Both shows! At the Castro! Rush tickets only! That’s when you know that you live in a town full of film nerds….
San Francisco’s annual Silent Film Festival is the closest you can get to time travel. Being immersed in what people thought was foxy, funny or deeply profound 80 years ago is more than a little bit shocking. And often foxy, funny and deeply profound in ways that you hadn’t expected.
Among the not-sold-out items of interest on the festival’s bill this weekend: a free show of archival fragments; silent films made in China, France, Germany and Sweden; one of the first films made in America with an all-African-American cast; the always-dreamy Alloy Orchestra; plus the usual suspects, namely Laurel and Hardy/Buster Keaton/Louise Brooks. As your doctor, I’d advise you to go, buy a lot of popcorn, and settle in for one of your weirder summer film experiences.
