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The Late Show
Contributed by Sara Schieron
Saturday, 29 April 2006
In the last few years the San Francisco Film Society has been offering
a midnight film series in many incarnations. For a while, there was a
series called "Dark Wave" that screened predominantly horror films
around Halloween, and for the last 4 years at festival has offered
midnight screenings that fell under the traditionally dark, campy,
frightening, category of "Midnight Movies". Attempting a similar but
different strategy for this area of the festival, programmer Rod
Armstrong, the man responsible for what the society is calling "the
Late Show", explained his programming choices, which, on the whole, are
broader than the run of the mill "Midnight Movie".
Armstrong wanted to "expand the format and allow for a wider swath of genres to be programmed to, as he said, "give us a little time to sleep".
So then, if the films display a "wider swath", as he said, what is the common thread? "A late night sensibility" said Armstrong. The tagline of the series is "Movies worth staying up late for." And of the four films in the group, a British horror, a Japanese pink film, a Japanese absurdist parody of office politics and an American documentary about the so called "bastard step child of rock", the odds are good the goods are odd.
Armstrong wasn't singly interested in the nonconformist film, he felt the selections had to have "a liveliness to them...humor is good and scariness...absurdity is good, terror is good. Scurrilous-ness is good."
We can suppose scurrilous-ness is critical, if we're going to stay up after hours. All the films screen after 10pm and some exciting additions, not associated with the pre-ordained programming of the Late Show, have been added to the ever-changing mix. Matthew Barney's DRAWING RESTRAINT 9, a film that will be at the MOMA in the summer, played April 26 at 11:30pm, and the first 20 minutes of Richard Linklater's new A SCANNER DARKLY will play May 2 at 10pm, complete with an introduction by animator Tommy Pallotta.
Capsules of the Late Show selections follow. A Podcast with the makers of METAL: A HEADBANGER'S JOURNEY can be found on filmshi.com.
EXECUTIVE KOALA is an absurdist office melodrama about an executive who happens to be a Koala. Despite his species differentiation, Executive Koala does get along well with his co-workers, and even has a fan club of secretaries who gush over his prowess and fantasize about his abilities in the bedroom. Made by Minoru Kawasaki the film traffics in odd cops, boss bunnies and profound human/animal executive relationships. Establishing the character, the film begins with a bizarre and brilliant cartoon machinima style video for a song about the protagonist. "He's a fence sitter, unaffected by layoffs, love and death don't effect him, and he's always just fine." In some ways it seems using this Koala as a random figure is something of a vehicle to deal with the problematic morality with Japanese executives. Even delving into what I can only assume is the subconscious, this floating middleman (middle koala?) finds out he's more the animal than he knows but possibly less animal than the humans make him out to be.
THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI as an oddity is not unlike SF IndieFest's darling, NOSAI NO MORI: THE FIRST CONTACT, with the distinct difference coming from the deliberate agenda of this film to fit into a genre. A film fr0m the rigidly conventional soft core "Pink Film", SACHIKO postures a kind of native sexuality that is both bizarre and elemental, while the international intrigue is somehow appropriately suited to the film's perpetually disorientated protagonist who works as a call girl in a fetish house when she's not a geopolitical super-genius.
THE DESCENT is an English horror film that thoroughly achieves the principle goal of any horror film: to freak you out. A group of female thrill seekers goes on a trip to explore a cave they think is a second level tourists hike but turns out to be uncharted territory. Derailed by their egotistical leader, the team gets trapped in painfully claustrophobic, abject darkness. The environment would be frightening enough but when they come under attack by blind, cave dwelling, meat eaters; they're trapped without light or passage to the surface. Director Neil Marshall does a great job making the darkness a semi-visible space that believably plays tricks on the characters and on the audience. Set for theatrical distribution in August through Lions Gate, THE DESCENT is not for the faint of heart.
METAL: A HEADBANGER'S JOURNEY is a deliberately anthropological look at the world of Metal. Inclusive of all the genres and subgenres this decidedly large category of music possesses, director and main characters Sam Dunn travels the western world to speak with the founding fathers (and mothers) of metal, expressing his own personal glee with each interview and experience. Gleefully researched and organized, the film is as much a perfect primer for the uninitiated as it is a love song for the die-hard fan. At the same time, partially (and unapologetically) academic in approach, METAL doesn't try to validate the musical outcast of the musical world; rather it sifts through the aspects that define the music and the lifestyle. Split into titled groups such as Origins, Fans and Culture, and then moving into more specific themes such as Gender and Sexuality and Death and Violence, the film is a solid cinematic essay that proves that, whether Metal is or isn't the red-headed step-child of rock, it's loved by millions who seem to like it that way.
Festivals 
