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Sunday, March 7: Balboa Oscar Party
It was the best of Oscar times. A nearly capacity crowd had a grand time at the Balboa’s Academy Awards party. Some dressed up in black tie and fashionable gowns that would have earned the envy of anyone on the red carpet. Others came dressed as movie stars and characters from the cinema.
Our host, Reed Kirk Rahlmann got things off to a rousing start with trivia questions and the start of an evening filled with prizes for everyone. He asked people to name an underappreciated film and throughout the evening asked them to tell why they loved those movies. More prizes. They are a mix of the classic, quirky, underrated and overlooked. You can look at the list below.
But without a doubt the most fun part of the in-theater festivities was Reed’s “Tenuous Oscar Connections.” A few of the many told include:
-The woman who flirted with someone because "he looked like an environmentalist" and it turned out to be Robert Redford.
-Attending a Bar Mitzvah where the guests included Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn.
-The woman who knocked on the wrong door that turned out to be Dustin Hoffman's office and had a half hour conversation with him about natural childbirth.
-A woman who said, right after the John Hughes tribute, that she had played an extra in a Hughes film made in San Francisco. A young woman down front yelled out, “I was in it too!”
-The person who took a tour of the Kodak Theatre and found herself on its stage facing an empty theater and wanting to “thank” the Academy.
-And my wife, Cathy told about being in Jeff Bridges’ first movie when he rode a bike at her 5th birthday party and it is in the home movies. She also related getting an FBI file as a little girl when she and a friend stole mail from Susan Hayward.
We also enjoyed some choice comments from Reed such as:
“I did think it was odd that they had a dance number for Hurt Locker, and for a movie where the lead character is paraplegic.
And couldn't they have found better music for Katherine Bigalow than "I Am Woman"?
And the reason that Cameron made Avatar in 3-D was because his characters were so one dimensional.”
We got this note from Reed the next day:
A Letter from your Oscar Host:
Thanks for allowing me to host the best Oscar party in San Francisco!
It was great fun being with all of you. I loved hearing your Tenuous Oscar Connection stories and your opinions on movies.
It’s much more fun watching the Oscar’s with a bunch a friends, and on Sunday we had nearly 300 people at the party. As I said before, much more entertaining than being in your living room, and you don’t have to clean up after.
I’m compiling a list of the favorite films you wrote down. Look for some to be displayed at Le Video soon.
Thanks again. Let’s do it again next year.
Best,
Your Devoted Oscar Host
Reed Kirk Rahlman
One attendee sent along her blog about the Oscars and she has some interesting observations at www.jenninelanouette.com
We want to thank everyone who donated prizes including Fox Searchlight for signed scripts, posters, and more, Kino Video for classic DVDs, Sony Pictures for classic and new DVDs and especially eMovieposters for the gorgeous poster books that were a sensation. If you ever want to buy or sell movie posters, their 3 weekly auctions are the place to go. If you are a fan of posters, sign up for their email news.
http://www.emovieposter.com/
We hope you’ll plan to be with us next year.
The Balboa Audience's Underappreciated Films List
These are some favorite films selected by the audience of the Balboa Theater Oscar Bash. They are a mix of the classic, quirky, underrated and overlooked.
84 Charing Cross Road
All the Presidents Men
Beggars of Life
Big Night – Yum!
Billy Bud - Bosley Crowther, the NY Times: “The classic conflict of good and evil, drawn in Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" with the story of a pure young British sailor tormented by a vicious master at arms, is firmly battered down and rendered shipshape in a splendid film based upon the book and on a recent play put together from it.” Directed by Peter Ustinov.
Bright Star
Broken English
Brother From Another Planet
A Bullet for the General - From A. H. Weiler, the NY Times: “The latest in the series of bargain-priced, gory Italian Westerns that have had papier-maché good and bad guys clashing on Spanish sierras is given a pseudo veneer of Mexican history in A Bullet for the General. Despite some lip service to the peons' struggle against the haciendados in Carranza's regime, it is still the standard, unending explosive carnage of yore that is guaranteed to keep the viewer awake, but not informed.”
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Chariots of Fire
Cinema Paradiso
Claire’s Knee — From Vincent Canby’s New York Times review: “Eric Rohmer's Claire's Knee ... comes very close to being a perfect movie of its kind, something on the order of an affectionate comedy of the intellect that has no easily identifiable cinema antecedents except in other films by Mr. Rohmer.”
The Dark Backward : Surreal and eccentric story of a garbage man who yearns to be a stand-up comic. He has little luck until he grows a third arm out of his back. Then his career takes off, as you can imagine. Starring Judd Nelson, Bill Paxton, Wayne Newton, James Caan, and Lara Flynn Boyle.
Dark Star
Dead Man
Desk Set - a Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn comedy.
The Devils
Dream to Believe
Duck Soup
The Eagle Has Landed - From Vincent Canby, the NY Times: “The Eagle Has Landed, directed by John Sturges, is a good old-fashioned adventure movie that is so stuffed with robust incidents and characters that you can relax and enjoy it without worrying whether it actually happened or even whether it's plausible. The time is late 1943 and the adventure concerns the efforts of some German commandos to kidnap Winston Churchill and carry him back to Berlin, in order—says the film—to allow Hitler to negotiate peace with the Allies.”
A Face in the Crowd
The Fall - From Roger Ebert: “Tarsem’s The Fall is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself. Tarsem, for two decades a leading director of music videos and TV commercials, spent millions of his own money to finance The Fall, filmed it for four years in 28 countries and has made a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.”
The Fallen Idol - From Amazon.com: “In the impressive filmography of British director Carol Reed, The Fallen Idol is sandwiched between Odd Man Out and The Third Man-the second of three consecutive masterpieces (adapted by Graham Greene from his short story "The Basement Room") by a filmmaker at the peak of his artistic powers. Of those three, The Fallen Idol is the most delicately subdued, but it's a flawlessly plotted thriller that achieves considerable tension through the psychology of its characters.”
Five Finger Exercise
Garbo Talks
Gaslight - Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in a classic gothic thriller.
Green for Danger
Heavenly Creatures - Peter Jackson before Lord of the Rings; Kate Winslet before she was KATE WINSLET.
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Home From the Hills - Upscale Southern Decrepitude with Robert Mitchum. Originally directed in Cinemascope by Vincente Minnelli.
Hud - Paul Newman as an amoral modern day cowboy.
The Intruder - From Kevin Thomas, Special to The LA Times: “Claire Denis' The Intruder is the most challenging, ambitious and far-flung film yet from Denis, whose dozen films, which include Chocolat, I Can't Sleep and Beau Travail, have established her as one of France's most distinctive and venturesome filmmakers.”
John and Mary
King of Hearts - From Vincent Canby in the NY Times: "In the last scene of King of Hearts, the latest Philippe De Brocca import from France, Alan Bates stands at the gate of a madhouse, seeking permanent asylum from the real world. He is holding a bird cage and is stark naked. The image, like all the others in this beautifully photographed color film, is a funny one. The scene, however funny, is also dark and sad, which pretty much describes the mood of this extravagant and highly comic morality play."
Lars and the Real Girl – a quirky comedy about a lonely man in love with a life-size doll.
Last Life in the Universe
The Last Starfighter - From Keith Breese, Filmcritic.com: “The flick's Kurosawa-lite plot revolves around Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), a teen denizen of a mountain trailer park who spends his time playing stand up arcade games and working as a handyman. While the techie kids marveled at the 27 minutes of computer generated action, the film's real success lies in Alex’s immediate likeability. This is a kid struggling to make sense of his life, a kid lost in the fantasy of videogames, who gets a second chance to become king of the world (well, really, the universe) and win the girl. Forget college, Alex is on is way to intergalactic fame.”
Lifeguard - starring a young Sam Elliot as an over the hill (age 32) lifeguard wondering where his life is going. We know he turns into a cowboy, but he doesn’t know that.
A Man and A Woman - From Christopher Null @ Filmcritic.com: "French writer/director Claude Lelouch remains a prolific artist (he even made a 9/11 movie), but it's one of his first films, made almost 40 years ago, for which he remains best known. A Man and a Woman was France's definitive love story for a decade, the Love Story of its generation and a thoroughly French example of its take on romance. Laconic, wandering, and bordering on hopeless, it's easy to see why the film has more fans among the heartbroken than the lovey-dovey."
A Man with a Movie Camera
Midnight Lace
Off the Map
Once
Photographing Fairies
The Princess Diaries
Puccini for Beginners - “The film Woody Allen would have made if he could.” –a Balboa Theater Oscar Party Guest
The Quarrel
The Quick and the Dead – an overlooked gem by Sam Raimi. Stylized characters, story and direction, it is an homage to Western genre iconography.
Rancho Deluxe
Ravenous
Roxanne - Steve Martin in an update of “Cyrano de Bergerac.”
Scotland, PA - a terrific adaption of Macbeth, set in a diner. Rent it with Men of Respect, the Macbeth story set in a crime family in New York. With John Turturro and Rod Steiger.
Shot in the Heart
Sin Nombre
Sleepaway Camp
Sunset to Sunrise
Sweet Smell of Success - From Roger Ebert: “The two men in The Sweet Smell of Success (Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster) relate to each other like junkyard dogs. One is dominant, and the other is a whipped cur, circling hungrily, his tail between his legs, hoping for a scrap after the big dog has dined. The dynamic between a powerful gossip columnist and a hungry press agent, is seen starkly and without pity. The rest of the plot simply supplies events to illustrate the love-hate relationship.”
Three Days of the Condor - a great thriller with Faye Dunaway and Robert Redford.
A Town Called Alice
Toxic Avenger
Turtle Island
Under the Volcano
The Warriors
Waterloo Bridge
The World of Henry Orient - From Bosley Crowther in the NY Times: “It is a juicily tart and sassy go-round with believably robust youngsters. It also has Peter Sellers playing a cheerfully rakish role — that of a predaceous concert pianist. Mr. Sellers is beautifully voluble and droll on a level of comic exposition that is just a wee bit above burlesque. His Henry Orient, the pianist, is a poseur, a popinjay, a fraud — an arch deceiver of women. But he is great and ever-surprising fun.”
