Category: Marcus

The 54th San Francisco International Film Festival kicked off yesterday and will run through May 5, featuring 192 films. Carol and I will be going about every day, sometimes to the same film, sometimes to different films. I will write capsule reviews of the films I see and post them here as soon as I get them written. The most expeditious way to do these reviews, for me, is to take the advance blurbs and edit them for what I saw. If you’re interested, you can see the advance blurbs at the SFIFF54 web site. Reviews will be added at the end of this post.

SFIFF54 – 2011

APRIL
Thu 21 M and C – Beginners — (review below)
Fri 22 M – The City Below, C – Meeks Cutoff
Sat 23 C – The Last Buffalo Hunt, M – World on a Wire
Sun 24 M and C – At Ellen’s Age
Mon 25 M and C – Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Tue 26 M and C – New Skin for the Old Ceremony
Wed  27 M – The Sleeping Beauty, M – The Mill and the Cross
Thu 28 M and C – Love in a Puff
Fri 29 M and C – Detroit Wild City
Sat 30 M and C – Kanbar Award – Dog Day Afternoon, C – Blessed Events

MAY
Sun 1 – Member screening – won’t know what film until we see it
Sun 1 M and C – A Cat in Paris, M and C – Page One: NYT
Mon 2 M and C – The Stool Pigeon
Tue 3 M – Yves St Laurent L’Amour Fou, C – American Teacher
Wed 4 M and C – The Trip
Thu 5     M and C – Closing Night – On Tour

SFIFF54 Opening Night: Beginners

Opening Night of the San Francisco International Film Festival is two days away! Kick off the 54th year with Mike Mills’s Beginners, about a graphic artist (Ewan McGregor) absorbing the lessons imparted by his father’s late-blooming eagerness to let love into his life.
Mills and McGregor are expected to attend for a postscreening Q&A.

Join the convivial throng at the Castro Theatre for a screening of Beginners, and then head to the lavish party to enjoy culinary delights from local restaurants, sophisticated cocktails and, of course, dancing. You must be 21+ to attend the party.

At the Castro, SFFS Executive Director Graham Leggat was paid tribute for 5 years of superb service by the President of the Board, J. Patterson McBaine. Under Graham’s leadership, SFFS has grown from 11 staff to 32, $1 million budget to $6 million, doubled its membership and become a year round operation. Continue reading “SFIFF54” →

FOREVER TANGO
January 11 at Marines Memorial Theater.

Created and directed by Luis Bravo, Forever Tango features a world-renowned cast of dancers and musicians who bring an intoxicating sense of excitement and passion to the stage. Through music, dance and vignettes, the production traces the tango’s colorful history, from its beginnings in turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires bordellos to its acceptance into high society. Sensuous and sophisticated, the tango inhabits a world where everything can be said with the flick of a leg, the tug of a hand, the tap of a foot and the arch of an eyebrow.
The original production took San Francisco by storm in 1994 where it played an unprecedented 92 weeks. In June of 1997, Forever Tango opened on Broadway where it played for 14 months and earned rave reviews from critics. The show garnered multiple Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations, and became the longest-running tango show in Broadway history – an honor it still holds today! Forever Tango has since toured major cities through the United States, Europe and Asia. The show’s last visit to San Francisco was in 2008.
Forever Tango’s cast includes 14 world-class dancers, a vocalist and an 8-piece, on-stage orchestra, anchored by the bandoneón, the accordion-like instrument that is the mainstay of tango music. The Forever Tango orchestra boasts three of only 200 bandoneón players known worldwide. The dances, performed to original and traditional music, are the result of collaboration between each couple and director/creator Bravo.
Also appearing in every performance of Luis Bravo’s Forever Tango is Cheryl Burke. With over 18 years dancing experience and several championship titles under her belt, Cheryl has tangoed and sambaed her way into the hearts of millions through the hit ABC television show Dancing With The Stars. She is one of the show’s professional dancers to have won the championship twice! In the spring of 2008, Cheryl opened her first dance studio, the highly successfuly Cheryl Burke Dance, which now has locations in Silicon Valley and Orange County.
– Marines Memorial Theater announcement

Cheryl Burke on Argentine Tango – Since I was a little girl, I’ve been a huge fan. When they were here in SF performing, I remember my mom and dad taking me. Argentine Tango and ballroom dancing are completely separate styles. I asked my agent to approach Luis Bravo and he said, “Well, OK, come to Argentina for the summer and some of my top dancers will teach you.”
In Argentine Tango there’s no hip action. It’s softer, it’s delicate, then sometimes it’s passionate. Sometimes there’s sharpness, although it almost always comes from the man, because it’s very much about lead and follow. – Notes from a SF Chronicle feature

MY TAKE – I vaguely remember Forever Tango from its earlier SF appearances – I think it was in a tent down on the Embarcadero. We went this time because of Cheryl Burke – she’s hot – but she only dances three or four times. This is all about the Luis Bravo dance troupe from Argentina.
The orchestra is on stage and it is fabulous. Piano, string bass, violin, viola, cello and three bandoneon players. Aside from playing for the dancers, the orchestra plays several numbers with male singer and several numbers alone. The dancers pairings are the same throughout the evening. They are brilliant and varied in style and even when they are three or more couples performing at once, they perform their own dance, not a synchronized thing.
At a little over two hours, including intermission, it felt a tad long, but what a great evening.
Bravo.