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May 8, 2005It’s a good thing I’m lazy, because I’m a film buff; it's a good thing I'm a film buff, because I'm lazy.The two play off each other marvelously. On any given weekend or evening you might find me lounging on the couch with my cat Jackson nesting in whatever hollows my body presents him, watching old noir, or new wave, or anything before, between or since. Date night? Forget it! I'd rather watch a movie. Sun's out? Well then I'd better close the shade to reduce the glare on the TV. Actually, I do have a life, but into it some rain has fallen, and that is the firing late last year of longtime Castro Theater programmer Anita Monga by the Nassers, builders and owners of the theater. Merry Christmas! You’re fired! I've been patronizing the Castro since I arrived in the Bay Area in 1996. When it came time in 2003 to buy a flat in the city (aka The City), budgetary realism led me to narrow down my wish list to exclude a wood-burning fireplace, roof deck, any kind of condo, and most desirable neighborhoods—but the one non-negotiable item was “walking distance from the Castro Theater.” The last time I walked there was on the picket line at the December protest staged by Audiences in Action (www.duboce.net/castro), but I did so half-heartedly. Ted Nasser was in the crowd, as was Matt Gonzalez, in a suit and tie on a Saturday, who invited him up to speak, but he was interrupted by the organizer with the bullhorn, who proclaimed this a protest, not a forum for Nasser’s side of the story. Another fellow, an employee I guess, jumped around like a pogo stick, dying to tell his tale, but he also was not allowed to speak. So much for freedom of speech! he screeched. “Funny Girl” was the post-Monga feature that day. Daring! There was a respectable crowd, popcorn was passed around, we walked the line singing “San Francisco,” but I had a feeling of deflated futility that the whole protest effort would end up a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Nasser swears nothing will change, but if so, why break something that didn’t need to be fixed? The biggest thing of all that will and cannot help but change, what already has changed, is that Anita is gone and she took with her the heart and soul of the theater. It’s not just for the movies that people went to the Castro, but because it was one of the coolest places anywhere, any time (what movie is that a line from?). You weren’t the driving force at that place, bub, she was. Yours was one of the most highly, if not the most highly, regarded rep theaters in the country. Considering the industry outcry, it remains to be seen if you stay that way. You could not have had a more loyal ready-made audience. I feel betrayed. My favorite event of the year, Eddie Muller’s Film Noir Festival, moved to the Balboa Theater in protest. He and Anita put it together. I went to the Friday night opening straight from work in Berkeley, riding the 38 Geary from Transbay Terminal—about a 40 minute trip—and arrived tired and hungry, only to be told the show was sold out. Luckily after everyone was seated, there were 10 seats left and I got one of them. The theater was jampacked, really too small for the opening night audience the festival attracts, and I had to take a claustrophobic mid-row seat. At the Castro openings Muller would broadcast movie premiere lights on the street and wear a white dinner jacket. He looked swell-elegant. For a Noir film buff it’s the social event of the season. Get out the gloves and cigarette lighters, frost yourself and pour on the glam. You can’t overdo it. The Balboa opening—a fine theater in very many ways; I’m not faulting them—felt more like a high school auditorium stuffed with the entire student body. It was a hastily thrown together contingency plan, but God bless ‘em, they did it. Afterwards I had to wait quite a while for the bus and got home after midnight. On the whole, I had not enjoyed the experience, and surprised myself by skipping the entire rest of the festival. Unheard of! Last year I had seen something like 20 movies in 2 weeks, enjoying my evening stroll back home through Duboce Triangle. Audiences in Action called for a January 1–5 boycott of the theater, but I haven't bothered to go back at all. No more “Let’s see what’s playing at the Castro.” I rarely look at the schedule. The first post-Monga calendar featured crowd-pleasing old blockbuster hits mixed with already-scheduled festivals. I’m told David Hegerty is still wowing 'em with his triumphant “San Francisco” finale, but I don’t want to return to the scene of the crime. No one has revealed why Monga was fired, and a theater owner certainly has a right to choose his own staff, but Ted Nasser, you have alienated the people who loved you most. I wrote this little verse at Noir ‘04: The mighty Wurlitzer I saw Anita at a special event with Eddie Muller, part of the SF International Film Festival, at the Palace of Fine Arts, where she’d chosen to screen Jacque Becker’s Touchez pas au grisbi. Soft-spoken and modest, she referred to the Castro consistently in the past tense. She hasn’t been back either; it’s still “too raw” for her. And now, for me, a conflict has arisen. A worthy event has been scheduled for May 20—“Helen’s War,” a documentary about Dr. Helen Caldicott (whose hair on a recent C-SPAN broadcast looked alarmingly like a raspberry parfait)—who will be speaking there with Amy Goodman and Julia Butterfly Hill, to benefit the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. What to do? If it were anywhere else I wouldn’t think twice about going. I just spoke with Regina Dick-Endrizzi, Dr. Caldecott’s assistant and CA Green Party veteran, whom I met on Ross Mirkarimi’s campaign, and the NPRI is renting the theater for this event; it’s not something the Castro actively sought to host. In any event the full ticket proceeds will go to the NPRI. But the Castro—is their focus film or finance? Look at their reworked website: www.castrotheatresf.com. There’s a bright flashing link to their rental information: Available for Special Events, Corporate Events, Private Parties, Weddings, Musical Presentations, Festivals, Bar Mitzvahs, Award Ceremonies, Film Festivals, Photoshoots, Fundraisers, Concerts, Graduation Ceremonies, Plays, Fashion Shows, Film Screenings and More!! Bar mitzvahs at the Castro? Puh-lease! Come on, Nasser, be a mensch. Give us our theater back. I want to go home. MOVIE LINE EXCHANGE“You talkin’ to me?” Friends, Bulldoggers, Countrymen! How many times have my friends heard me ask, “OK, what movie is this a line from?” except that due to some kind of dyslexic stutter, I always say “What line is this a movie from?” I can’t get it right. No one questions it. Here, from my private stockpile of favorites, are a handful of classics. “I would spill torrents of blood to give you rivers of diamonds.” “With all my heart—I still love the man I killed!” “Shut up and get out.” “Fuck me, your majesty!” I have adopted this line for use when sarcastically goading someone: “Well fuck me, your majesty! I also favor a friend’s spontaneous exclamation when he tripped on a sidewalk crack: “Fuck me dead!” “I’d have to feel better to die.” “I’m a fearless man, but I’m scared to death of you.” “As long as the lady is paying for it, why not take the vicuna?" “Do you mind if I put my hand in your pocket?” “Come and get me boys.” “’Spose I shoot you? How’d that be?” “I cherish the truth. I don’t practice it, but I cherish it.” “It’s a hard world for little things.” “He has all the time in the wor-r-rld.” Speaking of Philby, I saw Alan Young at a “Mr. Ed” event downtown some years ago (he told me he’ll doing anything for a buck), with a proxy Ed/horse there, and I told him “He has all the time in the wor-r-rld” (ya gotta do the r-r-roll) was one of my favorite movie lines because of the possibility inherent in it. It cracks things wide open. And Alan gave it such a beautiful, tender reading. So I asked him to sign my autograph book “Alexandra, you have all the time in the wor-r-rld.” But when I looked at it later it just said something like “Best, Alan Young.” It would have killed him? But wait, how ‘bout this one? I once thrashed my way through a crowd at a Jerry Brown for President (yes!) rally in Pioneer Square, Portland, because I saw Martin Sheen on the other side of the square. When I finally got to up him I started to tell him—but then some virago in the crowd stuck her ugly mug between us and started blabbing—I had wanted to tell him that I love the ‘spose I shoot you line (another great line reading) but distracted by this woman, he held his hand out to take my book—and accidentally touched my left breast. With his right hand. He was unaware of it. That’s it, that’s the story. It’s not a long story, but my lady friends love it. And one more thing, I am 5’-2” and was able to look straight ahead into his eyes. The better to hug him. (Yow! is young Martin hot in “Badlands”—but it is in “Apocalypse Now” (age 36) that he is in his devastating prime.) The only paper I had on me at the time was a beat-up copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and after Sheen signed it I started using it as an unofficial autograph book. I’ve got Sheen in there, Kristi Yamaguchi, “The Godfather of Rhythm and Blues,” bandleader Johnny Otis, oh hey—Alan Young’s in there too. He’d written “To Alexandra, Best Always, Alan Young.” A half-dozen friends also signed it, and someone I can’t remember named Greg wrote “To My Guardian Devil.” But the prize autograph in the book is my most unusual and no doubt most valuable now that he’s dead—Douglas Adams himself—but in mirror reverse. “Can I impose upon you to sign your name backwards?” I could and he did. I had actually meant that he reverse the letters to sign “Smada Salgoud” because some kids and I had a car game where we read stuff backwards (sdrawkcab, that is) and loved to call him “Smada.” That was Adams’ own Don’t Panic! stamp. And now it’s time for... MOVIE TRIVIA ROUNDUPNo prizes offered. If you use IMDB you are cheating. You are expected to know these things. -Who is Henry Krinkle? -What is the offer that can’t be refused, in “The Godfather”? -What do “True Lies,” “Schindler’s List” and “Scent of a Woman” have in common? -What two films feature a prostitute who is almost hit by a car and later develops a relationship with the driver? -What does Ingrid Bergman do at the dinner table that freaks Gregory Peck out, in what movie? There is a famous dream sequence in this movie designed by whom? -What is the name of the oft-used Hitchcock actor who falls from the Statue of Liberty in what movie? Double points for his name in the movie. I hope you’ll join me again for “Movie Trivia Lineup.” If you know all these answers, I want to know who you are. No prizes offered. And kids, if you haven’t written to Ted Nasser yet, maybe it will be your letter that tips the scales. It’s worth a shot.
The author is hiding behind this book. ------------------------------------------------------- Short Attention Span Poetry Corner Dark theater ------------------------------------------------------- P.S. I am deadly serious about my movie-going and if you ever go to the movies with me, there are several things you should be prepared for. 1) The seat is all-important, as it is on a train. If I’m one of a group and I don’t like the seats you all want to sit in, I won’t sit with you. I am here to see the movie, not to sit next to you. Catch up with you in the lobby. My perfect seat is the right-hand third row aisle seat of the center section at the Castro. Most people, I’ll never understand why, don’t like to go to movies by themselves, so if you ask me to accompany you, I will compromise on my seat, but I secretly don’t want to, and if I like the movie, I promise myself I will see it again by myself the way I want to see it. 2) Strange though it be, I have to sit on your right-hand side. Friends just tolerate this. Bizarre, but I feel physically uncomfortable sitting on anyone’s left. I think it’s because I’m a right-handed writer. My normal sphere of operation is to my left. I always go for a right-side window seat on planes or trains so I can keep my journal private. 3) I do not feel obligated to talk about the film afterwards. But you can, feel free. 4) My sister Cruella (not her real name) and I had a practice, whenever the title of a movie was used in the dialogue of the movie, of racing each other to yell “TITLE!” I told this to my friend Bill and we laughed about it. The next time a bunch of us went to the movies Bill and the crowd wanted to sit in the back and I didn’t so I moved a couple dozen rows up, and as soon as the name of the movie was spoken I whipped around as Bill and I both yelled “TITLE!” and commenced cackling uncontrollably across the rows. Let me see if I can think of example. The first that comes to mind is “The Hours” which ends with Virginia Woolf narrating over her own drowning suicide a farewell to her husband...”Leonard, always the years between us, always the years, always the love ... always ... the hours.” So at the end of this beautiful somber heartbreaking film when she says “the hours,” I’m sorry, I have to yell “TITLE!” If this is all just too neurotic for you, fine; I’ll be just as happy, or happier, to go by myself. The lights are going down, must hunker down now.
Castro Fiasco |
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