Adventure Malgache
Alfie
Along Came a Spider
Amores Perros
Baise Moi
The Bat Whispers
Big Brown Eyes
Bigger Than Life
Billy Liar
Blow
Bon Voyage
Bridget Jones Diary
The Bullfighter and the Lady
Bury Me Dead
Center of the World
The Claim
Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys
Company Man
Day for Night
The Dish
Enemy at the Gates
The Fast and the Furious
15 Minutes
Get Over It
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Jealousy
The King Is Alive
A Knight's Tale
The Legend of Rita
The Man Who Cried
The Mexican
Mickey One
Moon Over Miami
Moulin Rouge
The Policewoman
The Princess and the Warrior
Red Desert
Satyricon
Series 7: The Contenders
Seven Men From Now
Sexy Beast
She Loves Me Not
Standing on Fishes
Strange Fits of Passion
Swordfish
The Tailor of Panama
The Taste of Others
Three Little Girls in Blue
Tomb Raider
Town & Country
Under the Sand
Wages of Fear
Weight of Water
When Brendan Met Trudy
The Widow of Saint Pierre
With a Friend Like Harry

Most recently I saw The Fast and the Furious, which suffered from not being fast enough, or, of course, furious enough either. Jordana Brewster is possibly the worst actress working today. But Paul Walker is good, and I love Vin Diesel.

From an Instant Messenger conversation with my sister:

tedstrong: you should see Sexy Beast
Joanna: someone just said they saw that and it was awesome...
Joanna: it's an english movie?
tedstrong: yes
Joanna: what is it about?
tedstrong: this aging brit is retired from a life of crime in uk. low living in spain with wife, his pal and his wife and a little spanish pool boy.
tedstrong: but ian mcshane and james fox are cooking up a scheme back in uk and send psycho ben kingsley to fetch our hero for another heist. awesome.
tedstrong: 'now living'

Sexy Beast. Directed by Jonathan Glazer. Cast Ray Winstone as Gary "Gal" Dove, Ben Kingsley as Don "Malky" Logan, Ian McShane as Teddy Bass, Amanda Redman as Deedee Dove, Kay Kendall's brother Cavan Kendall as Aitch -- he died before the film was released and there is a special mention of him in the credits, Julianne White as Jackie, Alvaro Monje as Enrique, pool boy and the great James Fox (The Servant, Russia House, The Remains of the Day, Performance) as Harry.

Kingsley has also appeared in Species (1995), Death and the Maiden (1994), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), Neeson's high-moraled mentor and pal in Schindler's List (1993), Dave (1993), Sneakers (1992), Meyer Lansky in Bugsy (1991), Dr. Watson in Without a Clue (1988), Maurice (1987), Betrayal (1983), and as Mahatma in Gandhi (1982).

McShane has also appeared as Lovejoy in the British TV show "Lovejoy" in the 80s, Ordeal by Innocence (1984), The Fifth Musketeer (1979), The Last of Sheila (1973), Battle of Britain (1969) and If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969).

Sexy Beast also puts Henry Mancini's "Lujon" to great use.

Before that I saw Tomb Raider at the Presidio. It was just Tomb Raider. Jolie looked good in her tight short pants and guns. Her father Jon Voight plays her father briefly. Not bad, could have been better. Better than Pearl Harbor.

The day before I saw Sexy Beast, I saw The Man Who Cried at the Opera Plaza with Eric and Amy. We all liked it quite a bit. A little girl in 1927 Russia loves her daddy. He heads off to America with plans to send for her and his old mom. The little girl's village is destroyed. The little girl, who looks quite a bit like Christina Ricci flees to England!

Cut to Christina Ricci in England. She joins a singing dancing troupe and heads to Paris! She becomes pals with a rather selfish, but gorgeous Russian immigrant, Cate Blanchett. Blanchett starts dating a rat, an Italian opera star/Nazi sympathizer. Ricci starts dating the laconic, beautiful gypsy, known as "Johnny Depp."

The Nazi's invade...

Good movie, great cast, performances, photography.

Well, people. Today (6.13.1) was a very special day. First I had lunch with my dad in San Francisco, where I live. I had an unbelievably good cheeseburger (with gorgonzola cheese!) and super good french fries, at Absinthe on Hayes and Gough. Then, I returned some movies (unimportant). THEN, I went to the Roxie Theatre and saw... BIGGER THAN LIFE!!! Holy holy.

This movie has never been on video or dvd or laserdisc. I haven't noticed it being on television in like a dozen years. I was lucky enough to have taped it off of Cinemax around then, twelve years ago. I watched it once and liked it a lot. But later the tape was destroyed.

BIGGER THAN LIFE! Produced by Mason! Directed by Nick Ray (who's made some amazing films like On Dangerous Ground with Robert Ryan and Ward Bond, Rebel without a Cause with James Dean, In a Lonely Place with Bogart and Gloria Graham and Johnny Guitar with Hayden, Crawford and Ward Bond)! Co-starring Walter Matthau and Barbara Rush -- and a PRE-Leave it to Beaver Jerry Mathers (he only has one line though).

When this movie came out, in color, in widescreen, in 1956, the doctors and the pharmacists and the drug companies wanted to stop it (much as 12 years earlier when both the liquor companies and alcoholics anonymous wanted to stop The Lost Weekend from coming out).

The film is one of the greatest ever and the most freaky and frightening. Mason is this nice guy teacher with a wife and kid and pal (Matthau).

Then, he has these attacks, and the tension builds. Then observation. Then there's a new drug, cortisone -- this is based on a true story. He will die unless he uses this new drug, which may save his life. What happens next is awesome, wild, insane and extremely frightening!

So, he starts on it, and then right away he starts acting like king of the world, then he starts overdoing it on the doses, then he starts going crazy. He is so scary and funny too. He's demented. He's crying uncontrollably at times. Freaky. He tells the PTA people that children are awful, and need to be treated like farm animals...

But then he goes to church with his family and he's like sneering the whole time, goes home and says how stupid that serman was, and he feels like it's his job to educate his boy, and he's like terrorizing him. In the end he starts quoting from the Bible, about how Abraham was told by God to show his love to God by killing his son... and the wife is freaking out, and she's like "don't stop reading, God lets the boy live..." and then Mason shouts "God was wrong!" He goes upstairs to kill his son with a pair of scissors. It's the most disturbing movie ever. It rules!

The cinematography is great, Nick Ray's direction is perfection, and Mason is at his best! I don't want to tell any more of the plot, because I know this movie must be made available on DVD and video ONE DAY. The building of suspense -- and true horror -- is wild. I liked this movie when I first saw it, but now, it's an absolute masterpiece.

The print was only okay, but I'm not going to complain. The Roxie is a great place, because they'll pull out lost, great films from nowhere and show them. Bigger Than Life played with Ray's In a Lonely Place. I cannot tell you how great this film is. I couldn't stay for it today, but I've seen it several times. The theatre was packed -- mainly with film buffs who knew what a special day this was.

Then I happened to watch my DVD of North By Northwest, and THEN Lolita turned up on Turner Classic Movies.

I hope you read all this and that it wasn't boring. I was just really excited (which I don't get very often) and wanted to share the love of Mason, Ray and BIGGER THAN LIFE.

I just found this on imdb.com: "Celebrity News: 2nd May 2000... Barbra Streisand Voted Seriously Overrated Singer BARBRA STREISAND is the most overrated performer in the world while BING CROSBY is the most underestimated according to a new poll. AMERICAN HERITAGE magazine selected a group of experts to write a series of short essays and pick presidents, film stars, cities and movie classics which they believe are under or overrated by the planet's population. In the film category, movie classic Gone with the Wind (1939) was deemed overrated, whereas the 1956 flick Bigger Than Life (1956) starring JAMES MASON and WALTER MATTHAU was considered underrated."

6.8.1: Today's lead story in the SF Examiner is titled "Ewwwwww, Gross" and it is all about union workers winning their suit against Disneyworld. Now, the people who wear Minnie and Mickey Mouse, etc, costumes can wear fresh panties underneath. No, I am not joking.

I saw Swordfish today, Halle Berry's brief topless scene was well publicized (that's why I went) and when her scene took place a guy in the theatre took a picture. That should be up on the internet by now.

Otherwise, Swordfish looks great, and the cast is good, and this is better than director Dominic Sena's last film, Gone in Sixty Seconds. But it's pretty routine summer action fare. Plot, story, screenplay all right out of the 100 million dollar action movie grab bag.

John Travolta is slightly better than he's been in years, Hugh Jackman's fine, Halle Berry's gorgeous, Don Cheadle is always great, Vinnie Jones has too small a part, Sam Shepard is the evil senator, Drea de Matteo is Jackman's ex-wife, Zach Grenier, William Mapother is Tom Cruise's brother.

Then I saw The King Is Alive at the Lumiere. Medium popcorn, medium root beer. Popcorn, generally, hasn't been exciting for me in months. And that continues.

The film is a "Dogme" film, like The Celebration, Mifune and Dancer in the Dark. It is good. Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Miles Anderson, Romane Bohringer, Bruce Davison, Brion James, and Janet McTeer. Directed by Kristian Levring; when a bus breaks down in the desert, the passengers decide to stage King Lear. Character introspection follows. God, but I love Jennifer Jason Leigh, and have for a long time. She's super sexy, super one of a kind, and she keeps doing movies that mean something, even if in the end they don't work out.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, is small, she appears nude or partially nude in a lot of her films (including this one), her father Vic Morrow was decapitated in the infamous Twilight Zone the movie helicopter disaster in 1982. I believe he left her nothing but mean words in his will, and to this day she refuses to discuss him with the media. Jen is 39, and her films include: the lead role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), with Sean Connery in Wrong Is Right (1982), Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money (1983), Grandview, U.S.A. (1984), Verhoeven's Flesh & Blood (1985), The Hitcher (1986), The Men's Club (1986), Tralala in Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), The Big Picture (1989), Miami Blues (1990), a rare mainstream, big budget appearance in Backdraft (1991), some of her best work in Rush (1991), well known as Bridget Fonda's lunatic roommate in Single White Female (1992), brilliant in Short Cuts (1993), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Dorothy Parker in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Georgia (1995), Kansas City (1996), Washington Square (1997), Allegra Geller in Cronenberg's eXistenZ (1999) and the upcoming films: The Road to Perdition (2002), The Quickie (2001), and Anniversary Party (2001).

Brion James looks like hell in this movie, and he died in August of 1999 at 54. I stayed until the end of the credits, to make sure that the film gave him an "in memorium". His first film was Hard Times (1975) with Coburn and Bronson, Nickelodeon (1976), Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), "Roots" (1977) (mini) perfectly cast as a "Slaver", Corvette Summer (1978), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Southern Comfort (1981), as Leon in Blade Runner (1982), Kehoe in 48 Hrs. (1982), Flesh & Blood (1985) with Jen Jas Leigh, Silverado (1985), Enemy Mine (1985), Cherry 2000 (1987), Red Heat (1988), D.O.A. (1988), Tango & Cash (1989), a breakthrough role in The Player (1992) as Joel Levison, Striking Distance (1993), Big Teddy in Cabin Boy (1994), General Munro in The Fifth Element (1997) and Brown's Requiem (1998).

His TV appearances include episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Superman", "Silk Stalkings", "Batman: The Animated Series", "Tales from the Crypt", "Hunter", "Miami Vice", "Sledge Hammer!", "Matlock", "The A-Team ", "The Fall Guy", "The Dukes of Hazzard", "Little House on the Prairie", "CHiPs", "Benson", "The Incredible Hulk", "Mork & Mindy" and "The Waltons".

On it's opening day, Friday, June 1, I walked down to the Metro on Union and saw Moulin Rouge. It's the best movie so far this year, quite wonderful, stylish, original and beautiful. Directed by Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet). Ewen MacGregor plays Christian, a fellow who goes to Paris' Montmartre in 1899 to write about love. But first he needs to find love. He falls in with Toulouse Lautrec (a very good John Leguizamo) and company (Bohemian artists) and hits the stage. The stage is the Moulin Rouge run by Harry Zidler (Jim Broadbent to be nominated for an Oscar) and the star is the beautiful entertainer Satine (Nicole Kidman). There are songs, comedy, tragedy, romance, love, etc. The set design, cinematography, choreography, editing are all wonderful. The cast is great. Also starring Richard Roxburgh as the evil Duke of Worcester, and in a great cameo, POTW Kylie Minogue as The Green Fairy.

I went down to Palo Alto on Saturday and bought a couple books, got a burger, fries and a shake at a diner and went to the Stanford Theatre. I saw Moon Over Miami (1941), with Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Robert Cummings, Carole Landis, Jack Haley, Charlotte Greenwood, Minor Watson and Fortunio Bonanova. Directed by Walter Lang, sound by Roger Heman, choreography by Hermes Pan. A colorful MGM musical. Two beautful girls from a Texas hamburger stand (Grable and Landis) and their aunt (Greenwood) go golddigging to Miami to land a couple of millionaire husbands. Grable starts dating Ameche and Cummings and then falls for one, and then finds out he's not rich either! and then... Beautiful color print, wonderful cast. Ameche is very funny and cool, and I'm starting to understand the appeal Grable had in the 30s and 40s.

Interestingly Landis was married four times between 1934 and 1945. But in 1948, she was having an affair with Rex Harrison when he discovered her body -- suicide, Seconal, 29 years old.

This was on a double bill with Three Little Girls in Blue (1946), a loose remake of Moon Over Miami. Not near as good. Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone. Starring June Haver, George Montgomery, Vivian Blaine, Celeste Holm, Vera-Ellen, and Frank Latimore.

Dateline 5.26.1:

Been a while since I've written here. A couple weeks ago I walked all the way down to the Vogue at Presidio @ Sacramento. I saw A Knight's Tale. It was fine. Not bad, not great. Just light entertainment. Laura Fraser has a good supporting role.

Then I saw The Claim at the Van Ness. Nastassia Kinski, Sarah Polley, Wes Bentley and Milla Jovovich. Great cast. Well shot, acted, but just sort of blah.

Then Red Desert at the Castro. Antonioni, Richard Harris, Monica Vitti. There's one pretty erotic, but no nudity or sex and not much kissing. But it worked. Otherwise, I couldn't wait for the film to end. Not a fan of Italian cinema I don't think. Find much of it pretentious and dull. Maybe I'm just not intellectual enough? But I'm in Mensa.

Then... what... oh... uh... hmmm... oh yes, on the 24th I saw at the Castro, Hitchcock's super entertaining short, WWII, French language thrillers: Bon Voyage and Adventure Malgache. And the 1930 Widescreen suspenser The Bat Whispers. Stars Chester Morris, Una Merkel (unless it's Una O'Connor -- the young one anyway), directed by Roland West. Entertaining, some innovative effects -- for the time, laughable now -- silly, but fun. And along with The Big Trail (1930 also) an early try at the widescreen format, which didn't really come back until the mid 50s.

Dateline: 5.14.1: I saw Wages of Fear in Berkeley at the Fine Arts Theatre one night. It's highly acclaimed. But, while I liked parts, I kind of felt like I didn't get it, or something. One thing that bothered me, a woman, like 40 was leaving the theatre and told a guy that she didn't like it, that's a woman's perspective for you, she said that to this guy. And I knew what she was talking about, but it annoyed me. Our sort of anti-hero treated women really badly. But that doesn't mean the film took the same stance as this character did. That attitude annoys me. Is she that stupid a filmgoer? I mean is Pulp Fiction a bad movie, because the lead roles are killers? So, is Pulp Fiction supportive of gangsters and murder? No.

Baise Moi. Banned in Paris. Kind of a violent movie, with real, like porn, sex. I mean porn. Like penis' going into vaginas. It's been called a sicker version of Thelma & Louise. It's like that. Only thought it was okay. At the Roxie.

Bury Me Dead (1947). Hugh Beaumont (Ward Cleaver), June Lockhart, Cathy O'Donnell and Charles Lane. Very B noir. Relatively entertaining, nothing special. Rarely screened, saw it at the Roxie.

Jealousy (1945) at the Roxie with BMD. John Loder, Jane Randolph, Karen Morley, Nils Asther. Randolph gives an unbelievably dull performance as a woman who's married to a drunk writer, who's losing it, getting crazy and violent. She falls in love with this nice guy doctor (Loder). But the doctor's assistant Morley is in love with him too. Murder ensues. Asther is good as the drunken writer. Morley's pretty good too, but as the other woman in the cast she's so much better than Randolph, that I don't know what.

Next night at the Roxie: Big Brown Eyes and She Loves Me Not with Bing Crosby and Miriam Hopkins. Big Brown Eyes was from 1936, the year before Cary Grant hit the big time (with Topper and The Awful Truth). Grant is cop, girlfriend the wonderful Joan Bennett, they sort of do a Thin Man type thing, but it's only okay. Co-stars Walter Pidgeon and Lloyd Nolan (very good).

In She Loves Me Not (1934) a cabaret dancer (wildly outrageous Hopkins) witnesses a murder and is forced to hide from gangsters by disguising herself as a male Princeton student. Crosby is a student who tries to help her out. Hilarious chaos ensues. Plus a couple songs. And murder. Suprisingly funny. This was a real good one.

Tonight I rode my motorcycle down from San Francisco to Menlo Park (half hour or so south) to see my last planned film of the San Francisco Film Festival. Under the Sand. So, it was pretty dark, and the film hadn't started or anything, and I was barely able to read my Jean Seberg biography, when Charlotte Rampling walked right by me. I was on the aisle. Anyway, she talked to the person running the theatre for a while about 7 rows in front of me, in the front row. Then the woman got up and introduced Charlotte Rampling. It was wild. She only spoke for about two minutes and then she had to leave. She was very classy and elegant, and told us how the film meant so much to her, and that it's about her and all of us. She was wearing black slacks and a white coat. She looked great.

Directed by François Ozon, and starring Bruno Cremer, Jacques Nolot and the still beautiful Alexandra Stewart, who I just saw again in Truffaut's Day for Night.

On Sunday, April 29, I saw Town & Country at the AMC Van Ness. Top floor. Hearing that it was so bad, I guess my hopes weren't up too high. I mainly saw it because one-time Person of Week Tricia Vessey was in it.

So were Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Garry Shandling, Diane Keaton, Jenna Elfman, Andie MacDowall, or McDowell?, Nastassia Kinski, Charlton Heston and Josh Hartnett.

I laughed quite a bit. It was relatively entertaining. But kind of not completely smooth editing. But that will happen when you spend three years tinkering with a film. Tricia's part wasn't much, she just played quiet, darling, sweet daughter of Keaton and Beatty, but she was, of course, great in it.

On Wednesday, April 25 I went to the Embarcadero to see Wayne Wang's Center of the World. First thing I see is an older couple -- like my parents' ages sitting down ready for the film, and I'm like: do these people even know what this movie is about?

It's about sex. This stripper/hooker goes to Vegas with some internet whiz kid and bla bla bla. It's unrated or NC-17, cause of too much sex/nudity. Boring. Not erotic, not entertaining, ugly to look at (like Los Angeles). This older couple got up and left halfway through. "What has happened to the world's morals, Kenneth?"

I tried to get popcorn and coke but didn't, all the better for my diet. More than most, the Embarcadero hires certifiable idiots, retarded people and senior citizens to work there. This is fine for the job of Ticket Ripper (pointless duty), but they had this one old, stupid lady working the concessions and the line was like 6 people and we just kept looking at each other, like 'what the HELL is she doing?' Well, she stood in front of the customer for a while (nothing) then went to a cupboard and stood there for a few minutes, and I just left. This happens often at the Embarc. Theatres make their money on concessions, and the Embarc must lose hundreds a day because of their shoddy employees. Stupid.

On Thursday I saw my 4th of 6 SF Film Fest films. Kathryn Bigelow's [Strange Days (1995), Point Break (1991), Blue Steel (1990), Near Dark (1987)] Weight of Water. A great cast, an interesting story. Part flashback murder mystery to the 1800s, part on a boat with Sean Penn, the wonderful Catherine McCormack (Shadow of the Vampire, Dangerous Beauty, The Tailor of Panama), Penn's brother and his girlfriend, the unbelievably hot Liz Hurley. Hurley enjoys sunbathing nude and flashing her tits at Penn. The flashback parts feature Sarah Polley (Go, The Sweet Hereafter), Ciaran Hinds and Vinessa Shaw.

After getting exactly zero hours sleep Thursday night, I got up at 7, and planned to see Town & Country with Tricia Vessey at 10:50 at the evil Sony Metreon, and then to the Clay to see With a Friend Like Harry at 1:30. Then I planned to try to stay awake until about 8 or 9 and try to go asleep again. I was shivering non-stop from 7 to 10:30 when I got on my bike. I was shivering violently and could hardly ride. It was as cold as ever, dark from fog, I turned back after two blocks and went to bed. I slept from 11:15 to about 4, then saw Harry at like 5 or something.

It was great, a French thriller, somewhat 'Hitchcockian', with Sergei Lopez (from last year's awesome An Affair of Love) as a crazy psychopathic madman in love with this dude he runs into, who had written a couple poems back when they knew each other in college. He starts to hang out with this guy and his family, and then people start dying... Great movie. Somewhat similar to Strangers on a Train (1951).

On Saturday I saw, as part of the SFFF, Juliette Binoche (!) in Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys. It was told in scenes, sketches, with characters intertwining. Lots of interesting people and relationships. I saw it with my friend Jenny. She DID NOT LIKE IT. And she had a serious problem with what she referred to as "the editing". There were jumps between scenes, but I don't know if that was from the projection room, or a bad cut, but I don't hold THAT against the film. But Jenny's a great kid. Most everyone I know wouldn't really like the movie. She says I'm biased because it's Juliette, and there is of course some truth to that, I suppose, but if Nathalie Baye or Miou-Miou or Irene Jacob or Isabelle Huppert had been in it, I think I would have felt the same way. But to be fair, 3 or those 4 women have been POTW at tedstrong.com.

There were some minor problems, not with the film, but with the film going experience. Some ass clown behind me kept banging his knees against my chair, driving me insane. I looked back at him like 3 or 4 times, and he kept doing it. About 3/4 of the way through the film, I just leaned way forward and then slammed back against the chair. He stopped then. There were two young college aged couples in front of us who kept talking. The theatre was a packed and a weirdo sat next to me.

I have to see Town & Country (Tricia Vessey), Baise-Moi (French sex film) and Under the Sand (Charlotte Rampling) between now and Monday, after that I may have to take a hiatus from film going, because it's getting me DOWN. Independent films are now just as bad as mainstream, I can handle most previews more than once (many less than that), their so predictable, and annoying and they give away the entire film usually. Then when I'm watching the movie, I'm like checking my watch all the time. It's like I'm killing time. Getting nothing out of most. Whatever.

On On Sunday night, April 22, at the Castro, as part of the SF Film Fest, I saw Francois Truffaut's 1973 masterpiece Day for Night (La Nuit américaine).

Because Americans invented shooting "day for night" (using lenses to shoot nighttime scenes during the day) the French called it la nuit Americaine (the American night). That is to explain the title.

A fat man who loves opera and films and apparently worked in a Frank Borzage short film in 1949, introduced the film (upon checking cannot even find a Borzage short from '49). He was jolly and obviously loved and knew a lot about film, and he summed up why he and I love Truffaut, it was because of Truffaut's humanity. He was never cynical or satirical. He loved people and their foibles.

Truffaut is my favorite French New Wave director. His films include Confidentially Yours (1983), The Woman Next Door (1981), The Last Metro (1980), Love on the Run (1979), The Green Room (1978), The Man Who Loved Women (1977), Small Change (1976), The Story of Adele H (1975), Mississippi Mermaid (1969), Stolen Kisses (1968), The Bride Wore Black (1967), Fahrenheit 451 (1966) -- his only English language film, still underrated and containing the best opening credits ever in a film, The Soft Skin (1964) -- a personal favorite (of mine), Jules and Jim (1962), Shoot the Piano Player (1960), and The 400 Blows (1959).

Day for Night is one of Truffaut's best films and it is one of the 100 greatest films of all time. Says me, anyway. I saw it once before on video, many years ago. I remembered just bits, Jackie Bisset insisting on tub of butter, and the snow scene at the end. If you rent, or buy it be very wary, it's more likely you'll find the dubbed version rather than the subtitled version. Dubbed foreign films suck, and are for stupid people.

It's about the making of a film. The director Truffaut plays the director of the film, Hollywood star Jacqueline Bisset plays Hollywood star Julie Baker, etc. There's a scene where Truffaut and a crew member are looking at pictures of Bisset and commenting and then one of them says she was really good in that film with the car chase. Obviously a reference to the film Bullitt in which Bisset co-starred with McQueen 5 years before, and which contained the most famous car chase in film history.

There's lots of parallels between the actors in the movie playing the actors in the fictional movie and between the characters they play. It's super layered and rich and wonderful. The cast is great. Especially a super young Nathalie Baye -- recent POTW. There are wonderful little moments. All these people, in the cast and crew, love movies. After a day of shooting they go to the cinemas to watch movies. They talk about movies. Two guys watch a TV program on movie trivia and they answer all the questions ahead of the contestants.

Cast: Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Alexandra Stewart, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Jean Champion, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut, Nathalie Baye, David Markham, the film's composer Georges Delerue as Georges the composer, British novelist Graham Greene as an English Insurance Broker (billed as Henry Graham). Directed by François Truffaut and written by Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard and Suzanne Schiffman. Original music by Georges Delerue. The film was dedicated to Lillian and Dorothy Gish, silent film stars and sisters.

In line, in front of me there was an Asian couple who weren't speaking English and in front of them were two girls. One had short brown hair and was absolutely beautiful. Very real and sweet looking. I, of course, said absolutely nothing to her.

On Saturday, April 21, my friend Jenny and I went to the Castro for an SFFF double bill!!!!!!

First was Tom Tykwer's The Princess and the Warrior with Franka Potente (Lola in Run Lola Run and John Depp's first wife in Blow) and Benno Fürmann. It was quite good. I'm a huge Tykwer fan because I really liked RLR and I loved Wintersleepers.

This film was all about this mental ward nurse who gets hit by a truck and this petty thief who saved her life. He was dealing with lots of problems, mainly that his wife died in a gas station explosion and he keeps having nightmares. Potente wants to get with him to see what's up. And he's putting it off; him and his brother are planning to rob a bank and flee to Australia. At first I was thinking, is this rambling a bit, is it overlong, but when it ended I realized that it wasn't.

The two leads were great and... they were there IN PERSON! to answer questions and they were both really cool.

The second film was a musical comedy and was very funny and very good. It was called Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Hedwig is a transvestite from Germany and he has this crazy rock band touring the U.S. and playing in Chili's like restaurants. The film was writ, directed and starred in by John Cameron Mitchell. Also with Miriam Shor, Michael Pitt, Andrea Martin (of "SCTV"), Alberta Watson (of "La Femme Nikita"), Ben Mayer-Goodman (very good as the six-year-old Hedwig) and Stephen Trask. The scene where the six-year-old is dancing on his bed is better than all of Billy Elliot put together. Mitchell was there too and answered the questions. The bonus of Film Festivals. Man, if Juliette and Charlotte Rampling show up to the films I'm seeing of theirs, I may pass out.

On Friday, April 20, I was going to the Castro to see Baise-Moi at the SF Film Festival. But turning right onto Castro from Market, my motorcycle wheel got caught in an expansive rail train track thing with a lot roadway gone and it has sort of become a weird pothole thing (like much of San Francisco's streets) and I crashed down. My leg was hurting rather badly, and I didn't feel like seeing the movie anymore. It's supposed to come to the Roxie in a month or so. My right leg is very bruised and cut and my left leg only slightly, but the worst is the thumb on my left hand. It is really painful and I can't do stuff like type, button my jeans, pick something up with my left hand...

I saw Bridget Jones Diary at the Empire 3 Tuesday night. And I saw Strange Fits of Passion at the Lumiere on Thursday. The Lumiere's popcorn was not very good this time. Lots of small, hard, kernelly pieces, and I got pretty pissed and tossed it on the floor. The movie was okay. Girl tries to lose her virginity. But the popcorn thing really annoyed me. I ate about 70¢ worth of $3.50.

Bridget was really good, a very nice adaptation of a funny book. The three leads were great. Hugh Grant was very funny, especially the first time you see him standing in an elevator, looking very caddish. Colin Firth is super charming and Renee is quite good. I don't really care for her, and was unhappy to hear of her casting, but she makes the English accent work really well, and she does a fine job of carrying the movie.

My friend Pete who hates all period dramas and romantic comedies is like oh I'm going to see Bridget tonight and I'm like DON'T you'll hate it! And he's like, nuh uh, it's supposed to be good. And I'm like it is good, but you won't like it. You don't even like the greatest romantic comedy ever, Wilder's Sabrina, and he even loves Wilder. I think Pete was broken a bit in his upbringing and it has made him hugely sarcastic about that type of genre. But I love Petey Weets, he's a great guy and a great friend and he's usually very perceptive about himself. Just not about the romantic comedy thing.

So, I saw a very good, but not quite great film on Friday at the Bridge. Amores Perros. Mexican, recent Oscar nom for Best Foreign Film. The story is designed sort of like Pulp Fiction. Pete asked me if it was Peckinpahian, I think he heard it somewhere, and then I was like yeah, it is a little. Partly because of the Mexican setting. Peckinpah loved Mexico and shot there a lot. I also saw Along Came a Spider which was borderline, but I think it was more 'entertaining' than Kiss the Girls. And I saw The Dish with Sam Neill and the great Patrick Warburton. It was fun nostalgic light comedy about the satellite dish from Aus that was used to bring pix from the 1969 moon landing to the world. Very fun, nice for the whole family. If you have the kind of parents who think there's too much sex and 'bad words' in movies, they'll like this. Sort of old fashioned.

The wonderful cast includes Kevin Harrington and Tom Long as scientists at the Dish, Roy Billing and Genevieve Mooy as the Mayor and his wife, beautiful Eliza Szonert as one of the scientist's cute young girlfriend (maybe), and the great American stage actor John McMartin as U.S. Ambassador. McMartin's other credits include: an excellent supporting performance in A Shock to the System (1990), Legal Eagles (1986), Blow Out (1981), Pennies from Heaven (1981), Brubaker (1980), All the President's Men (1976), and Sweet Charity (1969). In fact he originated the part of Oscar in "Sweet Charity" on Broadway opposite Gwen Verdon. In the film he's the male lead opposite Shirley MacLaine.

He was a regular on the "Falcon Crest" TV Series from 1985-1986.

Notable TV guest appearances include two episodes of HBO's "Oz", three episodes of "Law & Order", "Spin City", "Frasier", "Coach", four appearances on "Murder, She Wrote", "Cheers", twice on "Magnum, P.I.", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "The Rockford Files", "Cannon", "Harry O", "The Bob Newhart Show", twice on "Hawaii Five-O", "The Partridge Family", and "Marcus Welby, M.D.".

Beautiful Eliza Szonert was born in 1974 and played on Australia's wildly popular "Neighbours" TV series as Danni Stark from 1993-1996, and recently was on an episode of the American TV show "Angel" playing a Chamber Maid" in "The Prodigal" episode, which aired on 2/22/2000. The Dish is her first film.

In fact it's probably the best film of 2001 so far. I think that's it.

On Monday, April 2, I saw a free, advance screening of Blow with my buddy Pete, and his friend, whom we will call "Colette". I don't want to use her real name, because of you know people's own rules about privacy v. the internet. But she seemed very cool. Attractive, smart and, this is the kicker, quite knowledgeable about film. Did I spell knowledgeable right?

The first half of Blow was three stars and the second half was two stars. I just got tired of it after a while. Good cast includes John Depp, Penelope Cruz (one of the most beautiful women -- ever), Franke Potente (Run Lola Run), Rachel Griffiths (as the worst mother in the world), a very good Paul Reubens, Ray Liotta, Cliff Curtis, supermodel James King briefly as Depp's daughter, Max Perlich and Jordi Molla in Oscar-worthy (but it's only April) support.

SF film critic Ruthe Stein sat right in front of me. At the beginning of the film there were focus problems and audience members kept yelling "Focus!" and after a while Ruthe started demanding Focus too.

Then I rode over in the freezing cold to the Empire 3 around West Portal and San Vicente. They have great popcorn, and I hadn't had dinner, that's why I didn't go to Memento at the Embarcadero, their popcorn isn't as good. I saw Enemy at the Gates. Slightly better than I was expecting, happily slightly shorter, a good cast, neat end credits, a happy ending. Russians V. Germans in WWII. British actors playing Russians, American actors playing Germans, directed by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud. Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, Ron Perlman.

On the freezing ride all the way back to Nob Hill, I noticed that after midnight all the stop lights on 19th and on Geary are evilly timed so that you can't go faster than 25 mph! These are wide, wide streets, it's late at night, no one's out and they make us drive like children! SF bastards! This is the worst thing about SF and the pot holes and cracks and holes in the roads, and the homeless PROBLEM. Those three things. Other than that the city is one of the best in the world.

Last week I saw Alfie, The Tailor of Panama , The Taste of Others, and Mickey One.

Alfie at the Castro. It was Michael Caine as Alfie from 1966. It was pretty good. Denholm Elliot had a good small part and Shelley Winters did too. The rest of the cast, mainly the women in Alfie's life, were really good. Old British actresses you haven't heard of. Sort of a comedy-drama about this womanizing rat, Alfie.

The Tailor of Panama was fine. Pierce Brosnan was good playing a bit of a "rotter" to quote some British person. Geoffrey Rush was good, Jamie Lee Curtis was Jamie Lee Curtis, I don't understand how she gets roles. She's not pretty and she's not a good actress. Catherine McCormack was marvellous.

I saw this at Cinema 21 down on Chestnut, I think. They have maybe the best popcorn in the city. I don't want this to be like one of those dumb nerd guy sites where they go all crazy with ALLCAPS and stuff, and bla and bla and bla about "tits" and objectifying women and all that. But, Catherine McCormack has the greatest breasts of anyone in the world. She's naked in several of her films that I've seen her in and it's all very wonderful.

The Taste of Others was a French film up for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars. It was great. Written and directed by the beautiful Agnès Jaoui, and it starred her too, and a great ensemble cast. It's just a movie about people and their relationships with each other, something the French do so well, and the Americans do so poorly. This film is like a PG/PG-13, don't let the title make you think it's some kinky, porn-art film (not that there's anything wrong with that, baby). See it!

Mickey One is a mid-60's Arthur Penn film with Warren Beatty, Hurd Hatfield and Franchot Tone. It was different, well photographed, sort of an existential, paranoid gangster film. I saw it with Pete at the Pacific Film Archive. When it started Pete whispered to me, "from the director of Penn & Teller Get Killed." Which is true.

Warren Beatty is a stand up comic (believe it or not), paranoid and on the run from mobsters (85% paranoid into believing mobsters are gunning for him, 15% the gangstaz are really after him). Two nice performances by Hurd Hatfield and the still battered looking Franchot Tone. In 1951, in a dispute over the on-again, off-again affections and the wavering allegiance of the actress Barbara Payton, Tom Neal took to violence against his rival as Payton's paramour, the aristocratic actor Franchot Tone. The former college boxer Neal inflicted upon Tone a smashed cheekbone, a broken nose and a brain concussion. (Hollywood film studios essentially blackballed Neal thereafter, but he would come to find a livelihood in gardening and landscaping. He was brought to trial in 1965 for the murder of his wife Gale, who it was determined had been shot to death with a .45-caliber bullet to the back of her head. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Tom Neal in California's cyanide-gas chamber. The trial jury, however, convicted him only of "involuntary manslaughter," for which he was sentenced to 10 years in jail.)

A strange, extremely happy, mute, possibly gay little Asian man keeps showing up and waving maniacally at Beatty, for some comic relief, one supposes.

"Lose himself, lose himself, in a-London!" -- from a Saint Etienne song, but a sample taken out of Billy Liar.

The first time I saw Billy Liar, I was right out of college, and all Pearl Jammed and angst ridden, and generation xed and it so very much applied to me at that time.

It still applies. The Castro begins it's cool week of the British New Wave/Angry Young Men films with a three-day run of Billy Liar starring Tom Courtenay (great), Julie Chrisitie (ideal), and Finlay Currie (old).

Courtenay is this lad, early 20s, living with his working class parents and his old grandma (all three of these actors are very good in these supporting roles: Wilfred Pickles, Mona Washbourne, Ethel Griffies -- Hitchcock's Mrs. Bundy, knower of birds in The Birds), working some shit job dreaming (a la Walter Mitty) of escape. Lots of brief fantasy sequences.

He's got two unnattractive, horrible British slags that he's juggling, engaged to both, trying to get sex out of them. He dreams of being a sketch writer for a comedian.

Julie Christie is this travelling girl who comes back home every once in a while to make money so she can go and see what life is about, all the bright lights, the cities, the people.

But Billy's pathetic, and scared. Won't go (London with Julie). Stays at home with his dreadful parents (exactly like mine). Not really dreadful people, only dreadful if you're Billy.

Great movie. Plan to see most of the rest of the Castro's British New Wave retrospective this week.

But, before I saw that I went to the dopest bookstore in the world, and one of my favorites. It's a Mystery/Crime store, and none can probably top it. The guy who runs the joint, Bruce Taylor, is selling the place, lock stock and, in a matter of days. He's having a dope 50% off sale on April 1. Hopefully the place will go on, as is, otherwise, but you never know.

Anyway, it's in Sunset? Or east of sunset. Not too far from the Castro. Pretty much due south of there. Say, about 10 blocks due south of the Castro Theatre. Go down Castro St. and turn right on 24th St and it's on your left.

On Monday, March 19, I walked all the way over to the Clay on Fillmore near Clay.

I saw Juliette Binoche in Patrice Leconte's The Widow of Saint Pierre.

The title is deceiving. The French title is La Veuve de Saint-Pierre. According to my Parisian friend Stephanie, Veuve means widow, but it also means guillotine. However, when I checked for this online and in a French-English/English-French dictionary, I couldn't find it. So, maybe Stephanie and I had a miscommunication. My French isn't much, and her English isn't perfect.

Anyway, Juliette -- well first, the film co-stars Daniel Auteuil, Emir Kusturica, and Michel Duchaussoy. Kusturica is a film directore originally, directed A Time for Gypsies, among others. Daniel Auteuil starred in Patrice Leconte's beautiful film from last year, The Girl on the Bridge.

La la la, right? Well, not to me, but maybe to you. Anyway, back to the most beautiful and greatest actress of all time. I swear, a class could be taught in art school just on the structure of her face alone.

I need to say more about this movie, but I don't feel like it. It's good, but not at all great. This lady gets her husband killed, all along knowing that her selfish good deed of rehabilitating a man who's going to be 'topped', will GET her husband killed. Then she cries and we are supposed to feel bad for her? Hmmmm.

Then I saw Series 7: The Contenders on like, Wednesday? And Company Man on Thursday. I feel like I saw something else too, but maybe not.

Series 7 is a satire of the real life real world shows like Survivor, Real World, Temptatin' Island, The Mole, etc. It is pretty good. It's a satire, but in some ways it becomes what it satirizes. The word satirizes comes from the word satire.

Company Man stars a great big cast including Douglas McGrath, Sigourney Weaver, John Turturro, Anthony LaPaglia, Ryan Phillippe, Alan Cumming, Denis Leary, Woody Allen, Heather Matarazzo, Paul Guilfoyle and Jeffrey Jones. It is a madcap comedy about the Bay of Pigs disaster. It has some funny parts, but too much of it is just silly. And it's a bit scattered.

On Sunday, March 18, I woke up and had a bowl of Raisin Bran and a glass of orange juice.

It was the nicest day of the year yet. San Fran is lucky to get a day like Sunday in the summertime.

I walked down to Grammophone to see if they had in the DVD of the first four episodes of the Sopranos. I finally started watching the show.

They didn't.

I walked by the Lumiere to see what was playing and at what times.

I walked up California, turned right on Hyde and left on Bush and went down to Powell and then down the street to Borders books. I am trying to find something my sister told me about, the new Interview magazine with Madonna on the cover and inside a two page article with pix on Juliette Binoche.

But they didn't have it. I bought a mystery novel. One by Dorothy L. Sayers. I have never read her.

Then, back to my apartment on Clay and Leavenworth. I ate an apple.

Then, back to Grammophone to see if anyone returned the Sopranos DVD I want to rent (they didn't) and then up to the Lumiere. I saw the 4:50pm showing of The Legend of Rita.

The movie was okay. I had popcorn and a rootbeer, and then after the movie started, I couldn't control my urges -- and I ran out and got some Red Vines and went back in and wolfed them down!

Then I walked home and ate more food. Some soda crackers with peanut butter, a banana, another apple, a couple of Blow Pops, some graham crackers, a chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk.

You see, I am trying this new medication, supposed to work on my insomnia. BUT, it's causing weight gain and making me eat more, so I put the kabosh on that today. Screw that! I'd rather be dead than fat! Plus it appears to be causing some "sexual dysfunction" as the paper says. Not Good (NG).

On Saturday the 17th of March, 2001 -- St. Patrick's Day -- I rode into Berkeley and met my buddy Pete at the Top Dog just up the street from Tower Records. It's a little Hot Dog stand, a restaurant, just an inch bigger than a stand. Very popular. Pete talks about it often, I hadn't been there.

It was good. I don't eat dogs too often, but I do like them. I had two dogs and a bowl of chili and a root beer.

Why is all this info in the movies section? Getting to that. I had reserved two tickets to the sold out event, An Evening with Budd Boetticher.

Two of his films would be screened and then Mr. Boetticher would speak.

The films were The Bullfighter and the Lady with Robert Stack and the great Gilbert ("that bastard") Roland, and one of the classic and influential Randolph Scott westerns he did, Seven Men From Now. Both films were recently restored. Seven Men From Now was assumed lost until recently, and over a half hour of Bullfighter that had been cut on original release had finally been put back.

Bullfighter was good, but a bit ho-hum. SMFN was awesome. I have seen most of the Scott-Boetticher westerns: Seven Men from Now (1956), The Tall T (1957), Buchanan Rides Alone (1958), Ride Lonesome (1959), Comanche Station (1960), Decision at Sundown (1957), Westbound (1958). All but the last two were scripted by Boetticher pal, and future director, the recently deceased Burt Kennedy.

These westerns, like the James Stewart-Anthony Mann ones of the 50s, are highly regarded and very influential on Peckinpah and later, grittier westerns.

On March 15th I saw Fellini's Satyricon (1969) at the Castro. The film stars Martin Potter, Hiram Keller, Capucine, Alain Cuny and George Eastman.

It's pure Fellini and I couldn't wait for it to end. As usual with foreign, arthouse classics, fart humor pervades.

I also saw Get Over It at the Kabuki on the 15th. The film was surprisingly funny, cute and entertaining. Fast paced high school comedy love story with a good cast: Kirsten Dunst, Ben Foster, Melissa Sagemiller, Kylie Bax, Ed Begley Jr., Colin Hanks, Swoosie Kurtz, Martin Short, and Sisqo.

Short is very funny as the gay high school drama teacher.

At some point in the last month or so I saw The Policewoman at the Castro for the German Int'l Film Festival. I don't think I wrote about it.

It was good. A young somewhat attractive, slightly chubby woman joins the police force and all kinds of situations ensue. Some funny, some romantic, some serious, some whatever. But it was directed by Andreas Dresen and stars Gabriela Maria Schmeide, Axel Prahl and well, you get the idea, German people you've never heard of before. I'm one/eighth German. But, my German ancestors were in America well before the Holocaust. I had nothing to do with that.