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I was born in San Francisco and raised in Marin and Sonoma (specifically a town called Petaluma) and now that enough decades have past, I have a new appreciation for the beauty of the regionāparticularly as depicted by Hollywood's great genre filmmakers of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Of course, this includes great San Francisco movies like Vertigo (Hitchcock), Bullitt (Yates) and The Game (Fincher), but there are so many others that venture out to Monterey, Bodega Bay, and all the way up to Humboldt County. Some of my friends keep a running tally of "NorCal Noir" movies. Some favorites:
Salem's Lot (Miniseries, 1979), The Fog (1980), Play Misty For Me (1971), The Birds (1963), The Final Terror (1983), Firefox (1982), Dead and Buried (1981), Murder She Wrote (TV episodes, various), Cujo (1983), Point Blank (1967).
There are probably many others but between the midcentury architecture, west coast hippie/yuppie dialectic, atmospheric coastal fog, and rolling hills, it's a distinct vibe that always feels incredibly indulgent and tasteful even when it's lent in service of schlock.
Nov 24, 2024
Related Recs
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High Sierra and They Drive By Night in particular
Nov 14, 2024
Not the "best" movies to go on like an AFI list, but the ones that shaped me:
Blue Velvet - my first (only?) exposure to that level of mordant humor and Freudian menace
American Movie - I watch this at least once a year and feel its rawness and sadness a little more profoundly each time
Gummo - my people, finally represented on screen
Zodiac - captures something no one talks about, which is how fucking *dark* the Bay Area is. A procedural, but less about cops and more about a kind of media terrorism and the propagation of social-psychological contagion
Twin Peaks: FWWM - the first 30 minutes rewired me permanently, never been the same since
Raising Arizona - I grew up in the sticks and this was the first "art film" I ever saw. Watched it enough times to memorize every line
Feb 25, 2024
there was a trend in the late 80s/early 90s of domestic thrillers with weird messaging, but this one is 100% worth watching for michael keaton being fun and diabolical.
Oct 4, 2024
Top Recs from @patrik-sandberg
Whenever I mention Night Flight Plus, no one knows what Iām talking about. Itās a streaming service named after (and featuring) the USA Network late-night cult series from the 1980s. It also includes a ton of films of the cult, horror, obscure music documentary, and exploitation variety. If youāre looking for Paul Morrissey, Troma Films, Vinegar Syndrome, or outdated TV specials about Minor Threat and Kate Bush, its curation is like a return to Kimās Videoā¦ or my favorite VHS store from San Francisco, Le Video. The other night I watched an English-language Italian fashion giallo from 1988 called Too Beautiful To Die. Itās a totally outrageous masterpiece. Itās my favorite subscription. Feast your eyes.
Feb 21, 2025
My friend Aaron put me onto Badvril, the best band presently crawling out of San Franciscoāthe cesspool from whence we all came. And they sound like it, in all the most perfect, sludgy, narcotic, dreamy, total-eclipsing sort of ways. If you like shoegaze, Catherine Wheel, early Pumpkins, '90s alt revival, or melodic punk that pre-dates the Hot Topic era, you will die and go to heaven listening to their I AM GOD EP. that came out in February.
The desirous thing about becoming a fan before there is too much noise is that it's easy to catch up on their back catalogue. And then Becket becomes your Instagram friend and sends you the new unreleased album and it's the best music you've ever heard in your life. One wrong move and they could be too huge to handle. I wish them all the money in the world.
Dec 9, 2024
Combining punk sensibility with pop simplicity and deceptively sweet but eviscerating productionā¦ When āElevationā by The Dare comes on, without fail, I get asked who the artist is. When I answer, theyāre always a little surprised. Nothing against Harrison and his perfectly calibrated image of sex and partyingāsex and partying areĀ really importantābut I love when artists catch their skeptics off guard and show another dimension. āElevationā is a brilliant love song, so catchy it hooks into your brain like a good hit should. When you listen to it on a proper system, the buzzsaw synths rattle your cage. It builds to an overwhelming euphoria that emulates the feeling it describes. Itās going to age wellā¦ he understands.Ā
Dec 30, 2024