SFist Watches: Movies This Weekend
Oh, crap, this doesn't sound good.
Our Dad (who is never wrong) is the O-G Douglas Adams expert, so we asked him what his thoughts are on the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy film. Here's what he had to say:
The original HHGTTG, like Dr. Who had the essential quality of being very literate, yet very cheesy--an important and charming quality--not unlike the "B" films of the fifties and sixties. I think the cheesiness reflected Adams' tongue-in-cheek humor. I'm not sure how that quality will translate to big budget big screen. I'm not hopeful.
(Before you ask, yes, he does indeed talk that way. You can't make that s**t up.)
We thought that our previously infalliable Pops was finally losing it and we were going to have to fly back to the Midwest and put the old guy in a home. Because, dude, native son (and classmate of SFist Rain) Sam Rockwell? Tim from The Office? Vogons? How can this go wrong?
If boring all of you about our Dad isn't enough, we'll also tell you about how we always read the front page of our neighbor's paper as we bring it upstairs to her after our morning dog-walking. And there it was, right on the front page of the Chron: "'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' dazzles". We totally ripped through the paper, breathlessly hoping that the dazzlee was Ruthe Stein or even Peter Hartlaub, but no. We regret to inform y'all that our Nemesis, Mick LaSalle loved the movie. And a nation of nerds mourns, because if LaSalle thinks a movie is good, well, it probably ain't.
Screw it. We love our Dad, and we hate LaSalle, but we dtill gotta see how this thing turns out ourselves. We're making this our big budget pick of the week, and will see it at one of our Bay Area Metroplexes.
Then again, there are a whole lot of folks who don't care about HHGTTG, and for them there's plenty of other good stuff.
The San Francosco International Film Festival marches on, with zillions of great films playing all weekend, like Saturday's Youth Voices and Visions screening featuring shorts from young filmmakers, including SFist's own Paolo Sambrano, so be sure tell him "hi".
The Balboa continues their Reel San Francisco festival of locally-set movies with Harold and Maude and Play It Again Sam (with Susan Anspach introducing the 8:45 shows Friday and Saturday, and taking Q&A following the 5:15 show on Saturday). More shows are screening all week, take a look that the site for all the details.
The Roxie features Hal Hartley's The Girl From Monday, with Hal himself there after the 8:00 pm show Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1 after the 4:00 & 6:00pm shows.
What are you going to see this weekend, and would our Dad approve?