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  • Home

    Turturro Makes a Case for 'Passione'

    Max Goldberg
    Sep 29, 2011

    John Turturro shares his passion for the Neapolitan songbook.

  • Reviews

    Turturro Makes a Case for 'Passione'

    Max Goldberg
    Sep 29, 2011

    John Turturro shares his passion for the Neapolitan songbook.

  • September 29 2011

    Turturro Makes a Case for 'Passione'

    Max Goldberg
    Sep 29, 2011

    John Turturro shares his passion for the Neapolitan songbook.

  • August 11, 2011

    Pagnol's Foodie Oeuvre Appreciated in East Bay

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 11, 2011

    Pacific Film Archive serves a full course of films by Marcel Pagnol.

  • Home

    Pagnol's Foodie Oeuvre Appreciated in East Bay

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 11, 2011

    Pacific Film Archive serves a full course of films by Marcel Pagnol.

  • Reviews

    Pagnol's Foodie Oeuvre Appreciated in East Bay

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 11, 2011

    Pacific Film Archive serves a full course of films by Marcel Pagnol.

  • Home

    Border Trouble Comes to Pacific Film Archive

    Max Goldberg
    Jun 30, 2011

    New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.

  • June 30, 2011

    Border Trouble Comes to Pacific Film Archive

    Max Goldberg
    Jun 30, 2011

    New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.

  • Reviews

    Border Trouble Comes to Pacific Film Archive

    Max Goldberg
    Jun 30, 2011

    New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.

  • april 22 2011

    Swimming in the Deep End of San Francisco International Film Festival

    Max Goldberg
    Apr 15, 2011

    Films in the 54th SFIFF immerse viewers in distant times, unique places.

  • Festivals

    Swimming in the Deep End of San Francisco International Film Festival

    Max Goldberg
    Apr 15, 2011

    Films in the 54th SFIFF immerse viewers in distant times, unique places.

  • Home

    Swimming in the Deep End of San Francisco International Film Festival

    Max Goldberg
    Apr 15, 2011

    Films in the 54th SFIFF immerse viewers in distant times, unique places.

  • Reviews

    Swimming in the Deep End of San Francisco International Film Festival

    Max Goldberg
    Apr 15, 2011

    Films in the 54th SFIFF immerse viewers in distant times, unique places.

  • 03.31.11

    SFMOMA's Muybridge Experiments with Time, Space

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 31, 2011

    SFMOMA's Eadweard Muybridge exhibit is essential viewing for Bay Area film lovers. More than 150 years after Eadweard Muybridge set up shop on Montgomery Street, San Francisco Museum Modern Art is featuring a splendid retrospective of the photographer’s work just a few blocks away. A tireless self-promoter with chutzpah enough to adapt “Helios” as a nom de plume early in his career (this after already having left “Muggeridge” behind in England), Muybridge would surely have been pleased by this showcase. From A Trip Down Market Street

  • Home

    SFMOMA's Muybridge Experiments with Time, Space

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 31, 2011

    SFMOMA's Eadweard Muybridge exhibit is essential viewing for Bay Area film lovers. More than 150 years after Eadweard Muybridge set up shop on Montgomery Street, San Francisco Museum Modern Art is featuring a splendid retrospective of the photographer’s work just a few blocks away. A tireless self-promoter with chutzpah enough to adapt “Helios” as a nom de plume early in his career (this after already having left “Muggeridge” behind in England), Muybridge would surely have been pleased by this showcase. From A Trip Down Market Street

  • Home

    Jay Rosenblatt Talks ‘Darkness’

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 24, 2011

    Rosenblatt’s meditative essay on the difficult subject of suicide finds its way to HBO. Narrative films may occasionally conjure the shock of a suicide—last year’s The Father of My Children is a fine example—but it’s the nature of character dramas to keep pace with the living rather than meditate in the shadow of loss. In his most recent lyrical essay-film, The Darkness of Day, local filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt creates such a meditative space, intertwining different stories and perspectives of suicide: near and far, first-person and third, male and female, young and old, anonymous and notable. Rosenblatt cues the multiple narratives to a poetic stream of found...

  • March 24, 2011

    Jay Rosenblatt Talks ‘Darkness’

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 24, 2011

    Rosenblatt’s meditative essay on the difficult subject of suicide finds its way to HBO. Narrative films may occasionally conjure the shock of a suicide—last year’s The Father of My Children is a fine example—but it’s the nature of character dramas to keep pace with the living rather than meditate in the shadow of loss. In his most recent lyrical essay-film, The Darkness of Day, local filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt creates such a meditative space, intertwining different stories and perspectives of suicide: near and far, first-person and third, male and female, young and old, anonymous and notable. Rosenblatt cues the multiple narratives to a poetic stream of found...

  • Home

    YBCA Brings Attention to Embattled Iranian Artists

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 17, 2011

    YBCA rallies behind Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof with its ‘Iran Beyond Censorship’ series.

  • March 17, 2011

    YBCA Brings Attention to Embattled Iranian Artists

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 17, 2011

    YBCA rallies behind Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof with its ‘Iran Beyond Censorship’ series.

  • Reviews

    YBCA Brings Attention to Embattled Iranian Artists

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 17, 2011

    YBCA rallies behind Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof with its ‘Iran Beyond Censorship’ series.

  • February 17, 2011

    Soderbergh's Spalding Gray Rings True

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 18, 2011

    Steven Soderbergh's Spalding Gray tribute gives us the true beating heart of the artist instead of talking-head punditry.

  • Home

    Soderbergh's Spalding Gray Rings True

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 18, 2011

    Steven Soderbergh's Spalding Gray tribute gives us the true beating heart of the artist instead of talking-head punditry.

  • Reviews

    Soderbergh's Spalding Gray Rings True

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 18, 2011

    Steven Soderbergh's Spalding Gray tribute gives us the true beating heart of the artist instead of talking-head punditry.

  • February 10, 2011

    SFFS Screen Returns with New Suleiman

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 4, 2011

    Elia Suleiman’s 'The Time That Remains' recalls his parents’ Nazareth.

  • Home

    SFFS Screen Returns with New Suleiman

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 4, 2011

    Elia Suleiman’s 'The Time That Remains' recalls his parents’ Nazareth.

  • Reviews

    SFFS Screen Returns with New Suleiman

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 4, 2011

    Elia Suleiman’s 'The Time That Remains' recalls his parents’ Nazareth.

  • Home

    Temporary Insanity Takes Hold at Noir City

    Max Goldberg
    Jan 21, 2011

    Noir City 9's "madness" theme means a few more gothic titles and a fresh context to appreciate noir’s signature motifs.

  • January 27, 2011

    Temporary Insanity Takes Hold at Noir City

    Max Goldberg
    Jan 21, 2011

    Noir City 9's "madness" theme means a few more gothic titles and a fresh context to appreciate noir’s signature motifs.

  • Reviews

    Temporary Insanity Takes Hold at Noir City

    Max Goldberg
    Jan 21, 2011

    Noir City 9's "madness" theme means a few more gothic titles and a fresh context to appreciate noir’s signature motifs.

  • Festivals

    Berlin & Beyond Provides Genius Genre Treatments

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 22, 2010

    A pair of expert heist films top Berlin & Beyond.

  • Home

    Berlin & Beyond Provides Genius Genre Treatments

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 22, 2010

    A pair of expert heist films top Berlin & Beyond.

  • October 28, 2010

    Berlin & Beyond Provides Genius Genre Treatments

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 22, 2010

    A pair of expert heist films top Berlin & Beyond.

  • August 26 ,2010

    A Vampire Weekend at YBCA

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 26, 2010

    Three vampire films capture more than the imagination. That the vogue for vampire melodramas may have run its course is clear enough from the appearance of Vampires Suck (in theaters as of this writing, though not likely much past it) and the news that the American redo of the 2008 Swedish indie hit, Let the Right One In, will be titled "Let Me In." Just like that, a lovely slice of pop-baroque gets reprocessed as a pathetic whine. No matter: as long there is cinema, the vampire will reemerge. Ever since the twin pinnacles of Nosferatu (1922) and Vampyr (1932), in which two of early cinema’s. . .

  • Home

    A Vampire Weekend at YBCA

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 26, 2010

    Three vampire films capture more than the imagination. That the vogue for vampire melodramas may have run its course is clear enough from the appearance of Vampires Suck (in theaters as of this writing, though not likely much past it) and the news that the American redo of the 2008 Swedish indie hit, Let the Right One In, will be titled "Let Me In." Just like that, a lovely slice of pop-baroque gets reprocessed as a pathetic whine. No matter: as long there is cinema, the vampire will reemerge. Ever since the twin pinnacles of Nosferatu (1922) and Vampyr (1932), in which two of early cinema’s. . .

  • August 26 ,2010

    'Army of Crime' Revisits the Not-Always French Resistance

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 20, 2010

    'Army of Crime’s' portraits in heroism remain admirably restrained, unlike so many Resistance fantasies.

  • Home

    'Army of Crime' Revisits the Not-Always French Resistance

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 20, 2010

    'Army of Crime’s' portraits in heroism remain admirably restrained, unlike so many Resistance fantasies.

  • Reviews

    'Army of Crime' Revisits the Not-Always French Resistance

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 20, 2010

    'Army of Crime’s' portraits in heroism remain admirably restrained, unlike so many Resistance fantasies.

  • Festivals

    Frameline's History Lessons

    Max Goldberg
    Jun 24, 2010

    Frameline34 brought together a wide array of programs following the retrospective impulse.

  • Festivals

    SFIFF53: Women's Worlds

    Max Goldberg
    May 1, 2010

    Don t let Hollywood crow about The Hurt Locker and the year of the woman until more filmmakers of the sort featured at this year s festival benefit.

  • Reviews

    San Francisco Cinematheque's Spring Action

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 10, 2010

    The spring edition of the Cinematheque calendar is making the rounds, and my copy is dog-eared with wishful thinking. Grab your datebook for a rundown.

  • Q & A

    Scott MacDonald on Art in Cinema at SFMoMA

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 7, 2010

    The film historian looks back at Frank Stauffacher's seminal mid-century series, which hatched a Bay Area avant-garde.

  • Reviews

    Remembering Chick Strand

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 23, 2009

    Chick Strand, a crucial pioneer of West Coast experimental cinema, died July 11 at 78.

  • Q & A

    Pamela Jean Smith Brings Home Movies to Big Screen

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 12, 2009

    Though often made for private reasons, home movies are treasure troves of culture ephemera and social history.

  • Reviews

    San Francisco Cinematheque Fall Program Underway

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 3, 2009

    A year after Jonathan Marlow took the helm as executive director, the organization is showing fresh signs of life.

  • Reviews

    Heddy Honigmann and the Art of Interview

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 2, 2009

    With the Netherlands-based filmmaker's latest portrait in resilience, Oblivion, opening Friday, it's a good time to celebrate one of documentary's most engaging storytellers.

  • Reviews

    High Drama in High school in 'The Beautiful Person'

    Max Goldberg
    Sep 4, 2009

    The story of teenagers living like a savage, roaming pack of animals, The Beautiful Person locates a classic in a contemporary setting.

  • Q & A

    Britta Sjogren and "Women's Film"

    Max Goldberg
    Jul 16, 2009

    Sjogren threads her vexations with feminist film theory into a study of sound and voice in "women's film" touchstones like Letter from an Unknown Woman.

  • Reviews

    'Night and Day:' Location, Location, Locution

    Max Goldberg
    May 21, 2009

    Hong Sang-soo's Night and Day is a comedic unraveling of a South Korean art student's gaffes throughout Paris.

  • Reviews

    'Silent Light' and Shattered Landscapes

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 27, 2009

    Carlos Reygadas' third film is an unmistakably serious work, emblematic of the kind of brooding, large-canvas filmmaking which has become a rarity.

  • Reviews

    Something Wild: Martha Colburn's Collage Animations

    Max Goldberg
    Dec 1, 2008

    Martha Colburn's recent shorts plunge the interstices of Americana for a hidden history of fanaticism and double-faced hypocrisies.

  • Festivals

    SFFS's Inaugural French Cinema Now

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 7, 2008

    The SFFS has added a Gallic counterpart to its long-running New Italian Cinema series.

  • Reviews

    The Mystical and Everyday in 'A Listener's Tale'

    Max Goldberg
    Jul 15, 2008

    A Listener's Tale is a lovely if unclassifiable mixture of ethnography and poetic reverie which screened at last winter's Rotterdam Film Festival.

  • Reviews

    The World of 'Derek' at Frameline32

    Max Goldberg
    Jun 25, 2008

    A documentary tribute to Derek Jarman, Isaac Julien's Derek does not seek to enlarge or complicate the filmmaker's legacy so much as succor its loss.

  • Reviews

    New Rohmer on SFFS Screen

    Max Goldberg
    Jun 24, 2008

    Eric Rohmer's latest "moral tale," The Romance of Astrea and Cèladon, filled with evanescent beauty, plays as part of SFFS Screen.

  • Reviews

    Review: "Mister Lonely"

    Max Goldberg
    May 19, 2008

    Part Luis Bunuel parable, Artforum spread, Jonestown ballet and Warhol camp, Harmony Korine's latest is a prime, insomniac two hours of midnight-movie drifting.

  • Reviews

    Finding Warren Sonbert

    Max Goldberg
    May 14, 2008

    Unlike most experimental filmmakers, Sonbert's collected works have had the benefit of full retrospectives at major museums (SFMOMA, NYMOMA, Guggenheim) and a strong preservation effort.

  • Festivals

    San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 18, 2008

    SFIAAFF has grown from a niche event to a major international festival - with more than enough voices to justify its unwieldy moniker.

  • Reviews

    "A Genuine Tribute to Peter Bogdanovich"

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 5, 2008

    "A Genuine Tribute to Peter Bogdanovich" is a major coup for Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, after all these years later, he's ready for a retrospective of his own.

  • Festivals

    Noir City 2008

    Max Goldberg
    Jan 24, 2008

    Noir City 6 offers a spread of special guests, rare titles, and newly struck prints across ten nights of double-features.

  • Reviews

    Joseph Cornell at SFMOMA

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 11, 2007

    Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination comes to San Francisco for the first major west-coast exhibition of the artist's work in 40 years.

  • Reviews

    "In Search of Mozart"

    Max Goldberg
    Sep 25, 2007

    "In Search of Mozart" is a comprehensive overview of the composer's generous genius and one of the finest examples of the PBS-style, talking heads-and-cutaways documentaries in recent memory.

  • Popular

    "Discovering Orson Welles"

    Max Goldberg
    Sep 4, 2007

    Max Goldberg on Jonathan Rosenbaum's critical survey of director Orson Welles.

  • Reviews

    "Discovering Orson Welles"

    Max Goldberg
    Sep 4, 2007

    Max Goldberg on Jonathan Rosenbaum's critical survey of director Orson Welles.

  • Q & A

    Irina Leimbacher and Konrad Steiner on "kino21"

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 13, 2007

    The co-programmers discuss their newest endeavor, though those already from the Bay Area will be familiar with their work at S.F. Cinematheque.

  • Reviews

    Reviews: "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone"; "Mafioso"

    Max Goldberg
    Apr 10, 2007

    “I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone” puts its melodrama and comedy within a Malaysian mattress. 1962’s “Mafioso” may be the mob-chronicle genre’s ground zero.

  • Reviews

    The Critics and Antonioni

    Max Goldberg
    Mar 29, 2007

    A look at critics' responses to Antonioni through the ages shows there is, and always was, plenty to say about his work.

  • Reviews

    "Iraq in Fragments, "The Lives of Others"

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 13, 2007

    James Longley's Fragments stands out amongst the crowded field of Iraqumentaries, while Others pulls back the Iron Curtain to powerful effect.

  • Festivals

    The Other Side of Indie at SF Indiefest's 9th

    Max Goldberg
    Feb 8, 2007

    The alarm has been sounding for some time now that "indie" doesn't mean what it used to. Jeff Ross simply ignores the cranky clamor.

  • Reviews

    Written and Directed by Preston Sturges

    Max Goldberg
    Dec 13, 2006

    It would not seem to bode well for the stewardship of studio classics that Preston Sturges's indomitable comedies have been so slow to DVD.

  • Reviews

    Music Videos At the Museum

    Max Goldberg
    Nov 29, 2006

    MTV's boat has long since sailed, but music videos are as ubiquitous on YouTube and Myspace as YBCA brings music videos to its downstairs gallery.

  • Q & A

    A Word From Our Sponsored Films

    Max Goldberg
    Nov 28, 2006

    Collector and archivist Rick Prelinger puts on a show at the Other Cinema to celebrate his new book, A Field Guide to Sponsored Films.

  • Reviews

    50 Years of Janus Films

    Max Goldberg
    Nov 15, 2006

    It doesn't seem like a stretch to group Janus with those American institutions which have represented a vision of what art is and can be.

  • Reviews

    Found: 'Marie Antoinette' in Paris

    Max Goldberg
    Oct 18, 2006

    After weeks of Western Europe, what better way for the young cineaste to crash the City of Light than a trip to the silver screen?

  • Reviews

    Peter Whitehead's '60s

    Max Goldberg
    Sep 14, 2006

    The provocative documentary filmmaker is recalled with a retrospective at Yerba Buena Center For the Arts.

  • Reviews

    Pacific Film Archive's "A Theater Near You"

    Max Goldberg
    Aug 31, 2006

    This 2006 series of recent releases and restorations that played theaters for only a day or, at most, a week is exceptionally varied.

  • Q & A

    Jesse Ficks and "Midnites for Maniacs"

    Max Goldberg
    Jun 5, 2006

    Film programmer Jesse Hawthrone Ficks talks about the enduring appeal of midnight movies.

  • Reviews

    Kidlat Tahimik's "Perfumed Nightmare" Remains an Unlikely Masterpiece

    Max Goldberg
    May 18, 2006

    Perfumed Nightmare, a Filipino art film in which process is ultimately indivisible from form, is largely forgotten today but created a minor sensation upon its release.


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