FILMS/
FOG CITY MAVERICKS
Spotlight
USA, 2007, 119 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Sun, Apr 29 / 07:30 / Castro / FOG29C
CREDITS
- dir
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Gary Leva
- scr
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Gary Leva
- cam
-
various
- editor
-
Gary Leva
- cast
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George Lucas, Clint Eastwood, Francis Ford Coppola, Chris Columbus, Saul Zaentz, Philip Kaufman, Carroll Ballard, Sofia Coppola
- source
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Lucasfilm Ltd., P.O. Box 299901, San Francisco, CA 94129 FAX: 415-662-2437 EMAIL: lynne.hale@lucasfilm.com
Since the early days of cinema, when Charlie Chaplin honed his craft hereabouts and the Essanay Company made a legend of Bronco Billy, the San Francisco Bay Area has been a hotbed of moviemaking ingenuity. Tracing a lineage from the pre-cinema photographic experiments of Eadweard Muybridge, Gary Leva’s big-talent roundup chronicles the amazing past 40 years of the lives and times of Fog City’s best-known directors, with particular attention given to the groundbreaking achievements, influence and independent-mindedness of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. All the lions of Bay Area big-film-making are here: Saul Zaentz, Philip Kaufman, Chris Columbus, Clint Eastwood and Carroll Ballard, as well as the CGI groundbreakers at Pixar, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird and Pete Docter. In all, more than two dozen resident geniuses—the above, plus Walter Murch, John Korty, Sofia Coppola, Caleb Deschanel, Matthew Robbins, Bruce Conner, Robin Williams, Robert Dalva, Ben Burtt and Steve Jobs, among others—are featured in insightful on-camera interviews. Leva skillfully layers these fascinating testimonials with terrific behind-the-scenes stories, rare archival photos and footage, lively narration by Peter Coyote and brilliant scenes from some of the finest films of our generation (all made, as it happens, by your friends and neighbors). All the film’s principals have been invited for an onstage introduction; a smaller group will participate in a post-screening Q&A. Confirmed guests include Lucas, Kaufman, Zaentz, Columbus, Bird, Docter, Stanton, Robbins, Williams, Conner, Murch, Coyote, Dominic Angerame and Rob Nilsson, with many more mavericks sure to join them.
—Graham Leggat
World Premiere. Sponsored by Macy's and the San Francisco Film Commission.