue reading The Cinematic Mitzvah

Quiet! I don't want to hear another word! Music's okay; go ahead and play some music. Applause and laughter are fine, too. And I don't mind reading words--I just don't want to hear them. You guessed it. This is my annual "Silents of Summer" post, inspired by the two weekend-long silent film festivals that brighten … Continue reading Silent Night–and Matinees, Too

With all the movies Hollywood has made about romantic love, only a handful hint at the messy, complex, but ultimately rewarding reality. There's Annie Hall, Woman of the Year, and Dodsworth, but not much more. Curiously, and probably not coincidentally, most of these are comedies. Now we can add another picture to the list: Judd … Continue reading Serious Comedy

Lousy timing on my part. Just as I finally go commercial and add advertising to Bayflicks.net, I stop writing. Yes, as I need visitors viewing my pages I stop giving them a reason to come here. But I never was much of a businessman. Nor am I always brilliant about what films I should see … Continue reading Getting Back in Touch

I know. I promise I'll get back into seeing films and writing about them. Soon. Really. In the meantime, here are the few things coming up that I know enough to have an opinion about:La vie en rose, Rafael, opens Friday. Early in this Edith Piaf biopic, a hunched, aged-before-her-time Piaf walks up to a … Continue reading This Week’s Recommendations

Pickings are slim this week. Once again, little things like life got in the way of my movie going. The African Queen, Stanford, Friday through Sunday. Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Africa, and Technicolor all make for splendid entertainment in John Huston's romantic comedy action adventure. According to Huston's autobiography, he didn't intend the film to … Continue reading Films for the Week of June 8, 2007

The Lives of Others, 4Star, Cerrito, Parkway, opening Friday. Yes, Ive finally saw this one. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck creates a very intimate, human story about the horrors of Communism and all forms of totalitarianism. An up-and-coming officer in the East German secret police (Ulrich Mühe) receives a plum assignment: Gather dirt on a respected … Continue reading Films for the Week of June 1, 2007

I haven't talked about the Shohei Imamura series that ran recently at the Castro and is now playing at the Pacific Film Archive. I had a reason: I had never seen one of Imamura's films. I fixed that problem last night, going to the Archive to see Vengeance Is Mine. Now I'm impressed. Imamura takes … Continue reading Japanese Killers and Endangered Theaters

There's a new icon on my schedules, , for warning. It's not to warn you about bad movies. I've already got and for that. tells you that there's something wrong with the presentation--for instance, it's on DVD, not film. Hover your mouse cursor over this icon to find out what I'm warning you about.