One of the downsides of urban life is you can get so busy and wrapped up in things that you can find yourself falling out of touch with friends and neighbors. Jerry and Patrick live a short bike ride away from me, and yet I don't see them often. I made up for that a little on Saturday when I joined them for brunch in Alameda. Given the current situation in San Francisco the topic naturally turned to gay marriage, and they told me that they were planning to get married there on Monday. They've been together for about 20 years, and they decided they wanted to make the statement. Good for them!*

On Sunday Becky popped over from Pleasanton and we took my car into the city to meet John Sugden for brunch and general hangout time. We convened at the Seal Rock Inn (link: map of location), kitty-corner from where we parked on our beach walk last weekend. Brunch was delightful, albeit the most memorable moment was when somehow the subject turned to John and his girlfriend and I jokingly started insinuating what they do in the bedroom using a salt and pepper shaker to illustrate (John was pepper). Becky was laughing so hard her eyes were tearing up, and at one moment she chuckled so hard John commented, "We have achieved snort!"

We then adjourned to Clement Street where we rummaged through the vastness of Green Apple Books before migrating to Toy Boat Ice Cream. I had a concoction of ice cream and coffee that was pretty good...but I had to eat it very fast before the ice cream melted. Over this, we read through the fragmentary draft of my script "The Fish Who Cried Wolf", and John had a funny suggestion for the tag which I like a lot.

We parted company there, John off on his various errands, with the image of his girl as a salt shaker forever burned into his temporal lobes. Becky and I walked back to my car but took a side trip and explored Mountain Lake Park (map of location) (link: about the park), where Juan Bautista de Anza camped when he explored the area in preparation for the first settlers to come from Mexico. It's a cute little park with nice views of the titular lake, wedged between the houses of the Richmond District to the south, the Presidio Golf Course to the North and East. It would be idyllic but for the near continuous roar of traffic from Park Presidio to the west, something I suspect de Anza didn't have to listen to.

San Francisco seen from Fort Baker

As we were right by Park Presido and about two minutes from the Golden Gate, I decided to drive across the bridge and go down to Fort Baker (weblink: Fort Baker homepage), yet another of the long abandoned old defensive positions built around the entrance to the bay. This one is on the lee of the northern anchorage of the bridge, and gives great views up at it and of San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, and the various islands. There's a Coast Guard presence here, a little marina, lots of old buildings, and the cement skeletons of gunnery emplacements. Picturesque and quiet, it's a great place to watch the ships passing through the Golden Gate, and a picnic spot I'll have to remember.

There's a lot of renovation going on here, as the place is being turned into a cultural center and has a discovery museum, theater group, etc.

Weblink: page with many photos of the area.

Click here for a somewhat fuzzy picture of me at Ft. Baker!

Becky'd never been to Sausalito, so we drove through it on our way to the Richmond Bridge and back to the east bay. At least she can say she's seen it, even if she's not actually set foot in the place. Me, I've not been there in three years and I wasn't particularly motivated to stop. I'm sure I'll have reason to go again one day. Maybe if they have a decent margarita bar...

*Sadly, Jerry changed his his mind on everything and left poor Patrick in 2005.

Posted by molyneaux at 2:49 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:34 AM PDT

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I'm on the biggest roll of films I've done in a long time. Last night was another excursion to the land on cinema, this time to see the best bad movie I've seen in a long time.

I'm one of those people who really enjoys the ineptness of grade-Z exploitation pictures by the likes of William ("One Shot") Beaudine and the legendary Ed Wood. I love them for their very earnestness and ineptness. As such, I've always found homages and parodies of them to be a painful experiences because the knowing winks of the sendup perpetrators undermine the humor that comes from the absolute conviction of the form. Amazon Women on the Moon suffers from this in spades, becoming more tedious than the worst Ed Wood film imaginable.

Knowing this, it was with some trepidation that I joined my friends Christopher & Russ in attending The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (one review and official website), a film which is in parts sendup, homage, and recreation of one of those zero-budget cheapies. Lost Skeleton suffers somewhat from these problems, and at times I winced, but for some reason I found myself laughing out loud, not usually at the obvious funny bits, but often at the end of a scene, where the cumulative absurdity would hit me. The film is written by someone who clearly enjoys these clunkers for the same reason I do, and that affection is obvious throughout. The love is in the lack of detail, from the wood grain of the 2x4 visible in a spaceship hatch, the circular and repetative dialog, cheapo props, to the garage made rubber monster suit and titular skeleton operated by painfully visible wires.

True to the genre, Lost Skeleton sags in the middle, and there were points where the it played "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink" too much. Such smug "we're in on the joke" moments derailed the film momentarily. The cinematography, even for a cheapie, was surprisingly neutral. The skin tones were disturbingly midtone gray. I cried, "My kingdom for a highlight!" but none was forthcoming.

Looking back, I still don't think Lost Skeleton was really that funny. Yet as we left we were quoting the inane lines and laughing our fool heads off. There's nothing inherently funny about "I sleep now!" and "Oh well," and yet, that's what we were reciting. Such is the power of lame dialog...

I'll probably buy the DVD. "Oh Well!"

Posted by molyneaux at 8:40 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:10 AM PDT

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A flashback to a film I saw the weekend before last with my friends Terry and Carol...

The Triplets of Belleville (Flash 6 website) is a charming French animated feature that is almost a silent film. Spare in dialogue almost to the point of absence, the film is a series of sweetly comic and patently absurd set pieces about Madame Souza, a grandmother who just won't give up on her laconic grandson, whose only interest is bicycling. With only her wits, an overweight train hating dog and a trio of aged singers (the titular Triplets) at her side, she braves rain, sea, a New York-esque metropolis of cheeseburger devouring fatties, and the French Wine Mafia in her quest to save her grandson. The opening sequence struck chords with me that will likely not register by most people, being that it's a spot-on homage to a 1932 Max Fleischer cartoon, right down to the animation style and bizarre events. Fun stuff!



Click to see the Triplets!
In the theater the film is preceded by Destino (weblink), a short subject released in 2003, but based on storyboards and designs done by Salvador Dali in a short-lived 1946 collaboration between him and Walt Disney. It's Dali in motion, set to a Spanish song from which the film takes its title. Surreal, naturally, but short enough that even those not taken by such images shouldn't find it boring!

Click here for an NPR review (audio) of Triplets.

NPR page on Destino. Includes radio piece and two video segments (Real Video).

Posted by molyneaux at 4:57 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:15 AM PDT

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A little behind on the Blog but going to try to catch up some today...

Sunday was another trip to the movies. John Sugden and Terry Braye joined me to see Errol Morris' Oscar nominated documentary The Fog of War (webpage), an excellent and at times infuriating interview with Kennedy/Johnson Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. In the film McNamara looks you dead in the eye (talking more or less directly at the camera) and tells you how he sees it. Unapologetic to the end, he talks about his life and his experiences in everything from helping orchestrate the firebombing of Japan in WWII through being the first non-member of the Ford family to become President of Ford, through his involvement in the Vietnam War.

One particularly chilling segment illustrates just how extensively the firebombing of Japan was by listing the % of each city destroyed and then substituting the name of an equivalently sized American city, and where McNamara makes us consider some ugly realities when he says, "[General] LeMay said, `If we'd lost [WWII], we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right ... LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral when you win?"

Coming away from the film I was struck how McNamara personifies a mentality that can reduce acts of incalculable human suffering to mere statistics and problems in efficiency. And, much as I wanted to hate him, he's not alone. In his arguments you can hear your friends and neighbors. This is especially relevant in the current geopolitical climate vis a vis Iraq and the War of Terrorism, and creepily prescient since the interviews themselves were conducted prior to 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.

The scariest moment in the film is McNamara's discussion of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He claims that years later Castro claimed that those missiles already had warheads installed. He adds that if the U.S. had attacked Cuba, Castro had advised Khrushchev to fire them, destroying much of the south and the eastern seaboard.

The filmmaker tries to cluster the interview footage under 11 "lessons", a mechanic that help organize related material but sometimes imposes form where none is present or required. His technique keeps the film visually interesting, but some of his visual metaphors are a little ham fisted.

This is not a film of pleasant topics. And people who like to believe in America's rightness and moral superiority are liable to squirm at some of the conclusions. But it's exactly the reason people should see this film.

Posted by molyneaux at 4:40 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:16 AM PDT

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I decided to forgo a rented documentary on Fellini on Saturday and spend the day out and about.

My friend Becky (click for photo!) joined me and we had a full day. Breakfast in Oakland was followed by an afternoon in San Francisco. There we walked from above the ruins of the Sutro Baths (weblink) past the Cliff House and down along Ocean Beach, where we watched dogs playing in the surf (photo). On the way back we stopped at the Dutch Windmill on the NE edge of Golden Gate Park (photo of me). The South Windmill has been dismantled for rennovation, so there we didn't wander to it.

Becky and I both decided we wanted a time machine so we could see the area in the early 20th century, when the baths (which could hold 10,000 swimmers!) were operating, Sutro's mansion was on the hill, the Cliff House was a happening place, and the Playland amusement park was between the mansion and the Dutch Windmill where now only ugly condos and a Safeway stand.

Link: Why are there windmills there?

Afterwards we met John Sugden for margaritas at Tommy's (weblink) where we tried three tequilas we had never had before. Upon parting with John, we fled the city for a pub in Berkeley. There we avoided alcohol in favor of ginger beer whilst discovering how badly I throw darts. Becky then taught me how to play Cribbage. I lost, but only after a last minute comeback on her part. Damn!

Inch-thick Chicago style pizza followed in Albany, and, filled to overflowing on food and drink, companionship and the day's experiences, we went our separate sleepy ways, and there was much snoring (at least at my place!).

Posted by molyneaux at 6:52 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:23 AM PDT

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Having mentioned Ikiru (click for webpage about) in my previous post, I thought I'd cover it here, separate of my schoolgirl-crush-like ravings about Mifune!

Although I enjoyed all three films, Ikiru got to me more than Sanjuro or Hidden Fortress. Made between Kurosawa's breakout Rashomon(weblink) and classic Seven Samurai (weblink), Ikiru is a deceptively simple tale about a terminally ill man who realizes he's never really lived. It's really beautiful and despite it's very slow pace and relatively spare dialogue, I was totally hooked. This film is exquistely shot (a Kurosawa trademark), and Takashi Shimura's quiet and nuanced performance was intensely moving. The plot sounds like disease-of-the-week TV movie stuff, but Kurosawa nimbly avoids melodrama and makes it a film about something.

(Kaiju [giant monster] fans may recognize Takashi Shimura (click here for filmography) for his portrayal of Dr. Kyohei Yamane in the original 1954 Gojira (Godzilla) and its first sequel, and appearances in other genre films.)

Along with Ikiru I rented a recent documentary on Kurosawa titled, appropriately enough, Kurosawa (weblink). I was at first intrigued, but gradually soured on the documentary, which wasted a lot of time on static shots of people watching Kurosawa's films, Clint Eastwood and James Coburn discussing the films and the westerns based on them, and grainy footage of Kurosawa's films presented as if seen on a bad movie screen. Most irritating was the way the piece totally skipped a whole bunch of important Kurosawa films, such as High and Low, without even a mention.

Unknown to me when I rented Ikiru, its second DVD disc includes two documentaries on Kurosawa. Sadly I didn't have time to watch these all the way through before returning the film. Oh well, a re-rent is in order!

Posted by molyneaux at 1:20 AM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:17 AM PDT

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I just finished watching my third Akira Kurosawa film in the past week. Tonight was 1962's Tsubaki Sanjuro (weblink) (aka Sanjuro in the west). A sequel of sorts to 1961's Yojimbo (webpage about), Sanjuro features the same nameless (well, he makes up his name in both movies) wandering samurai as Yojimbo, but it's a tad lighter and slightly less intense than the former. I enjoyed it almost as much as Yojimbo, but found that film slightly more compelling.

My favorite thing about this movie, besides Kurosawa's exquisite framing, is Toshiro Mifune's performance. I know the subtitles are only crudely approximating what's being said, ergo the subtleties and some humor are surely lost, but Mifune's body language and his eyes tell me everything I need to know. I found myself laughing out loud just at some of the looks he'd cast. I love this man!

Over the past week I also watched some earlier Kurosawa films, 1952's Ikiru (which translates roughly to "To Live"), and 1958's Kakushi toride no san-akunin (The Hidden Fortress).

The Hidden Fortress (weblink) is a film I'm going to have to watch again because I feel I didn't quite catch everything in my first screening. Set in medieval Japan, it tells a story about two greedy peasants who are manipulated into helping a General spirit a princess through enemy territory to safety across the border.

The film is dominated by Mifune, playing the noble General who masquerades as a thief to fool the two peasants. He's not so much fun here as in Sanjuro, but he's still a delight to watch.

I enjoyed it, but I have the strong feeling that there are things I missed. Again, I suspect part of the problem is the limitations of subtitles and the crudeness of the translation therein. The two peasants were funny but I can tell I'm not getting how funny they actually are.

I'd heard this film was cited by George Lucas as one of his inspirations for Star Wars, and on watching it this is plain. It's only too bad that Lucas didn't make as good a film. The characters in Fortress are far more dimensional, the personalities of the two peasants is used to propel the plot, something Lucas missed by forgetting that comic relief can actually help move the story rather than being just comic relief.

I'll cover Ikiru and some other Kurosawa stuff in my next entry.

Posted by molyneaux at 1:07 AM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:20 AM PDT

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A little experiment in journal keeping here. Many years ago I kept detailed journals of the days' events.

Sadly, that was in a day when there wasn't much worth reporting. Now I've "got a life" and we'll see if I can post anything here worth reading. Can he do it? Stay tuned...

Posted by molyneaux at 12:26 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:22 AM PDT

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