Terence Davies blowout!!

For those about to contemplate film, we salute you. Because Terence Davies himself is coming to the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley for a whole series of his films.

Say it with me, people!! "Wind ... erosion."

Here's where I confess that I've only actually seen one Davies film, The Long Day Closes. It's like floating on a cloud -- a big, gray, English cloud -- for 85 minutes. That was all it took. So I can't very well pass up the chance to see that on the big screen again, in the presence of the man himself. But I'd better get across the bay for at least one other movie in the series. Any recommendations?

One to see (if it ever gets made)

I just read a 2000 novel by K.M. Soehnlein, The World of Normal Boys, that I thought would make a wonderful film. I looked it up on IMDB and found nothing, then laughed at myself. What about the parts where the 13-year-old protagonist has sex with other boys? Impossible. Well, it turns out that Telling Pictures (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's company, which did The Times of Harvey Milk) has optioned the book for a movie and the author is writing a screenplay.

I guess L.I.E. and Kids got made....

Anyway, if this project ever gets off the ground, I'm anxious to see it. I almost gave up on Normal Boys because of some clunky exposition, dialog and descriptions. But after a key event took place, early in the book, the story took off and there was no turning back. Under those surface flaws is a refreshingly true book about the chaos of adolescence. It tells the story of Robin, who enters high school in suburban New Jersey in 1978. He suffers not only being a freshman, but being a year younger than his classmates and liking disco and show tunes. And that's just for starters. The book is suspenseful, dramatic, touching, and sometimes funny. Every character and every relationship is complex. Even though he doesn't write in first person, Soehnlein has a way of making us see through Robin's eyes but then suddenly revealing things Robin can't acknowledge or understand. I have high hopes for a good screenplay because Soehnlein writes scenes with a strong sense of visuals and sound, capturing key moments in ways we can see. I just hope he can find a way to catch the meaning of those sex scenes in some other way, and get this project off the ground.

Stars on Castro

I finally got to see some of the shooting of Milk tonight. They were shooting a scene in which a riot breaks out when the police try to clear the sidewalk in front of a gay bar. Milk's boyfriend, played by James Franco, runs across the street from the Castro Theatre and joins in the brawl. Then Milk (Sean Penn) goes over to help him.

We saw four takes, with at least a five-minute break between each one. The riot escalated so quickly that it felt very dynamic. Each time, the actors pretending to brawl were so involved in it and so noisy that a crewmember (the assistant director?) had to barrel in there and yell "Cut!" several times on a bullhorn. One take ended before the main characters even sprung into action. I think someone missed a mark on that one because a cop character was going back and forth between two cars like he didn't know where he was supposed to be.

Ironically, before each shot they had to clear the sidewalk of real-life pedestrians so they could film a scene of police clearing the sidewalk. While the event was apparently meant to represent an incident that occurred more than 30 years ago on that very sidewalk.

Meanwhile, the bar stayed open for regular business, as did the Thai restaurant upstairs, which has hosted its own movie royalty.

So we saw Sean Penn and James Franco, Penn looking like a young Bruce Springsteen in his scraggly beard and ponytail, and saw Gus Van Sant close up. But if Emile Hirsch was in there, I couldn't find him. Maybe next time.

Gnarnia!

I waited three years to write that headline. (Back then it would have been more original ...) We finally saw Narnia (full name: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe), and it was indeed gnarly. Like a blend of The Wizard of Oz, Pan's Labyrinth, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it tells the story of four brothers and sisters who stumble upon a hidden world and get involved in a battle to save Good from Evil. Oh, and they go there from WWII blitz-era Britain.

It lacks the rustic gloom and weird resonances of Pan's Labyrinth, but there is some welcome complexity to its characters. They kids act their ages and squabble like real siblings. The creatures in Narnia feel like real beings rather than just coming to life for our amusement. And Tilda Swinton, whom I've tried to avoid ever since her insufferable performance in Orlando, was wonderfully over the top as the White Witch. As for the special effects, it's hard to separate them from the makeup, costumes, and art direction. It really looks like a single, coherent world, with the help of a story that (usually) holds our interest. Cowabunga!

Disaster narrowly averted!

Milk, Gus Van Sant's dramatic biopic about the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, is now shooting on Castro Street, where Milk had his camera store. In fact, it's being filmed in the store itself. The location crew had to reverse about 30 years of changes to the retail space, which now houses a gift store, and has done a wonderful job. (I can't speak to whether it's accurate, but what's in there looks real.) A liquor store across the street, and many of the storefronts in the area, have also been taken back in time. Plus the wonderful Castro Theatre renovation. Gaycities has some good pictures. Hopefully, filming the movie literally on location will give it some authenticity and resonance. I just hope this terrible winter weather clears before they have to shoot the Castro Street Fair scene, which is supposed to take place in balmy October.

The other day, my friend watched some of the shooting and saw Sean Penn, who's playing Milk. He also saw James Franco and Emile Hirsch, and according to the producers, Diego Luna is also in the cast. An earlier report had said Gael Garcia Bernal would be in it, too. It's a good thing they dropped one of them, because here at Globality, that's what we call the Four Horsemen of the Gaypocalypse. Could the Castro have survived?

Oscar musings

Just at first glance, I don't see any huge surprises on the Oscar nominations. I just hope there's a show. Just a few thoughts:

It's a huge relief that Hal Holbrook was nominated for Into The Wild, since he blatantly deserves it. That's the one I was waiting for. Unfortunately, it's kind of like finally getting your show on the air but having it scheduled against American Idol. Bardem is a shoo-in, even though I didn't think his performance was any better.

I'm not quite as enthused about The Bourne Ultimatum as I was at first, but didn't it deserve a little more than Editing, Sound, and Sound Editing? Maybe Best Director?

They should have added Best Original Score to There Will Be Blood's tally.

Lust, Caution should have been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, but we all know the Academy only vacations in Europe. Nice to see them throw in a film from Kazakhstan; maybe they're trying to make up for the whole Borat thing.

I'm not putting any money on Norbit for Best Makeup.

If Daniel Day-Lewis wins, he totally has to say this.

Review: Sundance Cinemas Kabuki

On New Year's Day, we saw Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd. I loved the music and the movie was well-made and (mostly) fun to watch, though at the end it felt a bit "so what?"

More interesting was where we saw it: the new Sundance Kabuki theater. The Redford gang bought the AMC Kabuki last year after AMC was forced to unload it for competitive reasons.

What used to be a slightly worn and outdated place is now the best-looking multiplex in town and dedicated to independent cinema. But I have mixed feelings about the changes. Though the old Kabuki was undistinguished on the surface, it was where I had some of my most memorable movie experiences. It was a phenomenal place for a film festival, and there were some great ones, with SFIAAFF and SFIFF both based at the AMC Kabuki for years.

Under Sundance, the Kabuki is like no other theater in San Francisco. First, there's assigned seating. Also, the ticket prices are amazingly complex, with the movie itself broken out from the "amenities charge," and both of these varying for different times of day and days of the week. Fortunately, it's the kind of theater that will attract viewers with smart phones that have calculators. Because the other thing about the Sundance Kabuki is that it's a distinctly adult space. The decor says it when you first walk in, with its earth tones and its remarkable two-story screen of weathered, recycled wood planks. The food at the concession stands is a bit more grown up, too. And going upstairs, there is a bar on the second floor and a restaurant on the third floor where you can take food and drinks into a special screening room. The film purist in me sees a distraction there, but it's unlikely anyone will be forced to see a movie on that screen.

The second-floor bar replaces a small, open coffee counter that had just a few stools and standing tables. The mood of the space is completely changed, with low tables and chic couches and leather cubes to sit on. The recycled-wood screen closes off the front of the bar area, making it a dark and cozy place. It's also much larger than the previous venue, spreading far into what used to be the wide lobby area where festivalgoers lined up.

Fortunately, Sundance found a way to squeeze everything in without eliminating the main screening rooms. But most of them have been converted to stadium seating. This is, technically, an improvement in terms of being able to see a movie and read subtitles over the heads of the people in front of you. The old Kabuki's seating was not very steeply raked. But I don't think stadium seating is as good for post-show Q&As. The old screening rooms, with two wide aisles and no barriers all the way to the stage, plus an area at the top where people sometimes caught a few more minutes of a discussion as they headed out, were perfect for this. And with the house lights on, they were as brightly lit as lecture halls. The new screening rooms have more comfortable seats but darker colors and much dimmer lights. They're the sort of rooms that are well suited to a date but not as much to a festival experience.

The assigned seating, likewise, has its advantages but doesn't seem like the best thing at a festival. (I don't know whether the festivals will actually use it.) The good thing about assigned seats is that you only have to stand in line once, to buy your ticket. I enjoyed this in Hong Kong, where it's possible to enjoy a leisurely meal between buying tickets and going into the theater, because you don't have to worry about getting a good seat.

Clearly, Sundance had this in mind when they set up the Kabuki. Ticketholders who don't have to rush for a good seat are more likely to linger in the lobby area and buy a drink or a snack. This might even make it easier for festivalgoers to mingle between shows, because they don't have to be in line. But frankly, many devoted festival fans are on tight budgets. In fact, in many ways, the lifeblood of a festival like SFIAAFF is young people who don't have a lot of money, aren't big drinkers and may not even be of drinking age. A bar may sell non-alcoholic drinks, but it's still a bar, and the one at the new Kabuki reads to me as mature.

I realize that the theater owners who are kind enough to host festivals still have to make their profit, which generally doesn't come from ticket sales, so this is a difficult subject. And I don't want to overstate the natural camaraderie of festivalgoers who meet randomly in line. But there is often a feeling of excitement to getting in a long line in a crowded lobby and watching the line get even longer behind me. And with the Kabuki's new layout, there just doesn't seem to be enough room for people to line up for seats even if a festival wanted to go with open seating.

Still, I shouldn't jump to conclusions. The Kabuki was first built as one large performing-arts theater, and when it was broken up into a multiplex there must have been protests from people who had fond memories of the original space. The new Kabuki is still in a great location for dining and other activities. Naturally, some things will be not as good, some things will be better, and life will go on.

Review: There Will Be Blood

Studio City-born director Paul Thomas Anderson has never made a movie that wasn't about California, and in his first few features he showed us views of the state that were familiar, albeit with his own creative twists. The Seventies glow of Boogie Nights and the suburban desolation of Punch-Drunk Love, for example, were unmistakably rooted in Los Angeles.

With his latest and most mature film, There Will Be Blood, Anderson goes a short distance north and about a century back to deliver a vision of California that's no less true but not nearly as well known. Inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel, Oil! (the story apparently deviates widely from the book) Blood follows an independent oilman as he battles the industry's barons and his own demons.

This is California between the 1890s and the 1920s, before it underwent the softening effects of mass migration and postwar suburbanization. There's nature and open space everywhere, but greed and a crude form of civilization are running rampant over it. Freewheeling capitalism and fundamentalist religion were in fact prominent in California before modern corporatism and, later, New Left politics and New Age spirituality became hallmarks of the state. Anderson conveys the raw texture of that time and place with a vigorous directorial style, and Jonny Greenwood's angular score forms a perfect harmony to that vision.

But the heart of the film is Daniel Day-Lewis as the oilman, Daniel Plainview. He appears in nearly every scene of the film, from his early days drilling wells with a few employees to his wealth and success at the end. As in Gangs of New York, Day-Lewis plays a cruel, towering figure who would force his will on the world. But Scorsese let himself be consumed by the violence and mythology of his story, whereas Anderson does a better job of letting Day-Lewis's nuanced acting shine through.

Day-Lewis plays Plainview as simultaneously larger than life and needy, both masterful and insecure. The accent he uses is vaguely English, like that of Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane. It's distracting on a character in California who supposedly grew up in Michigan, but like many things in Blood -- and famously, in California -- it's just made up. Like Kane, Plainview is a man essentially out of place everywhere who stakes his claim over as big a world as he can create. But as much as Orson Welles deserves credit for creating Kane, Day-Lewis's performance in this California tycoon story is miles ahead of the radio pioneer's stage-acting.

Day-Lewis doesn't carry the film entirely by himself. Paul Dano's performance as an evangelist practically splits the character at its seams, and Kevin J. O'Connor is wonderfully understated as a mysterious visitor who comes into Plainview's life. The surprise of the film, however, is Dillon Freasier as Plainview's son. Even as a character in his early teens, sitting solemnly at his father's side, he exudes a mysterious intelligence.

Be forewarned that this is an almost all-male movie, and an occasionally violent one. But it's not a macho film or in love with its protagonist. Blood is a compelling study of a fascinating man, and not one conducted at a safe distance. Day-Lewis and Anderson throw us right into the muck, and by the end, we recognize it.