It’s a four-day week. Fill it with film.
Popcorn for Breakfast: Looney Tunes in 35mm!
Sat., July 9, 11am
Roxie, San Francisco
Tickets: $8 (kids under 12 are FREE)
The Roxie’s second-Saturday series of vintage cartoons, dubbed Popcorn for Breakfast, was likely inspired by the population boomlet of young children in Noe Valley and the Mission. Innocent fun, you might say, though I prefer to view this month’s revival of Looney Tunes shorts as an acidic retort to the relentless anthropomorphizing of every last species by Hollywood’s hucksters of family entertainment and cross-promotion. The show features Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Pepé Le Pew, the havoc-wreaking firmament of Warner Brothers’ output from the ‘30s through the ‘60s that helped define the Golden Age of American animation. Two of the best toons, What’s Opera, Doc and One Froggy Evening, are also on the bill the following night when the Castro hosts A Salute to Chuck Jones to benefit the Cartoon Art Museum and the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity.
Also…
French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert notched unexpected art house hits in the U.S. with his acutely sensitive documentaries In the Land of the Deaf (1992) and To Be and To Have (2002). His talent for empathetic observation was already apparent in Louvre City (1990), a quietly enthralling behind-the-scenes study of the great, vast museum. The Louvre granted Philibert access while the museum prepared to reopen after a renovation. He displays a remarkable eye for seemingly minor detail and an excellent ear for revealing conversation. Louvre City (July 6) is the perfect choice to lead off the divinely beautiful Pacific Film Archive series Guided Tour: Museums in Cinema, which continues through August 31. I have a hunch this series will make a return mention or two in this column in the coming weeks.
