Bernard Boo
667 articles written by Bernard Boo
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Under the Skin
Jonathan Glazer’s otherworldly Under the Skin feels somehow…forbidden. Hyper-artistic movies like this are a rare species, unwelcome in the tentpole Hollywood landscape. And yet, at the center of the film is one of the most recognizable young actresses in the industry, Scarlett...
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The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden
Paradise goes up in flames in The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, a stranger-than-fiction murder mystery in documentary form. There’s something fascinatingly bizarre about the events surrounding the unexplained deaths that struck a handful of bickering European settlers that...
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Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller Talk ‘The Galapagos Affair’
In The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, married San Francisco filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller explore the dark human history of the titular islands. Filled with deceit, jealousy, and murder, the island lore has all the trappings...
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SFFS Announces 2014 Documentary Film Fund Winners
The San Francisco Film Society has announced the winners for their 2014 Documentary Film Fund with awards totaling more than $75,000. All films are in postproduction, and since its inception the fund has awarded over $300,000 to filmmakers with non-fiction...
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Cuban Fury
Nick Frost, best known as Simon Pegg’s tubby partner in crime in the “Cornetto Trilogy” (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End), casts his own shadow in Cuban Fury, an amiable dance-infused rom-com that dazzles and charms despite missing a...
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Nick Frost Conquers Fear, Salsas Butt Off in ‘Cuban Fury’
In dance-comedy Cuban Fury, directed by James Griffiths, Nick Frost plays Bruce Garrett, a former childhood salsa prodigy who was bullied out of the ballroom to never return. Now in his late 30’s, Bruce is an overweight, insecure pushover who...
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Charlie Siskel Talks ‘Finding Vivian Maier’
Finding Vivian Maier, a layered documentary co-directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, pieces together the life story of the titular Chicago nanny (now deceased) by utilizing the amazing photographs she took around the city, of which there are...
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Patrick Epino Talks Becoming an Awesome Asian Bad Guy
Awesome Asian Bad Guys, which screened a couple of weeks ago at CAAMFest, is an action-comedy that follows The National Film Society, a couple of Asian Los Angeles Youtubers (Patrick Epino and Stephen Dypiangco), as they attempt to track...
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On My Way
What’s surprising about On My Way, a latter-life crisis road trip film starring Catherine Deneuve, is that the film flounders and fumbles while the French living legend is alone at the helm. Only when a talented young actor (Nemo Schiffman)...
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The Raid 2: Berandal
Welsh-born filmmaker Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemtion shook up the martial arts movie genre in 2011 with its exhilarating action, scintillating fight choreography, and no-holds-barred brutality. The film didn’t have much of a plot to speak of: A police raid...
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Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais Talk ‘The Raid 2’
2011’s The Raid: Redemption was an adrenaline-pumping, relentless martial arts movie that wowed action movie lovers and garnered a ravenous fan following. With The Raid 2: Berandal, director Gareth Evans manages to make the fight scenes even more intense and intricate this time...
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Rob the Mob
Rob the Mob opens with a robbery, but not the perilous kind the title suggests: In early 1990’s New York, Tommy and Rosie (Michael Pitt and Nina Arianda, both delivering terrific turns), a frantic, foul-mouthed young couple, botch a...
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57th Annual SFIFF Announces Full Program
Today, the San Francisco Film Society (and its new executive director Noah Cowan) announced the full lineup for the 57th annual San Francisco International Film Festival, running from April 24-May 8. Consisting of 169 films from 56 countries, the...
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Jodorowsky’s Dune
In Jodorowsky’s Dune, a documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed 1970’s adaptation of the acclaimed sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert, the Chilean-born director–essentially a talking head throughout the film–is more captivating in his musings than most actors are in sweeping, Oscar-bait dramas....
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Cheap Thrills
Like an alternative, bite-size version of Breaking Bad, first-time director E.L. Katz’s gruesome comedy Cheap Thrills takes an unassuming suburban family man named Craig (Pat Healy) and exposes a repressed, dark side of his psyche via the sinful temptation of money. What...