Tag archives: movies

The Carsey-Wolf Center’s nine-week intensive environmental media production and documentary studies program involves students from a wide range of backgrounds collaborating to produce short films that tell vital and timely stories about the coastal environment. This year’s quartet of shorts include the very up-to-date Stranded, which dives into the phenomenon that resulted in more than […]

The annual discount derby for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival next year is going on right now. SBIFF returns to town – or more accurately, dominates the entertainment calendar – from February 7-17, 2024, with its usual slate of celebrity tributes, industry panels, and 200 or so new independent and international films, including daily […]

“Cinema shows us a world that fits our desires.” French film critic André Bazin’s quote is spoken by Jean-Luc Godard in the opening credits of his film Contempt.A camera crew tracks along towards us, until the camera itself nearly films the frame. It tilts down and turns its lens on us.  What if the line […]

Also making its post-pandemic return is SBIFF’s French Wave Film Festival, which takes over SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre July 14-20 to feature 11 new examples of contemporary French cinema – nearly all winners or nominees for César Awards (the French Oscars) or selections at Cannes. Details, screening times, and passes at https://sbiffriviera.com/wave.  

Have you ever been stuck in a rut? Doing the same thing day in, day out. The same rituals, the same tasks, the same autopilot life? Now imagine that – but you’re on some uninhabited island off the coast of England where your only friends are a group of rare flowers. If you weren’t on […]

The curtain may have closed on the inaugural Montecito Student Film Festival, but there is still a buzz about the spectacular young filmmaking talent in our community. For about five hours, cinephiles filled Westmont’s Porter Theatre to screen 20 student films on March 25.  In the end, Westmont sophomore Campbell Ralph of Fox Island, Washington, […]

Readers, movie lovers; we’re in for a serious treat. Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 masterpiece, The Conformist, is coming to a theater near you. Oh, count our lucky stars! Based on the book of the same name by Alberto Moravia, The Conformist is about a young Fascist, Marcello Clerici (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) who is ordered to […]

For all of you that got to see Fire of Love in theaters, I truly envy you. But for those of you who didn’t get the chance, like myself, there’s hope yet! The must-see 2022 documentary by Sara Dosa has finally made it to streaming! Fire of Love tells the story of two daring volcanologists, […]

Hollywood has never had a more decorated composer than John Williams. The now 91-year-old music maker has composed the music and served as music director for more than 100 films including all nine Star Wars movies, the first three Harry Potter films, Superman, Jaws, Home Alone, Schindler’s List, E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial, Jurassic Park and all […]

Wet weather and storm watches didn’t keep people away from the opening weekend of the Westmont College Festival Theatre’s world premiere Diamond to Dust: A Flying A Fantasy. Director John Blondell and writer Michael Bernard, a local actor, educator and playwright, have brought Santa Barbara’s treasured cinematic history to the stage in a creative exploration […]

It’s no wonder that the young actor, producer, and TV writer, John Owen Lowe, called watching the world premiere of Grace Point – a thriller that marks his debut as a lead actor in a feature film – at the Metro 4 cinemas at SBIFF last weekend a “surreal experience.” “I grew up going to […]

Here comes the Santa Barbara International Film Festival: more than 200 movies, including 52 world premieres and 78 U.S. premieres, representing more than 40 countries and just about every film genre ever invented, including a wide swath of documentaries elucidating myriad topics. The usual Oscar nominee-decorated/movie star actor tributes and an even more Academy Award-hopeful […]

Westmont’s John Blondell discusses the world premiere play that will bring Santa Barbara’s silent film history to the stage in a Westmont Downtown Lecture Thursday, February 16, at 5:30 pm in the Community Arts Workshop (CAW), 631 Garden Street, in downtown Santa Barbara. “The Film Within a Play: Celebrating Santa Barbara’s Flying A Studios on […]

Few and far between are folks who are not familiar with the Miranda warnings, the ones that police have to read to criminal suspects that remind them of their right to be represented by an attorney and to refuse to answer questions at all. Far fewer are the people who know anything at all about […]

On a personal note, I remember Italian screen legend Gina Lollobrigida, who has died in Rome at the age of 95. I had a delightful dinner with the actress at a boffo bash in Punta del Este, Uruguay, when I flew there from New York to attend a champagne-soaked party for 550 guests hosted by […]

Santa Barbara-based filmmaker Brent Winebrenner and local duo Suzanne Requejo and Montecito Journal scribe Leslie Westbrook are excited to have their 15-minute documentary, Voces de Old Town Carpinteria, have its premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival next month. It features five older Carpinteria residents, including 103-year-old Josephine Villegas and narrator historian Dr. Jim […]

The Banshees of Inisherin stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson– who reteamed for Martin McDonagh’s award-season darling dark comedy after having first appeared together in the director’s brilliant 2008 film In Bruges – have been tapped to together receive SBIFF’s Cinema Vanguard Award on February 16. The announcement rounds out this year’s acting awards at […]

Every once in a while, a movie will cross your path and just absolutely rock you. One that overwhelms with emotions and ideas. The Runner by Amir Naderi is one of those movies. This powerful 1984 film – one of the first films post-Iranian Revolution to attract worldwide acclaim – follows Amiro, a young orphan […]

We’re still nearly 80 days away from the 2023 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, which returns after two years of accommodations for COVID to its traditional mid-winter time slot for an 11-day span, February 8-18. But SBIFF’s big gala, the 15th annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film, which will honor Michelle Yeoh at […]

“You need murder and violence in order to be happy.” That cutting line, said by a wife to her depressed detective husband cleverly describes the protagonist of Park Chan-wook’s new film, Decision to Leave, and at the same time, Park Chan-wook himself. Or does it?  The South Korean “provocateur” is well known for his violent […]