Tiger Beat

Loyal to the Sky - Marisa Handler

When I was briefly introduced to Marisa Handler by Chris Cook at the January  27th anti-war march, she had just received a copy of her first book, Loyal to the Sky: Notes from an Activist.

She's been on a tour for the book and will be in the bay area over the next couple of days before heading to Seattle (, Portland, and LA.  She'll have a conversation with Rebecca Solnit (who wrote the foreward) on Thursday, March 1st at 7 pm at New College (details).  On Friday, March 2nd at 7:30 pm, she'll be reading at Black Oak Books in Berkeley.

A brief interview and a longer interview.

Series she wrote for Salon from the 2003 Miami protests.

The New Amazon, Orion Magazine

Interview with Larry Bensky on Sunday Salon (download MP3)

The War Tapes

The War Tapes
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

I went to a preview screening of The War Tapes on Monday.  The film was introduced by Orville Schell, dean of the UC Berkeley Grad. School of Journalism.

A half hour preview of the film has been shown as part of a discussion (video is online) of coverage of Iraq at the Journalism school in March.



After the film, executive producer Chuck Lacy and Mark Danner who has reported from Iraq many times discussed the film and took questions (I shot some video and will try and edit it together soon).

The film opens Friday, June 30th (tonight) at the Castro in San Francisco and will be expanding around the country over the next few months.  Sign up for their email list to find out when it will be near you (and to get scenes which didn't make it into the film). 

Lacy and soldier/cameraman Zack Bazzi will be at the 7 and 9:30 pm screenings tonight and on Saturday, July 1.  There was a front page story in the Chronicle.

More photos.

Rose who forwarded the email about the screening wrote about it and so did Tara: www.horsepigcow.com/2006/06/see-this-movie.html

Other movies on soldiers in Iraq include Gunner's Palace and Operation Dreamland.  Off to War
which also followed a National Guard unit was shown on Discovery Times.

Frontline has done many programs on Iraq and all of them are online.  Company of Soldiers was about soldiers in Iraq, and the Soldier's Heart was about what happens once they come home.
Private Warriors was about private contractors in Iraq (the soldiers in the War Tapes
spend a lot of their time guarding their trucks and talk about Halliburton - Dick Cheney was the subject of the Dark Side). 

 

No More Tears Sister

POV opens tonight on many PBS stations with No More Tears Sister, a film about Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, a human rights activist in Sri Lanka. I saw it as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival at USF.

Vloggercon (including an upcoming Boing Boing vlog)

Update:  At the Rocketboom panel  at Vloggercon, Andrew Baron began by talking about how Boing Boing had been one of his main inspirations. He ended by showing a silent clip of the opening for a new Boing Boing vlog he is collaborating on.  Afterwards, he told me it would debut within the next few weeks.

The second Vloggercon, a gathering of video bloggers from around the world (more info),  is taking place in San Francisco on Saturday and Sunday June 10th & 11th.  It is sold out, but there be live streaming and an IRC chat (there also are already many photos on flickr and I'm posting photos with links). 

Just look at the schedule and then watch and participate.

Friday evening at the Apple store in San Francisco,  TWIT was taping their show at the same time as a large crowd watched a Meet the Vloggers presentation (they'll now be happening every month in San Francisco).

 

If you can't watch live, everything will be archived, remixed, and vlogged.  You can  also learn to start you own vlog at freevlog.org (and to start learning the basics of video, check out the five minute episodes of videogrunt  ).  Michael and Ryanne (pictured at top) created freevlog and wrote a book.

There also is an archive of video from the first vloggercon.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John

Farmer John
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

Wednesday, June 7th is the last night to see the full version of The Real Dirt on Farmer John at the Red Vic.

Farmer John will be at the evening screenings. <b>Correction</b>: He will actually be in Oregon tonight (his <a href=http://www.angelicorganics.com/Film/realdirtcontent.php?contentfile=filmandbooktour>schedule</a> - he will be in Sonoma on June 16th).

He was also interviewed on Fresh Air.  Audio is online and it will be on KQED FM at 1 pm and 7 pm and KALW at 6 pm on Wednesday.

A shorter version will be on many PBS stations as part of Independent Lens on Tuesday, June 13th (check ). Their website  is now online.

Stupid KQED is in pledge dreck mode.  Instead of showing, Farmer John on the night it is scheduled when it would get the most promotional push from the Fresh Air interview, they are showing
Best Money Tips: Your Guide to Wealth with Jonathan Pond (if he had any real wealth, he'd have hired someone to design a better website) and a Who concert.

This is the fucking bay area. They could pledge around Farmer John.  Give away his book, the DVD, and CSA subscriptions.  That would be a hell of a lot healthier than Dr. Perricone's wrinkle cure books. 

You can watch it on KQED on Thu, Jun 22 at 11 pm.

My Dad is 100 Years Old

Guy Maddin accepting the Persistence of Vision award
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

Director Guy Maddin was given the Persistence of Vision award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.   After his very funny speech, he had a conversation with Steve Seaid from the Pacific Film Archive and showed  several shorts including Sissy Boy Slap Party and Sombra Dolorosa which are on the Saddest Music in the World DVD.

He also showed a short stylized black and white film he directed which was written by and stars Isabella Rosellini, My Dad is 100 Years Old.  It begins showing on the Sundance Channel on Monday May 8th at 7 pm  as part of their tribute to Roberto Rossellini along with Open City.   It will repeat on Sunday, May 21st  at 6 am and Wednesday, 24th at 10 pm (and probably in future months as well) and is also included with a book Rosellini did about her father which will be published at the end of June.

While it isn't the same on a small screen as it was on the huge screen at the Kabuki, it is still gorgeous, funny, and moving.  Isabella Rosellini does all the voices and plays all the roles including her mother, except her father's belly.

And it is quite a cast of characters including Alfred Hitchcock, David Selznick, Federico Fellini, and Charlie Chaplin.  They have a dialogue about film with Selznick saying that movies should entertain and be illustrations for novels.  Roberto Rossellini replies,  "Anybody should be able to make films. The hollywood system prevents that." 

Rossellini says people don't just want to be entertained, they have a  "...need to know.  That is what my films are about, the quest for knowledge." Chaplin just speaks with a tile card saying,  "Roberto, life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long shot."

Ingrid Berman says she wanted to work with him after seeing Open City ended up collaborating with him on "five films and three children."  One of those children, Ingrid, has objected to the film (or disowned it as Maddin put it when introducing it).  And I can understand why she might be upset.  But for most people it will either reinforce what is great about her father's films or be an inspiration to watch them for the first time.

Towards the end of the film, Isabella Rosellini objects to Maddin's camera movements and orders him to move in for "the perfectly simple Rossellini frame."

David Hudson rounds up some of the reaction to the short.  She was interviewed by Leonard Lopate.

Tilda Swinton on the State of Cinema

Tilda Swinton
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

I'll pull some quotes from it later, but I wanted to let people know they can read Tilda Swinton's Saturday State of Cinema speech on sf360.org.

It isn't the same as seeing and hearing her deliver part of a Robert McKee monologue from Adaptation or talk about her experience with Derek Jarmen, but it  should be read by anyone interested in film (as well aspeople who aren't interested in film, but have too much influence over what we see).

Her Letter
to Derek Jarman which she said she may have been the reason Graham Leggat invited her to give the address is also online.

More photos of her giving the speech as well as the projections on City Hall.

B Ruby Rich's 2004 State of the Cinema talk is also online (as a PDF).  And Michel Ciment's 2004 speech (google cache).  Photos of Brad Bird's more off-the-cuff 2005 speech.

Matt Dillon talking about Factotum

Matt Dillon
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

The screening  today should be just as interesting.

Factotum plays again Sunday at 3 pm followed at 5:15 pm by a conversation  led by Stephen Elliott with Bent Hamer and Jim Stark about adapting the novel.  It benefits 826 Valencia.




Stephen Elliot also organized the  Progressiv e reading series (the next one is May 8th) and Litpac.

Al Franken: God Spoke

Katherine Lanpher, Willie Brown, & Al Franken
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

Al Franken: God Spoke is screening at PFA in Berkeley at 7 pm tonight, at the Castro at 6 pm on Saturday, and Tuesday afternoon at the Kabuki.

Chuck Olsen saw it on in Minneapolis on Wednesday.



I saw Chris Hegedus at the Casto in March as part of the tribute
to Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker.

She showed Town Bloody Hall. I had read a lot about the debate about feminism with Norman Mailer and Germaine Greer but it isn't the same as seeing it.   They are planning on doing a DVD.

There is always too much happening at the festival.  At the same time the Al Franken documentary is at the Casto, Who Killed the Elecric Car is showing at the Kabuki (you can also see it there today at 6:45 pm).

The top photo was from a broadcast of Franken's show right after Air America launched on the Quake in San Francisco.  Willie Brown who was a guest now co-hosts the morning show with Will Durst before Franken. 

Brown is a huge movie buff and sat near me during the premiere of the Jeff Adachi's the Slatned Screen at the SF International Asian American Film Festival.  Perhaps he'll be at some films at the SFIFF.

1906

Ferry Building 100
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

While the most events commemorating the 1906 earthquake have passed, there are still events and exhibits.

On Friday, April 21st at 8 pm Cartography of Ashes will be projected at 19th and Folsom.

There will also be a couple more screenings
on Saturday and Monday.  This is one of the Satellite events at the SFIFF.


More photos.