By Monica Nolan
For seventeen years now I’ve devoted the last week of January to Noir City, and the festival never fails to thrill me. This year’s annual valentine to the dark side of the dream factory opens at the Castro on Friday, January 24, and all over the Bay Area cinephiles like me are beginning to dream in black and white, the vintage-minded among us brushing off fedoras and veiled hats, polishing wingtips and spectator pumpsin preparation for opening night. Soon we’ll be sinking into the Castro’s cushioned seats for ten days of heists and double-crosses, killers and con-artists, revenge, paranoia, and bleak despair.
Pure heaven.
It’s hard to be objective when you’re watching a film about people you’ve known and cared about for nearly 40 years, but I’ll try. I guess you could say that prolific British director Michael Apted’s Up documentaries represent the original reality series, following the lives of a group of seven year-old schoolkids he first met in 1964, and then checking in on their lives via celluloid every seven years. I myself first caught up with the series watching 28. 63 Up is now in theaters, and Apted’s “kids” are even more interesting as they approach retirement. And although Apted’s numerous Academy Award nominations for 1980’s Coal Miner’s Daughter assured his place in the annals of cinema, it will be the stories of Tony, Andrew, Sue, Nick, Bruce, Jackie, Peter, Lynne, Paul, Symon, John, Suzy, and Neil for which he might best be remembered.
