The Wake

A flock of wild birds, a struggling musician and a very long pony tail help to tell one man’s story caring for a flock of rare conures in The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a documentary by Judy Irving showing this month at the Bell Museum of Natural History.When I was “bad” as a child I was sent to my room. When Mingus is a bad bird he is sent outside. Meet Mark Bittner, with a scruffy beard, thick glasses, and overgrown hair that he has pledged not to cut until he finds a girlfriend. He can’t leave his conure Mingus outside for too long, because “he is utterly terrified of being forced to leave,” Bittner says.Wild birds like Mingus, not native to San Francisco, or the United States for that matter, are Bittner’s closest …

Read more →

“Ask any dope rat where the junk’s spraying and they’ll say they scraped it off that, who scored it off this, who bought it off someone; after four or five connections, the list always ends with the Pin.” Right there is your typical piece of dialogue from the recent neo-noir Brick. It’s that kind of over-the-top pulp novel speak that will either make you giddy with absurdity or completely turn you off.The story’s crimes and investigations all happen in and around a California high school, a locale rife for noir treatment. With that as a backdrop, the film creates an interesting, immersive world—as long as you can accept teenagers who live a typical high school life while saying and doing things along the lines of Pulp Fiction.Brick’s plot has all the essentials of a great, …

Read more →

The title of Peter Rosen’s new documentary poses the question that has perplexed both the art-snob elite and the everyday people since man first laid eyes upon an art gallery wall, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I don’t get it.” Who Gets to Call It Art? recounts the modern art revolution that took place in the United States at the dawn of the 1960s and its rapid rise from misunderstood fringe movement to lucrative commercial commodity. With testimonies from the times’ illustrious and notorious artists and an arsenal of the era’s prolific and perplexing pieces to appease the eye, Who Gets to Call It Art? transports viewers to the New York scene where the modern art movement began in hopes of answering its titular query. Mere moments into the film the question seems to be …

Read more →

The year is 2020. The world is in many ways different, and in many ways the same. Using fear and xenophobia, a totalitarian government similar in appearance and function to the Nazi party has taken over Britain. Personal freedoms are non-existent. Censorship and lies rule the government-controlled media outlets. This is the kind of place heroes were made for. However, the hero of this place is pretentious, deranged and not entirely moral. He’s like Batman with a better vocabulary and little regard for others. He also wears a Guy Fawkes mask (Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the British Parliament in 1605). His name is V. Welcome to the world of V for Vendetta.You know you’ve stumbled onto a good film when it’s so enjoyable that you can ignore otherwise destructive plot holes. V for …

Read more →

A History of Violence really should be a great film. As a treatise on violence, I understand what it’s trying to do, and hopefully others will too. But having an incredible idea and really doing something with it are two very different things.Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) has a gorgeous wife (Maria Bello), a teenage son and a young daughter. He lives one of those idyllic small-town lives you typically see in movies. One night at the diner Tom owns, two men come in to rob the place and presumably murder everyone inside. Tom, in a quite un-idyllic manner, brutally and efficiently dispatches of the two men before they can lay a hand on anyone. Tom has saved the day and becomes a nationwide hero. Fade to black.Or at least that’s where your typical story would …

Read more →

Are you ready kids? March 1st marked the DVD release of “The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie” and let me tell you, it’s a zany little gem. I’d only caught a couple episodes of “SpongeBob Squarepants” before seeing the feature film. Maybe this makes me un-American or just plain sad, but nevertheless I can definitely say this is one of the most entertainingly dumb movies I’ve ever seen. And just so we’re clear, this isn’t just a kid’s movie. There’s plenty of humor that’s intended for adults.The film version plays much like a typical episode of the show. The scheming Plankton tries to steal the recipe for Krabby Patties and it’s up to SpongeBob to bail out his boss, Mr. Crabs. SpongeBob is joined by his starfish pal Patrick, and together they have to travel somewhere and …

Read more →

When you think of “The Godfather,” do you feel the sadness of a family falling apart, or rather the exhilaration of its seedy characters, bleak violence and street justice? When you think of “American Beauty,” do you remember a father reaffirming his family values, or a renegade, with nothing to lose, giving a finger to society? Movies such as these often claim to have a moral center as they end their subversive stories in dignified fashion. But if you look closely, “The Godfather” celebrates crime and the mafia, while “American Beauty” celebrates rebellion and apathy. Their endings are merely epilogues to a vastly different story. I hope you remember this if you see “Mean Girls,” which ends on a positive note of individuality and self-respect, but spends the majority of its running time as …

Read more →