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

Experience

Columbia Pictures' noir lights up the Roxie

Founded in 1924, Columbia Pictures spent some decades just below the top echelon of Hollywood studios. It didn’t own its own theater chain, or otherwise command the resources that MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers or Fox could apply in lavish displays of star power, production scale and promotional oomph.

When the business began changing in the 1950s due to TV, new antitrust laws and other factors, the playing field leveled in ways that benefitted Columbia more than its glitzier, top-heavy rivals. But before then, with the occasional prestigious exception—notably Frank Capra’s films—its bread-and-butter product leaned toward the less pricey ends of the entertainment spectrum. That meant away from spectacular production numbers, costume epics and all-star ensemble pieces and toward such humbler but reliable amusements as a girl, a guy and a gun.

topics: bay area, genre films, noir, roxie

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

Report

Recession sidesteps theaters, up to a point

The economic downturn is hurting everyone, right? Yet Hollywood is on pace to break the box-office record it set last year. Likewise, the arthouses are doing steady business. Even concession sales at smaller theaters are generally level. So what’s going on out there?

Landmark Theatres CEO Ted Mundorff reports that in 18 of the first 19 weeks of 2009, the arthouse chain’s ticket sales were up from last year. Nonetheless, he says, "I don’t believe the industry is recession-proof. It’s all about the films. If there were 20 films in the marketplace no one wanted to see, they wouldn’t come to the movies. If we had great movies and we were priced out of the marketplace, people wouldn’t go either."

topics: art film, bay area, distribution, exhibition, independent film, international film, landmark theatres, red vic movie house, roxie

Platform

Elliot Lavine, revisiting the old haunts

Elliot Lavine, who’s been a fixture on the Bay Area film scene since moving from Detroit to San Francisco in 1975, returns to his old stomping grounds at the Roxie to guest curate "I Wake Up Dreaming: The Haunted World of the B Film Noir." The program of 28 obscure, bona fide film noir that Lavine affectionately describes as "cheap, lowdown and tawdry," coincides with the underground publication of his book of the same name. The series, which includes Blind Alley, one of two noir shorts that marked the beginning and end of Lavine’s foray into filmmaking, runs May 15-28, with a pre-opening bash on May 14.

topics: authors, bay area, noir, roxie

Critic's Notebook

Kubrick and Altman's fear, desire, delinquency--all on film

Legal-rights issues, lost or deteriorated negatives, and sheer disinterest can be reasons for movies becoming unavailable, despite all proliferation of DVD, Internet, and pirated-copy exposure inside and outside the realm of strict legality. (The studios might sue your butt off for downloading Wolverine, but odds are they won’t notice, or care, if somehow you got hold of a tenth-generation dupe of a forgotten B-grade feature from 1955 with no perceived remaining commercial value.) But it’s unusual these days for a film numerous people really do want to see to remain isolated from view.

Ergo the Film on Film Foundation’s program at the Roxie this Sunday is many a film buff’s dream come true, as it presents 35mm prints of extremely rare first features by two late, great American directors: No less than Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman. Both were micro-budgeted 1950s independent productions, and for differing reasons both have been exceedingly hard to find in any but the poor-quality bootleg form for decades.

topics: actors, directors, film, roxie

Experience

"Christmas on Mars"--on Halloween

It’s always encouraging when sheer weirdness is rewarded, and the quarter-century survival of Flaming Lips—perhaps indie rock’s equivalent to Parliament/Funkadelic, with Wayne Coyne its bizarro-genius George Clinton—is one such oasis of willful eccentricity in a sea of formulaic audio product.

They’re not studied hipsters; they’re from Oklahoma City, after all. Their psychedelia leans in pop and avant-garde directions, not that Phish-y “jam band” direction that makes me empathize with Cartman of South Park’s frequent cuss “Damn hippies!” They write actual, frequently catchy songs without ever risking MTV Buzz Bin embrace. (Except sole hit single “She Don’t Use Jelly” 15 years ago.) Their live shows are famously berserk. Their album titles are absurdist koans (I’m divided between Clouds Taste Metallic and In a Priest Driven Ambulance as personal fave.) They are possibly the least “industry” act ever to have won three Grammys, or have a hometown alley renamed after them. They wrote a song for Sponge Bob! What’s not to like?

topics: independent film, music, roxie, science fiction