2014 San Francisco International Film Festival (Rump Sessions)

Several films which screened at last year's San Francisco International Film Festival received a limited release afterwards.

Palo Alto starring James Franco & Emma Roberts; directed by Gia Coppola; (2014) - Official Website
The Double starring  Jesse Eisenberg & Mia Wasikowska; directed by Richard Ayoade; (2013) - Official Website
Chinese Puzzle starring Romain Duris & Audrey Tautou; directed by Cédric Klapisch; French & English with subtitles; (2013) - Official Website
We Are the Best! starring Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin & Liv LeMoyne; directed by Lukas Moodysson; Swedish with subtitles; (2013) - Official Website
Obvious Child starring Jenny Slate & Jake Lacy; directed by Gillian Robespierre; (2013) - Official Website
Calvary starring Brendan Gleeson; directed by John Michael McDonagh; (2013) - Official Website
The Skeleton Twins starring Kristen Wiig & Bill Hader; directed by Craig Johnson; (2013) - Official Website

I saw all of these films at Landmark Theater locations.  I saw Palo Alto & The Skeleton Twins at the Guild in Menlo Park.  I saw The Double & Calvary at the Shattuck in Berkeley.  I saw Chinese Puzzle, We Are the Best! & Obvious Child at the Embarcadero Cinemas.

Before I forget, the Shattuck Cinemas are being threatened with closure due to a housing project being planned for the site.  If you oppose this, there is a petition you can sign and there is a Save the Shattuck Facebook page.

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So much time has passed since I saw these films that I should be ashamed but I'll do my best to plumb the depths of my memory.  Fortunately, I have a few handwritten notes.

Palo Alto held standard teenage plotlines.  Set in an upscale high school, the teenagers drink & have sex; although one gets a DUI and another has sex with a teacher/coach.  Emma Roberts gives the standout performance as the confused and insecure teenager who careens from one boy to another to a grown man (James Franco).  Other than being Gia Coppola's (daughter of Francis Ford and niece of Sofia) debut feature, Palo Alto is indistinguishable from other reasonably well made films of this genre.

The Double is based on a Dostoyevsky novel.  Jesse Eisenberg plays Simon James and his doppelgänger James Simon.  Simon James is largely ignored by society.  When James Simon starts working at Simon James' workplace, Simon feels his own marginalization growing.  James Simon is assertive, charming and the center of attention.  No one seems to notice the resemblance between the two men except themselves.  Darkly humorous and surreal, The Double portrays the duo as both separate individuals as well as two versions of the same person.  The film reminded me of Gogol's works of absurdist tragicomedy.

While reading the synopsis for Chinese Puzzle, I learned it was part of the Spanish Apartment trilogy.  Surprising myself, I recall reading the review of The Spanish Apartment (2002), a film set in Spain about college students from various countries.  The characters were representative of French perceptions of their respective national consciousnesses.  Chinese Puzzle revisits several of these characters including Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Cécile de France & Kelly Reilly.  I have a strong sense that my viewing of Chinese Puzzle would have benefited if I had seen The Spanish Apartment or its follow-up Russian Dolls. A comedy, Chinese Puzzle has women from Romain Duris' past (as chronicled in The Spanish Apartment & Russian Dolls) converging on his new life in New York.  As Xavier, Duris has a full plate - he is publishing a highly autobiographical novel, he is in a sham marriage to get a US Green Card, he agrees to be a sperm donor for a lesbian friend and his ex-girlfriend shows up from France for a visit.  It's a rollicking good time but I often felt that I was missing context and backstory of their characters' interactions.

We Are the Best! is a Swedish film based on director Lukas Moodysson's wife's (Coco) comic strip. Set in the 1980s, the film follows three outcast teenage girls.  They do what any girl of that era would do in their situation, they form a punk rock band.  Their anthem (and only song) is Hate the Sport!  The rebellious Klara (Mira Grosin) and her only friend, the androgynous looking Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) are the misfits of their school.  They decide to form a band mostly to spite their tormentors by taking away studio rehearsal time from them.  Neither can play or sing.  They decide to bring in a ringer, their classmate Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) who is a guitar virtuoso (virtuosa?).  Despite being a sweet-natured film, We Are the Best! captures the punk rock ethos throughout and punctuates it with the band's debut performance where they get jeered off the stage.

 Liv LeMoyne, Mira Barkhammar & Mira Grosin (l-r) in We Are the Best!

Obvious Child exceeded my expectations.  Has anyone noticed that a lot of films are set in Brooklyn lately?  Anyway, Donna (Jenny Slate) is bookstore worker by day and stand-up comedienne by night.  She one of these types of comics that can make the pain of her life seem amusing; adroitly straddling the line pathos and comedy.  At the beginning of the film, her boyfriend breaks up with her because he is tired of their life being used as fodder for her skits.  She has a one-night stand with Max (Jake Lacy) which results in her pregnancy.  From this unusual point that Obvious Child operates.  To turn up the awkwardness factor, Donna decides to get an abortion and date Max.  As you can imagine, the film turns on Slate's performance which is stupendous.  She conveys a ballsy persona for her stage act and everyday life which gets chipped away by circumstances; eventually revealing a vulnerable young woman.

Calvary features another great performance by Brendan Gleeson as Father James, an Irish Catholic priest who is having a bad week.  In the confessional booth, a parishioner promises to kill Father James in a  few days in response to being sexually abused by a priest.  The threat is made against Father James because the original abuser is already dead and it would be more tragic to kill a good man like Father James.  Father James is not your ordinary priest.  He was married and has a grown daughter before being ordained a Catholic priest.  His daughter (Kelly Reilly) has recently attempted suicide and their relationship is strained.  The townsfolk seem hostile towards Father James; his dog's throat ends up being cut.  The anonymous threatener's sexual abuse was likely not an isolated incident.  Father James tends to his flock as best he can as the days count down to the day his parishioner said he would kill him.  For good measure, Father James is a recovering alcoholic and the stress of the situation has put his sobriety to the test.  Gleeson portrays Father James as weary but dedicated priest coping with hostility that is directed towards him as the local representative of the Catholic church.  Somehow, Calvary expertly mixes in some humor within this premise.

The Skeleton Twins is about twin siblings Milo (Bill Hader) & Maggie (Kristen Wiig)...and no their last name is not Skeleton.  As the film begins, Maggie is about to attempt suicide by swallowing a handful of pills but is interrupted by a phone call informing her that Milo has been hospitalized following an unsuccessful suicide attempt of his own.  She flies out to LA where Milo is a failed actor to care for him.  She eventually convinces him to stay with her and her husband (Luke Wilson) in their upstate New York hometown during his convalescence.  I should probably note that Milo is gay and the true love of his life is Rich, his high school English teacher (Ty Burrell).  Maggie exposed their affair while they were in school and Rich lost his job.  He is now married, has a teenage son, runs a bookstore and is extremely surprised to see Milo.  Maggie and her husband are trying to have children but Maggie is sabotaging the effort by secretly taking birth control pills and having an affair with her scuba diving instructor.  Hader and Wiig were formerly Saturday Night Live performers and best known as comedians but bother deliver strong dramatic performances as the emotionally fragile siblings.  One scene with Joanna Gleason as their passive-aggressive New Age mother tells the story of the roots of the siblings' dysfunction and estrangement from each other.  Ultimately the film is about two people who are very uncomfortable with the lives they have made for themselves and are only able to share their discomfort with their womb-mate.  I thought The Skeleton Twins was a poignantly sad story with moments of levity interspersed.

We Are the Best!, Calvary, The Skeleton Twins and to slightly lesser extent Obvious Child were tremendous films that I recommend.

Alamo Drafthouse San Francisco Nears Completion

I have suspected that former Roxie programmer Mike Keegan was/is affiliated with the Alamo Drafthouse since last December when he introduced The Astrologer at Another Hole in the Head.  I cannot remember how I first became aware that The Astrologer is affiliated with Alamo.  The Astrologer was restored by American Film Genre Archive which is based in Austin (just like Alamo Drafthouse).  However, the film has screened at Alamo Drafthouse and if my memory is correct, Drafthouse Films (Alamo Drafthouse's film distribution subsidiary) was credited on The Astrologer.

Regardless of Alamo Drafthouse's affiliation with The Astrologer, Keegan recently announced that he is "the new Creative Manager of the Alamo Drafthouse at the New Mission.  [He will be] the one booking the movies, hosting screenings and generally chatting with you, both online and IRL."

Keegan promised that the programming at the San Francisco Alamo Drafthouse will include "Hollywood blockbusters, independent pictures, classics, not-so-classics, foreign films, insane rediscoveries, restorations, rarities, documentaries, cult stuff, music stuff, interactive parties, and lots more.  From family-friendly sing-a-longs to gigantic space operas to brain-damaged total trash, it’s all under one gigantic roof at the New Mission."

He then posted several photos of the restoration of the New Mission.  I don't know how recent the photos are but if they are recent, there is still a lot of work to do before the theater can open...which Keegan modestly proclaims will be "the most epic theater opening to ever hit the Bay Area."

As for the opening of the New Mission, Keegan only says that they will "open [their] doors in a couple of months."

I look forward to the grand opening.  It has been over three years since I first heard about the planned SF outpost of the Alamo Drafthouse.  If nothing else, I admire the perseverance required to bring this project to fruition.  I typically shun opening night crowds of any kind but I may just venture to the Mission on the night the Alamo Drafthouse opens.  Now if they would just announce the date, I could mark my calendar.  I guess they've learned that in San Francisco, you don't announce the opening date until you are 110% sure that you can get the work done and the permits issued by that date.

The Rock

On Friday, I caught the second half of a Midnites for Maniacs double bill at the Castro Theater.  The theme of the evening was "Macho Maestros."  The double bill consisted of Rocky IV and The Rock.  Earlier that evening, I had dinner & cocktails at Capp's Corner which is closing on April 19.  That caused me to miss Rocky IV which I wasn't very keen on anyway.  I only saw The Rock.

The Rock starring Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage & Ed Harris, directed by Michael Bay; (1996)

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks introduced The Rock but first shared some of his thoughts on Rocky IV.  I'm not sure if I agree with everything he said because I haven't seen the film for so long.  One thing is clear from my memory and the preview clips Jesse showed before The Rock.  In the mid-1980s (Rocky IV came out in 1985), fears about the Soviet Union were at their height.  In hindsight that seems strange because by 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet satellite states were gaining their independence.  However in the  mid-80s, Red Dawn was a cult hit and Tom Clancy was churning them out.  Rocky IV placed these fears in a boxing context.  The Maniac mentioned that in Rocky IV, Rocky had to abandon the consumerist culture of the US to train in the Spartan conditions of the USSR in order to defeat Drago.  As he said that, I wondered why didn't the Italian Stallion learn his lesson from the beat-down Clubber Lang gave him?  Ficks also mentioned the montage scenes which he compared to some of the great directors in cinema's history.  I have to admit that I can remember some of the montages from various Rocky film.  It almost makes me wish I had seen Rocky IV.

I've seen The Rock many times.  A surprisingly large percentage of the audience had not seen the film before.  Prior to the film, Hicks advised the audience to pay attention to the three lead actors - Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage & Ed Harris.

I recall Dr. Goodspeed (Cage) had a girlfriend in the film but forgot that Mason (Connery) had a daughter.  By my count, only three actresses had speaking parts - Vanessa Marcil as Goodspeed's better half, Claire Forlani is in one scene as Mason's daughter and Celeste Weaver has one line as Forlani's "friend."  I didn't recall this but the film suggests that Mason's daughter is a lesbian.

Suffice to say, there is a lot of testosterone in The Rock.  Interestingly, the youngest member of the Big Three has the least.  Cage's Goodspeed doesn't lack for courage when he's in the lab but he is out of his element when he is "in the field" and completely lost when he has to clandestinely sneak onto Alcatraz and disarm the missiles with the nerve gas.

Ficks must have prepped the audience before Rocky IV. because he asked the audience about Cage's self-titled acting style and many knew the answer was Nouveau Shamanic, a term I was not familiar with previously.  On of the reasons, I am a fan of The Rock is Cage's performance.  His Goodspeed is an earnest chemist who is befuddled by the new situation he finds himself in.  Namely, he is teamed up with the sardonic Mason.  Connery also merits attention.  He plays Mason like James Bond if Bond had been imprisoned for 30 years.  Connery outsmarts and outquips everyone in the room.  Goodspeed is always a step behind Mason which creates this entertaining alpha-beta male relationship between the two.

Added to this mix is General Hummel (Harris), an alpha male in charge of a contingent of US Marines.  I couldn't remember why Hummel and his men took the tourists on Alcatraz hostage and stole some nerve gas.  Hummel did it because the US Government had refused to acknowledge the spotters in Baghdad during the first Gulf War.  As Hummel described his grievances, I couldn't help but think it reminded me a lot of the grievances issued by modern day Islamofascist states.  Specifically, the US has long interfered with the internal affairs of other nations including assassinations and acts of sabotage which the US characterizes as terrorism when they happen on US soil.

I was also surprised by the ransom Hummel demands to save the hostages and not fire the missiles.  He wants $100 million.  I believe it was $1 million to each of the families of 84 dead Marines who were denied death benefits by the government and $1 million to the 16 Marines who are with him on Alcatraz.  Maybe it's inflation but $1 million  doesn't seem enough incentive to commit treason and live the rest of your life in hiding or in some country without an extradition treaty with the US.  In 2015, those Marines couldn't even afford to buy a house in SF with their payoff.

The best scenes in the film have the relatively milquetoast Goodspeed having to deal with hyper-masculinized Marines, commandos, FBI Agents, etc.  Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's frightening and sometimes I empathized with Goodspeed's situation.  Sometimes it's all three which is why I like the film and indirectly a compliment of Cage's performance.

In a supporting role, John Spencer as the duplicitous FBI director Womack does a lot with a small role.  Not as large a role but impressive for his screen presence is William Forsythe as the no-nonsense FBI SAIC Paxton.  Forsythe and Connery have a memorable scene together where they square off during an interrogation.  Indeed, the film is full of scenes where alpha males keep confronting each other looking to assert their dominance.

"Assert their dominance..." that reminds me of the theme of the evening.  I read many years ago that the popularity of boxing, wrestling, MMA, etc. is not the violence or the blood sport.  Rather it is the primal need (particularly in men) to assert their dominance.  In that vein, boxing is about one man asserting his will over another.  The Rocky films understand this and at its essence, that is what The Rock is about.  In The Rock, there is a constant shuffling of who is trying to dominate whom and the position of the top dog keeps changing.

Do I appreciate The Rock more after Ficks' introduction?  I don't think so.  I already had an appreciation of the film before last Friday.  There are a lot of plot holes in the script and the presence of a female in a more prominent role may have served as a more interesting counterpoint to all the chest thumping but the film is what it is.

The next Midnites for Maniacs will be May 8 at the Castro.  It is a Penelope Spheeris triple shot which I'm quite excited about.  I have never seen The Decline of Western Civilization or The Decline of Western Civilization II which are sandwiched around Wayne's World.

Please Bear With Us...

Twice in four days, I attended screenings at the Roxie which could not be completed and the audience was turned out of the theater.

Welcome to New York starring Gérard Depardieu & Jacqueline Bisset; directed by Abel Ferrara; English & French with subtitles; (2014)
The Cult of JT Leroy; documentary; directed by Marjorie Sturm; (2014) - Official Website
Henry Fool starring Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak & Parker Posey; directed by Hal Hartley; (1997)
Fay Grim starring Parker Posey & Jeff Goldblum; with James Urbaniak & Thomas Jay Ryan; directed by Hal Hartley; (2006) - Official Website

I saw Welcome to New York at the Little Roxie on April 2, The Cult of JT Leroy at the Big Roxie on April 2 and Henry Fool & Fay Grim at the Big Roxie this afternoon.

The picture (but not the sound) went out during Welcome to New York with about 40 minutes left in the film.  I could hear the projectionist mentioning the bulb was out but they did not have a spare.

The picture began to skip and ultimately froze during the screening of Henry Fool with about an hour left in the film.  The staff announced there was something wrong with the disc.

In both cases, the Roxie offered patrons a refunds or passes to future screenings.

Although I am sympathetic to these problems given the Roxie's hardscrabble existence, I am also disappointed and concerned.  The core business of the Roxie is to exhibit "films" and when it cannot do that, I wonder if it is a sign that they are on the verge of failure.  From an outsider's perspective, it seems to me that basic maintenance is being ignored and critical supplies are not being stocked which resulted in the cancelling of Welcome to New York.  In the business world, that is frequently a sign of a company which is having serious problems.

As for the films, they were a mixed bag.

As we get further removed from Ms. 45, I am finding that I enjoy Abel Ferrara's films less and less.  Such was the case with Welcome to New York which was a thinly disguised retelling of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape allegations.  Gérard Depardieu played Devereaux and Jacqueline Bisset was his wife Simone.

Welcome to New York was told in a perfunctory, almost documentary style.  Even the sex scenes seemed clinical in their depiction.  For the most part, this is a disservice to the film.  Simone in particular seethes with resentment towards her husband (her marital complaints long predate the rape allegations) but their arguments have a staged quality to them which renders them less emotional.  The only time this approach works is during an extended sequence when Devereaux is booked into jail (presumably The Tombs).  Told in real time, the 20 minute sequence portrays Devereaux's arrival at the jail, his being placed in a shared cell with other inmates, his fingerprinting & finally his strip search. The detached method by which the corrections officers go about their business contrasts with the menacing behavior of the fellow inmates towards Devereaux and the CO's periodic threats borne from their petty frustrations of Devereaux's behavior.

The other part of the film that I thought was a disservice was the casting of Depardieu.  In his current condition, Depardieu is bordering on morbidly obese.  A little extra weight would have served the wealthy character well but Depardieu (or at least his portrayal of Devereaux) seemed to be laboring just to take off his underwear during the strip search.  It's hard to imagine that this character could have had sex with three women in one night (with drugs) and then be able to rouse himself to action with the chambermaid the next morning.

The film cut out while Devereaux was facing rape charges.  I don't know how closely the film followed the actual DSK case so I don't know how the film ends.  Frankly, I was laboring to maintain my interest in the film when prematurely ended.

The Cult of JT Leroy played at the 2015 San Francisco Independent Film Festival.  The Roxie had already published their scheduled for April so I knew the film would play at the Roxie so I skipped the IndieFest screening.

JT Leroy was a male author who was very popular author for about a decade starting in the mid-1990s.  His official biography stated that he was the son of a truck stop prostitute who was eventually pimped out by his mother.  He had been anally sodomized so many times that he needed corrective surgery on his rectum.  Transgendered and HIV positive, Leroy sought counseling in San Francisco.  Encouraged to keep a journal, Leroy chronicled his horrific experiences into three autobiographical novels with first one being published when he was 16 years old.

Extremely shy, Leroy initially refused public appearance while having celebrity proxies read his work at book readings.  Later the androgynous Leroy would make appearances at his events and eventually take the center stage himself.

The only problem is that JT Leroy does not exist.  His fiction is the work of Laura Albert, a thirtysomething woman with a varied background.  Albert's boyfriend's younger half-sister (Savannah Knoop) played Leroy in public...with Albert always nearby.

I have always found the story fascinating and the movie did not disappoint.  I've always been a little skeptical of the damage caused by Leroy.  Albert was found guilty of fraud charges as I guess the authorship of a story matters.  As the plaintiff said, if it didn't matter who wrote it, why did Albert go to such great lengths to give the impression it was written by a 16 year old transgendered prostitute?

Portrayed as manipulative and borderline sociopathic, Albert may have been channeling some of her life experiences through JT Leroy.  Albert describes an simultaneously funny & disturbing event from her childhood.  She created a Swedish exchange student that was staying at her house during her junior high years.  Having a crush on a boy in the class, Albert would pretend to be the Swedish girl and call the boy.  She made up reasons as to why the girl couldn't leave the house but eventually realized the hoax could not go on so she gave the girl a rare, fast-acting cancer which claimed her life.  The boy was very upset and his mother went to visit Albert's mother where upon the hoax was revealed.  Albert has had a talent for lying since her early teens.  Albert did not participate in the making of the film but I found her presence to be disquieting although that could be through selective editing.

 The title The Cult of JT Leroy refers to the multitudes of people who were drawn into the hoax and believed it despite some of the retrospectively obvious problems with the story.  As is frequently the case, JT Leroy preyed on the lonely and marginalized.  Even if you weren't lonely and marginalized, being a fan or friend of JT Leroy showed you cared about the lonely and marginalized.  

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Last Friday, Ned Rifle was released in theaters.  Ned Rifle is the third entry in the film series which began with Henry Fool and continued with Fay Grim.

Henry Fool is a shady character.  He makes vague references to being an assassin but seems more like a failed novelist/poet.  He latches onto Simon Grim, a Queens garbageman who is socially inept.  He encourages Grim to keep a journal and is impressed by his musings.  In the meantime, Fool sleeps with Simon's mother after rebuffing a pass from Simon's slutty sister Fay (the always charismatic Parker Posey).  I wish I could say what happened next but the film went kaput at this point.

Fay Grim picks up seven years after Henry Fool.  Apparently, Fay and Henry got married and had a son named Ned.  Simon is in prison for murder.  Henry has disappeared.  Jeff Goldblum plays an FBI agent who is looking for Henry's lost journals which are a matter of national security.

I couldn't get into Fay Grim because I kept wondering what happened in Henry Fool.  Of the two films, I much preferred what I saw in Henry Fool to Fay Grim.

I am going to give my opinion of both films as incomplete and state I am much more disappointed in not finishing Henry Fool than Welcome to New York.

The Puzzle Within the Castro Theater's April 2015 Theater Calendar

Before I forget, the Landmark Aquarius theater in Palo Alto is closed for remodeling until "late summer 2015."

When I first moved to the Bay Area in the early 1990s, my co-workers would take long lunches on Friday in North Beach or Chinatown.  Little Joe's was the preferred destination (they had this incredible aquarium).  However, sometimes we would go to Caffe Sport, Capp's Corner or US Restaurant.  The US Restaurant on Columbus closed many years ago although, confusingly, years later the son-in-law of the owners opened a place a block away called the Original US Restaurant which is still open.

Anyway, Capp's Corner (Powell at Green) is closing on April 19.  I just finished read The Season of the Witch by David Talbot (actor Lyle Talbot's son).  A tremendous book, The Season of the Witch recounts San Francisco's cultural history from the late 1960s to mid 1980s.  Having moved here in 1992, I can relate to many of the events and people profiled in Talbot's book.  When a place like Capp's Corner closes, it makes me realize that I'm as far removed from the early 1990s now as I was from the late 1960s when I first arrived here.

Enough about personal and cultural nostalgia, let's get to the film nostalgia.

The Castro Theater's April 2015 calendar had a puzzle after a two month absence.  It was pretty easy which means I didn't have to use the internet to identify the actors.

April 27 - I recognized Jack Lemmon immediately.

April 28 - this took me a little longer.  I think it was because I was expecting it to be an American actress.  After looking at it for a few minutes, I thought there was something European about the woman.  That's when I realized is was Catherine Deneuve.

I had no idea what Jack Lemmon & Catherine Deneuve had to do with August but a quick internet search revealed they made a film together - The April Fools (1969).  I have not seen or heard of the film.  For some reason, the pairing of Lemmon & Deneuve does not strike me as interesting although I am a fan of both actors' work.

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The calendar in April looks promising.

April 10 - Midnites for Maniacs brings one of my guilty pleasures to the big screen.  I saw The Rock upon its original release in the theaters here in San Francisco.  Unfortunately, my film log doesn't go back that far.  I remember thinking that it was a pretty entertaining action film which even by the mid 1990s I was eschewing.  With 20 years of hindsight, the cast of The Rock is rock solid.  The Rock is paired with Rocky IV which in litany of Rocky films is forgettable.  Once they killed of Mickey (Burgess Meredith), the series went downhill.  In Rocky IV, they kill off the next best character in the series - Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).  It's as if the series has to cannibalize itself in order to survive.  Why couldn't Stallone kill off Paulie instead?

April 12 & 13 - American Sniper & The Theory of Everything, respectively.  If I see these two films, I will have seen all eight films nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscar.  The April 12 double bill is particularly strong - two Clint Eastwood directed films.  American Sniper is paired with The Unforgiven which is a great film.

April 22 - the actress/director Elaine May directed four films.  I've only seen her The Heartbreak Kid.  A New Leaf was May's debut feature as a director.  She co-stars with the always dependable Walter Mathau.  I've seen portions of this film on television.

April 29 - I have to see if I can get away from the 2015 San Francisco International Film Festival that night but I'm long overdue to see what the hullabaloo is about regarding the infamous lesbian sex scene between Gina Gershon & Jennifer Tilly in the Wachowski Brothers' Bound (1996).  Of course, the Wachowski Brothers are no longer the Wachowski Brothers.  Bound is paired with Alfred Hitchcock's Rope which features a memorable performance by Jimmy Stewart.

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Castro Theater Calendar - April 2015