Day three in Hong Kong film

Volunteered for the third day in a row - i'm so tired. 2:30-6:30 today on my feet. Taking tickets handing out ballots. I was looking forward to the movie after my shift called the Hong Kong Trilogy. The description was great but the movie was disappointing. It said it was a documentary. Bull, it was so staged so that the same characters kept recurring in the same frames. At the end it said they were real Hong Kong people used for filming. I can believe they were non-actors.

Movie description: As one of the world’s most celebrated cinematographers, Christopher Doyle has brought his inimitable imagistic flair to over three decades of films by a diverse roster of directors from Wong Kar-wai to Alejandro Jodorowsky. His third directorial feature is a playful meditation on a subject close to his expatriate Australian heart: Hong Kong, where he’s spent much of his adult life. Hong Kong Trilogy is an unclassifiable love letter to that megalopolis, joining elements of documentary, fiction, whimsy, politics and absurdist humor, with a cast of real residents playing versions of themselves. Its three segments portray three age groups shaping the city’s present and future. In “Preschooled,” children find time just to be kids when not chafing under various kinds of pressure (“I’ve been tutored so much, who needs real school anymore?,” one complains). The more reportorial “Preoccupied” chronicles the Umbrella Movement, a short-lived but resonant 2014 sit-in protest in favor of democratic reform. Finally, “Preposterous” seniors roam the city on a speed-dating adventure that climaxes in a Fellini-esque celebration of eccentricity at the beach. Throughout this fond, impudent survey, Doyle observes his adopted home with a longtime resident’s intimacy and an outsider’s curiosity—as well as, of course, a visual poet’s eye. —Dennis Harvey

Closing up Sunday night with James Franco

The Fixer. Program description: Director Ian Olds’s fiction feature debut is a captivating tale set in the wildest back roads of Sonoma County, a place he richly renders as both a place of menacing secrets and an oddball paradise. After fleeing his home in Afghanistan, interpreter and budding reporter Osman (A Girl Who Walks Alone at Night's Dominic Rains) finds himself unceremoniously plunked down amidst bohemian spirit-seekers and low-rent criminals when he’s taken in by Gloria (Melissa Leo), the local sheriff and mother of a wartime journalist friend. When Osman accompanies her on a domestic disturbance call, he comes face to fist with the charismatic yet vaguely sinister Lindsay (a nearly unrecognizable, long-haired James Franco). Against her warnings, the two strike up a tentative, unlikely friendship—until Lindsay goes missing and a backwoods gangster turns up dead. Unpredictable, ominous, yet surprisingly funny, The Fixer deftly weaves disparate tones to create a vivid, lived-in portrait of a California rarely seen in film. Supported through multiple funding rounds of SFFS/KRF grants, Olds's film is perhaps the most anticipated Bay Area film of the year. —Michelle Devereaux. Picture:My Review: Horrible. Back Hills biker-type kills someone, they almost kill him back, Afghani journalist is trying to meddle in the middle. James Franco's ? has a baby during a bon fire beer party.

IRVING M. LEVIN DIRECTING AWARD: AN AFTERNOON WITH MIRA NAIR: MONSOON WEDDING

The 4:30 show I saw with my friend Ron. There was Q&A with the fabulous director Mira Nair and then a viewing of Monsoon Wedding. Her bio: Mira Nair was born and raised in Rourkela, India, and went on to study at Delhi and Harvard universities. She began as an actress before segueing to make documentaries. Her narrative feature debut, Salaam Bombay! (1988), won the Camera d’Or and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film. A resourceful and determined independent filmmaker who casts unknowns alongside Hollywood stars, Nair has directed Mississippi Masala (1991), The Perez Family (1995), Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), Hysterical Blindness (2002), Vanity Fair (2004), The Namesake (2006), Amelia (2009) and The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012). Her upcoming film, Queen of Katwe, about a rural Ugandan girl with an aptitude for chess, stars Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo.

The very sad thing about this director meet up is that i had a 12 year old film magazine with an interview of Mira Nair that i wanted her to autograph and I forgot it. After she spoke i went up to the lobby and she was right there. I could of gotten it but I didn't have it. So here is a picture of her in the lobby and of my magazine.

Click Here for Monsoon Wedding Movie Trailer

It's 2am and I'm exhausted

It's 2am and I'm exhausted. I saw 2 1/2 films toiday. I volunteered from 11-3:45 - saw a movie at break. Then two friends with my friend Ron. I'm going to do a basic job detailing the films because i want to sleep.

The Man Who Knew Infinity was a movie of which i saw 75%, but the end a friend filled me in on the end - he dies. program summary : A self-taught Indian prodigy from Madras arrives in Cambridge to revolutionize the field of mathematics in this biopic starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons. My opinion and overheard: It was long in the middle. Exuberance over mathematical equations. It was starting to get good at 20 minutes to the end - then had to leave at 15 minutes to the end. People in the audience cried when he died young at 42 back in India - vindicated by being a math genius - his young wife's cares for him over his last year while he dies from TB.

Click here for the trailer to The Man Who Knew Infinity.

Saturday Films

Saturday Films. After volunteering the staff let us see the remainder of the noire film "Cast a Dark Shadow". Here's a partial program description : Before becoming a 1960s international art house favorite in the films of Joseph Losey and Luchino Visconti, Dirk Bogarde shot to stardom in England playing sexy, amoral cads in juicy ’50s crime dramas.

The black and white film and cinematography was fabulous film noire but instead of a femme fatale it was a male fatale.

The next film was Lo and Behold: Reveries of the connected world. by Werner Herzog.

I only went because i wanted to see a documentary by Werner Herzog. I studied how he did his interviews, how he asked some questions offline or participated with some choice quips online. He was funny i loved how he cut the interviews together and the questions he asked.

Program description:The inimitable investigative style of Werner Herzog’s documentaries meets the Bay Area’s nexus of technology and innovation in Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World. Jumping off from the invention of the Internet and a curious cast of characters from 1960s and 1970s computer science, Herzog quickly expands his gaze to dreams of the future and especially the consequences of intelligent robots. In typical Herzog fashion, the title of the film itself is an inspired bit of pathos: the first message sent on the Internet in 1969 was meant to be “login,” but they only got to “lo” before the system crashed. —Noah Cowan. I wasn't that interested in the topic but he did the documentary with great questions, characters and humor.

San Francisco International Film Festival #59

It's that fabulous time of year! The San Francisco International Film Festival.This year it is in The Mission district. The hipster part of town but it is crime ridden. I'm bummed because I love Japantown where the film festival was for 30 years. It's close to where i live and the Kabulki is a glass 3 story wonder.
I'm volunteering and seeing movies with friends and alone
My first shift today on Sat. April 23, 2016 was volunteering at the Castro. While ticket taking a grand 80ish dame told me, "I was a star!" One of the volunteers knew the films of George Kuchar that she had been in.

Her name is Linda Martinez. I took this selfie with her. I also took her number and hope to interview in my film class this summer. Now that I'm home I'm watching a documentary on George Kuchar's films, "It came from George Kuchar". He made fabulous kitschy underground films. The documentary includes interviews with Jon Waters who was influenced by his films.

Click Here to see the Film Festival Preview - played before each movie