Handicapping the 2020 Oscar derby is complicated by the difficulty of trying to read the minds of the Academy's approximately 9,000 members. The following predictions are based on my own top film choices plus the national critics' lists.
Eddie Muller's 18th Annual San Francisco Film Noir Festival, "Noir City: International II," opens at the Castro Theatre on Jan. 24. The program features rarely seen movies from around the world.
"The cinema is very much like the circus," Federico Fellini once said. "In fact, if it didn't exist, I might well have become a circus director. I close my eyes and the festival begins."
Hard to believe that it's been 45 years since audiences first danced in the aisles and shouted back at the screen at showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
Local queer filmmaker and former Frameline festival programmer Jenni Olson offers up a remembrance of her festival co-director Mark Finch. Olson and Finch also co-wrote the B.A.R.'s Out There column together in 1994.
The year opens at the Castro Theatre with a bevy of special-event screenings including some under the banner of the 19th edition of the San Francisco Comedy Festival, or SF Sketchfest.
Director Alla Kovgan's captivating bio-doc "Cunningham" (1919-2009) provides a hypnotic view of the fabled gay star dancer/teacher Merce Cunningham's choreography.
Part Two of our Best Films of the year round-up is meant to lasso some late-season releases into the list, and hint at some of the strongest contenders for the Golden Globes and the Oscars.
In director Laura Greenfield's poignant new doc "The Kingmaker," the dark recent history of the Philippines is explored around the bigger-than-life history of former first lady Imelda Marcos.
