Festivals: San Francisco Reviews
ETRANGE 2011: THE MILL AND THE CROSS review
Lech Majewski's The Mill and the Cross is odd. More two hours of art appreciation than an conventional film, it tells the story (or possibly a story) of the artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder and what it was that led...
ETRANGE 2011: STAKE LAND review
If Jim Mickle's brilliant Stake Land has one thing above all else to teach us it's that cliches do not matter in the slightest if the person using them knows what they're doing. Stake Land tells the story of a...
SFIFF54: KURTISS HARE WRAPS UP FIVE FAVES
[Our thanks to Kurtiss Hare for offering a handful of reviews from SFIFF54.] Kurtiss Hare and I met in line waiting for films at the 54th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF54). I checked out his...
SFIFF54: Michael Hawley Wrap-Ups Four Special Events
[Our thanks to Michael Hawley for offering this entry to Twitch.]The 54th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF54) drew to a close on Thursday, May 5, after showcasing 193 films from 48 countries at 265 screenings...
BIFF 2011: 13 ASSASSINS review
Miike Takashi's chanbara flick 13 Assassins will probably strike a lot of people as much more impressive than it really is, if they've never seen a Kurosawa movie, read Lone Wolf & Cub or even missed out on Yôji...
SFIFF54: A Dozen
[Our thanks to Frako Loden for offering this egg carton's worth of reviews to Twitch.] For this year's San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF54), I have yet to go on a screener binge--that starts later today--so I'll be attending festival...
SFIFF54 Late Shows - STAKE LAND, THE SELLING, Outrage, The Troll Hunter
I believe it was the seminal hip hop group Whodini who coined the phrase "the freaks come out at night," and so it goes with San Francisco's more adventurous cinema fans. For me, the absolute highlights of each San Francisco...
SFIFF54: Black Bread, End of Animal, Aurora, Nostalgia for the Light, On Tour
If the film festival is a safe place for cinephiles to celebrate the medium and champion the theater experience in the face of a retreating movie culture, then The San Francisco International Film Festival programmers have done well in selecting...
SFIFF54: REVIEWS OF FRENCH FILMS
[Allow me to introduce the most recent intern for The Evening Class, Jackson Scarlett, known to local cinephiles through his efforts for the Global Film Initiative and as publicity coordinator for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. We...
SFIFF54: 10 SCREENER REVIEWS
[Our thanks to Michael Hawley for providing these SFIFF54 screener reviews.] The 54th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF54) gets underway this Thursday, April 21 and runs until May 5. Since the Opening Press Conference three weeks...
SFIFF54: BEGINNERS (2010)
"Men perish because they cannot join the beginning to the end."--Alcmaeon of Croton. Mike Mills' Beginners had its world premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival where its initial reviews (as rounded up by David Hudson at MUBI) applauded...
Zodiac REVIEW
Although he's really hit only one bona fide cinematic home run, director David Fincher has managed to become one of the few modern directors worthy of having his last name made into an adjective. “Fincheresque” has come to describe...
CASA DE AREIA / HOUSE OF SAND—2006 SFIFF Q&A With Andrucha Waddington
House of Sand, which I caught earlier this year at the San Francisco International, is currently in distribution and receiving favorable reviews. I strongly encourage folks to catch this sumptuous, stately film. The Landmark website has Andrucha Waddington's Movienet...
San Fran Report: The Dignity of the Nobodies Review
Michael Guillen reports ... The U.S. premiere of Fernando Solanas' The Dignity of the Nobodies is being presented at 2006 SFIFF in association with the United Nations Association Film Festival and Global Exchange. The second in a projected series...
San Fran Report: Obaba Review
Michael Guillen reports ... As Julio Cortazar is one of my favorite South American writers, Antonio Machado remains my favorite Spanish poet. One of my favorite poems of his reads: The eye you see is not An eye because...
San Fran Report: Play Review
Michael Guillen reports ... As I mentioned in my write-up on En la Cama (In Bed), Jorge Morales' FIPRESCI report from the 2005 Havana Film Festival includes a deconstruction of the so-called Nuevo Cine Chileno, and culls out that...
San Fran Report: In Bed (En La Cama) Review
Michael Guillen reports ... Inbetween the festival program capsule previews that woo a filmgoer to attend a film and the critical print reviews that warn a filmgoer to abandon all hope before entering a moviehouse or to rage against...
San Fran Report: La Vita Che Vorrei (The Life I Want) Review
Michael Guillen reports ... By comparison to Perhaps Love, the film-within-a-film love story in Giuseppe Piccioni's La Vita Che Vorrei (The Life I Want) seems downright old-fashioned, yet all the more engaging for it. Even the love theme from...
San Fran Report: Perhaps Love Review
Michael Guillen reports ... Whether through intention or coincidence, the two press screenings this last Thursday—Peter Ho-Sun Chan's Perhaps Love and Giuseppe Piccioni's La Vita Che Vorrei (The Life I Want)—were both love stories structured as films within a...
San Fran Report: The Heart of the Game Review
Michael Guillen reports from San Francisco ... I'm so glad that Ruby Rich acknowledges the optimistic heart of Ward Serrill's The Heart of the Game. "It's being described as a hoop dreams for girls, but I don't think that's...
