Skug 11: Get Lots of Rest, Eat ... - 1995 SF Int'l Film Festival

Gets Lots of Rest Logo

by Bruce Townley

The Intro: Some of my least favorite experiences have been at Science Fiction conventions. I'm talking generally here, total life episodes, up to and including trips to the dentist ("Dr. Asimov will see you now, for your tongue exam, young lady!"). Last one I went to was the world sci fi con in San Francisco. Piece of cake, hop on the 27 Bryant and there you are, at the hotel! Enjoyed myself a bunch at the Apa-50 parties and didn't even have to pay a nickel to get in. But it all came flashing back to me, why I'd rather volunteer for unnecessary root canal work than go to one of these things, when I got into the elevator. Get this, there were elevator monitors assigned to each car. That must look good on the old resume: `I'm a people person. An example of this was that I was chosen to be an elevator monitor at grotesquely swollen sci fi con and told people what floors they could get off on.' My flesh still creeps at the thought.

So I can't really explain why it is that I subject myself to the San Francisco Int'l Film Festival each year. Hey, I even look forward to it! The crowding is every bit as extreme, you get to stand in more lines than at most supermarkets (even if they were populated by cranky film fans) and at most big ol' sci fi cons the management can be every bit as amateurish (read: volunteer). Listening to some of the volunteers speak (typically the low totem pole ones without the walkie talkies) they, too, have fannish accents. A whine's a whine, I guess. So anyhow, why do I keep going back, even to the point of taking time off from work? Well, it is a good way to see a lot of movies with a assortment of other people who like to go see a lot of films from all over the world (How many films from Burkina Fasso have you been to?).

This year, I also got to see a lot of people that I know. Sure, there's SF Film Society members that I only see stumbling around at the fest, but none I know to say more than two words to. Saw the eskimo-like knit-cap wearing guy as well as the short woman/tall male couple who always sit in my row (even got a nickname for these two: Mutt and Jeff), always personal favorites. This year yet another woman (married, as always) just started talking to me while waiting for the show to start and wasn't even put off when I displayed a draft version of my movie commentary chart. What I mean is, I got to see some friends at the movies as well as some folks I work with. Went to a couple shows with Rich Coad and Stacy Scott (Rich actually took 20 minutes off of his continuing education this year and went to the movies instead). Spotted Jim Kennedy (his pony-tail actually) at Living in Oblivion. Jim appeared pleased that a movie had been made all about him, personally. This made it more of a social event this year, this sharing the experience with friends, than the obligation (or chore) the festival, at times, degenerates into.

In case you're keeping track, this piece's title paraphrases the SF Film Society's director's, Peter Scarlet, pre- fest admonition.

What follows is a chart listing my reactions to this year's SF Film Fest. I do this to help keep the event straight in my head so I apologize in advance for the shorthand nature of these responses.

Title Director Origin Description/Reaction. (Note: ** entries are personal favorites, in no particular order)

Crumb ** Terry Zwigoff USA A literally stunning (the audience was practically speechless in the Q&A afterwards) inquiry into the correlation of genius, dementia, and one's relations. Turns out Charles Crumb is the central figure (and even "director" when he's on camera, his presence is so profound). He's the one who goaded Robert into doing comics. Charles drove himself too far, into permanent medicated reclusiveness and thence to suicide. Maxon Crumb's scarecrow-like, phantom figure deserting the theatre just before the movie started set the tone. The corporate sponsored rampant consumerism of the Festival's opening night would have both repelled and given ammo to R. Crumb. Turns out Robert is the least eccentric of the brood--his comics helped him to work it out.

Mother Dao, The Turtlelike Vincent Monnikendam The Netherlands The director stated that there were some 280,000 meters of archival film from the Netherlands' colonial adventure in what is now Indonesia and New Guinea (spanning the period of 1912- 32). Virtual and cultural enslavement are bad but it sure makes for some fascinating cinematic artifacts.

Pom Poko Isao Takahata Japan This film was "presented" by animation master Miyazaki, that's what it says in the credits. It possesses a quaint look and feel similar to the pastoral/spiritual Totoro. More's the pity Pom Poko doesn't share Miyazaki's exquisitely intimate sense of narrative balance and scale. As it is the story is somewhat overblown, tries a little too hard. However, you can get away with a lot, using magic.

Burden of Dreams Les Blank USA Two quotes: "On top of everything else the only soccer ball in camp has a hole in it.", "...the jungle is winning." With the amount of screen time spent in dragging that 300 ton boat over the hill, Blank echoes Herzog's technique of personal peril. The successful boat hauling is, if anything, an afterthought and not all that engaging. The process is what's worthy of documentation.

The Leopard Luchino Visconti Italy A chronicle of the Gilded Age (but not an age of innocence). It's hard to feel any connection at all to a class so burdened with privilege (How many Sicilian princes do you know?) that they're virtually immobile, exposed to approach by mere landowners clad in unfortunate tuxedos.

Funny Face Stanley Donen USA A delightfully antic puff pasty peopled by beyond belief bohemians and others (hard to accept that fashion workers are this exaggerated). Donen himself captivated the audience during the inexpertly miked interview by being equally urbane (cool) and amiable (warm).

Pretty Baby Sönke Wortman Germany The director got what was probably the only authentic laugh of the evening with a line about how this film would prove whether or not Germans have a sense of humor. If they do this German has a lot of trouble telling a joke you'll swallow or follow. A character announces he's too hot and in the next shot he's nude and the nominally straight guy in bed with him takes no notice. A character states she's pregnant and BANG it's nine months later. It got so it read like bad sci-fi (shaky speculation). "Hetero" relationships shouldn't be that fantastical. Aren't lovers lovers and couples couples regardless?

Eternity & Shorts ** Various Various Cinema exploring images of big, heavy concepts like death, life after death, faith, devotion and sexual abuse/harassment (Or is it love thwarted?). Eternity is gorgeously photographed. The images produced tell much more than what is merely shown on the screen. A small film about the big picture.

Imaginary Light Various USA Abstract painting-like short films, most even watchable. The title piece had a fascinating stop motion mid-section that tracked patterns of light and shadow through a kitchen and living room. Then it lapsed into abstraction and sat on your head. Premonition is a muscular black and white likeness of SF's skyline and skeleton. The Red Book is cut-out animation brought to life by what could be occult lore.

Sonic Outlaws Craig Baldwin USA Baldwin does a good job of restraining Negativland from lapsing into Lenny Bruce-like tirades (railing against copyright battles instead of censorship). This is done by presenting a whole gang of artistic, electronic outlaws rendered all the more articulate by Baldwin's trademark (copyrighted?) cinematic collage commentary. It's almost too much to digest (or sample).

The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists ** Les Blank USA Les Blank in person is tall, stoic, frugal with words, somewhat forbidding. His films are unlike the preceding description, except for a quest for the exact, correct image betraying a welcome thrift. The Maestro, the Bay Area's Gerald Gaxiola, is a flamboyant (`I leave sequins everywhere I go!'), self-created, rapid-fire (paint balls shot from six guns at Christo's umbrellas intruding on the Maestro's home range) buckaroo. The motivating force of Blank's cinematic poetry is that of love. The love of his subjects for what they do, how they live. Blank's love of these same things is what attracts his interest, and therefore his carefully applied camera. These strong feelings intersect in the films, enhancing their vigor.

Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella Les Blank USA Dizzy Gillespie examines be-bop's gritty urban reality and Dizz' hip exhilaration. Sworn to the Drum throbs with the elemental beat of Afro-Cuban culture (only the merest taste though); you'll accept that the drum master Aguabella can make the walls sweat. The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins is the best of the bunch. It brings home the power of music (the soul of the Blues) to refresh, invigorate and tells you exactly what to do when a big black pig runs in front of your car in North Carolina.

A Matter of Life and Death Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger England From the same team that made The Red Shoes and Oh! Rosalinda!! and continues on with the same outlandish staging (a lot of business on a stairway to heaven, the film's alternate title) and idiosyncratic narrative drive. This time out it all somehow hangs together as a grand, lush love story between two characters (Kim Hunter, David Niven) and two nations (England and the US).

Mute Witness Anthony Waller USA/Russia A sure footed first foray in a genre (thriller) in which even past masters can stumble. Heavy breathing point of view shots galore. The story is told in such a way that you can't always be sure who is stalking who or why. Fortunately, doesn't take long to figure out, with a minimum of telegraphing.

Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers Les Blank USA Even when Blank does industrial films the concern, involvement with feeding one's belly (good food) and one's soul (great, home grown music) prevails. Folklore about folks.

The Son of Gascogne Pascal Aubier France A movie seemingly about moviemakers reduced to a series of in-joke references to the French new wave, with a workman- like romance filling in the cracks. The preceding short film, Luc Moullet's Attempt at an Opening, carefully twists every available gibe and wry comment and drop from the excruciating process of uncapping twist off Coke bottles.

Caught in the Act Raymond Depardon France A documentary consisting of maybe four set-piece shots (most of the screen time is taken up with the accused facing a French justice official or court-appointed attorney, squared off across a desk). This rigid formula serves to intensify the exercise. Those underarrest aren't named but their testimony tells a lot about them.

Living in Oblivion ** Tom DiCillo USA An extension and amplification of the amazing short film Scene 6, Take 1, shown last year. Filmed by the director of Johnny Suede as therapy to work his way through his depression at its non-reception. Would that all therapy was this productive, successful, funny and penetrating. A feature length, sharply observed, depiction of the panic-attack that is movie making.

The New Legend of Shaolin Yuen Kwai, Wong Ching Hong Kong/Taiwan An amazing, hyperkinetic (almost telekinetic) Saturday matinee. The story (as such) doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but who cares? Fantastic, heroic, comic and historic, all in equal measures. I know a guy who's a self proclaimed expert on HK films and he tried to warn me off this one. Fortunately, I'd already gotten my ticket and, boy, I'm glad I went to this Kung Fu spectacular.

Animals Nicolas Philibert France Two short docs and a feature not so much about animals but about how we keep, view and encounter them. The Laughing Cow is a bovine, cinematic diary entry, even giving birth is all in a day's work. Animali Crinimali is a selection of views of critters eating each other, all probably staged for the edification of school children. Animals is largely composed of head shots of venerable, motheaten, mounted museum exhibits (mammals mostly with some fish, birds and insects). Human Parisian natural history museum workers scurry about their various tasks and the "animals" with bee-like verve. At first the exhibits are alarming and humans' motives obscure but it is most satisfying to see the result, the rebirth of a major museum.

Frank and Ollie Theodore Thomas USA The harsh penalty paid for hipness is the denial of "cute" things. Even though these guys killed Bambi they brought to life many, many Disney characters and films. Just watch this pair of artists and friends creatively interact and you'll know that the operative word here is "sincere" instead of "cute".

Parajanov: The Last Spring Mikhail Vartanov Armenia You'd probably do better to check out Parajanov's films (e.g.: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors), to go to the source. Over reliance on slow pans over the man's collages that do little to show the whole picture. Even more heartbreaking than the numerous shots of the drastically ill director (obviously in his final days) is the only surviving footage from his last, incomplete but apparently marvelous work of exotic beauty. Death is a cheat.

The Jar ** Ebrahim Foruzesh Iran The daily news brings stories of Clinton's efforts to embargo Iran. This film is the best propaganda to counter that, dealing with a seemingly small but eventually all encompassing facet of rural village life (the replacement of a school's water jar). Life in general and individuals are captivatingly portrayed. The small town teacher teaches many lessons not written down in a book.

Act Naturally! Various Various As a selection of cinematic bite sized morsels, all of these short films gratify. Coloured stands out as a sort of psychedelic Mickey Spillane, peopled with literally colorful characters.

Twitch & Shout ** Laurel Chiten USA A documentary that has really done its homework (about Tourette Syndrome) but also has a big heart. This film encompasses a previously closed group with warmth, good humor, keen analysis. It asks a lot more questions than can be currently answered about this baffling, off-putting neuro- chemical imbalance. It's fascinating because it shows a bunch of humans seeking balance, using their heads in extreme situations, documents the process of life.

The Queen of the Night Arturo Ripstein Mexico Since Alex Cox acted in this dimly lit mess, it might help to view it as a sort of Mexican Sid and Nancy. With Diego Rivera instead of Malcolm McClaren and Rancheras singing instead of punk rock. Naah, don't think so. Dunno, maybe it's just me, but pseudo biographical melodramas about sexually ambivalent, addictive, self destructive musicians aren't my idea of fun. Halfway through one of the characters declaims: "For once, let's have a dignified ending". No such luck.

Let's Hope It's a Girl Mario Monicelli Italy Hey, here's Liv Ullman and Catherine Denevnue as sisters in a feminist comedy, both speaking Italian (apparently). Well, it works better than that sounds, if only somewhat.

Blue in the Face Wayne Wang USA So what happens if you do a movie and your actors are having such a great time that they just won't stop? Well, Blue in the Face is what happens. Made directly after Smoke, with most of the same characters, actors and continuing circumstances, it grabs the same interconnectedness and jazzy plot twists that Altman's Short Cuts lunged for and missed. Syncopated with upbeat urban jive and driven by Wang's and the actors' (including Lou Reed and a handful of others who just dropped in to the shoot) love affair with Brooklyn, this film is a sort of love note itself, directed to the unlooked for delights of the big city. Surprising live performance of `Fever' by one of the players capped the show.

Bedazzled ** Stanley Donen Great Britain Still find it kind of perplexing that the same director who did the frothy Funny Face made this sharp, rasp tongued, deliriously dark comedy vehicle for Peter Cook (maybe it's unkind, but I've always viewed Dudley Moore as Cook's appendage--seems like half of his lines are some variation of `Whadya mean?'). Cook (playing an arch Lucifer who runs a strip club while in London) literally moves heaven and earth to snare Moore's appealingly nebbish soul. Cook did such a super job writing and acting in this film that he more or less painted himself in a corner, left himself nowhere else to go. So it's a shame that this uncommonly funny piece isn't more often screened.

Title	Director	Origin	Description/Reaction. (Note: ** entries are personal favorites, in no particular order)
Crumb **	Terry Zwigoff	USA	A literally stunning (the audience was practically speechless in the Q&A afterwards) inquiry into the correlation of genius, dementia, and one's relations. Turns out Charles Crumb is the central figure (and even "director" when he's on camera, his presence is so profound). He's the one who goaded Robert into doing comics. Charles drove himself too far, into permanent medicated reclusiveness and thence to suicide. Maxon Crumb's scarecrow-like, phantom figure deserting the theatre just before the movie started set the tone. The corporate sponsored rampant consumerism of the Festival's opening night would have both repelled and given ammo to R. Crumb. Turns out Robert is the least eccentric of the brood--his comics helped him to work it out.
Mother Dao, The Turtlelike	Vincent Monnikendam	The Netherlands	The director stated that there were some 280,000 meters of archival film from the Netherlands' colonial adventure in what is now Indonesia and New Guinea (spanning the period of 1912- 32). Virtual and cultural enslavement are bad but it sure makes for some fascinating cinematic artifacts.
Pom Poko	Isao Takahata	Japan	This film was "presented" by animation master Miyazaki, that's what it says in the credits. It possesses a quaint look and feel similar to the pastoral/spiritual Totoro. More's the pity Pom Poko doesn't share Miyazaki's exquisitely intimate sense of narrative balance and scale. As it is the story is somewhat overblown, tries a little too hard. However, you can get away with a lot, using magic.
Burden of Dreams	Les Blank	USA	Two quotes: "On top of everything else the only soccer ball in camp has a hole in it.", "...the jungle is winning." With the amount of screen time spent in dragging that 300 ton boat over the hill, Blank echoes Herzog's technique of personal peril. The successful boat hauling is, if anything, an afterthought and not all that engaging. The process is what's worthy of documentation.
The Leopard	Luchino Visconti	Italy	A chronicle of the Gilded Age (but not an age of innocence). It's hard to feel any connection at all to a class so burdened with privilege (How many Sicilian princes do you know?) that they're virtually immobile, exposed to approach by mere landowners clad in unfortunate tuxedos.
Funny Face	Stanley Donen	USA	A delightfully antic puff pasty peopled by beyond belief bohemians and others (hard to accept that fashion workers are this exaggerated). Donen himself captivated the audience during the inexpertly miked interview by being equally urbane (cool) and amiable (warm).
Pretty Baby	Sönke Wortman	Germany	The director got what was probably the only authentic laugh of the evening with a line about how this film would prove whether or not Germans have a sense of humor. If they do this German has a lot of trouble telling a joke you'll swallow or follow. A character announces he's too hot and in the next shot he's nude and the nominally straight guy in bed with him takes no notice. A character states she's pregnant and BANG it's nine months later. It got so it read like bad sci-fi (shaky speculation). "Hetero" relationships shouldn't be that fantastical. Aren't lovers lovers and couples couples regardless?
Eternity & Shorts **	Various	Various	Cinema exploring images of big, heavy concepts like death, life after death, faith, devotion and sexual abuse/harassment (Or is it love thwarted?). Eternity is gorgeously photographed. The images produced tell much more than what is merely shown on the screen. A small film about the big picture.
Imaginary Light	Various	USA	Abstract painting-like short films, most even watchable. The title piece had a fascinating stop motion mid-section that tracked patterns of light and shadow through a kitchen and living room. Then it lapsed into abstraction and sat on your head. Premonition is a muscular black and white likeness of SF's skyline and skeleton. The Red Book is cut-out animation brought to life by what could be occult lore.
Sonic Outlaws	Craig Baldwin	USA	Baldwin does a good job of restraining Negativland from lapsing into Lenny Bruce-like tirades (railing against copyright battles instead of censorship). This is done by presenting a whole gang of artistic, electronic outlaws rendered all the more articulate by Baldwin's trademark (copyrighted?) cinematic collage commentary. It's almost too much to digest (or sample).
The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists **	Les Blank	USA	Les Blank in person is tall, stoic, frugal with words, somewhat forbidding. His films are unlike the preceding description, except for a quest for the exact, correct image betraying a welcome thrift. The Maestro, the Bay Area's Gerald Gaxiola, is a flamboyant (`I leave sequins everywhere I go!'), self-created, rapid-fire (paint balls shot from six guns at Christo's umbrellas intruding on the Maestro's home range) buckaroo. The motivating force of Blank's cinematic poetry is that of love. The love of his subjects for what they do, how they live. Blank's love of these same things is what attracts his interest, and therefore his carefully applied camera. These strong feelings intersect in the films, enhancing their vigor.
Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella	Les Blank	USA	Dizzy Gillespie examines be-bop's gritty urban reality and Dizz' hip exhilaration. Sworn to the Drum throbs with the elemental beat of Afro-Cuban culture (only the merest taste though); you'll accept that the drum master Aguabella can make the walls sweat. The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins is the best of the bunch. It brings home the power of music (the soul of the Blues) to refresh, invigorate and tells you exactly what to do when a big black pig runs in front of your car in North Carolina.
A Matter of Life and Death	Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger	England	From the same team that made The Red Shoes and Oh! Rosalinda!! and continues on with the same outlandish staging (a lot of business on a stairway to heaven, the film's alternate title) and idiosyncratic narrative drive. This time out it all somehow hangs together as a grand, lush love story between two characters (Kim Hunter, David Niven) and two nations (England and the US).
Mute Witness	Anthony Waller	USA/Russia	A sure footed first foray in a genre (thriller) in which even past masters can stumble. Heavy breathing point of view shots galore. The story is told in such a way that you can't always be sure who is stalking who or why. Fortunately, doesn't take long to figure out, with a minimum of telegraphing.
Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers	Les Blank	USA	Even when Blank does industrial films the concern, involvement with feeding one's belly (good food) and one's soul (great, home grown music) prevails. Folklore about folks.
The Son of Gascogne	Pascal Aubier	France	A movie seemingly about moviemakers reduced to a series of in-joke references to the French new wave, with a workman- like romance filling in the cracks. The preceding short film, Luc Moullet's Attempt at an Opening, carefully twists every available gibe and wry comment and drop from the excruciating process of uncapping twist off Coke bottles.
Caught in the Act	Raymond Depardon	France	A documentary consisting of maybe four set-piece shots (most of the screen time is taken up with the accused facing a French justice official or court-appointed attorney, squared off across a desk). This rigid formula serves to intensify the exercise. Those underarrest aren't named but their testimony tells a lot about them.
Living in Oblivion **	Tom DiCillo	USA	An extension and amplification of the amazing short film Scene 6, Take 1, shown last year. Filmed by the director of Johnny Suede as therapy to work his way through his depression at its non-reception. Would that all therapy was this productive, successful, funny and penetrating. A feature length, sharply observed, depiction of the panic-attack that is movie making.
The New Legend of Shaolin	Yuen Kwai, Wong Ching	Hong Kong/Taiwan	An amazing, hyperkinetic (almost telekinetic) Saturday matinee. The story (as such) doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but who cares? Fantastic, heroic, comic and historic, all in equal measures. I know a guy who's a self proclaimed expert on HK films and he tried to warn me off this one. Fortunately, I'd already gotten my ticket and, boy, I'm glad I went to this Kung Fu spectacular.
Animals	Nicolas Philibert	France	Two short docs and a feature not so much about animals but about how we keep, view and encounter them. The Laughing Cow is a bovine, cinematic diary entry, even giving birth is all in a day's work. Animali Crinimali is a selection of views of critters eating each other, all probably staged for the edification of school children. Animals is largely composed of head shots of venerable, motheaten, mounted museum exhibits (mammals mostly with some fish, birds and insects). Human Parisian natural history museum workers scurry about their various tasks and the "animals" with bee-like verve. At first the exhibits are alarming and humans' motives obscure but it is most satisfying to see the result, the rebirth of a major museum.
Frank and Ollie	Theodore Thomas	USA	The harsh penalty paid for hipness is the denial of "cute" things. Even though these guys killed Bambi they brought to life many, many Disney characters and films. Just watch this pair of artists and friends creatively interact and you'll know that the operative word here is "sincere" instead of "cute".
Parajanov: The Last Spring	Mikhail Vartanov	Armenia	You'd probably do better to check out Parajanov's films (e.g.: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors), to go to the source. Over reliance on slow pans over the man's collages that do little to show the whole picture. Even more heartbreaking than the numerous shots of the drastically ill director (obviously in his final days) is the only surviving footage from his last, incomplete but apparently marvelous work of exotic beauty. Death is a cheat.
The Jar **	Ebrahim Foruzesh	Iran	The daily news brings stories of Clinton's efforts to embargo Iran. This film is the best propaganda to counter that, dealing with a seemingly small but eventually all encompassing facet of rural village life (the replacement of a school's water jar). Life in general and individuals are captivatingly portrayed. The small town teacher teaches many lessons not written down in a book.
Act Naturally!	Various	Various	As a selection of cinematic bite sized morsels, all of these short films gratify. Coloured stands out as a sort of psychedelic Mickey Spillane, peopled with literally colorful characters.
Twitch & Shout **	Laurel Chiten	USA	A documentary that has really done its homework (about Tourette Syndrome) but also has a big heart. This film encompasses a previously closed group with warmth, good humor, keen analysis. It asks a lot more questions than can be currently answered about this baffling, off-putting neuro- chemical imbalance. It's fascinating because it shows a bunch of humans seeking balance, using their heads in extreme situations, documents the process of life.
The Queen of the Night	Arturo Ripstein	Mexico	Since Alex Cox acted in this dimly lit mess, it might help to view it as a sort of Mexican Sid and Nancy. With Diego Rivera instead of Malcolm McClaren and Rancheras singing instead of punk rock. Naah, don't think so. Dunno, maybe it's just me, but pseudo biographical melodramas about sexually ambivalent, addictive, self destructive musicians aren't my idea of fun. Halfway through one of the characters declaims: "For once, let's have a dignified ending". No such luck.
Let's Hope It's a Girl	Mario Monicelli	Italy	Hey, here's Liv Ullman and Catherine Denevnue as sisters in a feminist comedy, both speaking Italian (apparently). Well, it works better than that sounds, if only somewhat.
Blue in the Face	Wayne Wang	USA	So what happens if you do a movie and your actors are having such a great time that they just won't stop? Well, Blue in the Face is what happens. Made directly after Smoke, with most of the same characters, actors and continuing circumstances, it grabs the same interconnectedness and jazzy plot twists that Altman's Short Cuts lunged for and missed. Syncopated with upbeat urban jive and driven by Wang's and the actors' (including Lou Reed and a handful of others who just dropped in to the shoot) love affair with Brooklyn, this film is a sort of love note itself, directed to the unlooked for delights of the big city. Surprising live performance of `Fever' by one of the players capped the show.
Bedazzled **	Stanley Donen	Great Britain	Still find it kind of perplexing that the same director who did the frothy Funny Face made this sharp, rasp tongued, deliriously dark comedy vehicle for Peter Cook (maybe it's unkind, but I've always viewed Dudley Moore as Cook's appendage--seems like half of his lines are some variation of `Whadya mean?'). Cook (playing an arch Lucifer who runs a strip club while in London) literally moves heaven and earth to snare Moore's appealingly nebbish soul. Cook did such a super job writing and acting in this film that he more or less painted himself in a corner, left himself nowhere else to go. So it's a shame that this uncommonly funny piece isn't more often screened.

The Outro: well, there you have it. Some 29 shows. I'm just now easing my way back into movie houses. Can only now look a Jackie Chan double feature at the Roxie in the eye again. Every year I resolve to cut back and every year I always end up squeezing in a few more shows (e.g.: Living in Oblivion) at the last minute. Maybe I'm getting better. I didn't get tix for the 7 hour Hungarian dark comedy that was blurbed: "like a grimly despiritualized Tarkovsky" (More morose than a Russian film, sheesh!). Have to admit I was tempted for about two seconds.

Simon Agree pointed out that I left off the special showing of Pabst's Pandora's Box, one of the last major silents, a melodramatic examination of Berlin's pre-war seamy underbelly, starring the spectacular Louise Brooks and with a brand-new live performance score by SF's own Club Foot Orchestra. To correct this omission, here's my appraisal: "Just to hear this film merely described (Lulu tries to sleep with everybody, including Jack the Ripper: The End--well, let's see you do a better job!) would be to put you off--you should go see it to peer into the soul's darkness. Club Foot's score suits this film, although the fit was tighter with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Sherlock Jr." Ok, Si?

Anyhow, see you next year, at the Kabuki.

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