Review

Can't stop the musical: PFA revels in classics of the form

As soon as the silent era hit sound circa 1927, musicals became a leading film genre worldwide. How could their appeal possibly die out?

Yet it gradually did—starting in the 1950s (despite marvels from Singin’ in the Rain to Gigi), escalating in the late ’60s (when myriad big-budget musicals thirsting after The Sound of Music’s success flopped). Nails were thumped into the coffin by later duds like Lost Horizon (1973), Xanadu and Can’t Stop the Music (both 1980).

topics: comedy, directors, drama, music, musicals, pacific film archive

Experience

Feast your eyes: a holiday film preview

I don’t know about you, but I know what I want for Christmas (and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, for that matter): Some decent movies. Hope springs eternal, especially at this time of year. It’s Hollywood custom now to reserve the majority of its prestige titles for an annual late onslaught, the idea being that award-bestowing organizations’ voters naturally gravitate toward whatever is freshest in their memories. In the indie sector, too, there are some goodies timed for holiday gifting.

So, here’s a glancing, far-from-exhaustive preview of what we’ve got to look forward to between now and New Year’s Day.

topics: activism, actors, animation, art film, awards, bay area, castro theatre, children's issues, comedy, critics, critics year end polls, cult cinema, directors, distributors, documentary film, dramatic films, music, musicals, roxie, world cinema

Platform

The buzz on H.P. Mendoza's "Fruit Fly"

H.P. Mendoza launched his career with an unlikely topic for a movie musical—a group of twentysomethings trying to escape the cemetery capital of the world. Perhaps equally surprising is the fact that Colma: The Musical, which he composed, wrote and co-starred, became a surprise indie hit in 2006. Now, he’s back with another musical, Fruit Fly, this time as a director and composer of the film’s 19 original songs. Mendoza’s twin root systems in music and film are inseparable and have served him well. Shot in HD over a 20-day period in the Castro and Mission neighborhoods Fruit Fly reunites Mendoza with Colma vets—cinematographer Richard Wong and leading songstress, L.A. Renigen. Renigen plays Bethesda, a Filipina performance artist who searches for her birth parents, tries to get her career off the ground and, as Mendoza once did, lives in a San Francisco artist commune, whose tenants are a rainbow coalition of ethnicity and sexual orientation. Mendoza is currently working on a non-musical: a dark comedy about Proposition 8. Fruit Fly, which was funded by the Center for Asian American Media, has its world premiere March 15 at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

topics: actors, bay area, center for asian american media, independent film, music, musicals, sf international asian american film festival

Experience

Bring the Noise Pop Film Festival

A notorious 1971 print advertisement targeting counterculture types and wannabes featured Central Casting hippies behind the defiant slogan “But The Man can’t bust our music!” It was widely ridiculed because, well, it was an ad for The Man—Columbia Records, then the label of choice for Barbra Streisand, Simon & Garfunkel, Chicago and other not-so-revolutionary acts.

Fake rebelliousness remains a staple in mainstream music marketing. But who’d have guessed almost 40 years later we’d have rebounded to a pre-Summer of Love popscape in which rigid radio playlists, payola scandals and manufactured stars are the norm? Annette Funicello then; Justin, Britney, Miley and Jonas Bros. now. O Disney, you ageless bringer of da rock!

About as far from the ever-increasing corporatization of popular music as you can get is the annual dose of our very own Noise Pop Festival. In addition to about 120 live acts at citywide venues—2009 headliners including Bob Mould, Antony and the Johnsons, Stephen Malkmus, Kool Keith and Papercuts—its multimedia elements include the Noise Film Festival Film Festival, now in its 9th year.

topics: bay area, documentary, festivals, independent film, music, musicals

Take Two

Review: "Love Songs"

French musicals are an acquired taste. I should know, because I thought I hated ‘em until I suddenly acquired it. The moment of revelation is cloudy, but may have been tethered to first hearing the Michel Legrand song score for 1968’s Young Girls of Rochefort—music so cheerful, insouciant, wistful and catchy it could charm the distemper from Guantanamo Bay. (It took several more years to actually see that film, which outside France was a big flop, only recently getting belated appreciation and restored-print DVD exposure.)

As defined by the original taste-making blueprint, Demy’s 1964 Umbrellas of Cherbourg (also with a Legrand score, one more famous but I think less intoxicating), the French musical is not at all like your classic Hollywood model—or even the Bollywood one. Songs simply seep into the "action," simply extending the inevitable discussion of relationships or their lack rather than providing plot with some flamboyant interruption. People don’t "burst" into song, they slip into it. The music is usually less Broadway than youthful pop, movement not half so formal as would require the term "choreography."

topics: french cinema, musicals, reviews