The Puzzle Within the Castro Theater's September 2015 Calendar

The Castro Theater's organ was removed after the August 30 screening of The Crowd.   As you may recall, the organ's owner wanted to remove it.  I first heard about this over two years ago.  Long time Castro Theater organist David Hegarty started a non-profit to save the organ called the Castro Organ Devotees Association (SF CODA).  I never did donate.  I forgot about the issue.

Apparently, SF CODA was successful.  It is designing an organ with 400 ranks and 7 manuals.  Frankly, I don't know what an organ rank is and I can only guess that a manual is essentially a keyboard.  Regardless, it sounds impressive and I'm glad an organ will remain at the Castro Theater.  I haven't read or heard when the new organ will be installed.

By the way, I notice the custom of clapping while the organ plays "San Francisco" and descends into the pit is going by the wayside.  I'm not sure if it is because new people don't know about the custom.  I usually clap but I don't like to clap too early because it gets tedious.  However, if the crowd response isn't there from the beginning, the clapping usually dies out by the time I'm ready to start clapping.  I feel silly clapping by myself so sometimes I don't clap.

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I had to cheat by using Google Image Search for both clues in this month's Castro Theater calendar..

September 21 - so familiar but I could not place him.  It's Jean-Luc Godard.  The photo is likely from the late 1950s or 1960s.

September 28 - another face that I knew but could not name.  It's Paulette Goddard also known as the third and penultimate Mrs. Charlie Chaplin as well as the third and penultimate Mrs. Burgess Meredith.

Godard and Goddard - both derivations of the German surname Gotthard which translates to God Hard.  That got me thinking about the names.  Jean-Luc & Paulette anglicized and masculinized become John and Paul as in Pope John Paul or Pope John Paul II.  I have a co-worker who is spending time in Philadelphia and he told me that the City of Brotherly Love is in a tizzy over the upcoming visit by Pope Francis on September 26-27.  That reminded me that Pope John Paul II visited San Francisco in the 1980s.  I looked up the dates of John Paul II.  He was in San Francisco from September 17 to 18, 1987.  The most famous part of that visit was the Catholic Mass he led at Candlestick Park where it was reported that 70,000 attended.

Less well know is that the Pope visited Mission Dolores and the Golden Gate Bridge the day before.  Those two locales feature prominently in Vertigo which screened from September 4 to 7 in 70 mm.  That may be too much lateral thinking:  Jean-Luc Godard & Paulette Goddard to a Pope John Paul II visit 28 years ago to Vertigo.

On that same trip the Pope flew into Monterey Peninsula Airport and met then Carmel Mayor Clint Eastwood but that doesn't seem relevant because I don't see any Eastwood films or Carmel/Monterey set films on the calendar.

Pope John Paul II (center); September 17, 1987

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The September calendar leaves me mild.  I have seen at least 15 films on the schedule.  I may not go to the Castro during the month of September 2015.

The highlight is the Vittorio de Sica triple bill on September 26 presented by Cinema Italia SF.  I am particularly keen to see Two Women (1960) with Sophia Loren and Jean-Paul Belmondo.  Unfortunately, I have another commitment that day.

Tangerine on September 22 has been garnering strong reviews but is playing also playing at the Roxie starting tomorrow.

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Castro Theater Calendar - September 2015

Skyfall and the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer

On Friday, February 22, I saw Skyfall at the Castro Theater.

Skyfall starring Daniel Craig; with Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes & Naomie Harris; directed by Sam Mendes; (2012) - Official Website

By coincidence, the James Bonds series, which Skyfall was part of, was mentioned in a San Francisco Chronicle article recently.  David Hegarty, one of the organists at the Castro, Apparently, the ownership of Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer is more complicated than I imagined.  I simply thought the theater owned the organ but the article states that the owner of the "Wurlitzer Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra" is separate from the ownership of the Castro Theater.  I guess it is expensive to buy & maintain an organ.

Hegarty launched a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called the Castro Organ Devotees Association (CODA) with a goal to "purchase the organ, replace and enlarge the keyboard console, and add to the pipes."  The price tag for this project is approximately $1 million according to the article.

I will neither encourage nor dissuade anyone from donating to CODA.  I haven't decided myself whether to donate.  A nonprofit organ in a "for profit" theater seems incongruent.  On the CODA website, it is stated that they need $250,000 by May 1 to "secure the purchase of the Wurlitzer and allow CODA to start Wurlitzer organ renovations and continue implementing the full scope of the project."  The other $750,000 is needed by the end of 2013 to complete the project.  That means there is less than month for CODA to make its intermediate goal of $250,000.

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In my previous post, I mentioned that I enjoyed the Joe Swanberg series at the Roxie and wish I had seen more of the films in that retrospective.  A few hours before showtime, I was still unsure if I would go to the Castro to see Skyfall or the Roxie to see Silver Bullets and Art History.  I chose Skyfall after speaking with a few co-workers.  Of course, they had no idea who Joe Swanberg was but some of the adjectives they used in describing Skyfall were intriguing.  I'm quite a fan of Daniel Craig's 007 so it didn't take much to convince me.

As the aforementioned newspaper article alluded to, Hegarty did something unusual at the screening I attended.  I cannot recall another time where he did not descend into the orchestra while playing San Francisco to the audience's rhythmic clapping.  On this evening, he descended while playing the James Bond Theme.  The crowd was quite enthused as he played the song.  I'm not sure if it was the song itself or the fact he was playing something other than San Francisco.  I thought I was watching and listening to something historic but apparently Hegarty had been doing it throughout the Bond series.

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Since the film grossed $1 billion worldwide, I see no point in recounting the plot.  My co-workers had hinted that M dies so it wasn't a complete surprise.  I do like how the new M's office has the upholstered door like M of the Connery/Moore era films.  Moneypenny has also been introduced.  I think they played a little with the Bond canon.  I don't recall him being orphaned.  Skyfall seems like an odd name for a Scottish estate.

As for the performances, Daniel Craig plays Bonds as more gritty and psychologically vulnerable.  He's definitely not a hero.  I will miss Dench for her dry witted bantering with Craig but I always thought she was underutilized until this film.

Javier Bardem seems to be enjoying himself thoroughly playing the most flamboyant of Bond villains.  Our introduction to him as he slowly approaches Bond telling him a story of exterminating rats on a small island was memorable.  It's hard to believe this is the same actor as in No Country For Old Men.

Bérénice Marlohe is one of the sexiest Bond girls I can recall seeing.

The new Q (Ben Whishaw) is an interesting take on the character.  In on film, they cleared slate by replacing M and introducing Moneypenny & Q who had heretofore been missing from the Craig era Bond films.

One of Bonds' spy gadgets is a pistol that only fires if he is holding it using biometric identification.  I heard on the news that some politician was proposing biometric identification be required on all assault weapons as part of the efforts to pass a bill banning assault weapons.  Art imitating life or life imitating art?

Skyfall was a little bloated at nearly 2.5 hours and for most of the film, it didn't look like a Bond film.  The climax was decidedly un-Bondian.  The film certainly entertained me for long stretches; particularly when Bardem was on the screen.  It seems like the producers decided they needed to reboot the series (with the exception of Craig) so they used this installment to clear the decks.