Film Festival Report

(Click on photos for full size.)

Until this year I have been at work when my little town’s film festival occurred. I’ve been to film festivals in big, medium and small cities. I don’t think population correlates to quality. A small town festival can sometimes risk showing edgier films, and the special guests are more unusual choices. The 16^th Annual Port Townsend Film Festival just ended. In three days I saw a dozen features, an equal number of shorts and hosted screenings with Beau Bridges, Chris Cooper and Marianne Leone Cooper.

How to Tell If You’re in a Film Noir

I love infographics. Here’s one about my favorite genre of American movies.

More Songs about Buildings and Food

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Terrorism in the Old West

The murders at the offices of Charlie Hebdo didn’t surprise me, because of an odd personal coincidence. One of the very first movies I remember affecting me deeply as a child contained a similar incident. I have replayed this act of onscreen brutality many times in my mind.  When you’re a child, you believe what you see. To me it was history, a real incident, not drama. As a result, I have understood since then that there are “bad guys” who will kill because someone prints things they disagree with.

Essential Cuban Films You Should Know

Sad Thoughtful Mysterious Intimate Reverent Merry Redeemed

2013 Christmas Clip Show

Mikey’s Absurdly Geeky Oscar Trivia Quiz

In Search of Ancient Oscars

Did you know the word “quiz” originally meant an odd person?  That’s from the Oxford English Dictionary.  In the days before the Internet I used to read dictionaries and reference indexes while in residence upon the porcelain throne.  Some prefer magazines, I’m told.

In Anticipation

Like the weather in my region, I’m in a holding pattern.  I haven’t felt the need to write much lately.  I’m recharging my psychic batteries, reading, dreaming, and waiting for it to get warmer and dryer so I can enjoy more outdoor activities.

Weird, Retro, Whatevermas!

You can’t look good in that sweater.

 

You guys know I’m a fairly traditional sort of holiday observer, right?  No, really, it’s true.  STOP LAUGHING!!!

Getting in the Spirit

A Newsy Post you can Sing Along With

Life is Beautiful (1997)

The time between Halloween and New Year’s Day seems to go by faster every year.  I’m doing less than I used to, on purpose, but it still feels like activities, responsibilities, even the passage of hours speeds up.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have a bad cold, so I have to stay in alone while my pals are feasting together, and I’m kind of grumpy about it.  I had the good fortune to help restore a truly remarkable film, Giant (1956), a decade ago.  It’s full of honest, meaningful glimpses into the contradictions of American life.

Controversial Films (Pt. 3)

Sex! Violence! Politics! (The Late Sixties)

In the 1960s, a number of factors converged to produce changes in what were acceptable subjects for filmmaking.  In America, the studio system was in sharp decline, and the self-censorship rules known as the “Hays code” were abandoned.  There were “new wave” movements in England and France as well as the U.S.  Independent films made with smaller budgets and crews were finding larger audiences.  These kinds of movies covered topics rejected by the more risk-averse studios.

Controversial Films (Part Two)

Nazis, Newborns & Nuts

“We built that!”

When I was ten, I got into an advanced education program and began attending a different school where most of my classmates were Jewish.  The benefit of being immersed and welcomed into Jewish culture was at least as valuable as anything I learned in class.

Controversial Films (Part One)

Clansmen, Commies, Catholics and Climaxes

“What am I, Gandalf of Arabia?”

All movies are propaganda in the sense that they try to persuade the audience to believe that what’s on the screen is “real”.  It’s always an illusion.

To Our Honored Dead

A Memorial Day Observance

My feelings about holidays that commemorate and accept war as a historical inevitability are complicated.  I realize that millions have sacrificed their lives in acts of service to the nation.  That’s a deeply honorable choice, worthy of great respect.  However, wars aren’t really winnable, any more than executing murderers prevents murder.

The Avengers Disassembled

I didn’t see any of the past superhero movies based on Marvel Comics characters in theaters.  It takes a lot to get me to go to movie theaters so I can listen to strangers eat like cows in order to view a screen larger than my TV.

Full Steam Ahead

Steam-powered zero carbon water taxi

Having always been an odd boy, at different ages I sought identity among the punk enclaves where I lived.

Films for At-Risk Youth

When I was a lonely, nerdy little boy in peril, I learned important survival tips and got cheap therapy from seeing movies about other young ones who were having a hard time.

Homage Fromage

Two mutts at breakfast.

The Artist, this year’s most-nominated film, is simultaneously reverent and cheesy.

Page to Screen

Books and movies aren’t the same thing.  That should be obvious on the face of it, but I’ve read hundreds of articles here and in all kinds of publications that miss that central, inescapable point.  A film adaptation will never, can never and shouldn’t be evaluated on the basis of being “like the book”.

10 Scares You Shouldn’t Miss

It’s less than two weeks until Halloween, the holiday that empowers children, usually the victims of the rest of the big, scary world, to become the scary ones themselves for one night.  All of us were children once.  Now that we’ve survived, it’s fun to look back on the kinds of things that once filled us with fear.  Here are ten seldom seen spooky movies to get you in the right mood.