What Fiona Apple was up to in the seven years between the release of her third album Extraordinary Machine (2005) and her latest is anybody’s guess. But whatever it was, we are grateful. The Idler Wheel is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You Read More…
What is it about tentacles that is so horrifying? There are a hell of a lot of them in “Prometheus,” director Ridley Scott’s sorta prequel to the “Alien” series. In fact, much of “Prometheus” is writhing tentacles and people looking incredulous at computer monitors. People say things like “It’s us!” Read More…
The rain, the heat, the crowds, the croissants, the movies. This is the Cannes Film Festival, or where I was the past few weeks. Cannes is a little city on the French Riviera, and how did I get there? I was sent by the San Francisco Film Society, along with Read More…
Richard Linklater’s “Bernie” is a film about a peculiar man in way over his head. This man is Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), an honest member of the community whose desire to please everyone in the East Texas town of Carthage is his fatal flaw. A mortician whose interests also include Read More…
Our lead writers bring you the latest and greatest in Bay Area arts and culture this week Film This week the Pacific Film Archive hosts four films by Michael Glawogger, an Austrian filmmaker who focuses on the plight of the working class amid an increasingly alienating global economy. Glawogger’s experimental Read More…
Our lead critics bring you the latest and greatest in Bay Area arts and culture this week. Film Wednesday afternoon, Pacific Film Archive hosts the last of its Film 50 series, a course taught by Marilyn Fabe which surveys a variety of films from different eras and sensibilities. This year’s Read More…
It is impossible to talk about “The Cabin in the Woods” without revealing the sinister, strange tricks it has up its sleeve. Cutting to the root of the genre, the film begins as an uninspired riff on horror mythology as five teenagers — the jock, the blonde bimbo, the smart Read More…
Visual Art: Cal Day is approaching, and Saturday’s flurry of events will offer art lovers unexpected opportunities for special tours, exhibitions and demonstrations. These art-related events are not just for bright-eyed future Cal bears and their parents, but are also offered to the general public. At Free Speech Movement Cafe, Read More…
From the shackles of an oppressive ideology breaks “This is Not a Film,” which virtually redefines the meaning of artistic freedom. In 2010, Iranian director Jafar Panahi was given a six-year prison sentence and a 20-year ban from filmmaking. This film, or not-a-film, begins with Panahi on house arrest, awaiting Read More…
Our lead critics bring you the latest and greatest in Bay Area culture for this week. Film Our very own Pacific Film Archive mixes, as it were, sound and image in the next installment of its Cine/Spin series, where Cal DJs take on films from the PFA collection. On Thursday, Read More…
