Film Archives — Page 115 of 168 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Bigger than Life: A porn history show

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September 14, 2009

By Marke B.

The Steven Scarborough-directed “Trunks 2” won the auspicious 2006 Maleflixxx Gold VOD Award

This just in from the Facebook:

“Jeffrey Escoffier will offer a profile of San Francisco’s historic role in the creation of the gay porn industry. There will be video show of the highlights of San Francisco’s erotic film making. His guest will be Steven Scarborough, one of gay porn’s great directors and who helped establish its economic foundations.”

Scarborough helped bring porn into the condom age with his work at Falcon and then Hot House, so this may be pretty interesting. He’s also a cutie:

Bigger than Life
Thu/17, 6-9pm, free
GLBT Historical Society
657 Mission St, Suite 300
www.glbthistory.org

‘Best of British Noir’ bonanza of shadiness

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September 10, 2009

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By Max Goldberg

Lady, It Always Rains on Sunday

That undisputed champ of repertory programming, film noir, is getting a good workout during otherwise sunny September. Elliot Lavine combs the Columbia vaults for a 22-film Roxie bonanza, while the Castro Theatre and Pacific Film Archive look across the pond for a touch of "tea and larceny." Even if it’s disingenuous to label these Anglo entries as noir — the camera angles are right, the mannered scripts not so much — the down-and-out British crime films make for a fascinating mirror image to their American counterparts, not least for the visible evidence of World War II trauma. The rarity-heavy PFA series will better satisfy the buff, but only a fool would pass up a week’s worth of Rialto restoration prints at the Castro. Three of the five films are Graham Greene affairs, including a long-overdue re-release of Brighton Rock (1947). The real discovery of the series, however, is Robert Hamer’s It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), an unusual mélange of kitchen-sink drama, Dostoyevskian moral tale, and on-the-lam thriller. If the steady downpour is pure noir, the film’s narrative is less typical. Instead of concentrating trauma and repression into a single (male) figure, Hamer spreads it around an entire East London neighborhood. There is a escaped convict at the center of the story who looks every bit the seductive part, but in spite of a stylish chase finale, Hamer is more interested in the drab corners of ordinary deceit. His resourceful dramatizations of working class spaces — and specifically their lack of privacy — are consumed with an anxiety far in excess of the film’s serviceable plot.

RIALTO’S BEST OF BRITISH NOIR Sept. 11–16, $10. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120, www.thecastrotheatre.com

Film review: “A Woman in Berlin”

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September 9, 2009

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By Louis Peitzman

As titles go, A Woman in Berlin is rather vague. A clearer option, to borrow from a popular children’s books series, would be A Series of Unfortunate Events. Based on a true story published anonymously by, well, a woman in Berlin, the film recounts the tribulations faced by German women at the end of World War II. As the Russian army occupies Berlin, these ladies must defend themselves against rape and domination while they await their husbands’ return. It’s a dark chapter in history — and a frequently forgotten one at that. But though A Woman in Berlin may be an important film, it’s not a good one. Without the cinematic flair required to handle a story of this magnitude, writer-director Max Färberböck turns the movie into something monotonous and draining. The characters are morally ambiguous but not interesting; the plot is depressing but tedious. I’m reminded of a quote from The History Boys (2006), another film that touches on (albeit briefly) the atrocities of the second world war: “How do I define history? It’s just one fuckin’ thing after another.”

A Woman in Berlin opens Fri/11 in Bay Area theaters.

A blip in Northern Sky

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September 8, 2009

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DVD REVIEW If a Viking takes a shit in the woods, will anyone care? I asked myself this after watching Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America, an admirable if somewhat aimless and altogether odd duck of an independent film. Believe me, I wanted to love this movie more. The press release couldn’t have made it sound any cooler: Vikings lost in the New World in 1007! A black metal soundtrack! They terrorize Irish monks! It’s in Old Norse! Duuuuuude!

All those elements do come into play in this shoestring historic epic, but Severed Ways ultimately becomes as directionless as its stranded protagonists. At the very least, director Tony Stone, who also wrote, edited, and stars in the production, deserves credit for his dogged persistence of vision, even if the final product feels like sitting through the collected outtakes of reenactments from a History Channel documentary.

Based on the real expedition by Thorfinn Karlsefni, an Icelander who planned to settle in the New World, Severed Ways follows errant warriors Orn (Stone) and Volnard (Fiore Tedesco) as they set out into the wilds of North America in hopes of finding others of their kind, having narrowly survived a raid by indigenous peoples (whom they call "skraelings"). Most of the film consists of Orn and Volnard wandering, and then wandering some more. In lieu of a narrative, Stone instead focuses — almost obsessively — on the crude, dull, details of day-to-day survival: we see the Vikings fell trees and build lean-tos; Orn sloppily beheads and butchers an actual chicken; and, in what has to be the film’s biggest WTF moment, we also see him take a gargantuan dump, using nearby foliage as TP.

In its strongest moments, Stone’s warts-and-all aesthetic and borderline-vérité commitment to realism evokes Herzog circa Fitzcarraldo (1982) or Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972). Stone’s two cinematographers — shooting in digital — capture some lovely shots of the wild beauty of the Viking’s alien surroundings. And the film’s unhurried editing and tableau-like shots convey both the uncertainty and monotony of the Vikings’ experience as lone strangers in a strange land.

However, these moments are few and far between. And if Stone harbored any loftier intentions of conveying the emotional and spiritual depths of roughing it, they are hamstrung by the film’s heavy metal frippery, most notably a hilarious but totally random shot of Orn headbanging and some awkward translations of the Old Norse dialogue ("We’re toast if we stay here"). And it is here that Stone’s taste in black metal should be questioned. The much-hyped soundtrack is a disappointment, with the majority of the synth-strings heavy ambient metal tracks simply not suiting the film’s po-faced tone. Some harder, more buzz-filled and, well, genuinely darker, selections would’ve been appreciated. A map wouldn’t have hurt either.

A time to love

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September 8, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

The international independent film community may be sprawling in size — separated by continents, countries, and language — but it’s united by a love for film, and a desire to share that passion. That’s why, during a predawn night in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, a late evening in Slovenia and Europe, and an early afternoon in the United States and Canada, hundreds of people found themselves in shock after learning of the senseless deaths of film critics Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc, killed Sept. 1 as their home was robbed in Quezon City, Manila.

To speak of Tioseco, a Filipino raised in Canada who returned to Manila, and Bohinc, a Slovenian based in Ljubljana until recently, is to speak of film, cinephilia, and love; it is also to speak of how we can create deep bonds with people scattered across the globe whom we see only once or twice a year, if that, but to whom we still feel united due to a common cause. Though I was in yet another part of the world, I was fortunate to have known and counted as Alexis and Nika as friends, even though I had only seen them at festivals here and there and in their Quezon City home. Judging from a fledgling memorial on Facebook, others feel just as connected to the two. That’s partly because of the closeness of the film community, and partly because of the effect they had on people.

Having returned "home" to Manila to assist with the family business, Alexis (ever the good son) found himself running it after his father passed away. His true passion, though, was cinema. It was Lav Diaz’s Batang, West Side (2001) that changed his outlook on film, and a 12-page interview with Diaz that changed his future. After that the early 20-something kid with the bright eyes and brighter mind dedicated himself (or as much of himself as he could spare, after the family business) to film, and specifically Filipino film.

"While I love cinema in general, a passion that has grown exponentially over the years, I feel no need to put myself in service of that which doesn’t need it [Hollywood]," he wrote in a moving article in Rogue magazine. "Philippine cinema has given much to me, and one must pay back one’s debts." He became a film professor and film critic, and was the driving force behind arguably the most influential, intelligent blog on Southeast Asian cinema, www.criticine.com. In 2006 (at 25!), he was named by The Philippine Star as "one of the most important young people in the country today" for his efforts to promote his nation’s cinema.

Born and raised in Slovenia (about as far from the Philippines as one can get), Nika was also one of those young protégés who make the rest of us feel guilty for pissing away our youth. In her 20s she edited Ekran, a major film magazine, and helped organized the highly-regarded Isola Cinema Film Festival. A huge admirer and promoter of American (and Californian) experimental filmmakers like James Benning, Bruce Conner, and Lewis Klahr, she was also active in the Ljubljana Film Festival and IndieLisboa, and had begun promoting Slovenian films to other festivals.

In 2007 the two met at the Rotterdam Film Festival. Both had been able, fortunately, to overcome the vast difficulties facing writers from "smaller" nations when it comes to attending festivals. There will be Americans, Brits, Western Europeans galore, Japanese, Canadians, and Koreans all over, but unfortunately very few representatives from anywhere else. Both Alexis and Nika were able to finagle funds, festival invitations, and jury memberships to help their travels. "I never expected to have the opportunity to travel for/from film, especially not on the expenses of others, but slowly the opportunities presented themselves," Alexis wrote. "Traveling is a privilege, and not one that I take lightly."

I also met them for the first time at Rotterdam. I was there when they were introduced by our mutual friend, John Torres. I remember bonding with Alexis and Nika immediately. The festival environment, while filled with fellow travelers, is also intimidating, alienating, and totally full of shit, so individuals as grounded, personable, and truthful as the both of them stand out. Both inspired ease and good humor, easy laughter, and most of all talk, not of film or "cinema," but of ourselves, our lives and loves and utter disasters, and, of course, idle gossip about everyone else.

A few days later Alexis told me of a crush he had on someone there. "That tall blonde Slovenian?" I asked immediately. I knew the answer before he confirmed. We all did.

From there the two split their lives across the world, wherever film and whenever airfare could be found. Rotterdam, Berlin, Oberhausen, Paris, and finally, Slovenia and Manila. In 2007 they had had enough of seeing one another only during festivals (there’s more to life than film, after all, but not much more). Nika visited Manila for two months (choosing July and August, a trial-by-fire or sweltering heat if ever there was one).

My wife and I visited them in mid-August of that year, staying with them at the Quezon City home now marked by tragedy. We have many wonderful memories of that time, all capped by Alexis’ and Nika’s amazing hospitality and friendship. We had only spent a few days together over the course of two years, but he treated us like long-time friends (something I would guess he has done to many people). We continued the bond over film. I brought them bootlegs of Nicholas Ray, Aki Kaurismaki, and Milos Forman; he gave me Ismael Bernal, Raymond Red, and, like any proud Filipino film buff, took us to a source of true pride: Manila’s vast pirated-DVD malls.

During one calm moment, Nika, still adjusting to the growing pains of beginning to live with a lover (much less relocating halfway around the world), asked my wife, "How did you know that he was the one for you?"

"I just knew, almost immediately," my wife replied. "You will, too."

My wife and I won’t associate their Quezon City home with the tragedy that befell them. Instead, we’ll remember Nika looking up from Alexis’s bed, across a pile of bootleg DVDs, with a 35mm print of Batang West Side on the floor and copies of Ekran on the chair, and quietly saying, "You’re right. I think I knew, too."

"The first impulse of any good film critic, and to this I think you would agree, must be of love," Alexis wrote to Nika a year later in Rogue. For all of us lucky to be a part of the film community, this love — for film, and for the friends we have made along the way who share it — is what unites us. It’s also what keeps our friendships going, even when we haven’t reached out to one another in months or years. And it’s what will keep people like Alexis and Nika in our hearts for a long, long time. Their true home still exists, in the words they wrote, the friendships they made, and the love they shared with us all. Our condolences to their family, friends, and loved ones.

Jason Sanders is Film Research Associate at Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. A version of this piece was first published in Filmmaker magazine’s blog at www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog.

To read the full article from Alexis to Nika, visit Rogue Magazine at http://rogue.ph/columns/entry/the_letter_i_would_love_to_read_to_you_in_person/P1/

Alexis Tioseco’s Criticine Web site can be found at www.criticine.com, and his writing can also be found as www.alexistioseco.wordpress.com

Lights, camera, kink!

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September 8, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

For most of us, erotic film is more a means to an end than an event unto itself — not to mention something to be enjoyed in private. This month, Good Vibrations offers a prime opportunity to break free from that conception and celebrate erotica in a thoroughly public way. On Sept. 17, the Good Vibrations Independent Erotic Film Festival returns to the Castro Theatre: two hosts, 11 finalists, and countless displays of kink, fetish, and good old-fashioned perversion.

According to festival director Camilla Lombard, Good Vibes received 50 submissions from all over the world. What was once regional has become international, and the formerly one-night event is being spread out across an entire week. Starting Sept. 12, Good Vibes is hosting a series of events, including a "Blue Movie Night" and a screening of the classic The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) — with Miss Jones herself, Georgina Spelvin, in attendance.

The climax (no pun intended) is the Sept. 17 Castro Theatre screening, hosted by Peaches Christ and Dr. Carol Queen. Audience members will vote on the short films, which range from softcore to hardcore, sexy to sexier. The linking characteristic of these pieces is their objectivity — it’s not about what the mainstream porn industry says is hot. It’s up to the filmmakers and, naturally, their audience to decide.

Travis Mathews’ In Their Room finds its eroticism in the reality of male sexuality rather than in the act itself. Mathews interviewed a group of BUTT magazine readers in their bedrooms, getting his subjects to uncover themselves — literally and figuratively.

"I think we’re so desensitized in the traditional realm of what’s erotic and what’s pornographic that it just becomes not sexy," he explains. "The things that are interesting to me in porn are the little glimpses of things that are real or are authentic or mess-ups."

Though more explicit, Let Me Tell You John Cameron Mitchell by Paul Festa is equally unconventional. His piece was edited down from his audition tape for John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (2006). A "remix" of the original, Festa’s short fits with the festival’s theme of subjective appreciation. As he puts it, "When you remove what you thought was the heart of it, it actually gives the reader or viewer something to do."

And then there are films with no nudity at all, like Nara Denning’s Neurotique No. 4, a strange silent movie that hints at the erotic but remains essentially chaste. Denning shares a sentiment similar to Festa’s: "I left it kind of open for [the audience] to interpret."

Unless you’re an open-minded pansexual hornball, there’s a good chance you won’t find all 11 films arousing, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Good Vibes intends their fest to be about choice and diversity, not about getting off — though standing O’s (pun fully intended) are not discouraged, of course.

GOOD VIBRATIONS INDEPENDENT EROTIC FILM FESTIVAL Sept 12–17, various venues and prices, www.gv-ixff.org/film

Rialto’s Best of British Noir

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September 8, 2009

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PREVIEW That undisputed champ of repertory programming, film noir, is getting a good workout during otherwise sunny September. Elliot Lavine combs the Columbia vaults for a 22-film Roxie bonanza, while the Castro Theatre and Pacific Film Archive look across the pond for a touch of "tea and larceny." Even if it’s disingenuous to label these Anglo entries as noir — the camera angles are right, the mannered scripts not so much — the down-and-out British crime films make for a fascinating mirror image to their American counterparts, not least for the visible evidence of World War II trauma. The rarity-heavy PFA series will better satisfy the buff, but only a fool would pass up a week’s worth of Rialto restoration prints at the Castro. Three of the five films are Graham Greene affairs, including a long-overdue re-release of Brighton Rock (1947). The real discovery of the series, however, is Robert Hamer’s It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), an unusual mélange of kitchen-sink drama, Dostoyevskian moral tale, and on-the-lam thriller. If the steady downpour is pure noir, the film’s narrative is less typical. Instead of concentrating trauma and repression into a single (male) figure, Hamer spreads it around an entire East London neighborhood. There is an escaped convict at the center of the story who looks every bit the seductive part, but in spite of a stylish chase finale, Hamer is more interested in the drab corners of ordinary deceit. His resourceful dramatizations of working class spaces — and specifically their lack of privacy — are consumed with an anxiety far in excess of the film’s serviceable plot.

RIALTO’S BEST OF BRITISH NOIR Sept. 11–16, $10. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120, www.thecastrotheatre.com

Events listings

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September 8, 2009

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Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 9

Beatles Day Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF; (415) 831-1200. 11am-8pm, free. Celebrate the release of the newly remastered Beatles CDs with Beatles DJ sets, fab four trivia and giveaways, a Beatles cover band, and a Beatles look-like contest.

THURSDAY 10

Red Vic Benefit Mercury Café, 201 Octavia, SF; (415) 252-7855. 7pm, $10-30 sliding scale. Help out your favorite local rep house while having a good time at this benefit featuring live music by Tango No.9 and Toshio Hirano, silent auction with art and film-related items, and a raffle.

Supergirls Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; (415) CAR-TOON. 7pm, free. Hear Mike Madrid, author of The Supergirls, discuss the cultural history of the superheroine, like how their search for identity, battle for equality, and juggling the dual roles of career and motherhood mirrors real life. Wine tasting hosted by Small Vines Wines.

FRIDAY 11

Neighborhood Free Days California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 379-8000. 9:30am-5pm, Friday – Sunday; free for select zip codes. Visit www.calacademy.org to find out which weekend your SF zip code will gain you free admission to the museum. This weekend’s lucky residents are from Sunset, Parkside, Stonestown, Lakeshore, and St. Francis Woods.

Party for the People SubMission, 2183 Mission, SF; (415) 431-4210. 8:30pm, $5-20 sliding scale. Enjoy live Latin music, DJs, raffles, fresh Mexican juices, and veggie tacos at this event where all proceeds will benefit PODER, a Mission/Excelsior District community organization where local youth lead environmental justice projects.

SATURDAY 12

Babylon Salon Cantina, 580 Sutter, SF; (415) 398-0195. 8pm, free. This literary night features performances by well known authors Pamela Uschuk and Daniel Alarcon and emerging writers Anthony Gonzales, K.G. Schneider, and Michela Martini.

IXFF Kick-off Party El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325. 9pm, $7. Celebrate Good Vibrations’ Fourth Annual Independent Erotic Film Festival with a special screening of Courtney Trouble’s new film, Speakeasy, music with DJ Justin Credible, prizes, and more.

Power to the Peaceful Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.powertothepeaceful.org. 9am-5pm; free, donations accepted. This music, arts, action, and yoga festival featuring performances by Michael Franti and Spearhead, Alanis Morissette, Sellassie, and more is dedicated to issues of social justice, non-violence, cultural co-existence, and environmental sustainability.

BAY AREA

Crossword Puzzle Tournament Alameda High School Cafeteria, 2250 Central, Alameda; www.bayareacrosswords.org. 10:30am, $30. Challenge yourself with some crossword competition at the second annual Bay Area Crossword Puzzle Tournament, featuring three unpublished New York Times puzzles donated by the legendary Will Shortz.

SUNDAY 13

BAY AREA

Dash for a Cure Oakland Aviation Museum, 8252 Earhart Rd., Bldg 621, Oakland International Airport, Oak.; (510) 638-7100. 2pm, free. Experience, through video clips, photos and PowerPoint, the thrilling account of CarolAnn Garratt ‘s World Record breaking flight around the world to raise money and awareness for ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

MONDAY 14

Fixing U.S. Healthcare Commonwealth Club, 2nd floor, 595 Market, SF; (415) 597-6700. Noon, $15. Hear T.R. Reid, correspondent for the Washington Post, commentator for NPR, and author of The Healing of America, weigh in on whether or not the U.S. can really fix healthcare and how we can learn from health-care models across the globe.

*

Hot sex events this week: September 9-15

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September 8, 2009

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

It’s a week of film, fun, and frolic at the Independent Erotic Film Festival, starting Saturday.

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>> Secret Desires: Playing with Erotic Edges
Cleo Dubois, BDSM educator and creator of the Academy of SM Arts, will help you explore your erotic edges and demonstrate ways to play with the ones you find most exciting.

Wed/9, 8pm. $25-$30/pair.
Good Vibes Valencia Store
603 Valencia, SF
(415) 522-5460
www.events.goodvibes.com

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>> Red Hots Burlesque
Dottie Lux brings a different show of dazzling performers every week.

Fri/11, 7:30pm. $5-$10
El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF
www.redhotsburlesque.com

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>> Jeeti Singh Art Opening Reception
FP Edge and Madame S present body image in a new light with an exhibition of artwork by painter Jeeti Singh, whose subjects face their insecurities. Exhibit runs through December 12, with special reception this Saturday.

Sat/12, 7-9pm. Free.
Madame S, 385 Eighth St, SF
www.fpedge.com

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>> Independent Erotic Film Festival
Good Vibrations’ week of films and events kicks off with a party at El Rio (Sat/12, 9pm. $7. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF), continues with a vintage movie night hosted by Dr. Carol Queen (Sun/13, 9pm. $8. Amnesia, 853 Valencia, SF), and features BDSM – It’s Not What You Think screening and Q&A with director Erin Palmquist (Tue/15, 7:30pm. $10. Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission, SF). Check the website for more information and the following week’s events.

Sat/12-Sept 17. Times, locations, and prices vary.
www.gv-ixff.org

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>> Sacred Pain: The Heroine’s Journey
Omg it’s a BDSM musical. Seriously. The performing arts group Sacred Pain presents an edgy blend of musical theater and avant garde performance, including clever musical covers, parodies, and originals – all produced and written by former Cockettes member Jack Killough.

Sat/12, 9pm. $30.
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
1519 Mission, SF.
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/78007

Hot sex events this week: September 2-8

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September 2, 2009

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

This yummy image may be a still from next week’s Erotic Film Festival, but it makes us want to get frisky a little early. Check out some bare torsos this week at Nipple Play at Powerhouse.

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>> Nipple Play
First Wednesday means time to take off your shirt, pull out some cash, and enjoy drink specials like the $3 Pink Nipple Cocktail or the $1 Twisted Nipple Shot.

Wed/2, 9pm. Free.
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
(415) 552-8689
www.powerhouse-sf.com

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>> Open Eyes Queer Film Night
Get ready to rock out to some seriously gay music videos in this month’s installment of local artist’s provocative, critical, and/or engaging films curated by Stephanie Yang (and enhanced with discussion, popcorn, and beer).

Fri/4, 7:30pm. $10-$15.
Femina Potens
2199 Market, SF
www.feminapotens.org

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>> School of Shimmy: Red Hots Burlesque Showcase
Graduates of Dottie Lux’s popular burlesque series perform alongside SF veterans.

Fri/4, 7:30pm. $5.
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
www.redhotsburlesque.com

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>> Jeeti Singh Art Exhibit at Madame S
FP Edge and Madame S present body image in a new light with an exhibition of artwork by painter Jeeti Singh, whose subjects face their insecurities.

Runs Sept. 7-Dec. 12, 11am-7pm.
Madame S
385 Eighth St, SF
www.fpedge.com

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>> Ask Our Doctors: the Prostate
With a little know-how, you can have lots of prostate fun – either on your own or with a partner. Dr. Charlie Glickman will tell you everything you need to know to get started on this overlooked and undervalued pleasure spot.

Tue/8, 6:30pm. Free.
Good Vibrations Valencia Store
603 Valencia, SF
(415) 522-5460
www.events.goodvibes.com

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American hardcore

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September 2, 2009

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X-RATED CLASSICS A sexploitation lifer who reportedly has directed so many features even he doesn’t know how many, Joe Sarno is nonetheless also enough of an idiosyncratic talent to have won a cult following and some high-culture-institution retrospectives. No education in psychotronic cinema is complete without the likes of 1962’s Sin in the Suburbs, a B&W exposé of swinger "bottle parties" that defines just how lurid movies could seem before they were actually allowed to show anything, and 1972’s Young Playthings, the rare erotic film one might — even must — call "Pirandello-esque."

Though he confessed to being shocked at first, Sarno didn’t blink in making the transition from softcore to hardcore, though his output finally slowed in the ’80s. Alternative Cinema has taken on the task of releasing as much of this voluminous oeuvre as possible to DVD, including some films long thought lost. (They also induced his filmmaking return — at age 83! — via 2004’s Suburban Secrets.)

The latest releases represent both his 1960s monochrome melodrama period and a mid-1970s sojourn into goofy sex comedies, the latter often available in "hard" and "soft" versions. Shoestring 1968 production All the Sins of Sodom was shot when "adults only" films could expose breasts, but nothing more beyond a lot of sexy (albeit nonprofane) situations and talk — which fortunately Sarno was most excellent at writing.

Nudes photographer Henning gets involved with several models while obsessively searching for a particular "look." He urges them on, shouting things like "More feeling! More EVIL!" à la Austin Powers. Purportedly shot over a long weekend, its cast names never even recorded, it’s a claustrophobic weirdie recalling such exploitation zeniths as Roger Corman’s Teenage Doll (1957) and Andy Milligan’s Fleshpot on 42nd St (1973).

Its gorgeous widescreen B&W restoration stands opposed to three-color features on the Deep Throat Sex Comedy Collection. Their visual quality (and variably complete edits) underline the ephemeral nature of movies often sporadically released at best originally, and that no one thought to "preserve." The headline attraction, Deep Throat II, was a spectacular 1974 flop inaccessible even to bootleggers until now. It reunited the original "porn chic" smash’s stars Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems — albeit in an aggressively dumb, atypically amateur (for Sarno) espionage spoof nobody liked. Dubious authority Al Goldstein called it "the worst movie ever made" because it committed the ultimate sin of omitting all graphic sex, even Linda’s signature oral party trick. (Rumors persisted for years that hardcore scenes were shot, then lost, in a lab fire.)

The other two Sex Comedy inclusions are equally rare but more rewarding. Likewise featuring a range of famous vintage porn stars, The Switch, Or How To Alter Your Ego and A Touch of Genie (both from 1974) each have their own inimitable softcore charms. Female Jekyll/Hyde spin Switch debuts long-term Sarno fave Mary Mendum as a scientific researcher whose formula turns her from unconvincing Plain Jane into a raving beauty who perpetually arouses others, male and female. Starting out in a burlesque-humor mode, it gets surprisingly darker as it goes along.

Genie is about Melvin Finklefarb, a Woody Allen-like nebbish granted five wishes by a junkshop’s bottled Barbara Eden aspirant. In one "wish," he’s Harry Reems. Evidently video-transferred Switch comes with mysterious (Danish?) subtitles; Genie‘s 35mm source is streaked and spotted. Apparently no better prints exist. Particularly ingratiating are Sarno’s invariably kind recollections in the extras — either he never met a performer he didn’t like, or they all liked him enough to be on their best behavior.

www.alternativecinema.com

Unbuckling the swashbuckler

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September 2, 2009

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REVIEW Given the phenomenal success of Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, a revival of appreciation for the granddaddy of all cinematic swashbucklers, Douglas Fairbanks, is long overdue. Perfect accompaniment for home entertainment viewing of the silent film star arrives in the form of film historian Jeffrey Vance’s gorgeously laid out biography Douglas Fairbanks (University of California Press, 376 pages, $45).

Douglas Fairbanks was published with the assistance of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, so perhaps it’s to be expected that the prose sometimes skirts close to hagiography. But Vance, who has authored studies of Buster Keaton, Charles Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd, knows his silent film history. He provides a wealth of information about the productions of Fairbanks’ major pictures (including 1920’s The Mark of Zorro, 1921’s The Three Musketeers, 1922’s Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood, 1924’s The Thief of Bagdad, and 1926’s The Black Pirate). The chapters about the big costume epics are bracketed by discussions of the earlier non-costume silents and the few sound projects Fairbanks worked on. Throughout, the text is complemented by beautiful reproductions of photos of Fairbanks and his friends and family on and off set.

Audiences came to expect incredible displays of acrobatic athleticism from the one-time stage actor. "There was no living man as graceful," says Allan Dwan, who directed several Fairbanks pictures. Upon scouting locations at the Grand Canyon for A Modern Musketeer (1917), Fairbanks commented that he was disappointed because "I couldn’t jump it."

Vance argues that Fairbanks was instrumental in shaping most aspects of his productions, which wielded a major influence on 20th century pop culture. Errol Flynn grew up worshipping Fairbanks and saluted his hero by starring in his own version of the Robin Hood story (1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood). Bob Kane, creator of Batman, tells Vance that Fairbanks’s depiction of Zorro ("a fop by day and a crusader at night") inspired the caped crusader’s costume, secret lair, and dual identity. Vance argues that Superman bore a heavy Fairbanks influence. Fairbanks also receives credit for popularizing the dark suntan, leaving us to wonder where George Hamilton or the Sonny Bono Cocoa Butter Open would have been without the great man’s example.

After he left his first wife for Mary Pickford, the actress dubbed "America’s sweetheart," Fairbanks climbed to heights of celebrity rarely attained by movie actors in the 1920s. Perhaps only Chaplin rivaled his peak fame. When Pickford and Fairbanks arrived in London in 1920, their entourage was mobbed, leaving Pickford briefly in fear for her life. From all indications they adjusted fairly well to this state of affairs, since both relished the limelight (Alexander Woolcott describes their post-marital jaunt as "the most exhausting and conspicuous honeymoon in the history of the marriage institution"). In order to gain more creative and financial control over their work, the couple used their new clout to join Chaplin and D.W. Griffith in founding United Artists.

Eighty-plus years on, the Fairbanks charisma can still wow an audience. And, at the risk of stressing the deadly obvious, DVD viewing really cannot do full justice to spectaculars made for the silver screen. At this year’s Silent Film Festival at the Castro Theatre, I had the privilege of taking in the 1927 feature Douglas Fairbanks in The Gaucho, which included plenty of leaping — and some tremendous vine-swinging which had the packed house screaming with pleasure. By that point well into his 40s and seemingly attempting to set a record for cinematic chain-smoking, Fairbanks was still near the acme of his physical powers. Portraying a more complex, jaded hero than in his earlier movies, he had put aside his discomfort with love scenes, thanks partly to co-star Lupe Velez, with whom he was having an affair. Ironically, Pickford appears in the film as an apparition of the Virgin Mary.

A dear friend who attended all of the Silent Film Festival responded to a questionnaire asking her to name the highlight of the weekend by writing "Douglas Fairbanks’ ass." Clearly, though he is dead and gone, his star shines on.

Nuclear implosion

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September 2, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 1998 After Life stepped into a bureaucratic beyond. His 2001 Distance probed the aftermath of a religious cult’s mass suicide. Likewise loosely inspired by fact, Nobody Knows (2004) charted the survival of an abandoning mother’s practically feral children in a Tokyo apartment. 2006’s Hana was a splashy samurai story — albeit one atypically resistant to conventional action.

Despite their shared character nuance, these prior features don’t quite prepare one for the very ordinary milieu and domestic dramatics of Still Walking. Kore-eda’s latest recalls no less than Ozu in its seemingly casual yet meticulous dissection of a broken family still awkwardly bound — if just for one last visit — by the onerous traditions and institution of "family" itself. There’s no conceptually hooky lure here. Yet Walking is arguably both Kore-eda’s finest hour so far, and as emotionally rich a movie experience as 2009 has yet afforded.

One day every summer the entire Yokohama clan assembles to commemorate an eldest son’s accidental death 15 years earlier. This duty calls, even if art restorer Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) chafes at retired M.D. dad’s (Yoshio Harada) obvious disappointment over his career choice, at the insensitivity of his chatterbox mum (Kiri Kirin), and at being eternally compared to a retroactively sainted sibling. Even more so now that Ryo now has a bride (Yui Natsukawa) and son (Shohei Tanaka) eager to please their new in-laws — though they’re already damned as widow and another man’s child.

Not subject to such evaluative harshness is many-foibled sole Yokohama daughter Chinami (Nobody Knows‘ oblivious, helium-voiced mum You). Simply because she’s a girl — so dim-bulb husband and running-wild kids get the pass stern grandpa denies prodigal son Ryo and company. Small crises, subtle tensions, the routines of food preparation, and other minutae ghost-drive a narrative whose warm, familiar, pained, touching, and sometimes hilarious progress seldom leaves the small-town parental home interior — yet never feels claustrophobic in the least.

There’s a whiff of compromise in a coda that feels compelled to spell out the reconciliatory note already hard-won through inference. (Gratuitous sentimentality is a habit Japanese non-genre cinema often finds hard to kick.) Nonetheless, this is Kore-eda’s most truly naturalistic, let alone Ozu-like film since his first — the comparatively bleak 1995 Maborosi — as well as a dysfunctional-family seriocomedy uncommonly beautiful inside and out. It’s a quietly funny and insightful two hours capable of inducing one pretty ecstatic afterglow.

STILL WALKING opens Fri/4 in Bay Area theaters.

Davila 666, Mannequin Men, NoBunny, Bridez

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September 1, 2009

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PREVIEW Working its way through the ranks of punk rock’s prestigious pantheon, Puerto Rico’s Davila 666 is held in the same regard as King Khan and Black Lips, even sounding kinda Ramones-ish at times. Its debut self-titled release is on the label that can do no wrong, In the Red. Expect an onslaught of guitar fuzz, jangle, and theatrics, sung entirely en Español!

Co-headlining for the night is the Midwest’s own Mannequin Men. With a fresh summer release under their belt, Lose Your Illusion (Flameshovel), the boys take time out from "professionally" DJ-ing various Chicago bars and clubs to join the tour. According to the guy who books them, they like to spin in their downtime. Notorious for having an appetite for destruction all their own, the quartet should be in rare form on stage. They have a song called "WTF LOL" dedicated to the kids and their computer lingo. At first I wasn’t sure if I should be annoyed or amused. I’ll let you be the judge.

Not to be outdone, Oakland’s nomadic NoBunny is East Bay garage rock’s answer to the Jim Henson-esque perverse puppets from the 1989 film Meet the Feebles. The sleaze rocker’s mangy Muppet-like mask probably smells as rotten as it looks. But it’s his sound that’s oh so sweet. He’s got a soft spot for oldies and does campy, quirky lo-fi homages. Check out his filthiness, cuz he’ll (probably) sing in his undies. In contrast, SF’s Bridez will add a "lady’s" touch to the evening. It’s hard to imagine the walls of Thee (tiny) Parkside containing all this rawk. Somehow I think it’ll manage.

DAVILA 666, MANNEQUIN MEN, NOBUNNY, BRIDEZ Copresented by Thee Parkisde and KUSF. Wed/2, 8 p.m., $10, 21 and over. Thee Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. (415) 252-1330. www.theeparkside.com

Bliss

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September 1, 2009

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REVIEW American regional differences and disparities between rural and urban culture have nothing on their Turkish counterparts. Abdullah Oguz’s Bliss (a title that initially seems cruelly ironic) begins in a village in eastern Turkey where Islamic law still dictates that women be killed for breaches of sexual purity, even when they are victims of rape. Young Meryem (Ozgu Namal) shudders in isolation in a shed, receiving food and deprecation from her stepmother. All that is apparent in the beginning is that there has been some sort of transgression which dictates that a young male relative escort her out of the village to be sacrificed in order to restore the honor of the family. That duty falls on Cemal (Murat Han), her seemingly impassive distant cousin who has just returned from military service. What is initially perceived as a simple task by Cemal becomes complicated as he quietly develops affection for Meryem despite his outward hostility. The culture clash becomes evident when they arrive in Istanbul, and Cemal’s task is received with disdain by a family member who declares that Istanbul is no place for his backwoods customs. A military bud is more diplomatic and provides the awkward duo a remote hiding place related to his fishery business, an act of kindness that can hopefully spare Cemal from the rage of the village elder who ordered the honor killing. As the taciturn two — Meryem tremulous and Cemal brooding — befriend a progressive professor (Talat Bulut), on the run from a stiflingly bourgeois existence, who takes them aboard his sailboat, the tone shifts. At once bliss, however improbable, seems possible. Though Meryem and the professor are more readily sympathetic characters, it is Cemal who is the most intriguing and who represents the power of the film — the quiet, conflicted, and gradual revelations that constitute the necessary pains of progress, both psychological and societal.

BLISS opens Fri/4 at the Roxie.

Film review: “Daytime Drinking”

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August 27, 2009

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By Laura Swanbeck

Hyuk-jin (Sam-dong Song), the lead in Daytime Drinking, must have a liver made of steel. During the first of many late-night drinking binges, complete with soju, the traditional Korean alcohol of choice, Hyuk-jin’s buddies persuade him to take a trip with them to Jeongseong to help him recover from his recent break up. Once out of Seoul, Hyuk-jin discovers that his friends, all nursing hangovers, have forgotten him and left him to contend with the harsh climate, his loneliness, and a slew of eccentric travelers along the way. Veering into a heightened reality in the grand tradition of Jim Jarmusch, Daytime Drinking finds its leading man toyed with by a temperamental girl, force-fed drinks, drugged, robbed, hit on by a trucker, and verbally abused by a plethora of tourists. Despite this exercise in emotional sadism, director Young-Seok Noh (who also wrote, edited, and produced) has clearly invested a lot even if his contrived film’s initial jolt of energy inevitably peters out, drained like the myriad bottles of soju.

Daytime Drinking is now playing at the Four Star.

Independent Erotic Film Festival

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August 26, 2009

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By Molly Freedenberg

PREVIEW Good Vibrations and Vibratex co-present this year’s celebration of girls (and boys, and bois, and, well, everyone) on film, and we can’t decide what we’re more excited about — the movies themselves or the parties organized to honor them. The week kicks off Sept. 12 with a burlesque-tastic party at El Rio that includes a screening of Courtney Trouble’s Speakeasy; moves straight to Dr. Carol Queen’s peep show, naughty puppets, and vintage erotic cinema at Amnesia Sept. 13; thrusts into the next week with April Flores’ Love Toy Art Show; and slides on into Sept. 17 with a 1960s-style cocktail party-themed competition premiere hosted by Peaches Christ. And that’s just a cross-section of the sultry, sexy events the organizers have planned for the festival’s fourth year. If you can’t find something in this week of fun and film that revs your engine, you might want to get your motor checked.

INDEPENDENT EROTIC FILM FESTIVAL Sept. 12–17, 2009. Locations, times, and prices vary. www.gv-ixff.org

Night repper

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August 26, 2009

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D Tour and Rogue Wave Joe Granato’s award-winning doc about musician Pat Spurgeon, with an acoustic post-screening performance by Spurgeon’s Oakland band. Sept. 3, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; www.sfmoma.org.

"Cocky White Guys" Jesse Hawthorne Ficks of Midnites for Maniacs serves up a triple platter of cockiness: Risky Business (1983), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), and the very closet-gay Last American Virgin (1982). Sept. 4, Castro; www.castrotheatre.com.

"Speechless: Recent Experimental Animation" The program includes the 3-D amazements of local wonder woman Kerry Laitala’s enticingly titled Chromatic Cocktail Extra Fizzy. Sept. 8, Pacific Film Archive; www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

SF Shorts This year’s lineup includes over 60 short films and music videos. Sept. 9-12, Red Vic; www.redvicmoviehouse.com.

Bigger Than Life Nicholas Ray’s gonzo look at suburban family ideals gone amok was too weird for 1956. Todd Haynes has stolen from this movie as much as from any Sirk work. Sept. 10, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; www.ybca.org

Lucha Beach Party Will the Thrill takes his showmanship to the Balboa, along with Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters (1969) and longtime contender for best movie title ever, Wrestling Women vs. Aztec Mummy (1964). Sept. 10, www.thrillville.net

Rialto’s Best of British Noir A chance to see Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) on the big screen. Sept. 11-16, Castro; www.castrotheatre.com.

"Top Bill: The Films of William Klein" The great photographer’s underrated film output gets a thorough survey, ranging from his prescient and sharp 1960s portraits of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali and Eldridge Cleaver to his madcap yet dry looks at fashion in Paris. Sept. 11-Oct. 11, Pacific Film Archive; www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

Independent Erotic Film Festival Good Vibrations presents the event’s fourth incarnation. Highlights include a potential screening of Gerard Damiano’s The Devil in Miss Jones and a program of 1920s peep show reels. Sept. 12-17, various venues; www.gv-ixff.org.

Spectrology Mad Cat Women’s Film Festival presents a one-off screening of a new work by Kerry Laitala. Sept. 16, El Rio; www.madcatfilmfestival.org

Film Noir at the Roxie You can always count on the Roxie to play host to the less obvious dark alleys of noir. Sept. 17-30, Roxie; www.roxie.com

Liverpool Lisandro Alonso’s highly acclaimed 2008 film finally get a SF gig. Sept. 17-20, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; www.ybca.org.

Iranian Film Fest This year’s festival focuses on women’s roles in Iranian society. Sept. 19-20, various venues; www.iranianfilmfestival.blogspot.com.

"Life’s Work: The Cinema of Ermanno Ulmi" A comprehensive retrospective of films by a director known for his masterful renderings of work, such as 1961’s Il posto. Sept. 25-Oct. 30, Pacific Film Archive; www-bampfa.berkeley.edu.

Grease Sing-Along The San Francisco Film Society presents this key 1978 addition to the canon of Randal Kleiser. Sept. 26; www.sffs.org.

The Room Avoid The Room at your peril. Sept. 26. Red Vic; www.redvicmoviehouse.com.

Dario Argento’s Three Mothers Trilogy Together at last: Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980) and Mother of Tears (2007). Be there or be violently stabbed by a hand in a black glove. Oct. 1-4, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; www.ybca.org.

The Red Shoes A new print — which debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 gem. Oct. 1, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; www.sfmoma.org.

Found Footage Festival Trash is a treasure as curators Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher host the fourth incarnation of the event. Oct. 2-3, Red Vic; www.redvicmoviehouse.com.

"Julien Duvivier: Poetic Craftsman of Cinema" The lengthy and perhaps erratic career of the man who made Jean Gabin an icon gets a full treatment. Oct. 2-31, Pacific Film Archive; www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

Barry Jenkins’ Shorts The San Francisco filmmaker shares his work to date, including his feature debut Medicine for Melancholy (2007). Oct. 3, Artists’ Television Access; www.othercinema.com

"Nervous Magic Lantern Peformance: Towards the Depths of the Even Greater Depression" Ken Jacobs in the house, aiming to "get between the eyes, contest the separate halves of the brain" with a magic lantern that uses neither film or video. Oct. 7, Pacific Film Archive; www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

Pink Cinema Revolution A series for the Japanese genre and industry that has schooled some master filmmakers while titilutf8g audiences. Oct. 7-25, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; www.ybca.org.

Robert Beavers The experimental filmmaker’s fall stint in the Bay Area includes four programs presented by SF Cinematheque. Oct. 8-10, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; www.sfmoma.org, www.ybca.org.

"Eyes Upside Down" Great title. A program of films curated by the writer P. Adams Sitney. Oct. 11, www.sfcinematheque.org.

Arab Film Festival This year’s festival lasts ten days. Oct. 15-24, various venues; www.aff.org

French Cinema Now Contemporary film in France condensed into a series. Oct. 29-Nov. 4, Sundance Kabuki; www.sffs.org.

Halloween Gore ‘n’ Snorefest Thrillville returns to the Balboa with Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988) and Zontar, the Thing From Venus (1966). If only the characters of these movies could time travel to meet one another. Oct. 29; www.thrillville.net.

"Running Up That Hill" Michael Robinson, creator of the eye-blinding and hilarious video Light is Waiting (2007), borrows a title from Kate Bush for this program, which he’s curated. Nov. 6, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; www.ybca.org.

It Came from Kuchar Jennifer Kroot’s documentary about the Kuchar brothers hits the screen after raves at Frameline. Nov. 14, Artists’ Television Access; www.othercinema.com.

New Italian Cinema The San Francisco Film Society presents a sample of recent films from Italy. Nov. 15-22, Sundance Kabuki; www.sffs.org.

Recent Restorations: George and Mike Kuchar You can never have too much Kuchar. Dec. 10, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; www.sfmoma.org.

Electric truth

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August 26, 2009

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johnny@sfbg.com

1. New wave of California painting My thoughts on the topic are still percoutf8g, but it will soon be time to take on the inspiring subject of new California painters. Amanda Kirkhuff’s superb oil portrait of Lorena Bobbitt, currently up at [2nd Floor Projects], is one touchstone. Neil Ledoux’s brown invocations at Silverman Gallery earlier this year is another. The next few months bring a blitz of lively, original paintings. Brendan Lott serves up ugly-beautiful America. (Oct.-17-Nov. 14, Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, www.baerridgway.com) Alika Cooper continues her film femme fatale fascination with some Farrah. (Sept. 3-Oct. 17, Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art, www.wolfecontemporary.com) Kim Cogan pictures San Francisco. (September, Hespe Gallery, www.hespe.com) Nancy Chan sets friends floating in space and Matt Momchilov confronts weird normality head on. (Sept. 11-Oct. 17, Eleanor Harwood, www.eleanorharwood.com) But most of all, I’m looking forward to Conrad Ruiz’s sure-to-be-orgasmic debut SF solo show. (Dec. 11-Jan. 23, 2010; Silverman Gallery, www.silverman-gallery.com)

2. "When Lives Become Form: Contemporary Brazilian Art, 1960s to the Present" Tropicália can’t be revived often enough, even if Os Mutantes have — shame, shame — soundtracked a McDonald’s commercial. This survey, which includes fashion and architecture in addition to visual art and music, has been traveling the globe. Finally, SF gets a chance to see the movement Hlio Oiticica built. Nov. 5-Jan. 31, 2010; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, www.ybca.org

3. "Moby Dick" After last fall’s show devoted to L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, CCA Wattis Institute’s trilogy of shows inspired by novels goes fishing for Herman Melville’s biggest catch. The range of artists taking part is impressive, with the likes of Tacita Dean placed next to local talents such as Colter Jacobsen. A number of works by filmmakers — including Buster Keaton, Jean Painlevé, Peter Hutton, and Kenneth Anger — are on deck. Sept. 22-Dec. 12, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, www.wattis.org

4. "On View: Candice Breitz" A working class hero is something to be. Breitz’s video portrait of 25 John Lennon fans singing along to John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (Apple/EMI, 1970) sounds derivative of Phil Collins’ karaoke vids of Smiths fans, but in pop, no ideas are original, and all ideas are meant to be stolen and transformed. Plus the musical source is so damn good. A side video, 2005’s Mother — the title of one of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band‘s best songs — mines cinema. Oct. 1-Dec. 20, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, www.sfmoma.org

5. "Wonderland" Lance Fung’s curatorial idea to bring together 52 artists (43 from San Francisco and nine from other countries) for 10 site-specific projects in the Tenderloin has greater potential than any standard museum or gallery show. Oct. 17-Nov. 14, various sites, www.wonderlandshow.org

6. Photography Decades of work by an autodidact who learned from Warhol, studied under Irving Penn and at least briefly influenced Larry Clark comes together in "Ari Marcopoulos: Within Arm’s Reach," Marcopoulos’s first midcareer survey (Sept. 23-Feb. 7, 2010; Berkeley Art Museum, www.bampfa.org) Charles Gatewood’s raw and candid portraits of celebrities — no, he doesn’t only aim his camera at naked bodies with piercings — are gathered to form a countercultural scrapbook. (Sept. 3-Oct. 31, Robert Tat Gallery, www.roberttat.com) Johan Hagemeyer turns now-endangered California nature into a subject of eternal awe. (Sept. 9-Nov. 3, Scott Nichols Gallery, www.scottnicholsgallery.com) Hiroshi Sugimoto captures the surreal beauty of lightning in a manner Jean Painlevé might admire. (Sept. 10-Oct. 31, Fraenkel Gallery, www.fraenkelgallery.com) And San Francisco itself is the subject of the first entry in the vast retrospective "An Autobiography of the San Francisco Bay Area." Sept. 10-Oct. 31, SF Camerawork, www.sfcamerawork.org

7. "There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak" Where are the wild things this fall? On the movie screen — thanks to Spike Jonze’s adaptation of a children’s classic by Maurice Sendak — and in the museum, where this show presents watercolors, sketches, drawings and dummy books. Sept. 8-Jan. 19, 2010; Contemporary Jewish Museum, www.thecjm.org

8. "Bellwether" As New Langton Arts goes down amid dissent and criticism, the vibrant but at times diffuse Southern Exposure introduces a new Mission District home space with a 10-artist show that includes contributions by Renee Gertler and Lordy Rodriguez. Oct. 17-Dec. 12, Southern Exposure, www.soex.org

9. "The Art of Richard Mayhew" The Museum of the African Diaspora plays host to one-third of a three-part retrospective of the artist and activist’s career. The show includes work from the late 1950s through the 1970s, a time span that includes his beginnings as an artist and his work with Spiral, a group of black artists including Romare Bearden. Oct. 9-Jan. 10, 2010; Museum of the African Diaspora, www.moadsf.org.

10. Solo and duo shows a go go Ara Peterson proves once again that few people chart — and bring dimension to — color with such power. (Nov. 6-Dec. 18, Ratio 3, www.ratio3.org) David Hevel gathers hideously pretty sculptures of Bernie Madoff, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Brangelina. (Sept. 10-Oct. 17, Marx & Zavattero, ww.marxzav.com) The late illustrator Charley Harper — beloved by Todd Oldham — gets a tribute. (Sept. 24-Oct. 31, Altman Siegel Gallery, www.altmansiegel.com) Local minimalist Todd Bura presents another open puzzle. (Sept. 18-Oct. 25, Triple Base, www.basebasebase.com) Pop goes berserk in the works of John De Fazio, and Daniel Minnick reinvents the American photo booth (fall, [2nd floor projects], www.projects2ndfloor.blogspot.com) Katya Bonnenfont proves — with a light and lovely touch, and against most evidence in galleries — that design can be art. (Oct. 22-Dec. 24, Haines Gallery, www.hainesgallery.com) And last, Luke Butler brings hotness and comedy together through razor-sharp collage. Sept. 11-Oct. 17, Silverman Gallery, www.silverman-gallery.com.

No brainer

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August 26, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

FALL ARTS PREVIEW Who would have pictured Green Day’s anthemic 2004 punk-rock concept album, American Idiot (Reprise), as the stuff of musicals? It took merely two unlikely kindred spirits, meeting in the fall of 2007 for the first time: the Oakland band’s lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong and Tony-winning Spring Awakening director Michael Mayer.

Armstrong — that punk-rock diehard who even now plays Gilman with his side project Pinhead Gunpowder? Turns out that as a tyke growing up in Rodeo, he serenaded the elderly and infirm in local hospitals with standards and show tunes from musicals like Oliver! and Annie Get Your Gun.

"That’s how I learned how to sing," says Armstrong, laid back and low-key in stark contrast to the manic rabble-rouser who’ll soon take command over a stage at San Jose’s HP Pavilion. He’s on the phone from his Oakland home during a brief stop in Green Day’s arena tour for 21st Century Breakdown (Reprise), the follow-up to American Idiot. "There’s a real old-school craft to it," he continues, measuring that quality against Shrek, Legally Blond, and other recent disposable Broadway musicals. "That’s kind of a corny way of doing things, but when you see something like Spring Awakening, it’s … it’s real life, and it’s something that everybody relates to, and it’s inspiring and emotional. American Idiot was really tailor-made for something like this to happen to it, y’know."

At the same time that Armstrong tried to heal the ailing with music — and ’80s-era punks everywhere greeted "Morning in America" with a snarl — the generation-older Mayer was earning his MFA on the other side of the country in theater at NYU. No surprise, then, that Mayer "felt such a surprising kind of simpatico" on meeting the Green Day leader. "Even though we come from different worlds and are such different people," Mayer says, "you know, at the end of the day, Billie Joe is such a showman! Such a theatrical guy. Not since Al Jolson have I seen someone so in love with the audience and with putting on a performance for them."

Mayer radiates a similar high-wattage intensity, one that’s fully prepared to kick out the jams. Wide-eyed and unblinking behind his black frame specs, clad in a Justice League T-shirt and floppy shorts, he’s hiding out with me in what looks like an old classroom within the downtown Berkeley building enlisted for rehearsals of the musical version of American Idiot. "I feel like where we connect is old school," he says of Armstrong, slapping the table for emphasis. "Tin Pan Alley." Slap. "Vaudeville." Slap. "That’s the music he grew up with. He became a punk-rocker — I became a theater homo!"

Together, Armstrong and Mayer are making a piece of theater that combines the musical’s narrative tradition and holy union of song and dance with a breed of feisty alternative rock fed by the streetwise political punk of Gilman Street. A musical that unites the ironclad craft of the American Songbook and the heady, arena-sized artistic ambition of classic rock. Now, in the wake of the Broadway acclaim of Los Angeles punk vet Stew’s Passing Strange (which also got its start in at Berkeley Repertory in 2006 and has just been transferred to film by Spike Lee), American Idiot appears poised for critical and popular success when it opens Sept. 4.

American Idiot arrives at a time when musical theater is going through a wave of growing pains. The genre is casting about for ideas, whether they are from films like Shrek and Billy Elliott (to cite a Tony success from last year), or — as with Spring Awakening, which spotlit music by Duncan Sheik — from rock songwriters more comfortable with the life of gritty clubs, merch tables, and tour buses than the mountain-moving, time-devouring, and costly group mechanics of putting on a full-tilt musical. Unlike singularly conceived rock operas like the Who’s Tommy, the first notable union of an established rock band and theater on Broadway, so-called juke box musicals — collections of songs by one group like Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys — have met with mixed results.

"There’s a whole variety, like Ring of Fire, the Johnny Cash one, that just haven’t made it," opines Michael Kantor, writer of the Emmy-winning 2005 PBS documentary Broadway: The American Musical. "It’s very much dependent on the conception of the director and the book writer who is putting together the story that’s going to encapsulate the music. I do think Broadway right now is keenly scavenging from movies or recordings — anything they feel like they can get quality material from as a launching point."

With the closing of a host of musicals earlier this year, producers are looking for the new and innovative. "Many of the most important musicals," Kantor theorizes, "have come from the most unexpected sources or most unusual approaches." And there’s the scramble for the youth entertainment dollar, as the High School Musical TV-music franchise taps into the passion so many kids have for song, dance, and drama. "Kids are always attracted to musicals," Kantor muses, "but once they get into their midteens, a lot of them lose their interest in musicals as an art form and gravitate to other stuff. High School Musical catches them at their natural inclination for that kind of entertainment. The question is, will a show like [American Idiot] capture that much-sought-after 18- to 30-year-old demographic, which is when musicals tend to lose people. Kids go off to college, it’s not too cool to like musicals, and a lot of adaptations are mainstream or traditional — and it doesn’t appeal to rebellious youth."

Young people also might have a hard time springing for costly theater tickets — yet the kids were out in force, filling the HP Pavilion last week when Green Day played to a hometown crowd with a show punctuated by pyrotechnic pillars of flames and fireworks-style explosions, gleeful costume changes, and squirt-gun shenanigans with Armstrong’s mom. It was a big-room amplification of the string of Bay club dates Green Day played earlier this spring at intimate venues like the Independent, DNA Lounge, and the Uptown.

Below a cleverly conceived 3-D urban skyscape backdrop, Armstrong fully embraced his onstage ham and flexed his crowd-control abilities à la Bugs Bunny in a Looney Tunes cartoon, taking running leaps from the monitors, stage-diving, soloing in the bleachers, donning a faux police cap and mooning each side of the audience, and entreating all assembled to raise their fists or sing along, before launching into more serious numbers like "Murder City," written about the Oakland riots that followed the Oscar Grant killing. Live, the band couples the playfully goofy, childlike comedy that tickles the 14-year-olds up front with the palpable sense of morality — driven by a beaten yet still beating anarchist heart — found on its increasingly serious-minded, idealistic recordings.

Armstrong won’t be onstage for the American Idiot musical — though the production includes a live band — and it’s not the Billie Joe Armstrong or Green Day Story. Instead, the musical is embedded in a specific time and hybridized with video-screen projections that simulate a familiar media-saturated landscape: it’s 2004, in the dark years. America has sent its idiot back to the White House, and we’re on the brink of Hurricane Katrina. Across that stage comes a series of almost archetypal characters one recognizes from the album: the Jesus of Suburbia, here dubbed Johnny for the lead actor it was written for, John Gallagher Jr., who won a Tony for his portrayal of Moritz in Spring Awakening; his antagonist St. Jimmy; and the rebel girl Whatshername.

Just about a week before the concert, the hyperactive, pogo-friendly energy of a Green Day show appeared to be finding its perfect translation at a rehearsal for American Idiot. Three weeks in, the cast — including Passing Strange‘s Rebecca Naomi Jones, here portraying the riot grrrly heroine Whatshername — tackled a round of "She’s a Rebel." In leggings and a Green Day T-shirt, Jones bounced on her toes as a barefoot Mayer dispensed hugs to cast members. A scruffily bearded Gallagher circled the group, then took his place in the desk jockey center for "Nobody Likes You." Choreographer Steven Hoggett tweaked the movements of the cast members as they tossed papers and marched up and down a moveable metal staircase

"When someone is a 20-something with all that angst and energy — where do you put that?," Hoggett said later by phone, pondering the task of "putting songs on their feet onstage." The goal of the choreographer who won an Oliver for his strong, subtle work in Black Watch and came up in the ’90s U.K. clubbing scene: create movement that serves Green Day’s songs and isn’t "too showbiz." To that end, he took in a Green Day show in Albany, N.Y., and fell in love with the mosh pit. "That was absolutely brilliant," he remembers. "Nerves gave way to absolute revelation. It’s just seeing what thousands of people do when they see Green Day — this is the world we need to do onstage."

Collaborating mainly via phone, e-mail, and text with Armstrong from 2007 through 2008, Mayer wanted to focus on a trio of friends — Johnny, Will, and Tunny — as he created the libretto. In true rock operatic form, all the dialogue is sung, using just the songs’ lyrics and text from the special edition CD of American Idiot.

Mayer and arranger Tom Kitt, whose work eventually scored him a spot creating string arrangements for Breakdown, took apart the songs — "letting them breathe in a theatrical way," as Mayer puts it — and placed the lyrics in the mouths of various characters. B-sides and new numbers like "Know Your Enemy," "21 Guns," and "Before the Lobotomy," which Armstrong offered to Mayer during the making of Breakdown last year, were inserted into the flow. Nonetheless, Mayer maintains it was crucial to him to preserve the original track order. "I didn’t want to violate the form of the record," he says. "I wanted to expand it, because the record’s only 52 minutes, and that’s not a full evening, and with these extra characters, they need more material to serve the arcs of their journeys."

It’s been a very personal journey for lead actor Gallagher, who confesses that he’s been a huge Green Day fan since fourth grade, when he’d wait eagerly for the trio’s "Basketcase" video on MTV. His character is Johnny, the Jesus of Suburbia, or as he describes it, "the son of rage and love." Raised in a broken home. Johnny is on "this path, caught between self-improvement and self-destruction, which is something I think we can all relate to," says the actor, who until not long ago had a band of his own. He and Mayer came up with the notion to deepen and intensify Johnny’s descent into drug addiction. "When the chips are down, it’s always easier to just implode on yourself rather than explode outward in a positive fashion that might be helpful for others."

Countering that is the positive process, littered with emphatic yesses, according to Mayer, of putting together American Idiot. In contrast with the difficult but rewarding eight-year gestation of Spring Awakening, Mayer — who has worked on such disparate productions as Thoroughly Modern Millie and the national tour of Angels in America — sees this musical’s trajectory as absolutely charmed. The spell has been in place from the day he proposed his idea to Green Day’s management in 2007, to the moment he was allowed six months to put together a libretto (a process that flew by in six weeks because Mayer says he was so "charged" by meeting Armstrong), to the instant last year that he and coproducer Tom Hulce decided to stage the musical at Berkeley Rep, a company he’d been wanting to work with for years, with his friend, artistic director Tony Taccone.

It’s all coming strangely, beautifully, together — like a punk-rocker besotted with pop hooks and a theater-infatuated one-time Julliard instructor. "It makes me very, very nervous," Mayer confesses, chuckling. "Oh, it’s terrifying! There’s something wrong with it — it’s too joyous. It’s been too easy in terms of everything falling into place."

AMERICAN IDIOT

Sept. 4-Oct. 11

Tues., Thurs.–Fri., 8 p.m.; Wed., 7 p.m.;

Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 and 7 p.m.

(no matinees Sept. 5–6 and 12–13); $16–$86

Berkeley Repertory

Roda Theatre

2015 Addison, Berk.

(510) 647-2949

www.berkeleyrep.org

Excitement! Dread! Blatant Oscar baiting!

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August 26, 2009

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cheryl@sfbg.com

Let’s be honest, film fans: summer 2009 hasn’t exactly been an exercise in awesome. Early entries like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Terminator Salvation were disappointing; hyped projects like Public Enemies and Brüno offered some entertainments, but overall felt kinda meh. The Hangover, Up, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Star Trek may have been mostly deserving of their $250 million-plus hauls, but think how many poor suckers emptied their wallets at the sublimely awful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which has raked in a bone-rattling $400 million so far. (That’s a lotta robot balls.)

But in Hollywood, there’s always hope. District 9 kicked ass, and Inglourious Basterds — while not Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece, not by a forehead-carving longshot — at least provoked spirited debate among filmgoers who’ve been chomping on flaccid fare like GI Joe for months. What follows is a selective list of upcoming releases (dates are subject to change), including some surefire Oscar contenders, though I’m still holding out hope for a dark horse Drag Me to Hell nomination or two.

Sept. 11: In behind-the-scenes Vogue doc The September Issue, the devil wears Prada and busts fashionista chops while getting her magazine’s most important issue to press. Anna Wintour takes off her sunglasses! She cooly dismisses headlines, underlings, feathers, and an ugly pink-and-black ensemble! Director RJ Cutler (producer of 1993’s The War Room) gets the ever-so-glamorous dirt. Also out today: The Hills fembot Audrina Patridge brings her ceiling eyes to the big screen in horror flick Sorority Row; and mumblecore master Andrew Bujalski rolls out his third feature, after 2002’s Funny Ha Ha and 2005’s Mutual Appreciation.

Sept. 18: In a clash of the zeitgeists, Transformers thespian Megan Fox stars as a demonic high schooler in the Diablo Cody-scripted Jennifer’s Body. Irony is, like, so hot, y’know? For The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh returns from indieland to "from the director of Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen" mode. His newest is the tale of a goofy, whistleblowing agribusinessman played by a fat-and-mustachioed Matt Damon.

Sept. 25: Proud, profiteering misogynist Tucker Max — a figurehead in the "fratire" literary movement — cowrote the script for I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, based on his book (in turn, based on his blog), which kinda looks like a crasser spin on The Hangover. Fame updates the 1980 high school song-and-dance classic, a remake that actually makes sense given the popularity of the High School Musical series and all those bajillions of televised talent contests.

Oct. 2: Judging by its trailer, Zombieland could be the greatest movie ever made. Also: British footy drama The Damned United, with a script adapted by Frost/Nixon (2008) screenwriter Peter Morgan; and the latest from Michael Moore (the self-explanatory Capitalism: A Love Story) and the Coen brothers (A Serious Man, a ’60s-set black comedy that features no major movie stars).

Oct. 16: At long-friggin’-last, the Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road — starring Viggo Mortensen and directed by John Hillcoat (2005’s The Proposition )— comes shuffling down the postapocalyptic highway. Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are squares off for its twee-off with Wed Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (out Nov. 13).

Oct. 23: Lars von Trier’s Antichrist shocked Cannes — will it make a splash here, opposite Saw VI (oh yeah, they made a sixth one)? Meanwhile, cult cinema fans won’t want to miss the return of Thai martial arts wizard Tony Jaa in Ong Bak 2. Hold on to your Buddha heads! Finally, when Michael Jackson died, he left behind enough rehearsal footage to fill a backstage doc, named This Is It after his never-launched tour. Celebration or cash-in?

Nov. 6: Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare at Goats is one of my favorite books. If George Clooney and co. mess this one up, I might have to lock them in a small room and blast the Barney theme until they crack.

Nov. 13: Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire was raved-about at Sundance, with stars like Mo’Nique and Mariah Carey de-glamming for art. On the complete other end of the spectrum, disaster expert Roland Emmerich masterminds the end of the world (again) with 2012.

Nov. 20: The Twilight Saga: New Moon opens. Look, enough people care about this that I don’t have to.

Dec. 11: Three heavyweights, three very different target audiences. Disney unveils its first-ever African American animated heroine in The Princess and the Frog (about time, Mouse House); Clint Eastwood directs Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in the rugby-themed Invictus; and Peter Jackson takes on Alice Sebold’s bestseller The Lovely Bones, starring Atonement (2007) fabulist Saoirse Ronan as the doomed Susie Salmon.

Dec. 18: I was stoked about James Cameron’s Avatar. Then I saw the trailer. Hmm.

Dec. 25: Now that Guy Ritchie’s no longer married to Madonna, will his filmmaking talent return? With hot property Robert Downey Jr. starring, Sherlock Holmes could be revisionist-tastic. And, strictly for Christmas Day masochists, there’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.

Stage four

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August 25, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

You Can’t Get There from Here Prized Bay Area performer Anne Galjour’s latest solo play suggests you are where you live, while unearthing the real class and cultural divides underneath American feet, in this intensely researched and sharply amusing mapping of the nation 2009 courtesy of Z Space. Sept. 10-27, Theatre Artaud; www.zspace.org.

Brief Encounter American Conservatory Theater’s new season opens with a wildly successful British import, Kneehigh Theatre’s inspired production of Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter, a mashup of film, theater, and song adapted by Emma Rice from Coward’s own words and music. This limited engagement coincides with the 100-year anniversary of the former Geary Theater’s legacy as a movie theater, and is something of a must-see (Nota bene: ACT is offering a limited number of $10 sweet and vertiginous second-balcony seats for this show). Sept. 11-Oct. 4, American Conservatory Theater; www.act-sf.org.

Ghosts of the River The mysterious, insubstantial and quintessentially human realm of shadows and borders come together in a uniquely poetical, politically charged evening of "Twilight Zone–like vignettes" set along the snaking Rio Grande. The world premiere of Ghosts of the River re-teams leading SF-based playwright Octavio Solis with Larry Reed’s Shadowlight Productions in a theatrical experience combining Balinese shadow theatre technique, the scale of film, and live performance accessible to both Spanish- and English-speaking audiences. Oct. 1-11, Teatro Vision; Oct. 28-Nov. 8, Brava Theater Center; www.shadowlight.org.

Dead Boys The world premiere of a new musical by writer-director-choreographer Joe Goode leads off the new main stage season at UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, where Goode is faculty by day (and otherwise artistic director of famed SF dance-theater company Joe Goode Performance Group). Collaborating with Portland-based composer-songwriter Holcombe Waller, Dead Boys is billed as "a freak folk musical about trust, gay activism, gender identity, talking to the dead, and the privileged culture’s pursuit of happiness." Oct. 9-18, Zellerbach Playhouse; http://events.berkeley.edu.

South Pacific Speaking of musicals, the big fat Rodgers and Hammerstein luau revived to critical acclaim last year — and for the first time since its 1949 premiere — comes to the Pacific Coast this fall, courtesy of SHN’s Best of Broadway series. Celebrated director and SF homeboy Bartlett Sher pilots this Tony winner for Best Musical Revival 2008, set on a frisky but fraught tropic isle during WWII with classic themes in the air, including the baldly asserted "There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame." Sept. 18-Oct. 25, Golden Gate Theatre; www.shnsf.com.

The Creature SF playwright Trevor Allen has created a monster. It began in 2006 as a staged reading and a live radio play, then a podcast. Now The Creature, a fresh take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is a full-blown walking, talking, play-thing making its world premiere in time for Halloween. Stitched together from some prime parts, including direction from Cutting Ball Theatre’s Rob Melrose and no less than venerable Bay Area actor James Carpenter in the title role, The Creature promises to be lively, to say the least. Oct. 23-Nov. 7, Thick House; www.thickhouse.org.

The Future Project: Sunday Will Come This first-time collaboration between Intersection for the Arts’ two resident companies, ESP Project and Campo Santo, explores popular and idiosyncratic conceptions of the future in an existentially rich and rollicking series of "mini-plays, songs, dances, and ‘moments’" in conversation with the not-yet. Oct. 15-Nov. 7, Intersection for the Arts; www.theintersection.org.

Boom Peter Sinn Nachtrieb offers his own conception of the future in a new play about the end of the world that, true to form for this award-winning SF playwright (Hunter Gatherers, T.I.C.), takes the form of a scathingly funny comedy in this Bay Area premiere from Marin Theatre Company and director Ryan Rilette. Nov. 12-Dec 6, Marin Theatre Company; www.marintheatre.org.

Independent Erotic Film Festival

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August 25, 2009

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PREVIEW Good Vibrations and Vibratex co-present this year’s celebration of girls (and boys, and bois, and, well, everyone) on film, and we can’t decide what we’re more excited about — the movies themselves or the parties organized to honor them. The week kicks off Sept. 12 with a burlesque-tastic party at El Rio that includes a screening of Courtney Trouble’s Speakeasy; moves straight to Dr. Carol Queen’s peep show, naughty puppets, and vintage erotic cinema at Amnesia Sept. 13; thrusts into the next week with April Flores’ Love Toy Art Show; and slides on into Sept. 17 with a 1960s-style cocktail party-themed competition premiere hosted by Peaches Christ. And that’s just a cross-section of the sultry, sexy events the organizers have planned for the festival’s fourth year. If you can’t find something in this week of fun and film that revs your engine, you might want to get your motor checked.

INDEPENDENT EROTIC FILM FESTIVAL Sept. 12–17, 2009. Locations, times, and prices vary. www.gv-ixff.org

Events listings

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August 25, 2009

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Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 26

Lincart Summer BBQ Lincart, One Otis, SF; RSVP to hope@lincart.com. 6pm, free. Celebrate Lincart’s new location (down the block from their old location) with a thought provoking group show, live flamenco dancers, and old fashioned BBQ on the roof deck.

Pecha Kucha Autodesk Gallery, 2nd floor, One Market, SF; pechakucha-sf.com. 7:30pm happy hour, 8:20pm presentations; $5 suggested donation. Meet designers from many creative fields, share ideas, and watch as 8 – 12 participants present 20 images of their work. This month’s theme is "substance."

THURSDAY 27

The Adderall Diaries Amnesia, 853 Valencia, SF; (415) 970-0012. 7pm; $20, includes copy of book. Author Stephen Elliott will read from his new book, The Adderall Diaries: A memoir of moods, masochism, and murder, with Tobias Wolff, Bucky Sinister and others.

12 Hot Dates, 1 Fun Night El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.bca12.com. 5:30pm, $20 suggested donation. Bid on potential dates with 12 smart, sexy, fun men and women of various ages, sexual orientations, and ethnic backgrounds. All proceeds benefit Breast Cancer Action.

FRIDAY 28

Art for AIDS Bonhams and Butterfields Auction House, 220 San Bruno, SF; artforaids.org. 5:30pm, silent auction, 6:45pm, live auction; $75 includes local food and wine. More than 135 modern and contemporary works of art will be auctioned off to benefit the UCSF AIDS Health Project.

SATURDAY 29

Commemorate Casper Banjo Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; (415) 643-2785. 3pm, free. Celebrate the life of Oakland artist Casper Banjo, who was tragically shot to death by a police officer last year while carrying a replica gun, with guest speakers and musical performances. Banjo’s work is currently on display as part of the MCCLA’s current exhibition 3 Worlds.

Save the Streets Summer Jam Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 245 Valencia, SF; (510) 888-9890. 8pm, $20. This event aims to help stop gun violence amongst Bay Area youth, featuring hip hop artist San Quinn and host KMEL’s Chuy Gomez. All proceeds go towards spinal chord research.

SUNDAY 30

Bride Mob ATA, 992 Valencia, SF; (415) 824-3890. 5:30pm, $5 suggested donation. Celebrate your inner bride with DJ Brawlio, a wedding party cover band, a bridal fashion show, raffle, and more at this event hosted by Saltwater, an local independent film production. After the party, the bride mob will descend on Valencia!

Plate to Plate Start and finish line at McCovey Cove, behind AT&T Park, across the Lefty O’Doul Bridge on Third St., SF; (415) 447-2316. 9am, $39 to register. This 5k run and walk starts at McCovey Cove, goes along the Embarcadero, across home plate in AT&T park, and back to McCovy cove. All proceeds to benefit Project Open Hand, which provides meals for people living with serious illnesses and seniors.

MONDAY 31

EAT 111 Minna, SF; eatat111minna.blogspot.com. 5pm, free admission to the grand opening with RSVP to eatat111minna@gmail.com. In the burgeoning tradition of guerilla gourmet dining, this new weekly event is a cross between dinner, happy hour, and a night club with $5-10 small plates, artwork, and live music.

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