The weekend is only a couple hour away and I'm ready for it! Today, the long awaited and increasingly conflicted release from A24, Hereditary, is officially released to theatres! I have seen the full spectrum of reactions to this movie, everywhere from extreme excitement, to reserved hesitation from those who have been burned by A24 before, and (of course) those who thought it was dull and boring. I dunno, that's pretty exciting for a new film, because people will be talking about it for a long time. And while I fell into the middle category (I'm still pretty bitter about It Comes At Night...) I ended up really liking this film. In fact, we reviewed it! Check out what the Overlook's movie monsters thought here.
This Stanford Theatre is not about to get upstaged by the mew release, however. For this weekend's double feature, they present two of Hitchcock's most famous and celebrated titles: Psycho and The Birds. I believe the first time I saw The Birds was actually at the Stanford, and I definitely recommend viewing it on their big beautiful screen! The double feature will run from Friday to Sunday.
And the SF DocFest continues this weekend at the Roxie Theatre, the New People Cinema, and the Brava Theatre. The selection of films is pretty wide, so I'd suggest taking a peek at their calendar.
Opens This Week
Opens Friday 8th (2hrs 7min)
Drama/ Horror/ Mystery (IMDB)
When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter's family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited. Making his feature debut, writer-director Ari Aster unleashes a nightmare vision of a domestic breakdown that exhibits the craft and precision of a nascent auteur, transforming a familial tragedy into something ominous and deeply disquieting, and pushing the horror movie into chilling new terrain with its shattering portrait of heritage gone to hell.
SF DocFest
Beautiful Things (2018)
Friday 8th @ 7pm (1hr 35min)
Documentary/ Drama/ Music (IMDB)
A symphonic journey into our obsessive consumption and spectacularly shot, Beautiful Things is a journey of words, sounds and geometries in which to get lost. A virtual-reality experience allowing viewers to immerse themselves in worlds to which it would be hard for them ever to have access in their own lives.
Friday 8th @ 7pm (1hr 35min)
Documentary/ Drama/ Music (IMDB)
A symphonic journey into our obsessive consumption and spectacularly shot, Beautiful Things is a journey of words, sounds and geometries in which to get lost. A virtual-reality experience allowing viewers to immerse themselves in worlds to which it would be hard for them ever to have access in their own lives.
Also Screening at the Roxie Theatre Saturday @ 2:45pm
SF DocFest
Saturday 9th @ 2:30pm (57min)
Documentary/ Drama/ History (IMDB)
Once exterminated from the lower 48 states, the Gray Wolf’s triumphant return to Yellowstone and the surrounding states has been characterized by many as, ‘the greatest animal conservation success in human history.’ However, to many others living in the areas affected, the story is drastically different.
SF DocFest
Friday 8th @ 9:30pm (1hr 12min)
Documentary (IMDB)
The cult classic TV show Freaks and Geeks nailed the sad, hilarious unfairness of teen life. This new doc takes a nostalgic look back with behind-the-scenes tales from this endearing and much-loved series that launched the careers of many of today’s biggest stars including Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, James Franco and Linda Cardellini.
SF DocFest
Friday 8th @ 9:30pm (1hr 27min)
Documentary (IMDB)
HILLBILLY is a documentary film that examines the iconic “hillbilly” image in media and culture. The film explores more than a hundred years of media representation of mountain and rural people and offers an urgent exploration of how we see and think about rural America.
Psycho (1960)
Friday 8th @ 7:30pm (1hr 49min)
Saturday 9th & Sunday 10th @ 3:20pm & 7:30pm
Horror/ Mystery/ Thriller (IMDB)
In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was already famous as the screen's master of suspense (and perhaps the best-known film director in the world) when he released Psycho and forever changed the shape and tone of the screen thriller. From its first scene, in which an unmarried couple balances pleasure and guilt in a lunchtime liaison in a cheap hotel (hardly a common moment in a major studio film in 1960), Psycho announced that it was taking the audience to places it had never been before, and on that score what followed would hardly disappoint. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is unhappy in her job at a Phoenix, Arizona real estate office and frustrated in her romance with hardware store manager Sam Loomis (John Gavin). One afternoon, Marion is given $40,000 in cash to be deposited in the bank. Minutes later, impulse has taken over and Marion takes off with the cash, hoping to leave Phoenix for good and start a new life with her purloined nest egg. 36 hours later, paranoia and exhaustion have started to set in, and Marion decides to stop for the night at the Bates Motel, where nervous but personable innkeeper Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) cheerfully mentions that she's the first guest in weeks, before he regales her with curious stories about his mother. There's hardly a film fan alive who doesn't know what happens next, but while the shower scene is justifiably the film's most famous sequence, there are dozens of memorable bits throughout this film.
-with-
The Birds (1963)
Friday 8th to Sunday 10th @ 5:20pm & 9:30pm (2hrs)
Horror/ Suspense (Rotten Tomatoes)
The story begins as an innocuous romantic triangle involving wealthy, spoiled Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), handsome Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), and schoolteacher Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette). The human story begins in a San Francisco pet shop and culminates at the home of Mitch's mother (Jessica Tandy) at Bodega Bay, where the characters' sense of security is slowly eroded by the curious behavior of the birds in the area. At first, it's no more than a sea gull swooping down and pecking at Melanie's head. Things take a truly ugly turn when hundreds of birds converge on a children's party. There is never an explanation as to why the birds have run amok, but once the onslaught begins, there's virtually no letup. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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