Live Cinema is the contemporary revival of experiential cinema with a live element.
Celebrating her fortieth year shooting major film festivals in San Francisco and beyond, Gentile shares her love of world cinema, her capture of silver screens with live musical accompaniment that exemplifies and preserves the inimitable cinematic theater experience.
Category Archives: Films: Classics
SILENTS PLEASE-WITH SOUND
By Gary Meyer. (April 9, 2024)
The past several years, after the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, many of the attendees compare notes and proclaim the just completed Festival the best ever. Looking at the 2024 schedule I have a hunch that could be said again.
Starting Wednesday, April 10 at the Palace of Fine Arts with a stunning Technicolor restoration of the Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler THE BLACK PIRATE with live musical accompaniment by the Donald Sosin Ensemble, the Festival will offer 22 programs through Sunday, April 14 featuring popular stars including Clara Bow, Laurel and Hardy, Norma Talmadge, Buster Keaton, Brigitte Helm, and Harold Lloyd. Some big names may be in established classics, but others are in previously “lost” movies or those only available in poor quality prints before these screenings. Continue reading
MOREAU AND THE AUTEURES INVADE THE ROXIE
MCP’s Unique Look at Gender Issues in Classic French Film
OWEN FIELD (interviewing Phoebe Green and Don Malcolm)
(March 28,2024)
In the midst of its long-running rare French noir series (that will exceed 150 titles screened when it concludes this fall), Midcentury Productions has opened the door to an entirely other aspect of classic French cinema: what we might call “the battle of the sexes.” It’s a rich area, because that battle is still going on—particularly in America, with reproductive rights suddenly front and center.
Back in the Criteriumb Closet #3
Eric Drysdale is back with his third visit to the Criteriumb closet where he chooses movies for his collection—do they really exist?
Why December 4th is the Date To Reintroduce Yourself To… THE LOST CONTINENT OF CLASSIC FRENCH FILM NOIR
By Owen Field
(Including fragments of an interview with Midcentury Productions’ Don Malcolm.) (November 30, 2023)
THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT is one of the world’s best-kept open secrets, spilling out a world of film noir—or, more accurately, perhaps, a “lost continent” that has been relentlessly explored at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco since November 2014.
Lino Ventura in WITNESS IN THE CITY (UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE)
COOKING WITH JOAN CRAWFORD
By Jenny Hammerton
(October 8, 2023)
Are you ready to sprinkle some stardust around your kitchen?
From the earliest days of Hollywood, movie stars shared their favourite dishes with fan magazines, syndicated newspapers and cookbook compilers. I’ve been collecting these film star recipes for around 25 years, and my stash now numbers over 8,000. I’m gradually cooking my way through them. Some of the results are wonderful, some are inedible, but I always get the feeling that the glamour of tinsel town is rubbing off on me when I am elbow-deep in singing cowboy chilli or mashing up some glamour girl guacamole. Continue reading
Lulu Opens Pandora’s Box
As we approach the exciting special screening of Pandora’s Box starring Louise Brooks at the Paramount Theater, Saturday, May 6, 2023, EatDrinkFilms brings you an international collection of posters, ephemera, documentaries and other fascinating treasures related to G.W Pabst’s restored masterpiece.
Lulu By the Bay
by Thomas Gladysz
(Updated May 8, 2023 to inclde photos from the May 6th performance)
On Saturday, May 6, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is set to screen Pandora’s Box at the Paramount theater in Oakland. This legendary silent film, which stars Louise Brooks as Lulu, can rightly be described as a Bay Area favorite. In fact, as exhibition records suggest, Pandora’s Box has been screened more often in the San Francisco Bay Area than anywhere else in the United States.
“Pandora’s Box” – A Stunning Film on the Big Screen at the Spectacular Paramount
By Nancy Friedman
(April 25, 2023)
Maligned, misunderstood, and mercilessly censored when it was released in 1929 – and virtually forgotten for the next three decades – Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) is today acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of silent cinema. That honor is attributable in part to the artistry of director Georg Wilhelm Pabst and cinematographer Günther Krampf, two giants of German film. But the film’s real magic resides in the indelible performance of its American star, Louise Brooks, whom the film historian David Thomson has called “one of the most mysterious and potent figures in the history of the cinema.” The British film critic Pamela Hutchinson has said that Brooks – with her impish smile, dancer’s lithe body, and gleaming black helmet of bobbed hair – “both defines the Roaring Twenties and stands outside it. She is timeless.”
Club Foot Orchestra Plays “Pandora’s Box”
By Nancy Friedman
(April 24, 2023)
How many times has Richard Marriott seen Pandora’s Box? When I suggested 50, he said that number was conservative. “Probably double that,” he guessed.
They Were Calling It the Twentieth Century
An excerpt from Dana Stevens’ “CAMERA MAN”
(Greatly updated December 3, 2022)
In this genre-defying work of cultural history, the chief film critic of Slate places comedy legend and acclaimed filmmaker Buster Keaton’s unique creative genius in the context of his time.
Buster Keaton will be celebrated at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive during the month of December, 2022. Starting Sunday, December 4 with SHERLOCK JR. and two shorts and continuing through Wednesday, December 21, five features and 15 shorts will be screened with musical accompaniment. Author Dana Stevens will introduce several programs. Continue reading
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