New Potrero Theater

One item I forgot to mention yesterday in the section of my post which listed all the cinematic options over the holiday weekend was the New Potrero Theater (NPT).  I read about the NPT from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival blog.  The NPT, located at 312 Connecticut Street on Potrero Hill, is screening silent films on November 9 (8 PM) and  November 10 (1 PM and 8 PM).  There is an open house (with refreshments) starting one hour before each showtime.  The feature film being screened is F.W. Murnau's Sunrise preceded with (what I presume to be) a short film program called 1930s Potrero Hill Home Movies.  Tickets are $5 and proceeds go to the "Potrero Branch Library."  The screenings are being sponsored by the Potrero Hill Archives Project.

The flyer for the events states that 312 Connecticut is "now the San Francisco Gurdjieff Society."  What is the Gurdjieff Society?  Their website is ominously lacking in information.  All it says is "For further information, two avenues are available:  A one on one meeting over coffee or attending a salon discussion."  It sounds like a pyramid scheme or something.  After a little internet "research" I found a link to the Gurdjieff Society whose website implies the Society is a self-help organization with chapters all over the world.  However, on other website, people refer to it as "a cult."  Wonderful.  Having already unknowingly associated with the Freedom Socialist Party (I am still receiving their newsletter), I'm not anxious to test the waters with the Gurdjieff Society...particularly for a film I've seen a few times.

One the other hand, I regret missing the screening at the El Rey Theater last November and I would like to see the NPT which opened 99 years ago.  How often will these old, repurposed movie houses be open to the public and/or screen films?

Of the half dozen or so filmgoing options I am considering this weekend, the NPT is the least likely but the most enticing.

Sight and Sound's Top 10 Greatest Films

While I'm still composing my thoughts about the films of the 2012 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, I wanted to write a little about Sight and Sound's Greatest Film survey.  Published by the British Film Institute (BFI), Sight and Sound conducts a survey of critics, academics, etc. regarding the greatest films.   The survey is conducted every decade (2012, 2002, 1992, etc.).  I won't comment on the films which made the list or their relative ranking or even the films omitted.  Instead, I was amazed at how many of the top 10 films are available for viewing in the near future or have been screened in the recent past.

The Top 10 Greatest Films according to Sight and Sound are:

10.   8½
 9.   The Passion of Joan of Arc
 8.   Man With a Movie Camera
 7.   The Searchers
 6.   2001: A Space Odyssey
 5.   Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
 4.   The Rules of the Game
 3.   Tokyo Story
 2.   Citizen Kane
 1.   Vertigo

At the Castro Theater alone, you can see four of the top 10 this month!  Citizen Kane screens tonight at 8 PM.  Sunrise plays next Sunday (August 12) at 3:20 PM and 7 PM.  2001 has a two day run on August 26 and 27.  Vertigo plays over the Labor Day Weekend in 70 mm.

The Rules of the Game screens November 27 at the PFA as part of their Grand Illusions series.

I saw The Searchers last summer at the Castro.  I saw Tokyo Story two summers ago at the Viz.  I've seen The Passion of Joan of Arc twice in the past few years, most recently in December 2010 at the Paramount Theater in Oakland.

Man With a Movie Camera was accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra at the 2010 SF Silent Film Festival. I can still remember that memorable performance as the frenetic pace of the music perfectly matched Vertov's quick editing technique.

I seem to recall 8½ playing at the Castro in the last year or so.  If there was a screening at the Castro, I didn't attend it nor a 2009 screening at the PFA.

I've seen all 10 of the films; 6 of them since I started this blog.  I know I've seen Vertigo & Citizen Kane on the big screen prior to starting the blog.  The two films I have not seen on the big screen are 2001 and 8½.  I remember 2001 as one of the first films I watched when my family got a VCR in the 1980s.  I was fascinated by it and have watched it several times since then.  I can't recall when I saw 8½; I suspect it was on television.  

The entire Top 50 film list can be seen here as well as the Top 10 list from a survey of 358 directors including "Woody Allen, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Quentin Tarantino, the Dardenne brothers, Terence Davies, Guillermo del Toro, Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas, Michael Mann, Guy Maddin, Francis Ford Coppola, Mike Leigh, Aki Kaurismäki..."

Too Many to Remember and One I Won't Forget

Recently, I watched two films that I had previously viewed. I had forgotten that I watched them which isn't surprising given how many films I watch.

I saw:

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (aka Sunrise) with Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien; directed by F.W. Murnau; silent with intertitles; (1927)
The Warlords starring Jet Li, Andy Lau & Takeshi Kaneshiro; Mandarin with subtiles; (2007) - Official Website

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The plot to Sunrise started off a little like the middle of An American Tragedy making me wonder if I was confusing the two films. Then Murnau inserted a montage scene as a trolley took an incredible trip from a lake through an industrial area and finally into the heart of a city. I recalled that scene clearly from my previous screening. In addition, I vividly recalled the scenes shot at the World Fair or Expo with the magnificent sets.

I didn't write much about the film the first time I saw it. The massive and stylishly exaggerated sets combined with extensive use of German Expressionism gives the films a unique and still provocative look. Murnau also filmed some extended tracking shots that also caught my eye. Murnau largely eschewed intertitles as well. The total effect is to create a film that is still impressive 83 years after it was released.

Volumes have been written about the film and I can't add anything meaningful to the discussion. I will only say that I was glad that I watched the film a second time at the Castro. The first time I saw it, the film was accompanied by a live musician(s). Unfortunately, I did not record who it was. This time, the film was screened with a musical soundtrack.

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I saw The Warlords at the 2008 San Francisco International Film Festival. Again, I did not write much about the film. Rather, I digressed by speculating about the circumstances of Takeshi Kaneshiro being from Taiwan.

If I had researched the film a little more, I would have recalled that I didn't enjoy it that much the first time. As I was watching the film, my thought turned from "this reminds me of a disappointing Jet Li film I saw awhile ago" to "this is that Jet Li film" to "I hope this film is better than I remembered it." Unfortunately, it was not. The film was epic in its battle scenes but less so in developing the characters and their motivations. Many Chinese historical epic films fall into this trap. Maybe it's not limited to Chinese epics. Like Red Cliffs, Curse of the Golden Flower and several other films lacked character development and were not quite stylish enough to succeed. That may certainly be a cultural gap meaning what is considered stylish by Western audience may not be by Chinese audiences and vice versa. However, films like Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon lead me to believer there is some common ground.

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I was able watch The Hurt Locker the day before it ended its marathon engagement at the Landmark Theaters in SF (at least six months I believe). What can I add to a film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture? It was quite deserving in my opinion.

How can one not make a thrilling film about guys that disarm bombs for a living? Was the film factually accurate? Probably not but I was able to suspend disbelief without much trouble. The interplay between actors Jeremy Renner & Anthony Mackie was particularly effective but the scenes where Renner is in that demolition suit disarming IEDs are riveting beyond description.

The Hurt Locker directed by Kathryn Bigelow; (2009) - Official Website

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With The Hurt Locker, I've seen seven of the ten nominees for the 2010 Best Picture Award. The three I missed are Avatar, The Blind Side and An Education. Of the seven, two are head and shoulders above the rest in my enjoyment: The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds. A notch below are Precious and A Serious Man.

Theater Reopenings, Restored Classics, Hijoshi Zukan and Dennis Nyback

A few weeks ago, I read an article that the Great Star Theater would be reopening. I recalled that at last year's Hole in the Head, there were some live performances scheduled at the Great Star but they were cancelled at the last minute because the Great Star "didn't get their permits in time."

The people re-opening the Great Star are George Kaskanlian Jr. and his business partner Ken Montero. Kaskanlian is described as "a real estate refurbisher" in the San Francisco Chronicle article I read. I know him as the programmer from the Hole in the Head festival for the past several years. Now it makes sense why Hole in the Head was programming events at the Great Star.

I wish Kaskanlian and Montero success with reopening the Great Star. I would certainly be interested in seeing the inside of that theater. According to the article, they should be screening films at the Great Star by June with periodic live events (such as Chinese opera).

Here is a link to the article about the reopening.

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Speaking of Hole in the Head, Indiefest has announced the dates for the 2010 festival. The festival will be held July 8 to 22. Unfortunately, this overlaps with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival being held July 15 to 18. The highlight of that festival is the screening of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) which has been nearly restored to the original version. Recent discoveries of long-lost negatives allowed for the missing scenes to be restored (with the exception of a few frames).

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Staying on the subject of silent films, the Castro Theater is screening F.W. Murnau's Sunrise on Sunday, April 11. The film will have three sceenings that day at 1:30, 4:00 and 7:30 but only the 7:30 show will have live accompaniment (Warren Lubich).

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The 4 Star has the exclusive engagement of Hijoshi Zukan starting on April 23. It's a bit surprising that Frank was able to get it before Viz Cinema. The Japanese film is described as "a 6-part...omnibus film by six different directors called Hijoshi Zukan. Each segment features a unique female protagonist in an unexpected situation."



Linked is Kevin Ouellette's blog entry on Nippon Cinema which summarizes the six parts ("7 if you count his own introduction").

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The Red Vic has a number of films which I missed the first time they screened in the Bay Area. Among the films I want to see in April and May are: Police, Adjective, Terribly Happy, The Red Machine (2009 Mill Valley Film Festival) and Avatar (screened in 2-D).

In addition, the Red Vic is hosting Dennis Nyback on April 14 & 15 for two programs called

Terrorism Light and Dark - a revealing program of cartoons, short films and propaganda clips displaying America’s schizophrenic view of terrorism before 9/11 which includes, among others, the Cold War US Government film, What You Need to Know About Biological Warfare and Buster Keaton’s Cops.

Know Why You’re Afraid - Nyback’s program of educational films that should never have been shown to impressionable children! Included are the darkly hilarious bus safety film, Death Zones (1975), an excerpt from the drivers ed shocker, Mechanized Death (1961) and many more macabre films that does much to explain our culture’s paranoia.