Barney’s Weekend Picks

All the King’s Movies: The king, natch, is
Roger Durling, the ever-present director of the Santa
Barbara International Film Festival. Durling, his stand-up hair a
different color every night, is everywhere, introducing everything,
running from theater to theater to party, friendly but a bit
frazzled and even dazzled.

By no means have I seen every movie in the fest, but a few stand
out so far. The most powerful are
Amazing Grace, the story of how William
Wilberforce launched a winning campaign to ban slavery in
Britain, and 9th
Company, the true story of the bloody battle that wiped
out Soviet recruits in the last days of the foolish war in
Afghanistan. While Amazing Grace was fought largely in
Parliament, 9th
Company is down and dirty in the dust, courage for naught,
lives wasted, as mad as any war. Michael Apted,
director of Amazing Grace, will be at the Metro 4 Theater
Saturday at 4 p.m. for one of the festival’s Conversations With
programs. After that his new film
49 Up will be screened.