Take Two

The fix is in: Yes Men take on the world

At the beginning of The Yes Men Fix the World, one of the titular duo nervously prepares for fraudulently representing Dow Chemical in front of a purported BBC World News audience of 300 million—telling “a really big lie which unfortunately is gonna wipe $2 billion off one company’s stock price.”

Now, why would anyone want to do that? Well, in this case to try shaming the corporation into properly addressing the 1984 gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, that cost thousands of lives. (Estimates including subsequent gas-related disease deaths run as high as 35,000.) It remains the worst industrial disaster in history. The original restitution sums and contamination cleanup efforts were pitifully inadequate; the area remains a health and environmental dead zone. Dow, which absorbed Union Carbide in 2003, claims it holds no responsibility for the tragedy or its lingering aftereffects.

topics: activism, directors, diy, documentary, performance, political film, reviews

Experience

Welcoming French Cinema Now—and then

The year 2009 marks the golden anniversary of a watershed event in international cinema: The launching of the Nouvelle Vague, that agitating generation of young filmmakers (many former critics) who laid siege to the perceived creative atrophy of the French film industry, in the process having a huge influence on movies everywhere.

You can argue exactly what the first “New Wave” feature was, but in terms of popular impact, the one that first resonated around the world was undeniably François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. That 1959 classic is being revived as part of San Francisco Film Society’s second annual French Cinema Now festival, which runs the week of October 29 through November 4 at the city’s Clay Theatre.

topics: comedy, critics, dramatic films, film festivals, french cinema, gay lesbian cinema, genre films, reviews, world cinema

Experience

Another Hole in the Head looks to re-wound your psyche

Confronted by flesh-eating zombies, werewolves, or a maniac with a very sharp object, your first instinct probably would not be to laugh—unless it were that hysterical, this-can’t-be-happening type of laughter often heard greeting tax and election results. But at this year’s 6th annual Another Hole in the Head dedicated to sci-fi, horror and fantasy, catastrophic carnage meets comedy more often than not.

As moviegoers (and genre fans), have we become so desensitized to violence that it plays best as a joke? Or in the dark real-world climate of this decade, are filmmakers just helping us let off some steam by making fear seem a laughing matter? Oh, who cares—this festival is all about fun, not analyzing content. How much analysis do you expect something called Frat House Massacre or Run! Bitch Run! (sic) to withstand, anyway?

topics: bay area, genre films, hollywood, horror, independent film, reviews, roxie

Take Two

Gory days: Raimi rides the horror genre again--with predictable success

Like Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi is a fanboy turned shockingly successful filmmaker whose career will probably always be divided into Before and After. The milestone in the middle being, in Jackson’s case, Lord of the Rings; in Raimi’s, another trilogy (at least so far), the Spider-Man movies.

Where do you go when you’ve done something that huge, yet still somehow hung onto your original goofy-fanboy cred? Go back to what inspired you in the first place, maybe.

topics: critics, diy, genre films, hollywood, horror, reviews

Take Two

Garrel's past haunts "Frontier of Dawn"; political horrors rock "Il Divo"

An autobiographical element is not uncommon in almost any artist’s work, but some take it further than others—and a few forge whole careers from examination of the self, however thinly veiled.

One is French director Philippe Garrel, son of actor Maurice (who’s frequently appeared in his films), father of actor Louis (ditto), and erstwhile companion to the late model/actress/Warhol Superstar/chanteuse de gloom Nico. A few years after their decade living and creating together ended, and just after kicking a 15-year heroin habit, she died from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 49.

Thanks to her music, ice-goddess looks and connection to the fabled Factory/Velvet Underground era, Nico—a performer who in popular terms never developed more than a small cult following during her life—is probably more famous than ever 20-plus years post-mortem. And she still looms large in Garrel’s films, though she stopped appearing in them after 1978. Perhaps beautiful, mercurial, self-destructive women are the only kind he’s ever been involved with. Or maybe they’re just the only ones he likes to make movies about.

topics: actors, drama, french cinema, reviews

Take Two

"Observe and Report"--Seth Rogen is (m)all over it

The vaunted Judd Apatow creative juggernaut has raised the game for mainstream American comedies—let’s admit it. Can you really deny this stuff is an uptick from the likes of stale chickflick rom-coms and other yukfests the studios have been greenlighting lately? It’s also made at least temporary stars of some folk one couldn’t have imagined crawling out of the sidekick ghetto not long ago.

Exhibit A being Seth Rogen, who before Knocked Up two years ago was one of those vaguely familiar faces surfacing in one funny small part or another, his identity locked only in the minds of those fervent few mourning the two acclaimed but short-lived Apatow TV series (Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared) in which he was a regular cast member. But now he’s Seth Rogen—name above the title. Even so, Rogen has barely had a chance to show what he can do.

He gets the opportunity to stretch in the new Observe and Report.

topics: actors, comedy, critics, festivals, genre films, hollywood, reviews

Take Two

Troell in fine form with "Everlasting Moments"

In the early 1970s it looked like Jan Troell was “the new Bergman”—not that Ingmar himself was anywhere near finished yet. Starting out as a cinematographer (a role he’d keep on most of his own films), he made two acclaimed first features before the epic—as long as 6 1/2 hours in some cuts—diptych of 1971’s The Emigrants and 1972’s The New Land. Starring Bergman’s favorite actors Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow as poor 19th century Swedish immigrants struggling to reach and survive in the American frontier, both films won numerous international awards and Oscar nominations (including Best Picture for Emigrants).

But Troell was not especially prolific, or flamboyant, with the result that—even in Sweden—he was sometimes taken for granted or simply forgotten. Thus his latest movie Everlasting Moments, which opens at Bay Area theaters today, may well prove for many an introduction to a 78-year-old filmmaker who’s been directing features since 1966.

topics: actors, drama, landmark theatres, reviews, world cinema