Robert Campos and Donna LoCicero started out as fans of the three stand-ups profiled in their film, 3 STILL STANDING. Will Durst, Johnny Steele, and Larry “Bubbles” Brown were part of that heady brew that was the comedy scene in San Francisco in the 1970s and 80s that also gave us Robin Williams, Paula Poundstone,… Read More »
Alamo Drafthouse Revives A Classic in San Francisco with STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
The restoration of the New Mission Theater here in San Francisco into the latest addition of the Alamo Drafthouse chain has been going on for over a year. For cinephiles it has been a long wait that is finally coming to an end when the theater opens for business on December 17, 2015 with STAR… Read More »
THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION — Stanley Nelson
When Stanley Nelson started working on THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION, it was seven years ago and he thought the history of that movement was particularly relevant to those times. In 2015, he thinks it’s even more relevant. When I spoke to him on October 1, 2015, the echoes of the Panther movement in… Read More »
William Farley and PLASTIC MAN: THE ARTFUL LIFE OF JERRY ROSS BARRISH
William Farley was a great choice to direct a film about Jerry Ross Barrish. They are both artists who came from the working class, they both worked in sculpture and in film. It gives Farley an insight into Barrish as a person as well as an artist that others, no matter who talented, might miss. … Read More »
Bel Powley and Marielle Heller Share THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL
When I spoke with Bel Powely and Marielle Heller on August 3, 2015, the subject was, of course, sex. Their film, THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL, addresses that issues from the first scene, wherein the heroine, 15-year-old Minnie Goetz, proudly tells the audience that she’s just had sex and it was >amazing<. I started… Read More »
A Ho-Hum TERMINATOR GENISYS
Inflated and grandiose, TERMINATOR GENISYS rethinks the Terminator mythos by coming up the novel notion that changing the past might have more than the intended repercussions. Hence, when the John Conner (Jason Clarke, near left) in this timeline sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney, far left) back to 1984 Los Angeles to save John’s mother, Sarah (Emilia Clarke),… Read More »
SAN ANDREAS’ Flight of Fancy
If nothing else, SAN ANDREAS is one of the finest advertisements ever made for the importance of emergency preparedness. Those who survive the state-long earthquake that erupts on the eponymous fault line are either those who know to duck under a table or shelter by a solid wall, or those who are related to those… Read More »
DAVE BOYLE Tracks the MAN FROM RENO
I love a film set in the same San Francisco that I inhabit. Nothing against the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, or Alcatraz, but I spend most of my time in places like Green Apple Books. It’s yet another reason that I was bowled over by Dave Boyle’s enchanting neo-Noir, MAN FROM RENO. Boyle is… Read More »
ZODIAC (2007)
The pedestrian way to film the story of ZODIAC, the San Francisco Bay Area serial killer whose rampage extended from the late 1960s through the 1970s, would be to make a taut action thriller with snazzy directing tricks and gung-ho dialogue. Here was a psychopath who hunted people for sport and through a combination of smarts… Read More »
Eric Steel’s View from THE BRIDGE
Eric Steel didn’t exactly make it easy for himself with his directorial debut. THE BRIDGE not only tackles suicide, but it also does so in a direct, visceral way that can’t help but provoke controversy. He, like his film, is quiet and thoughtful on the subject, but also partisan in what he feels are the failings in society… Read More »