Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

23 March 2004

Preview of SF International Film Festival

The schedule for the San Francisco International Film Festival was released today. The list of films on the web site is ridiculously difficult to browse. It's a bit easier to get an overview by looking at the calendar page, but that page doesn't have links to the film notes. So please enjoy the links I've provided below.

Unlike better-known festivals in other cities, the SFIFF serves the community, not the acquisition arms of film distributors or the PR machines of studios. It brings 175 movies and shorts from 52 countries, many of them without US distribution, to the Bay Area for people to see, period. It does give a couple of low-key awards to first-time filmmakers and documentaries, but there's very little emphasis on competition.

All of which makes the festival a great place to discover corners of creativity that you may never have seen before.

Here's a quick summary of what I'm looking forward to after an evening's perusal of the schedule:

Jim Jarmush has been collecting little vignettes of his actors talking, smoking, and drinking coffee for years, and he's finally collected them into a feature called Coffee & Cigarettes, and it sounds like a good way to open the festival. The cast includes Tom Waits, Jack White, Steve Buscemi, Roberto Benigni, RZA, Iggy Pop, Steven Wright, Bill Murray, etc. It'll be distributed by United Artists, so the only thing the inflated ticket price gets you is a chance to see Jarmusch and some of the cast in a Q&A after the show. Still, I've been looking forward to this for long enough that I just might pony up the dough.

Actually, the schedule has several movies that I've been looking forward to since they've played in other cities and been trumpeted by people with good taste: Since Otar Left (Julie Bertucelli), Ce jour-là (Raoul Ruiz), Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-Liang), and Les Sentiments (Noémie Lvovsky).

This festival often has strong documentaries, and several in this year's lineup have caught my eye: The Corporation and Super Size Me have been making the news; Bad Behavior about a couple who can't control their little girl sounds interesting; Control Room is about Al Jazeera; The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill and Girl Trouble have local interest; and I often end up at the music docs, like Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and Festival Express about Janis Joplin, The Band, and the Grateful Dead on a multi-city tour.

Four that I'll earmark just because of who's involved: Eric Rohmer's Triple Agent making its US premiere, Last Life in the Universe directed by Thailand's Pen-ek Ratanaruang and shot by Christopher Doyle (cinematographer for Wong Kar-Wai's movies, and Hero), The Saddest Music in the World by Guy Maddin, and The Five Obstructions in which Lars von Trier challenges Jørgen Leth to remake his short The Perfect Human five times with five sets of restrictions.

Oldies: The Firemen's Ball, part of a tribute to Milos Forman; The General and Dans La Nuit with new scores by the Alloy Orchestra; and Matewan, part of a tribute to Chris Cooper.

I'm usually too tired for the midnight movies, and I'm not much of a beer drinker, but if you're up for it Guinness sponsors the "extreme cinema" series, which includes free beer.

Of course this list just skims the surface, and I'm sure I've missed a lot of good stuff. At least one of my favorite movies of 2003 was a festival movie that I saw knowing little more than the title and country. I intend to take as many of these chances as I can.

Posted by davis | Link

Reader Comments

March 25, 2004, 10:54 AM

davis

I've made a first stab at a schedule (advance to the week of April 11).

I have a separate calendar of "maybes" that I can use to fill in blank spots, if I feel like it. I'll move maybes to the main calendar if I decide to see them.

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