-
SFIFF Review: A Girl Cut in Two
Filed under: Foreign Language, Festival Reports, San Francisco International Film Festival 
Some filmmakers, like Chaplin and Kubrick, determined that they should release a film only every few years, to make it more like an event to be anticipated. Other filmmakers work faster and harder in an effort not to be forgotten, like Spike Lee or Woody Allen. It's difficult to determine which method is more effective, but it seems like if a filmmaker turns in over fifty films of mostly high quality, their work is eventually taken for granted. Everyone loves Hitchcock now, but in 1976 when his final film opened, he must have seemed like a relic compared to...
-
SFIFF Review: Standard Operating Procedure
Filed under: Documentary, New Releases, Sony Classics, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, San Francisco International Film Festival, Cinematical Indie 
With the rise of cheap digital video, some might claim that we're in a Golden Age of documentaries, except for the fact that most documentary filmmakers aren't really filmmakers. They copy a basic template over and over again, assembling footage rather than making a movie. Of course, some of this may qualify as great journalism: the 2003 film Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, for example, or last year's No End in Sight. But very few understand how to combine...
-
SFIFF Review: The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
Filed under: Foreign Language, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, San Francisco International Film Festival 
If nothing else, Eric Rohmer's The Romance of Astrea and Celadon raises many interesting questions about the nature of the auteur theory and film canons in general. Rohmer is a certified auteur, and a world master. He has made many, many good films and a few great ones, especially when adding entries to his three celebrated series: "Six Moral Tales" (in the 1960s and 1970s), "Comedies and Proverbs" (six films in the 1980s) and "Tales of the Four Seasons" (in the 1990s). These films,...
-
SFIFF Review: Just Like Home (2008)
Filed under: Foreign Language, Festival Reports, San Francisco International Film Festival 
Though the Dogme 95 movement caused something of a stir in the film community at the time, the films made under its banner were, to put it mildly, a bit downbeat. Only Lone Scherfig's Italian for Beginners (2002) could lift the fog. Scherfig had a talent for presenting depressing characters in a lighthearted way, and still managed to resolve everyone's problems by the end of the film. Her film was a Hollywood ensemble comedy wrapped up in an enjoyable, intelligent art house package. As a result, it grossed over $4 million; the second highest grossing film...
-
SFIFF Review: The Golem (1920), featuring Black Francis
Filed under: Classics, Music & Musicals, Festival Reports, San Francisco International Film Festival, Retro Cinema 
Given how well the classic song "Where Is My Mind?" worked at the end of Fight Club (1999) and given his "loudQUIETloud" (see Karina's review of the 2006 documentary) method of crafting songs, Black Francis (a.k.a. "Frank Black," a.k.a. Charles Thompson) would seem the perfect candidate to compose a fantastic new score for a classic silent film. And so an eager, sold-out crowd of fans lined up at the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival for a Friday night screening of Paul Wegener and Carl Boese's silent-era,...
-
SFIFF Review: The Last Mistress
Filed under: Foreign Language, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, San Francisco International Film Festival, Cinematical Indie 
For some mysterious reason, Catherine Breillat's newest film, The Last Mistress, was chosen as the Opening Night Feature for the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival. It's probably the same mysterious reason that caused most critics to praise Breillat's intolerable Fat Girl (2001). It's a reason I'll never understand. I usually love filmmakers who tackle their personal demons in film, but Breillat is different in several ways. She's a nutcase who doesn't admit to her personal demons so much...
-
TIFF Review: Lust, Caution
Filed under: Drama, Romance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, Celebrities and Controversy, Focus Features, San Francisco International Film Festival, Cinematical Indie 
Lust, Caution is a great festival film; it's lush and long and loaded. It's also a bad festival film; I want to go back to it and think about it more, as if it were too delicate or intricate to be understood with the snap judgments and quick appraisals a festival can make you turn to at first resort. Like director Ang Lee's prior film, Brokeback Mountain, Lust, Caution takes a brisk, brief short story (Se,...
-
Review: La Vie en rose
Filed under: Drama, Foreign Language, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, San Francisco International Film Festival 
The singer Edith Piaf (1915-1963) was a unique soul, as beloved in France as much as, say, Elvis Presley was in the U.S. She had an unusual stage presence, almost mousy and withdrawn, but forceful in her voice; the effect was one of breaking out of her shell, and audiences connected with her. Her haunting voice is probably familiar to many Americans, as her songs continue to turn up as atmosphere in American movies, everything from Bull Durham (1988) to Saving Private Ryan (1998), Bernardo...
-
SFIFF Review: The Heavenly Kings
Filed under: Documentary, Music & Musicals, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, San Francisco International Film Festival 
In 1984, Christopher Guest and company refined and co-opted the "mockumentary" genre, and for over 20 years others have tried and failed to copy it. Some forgettable examples include Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), The Big Tease (2000) and Confetti (2006). Last year Sacha Baron Cohen finally did it with Borat, but that's another story; if Guest's troupe stamped their handprints on the mockumentary, then that goes triple for the "mock-rockumentary." No one, not even Cohen, can crawl out from...
-
SFIFF Review: All in This Tea
Filed under: Documentary, Theatrical Reviews, San Francisco International Film Festival, Cinematical Indie 
Thanks to the rise of digital video and the increase in box office, documentaries have become far more plentiful in recent years. In some ways that's a good thing; it means more worldly, educated moviegoers walking around. But it's also a bad thing for anyone who has to see more than a half dozen over a year's time. You start to notice the exact same techniques employed: talking heads, archival clips, filmed photographs, perhaps a narrator, and perhaps -- if we're lucky -- some actual new motion picture footage exposed just for the project.
Public...
|
