100 Favorite Films of The Aughts

I got my first job during junior year of high school (class of '71), working as an usher in a suburban New Jersey movie theater. I didn't know it then, but we were living through a great era for cinema. At work I watched films like Five Easy Pieces and Women In Love literally dozens of times, which had the effect of convincing this serious young man that movies were something to take seriously. Around the same time, a Philadelphia rep house programmed a bunch of double bills curated from the New York Times' Ten Best lists of the Sixties. I'd take the train into Philly and return home dazed and overwhelmed by pairings like Red Desert and Juliet of the Spirits (the first color films from Antonioni and Fellini), and Visconti's The Damned alongside Nichol's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Forty years later, I offer up my own decade of favorites in memory of that NY Times series which kickstarted my film education. These lists were compiled at the end of each year and by no stretch represent what I might in retrospect consider "The Best" or "The Most Important" of The Aughts. They're simply the ten films which, at the time, exhilarated me most in a given year.



2000
Chuck and Buck (USA, dir. Miguel Arteta)
Dancer in the Dark (Denmark, dir. Lars von Trier)
East-West (France, dir. Régis Wargnier)
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (USA, dir. Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato)
Human Resources (France, dir. Laurent Cantet)
Nowhere to Hide (South Korea, dir. Lee Myung-se)
Our Song (USA, dir. Jim McKay)
Requiem for a Dream (USA, dir. Darren Aronofsky)
Titus (UK, USA, Italy, dir. Julie Taymor)
You Can Count on Me (USA, dir. Kenneth Lonergan)

2001
Dora-Heita (Japan, dir. Kon Ichikawa)
The Gleaners and I (France, dir. Agnès Varda)
In The Mood For Love (Hong Kong, dir. Wong Kar-wai)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (USA, New Zealand, dir. Peter Jackson)
Mulholland Drive (France, USA, dir. David Lynch)
No Man’s Land (Bosnia, dir. Danis Tanovic)
The Princess and the Warrior (Germany, dir. Tom Tykwer)
Tuvalu (Germany, dir. Veit Helmer)
The Vertical Ray of the Sun (Viet Nam, France, dir. Anh Hung Tran)
Waking Life (USA, dir. Richard Linklater)

2002
Adaptation (USA, dir. Spike Jonze)
Atanajurat: The Fast Runner (Canada, dir. Zacharias Kunuk)
Bloody Sunday (UK, dir. Paul Greengrass)
Bowling For Columbine (USA, dir. Michael Moore)
Lantana (Australia, dir. Ray Lawrence)
Musa The Warrior (South Korea, dir. Kim Sung-su)
My Voyage To Italy (USA, Italy, dir. Martin Scorsese)
The Piano Teacher (France, Austria, dir. Michael Haneke)
Rivers and Tides (Germany, UK, dir. Thomas Riedelsheimer)
Y tu mamá tambien (Mexico, dir. Alfonso Cuaron)

2003
Hukkle (Hungary, dir. György Pálfi)
Irreversible (France, dir. Gaspar Noé)
Kill Bill Volume 1 (USA, dir. Quentin Tarantino)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (USA, New Zealand, dir. Peter Jackson)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (USA, New Zealand, dir. Peter Jackson)
Marooned in Iraq (Iran, dir. Bahman Ghobadi)
The Path to Love (France, dir. Rémi Lange)
A Peck on the Cheek (India, dir. Mani Ratnam)
The Pianist (France, dir. Roman Polanski)
Russian Ark (Russia, dir. Aleksandr Sokurov)

2004
15 (Singapore, dir. Royston Tan)
Before Sunset (USA, dir. Richard Linklater)
Control Room (USA, dir. Jehane Noujaim)
Games of Love and Chance (aka L'esquive) (France, dir. Abdel Kechiche)
Moolaadé (France, Burkina Faso, dir. Ousmane Sembene)
Oasis (South Korea, dir. Lee Chang-dong)
The Return (Russia, dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev)
Sideways (USA, dir. Alexander Payne)
The Incredibles (USA, dir. Brad Bird)
A Very Long Engagement (France, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet)

2005
The Assassination of Richard Nixon (USA, dir. Niels Mueller)
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (USA, dir. Jeff Feuerzeig)
Duck Season (Mexico, dir. Fernando Eimbcke)
Gift From Above (Israel, dir. Dover Koshashvili)
I am a Sex Addict (USA, dir. Caveh Zahedi)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (USA, dir. Shane Black)
Life is a Miracle (Serbia, dir. Emir Kusturica)
The Polar Express: An IMAX 3-D Experience (USA, dir. Robert Zemeckis)
Private (Italy, dir. Saverio Costanzo)
Thumbsucker (USA, dir. Mike Mills)

2006
12:08 East of Bucharest (Romania, dir. Corneliu Porumboiu)
Babel (USA, France, Mexico, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Between the Lines: India’s Third Gender (Germany, dir. Thomas Wartmann)
The Child (Belgium, dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
The Descent (UK, dir. Neil Marshall)
In the Battlefields (Lebanon, dir. Danielle Arbid)
Iron Island (Iran, dir. Mohammad Rasoulof)
The New World (USA, UK, dir. Terrence Malick)
The Science of Sleep (France, dir. Michel Gondry)
What a Wonderful Place (Israel, dir. Eyal Halfon)

2007
7 Years (France, dir. Jean-Pascal Hattu)
Glue (Argentina, dir. Alexis Dos Santos)
Grindhouse (USA, dir. Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez)
Hairspray (USA, dir. Adam Shankman)
Opera Jawa (Indonesia, dir. Garin Nugroho)
The Page Turner (France, dir. Denis Dercourt)
Ratatouille (USA, dir. Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava)
Sicko (USA, dir. Michael Moore)
Syndromes and a Century (Thailand, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
To Get to Heaven, First You Have to Die (Tajikistan, dir. Jamshed Usmonov)

2008
A Christmas Tale (France dir. Arnaud Desplechin)
The Duchess of Langeais (France dir. Jacques Rivette)
I'm a Cyborg and That's OK (South Korea dir. Park Chan-wook)
Jar City (Iceland dir. Baltasar Kormákur)
Nightwatching (UK dir. Peter Greenaway)
The Secret of the Grain (France dir. Abdel Kechiche)
Slingshot (Philippines dir. Brillante Mendoza)
Solitary Fragments (Spain dir. Jaime Rosales)
Still Life (China dir. Jia Zheng-ke)
Synecdoche, New York (USA dir. Charlie Kaufman)

2009
35 Shots of Rum (France, dir. Claire Denis)
Ander (Spain, dir. Roberto Castón)
Everything Strange and New (USA, dir. Frazer Bradshaw)
The Fantastic Mr. Fox (USA, dir. Wes Anderson)
Fig Trees (Canada, dir. John Greyson)
Hipsters (Russia, dir. Valery Todorovsky)
My Dear Enemy (South Korea, dir. Lee Yoon-ki)
Revanche (Austria, dir. Götz Spielmann)
Still Walking (Japan, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Tony Manero (Chile, dir. Pablo Larrain)

SF Silent Film Festival 2009 Winter Event II

In a stroke of fortune for Bay Area movie lovers, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) presents a second 2009 Winter Event this Saturday, December 12 at the Castro Theater. The first took place back in February (I wrote it up here) and now SFSFF supplements its summertime fest with yet another extraordinary one-day line-up of classic silent cinema. For the uninitiated, SFSFF is the Western Hemisphere's premiere showcase for silent film exhibition, featuring the best available 35mm prints, live musical accompaniments, program notes, special guests and savvy film intros. The four films comprising this Saturday's line-up – all of which I'll be seeing for the first time – sound like a diverse and rewarding lot.


Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness 11:30 a.m.
Six years before they unleashed King Kong upon the world, directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack made this melodramatic docu-drama about a Siamese farming family and their struggle against the creatures of the jungle. Shot under rough conditions near the Thai border with Laos, Chang followed other successful silent ethnographic films such as Nanook of the North (1922) and the directors own Grass (1925), which documented the migration of Bakhtiari herdsmen in present day Turkey and Iran. It's said that three crew members were bitten by pythons during the Chang shoot, and Schoedsack himself battled malaria and sunstroke in the 115 degree heat.

In contrast to the corniness of the film's staged drama (complete with cute inter-titles and a rascally pet monkey), there's the sobering sight of numerous wild animals being slaughtered on camera. The animal kingdom gets its revenge, however, in the film's climactic, village-flattening elephant stampede. At the first Academy Awards in 1927, Chang was one of three films nominated for the first-and-last Unique and Artistic Production Award (the others were King Vidor's The Crowd and winner F.W. Murnau's Sunrise). Introducing the film on Saturday will be Mark Vaz, author of "Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper." Returning SFFS virtuoso Donald Sosin will accompany Chang with an original piano score.



J'accuse 2 p.m.
This 1919 anti-war film from Abel Gance is the movie most SFSFF-heads I know are itching to see. It's only been available in severely truncated editions, which is why this U.S. premiere of a new 162-minute version, painstakingly assembled and restored by the Netherlands Filmmuseum and France's Lobster Films, is such a big deal. Gance, who is sometimes referred to as Europe's D.W. Griffith, is best known for his 1927 epic Napoléon. It's the only Gance I've ever seen, back at a glorious 1981 (?) screening at Oakland's Paramount Theater, with Carmine Coppola conducting a symphony orchestra and the film's famous three-screen triptych battle scenes (an early stab at something akin to Cinemascope) fully restored.

J'accuse tells the story of a romantic triangle against the backdrop of WWI. Gance returned to active military duty in 1918 (as part of France's Section Cinématographique) to film parts of J'accuse, including the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. During a lull in fighting, he shot the celebrated "March of the Dead" sequence employing 2,000 soldiers – 80 percent of whom would later die in battle. This eerie 20-minute sequence, along with Gance's expressionistic camerawork and rapid-cut editing, are reasons why J'accuse is remembered today. Although it was a commercial success in France, Pathé Films couldn't get U.S. distribution until Gance himself arranged a gala New York screening for D.W. Griffith in 1921. Griffith released the film through his recently formed United Artists, but it failed to find an American audience. Film preservationist Robert Byrne will introduce J'accuse, and Robert Israel will perform his original orchestral score adapted to play on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer.





Sherlock Jr. 7:00 p.m.
After a two-hour dinner break, during which time there'll be a special SFSFF party in the Castro mezzanine, the Winter Event continues with this 1924 Buster Keaton classic. Considered "one of the great movies of all time about the movies" and "a brilliant meditation on the nature of cinema," Sherlock Jr. follows Our Hospitality – which we just saw in February – within Keaton's filmography. Here he plays a movie projectionist who longs to be a celebrated detective. After being framed by a romantic rival for stealing his sweetheart's father's watch, he falls asleep in his projection booth and enters a cinematic dreamworld where his super-sleuthing skills are put to good use.

Expect plenty of Keaton genius – both in his hilarious sight gags and his primitive, but seamless special effects. This is also the film in which Keaton famously fractured his neck performing a stunt (the water tower scene). Because Sherlock Jr. runs only 45 minutes, it's being paired with his 1921 short The Goat, which some consider his best. This time he's pursued by cops who mistake him for an escaped killer. Look for the iconic scene of Keaton riding a train's cowcatcher. Keaton's granddaughter Melissa Cox will be a special guest at this program, where she'll be interviewed by SFSFF board member Frank Buxton (who once acted with Keaton in summer stock). Dennis James will accompany the films on the Mighty Wurlitzer, with the help of Mark Goldstein's special sound effects.


West of Zanzibar 9:15 p.m.
The SFSFF days ends, as it has several times in the recent past, with a creepy collaboration between director Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks) and actor Lon Chaney. We've been shown Chaney as a larcenous ventriloquist in drag (The Unholy Three, SFSFF 2006) and an armless knife-thrower lusting to touch Joan Crawford (The Unknown, SFSFF 2008). Here he's Phrosos, a cuckolded, crippled magician who becomes an African ivory trader in order to extract truly twisted, simmering-for-18-years revenge. Boiling in the film's salacious pot are drug addiction, prostitution, voodoo, cannibalism and really un-PC dancing "natives." Unsurprisingly, the folks at Midnites For Maniacs are co-sponsoring the screening, and Dennis James will be back to thrill us on the Mighty Wurlitzer. Program notes for this one have been researched and written by Hell On Frisco Bay's Brian Darr.

November Film Fest Smackdown - Aftermath & Beyond

November is now finito and the final bell has sounded for the 2009 Bay Area Battle of Fall Film Festivals. Some I immersed myself in (Mill Valley, French Cinema Now, 3rd i, SF Latino), some I stuck a toe in (Arab Film Festival, Taiwan Film Week, New Italian Cinema) and others I just watched float by (SF DocFest, American Indian, Chinese and Animation Fests). Here's a blow-by-blow synopsis of how last month ultimately shook out, followed by a glance at some of festival-less December's festive film choices.

The first November festival was the SF Film Society's expanded, week-long French Cinema Now, which overlapped from October. I caught 10 of the dozen films on offer, missing only The 400 Blows revival and the Michel Gondry documentary. All ten had at least some element of extraordinariness to recommend them. Surprisingly, my two favorites were films that had evaded my Francophilic radar – Sylvie Verheyde's heartfelt coming-of-age-er Stella and Axelle Ropert's odd, small town family melodrama The Wolberg Family. Following close behind were Alain Guiraudie's The King of Escape and Michel Hazanavicius' almost-but-not-quite-as-clever-as-its-predecessor, OSS 117: Lost in Rio, both benefiting greatly from the insight offered by their in-attendance directors.


Crowds seemed lighter this year, except for the powerhouse Closing Night duo of Benoît Jacquot's Villa Amalia and Claude Chabrol's Bellamy, which were sold out. That night a mini-revolt broke out at the Clay Theater when patrons at the first screening were forbidden from marking their seats with a coat for the second screening, contrary to what had been permitted for the six days previous. Now it's official policy for all Film Society events – if you're seeing back-to-back films you must pick up your stuff, exit the theater and go to the back of the ticket line. This presents a dilemma – does one stay for the end credits and Q&A, or make a beeline out the door to avoid getting a lousy seat for the next film?

The first full weekend in November was a vexing choice between the SF Film Society's Taiwan Film Days and the 3rd i SF International South Asian Film Festival. From the former I only saw the opening night film, Wei Te-sheng's Cape No 7, which was more broad and sentimental than I expected – perhaps not surprising considering it's status as Taiwan's #1 all-time box office champ. An hour into it, and with another hour still to go, I decided I'd seen enough and left behind a sold-out crowd that was clearly having a swell time. Later I heard that Fy Tien-yu's Somewhere I Have Never Dreamed was the film I should have seen, and that the Closing Night screening of No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti (Taiwan's 2009 Oscar submission) was a disaster due to a malfunctioning digital projection system. (It was the only film in the series not shown in 35mm – a lesson to be learned here?)

Digital projection also did no favors for my first 3rd i screening the next afternoon, a Castro Theater revival of Guru Dutt's 1960 Bollywood classic, Full Moon. I understand that October's Dutt retrospective at Lincoln Center was also all-digital. But I have to assume the film looked better at the Walter Reade Theater than it did at the Castro, where it resembled a third or fourth generation VHS tape dub. Still, Full Moon was a charmer, and it was neat to have Dutt's son Aran, there to introduce it. I returned to the Castro later that evening for contemporary Bollywood hit Dil Bole Hadippa!, which was screened in glorious 35mm. A group of us expected to take off at intermission, but when the house-lights came up at 11:30 p.m. we were having way too much fun watching poor, confused Shahid Kapoor chase after cross-dressing Rani Mukherjee – the late hour be damned. The only bummer of the evening was a deadly and interminable speech from the festival's main corporate sponsor, which all but murdered the savvy, rousing film intro delivered by Festival Director Ivan Jaigirdar just minutes before.


I came on Sunday for two more 3rd i selections at the Castro. By the time you read this, Tariq Tapa's Srinagar-set indie Zero Bridge may well have won a Gotham Award for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You. That would be terrific, because this engaging, lo-fi tale of a young man trying to escape his circumstances deserves to be seen by more than the devoted few who turned up at the Castro on such a gorgeous autumn afternoon. That evening, however, people did come out in droves for the festival's Closing Night film, Yes Madam, Sir, Megan Doneman's fine bio-doc about India's top female super-cop, Kiran Bedi. Both the director and her subject were in attendance, the latter evoking rock star adulation from the crowd with two standing ovations. The Q&A was focused exclusively on Bedi (who curiously side-stepped a direct question about LGBT persecution in India), until The Evening Class' Michael Guillén brought Doneman back up to the stage to talk about how the film came to be. It turns out that Doneman (an assistant editor on the last two The Lord of the Rings films) simply bought a camera, read the instructions on her flight to India and then showed up unannounced on Bedi's Kolcotta doorstep. Shot over the course of six years, the Helen Mirren-narrated film got picked up for U.S. distribution just days before its 3rd i screening and will see some sort of Bay Area release next spring. Doneman was not at liberty to say who the distributor is. Following the screening, the high energy continued at a fabulous closing party up in the Castro mezzanine. It's worth noting that 3rd i, now in its seventh year, had its most successful festival yet in 2009, with a 15% increase in attendance and three sold-out shows at the Roxie Theater. (Pictured, in foreground: Anuj Vaidya and Ivan Jaigirdar from 3rd i, and Kiran Bedi.)

The following weekend I pretty much devoted to the newly revamped SF Latino Film Festival and their two-day stint at Landmark's Lumiere Theater. On Friday night I was dismayed to find myself literally the only person in the audience for Emilio Portes' Meet the Head of Juan Pérez. This was a shame, as this madcap farce about a Mexican circus magician's guillotine obsession had plenty going for it (including being one of only three films in the fest screened in 35mm). It was kind of a shock to see Isela Vega, the voluptuous star of Sam Peckinpah's similarly titled Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, now age 70 and playing the circus' creepy old fortuneteller.


Fortunately, the fest attracted somewhat larger crowds on Saturday, as I settled in for a four-film marathon. First up was Victor Jesus' How Could I Not Love You, an earnestly middling yarn from Mexico about a none-too-bright young man's desire to play professional futbol. That was followed by 1, 2 and 3 Women, a Venezuelan portmanteau film featuring three women's stories by three women directors. I was particularly taken by the first, which concerned an office cleaning lady who finds a wad of cash hidden in a men's toilet stall. Up third was Gerardo Naranjo's I'm Gonna Explode, a popular film on the 2008 fest circuit. Two disaffected misfit teens, a rich boy and a lower class girl, go on the lam – not by hitting the road, but by hiding out on the roof of the boy's family mansion and pilfering supplies as needed. The film works as a wry little satire for a good while before taking its teen-angst nihilism way too seriously. (I'm Gonna Explode is currently available to watch on IFC's Festival Direct). The festival ended on a high note with Uruguayan director Adrián Biniez' Berlin Golden Bear winner Gigante. In this witty, deadpan social comedy, an overweight, Death Metal-lovin' supermarket security guard clandestinely pursues the janitress of his dreams. The film's U.S. distributor is Film Movement, so don't be surprised to find it booked into the SF Film Society's Kabuki screen when it re-launches in January. I'd happily see Gigante again, if only to savor Beniez' masterful wide-screen compositions in 35mm.

Sunday the 15th offered a choice between Opening Night of the Film Society's New Italian Cinema (a party and screening of Marco Risi's Fortapàsc), or the SFMOMA/Castro Theater four-part event supporting Erased James Franco. I opted for the latter. As it would turn out, a mixture of burnout, ill health and lack of enthusiasm lead me to only see one of the Italian films this year, Closing Nighter Vincere from Marco Bellocchio (a mesmerizing, but confounding saga about Mussolini's mistress and the illegitimate son she bore him). Friends who attended the entire 11-film series were particularly impressed by Marco Amenta's The Sicilian Girl (just picked up for U.S. distribution by Music Box Films), Marco Pontecorvo's PA-RA-DA and to a lesser extent, the festival's City of Florence audience award winner, Donatella Maiorca's Sea Purple.


As for James Franco, a diverse, adoring mob was on hand at the Castro Theater to see mono-monikered artist Carter's quasi-experimental, collaborative video performance piece. In it, Franco "performs" dialogue lifted from his own body of work, as well as lines from Todd Haynes' Safe (1995) and John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966). It helped immensely to have attended screenings of both films earlier in the day. Safe was better than I remembered it, and Seconds, which I had never seen, was a revelation. When Erased James Franco began, the audience cracked up as the opening credits hit the screen – "Starring James Franco as Julianne Moore, James Franco as Rock Hudson, and James Franco as James Franco." After the screening, Franco and Carter came on-stage for a rollicking Q&A. The actor was spiffily dressed in jacket and tie, in contrast to the slovenly appearance he put in at that afternoon's SFMOMA screening of back-to-back Freaks and Geeks episodes. That audience was comprised exclusively of Caucasian women in their twenties, plus a smattering of gay guys.

When I wasn't attending film festivals in November, I was out discovering new movie theaters like the VIZ Cinema in Japantown. When it opened back in August, I took note and filed it away – digitally-projected contemporary Japanese genre films not being my thing. Then last month I noticed they were screening a 35mm print of Shinji Aoyama's 2007 Sad Vacation with Tadanobu Asano, a sort-of sequel to the director's 217-minute butt-bruising Eureka from 2000. This was no one-off screening, but a full two week run – so I had to check it out. I'm happy to report that this subterranean, 143-seat cinema is comfy and very brightly lit (you can read without eye strain before the movie starts!) and the 35mm projection and sound is flawless. I understand it's going to be used as a supplemental venue during next year's SF International Asian American Film Festival. (I have no idea who the people are in the photo below, but it was the only on-line image I could find of the theater's snazzy interior).


Finally, just when you thought our fall film calendar couldn't get any more crowded, comes the announcement that Berlin & Beyond, which traditionally kicks off the Bay Area's festival year each January, will be moving to the fall in 2010. There's a seamy backstory to this, involving shabby treatment of beloved, longtime B&B director Ingrid Eggers and the subsequent refusal of the Bay Area festival community to support an Eggers-less B&B. I e-mailed the Goethe-Institute to say they were crazy to move the festival to an already overstuffed autumn. They e-mailed back to assure me they aren't crazy. We will see. Walter Addiego provides more details at SF Gate.

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And now just a few words (yeah, right!) about what to look out for in December. If I only attend one film event this month (yeah, right!) it'll be the SF Silent Film Festival's Winter Event at the Castro on Saturday the 12th. I'll be posting a preview piece on this next week, so stay tuned. Also coming to the venerable Castro this month is a 16-film tribute to producer Samuel Goldwyn (Dec. 2 to 10, including classics like Guys and Dolls, The Little Foxes and The Best Years of Our Lives as well as some rarities), a 13-film overview of Alfred Hitchcock (Dec. 16 to 23, and hell, his films are all classics), and a Midnites For Maniacs "Ladies of the Eighties" triple-bill on Friday, Dec. 11 (Jumpin' Jack Flash, Desperately Seeking Susan and Liquid Sky).

Downtown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Film & Video Curator Joel Shepard has programmed an uncharacteristic bunch of films for December that they're calling "The Joy of Life." This diverse line-up includes Jacques Tati's Parade, the outrageously fun contempo Bollywood classic Om Shanti Om, W.C. Field's It's a Gift from 1934 (quite possibly the funniest film ever made), the all-singing/dancing That's Entertainment III, and something more emblematic of YBCA, a program of short films by gay provocateur Curt McDowell.

Across the Bay at the Pacific Film Archive, they're currently in the throes of retrospectives for Alain Resnais, Otto Preminger and the European films of Ingrid Bergman. I've got a big, red circle drawn around Sunday the 6th, which is when they'll be screening The Underground Orchestra (master documentarian Heddy Honigmann's 1998 film about Parisian subway buskers), followed by Roberto Rossellini's 1954 Voyage to Italy with Bergman and George Sanders (which I'm told is referenced in Almodóvar's new film). Then, in a supplemental program to the Preminger series, the indispensable Film On Film Foundation is sponsoring a rare showing of 1963's epic The Cardinal at 7:30.

Finally, I can not recommend highly enough local filmmaker Frazer Bradshaw's Everything Strange and New, which opens at the Roxie on December 6. I caught this cynical, haunting meditation on suburban discontent (filmed in Oakland!) at this year's SF International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI prize. I can't wait to have a second look.

November Film Fest SmackDown - Round One

As the Bay Area's overstuffed October film calendar fades into fatigued memory – and just to recap, there was the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Arab Film Festival, SF DocFest, YBCA's Koji Wakamatsu retrospective, PFA's Julien Duvivier, Ermanno Olmi and Robert Beavers retrospectives, and ending tonight, the SF Film Society's French Cinema Now – local cinephiles take cold comfort in knowing it was all just a preparatory cakewalk for November. Here's what lies in wait for the next week alone – the 3rd i Film Festival, SF Film Society's Taiwan Film Days, the American Indian Film Festival, PFA's New Spanish Cinema series (plus kickoffs for Ingrid Bergman in Europe and Alain Resnais retrospectives) and last but not least, the launch of a revamped SF Latino Film Festival. One hates to bitch about too much of a good thing, but really. With 52 weeks in the year, there's gotta be a way to do this without cannibalizing the same finite, overlapping audience. Please. Meanwhile, here are the coming week's overwhelming possibilities.



The 3rd i San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival returns for its seventh edition November 5 to 8, with two nights apiece at the Roxie and Castro Theaters. Sure to be a highlight is Saturday's Castro revival of legendary producer/star Guru Dutt's 1960 Bollywood classic Full Moon (Chaudhvin Ka Chand). Set amongst the Muslim aristocracy of early 20th century Lucknow, this lushly photographed film follows a love triangle beset with comic misunderstanding, mistaken identity and ultimate tragedy. Any disappointment I had over the film's digital, rather the 35mm presentation, has been tempered with the announcement that Dutt's son Aran will be on hand to introduce the screening. That night, 3rd i's Saturday at the Castro concludes with recent Bollywood hit My Heart Goes Hooray! (Dil Bole Hadippa!). Although this girls-just-wanna-play-cricket pic doesn't star Shahrukh Khan, I'm not exactly dreading 148 minutes of watching Shahid Kapoor (Rani Mukherjee in Drag King mode might be a different story). And anyone with a taste for the wildly different won't want to miss Friday's late-night Roxie screening of Quick Gun Murugun. This ambitious masala mish-mash pits a gaily-garbed vegetarian caballero against a criminal carnivore – while spoofing vintage Bollywood, Spaghetti Westerns and a hundred other things. Expect a lot of cartoonish violence, special FX and in-jokes infinitum (plus a color-palate influenced by Wisit Sasanatieng's Tears of the Black Tiger).




There are several non-Bollywood narrative features in the line-up. Of the two I previewed I'm most enthusiastic about Bombay Summer. This moody, hang-loose Indian indie chronicles the evolving friendship between three Mumbai 20-somethings – Geeta, a graphic design company exec who still lives at home, Jaider, her coddled poet boyfriend, and Madan, a drug deliveryman and photographer who comes between them. In the dark, uneven British anti-family comedy Mad, Sad & Bad, three damaged adult siblings stumble through the weeks leading up to the death of their widowed, alcoholic mother. A 17-year-old Kashmiri boy's struggle to escape his fate is at the center of Bay Area director Tariq Tapa's neo-realist feature debut Zero Bridge. The film was just recently nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You. The directors for all three of these films are expected to attend.


3rd i can be counted on to present some terrific documentaries, and this year is no exception. While I haven't previewed it, closing night film Yes Madam, Sir appears to be one not to miss. The film is about Kiran Bedi, India's first elite policewoman, and Variety's Richard Kuipers calls it "an enthralling chronicle of her brilliant, tempestuous career" in a full-on rave review. Both Kiran Bedi and the film's director, Megan Doneman, are scheduled to attend. Of the three docs I've seen, I most strongly recommend Opening Night film Supermen of Malegaon, a charming story of cinema-obsessed textile mill workers making their own inspired version of Superman. Anyone who was blown away by Manufactured Landscapes' unearthly images of Bangladesh's "ship-breaking" industry will want check out Ironeaters, a sobering, multi-angled look at a back-breaking business that feeds an estimated three million Bangladeshis. The contradictory disconnect between "Kama Sutra India" and "no public kissing India" is the fascinating subject of Kaushik Mukherjee's brave documentary Love in India. Other docs in the fest include Warrior Boys (South Asian gangs in Vancouver), Searching for Sandeep (Australian lesbian finds romance on-line) and Children of the Pyre (kids living off Varanasi's cremation industry).



Opportunities to see new Taiwanese films in the Bay Area have been sparse lately. In 2008 and 2009 combined, the SF International Film Festival screened only three, and more tellingly, the SF Asian American Film Festival showed none at all. Is it because the country's three best known filmmakers (Ang Lee, Tsai Ming-liang, Hou Hsiou-hsien) are choosing to work abroad? Or are the films too culturally specific to travel well? Or have recent Taiwan films simply not been very good? Fortunately, the SF Film Society attempts to fill in some gaps with Taiwan Film Days, a three-day showcase of seven recent (2007-2009) films screening this weekend at Landmark's Opera Plaza Cinema. Based on reviews I've read, the clear winner appears to be the opening night film Cape No. 7, a spirited epic about a cache of WWII unrequited love letters and the formation of an unlikely rock band. The film obviously struck a chord, as it became Taiwan's all-time box office champ and the country's Oscar submission for last year. Speaking of Oscars, we'll also get to see Taiwan's submission for this year, No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti (the only film in the series not being screened in 35mm). Other films include Beyond the Arctic, God Man Dog, Somewhere I have Never Traveled, What on Earth Have I Done Wrong and Yang Yang.


(Whether by accident or design, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is showing a brand new 35mm print of Hou Hsiou-hsien's 1989 masterpiece A City of Sadness on Thursday evening and Sunday afternoon. The film follows one Taiwanese family over four years, from the withdrawal of Japanese troops in 1945 to the island's secession from mainland China in 1949.)



Like many people, I had mixed emotions when word got around that our Latino Film Festival was no more. While it was distressing to think of not having a Bay Area festival focused on Latino cinema, the old festival had become too unwieldy (17 days and 15 venues in 2008), with lackluster programming and careless exhibition practices. The hope was that something better might take its place, which appears to be exactly what's happened. Last week a new organization comprised of former Latino Film Festival volunteers and contractors calling themselves Cine+Más, announced details of a new San Francisco Latino Film Festival. The fest kicks off this Thursday night with a Clay Theater screening of Spoken Word, the first film in seven years from director Victor Nuñez (Ruby in Paradise, Ulee's Gold). That'll be followed by three days of screenings at the Mission Cultural Center. I don't dare look at the line-up, given prior commitments to 3rd i and Taiwan Film Days. But the following week the festival takes command of two screens at Landmark's Lumiere Theater for 20 shows over two days (Friday, Nov. 13 and Saturday, Nov. 14). The line-up looks promising and includes two films I'm dying to see – Berlin Silver Bear winner Gigante from Uruguay, and an acclaimed Mexican film that's traveled the fest circuit over the past year, I'm Going to Explode. Other highlights include two films we saw on the SF Film Society's Kabuki Screen earlier this year, The Pope's Toilet and Lake Tahoe, as well as a repeat of Nuñez' Spoken Word. I hope people get out and support these folks in this new endeavor!


(Former Latino Film Festival director Sylvia Perel is also presenting a three-day film festival in Redwood City this weekend. If I lived in Redwood City, I wouldn't miss Calle 13: Sin Mapa, a documentary about everyone's favorite potty-mouthed Puerto Rican hip-hop/reggaetón group that's been tagged "a very long wait" on my Netflix queue ever since its July release.)



But wait, there's still more! The American Indian Film Festival rolls out its 34th edition with six days at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinema (Nov. 6 to 11), followed by three days at the Palace of Fine Arts (Nov. 12 to 14). Among its offerings are an already sold-out screening of Peter Bratt's La Mission (the film which opened this year's SF International Film Festival) and Jim Thorpe, The World's Greatest Athlete, which just had its West coast premiere at Mill Valley. The Pacific Film Archive hosts a four-film New Spanish Cinema series this weekend. The film I regret missing most is Camino, a study of religious extremism and its effect upon 11-year-old girl with cancer. The film recently won six Goya Awards (Spain's Oscar), including nods for Best Film, Director, Screenplay and Actress.



And finally, taking a peek beyond the immediate horizon, there's the upcoming SF Film Society's 4th SF International Animation Festival (Nov. 11 to 16) featuring the local premiere of Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox; and Italian Cinema Now (Nov. 15 to 22) honoring director Marco Risi and boasting the local premier of Marco Bellocchio's acclaimed new film, Vincere. Lee Neighborhood Theater's 3rd Annual Chinese American Film Festival (Nov. 12 to 19) returns to the 4-Star Theater with eight films, including John Woo's Red Cliff II. Then on Sunday, Nov. 15 I'll be spending the afternoon and evening in the company of a favorite American actor, as the SFMOMA and Castro Theater co-present Erased James Franco. This four-part event concludes with video artist Carter's new work starring Franco, preceded by the two films which influenced it, Todd Haynes Safe and John Frankenheimer's Seconds. Plus as a special treat, SFMOMA will screen several episodes of the TV show Freaks and Geeks, handpicked and introduced by Franco.

Arab Film Festival 2009 Line-up

The 13th Arab Film Festival (AFF) kicks off Thursday night, October 15 and continues through Sunday, October 25 in San Francisco (Castro, Opera Plaza), San Jose (Camera 12 Cinemas) and Berkeley (Shattuck Cinemas). This year's line-up of films from the Arabic-speaking world seems typically strong, with an emphasis on gritty street tales from Cairo, films relating to the Palestinian issue and women's rights – and surprisingly (or perhaps not), four narrative features and docs of LGBT interest.

It's unfortunate that AFF has to compete against the Mill Valley Film Festival and SF Docfest in what's become an overstuffed fall festival jam-up – there looks to be some promising films here. AFF outreach to on-line press didn't appear to happen this year, so unlike years past, I wasn't able to preview anything. In the informational capsules below, I apologize in advance for errors, and for a heavy reliance on Variety. As often as not, it's the only available English language resource for news and opinion on these films.


Pomegranates and Myrrh (Palestine, dir. Najwa Najjar)
This year's Opening Night film is a Ramallah-set drama about a Palestinian-Christian folk dancer who marries an olive farmer. When the Israeli government confiscates his family's land and he goes to jail on trumped-up charges of assaulting an Israeli soldier, his new bride is left to deal with the aftermath while fending off the advances of a tempting Lebanese choreographer (Ali Suliman, who starred in Paradise Now and was Hiam Abbas' seductive lawyer in The Lemon Tree). And speaking of Abbas (The Visitor), she's said to have a movie-stealing supporting role here as a no-nonsense café owner. Check out John Anderson's rave review in Variety.


Help (Lebanon, dir. Marc Abi Rached)
Also on board for Opening Night at the Castro is a late night (10:30pm) screening of this controversial film about a homeless teenage boy who befriends a prostitute – one who's being threatened by mobsters and lives with a gay man. In an unprecedented move, the film was banned in Lebanon after initially being approved by censors. The official reason was nudity and tough subject matter, but more plausibly it's because the film's star, Joanna Andraos, is the daughter of a prominent Lebanese parliament member who is up for re-election. Lebanese films have been among the most vital and challenging works at recent AFFs. Perhaps this is another one.


Basra (Egypt, dir. Ahmed Rashwan)
In Yousry Nasrallah's astounding 1999 film The City (AFF2001), actor Bassem Samra (The Yacoubian Building's straight trade) played a Cairo accountant who moved to France to become an actor. 10 years later in Basra, Samra stars as a photojournalist departing France for Egypt at the start of the Iraq War, going through an existential life crisis that intensifies as Baghdad is captured and an Al Jazeera reporter is killed by US bombs. In addition to being the name of Iraq's second largest city, "basra" means "snap" in Egyptian Arabic; employed in card games when two players have the same card, or when two people think the same thing or say the same word.


Demons of Cairo (Egypt, dir. Ahmed Atef)
Bassem Samra also stars in this grim Cairo tale in which a gang of street urchins are overlorded by a pregnant drug dealer. Samra plays a former kingpin whose release from jail sets off a turf war. In his very mixed Variety review, Jay Weissberg criticizes the film's "over-the-top gore" and "over ambitious narrative." The film's Arabic title, Al Ghaba translates as The Jungle.


Casanegra (Morocco, dir. Nour-Eddine Lakhmari)
Casanegra is the pejorative nickname given to Casablanca by its underclasses. It's also the name of this neo-film noir that's become a smash hit on home turf and has been selected as Morocco's submission for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Fed up with their dead-end lives, two smalltime crooks/childhood friends take on the classic "one last job" for a big gangster in order to earn money to immigrate to Sweden. According the Jay Weissberg's rave review in Variety, the film is brimming with social critique and its dialogue has become the country's latest street lingo. He goes on to make comparisons with Martin Scorcese and Anthony Mann, and calls the performances by its two non-professional lead actors, "career-making." I'll be disappointed to miss this at the AFF, but will keep my fingers crossed it shows up at Palm Springs in January.


Laila's Birthday (Palestine, dir. Rachid Mashrawi)
This wry satire about the daily frustrations of life in Ramallah is the one AFF film I've already seen, having caught a screening at this year's SF International Film Festival. It's one I recommend, particularly for the lead performance of veteran actor Mohammed Bakri as a former judge turned taxi driver who's just trying to get through the day (and make it home with a cake and present for his daughter Laila). The film is structured as a series of vignettes, each involving a different taxi passenger with their own particular issue. At the SFIFF, Laila's Birthday was shown as a digital projection, which did the film no favors. I'd be curious to learn if AFF screens a 35mm print. Alissa Simon's positive Variety review is worth a read.


The Beirut Apartment (Lebanon/Italy, dir. Daniele Salaris)
Not Quite the Taliban (Belgium/Jordan, dir. Fadi Hindash)
In the first part of this LGBT-themed docu-double bill, Italian filmmaker Salaris rents a tucked away Beirut apartment in which to film. Lebanese Queers from all walks of life come there to safely and confidently share their stories and feelings on subjects like sexuality, religion, endless war and politics. The second film takes a look at the hypocritical, hidden nature of contemporary homosexuality in the Arab world, with the director promising to "explode some of our own myths from the inside."


Garbage Dreams (Egypt, dir. Mai Iskandar)
Zaballeens (Arabic for "garbage people") are a 60,000 strong Coptic Christian community which collects and recycles 80 percent of Cairo's garbage – 13,000 tons a day in a city of 18 million people with no municipal garbage collection system. Now Cairo is starting to hire foreign multi-national waste-hauling firms to handle the problem, and the Zaballeen's means of existence is threatened. This documentary was shot over four years and follows three Zaballeen boys as they come to terms with the transition. World-premiering at this year's SXSW, Garbage Dreams drew acclaim for its cinematography and even-handed portrait of a complicated issue.


Heat Harara (Morocco/Netherlands, dir. Lodewijk Crijns
Two 20-year-old women, one Dutch and one Dutch/Moroccan, take their car to Morocco to buy furnishings for their new henna/nail salon. After a suspiciously calculated car crash, a series of events will lead them to consider smuggling a gay Moroccan back to Holland to rejoin his boyfriend. I couldn't find any English language reviews of this made-for-Dutch TV movie, but it sounds intriguing.


Fawzeya's Secret Recipe (Egypt, dir. Magdy Ahmed Ali)
Egyptian star Ilham Shaheen won a Best Actress prize at last year's Abu Dhabi Film Festival for this populist melodrama set in the slums of Cairo. Her titular character is bawdy, self-reliant, optimistic, on her fifth husband and a rock of tenacity for her family and neighbors. In his generally favorable Variety review, Jay Weissberg praises Ali as a director who "embraces sensitive pro-feminist topics in a mainstream way" and "celebrates female independence while slyly condemning government corruption." On the award-winning lead performance he states that Shaheen "gives Fawzeya her all in a grandstanding perf that's in keeping with the pic's generally high-pitched style."


Salt of This Sea (Palestine, dir. Annemarie Jacir)
The AFF sponsored a sold-out benefit screening of this in Berkeley last spring, which is probably why it's only being shown in San Jose during the festival. In this feature directorial debut, a young Brooklyn-born Palestinian woman (spoken word artist Suheir Hammad) travels to Israel to reclaim an uncle's money left in a frozen bank account since the 1948 Nakba. After being rebuffed by the bank, she hooks up with a waiter (Saleh Bakri, the handsome lothario from The Band's Visit), with whom she stages a bank robbery. They hit the road, stopping along the way to visit her uncle's now Israeli-occupied home in Jaffa, and the ruins of his ancestral village (the best part of the film, according to all the reviews I've read). Unfortunately, those same reviews described with movie with words like reductive, didactic, agenda-driven, un-nuanced and full of credibility-straining plot turns. Bakri, however, is repeatedly singled out for his fine performance.


Henna (UAE, dir. Saleh Karama)
In this rare narrative feature from the United Arab Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, the theme of rapidly encroaching development is explored through the eyes of an 8-year-old fishing village girl whose parents have divorced. In his decidedly mixed review in Variety, Jay Weissberg says that while the film "just about works as a glimpse into an unfamiliar culture," "the execution lacks any vitality, subsuming the message under stolid filmmaking," and the "mediocre digital quality and flat lighting, coupled with uninspired dialogue, hinder involvement."


Niloofar (France/Iran/Lebanon, dir. Sabine El Gemayel)
The AFF traditionally does not show films from Iran. This year, however, there's one set in an Iranian community within the borders of Iraq (although it was filmed in Iran in the Persian language). In this first feature from film editor El Gemayel (The Olive Harvest SFIFF2003), a 13-year-old girl is promised in marriage the day she becomes a woman. Managing to hide her menstruations for two years while being clandestinely home-schooled, she executes an escape with the help of an uncle. A step-brother is sent to track her down and save the family's honor. In his mixed Variety review, Robert Koehler finds the material "intrinsically fascinating," but "the determinedly paint-by-numbers filmmaking style and dramatization make for dull stuff on screen."

Mill Valley Film Festival 2009 Preview

Since posting my initial overview of this year's Mill Valley Film Festival line-up, the programmers have added an Opening Night screening of John Hillcot's The Road. Based on Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the film stars Viggo Mortensen as a father leading his son across a post-apocalyptic America. The festival kicks off tonight, and here are some capsules of what I've had the chance to preview.


Hipsters (Russia dir. Valery Todorovsky)
I never expected that my favorite film of the fest would be a splashy, wide-screen Russian musical set in 1955 Moscow, but there you go. Hipsters recounts the phenomenon of stilyagi, the name given to Russian youth who rebelled against gray Soviet monoculture by emulating jazz music and fashion from the west. The film follows the transformation of Mels, a stodgy young communist whom love converts into pompadoured, sax-playing free spirit. Full of romance, comedy, bright costumes and cleverly choreographed production numbers – each done in a different musical style with engaging lyrics – Hipsters is clearly an exaggerated, romanticized version of post-Stalinist Russia. But it's a version that doesn't totally whitewash reality. The scorned stilyagi are subject to mob attacks, and one character speaks of an aunt who was arrested because her Stalin portrait hung opposite the bathroom. I'll rarely watch a DVD screener twice, but couldn't resist with Hipsters. This should be a blast to see on the big screen with an audience.


Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (US dir. Lee Daniels)
Hallelujah, the hype turns out to be justified for this alternately horrifying and humorous hardknock fairytale that won audience awards at both Sundance and Toronto. Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is unforgettable as Clarice "Precious" Jones, an illiterate, ridiculed, morbidly obese teen with a hyperactive fantasy life and the most horrible mother in the history of cinema (an unforgettable turn by comedienne Mo'Nique). About to be thrown out of school for being pregnant – for the second time, by her own father –salvation comes in the form of a caring lesbian alternative school teacher (Paula Patton). Daniels directs with compassion and freewheeling imagination, from a first-time screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher. Daniels, Sidibe and Patton are all expected to attend the MVFF Opening Night screening. Opens in Bay Area Theaters on November 13.


An Education (UK dir. Lone Scherfig)
In 1961 London, a bright schoolgirl falls under the sway of a smooth talking playboy, receiving a deliciously poignant education in life whilst jeopardizing her academic future. Scherfig's evocation of pre-Swinging Sixties UK highlife – its nightclubs, racetracks, and weekend jaunts to Paris – is terrific fun, while the performances all resonate, especially Carey Mulligan and a Brit-accented Peter Sarsgaard as the inter-generational couple. Based on a Nick Hornby script, this is by far my favorite film of Scherfig's (Italian For Beginners) and her personal appearance at the festival is reason enough to catch it there before the October 16 theatrical release.


The Maid (Chile, dir. Sebastian Silva)
In this heartbreaking and hilarious social satire, Raquel is a housekeeper who's taken care of the same upper class family for 23 years. After a thwarted sense of self causes her to start acting out resentments, the confused family responds by hiring on additional help. The first two maids flee after being terrorized by Raquel. Finally, a woman with a taste for jogging and irreverence joins the household staff – and she's got Raquel's number good. Filmed almost entirely indoors with a handheld camera that reflects our heroine's entrapment, The Maid explores thorny master/servant issues without demonizing the former or martyring the latter. This Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner for World Cinema will open in Bay Area theaters on November 13.


Soundtrack For a Revolution (US dir. Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman)
This exceptional documentary traces the history of the American Civil Rights Movement via the protest songs which inspired its leaders and participants. As one interviewee states, "They could take away everything else, except our songs – which meant we kept our souls." From "We Shall Overcome" to "Wade in the Water," the film recounts how these songs came to be written and then incorporated into the movement. The directors seamlessly blend moving first-person accounts (Julian Bond, Coretta Scott King, songwriter Guy Carawan), contemporary performances of the songs (The Roots, Ritchie Havens, Wyclef Jean) and a lot of archival material I know I haven't seen elsewhere. Apart from its focus on the music, this is perhaps the most concise and affecting film I've seen on the African American struggle for civil rights, period. Co-director Guttenberg is expected to attend the festival, and a special Concert for a Revolution featuring The Blind Boys of Alabama (who perform in the film) will take place after the Oct. 16 screening.


Dark and Stormy Night (US, dir. Larry Blamire)
I approached this one with trepidation, not having liked Blamire's vintage sci-fi parodies (The Lost Skelton of Cadavra, Trail of the Screaming Forehead). Here he takes on the Haunted House genre, and comes up with a spoof that's ambitious, reverent and often enough, completely nuts. All the tropes show up – the reading of a will, secret panels, an escaped maniac from the local asylum, ancestral portraits with roving eyeballs, expository monologues – everything but the sour-faced female caretaker. Blamire expertly lifts all this from such films as The Cat and the Canary, The Dark Old House and the spooky comedies of The Bowery Boys, Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges. Not all of the two dozen stock characters work equally well, but I happily found my least favorites getting bumped off early in the proceedings. Among the ones who fortunately live through the night are a pair of bickering guy/gal reporters straight out of His Girl Friday, and a turbaned, Andrea Martin-channeling medium.


Shameless (Czech Republic, dir. Jan Hrebejk)
In this droll, melancholic little film about the foibles of adult relationships, TV weatherman Oskar gets the heave-ho when his wife discovers he's screwing their Hungarian au pair. After losing his job, he begins a new career driving drunks home from bars, which is how he meets his new love, an older celebrated Czech songstress. Meanwhile, his ex-wife meets a blue collar single dad who loves her big nose, and the two have sex for the first time in her ex-husband's childhood bedroom. Slight, piquant, and oddly satisfying, Shameless has a low key charm that could use some of the edginess that underscored Hrebejk's earlier works like Up and Down and Beauty in Trouble.


Hellsinki (Finland dir. Aleksi Mäkelä)
Booze was illegal in 1960s Finland, giving rise to a bootlegger underground in the depressed Helsinki neighborhood of Rööperi. This solid, but unremarkable genre yarn follows the fates of three small time gangsters through a decade and a half's worth of up-and-downward mobility. When alcohol starts being sold legally in 1969, more nefarious career options arise for the trio. Krisu (Peter Franzen) takes his thuggery to Sweden and returns home a junkie, while momma's boy Kari intentionally screws up a bank robbery to regain the sanctuary of prison life. Meanwhile, troubled hothead Tom gets married and makes a fortune in the burgeoning mail-order porn biz. The film has been tagged a Finnish Goodfellas, which is in many ways an apt comparison. Actor Peter Franzen is expected to attend the festival.


Superstar (Iran, dir. Tamineh Milani)
An insufferably arrogant and bellyaching movie star has his life changed when an impudent, self-righteous – oops, I mean spunky, precocious young girl shows up and claims to be his long lost daughter from a forgotten affair. This is so not my thing. I'd had all I could stand 20 minutes before reaching the end, which I understand contains some sort of twist. Milani is said to be one of Iran's top directors and this sentimental melodrama made gobs of rials for the country's cinemas. Recommended for those with a curiosity about mainstream Iranian crowd pleasers.

French Cinema Now 2009 Line-up

One year after the smash success of its inaugural French Cinema Now (FCN), the SF Film Society has announced the line-up for its anticipated 2009 follow-up fest. This year's expanded program includes 11 new films and one revival, mostly culled from the Berlin Film Festival and Cannes' Directors Fortnight sidebar. It's an impressive roster – there are seven films I've been jonesing to see, plus four others which look plenty promising. Nothing has the marquee value of last year's Palme d'Or winner The Class, or all-star ensembler A Christmas Tale, but that's AOK. With the possible exception of the latest Claude Chabrol joint, none of these 11 films are what I'd call sure bets for theatrical distribution – exactly the stuff I want to see at a festival. Here's a brief rundown of what to expect from Oct. 30 to Nov. 4 at Landmark's Clay Theater.


I'd like to say that my #1 object of desire in this year's FCN is some tony art film, but alas, it's comedy OSS 117: Lost in Rio that's got me most riled. I got the biggest kick out of 2006's OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, featuring Jean Dujardin as the vain, meathead-ed, culturally clueless secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath. I loved all the inane hijinks and sparkling 1950's art direction, and am counting on more of the same in this Rio-set sequel. An added bonus: director Michel Hazanavicius is expected to attend the film's sole FCN screening on Saturday, October 31.


Another comedy I'm looking forward to is Alain Guiraudie's The King of Escape. This one caught my eye because it stars Hafsia Herzi, the fiery young actress who wowed us in The Secret of the Grain (SFIFF51) and French Girl (SFIFF52). Here she plays a 16-year-old country teen who romantically pursues a dumpy, middle-aged gay tractor salesman – much to his surprise – and her family's extreme consternation. This got some terrific reviews when it screened in Directors Fortnight. Writer/director Guiraudie will be in town for the film's two screenings.


On a more serious note, conflict between a seemingly benevolent French-Arab factory owner and his Muslim employees is at the center of actor/writer/director Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche's Adhen. His first two features, Wesh Wesh (2001) and Bled Number One (2006) were both shown at our 2006 Arab Film Festival. I expected Adhen to show up in this year's AFF (Oct. 15 to 18 in SF, Oct. 23 to 25 in Berkeley), but am just as happy to see it as part of FCN. This is probably the "oldest" of FCN's 11 new films, having premiered in Directors Fortnight in 2008.


Last month's headlines concerning French police raiding and bulldozing immigrant camps in Calais directly relates to another FCN selection, Philippe Lioret's Welcome. Vincent Lindon (La moustache, Friday Night) portrays a swimming instructor with a wrecked marriage who wrestles with helping a 17-year-old Kurdish Iraqi refugee – one determined to swim across the English Channel from Calais to Great Britain. This is one of three FCN offerings which world-premiered at Berlin.


As with last year's FCN, there's one documentary in the 2009 mix, Thorn in the Heart by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep). Combining home movies, interviews and a bit of animation, Gondry's film is a portrait of his Aunt Suzette, a rural schoolteacher for 35 years. Her titular thorn is a troubled relationship with gay slacker son Jean-Yves. This got wildly mixed reviews when it screened as a Special Presentation at Cannes, with many critics damning the project as too personal and of interest only to actual members of la famille Gondry. Given the director's reputation and the subject matter, I plan on giving this a shot.


For this year's Closing Night, the FCN programmers have selected a formidable pairing of Benoît Jaquot's Villa Amalia and Claude Chabrol's Bellamy, both of which premiered at Berlin. The former represents director Jacquot's fifth outing with Isabelle Huppert, starring here as a respected composer/pianist who radically alters her life after discovering a lover's infidelity. All vestiges of her persona get discarded – family, friends, profession and possessions – sending her on an existential journey southward to an island off the coast of Naples. Relatedly, Huppert has made seven films with Claude Chabrol. In his 57th film Bellamy, the 79-year-old "French Hitchcock" works for the first time with screen legend Gerard Depardieu in a role written specifically for him. His titular character is modeled on Jules Maigret, the beloved French detective created by writer Georges Simenon in 1931. Bellamy is about a Parisian police commissioner who becomes involved in a murder case while vacationing in the south of France. It's said to be the director's wittiest, most accessible film in years – a perfect note on which to end the festival.


There are four FCN selections of which I was previously unaware, starting with Opening Night film The French Kissers. This teen comedy is the directorial debut of comic book writer Riad Sattouf, and is beguilingly described by Screen International's Mike Goodridge as a cross between American Pie and André Téchiné's coming-of-ager Wild Reeds. Newcomer Vincent Lacoste stars as Hervé, a 14-year-old class nerd who finds himself being pursued by the class beauty. Playing his mom is Noémie Lvovsky (the best friend in FCN 2008's Actresses), accompanied by some intriguing cameos from the likes of Emmanuelle Devos, Irene Jacob and Persepolis writer/director Marjane Satrapi. Director Sattouf is expected to attend the screening. (Interesting to note that all three filmmakers attending FNC are directors of comedies).


Another adolescent-centered film is Sylvie Verheyde's Stella. Set in 1977, it concerns an average 11-year-old who has inexplicably been admitted to a prestigious Parisian preparatory school. Hanging out in her parents working class bar has made her tops in pinball and pop music. When it comes to academics, however, she'll need the help and friendship of the class brain, a daughter of Argentine-Jewish intellectuals. This film has received critical raves all around. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing singer/songwriter Benjamin Biolay (a.k.a. Catherine Deneuve's ex-son-in-law) as Stella's father, plus Guillaume Depardieu in one of his final screen appearances (as a sympathetic bar customer).

Ex-film crtitic Axelle Ropert makes her feature directorial debut with The Wolberg Family, a dramedy in which a small town Jewish mayor struggles in vain to keep his family from unraveling. Ropert is best known for the off-beat screenplays she's written for director Serge Bozon (La France SFIFF51). Here Bozon returns the favor by taking on a pivotal acting role as Mde Wolberg's needling Bohemian brother. Making the film a total Bozon Family affair is Serge's sister Celine, who's responsible for The Wolberg Family's wide-screen cinematography. Boyd Van Hoeij waxes rhapsodic in his Directors Fortnight review in Variety.


Yet another 2009 Directors Fortnight selection is Yuki & Nina, a collaborative effort from formalist Japanese director Nobuhiro Suwa (2005's A Perfect Couple with Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Bruno Todeschini) and actor Hippolyte Giradot (last seen around here in A Christmas Tale and Amos Gitai's One Day You'll Understand). The two co-wrote and co-directed. Giradot also stars as the divorced father of Yuki, a desperate 10-year-old girl determined not to abandon her best friend Nina by moving to Japan with her mother. The story is told entirely from the children's POV and is said to contain elements of magic realism when the duo escape to a forest.


Last year's FCN featured three revival screenings, which represented fully one-third of the fest's line-up – French Cinema Now (and Then) if you will. There's only one vintage film this year, François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, chosen to mark the somewhat arbitrary 50th anniversary of French New Wave. It's not a terribly interesting choice, at least when compared to last year's Six in Paris omnibus and two early Arnaud Desplechin works. But it's as appropriate as anything else to mark this commemoration. As unlikely as it may seem, perhaps not everyone has seen this essential classic in 35mm.


French Cinema Now is one element of what is now officially the San Francisco Film Society's Fall Season. Be sure and check out Cinema by the Bay (Oct. 22 – 25), Taiwan Film Days (Nov. 6 – 8), SF International Animation Festival (Nov. 11 – 15, line-up TBA Oct. 9) and New Italian Cinema (Nov. 15 – 22, line-up TBA Oct. 5).