San Francisco

Enjoyed my first visit with Julian in 1976. Spent time there every summer thereafter, culminating in three months living on Russian Hill in 1980. Visited the city, Big Sur, Russian River, Napa Valley, and more with Julian, Jake, Lynn, and repeatedly with Darryl. Love nearby Muir Woods and Sausalito, Favorite neighborhood is North Beach where City Lights Bookstore and Cafe Trieste are.

One of our favorite hangouts is Cafe Flore. 

Neighborhoods we like: North Beach

Nob Hill

Fillmore St (restaurants)

Golden Gate Park (Japanese garden and the museum)

Fisherman's Wharf

Castro Street

Land's End (and museum)

Lombard Street and Coit Tower

City Lights Bookstore

Lawrence Ferlinghetti 

Darryl In North Beach

My home on Russian Hill, 1980

View from our house.

Julian at work with our garden behind him. 

Art of Film (updated and revisited)

The Art of Film -- Revisited

What makes a film a valuable work of art? The answer is complicated by the fact that there are many different ways for a film to make manifest what its subject or subjects are. For meChinatown is a great film because it 1) Tells an intriguing story on two levels, the story of the building of Los Angeles, and the corruption it entailed; the love story of two unlikely lovers caught up in the larger story. 2) It does this visually as well as through dialogue and narration. The images and scenes of the film are key to the unfolding of the story. Music and cinematography are essential exciting elements. 3) the film is coherent despite the intricacies and complexity of plot, unfolding of characters, and surprising revelations. The characters in the film change and grow more aware as the story unfolds. 4) The film is brilliant with profound insights into character, history, human nature, love, corruption, the power of evil, capitalism, naivete, and disillusionment, to name a few. It is a dark story, but whether a film is "uplifting," or depressing, or shocking, or whatever does not matter so long as it possesses such qualities as the above four. My one caveat is that I am bored with the contrived "Hollywood ending," resembling the unnecessary, but now too often performed, "happy ending" to a good massage.

Recent films I think excel, some of which I've posted commentary* :

On The Road (review)

Weekend *
Melancholia by Lars Van Trier*
Take This Waltz by Sarah Polley  (review)
Perks of Being a Wallflower (review)
Dangerous Method (review)

Past Films that have shaped my life and my understanding of life include:

• 1900  (socialism and friendship) 
• American Beauty (modern living)
• Cabaret (gay '30s Berlin, Liza)
• Casablanca (noble character, war)
• Chinatown (capitalism, evil, making of L. A. )
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (it's bad to be bourgeois)
• Fanny and Alexander(it's good to be Bourgeois)
• The Godfather (pure evil, crime world)
• Harold and Maude (suicide, ageless love)
• The History Boys (the joys and sorrows of Teaching)
•  Home at the End of the World (love and threesomes)
• Juliet of the Spirits(the Beauty of fantasy)
• Midnight Cowboy (New York, love)
• Maurice(Subtle, perceptive rendering of the Forster novel)
• Night of the Iguana (Tennessee Williams, Mexico)
• Shortbus (genuine sexuality, love, and the psyche) (click)
• Koyaanisqatsi (the World out of joint)
• Slaughterhouse Five (All's bad in war)
• Some Like it Hot (Marilyn Monroe, drag)
• The Wizard of Oz (Yellow Brick Road)
• Women In Love (D.H. Lawrence)

Rashomon
by Akira Kurosawa
 
(truth is subjective)

But this is just a sampling.
It is also essential to mention the great directors whose films have shaped my life:

Federico Fellini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Werner Fassbinder, Ken Russell, Peter Greenaway, Lina Wertmüller, Derek Jarman, Pedro Almodovar, Ang Lee, John Waters, Ingmar Bergman, Louis Malle, Pier Paulo Pasolini, Kurosawa, Luis Bunuel, John Cameron Mitchell, Sarah Polley  and good old Woody Allen
(all are clickable)

The one
we sat down
and had a drink with:
John Waters--
Wikipedia

The Guardian has quite a list
of 40 current Film Directors
(click)

 Current Films

--Jameson 

Updated for 2012-2018:

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

There Will Be Blood

Paterson

God's Own Country

Get Out

The Before Sunrise trilogy of films

Moonlight

The Budapest Hotel

Call Me By Your Name

Mudbound