Movie Magazine International Blog

The Taking of Tiger Mountain, Tsui Hark's latest epic By Moira Sullivan The San Francisco International Film Festival continues through May 7 and there are many exceptional films that will be screened in the final week. Tsui Hark’s “The Taking of Tiger Mountain” on April 30, a political thriller set at the end of World War II.   In this narrative, the mission of People’s Liberation Army Captain Shao Jianbo (Lin Gengxin) is to take Tiger Mountain, once occupied by the Japanese and now the territory of a bandit king named Hawk (played by Tony Leung Ka-fai). The big budget film features 3D and CGI special effects-   A brilliant documentary “A German Youth” directed by Jean-Gabriel Periot, a French –German-Swiss co-production screens on May 2 and 5th at Sundance Kabuki. It chronicles the conditions in West Germany in the 60’s and 70’s and protests by German youth against the state. Such a time created the Red Army Faction and the Baader Meinhof Gang.   Ulrike...

Barbara Loden's 'Wanda' (1970) By Moira Sullivan The 2015 San Francisco International Film Festival will be held April 23 through May 7. This is the 58th edition of the event and 181 films will be screened—features, documentaries, shorts and special events. Here are some the highlights of this festival organized by the San Francisco Film Society and some of the exceptional films. This year the "Golden Gate Persistence of Vision" Award honoring the achievements of a filmmaker working in non-narrative film goes to British veteran and documentarian Kim Longinotto. She has an ambitious line of work behind her that chronicles the lives of women. Her latest film "Dreamcatcher" focusses on Chicago’s sex workers and the work of Brenda Myers Powell who counsels and encourages the women to respect themselves. She is shown speaking with teenagers, women on the street and incest survivors. The film will be screened May 2, 2015 in the presence of the fi...

Isabella Rossellini's new love affair  By Moira Sullivan Isabella Rossellini has had a long-term love affair with insects and animals.  She is the daughter of the Swedish screen actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini. Isabella went back to school after a successful career as a model for Lancôme and a motion pictures actress. One of her major roles was in David Lynch’s "Blue Velvet" made in 1986.  Isabella studied animal behavior ecology and conservation after these careers in order to be well acquainted with her subjects.  First she made 40 short films , which she called "Green Porno", then she did theater presentations written with Jean-Claude Carrière. After that she wrote a book about the sex life of animals and finally a film made by Judy Shapiro chronicles this work. This documentary will be presented at the San Francisco Int'l Film Festival  ("Green Porno" Live!) that runs...

By Moira Sullivan Flamenco, Flamenco   Opening Dec 26 at Landmark Opera Plaza is a rare film by the Spanish Veteran filmmaker Carlos Saura called “FLAMENCO FLAMENCO”. At the screening  Nina Menendez, artistic director of the 10th Annual Bay Area Flamenco Festival , will introduce the films.Saura made the Flamenco Trilogy of the 1980s ( Blood Wedding, Carmen, a nd   El Amor Brujo ). This 1995 film is in the documentary format and filmed by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro who has worked on many films such as Last Emperor and Apocalypse Now . I was struck by the performers –musicians and dancers and the extraordinary professionalism of ensemble as filmed by Storaro. For the uninitiated, this is an excellent introduction to the art form of flamenco. Saura filmed at the Seville Expo ’92 Spanish pavilion commemorating the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas by  Christopher Columbus  (1492-1992). Paintings ...

Norway stakes its oil claim in the North Sea By Moira Sullivan Norway prides itself on its economic independence and always boasts that it has its fish and its oil and is financially solvent for years to come. Pioneer is a Norwegian film by Erik Skjoldbjærg that looks into just how Norway got its oil and the subject is pretty fishy. The technology to build a pipeline came from the USA and in this film the clandestine operations that were behind the creation of a pipeline in the Norwegian sea are taken to task. Set in the 80’s, Norwegian deep sea divers embark on a mission to install a gas pipe.  This  involves time in   a real-life decompression chamber on an oil rig.  The film centers on Petter ( Aksel Hennie ) and his brother Knut André Eriksen ) who risk their lives to discover oil for Norway. The cinematography evokes the time period with its grainy almost yellow film stock and the film has the dramatic form of a thiller, although based on a real lif...

Asia Argento,  Gabriel Garko and  Charlotte Gainsbourg at Cannes premiere of "Misunderstood". The San Francisco Film Society presents another weekend of new films from world cinema, New Italian Cinema .  Opening Night is Nov 19 featuring two short films of Edoardo Ponti, who will be in attendance. The first is The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars, starring Julian Sands, Nastassja Kinski and Enrico Lo Verso.   Kinski plays Sonia, an unhappy married woman and Lo Verso plays Matteo, both of whom have underwent cardiac surgery and meet after six months in the Dolemites of northeastern Italy. In Ponti’s other short film, the magnificent Sophia Loren stars in Human Voice based on a play by Jean Cocteau’ as Angela. Loren gives a brilliant solo performance as a woman who speaks on the telephone with the man she loves who is leaving her for another woman. It is to be their last telephone and Loren executes every line as a master of acting.  Asia Arge...

The 17th UNAFF (United Nations Association Film Festival), will be held from October 16-26, in Palo Alto, Stanford University San Francisco. This year the theme for the festival is "BRIDGING THE GAP", and to that aim, high quality films will be screened on human rights, environmental themes, population, migration, women’s issues, refugees, homelessness, racism, health, universal education, and war and peace, all in all 70 films from all over the world. These are some of the outstanding film this year, that explore cultural writers, celebrities, scorned leaders and the manipulation of images created by media that drives public opinion. “Regarding Susan Sontag”, a film about the late intellectual and cultural critic will be screened at Stanford University on Oct 18. The film made by Nancy Kates skillfully weaves archival footage with testimony of the people who remember her life. Actress Patricia Clarkson reads Sontag’s own words from her writing. Sontag was an op...

By Moira Sullivan On Saturday October 18 a special film series dedicated to Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci will be screen at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. The program is organized by the Istituto Luce-Cinecittà in Rome, the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco and program director Amelia Antonucci. (Last year Antonucci presented a film series on Pier Paolo Pasolini with the same sponsors, and actor Ninetto Davili was a guest). Four films including the centerpiece,   a   3D screening of a newly restored version of THE LAST EMPEROR will be screened that was presented for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival last year. In honor of this occasion, actress Joan Chen who appears in the film,will be present at the Castro to see the new version for the first time.   Joan Chen plays Empress Wanrong,the wife of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China . The Japanese government proclaimed Puyi as the first Emperor of Manchukuo and Wanrong as Empre...

By Moira Sullivan Kite is a sci-fi revenge thriller, a low budget property of Harvey Weinstein,starring Samuel L Jackson as Detective Karl Aker, and 20-year-old India Isley, as Sawa, a deadly teen assassin who is a hit girl for corrupt detectives and bad guys.Set in the future, this is a live action rendition of Kite Yasoumi Umetsu’s anime with human traffickers and rampant corruption. Umetsu from Fukushima Japan is best known for his anime Kite and Kite Liberator. Sawa wants to forget her parents were murdered, and at the same time is out to revenge their death. Amp is a drug she uses to suppress memory and Sawa is hooked. Deep within Sawa is the orphan who lost her parents in a gory murder. Karl Aker, her father’s partner, looks after her, as does a young fellow assassin who knew her parents, Oburi played by Callan McAuliffe. Sawa is a skilled fighter and plows through the targets for whoever hires her. Her specialty is her use of bullets that penetrate the body and cau...

By Moira Sullivan “These are the Rules” by Ognien Svilicic The Venice Film Festival, which ended on September 6, screened an exceptional film in the Orrizzonti section: “These are the Rules” by Ognien Svilicic, a Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian co-production. Set in modern day Zagreb, the film is about a middle age couple, Maja and Ivo (brilliantly performed by J asna Žalica and Emir Hadžihafizbegović )  whose teenage son Tomica (Hrvoje Vladisavljević) returns home early in the morning and locks himself in his room. The couple is routinized. but not without affection towards one another and certainly towards their son. Ivo is a bus driver and Maja, a housewife. They go through the daily rituals such as preparing lunch - cutting vegetables and setting the table even with this new development preoccupying their minds. Knocks on Tomica’s door are in vain when finally he emerges clearly pretty beaten up in the face. His concerned parents take him to the emergency room and ...