SF Planning, Movies and Snow

Movie Tour or No?

I’m starting to really question whether I can do that movie tour. They run it once a day, starting at 10:30 and it runs for three hours. That’s a huge block of time. There are two extended stop offs on the tour, in front of City Hall, which was close to being kicked off my list and Fort Point, which would be very convenient for me since I’m not sure I can fit that in otherwise.

But is it worth giving up three hours for those two locations when a lot of the other locations are going to be redundant. I was looking at a list of movies shot in San Francisco and some of them are notable but I’m not sure I really NEED to see what scenes were shot where.

Some of the movies (and I don’t know how many of these will be on the tour) are ‘Milk,’ ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ ‘Vertigo,’ ‘Zodiac,’ ‘The Pursuit of Happyness,’ ‘Bullitt,’ ‘Basic Instinct,’ ‘Mrs. Doubtfire,’ and of course the Dirty Harry movies and several movies that are set in Alcatraz (though I doubt the bus tour drives on the water to the Rock).

I don’t think those movies really warrant a three hour tour necessarily. I don’t know. If I had more time maybe. But right now, that’s the next thing on the list that’s looking kinda doubtful.

‘Mythbusters’ is based out of San Francisco. Do you think I could participate in one of their shows? Hey, do you wanna see a really cool clip from the show?

Here:



Movie Thoughts

My girlfriend and I watched ‘Stalag 17’ and ‘Network’ on Sunday as part of a mini William Holden marathon. We’d watched ‘Sunset Boulevard’ last weekend. And I had a couple thoughts that I always have when I watch these movies.

First, William Holden is a really underrated actor. I mean, he did win an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in ‘Stalag 17’. I memorized his acceptance speech, which isn’t hard since he took the award, said, ‘Thank you,’ and walked away. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in ‘Network.’ But you know how little known he apparently is? You know Suzanne Vega’s song ‘Tom’s Diner?’ If you heard it, you’d remember it. Anyway, the line, “I open up the paper / there's a story of an actor / who died while he was drinking / he was no one I had heard of” is a reference to Holden.

Second, Billy Wilder has to be considered when talking about the best directors ever. Also, he wrote almost all the movies he directed. You can watch a movie he wrote/directed and it has his thumbprint on it.

And finally, ‘Network’ is one of the most forward thinking movies I’ve ever seen. It’s so far ahead of its time, it’s amazing that it made any sense in the 70s.

‘Network’ had five of its actors/actresses nominated for Academy Awards but it lost Best Picture to ‘Rocky.’ I love ‘Rocky’ and likely will watch that next weekend as part of a ‘Rocky’ movie marathon, but I’m not sure ‘Rocky’ should’ve won that one.

You know, if you look at the Best Picture winners by decade, you could make a good case that the 70s had the best Best Picture movies. Among the list: ‘Patton,’ ‘The Godfather,’ ‘The Godfather Part II,’ ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ ‘Rocky,’ ‘Annie Hall,’ ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Kramer v Kramer.’

Certainly no decade since can even compete with that list but I don’t think there’s really a decade before that’s as strong as the 70s. Now, when it comes to best movies, I still think you hafta look at the 40s as the benchmark decade but so many of the best movies of that decade, weren’t nominated or didn’t win.

How exactly did the following movies of the 40s not win: ‘Citizen Kane,’ ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ ‘The Pride of the Yankees,’ ‘The Magnificent Ambersons,’ ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ ‘The Bishop’s Wife’ and ‘The Big Sleep.’

The Snow Falls

It did snow on Sunday but it was more like the dusting I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t the four inches that some places were predicting. I believe I had that one.

The Hunger Walk was cancelled due to snow. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened. Here’s why: People who were hungry are still gonna be hungry now. These little wusses couldn’t put up with a little snow and now people are hungry. I bet alotta these hungry people are also homeless. So guess what? Not only are they cold but they’re still hungry.

And McNabb Exits

Mr. McNabb officially left today, clearing out the last of his things like his plants and wind chimes. He knocked on my door to borrow some ‘pliers or better yet a [insert some fancy sounding wrench here].’ I gave him the pliers and a few minutes later, he returned them and he said, “I know you’re a Braves’ fan but look at the name on this hat.” He showed me a St. Louis Cardinals hat allegedly signed by Stan Musial.

But you know what really confused me? He was wearing a New England Patriots hat. How weird is that?

Iran Wants an Apology

Iran wants an apology for ‘The Wrestler’ and ‘300.’ Is this how it works now? We can start demanding apologies for movies that have been made? Hey, Adam Sandler, got a minute?

The real question is why they were asking the apology of Annette Bening. If she was going to be asked to apologize for something, how about ‘The Women’ or ‘What Planet are You From?’

(This might be the time to reiterate my policy on ‘The Women.’ If any person should get me a copy of this film, the thank you present will be ‘Peewee’s Big Adventure.’ That’s the way it works.)

Salman on Slumdog

I found someone else who doesn’t like ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ Salman Rushdie. I’m not much of a fan of his. Of course, I’m sure he doesn’t care. Once you have a global death threat made against you, criticism like ‘I’m not much of a fan’ probably bounces right off you.