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?

13 March 2008

Now Showing: Weekend of March 14

Other Weekends

Funny Games (US Version)
Michael Haneke's Funny Games (credit: Nicole Rivelli)

Of the movies in theaters and newly available on DVD this weekend, here's what I like, with links to my reviews, if any.

Opening and Expanding This Weekend

Funny Games — Michael Haneke remade his own film, virtually shot-for-shot, this time with Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, and Brady Corbet. He hates us, and I'm not sure what we did to provoke him.
[trailer, review (link soon)]
Snow Angels — It may be my favorite of David Gordon Green's films, although it took me some time to come to that realization. It's his most conventional in structure, but it's still an odd mix of elements.
[trailer, listen to my chat with Green on this weekend's podcast, see also: my review in the March Paste]

Continuing, in Preferential Order

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [trailer]

The Unforeseen [trailer, see also: my review in the April issue of Paste]

There Will Be Blood [trailer, brief comments on the podcast]

Taxi to the Dark Side [trailer]

Paranoid Park — [trailer, my podcast comments from New York and J. Robert's from TIFF, see also: my chat with Van Sant in the March issue of Paste Magazine]

Honeydripper — John Sayles' best film in years [trailer]

Chicago 10 [trailer, capsule review]

Persepolis [trailer, J. Robert's interview with the director on the podcast]

Be Kind Rewind [trailer, review]

Minor Amusements

Married Life [trailer, review]
No Country for Old Men [trailer, lengthy discussion on the podcast]
In Bruges [trailer, Sundance report]
Juno [trailer, brief comments on the podcast]
The Other Boleyn Girl [trailer]

No Thanks

Atonement — OK, I kinda like the first 45 minutes or so [trailer, brief comments on the podcast under "omissions"]
Sleepwalking — bleaugh [trailer]
Vantage Point [trailer, review]
10,000 BC [trailer, review]

New on DVD

Nothing particularly interesting this week, although I had high hopes for Summer Palace, having liked Lou Ye's previous two films (Suzhou River and Purple Butterfly). But I agree with Hoberman who calls it "a fascinating mess".

Where I'll Be This Week (Bay Area)

One of my favorite San Francisco film festivals starts tonight, the San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival. I'm attending only a few programs this year, but I'm especially looking forward to a mini-retrospective in honor of Edward Yang who passed away in 2007.

I'll be at some combination of the following:

March 14: The Terrorizer (Yang, SFIAAFF) at the PFA
March 15: A Girl Is a Gun (Moullet) at SFMOMA, repeated on the 20th. Clarence Carter says, "Calling A Girl Is a Gun (1971) an acid western is to do a movie that finds Jean-Pierre Léaud alternately, playing gunslinger, raving with lovesickness, mad with dehydration, eating dirt and grass, attempting to hang himself with the stump of a noose, scalped, betrayed, and married to a young Native American girl who looked suspiciously French to these eyes, little justice. Keystone Cops+The Searchers+Zabriskie Point+Twentynine Palms — I'll be damned if I know exactly what to call A Girl Is a Gun besides one of the most wickedly funny, willfully bizarre films I've seen in ages. It's also dubbed poorly into English and features a totally disconcerting droney krautrock score. Both are compliments in this case. Moullet's third film is most assuredly for aficionados of outré singularities like Rohmer's Perceval and Malle's Black Moon."
March 15: Shorts by Jennifer Reeves including Light Work Mood Disorder, an SF Cinematheque screening at the Artists' Television Access
March 16: I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (Park, SFIAAFF) at the Castro
March 16 (alternate): Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou, SFIAAFF) at the Kabuki. Hou Hsiao-hsien is among my very favorite filmmakers, and his latest film is wonderful. I'd love to see again, but it's sold out.
March 16: More shorts by Jennifer Reeves including Light Work I, an SF Cinematheque screening at the Yerba Buena
March 17: Ping Pong Playa (Yu, SFIAAFF) at the Kabuki. I'm curious about Jessica Yu's new film since her previous one, Protagonist, is a favorite of 2007, but I have mixed feelings about her films in general and don't have high expectations for what looks like a major departure. It's a comedy about ping-pong.
March 18: The Time We Killed (Reeves), even more Jennifer Reeves, an SF Cinematheque screening at the Yerba Buena
March 19 (maybe): Wild Strawberries (Bergman), a film often cited as one of Bergman's best, but I'm not crazy about it. Wouldn't hurt me to give it another chance, though.
March 19: A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, SFIAAFF) at the Clay, the full four-hour version
March 19 (alternate): Young Frankenstein (Brooks) at the Castro, with Gene Wilder appearing in person
March 20 (maybe): A Girl Is a Gun (Moullet) at SFMOMA, also on the 15th
March 20: Yi-Yi: A One and a Two (Yang, SFIAAFF) at the PFA, Yang's best-known film and the only of his that I've seen

UPDATE: I just found out that Rithy Panh has a film in the SFIAAFF called Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers. His documentary about the S21 prison in Cambodia is great and his theatrical experiment called The Burnt Theatre was also interesting, although it didn't knock me out like S21 did. Unfortunately, I'll need to choose between his new one and Jessica Yu's film, since they conflict — unless I can somehow race from the Kabuki to Berkeley at 8:45. Hmm. (Thanks, Brian.)

Posted by davis | Link | Other Weekends

Reader Comments

March 16, 2008, 07:49 PM

Brian

Rob, I'm loving these weekly bulletins with their handy links- are you going to keep these up? I hope so.

I hope my appreciation of Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers hasn't complicated your Monday too badly- these scheduling forks are one of the reasons I call my site "Hell" on Frisco Bay. I do think this film is more likely to knock you out than the Burnt Theatre, but of the four of Panh's films I've seen it's also probably the closest thing to a "normal" documentary. Or maybe I'm just getting used to his style now; in my mind I still consider the first of his films I saw, Land of Wandering Souls, my favorite, though it may be I'm being overly sensitive to how unique that one seemed at the time; of course I haven't had a chance to revisit it in the intervening seven years.

March 16, 2008, 11:16 PM

davis

Thank, Brian. I do plan to keep doing them.

I'm leaning toward catching the Panh (which I'm guessing I'll like more) and then trying to drive to the PFA if it seems like there'll be time. It might work, depending on traffic.

March 17, 2008, 08:43 PM

davis

Wait wait wait! Yu's film is also at the Kabuki, after Panh's film. No racing required.

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