Dig deep in your closets and pull out all your sweaters, scarves, and gloves. The Bay Area is expecting a cold blast this weekend that will likely leave snow at the higher elevations, including some as high as just 500 ft. The Santa Cruz Mountains and even Los Gatos could get more than just a powdering, while even the low areas have a chance of snow.
News
With the threat of police layoffs in the air, the Police Officers Association is turning to the public to remind them of the SJPD’s important role in maintaining safety in the city. It already published a full-page newspaper ad. Expect billboards and even a television spot as early as next week.
(U.S.; 105 min.) Dustin Schuetter is the star, director and writer of a would-be Greek tragedy set in Terrebonne Parish, La. Of the various roles Schuetter takes on, none impresses more than his role as producer. On a sub-shoestring budget, he has assembled a fine cast.
(Belgium; 88 min.) There’s genuine horror in this Dutch import, which shows a Shyamalanesque use of the uncanny to weigh moral character. Maybe part of the horror is the city backdrop: Rotterdam, which is infamous as the one of the first places of “total war.”
It seemed like a good idea at the time (1958). Conceited aliens in a flying saucer, peeved at human violence, decide to give Earthlings a good scare by resurrecting their dead. When the dead consist of wrestler Tor “The Big Swede With a Heart of Gold” Johnson, the late, lamented TV hostess Vampira and chiropractor-turned-actor Dr. Tom Mason, you can see why Earth fails to take notice.
(France; 103 min.) As the “trophy wife” of the title, Catherine Deneuve is at once regal and sensible in director Francois (8 Women) Ozon’s gift to Deneuve and to French politics—sexual and otherwise.
(Netherlands; 92 min.) Filmed in black-and-white and set in Amsterdam, director Timo Veltkamp’s film introduces starving artist Joachim West (Marc van Uchelen), a man who has spent 10 years observing misery in its many forms to write his masterpiece.
(Romania; 90 min.) Calin Peter Netzer’s film is your classic woebegone Balkans fable. It’s 1995: the new faceless bureaucracy running Romania awards the aged and confused Ion I. Ion (Radu Beligan) a medal commemorating his valor in the Big War 50 years ago.
(Belgium; 74 min.) Certainly Gust Van den Berghe was put on Earth so that Harmony Korine will have someone to talk to at film festivals. With hand-drawn titles and a cast of actors with Down syndrome, this sometimes shining, sometimes aggravating experimental film recasts of the story of the Three Kings.
(U.S.; 72 min.) Nathan Silver’s debut has slaved-over visual and audio surfaces, from the classic-era film titles to the soundtrack of ‘50s show tunes. Kate (Josette Barchilon) exists in a fugue state that would do a Stepford Wife proud; she’s the live-in of an emotionally shuttered young architect (Jonas Ball) who does his best to ditch her whenever possible.
