By now we’re past the halfway point of 2010, the inaugural year of another decade in movies. So far, the selection of great films has been scant –– though, as usual, the coming of winter and the iron hand of film’s favorite fascist Harvey Weinstein signal Oscar-worthy films in our future. These are the best films of 2010, so far, in alphabetical order. And yes, I have seen Inception, but I did miss The Ghost Writer. Read more »

(For more on the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, check out the two articles in this week's Guardian.)

Protektor (Marek Najbrt, Czech Republic, 2009) Marek Najbrt's pomo period piece -- spiced by switches from color to monochrome, soundtracked DJ mashups, and other bendy tropes -- provides an elegant yet energetic reprise of some familiar themes. Rising Czech film actress Hana (Jana Plodkova) refuses to leave Prague despite the considerable danger posed by her (secret) Jewish identity. Husband Emil (Marek Daniel) is a popular radio host who struggles to protect her as he nonetheless rises in favor under the wartime Nazi "protectorate." But Hana proves uncontrollable as wife and (eventually boycotted) thespian, unable to keep her libido or boredom safely wrapped. And Emil's bosses soon enforce a cruel choice. Protektor is self-conscious, but also surprising -- the highly stylized presentation lends what could have played as an ordinary, earnest victim scenario an edge more seductive than distracting. Mon/26, Castro, 4:30 p.m.; Sat/31, 9:45 p.m., Roda. (Dennis Harvey)

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I received an email the other day with the terribly alarming subject line "FINAL. THRILLVILLES. EVER. No fooling." Could Will "The Thrill" Viharo, a veteran host of cult movie nights around the Bay Area, be hanging up his fez and smoking jacket for good?

Well, not exactly. Fans already know he's been scaling back his "Thrillville" events since the Parkway Theater closed and the Cerrito Theater changed ownership in 2009 (both East Bay venues, operated by Speakeasy Theaters, had hosted Viharo's regularly-scheduled B-movie extravaganzas). Over the past year, Viharo's taken his show -- which includes his wife and assistant, Monica Tiki Goddess, and usually a pre-movie band or performing group -- on the road, sprinkling a bit of sleaze, gore, trash, and monster mayhem on an assortment of Bay Area theaters.

Now, he explains in his (sorta) sign-off email, "I am giving up the Thrillville road show concept and sticking exclusively to my new home base at Forbidden Island in Alameda, where I'll be hosting my mellower movie series 'Forbidden Thrills' one Monday a month, for as long as people show up. It's a stripped down version of Thrillville — (mostly) public domain cult classics, cocktail specials, prizes, no cover, [and] free popcorn." In other words, you can take the Thrill off the B-movie road, but you can't take him out of the tiki bar. Or something.

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Gosh I love a good bite of propaganda. But maybe instead of "good" I should demur to “appealing”; it's probably a bit redundant to say that I don't brook with the smug-mongering on FOX, and even if it's couched in concern for the personal safety of Americans, the advisories that our government puts out on the countries of our brothers and sisters in South American scared the dickens out of my mom when I decided to do Carnaval in Colombia.

Point being, we're surrounded by propaganda. And I know Oliver Stone thinks so too. The fact appears to be the motivation behind his new movie South of the Border (opens Fri/16 in Bay area theaters), in which he travels down there to meet with Hugo Chavez and seven other leaders of what he believes to be the new Bolivarian movement. “I think that there has been so much unbalance [in American coverage of Latin America] that we are definitely a counter to that,” the director told the New York Times. Read more »

More bloodthirsty coverage of the San Francisco IndieFest's horror-fest offshoot, Another Hole in the Head, in this week's Guardian.

Another Hole in the Head’s two documentary offerings concern themselves with the distinctly American roots of two related strains of genre filmmaking. Elijah Drenner’s American Grindhouse traces the history of exploitation film, with a particular focus on the grindhouse theater as a cultural institution. Narrator Robert Forster recounts the tendency of even the earliest films to cater to prurient interests, and how the establishment and eventual dissolution of the Motion Picture Production Code stimulated the development of exploitation subgenres. The featured film clips are impeccably selected, mixing titillation and shock with a healthy sense of humor about the over-the-top absurdity of films like Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975). Surprisingly candid interviews with gore luminary Herschell Gordon Lewis and blaxploitation director Larry Cohen prevent the film from taking on a too-self-important tone — these folks knew they were making b-pictures, and were damn proud of it. One of the most charming aspects of the documentary is the juxtaposition of different attitudes, wherein one interviewee will sing the praises of a classic, followed in quick succession by another talking head declaring it to be trash. It feels like John Landis gets the most screen time of any subject, but his charisma as well as the breadth of his oeuvre make it seem appropriate.

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More bloodthirsty coverage of the San Francisco IndieFest's horror-fest offshoot, Another Hole in the Head, in this week's Guardian.

Grotesque (Koji Shiraishi, Japan, 2009) When did gorno stop being sick and start becoming sad? In Koji Shiraishi’s Gurotesuku, or Grotesque – banned in the UK – a chainsaw is brought to chests, arms, legs, and fingers when really it should be brought down on this celluloid garbage. Shiraishi presents a film that is sloppy, badly written, badly acted, and is above all things, deeply unentertaining. The plot is as thin and drawn-out as one of the protagonist’s intestines: While on a date, two dumbfucks get picked up by a craaaaaazy doctor (at least I think he’s a doctor – and I think he’s lost his board certification) who proceeds to do sick but unoriginal things to them (sawing off a girl’s fingers and stringing them on a necklace for her BF? C’MON!). There are some brief moments of respite, albeit painfully acted and ridiculous respite, but the torture tries not to let up its chokehold on the audience. Unfortunately, it just ends up being a chokehold on our time. Fri/16, 5 p.m. and Sun/18, 7 p.m., Roxie.

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Writer-director Lisa Cholodenko earned attention with critically acclaimed features like High Art (1998) and Laurel Canyon (2002). Her latest movie, The Kids Are All Right, is a “personal film” about a lesbian couple raising teenagers. I spoke to Cholodenko about queer politics, explicit content, and keeping things lighthearted.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Recently, there was a lot of controversy surrounding a Newsweek article, in which the author wrote about the difficulty of queer actors playing straight roles. I was wondering about your take on that, and on the opposite — straight actors playing queer roles. Is that something you even considered when casting?
 
Lisa Cholodenko: I’ll be honest, I was just told about this article and I didn’t read it. You know, I think it’s kind of weird thing to even discuss in a way, to me. Chiefly because I think actors’ personal lives — I just think people should have a private life, not that they should be in the closet, but that there should be a separation between professional life and personal life. And if a director feels like so-and-so, whether they’re gay or straight, would be good for a role, give them the role. What does it matter? As it turns out, I think gay people have more of an affect, whether they’re lesbians or gay men, that’s harder to camouflage in straight roles. Why that is, I mean, you could talk about that. I think it’s easier to go the other way. That’s just what it is. I say that without a value judgment. It is what it is.

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While Twihards know Jackson Rathbone from his portrayal of Jasper Hale in the first three Twilights films, Nicola Peltz is a relative newcomer. But both are sure to get a burst of fame with their starring roles in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, an epic live-action adaptation (out Fri/2) of the animated Nickelodeon series. Rathbone and Peltz play siblings Sokka and Katara, refugees of the water tribe who join forces with Aang (that’d be the last airbender) to save the world. In talking to the actors about their filming experiences, it’s clear they’ve got the sibling rivalry thing down pat: their snarky back-and-forth dominated the conversation.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: I’ve got to start by asking you guys the obvious question, which is if you were familiar with the series Avatar: The Last Airbender before you signed on to the movie.

Nicola Peltz: Yes, I was. I actually have six brothers and a sister, and two of my younger brothers that are seven, we watch the cartoon all the time together. And when I got the role, they literally didn’t believe me. They were like, “You’re lying!” “No, I’m really not!” They’re really excited for me.

Jackson Rathbone: I knew of it, too. I hadn’t seen the entire series, but a lot of my really good friends had, so I told them I was going out for the role, and they were extremely impressed. It was nice to have my friends behind me on this one.

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Local filmmaker Scott Boswell may not have set out to make the film he ended up with, but he stands behind the finished product. The Stranger In Us stars Shortbus’ Raphael Barker as Anthony, a young man who moves from Virginia to San Francisco in order to live with his boyfriend Stephen (Scott Cox). When the relationship turns violent, Anthony finds solace in his friendship with Gavin (Adam Perez), an underage street huster. I spoke to Boswell and Barker about the film’s origins, its unique content, and what this year’s San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival says about the future of queer cinema.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: What was your inspiration for The Stranger In Us? Where did the story come from?

Scott Boswell: Ultimately the story ended up being fairly autobiographical. But it started in a different place. Originally — and Raphael knows this because we talked about it — originally, I had intended to do a much more experimental film, kind of a hybrid documentary-narrative, because of my fascination with the Polk Street, Tenderloin area, which I’ve always had since I moved here in the mid ‘90s. I had considered doing a bit of a portrait of the neighborhood, and kind of infusing actors into it, just shooting a lot of footage and seeing what we came up with. There’s a part of me that wishes I had still done that, but in all honesty, I can say that after Raphael expressed some interest in the project, I suddenly felt like it needed to be more narrative in its scope. He didn’t suggest that. It was just my intuition around the project. So I had been talking to him about doing it for months, without even having a complete script, and continued writing it and auditioning actors. Eventually it became much more traditional in terms of its narrative. It became what it is now.

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