Dennis Nyback Triple Play and FOFF's Bricks in the Wall

Dennis Nyback came to town in April. He screened five programs in five days. I was able to catch three of the screenings.

I watched two programs at the Red Vic.

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

I Know Why You’re Afraid is 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.

I caught a third program at the YBCA.

So, You Wanna Fight! - Film archivist and raconteur Dennis Nyback returns to YBCA for his annual screening of weird and wonderful delights from the past. Today he'll present boxing films of the 20th Century from the teens to the fifties. Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Max Baer, "Jersey" Joe Walcott, Tex Avery, many others, plus the ferocious fightin' eight-year-old girl, Pam Sproul. Don't get too close to the screen or you might be splattered with blood.

Of the three, I enjoyed I Know Why You’re Afraid which closed with a fantastic 14 minute short film called Caught in a Rip-Off featuring a pitch perfect synthesizer soundtrack and Sam Peckinpah inspired slow-motion action scenes.

I sensed that Nyback was expecting more audience interaction than what occurred after the screenings I attended. I actually felt bad enough for him to ask a few questions since everyone else was reticent after Terrorism Light and Dark.

My favorite moment came after So, You Wanna Fight!. Nyback introduced the show by saying he had been asked in the past to create a boxing related program. Nyback said boxing never appealed to him so he would regularly throw out or give away boxing related films that were donated to his archive. For reasons which escape me, Nyback decided to program So, You Wanna Fight! when the YBCA asked him. After the program, a man in the audience asked Nyback if he had changed his mind about boxing after creating the program. Nyback replied that his opinion had not changed and he felt boxing was barbaric and should be banned. The questioner expressed his disappointment that Nyback could not appreciate finer points of the sweet science.

Caught In A Rip-Off (1974)

A/V Geeks | MySpace Video

Nyback also screened two programs at Oddball Film and Video which I did not attend. In fact, I've never been to Oddball. I'll have to get out there sometime.

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I notice that the Film on Film Foundation's next event is at Oddball on May 15. The progam is titled Bricks in the Wall: Humans and Their Built Environment.

In this program we explore how we construct our urban milieu... and how it constructs us. It is said necessity is the mother of invention and the converse is just as true. We are shaped by and made dependent on the environment we build around us. First Lewis Mumford sets the tone with his as-relevant-as-ever views on urbanism. Then we examine methods of construction from the ultra-primitive to the super-modern. After a personal and poetic detour into lyrical city-history by future Oscar-winner István Szabó, we conclude with a couple of films delving (somewhat ham-fistedly) into the psychological fallout of our urban obsession.

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.

Film on Film and YBCA Events in May & June

I see that the Film on Film Foundation is holding an event at the Roxie on May 10. It's titled First Stabs: Formative Works by Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman.

Stanley Kubrick was born to make films. As a youth, he was a rapacious movie-goer, turning his critical eye to the myriad cinematic offerings of his native New York City. A talented shutterbug, he parlayed this hobby into a job as staff photographer at Look magazine while still in his teens. Kubrick's yearning to extend his photographic work into the domain of cinema led to his first short film, Day of the Fight, a portrait of boxer Walter Cartier, whom he previously profiled in the pages of Look.

From the start of his career, Kubrick had high-art aspirations, and these are evident even in his first feature-length work. Fear and Desire, perhaps the first independently-made American art film, is an allegorical war picture that explicitly locates its conflict, and its primal motivators, in the province of the mind. Kubrick acted as producer, director, and editor, and though his mise-en-scène was limited by available locations and props and a mostly static camera, he nonetheless evinced a flair for evoking moods with eye-catching compositions and subtle nuances of light, and an analytical, poetic approach to montage.

Ultimately, the film's miniscule budget was insufficient to fully realize its maker's intent, particularly when it came to performances, including that of a young and spastic Paul Mazursky. Kubrick, who would become notorious for requiring multitudinous takes in pursuit of his ineffable vision, was unable to indulge this maniacal perfectionism in Fear and Desire, and would suppress the film as his career advanced. But close examination reveals the seeds of themes that pervade his later work: the imperviousness to reason of man's subconscious, often destructive impulses; his isolation (Kubrick eschews "normal" displays of emotion, and he frequently refuses to provide us a charismatic protagonist to identify with); and a fascination with the grotesque.

Robert Altman is best remembered for his masterpieces of the 1970's (McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, Nashville, etc.), less so for his 1950's efforts, separated from his mature work by a long journeyman period in TV. His early industrial/educational shorts (eg. How to Run a Filling Station, Better Football), made for-hire in early '50's Kansas City, show a quaint but timely concern for keeping the nation's youth off the streets and out of trouble.

Juvenile delinquency, by various names a long-time staple of exploitation films, became the subject of Altman's first feature, 1957's The Delinquents. Tom Laughlin (to become famous for his Billy Jack movies) channels the late James Dean (much admired by Altman) in his first starring role as a teen driven from the arms of his girl and into the clutches of a vicious gang which includes Richard Bakalyan in his debut.

Altman has always used certain conventions of what we now call vérité style, applying his own poetics to the multifarious scrappiness of real life. If the party scene in The Delinquents seems to have the dynamics of an actual party, it's because it is one. Though Kubrickian perfectionism was never one of Altman's hallmarks, he nevertheless came later to dismiss this early work as "meaningless". But he could never deny that it's fabulously entertaining.

The schedule is

7 PM
Day of the Fight; directed by Kubrick; B+W 16mm 16 minutes; (1951)
Flying Padre; directed by Kubrick; B+W 16mm 9 minutes; (1951)
Fear and Desire; directed by Kubrick; B+W 35mm 61 minutes; (1953)

8:45 PM
The Delinquents; directed by Altman; B+W 35mm 72 minutes; (1957)

Admission is $7.

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I perused the film schedule on the Yerba Buena Center for the Art website.

On May 7, they are screening the first half of Coming Apart: Two Views of 1972 - 1972 was one of the most tumultuous years in American history—and one of the richest in cinema history. Watergate, The Godfather, the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam, Pink Flamingos, Apollo 17 lands on the moon, Deep Throat, Nixon defeats McGovern with the lowest voter turnout since 1948, Deliverance, the Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes during the Summer Olympics, Harold and Maude… This two-program series revisits two films of 1972—through completely different lenses. One a free and loose document of a rollicking anti-war road show, the other a brutal mirror held up to the relentless violence of the era.

The May 7 show is FTA which stands for Free the Army or Fuck the Army. Available for the first time since it mysteriously disappeared in 1972 after only one week in theaters, this raucous time capsule is a riveting slice of the Vietnam anti-war movement. Reviving the biting theater of Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland's F.T.A. Tour, it captures the entertaining magic and mayhem of the anti-war and pro-labor show as it rallies and rouses dissident GIs stationed along the Pacific Rim.

The second part of the series screens on May 9 with the original Last House on the Left directed by Wes Craven. The pointless recent remake of this film only served to reinforce the original’s terrifying occult-like power, which played in theaters and drive-ins for over a decade. Loosely inspired by Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, LHOTL is a harrowing journey into the heart of darkness, telling the story of a family’s revenge on a gang of nihilistic thugs. Just keep repeating, it’s only a movie...it’s only a movie...it’s only a movie...

On May 28, YBCA presents Classic Laurel and Hardy Shorts.

For some reason no one ever shows Laurel and Hardy films anymore, and so we’re presenting this selection of shorts. “All the world knows Laurel and Hardy. All the world empathizes with them and their common humanity. For those who don't know them, this is the chance to see them at their very best.” – Dennis Nyback

Nyback programmed Bad Bugs Bunny at the 2007 Hole in the Head festival.

On May 29 and 31, YBCA screens Inglorious Bastards (1978).

Inglorious Bastards is more than just the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's new movie (starring Brad Pitt); it remains perhaps the biggest and toughest war movie in European cult film history! Action legends Fred 'The Hammer' Williamson and Bo Svenson star as the leaders of a gang of condemned criminals who escape from an Allied prison camp, only to find themselves 'volunteering' for a suicide mission deep inside Nazi occupied France.

From June 11 to 20, YBCA kicks off Food, Sex and Liberation (Go POP)

In this series, a comparison between Jeanne Dielman and Dillinger Is Dead seems inevitable. Though one film is French and the other Italian, both films are innovative stylistic experiments communicating their stories almost entirely through the intimate gestures of cooking, the home and the body. The documentary We Want Roses Too—made also in the language of the personal and the private experience—about the feminist movement of the sixties and seventies is screened in between to help contextualize the private politics and ambiguous feminism of these formalistic masterpieces. Series guest curated and notes by Miriam Bale.

Dillinger Is Dead (1969) screens once daily from June 11 to 14. In this should–be cult classic in a new 35mm print, Michel Piccoli has got a bad case of sixties ennui. One night, a lukewarm meal left by his pill–popping wife (Anita Pallenberg) is the last straw, setting off an exquisite train of triggers that leads to his liberation by the morning. Carefully shot to look very loose, this single night is shown only through the details of his nocturnal domestic rituals—cooking, painting, walking in and out of images from TV and home movies, listening to records, and dripping honey on the maid.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) plays on June 20 & 21.

Jeanne Dielman is an uptight housewife who makes dish washing, veal breading, bathtub scrubbing and coffee making into an art. She keeps to a rigorous schedule, including regular afternoon prostituting to help fund this art, her domestic sanctuary for herself and her teenage son. When an orgasm interrupts her perfect order, she comes unraveled. This year marks the first time that the film has been screened in the U.S. in the 35mm print in which it was intended to be seen, revealing a breathtaking muted pastel palette designed with total precision.

Sandwiched between those two films is 2007's We Want Roses Too on June 18. This documentary that tells the history of feminism in Italy in the 60's and 70's through diaries, illustrated romance novels, pop songs, home movies and other found footage. The style is the content; the filmmaker's rejection of objectivity and insistence on shaping history through a private and emotional point–of–view was in part what differentiated Italian feminism from the women's movement in Britain and America. For Italian feminists, communication had to take new feminine forms and the political was highly personal.

Taking Inventory as of June 14, Hole in the Head, & Citizen Kane

The Hole in the Head Festival ran June 1 to 14. I saw 11 programs; some good, some bad. All showings were at the Roxie.

Hole in the Head Film Festival:
Stagknight; (2007) - Official Website
Blood Car; (2007) - Official Website
Aachi & Ssipak; Anime; Korean with subtitles; (2006) - Official Website
Hazard; Directed by Sion Sono; Japanese with subtitles; (2005) - Official Website
The Thirst; (2006) - Official Website
El Muerto; Starring Wilmer Valderrama; (2005)
Special; Starring Michael Rapaport; (2006) - Official Website
Bad Bugs Bunny; Curated by Dennis Nyback; - Compilation of Warner Brother Cartoons
Murder Party; (2007) - Official Website
The Man from Earth; (2007) - Official Website
Automation Transfusion; (2006) - Official Website

Hole in the Head Film Festival Short Films (shown before some of the main features):
Night of the Hell Hamsters; 16 minute short film; (2006) - Official Website
Of Darkness; 21 minute short film; (2006) - Official Website
Splitting Hairs; 16 minute short film; (2007) - Official Website

In case you are curious, El Muerto has an official website at www.elmuertomovie.com but it's down whenever I visit it. If you are interested, you can visit the official website of El Muerto (the comic book version).

Bad Bugs Bunny was a program that included 10 uncensored cartoons that were modified or pulled from distribution due to their original racist, sexist or otherwise offensive comment.

Let's see if I can remember all ten. Some of the synopses are from Nyback's homepage.

Hare Ribbin (Bob Clampett 1946) This is the original version of this cartoon with the homicide ending that was changed to suicide a month or so after it came out. - Wikipedia Entry

He Was Her Man (Friz Freleng 1937) A long suppressed cartoon due to it's extreme violence toward women.

Sioux Me (Ben Hardaway, 1939) Native American stereotypes galore. The rainmaker must produce rain or the chief will slit his throat.

Let It Be Me (Friz Freleng, 1936) Caricature of Bing Crosby as a woman abusing cad. He successfully sued Warner's to stop the showing of this cartoon.

Ali Baba Bound (Bob Clampett, 1940) Porky Pig battles stereotyped Arabs. This includes a tasteless joke about a suicide bomber.

Tin Pan Alley Cats (Bob Clampett, 1943) An all black character cartoon starring a caricature of Fats Waller. - Wikipedia Entry

Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (Friz Freleng, 1944) Japanese bashing from WW II - Wikipedia Entry

Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (Bob Clampett, 1943) Snow White set in Harlem with a bebop soundtrack - Wikipedia Entry

Wise Quackers (Friz Freleng, 1949) Daffy Duck becomes Elmer Fudd's "slave."

Wholly Smoke (Frank Tashlin, 1938) Porky Pig has hallucinations after smoking a cigar. Exactly what was in that cigar?

Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs and Tin Pan Alley Cat were pulled from distribution in 1968 but I distinctly recall seeing Tin Pan Alley Cat in the mid-70's on Saturday morning TV when I was a kid. Actually, I remember 9 out 10 of the cartoons from my childhood. I can't with certainty that I saw Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs before but seemed familiar to me.

Nyback was present to introduce his program and take questions after the show. He mentioned the URL for a site that catalogs the edits and cuts from the Looney Tunes. The URL is www.looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/. By the way, note that the official title is Looney Tunes and not Looney Toons.

Out of those 11 programs, I can only recommend four. I recommend:

Hazard - Great Japanese film about a dissatisfied Japanese college student that drops out and goes to New York City because it is one of "the most dangerous places in the world"; i.e for some excitement. He falls in with another Japanese expat and a Japanese-Chinese drug dealer that sells snowballs (ice cream laced with ecstasy). The three of them become modern day cowboys before meeting a tragic end. The protagonist returns to Japan a changed man. The black comedy reminded me of Peckinpah.

Blood Car - Hilarious film about a (not to distant) future where gasoline is $30/gallon and no one can afford to drive. Archie (an earnest, vegan, school teacher) spends his nights tinkering on an engine that will run on wheat grass juice. He is unsuccessful until he accidentally cuts himself and some blood gets mixed with the juice. Eureka! Denise runs a "meat stick" stand next to the place where Archie buys his wheat grass. When he drives up in his car, Denise goes into full gold-digger mode. She gets so excited by riding in his car that she gives him a blowjob within minutes of getting in the car - while he is driving! That is just a precursor because Denise is a full-on sex freak that would make Rick James blush. Her sexual deviance awakens a dark side in Archie. To slake his sexual desires, Archie needs to feed the blood car so that Denise will remain interested. Archie progresses from killing small animals to making use of the recently deceased to killing people. All the while, the Feds are monitoring Archie and his blood car. The film is low budget but audacious as only independent film can be. Two gags made me laugh out loud. Anna Chlumsky (best known for her role in 1991's My Girl with Dan Aykroyd, Macaulay Culkin, and Jamie Lee Curtis) plays the wheat grass vendor that lusts after oblivious Archie. She is so desperate she draws her fantasies on paper which include her performing fellatio on Archie with the thought balloon "Your cum tastes like tofu." The other joke is when crass Denise rebuffs Archie's attempts to get closer to her. She says to Archie "Imagine me with a taco in my mouth. Think about that while you write haikus about my box."

Murder Party - Christopher is a lonely guy that sees an advertisement for a "murder party" on Halloween. He bakes a pumpkin loaf and heads over to the warehouse the "party" is being held. What he encounters is five artists that have planned the ultimate performance art piece - the murder of the anonymous guest of honor. He's bound & gagged while awaiting his execution. His fate would be sealed except for the dysfunctional quintet that have captured him. Sidenote - two of the artists are dressed as characters from two of my favorite movies. Lexi is dressed as Pris (Darryl Hannah's character) from Blade Runner. Another character (I cannot recall his name) was dressed as a baseball gang member from Walter Hill's The Warriors - "Can you dig it?!" Although a black comedy, slasher film, Murder Party is, at its core, an indictment of the pretentiousness, pettiness, and absurdity of the modern-day art world.

Special - Michael Rapaport plays Les, a loser who volunteers for a medical study for a test drug that will improve his confidence. Soon after starting the medication, he notices he has "super power" like his heroes in the comic books he reads. The only problem is that he doesn't have super powers; the drug is affecting his ability to comprehend reality. He thinks he is levitating or transporting himself through solid walls but everyone else sees falling on his face or running full speed into the wall. He even explains the blood and bruises as side effects of using his super power. The doctor prescribing the medication urges Les to stop taking the medication but Les knows the authorities have the office bugged and can communicate telepathically. He hears the doctor's real message - keep taking the pills to keep your new powers. As his superhero exploits (randon assaults and other bizarre behavior) begin making the nightly newscasts, the drug company gets nervous that Les' reaction will result in failure to get FDA approval. The two brothers that own the company will stop at nothing to protect their investment. This film is funny, bittersweet, & tragic.

Aachi and Ssipak wasn't my cup of tea but many people enjoy that kind of movie. It's an ultraviolent Korean anime about a society that uses human feces as their main fuel source. To monitor their fuel supply, they implant sensors in everyone's anus and keep them pliant with addictive popsicles. The Man from Earth gets an honorable mention. It's about a 14,000 year old man that tells his story to his friends. First, there is disbelief but eventually the conversation turns to existential, philosophical, historical, and anthropological matters. I enjoyed the film although some of the dialog was impossible to pull off. The final twist was one too many which downgraded it in my opinion. John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox from Enterprise), Tony Todd, and Nurse Lydia from ER co-star.

The Thirst should be avoided at all costs. This film about vampires near a college features dialog that is laughable, wooden performances, and a predictable plot. El Muerto was about an Aztec zombie that resists his evil impulses. I found it boring. Stagknight had a few laughs but was ultimately second rate and Automation Transfusion was nothing special - a predictable zombie flick that is most notable for its suprisingly good special effects given its ultralow budget.

In addition to all those films, I saw Citizen Kane which many people consider the greatest movie ever made. I won't write much about the film because so much has been written by others. A few pieces of trivia - early in the film, Charles Foster Kane's mother is played by Agnes Moorehead who 30 years later would play Endora, the mother-in-law in Bewitched. Bernard Herrmann who composed the original score for Citizen Kane at age 28 (his first film credit). He went on to compose original scores for Taxi Driver, Cape Fear, and several Hitchcock films including Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, The Birds, etc..

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival runs July 13 to 15 at the Castro.