SFIFF: Gainsbourg (Je t'aime...moi non plus)

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Things were a little tense before the screening of Gainsbourg (Je t'aime...moi non plus). Since I got to the Kabuki early, and was starving, I decided to partake in the Balcony Bar and get some overpriced food and booze before the showing. Luckily, the screening was in theater one, and I love to sit in the balcony, so I could just bring in my drink if I wasn't finished when it began, and get drunk during the movie. Perfect!

There were other people up there with the same idea, and when ticket takers appeared at the opening of the balcony, the assumption was, seating was beginning. But not so fast there, Peter Coyote, who was the first person to try to get into the theater. He was told seating was not beginning yet, and in fact, the first people to be let in would be those who were "Press A." What is "Press A" you ask? Not me, that's for sure, since I was also denied entry. I am not sure if Peter Coyote is a member of "Press A," or if he was finally recognized by one of the ushers, but he was eventually allowed to enter, and soon, those lowly normal ticket holders began to line up, only to be told the real line was outside.

Now, I know technically it's not fair if people who are eating in the Balcony Bar are let in before those who were waiting in line, but really, wouldn't the Kabuki prefer to get as much money out of people as possible? So shouldn't those up there spending 30 bucks on a quesadilla and a cocktail be given a little slack? (On non-festival nights this whole thing is avoided because when you get a ticket, you reserve a seat. But SFIFF showings are a cutthroat first come first seated operation.)

So, those holding cocktails were told to wait until those who waited in line were let in. Which lead to some bitching and moaning and at least one VERY cranky guy who did not appreciate people brushing against his legs as they passed by him to get to a seat.

So, now that I've told you all about the pre-seating show, I should probably get to the important thing: the movie. Except I can't, really. Until the movie is publically released, reviews are forbidden by the SFIFF.

But I can tell you this: the woman who introduced the movie, who was French, made the assumption that Serge Gainsbourg needs no introduction since everyone already knows who his is. I wonder about that. I think he is well-known by the French, people who were into pop music during the mid to late late 60s, and hipsters.

As I am none of those, I only knew a little about him going into the movie, mainly because more than one person has played me some of the songs he did with Brigitte Bardot. So, in case there are some out there who are as uniformed as me, in a nutshell: He was a songwriter and musician who is best known for his collaborations with beautiful young starlets, both in and out of the studio. His longest collaboration was with English model and actress Jane Birkin, and Charlotte Gainsbourg is their daughter.

The movie, which is a straightforward biopic with fantastical elements, was directed by Joann Sfar, who is also a comic book writer, and that graphic novel influence can be felt throughout the movie. The adult Gainsbourg is played by Eric Elmosnino, whose resemblance to the real life Serge is spooky. In fact, the casting of the entire movie is pretty spot on, including Lucy Gordon as Gainsbourg's ultimate muse, Jane Birkin. (Sadly, Gordon committed suicide last year, before the movie was released in France.)

Biopics always seem to have the same issues: If you're a fan of the subject, then you can fill in the blanks. If you don't know much about them, you'll probably find yourself running to the Internet after the movie is over to try and figure out just what you were missing. Let's just say, after Gainsbourg, I was thankful for the existence of Wikipedia.

SFIFF: Walter Murch's State Of The Cinema Address

This post originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Sunday was a stunningly beautiful day in San Francisco, which of course meant I headed straight for the Film Festival so I could sit in a dark, air conditioned theater. Each year the festival invites someone influential in the film industry to give a "State of Cinema Address," discussing issues facing the movie industry and its future. Past speakers have included Tilda Swinton and Brad Bird. This year's speaker was Walter Murch, legendary editor of cinematic sights and sounds.

(One moviegoing tip: Never sit in the first row of the balcony of Theater One at the Kabuki, especially if you are fairly short, and the event involves seeing someone give a lecture. You will have to watch said lecture through bars, like you're in movie prison. But the second row, with its unobstructed view, equally cushy seats, handy side tables and access to a bar? It's a prison break into movie theater heaven.)

Murch's lecture, which included liberal use of a Mac computer and something that may or may not have been a PowerPoint presentation, was like a really good film history class. I've sat through my share of boring lectures at film school, and what I would have given to hear something as engaging as Murch's presentation. That said, it was, again, like a film class, and not quite as much of the forward-looking lecture one might expect from something billed as a "State of Cinema" address. I also think he probably had a lot more he could have presented, but being limited to an hour, the whole thing seemed to come to an abrupt end.

He began his lecture with a brief discussion of the iPad, and how the introduction of nifty new technology inevitably leads to a discussion of not what it can do, but what it's missing. In the iPad's case, it's complaints like "Where's the camera?" and "What, no USB port?" Thus it is, and thus it has always been, as he illustrated with a quote from Maxim Gorky, who wrote about seeing a Lumiere film for the first time.

"If you only knew how strange it is to be there. It is a world without sound, without colour. Every thing there--the earth, the trees, the people, the water and the air--is dipped in monotonous grey. Grey rays of the sun across the grey sky, grey eyes in grey faces, and the leaves of the trees are ashen grey. It is not life but its shadow. It is not motion but its soundless spectre."

When presented with this amazing new technology, the immediate response is, essentially, "Where's the color? And the sound?" It is this lack that propels invention forward. Murch talked about how even back in the beginnings of cinema, the idea of "one man, one machine," as opposed to the community experience of movie going, was what lead to the invention of the Kinetoscope.

With the invention of the Kinetoscope came Edison's "Kinetophone," an attempt to record sound and image at the same time, for a synced sound movie. Filmmaker William Dickson helped Edison with this endeavor, and one of the short movies they did, sans sound, is famous because some consider it to be the first presentation of homosexuality on film.

The sound that was recorded for the film was thought lost, but the recording, on a broken cylinder, was recently discovered, and Murch was able to figure out how to sync the two, resulting in the first time that bit of film and audio had been heard in over 100 years, and, in fact, the ONLY time the sound and image were ever synced correctly.

Murch then went a little further back in time, discussing the three artists he felt helped pave the way for the birth of cinema: Beethoven, whose music was influenced by the chaos of nature, and not something like the controlled art of architecture that had influenced previous composers; Gustav Flaubert, whose prose introduced realism to fiction; and, of course, Edison, the inventor who brought cinema to the masses. According to Murch, it was the collision of "dynamism and realism" that gave birth to movies.

It was about at this point that the lecture came to an end, and he took questions from the audience. Unfortunately, he seemed to miss the point of several questions, interpreting one woman's comment about how "fast" editing and cuts are these days, and whether he thinks those fast cuts are rewiring how we think, as a question about how long it takes to edit movies now compared to 20 or 30 years ago. (He said there isn't much difference in production time.)

Another question about where he saw Ada Lovelace, who invented the first computer language, fit into his timeline of influences towards the birth of cinema, he mistook to be a question about when computers where first introduced into the filmmaking process. (Someone later pointed out his mistake and he admitted he had never heard of Ada Lovelace, but would be sure to look her up. Probably on Wikipedia, like I did.)

When asked about Dede Allen, who recently died, and how women have been able to carve an influential spot in the field more readily then in other aspects of filmmaking, he joked that all editors are feminine, in that they are "cooking what the guys bring back from the hunt," and "dealing with their tantrums."

He ended the lecture with the presentation of a graph, illustrating the commonalities and differences between cinema, theater, video and dreams. Cinema and theater are community based, but only one is a repeatable experience. (No two theater performances are the same.) Video is repeatable, but is historically a "private" experience (TV, DVDs). And dreams are unique, but entirely private. Ultimately, in the center of it all, in potential, if not actuality, he places games, which can encompass all those aspects. And it was refreshing to hear him discuss this potential future not with disdain, but with excitement about the possibilities.

Frameline Film Fest: Little Joe

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

My mother is crazy about Joe Dallesandro, and always has been. I don't know when I became aware of who he is, but it definitely coincided with knowing my mother had a raging and undying crush on the guy, so there was no doubt who I'd be taking along to the documentary Little Joe on Saturday, as it played as part of the Frameline Festival at the Castro.

Joe Dallesandro was one of Andy Warhol's Superstars; was immortalized in the Lou Reed song "Walk on the Wild Side;" and it's his crotch pictured on the cover of the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. He was certainly one of the most beautiful men to grace the screen in the early 70s, even if his acting often left something to be desired.

The lines into the theater snaked around in two directions on Castro street, and the theater was so packed they had to open the balcony to accommodate everyone. This came as no surprise. Joe Dallesandro's cult following is largely a gay one, and he is, as one member of the audience dubbed him post-film, "the gay men's Marilyn Monroe;" a legendary sex object. As luck would have it, Joe Dallesandro himself was in attendance, and when the introductions to the film were being given, there he stood in the balcony, mere seats away from where we were sitting. My mother was thrilled, to say the least.

The documentary is unique in that the only person talking about Little Joe in the film is Little Joe himself. There's no one else giving their opinion about why Joe was considered such a sex god; you just have to look at the guy to understand that. So we hear Joe talking about his teen years and stealing cars; getting involved with the Factory; and questioning director Paul Morrissey's directing style, which always required Joe to strip and improvise dialogue, and often entire movie plots. The doc is filled with a wealth of images and film clips, including clips from the films Dallesandro did while living in Italy, many of which never made their way back to the States. Any fan of Joe's will not be disappointed by this documentary, and while the story may be a bit one-sided, it's an incredibly entertaining side.

The film was produced by his daughter, Vedra Mehagian, and directed by Nicole Haeusser, on a limited budget. Sometimes that shows. Dallesandro is often hard to understand, and it sounds like he wasn't miked for much of his interview footage, with the audio instead being picked up by the mic on the camera. That paired with the Castro Theater's infamously bad acoustics often led to long moments that were just impossible to hear. Hopefully, a DVD release will happen.

After the screening, Dallesandro, his daughter, and the director took the stage to answer questions, and some of those moments can be viewed on his MySpace page. After the Q&A was over, we made our way downstairs, and as we were leaving the lobby from a side door, Joe was emerging the theater at the same time, and brushed right past us; (he's about my height; he ain't called "Little Joe" for nothing). Thankfully, my mother didn't go nuts and attack the guy, but I was happy that after all these years of fandom, she was able to get THIS CLOSE to her object of desire.

Another Hole In The Head: Pig Hunt

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Pig Hunt, a local production, was easily the best film I saw at this year's Another Hole in the Head festival. Set in the woods around Boonville, it's a horror flick that features scary rednecks, evil hippies, AND a giant wild pig (referred to as "The Ripper," "Hogzilla," and "Pigfoot" throughout the course of the movie). You get your money's worth with this one.

The fun starts in San Francisco, as John (Travis Aaron Wade) and three of his friends take off for a weekend of hunting at his uncle's cabin in Boonville. John also brings his girlfriend Brooks (Tina Huang) along, and gets all kinds of grief from his friends for bringing a "ho" along on a "bros" weekend. Of course, before the weekend is through, they're all pretty glad to have her around.

The number of horror movies that begin with a bunch of people venturing out into the woods for the weekend is probably too large to count, but Pig Hunt recognizes this, and relishes in its reverence for and references to other movies, including Deliverance, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Apocalypse Now, Evil Dead, and Jaws, among others. But despite the obvious influences, Pig Hunt still manages to surprise. While the movie includes a lot of the requisite T & A, it was refreshing to see a female character (Brooks) who's a lot tougher than most of the men around her, and even though she is, of course, put in peril, I don't recall even hearing her scream for help once. It was also nice to see a monster that was more than just some computer generated code. The movie's not perfect--there are some jarring edits here and there, making the transition between different settings a little puzzling, and the ending includes a final shot that's a bit of a head scratcher--but it's a whole lot of fun.

Writer Robert Mailer Anderson spoke briefly before Saturday night's screening. The town of Boonville and the drive-in at Ukiah were a big influence on him and his cousin, Zack Anderson, co-screenwriter movie, and he talked about the film's decidedly Northern California (or "Up Cal," as he called it) feeling. They'd always wanted to do a movie about Boonville, and realized the only way to get the feeling right was to make it a horror movie. Anderson also revealed that one of the rundown cabins featured in the film (the one you first see Les Claypool's scary patriarch character standing in front of) was actually a place he had lived in, and was also where Alice Walker wrote the book The Color Purple. Anderson wasn't able to stick around for a post-film Q&A, but he and some others involved with the film are supposed to be around for tonight's screening. It's worth checking out. Get yourself some pork chops beforehand and make it a theme night

Another Hole In The Head: Someone's Knocking at the Door

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Someone's Knocking at the Door starts off good, with an awesome credit sequence and an opening scene that sets the stage for some really depraved horror. It even features a completely incongruous animated teddy bear, which, alas, is never seen again. Also not seen again is the inspiration witnessed in those opening moments.

The film focuses on a group of med students who like to take drugs and hang out in old file rooms. During one of their druggie evenings of drug taking and file reading, they seemingly release the spirits of a murderous 1970s couple who raped their victims to death. Those spirits get back into business by possession and subsequent rapings. To death. The moment one of the duo's murderous appendages is revealed is certainly shocking, to say the least, but it's just too bad that once the story gets going, the film gets bogged down in really bad pacing. A sequence in an interrogation room seems to go on for half the film. Its limited budget is also apparent in the lackluster sets, as most of the movie appears to have been filmed in an abandoned office building. Most of the actors give good performances (lead Noah Segan has been seen in some other horror flicks, as well as 2005's Brick), but a few others suffer from the stilted line delivery of amateurs.

A lot of the film's shortcomings could be forgiven if it had a good payoff, but the only thing that can be said about its ending is it's a huge cop-out. Horror aficionados may want to seek this one out, just for its few moments of originality, but the less-adventurous should probably stay away.

The filmmakers are scheduled to appear at Saturday's 11:45 P.M. screening, and hopefully they'll bring a copy of the movie that isn't branded with the words "PROPERTY OF CW FILMS" at the bottom of the frame throughout the entire film.

The feature is paired with a short called "The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow," which is a visually stunning animated film that takes a 3-D look into a mysterious black-and-white photograph.