“The Man You Love to Hate” Takes Charge As The French Had A Name For It Takes A Final Bow
by Owen Field
Category Archives: France
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
155 RARE FRENCH NOIRS CAN’T BE WRONG
By Owen Field
THE sheer monumentality of Don Malcolm’s THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT “festival of the lost continent” has been difficult to grasp over its ten-year run. It resembles a whale obscured in a misty ocean—in this case, a mist-enshrouded history with some surprising historical suppressions.
Jean Gabin and Brigette Bardot in LOVE IS MY PROFESSION / EN CAS DE MALHEUR
Its singular insistence on a radically revised paradigm for the history of film noir is a bridge too far for those all too comfortable with either the “American exceptionalist” origin theories or the nebulous “darkness has no borders” mantra that steadfastly sidesteps Malcolm’s central insight.
LES MISÉRABLES HAS A FRENCH NOIR SPINE
By Robert Ottoson
One doesn’t have to consult IMDB to see which novel has been filmed the most times.
It’s easily LES MISÉRABLES.
The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher
By Julie Lindow
It is rare that watching a film can provoke a similar response as reading an author’s work, but The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher does just that. One feels both starved and satisfied. Fortunately, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher’s words on screen and paper not only awaken our hunger, but teach us how to listen to our own desires, how to slow down and pay attention, be curious, sensual, in the moment, and ultimately, how to more intensely live and love. 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.
Champagne Biopic “Widow Clicquot” opens Sonoma International Film Festival’s Tasty Program
By Geneva Anderson
(March 16, 2024)
Haley Bennett rises to become the Grand Dame of Champagne in Thomas Napper’s “Widow Clicquot”
The Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF27) is just around the corner, March 20-24. Set in the heart of the wine country, with a program that emphasizes film, food, wine, parties, and community engagement, SIFF has twice been voted one of the 25 coolest festivals in the world by MovieMaker magazine. SIFF27 showcases 43 narrative and 16 documentary features plus 48 shorts from over 25 countries. Continue reading
The Pleasures of an Omakase Movie
By Gaetano Kazuo Maida
“It’s never finished. It’s always in movement.”—Michel Troisgros 
Okay, so let’s say you’re like me and you don’t customarily (like, never!) spend $1000 for lunch for two, and it happens that you don’t live in France, and yet you have good taste in food, you know what it is to enjoy a fine wine occasionally, you’re curious about the synergies between sustainable agriculture and restaurants, and at the moment are feeling a bit peckish. Well, the universe is generous, and Menu Plaisirs Les Troisgros offers a reasonable facsimile of enjoying one of the world’s top haute cuisine institutions from the comfort of your own seat or couch for four hours, about the duration of a really nice long lunch, albeit without the tasting bit. Continue reading
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)
GROWING UP IN LOVE WITH THE MOVIES
By Meredith Brody
(November 5, 2022)
I’ve been a film buff ever since I first saw a re-issue of Cinderella at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland when I was just a tot.
I wasn’t able to fully exercise my film buff inclinations for the next decade or so, as I was dependent on my parents for transportation. They made the movie choices, as well. Oddly, since they were both New Yorkers and went to movies weekly or more often as children, there was a joke amongst my siblings and I: “They take us to two movies a year, whether we need them or not.”
THE BEST PROGRAMMING IN TOWN: French Noir
By Meredith Brody
(November 5, 2022)
San Francisco is lucky to have Donald Malcolm’s French Noir Series, “The French Had a Name for It” at the Roxie.
The upcoming festival programs 15 films over four days at the Little Roxie, and once again I will be there for all of it. It unspools on Sunday November 6 and Monday November 7, and the following on Saturday November 12 and Sunday November 13.
eatdrinkfilms.com 