Blogs

Our coverage of the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival concludes with our traditional 'roundtable' discussion of Festival-screened films and other goings on. Joining us will be a couple of old friends of the show - Lincoln Spector, webmaster of bayflicks.net, a great site to seek out for everything cinema in the San Francisco Bay Area, and John "A Pass" Angelico, who blogs on the San Francisco Chronicle's sfgate.com site under the heading "Culture Blog." Join us as we discuss what we loved, what we liked, and what we hated at this year's Festival.

Your work in film is one of the reason I fell in love with the movies...

Made a rare weekday excursion into the city to catch the new documentary “Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay”. Jay is one of the more interesting hybrid entertainers (magician/actor/author) of the last few decades so I welcomed the opportunity to get a peek “inside the box”.

Saturday found me back at the Festival with the hopes of catching a film or two before hopefully getting access to the Festival’s Centerpiece event.

It's gotta be a little weird to direct "Iron Man 3" and have Jon Favreau (the director of the first two "Iron Man" films) as one of your actors, but Shane Black, who had only directed a couple other obscure films, took over the reins as co-writer & director for the mega-blockbuster franchise after Favreau stepped down as lead director... but he stayed on as executive producer. And, I'm happy to say, it all worked out well!

Seeing as how my first day at the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival didn't end until 3am, I was in no particular rush to head back down to the Kabuki Cinemas on Sunday and catch a few more Festival flicks. Upon checking the schedule, I was pleased to see that a film that SFFS Programmer Sean Uyehara RAVED about on our preview show was screening at 4:15pm. Perfect. Or so I thought.

This week, on a very special Worst Show on the Web, we welcome Jeremy Frindel. Jeremy is the director of “One Track Heart”, a soon-to-be-released documentary that chronicles the journey of Grammy nominee Krishna Das - from rock-star hopeful to world renowned kirtan wallah - with detours through drug abuse and depression. Join us as we discuss Krishna Das, his life, his music, and his rise to mainstream fame. Bringing you the absolute worst in covering something that is actually wonderful and web talk radio… guaranteed

We know what you're thinking: "Where's the title for today's show?" No, this isn't just another average episode of the WSOTW, tonight we are graced by Mike Celestino the filmaker behind "That's Not Funny", a documentary about when humor goes "too far." We'll discuss Mike's film, his Kickstarter campaign, and just where exactly the line is drawn between "funny" and "offensive" (we like to know where that boundary is so we can make note of the next time we cross it.) Bringing you the absolute worst in offensive humor and web talk radio... guaranteed!

Well, it actually rose Thursday night but Saturday was my first day at the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival and what a long, but enjoyable, day it turned out to be.

I arrived in the afternoon prepared to begin the long, fruitless search for free parking. I packed enough provisions, extra blankets and water as I knew the search might take days. Imagine my surprise to find an open, unmetered, non time-restricted parking space directly across from a police station just blocks from the Festival venue! Could this be a good sign of things to come? We’ll see…

Open a blender and pour in "Wall-E", "Independence Day", "Total Recall", "Planet of the Apes", and an Outer Limits episode (see below), and hit "puree" and you have "Oblivion", courtesy of co-writer, producer, and director Joseph Kosinski, who also brought us the dismal "Tron: Legacy" a few years ago.