Gerald Peary, A RELUCTANT FILM CRITIC

Posted on by

A sharp, funny, and deeply engaging memoir, A Reluctant Film Critic traces Gerald Peary’s unlikely journey from a bookish, movie-obsessed boy in small-town America to one of the country’s most distinctive critical voices. Told in vivid, fast-moving vignettes, it’s a story of curiosity, rebellion, and discovery—of a life spent both inside and outside the darkened cinema.  EatDrinkFilms is proud to present an excerpt from the fascinating interview by Bill Marx that concludes the book. Continue reading →

Charlie Was My Co-Pilot- Celebrating Chaplin Days

Posted on by

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 →

Music Hath Charms

Posted on by

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. ”

Continue reading →

155 RARE FRENCH NOIRS CAN’T BE WRONG

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading →

MOREAU AND THE AUTEURES INVADE THE ROXIE

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading →

Silents, Please!

Posted on by

Anticipating the SFSFF’s Day of Silents Makes My Endorphins Rise

by Meredith Brody

(December 1, 2022)

William Haines and Marion Davies in SHOW PEOPLE

I keep my TV tuned (do we say tuned, nowadays?) to TCM. It’s what greets me when I snap on the TV (do we say snap on, nowadays), and has resulted in me being surprised that The Apartment or The Women or Wild River or Touch of Evil is playing. I pause to watch “for JUST a few minutes,” and end up trapped, mesmerized by The Whole Thing. Continue reading →

THE BEST PROGRAMMING IN TOWN: French Noir

Posted on by

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.    

Continue reading →