By Richard von Busack
Since The Kids Are Alright is getting a reputation as “the lesbian Brokeback Mountain” (so said Kathy Wolfe in a piece for B.A.R.; Wolfe is the Santa Clara Valley’s local hero and …

Keeping up with the rumors swirling around the pre-production of Batman 3 is almost as hard as keeping up with the Kardashians. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next news clip announced that Christopher Nolan …

by Richard von Busack
THE HISTORY of a seriously odd mallard, Wild Grass is Alain Resnais’ leisurely, cryptic satire on the extremes of male pride. Based on Christian Gailly’s novel The Incident, it concerns characters who …

by Richard von Busack
Actors, especially who are clearly going the distance, know enough to josh the roles that are their annuities: it’s a matter of professionalism and survival. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, coping with …

The Woman in the Window:
Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl at the Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco June 24-27

By Richard von Busack
How does a director who is 101 years old make a movie? Manoel de Oliveira’s …

The Little Traitor takes place in 1947, just before the formation of the state of Israel.  Its ideas of friendship between so-called enemies and learning from those we are supposed to hate seems to resonate …

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by Richard von Busack
Stick around, past the politically creepy pre-title sequence—it’s like the fond wish of an Arizonan that the US/Mexican border was patrolled with a death ray. After that, Joe Carnahan’s The A-Team develops …

by Richard von Busack
Despite the use of Johnny Cash’s cover version of Neil Diamond’s best song, the film Solitary Man seems like a strange misnomer for Michael Douglas’s latest rogue-male movie. After a few years …

by Richard von Busack
MERMAID KITSCH must be thundered against, but there’s a surprising amount of grit in Neil Jordan’s Ondine. In his 16th film, Jordan is clearly working to please himself; the Irish locations are …

by Richard von Busack
How to sum up the appeal of the Kuchar Brothers’ cinema? In some 40 years of strictly underground filmmaking, these two New York expatriates explored cinema in both parallel and separate directions, …