Cinema Club
Events
The Camera Cinema Club events are the most unique cinematic experiences offered in the Bay Area. Among the many special guests and celebrities who have talked with audiences about their films are actors John Malkovich and Peter Mullan, and a host of independent filmmakers who have gone on to celebrated careers. One of the all-time highlights for members was when Jessica Yu, Academy Award-winning director of "Breathing Lessons: The Life And Works of Mark O'Brien", passed her Oscar around the audience during the Club's inaugural 1997-98 season.
For an overview of Club events from the inaugural season to the present, check out our CLUB HISTORY
Wondrous New Herzog Doc Headlines June Event
On Sunday, June 22 the Camera Cinema Club screened Encounters At The End Of The World (http://encountersfilm.com/), writer/director Werner Herzog's
unusual, ruminative and wondrous documentary on Antarctica. In attendance
was Henry Kaiser (producer, underwater cameraman and composer
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kaiser_%28musician%29); and his malamute
Kida.
Early bird sign-ups for the 2008-2009 Season are available through July 31st
(contact me at celluloiddreams@earthlink.net for details or visit
http://www.cameracinemas.com/club.shtml).
See you at our next screening: Sunday, July 20th!
Regards,
Tim
Director Camera Cinema Club
The Place To Talk Film
408-871-7774
Movie Review
Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
New York Times Critics' Pick
How Many Goodly Creatures Are There on Mr. Herzog's Planet
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: June 11, 2008
Few filmmakers make the end of days seem as hauntingly beautiful as Werner
Herzog does, or as inexorable. In his documentary "Encounters at the End of
the World," this professional madman and restlessly curious filmmaker
travels to the blinding white of the Antarctic, where he meets melancholic
scientists, brooding journeymen and various poets of the soul who, ensconced
in the American headquarters, McMurdo Station, have traveled so far beyond
the familiar coordinates - so far beyond traditional cities, suburbs and
banal existence - that they might as well be on another planet.
Call it Planet Herzog. Though I'm certain that the men and the smattering of
women in the documentary are far from ordinary - their fantastic milieu and
haunted eyes suggest as much - part of what makes them memorable is how Mr.
Herzog weaves them into his story. And make no mistake: from his familiar
droning voice-over to his ethereally lovely images and stubborn fatalism,
this is very much Werner Herzog's story of the Antarctic and not, as he
intimates right up front, a heartfelt tale of "fluffy" penguins, an easy
swipe at the palatable pleasures of the documentary "March of the Penguins."
Though there are, as it happens, some penguins here too, most memorably a
Herzogean creature that may trouble your dreams.
Like many of Mr. Herzog's movies, fiction and nonfiction, "Encounters at the
End of the World" itself has the quality of a dream: it's at once vivid and
vague, easy to grasp and somehow beyond reach. Its inspiration can be found
in his 2005 movie, "The Wild Blue Yonder," a self-described science fiction
fantasy (about outer and inner spaces, for starters) that mixes fiction with
nonfiction. Its most striking nonfiction moments come courtesy of the
underwater video images shot in the Antarctic by his friend and sometime
composer, the guitarist Henry Kaiser, of divers swimming in the eerie blue
under a shelf of crystal ice. (Mr. Kaiser produced this new movie and, with
David Lindley, did its plaintive, effective string-centric music.)
These same underwater explorers return in "Encounters at the End of the
World," floating in cerulean amid otherworldly creatures, like fuzzy-looking
clams that languidly snap open and close like fur castanets and an
undulating jellyfish with silvery, near-transparent tentacles and what looks
like a raw steak at its center. I could watch these surreal creatures for
hours, and from the way he returns to these images, you get the sense that
so could Mr. Herzog. But there are other sights and sounds to marvel at,
including the Weddell seals that loll about indifferently on the surface,
soaking up rays like fat, lazy tourists but, once underwater, create a
symphony of electronic-like calls that one scientist accurately compares to
Pink Floyd.
One of the beauties of "Encounters at the End of the World" is that all the
furry and floating animals are no more wondrous than the bipeds tramping
through and around McMurdo: the linguist turned philosopher, the banker
turned bus driver and the female adventurer who, for drama and odd
entertainment, likes to have herself zipped up in a carryall bag. (She's her
own baggage.) Mr. Herzog opens his mind, heart and eyes to all these
wayfarers who - despite the persistent strain of melancholy that touches
each and every person who appears on camera - seem eerily at peace at the
bottom of the world. One reason may be that, like Mr. Herzog, more than a
few evince a deep-felt pessimism about both the present and the future.
If this were a nature documentary like any other, the casual talk about
global warming and other calamities might cast shadows across this bright
expanse. But there's something about Mr. Herzog - including the accidental
if now well-practiced comedy that colors even his most dramatic
pronouncements - that inevitably keeps his pictures from growing too dark.
One reason is beauty, which in his hands has a way of keeping the worst at
bay; it is, after all, hard to fully despair in the face of so much of the
natural world's splendors. Another reason, I think, has to do with Mr.
Herzog's seemingly unshakable faith in human beings, who for all their
misdeeds at times reach a state of exaltedness. They soar - just like that
jellyfish.
An Overview of the 2007-2008 Season
June 22 - ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Club members got a break from the heat wave with Encounters At The End Of The World (http://encountersfilm.com/), writer/director Werner Herzog's unusual, ruminative and wondrous documentary on Antarctica and the unusual folks -- human and otherwise -- who reside there. In attendance was Henry Kaiser (producer, underwater cameraman and composer); and his malamute Kida.
May 18 - SIDEKICK
The Cinema Club showed the Canadian indie Sidekick, Canada's first (and only) bonafide super hero flick, about mild-mannered computer consultant Norman, who after discovering that Victor, his swaggering co-worker, has superpowers, sets out to help him refine his abilities. In attendance was the film's super entertaining writer/producer Michael Sparaga.
April 13 - THE MEMORY THIEF
The April event featured The Memory Thief, the story of Lukas (Mark Webber)--an
aimless, young man in contemporary L.A. whose chance encounter with a Holocaust survivor suddenly brings into focus a world and an identity he embraces with frightening intensity--the victimized
Jews of World War II. In attendance was the film's most excellent writer/director Gil
Hofman.
March 16 - TRE
The Club screened Tre, a close-up look at the complicated nature of adult romantic relationships via the interactions of four main characters, all of whom wind up at one of the pair's spacious, secluded Calabasas pad, after breaking up with their respective lovers. The film's director Eric Byler (Charlotte Sometimes, Americanese) spoke at length following both screenings about the film's themes.
February 10 - SHOTGUN STORIES
The Club screened Shotgun Stories, a slow burning, southern, familial drama which tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father. 29-year-old writer/director Jeff Nichols, native of Little Rock, Arkansas, took questions and spoke to Cinema Club audiences via telephone from his home in Austin, TX.
January 13 - TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE
The Club returns from the Christmas break with the powerful documentary, Taxi To The Darkside, a gripping investigation into the homicide of a taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force
Base in Afghanistan shortly following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Director Alex Gibney spoke about the film in a recorded conversation with Club Director Tim Sika following each screening.
November 18 - THE SAVAGES
The Club screens The Savages, an irreverent look at family, love and mortality about two adult siblings (Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) who find themselves plucked from their everyday, self-centered lives to care for an estranged elderly parent. A taped interview with Laura Linney and lively discussion followed.
October 14 - MAN IN THE CHAIR
The Club inaugurated its 12th Season with the sentimental drama Man In The Chair, in which two unlikely partners -- a would-be teenage film director hoping to escape an unhappy home life, and a senior citizen trying to recapture his days as a Hollywood crew member -- team up to produce a film worthy of winning a prestigious student film competition.
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