By Meredith Brody (June 13, 2025)
There’s always room for more noir in my life.
“In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City” will help out this summer at BAMPFA.
Category Archives: Films: Classics
CHAPLIN’S CINEMATIC MEALS
Curated by Gary Meyer (May 16, 2025)
As a child in London Charles Chaplin had a life of poverty and hardship. He was sent to a workhouse twice before he was nine years old. He got little to eat and there is speculation that is why there are so many food scenes in his movies.
Continue reading
Charlie Was My Co-Pilot- Celebrating Chaplin Days
By Gary Meyer. (May 13, 2025)
“A day without laughter is a day wasted” -Charlie Chaplin
I can’t imagine a more wonderful spring weekend than the Charlie Chaplin Days in Niles (Fremont), California, May 16-18. Starting with a tour of Eugene O’Neill’s house where Chaplin’s wife Oona grew up, the celebration includes plenty of restored Chaplin films made by the Essanay Studio on the big screen with audiences laughing uncontrollably at times. There are live presentations, rare footage and photos seen for the first time since they were made, walking tours, rides on a vintage diesel train, and the annual Charlie Look-Alike Contest. Continue reading
Barbarella Gives a Physical-According to AI
By Gary Meyer and his AI bestie (April 15, 2025)
When I read that (not my) POTUS was getting his physical from a Dr. Barbabella I misread it as the French satirical science fiction comic strip heroine created by Jean-Claude Forest and subsequent popular movie starring Jane Fonda, “Barbarella.” I wondered what ChatGBT could do with that. You will note in the comic strip balloons there are misspelled words and the bottom panels are partially cut off sometimes. ChatGBT wants to be sassy and hip in its responses.
I asked for : “BARBARELLA as a doctor treating Donald Trump.”
Comfort for the Anglophiles – Well, Everybody, Actually: The Mostly British Festival 2025
by Meredith Brody (February 4, 2025)
We cinephiles contain multitudes. Luckily, the SF Bay Area continues to cater to its diverse audiences with a number of well-curated film festivals. One of my favorites has always been the annual Mostly British Film Festival, which colonizes (haha) the Vogue Theater for 8 days in February. Mostly British includes films from the UK, Ireland, Australia, India, South Africa, and New Zealand. Catnip for not only the Acorn and Britbox addicts, but for Anglophiles and others. Continue reading
Music Hath Charms
San Francisco’s A Day of Silents Features a Stellar Lineup of Musicians and Films on Sunday, February 2, 2025.
by Meredith Brody. (January 28,2025)
The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Photo by Pamela Gentile.
You’ve all heard that silent movies really weren’t SILENT: they all had live musical accompaniment, ranging from a solitary guy at an upright piano or a mighty Wurlitzer to up-to-110-member symphonic orchestras. When Carmine Coppola was about to go on tour in 1981 to conduct his new score for his son Francis Ford Coppola’s restoration of Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoleon, he reminisced about the silent movie palaces of his youth: “”When I was really young,” Mr. Coppola recalled, ”I would go to Broadway to see a movie. I remember The Thief of Bagdad, with Douglas Fairbanks; he always insisted on an original score. Those theaters – the Strand, the Rialto, the Rivoli, the Capitol – had 40-or 50-piece orchestras. It was so beautiful. I saw the Big Parade that way and What Price Glory and The Three Musketeers. ”
Noir Movies to Distract You from the Noir Going On Outside
by Meredith Brody.
(January 14,2025)
It’s that time of year—Noir City takes over Oaktown. Better than any holiday for fans of femme fatales, thrillers, suspense, dark twists, and classic cinema.
Noir City 22’s Wicked Women Thrills
(January 15, 2025)
“Where Winsome Women Turn Wicked!” is the theme of this year’s Noir City featuring 24 gritty thrillers in the best possible prints, in 35mm when available. All double bills—two movies for the price of one, “I think it’s important to make note of the problematic content and say things like, ‘Well, yes, the women had to be punished at the end of these movies,’ ” TCM host Alicia Malone told G. Allen Johnson for his excellent SF Chronicle article on the Festival. “But that also doesn’t negate the fact that for most of the film, you get to watch a powerful woman wielding her sexuality, using it as a weapon and drawing in these hapless men and getting to play, for these actresses, unlikable, complex characters. Women were front and center and very important in noir. And even though there was a lot of misogyny, a lot of face slapping and forced kissing, it also really gave them a chance to play these complex characters at a time when women didn’t have power.”
GOING OUT WITH A FRENCH TWIST
“The Man You Love to Hate” Takes Charge As The French Had A Name For It Takes A Final Bow
by Owen Field
FRENCH NOIR WITH A TWIST POSTERS AND TRAILERS
A GALLERY OF FRENCH ’24 Part Two POSTERS, PHOTOS AND TRAILERS
A collection of rare images and evocative movie art. Continue reading
SECRETS FROM THE MOVIE SET
An Interview with Producer Paul Zaentz
By Gary Meyer
(updated November 21, 2024)
34 Oscar nominations.
22 Wins including 3 Best Pictures.
That is only a fraction of the awards the Bay Area ‘s Saul Zaentz won for the terrific movies he brought to the international big screen.
The Berkeley FILM Foundation and the California Film Institute presented the Saul Zaentz Film Celebration, an event honoring the legacy of the legendary independent film producer, November 15-17, 2024, at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, California.
Amadeus shows at Davies Hall with the SF Symphony the score live on music. on Nov. 29-30, 2024. Tickets and info here.