Film Archives — Page 121 of 168 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

SFIFF 52: Opening night

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April 24, 2009

The scene: the Castro Theatre. The event: opening night of the 52nd annual San Francisco International Film Festival. The crowd: mob-sized.

Benjamin Bratt prefers it slow and low.

Before I say anything else, I know what you’re really wondering: what was in the gift bag? Besides Pop Chips — which seem to be engineering some kind of snack food takeover via film festivals (see also: the Noise Pop Film Festival) — there was a battery-operated sticky-note dispenser, a DVD of Vanaja (when I used to co-host the San Francisco Film Society-affiliated SF 360 Movie Scene on Comcast’s local channel — we got canned in August — that title was the top giggle-attack-getter on the set. You try saying “Vanaja” five times fast), a yo-yo, and a piece of biscotti. I devored the edibles, pocketed the yo-yo, and settled in for La Mission, a locally-made drama from writer-director Peter Bratt; his brother, Benjamin (a Law and Order vet whose career admirably survived 2004’s Catwoman), stars.

Appetite: Hot tamales, banana cookies, $1 martinis, and more

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April 23, 2009

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Hot Tamales on Sun/26. See “Events” below

As long-time San Francisco resident and writer, I’m passionate about this city and obsessed with exploring its best food-and-drink spots, events and news, in every neighborhood and cuisine type. I have my own personalized itinerary service and monthly food/drink/travel newsletter, The Perfect Spot, and am thrilled to share up-to-the minute news with you from the endless goings-on in our fair city. View the previous installment of Appetite here.

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NEW OPENINGS

Anthony’s Cookies satisfies your cookie craving all day long
On the same Mission block as Suriya Thai (R.I.P.), is a new cookie kitchen that can help assuage the loss of my favorite Thai. Anthony (who has spent over 10 years perfecting his craft) and his staff give a friendly welcome as they bake, for now offering a half dozen cookies for $5, or $9.25 a dozen, eventually selling them individually. On the blessedly smaller side, they’re warm and about as homemade tasting as they smell. There’s toffee chip, banana (like banana bread in cookie form), cinnamon sugar, whole-wheat oatmeal cranberry, gooey chocolate chip, and maybe my favorite? Cookies and cream. Tastes like home.
1417 Valencia, SF
415-655-9834
www.anthonyscookies.com

Moussy’s brings French cooking classes, movies and Petit Dejeuner to Nob Hill/Polk Gulch
Downstairs from Alliance Francaise, there’s a new stop pre or post AF’s French language classes and film screenings: Moussy’s, an intimate, candlelit cafe for a morning croissant and cappuccino, or lunch time respite, serving salads, baked brie, and pot pies. They’ll soon be offering French cooking classes and film nights, too, ensuring that foodies, expats, bohemian artists, poets and aspiring cooks have a true Parisian cafe hangout.
1345 Bush, SF.
415-441-1802
www.moussys.com

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EVENTS

April 26 – Tamales (and margaritas) By the Bay at Fort Mason
Tamale lovers come out en masse to Fort Mason for Tamales By the Bay. Sample tamales and salsas from Nor Cal’s best in styles from Oaxacan, Yucatecan, Salvadoran to Chilean, and vendors like La Cocina and Rancho Gordo. Margarita Gladiators will be battling it out for best margarita, which you can, of course, also sample, while grooving to live music, demos and a raffle of prizes from JetBlue tix to a bottle of Partida Elegante Extra Añejo Tequila. Arriba!
12-4:30pm, $40
Fort Mason Center, Landmark Building A
Buchanan Street at Marina Boulevard
415-695-9296
www.tamalesbythebay.com

April 27 – Ministry of Rum Festival comes to Hangar One
Consider it a pre-Summer rum fest… Hangar One/St. George’s Distillery, home to beloved Hangar One vodkas and St. George’s incomparable spirits, is the hangar island site for all things rum at SF’s Ministry of Rum Fest. Vendors like Leblon, El Dorado, St. Bart’s and Ron Barcelo educate on their sugar cane spirits, while primo Bay Area mixologists like Martin Cate, founder of Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, Erik Adkins from Heaven’s Dog, Thad Vogler of Bar Agricole, Brooke Arthur of Range, and Duggan McDonnell of Cantina, showcase rum-based cocktail creations. There’s cheese pairings and door prizes to boot. Though plenty of free parking can be had at the distillery, those on foot or drinking (wait, won’t that be everyone?), are given rides with Bonjour Transportation from Oakland’s 12th St. BART station to the distillery continuously from 6-9pm, $50
2601 Monarch Street, Alameda
www.ministryofrum.com/sf2009.php

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DEALS
Hookah Happy Hours at Sens
In Embarcadero Center 4, spacious Sens restaurant, with regal Bay Bridge and Ferry Building views, started a Hookah Happy Hour for a weekday smoke along with discounted cocktails, wine and beer. For $15, you’ll have your own hookah set up on the patio with choice of apple, strawberry or peach tobacco, so you can puff away the twilight hours.
Monday-Friday 3:30-7:30pm, $15 per person
4 Embarcadero Center
415-362-0645
www.sens-sf.com

$1 Martini Lunch at Palio D’Asti
Palio D’Asti makes it WAY too easy to forget economic (or other) troubles with $1 martinis during weekday lunch. They shake up a martini with your choice of Stoli Vodka or Hendrick’s Gin, so order a Pizza d’Asti (with shaved asparagus, fontina Val d’Aosta cheese and thyme) or Agnolotti di Carciofi (artichoke and mascarpone-filled ravioli with sage and sweet onion ragout) and drink up!
Monday-Friday Lunch
640 Sacramento St.
415-395-9800
www.paliodasti.com

Three course meal at Michael Mina for $55
Michael Mina is special occasion dining (for most of us, anyway) at well over $100 a person, but they’ve jumped into the "specials" pool with an EARLY pre-theatre dining menu available until 6pm, plus a new lounge menu available all night. The first is three courses for $55, offering Mina classics like Ahi Tuna Tartare and unparalleled Lobster Pot Pie (this Mina staple is decadently good), and only $20 extra for three wine pairings from their award-winning list. The lounge menu includes Mina’s playful Lobster Corn Dogs as well as the Lobster Pot Pie, and cocktails so good, they alone are worth a visit.
Tuesday-Saturday, before 6pm
335 Powell Street
415-397-9222
www.michaelmina.net

Movie mania: “Reflections” and Kuchar brothers

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April 23, 2009

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By Johnny Ray Huston

The next two nights bring a pair of great treats for movie maniacs. Tonight, Gallery Paule Anglim hosts “Reflections,” a program of short films that includes ones by Pat O’Neill, Stan Brakhage, a rarely-seen James Whitney work, and some Tarkovsky. At the heart of the program are selections from Dean Smith‘s ongoing video project thought forms. If Smith’s drawings are any indication — and they should be — his contribution to the evening alone should be worth the trip. Smith’s current exhibition is one of the best I’ve seen this year, and even better when paired with Dean Byington‘s painted reconfiguring of collage aesthetics in an adjoining room at the gallery.

Dean Smith, thought form #11, 2005, colored pencil on paper, 37.5 by 50 inches

Mike and George Kuchar, from the documentary It Came From Kuchar

Friday night, Baer Ridgway is home to an hour-long program of films by the Kuchar brothers. (That last sentence deserves a !!! ending more than standard punctuation.) George is showing Jamboree Journey and Portrait of Genie. Mike is showing four movies: Vortex, Stolen Sweets, Tattle Tales, and Witchery. I got a lucky peek at one of Mike’s recent movies a month ago, a romantic idyll as gorgeous as its leading man and leading lady — love at first sight stuff. Wanna be where the cinematic fun is? Be there. And it’s free.

REFLECTIONS
Thurs/23, 7:30 p.m.
Gallery Paule Anglim
14 Geary, SF
(415) 433-2710
www.gallerypauleanglim.com

FILM SCREENING: GEORGE KUCHAR AND MIKE KUCHAR
Fri/24, 7 p.m., free
Baer Ridgway Exhibitions
172 Minna, SF
(415) 777-1366
www.baerridgway.com

SF Weekly’s anti-porn prude

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April 22, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

The New York Post — whoops, it was actually the SF Weekly — was shocked and horrified by the concept that a state-funded training program might help video tech folks who work at kink.com. Here’s the lead:

California taxpayers have paid $46,791 so that employees of the San Francisco pornographer Kink.com might produce more perfect web-based depictions of motorized dildo impalements …

I don’t need to go on.

The thing here is, so what? Kink.com is a legitimate, legal San Francisco business that employs 100 people, treats them and pays them well, has transformed a wasteland of an empty building into a going concern … and I think it’s great that the people who work there (who also happen to be part of the film and media industry in San Francisco) got to use a state job-training program.

This is good for the local economy. “We are training San Francisco’s workforce for the film and televison industry,” said Kink’s Ilana Rothman. “People who have worked for us are winning awards at film festivals.”

The story is remarkable in its prudishness, and it takes the insulting tack of implying that the models who work at Kink are somehow forced into their jobs. “We couldn’t be more explicit about how safe and consensual our work is,” Rothman told me. And every indication I’ve gotten from every Guardian staffer who’s visited Kink and talked to the workers agrees.

The real scandal here is that Matt Smith personally busted Kink and cost a good employer its training money.

Film review: “Lost in the Fog”

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April 22, 2009

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By Natalie Gregory

The need…for speed.

If you’re into horses or horse racing, go see John Corey’s Lost in the Fog — Lost in the Fog being a famous steed who cleaned house in 2005. The film follows the success of the horse’s short career as told through the experiences of owner Harry Aleo and trainer Greg Gilchrist. Aleo is a semi-famous San Francisco local. He has pictures of President Reagan in his front office in Noe Valley and terms the neighborhood “Looney Valley.” (Guess who he probably voted for.) At any rate, the guy has owned horses for about 39 years. Fate brings him Lost in the Fog, a seemingly unstoppable horse that was born to run. The film doesn’t exactly explain the whole industry and sport of horse racing. But it’s fun to watch Lost’s rise to the top. The more he dominates, the more I understood why people go so nuts for these animals.

Lost in the Fog is now playing at the Roxie.

Rev. Billy runs for mayor of NYC

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April 22, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

Billy Talen was an activist and performance artist living in San Francisco in the early ‘90s when he became Reverend Billy, the charismatic founder and pastor of the Church of Stop Shopping. “We were always looking for ways to highlight the politics of our time,” Talen said. “One of the ideas we had was to appropriate the right-wing icon.”

Talen, his alter ego, and his flock have evolved over the years: moving to New York City in 1996 to preach the evils of rampant consumerism from the streets of Times Square, transformed by 9/11 into something like a real church, attending Burning Man in 2003 and developing an important relationship with that community, performing around the world, making the excellent film “What Would Jesus Buy?”, and this year renaming themselves the Church of Life After Shopping to better capture the redemptive nature of their calling.

But last month, Rev. Billy took an even larger leap of faith, announcing his Green Party candidacy for mayor of New York City. He will run against Mayor Michael Bloomberg the man, but also Michael Bloomberg the Wall Street made billionaire, as potent a symbol of the capitalism ethos and excesses as any in the country.

The Guardian caught up with Talen yesterday at his campaign office in SoHo (a neighborhood where he also lived until being driven to Brooklyn by rapidly rising rents) for a long conversation about a campaign that seems to highlight the most pressing issues of these turbulent times. We’ll post excerpts from that interview, and regularly check in with the unfolding campaign, periodically between now and November.

In other words…to be continued.

SFIFF: Shots in the dark

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April 21, 2009

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THURS/23

La Mission (Peter Bratt, USA, 2009) A veteran S.F. vato turned responsible — if still muy macho — widower, father, and Muni driver, 46-year-old Che (Benjamin Bratt) isn’t the type for mushy displays of sentiment. But it’s clear his pride and joy is son Jess (Jeremy Ray Valdez), a straight-A high school grad bound for UCLA. That filial bond, however, sustains some serious damage when Che discovers Jes has a secret life — with a boyfriend, in the Castro, just a few blocks away from their Mission walkup but might as well be light-years away as far as old-school dad is concerned. This Bratt family project (Benjamin’s brother Peter writes-directs, his wife Talisa Soto Bratt has a supporting role) has a bit of a predictable TV-movie feel, but its warm heart is very much in the right place, and the affectionate location shooting makes this an ideal SFIFF opening-nighter. (Dennis Harvey) 7 p.m., Castro.

FRI/24

It’s Not Me, I Swear! (Philippe Falardeau, Canada, 2008) Ten-year-old Leon Dore (Antoine L’Écuyer) is a Harold without a Maude, forever staging near-fatal "deadly accidents" that by now no one blinks twice at — whether they’re expressions of warped humor, cries for attention, or actual (yet invariably failed) suicide attempts). Mom and dad are forever at each others’ throats, while their older son pines for a domestic normalcy that ain’t happening anytime soon. One day mom simply announces she’s splitting for Greece to "start a new life," pointedly without husband and children. This event rachets Leon’s misbehaviors — which also encompass theft and vandalism — up a few notches. Set in kitschily-realized late 1960s Quebec suburbia, director Philippe Falardeau’s adaptation of two linked novels by Bruno Hebert is a very deft mix of family dysfunction, preadolescent maladjustment (or maybe budding sociopathy), and anarchic comedy. (Harvey) 5:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also Sat/25, 2:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki; Tues/28, 1 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

SAT/25

Adoration (Atom Egoyan, Canada/France, 2008) When orphaned teenager Simon (Devon Bostick) writes a paper for French class in which he imagines himself as the son of real-life terrorists, his teacher (Arsinée Khanjian) tacitly encourages its being taken for fact. The resulting firestorm (largely taking place on the Web) raises questions about the boy’s actual parents, free speech, religio-political martyrdom, and so forth. This is the first Atom Egoyan feature based on his own original story — as opposed to literary sources or historical incidents — in 15 interim years. While his fame has certainly risen in the interim, some of us haven’t liked anything so well since that last one, 1994’s Exotica. Adoration recalls such early efforts in the cool intellectual gamesmanship with which characters and technologies are manipulated toward a hidden truth. Yet provocative as it is, there’s something overly elaborate and ultimately dissatisfying about his gambits that makes Adoration less than the sum of its parts. (Harvey) 6:15 p.m, Sundance Kabuki. Also Mon/27, 6:30 p.m., PFA.

Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy, Kazakhstan/Switzerland/Germany/Russia/Poland, 2008) Possible new genre alert: the docu-comedy. Documenatarian Dvortsevoy turns his camera on his native Kazakhstan, and nothing depicted suggests anything Borat might’ve broadcast. The country’s stark, southern steppes form the backdrop for a family of nomads, including married-with-children Samal and Ondas, and Samal’s brother Asa, who returns from his Russian naval service longing for his own flock of sheep. Alas, he can’t get a flock until he lands a wife — and the only local prospect, Tulpan, rejects him on the basis of his "big ears" (and the small fact that she would like to move out of the sticks, into the city, and maybe even attend college). Traditional ways bump up against more ambitious ones (as when Asa dreams of a satellite dish), just as comedic moments trade screen time with grittier scenarios (including actual footage of a sheep giving birth). The end result is an intimate and somehow totally relatable look at a fascinatingly foreign world. (Cheryl Eddy) 6:15 p.m., PFA. Also Mon/27, 9:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki; April 30, 4:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

TUES/28

In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, England, 2009) A typically fumbling remark by U.K. Minister of International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) ignites a media firestorm, as it seems to suggest war is imminent even as both Brit and U.S. governments are downplaying the likelihood of the Iraq invasion they’re simultaneously preparing for. Suddenly cast as an important arbiter of global affairs — a role he’s perhaps less suited for than playing the Easter Bunny — Simon becomes one chess-piece in a cutthroat game whose participants on both sides of the Atlantic include his own subordinates, the prime minister’s rageaholic communications chief, major Pentagon and State Department honchos, crazy constituents, and more. This frenetic comedy of behind-the-scenes backstabbing and its direct influence on the highest-level diplomatic and military policies is scabrously funny in the best tradition of English television, which is (naturally) just where its creators hei from. (Harvey) 9:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 2, 9:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

APRIL 30

California Company Town (Lee Anne Schmitt, USA, 2008) This land isn’t your land, or my land, and it wasn’t made for you and me — such is the insightful and incite-full impression one gets from California Company Town. Schmitt’s beautifully photographed, concisely narrated, and ominously structured look at the Golden State and the state of capitalism is labor of love, shot between 2003 and 2008; it’s a provocative piece of American history. On a semi-buried level, it’s also an extraordinary act of personal filmmaking that subverts various stereotypes of first-person storytelling by women while simultaneously learning from and breaking away from some esteemed directors of the essay film. (Johnny Ray Huston) 8:35 p.m., PFA. Also May 2, 6:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki; May 4, 3:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

Rudo y Cursi (Carlos Cuarón, Mexico, 2008) A who’s-who of Mexican cinema giants have their cleats in soccer yarn Rudo y Cursi: stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, and producers Alfonso Cuarón (whose brother, Carlos, wrote and directed), Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo del Toro. But while Rudo is entertaining, it’s surprisingly lightweight considering the talent involved. Bernal and Luna play Tato and Beto, rural half-brothers discovered by a jovially crooked soccer scout (Guillermo Francella) who gets them gigs playing on Mexico City teams. But athletic achievement seems barely a concern. Of far more importance are Tato’s crooning dreams and high-profile romance with a vapid TV star, and Beto’s left-behind wife and kids — not to mention his raging gambling addiction. Though the drama boils down to one final game (of course), Rudo is really about the bonds and brawls between brothers, not sports teams. Goal? (Eddy) 6:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 1, 4 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

MAY 1

D Tour (Jim Granato, USA, 2008) There’s been many a band-on-the-brink doc about groups torn apart by substance abuse, or creative differences, or just plain nuttiness (see: 2004’s DiG! and Some Kind of Monster, and any number of Behind the Music eps). In D Tour, local indie popsters Rogue Wave face, and are drawn together by, an entirely different brand of crisis: drummer Pat Spurgeon’s urgent need for a kidney transplant. Director Granato is given full access to subjects who are very open about their feelings (and, in Spurgeon’s case, unpleasant medical procedures). The result is a music- and emotion-filled journey that’ll no doubt inspire many to check off the "organ donor" box on their driver’s licenses. A sadly ironic, late-act twist involving a different band member will come as no surprise to Rogue Wave followers, but D Tour incorporates the tragedy into its storyline without ever exploiting it. (Eddy) 9 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 4, 3:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki; May 7, 5:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

MAY 2

The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle (David Russo, USA, 2009) Animator Russo’s first feature is a (mostly) live-action whimsy about rudderless Dory (Marshall Allman from Prison Break) who gets fired from his white-collar job and lands in the much scruffier employ of Spiffy Jiffy Janitorial Services. Its punky artist-type staff clean a high-rise’s offices, including one for a test-marketing trying out "self-warming cookies." When our protagonists develop an addictive liking for these treats, strange things begin to occur — like hallucinations and, eventually, male pregnancies of mystery critters. Depending on mood, this arch quirkfest with an ’80s feel (think of all the similar, mildly surreal indie comedies that rode 1984 release Repo Man‘s coattails) may strike you as delightful or just plain irritating. (Harvey) 11 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 6, 3:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

Tyson (James Toback, USA, 2008) Director Toback is picking up this year’s Kanbar Award for "excellence in screenwriting," but his latest film is a doc scripted largely in the mind of its subject. To call Mike Tyson a polarizing figure is an understatement (and raises the question: Does anyone really like him except Toback, whom he’s known for two decades?). This film — narrated by Tyson, the sole interviewee — won’t endear him to a public that’s seen him besmirch his glorious boxing-ring talents with an array of bad behavior, from a rape charge (here, Tyson calls his accuser a "wretched swine of a woman") to the chomping of Evander Holyfield’s ear. Though he chokes up on occasion and admits at one point that he starting taking fights just for the money, he’s still about as unsympathetic as humanly possible. Fun fact: a friend convinced him to go tribal with the face tattoo. Tyson himself wanted hearts. (Eddy) 4 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

MAY 3

Moon (Duncan Jones, England, 2008) The Bay Area’s own Sam Rockwell has quietly racked up a slew of memorable performances in variable films — including 2002’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and 2008’s Choke — so the fact that he’s pretty much the whole show in this British sci-fi tale is reason enough to see it. A one-man space saga à la Silent Running (1972), it has him as Sam Bell, the lone non-mechanical worker (Kevin Spacey voices his principal robot assistant) on a lunar mining station in the not-too-distant future. He’s just about to finish his long, lonely contracted three-year stint and return home to a desperately missed family when strange things begin to occur. First there are hallucinations, then physical disabilities, then finally the impossible — there’s company aboard the station. Debuting feature director Duncan Jones orchestrates atmosphere and intrigue, though despite one major game-changing twist his original story seems a little thin in the long run. Nevertheless, Rockwell commands attention throughout as a character whose exhaustion, disorientation, and eventual panic feel alarmingly vivid. (Harvey) 9 p.m., Castro.

The Reckoning (Pamela Yates, USA/Uganda/Congo/Colombia/Netherlands, 2008) Yates’ latest documentary chronicles the long-delayed launch and bumpy first years of the International Criminal Court, a Hague-based body founded to prosecute (primarily) war crimes that member nations were unwilling or unable to do so themselves. Its authority is not yet recognized by several nations — including the Big Three of U.S.A., Russia, and China — while prosecutions of various military or political leaders who ordered crimes against civilians are often hampered by political minefields. Nonetheless, the still-struggling court is a beacon of hope for peace and justice around the globe. Yates lays out its work so far as an engrossing series of detective stories investigating instances of mass murder, rape, plunder, etc. in Uganda, the Congo, Darfur, and Colombia. (Harvey) 5:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 5, 6 p.m., PFA; May 6, 6:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2008) It’s no joy for Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) to bring his wife and stepson up from Tokyo on an annual visit to his elderly parents. The occasion is to commemorate the passing of an older brother who’s been dead for decades but is still held up as the yardstick by which Ryo will always fall short. Mom (Kiki Kirin) is well intentioned enough, if often insensitively blunt-spoken. But retired dad (Yoshio Harada) is an imperious grump who resents Ryo’s not following him into medical practice, disapproves of his marrying a widow, spurns her son from that prior union as less than a "real" grandchild, and is generally kind of a dick. This latest from Hirokazu Kore-eda (2004’s Nobody Knows, 1998’s After Life) is a quiet seriocomedy with lots of discomfiting moments. Yet it’s suffused with enough humor, warmth and surprising joy to easily qualify as one of SFIFF’s best 2009 picks. (Harvey)

8:45 p.m., Sundance Kabuki. Also May 5, 6:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki.

SFIFF: Tune boon

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April 21, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Before there was Barney or Raffi, the answer to the question, "Who is most responsible for songs most likely to make children sing and push their parents to the very brink of sanity?" was most likely "the Sherman brothers." It might have been enough for Robert and Richard Sherman to write "Supercalifragiliciousexpialidocious," "It’s a Small World," and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," each of which when heard once — let alone a zillion times — became instantly imprinted on the DNA of several juvenile generations. But no, they also had to write indelible songs for the Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967), various Winnie the Pooh species, Charlotte’s Web (1973), and other things you might have escaped only by being born very recently or growing up in rare media isolation.

World premiering at SFIFF this year is The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story, a feature documentary about the Shermans made by two of their sons, Gregory and Jeffrey — partly to figure out just why these fraternal composers of so many cheerful songs have barely been on speaking terms in recent decades. The answer is complicated and, unlike most Disney movies (or documentaries about them), there isn’t a happy ending. But there are a lot of happy memories in these 100 minutes, with people like Julie Andrews, Hayley Mills, Roy Disney, Dick Van Dyke, and John Williams remembering the Shermans as a joy to work with, if not a joy to one another. The brothers themselves, still alive and variably kicking, cannot quite agree on what came between them. But of course, not agreeing is exactly the thing.

Unless you grew up in pre-Khmer Cambodia (or an ex-pat community), odds are the majority repertoire of L.A.-based Dengue Fever were not your childhood’s soundtrack. But the band’s six members know that is really too bad, because Cambodian pop of the 1960s and early ’70s just rocked, with its Farfisa organ riffs, psychedelic flourishes, and incessantly catchy hooks. In an inspired stroke, the festival’s latest silent film-contemporary music match-up was commissioning Dengue Fever to create a live score for The Lost World, a 1925 superproduction that’s a lot more like today’s mall-flick fantasias than just about anything else you could find from that era.

Adapted from Sir Conan Doyle’s story, it follows a British expedition deep into the Amazon, where one cranky suspected quack scientist claims to have discovered a hidden valley of prehistoric creatures. By gum, he’s right. This restored thrill ride, featuring stop-motion dinosaurs, elaborate miniatures, romantic intrigue, a guy in an ape suit and another (alas) in comedy blackface, was an obvious model for 1933’s King Kong (Willis O’Brien designed FX on both) and an admitted one for 1993’s Jurassic Park (whose sequel, you’ll recall, was 1997’s The Lost World). After nearly 85 years, it’s still at least as entertaining as the latter-day comic-book movies that owe it a colossal debt.

THE BOYS: THE SHERMAN BROTHERS’ STORY

Sat/25, 2 p.m., Letterman Digital Arts Center

THE LOST WORLD WITH DENGUE FEVER

May 5, 8 p.m., Castro

SFIFF: Oaktown fugue

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April 21, 2009

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The stillness inhabiting Bay Area director Frazer Bradshaw’s Everything Strange and New is broken periodically by the sounds of familial battle and the bemused, unemotive back-and-forth of a trio of men perplexed by the circumstances they have drifted into. The most dramatic intrusion, though, is instrumental, an occasional frenzied jigging of horns and strings that seems to signal the internal noise experienced by one of these uneasy men, a carpenter and family man named Wayne (Jerry McDaniel), who is trudging through his middle years in a state of unhappy wonder.

Shot in Oakland, the film uses a series of portrait-like scenes of house exteriors to convey the static emptiness in Wayne’s life, which he describes in voiceover monologues, his voice rising and falling just outside the boundaries of monotone. The contrast between these still lifes and the recurring shock of the soundtrack is almost painfully discordant, though the landscape intruded on is far from idyllic. When the camera moves inside one of the houses, the one where Wayne coexists with his wife, Renée (Beth Lisick), and their two sons, it’s filled with signs of residence but seems as empty and still and dead as the outside world, as if the family has just retreated from some personal apocalypse. Later the camera trails through a gutted Victorian as Wayne and Renée are heard quarreling, then processing as modeled by some couples’ counselor in their past — more emptiness and a sense of unending minor tragedy. Wayne presents a marriage sapped by financial exigencies such as the now-familiar house worth less than their debt.

These signs of trouble are plain enough, but emotionally expressive. Occasionally Bradshaw leans a little heavily on the symbolic, as when we see Wayne as he envisions himself, in the getup of a clown, and when the film runs backward through a trafficked street scene. More problematic, though, is the awkward shift in direction and shape that occurs when the resident stillness is interrupted by something more sharply horrific than the characters’ day-to-day suffering.

EVERYTHING STRANGE AND NEW

Sun/26, 8:45 p.m.; Tues/28, 4:15 p.m.; May 2, 6:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki

SFIFF: In the realms of the real

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April 21, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Michael Moore may have paved the way for documentary gold, but the most structurally adventurous, ethically demanding nonfictions still reside on the festival block, where they frequently outshine their fictional counterparts for formal rigor and breadth of imagination. If the 2009 SFIFF field doesn’t have a marquee attraction like Standard Operating Procedure, all the better — a year later, I still haven’t lost the bad taste of Errol Morris’s hi-def moral confusion.

A corrective to Standard‘s self-serving auteurism might be gleaned from Avi Mograbi’s Z32. In this case the troubling testimony belongs to an Israeli soldier who participated in a senseless revenge killing of Palestinian innocents, but Mograbi handcrafts the layers of remorse that elude Morris’s smug "interrotron." We never see the ex-soldier’s face, though the digital application of masks produces an uncanny effect in tune with the film’s sliding scale of memory and performance, responsibility and displacement. Mograbi’s willingness to bring the war home (much of the film is set in his living room) is unusual for an investigative reporter, but then most investigative reporters do not narrate their mediating role in song.

Cameroonian-French filmmaker Jean-Marie Téno’s documentary Sacred Places seems more conventional in its blend of interview and ethnographic reflections, but the calm manner in which ideas flow from these encounters makes for a first-rate essay-film. Set in a poor district of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, Sacred Places centers on two eloquent men: Jules Cesar Bamouni, a djembe maker who makes some of the same linkages between film and the traditional storytelling forms that first incited griot-auteurs like Ousmane Sembène; and Nanema Boubacar, a hopeful entrepreneur who runs a neighborhood film club. The scenes in which Boubacar rifles through DVD deliveries offer an overlapping portrait of community-oriented cinephilia ("When there are spots on the DVD, it’s not good for the film fans") and the vicissitudes of distribution (even in Burkina Faso, African titles are harder to procure than a Jackie Chan vehicle). Sacred Places is light enough on its feet to pass itself as a slice of life, but Téno’s quiet approach constitutes a major revaluation of the aims of African cinema.

Another illuminating interviewer, Heddy Honigmann, returns with Oblivion, her first film set in Lima since 1994’s mobile portrait Metal and Melancholy. There’s also a double-shot of alternative histories from Lee Anne Schmidt (California Company Town) and Travis Wilkerson (Proving Ground), who are both associated with CalArts, an institutional hotbed for hybridized docs. Wilkerson’s An Injury to One (2003) remains one of the great American political films; his live performance of military footage promises more shots from the avant-garde of documentary. Also on SFIFF’s doc-centric slate: 2009 Persistence of Vision winner Lourdes Portillo, art-historical conspiracy theories courtesy of Peter Greenway (Rembrandt J’Accuse), and reality-bending fictions like John Cassavetes’ still-potent unraveling of the domestic melodrama, A Woman Under the Influence (1974).

SACRED PLACES

Fri/24, 8:40 p.m., PFA

Sun/25, 5 p.m.; April 29, 3:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki

Z32

May 3, 9:15 p.m.; May 5, 8:30 p.m., Sundance Kabuki

May 4, 8:30 p.m., PFA

SFIFF: 52 pick-up

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April 21, 2009

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cheryl@sfbg.com

In early April, a long-range rocket blasted off from deepest, darkest North Korea; according to a Reuters.com news report, the communist country claimed that its satellite was "launched into orbit and [is now] circling the Earth transmitting revolutionary songs." Um, yeah. Most folks say the rocket failed — and that its real purpose was to test North Korea’s dropping-warheads-on-our-enemies capabilities. Recent rumors of ill health aside, North Korea’s Kim Jong-il appeared shortly after the incident to mark his re-election as the chairman of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s National Defense Commission.

As scary as it is to imagine the pompadored, isolationist "Great Leader" with his mitts on nukes, to focus on North Korea’s threat to the outside world takes away from the atrocities committed within its borders, against its own citizens. As NC Heikin’s quietly terrifying Kimjongilia reveals, the dictator’s country is a cruel, brutal place. The doc features interviews with North Korean refugees whose tales of escape are as harrowing as their recollections of life back home — a place where simply listening to music from a capitalist country or dropping a newspaper with a photograph of Kim on the floor were infractions that could mean imprisonment for three generations of a single family. Starvation, torture, and constant fear factor into nearly every story; families are separated, and even those who escape struggle, such as a woman whose "freedom" in China translated into years of sex slavery. For these people, WMDs are the least of their concerns.

Peering beyond what’s obvious is a theme at the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival, with a slate that’s particularly doc-heavy. For every gesture that’s a little debatable (you can spin that Francis Ford Coppola directing award however you want, but Apocalypse Now came out in 1979, and 2007’s Youth Without Youth sucked), there are many that deserves high praise: groundbreaking local documentarian Lourdes Portillo receiving the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award, for example. Read on for the Guardian‘s coverage of this year’s fest, and keep watching the skies.

KIMJONGILIA

May 3, 3:30 p.m.; May 6, 3:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki

May 4, 6:30 p.m., PFA

THE 52ND SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL runs April 23–May 7. Main venues are the Sundance Kabuki, 1881 Post, SF; Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; and Clay, 2261 Fillmore, SF. Satellite venues are Premier Theater, Letterman Digital Arts Center, Bldg. B, One Letterman Drive, Presidio, SF; and Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF. Tickets (most shows $12.50; special programs vary) and additional information at www.sffs.org.

More: Reviews, interviews, and more SFIFF 52 coverage on the Pixel Vision blog as the festival unfolds.

Appetite: Hot tamales, banana cookies, $1 martinis, and more

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April 20, 2009

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By Virginia Miller

Hot Tamales on Sun/26. See “Events” below

As long-time San Francisco resident and writer, I’m passionate about this city and obsessed with exploring its best food-and-drink spots, events and news, in every neighborhood and cuisine type. I have my own personalized itinerary service and monthly food/drink/travel newsletter, The Perfect Spot, and am thrilled to share up-to-the minute news with you from the endless goings-on in our fair city. View the previous installment of Appetite here.

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NEW OPENINGS

Anthony’s Cookies satisfies your cookie craving all day long
On the same Mission block as Suriya Thai (R.I.P.), is a new cookie kitchen that can help assuage the loss of my favorite Thai. Anthony (who has spent over 10 years perfecting his craft) and his staff give a friendly welcome as they bake, for now offering a half dozen cookies for $5, or $9.25 a dozen, eventually selling them individually. On the blessedly smaller side, they’re warm and about as homemade tasting as they smell. There’s toffee chip, banana (like banana bread in cookie form), cinnamon sugar, whole-wheat oatmeal cranberry, gooey chocolate chip, and maybe my favorite? Cookies and cream. Tastes like home.
1417 Valencia, SF
415-655-9834
www.anthonyscookies.com

Moussy’s brings French cooking classes, movies and Petit Dejeuner to Nob Hill/Polk Gulch
Downstairs from Alliance Francaise, there’s a new stop pre or post AF’s French language classes and film screenings: Moussy’s, an intimate, candlelit cafe for a morning croissant and cappuccino, or lunch time respite, serving salads, baked brie, and pot pies. They’ll soon be offering French cooking classes and film nights, too, ensuring that foodies, expats, bohemian artists, poets and aspiring cooks have a true Parisian cafe hangout.
1345 Bush, SF.
415-441-1802
www.moussys.com

Distractions: Seth Rogen, age 13

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April 20, 2009

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By Molly Freedenberg

I’m not a huge Seth Rogen fan. He’s charming enough, I guess, and I always have a soft spot for Jewish actors who aren’t conventionally attractive (Jason Schwartzman and Woody Allen, I’m talking to you). But since I am neither a 17-year-old boy nor a stoner, Rogen’s comedies simply don’t do much for me; hence, neither does he.

However, I’ve developed a new affection for him after stumbling across a video of him performing stand-up as a teenager on one of my favorite time suck sites, www.idontlikeyouinthatway.com. In the video, he’s surprisingly confident and funny for his age. Plus, he’s taking shots at Judaism — a sure way to warm this semi-Semite’s heart.

I’m still not going to see Observe and Report, or probably ever finish more than 20 minutes of Knocked Up. But when he gets a little older and starts doing more comedian-turned-serious-actor stints (a la Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), I might actually buy a ticket to see him rather than watching his film for free via www.sidereel.com. Nice job, 13-year-old Seth. You’ve (almost) caught yourself a nice (almost) Jewish girl. At least, as a possible fan.

Snap Sounds: Dawn of the Dead

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April 16, 2009

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By Johnny Ray Huston

Various artists
Unreleased Soundtrack Music from George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead
(Trunk, 2009)

I’ll put forth a declaration. Two of the biggest influences on neo-prog, contemporary post-rock, and 21st century cosmic disco — in other words, a lot of vital music today — are a pair of film directors: John Carpenter and Dario Argento.

Carpenter’s influence is as a musician. His thrifty yet supreme scores for Halloween (1978), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), and others have been a major inspiration for a group such as Pittsburgh’s duo Zombi, whose new album Spirit Animal again is packed with ’70s horror keyboard sounds.

Trailer for Zombi: Dawn of the Dead (feel free to add to the comments!)

Argento’s influence is as a musical curator. And the Zombi reference extends to him, since the word zombi kicks off the full title of his Italian re-cut of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, a version that has its own auteur charms. Major among those charms is Argento’s monumental crate-digging. According to Jonny Trunk, he “added over sixty tracks to the score utilizing not only [Music] De Wolfe’s extensive library but also its subsidiary labels Rouge and Hudson.” In the process, long before reissue and archival mania, he brings viewers and listeners loony waltz music (“The Gonk”), dissonant orchestration (“Cosmogony Part 1”; “Sinistre”), dorkily polite cock-of-the-walk rock (“Cause I’m a Man,” by Peter Reno), scary transmissions from the outer space of early electronics (“Figment’s Park”), marching band mayhem (“Ragtime Razzamatazz”), Bernard Hermmann string tension (“Barrage”), and plaintive Lucio Battisti-like Italian prog instrumental interludes. Dude. No Goblin, though.

San Francisco’s 103rd Big One Commemoration

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April 16, 2009

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Lee Houskeeper, press agent extraordinaire and worthy keeper of the flame for the l906 great earthquake and fire, flashes the word on this year’s celebration at 5:ll am., Saturday (April l8th), at Lotta’s Fountain Tree. See you there. B3

105 YEAR OLD ROSE CLIVER TO ATTEND 103rd ANNIVERSARY OF 1906 GREAT EARTHQUAKE & FIRE SATURDAY, APRIL 18TH

Five Public Events Will Mark San Francisco’s 103rd BIG ONE Commemoration

5:11 AM, APRIL 18th AT LOTTA’S FOUNTAIN free
6:00 AM AT THE FIRE HYDRANT THAT SAVED THE MISSION CHURCHES free
7:00 AM LEFTY O’DOUL’S SURVIVOR BREAKFAST open to the public
9:00 AM SCREENING OF “1906 ” FILM & BREAKFAST-WESTON ST. FRANCIS free
11:00 AM JOHN’s GRILL ANNUAL SURVIVOR LUNCH open to the public

5:11 AM Will Mark Exact Moment of 1906 Quake

Golden Animals at Thee Parkside Thursday night

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April 15, 2009

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By L.C. Mason

The garage scene may be in vogue, but Golden Animals have delved even further into rock music’s roots: they’ve taken their sound back to the sun-soaked porch, giving their tunes the dreamy warmth of a wild afternoon breeze and a woolly charm as endless as the sky.

Golden Animals, captured on film by Victoria Smith

This Salton Sea-dwelling duo has fashioned Californian blues themes of freewheeling cumulo-surrealism with just a drumset and an electric guitar, and vocalist Tommy Eisner’s uncanny Doors-ian croon is the silver lining — imagine if Jim Morrison hadn’t gotten so obsessed with the idea of Paris and had wandered into the desert like we always thought he would.

Golden Animals, “Big Red Rose”

Golden Animals, “The Steady Roller”

GOLDEN ANIMALS
with Zodiac Death Valley, the Broads
8 p.m., $6
Thee Parkside
1600 17th St., SF
(415) 252-1330
www.theeparkside.com

Dot dash — Norman McLaren and Junior Boys

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April 15, 2009

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By Johnny Ray Huston

In this week’s Guardian I make reference to the influence of animator Norman McLaren on Junior Boys’ new album Begone Dull Care (Domino). The song collection takes its name from a 1949 film by McLaren, but his influence saturates the album, from its lyrical references to “Parallel Lines” to more overt aspects such as the simply handsome color chart qualities of the CD’s booklet, on through to a song titled “The Animator.” “I could draw a line without it falling off the page,” singer-lyricist Jeremy Greenspan intones wishfully there, before glowing instrumental elements build up to a swoon. Canadian pride and gay affinity live within singer-songwriter Greenspan’s tribute to the late McLaren, who drew directly onto film to create many of his best works. But could the Junior Boys’ version of Begone Dull Care use a little of McLaren’s splashy energy and humor? Though he also dipped into jazz, the music for many of his shorts has a Perrey and Kingsley quality. Here’s a sample to enjoy:

Norman McLaren, Dots

Norman McLaren, Begone Dull Care

After the jump — more McLaren films:

Film review: “The Black Balloon”

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April 15, 2009

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By Natalie Gregory

Elissa Down’s The Black Balloon is an impressive little film. The Australian import follows the Mollisons, a family centered on their autistic son Charlie (an awards-worthy performance by Luke Ford). It is told mainly through the eyes of Thomas (Rhys Wakefield), Charlie’s younger brother. We see Thomas struggle with the perception of his brother by his peers and his constant regret that Charlie is not normal. His mother Maggie (played with maternal strength by Toni Collette) and father Simon (Erik Thomson) love Charlie unconditionally and take excellent care of him. And there are certainly incidents to be taken care of. Maggie and Thomas argue just after Charlie has just defecated on his bedroom floor. The reason? Thomas locked him in his room when Thomas’ love interest drops by. It is a quest for Thomas to accept his brother’s fate, and to learn by example what it means to be compassionate. A moving film.

The Black Balloon opens Fri/17 in Bay Area theaters.

Film Festival 52

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April 15, 2009

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Innovative docs, fractured fairy tales, Disney ditties, dinosaurs, and at least one scene-stealing camel highlight the Fest’s fifty-second year. Our critics take a peek at some of the more buzz-worthy entries below.

THE 52ND SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL runs April 23–May 7. Main venues are the Sundance Kabuki, 1881 Post, SF; Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; and Clay, 2261 Fillmore, SF. Satellite venues are Premier Theater, Letterman Digital Arts Center, Bldg. B, One Letterman Drive, Presidio, SF; and Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF. Tickets (most shows $12.50; special programs vary) and additional information at www.sffs.org.

>>52 pick-up
SFIFF rides again, with a quietly terrifying North Korea doc
By Cheryl Eddy

>>In the realms of the real
Sacred Places and Z32 — SFIFF’s unconventional docs
By Max Goldberg

>>Unhappily ever after
The film fest’s fractured, freaky, and feminist fantasies
By Kimberly Chun

>>Oaktown fugue
Everything Strange and New: stillness interrupted
Lynn Rapoport

>>Tune Boom
SFIFF’s catchy ditties and dino-riffs
By Dennis Harvey

>>Shots in the dark
Our short, sharp takes on other SFIFF flicks

Fiends, eyepatches, and femmes fatales

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April 15, 2009

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The cause of showing neglected old films on 35 mm — that vanishing format — is one recently taken up by a number of local presenters, including the Film on Film Foundation and Midnites for Maniacs. We’re not alone in that pursuit, with one notable purveyor of vintage esoteria on celluloid being Austin, Texas’ Alamo Drafthouse. Its Cinemapocalypse programmers are currently on an "Invasion U.S.A." tour bringing disreputable shlock to big screens along the West Coast.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ double bill on Saturday spans the Atlantic with gratuitous violence and toplessness. Fernando Di Leo’s 1976 Mister Scarface is a lively example of the crime thrillers Italy churned out back then for the international grindhouse circuit. Italian-looking German and Fassbinder regular Harry Baer and German-looking Egyptian Fulci/Franco regular Al Cliver play cocky play dudes out to shake down Jack Palance’s titular mob boss. As their flamboyant older sidekick Vittorio Caprioli opines, "That’s a-Scarface. He’s-a bad news, I tell ya. Just-a looking at him and my asshole a-twitches."

Its marginally less obscure co-feature is Paul Nicholas’ incredibly tawdry 1983 Chained Heat, considered by many the greatest of all W.I.P. (Women in Prison) flicks. The cast alone clinches it: Linda Blair, Sybil Danning, Tamara (1973’s Cleopatra Jones) Dobson, Stella Stevens, Edy Williams — you get the idea.

Midnites for Maniacs gets into the Texas action with a "Fighting Back in the ’80s" quartet at the Castro Theatre on Sunday. Escape from New York (1981) you’ve seen, and 1983’s Vigilante, a.k.a. Street Gang (Fred Williamson and Robert Forster go Death Wish on the usual cackling punk-scum "animals"), is no rarity. But curious minds really want to know about 1982’s kitchen-sink exploitation blowout (cannibal monks! T&A! Kung fu! Cameron Mitchell!) Raw Force. And you haven’t lived till you’ve seen Lady Terminator, a 1988 Indonesian whatsit about an ancient nymphomaniac water goddess who towels off to wreak havoc on the police force and civilian penises of modern Jakarta. It’s vagina dentaterrific. (Dennis Harvey)

SAT/18, MISTER SCARFACE (7 P.M.) AND CHAINED HEAT (8:45 P.M.)

$8-$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

SUN/19, VIGILANTE (2 P.M.); RAW FORCE (4 P.M.); ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (6 P.M.); LADY TERMINATOR (8 P.M.)

$10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

Carolina blues

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April 15, 2009

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cheryl@sfbg.com

Ramin Bahrani is a young filmmaker who’s beloved by critics and whatever arthouse-type audiences have been lucky enough to catch his work, thus far 2005’s Man Push Cart and 2007’s Chop Shop. Born in America to Iranian parents, Bahrani was educated at Columbia University and set both of those films — minimalist marvels that racked up kudos galore at global fests — in New York City. His latest, Goodbye Solo, shifts from gritty NY to depressed Winston-Salem, N.C., where Bahrani was raised. Winston-Salem is home to Wake Forest University, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company; it’s also where Bahrani met the real-life characters who inspired Solo‘s tale of an elderly Southerner, William (Red West) who reluctantly befriends the Senegalese cab driver, Solo (Souléymane Sy Savané), who regularly shuttles him around town.

In the film’s first scene — which really begins mid-scene, as if the camera just happened to be turned on at an unspecified moment — Solo has laughingly just agreed to take William to the mountain hamlet of Blowing Rock in two weeks’ time. As becomes increasingly clear, it’s a two-hour trip from which William does not plan to return. Solo, who dreams of being a flight attendant despite the disapproval of his hugely pregnant wife (mother to his feisty nine-year-old stepdaughter), reaches out to the lonely William for reasons he doesn’t quite understand. For his part, William would prefer to be left alone as he quietly ties up his affairs, though he does begrudgingly allow Solo to bunk down in his motel room when Solo’s career aspirations cause a marital rift.

West, a high school pal of Elvis Presley and a member of Presley’s Memphis Mafia (until Elvis: What Happened?, a 1977 tell-all co-written with other posse members), was a stunt player during the King’s Hollywood years. (As a big-screen presence, West is perhaps most recognizable as one of Patrick Swayze’s small-town allies in 1989’s immortal Road House.) His William is gruffly taciturn, with a mournful aura that suggests a past full of transgressions and a present choked with regrets.

By contrast, Solo is an ebullient force, working hard and hustling harder to get ahead. He takes to William immediately, dubbing the older man "Big Dog" and convincing him to ride around with him and even kick back with a beer at the local pool joint. It’s only when he interferes with William’s Blowing Rock plans that he understand the difficult choice he’ll have to make, should he want to become the friend William truly needs.

Hollywood films about aging are generally sappy, preachy, and stuffed with cringe-inducing scenes of distinguished actors skydiving (see: 2007’s The Bucket List). Not only does Goodbye Solo approach the subject with dignity, it balances out the grimmer William plot with Solo’s optimistic embrace of everything in his life. Realism, with naturalistic acting and locations, is Bahrani’s technical gift. Along with co-scriptwriter Baharez Azimi, he’s also able to hew giant, honest emotions from tiny moments and seemingly ordinary situations.

GOODBYE SOLO opens Fri/17 in Bay Area theaters.

Local Artist of the Week: Mike Kuchar

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April 14, 2009

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LOCAL ARTIST Mike Kuchar

TITLE Myth Men

BIO Mike Kuchar, cinematographer, painter, writer, and brother of George Kuchar, was born in New York City. He began making 8 mm movies in the 1950s, switching over to 16 mm film production in 1960, and continues now, producing short motion pictures in the video and digital formats. He has also done illustrations for various erotic publications, including Manscape, Gay Heartthrobs comics, First Hand, and Meatmen.

SHOW "Dark Americana," through May 9. Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, 172 Minna, SF. (415) 777-1366.

WEB www.baerridgway.com

Most Definite, not Think So

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April 13, 2009

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By D. Scot Miller

Anyone who heard "Big Brother Beat" on De La Soul’s 1996 album Stakes Is High (Tommy Boy) was soon saying, "Who’s this kid Mos Def?" Still, it’s hard to believe that, 13 years later, the radiant voice on that track would become the ubiquitous scion of that good old Native Tongue can-do.

Mos Def can turn up simultaneously in a movie (his next project is a film version of Iceberg Slim’s Mama Black Widow) and on a television show (you catch him on House last a few weeks ago?), yet still find time to cameo on other people’s albums, win an Obie for his performance in a play (Suzan Lori Parks’ Fuckin’ A), and come out with a book (Black 2.0, due this summer). It’s like, wait a minute, there’s got to be more than one Mos Def.

His four albums explore his tortured id and black people’s rightful place as the inventors of rock ‘n’ roll and just about all forms of popular music — all that, and they still maintain the dedication to socially conscious protest we’ve come to expect from our once and future truth-tellers. His fifth, The Ecstatic, is due later this year. He’s coming to Yoshi’s in Oakland for a few sets with Robert Glasper on piano, Mark Kelly on bass, Chris "Daddy" Dave on drums, Casey Benjamin on sax, and Keyon Harrold on trumpet. Be a part of history in the making. It’s not like you have a choice. His name is Most Definite, not Think So.

MOS DEF Tues/14–April 16, 8 and 10 p.m., $55. Yoshi’s Oakland, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

Bruce Willis honored at Sonoma International Film Festival

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April 8, 2009

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By Juliette Tang

The 12th Annual Sonoma International Film Festival, a festival celebrating “the best in food, wine, art and music,” ended weekend with a big tribute and party in honor of Bruce Willis, an inexplicable choice in every sense except that he happens to be good friends with the Festival’s executive director, Kevin McNeely. Personally, I’ve never been not the biggest Bruce Willis fan, though I thought his performances in The Sixth Sense and Twelve Monkeys were understated and effective. Bruce is not just an actor in the cut-and-dry sense, but an uber-celebrity. His movies regularly make billions of dollars worldwide, and he is the 7th highest grossing actor of all time. Even though I’m not the type of person to watch action movies, I’ve seen every single Die Hard, either at friend’s houses, or on an airplane somewhere, or just because it was a Saturday and I was tuned onto TNT – it’s one of those movies that, chances are, you will somehow see even if you don’t try to see it, just by merit of being alive. And despite (or maybe, because of) the baldness-induced machismo and the faint but perceptible odor of sleaze he emits, some women really like him. How? Why?

Perhaps Bruce Willis’ special brand of je ne sais quoi is due to his beautiful singing voice? Check out some great vintage Bruce, after the jump.