A BETTER ALTERNATIVE TO KEEP YOU FROM GOING NUTS ON ELECTION DAY

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Ideas for a Political Movies Festival

By Gary Meyer

I think it is much healthier to watch reruns (WEST WING, JOHN ADAMS or VEEP) than the returns on Election Night.

Or better yet revisit some great movies. 

I actually started programming a series several years ago and updated it for 2020.

I suggest some double features or make your own festival. This was done too quickly to provide details or links to most films.

These are not in any special order but let’s start with a cartoon. BETTY BOOP FOR PRESIDENT.

Stanley Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE plus THE MOUSE THAT ROARED both with Peter Sellars in multiple roles.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: two takes from John Frankenheimer and Jonathan Demme.

Preston Sturges’ THE GREAT MCGINTY with Frank Capra’s STATE OF THE UNION

BULWORTH plus BLAZE  

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN and THE POST

BOB ROBERTS with THE IDES OF MARCH

Plus selected short cartoon. DAFFY DUCK FOR PRESIDENT

INDEPENDENCE DAY and MARS ATTACKS

WAG THE DOG plus THE CANDIDATE

MEET JOHN DOE plus MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON

THE CONTENDER and PRIMARY COLORS

IN THE LOOP plus THE CAMPAIGN

CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR with GAME CHANGE

IN THE LINE OF FIRE plus PARALLAX VIEW

FAIR GAME and NO WAY OUT

IDIOCRACY with TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE

THE LAST HURRAH and BEAU JAMES

Make your own  Nixon Follies Film Festival from: NIXON, DICK, SECRET HONOR, ELVIS AND NIXON, and FROST/NIXON.

Before he was President Barack Obama, he had a bad story and these two fictionalized films explore that time in SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU and BARRY.

President Kennedy selection: JFK, PT 109, THIRTEEN DAYS, EXECUTIVE ACTION.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: SUNRISE AT CAMPEBELLO, HYDE PARK ON HUDSON, HELL-BENT FOR ELECTION ( a UPA allegorical cartoon directed by Chuck Jones designed to inspire voting for FDR) ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN and sequel ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN:THE WHITE HOUSE YEARS, WARM SPRINGS (and and exception to my docs rule: Ken Burns’ marathon THE ROOSEVELTS).

Abraham Lincoln inspired numerous films including

LINCOLN, YOUNG MR, LINCOLN, ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN-VAMPIRE HUNTER, and THE CONSPIRATOR.

And there are other celluloid presidents to consider.

LBJ, , GIVE ‘EM HELL, HARRY!, and WILSON are a few.

I suspect Olive Stone and Michael Moore will take on Trump and I plan to stay far away.

Let’s take a break for BALLOT BOX BUNNY. Watch here.

To see what actors played real Presidents take a look here.

Are you in the mood for some Film Noir or thrillers with dirty politicians?

 

SUDDENLY

THE RACKET

 

Try Ranker’s Best Political comedies, The Best Movies about Presidents, and The Best Political Movies.  There are several more lists at the bottom of each group.

 

OY, HAVE I GOT A FILM FOR YOU A Preview of the 39th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, 2019

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By Gary Meyer

One of the challenges for any film festival is finding the perfect opening night movie.

A curator wants a terrific movie first but also it must be a crowd pleaser— Not too experimental or heavily political. You don’t want to alienate the opening night audience who may not be as adventurous as those attending many other movies during the event. They need to leave the theater in a good mood and hopefully want to return for more shows. But you want it to be a movie that also means something to people and leaves them thinking as well as entertained.

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Opening Night photo by Pat Mazzera

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FRENCH NOIR IN THE SPRING, TOO? INCROYABLE!

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A Date with Double Exposures: Don Malcolm’s “Gallic Evangelism”

Reaches A Fever Pitch As He Aims for 101 French Noirs in 5 Years…

AS TOLD TO OWEN FIELD

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An increasing fraction of the “noiristas” who travel from the Castro Theatre (lone dowager of San Francisco’s once-abundant “movie palace” tradition) to the upstart Roxie are grasping the odd, counterintuitive idea that their favorite “genre” (don’t let’s start THAT argument here!) might have a different history than the one commonly purveyed.

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A FRENCH DISCOVERY FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LOST CONTINENT

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Don Malcolm and Phoebe Green explain the particulars of their new French revival series to Owen Field.Enree lobbby card.jpgThe first of four films taking lovers of THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT into non-noir regions of classic French cinema will play in the intimate confines of the Little Roxie Theatre in San Francisco on April 4 at 6:30 pm, with a repeat screening on Saturday April 6 at 4:30. Consider it a “Sneak Preview” for a potentially landmark collection of cinematic discoveries rivaling the ongoing French noir juggernaut that enters Year 5 with two series later in 2019. Continue reading →

THE FRENZY OF FRENCH 5 AND ITS FABULOUS FIXATION ON THE FRENETIC FIFTIES (part one)

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A two-part exoneration by Anastasia Lin 

including conversation snippets with Don Malcolm

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  1. JUST WHAT IS HE DOING TO US THIS TIME?

Is there such a “thing” as “too much of a good thing?” Devotees (and I use that term, er, charitably) of internet porn might disagree, but even cinephiles (who also like to watch…) may feel that the inestimable Don Malcolm, he of the flashlight and the Lost Continent, just might have had his pith helmet too tightly affixed with his latest Roxie extravaganza: a 20-film collection of forgotten French film noir that moth-flames the 1950s with a heightened level of relentlessness. Continue reading →

Women flout social norms in Hollywood Before the Code

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by Pam Grady

“Every train carries its cargo of sin,” says the Rev. Mr. Carmichael (Lawrence Grant) as the journey gets underway in Shanghai Express (1932), the fourth of seven collaborations between star Marlene Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg. The cargo in this case is two ladies whose reputation precedes them — Chinese courtesan Hui Fei (Anna May Wong) and the notorious white “coaster” — a local euphemism for prostitute — known as Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich). They are but two of the fallen women to be found in Elliot Lavine and I WAKE UP DREAMING’s latest festival of classics, Hollywood Before the Code, screening at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre for six consecutive Wednesdays beginning Feb. 24. Continue reading →

Dash’s Crib – Where modern crime fiction was born

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by Eddie Muller

[John Huston’s film version of Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. Turner Classic Movies presents screenings Feb. 21 and 24 at theaters around the country. For more, click here and for the line-up of TCM Big Screen Classics.  And, as is our policy, look for extras after the article-ed.]

The first time I walked into Sam Spade’s apartment I thought my head would explode. Continue reading →

Gothic Cinema: Darkness and Desire

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by David Robson

For nearly 20 years, film-and-video curator Joel Shepard has programmed one of the country’s best film programs at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Shepard’s new series is Gothic Cinema: Darkness and Desire, which spotlights the moody shadows, doomed love and nightmarish atmospheres of Gothic films from more than several decades. This weekend sees a marvelous Valentine’s Day pairing of the series’ first two films, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca and James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein, with 11 more features to come before the series wraps in April. Continue reading →