NSFW (language/cartoon gore)

When the Kanye West/Spike Jonze collaboration, “We Were Once a Fairytale,” first cropped up on blogs a few weeks back, I was curious but always too busy to watch the ten-minute clip. Then a friend insisted I check it out, proclaiming it proof that Kanye “really is the voice of this generation.”

So I checked it out. And . . . wow. Just wow. Stop what you’re doing and watch it. Unless you’re at work/in class, because it’s a little bit grody. (Click here to read more…)

November 6th presents a dilemma for Bay Area cinephiles, who—due to the annoying fact that people can only be in one place at one time—must choose among three excellent programs at three different theaters. At the Paramount Theatre, a gorgeous Art Deco movie palace near the 19th Street BART station in Oakland, there is a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder” (1954). I recommend getting to the theater early so you can explore the huge, luxurious lobby.

In Berkeley, PFA is screening Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” (1961), one of the most beautiful, confounding movies I have ever seen. The film’s camerawork is stunning: Imagine a precursor to “The Shining,” with the camera slowly wandering through a mostly vacant château’s hallways. What is the purpose of the film? Is it a visual depiction of someone reckoning with her memories? Or is it a truly post-modern work that’s only concerned with surfaces—that is, is it a film without meaning? “Last Year at Marienbad” is rarely screened in 35mm projection, so be sure to check it out. (Click here to read more…)

Any film whose premise centers on the cultish appeal of kitschy mediums faces an enormous challenge: How can a film be good when it is quite literally about crap? This is the question that went through my head while watching Jared Hess’ new film “Gentlemen Broncos” at the Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinema last Monday, with Hess and his wife and screenwriter, Jerusha, in the audience.

Once again, Hess has an awkward, “Napoleon Dynamite”-style protagonist—a young, pulp science fiction writer named Benjamin (Michael Angarano). The film suffers from a lackluster screenplay, but Hess exacerbates its weaknesses by bringing to the foreground the sci-fi genre’s crudest elements. There is no cussing in the film (the Hesses are Mormons), but there are an awful lot of breast, penis and fart jokes, and gags involving shit and vomiting. This is the kind of film that would appeal to viewers who find a snake ejecting a stream of shit all over its nonchalant owner funny. (Click here to read more…)

“Basra” begins with its protagonist, photographer Tariq (Bassem Samra), falling out of love in depressing fashion. “Don’t cry, ” he whispers gently to his inconsolable wife, moments after signing the final document. “By divorce, or by death, we separate.” Dismal as it is, the film’s opening sequence suggests not so much an end as it does a beginning, a gateway to a world of alienated individuals’ feelings sprouting from the seeds of political turmoil. Through Tariq’s unique perspective, director Ahmed Rashwan transforms modern-day Cairo into a place struggling to move from the past to the future, where dreams are born and destroyed and the fine line between time and space is indefinitely blurred. (Click here to read more…)

This story will probably sound familiar. A crazed woman who is foaming at the mouth assaults a man. Soon, other infected people converge upon the poor guy, rip him apart and play ball with scraps of his body. This is a scene from “Zombieland,” right? Or perhaps it’s from some other zombie film? Nope. This account comes from a Greek play I recently read for class called “The Bacchae,” by Euripides. In the play, Dionysus, the god of wine, inflicts a curse upon the Greeks so they are always drinking and partying. These infected people become known as the Maenads, a “murderous herd” that stamps out the uninitiated.

Now, in Berkeley, it was Saturday night, and I went to see  “Zombieland” so I could relax and have a grand ol’ time watching Woody Harrelson mow down zombies with assault rifles. School was the last thing on my mind. But for better or for worse, I am thoroughly nerdy, and began to draw connections between the film and “The Bacchae.” Then I realized: the Greeks had created a precursor to the zombie film. (Click here to read more…)

At first glance, steely-eyed, well-dressed Abu Laila (Mohamed Bakri) hardly looks or talks like a taxi driver. Later, it turns out that the occupation only slightly befits him; a former judge who resorts to driving cabs for a living after the government failed to pay his judicial wages, the protagonist of Rashid Masharawi’s “Laila’s Birthday” cuts a figure of world-weary austerity. He dismisses a young couple who plan to dally in the back seat, reprimands passengers who neglect to fasten their seat belts and refuses to drive anywhere near a military checkpoint. Abu Laila’s harrowing journey begins in the early hours of the morning and continues until the evening, as does the film itself.

Set in Ramallah, the Palestinian city on the West Bank and de facto capital of the Palestinian National Authority, “Laila’s Birthday” follows its protagonist as he navigates through a regular day on the job, encountering a myriad of different people and situations—except the day in question actually marks a special occasion. His daughter Laila (Nour Zoubi) is celebrating her seventh birthday, and Abu Laila promises to return home in a timely fashion with candles and cake, heeding the words of his wife (Areen Omari): “Listen to me. Interior problems, exterior problems, problems from the occupation…it’s your daughter’s birthday tonight, okay?” Acknowledging her with a half-smile, Abu Laila drives away, ostensibly unaware of the absurd day that lies ahead of him. (Click here to read more…)

This video has been floating around for a while. I first freaked out and sent it to all of my friends a couple of weeks ago, when it showed up on Pajiba. It stuck with me, though, as few YouTube videos ever do, so that I felt compelled to share it with all of you. It’s an unusually creative manifestation of the list-making impulse, with well-selected clips and music, on a topic close to many film fans’ hearts–human villains.

Compiler hh1edits cuts a nice swathe through historical cinema, but doesn’t skimp on recent movie manifestations of evil, leading off with Chigurh and later giving a meaty chunk of screen time to Heath Ledger’s much-lauded take on the Joker. I’m very glad Kurt Russell’s wildly underrated Stuntman Mike gets some love. (Click here to read more…)

Lebanese filmmaker Marc Abi Rached’s first feature-length film, “Help”, does not give much cause for love at first sight. The lighting is too harsh to be beautiful, the camerawork too rocky to win over the eyes. Each character’s introduction is abrasive. They go about their lives with no compassion for the viewer, who hopes for a glimpse at a romantic, if not glamorous, counterculture.

But as the film progresses, a deep and unexpected concern develops for these backwards characters. Unnoticed, it creeps gradually up on you, only to punch you in the gut for caring about characters obviously hovering on the precipice of great danger.

A young teenager Ali (Hussein Maatouk) lives self-sufficiently out of a van. He encounters a prostitute Souraya (Joanna Andraos, who happens to be the daughter of a Lebanese MP) and her gay flatmate, who go out on the town for nights ending, naturally, in drinking, drugs, a threesome and a whole lot of cigarettes. (In case this isn’t what you’d expect from Arab film, this entire festival may be a perfect reintroduction to the Middle East.)

(Click here to read more…)

Standing under the ornate fixtures of the spacious Castro Theatre movie hall, Palestinian filmmaker Najwa Najjar spoke with elegant, commanding grace. “The idea behind my movie title derives from an old Palestinian proverb: Every pomegranate has one seed that comes from heaven,” Najjar explained. Minutes later, her debut feature “Pomegranates and Myrrh” screened as the opening film for the 13th annual Arab Film Festival, bringing an rich tapestry of characters and the trials and tribulations of life in modern-day Palestine to the big screen with understated panache.

The plot centers on a young Palestinian couple and their extended families, creating complicated sketches of daily life amidst the sociopolitical problems that plague their surroundings. Israeli Defense Forces soldiers with rifles patrol the East Jerusalem separation wall checkpoint; age-old tensions rumble silently beneath the barren landscapes of Ramallah; families operate under strict codes of tradition. Kamar (Yasmine Elmasri) practices Palestinian folk dancing while her husband Zaid (Ashraf Farah) tends to his olive oil farm, and all seems tranquil until an Israeli family launches a mysterious raid on the farm one night, confiscating its treasures. Zaid is falsely accused of attacking an Israeli soldier and is taken prisoner; traumatized, Kamar seeks solace from her in-laws and an emotional boost from the local pub owner Umm Habib (Hiam Abbass), before beginning a complicated relationship with Kais (Ali Suliman), her new dance choreographer. In their conflicted world, interpersonal relationships become strained, uncertainties build on one another—yet hope never subsides. (Click here to read more…)

The first thing you may wonder when you first hear about the Nervous Magic Lantern is, What in the world is it? At its most basic level, it is a special projector invented by New York avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs. At the PFA last week, Jacobs gave a performance on his Lantern, which he set up in the back row of the theater, right behind audience members. Jacobs gradually moved superimposed slides of abstract textures and colors, and, thanks to an exaggerated flicker effect from a slow-moving shutter, created the sensation of fluid motion (it seemed to work like a zoetrope).

The stunning images had a very tactile, 3-dimensional quality to them. One moment, I thought I was in someone’s intestines. Or perhaps that was magma I saw? The next moment, it felt like I was viewing objects encased in sap. And so on. Jacobs’ Lantern hearkens back to a time when creating moving images by projecting light through stills—that is, inert objects, not film strips playing at 24 frames a second—was a magical experience. And there was something magical in the way Jacobs pored over his device, his face warmly lit by the projector’s bulb, as he manipulated his slides, like an alchemist working on his craft.

Here is a brief clip of Jacobs performing on his Nervous Magic Lantern: (Click here to read more…)