Alan takes us on a social justice trip to Oakland, through the medium of two recent films: 2013's "Fruitvale Station" and 2018's "Blindspotting."
Music: Flatwound: A View Southward, by John Pazdan
Savage aliens make the mistake of invading a London council block (low-income neighborhood), the turf of a group of street youths. Outer space meets inner city. A thinking man's action film, bursting with humor and satire. And aliens.
Two films, 87 years apart, put the flutter in our ribcages.
Alan illuminates some underappreciated noir classics.
Alan surveys that American celluloid genre called "film noir": sinister, evocative, and doom-laden, both in style and content.
Image: "The Photographer," by Joaquim Alves Gaspar
The Treatment tips into the recent dark successors of films like "The Maltese Falcon," "Touch of Evil," "Chinatown," and "Reservoir Dogs":
"Bad Times at the El Royale," and "Under the Silver Lake."
Alan reviews this gorgeously-rendered 2017 Todd Haynes film, which received a three-minute-long standing ovation when it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival.
A sweet love story set in 1970s Harlem. "Beale Street" features a hypnotically poetic environment, gorgeous cinematography, haunting music, exacting screenplay and incredible performances.
Alan Jacobson supplies "The Treatment".
Alan gives "the treatment" to Hiromasa Yonebyashi's anime masterwork, a worthy successor to such masterpieces as "Princess Mononoke," and "Spirited Away."
Alan pays homage to a film that "transcends the superhero genre to emerge as an epic of operatic proportions."
Alan gives The Treatment to Kathryn Bigelow's riveting depiction of Detroit's 12th Street Riot of 1967.
Alan Jacobson's Treatment of Bill and Turner Ross's 2012 film Tchoupitoulas, an immersive documentary about three teenaged brothers rambling on New Orleans' Tchoupitoulas Street at night. It's an impressionist travelogue, a hybrid of dream and documentary, a rite of passage.
Alan gives the Treatment to the newest, and one of the more inclusive and absorbing works of Wenders, the once-towering figure of the New German Cinema of the 70's, which included such monumental works as Buena Vista Social Club, Wings of Desire, The End of Violence, and Paris, Texas.
Alan treats Edgar Wright's sublimely slap-happy stylish blockbuster Baby Driver, whose plot is propelled by machine-gun editing, tough as nails genre writing & performances, brooding noir cinematography, and the best use of a pop music soundtrack you’ll find anywhere.
Writer/director Paul Schraeder directs an echo of the 1976 film Taxi Driver, which Schraeder wrote. First Reformed follows a troubled loner and priest of a small, dying church congregation as he grapples with dark visions and a troubled past.
Alan gives "the treament" to 2018's documentary sensation Three Identical Strangers, wherein three identical boys separated at birth, unaware of each other's existence, coincidentally reunite in college.
Alan cracks open Everett Public Library's Kanopy streaming video service, by focusing on "Ex Libris," Frederick Wiseman's brilliant documentary about one of America's great cultural treasures: The New York Public Library.
Alan explores the eponymously named "Contemporary Color," referring to a ballet-like artistic elaboration of the flag-bearing marchers that perform at half-time shows of sporting events. The film focuses on a competition held in New York at the instigation of David Byrne, the multi-level genius that fronted for Talking Heads.
Alan kicks off the library's Frankenfest celebration by reviewing James Whale's dual masterpieces, 1931's Frankenstein and 1935's Bride of Frankenstein. Alan will lead discussions of the two films on Saturday, Oct. 27 in the Main Library Auditorium, 2702 Hoyt Avenue. The showings begin at approximately 11:30am.
Music: "Kompat Project test recording," by Krisztina Zsolnai and Gabor Varadi; "Evoked Potentials, (signal-to-noise Ratio)" by Cage Cabarrett.
Newtown is an unexploitative, honest, yet shocking saga of the massacre--and aftermath-- of Newtown, CT's 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, which took the lives of twenty children and six adults.
Alan Jacobson evaluates Faces Places, a academy award-winning documentary about French New Wave director Agnes Varda and her graffiti-artist collaborator JR as they travel through rural France making and placing giant murals of ordinary people.
Alan Jacobson plumbs Andrew Haigh's unsung, underseen 2015 masterpiece.
A "youthquake" of a road movie: Homeless teens party, explore America, and sell magazines.
Additional music: "Beats," by Crooked Vision, courtesy of Internet Archive.
Master director Sidney Lumet's 1970s New York City life drama, crime caper, and anti-establishment social statement, all rolled into one exhilarating package.
Alan Jacobson gives "The Treatment" to 2015's near-future apocalyptic film Into the Forest, with Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood. A dark tale set in the dark woods.