Alfred Hitchcock – Spinning Platters

SFIFF Spotlights #2: Coherence/Heaven Adores You/The Two Faces of January/If You Don’t, I Will

Spinning Platters highlights some films from the 57^th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), which runs from April 24th through May 8th. Program notes and tickets available at: http://www.sffs.org/festival-home/attend/film-guide

Coherence
(USA, 2013, 89 min.)

Emily Baldoni in James Byrkit's COHERENCE — Emily Baldoni in James Byrkit’s COHERENCE

This low budget mind bender focuses on a dinner party of four couples on a night where a comet passes over Earth, causing some strange occurrences. Director James Ward Byrkit utilized an experimental production process by which he provided the actors with notes for each scene but no script, allowing for truly real reactions, spontaneous behavior, and improvised lines. Perfect editing and stellar performances create a palpable tension that’s both haunting and personal. The result is a tightly bound science-fiction indie crowd pleaser that delights with its twists and turns, keeping us guessing from the first to last frame…and afterwards.

Screenings:

Tuesday, April 29th, 9:45 PM, Kabuki

Tickets: http://www.sffs.org/festival-home/attend/film-guide/coherence#.U1vag-ZdVU1

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Show Review: Hitchcock Week — Greatest Hits

Last night closed the book on Hitchcock Week with the San Francisco Symphony. The talented orchestra players, conducted by Joshua Gersen, performed selections from Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Dial M for Murder, and North by Northwest. Part of the night belonged to the complex scores, at times sweepingly romantic, other times suspenseful and bombastic. The other half belonged to the charming host, Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront, North by Northwest). At 89 years old, she still carries a youthful exuberance that would make you question whether she was a day over thirty. Aside from a few film intro slip ups, she held her own, constantly throwing out sharp pokes at herself, hilarious flirtations at Gersen, and telling fascinating anecdotes about her work with Hitchcock.

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Show Review: Hitchcock Week — Psycho

Ree! Ree! Ree! Ree! > — Ree! Ree! Ree! Ree! <<stabbing ensues>>

It’s Hitchcock Week with the San Francisco Symphony and Wednesday night kicked things off with Psycho (1960), Hitchcock’s masterpiece thriller. Why is the SF Symphony playing Psycho? And for what reason are they having a week devoted to Hitchcock, at all? For starters, Hitchcock films feature some of the most memorable scores in film history. Just like John Williams’s scores have enhanced the sense of adventure in countless films directed by Steven Spielberg, the scores in Alfred Hitchcock films have greatly enhanced the chilling suspense, the horrifying thrill, and the bloody payoffs of his stories. These are a few particularly momentous nights at the symphony because the scores have been removed from the film’s print and, instead, filled in by a live orchestra (in Psycho’s case, just the string section…it seemed).

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