I won’t be at this weekend’s Jordan Belson symposium in San Francisco (except in spirit; I do expect my name to be mentioned at least once during one of the presentations) so I watched and wrote about one of the shorts screening as part of the event that I had never seen before:

Quite a week! Here’s my last eight viewed:

“Guided by science and empathy, Jenjira becomes a living portal that bridges the past, the future, and the spiritual.” @cineuropa.bsky.social cineuropa.org/en/newsdetai...

Finally

Tonight at 8:00, ATA presents a selection of films from the 14th edition of Analogica.

If you’re in San Francisco this weekend here’s a must-do on Mission Street:

Love the Blow Out example used in this.

1. Los Angeles Plays Itself 2. Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer 3. --- -------- (Rock and Roll Movie) 4. Red Hollywood 5. Get Out of the Car 6. The Thoughts That Once We Had 7. The Tony Longo Trilogy

What if Claudia Cardinale was the only person raptured

Belatedly wrapped up my 2025 @camdeniff.bsky.social Letterboxd jottings with a few paragraphs on the most poignant of the six features i was able to catch: boxd.it/b95Cyp

I’ve never watched this cartoon, and with fewer than 150 of the 1000 produced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies still unseen, I wonder if I should consider putting it on soon. I don’t want my last few unseen Warner cartoons viewed to all be extremely racist ones…

It’s a week later and I’m still trickling out reviews of the documentaries I saw at the Camden International Film Festival last weekend. Here’s several paragraphs on a film about Mongolian herdsmen that had me thinking about the non-fiction ethnographic heritage, among other things boxd.it/b8th0b

I once was given an incredible opportunity to choose pretty much any film I wanted to introduce at a 35mm-capable screening room. This was what I selected.

We’re watching The Candidate (1972) tonight. I remember the ending of this well but not the run-up.

Quite different but that’s mostly due to having finalized my move from a place I had a long history and even some expertise with, to a new home I’m still figuring out.

Would love to see this one on the big screen…

I haven’t had time to log my last three Camden International Film Festival viewings, nor a couple other Looney Tunes watched last night. But here’s what my week looked like outside those caveats:

Delighted my response to people finding out I’m an “old movies and/in old theaters” guy and asking “Do you know what’s up with the Grand Lake’s 9/11 festival?” can now be “Well, do you know about The ORB?”

I'd really like to see someone who isn't me go on a rant about the pathetic state of academic "media studies" in this country over the past 20 years. Unfortunately, critical media studies never become a sustained project, while fan studies and (uncritical) industry studies prevailed.

Like A Prayer fans- time to show up in numbers to give Madonna a big win going into what’s likely to be a brutal face-off with Kate Bush in Round 3:

Including rarely-shown 16mm prints of two films Belson shot for poet Christopher MacLaine, The End and The Man Who Invented Gold

Last weekend I saw six new non-fiction features at the Camden International Film Festival and for me this one was the most stratospheric highlight: boxd.it/b5iNV5

Coincidentally, on Wednedsay, @bampfa.bsky.social is screening—alongside works by Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger—a selection of films by Sidney Peterson, founder of the hugely influential film program at the CA School of Fine Arts, which would eventually become SFAI: bampfa.org/event/ritual...

This week, Cat Beckstrand on Studio 8, the black box studio at now-shuttered SF Art Institute where generations of filmmakers learned their craft and developed their vision, celebrated Fri-Sun at Shapeshifters, the Roxie, & SFMOMA with @sfartistsalumni.org: www.screenslate.com/articles/stu...

I was listening to an old Casey Kasem American Top 40 (I find this soothing these days) from 1985 where he told the story of Wendy Carlos, who scored The Shining and Tron, and her journey to becoming trans. Casey got all the pronouns right and it was presented as a slice of life, feel good story

Another great documentary from Reid Davenport, whose 2022 film I Didn’t See You There is one of my favorite new movies of the current decade. This one might be up there too. boxd.it/b3DQ2V

Ultimate Film Fanatic

Caught the US premiere of the latest from a great Argentine auteur last night

Lucrecia Martel telling the Camden International Film Festival crowd about how her idea to make Nuestra Tierra came to her fifteen years ago.

Mine: 20s: Dune 10s: Deadpool 00s: (500) Days of Summer 90s: 10 Things I Hate About You 80s: Predator 70s: Rocky II 60s: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid 50s: Funny Face 40s: The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad 30s: Angels With Dirty Faces 20s: The Fall of the House of Usher 10s: Les Vampires

Starting this Saturday, Mind Shadow Media will be hosting a series of filmmaking workshops at ATA.

Beautiful profile on Prelinger Library and its founders by @eddiekimx.bsky.social in GazetteerSF: sf.gazetteer.co/face-time-ri...

Another one I’m excited to get a chance see —with director Raoul Peck in person— in Rockland, Maine this weekend…

Thrilled this is coming to Maine this weekend…

Watched director Ernie Fosselius’s follow-up too- which I find generally preferable despite my vegetarianism. boxd.it/b1hhhJ

I sure would be excited to see this program- if it weren’t being held smack dab in the middle of CIFF! Any chance of a reprise screening for this one?

Watched a San Francisco Bay Area classic yesterday, which sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole regarding one of the filming locations: boxd.it/b12GzN

#AI is the definition of "positive" in Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary. "Mistaken at the top of one's voice". If you thrive on being wrong, and you don't care if you are or not, then AI is the tech for you.

Doctors I trust more than RFK Jr

See Chicago, foremost case in point.

Other Cinema's fall season starts today, with a silent auction in the afternoon and the inaugural Archive Fever program this evening!

I made a list of every movie I saw at the Galaxy Theatre on the corner of Sutter and Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco boxd.it/OiAdM

A For Ache

A stage actress later played on screen by the likes of Gloria Jean, Mitzi Gaynor, Yvonne DeCarlo and Sally Kellerman

Maybe the greatest Tex Avery cartoon at Warners? Certainly among the top tier. And the one that most directly contributed to his firing, as this excellent essay details.

So far in September: good cartoon rewatches & disappointing feature first-time watches.