Month: April 2013

SFIFF56 missed

The calendar says we’re in the midst of the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival. We’re not there.

dirty laundry

A few weeks ago I was sending my income tax package to my San Francisco accountant and the UPS Lady asked; “What do you miss most about SF?”

I said, “I can no longer walk down to Real Food for a half-pound of mushrooms and be back in five minutes.”

That was a spur of the moment reaction, and certainly true as it is “five miles to a loaf of bread” where we now live.

The reflective answer is that we most miss the San Francisco Film Society. We’re reminded of that at least once a week when we get the newsletter. But we don’t need the newsletter to tell us what we’re missing… we’re missing everything that’s not playing at the CinePlex.

We have a very nice CinePlex downtown by the Truckee River — RIVERSIDE 12 — and we enjoy going there to an early show and dinner after at any number of good restaurants nearby. But seeing Lincoln in a theater with 8 to 10 other souls present ain’t like seeing Queen of Versailles in a packed house. That’s what I miss.

We moved to Reno on June 6th, last year, not long after the 55th annual San Francisco International Film Festival closed. We attended 17 films at SFIFF55. I promised myself that for SFIFF56 we would make the trip to San Francisco during the Festival and cram as many films as possible into say, three days.

When the full schedule was available on the SFIFF56 website, I started looking around. I targeted April 30, May 1, 2. The website was arranged pretty well so with about 3 groups of times a day = 3 films a day. I think I picked two or three on Friday and then I started thinking… This is not like picking one or two films a day over 20 or so days. And I know nothing about any film; there’s no buzz, no printed program to peruse, no Members Night to review the films…

Well, all those things could have been overcome. But the Elephant-in-the-Room was Eric and Alison’s trip to San Francisco and then Reno the exact day after the Festival closes. Let’s say we went to SFIFF56 on April 30, May 1, 2… came back home and turned around and drove to SF the very next Friday to meet E and A. And we’ve hardly settled down from out Giants Spring Training trip (and certainly haven’t yet paid for it).

That crushing momentum caused me to just stop planning. I didn’t decide not to go, I just didn’t continue to pick films, discuss them with Carol, coordinate with Sarah, get the tickets, arrange to stay with Paula and so on and on. I guess I didn’t acknowledge it, but it turned out to be either:

Giants and Film Festival OR
Film Festival and Eric and Alison OR
Giants and Eric and Alison.

The latter became the default.
And while we loved the Giants trip and will love seeing Eric and Alison…
Bummer. Can’t get 10 pounds of goodness inna 5 pound bag.

But there is a fall-back. One of the other festivals: Taiwan or French or Italian. I always liked the Italian best. Last year, New Italian Cinema Events (NICE) played November 11 to 18. I’m gonna mark my calendar now.

First Aces Game

As partial season ticket holder — Thanks Eric and Alison.

Here we are waiting to park while a tow truck does his business.

We’ll go to the end of this building then ramp up to the third — of six — floors to park. Five bucks, and you can use your ticket stub for a free slice at the pizza place (right beside that Ford). Hey, this is Reno. In SF they charge $20 to $40 within 5 blocks of the ballpark. This is just across the street.

Opening Day — with all new staff — is not a good time to get quick service before the game.

We’re in one of the *Freight House District* restaurants that border the ballpark. Carol is looking out the window to the field as they bring the National Anthem singer in in a limo.

Here’s the Aces starting lineup. No digitized jim-crack-scoreboard in this ballpark.

They do have a nice, big scoreboard, but it’s the kind that shows slides and short pre-made videos (such as advertising).

Our view of the ballpark. Pretty good, sez I.

As Brian promised, when the sun went down it got pretty cold, but we’re used to that from San Francisco — Not to mention Fenway Park in April. What we’re not used to is the Aces trailing 16-3 in the top of the Fifth Inning, and it’s about 9:20. We took the opportunity to leave.

And this is what was happening the next day… April snowblobs bring May flowers, we hope.

Roger Ebert 1942 – 2013

 

I almost never read a review before seeing the film. I like to be surprised… I want to figure it out for myself… I don’t know. Once I see a film, I’m eager to read a review. I guess my favorite critics are the New Yorker guys, David Denby and Anthony Lane. Of those, I’m more sympathetic to Denby, but they can both be really tough. I find the New York Times guys too dense. Mick LaSalle in the SF Chronicle can be brilliant, but most often isn’t and completely misses the mark, as I see it. Sadly, his Roger Ebert obituary missed the mark.

My go-to guy has always, ALWAYS, been Roger Ebert. He wrote so I knew what he’s feeling, and what he felt was very often what I felt. And part of his charm was that he was a storyteller, knew how to spin a yarn. Knew how to talk straight to me. I subscribed to the Sun-Times Media Roger Ebert.com email edition. It showed up in my mailbox once or twice a week. The last one in my mailbox is Friday March 22. God I’ll miss him.

I wrote about the tribute to him on RectorSite when I met him in person for the first and only time at the 53rd San Francisco International Film in 2010. (Feel free to scroll down past tributes to Don Hertzfeldt, Walter Salles and Robert Duvall to reach Roger Ebert’s final slot.)