Tales of the City »

Starting on December 1, Manhattan's Film Forum will begin one of its most anticipated retro-festivals to date: a three-week sleaze-a-thon of Hollywood films released just prior to the introduction of the Hays Code. The code, a detailed compendium of industry guidelines on what should and should not be seen in a Hollywood film, was laid down in 1934 and ruled the roost in tinsel town for the next thirty years. Among other things, the code expressly forbade nudity, interracial coupling, desecration of the U.S. flag, revenge killings, use of illegal drugs, crime methodology (you can't show the audience how to crack a safe), scenes of child-birth, depiction of priests as criminals, illicit bedroom decor, casual liquor use and "white slavery"!

Cinematical will hopefully be on hand to cover some of the classics being screened, including 1932's Call Her Savage, starring Clara Bow as a whip-wielding wild woman named Nasa Dynamite who brains her husband with a stool one day and then heads off to the local gay bar. (Her incurable wildness is later explained by the revelation that she is half-Indian) There's also Born to be Bad, with Loretta Young as a woman who thinks she's won the lotto when her young son is run over by a millionaire. Raoul Walsh's Yellow Ticket, with Elissa Landi trying to escape Czarist Russia by posing as a prostitute, will also be screened. Joan Blondell vehicle Broadway Bad, which ran once in 1933 before being slapped with an outright veto by the Hays office, is also on the bill.

The festival opens on Friday, December 1, with a new print of the Spencer Tracy screwball comedy Me and My Gal and runs through December 21. For more information, contact Film Forum.

Read

According to the Saturday edition of the Australian newspaper The Age, a new open-air, rooftop movie theater will open in Melbourne this December. The entrepreneur behind the project, who has sunk nearly a million dollars into it, claims that the lights of Melbourne's ubiquitous skyscrapers make for an amazing cinematic vision, and when used as a backdrop to a city-lights-heavy movie like Lost in Translation, can jack up the whole experience to another level. The high-altitude, open-air setting also apparently keeps ambient noise to a minimum. The theater will seat 200 and provide dinner and drinks.

No word yet on whether Melbournites will be able to view first-run releases in this fashion -- only vintage fare like Blade Runner and Flashdance is being billed as of now. Personally, I think it's hard to beat complete blackness as the ideal environment for cinema. Nothing is more frustrating than a theater that keeps some 'mood lighting' on at all times or the sudden illumination of a thousand Blackberries as the lights go out. Are there any sophisticated rooftop theaters in Manhattan that I'm not aware of? I doubt that we have anything as elaborate as this. The noise level in the city, which gets worse every year, would probably make such an experiment more trouble than it's worth. But it would be a fun thing to try.

Read

The San Francisco International Film Festival -- or Sfiffffff, as it's spit in a flurry of fricatives down at the speech-therapy clinic -- is still continuing up until the 4th, with plenty of good stuff yet to see -- including Factotum and Half Nelson on Sunday. Great coverage is at the Bay Guardian, the Weekly and the always-fun SFist.

United 93 is also getting a certain amount of local coverage -- the flight was bound for San Francisco -- and the reviews run the gamut, from Mick LaSalle at the Chronicle to Cheryl Eddy at the SFBG.

On the Rep scene this weekend, the Red Vic has We Jam Econo, the Minutemen Documentary; the Balboa continues their engagement of the excellent I Am a Sex Addict, and the Clay's Midnight screening is Rushmore.

Last night, Ed Harris was honored by the SFIFF; I hope to god nobody brought up The Rock,

J.

Yes, the 49th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival begins today -- Whoo-hoo! We at Cine will have our capsule reviews starting tomorrow, but if you're looking for overviews and reviews right now, both the SF Weekly and the SFBG have great stuff. Michael Fox talks to -- and about -- new Executive Director Graham Leggat in the Weekly, and Johnny Ray Huston has more at SFBG.com. Plus, the SFBG has plenty of capsule reviews and more, including ever-ready Cheryl Eddy's interview with the directors of Metal: A Headbanger's Journey as well as the irreplaceable B. Ruby Rich's talk with Sarah Watt, the animator-turned-live-action-director behind Look Both Ways. The fest goes on until the fourth -- at which point it closes with A Prairie Home Companion, which, to be blunt, I walked out of -- and there's plenty to see and do at between now and then.

Of course, if you're looking for less 'high art' and more just plain 'high,' there's a 4:20 PM screening of The Big Lebowski at the Red Vic today. Aah, multi-layered stoner humor. It's like a breath of dank, weed-filled air.

I saw Gavin Newsom drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's; his hair was perfect,

J.

If you're a SF local, you've got a rare chance to enjoy a great bunch of films coming up with more than a little local flavor, thanks to The Balboa Theater's Reel SF series. This second annual iteration of the festival features classic flicks shot and set in San Francisco shown on the big screen; films playing include Clark Gable's San Francisco, D.O.A., and the early Woody Allen effort Take the Money and Run; there's plenty more in the screening series, which starts Sunday and goes on until Thurs. 27th.

And of course, the San Francisco Film Festival starts next Thursday -- kicking off with Peter Ho-Sum Chan's Perhaps Love and a fancy-schmancy party at The Regency Ballroom that night. We've got some more info here, but, as ever, SF360.org is on top of the Festival like that pointy, post-hole digger hat is on top of the Pope.

Finally, The Clay's got a great midnight movie selection as part of the 8 Tales series: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Either I'm reading way too many he-died-so-we-might-live Spock-and-Jesus metaphors into the timing of this weekend's selection, or somone on the programming staff has a great sense of humor.

Oh, and, if you live in San Francisco, that great blazing orb you saw in the sky yesterday is known as the sun; don't be scared.

After over fifteen years in the making -- and making Malick look rushed -- Caveh Zahedi's I Am a Sex Addict opened in Zahedi's own Bay Area this week, at the Balboa. The notable, quotable Neva Chonin has the best piece, from The Chronicle. The first weekend's screenings also include an extensive series of in-person appearances by Zahedi and his fellow filmmakers from in front and behind the camera; The Balboa's Website has more information. And, fascinatingly, the release of I Am a Sex Addict also had the nice side-effect of inducing a media-mogul slapfight that's based around ownership of the film's future rights; we have the story, if that look behind the curtain appeals to you in any way, shape or form.

Also this week, the weeklies have some nice film-related stuff, including a discussion of Jim Jones and the new documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple in the  Bay Guardian. The ever-ready Cheryl Eddy has a review.

Plus,  Adam and Steve opens at The Castro, with writer-director-actor Craig Chester and actor Chris Kattan in attendance Friday night; man, can you go to a movie in this city without the director present this weekend? And, sure, you can; I was just exaggerating for effect.

San Francisco had 25 days of rain in March. Twenty-five days of rain.