Month: December 2009

Summer Hours

lheure_deteThis morning I downloaded a list of critically acclaimed films from 2009.  First on the list was Summer Hours. HUH? I looked it up and found it was released in France in late 2008, and in America this past year. I don’t recall it ever playing in ATL, so I went to Netflix to see if they had it. But of course! Not only that, but it was available as a streaming INSTANT selection. So I watched it this afternoon…

What a simply charming and mesmerizing film! Oh the country estates! The wine! The smoking! The art! The great old Paris buildings! A film about families and life — so typically French — where you are immersed into the pure art of the film, never certain where it’s going, and often unsure even after it’s over. It’s a film where you can easily imagine yourself as one of the characters, enjoying life and family as we often never do in the same way in the US.

I can’t say I would place it as FIRST in a list of the best films of this year, but it would certainly be in my top 10. I suspect most (or all) of you have Netflix so I highly recommend you watch it. Or put it in your queue for the DVD when it is released this year. I am confident you will enjoy it.

THIS IS IT

this is it

MEMBERS SCREENING: THIS IS IT
Saturday, December 19
Premiere Theater
Letterman Digital Arts Center

There are just a handful of seats left for our year-round members screening of Kenny Ortega’s This is It, presented by the Variety Screening Series. Kenny Ortega is expected to be in attendance.

The screening is on Saturday, December 19, at 2:00 pm.

MY TAKE – I knew nothing. This was a Variety Screening Series film and we were invited by the San Francisco Film Society. For the SFFS screenings I like to go cold because they are often on subjects that I might not choose to see. I didn’t know it was Michael Jackson.

What a surprise! I was never into Pop music or Michael Jackson and he has been out of sight or embroiled in court cases for at least 10 years… not making music. Here, he is totally on form as Ebert describes, and the singers, dancers and musicians in the cast are the world’s best. The film shows that they put out a world wide casting call and over 2500 auditioned. The dancers were most impressive. They and MJ were in perfect union through impossibly difficult moves, stops and starts. I thought of La Danse, a story of behind-the-scenes at Russian Ballet – I haven’t yet seen it, but Jon Carroll wrote about it – this dancing has to equal or surpass ballet. Awesome. And the hot blonde guitarist… also awesome as she jams with MJ and he says, “This is your time… hit your highest note.” Another revelation – through this show and the Q&A with Kenny Ortega, I realized that when Michael sings about love, he’s not singing about boy-girl or man-woman, he’s singing about mankind. This was a profoundly moving experience.
Continue reading “THIS IS IT” →

What a Night

A dark road, Inglorious Basterds and Quentin Tarantino

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SFFS YEAR-ROUND
MEMBERS SCREENINGS

The Film Society is pleased to invite its year-round members to the Variety Screening Series.

These screenings have extremely limited seating and are for year-round Film Society members only (no guests, sorry).

Inglourious Basterds with director Quentin Tarantino expected to attend
Monday, December 7
6:15 pm pre-screening reception
7:15 pm screening
Stag Theater at Skywalker Sound
Skywalker Ranch Rd, Marin County

So said the invitation, I responded and we were awarded passes to attend. Hadn’t seen Inglourious Basterds, but it’s been in theaters for a while and on my list for a while. I’m also eager to see Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas’ famed center of creativity. Carol arranged to get off work at 4, and we left the house at 5.

That’s all the address they gave, and there’s no “directions” on the Stag Theater website, so we got a map to Skywalker Ranch Road. The Google Map said 29 miles, about 41 minutes in light traffic. Get off 101 at Lucas Valley Road, go 7.8 miles to Skywalker Ranch Road. That sounded easy enough. The traffic was fairly heavy but moving so we turned off 101 with over a half hour to go that 7.8 miles. We figured Skywalker Ranch is a pretty big deal and lots of people work there, so it should be well marked. Continue reading “What a Night” →

November Weekend in Reno

Saturday, we drove to Reno encountering NO traffic. We were going to go on Friday, since C was off work with the pink eye, but it rained in SF, snowed in the mountains… not a lot, but enough to require chains at the higher elevations. I didn’t want to be a part of that!

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The day was beautiful, sunny and mild. We stopped at the In n Out Burger in Auburn for lunch. At Crystal Springs, just above 5000 feet, we found snow on the side of the road. How exciting is that? It got deeper as we went up — Donner Pass is 7415 feet elevation — but not much more than a foot anywhere.

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The snow had disappeared by the time we got to Reno, midafternoon, and the sun ruled the day.

We helped Brian do some stuff and went to an Italian place downtown for dinner that was pretty good, but not very good. How could I not mention food. Continue reading “November Weekend in Reno” →