Thursday nights usually suck, but they just got a whole lot better. That’s right ya’ll, Dolores Park Movie Night is back in action. Last night’s screening of Soylent Green marked the second show of 2008, but there are plenty more to come. So get your BBQ grills, your mini-kegs, and a blanket; and don’t forget to bring a few bucks for the pot-brownie dude. You might not be able to hear the sound and you probably won’t be able to see the screen much, but you can rest assured you’re going to see some fresh costumes and drink a lot of beer. Plus, popcorn!

Dolores Park Movie Night
Free from April to October
The Second Thursday of Every Month @ 7:00pm
doloresparkmovie.org

That blond firecracker Ludivine Sagnier, 28, turned up at the festival to accompany her new film A Girl Cut in Two, directed by the French new wave filmmaker Claude Chabrol, and she was gracious enough to sit down with me for a chat. Sagnier is happy to talk about her character Gabrielle Deneige (or "Gabrielle Snow" in the English subtitles), a television weather girl who becomes torn between two men, an older, married author and a younger, rich, spoiled brat. But she's tickled to tell stories about her legendary director.

Ludivine Savignier times two.

"It was amazing," she says. "I thought I would never work with him because I didn't have that high society profile. I wasn't bourgeoisie enough to work with him. I actually felt like I was suddenly printing my name in the history books. Chabrol is such a monument in France. Not even working with him, but only talking with him was amazing. He would talk to me about Alfred Hitchcock: 'Oh Alfred asked me if I wanted to shoot a sequence in this movie.' Suddenly he's speaking about something that's far away, that belongs to history, but it's next door. Those were privileged moments to be able to share all those stories with him."

Ludivine Savignier with Francois Berleand in Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two.

Sagnier landed the job simply by taking a telephone call. She says she thought she was being hired on the basis of her work with Francois Ozon in the three films Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000), 8 Women (2002) and Swimming Pool (2003). But in actuality he was more interested in her performance in P.J. Hogan's 2003 take on Peter Pan. She quotes his reasoning: "He said, 'You have been Tinker Bell. You know what it's like to be radiant. You know what it's like to fight with old pirates. You know enough. So do your job.'"

Sagnier has just finished shooting an epic gangster film entitled Public Enemy No. 1. She breathlessly describes the exploits of the hero, a man twisted and corrupted by the Algerian War who turns to crime and becomes a famous robber and a media darling. Her character comes in during the film's second half. "I'm a young and naïve prostitute," she says coyly, almost laughing. "But it was an action movie with a big crew, guns, fighting, chasing, so I thought that was really exciting."

Sagnier is also doing a lot of reading -- "the Russians," she says (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, etc.) -- and a little singing. When pressed for details, she merely smiles and says, "You'll see." An avid movie fan, she has put movies on hold for a bit, though being in San Francisco has inspired her to watch more Hitchcock. She also was wlling to list her favorite Chabrol films, including Le Boucher (1970), Story of Women (1988) and La Ceremonie (1995). "I've seen ten or fifteen maximum, because there are plenty of them that are not findable. I asked Chabrol if he had tape(s of them). He just said 'No!' and shrugged."

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

The documentary Up the Yangtze is a perfect companion piece to Jia Zhangke's Still Life. Both deal in specific ways with China's humongous Three Gorges project, although neither film ever goes into detail as to what the project -- which will displace some 2 million people -- is supposed to accomplish.

A trailer for Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze.

Opening this Friday in the Bay Area, Still Life confirms Jia's status as one of the best filmmakers in the world. Its two separate protagonists arrive in one soon-to-be-flooded town. A miner (Han Sanming) travels downriver to find his wife and daughter, neither of whom he has seen in 16 years. A nurse (Zhao Tao) looks for her husband. These characters never meet on screen, though they share certain visual and story parallels. They both wander around the bizarre landscape full of half-demolished buildings. Every shot contains some kind of visual conflict: for example, one group of workers pounding away at a chunk of rubble while another masked and suited group comes by spraying some kind of chemical on the grounds.

Money is crucial to Still Life. Characters use etchings on bills to show images of their hometowns and a magician converts Yuan to euros. (Chow Yun-fat is also seen on TV lighting a cigarette with cash in a clip from John Woo's 1987 A Better Tomorrow.) Jia's tone is mysterious and often funny -- as when a UFO suddenly takes off and flies through the air! He's made a film to revel in. Still Life won the Golden Lion at Venice in 2006 and it has a good shot of being the best film to get a theatrical release in SF this year.

Still Life: The horrors and heartbreaks of mass displacement -- and UFOs!

Both Still Life and Up the Yangtze feel like a slap in the face in the great battle between man and nature. In each case, the filmmakers give the audience credit for choosing sides. The great Russian director Alexander Sokurov does the same with his excellent new Alexandra, although his story is set miles and miles from the Yangtze. It begins with an almost laughable scenario: an elderly woman (opera singer Galina Vishnevskaya) travels to the front lines to visit her grandson, an army captain, Denis (Vasily Shevtsov), with the Russian army during the occupation of Chechnya. She totters around, struggling to climb in and out of trains and tanks and barracks. Denis and Alexandra have only a few scenes together, but those moments recall the deeply moving relationship depicted in Sokurov's masterpiece Mother and Son (1997), full of touching, cradling, and honest conversation. ("You're so beautiful," the grandson says when she unbraids her brittle, gray hair.)

Despite their talks, however, this mother and son never seem to get any closer, and Denis is always running off for missions. Alexandra spends time wandering around the camp, and we see Sokurov's obsession with (shirtless) men bonding and working under tight conditions. The men treat Alexandra with queenly dignity or like a child, and she responds in kind. Her breakthrough comes when she visits a nearby market and befriends a local saleslady; though they are from different regions, their age places them far above and away from any military conflict. Most of all, Sokurov uses the film's unique situation to show the vast differences between the old and the young, and the benefits and faults of both. Alexandra has a look that is similar to his previous films, it still has a vivid texture, but one that's less painterly and harder. We can practically taste the film's cigarettes and dust.

In contrast to Still Life, Lance Hammer's Ballast is one of my least favorite films this year. For some reason, this film won a Best Director and Best Cinematography awards at Sundance, but it's really just Indie Filmmaking 101; the hand-held shaky-cam work and jump cutting go back to Breathless (1959) and a million other derivative films in the interim. Writer-director Hammer tells a story about a broken black family in Mississippi; a man commits suicide and his surviving twin brother Lawrence (Micheal J. Smith Sr.) finds himself dealing with his angry sister-in-law Marlee (Tarra Riggs) and nephew James (Jim Myron Ross), the latter of which has become involved with local drug dealers. Hammer apparently wishes to show the inaction of grief, but the best he can do is jiggle his camera around while Lawrence sits on his bed and stares out the window. The impatient cutting and pacing lurches in service of the story: the bereaved family members, practically strangers to each other, eventually help each other learn to loosen up and live again. (It's a favorite theme of nearly every Hollywood film.)

An image from Lance Hammer's Ballast.

Hammer has clearly been inspired by Charles Burnett's masterpiece Killer of Sheep (1977) and David Gordon Green's George Washington (2000), but has failed to grasp those film's tone or artistry, nor their willingness to pause, look around and occasionally see beyond a rudimentary plot.

This week's Guardian features a trio of railroad-related stories. On the Lower Frequencies author Erick Lyle writes about the train-hopping photos of the Polaroid Kidd and the words and images of William T. Vollmann. Cinema Scope chief and film programmer Mark Peranson talks with James Benning about his new movie RR. And Bill Daniel talks about the passions and motivations behind his new book Mostly True, which mixes a wealth of new and vintage print material with excerpts of his beautiful train-tagging movie Who is Bozo Texino?.

The epic account of the improbable discovery of the world's greatest boxcar artist.

Even more interesting for me this morning, however, was the discovery that a baby platypus is called a puggle. And that it looks like this:

Puggle-Aaaaw! Pic from NYtimes.com

May I be the first to cry out "Save the Nature!" at the sight of this adorable creature?

By Leslie Griffith

When Katie Couric was given the title of “America’s sweetheart it was a death knell. America relishes devouring its sweethearts.

If the news magazines and newspapers are correct, Katie Couric’s career at CBS, much like Dan Rather’s, is toast. The last chapters of this complex and revealing human drama are not written yet. But the plot, the sub-plots, the dialogue, the public’s perverse interest, and the motivations are nothing if not Shakespearean.

Two years ago, Couric was the first woman to anchor the evening news broadcast on one of the big three networks. On that day, I was called by local reporters for a quote. My own career in television began 26 years ago, about the same time as Couric’s. “It’s about time,” I told the newspaper reporters.

Couric and I have a few things in common. Bay Area viewers watched as I grew up before their eyes just as Katie Couric grew up in full view of the nation. Wives use to say in various ways, “You are the only other woman I will let my husband bring into the bedroom.” The intimacy of television is still very real, but the truth tellers of old are becoming history.

The new sales people in charge of many of today’s commercial conduits of broadcast news want happy faces on the young women who read the news. When the chirpy attitudes evaporate and the young woman grows up, the order is placed for fresh meat.

In editorial meetings across the country probably at this very moment, some male manager is delivering a condescending nose-snort directed at the smartest woman in the room. The woman whose experiences with the new corporate media’s lack of public concern and relentless pursuit of profits has made her void of anchor charm.

It’s a peculiar problem for a woman like Couric in television news because women as objects of desire or objects in general is becoming more popular again. Couric let the network photograph her legs, and use photo- shopped pictures for her publicity shots. Not a good move on her part. But, that’s nothing compared to some of today’s female anchors who appear to enjoy being objectified. Farah Fawcett hairdos, layers of lip gloss, and air brushed make-up can make the most determined journalist give up. One recently posed in a bikini.

But perhaps the real focus should not be the first-female aspect of this drama at all. It should be the relentlessly predatory and unfaithful way in which the new corporate media treats its talent -- much like it treats the public. It does not care for either.

Westinghouse, Viacom and CBS were giddy with desire for Katie Couric when she was perky, effervescent and full of mischief. But that fades fast when it becomes clear the stockholders and corporations who buy commercials are the real objects of desire, and those sitting in that chair are not pleasing them. Often times those are the very entities committing crimes against citizens. Hopefully you understand the inherent contradictions in that.

The look on Couric’s face these days resembles a Christian standing naked in the coliseum when the lions are turned loose. It’s gut wrenching to watch.

It reminds me of the look on Dan Rather’s face while bearing witness to his final days. It was brutal. He was a deer in the headlights appearing to be genuinely stun-gunned into a stupor. See:

As the most recent CBS-Viacom-Westinghouse drama unfolds and the curtain opens, Americans are getting a view of the Tiffany network now controlled by a false wizard who has taken up residence in what was once the Emerald City.

Leslie Griffith is a former KTVU news anchor. Check out her website at lesliegriffith.org.

Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two is about as good as any of his films, which is to say, it is highly skilled and hugely entertaining. Yet it will probably come and go fairly quickly. Chabrol made his fiftieth film a few years back, and when you make your fiftieth film, no one cares. If the Coen Brothers or Paul Thomas Anderson live long enough to make fifty films, just see if anyone notices. If the quality of their films falls, people will complain, but if it stays the same, they'll be taken for granted, just like Chabrol. I guarantee it. Look at Ingmar Bergman. He cracked fifty films, and when his last, the great Saraband, opened in 2005, people could scarcely be bothered to even yawn.

Since Claude Chabrol has fewer unlicensed YouTube clips than feature films to his name, this still from A Girl Cut in Two will have to do

In any case, Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two tells the story of a love triangle. Beautiful, ambitious television weather girl Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier) falls for the much older, but successful, married writer Charles Saint-Denis (François Berléand). At the same time, a snotty, rich younger man, Paul (Benoît Magimel) is swept away by her and is even more intrigued by her utter indifference to him. The strong characters show at least two sides, slyly seducing one another while selfishly scheming. Chabrol moves the story ahead with a deceptively deft combination of humor and suspense. And of course, there's more. It just wouldn't be a Chabrol film if there weren't a murder or something equally sinister.

A Girl Cut in Two screens Tues/6, 9:30 p.m. at the Clay.

Director Du Haibin reveals the gap between labor and commodity in his modern-day documentary odyssey Umbrella. Beginning with the actual construction of mass-produced umbrellas in an urban factory, Du traces the product’s journey as it becomes increasingly divorced from its origins. He juxtaposes the tedium and repetition of factory work with the mindless chatter of umbrella merchants' wives who shamelessly lust after Audis and BMWs.

Can you stand under an umbrella?

Umbrella complicates these relationships with one beautiful shot after another. As factory workers, students and soldiers all attempt to shed their agricultural heritage, they find there are no guarantees in a consumer-based society. In creating a vast societal portrait through his focus on umbrellas, Du pulls off the rare feat of capturing the ephemeral. Umbrella takes modern life to its logical conclusion, succinctly stated by an auctioneer-type host at a job fair cattle call: “You go to school, so you can get a job, so you can make money, so you can buy a home, so you can start a family and send your children to school.”

Umbrella screens Thurs/8, 8:30 p.m. at the Kabuki

Last night, Maria Bello accepted her Peter J. Owens award and hosted a screening of her new film Yellow Handkerchief. I haven't seen that film yet, but Bello will always have a place in my heart for her fearless performance in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence (2005).

If you saw Buena Vista Social Club at the festival in 1999 and Calle 54 at the festival in 2001, then you may be familiar with the music of Israel 'Cachao' Lopez, the great Cuban songwriter and bassist who helped bring the mambo to popularity. The new Cachao: Uno Mas arrives just in time, given that Cachao passed away two months ago at the age of 89. It would be great to report that this 68-minute documentary was a worthy farewell, but it's far too brief and it breaks the cardinal rule of music films: it interrupts the songs with talking heads.

Cachao: Uno Mas talk at SFIFF

As a documentary, Umbrella from the Sixth Generation director Du Haibin is exactly the opposite of Cachao: Uno Mas. It doesn't include a single talking head, and employs only a handful of intertitles to remind us where we are and what's going on. The film uses the umbrella as a metaphor for the China of today and its burgeoning, but quickly-shifting economy. The first of its five segments begins in a factory full of young people hoping to make a quick buck putting umbrellas together. Next, it swings over to merchants selling umbrellas, then job hunters attending a job fair. The fourth segment focuses on the military as an option for young people. And the fifth looks at the farmers who suffer the most. For the first time in generations, young people deserted their family farms to seek their fortune in the city, and city economics began to intrude on farm life, running many farmers out of business.

Du Haibin's Umbrella is one of the stronger documentaries at this year's SFIFF

Du shows all of this without adding a single word. He just stands back and photographs. He goes for a Frederick Wiseman-like fly-on-the-wall approach that's enormously effective, if slightly devious (no film is this objective). The overall result is fascinating, if brutally depressing. It paints a decidedly different picture from the one the Chinese government would like you see.

Speaking of China, the festival's very best film, Jia Zhang-ke's Still Life, is screening at SFIFF just before a local theatrical run. I just saw Johnnie To's new film Linger as well, but it's such an unexpected departure that I'm still digesting it.

Still Life screens Tues/6, 8:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive

Attention all aspiring American Apparel models! Stop eating this very moment and get yourself a one-way ticket to Downtown LA because your dreams are on the verge of crumbling. The rumors are true. As announced earlier this year, Polaroid, the world’s only instant film manufacturer, has officially announced that it will no longer be making instant film, which, of course, means that the low-fi, borderline racist, pseudo-amateur photographs American Apparel has built its legacy on will no longer be possible to produce and that the AA empire will soon crumble too. Yes, hipsters, the whole world is coming to an end.

But wait. Maybe I’m being too hasty. There is one niche market of highly influential people who, in all likelihood, will never let instant film die: art gallery curators. Their lives are about to become a whole lot easier. Soon, all they’ll need to do to guarantee a crowd is to find some random dude with a Polaroid collection and let him loose on their walls.

The End of Polaroid with Tod Brilliant is the first of what is surely to become a Bay Area tradition: The Polaroid Retrospective. Join Brilliant as he reminisces about instant film, talks about his photographs, and shares his vintage camera collection.

Artist’s Reception: May 9th from 6:00 – 9:00pm
Micro Gallery
602 Wilson St. Santa Rosa.
(707) 570-0128.

I love the festival's crazy Late Show selections, but sometimes I miss them. Luckily, Abel Ferrara's Go Go Tales screened for a third time on Wednesday afternoon. It's very reminiscent of John Cassavetes' 1974 The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, but not as focused. (Ferrara's style is even more rambling.)

Willem Dafoe plays Ray Ruby, a man living his dream by running a strip club. The trouble is that the club is failing, the girls haven't been paid and Ray loves to blow all his money on lotto tickets. A series of miniature dramas play out over the course of one night. Old friends stop in, new customers come and go, strippers dance and complain, and a man tries to sell organic hot dogs! A tanning booth explodes, nearly burning down the joint. The abrasive landlady (the great Sylvia Miles) shows up, threatening to let Bed, Bath and Beyond move in. A stripper called Monroe (Asia Argento) brings in her dog, which gets in the way. (She uses the dog in her act, and more or less makes out with him on stage.)

Bed, bath and beyond, baby!: The peerless Sylvia Miles with Go Go Tales director Abel Ferrara

Jiri Menzel won the SFIFF's directing award back in 1990 (when it was known as the Akira Kurosawa award), and he's best known for his Czech new wave masterpiece Closely Watched Trains (1966). The first hour or so of his new film I Served the King of England (his first feature since 1994) comes close to capturing that film's magic, fleet-footed yet politically-charged tone. It's about a waiter who learns life lessons while working in pubs and ritzy hotels. But as soon as World War II breaks out, Menzel can no longer balance speed and humor with atrocity, and the film slows down and becomes unbearably heavy. Ernst Lubitsch pulled off this impossible combo with To Be or Not to Be (1942). Menzel at least comes close.

Jiri Menzel returns with I Served the King of England

Animator Faith Hubley also won a festival award (Persistence of Vision, in 2000), and her daughter Emily is making her feature debut with The Toe Tactic, a quirky romantic comedy with animated interludes. It's passably cute, and intriguingly disconnected, but to put it plainly, I liked it better when it was called Me and You and Everyone We Know.

Finally, Jay Chou's Secret screens on Friday and Sunday, and while I can't say it's the best movie I've seen, it's probably my favorite; it's the one I've been telling everyone to see. I'm dying to talk more about it. But as the title indicates, the less said, the better.

First Fridays aren't just for Oakland anymore: D-Structure now hosts art openings the first Friday of every month at their boutique in the Lower Haight.

After a successful show last month with painter Aaron Nagel, D-Structure is launching their latest exhibit, The Antique Roadshow, this Friday, 5/2. The launch party also celebrates the addition of San Francisco-based clothing line Correct Clothing to their stock.

According to Correct Clothing co-founder Thomas Lerou, "Correct Clothing is a lifestyle brand, which means we draw inspiration from the music and art that create the lifestyle. Our clothing will always be linked to music and art."

Coming Correct

The line keeps it simple – t-shirts and hats only – that they design to be more classic than trendy.

D-Structure's Antique Roadshow features more than 40 pieces of artwork by local artists Ian Hill, ZenTen, and TenFold, who together are known as the Swedish Milk Toast Collective. In his own way, each of these artists re-envisions the past from a futuristic perspective through the lens of urban and pop art.

Ian Hill's "Skeptic"

To make the event "a true antique bazaar and roadshow," says D-Structure's Cassidy Blackwell, the store will have "antique trinkets displayed all over the gallery space."

Tenfold takes it on the road

Music will be provided by local DJs Bogle, DJ Centipede, and Citizen Ten (a.k.a. artist TenZen).

The Antique Roadshow
Reception May 2, 8 p.m.
D-Structure
520 Haight, SF
415-252-8601

I once lived with a girl whose bedroom looked and smelled exactly like a landfill. Stained panties, pieces of trash, and soup-bowls-turned-ashtrays were strewn from one corner of her private hellhole to the next. The strange thing was that if you had never seen this girl’s room you would have thought she was normal and nice. She dressed well, spoke eloquently, and never did anything too crazy. But I knew the truth. She may have looked nice on the outside, but I knew that somewhere deep down inside there lurked a slovenly beast with no regard for order or cleanliness, a heathen with dirty underpants. That’s the thing about bedrooms. The way we decorate them can reveal something about who we really are.

Bay Area photographer Andrew McClintock certainly understands this truth. He recently spent about five years documenting the living habits of young San Franciscans. So if you’ve ever wondered what all those waiters, starving artists, and late-night-computer nerds are really like, you should check out his show at the Bluesix Acoustic room. Prepare to be shocked.

Opening reception for Andrew McClintock’s Bedrooms Series
Friday, May 2nd. 7:30 PM.
Bluesix Acoustic Room
3043 24th. SF.

Well, I wasn't able to catch up with Errol Morris this time around, and I'm bummed, but I secured an interview with screenwriter extraordinaire Robert Towne, which I will share with you later in the week.

I did catch up with Touching Home, the feature debut by local twins Logan and Noah Miller, and after watching it I suspect that their future may lie more in the realm of producing than directing or acting; their meetings may be more interesting than their movies.

Touching Home touches upon Christmas

Apparently the Millers accosted Ed Harris outside the Castro Theater in 2006, when the actor received the festival's Peter J. Owens award. They pitched him their project and even showed him a trailer. The movie itself shows similar marketing smarts. It's the story of twin brothers, both baseball players, who dream of making the big time. One loses his scholarship and the other is fired from his bush league position, so they slink home, get jobs in the local quarry and hope for a chance in the spring in Arizona. Meanwhile, one brother reconnects with their alcoholic, gambling-addicted father (Harris) and finds a cute new girlfriend, leading to fights between the brothers.

Harris gets a plum Oscar-friendly supporting role, and he plays it subtly and marvelously, letting sadness seep through his eyes. Brad Dourif also gets one, playing Harris' developmentally disabled brother, and he plays it right, too; he melts in with the rest of the cast instead of showing off like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (1988) or Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump (1994). If that's not enough, the Millers throw in a Christmas scene too! This thing is marketed six ways to Sunday, designed and directed for every occasion. The finished movie is almost beside the point.

Ed Harris delivers

Tonight Mike Leigh appears at the Castro to receive the festival's Directing award and to host a screening of his film Topsy-Turvy (1999). Leigh is an ingenious filmmaker and truly deserving of the award, but he was a bit of a curmudgeon (to put it politely) when I last interviewed him, and Topsy-Turvy is my least favorite of his films. Despite exhibiting his signature style, it's not much more than a standard biopic, running a bit too long and telling an all-too familiar story. It's too bad the festival isn't showing Naked (1993), which is arguably Leigh's masterpiece and would have led to a much more interesting Q&A.

Wot, how could you possibly not like Topsy-Turvy?!?

And thank YOU, gay mafia (Brock at SFist, via DListed, obviously via somewhere in Georgia or Alabama) for passing the above to me. Hope that tuck's insured!