Jason goes to Noir City--Day 2

4 great Film Noirs (Films Noir?) on Saturday. And for the first double bill, I did them in reverse order.

For the first trashy B, we went to the library with QUIET PLEASE, MURDER (1942.) In the opening scenes, Jim Fleg (George Sanders) murders a librarian and steals a one of a kind book--Richard Burbage's original copy of Hamlet (Burbage was the first actor to ever play Hamlet.) But Fleg isn't just a thief, he's a master forger. Why sell the original, when he can sell 50 fakes to all the rich rubes, who can't even report him because they'd be confessing to knowingly buying stolen goods. But his associate Myra Blandy (Gail Patrick) sells to one particularly dangerous man, Martin Cleaver (Sidney Blackmer,) who happens to be an antiquity collector for the Germans, and doesn't need to go to the cops when he finds he's been swindled. Throw in the trustworthy investigator Hal McByrne (Richard Denning) a possible romance, a double-cross, a hostage situation, and an timely air raid siren, and it's a recipe for one insane night in a library. And I happened to speak to a couple of current and former library workers afterwards, and one assured me that's exactly what it's like to work in a library, and the other told me that some of it was not that realistic.

And then the classy A, THIS GUN FOR HIRE (1942.) Alan Ladd stars as a Raven, a hard-nosed, ice-cold assassin in San Francisco. He completes a job for one Willard Gates (Laird Cregar) who pays him with hot money--it's been reported as stolen from Nitro Chemical in L.A. So there's a cat-and-mouse game, and Raven pulls Miss Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake) into it by pure chance. She's a singing magician, and Mr. Gates side job is running a nightclub. He just hired her to a gig in his club in L.A. Meanwhile her boyfriend Michael Crane is a detective from L.A., who was on vacation in San Francisco until he got a call about hot money being passed in San Francisco so he's on the case. You know, for how hard-nosed this movie is about making a cold-blooded assassin the hero, there's a lot of goofy coincidences and other silliness in it. But at the core it's a tense cat-and-mouse thriller with an international espionage angle. And it's awesome.

Then a nice break, a couple of classy cocktails, and time for the evening double-bill. This time in the proper order.

The first classy A was Alfred Hitchcock's SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943.) A story about Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton,) a beloved uncle who turns out to be a really evil guy (as someone who loves being an uncle, and being evil, this really spoke to me. Note: I'm nowhere near as evil as Joseph Cotton in this film.) Little Charlie (Teresa Newton) adores her Uncle Charlie. Heck, she's named after him, they're practically twins. In fact, just when she's hoping he'd visit, and goes to the telegraph office to wire him, they get a telegraph from him that he'll be coming to visit them, in Santa Rosa, California (oh yeah, it's another one of Hitchcock's Bay Area films!) This is a rare and wonderful Hitchcock film that is driven by character arc, not by plot. It's all about little Charlie learning...well, not exactly hard evidence, but suspicious things about Uncle Charlie. Especially when a detective Jack Graham (MacDonald Carey) shows up and tells her that he might be a man they're looking for in a nationwide manhunt. But then, there's also a guy out in Boston who might be the man. At first she can't believe it. But then...small bits of circumstantial evidence start piling up. Hitchcock really has fun with his characters in this one. Like the little know-it-all sister who reads two books a week. Or the father and his best friend who entertain themselves with an endless stream of hypothetical murder plots (perhaps a comic stand-in for Hitchcock's own imagination.) The ending is thrilling, but it's the journey that makes this movie a delight.

And then the final film, which I refuse to call trashy. It's a disturbingly timely story of fascism (from the time when we knew fascists were the bad guys,) ADDRESS UNKNOWN (1944.) Max Eisenstein (Morris Carnovsky) and Martin Shulz (Paul Lukas) are best friends and business partners, running an art gallery in San Francisco and dining on traditional German food. And they are close to becoming family, as Shulz's son Heinrich (Peter van Eyck) is going to ask Eisenstein's daughter Griselle (K.T. Stevens) to marry him. But when they arrive, they announce they've decided not to get married. It would be too disruptive to Griselle's ambition to be an actress. So they go with the original plan. Max stays in San Francisco and runs the gallery. Shulz moves back to Germany to procure art for the gallery. And they swap their children. Heinrich stays with Max and helps him in the gallery. Griselle goes with Martin (and his wife an many small children) to Germany, where she has opportunities to start her acting career. All is good...and then that Adolf Hitler guy comes into power. Max asks Martin about him, that gets the attention of one Baron von Friesche (Carl Esmond) who urges him to set Max straight about how he's restoring German pride. The friends become increasingly estranged as Martin joins the party for the sake of his career, and then out of cowardice. Things really go bad when Griselle (who changed her name to Stone for the marquee) is revealed to be Jewish, and there's a murderous riot at her premiere. Then things get really, really dark and deadly serious. It was a low budget B movie, but director William Cameron Menzies proved to be courageous and innovative, in a movie that took Nazis--and cowardice in the face of them--to task, at a time when that was a pretty important.

Total Running Time: 334 minutes
My Total Minutes: 466,530

Jason goes to Noir City--Opening Night

My favorite city in the world, and it only exists for 10 days a year. Actually, come to think about it, you could also say that about my other favorite city in the world. But that's not important right now. What's important is Noir City is my happy place right now...at least until next weekend, when it conflicts with Indiefest and I have to make some hard choices.

Eddie was looking dapper, bourbon was flowing, Miss Noir City was in fine form--and fine voice, as one third of the pre-show musical entertainment, The Century Sisters. And for that matter, so was Victoria Mature, Victor Mature's...surprisingly young daughter (not granddaughter) helping Eddie introduce the first film.

I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941) kicks off the "Classy A" half of the program. Victor Mature stars as Frankie Christopher, a promoter who is wanted for murder. Seems that a girl he groomed for stardom was found murdered, with him standing over the body. He swears he just found her there, but top cop Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar, looking creepy and menacing) knows he's guilty. He just needs the time to prove it. And Frankie just needs time and a few breaks to prove he's innocent. This is early in the Noir movement (the next 10 days will take us from 1941 up to 1953) but it's got all the elements right from the beginning. Twists, fear, deception, hot dames who might be bad news or might be the best thing ever. And the great cinematography that plays with the shadows. Plus...a lot of creepy scenes where one character breaks into another's bedroom and wakes them up. That's just wrong, man!

AMONG THE LIVING (1941) and the other half of the program is the "Trashy B." (by the way, the two titles together--"I WAKE UP SCREAMING AMONG THE LIVING"--would make a movie that I already want to see.) B pictures are shorter, cheaper, and always a lot cheesier than the As. And this one borders on the ludicrous.... Check that, it's on the other side of the border with ludicrous. Mr. Raden, a grand industrialist who built the town of Radentown, has passed away. His son, John Raden (Albert Dekker,) has returned to town for the funeral, and also to open up the old mill and get people back to work. But there's a little family secret not even he knows of. His twin brother Paul (also Albert Dekker) is still alive. The family doctor Ben Saunders (Harry Carey) faked the death certificate when he was 10, buried an unknown child's body in his grave, and kept Paul locked in a secret room of the old family home for 20 some years, because...reasons, I guess? Anyway, Paul is a little mentally unstable, ever since he tried to break up an incident when dad was beating mom. Screams set him off, and he covers his ears and goes nuts. And when he finds out that dad was buried next to mom, not far away as his negro servant Pompey (Ernest Whitman) said, he goes on a bit of a rampage. News spreads that there's a murderer on the loose. Meanwhile Paul goes into town with a wad of money and absolutely no wits. He meets a nice girl Millie (Susan Hayward) and tries to be nice. But...bad things happen. Let's just leave it at that. I know this is kind of an abrupt end to this post...but not nearly as abrupt as the end of the movie.

Total Running Time: 149 minutes
My Total Minutes: 466,196

Jason comes back from hiatus

I know I said I'd be back in 2018, and here it is nearly a month in. I don't think I explicitly said I'd be back at the beginning of 2018, but that was the intention. I didn't account for how busy the beginning of each quarter is for me.

Anyway, I've seen a small handful of movies since I went on hiatus. Of course, I finished of Another Hole in the Head and the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival (both fun festivals, and frustrating that they're at the same time. But I think the entire crossover audience of Jewish films and horror fans is...me.)

I caught THOR: RAGNAROK, which was hilarious is excellent the Taika Waititi way I hoped it would be.

COCO made me cry. OLAF'S FROZEN ADVENTURE made me wretch.

I spent a lot of time with silent films, mostly at my beloved Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, but also at the glorious Castro for SF Silent Film Fest's Day of Silents.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI deserves all the praise it's getting, and none of the baffling backlash.

Of course I saw STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI--twice. It also deserves all the praise and...very little of the backlash. But then, I didn't feel that way until after the second screening. I didn't get all of what Rian Johnson was going for the first time. Also, I have to say that scene--you know the one I'm talking about--is just about the greatest thing ever put on cinema. I'll always call it the "Oh, SHIT!" scene, because the first time I saw it, on opening night (thanks to a good friend who scored some tickets) when that scene came up, the movie was silent and the audience was silent save for one guy who yelled out, "Oh, SHIT!"

And the night before taking off to see my family in Anchorage, AK, I celebrated a Noir City Xmas with Eddie Mueller, MANHANDLED, and ALIAS BOSTON BLACKIE.

And then earlier in 2018, I kicked it off with a little Midnites for Maniacs tribute to Gus Van Sant. TO DIE FOR is hilarious and provocative, a great satire on celebrity culture, with a faux-documentary format that it seems every sitcom is copying now (no, it didn't start with THE OFFICE, it at least goes back to 1995. And then Van Sant's controversial shot-for-shot remake of PSYCHO (1998.) I'll admit I was one of the snobs who didn't care to see it back then because, heck, the original is already perfect (I am a big fan of remaking shitty, forgotten movies, though.) But I do remember my sister and cousin seeing it, and saying they liked it better than "the black and white version." I chalked it up to them being young and stupid, but.... Okay, it might still be unnecessary, since the original is still perfect. But it's also a good movie, and good movies are totally necessary. I'm happy I finally saw it.

Oh, I saw THE SHAPE OF WATER. Yeah, that chick totally has sex with a fish-dude. And it's an exciting story about love, acceptance, and the Cold War. But what really excited me about it was...she lives upstairs from a theater! Oh my God! I wanna live upstairs from a theater! Especially a grand movie palace! Why aren't there apartments above the Castro?

THE POST is...pretty good. I can't say there's anything particularly wrong about it. But here's a sampling of what I was thinking when I watched it:
Man, Meryl Streep is a great actress. Yup, that's totally Meryl Streep being a great actress playing...what's her name, the owner of the paper. Yup, in this movie The Washington Post is owned by Meryl Streep.
Man, Tom Hanks is a great actor. Yup, that's totally Tom Hanks being a great actor playing...what's his name, the editor of the paper. Yup, in this movie The Washington Post is edited by Tome Hanks.
Hey, that's Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, from MR. SHOW WITH BOB AND DAVID. They're both playing serious roles. They've both played serious roles before. I don't know if I've seen them do that together, though. They probable have. But still, it's weird that Bob and David are doing scenes together but it's not a Mr. Show sketch.
Hey, remember when Tom Hanks was a comic actor, and then he made the leap into serious drama with PHILADELPHIA? Tom Hanks is in this movie, too. Maybe Bob and David are hoping some of that magic rubs off on them.
Boy, they're really, really hammering the point that it's bad for the President to attack the press. They seriously hope Trump will watch it...but even if he does there's no chance he changes his tune.
A whole lot of other thoughts....
...
And somewhere near the bottom...
...
The Pentagon Papers.

I had more fun at Niles, included the long-awaited DVD release of our brand new (a couple of years old) silent film, BRONCHO BILLY AND THE BANDIT'S SECRET. Stop by the museum and pick yourself up a copy.

And finally, I'm currently in Noir City. But that deserves it's own post.

My Total Minutes:466,047

Jason...takes a hiatus

Some might notice I basically already have. Anyway, it was just about a year ago today that I rebooted, because 2016 just...broke me. Turns out this year has been just as hard. So I'm not even rebooting. I apologize to the remainder of Docfest, to the day I spent at Frameline (especially Julie Sokolow's excellent WOMAN ON FIRE,) to the Niles Film Museum, both for Charlie Chaplin Days (featuring the excellent insights and entertainment of Dan Kamin, the guy who taught Robert Downey, Jr. to play Chaplin) and for the Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival.

I especially apologize to my friends who made the hilarious webseries Doucheaholics. I had a great time at the premiere and after party, and if I can find some time in my hectic life, I really want to be part of season 2.

I apologize to the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival and to Another Hole in the Head, both playing right now and for the next couple of weeks. In fact, I'm emceeing Another Hole in the Head, so please come out and watch some horror films with me. And I'll be back at SVJFF for the end, just as soon as Holehead is over.

And I apologize to my readers (I hesitate to imagine I actually have fans) because I'm sure you were just dying to hear my insights about all these festivals as well as some feature films like SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (very good, but missing a scene where the people of New York come to the rescue, which were the best parts of previouse Spider-Man movies) or WONDER WOMAN (awesome!!!!) or MOTHER! (yikes! Darren Aronofsky hates God, and isn't afraid to say it!) or BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Gorgeous, liked it, still processing what it's "about"--much like the first BLADE RUNNER.)

Anyway, this time I'm not even up for a reboot. This is a hiatus. I'm officially giving myself permission to walk away from this blog...until the New Year. See you in 2018. If something strikes me as especially noteworthy, I'll write about it on my Facebook and/or Twitter.

Of course, I'm still counting the minutes I spend watching movies.

My Total Minutes: 434,109

Jason goes to Docfest--Day 11

A big five-film Saturday, so let's jump right in, starting with THE SURROUNDING GAME, all about the game of Go. We get a brief tutorial on the rules and history of the game, and how the very simple rules lead to all sorts of complicated emergent properties. But the drama is about three young Americans attempting to become the first professional players from the West. They're interesting people, a bit maniacal in their pursuits. In fact, that's something that really struck me. I had never played, but I had heard about how it's a beautiful game and even if you lose there's a zen-like appreciation for the beautiful patterns that are created while playing. In fact, the competitors seem to be the least appreciative of the beauty (and it's alluded to in the movie that that's not just an American quirk, the professionals in Asia are all about winning, not beauty.) The people who appreciate the beauty are all the craftsmen. The people who hand craft the game boards and pieces, they're chill. The players...well they live or die based on victories. They aren't supposed to be openly demonstrative, but they say and you can tell that they are ecstatic when they win and crushed when they lose. You know, just like any other sport. 

Oh, and only recently did an AI beat the undisputed human champion in Go. So much of the movie is spent insisting that despite the simple rules it's actually so much more complicated than chess that only the human mind can play it well. And then that's all thrown out at the end. Not in the movie, but in the Q and A, we also learned that some of the AI's winning moves are low level simple stuff that high level masters would mock a student for trying.

Next up was a bit of political campaign docs, starting with the short ELECTION NIGHT. That would be the 2016 American Presidential election night, as seen by nervous patrons and workers in a pub in London. 2 of them were happy with the result.

And that was the lead-in for the feature, NAT BATES FOR MAYOR. Richmond, California is a Bay Area city and home to a huge Chevron refinery. In fact, as a resident of the Bay Area, I only know it as the town around that Chevron refinery (where there was a major fire and shelter-in-place emergency a few years back) that you have to drive through if you want to get to Marin County from the East Bay. Nat Bates is a longtime city council member, and he ran for mayor in 2014. And he supported Chevron. And Chevron supported him--to the tune of $3 million. Allegedly. Unofficially. These were political action committees that can't work directly with the candidate. But his opponent, Tom Butt, isn't exactly squeaky clean, either. He's not in the pocket of Chevron, but he is the old white guy who has a history (alleged) of not taking care of his black or poor constituents. But he is supported by the Richmond Progressive Alliance. But are they the solution, or are they out of touch do-gooders (who hold fundraisers in Berkeley, not even in Richmond) who just want to dictate to Richmond's working class black residents. After all, Chevron does provide a heck of a lot of good jobs, and ~40% of the city's tax revenue...

Okay, I'm not going to pretend I understand the local politics of Richmond. I do know that the filmmakers do an excellent job of neither judging nor praising any candidate. Everyone has their flaws, everyone comes off looking a little dirty. It's kind of the opposite of sausages. The end result might be somewhat unappetizing, but it's pretty interesting watching it get made.

Then for a bit of weirdness with CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER. A joyful tribute to the typewriter, a machine that is supposed to be made obsolete with computers and word processing. But it still has it's devotees, and maybe it's here to stay. There are celebrity fans, most notably and charmingly Tom Hanks. And there's a repair shop in Berkeley that'll keep your machine working (and it gave the film it's name.) There's an artist who re-purposes typewriter parts into beautiful sculptures. There are writers and musician who write their plays or lyrics exclusively on typewriters, and talk about how it is so much better for their creativity. And there are collectors, especially one who collects antique typewriters, including the early designs that didn't work out (hey, if anyone out there knows of a Sholes and Glidden that the owner is willing to part with, let him know!) And it's all bookended with the very strange story of the Royal Road Test. Chucking a Royal typewriter out of a speeding car and documenting the scattered pieces. Damn, this was a fun movie. Makes me wish I had written this review on a typewriter, then scanned it in and posted the photo rather than this boring, boring text. Best I can do on short notice is use the somewhat typewriter-ish Courier font.

Next up was ALL THE RAGE, the intensely personal story of the work of Dr Sarno. Co-director Michael Galinsky has suffered from back pain on and off for many years. So did his father. So do many people. It's a verifiable epidemic. And many people are getting surgery, taking pills, etc. to deal with it. But Dr Sarno has been treating it for years, as a psychosomatic disease. Of course, first he does search for a physical cause--a muscle tear, a tumor, etc. But unless he finds something, his diagnosis is TMS. From my layman's understanding, the idea is that the unconscious mind creates pain in the body so your conscious mind will focus on that rather than the unpalatable emotions. The treatment is knowledge. Patients swear by it, including such celebrities as Larry David and Howard Stern. It has personally help Galinsky. But the medical establishment dismisses it. Although it's pretty interesting how that might be changing. See, this production, which was started over a decade ago, was put on hold as funding was scarce and other projects took priority. But when stresses caught up with Galinsky and his back pain returned with a vengeance, he returned to Dr Sarno, not just as a patient but to finish the movie. And he found...well, not the establishment embracing him, but a for more allies than he had just a decade ago. And research in the mind-body connection is a hot topic, at least in psychology circles if not in the larger medical community. (The film presents a brief timeline of how thinking about the mind and body got disconnected in the Western world--short version is historically it was a resolution of a power struggle between the church and science.) I'm not qualified to judge the scientific merits of Dr Sarno's theories, although I will say I find them plausible (for what that's worth) and the movie does an excellent job of making the case.

And then I finished the day with ON A KNIFE EDGE. Five years in the life of a proud teenage Lakota, George Dull Knife, as he becomes a young activist in AIM--the American Indian Movement. There's not a lot of hope on the reservation. Jobs are scarce, income is minuscule, liquor is prevalent despite a ban on liquor stores on the reservation (instead, there is a town just outside with--I shit you not--a population of 10 people and 4 liquor stores.) He holds fast to his proud Lakota warrior tradition. But it's tough to stay optimistic. He nearly gets arrested and his truck impounded at a protest (they literally have to pay off the cops, under the guise of paying the tow truck driver who was already on his way to turn around.) And when peaceful means to life up and educate his people fall short, there is a period of disillusionment. It's a remarkable coming of age story, where he is definitely more of a man at the end for dealing with difficult, complicated, desperate issues with spirit and honor. A great movie and a testament to not just a smart young man, but a community that was so welcoming to outsiders to give them such complete access.

And that was Saturday at Docfest. Just about time for 5 more movies today (Sunday.)

Total Running Time: 468 minutes
My Total Minutes: 430,748

Jason goes to Docfest--Day 10

An excellent double bill on Friday, with two films that are so different I wouldn't necessarily expect to work well together.

The first program started with the short MOTHER'S DAY. A charity buses children to visit their mothers in prison (they do a similar service on Father's Day, but his film is about Mother's Day.) A look at the toll that incarceration takes on the children (1 in 10 California children have a parent in prison) by looking at the one day they get to have a family for a little while.

That was the lead-in to the Centerpiece presentation, THE WORK. A remarkable program, Inside Circle, matches troubled men with inmates--many of them lifers--in a 4 day group therapy retreat in Folsom prison (there are other circles, but the film focuses on the one in Folsom.) This isn't some "scared straight" bullshit. This is a team of men, inmates, and professional facilitators who get to the root of their troubles. Their feelings of betrayal, their fears, their machismo. They tear down barriers, they fight, they cry. It's so goddamn liberating for men to cry, and to not be ashamed of it. I don't think anything I can write will come off as anything but hokey. But it's not, the movie should just be seen, not read about. Or better yet, the experience should be lived. It was really fucking powerful just watching it. And dudes, we all got frustrations. One of my favorite parts was the guy who didn't look like he was there because he was in any sort of danger with his lifestyle, he was just kind of...aimless in life. 20-something, and doesn't know what he wants to be. Not the sort of thing you'd think convicts would help with. But they do. Turns out although his father wasn't abusive or anything, he just never got the praise and acknowledgement he wanted, so he grew up thinking he wasn't good at anything. And extremely common, almost mundane problem, but he makes a breakthrough as much as anyone else. Powerful, powerful stuff.

And then the next film, at first couldn't seem more different. And in tone, it certainly is. But while THE WORK is about how men deal with the pressures of being men, TAKE MY NOSE, PLEASE! is a comedic look at how women deal with the pressures of being women. Especially how female comedians take on cosmetic surgery--because they're the only ones allowed to be honest about it. Director Joan Kron, an 89 year old woman who has written about cosmetic surgery for decades, knocks it out of the park in her directorial debut (see, it's never too late to make your movie!) She's got humor and pacing, telling the history of cosmetic surgery (starting with face peels on Egyptian men in the age of the pharaohs) all the way through modern times. And how that history became a fact of life for women in entertainment--starting with Fanny Brice and a nose job from someone who turned out to not actually be a licensed doctor. And of course there's the Catch-22, where if you get work done, you're not aging gracefully but if you actually age gracefully, you can't be seen in public, much less work! And so dramatic or glamorous actresses lie about the work they get done, while comedians are the only ones who can speak openly. Even when their homely looks are part of their humor, like Phyllis Diller, they aren't immune to...wanting to look a little better (or as she put it, getting tired of the dog dragging her outside and burying her.) One interesting common procedure is getting the nose done, specifically to not look so Jewish. Hey, the movie doesn't judge, so neither will I. We also get to follow a couple of comedians as they get some minor work done, like youngster Emily Askin and the veteran Jackie Hoffman. And holy cow, I know I had seen her in bit parts before, but she's freakin' hilarious. How was I not a bigger fan of hers before?

Just a final thought, that wasn't in the movie but I was thinking it on the way home. Cosmetic surgery is kind of like CGI in movies. We think it looks bad, because we only notice when it looks bad. If it's well done, you don't even notice it.

Total Running Time: 194 minutes
My Total Minutes: 430,281

Jason goes to Docfest--Day 9

Two more shows on Thurday. First up was a shorts program and part of the program on Nonfiction Vanguard honoree Jamie Meltzer. Meltzer is a teacher at Stanford, and Stanford Smorgasbord is a selection of his students' work.
(ALMOST) FREEDOM: An examination of what it's like to live with an electronic anklet for monitoring your house arrest.
BISONHEAD: A view of the marginalization of Native Americans, through the lens of a controversial buffalo hunt in Yellowstone. Are they exercising their native treaty hunting rights, or is this an outdated and unnecessary practice?
JANUARY: Three generations of women, family intimacy, and clutter. Nobody really talks about the clutter, but I think someone is kind of a hoarder.
LAPS: Popular enough at Indiefest, they brought it back for Docfest. A look at runners in San Quentin Prison, and how running helps them out in life.
PELICULA DE MI PADRE: A daughter's love and worship for her father, who to her was Elvis.
POWDER FRESH: Talcum powder. Great for that fresh, dry, clean feeling. Also great for giving you cancer. And great for marketing to black people. Yikes! I didn't grow up with baby powder being for anything other than...babies (I'm white) so this was quite an eye-opener.
SCRAP: Collecting junk. Selling the metal. Cool.
THE SHIFT: Late night 911 operators in San Francisco. A unique view of the city.
UNHEARD: Singing through the pain of a son lost to police violence. Powerful.

And then the second show was a wonderful film geek meditation, BLUE VELVET REVISITED. When David Lynch made BLUE VELVET, he invited along a young German filmmaker Peter Braatz to do the making-of documentary. That film, NO FRANK IN LUMBERTON, was apparently never released commercially and had very limited distribution. But Braatz still had all the footage, and 70% of it wasn't used. So he went back to the footage, and rather than make a straightforward making-of documentary, he made a meditation on it. Now heavy on nostalgia (it's so weird to see such a young David Lynch) it plays out like a melodic and visual poem. As a sleep-deprived maniac, I can tell you it's an excellent film to drift in and out of consciousness to, and there are wonderful moments with Lynch talking about stuff like how great it is to be on a low-budget film again, or how he doesn't trust radiation because it's invisible. I really hope this gets released, or I have another chance to see it. And for that matter, now I'm curious about NO FRANK IN LUMBERTON. Perhaps a triple bill with BLUE VELVET itself?

Total Running Time: 167 minutes

My Total Minutes: 430,087