Peter Wong

A spare van and a deal on matching recliners helped propel brothers Jay and Mark Duplass to American independent film glory.  Those things were core elements in their breakthrough feature film “The Puffy Chair.”   In the dozen years since that<br> Read More »

The “Altered States” shorts program offers a collection of short films employing fantastic elements in ways both direct and indirect.  Of the program’s shorts, the longer entries turn out to be the more memorable offerings. The Airbnb guest taking “A<br> Read More »

Capturing the grace and coordination of a murmuration of starlings describes Jan Van Ijken’s short film “The Art Of Flying.”   The camera catches a cloud of hundreds of starlings rising and falling in a formation resembling a dark wave with<br> Read More »

Coralie Fargeat’s very bloody and karmically entertaining “Revenge” may lack the visceral punch of the grindhouse films that inspires it.  But having female empowerment which doesn’t succumb to the male gaze outweighs this cavil. Wealthy and married Richard has taken<br> Read More »

Emmanuel Gras’ Cannes Grand Prize winning documentary “Makala” captures Sisyphus-like suffering in one man’s labors.  Congolese Kabwita Kasongo arduously makes charcoal to sell it for a good price at market.  Patiently walking a heavily laden bicycle over fifty kilometers of<br> Read More »

In Laurent Cantet’s hugely involving drama “The Workshop,” a writing workshop unearths French social tensions.  Famed thriller writer Olivia facilitates a writing workshop to help several teens write a story about their decaying French port town.  Yet outlier Antoine deliberately<br> Read More »

This April means seeing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the joys of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” and a queer tribute to 1970s punk.  That’s because the 2018 edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival will have started up.  Running from April 4<br> Read More »

Samoa had nothing to do with the ethnic background of the real man countercultural types remembered as Dr. Gonzo.  The man that writer Hunter S. Thompson immortalized in “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas” was actually a Chicano rights activist<br> Read More »