Not pictured: the not-on-Letterboxd short BLOWING THINGS AWAY, which I saw at the Exploratorium Tuesday, or the as-yet-unlogged movies I watched yesterday

A second showing is happening at 9pm- still never gone to this annual 35mm event.

He ain’t kidding! Check who’s at the two-minute mark…

And here she is in San Francisco six years later digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/m...

It was great to see Craig Baldwin’s early film/provocation in a cinema environment on Saturday- particularly at @ataconnect.bsky.social. Brought a lot of thoughts forward about cinema spaces in my hometown boxd.it/caGVcD

Stevens is the heart of this book- good stuff on Capra, Ford, Wyler & Huston too but Stevens is the one who I emerged with a totally refreshed understanding of.

Started my SF visit with three Budd Boetticher Westerns, two at the Stanford Theatre and one on the plane out. My Letterboxd review of the appropriately-titled latter includes links to both of the former. boxd.it/c9EVUn

I would never have known what “unskinny” was without the guidance of C.C. DeVille.

Catching up with my Letterboxd backlog, starting with Monday’s @spacegallery.bsky.social showing of this puckish feature from the director of THE AFTERLIGHT and PAINT DRYING boxd.it/c8IFRh

Finally a Cinematrix puzzle I can be proud of - my first 9/9 single-digit percentages in several weeks! (Including a 1-1-1 row)

Home again.

The #1 movie when you were 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go.

Whigs 2.0

Relived that my top ten list shares no more than one title with Obama’s.

Trump-Hoovervilles

Heading back to San Francisco for a little bit; here’s a list of (pretty much) all the films I ever saw at @ataconnect.bsky.social to get me back in West Coast mode… boxd.it/Q9fzs

Finally saw this flawed but fascinating San Francisco movie directed by John Carpenter boxd.it/c4R0vr

Can’t argue against the three of Odie’s selections here that I’ve seen for myself (though I might quibble with his rationales- for instance I like most Wes Anderson movies a lot more than I did The Phoenician Scheme)

Was wondering!

Why I didn’t put any Netflix movies on my top ten list boxd.it/c4B8eh

Heading back to my hometown in a few days and this thread is getting me excited!

Wrote about one of my favorite San Francisco screening spaces @ataconnect.bsky.social for @screenslatesf.bsky.social www.screenslate.com/articles/its...

First one of these mini-screenings happens in five minutes!

Lots of others I could pick on but the only one I’ve watched twice to make sure (and it made me even MORE sure) is YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU.

This is tomorrow!

Will tonight’s Santacon-themed show be able to top last Saturday’s amazing Yuletide Kingdom of Not performance?

For the morning crowd:

A quieter week than usual, viewing-wise: just a few shorts and a John Carpenter rewatch. (Also I started a mini-series, but that won’t be logged on Letterboxd until I complete it.)

If you or anyone you know in striking distance of Midcoast Maine likes underground moving image art, expanded cinema, 16mm projection, etc. make sure you put my wife Kerry Laitala’s open studio event this coming Sunday on your calendar!

Hey the @screenslate.bsky.social top 20 of 2025 has been posted! Anyone want to guess which three titles on the list were included on my own? (Hint: I haven’t seen 9 of these yet at all, including Resurrection, Henry Fonda For President or The Secret Agent) www.screenslate.com/articles/scr...

Reminds me of the 1932 movie Two Seconds, which starts with Edward G. Robinson many stories up at a building site, and ends with him in the electric chair. (Not a spoiler- it’s told in flashback).

Join me in 25 minutes for the livestream of Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 20! Chat will be open and spirited, www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Or...

Watched a nine-minute short by a San Francisco filmmaker. It’s pretty great and it’s available on YouTube and the Criterion Channel. boxd.it/c08S31

Easiest way to improve the theatrical experience is to increase staff and pay them better. But that is anathema to business geniuses and so everything will continue to get worse until the only theatres around are tiny art houses owned and operated by people who love movies more than money.

The Narrow Margin and Manpower are all-timers. The Verdict may be too- haven’t seen that one myself.

Nominated this to the National Film Registry this year, which if tradition holds (and who knows with the current state of our federal government) would be announced next week, possibly this very day?

You will be visited by 3 spirits

SFAI Archivist and former librarian Becky Alexander is looking for photos and memories of the SFAI library that you'd be willing to share, both for the SFAI Memory Collection and potentially on a website memorializing closed art school libraries. www.sfartistsalumni.org/sfai-memory-...

All this also applies to Breck Coleman from THE BIG TRAIL, Tom Brown and Amy Jolly from MOROCCO, the eponymous ANNA CHRISTIE, and Betty Boop and Bimbo from DIZZY DISHES.

Movie theatres forever

Just one entry in a trove of essays now available online, including Leonard Maltin on Koko the clown, Katie Gee Salisbury on the Anna May Wong vehicle Song, David Kiehn on The Wreck of the Hesperus and Imogen Sara Smith on Mauritz Stiller’s Song of the Scarlet Flower silentfilm.org/library/?lib...

Jeremy Rourke is one of the undersung champions of the San Francisco film scene.

Almost-Public/Semi-Exposed is back with its tenth annual month-long program of live performance! The festival kicks off this afternoon, with "does the carrier care" by Susan Wolf.

Just as important and indicative to the current crisis in image distribution as the Netflix HBO merger:

I never did, and neither did my filmmaker wife, until last year when we changed our mobile phone service to a company that (to our surprise) included it as part of the package whether we wanted it or not.

this will 100% happen, and if we’ve got any duty as critics and journalists, it’s to shine a light on these spaces that make freedom a reality

What’s also making this decision easier is the director of this Netflix release is one of just 2 or 3 directors on my list who I don’t think has weighed in on Gaza, however obliquely. And he’s by far the highest-profile in that category. Never made that part of a list calculus before but I might now

Was planning to submit a Netflix-distributed title (that I saw in a cinema and really loved) on a top ten list due today, but the news is souring me on it, and there are a couple other movies I also loved this year without that baggage that I’m tempted to consider for its slot.