Marc and Carol are moving from SF to Reno, leaving the apartment they found by happy accident on Union St. When they stopped to have pizza nearby as they scouted for temporary living quarters as Marc had signed up to work for Hood Miller.
Interestingly, this marks the end of their THIRD twenty year venue period focused in a single place :
Leslie, Paula and Andrea went and threw us a Dinner Club to remember.
The “Super Bowl Gang” make great company, lively talk and warm memories. Thanks for an extra nice send-off. We were totally surprised and just plain thrilled.
Love, Marc and Carol
San Francisco International Film Festival 55
[I provide the San Francisco Film Society promotional blurb and add “My Take.”]
Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey
Thu, May 3 7:00 / Castro — Big Nights USA, 2012, 113 min
CREDITS
director – Ramona S. Diaz, cast – Neal Schon, Jonathan Cain, Deen Castronovo, Arnel Pineda, Ross Valory
CLOSING NIGHT The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival ends on a high note—a really high note—with an all night celebration kicked off by a rousing screening of Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey at the Castro Theatre, featuring director Ramona S. Diaz and all five members of Journey, and a rockin’ party with live entertainment, dancing, food and drinks
Arnel Pineda’s path from YouTube obscurity to stadium fame in becoming Journey’s new lead singer has inspired newspaper articles and TV talk show segments, but Ramona S. Diaz’s inspiring new film is an up-close and in-depth look at his past and present, from a homeless young adulthood singing on street corners in Manila to the sudden pressures of touring around the world and performing before crowds of thousands. Placing interviews with the candid Pineda (who at one point says he looks like he was placed in the band’s photos through Adobe Photoshop) alongside backstage camerawork that faithfully assumes his perspective, Diaz’s documentary is a counterpart to the exploration of public popularity in her 2003 portrait Imelda—focusing on Pineda’s rise from poverty to wealth, Diaz reveals the generosity of his spirit. She and the band also deliver electrifying musical sequences, including two distinctive homecoming shows, one of which registers as a validation of Pineda’s commitment to albums that he kept in his hope chest, and the power of his voice. “The way I see it, it’s a temporary thing,” Pineda says of his current gig, but Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey—while looking at a pair of cities by the Bay—gives it lasting life.
—Johnny Ray Huston
MY TAKE – Journey was never on my radar, so I could not relate to their actual plight of finding a new lead singer, but Ramona Diaz told the story in such a way that made for a fascinating two hours. She focused on Arnel, but wove the story of behind-the-scenes looks at a hot band on the road around him. The closing concert in Manila had the packed Castro audience on its feet as one, nearly drowning out the applause on the soundtrack. WOW. Things calmed a bit during the credits and then the director, producers and all five members of Journey were introduced for a Q&A. The joint erupted again. The questions were mundane, but at one point Arnel sang a cappella; I don’t know or remember the song, but what a voice! Walking out of the theater, I said to Carol and Sarah, “That’s got to be the feel good movie of the Festival.” I’m not going to rush out and buy a Journey album, but I will keep an eye peeled for Romona Diaz’ next film.
Preschool Program Coordinator
Early Childhood Education Center
San Francisco State University 1992 – 2012
On Wednesday, September 28, 2011, the Rockies beat the Giants 6-3 and Carol told Sarah she would retire as of June 1, 2012. At home that night, she said to me, “It’s time. You better practice having me around.”
Well, that was plenty of notice, but the weeks and months did pass and Associated Students of San Francisco State University decided to throw a big party for her. She is the first person ever to retire from AS. Later, we learned that Carol’s colleague Nahid, from the infant/toddler wing of the Young Children’s Education Center would share retirement and the party.
The party date was set for Friday, April 27th and it turned out to be a very strange and wonderful day for Carol. First, she was honored at the annual awards breakfast of SF Child Care Providers Association and presented with a certificate of recognition:
California Legislature Assembly
CERTIFICATE OF RECOGNITION
Carol Rector
ASI ECEC Program Director
Honoring exemplary leadership and outstanding commitment to the success and development of the children in California, helping them grow to their full potential while supporting parental involvement throughout their educational, and dedication to the both the children and their families, thereby benefiting all the people of the City & County of San Francisco and the State of California.
Assemblywoman Fiona Ma
Speaker pro Tempore
Presented April 27, 2012
When she got to the school, she was confined to her office, as secret party preparations were going on all over the place around her.
I arrived at the Center minutes after 5:30 and was greeted by Paula and Andrea then Matt and Andrea and Elias.
Meanwhile, Carol was being greeted by everybody. The party was outside in the school yard. Decorations were in abundance, really good food was offered along with bright red fruit punch. The weather was perfect, featuring 65 degrees and a bright setting sun. The yard was filled with over a hundred colleagues, parents and kids stretching back for many of Carol’s 20 years at the Center. Everyone was in a celebratory mood.
Sarah gave a marvelous introduction of the honorees and then many people came forward to offer their congratulations and remembrances — parents and former parents, former colleagues, former students and of course, officials. Fortunately, speechifying was limited to two-minutes each as the famous San Francisco weather lost its warmth and fresh breezes promised goose bumps. Continue reading “Carol Retires”
Welcome to Donald Judd’s world: Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX.
Chico & Rita
Thursday February 9th, 7:00pm Landmark’s Lumiere Theater
1572 California Street — San Francisco Film Society
Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and desire unite them as they chase their dreams and each other from Havana to New York to Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas. With an original soundtrack by legendary Cuban pianist and five-time Grammy®-winning composer Bebo Valdés, Chico & Rita captures a defining moment in the evolution of history and jazz, and features the music of (and animated cameos by) Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Tito Puente, Chano Pozo, and others.
MY TAKE – Fabulous. The animation perfectly captures Havana of the late ‘40s, and ‘50s before Castro, the color, the street life, the clubs, the cars… just right. Later scenes in other cities are less successful, but plenty good. (How do you draw Las Vegas of the 50s???) And the jazz is plentiful and superb.
Embarcadero November 17, 2011, a guilty pleasure, film in the afternoon.
Renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adrià is widely considered the best, most innovative and craziest chef in the world. In his kitchen, that which was once familiar disintegrates. Each year his restaurant El Bulli closes for half a year—time for Adrià and his team to retire to his Barcelona cooking laboratory to create the new menu for the coming season. Filmmaker Gereon Wetzel closely observes their quest—from initial experimentation to the premiere of the finished dish. In the course of that process, however, many an ingredient is examined in a totally new way. Taste and texture are systematically analyzed: by boiling, roasting, frying, steaming—vacuumizing, spherifying, freeze-drying—and then, tasting. Ideas emerge, are discussed and, finally, all the results, whether good or bad, are thoroughly documented—on a laptop beside the cooking spoon. Anything goes—except copying oneself. An elegant, detailed study of food as avant-garde art, El Bulli: Cooking In Progress is a tasty peek at some of the world’s most innovative and exciting cooking; as Adrià himself puts it, “the more bewilderment, the better!” (Fully subtitled)
Director: Gereon Wetzel
Cast: Ferran Adrià, Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch, Eugeni de Diego, Aitor Lozano
ABOUT THE RESTAURANT
Revolutionary Spanish eatery El Bulli is a Michelin three-star restaurant in Roses, Spain (two hours northeast of Barcelona); each night, it serves a tasting menu of 30+ courses, prepared by over 40 chefs, to a single seating of up to 50 guests. For the current season, its last before transforming into a culinary academy, over two million requests were received for the 8,000 available seats. Head chef Ferran Adrià, who took over the restaurant in 1987 and instituted the tradition of yearly developmental sabbaticals, has become the leading inspiration for avant-garde cuisine worldwide, alternately referred to as a mad scientist or Salvador Dali of the kitchen.
MY TAKE – This was good and engaging and very well presented; but to me, this wasn’t about El Bulli or about food, it was about research, development and presentation of a product… it happens to be food in this case. But the product doesn’t look like food, one doesn’t lick ones chops at the preparation or presentation of the food… the only reason I was hungry when I left – it was almost dinnertime. There is plenty of Ferran Adria and his top chefs tasting things and words like “brilliant” “exciting” “magic” “bewilderment” and Ferran once admonishes a chef, “This doesn’t taste good. Never bring me anything that doesn’t taste good.”
As for El Bulli, there are gorgeous pictures of the restaurant and the setting, but never the dining room, never patrons enjoying their meal. I was interested in how “china” is selected/created for each dish, but not a word about that. At the end, the camera focused on Adria as he was served each dish in the sequence it will be (is being?) served to the diners.
Would that we could have experienced touch (since many of the courses are eaten with one’s fingers) and taste and smell.
It’s like a long and critical and loving study of a woman’s face and makeup and skin care, but at the end, you know nothing about the woman, except that her face is quite beautiful and she lives in a fabulous house on the Mediterranean.
“For a foodie, the new film about Spain’s renowned El Bulli restaurant is a bit like an Angelina Jolie movie for a teenage boy… Food lovers can now salivate via celluloid. El Bulli: Cooking in Progress, a meticulous exploration of how this famously avant-garde eatery comes up with its insanely inventive creations…for those passionate about the artistry and indeed the science of cooking, it’s dangerously close to porn. There are some unintentionally very funny moments, like when two chefs go to the local market and ask for five single grapes for their testing – and three beans”
– Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press
San Francisco Film Society Fall Season 2011
A wide ranging lineup of specialty film festivals
Autumn marks one of the busiest times of the year for film festivals, and the Film Society is doing its part to bring the best films from around the world to the Bay Area. The Fall Season—comprised of a growing roster of small, focused festivals—gives adventurous and inquisitive Bay Area audiences the opportunity to delve deep into carefully chosen film series and engage with bold filmmakers.
Hong Kong Cinema
Taiwan Film Days
International Children’s Film Festival
French Cinema Now
Cinema by the Bay
SF International Animation Festival
New Italian Cinema.
I’ve sampled all over the years, but the only one that consistently gets my attention is
NEW ITALIAN CINEMA
Presented in conjunction with New Italian Cinema Events (NICE)
This is my favorite of the sffs Fall Series of films and here’s what I (we) saw. [I give you the SFFS blurb followed by My Take. Sometimes the NICE blurb is included, as well.]
Ginger and Cinnamon
Daniele Luchetti
Melancholia
sffs directed by Lars von Trier November 2011
SFFS members are invited to a free member-only preview screening of Melancholia starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Keifer Sutherland. Melancholia is a psychological disaster film from director Lars von Trier.
Lars von Trier’s work that I have seen:
In 2000, von Trier premiered a musical featuring Icelandic musician Björk, Dancer in the Dark. The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
He then directed two films in his announced ‘U.S. trilogy’: Dogville (2003), starring Nicole Kidman
In 2006, von Trier released a Danish-language comedy film, The Boss of it All.
Von Trier’s latest work is Melancholia, a psychological disaster drama;[26] shot between 22 July and 8 September 2010 at Film i Väst’s studios in Trollhättan, Sweden,[27] and with exteriors in the area surrounding the Tjolöholm Castle
About the film: In this beautiful movie about the end of the world, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). Despite Claire’s best efforts, the wedding is a fiasco, with family tensions mounting and relationships fraying. Meanwhile, a planet called Melancholia is heading directly towards Earth…
MY TAKE – When we left the theater Carol and I remarked to one another how excruciatingly long and slow that film was… seemingly hours of Claire dragging around that child and Justine wandering around that golf course. And yet we both thought that parts were beautiful and the acting of the main characters was brilliant.
Mick LaSalle’s review was in the Chronicle the next day. He had the little man sitting straight up, expressionless, which means GOOD.
(Full reviews at the end of this)
He starts —
If only Lars von Trier took into account that audiences might actually want to enjoy “Melancholia,” rather than endure it, or sift through it, or submit to the director’s will, he might have made something extraordinary. The film’s arresting concept, its deeply felt understanding of depression, and its glossy and surreal cinematography — like a Magritte painting — could have been the ingredients of a masterpiece.
and concludes with —
At this point, you might be wondering why, in a middling review, I’ve concentrated only on the good. (In fact, I haven’t the space to talk about all the strengths of “Melancholia”; for example, Kiefer Sutherland as Gainsbourg’s sardonic husband or Charlotte Rampling as Dunst’s and Gainsbourg’s vicious mother.) The reason is that all the virtues of “Melancholia” are original and interesting.?Meanwhile, its flaws are so typical and pedestrian that it’s difficult to sound intelligent mentioning them.?But it must be said: “Melancholia” is grindingly slow and endless, with scenes that go nowhere and long, long stretches of directorial indulgence. There is almost no tension and barely enough story to carry it to feature length, much less 2¼ hours.
Carol and I totally agreed. But then, I went and found Roger Ebert’s review, on line. He gave it 3 1/2 stars (out of 4). What’s up with that? Continue reading “Melancholia, a commentary”
Stanford Cardinal v. Washington Huskies
October 22, 2011
Stanford Football is not your big-time SEC or BIG 10 affair, but damn, it’s fun.
I’ve managed to go to a Stanford football game each year for the last 3. Love it.
2009 versus Oregon with Sarah, a normal and sunny afternoon game. I got tickets from the Stanford website and knowing nothing about the stadium, settled for upper deck, Row XX, above the student section. I discovered that in this 50,000 seat, newly remodeled stadium, there are no bad seats. Stanford won in a wild game 51-42, but it was not without thrills, as the Ducks mounted a 21 point comeback in the 4th quarter and were driving as the clock expired.
2010 versus Wake Forest with Carol, Paul and Kathleen, an 8pm start on general admission tickets, upper deck end zone, procured by Kathleen, who works at Stanford. Stanford kilt Wake 64-24.
RectorSite 