Some promising movies opened this weekend while I was sampling the San Francisco International Film Festival. The result: ten movies for me in seven theaters in three cities over four days.
I started on Friday at the SFIFF with Prince Avalanche and Rent a Family Inc. at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. Prince Avalanche, a droll comedy with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch that will open in theaters later his summer, is very funny. Writer-director David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls, Pineapple Express) introduced his film and took questions. Rent a Family Inc., a documentary about an odd Japanese practice of renting fake family members, was less successful. (Note: I missed my monthly poker game for these two flicks.)
On Saturday, I caught up with the new releases: The Reluctant Fundamentalist at Camera 7 in Campbell (okay), At Any Price at San Jose’s Camera 12 (liked it a lot) and the French thriller In the House at San Jose’s Camera 3 (surprisingly clever).
On Sunday, I caught Kon-Tiki at San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center Cinema; (I’m writing about Kon-Tiki tomorrow). Then it was over to SFIFF for Me and You at the Kabuki. Me and You is the latest from Italian cinema legend Bernardo Bertolucci, and I LOVED it. (I had to miss the great director William Friedkin’s appearance at a rare screening of his 1977 Sorcerer at Camera 3; I would have loved it, but I just saw Friedkin last summer at a Killer Joe screening and I already had my SFIFF tickets; to make up for it, I am gonna buy Friedkin’s new book and Netflix his Sorcerer.)
Then I rendezvoused with my nephew Danny and his friend Zeke for a special showing of the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers at the Castro Theatre, preceded by a Q&A with director Philip Kaufman. It was the first time that the guys experienced both a grand movie palace and an appearance by a filmmaker – and they enjoyed the movie, too. Body Snatchers, which I saw in its theatrical release, held up very well – and still has one of the all-time great closing shockers in cinema.
I returned to the SFIFF on Monday with The Wife. First, we saw The Spectacular Now at the Kabuki, a coming of age indie focused on teen alcoholism; one of the best films of the year, it will open widely on August 2. Then we saw Deceptive Practices, the fine documentary about my favorite magician/card shark Ricky Jay, at the New People Cinema.
Whew! That was a whirlwind! It’s lots of fun to go to the movies, but trying to write about so many in a compressed period is tough for me. The highlight was sharing the movie experience with The Wife and the guys. But I also saw some movies that will be on my Best Movies of 2013 – The Spectacular Now, Me and You and (probably) At Any Price – all in one glorious weekend.
I was away on our 9th annual women’s weekend in Calistoga — as The Movie Gourmet pointed out I should perhaps always schedule my away weekends during movie festivals.
I, too, really liked Spectacular Now — wonderful acting, great story.
The original Body Snatchers was filmed in Sierra Madre not far from where I lived and I was so exited to see all the familiar spots. I remember the end of that movie very well! Did the boys like it or was it too tame?
The boys liked it. It stands up very well, and is still very creepy with a shocker ending that nobody sees coming. I think that it could be released today and be popular.
During the Q&A, director Philip Kaufman said that he met with the director of the first Body Snatchers, Don Siegel, and its star Kevin McCarthy. Siegel and McCarthy were very dissatisfied with the ending that the studio forced on them. So in his version, Kaufman changed the ending to a more powerful and less optimistic one. Also, McCarthy and Siegel both appear in the Kaufman version.