Guy Maddin: Ann Savage and the Osmonds

Johnny Ray Huston
Sep 23, 2011

Guy Maddin talks about movies, writing, himself—and the allure of the Osmonds, re-published on the occasion of Fandor's Maddin blogathon.

Guy Maddin: Ann Savage and the Osmonds

Johnny Ray Huston
Sep 23, 2011

Guy Maddin talks about movies, writing, himself—and the allure of the Osmonds, re-published on the occasion of Fandor's Maddin blogathon.

San Francisco Habitue John Waters Offers Role Models

Michael Fox
Jun 10, 2010

With a new book, gallery exhibition, appearances on local radio and stages, John Waters is quickly becoming a Bay Area fixture, a welcome addition to the film and cultural landscape.

On Loving the Best Worst Movie of All Time

Dennis Harvey
Jun 3, 2010

For many, the mother of all brain-scrambling cinematic boondoggles is Troll 2; a documentary takes stock of the phenomenal success of this epic failure.

Stevenson's Oddball Scandinavian Cinema

Dennis Harvey
May 21, 2010

Former San Franciscan Jack Stevenson returns from Denmark to promote the U.S. publication of Scandinavian Blue: The Erotic Cinema of Sweden and Denmark in the 1960s and 1970s.

Getting Shatnered with Thrillville

Dennis Harvey
May 20, 2010

William Shatner has survived as a unique sort of elder showbiz statesman, one who is willing to be the butt of jokes because he is in on them.

SFIFF53 Reports: California Dreamin' at Film Society Awards Night

Susan Gerhard
Apr 30, 2010

San Francisco itself took a lead role at Film Society Awards Night, the dinner and awards program benefiting the Film Society s year-round Youth Education initiative.

Val Lewton's Brooding Mood, Chilling Themes

Dennis Harvey
Jan 21, 2010

Horror movies were once dismissed by most grownups (and nearly all critics) as juvenile, silly, even offensive. Val Lewton seriously challenged that thinking,

Top 10s of the 2000s

Susan Gerhard
Dec 30, 2009

Not surprisingly, Bay Area critics, fans, exhibitors and filmmakers did not arrive at a consensus on the best films of the decade.

Top 10s of 2009: Insiders and Fans

Susan Gerhard
Dec 29, 2009

It was a big year for 3D, but Bay Area critics and film-industry folk found many other dimensions in the cinema of 2009.

David Thomson Revisits 'Psycho's' Critical Moment

Michael Fox
Dec 14, 2009

David Thomson's new book commemorates the golden anniversary of Hitchcock's "Psycho."

Feast Your Eyes: A Holiday Film Preview

Dennis Harvey
Nov 25, 2009

Dennis Harvey weighs in on the upcoming films of the holiday season.

Robert Mailer Anderson on Mendo Madness of 'Pig Hunt'

Dennis Harvey
Oct 26, 2009

After ripping it up at various genre fests, the Bay Area indie horror flick settles in for a theatrical run at the Red Vic.

What's up, DocFest?

Robert Avila
Oct 14, 2009

Fans of the San Francisco festival, now in its eighth year, have developed a well-honed appreciation for the eccentric.

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.

Frameline33: Youth in Revolt

Lynn Rapoport
Jun 22, 2009

In this year's Frameline Fest, as so often in life, it's all about the one(s) that got away.

SF International Film Festival Lineup

Susan Gerhard
Mar 31, 2009

The two weeks of programs offers 151 films from 55 countries, awards and prices, and a wide array of San Francisco talent, from legendary names to the fledgling artists.

Strand Releasing Turns 20

Dennis Harvey
Feb 26, 2009

Twenty years after its founding, Strand Releasing remains an active, irreplaceable and distinctive presence on the U.S. distribution scene.

Season's Gleanings, a Holiday Preview

Dennis Harvey
Dec 15, 2008

Dennis Harvey reviews some of 2008's year-end sobering dramas.

Kroot's Planet Kuchar

Michael Fox
Nov 25, 2008

Bay Area filmmaker Jennifer Kroot talks about her inspiration to make a documentary on legendary, underground filmmaking twins George and Mike Kuchar.

Baloney Sandwiches With No Cheese: Ted V. Mikels' Wild World

Matt Sussman
Sep 18, 2008

'It takes your guts and your entrails and your soul to make a film,' Mikels once proclaimed. 'It takes everything you possess within you!'

Mendocino's Swine Country

Michael Fox
Sep 17, 2008

"Horror films can hold a lot of crazy ideas and political ideas and no one blinks," says Pig Hunt writer and producer Robert Mailer Anderson, "and that serves our purposes."

Curators at Bay Area Now 5

Sean Uyehara
Sep 11, 2008

YBCA's triennial exhibition has developed a deserved reputation for presenting an energetic survey of current Bay Area artistic practice.

Capelle on Composers: Day Three

Staff
May 8, 2008

The final installment in the San Francisco composer and musician's blog from the 2008 SFIFF.

Capelle on Composers: Back to Back

Marc Capelle
May 7, 2008

Back to music.



I have some friends that were in a Sub Pop band that pre-dated Nirvana. They were known as the Dwarves. Their music is and was a snotty suburban unholy mixture of the Sonics, the Orlons, the Stooges and a vat of amphetamines. Their record covers usually featured midgets and half-naked woman covered in either blood or some sort of Nestle syrup of some sort. Here is one of their lines.



[Editor’s note: For the San Francisco International’s 51st edition, SF360.org has asked Bay Area musician/composer/cineaste Marc Capelle to blog his thoughts on movies, music, and the films showing in the Festival. This is the third of three installments.]

Asia Argento, In Full Flower

Dennis Harvey
Apr 23, 2008

Motherhood has supposedly had a slowing-down effect on Asia Argento, though at present evidence points rather wildly to the contrary. Not only does she star in this week’s San Francisco International Film Festival official opener, Catherine Breillat’s costume intrigue The Last Mistress, she also figures heavily in two other SFIFF features. Both are programmed in the culty "Late Show" section: Go Go Tales, Abel Ferrara’s most acclaimed film in years, and The Mother of Tears, a latest horror opus directed by her own fan-idolized gorehound dad Dario Argento. A couple weeks ago yet another vehicle opened commercially, Olivier Assayas’ Boarding Gate, which is entirely dominated by her feverish and highly physical performance.



Conventional logic might suggest all this visibility means it’s "breakthrough" time for Asia Argento, that moment when an actor goes from being a familiar face to a marquee name that can singlehandedly draw folks into the multiplex, or at least the arthouse. (In Europe she’s already quite well-known.) But as her project choices among other things bear out, Argento probably isn’t very interested in becoming a "star" in the conventional sense. In fact, she seems the girl most likely to run from any such fate.

SFIFF51: Craig Baldwin Shoots the Moon, and the Desert

Michael Fox
Apr 18, 2008

The Mission filmmaker has slaved in the underground for some three decades, a guide and shaman for other artists working on the fringes.

'Thrillville' turns 11

Michael Fox
Apr 9, 2008

Will "the Thrill" Viahro, impresario of East Bay cult movie extravaganza "Thrillville," discusses the difference between "trash" and "garbage" in film.

L.Q. Jones Talks Dogs and Cult Movies

Miriam Wolf
Feb 24, 2008

The list of talking dog movies is long and storied, but one stands head and forelocks above the others: A Boy and His Dog.

Review: "The Signal"

Dennis Harvey
Feb 19, 2008

An idea so vivid yet simple you've got to wonder why more movies haven't used it: Something happens that turns the populace into irrational maniacs.

Undying Love for George A. Romero

Dennis Harvey
Feb 14, 2008

It probably wasn't Romero's original dream to become semi-famous for movies about the flesh-eating undead.

"Shrooms" Screams Bloody Horror

Dennis Harvey
Feb 8, 2008

The Irish flick might put the leper back in leprechaun, but it's still at heart a reassuringly formulaic hunk of bloody commercial horror.

"Teeth" Actor Has a Sundance Flashback

Jason Guerrasio
Jan 21, 2008

Mitchell Lichtenstein's directorial debut has made Jess Weixler the newest "it girl" on the indie scene.

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks's Midnight Movie Empire

Dennis Harvey
Dec 3, 2007

Midnites for Maniacs unearths populist yet esoteric genre and exploitation flicks that have mostly disappeared into the netherworld of discarded VHS rental tapes.

Bruce Fletcher, Dead Channels and the Living

Dennis Harvey
Aug 6, 2007

Fletcher explains what will hopefully be an annual event that encompasses all kinds of worldwide cult-skewing fun.

Dennis Nyback and "Bad Bugs Bunny"

Michael Guillen
Jun 6, 2007

"SF Indiefest: Gets Animated," piggybacking on the 4th Annual Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, co-presents an animation program with the popular archivist.

Dead Channels : The San Francisco Festival of Fantastic Film

Dennis Harvey
Apr 19, 2007

Taste a bit of the vintage grindhouse experience at the last of Dead Channels' Month of Sleazy Sundays triple bill of under-the-radar movies.

15 Minutes of YouTube

Justin Juul
Feb 2, 2007

The List: A collection of individuals who caught my eye in an intense week of YouTube scouring. Most have gotten upwards of one million views.

2006, The Remix

Susan Gerhard
Dec 27, 2006

SF360.org ended the year the way we started it--asking enormous favors from some of our favorite filmmakers: Caveh Zahedi, Sam Green, and Danny Plotnick.

James Broughton, and a DVD Eden

Robert Avila
Dec 20, 2006

The product of a true cinematic innovator and gloriously individual poet, Broughton's film work remains much too idiosyncratic to be deconstructed,

Cheryl Eddy's Badder Santas

Susan Gerhard
Dec 1, 2006

You can't imagine a critic like Cheryl Eddy,with her dazzlingly caustic skepticism, ever believed in Santa Claus.

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.

Second Look at 3rd I

Jennifer Young
Nov 14, 2006

Three days, nine films, eight shorts, and endless bliss courtesy of last weekend's fourth annual 3rd I South Asian Film Festival.

A Marc Huestis Presents 20

Susan Gerhard
Nov 10, 2006

The List: The impresario Ôs remarkable 11 years of A-to-Z-list celebrity-repurposing projects. 

Reopening "Pandora's Box"

Dennis Harvey
Nov 7, 2006



Many stars are forgotten for a while, then “rediscovered” and newly appreciated by a later generation. But the case of Louise Brooks is somewhat unique — she was, really, only a “star” in retrospect. Her Hollywood profile was headed that-a-way when she foolishly (according to the industry) abandoned it to make a couple European movies. When she returned, her moment had passed.



A paltry if promising career and early dead-end-at the time, it constituted barely a blip on the radar. Yet those European films grew in stature over ensuing years, and with that the gradual realization that Brooks had been one of the great screen presences, however briefly. Her striking look — porcelain skin, alert features, sleek jet-black flapper bob — and naturalistic acting haven’t dated at all.



As a result, it seems there’s more interest in her with each passing year. The latest evidence is critic and historian Peter Cowie’s new book “Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever,“ published in time to commemorate the centenary of her birth. He’ll be signing copies and presenting a special commemorative film program at the Balboa this Sunday. The evening promises a rarely screened feature, a short and trailers showcasing Brooks, as well as “special guests, door prizes and more.” (Cowie will also appear the prior night at the Smith Rafael Film Center to screen a new 35mm print of her best-known vehicle “Pandora’s Box.”)



Why the fuss? Why, indeed, is there such a thing as The Louise Brooks Society (which is co-presenting this event with The Booksmith)? The explanation is all on-screen, in any role where she wasn’t entirely wasted.



Kansas-born Brooks started out as a dancer, first in touring troupes and then in Broadway revues. This led to Hollywood in 1925, where bit parts led steadily to larger ones, finally female leads in two good 1928 Paramount releases: Howard Hawks’ rollicking “A Girl in Every Port” and William Wellman’s more delicate “Beggars of Life.”



She hadn’t set the world on fire yet, but was certainly expected to graduate from starlet to star. Paramount was not pleased, however, when she chose — just as “talking pictures” were becoming the rage — to end her contract and accept a silent-film offer in Germany. This was G.W. Pabst’s “Pandora’s Box,” drawn from Franz Wedekind’s play “Lulu,” and with beguiling lack of affectation she played that titular seducer/destroyer of both men and women, herself finally destroyed by Jack the Ripper. Perhaps even better (if less shocking) than that famous classic was a second Pabst movie, “Diary of a Lost Girl,” in which her victimized innocent is indelibly touching. She also starred as an exploited beauty-contest winner in a French film, 1930’s “Prix de Beaute.” These are all wonderful movies in which she was superb. But for a long time they were little seen outside their home countries — particularly in the U.S., where silent cinema was already stone-cold-dead.



Returning to Hollywood, Brooks was now — at age 24 — a has-been. She unwisely turned a couple good offers and accepted a handful of humiliatingly poor ones, including bit parts. Those few who remembered her considered her “difficult” and past expiration date. Her last movie role was a nondescript heroine in a nondescript 1938 “Z” western, “Overland Stage Raiders” — one of a zillion such that John Wayne starred in before becoming an “A”-list star.



Found living in seclusion in the mid-‘50s, Brooks was surprised and delighted that latterday film buffs not only remembered but worshipped her. She returned the favor by writing very intelligently about her own movies and the art form in general (mostly famously in the essay collection “Lulu in Hollywood,” which is still in print). She admitted sabotaging her own career as readily as she enjoyed her new iconic status in retirement, dying at a no doubt satisfied age 80 in 1985 — secure in the knowledge that her legend would continue to grow.



[“Pandora’s Box” plays Sat., Nov. 11, at 7 pm, Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 4th St., San Rafael. $6.25-9.50. (415) 454-1222. “Celebrating Louise Brooks: An Evening of Rare Films,” issues Sun., Nov. 12, at 7:30 pm, Balboa Theatre, 2630 Balboa, SF. $6-8.50. (415) 221-8184.]

More Made Men

Dennis Harvey
Nov 3, 2006

The List: Lesser remembered and/or excellent Mafia films that might make you an offer you can't refuse.

Arnold On the Auction Block

Michael Fox
Oct 31, 2006

Make a bid on Schwarzenegger's low-budget 1970 travesty, Hercules in New York.

Jack Stevenson's vault of vice

Michael Fox
Sep 28, 2006

The expat archivist and writer makes his near-annual pilgrimage to San Francisco with a flurry of shows teeming with goodies from his personal collection.

Another Other Cinema, Now on DVD

Johnny Ray Huston
Sep 20, 2006

Craig Baldwin and Noel Lawrence bring their brand of smart, quirky, avant-garde and political programming into the home.

"Seventeen" Might be Greatest Movie Ever About Teenagers: 17 Reasons Why

Johnny Ray Huston
Aug 17, 2006

Jeff Kreines and Joel DeMott's legendary and obscure 1982 documentary set in Muncie, Indiana, highlights the PFA series "Screenagers: Documents from the Teenage Years."

Stephen Parr In the Home-Movie Archives

Michael Fox
Aug 7, 2006

The San Francisco Media Archive director talks about the weirdness and normality revealed on Home Movie Day.

Mary Woronov Visits Midnight Mass

Dennis Harvey
Aug 3, 2006

An appreciation of the great actress of cult and mainstream films, before her appearance at a Midnight Mass screening of Death Race 2000.

Celebrating "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"

Dennis Harvey
Jul 6, 2006

The beloved cult classic will screen in conjunction with a live cast reunion at Peaches Christ's Midnight Mass series.

Larry Clark's New Kids on the Block

Glen Helfand
Jul 3, 2006

SF360 spoke with Clark about Impaled, in which his exploration of adolescent mores reaches in discomfiting, yet fascinating new directions.

"Kees Kino: The Film Work of Weldon Kees"

Jenni Olson
Jun 7, 2006

San Francisco Cinematheque guest curator Jenni Olson reflects on her show, Kees Kino: The Film Work of Weldon Kees.