KQED is a proud member of
Save ArticleSave Article
upper waypoint
The Do List

Now Playing! Take the Temperature of Current Mexican Cinema at the Roxie

Michael Fox
Save ArticleSave Article
Failed to save article

Please try again

Still from 'Sr. Pig' ('Mr. Pig'). (Courtesy of Roxie Theater)

Close the laptop, drop that tablet, pause the smartphone and join your fellow humans in Bay Area theaters this week with recommendations from our film critic Michael Fox.

Still from 'Te Prometo Anarquía' ('I Promise You Anarchy').
Still from ‘Te Prometo Anarquía’ (‘I Promise You Anarchy’). (Courtesy of Roxie Theater)

Hola Mexico Film Festival Tour

Roxie Theater, San Francisco
Aug. 26-28
Tickets: $12

In the nick of time, before that big ‘ol wall goes up to block people (and everything else, presumably) from south of the border, the Hola Mexico Film Festival Tour rolls into the Mission for the Aug. 26-28 weekend. Claim your preferred seat at the Roxie to binge on all 10 films gleaned from the May fiesta in Los Angeles, or take the temperature of current Mexican cinema with a few choice selections.

The highest-profile names, writer-director Diego Luna and actor Danny Glover, open the touring series (appropriately) with a road movie that premiered at Sundance. Sr. Pig (Mr. Pig) follows an aging, forcibly retired California farmer and his porcine companion on a north-to-south journey. If you crave more edge, Te Prometo Anarquía (I Promise You Anarchy) depicts the street-level exploits of a gay couple of skateboarding Mexico City stoners. In Mexico, as in many countries, there isn’t a film industry so much as an amorphous array of determined, intrepid, independent filmmakers.

Also…

I had a brainstorm a few years back to print and sell T-shirts that said “Make Hollywood Great Again!” (Not a true story.) But if you like the idea, and can move fast enough to get ‘em on the Castro Street sidewalk by Sunday, Aug. 28, you might have a moneymaker on your hands when they run a marathon double bill of the immortal, color-saturated epics The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind.

Sponsored

Some film historians rate 1939, the year of their release (along with Ninotchka, Stagecoach, Only Angels Have Wings, Young Mr. Lincoln, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, Midnight, Destry Rides Again, Dark Victory, The Roaring Twenties, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and Goodbye, Mr. Chips) as the high point of Tinseltown’s Golden Age.

Ah, the good old days of nickel Cokes — along with segregated theaters, no air conditioning, smoking permitted (not marijuana, medical or otherwise), and Hitler on the march.

lower waypoint
next waypoint
The Bay Area’s Great American Diner Is a 24-Hour Filipino Casino RestaurantHow a Dumpling Chef Brought Dim Sum to Bay Area Farmers MarketsNetflix’s ‘Baby Reindeer’: A Dark, Haunting Story Bungles its Depiction of Queerness5 New Mysteries and Thrillers for Your Nightstand This SpringSFMOMA Workers Urge the Museum to Support Palestinians in an Open LetterEast Bay Street Photographers Want You to Take ‘Notice’The Stud, SF's Oldest Queer Bar, Gears Up for a Grand ReopeningA New Bay Area Food Festival Celebrates Chefs of Color and Diasporic UnityOn Weinstein, Cosby, OJ Simpson and America’s Systemic Misogyny Problemnic feliciano Is Blessed With The ‘Curse of an Overactive Creative Mind’