Two annual Bay Area festivals will run in virtual mode in the next two weeks: Frameline Website; Thursday June 25 - Sunday, June 28 In its 44th year, the world's oldest LGBTQ film festival is smaller this year, bringing only 19 feature films, along with shorts, into your living room. To make it more like … Continue reading LGBTQ & Silent Comedy: Two upcoming virtual festivals
Movies I’ve recently seen: Her Smell, Star Trek VI, The Boy with Green Hair, The Big Knife, & The Tuscan Sun
Four films I'd never seen before and one I hadn't seen in years. None of them are great, but none of them were horrible, either. B+ Her Smell (2018), Kanopy There's a point about half way through this rock and roll drama when I almost gave up. Elisabeth Moss' performance as a rundown punk star, … Continue reading Movies I’ve recently seen: Her Smell, Star Trek VI, The Boy with Green Hair, The Big Knife, & The Tuscan Sun
Cinema & the African American Experience
I have never experienced what black people must go through every day in this country. I can read about it. I can listen to interviews. And, of course, I can see films about it. Here are 10 films about the African American experience worth watching. There are far, far more. I admit that several other … Continue reading Cinema & the African American Experience
2040: A heaven or a hell?
A- Environmental documentary Directed by Damon Gameau You'd expect a film titled 2040 to bring you into a dystopian nightmare - especially if it's about climate change. It would dramatize a dying civilization where the oceans have risen and much of the planet is barely inhabitable. Something like The Handmaid's Tale with coal fumes. But … Continue reading 2040: A heaven or a hell?
Jewish Horror: The Golem on Blu-ray
To understand this hundred-year-old German/Jewish horror movie, you need to know a bit about the German Expressionist movement. The Golem: How He Came into the World was never intended to look realistic. Neither the acting, the makeup, nor the costumes were intended to recreate the medieval period of the setting. This expressionism allowed set designer Hans … Continue reading Jewish Horror: The Golem on Blu-ray
In Bay Area Virtual Cinema: June 5 – 11
Movies used to be a form of escapism. But if you look at the films streaming through our closed theaters to our living rooms this week, you'll find many motion pictures that reflect what's on the streets. Virtual Festivals We Are One: A Global Film Festival ends Sunday Bay Area theaters with virtual cinema Alameda … Continue reading In Bay Area Virtual Cinema: June 5 – 11
Tommaso
C psychological relationship drama Written and directed by Abel Ferrara Abel Ferrara's latest film doesn't quite do what it should (whatever that is). It's not horrible. It succeeds in making you worry about the confused protagonist. Several individual scenes work reasonably well, but the main character's slide into insanity (if that's what it is) feels … Continue reading Tommaso
In Bay Area Virtual Cinema: May 29 – June 4
Are We One, or are we Dazed and Confused? A few choice films available at home through your favorite movie theater: Virtual Festivals We Are One: A Global Film Festival opens Friday. But remember that the showtimes are EST. Bay Area theaters with virtual cinema Alameda BAMPFA Balboa Cerrito Elmwood Lark New Mission Rafael Roxie … Continue reading In Bay Area Virtual Cinema: May 29 – June 4
Movies I’ve Recently Seen: The Stunt Man, The Wind, American Trial, & Snow Trail
Five more films, all worth watching…but not all of them great. A- The Stunt Man (1980), My own DVD, which I hadn't watched in ages One of my favorite cult movies. Strange, audacious, funny, suspenseful, and totally weird. A Vietnam vet on the run from police accidentally kills a stunt man, and the vet takes … Continue reading Movies I’ve Recently Seen: The Stunt Man, The Wind, American Trial, & Snow Trail
In Bay Area Virtual Cinema: May 22 – 28
Music and plastic, a lucky grandma fighting the mob, and the dullest gay man on the planet. They're all streaming via otherwise closed Bay Area movie theaters. Virtual Festivals CAAMFest Online closes Friday Bay Area theaters with virtual cinema Alameda BAMPFA Balboa Cerrito Elmwood Lark New Mission Rafael Roxie Vogue Helping a theater: The Roxie … Continue reading In Bay Area Virtual Cinema: May 22 – 28
Bayflicks 