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Three Films, Five Days

PARANOID PARK
A San Francisco
Film Society Benefit
Plus a book signing for CINEMA NOW

On December 8, join us for a benefit screening of Gus Van Sant’s new film, Paranoid Park, which won the 60th Anniversary Award at the Cannes Film Festival this year. At once a dreamlike portrait of teen alienation and a boldly experimental work of film narrative, Paranoid Park finds Gus Van Sant at the height of his powers. Alex, a withdrawn high-school skateboarder (Gabe Nevins) struggles to make sense of his involvement in an accidental death: He recalls past events across tides of memory, and expresses his feelings in a diary that is, in fact, the movie we are watching. The extraordinary skating scenes, filmed by cinematographers Christopher Doyle and Rain Kathy Li in a lyrical mixture of Super 8 and 35mm, depict their subjects soaring in space, momentarily free of the earthly troubles of adolescence. The screening will take place at 7 pm at the Letterman Digital Arts Center Premiere Theatre in the Presidio. Tickets are on sale now ($12 SFFS members, $15 general). The screening will be preceded at 6:15 pm by a personal appearance of author Andrew Bailey signing copies of his new book, Cinema Now, a Taschen publication that examines the work and key themes of 60 filmmakers working around world today, from the cream of the crop of young Hollywood to the new wave of Asian mavericks to burgeoning auteurs from Europe and Latin America. Special thanks to IFC Films. [From SFFS publicity] Continue reading “Three Films, Five Days” →

RE-Furnished

MY CHAIR

This was MY chair.

Ever since architecture school I wanted an Eames Chair, but they were too expensive. I got a good job after the Navy and we shopped for an Eames Chair, but of course, the price had gone up, still out of our reach. As my salary went up so did the chair, always just beyond our means.

When we were moving to San Francisco in the summer of 1992 — after I had moved but before Carol came with the bulk of our furniture — Carol found a used Eames Chair at a classic furniture dealer in Boston. We bought it.

Just after the turn of this century, it broke. You see, the back is attached to the seat at the arm; that connection gave way. See those two bolts just below the arm? That’s how it was fixed, but by 2003 it broke again. Irreparable.

Just before Christmas of ’03 we went shopping and settled on a leather club chair as a replacement. Continue reading “RE-Furnished” →

Brian’s Place

the garage with the house behind… the gate is behind Eric

the gate on the left… you can just see the peak of the roof in the trees

Friday 19 October
Our mission: Collect Eric and Alison at the airport at 9:00am. I slept well in Brian’s fine guest bed and woke up at 7:15. No coffee — no nothin” — in the house, so we left for the airport a little before 8:00 to coffee up there. Brian left detailed instructions on getting to the airport, but they bore no reference to the city map, so if we got lost,
Never mind, just go for it.
Continue reading “Brian’s Place” →

Rector Roundrip — Say Cheese

It might not surprise you to know that I had several cheese highlights on our trip. Believe it or not, London is a hub of artisan cheese activity these days; of course you can’t turn around without tripping over cheese in France, even in the South where even the goats sometimes think it’s too hot to make milk; and Spain is a rich but as yet undiscovered cheese territory for me.

Neals Yard Cheeses, Covent Garden, London

Here Alison helps herself to samples of Montgomery’s Cheddar cheese in front of the original Neals Yard Dairy shop in Covent Garden, London. You can see me taking the picture in the reflection of the window where truckle-upon-truckle of aging Cheddar cheese tantalizingly draws you into the shop. Also stacked in front of the shop are crates of British heirloom apples and pears, which we bought several samples of that day.

Continue reading “Rector Roundrip — Say Cheese” →

Getting to Montpellier

Thursday 18 October, 2007
We left a call at our Barcelona hotel for 6:30 to have breakfast and get to the station for our 8:45 train to Montpellier. I was really looking forward to that train — Haven”t been on a train since, who knows? — Carol said we”ll have a story for Paula. A train story.

As it turned out, our train story was very short. We got to the station and carried our bags to the gate. “Montpellier,”

A large woman was standing in the archway leading to the platforms. “There is no train to Montpellier today,” is all the woman said, except, “Go to Information.” She pointed left.

Information said there was a strike in France. He would stamp our ticket not used, and we could get a refund at the Montpellier station. [That turned out not to be true. We eventually got our refund by mail from White Plains NY.] Continue reading “Getting to Montpellier” →

No Country for Old Men

Last night I had the pleasure of attending an Image Film Club screening of the new Coen brother’s film “No Country for Old Men”. I highly recommend it,so for what its worth, here is a thumbnail review of my first thoughts after 12 hours of thinking about nothing else than this film,

In so many words, “creatively splattered blood within an intense triangle of characters and the study of good, not so good, and evil.” Suspenseful and uncompromising. The cinematography and art direction are amazing. Details reveal themselves in endless textures: the light over a motel at dusk, the internal glow of the highway sign tossing add hues across the parking lot. Extreme close-ups last forever, forcing you to examine not only the expression, but to trace the lines across the face and theorize where they came from and what they might mean.

The acting throughout added to the film’s excellence. Javier Bardem portrays the psychopathic killer with an intensity that grasps you tightly every time he is on screen (and even when he is not). Jones is perfect as the platitude-spouting sheriff, and Josh Brolin is totally believable as the blue collar “cowboy” who is the center of the film’s conflict. Even supporting roles are jewels to admire in their simplicity and tactile effect.

Set in Texas in the 80’s,a time frame that works because it takes you back to the place where phones had dials and were attached to walls and poles, where you had to wait for the operator to make a long distance call, and where mop-head haircuts and bell bottoms were still worn by a slice of rural America. Like Fargo, the particular phrasings of the west Texas setting make the dialog ring. “You can”t make up such a thing as that,” Sheriff Tommy Lee Jones” character declares, recalling a newspaper story of a bizarre crime in San Francisco. “I dare you to even try.” “It’s gittin” onto closing time, it is,” “You git on outa here, and don”t be thinkin” you can come back anytime soon.”

The Coens have found their way home in this incredibly memorable new film. Like Millers Crossing — and even Barton Fink — the brothers weave a simple story into a complex, thought provoking classic.

Rectors do Spain

I’ve been checking the Rector site daily, curious to see pictures of our trip to Montpellier and then Spain. Seems others have been too busy to post. So I said to myself “Alison, why don’t you post some pictures yourself?”. Eric just said to me that he plans to write some trip entries himself in the near future.

PS- Marc later added some of his photos below, with his own captions.

Plaza, Pau, France
On the Plaza, Toulouse, France

O H I O Continue reading “Rectors do Spain” →

m&c Europe 07 1

STANSTED MOUNTFITCHET
Our come-down jet lag cure wasn”t as dramatic as Eric and Alison’s, but pleasurable and effective, nonetheless.

Flight schedules were such that we had a four-hour window to get from our Virgin Atlantic flight at Heathrow to an easyJet flight from Stansted airport to Barcelona. Doable, but what if,

So we decided to spend a day in England to wind down, giving us one day and four hours to make that connection.

We took the bus to the Stansted airport and got a taxi from there to the Chimneys Bed and Breakfast in Stansted Mountfitchet, a quintessential English town nearby. There was nothing to do but walk, eat, sleep and shower, and that’s just what we did. Continue reading “m&c Europe 07 1” →

Rector Roundtrip, v1.11

The Harrison Street Rectors are now launched on their paths that lead to Montpellier, France this weekend to begin their ambitious trip around the Pyrennees.

M&C have arrived in Spain, via Stanstead, England, and are enjoying the sights and sounds of Barcelona.

B is camping (?) in Hawaii in between professional meetings.

E&A have been enjoying the borough of Islington, London after flying through Reykjavik, Iceland and enjoying the best jetlag cure ever invented: the “hot pot.”
Continue reading “Rector Roundtrip, v1.11” →

City Life

An Urban Dweller’s Experience in Two Installments.

BACKGROUND
When he moved to 1367 Union in San Francisco, it was his first experience as an urban dweller. He moved from a suburb, a dense suburb to be sure, but still, it had detached houses, lawns and driveways. Here in the city, houses are against one another and folks live over or under one another and there are always more cars than places to park.

As an introduction to a facet of the urban experience, John, his landlord who lived above him, instructed him on how to call the cops when someone obstructed the driveway. John said he should be ruthless.

The trouble comes from the downhill side of the driveway. At the curb, there is barely space for three cars, and it’s tight. Any big car or SUV makes it almost impossible to fit three, so the front car often extends over the red curb, or worse, over the curb cut of the driveway. Continue reading “City Life” →

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