Category Archives: 2012 in Films
March 2012 in Films: Napoléon, Short Films and Business Trips
I guess I watched less new-to-me films this last March than I have in any one month in over a year. There were several factors in my lack of new-to-me’s this month. For one, I spent a day and a half working on a short film with some classmates. Then I was in North Carolina on business (something related to this blog, which I will post about later) for four days. I also hurt my back, which caused me to lay in a vicodin-induced haze for a few days. Lastly, two of the films I watched last month were over five hours long. YES. Watching Bertolucci’s Novecento took an entire day, as did my epic watching of Kevin Brownlow’s restoration of Abel Gance’s Napoléon at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland last weekend. Oh yes, also, the lovely Kristen Sales of SalesOnFilm was in town for the spectical and we spent the better part of three days either watching Gance’s brilliant film or wandering around San Francisco eating and drinking and taking in the city’s delights. I also continued my re-watching of old favorites. I found in my watching of soooo many new-to-me’s last year that I began to miss watching films that were dear to me. So this year I am trying to balance new-to-me’s with a healthy dose of old favorites. Lastly, I saw some great films (mostly old favorites, a few new-to-me’s) at the Castro Theatre this month: Manhattan, Welcome To L.A. (n-t-m), Reality Bites, My Own Private Idaho, Freeway (n-t-m), Shame and Take Shelter. As always, the full list of films is after the cut, plus five highlights.
February 2012 in Films: Oscars, Leap Days and Cinema Galore
While I didn’t manage to quite make it to two new-to-me films a day in February, I did see a lot of great films this last month. I blame not making my goal on my roommate for forcing me to watch the first season (series?) of BBC’s Sherlock; although it was fantastic. That and I did a lot of re-watching of old favorites. I found in my mission to watch alllll the films last year, I missed re-watching films that were dear to me, so this year I am trying to balance my new-to-me watching with a handful of favorites each month. Along with many a-watching at home, I also saw thirteen films at the Castro Theatre (only two of which were films I’d seen before). I also saw a film at the San Francisco Film Society’s cinema for the first time ever and Wim Wender’s Pina in 3D. The Oscars were a few days ago; I didn’t write much about them leading up to the ceremony and I don’t intend to write much after it. I have been pretty disappointed by the whole race this year. I’m mostly just happy for Christopher Plummer and Woody Allen. 2011 was a great year for film, not so much for Awards Season. Here’s hoping this year is great, both for cinema and the awards. As always, after the cut is a list of the films I watched and five favorites.
January 2012 in Films: Il Cinema Italiano, Film Noir, Podcasts and Interviews
January was a great month for me. As I said in my end-of-the-year post at the beginning of the month, I have decided to tackle world cinema (well, outside France, which I have done pretty well with). So far my concentrations have been on Italian cinema (I even learned Italian this month!), mostly watching late-50s-early-60s Italian cinema, though I did watch a few Italian silents as well. I have more than fallen in love with Marcello Mastroianni. I also covered Noir City X, the Film Noir Foundation‘s tenth annual film noir festival here in San Francisco. You can read my wrap-up post here at YAM Magazine. Don’t forget the Oscar nominations came out this month; you can hear my thoughts on those here at The Matinee. Lastly, yesterday Warner Bros. gave me the opportunity to interview Stephen Bogart, son of legends Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, over the phone. You can read that interview here. As always, a round up of all the new-to-me films I watched this last month is after the cut (I think I also rewatched about 18 films this month on top of all the new-to-me ones). So many great films. So many more to watch.
the diary of a film history fanatic 