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: thrillers
“Bound” Director Comes Home With Rave Reviews
By Noma Faingold (May 15, 2025)
Writer/director/producer/actor Isaac Hirotsu Woofter was on his phone minutes before his feature debut, “Bound,” was being screened in February, during SF IndieFest at the Roxie Theater. It was a Bay Area homecoming for Woofter and he wanted to make sure the friends and family attending were taken care of.
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
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.
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.
Setting the Noir Bar – Eddie Muller’s Cocktail Recipes
(January 18, 2024)
A year ago, in advance of the release of Eddie Muller’s new book of Film Noir inspired cocktails, we published a sneak preview of two recipes.
As Noir City 21 plays January 19-28 at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, California —and is coming to cities across the country, EatDrinkFilms is pleased to offer a few more goodies to quench your thirst for a great movie and an inspired drink.
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)
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.
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.”
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