2008 San Francisco International Film Festival

The 51st SFIFF closed tonight. I wasn't planning on watching too many films at this festival. It's the most popular festival in the City so the crowds can get large and I don't like large crowds. I ended up watching 10 films courtesy of Jason Wiener. In the insular world of SF Film Lovers, Jason is a man among boys. Jason watched 431 feature programs in 2007. As a point of comparison, I watched 175 during the same period. Jason's prodigious time commitment to local film festivals is to be awed...or a sign of OCD.

Perusing Jason's blog last month (looking for SFIFF previews), I read that he was giving away a 10 film Cinevoucher to SFIFF. As an aside, the reason he was giving away the voucher was because he bought a $750 festival pass. I answered a few trivia questions from last year's Indiefest and received the voucher for my dedication to his website. Thank you Jason Wiener!

The 10 films I watched were:

Lady Jane; French with subtitles; (2008) - Official Website
Leave Her to Heaven with Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde; (1945)
The Warlords with Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro; Mandarin with subtitles; (2007) - Official Website
Black Belt; Japanese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Website
Mongol; Mongolian with subtitles; (2007) - Official Website
Walt & El Grupo; (2008) - Official Website
Go Go Tales with Willem Dafoe, Matthew Modine, & Asia Argento; directed by Abel Ferrara; (2007) - Official Website
Stranded: I've Come From A Plane That Crashed on the Mountains; Spanish with subtitles; (2007)
Dust; German with subtitles; (2007)
Big Man Japan; Japanese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Website

A few tidbits.

Leave Her to Heaven was a restored film. Although made in 1945, it was filmed in Technicolor. It's film noir but it sure does look strange to see a film noir from that era in color...but what marvelous color.

The Warlords won several HK Film Awards this year. If you wonder what a guy named Takeshi Kaneshiro would be doing in a Mandarin film, it's because he is a Taiwan native (half Chinese/half Japanese). Many people don't know that Taiwan was officially a Japanese territory from 1895 to 1945. Kaneshiro wasn't born until 1973 but I suspect his family's presence on the island was a remnant from Japanese rule. Kaneshiro made an entertaining film a few years ago with Andy Lau and Ziyi Zhang called House of the Flying Daggers.

Mongol had a Mongolian cast with the exception of Genghis Khan (portrayed by a Japanese actor). There must be a Genghis Khan fad in Japan now. Last November's SF Asian Film Festival's opening night film was Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea. It was mentioned that that film was the first of a trilogy. The two films covered a lot of the same ground but Mongol was a much better made film.

Go Go Tales was set in New York but filmed in Rome, Italy. Bob Hoskins and Burt Young co-starred. I watched Go Go Tales at the Kabuki Theater on April 29. The film let out around midnight and I took the 38 Geary bus to BART. I got off the bus at O'Farrell and Powell. There was a line of people up Powell and snaking around the block. I thought a new club opened up. As I walked past the crowd, I saw they were waiting to get into a videogame store. The next day, I read they released Grand Theft Auto IV that day. I think those people were waiting for the clock to strike midnight so the store could start selling GTA4.

Stranded: I've Come From A Plane That Crashed on the Mountains was a documentary. The story was semi-fictionalized in the film Alive (1993) with Ethan Hawke. The documentary was quite entertaining but the extended title (Stranded: I've Come From A Plane That Crashed on the Mountains) is very appropriate. Before the film, the director droned on and on and on about the film. He said something to the effect the film lingered at points on purpose because those guys spent 72 days in the Andes so we could spend a few minutes exploring their ordeal. I thought the film's runtime was fine. After the film, I promised Jason (who was in the audience) a beer in appreciation of the Cinevoucher. Jason wanted to watch the director's Q&A. My worst suspicions were confirmed as director Gonzalo Arijon is the type of person who never uses one word when thirty will do. I am somewhat laconic in my own conversation and taste in films so a guy like Arijon drives me nuts. He reminded of the dysfunctional guy from Frownland at this year's Indiefest. Despite that, I heartily recommend the film - there was some great moments especially regarding cannibalism and how they quickly they drew a parallel between it & transmogrification.

Dust was a documentary about...dust. The film sounds boring (and actually it was) but not because of the subject matter but because of the editing. Extended shot of people of dusting gets old fast. I'd kill to have the voice of the German narrator though. It was masculine, it was melodic, and it had gravitas. I have no doubt the narrator make a good living as a voice-over artist with that voice.

Finally, Walt & El Grupo was a great documentary about Walt Disney and his 1941 Goodwill tour of South America. If you have ever seen some Disney films set in South America such as El Gaucho Goofy and Saludos Amigos with Brazilian parrot Jose Carioca, you have seen the result of Disney's South American tour. The tour served several purposes - a South American Goodwill Tour for the US Government, Disney artists collecting audio and visual memories to create future Disney films, and giving Walt Disney a respite from a devastating strike that shut down his studio.

A week before the festival, I saw Hollywood Chinese - a documentary about Chinese American contributions to Hollywood films. While watching the ancient looking Luise Rainer (The Good Earth - 1937), I realized I had seen this film before. Specifically, I saw it at the 2007 SF Asian American Film Festival. It was great to see Nancy Kwan singing "I Enjoy Being a Girl" again.

Taking Inventory as of April 13

On Saturday (April 12), SF Jazz presented three silent films with live accompaniment by The Club Foot Orchestra. Club Foot is best known for scoring silent films.

The three films (all silent with intertitles) were:

Sherlock Jr. with Buster Keaton; (1924)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; (1920)
Nosferatu directed by FW Murnau; (1922)

If you are old enough to remember the early-1980's, you have probably seen clips from Nosferatu. The music video for "Under Pressure" by Queen & David Bowie featured a clip of Max Schreck as Nosferatu. That was when MTV played music videos.

Also, there was a movie in 2000 called Shadow of the Vampire with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. That was a very entertaining movie. The premise is that Schreck (Dafoe) is an actual vampire playing Nosferatu on the set and only Murnau (Malkovich) is aware of his true nature. Murnau allows it continue because the performance is fabulous.

Having seen Nosferatu, I have to agree that Schreck is amazing. He looks incredibly menacing considering it was made in 1922. He has these long talon-like finger and a mis-shapened head.

Sherlock Jr. was another gem. The special effects and stunts were incredible. Long before The Purple Rose of Cairo, Keaton had a character move from "real life" into the movie. Then there is this still impressive sequence where Keaton moves from one scene to another without the jump cuts being visible. Finally, Keaton performs stunt after stunt including steering a motorcycle while sitting on the handle bars. Apparently, he broke his neck performing one stunt.

As for Dr. Caligari, I'm embarrassed to admit I fell asleep. The story had to do with a somnambulist so it is appropriate that I fell asleep.

All three films were preceded by the same short - Felix the Cat Woos Whoopee; (1928). Felix gets drunk, hallucinates, and has to face his wife at home.

I enjoyed the films (at least while I was awake) but I'm not sure about the Club Foot score. Maybe, I'm stereotyping, but I expect silent films to have period scores - preferably a tinny piano playing uptempo jazz. Club Foot's scores were more contemporary and less derivative.

I also caught two more films in the Dueling Divas series.

Harriet Craig with Joan Crawford; (1950).
Back Street with Susan Hayward; (1961).

You have to wonder what Crawford thought when making Harriet Craig. Harriet was a manipulative, clean freak and purportedly, Christina Crawford left the theater on viewing the film because it hit too close to home. If you can put aside that Crawford's family may have lived through this in real-life, Harriet Craig features a deliciously bitchy performance by Crawford.

2008 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival

The 26th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival ran from March 13 to 25. I saw 14 films (Long Story Short and Anna May Wong: Frosted Yellow Willows were 50 minute films paired together in one program). I saw a 15th film from SFIAAFF less then a week after the festival closed.

Blood Brothers with Qi Shu; Mandarin with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
Death Note; Japanese with subtitles; (2006) - Official Site
Whispering Sidewalks with Betty Inada; Japanese with subtitles; (1936)
A Battle of Wits with Andy Lau; Mandarin with subtitles; (2006) - Official Site
I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK; Korean with subtitles; (2006)
881; Mandarin, Hokkien, & Cantonese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
West 32nd with John Cho & Grace Park; Korean and English with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
A Gentle Breeze in the Village; Japanese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
Slingshot; Tagalog with subtitles; (2007)
Long Story Short - documentary; (2008)
Anna May Wong: Frosted Yellow Willows narrated by Nancy Kwan - documentary; (2007) - Official Site
Yasukuni - documentary; Japanese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
Wings of Defeat - documentary; Japanese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
Ping Pong Playa (2007) - Official Site
Behind Forgotten Eyes - documentary; Japanese & Korean with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site

A few other items of interests.

Death Note co-stars Takeshi Kaga whose best known role was as The Chairman in the Japanese version of Iron Chef. In this film, he plays a no-nonsense cop. It took me half the film before I stopped picturing him in his Michael Jackson costume, biting into a raw bell pepper with a Cheshire cat grin.

A Battle of Wits is not in the SFIAAFF film program. I arrived at the theater expecting to see Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay with John Cho & Kal Penn. That film was changed to a different venue and the replacement was A Battle of Wits.

Whispering Sidewalks star Betty Inada was a Sacramento native. A Nissei, she was unable to find work in the US, so she went to Japan to make films and dance/sing.

Death Note and A Battle of Wits were based on Japanese manga. A Battle of Wits was a Pan-Asian film with Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans in the cast and crew. Actually, there was even a black guy! Death Note is the first half of a two film series.

Behind Forgotten Eyes, Yasukuni, and Wings of Defeat were documentaries on WWII Japan. Behind Forgotten Eyes was about Korean "comfort" women. Wings of Defeat was made by a Japanese American director whose uncle was a surviving kamikaze pilot. Yasukuni was about the controversial Japanese shrine that is also the location of samurai sword manufacturer.

As I mentioned, one of the SFIAAFF films (Planet B-Boy) opened for a limited release soon thereafter. I saw it at the Lumiere Theater. Planet B-Boy (2007) is a documentary about the World Team Break Dancing Championships in Germany. I learned that the South Koreans are a break dancing powerhouse.

This year's festival had a number of standout films. I greatly enjoyed Wings of Defeat, Death Note, Whispering Sidewalks, Ping Pong Playa, Anna May Wong: Frosted Yellow Willows, and Long Story Short. My two favorites were West 32nd and A Gentle Breeze in the Village. West 32nd is about two Korean Americans - one a lawyer and one a gangster, that have to deal with racism in their respective professions. A Gentle Breeze in the Village was directed by Linda Linda Linda's Nobuhiro Yamashita. Like his previous film, A Gentle Breeze in the Village is a sweet examination of teenage angst. In this case, it's about a high school girl in a small town that falls for the new boy from Tokyo. If her first crush isn't tough enough to deal with, she has the added burden of small town gossip, her paramour's juvenile antics, her girlfriends' petty jealousies, and her father's past dealings with her boyfriend's mother.

Dueling Divas and Second Dark Age

The Castro Theater is currently in the middle of two multi-week programs.

On Tuesdays, they are presenting the Second Dark Age, which is a postmodern film noir retrospective. It runs February 26 to April 8 (March 25 excluded). On Wednesdays, they are showing Dueling Divas, which is a double bill of two female movie stars mostly from Hollywood's Golden Age - West, Harlow, Dietrich, Bankhead, Turner, Hayworth, Crawford, Hayward, Taylor, and Moreau. Divas runs from February 27 to April 9 (excluding March 19 & 26).

To date, I've caught all the films from both series with the exception of Lady from Shanghai with Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles. I saw that at the Lark Theater in Larkspur a few years ago. Dueling Divas takes this week off but I'll have to miss this week's Dark Age films because I have tickets to two films at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival on Tuesday. That's too bad because noir films look interesting & I had not heard of them before - The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) with Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle and 1974's The Nickel Ride. They have been showing the original theater previews for the Dark Age films and I wasn't familiar with either film previously. Both films are about small-time, shady, losers that reach the end of the line.

Second Dark Age
Night Moves with Gene Hackman & Melanie Griffith; (1975)
Blow-Out directed by Brian De Palma, with John Travolta; (1981)
Cutter's Way with Jeff Bridges & John Heard; (1981)
Rolling Thunder with William Devane & Tommy Lee Jones, written by Paul Schrader; (1977)
The Driver directed by Walter Hill with Ryan O'Neal and Bruce Dern; (1978)
Thief directed by Michael Mann with James Caan; (1981)

Dueling Divas
She Done Him Wrong with Mae West & Cary Grant; (1933)
Libeled Lady with Spencer Tracy, Jean Harlow, William Powell, & Myrna Loy; (1936)
Scarlet Empress with Marlene Dietrich, directed by Josef von Sternberg; (1934)
A Royal Scandal with Tallulah Bankhead & Anne Baxter, directed by Ernst Lubitsch (dropped out due to illness) & Otto Preminger; (1945)
The Postman Always Rings Twice with Lana Turner & John Garfield; (1946)

2008 San Francisco Independent Film Festival

I went to SF Indiefest this year (February 7-20). I was out of town for the final weekend but I still caught 26 features and short film programs.

Shotgun Stories (2007) - Official Site
Ben X; Dutch with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
Tokyo Loop; Japanese anination; no dialog; (2006) - Official Site (Japanese language)
The Pool; Hindi with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
2nd Verse; documentary; (2007) - Official Site
A Big Story in a Small City; Armenian with subtitles; (2006) - Official Site
The Bodybuilder and I; documentary; (2007) - Official Site
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation (1989) - Unofficial Site
Animation Amalgamation - Short Film Compilation
Who Loves Ya, Baby? - Short Film Compilation
Bay Area Shorts - Short Film Compilation
One Night; (2007) - Official Site
Alligator on the Zipper; documentary; (2007) - Official Site
La Crème; French with subtitles; (2007)
The Road to Nod (2006) - Official Site
This World of Ours; Japanese with Subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
Being Michael Madsen; mocumentary; (2007) - Official Site
Stuck with Mena Suvari & Stephen Rea; (2007)
Broke Sky (2007) - Official Site
Pop Skull (2007) - Official Site
My American Legacy - Short Film Compilation
Frownland (2007) - Official Site
Sexina: Popstar, PI with Adam West; (2007) - Official Site
Dead On - Short Film Compilation
Most Likely To (2007)
Liberty Kid (2007) - Official Site

Indiefest is the first festival that I bought a pass to (dangling participle). The first year I had a pass, it was great. That was 4 or 5 years ago. Each year, it seems like the programming becomes more uneven. Some years, there are real dogs at Indiefest. This year, I only walked out of one film - Pop Skull. This is the first Indiefest I've been to where Bruce Fletcher was not the head programmer. I'm definitely ambivalent towards Fletcher's programming tastes. Having attended 10 films at his Dead Channels festival and 11 films at last years Hole in the Head festival (which he did not program), I can say that I prefer the festival(s) without him. However, he had one ace up his sleeve that has yet to be duplicated. Fletcher (presumably from his tenure at the Hawaii Film Festival) seemed to have a pipeline to some very talented Japanese filmmakers. One of my all time favorite films is A Taste of Tea by Katsuhito Ishii. One of the standouts at Dead Channels was Freesia - Icy Tears directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri. Another Indiefest gem was 9 Souls by Toshiaki Toyoda. I wish Fletcher would program a Japanese film festival.

The highlights for me were Shotgun Story, 2nd Verse, and Liberty Kid

Taking Inventory as of February 3

San Francisco Silent Film Festival Winter Event at the Castro Theater
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages; directed by D.W. Griffith; silent with intertitles; (1916)

Note: Intolerance was added to the inventory list on February 9, 2009 to correct its inadvertent omission. I saw this film on December 1, 2007. I was reminded of this because Intolerance is showing at the 2009 Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose.

Charlie Chaplin Retrospective at the Castro Theater.

Modern Times with Paulette Goddard; mostly silent; (1936)
The Circus; silent; (1928)
Sunnyside; silent; (1919)
A Day's Pleasure; silent; (1919)
Pay Day; silent; (1922)
Monsieur Verdoux with Martha Raye; (1947)
Limelight; (1952)
A King in New York; (1957)
The Great Dictator with Paulette Goddard; (1940)

Irma la Douce with Jack Lemmon & Shirley MacLaine; directed by Billy Wilder; (1963)

Valley of the Heart's Delight with Pete Postlethwaite and Bruce McGill; (2006) - Official Site

All in This Tea; documentary; (2007)- Official Site

Rock Hudson & Doris Day Double Feature at the Castro Theater.
Pillow Talk co-starring Tony Randall; (1959)
Lover Come Back co-starring Tony Randall; (1961)

Helvetica; documentary; (2007) - Official Site

Akira Kurosawa & Toshirô Mifune Retrospective at the Castro Theater.
Rashomon; Japanese with Subtitles; (1950)
Stray Dog; Japanese with Subtitles; (1949)
The Bad Sleep Well; Japanese with Subtitles; (1960)
High and Low; Japanese with Subtitles; (1953)

Juno; (2007) - Official Site

Noir City 6 Film Festival at the Castro Theater.
Repeat Performance with Joan Leslie; (1947)
The Hard Way with Ida Lupino & Joan Leslie; (1943)
Gun Crazy with Peggy Cummins; (1950)
The Grand Inquisitor with Marsha Hunt; directed by Eddie Muller; (2008) - Official Site
Moonrise with Gail Russell; (1948)
Night Has 1000 Eyes with Edward G. Robinson; (1948)
Woman in Hiding with Ida Lupino & Howard Duff; (1950)
Jeopardy with Barbara Stanwyck & Barry Sullivan; (1953)
Hangover Square with Laird Cregar and Linda Darnell; (1945)
Dangerous Crossing with Jeanne Crain; (1953)
Reign of Terror with Robert Cummings and Richard Basehart; (1949)
Border Incident with George Murphy & Ricardo Montalban; (1949)
D.O.A with Edmond O'Brien; (1950)
The Story of Molly X with June Havoc; (1949)
Conflict with Humphrey Bogart; (1945)
The Suspect with Charles Laughton; (1944)
The 3rd Voice with Edmond O'Brien; (1960)
Face Behind the Mask with Peter Lorre & Evelyn Keyes; (1941)
Roadhouse with Richard Widmark, Ida Lupino, and Cornel Wilde; (1948)
Night and the City with Richard Widmark & Gene Tierney; (1950)

2007 San Francisco Asian Film Festival

The 2007 San Francisco Asian Film Festival ran from November 8 to 18. I saw eleven films at the 4 Star and Castro.

Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea - Japanese with subtitles; filmed on location in Mongolia; (2007)
Eye in the Sky with Tony Leung Ka Fai; Cantonese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
The Goddess with Ruan Lingyu; silent with intertitles; (1934)
Dragon Tiger Gate with Donnie Yen, Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yue; directed by Wilson Yip; Cantonese with subtitles; (2006)
ZebraMan directed by Takashi Miike; Japanese with subtitles; (2004)
Barking Dogs Never Lie with Bae Doo-na; directed by Bong Joon-ho; Korean with subtitles; (2000)
Yakiniku The Movie Japanese with subtitles; (2007)
Nanking - English, Mandarin, and Japanese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site
Confession of Pain with Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Shu Qi; Cantonese and Mandarin with subtitles; (2006)
Flashpoint with Donnie Yen, Louis Koo; directed by Wilson Yip; Cantonese and Mandarin with subtitles; (2007) - Official Website
Invisible Target with Nicholas Tse, Jaycee Chan, Shawn Yue; Cantonese with subtitles; (2007) - Official Site

A few quick notes. The film I most wanted to see was The Banquet with Ziyi Zhang. However, the film did not arrive in time for the screening. I am very disappointed. The film is characterized as "Hamlet with a kung fu twist." The proper term is Wǔxiá which literally translates into philosophical kung fu. Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragron are two well known wǔxiá films.

All the Chinese films were set in Hong Kong (HK) except the eponymous Nanking. My guilty pleasure is HK action films and this festival delivered. Flashpoint in particular was a gritty film about a cop that is as violent as the criminals he is trying to arrest. When the Vietnamese gang attacks the cops, Yen drops all pretense about upholding the law. He goes after them with guns and fists. The fight scenes were choreographed by star Donnie Yen. For added realism, Yen incorporates mixed martial arts into the fight scenes so it looks like something out of Ultimate Fighter.

Invisible Target is more like an American action movie with plenty of explosions. Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yue were/are teenage pop stars which makes their acting and physicality more impressive. It would be like Justin Timberlake (is he sitll popular) making action movies and doing his stunts. Jaycee Chan is Jackie Chan's son. There is a definite facial resemblance.

Confession of Pain has a few action sequences but is more of a thriller. First, note there are two Tony Leungs that are well known Chinese actors. This films starred Tony Leung Chiu Wai. He is the Tony Leung (aka Short Tony) currently appearing in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. Frequently co-starring with the beautiful Maggie Cheung, you may also remember him from Hero, 2046, In the Mood for Love, and Chungking Express.

The other Tony Leung is Tony Leung Ka Fai who appeared in Eye in the Sky. That Tony Leung (aka Big Tony) also has a more offbeat filmography including a movie I saw many years ago called The Lover with Jane March and based on a Marguerite Duras autobiographical novel. More recently he was in Johnny To's Election. I get them confused all the time.

Also, if you are wondering what a guy named Takeshi Kaneshiro is doing an HK action film, allow me to elaborate. Many people don't know this but Japan occupied Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Despite 62 years of being the Republic of China, there is still a Japanese presence on the island. Kaneshiro, born in 1973 to a Taiwanese mother & Japanese father, can speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and English. Also, Confession of Pain was made by the team that created Infernal Affairs (note infernal not internal). In the USA, Infernal Affairs was remade by Martin Scorcese with the title The Departed with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson.

Barking Dogs Never Lie was made by the director who helmed The Host which was in US theaters earlier this year. Those two films starred a great Korean actress (Bae Doo-na) whom I became familiar with as the Korean exchange student in the Japanese film Linda Linda Linda.

Enough of the Kevin Bacon in Asia game.

Cast of Linda Linda Linda (Bae Doo-na, far right)

Tony Leung Chiu Wai

Tony Leung Ka Fai