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CineSource’s Top Nine for Fifteen by Steven Middlestein
'Tangerine', the iPhone movie that is so much more (indeed, it is now under Oscar consideration), is revealed in CS's interview with part of its team, (lf-rt) Writer Chris Bergoch, Star Kitana 'Kiki' Rodriguez and Director Sean Baker—our longest AND wildest interview EVER! photo: D. Blair
IT WAS A BIG YEAR FOR PLANETARY TEM-
peratures, presidential elections and predatory terrorists but also innovative cinema. Here we look back at CineSource’s top nine film or media stories of 2015.
EIGHT: When the Paris climate conference convened, California was well-represented—including in film
Governor Brown and ex-Governator Schwarzenegger were in Paris proving that eco-eco development (ecological and economic) do go together but "Racing To Zero by the Bay", the new film by Christopher Beaver, shows exactly how San Francisco "is going to be the first city in the whole country, if not in the world, to go to 100% recycle," according to Mayor Ed Lee.
SEVEN: In the face of ISIL's horrific culture wars, CineSource doubles down on Middle East film
As Islamists destroy ruins, amputate musicians' hands and burn theaters, CineSource remains devoted to highlighting Israeli, Arab and other Middle Eastern media, including looking at this year's massive Israeli comedy about slacker army girls, "Zero Motivation", and our examination of the history of the veil in our review of a great documentary out of Abu Dhabi, "The Tainted Veil".
The Black Panther's armed but peaceful takeover of the California State House in 1967 rocket them to the top of the innovative radical charts, a position that was hard to maintain, see CS story. photo: courtesy Sacramento Bee
SIX: The magical films of Antero Alli
Before the prolific Bay Area filmmaker Antero Alli decamped for Portland, we obtained this insightful interview, "Antero Alli: Narratives Crafted for the Ages", which explores how he gets the personalness and visual poetry associated with art shorts into features that are also full of relationships, humor and mysticism.
FIVE: Hitchcock continues to captivate despite negative reports
Although we had only one Hitchcock article this year, compared to our average of a half a dozen per over the last few years, our massive discovery about the master is still little known and worth looking at: 'Was Hitchcock a Misogynist or a Feminist?".
FOUR: Marin County native daughter makes masterful Manhattan doc
Crystal Moselle, the seemingly innocent daughter of local sax wunderkind Charlie Moselle, went to the Big Apple, dedicated herself to film and came up with a world-wide hit documentary bristling with Bay Area issues, primitivism, tribalism, cults and media consciousness, see "Leader of the Wolfpack Revealed".
THREE: While the auteur may be always right, a radical avenue to fresh vision is collective
Ms. Moselle and her stars, the Angulo brothers, in their now trademark suits-and-ties referencing 'Reservoir Dogs', their favorite films, see CS story. photo: courtesy C. Moselle
The Bay Area has long been a center of communal living and alt-film, and CineSource decided to updated our understanding with a massive research piece on media collectives worldwide: "Cine Collectives Come Back, Finally!".
TWO: The reborn civil rights movement is making important changes but Oakland still struggles to understand its pioneering radicals
There’s no monument, mural or memorial to the Black Panthers in West Oakland, where they started 50 years ago this year, because, despite their amazing innovation, discipline and dedication to their community, in the end, there was too much pipe dreaming, thug culture and infiltration for that community to comprehend without deep intellectual analysis and healing. CineSource attempts to rectify that with a long look at their evolution and the films about them: "The Black Panther Filmography".
ONE: While many films are plagued by 'chickflickism' or 'testostercine,' 'Tangerine' has both trans -cendence and -gender
Perhaps it is no surprise that "Tangerine" is up for Oscar recommendations, given that it combines the accessibility and personality of alt-cine with great writing, acting and production values—a balanced blending of opposites not unlike some of its characters. "Depraved, perverted and crazed," was how we characterized it in our first review, back in April. Nevertheless, “'Tangerine' is in fact a loving film, both the characters with each other AND the filmmakers with their characters!" See our interview with three of the principals, our longest article ever (10,500 words): "Team Tangerine Interview Each Other".
Steve Middlestein is a writer, editor and movie fanatic and can be reached .