Jason goes to SilentFest--Opening Night

Even when it was just 3 days, I was consistently more exhausted after the San Francisco Silent Film Festival than I was after any other 2+ week long festival. Now that they've expanded to 5 days, let's find out if I can even survive. 

After some obligatory introductions and thank-yous (especially, thank you to Universal, as this is part of their project to restore their silent films, which they announced tonight they have expanded by 10 more) we got on with the program.

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928):

This is my second time seeing this film, but the first time in this restored version. The first time was back in 2011, when it was the Halloween show at the Niles Film Museum. Here's what I wrote then:

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928): I'd never seen this classic Paul Leni directed Conrad Veidt starring film. It's an adaptation of a lesser-known Victor Hugo (Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) novel. And it's a shockingly grim story, even for today (it's especially bleak for the audiences of 1928, it didn't do well on the initial release). Gwynplaine is the son of a nobleman who has displeased King James II. So while his father is sentenced to death in the Iron Lady, Gwynplaine is surgically altered so his face is in a permanent grin--as the king say, "So he will always be laughing at his fool of a father." He's abandoned, and in his wanderings in the snow he encounters hanged corpses in a rather shockingly grim scene (oh yeah, it's a very German expressionist style) and then he comes across the corpse of a mother with a baby girl in her arms. The baby is still alive, so Gwynplaine rescues her, and eventually finds himself at the home of the philosopher (i.e., playwright/mountebank) Ursus. There we find out the little girl (who they name Dea) is blind. Years later they are travelling performers, and Gwynplaine (now played by Conrad Veidt) is known as The Man Who Laughs. It's a very popular show, and he and Dea are falling in love. And then his noble birth becomes known, and he's drawn into palace intrigue with the Queen (King James' heir), the seductive Duchess Josiana (who is living in his rightful family home), and especially the evil jester/power behind the throne Barkilphedro. Amazing story, very melodramatic and dark. And just an amazing movie.

Oh yeah, and a lot has been made about Conrad Veidt's performance being at least part of the inspiration of The Joker in the Batman comics. This might or might not be true, allegedly there are no accounts of Batman creator Bob Kane ever claiming this. Maybe it's true, maybe the coincidence is just so striking that it's impossible to believe there's no connection. Certainly, the similarities are absolutely there, and it's become enough of Batman lore that if the original connection wasn't there it's certainly been put in there since. But while we're comparing him to famous pop culture characters, with his angular nose and covering his mouth with a scarf so often, I also saw a bit of The Shadow in him.

Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, looking really Shadow-y (Still courtesy of Universal Studios)

I'll stick by that plot synopsis, although I'll say that this time it didn't seem quite so dark and I picked up more on the comedy, particularly broad satire of the nobility. Perhaps that's because of the restoration, or perhaps that had to do with the excellent score by the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, who got that it was a melodrama more than a horror film, and played it for high drama and comedy, as appropriate.

Running Time: 110 minutes
My Total Minutes: 480,223

Jason watches SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

And I enjoyed it.

I appreciate most of the criticism, especially the criticism that can fit under the umbrella of "the existence of this movie is entirely unnecessary." I just don't care, I still enjoyed it.

It's a fun action movie. Alden Ehrenriech is not Harrison Ford, but he's fine in the role. He's not the character we meet early in the original STAR WARS, because he still has some adventures to hone him into the cynical braggart we meet there. And he doesn't look the same because (and this is entirely head-canon) in some adventure between now and then he has to get plastic surgery to escape from some gangster...but not change his name.... Okay, it's not perfect, but it's still fun.

Yeah, it hits a bunch of points that didn't really need to be hit, but were entirely expected fan service. We learn how he got his name, how he met Chewbacca, how they became lifelong friends (kinda, I'm still unclear why Chewie doesn't run off and rescue more Wookies without Han,) how he got the Millennium Falcon, and most importantly...he shoots first. I don't care about that, it's everything else that's fun.

Oh yeah, and there's a big surprise cameo near the end (that if this were a Marvel movie would've been a post-credits scene. It's fine where it is.) And some origins of the nascent rebellion that are pretty cool. But that's just teasing possible follow-up films. The important thing is the action sequences are well done and they keep cooking one after another. It's just a fun movie. A fun, unnecessary movie.

Running Time: 135 minutes
My Total Minutes: 480,113

Jason watches 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in glorious 70 mm at the Castro

Goddamn that's a gorgeous movie. Go see it, whenever you have the chance.

Okay, not going to recap the plot, just a few thoughts that passed through my mind while watching.

The opening pre-human scene kind of drags on, but is beautiful. In our prequel-obsessed Hollywood, I'm surprised nobody has pitched a 2001 prequel just fleshing out the dawn-of-man sequence.

For how much I remember HAL, that's a pretty short part of the movie. There's more time on the moon and the space station then on the trip to Jupiter.

Why TF did Dave go out without his space helmet, anyway? That seems like a supremely dumbass move.

Everything from going into the monolith until the star baby is maybe better on drugs. But I don't know if there are any drugs that are better than watching that sequence.

Mandela Effect: the line "My God! It's full of stars!" is not in the movie (it's in the novel, and is the opening line of 2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT.

Okay, that's enough. Writing about 2001 is just silly compared to actually watching it.

Running Time: 149 minutes
My Total Minutes: 479,978

Jason goes to CAAMFest--The End

Well, actually the festival continued for a few more days in Piedmont, but Sunday was my last day there.

First up was DEAD PIGS, a weird, interwoven story of different people living on the fringes of Shanghai, and how thousands of dead pigs ended up floating down the river. I mean, the short version is the pigs died of a mysterious illness, the farmers didn't know what to do, so they dumped them in the river instead of calling authorities. But beyond that is a farmer's sister and proud beauty salon owner who refuses to move from her family home. An American ex-pat architect who finds lucrative part-time work as a unique kind of model. A young man who tries to get money to help his father by getting hit by cars. And a spoiled rich girl who is looking for something a little more adventurous. It's a beautifully shot, intriguing film, and the different story threads all come to a climax in a surreal musical number. Cool!

And speaking of music, the next show was Anatomy of a Music Video with Ruby Ibarra. Ruby makes her directorial debut with NOTHING ON US: PINAYS RISING BEHIND THE SCENES. It's the making-of documentary of her music video, US. Easily the best part is the reaction to her open call for Pinays to participate in the video, and over 200 show up, fill a local high school auditorium, and absolutely rule the documentary and the video. Oh, and since it was local, they also ruled the audience. Maybe I was a little out of place as the white dude watching and appreciating it all, but it was still pretty cool from the outside looking in.

Let's stick with the musical theme, with another documentary, HAVANA DIVAS. When you think of Havana, Cuba, you think mostly of Chinese Opera, right? Okay, maybe that's not the first thing, but they did have a thriving Chinatown with a popular Cantonese Opera company, that both attracted stars from around the world and traveled the world. Caridad and Georgina are now octogenarians, but they were the star divas of the company at one point, and will still perform if given the chance. Especially if the documentary producers finance a trip to China for them. They are such lovable, exciting people that they easily carry the film and it's just as fun to hear them reminisce as it is to see their next adventure.

And finally, I ended the night with UNLOVABLE, a biting dramedy about sex addiction. Joy is a sex addict, and hits rock bottom shortly after her boyfriend dumps her (because, of all things, pierogies are a trigger for her, and he catches her with leftover pierogies in the fridge.) So...she goes out and has a drunken orgy that she can't actually remember that culminates the next morning with the realization that everyone else thought she was paid to be there. So she enters a 12-step program. She meets Maddie, a recovering addict who sponsors her and puts her up in her home on the condition that she stick to a severe 30 day cold-turkey abstinence program. Not even masturbation (turns out she has to restart the clock a few times.) When Joy meets Maddie's eccentric musician brother, something serious starts to develop. A friendship that's based not just on fucking--a radical concept. In fact, in keeping with the emergent theme of the day, it's based on music, as Joy picks up playing the drums for the first time since she was a kid. A funny, dark but hopeful story that's anchored by a great performance by Charlene De Guzman, who also co-wrote the script.

And that was how CAAMFest 2018 ended for me.

Total Running Time: 329 minutes
My Total Minutes: 479,829

Jason goes to CAAMFest--Day 10

I skipped another couple of weeknights, but was back on Saturday

I started with ORIGIN STORY, Kulap Vilaysack’s documentary about herself. She came from a turbulent home. Her mom and dad fought a lot. And she tended to get along better with her dad. At least, until...when she was 14...her mother angrily told her that he wasn't her real dad. Now grown up, living and working in Hollywood (and married to Comedy Bang-Bang's Scott Aukerman) she decides she can't start her own family without knowing the real story of where she came from. Her true "origin story" (appropriate, considering she has been immortalized as a DC comics hero.) Her personality keeps the story of discovery interesting and funny, even as many of the discoveries turn out pretty negative (she comes from a family of seriously messed-up people who just use people.) In the end, it was probably the best and most engaging documentary I saw in the festival.

And then a less engaging documentary, LOOKING FOR? A story of dating apps, the gay men who use them, and their hook-ups. I hope I wasn't bored just because they were gay and I'm not. But it was just talking head story after story of how people met on the apps. Cool. Good for them. No examination of whether this is a good or bad way to meet people. Nothing about what it's uniquely like to be an Asian man meeting people there. I understand that it's been pretty recent that gay men can even safely tell the story of meeting their boyfriends. And it's great that it's safe(r) for them now. But that doesn't make for an interesting movie. It makes for a tedious stream of meet-cute stories.

Anyway, I skipped out on the Q&A not just for that, but because I really wanted to get rush tickets for H.P. Mendoza's latest film, BITTER MELON. And at 5th in line, I figured it would be no problem. But it was a problem. I failed and didn't see it. But I don't feel bad for myself. I feel bad for the people in line who did have tickets and were there on time and still weren't allowed in because it was so oversold. I also feel bad for the makers of LUMPIA, since I was tired and a bit annoyed so instead of killing a couple of hours and seeing it, I went home instead. But I am a crowdfunding backer of LUMPIA II. That's right, I Backed That Lumpia, even if I still haven't seen the original.

Total Running Time: 167
My Total Minutes: 479,500

Jason goes to CAAMFest--Day 7

I took a night off for the festival, but was back on Wednesday, May 16th.

First up was Women on the Rise: South Korean Cinema. A series of 3 short-ish films:
PRAGMA: Two young women, who loved each other in high school, were torn apart by the school's anti-gay policy.
170 BUCKS FOR A CAB, ONE RIDE, ONE NIGHT: Based on a true story, a couple of drunk girls try to figure out why one cab ride cost so much money, even getting the police involved.
A LETTER FOR SANG-AH: Single mother aren't common in Korea. At least, they weren't a few decades ago. Most unwed mothers had to give their kids up for adoption, which leaves a hole in the lives of both mother and child. This letter hopes to bring them back together and fill that hole.

Then I caught the feature, HALF WIDOW, a surprisingly touching narrative based on true stories. That story starts off as a love story. Man and woman meet, they fall in love, they marry, they're about to have a child. Life is pretty good. But they live in the disputed and conflict-torn Kashmir region. So, the husband is just taken away by the authorities. And the stress causes a miscarriage. And the police deny he even exists. And when the wife and her brother start protesting, the brother is taken, too. A powerful, heart-wrenching story anchored by a fantastic performance by Neelofar Hamid, who shows the heights of love and the depths of sorrow.

Total Running Time: 168 minutes
My Total Minutes: 479,333

Jason goes to CAAMFest--Day 5

Just one film on Monday the 14th, but it was the Shaw Brothers classic, COME DRINK WITH ME. A wuxia (martial arts) classic with heroes, sword-fights, kung-fu, poison darts, drunken masters, and lots of fighting. The Shaw Bros practically created the genre as we know it today, probably most familiar to modern audiences from CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. And in fact, Pei-Pei Chang, who plays the elder Jade Fox, in that film, had one of her first starring roles in COME DRINK WITH ME as the heroine Golden Swallow. And, in fact, she was there to introduce the screening and talk a little bit about it before all the fun. Pretty freaking cool!

Running Time: 90 minutes
My Total Minutes: 479,165