Hell on Frisco Bay (2005-2008 archive)

The SF Film Society's newest foray into year-round programs, the SF International Animation Showcase, will be running October 12-15 at SFMOMA, and the lineup for the four programs is nicely diverse. The October 12 selection of Bong Joon-Ho's the Host is the one I'm most looking forward to; this monster movie from the director of Memories of Murder has absolutely torn up box office records in South Korea in the past month or so, after a strong critical showing at the Cannes Festival. Its selection is a welcome acknowledgment of the dissolving barrier in public consciousness between animation and live-action films, and also perfectly compliments this year's selection of the giant ant movie Them! for the fifties sci-fi free outdoor screening in the Presidio the Film Society puts on every year (this year: September 30). Saturday afternoon, October 14, will bring two programs of animated short films, and the final screening of the weekend will be an October 15 matinee of another modern tribute to 50s sci-fi, Brad Bird's 2-D animation the Iron Giant.

Speaking of animation, Other Cinema has announced its first screening at ATA for the fall and it's an exciting one: the films featured on the recent Anxious Animation DVD release will be shown in their original 16mm format on Sep. 16. A chance to ee Janie Geiser films, among others, on celluloid is an occasion not to be missed! Also, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts promises a screening of Karel Zeman's the Fabulous Adventures of Baron Munchausen Oct. 4 amongst its Fall offerings. Moving away from animation, their on-line calendar reveals that, among other relative rarities, Dennis Hopper's the Last Movie will screen Oct. 20-21. And a few SF Cinematheque Sunday programs have been announced, most notably an October 22 evening of Bruce Baillie's early films (including On Sundays and Mass For the Dakota Sioux) with the artist in person.

Bill Basquin of the Film Arts Foundation has curated a free film series to be screened at the SF Public Library's Koret Auditorium on Thursday evenings in September, in conjunction with the third annual Architecture and the City festival. There's a program of experimental shorts, a 1960 Kirk Douglas feature (Strangers When We Meet) and a pair of documentaries. Probably of greatest interest to Frisco cinephiles, whether or not they remember attending Market Street triple bills themselves, is Christian Bruno's short Strand: a Natural History of Cinema, which plays with Scraphouse September 13.

The Roxie has a new printed calendar for the Fall, dominated by new documentaries like loudQUIETloud: a Film About the Pixies (Sep. 29-Oct. 5) and Black Gold (Nov. 10-16). The Blues Festival has paired two hour-long docs, the recent Muddy Waters Can't Be Satisfied and Les Blank's joyful (and poignant) 1977 Mardis Gras classic Always For Pleasure, for five days of screenings at the Mission venue September 22-16 to coincide with its day-long concerts that weekend. There are also a few narrative features on the docket, like the David Mamet-scripted Edmond (Sep. 15-21) and the 2005 Venice prize-winner 13 (Oct. 13-19). And of course the venue hosts film festivals, this time around the Arab Film Festival Sep. 8-14 (which then moves to the California in Berkeley and the Camera 12 in San Jose) and the United Nations Association Film Festival on October 22 (a preview for the UNAFF screenings at Stanford University October 25-29).

Check out the special events at the Parkway if you haven't lately. Pretty much something for everybody in the next couple of months there.

The Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema 2006 season is about to begin. This Saturday, September 2, marks the first of four sundown screenings of locally-made films at neighborhood outdoor venues. This Saturday's screening at Bernal Heights Park will include Jay Rosenblatt's I Used To Be a Filmmaker and Michael Franti's I Know I Am Not Alone.

Last but not least, the Castro's printed calendar reveals several enticing treats not mentioned in this space before. (What it doesn't include is the 8PM August 31 70mm encore of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World). I hope that the October 10-11 screening of the Girl Can't Help It is not the only taste of Tashlin Frisco will be getting (the animation and live-action director has been the subject of full-fledged retrospectives in Chicago and New York this summer). The full Dual System 3-D Series schedule has been revealed to include, among other films, Andre De Toth's House of Wax October 15 in case you, like I, missed out on last year's presentation. And Jesse Hawthorne Ficks will be bringing two MiDNIGHTS FOR MANiACS Friday night triple-bills in October: a "Walking Dead" night capped by They Live! on the 6th, and a 80s 3-D night finishing with Friday the 13th Part 3: 3-D on, you guessed it, the 13th. Which segues DJ-perfectly into the Cripsin Glover retrospective beginning on the 20th with his role in Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter. A Grindhouse double-bill including Fulci's the Beyond on the 30th is preceded Oct. 27-29 by a second annual Shock It To Me! horror series whose 1960s-centric titles have been announced on a myspace blog. Of particular note is the Oct. 29 Mario Bava pairing of Black Sunday and Black Sabbath in the original Italian with English subtitles.

And finally, I've just done some tinkering with my blogroll, hopefully making it more sensibly organized (please let me know if I'm off-base on that). Given that I don't have the time to post every day (sometimes not even every week, unfortunately!) I want to draw attention to other bloggers, especially locals writing about film screenings in the area that I either overlook or under-report. Michael Guillen of The Evening Class, for example, has written excellent pieces on recent screenings I've attended at the Pacific Film Archive: Ugetsu Monogatari in the Mizoguchi series that wraps up tomorrow evening, and John Canemaker's presentation on animator Winsor McCay. A recent addition to the roll is Richard Hildreth's Supernatural, Perhaps -- Baloney, Perhaps Not, which if it keeps up as it's been going, should become as essential a weekly (or more frequent) stop as Lincoln Specter's Bayflicks. And then there's all the rest, including the dailies: sf360 and Greencine. What a boon these sites are to my cinephilia!