The Movie Thread

[Tinka Cat]

last call for The Red Vic!

The Last Waltz is showing tonight, they're closed tomorrow (Thurs), then begins a four-day run of Harold and Maude.

 Monday July 25 is their last day of operation.

http://www.redvicmoviehouse.com/

I need to see H&M there before they close.  

[sundaygal]

last call for The Red Vic!

The Last Waltz is showing tonight
http://www.redvicmoviehouse.com/

 

Oh man, I wish I could be there tonight!  I saw The Last Waltz at The Castro once upon a time.

[RGMike]

last call for The Red Vic!

The Last Waltz is showing tonight, they're closed tomorrow (Thurs), then begins a four-day run of Harold and Maude.

I need to see H&M there before they close.  

"A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. *Reach* out. Take a *chance*. Get *hurt* even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."

[RGMike]

And it looks like the Balboa may follow the RedVic into oblivion unless someone setps up...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/21/BAAK1KD5RI.DTL

[Tinka Cat]

last call for The Red Vic!

The Last Waltz is showing tonight, they're closed tomorrow (Thurs), then begins a four-day run of Harold and Maude.

I need to see H&M there before they close.  

"A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. *Reach* out. Take a *chance*. Get *hurt* even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."

Did you quote that from memory?   (I would believe you if you said Yes.)

I'm going to the 7:15 PM showing tomorrow.

[RGMike]

last call for The Red Vic!

The Last Waltz is showing tonight, they're closed tomorrow (Thurs), then begins a four-day run of Harold and Maude.

I need to see H&M there before they close.  

"A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. *Reach* out. Take a *chance*. Get *hurt* even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."

Did you quote that from memory?   

Sorry. IMDB is my friend.

[RGMike]

Just saw Captain America, and I'm happy to say it's pretty terrific. A week ago I had no desire to see it, given the track record of superhero flicks this summer, but it got all these "wow, this is a LOT better than I thought it would be!" reviews and they are dead-on. Very pleasingly old-school without being campy. And a great supporting cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, Dominic Cooper (as Tony "Iron Man" Stark's dad!), Hugo Weaving. Nice job.  Stay until the credits end for a glimpse of next summer's Avengers flick.

[Tinka Cat]

Last Sunday, I went to the Castro to watch Kirk Douglas accept the Freedom of Expression award from SF Jewish Film Festival.  Despite his age (94) and the stroke he suffered abt 10 years ago, the guy is all there, and it was a real honor to be in attendance.  

He's pretty funny. When he was talking about politics and religion and mentioned "Ahmadinejad" -- he paused, looked at the audience, and said "My speech therapist would be proud of me."  

He insisted that blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo use his real name on the credit for the film Spartacus (Stanley Kubridk, directed and Douglas was producer) , which they showed after the presentation.  Douglas considers that decision to be his proudest professional achievement.

the Chron covered it
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/26/DDVL1KENLS.DTL

[RGMike]

Oddity of the Week: tonite @ 11, TCM is showing Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (yes, that's really the title!). I thought I'd heard of every obscure '60s cult film but this is a new one on me.  Seriously avant-garde, actors playing themselves and then commenting on their own improvised acting.  Sounds seriously whacked-out. I'm so toatlly there!

[RGMike]

This new docu about Ken Kesey opens Friday but has been available On Demand (if you have Comcast) for the past month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/movies/magic-trip-reconstructs-footage-from-ken-keseys-bus-trip.html?_r=1&ref=movies

[RGMike]

Last Sunday, I went to the Castro to watch Kirk Douglas accept the Freedom of Expression award from SF Jewish Film Festival.  Despite his age (94) and the stroke he suffered abt 10 years ago, the guy is all there, and it was a real honor to be in attendance.  

He's pretty funny. When he was talking about politics and religion and mentioned "Ahmadinejad" -- he paused, looked at the audience, and said "My speech therapist would be proud of me."  

He insisted that blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo use his real name on the credit for the film Spartacus (Stanley Kubridk, directed and Douglas was producer) , which they showed after the presentation.  Douglas considers that decision to be his proudest professional achievement.

the Chron covered it
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/26/DDVL1KENLS.DTL

TANC: just came from the Balboa where I saw Cameraman, the terrific docu about legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and Kirk Douglas is one of the many also-legendary talking heads singing Cardiff's praises in the film. (Charlton Heston! Lauren Bacall!).

[RGMike]

Last nite I saw the week's *other* alien-invasion flick, Attck the Block -- a dandy little low-budget British B-movie about aliens attacking a London "council flat" (aka public housing project). No CGI (just guys in gorilla-suits with glow-in-the-dark teeth) and all the better for it. Think: the original The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13 and a touch of Night of the Living Dead. Howard Hawks, John Carpenter and George Romero would all be proud. Will work nicely on video (it's the lowest-budget Cinemascope movie I think I've ever seen) and those British/Jamaican accents are pretty thick, but a good time at the movies. Who needs Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford? 2 thumbs up!

[RGMike]

caught up with Cowboys & Aliens Sunday -- enjoyed it, and not quite understanding the critics who hated it. You don't go into a movie with that title expecting transcendence.  A fun mash-up of genres.

And last nite I saw The Devil's Double, with Dominic Cooper (who plays Iron Man's dad in Captain America) as both Uday Hussein (Saddam's son) and his double, a lookalike childhood friend he forces to become his "twin", so he can pretend to be in palces he's not, etc. Yes, it's a true story; takes place around the time of the first Gulf War.  Entertainingly lurid --Uday was a world-class psychopath, so there's lots of blood, drugs and naked women -- and Cooper deserves Oscar consideration IMHO.

[RGMike]

OMGWTF-of-the-Week: tonite on MTV2, they're showing a direct-to-DVD comedy from last year called (I *swear* I'm not making this up) The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It.  Yes -- it's a "parody" of Judd Apatow movies. How does one parody a comedy, exactly?

[RGMike]

Last night I caught up with the remake of Jane Eyre from earlier this year. Very nicely rendered, with the girl from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland as Jane and Michael Fassbender, best-known to Americans as Young Magneto in X-Men Babies X-Men: First Class as Mr Rochester.

And I just watched The Other Guys, the Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg cop comedy from last year, which was MUCH funnier than I expected, not to mention economically relevant.  "I hope you like prison food... and penis!" BONUS: Rage Against the Machine's cover of "Maggie's Farm" over the closing credits.