Films

One-on-one-on-one

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Violent Femmes and wrestling boys. The same boys watching TV, huffing glue, jerking off, playing soccer, dodging water balloons, sharing headphones, and dancing, singing, and drumming at punk rock shows. Listed in this manner, the basic ingredients of Alexis Dos Santos’s Glue don’t sound that different from those of a dozen other teen films. But the way Dos Santos views such material is something else entirely. Glue is that rare kind of filmmaking so attuned to pleasure and spontaneity that it tickles your palate, opening up new possibilities about how to live. The film’s chief subject matter — bisexuality that takes exhilarating form before the constraints of adulthood can arrive — is ideally realized through Dos Santos’s sensual and whim-driven approach.

"If my parents made love before I was conceived, would it be me being born or another boy?" skinny, wild-haired, and sleepy-eyed Lucas (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) wonders to himself at the beginning of Glue, before his jock friend Nacho (Nahuel Viale) and their mutual crush, the gawky yet beautiful Andrea (Inés Efron), arrive on screen. When Andrea is eventually introduced, it’s via a poolside scene in which polite kisses through a steel fence provide one typically fleet example of Dos Santos’s ability to land on the right use of foreground, background, and happenstance scenic detail to convey a shot or scene’s emotional temperature.

This symbiosis between director and actors — and perhaps even more important, between actors — results in some extraordinary passages. Glue meanders near its end, when, in true teen spirit, it doesn’t want a good time to end. But in its best moments, Dos Santos’s debut feature is an important and exciting addition to Latin American cinema’s evolving views of masculinity. (Sergio de la Mora’s recent book Cinemachismo is an excellent source for historical background on the subject.) Glue‘s ménage à trois is more radical than the ones in both Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También and Fernando Eimbcke’s chaste Duck Season, though one suspects those more commercial movies helped pave the way for the spaces that Dos Santos and his actors discover. Like Julián Hernández’s Broken Sky, in which a trio of young lovers meet and kiss repeatedly in public, Dos Santos’s insular and gutsy film charts territory where people don’t repress their desires.

Thus it’s a shame that, unlike all of the Mexican features mentioned in the previous paragraph, Glue doesn’t have a distributor. Dos Santos’s movie is yet another example of how new Argentine cinema (thanks to talents as varied as Lisandro Alonso, Lucrecia Martel, Verónica Chen, and Pablo Trapero) continues to stretch the time and space dimensions of the word new. Unfortunately, it’s far from the first film from Argentina in the past few years to be neglected by commercial forces. A French feature such as Pascal Arnold and Jean-Marc Barr’s One to Another treats the same elements found in Glue — teen life, bisexual trysts, rock music — in a manner that results in overheated garbage (yes, it stinks), yet it’s been given exactly the type of eminent, if small, US theatrical run that Dos Santos’s movie deserves. That means now is the time to see Glue. (Johnny Ray Huston) *

GLUE (Alexis Dos Santos, Argentina, 2006) June 20, 9:15 p.m., Parkway; June 22, 7 p.m., Victoria

From the ashes

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"They may label you, try to classify you, and even call you a crazy bitch — but don’t flinch, just let them," Honey of Radio Phoenix says to the women of New York City after her black feminist–run station gets bombed by government agents, after her comrade in arms is found dead in her jail cell, as the fireworks are about to go off in a certain tall tower in Lower Manhattan.

There’s no denying the evocative weight of that last image these days. But Lizzie Borden’s 1983 Born in Flames — and in particular, advice like Honey’s — comes to mind every time I watch a film in which grrrls are running riot in the street or on the radio or in the clubs, a slowly but surely growing subgenre as the decades pass (at least in my home video collection).

In the thin line of plot running patchily through Borden’s vérité-style feature, surfacing at the Roxie Film Center on June 22, the War of Liberation has brought about a single-party system run by Socialist Democrats, the postrevolution economy is in the toilet, and working women are bearing the brunt of the mass layoffs that have ensued. Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield) is the leader of the Women’s Army, a loose circle of radical lesbian feminists — or vigilantes, as they’re called on the nightly news — who, among other pursuits, patrol the streets on bicycles with whistles at the ready in search of men behaving badly.

Norris begins to see their basically peaceful efforts to gain equality going nowhere and becomes convinced that armed struggle is the only way to get the government’s attention and force a change. When she dies in jail, the news sends a charge through the gathering underground, bringing together disconnected feminist forces that have long kept their distance. Borden’s aim, perhaps unrealistic and perhaps naive, is to present an expanding patchwork of radicalized women unified across lines of class and race in the face of overarching sexism.

You couldn’t call the women of Born in Flames riot grrrls with a straight face. The spiky commentators at Radio Regazza — trash-talking, white punk-rock counterparts to Radio Phoenix’s Honey — look familiar, but this is the second wave of feminism personified (evidenced, for one, by an unquestioning opposition to sex work). But if Borden’s point in setting Born in Flames in a future United States run by socialists, of all things, is that nothing much has changed for the second sex postrevolution, there’s a parallel in watching as a new clan of young women is born in flames onscreen every few years.

Such latter-day films — Kristine Peterson’s 1997 Slaves to the Underground, documenting the Portland DIY scene of the early ’90s; Barbara Teufel’s 2003 part-fiction, part-doc Gallant Girls, set amid the direct-action anarchopunks of late-’80s Berlin — regularly surface at the Frameline fest. And this year adds a couple more to the pack: closing night’s Itty Bitty Titty Committee, a tale of teen radicalization by But I’m a Cheerleader‘s Jamie Babbit (who cites Born in Flames as an inspiration), and the Spanish film El Calentito, by Chus Gutiérrez, set in 1981 on the eve of a coup d’état by Fascist vestiges of Francisco Franco’s gang. These, as well as Flames contemporaries Times Square (Allan Moyle, 1980) and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (Lou Adler, 1981), are filled with rude girls hijacking the radio waves or the stage, flinging out slogans and manifestos, and screaming bloody murder. Though only Borden’s future radicals are prepared to cause it. *

BORN IN FLAMES (Lizzie Borden, US, 1983). June 22, 10:30 p.m., Roxie

Hit it or quit it

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Black White and Gray (James Crump, US, 2007) If Andre Téchiné’s The Witnesses colors the early ’80s red, this documentary about Sam Wagstaff (and by extension Robert Mapplethorpe) opts for a relatively bloodless palette. Though its voice-over shows class chauvinism in asserting that Patti Smith brought validity to punk, Black White and Gray perceptively uses its enigmatic subject as a window onto the changing role of photography within the art world. (Mapplethorpe’s objectification of black men is left uncriticized.) Crump brings in some excellent sources, such as Hanuman publisher Raymond Foye. He also brings in at least one horrible blabbermouth: spewing bitter opinion, historian Eugenia Parry deserves every hearty hiss she’s going to get from a Frameline crowd. The film ends on a flat note by allowing Smith to recite one of her pedestrian recent lyrics, but otherwise she’s a trustworthy and likable source on the relationship between Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe. Maybe the DVD version will bring more of her reminiscences and less of Parry. (Johnny Ray Huston)

June 21, 7 p.m., Victoria

DarkBlueAlmostBlack (Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, Spain, 2006). The term Almodóvarian is being thrown around these days with almost the same frequency as the term Hitchcockian (Almodóvar’s Bad Education was called Hitchcockian) and just as vaguely, but screenwriter-director Sánchez Arévalo’s DarkBlueAlmostBlack is Almodóvarian, resembling his postscrewball phase: it has melodrama without histrionics, likable characters doing absurdly unlikable things and vice versa, malleable (different from queer) sexuality, and near-incestuous family dynamics. The only thing missing is a hideously decorated apartment. In a world littered with the fruits of vacant and wild-eyed Almodóvarians (see — or don’t — Frameline 30’s unintentional disaster film The Favor), a disciple with some chops is cause for applause. Bitterly funny and narratively exciting — it toys with an amiable glibness that always comes back from the brink with devastating human emotion —Sánchez Arévalo’s dark but not quite jet-black comedy could be one of Almodóvar’s strongest films. (Jason Shamai)

June 20, 9:30 p.m., Victoria

Finn’s Girl (Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert, Canada, 2007). While other lesbians in the fest ponder whether to start a family, in Finn’s Girl conception is a fait accompli. How exactly it was accomplished is a bit of a mystery, but more pressing questions present themselves. One is whether Finn, a workaholic running a besieged Toronto abortion clinic and mourning the death of her wife, will get her head blown off by antichoice snipers — apparently, religious wingnuts live in Canada too. Another is whether she’s up for single-parenting the charming, precocious, enraged, and increasingly unmanageable Zelly, whose expressive 11-year-old eyes are particularly off-putting when narrowed above the smoke of a joint. Finn’s Girl covers a lot of terrain (grief, reproductive rights and technology, the travails of parenting, tween sexuality) with a fairly light tread, though Zelly’s scenes carry a particular charge of unpredictability. The result is a somewhat involving, sometimes sketchy picture of a family in transition. (Lynn Rapoport)

Sun/17, 12:30 p.m., Castro; Tues/19, 6:30 p.m., Parkway

Fun in Girls’ Shorts (various). Excluding Filled with Water, a smart, beautifully shot animation about a woman who falls for a TV-enclosed ballerina, and Succubus, a semicomedic film about a lesbian couple struggling to have a child, adolescent identity issues and anxieties constitute the major themes of this short-film compilation. With its attractively blurry cinematography, Pariah, about a 17-year-old black girl who keeps switching identities to please her parents and friends, is the most complete example of the suffocative effects that the suppression of one’s identity can have on a person, let alone a teen. (Maria Komodore)

Sat/16, 1:45 p.m., Castro; June 24, 11:30 a.m., Castro

Homos by the Bay (various). Though uneven, this program of shorts by local filmmakers does boast some standouts, including a stop-motion pair by Samara Halperin (who notably queerified Beverly Hills, 90210 in 2001’s Sorry, Brenda): the minute-long rhapsody on hot dogs, Plastic Fantastic #1, and Hard Hat Required, featuring two Lego men who do more than construction on the job. The Clap’s Gary Fembot uses his DJ skills for Mondo Bottomless‘s delightfully vintage pop soundtrack, a perfect match for its 16 minutes of cavorting men in bathing suits. And Nao Bustamante has a joyful punk-rock awakening in the black-and-white suburban fantasy The Perfect Ones. (Cheryl Eddy)

June 23, 1:15 p.m., Victoria

Jam (Marc Woollen, US, 2006). This is a fantastic, fascinating Roller Derby doc about Tim Patten, a local HIV-positive man who ferociously attempted to revive the sport after its virtual demise in the ’70s and, with it, the legendary Bay Area Bombers team. In San Francisco in the late ’90s, Bombers matches at Kezar Stadium were the hottest after-dark tickets in town, uniting swing revivalists, rockabilly fans, queer hipsters, and anyone into exquisitely goofy WWF-type antics but not into scary WWF crowds. Director Woollen takes us behind the scenes of those derby matches, delivering plenty of colorful history and personal drama (along with a few trade secrets) and uniting the disparate stories of the eccentrically flamboyant gang of wheel-heeled dreamers who signed on to Patten’s dream into a rollicking tale of subversive triumph. Now that’s a party. (Marke B.)

Mon/18, 7 p.m., Victoria

No Regret (Leesong Hee-il, South Korea, 2006). If you like movies about sexy orphans who become male prostitutes, you have at least two options at Frameline this year: Twilight Dancers and No Regret. Neither really addresses the issues it promises to (class politics, sex politics, et al.). But No Regret — essentially Pretty Woman for gay male depressives — is at least a better time at the movies. The South Korean film successfully tricks us into thinking its condom-thin melodrama is worthy of our tears, which is nothing to sneeze at. Just don’t expect to come out of the theater having unpacked the psyches of mopey Adonises for hire and their equally mopey rich lovers. (Shamai)

June 22, 10 p.m., Victoria

On the Downlow (Abigail Child, US, 2007) Some of the best pure moviemaking in this year’s festival can be found within this documentary by Abigail Child. Reflecting Child’s background as an experimental filmmaker, On the Downlow finds a lot of poetry and grit in urban Cleveland: a shot of a hooker moseying across the street and a sequence set at a barbecue are great examples of the poetry in motion that can happen when a talented woman with a camera looks at another woman. (Shot by men, these sequences would almost unfailingly be presented in a crude fashion or simply left ignored.) Of course, the main subjects here are men. Child also films them well, adding portraiture to talking-heads segments. On the Downlow‘s somewhat frustrating paradox is that it can’t really directly present its title subject — the guys talking here are either in love with DL guys who aren’t interviewed or they’re young gays- or bi’s-to-be taking awkward first public steps toward an out identity. (Huston)

June 23, 6 p.m., Victoria

Tan Lines (Ed Aldridge, Australia, 2006). The Aussie surfside ensemble drama has deep roots, stretching at least from preasshole Mel Gibson’s 1977 feature debut, Summer City, to last year’s superb, as-yet-unreleased (at least here) crime docudrama Out of the Blue. Landing somewhere between Gus van Sant and shark-bait territory, director Aldridge’s first feature focuses on the few days when 16-year-old surfer Midget (Jack Baxter) falls in first love — or at least first lust — with his best mate’s briefly returned, gay-disgraced brother, Cass (Daniel O’Leary). With its cannily used nonprofessional actors and streaks of absurdist humor, Tan Lines is an offbeat delight for half its length. The charm fades a bit thereafter, but this is still worth a look. (Dennis Harvey)

June 23, 3:30 p.m., Castro

Tick Tock Lullaby (Lisa Gornick, UK, 2006). Flirting with the idea of having a child and confronted with the difficult question of how to go about having it, Sasha (Gornick) and Maya (Raquel Cassidy), a lesbian couple living in London, set out on a sperm escapade. Inspired by the thought process that Sasha goes through as the couple’s hunt progresses, three additional stories emerge and intermingle, representing variations on the potential of becoming a parent. Shot with a beautifully fluid camera, Tick Tock Lullaby is an intimate, complex, and elaborate exploration of sexuality, relationships, and most important, parenthood. (Komodore)

Sat/16, 9:30 p.m., Castro

For more short takes on Frameline 31, go to www.sfbg.com/blogs/pixel_vision.

The man whose head exploded

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FILM Recently, my eyeballs were among the first to be skewered by the finished print of Hostel 2. As torture and black humor unspooled on the big screen, director Eli Roth — last seen working on Grindhouse, both as an actor and behind the camera for the Thanksgiving trailer — prowled about, gauging audience reactions to his third feature film. The next day I met Roth to discuss all things horror. He talks fast. Here are some excerpts.

On the Metreon audience’s response to Hostel 2: When you’re making a film, you’re literally going on instinct. I know my gore stuff is gonna work, but it’s the other stuff, those moments where you’re, like, "No, don’t, don’t, don’t!" — in editing, you’re just hoping the audience will feel that way. And I thought that every moment hit the way I wanted it to. Even in a fan-based audience, sometimes they’re, like, "All right, impress me, Roth. Let’s see what you got." I wanted people to be cheering and screaming and going wild the way they were at the end of the first one, and I really felt we got that.

On emuutf8g the grand old Italian B-movie tradition of killing kids: I wanted to take risks in the movie. I wanted things where people would go, "Oh, you can’t do that." Not just to offend, but I wanted to live in that danger zone. After I made it, I saw this film directed by [Narciso Ibáñez] Serrador called Who Can Kill a Child?, which I think is genuinely one of the single greatest horror films. I love those early 1970s Italian movies like Torso, Night Train Murders, and To Be Twenty, by Fernando di Leo. Have you seen To Be Twenty? At the end of this movie, my jaw was on the ground. It was so horrific that they pulled every single print from the theaters. But in all three of those films, it’s a group of college-age girls that are all going on a trip somewhere. The girls all make intelligent decisions; there’s nothing that they do that’s like a dumb movie moment. And there’s a real, palpable sense of dread in those movies. I really wanted to build that sense of dread for everybody [in Hostel 2].

On getting Ruggero Deodato, director of 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust, to cameo: I went to Italy to do press for Hostel, and this journalist was producing behind-the-scenes interviews for No Shame DVDs. We drove an hour outside of Rome to the set of a TV show that Deodato was shooting. I brought my Cannibal Holocaust poster for him to sign. And he was so funny and so cool, and I was, like, "I got a cameo for you that I think the American fans would love." And Deodato is just a huge slice of ham. This guy loves being on camera. He’s so funny. And when he showed up on set, I got to ask him questions like, how do you direct people that live in trees, like in Last Cannibal World? It was great to hear his answers.

On his rivalry with the Saw filmmakers: I’m friends with all those guys, and we always call each other when we get a kill scene done. It’s almost like this bleeding contest we have. The Splat Pack — we all love each other’s movies. But there’s always that side of you that wants to have the rep of having the nastiest kill. We joke all the time: "We’re running out of body parts!"

On his inspiration for torture scenes: All you have to do is go to the Museum of Torture in Prague. The stuff you see is so shocking you couldn’t even film it. [In my films] it’s a combination of looking at history and what’s actually already been done and sort of walking around Home Depot and looking at tools. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter what I think of — what makes the scene horrifying is whoever’s in the chair. It’s the actor. That’s what makes it really scary.

His response to people who think his films glorify violence: I say, don’t see them. I’m not making movies to appeal to everybody. I’m making movies for fans of this type of movie, and I want to stay true to that.

HOSTEL 2

Opens Fri/8 in Bay Area theaters

See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

Call the docs

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Now in its ninth year, the San Francisco Black Film Festival continues to expand its scope, with two long weekends of narrative films and documentaries plus several shorts programs. If you didn’t catch The Last Days of Left Eye during one of its recent VH-1 airings, it’s well worth a look on the big screen. After struggling through years of alcoholism and an abusive relationship (you know, the one where she burned the dude’s house down), hip-hop icon Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes found herself, kinda, through rehab and multiple trips to a faith healer in Honduras — the site of her fatal 2002 car accident. Composed mostly of footage shot for a documentary that was in progress when Lopes died, Last Days — directed by Lauren Lazin, an Oscar nominee for 2003’s Tupac: Resurrection — offers an unguarded look at the fragile megastar.

Another doc worth checking out is The Clinton 12, a PBS-esque look at the events leading up to the 1958 bombing of the first court-ordered integrated high school in the South. After segregation was outlawed, low-key Clinton, Tenn., saw an uptick in hate (cue the Ku Klux Klan) and played host to a media frenzy as the first day of school approached; a "home guard" was formed by veterans and other concerned Clinton citizens to help keep peace in the city, though the National Guard soon stepped in as well. Even if you don’t factor in James Earl Jones’s narration (and a dramatic score), Keith Henry McDaniel’s film has plenty of gravitas.

Octavio Warnock-Graham’s Silences also looks at racial tensions, but on a much smaller scale: within one family, all white except for the filmmaker, the mixed-race product of his mother’s short-lived relationship with an African American dancer. In his 25-minute film, Warnock-Graham travels from Ohio to the Bay Area in search of his long-lost father and draws his mother’s family into a discussion of what’s clearly been an elephant in the room since his birth.

SAN FRANCISCO BLACK FILM FESTIVAL

Thurs/7–Sun/10 and June 14–17, most films $10

See film listings for showtimes and venue info

www.sfbff.org

Candid camera

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Shohei Imamura’s 1961 film Pigs and Battleships opens with the impressive sight of gleaming modern buildings lining the landscape of an industrialized port town. This would-be idyllic image of newfound cooperation between the Japanese and the Americans is swiftly subverted with the upward yank of a crane shot, which ends with a bird’s-eye view of the neighboring area. Our new vantage point reveals the run-down, bustling alleys of the outlying red-light district, conspicuously teeming with carousing American sailors on shore leave and equally garrulous touts who aggressively steer the former at every turn to mob-run brothels, like farmers corralling swine.

Often considered the first real Imamura film, Pigs and Battleships is a wry satire of postoccupation Japan, where MacArthurization had laid the foundations for both a thriving black market and a fledgling democracy. Imamura would continually return to that distant perch arrived at in the film’s opening minutes, to better observe a Japan that lay just outside the established frame. The Brueghelian panorama of black-market profiteers, shopworn bar hostesses, American soldiers behaving badly, and amateur pornographers he captured from the 1960s onward is on full display in the 12 remaining features of the Pacific Film Archive’s current embarrassment of riches "Shohei Imamura’s Japan."

Imamura’s perspective is more akin to that of a child who, having picked up a rock, becomes fascinated with the squirming, dark world that’s thriving underneath than it is to that of a detached anthropologist, which his extended shots and lack of flashy editing sometimes lead critics to take him for. Social critique, while certainly present in Imamura’s films, is always paired with a certain delectation in watching the tawdry and the grotesque.

In early Imamura films like Pigs and Battleships and the black caper comedy Endless Desire (1958), in which five Osaka lowlifes celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Allied victory by plotting to steal a hidden cache of Army-issued morphine, we see a Japan flush with the newfound freedom unleashed and bequeathed by the occupation and emboldened by the collapse of imperial authority.

The long hangover that carried into the late-’60s economic boom, exacerbated by the demands of the revitalized radical left for the government to come clean about the World War II skeletons still in its closet, also was not lost on Imamura’s camera. He was, after all, a member of the nuberu bagu (taken from the French nouvelle vague) rat pack, the iconoclastic children of Jean-Luc Godard and Coca-Cola who emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, chomping at the bit of a weakening studio system. His documentaries from the ’70s might be more soft-spoken than Oshima Nagisa’s fiery cinematic indictments against the government (Oshima’s 1968 Death by Hanging is necessary viewing), but they are no less damning.

A History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (1970) is, as its title indicates, a prostitute’s narration of a chronicle from which she and those in her profession were largely occluded. The gradually widening distance between Akaza Etsuko’s tale and the official version Imamura contrasts it with via historical footage makes the truism that history is written by the winners feel depressingly deeper than a platitude, despite the director’s clearly felt empathy for the bruised woman speaking before him.

In Karayuki-san, the Making of a Prostitute, made three years later, Imamura interviews Zendo Kikuyo, a former karayuki-san, or "comfort woman," living in Malaysia who was forced to sexually service Japanese soldiers on the East Asian front. Much as Akaza’s recounting in History of her experiences with American soldiers parallels Japan’s submission to the United States, so Imamura here makes it clear that Zendo’s prostituted body became a tool of Japan’s colonial and imperial ambitions. However, the shaming silence that greets her as she attempts to reunite with relatives in Hiroshima later in the film seems far more painful than many of the wartime indignities she recounts with such unnerving calm.

That a Japanese filmmaker would so candidly take on an issue that many feel the Japanese government, even to this day, has not sufficiently redressed — as evidenced by last month’s US-Japan diplomatic tête-à-tête on the matter — let alone more than 30 years ago, is remarkable. In Akaza and Zendo, Imamura found real-life equivalents of Tome, the country girl turned prostitute and antihero of his 1963 classic The Insect Woman. These women who had no choice but to use and be used by the system in order to survive. Imamura may have viewed postwar Japan as something of a carnival, but in his long view we catch sight of his subjects’ humanity, shining through like the glint from an old coin, and sometimes we can even catch glimpses of grace. *

SHOHEI IMAMURA’S JAPAN

Through June 30; $4–$8

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft Way, Berk.

(510) 642-1124

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Oh Mickey, you’re so lame

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In 1938, 13 years before a cinematic Alice visited Wonderland, Porky Pig flew to Wackyland, a Salvador Dalí painting come to life. Determined to find the last dodo bird on earth, he wandered through this surrealist landscape to the rhythm of the marijuana ditty "Feeling High and Happy." In 1931’s One More Time, Mickey Mouse’s ears grew bigger and his tail bushier as he transformed into Foxy, a police officer who then chased the Prohibition-era villains who had kidnapped his girlfriend. In 1943’s A Corny Concerto, Elmer Fudd tried his luck as an orchestra conductor, only to be defeated by his tuxedo, which left him practically naked while he tried to introduce two Johann Strauss Jr. waltzes.

If all this sounds good to you and you’re tired of Walt Disney’s plethora of unimaginative, didactic, and patronizing cartoons, then you’re in for a treat. For more than 25 years, Portland, Ore., film archivist, historian, professor, and writer Dennis Nyback has been searching for rare films in the catalog The Big Reel as well as in thrift stores and flea markets. "F@ck Mickey Mouse" is the title of a 16mm film program Nyback has assembled to showcase, as he puts it, "rare cartoon precursors that beat Disney to the punch, imitators that ripped him off, and parodies that made vicious fun of some of Disney’s greatest animation shorts."

Nyback’s program reveals a world that is funny, bold, and completely out of control. A world that isn’t afraid to turn Little Red Riding Hood into Red, a hot dancer, or Snow White into Coal Black, a maid in 1940s Harlem. It also includes perhaps the most daunting example of Disney’s God-bless-America approach, Der Fuehrer’s Face (1942), in which Donald Duck dreams that he is a Nazi. I don’t want to give away the cartoon’s disturbing ending, so I will just quote Nyback: "It does suggest mindless jingoism."

F@CK MICKEY MOUSE

Sat/9, 8 p.m., $10 (limited seating; RSVPs preferred)

Oddball Film and Video

275 Capp, SF

(415) 558-8117

www.oddballfilm.com

Catching the tail of BALLE

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Gazelle Emami checks out Berkeley’s film-oriented BALLE Conference ….

The purpose of educational films—bear with me—are to inform the public. But here’s where they bump into their biggest obstacle. Unless Al Gore is at the helm, they’re probably not going to get wide viewing beyond festivals that are specifically geared toward showing films of their kind. Enter the first ever Business Alliance for Local Living Economies’ (BALLE) Conference Film Festival, a two-day event that was held this past Tuesday and Wednesday at UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Auditorium. The festival’s goal was to build positive sentiment for the BALLE Conference this weekend, kind of like a pep rally for the big game. BALLE, which represents 47 local networks and more than 15,000 small businesses and community organizations, holds an annual conference gathering the preeminent leaders in green industries to discuss pressing issues facing the economy.

manufacturedlandscapesfactorya.jpg
Still from Manufactured Landscapes, a film the opened the conference

According to festival organizer Lisa Katovich, she knew they would be preaching to the choir for the most part. Therefore, Katovich and others tailored the festival’s content to approach the subject matter from a difference angle. So it didn’t really matter that only about 30 people were scattered around an auditorium that can hold roughly 700. By the end, at least all 30 left the room a little more enlightened, as opposed to the hundreds that left Spiderman 3 disappointed, if not a little dumber.

They shoot, he scores

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FILM Even if you’ve never heard of the composer Bernard Herrmann (1911–1975), it’s a safe bet that you’ve quoted him at some point in your life. He’s the coauthor of the widely recognized shorthand for murder and mayhem, the mimed downward thrust of a knife accompanied by the high-pitched squeal, "Wee! Wee! Wee!" His collaborator on this contribution to the pop lexicon was Alfred Hitchcock, and its place of origin is, of course, 1960’s Psycho.

Herrmann, one of the most influential composers ever to work in the film industry, actually ignored Hitchcock’s instruction to leave the shower scene untouched. Hitchcock thought Janet Leigh’s death would be scarier without music but immediately relented on listening to Herrmann’s strings tear into human flesh. (He wasn’t so dazzled six years later when Herrmann pulled the same shit with Torn Curtain‘s score; Hitch dismissed the orchestra in a rage when he discovered the composer recording music for a fight scene intended to be left alone.) Though he’s most popularly associated with Hitchcock — he also worked on The Trouble with Harry, Vertigo, and North by Northwest — Herrmann wrote dozens of scores for other directors and for television. I am partial to his theme for the first season of The Twilight Zone (though he didn’t write the "doo doo doo doo" that is the widely recognized shorthand for weird and creepy — that was introduced in the second season).

The Castro Theatre is giving Herrmann the same treatment it gave Ennio Morricone in April, programming a generous sampling of films featuring the composer’s work. Among the selections is his first Hollywood gig, a little picture called Citizen Kane. Herrmann, who followed Orson Welles to Hollywood, had already been working as composer for Welles’s radio anthology, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, for which Herrmann provided musical accompaniment to the mass hysteria of the famous War of the Worlds broadcast. Other inclusions in the Castro’s program are three Ray Harryhausen projects, Brian de Palma’s Vertigo-inspired Obsession, and the last film Herrmann ever scored, Taxi Driver.

His uncharacteristically sax-heavy score for Martin Scorsese’s film has never really been my cup of tea, to be honest. My favorites are the overture to 1962’s Cape Fear (which film composer Elmer Bernstein adapted and conducted for Scorsese’s remake), Psycho‘s Prelude (an obvious but unavoidable choice, all the more so thanks to Busta Rhymes’s "Gimme Some More"), the spiraling freefall of Vertigo‘s Prelude, and Fahrenheit 451‘s "Suite for Strings."

LEGENDARY COMPOSER: BERNARD HERRMANN

June 1–7, $6–$9

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

Return to the sixth dimension

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

It’s nearly impossible to describe Forbidden Zone to the uninitiated. It’s a musical, a surreal fairy tale, an avant-garde live-action cartoon, and a strangely alluring jab at the boundaries of good taste. It’s black-and-white and nutty all over — and has become a cult sensation since its 1980 release. A film as singularly odd as Forbidden Zone obviously has one hell of a backstory. Fortunately, I didn’t have to sneak through any basement portals to track down director and coscripter Richard Elfman. Now the editor of Buzzine — an entertainment and pop culture mag with a bustling Web site, www.buzzine.com — Elfman e-mailed and chatted with me over the phone about what’s possibly the strangest movie ever made, featuring the first film score by his brother, Danny Elfman.

Surprisingly, Richard revealed quite a few San Francisco ties; he lived in the Haight and in Berkeley in the 1960s and ’70s, playing in an Afro-Latin percussion ensemble that later gigged in Las Vegas. He also spent some time working with the Cockettes, who introduced him to Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoons, a Forbidden Zone influence. A fateful trip to a Toronto theater festival introduced him to the Grand Magic Circus, a French troupe that encouraged his eclectic theatrical tastes.

SFBG How did you move from the Grand Magic Circus to form the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo?

RICHARD ELFMAN Shortly [after the Toronto festival], the Magic Circus opened a major show in Paris. I was invited to join the company, which I did, and soon brought my younger brother Danny in. I married the leading lady, Marie-Pascale — Frenchy in Forbidden Zone. The show was billed as an avant-garde musical, but in fact much of it had roots in both turn of the century absurdism and French classical comedy.

After a year of touring Europe and beyond, I, along with Frenchy and my childhood friend Gene Cunningham [Pa in Forbidden Zone], formed the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo back in Los Angeles. My brother Danny, who went from the Magic Circus to a year in the African bush — I’m not joking — joined us shortly thereafter. The Mystic Knights incorporated absurdist comedy with an eclectic mix of great older music, pieces [by Cab Calloway and others] that could no longer be heard live elsewhere, along with original avant-garde pieces by Danny. As the ’70s moved along, I went off to other projects; under my brother’s direction, the Mystic Knights were ultimately bent into a rock band, Oingo Boingo.

SFBG Obviously, several of the performers in Forbidden Zone were from the theater troupe — but how did Susan Tyrrell and Hervé Villechaize get involved?

RE Well, the film had Frenchy [who starred and was the production designer], Gene, my brother, and all of the Mystic Knights, along with Danny’s childhood friend and original Knight, Matthew Bright, who played Squeezit and René Henderson. He also cowrote Forbidden Zone and went on to write and direct films like Freeway [1996]. Matthew’s roommate at the time was Hervé Villechaize, the king. Hervé’s girlfriend was Susan Tyrrell, the queen. Et voilà!

SFBG What were some of the challenges you faced during filming?

RE I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing when I started, but I eventually figured things out and got — over three arduous years — something that gives the sense what our Mystic Knights shows were like. The music was easy, as I had experience staging and choreographing musicals, and my little brother is Mozart. The animation bankrupted me, however. We inked things cell by cell, the old-fashioned way. Susan and Hervé had their occasional spats, although they were both supreme troopers who kicked their Screen Actors Guild checks back into the production. Hervé even helped Frenchy paint sets on weekends.

SFBG How much of the film was scripted?

RE It was all scripted; nothing was spontaneous. In the number "Bim Bam Boom," I had a really shy guy whose lips semifroze when it came time to lip-synch the song. So I had Matthew Bright’s lips superimposed over his. I use that example even today as an admonition for actors to do as I say.

SFBG The film is now known as a stoner classic, so I feel like I have to ask if there were any chemicals involved — and if not, where’d you come up with the story? Were you inspired by other filmmakers or artists?

RE Personally, I don’t take drugs. Wine and women, or woman — I am presently remarried — are as many intoxicants as I can handle. In terms of other inspiration? Along with Max Fleischer, the Cockettes, and Jerome Savary and his Magic Circus, I was influenced by Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, Latin great Miguelito Valdez, and Aaron Lebedeff of the Yiddish theater. Design style? Definitely German expressionism, which serves one well if your whole art budget is only 40 rolls of paper and 12 buckets of black and white paint.

SFBG When the film came out in 1980, what was the reaction? Did it have a regular theatrical run?

RE Well, it had a brief summer run of scattered midnight shows. It was banned from the University of Wisconsin and other institutions of higher learning. I remember there was an arson threat in Los Angeles one night. Censorship rears its head in many guises; in our case the politically correct tried to kill Forbidden Zone, although they were not entirely successful.

SFBG Did you have any idea Forbidden Zone would be a cult hit?

RE I had thought the film had totally disappeared. About five years ago, when I put my first Web site up, I received e-mails from fans from around the world. Apparently bootleg videos had been going around for years, picking up new fans. I was knocked on my ass, truly.

SFBG Forbidden Zone 2 — true or false?

RE We’re planning Forbidden Zone 2: The Forbidden Galaxy. Ma and Pa Kettle are driven from the dust bowl along with their kids — gray-haired Stinky and the slutty, lumbering Petunia — and they move to Crenshaw, down in South Central LA, only to purchase that fateful little house whose basement is connected to the sixth dimension. "Just wait until those dead babies start marching!" *

FORBIDDEN ZONE

With Richard Elfman in person

Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

Sat/2, 11:45 p.m., $10

Roxie Film Center

3117 16th St., SF

www.sfindie.com

Some kind of monster!

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CULT FILM It’s fitting that Troll 2 is playing at Midnites for Maniacs — it’s truly a film only a maniac could love. This 1990 masterpiece (sorry, Julia Louis-Dreyfus fans — it’s a sequel to 1986’s Troll in name only) was made by an Italian crew (director Drake Floyd’s real name: Claudio Fragasso), starring a cast of Salt Lake City locals. The Italians, none of whom spoke much English, were focused on making what was intended to be a B-grade horror flick; the American actors, presented with a screenplay about a family whose country vacation spirals into a life-or-death standoff with a pack of hungry goblins, remained baffled throughout the three-week shoot.

Speaking to me from his office in Alabama, Dr. George Hardy — an SLC dentist when he was cast as the patriarch in Troll 2, a gig that earned him "around $1,500" — recalls the filming with great delight. "We had no direction at all. We tried to decipher the script, and it was so discombobulated. We had no idea what we were doing from scene to scene. All we knew was that it was shot on 35mm and that they took no time in doing retakes. They just got through one scene to the next as quickly as possible."

After the movie wrapped, Hardy moved to Alabama and went about his life, his showbiz days presumably over — until a patient alerted him to the VHS availability of a certain Troll 2. His reaction crystallized the film’s first, perhaps most important, enigma: "I heard the name of the movie, and I thought, ‘This is weird. Why would it be called Troll 2 when there’s no trolls in the movie, only goblins?’" Frequent airings on HBO raised Troll 2‘s profile even higher. By 2003, when the film was released on the flip side of the Troll DVD, Troll 2 had become a genuine cult classic. An IMDb.com poster recently dubbed it "the Holy Grail of bad movies."

At first, Hardy and his fellow castmates weren’t sure how to react to being part of a film that raised badness to such soaring new heights. "We all ran from it. We were totally embarrassed at the time. But I guess it’s almost like an old wine that starts to taste good after a few years. We then began to embrace it because we saw the craze that was going on."

Hardy and costar Michael Stephenson — who played Troll 2‘s skateboard-riding, bologna-eating young hero, Joshua — recently reconnected and set up a Web site, www.bestworstmovie.com, and are working on a documentary titled Best Worst Movie about what Hardy calls "the Troll 2 phenomenon." Special event screenings, like the film’s much-anticipated 35mm debut at the Castro Theatre (featuring Hardy and Stephenson in person), are planned throughout the summer in a variety of hospitable cities.

Los Angeles resident Stephenson — who still acts but will likely never top the scene in which 10-year-old Joshua pees all over his family’s dinner to prevent Mom, Dad, and Sis from becoming a goblin snack pack (don’t ask) — shares Hardy’s enthusiasm for the second coming of Troll 2.

"For years I thought, ‘I’m gonna die and be remembered as the kid who was in this awful horror movie,’" he told me from Hawaii, where he was vacationing. "But about a year ago, I woke up and turned to my wife and said, ‘I’m the star of one of the worst films ever made. This is pretty cool.’ And then I started looking into what the fans were doing around the film. I was getting e-mails from fans around the world that were throwing Troll 2 parties. And that’s when I thought, ‘This isn’t just the worst movie — it’s the best worst movie.’"

And frankly, folks, it very well may be — apologies to Showgirls, but all the G-strings in the world can’t compete with lines like "They’re eating her. Then they’re gonna eat me. Oh my godddd!"

Stephenson elucidates: "People like it because everybody [involved in] Troll 2 went out and tried to make an earnest horror film. It wasn’t meant to be campy. And it was a miserable failure. It was a cinematic car crash. And then all of a sudden, it took on this new life — like a car crash, you have to look at it. You stare at it. You wonder, ‘What the hell is going on with this thing?’ I think with Troll 2, the fans have taken ownership of the film. It’s like drinking spoiled milk. You taste it, and then you’re, like, ‘Aw, you gotta taste this! It’s terrible!’ You immediately want someone else to taste it so you can share that experience."

MIDNITES FOR MANIACS: VERTICALLY CHALLENGED MONSTERS TRIPLE FEATURE

Fri/25, Gremlins, 7:30 p.m.; Howard the Duck, 9:45 p.m.; Troll 2, midnight; $10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

Czech, please!

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

A faltering economy is the biggest threat to most national film industries, but Czechoslovakia’s had a more distinct misfortune: it was shut down by occupation forces not once but twice. Most famously, the 1960s Czech new wave, in which talents like Jirí Menzel, Ivan Passer, Vera Chytilová, and Milos Forman first flourished, was abruptly dammed by the 1968 Soviet invasion. The type of widespread film-buff culture that brought attention to those directors scarcely existed when — before the Nazis commandeered local studios and permitted only a handful of strictly escapist films to be made for the home market — the country’s cinema had its first golden age.

Before World War II, Czechoslovakia boasted one of the most adventurous and lively — if not widely exported — movie industries in the world. Of course, this meant there was room for a lot of populist fluff. But the 12 features in the Pacific Film Archive’s new series "Czech Modernism, 1926–1949" show why Nazi invaders sensed a celluloid threat: these films are full of playful social critique as well as imaginative stylistic leaps. They assume that an audience is intelligent and that it will enjoy the subversion of authority. These films don’t provide pacification, let alone propaganda.

As playwright and Velvet Underground fan turned president Václav Havel would suggest some decades later, Czech life — at least the urban variety — has long appreciated the intersection of the avant-garde and leftist politics. The region’s geographic location, between the sophisticated capitalist West and the stylistically impoverished Communist USSR, at times seems directly reflected in these films’ colliding influences, from German expressionism to Soviet formalism to an Erich von Stroheim–esque attitude decadence.

The series’ two movies by director Vladislav Vancura apply a mad stylistic energy to subjects that might easily have been played for simple melodrama or pathos. In 1933’s On the Sunny Side, a pair of city children whose friendship bridges the class divide end up dumped in an orphanage when their parents are deemed unfit: first it’s fatherless, accordion-playing Honza, then pigtailed Babula, whose womanizing dad has just bankrupted the family. Frenetic montages contrast the adult worlds of poor and rich, cutting between breadlines and champagne-guzzling flappers. At the progressive home for foundlings, by contrast, equality is ensured by self-government — as a collective, the kids are better able to look after their own welfare than the grown-ups who’ve failed them.

Vancura’s Faithless Marijka, from the next year, is set in the Carpathian Mountains, with local nonprofessional actors as the leads. But it’s no sylvan idyll. The supposedly central tale of a lumberjack’s cheating spouse is nearly lost amid the struggles of laborers to triumph over their greedy oppressors (whose ranks include a disturbing anti-Semitic caricature).

A similar mix of poetic naturalism and Eisensteinian montage marks Karl Junghans’s 1929 silent Such Is Life. Its titular shrug downplays a vigorous look at some ordinary Prague residents, notably a put-upon laundry worker (Vera Baranovskaya, who played the title character of Vsevolod Pudovkin’s 1926 Mother), her loutish husband, and a manicurist daughter pretty enough to attract major trouble. Similar perils await two office girls lured into a lecherous nightlife in 1931’s From Saturday to Sunday, by Gustav Machatý, who would create an international sensation with Hedy Lamarr’s nude swim in Ecstasy two years later. This time romance rather than lust prevails as the more innocent secretary flees a grabby grandpa and winds up meeting her pure-hearted lower-class match.

Mistrust toward the rich and powerful was also a frequent theme in the era’s Hollywood films, in an attempt to please American audiences suffering though the Great Depression, which in turn triggered Czechoslovakia’s economic hardship. But the criticism in such films was usually glib, the solutions fanciful. Not so here. It’s eye-opening to watch a popular hit like Martin Fric’s 1934 Heave Ho!, widely regarded as the best effort from local comedy team Jirí Voskovec and Jan Werich.

Werich plays a dissolute multimillionaire informed one day that his stocks are worthless and he’s broke. Teaming with an unemployed laborer (Voskovec) who’d ranted against factory-shutting fat cats on the radio (before being dragged off), he discovers — after making a mess of various odd jobs — that he’s inherited a huge building. Unfortunately, it’s just a bunch of steel girders, so the penniless duo hit on the scheme of collectivizing construction with other indigent workers, who’ll have a home when it’s finished. Naturally, corporate types try to thwart this truly free enterprise, but they are treated to the ol’ titular gesture. A socialist semimusical with sight gags and assorted silliness, this sure ain’t Gold Diggers of 1933. *

CZECH MODERNISM, 1926–1949

Through June 24; see Rep Clock for schedule; $4–$8

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-1124

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Tomorrow’s honorees

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sft.jpg
By Steven T. Jones
Last night’s San Francisco Tomorrow 37th annual dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf offered a who’s who list of environmentally engaged political leaders and activists — a testament to the important role this venerable organization has played in creating the San Francisco of today (full disclosure: my sweetie, Alix Rosenthal, recently joined the SFT board).

Supervisors Chris Daly, Aaron Peskin, and Tom Ammiano all showed up, as did Sen. Carole Migden, Assessor Phil Ting, and Democratic Party stalwart Jane Morrison. Activists being honored by the group were filmmaker Judy Irving (who made “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” and other films focus on SF urban environment), recycling scold and innovator Denise D’Anne, and Amy Meyer and Dr. Edgar Wayburn, who have worked for more than 30 years to create the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Yet to me, the most interesting award and resulting speeches were for the special award that Ammiano received for creating a universal health care program for the city, in the process braving aggressive attacks by downtown and finally winning over Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Vote or die

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

Now that the wave of Asian horror films (and subsequent American remakes) seems to have crashed under the weight of too many spooky kids and ladies with long, wet hair, are Asian gangster flicks the new hotness? Practically everyone in the United States has now seen a Hong Kong cops ‘n’ robbers thriller or at least a film once removed from such, thanks to Martin Scorsese and his Best Picture–winning Infernal Affairs remake. But while The Departed pilfered from director Andrew Lau (this fall look for his English-language debut, the Richard Gere–starring crime drama The Flock), HK’s most exciting director, Johnnie To, remains largely unknown stateside.

For now, that is: with films such as 1999’s The Mission and 2001’s Fulltime Killer, To earned notice among genre buffs. Last year’s Exiled screened at the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and is due for local theatrical release this summer; I think it’s the film poised to earn To a fan base beyond the cinema-geek crowd. But until Exiled emerges, there’s Triad Election, a.k.a. Election 2, which offers enough stylish direction and underworld shenanigans to tide over the To faithful — and maybe snare a few new devotees along the way.

Haven’t watched the first Election? Me neither, so rest assured that you don’t need to have seen it to follow Election 2. HK’s oldest triad, Wo Sing, puts the organized in organized crime, holding elections for chairperson every two years. Current boss Lok (Simon Yam) doesn’t want to step down, especially for front-runner Jimmy (Louis Koo), whose lucrative ventures in mainland China have left him yearning to leave HK’s crime biz behind. Trouble is, the crooked higher-ups in China won’t let Jimmy continue his dealings unless he becomes head of his mob family; they see his cooperation as an asset they can exploit to everyone’s advantage. So the race is on, and it’s way dirtier than anything Karl Rove could dream up. Campaign strategies include kidnapping, double-crossing, limb severing, and putting assorted hired killers on the payroll.

To aligns the viewer’s sympathies with Jimmy, but he’s as morally ambiguous as they come, as movie mobsters tend to be. And on that note, a few delicious torture scenes aside, there’s not a lot going on here that hasn’t appeared in gangster dramas past. But even if its themes are familiar, Triad Election does feature one particularly unusual element: no gun battles whatsoever. Exiled is as bullet-riddled as the films of John Woo’s late-’80s prime, but Election‘s characters dole out their punishments with an array of blades.

It’s actually appropriate, since you really have to get right up on someone to stab ’em good. This visceral, intimate choice raises the stakes of Election‘s all-in-the-family violence. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer indeed. *

TRIAD ELECTION

Opens Fri/18 in Bay Area theaters

See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

Magic stars

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

"When we use magical in a positive sense," filmmaker Lawrence Jordan explains, parsing an adjective that is frequently brought up in discussions of his work, "it really means my eye is fresh at this moment and what I’m seeing is a discovery." Jordan’s films — in particular, the animated collages composed of Victorian magazine illustrations, Gustave Doré engravings, and flashing stars and orbs for which he is most famous — are the visual records of such moments of discovery.

The more than 40 experimental short (as well as three feature-length) films Jordan has made over his 40 years in the Bay Area are as much documents of the fanciful flight paths of his free associations — what he calls his "inner world" — as they are fleeting glimpses of a precinematic visual culture that has long since vanished. Thanks to an upcoming program put on by the San Francisco Cinematheque as part of its Bay Area Roots series, audiences will get the chance to discover — or perhaps rediscover with fresh eyes — the work of a filmmaker and advocate (Jordan helped found Canyon Cinema) who truly deserves to be called a Fog City maverick.

Like the cryptically beautiful boxes of Joseph Cornell, Jordan’s films exude a certain innocent surrealism. His poetic assemblages of fantastic fauna, romantic vistas, and hermetic symbols seem aimed at enchanting rather than disturbing the viewer through the kind of sexual shock tactics that were more the métier of Max Ernst. "That part of surrealism we don’t qualify for," Jordan says, referring to himself and Cornell, for whom he worked as an assistant in 1965, filming over the course of his stay at Utopia Parkway in Queens the only extant footage we have of the notoriously reclusive artist and his fabled workspace.

Jordan’s choice of the inclusive pronoun reveals both the slight reserve and matter-of-factness with which he speaks of his work and the strong sense of kinship he projects when talking about the artists — such as Cornell and collagist Jess Collins, who worked under his first name only — who became colleagues, served as inspiration, and, more often the case in a career filled with notable collaborators (Watts Tower sculptor Simon Rodia and Orson Welles), functioned in both capacities.

Following his high school friend and early collaborator Stan Brakhage to San Francisco from New York, Jordan moved into a basement flat below the poet Robert Duncan and his partner, Jess, whose baroque collages of finely crosshatched renderings of his source material shared affinities with Jordan’s then-still-developing aesthetic of assemblage. "[Jess] was the high priest of art magic in the time that I knew him," Jordan says.

Magic, as it turns out, keeps coming up in our conversation, whether in a passing reference to The Wizard of Oz (Jordan owns a complete set of the Oz books) or when Jordan cites that magician of silent cinema, Georges Méliès, as a major influence. Blue Skies beyond the Looking Glass, completed last year and one of the highlights of the cinematheque’s program, is very much an homage to the evocative power of early cinema.

A jubilant séance, Blue Skies resurrects silent-era stars such as Lon Chaney Sr., Lillian Gish, and Mary Pickford via some amazing screen test footage and invites them to tango with intercut animated segments. The film offers a nice summary of Jordan’s cinema of attractions, in which old signs are transmuted into wonders once more, restoring some of their mystery. "I don’t know about alchemy academically," Jordan reflects, "but I am a practicing alchemist in my own way." *

WORKS OF LAWRENCE JORDAN

Sun/13, 7:30 p.m., $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.sfcinematheque.org

It’s a mad, mad about Mads world

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Mads Mikkelsen has excessively high cheekbones on very long, flat facial planes, making him the kind of handsome actor suited for morally untrustworthy roles. Hence his casting as a charismatic antihero in the violent Pusher series (sort of Denmark’s big-screen Sopranos) and as the villain who inflicts improbably impermanent damage to chairbound James Bond’s weenus in 2006’s Casino Royale. Mikkelsen has been voted his country’s sexiest man, or something similar, two years running, and he was wonderful as a prim apostle of third-world charity atoning for an asshole past in Suzanne Bier’s After the Wedding (2006). Perhaps because he projects a certain tense ambivalence, saintliness also works for him — it’s something we have a hard time believing in now, so the unlikelier the casting, the better.

After the Wedding and many other excellent Danish films in recent years were written by Anders Thomas Jensen, who also directed Adam’s Apples. It has Mikkelsen as Ivan, the vicar of a country church whose congregation barely extends beyond the criminals he takes in for their community-service sentences. The latest to arrive is Adam (Ulrich Thomsen, who’s also played a Bond villain), a paunchy, shaved-head neo-Nazi who prefers to communicate by mute snarl or fist. Adam’s paperwork actually calls him evil. Ivan chirps, "There are no evil people!" His glass is forever half full, suffused with God’s forgiveness. He is the biggest fool Adam has ever suffered, and no amount of verbal or even violent physical abuse seems to shake his belief that God is on his side.

Because so many outrageously terrible things happen in it, Adam’s Apples has been called a black comedy. Fair enough. It’s often very funny, with the script’s continually surprising developments served up in a perfect deadpan by Anders’s direction, the classically handsome CinemaScope compositions, and a keening string score. But where it ends up is so far from cynicism that I pray no Hollywood remake arrives to desecrate its memory. Anders has worked more than once with most of his cast and crew. They should never be allowed to stop: James Bond production schedules should have to fucking wait until each Anders project is done. If Adam’s Apples isn’t the best movie I see in 2007, whatever movie is will be really, really, really good.

ADAM’S APPLES

Opens Fri/11 in Bay Area theaters

See Movie Clock at www.adamsaebler.dk”

Myth of the universal library

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› annalee@techsploitation.com

TECHSPLOITATION A lot of Web geeks believe that one day everything ever created by humans will be available online. Call it the myth of the universal library. Here’s how the myth goes: because there is unlimited real estate in cyberspace and because media can be digitized, we can fill cyberspace with all human knowledge and give everyone access to it. Without further ado, I present to you three arguments for the elimination of the myth of the universal library.

1. Cyberspace does not exist. The term cyberspace was invented in the late 1970s by a science fiction writer named William Gibson, who used it to describe a "consensual hallucination" experienced by people who were neurologically linked to computer networks. Even within Gibson’s novels, the author is careful to explain that the illuminated buildings, glowing roads, and avatars that his heroes meet in cyberspace are simply convenient representations of abstract data structures.

My point is that computer networks are not space and they are not real estate. They are data storage and manipulation devices connected together by wires and radio waves. They cost money and require massive amounts of power. They take up real-world space. And they break. In other words: no computer network is infinite. Storing all of human knowledge on a computer network would be expensive and intensely difficult to maintain. There is no infinite cyberspace — only finite computer networks subject to wear and tear.

2. Your human knowledge sucks. I was recently in a very interesting conversation with several smart librarians, all of whom are keen to use computers for preserving and disseminating information. Somebody pointed out that a good example of publicly accessible universal knowledge is the French Gaumont Pathé Archives, which makes hundreds of hours of searchable historic newsreel footage available online for free. The problem, as film archivist Rick Prelinger pointed out, is that the Gaumont Pathé project, like many of its kind, has had to pick and choose which films it can afford to archive. So the group focused heavily on politics and left the fashion and pop culture reels undigitized and therefore less accessible. The guy who’d brought up the archive thought this was just fine.

"No, it’s not," Prelinger replied. "If you want to know what everyday people cared about historically, fashion is going to tell you a lot more than newsreels about famous politicians."

The point is, people don’t agree on what "all of human knowledge" means. Is it great art and political history? Or is it xeroxed zines and fashion history? Who decides what gets digitized and what gets tossed in the ashtray of the unsearchable, the unnetworked? Do commercials go into our mythical universal library? What about hate speech and instruction manuals for hair dryers? Are those documents not also part of human knowledge? We will never reach an agreement on what all of human knowledge really is, and therefore we will never be able to preserve all of it.

3. Digitizing everything is impossible. Consumers can buy terabyte-size disk storage. The glorious Internet Archive buys petabyte storage devices by the bushel. You can fit your entire music collection in your pocket, and your book collection too. But even if we agreed on what all of human knowledge really is — which we never will — you couldn’t digitize all of it. Turning books into e-books takes time, as does turning film and television into digital video files. And what about rare scrolls, artworks, and machines? How do you put them online? Some medieval manuscripts and textiles are so delicate they can’t be exposed to light. Making something digital isn’t like waving a wand over it — poof, you’re digital! No matter how hard we work and no matter how much money we throw at this problem, there is simply no way to turn all physical media into digital formats.

The myth of the universal library is not only widespread, it’s also dangerous. Believing in the myth makes us forget that we need to be working hard right this second to preserve information in multiple formats and to make it available to the public any way that we can. *

Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who has a very large collection of nondigital books.

Now with reel cheese!

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

By the time you read this, Spider-Man 3 will have already raked in approximately a kajillion dollars. But in a summer packed with superheroes, pirates, robots, and teen wizards, only one selection is destined to be the Best. Movie. Ever. (Hint: it’s animated, smells like a steak, and seats 35!) Still, what are you gonna do at the multiplex — or the rep house — on every other day that isn’t July 27? Arrange your vacations, hot dates, and Sno-Caps binges according to my highly biased, by no means complete guide to this season’s cinematic selections. All release dates are subject to change.

May 11 28 Days Later didn’t exactly have a happy ending — I’d call it ambiguous at best — and 28 Weeks Later explores what happens more than six months after the initial outbreak of “the rage.” Who’s the real villain in this one, zombies or the US Army? This sequel features a new director (Spain’s Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) and apparently an all-new cast, including Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, and The Wire‘s Idris Elba.

May 18 Who’ll be the next ruler of Far, Far Away? Shrek the Third investigates. New voices include Justin Timberlake (as a prince) and Ian McShane (as Captain Hook). And yes, your beloved Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) returns.

May 19 Prefer your movies under the stars? Film Night in the Park (www.filmnight.org) kicks off with The Graduate in Washington Square Park. Screenings continue through October at various locations in San Francisco and Marin County, with something for everyone — from kids (Happy Feet) to thirtysomething nostalgics (Sixteen Candles) to campaholics (The Bad Seed) — on the schedule.

May 25 You think your job sucks? Check out Severance, which is surely the raddest office horror–comedy–satire–gorefest ever. Also today: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End attempts to outgross 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest, which scored the biggest opening weekend of all time en route to a $423 million total haul. That’s a lotta eye patches.

June 1 From Russia — with vampires — came 2004’s Night Watch; the sequel, Day Watch, looks to be the same kind of darkly cool supernatural noir. (Coming soon: director Timor Bekmambetov’s English-language debut, Dusk Watch, the third in the series.) I also wanna see Knocked Up, the latest sex-centric comedy from The 40 Year-Old Virgin‘s Judd Apatow.

June 8 If Eli Roth’s faux trailer for Thanksgiving in Grindhouse wasn’t enough to get you excited about Hostel: Part II, well, there’s no hope for you — except to see this tourists-in-trouble follow-up and add a little more sleaze to your diet. Ocean’s Thirteen, a.k.a. George Clooney Would Like You to Please Pretend Ocean’s Twelve Never Existed, also opens today.

June 15 Experimental filmmakers, stop hiding your masterworks (and masterworks in progress) and share ’em with a supportive crowd at the San Francisco Cinematheque’s No Frame Cinema: Open Screening Event (www.sfcinematheque.org). Films and videos of 10 minutes or less will be compiled into a two-hour program on a first-come, first-served basis. Also today: did anyone really like Fantastic Four enough to necessitate Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer?

June 22 Dear Steve Carell, You are already a god to me, so I am all over Evan Almighty. Your pal, Cheryl.

June 27 McClane rules! Stop acting like you don’t want to see Live Free or Die Hard and like you don’t love the shit out of that ridiculous title.

June 29 John Dahl (Red Rock West) directs Ben Kingsley as a redemption-seeking hired gun in You Kill Me. Supposedly, there’s a Guardian cameo in this one. We’re famous, bitch!

July 13–14 Ain’t really summer till Peaches Christ (www.peacheschrist.com) says it is. Her Midnight Mass kicks off this weekend with screenings of Desperate Living (with Mink Stole in person!) and Female Trouble (with John Waters in person!); the series continues through Sept. 1 with more special guests, live performances, and after-dark cult film madness.

July 4 Scoff if you will, but Transformers appeals to the tiny parts of me that have seen Independence Day and Starship Troopers approximately 567 times (each). You can be certain director Michael Bay ain’t gonna give us a quiet, subtle, thought-provoking film about war in the time of Decepticons. You can be certain there will be many, many explosions.

July 13 I haven’t read a single Harry Potter book. I have, however, seen and enjoyed all the films. Which means I’ll eagerly line up for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but while you’re camping out at Border’s to buy the final book in the series, I’ll be watching Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, in which POW Christian Bale grabs a snake off the jungle floor and eats it raw, without the benefit of any magic powers whatsoever.

July 20 I’m on bridesmaid detail in Lake Tahoe this weekend, so I have an ironclad excuse to skip Hairspray (apologies to John Waters — but none to John Travolta) and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Whew.

July 27 All of summer is a vortex, whirling around the only spool of celluloid that truly matters. It’s The Simpsons Movie. If you care to argue otherwise, I will choo-choo-choose to ignore you.

Aug. 3 Gadgets? Jason Bourne don’t need no stinkin’ gadgets. He’ll kill you with a rolled-up magazine, motherfucker. The new, improved James Bond was cool, but the secret agent movie I most want to see is The Bourne Ultimatum.

Aug. 10 Apparently, Rush Hour 3 is due today. I suggest mashing up Friday and Drunken Master II and getting your Chris Tucker–Jackie Chan fix thataway instead.

Aug. 16 The King is dead — long live the King! Swingin’ cat Will the Thrill hosts Thrillville’s 30th Anniversary Elvis D-Day Party, at the Cerrito Speakeasy (www.cerritospeakeasy.com; www.thrillville.net), featuring a screening of 1964’s Viva Las Vegas (one of Presley’s best films — with probably his best-ever costar, Ann-Margret), PB and banana sammies, and a live performance by Cari Lee and the Saddle-ites.

Aug. 31 Yeah, Michael Myers is back — again — but this Halloween is directed by Rob Zombie. Zombie’s previous films (The Devil’s Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses), proved fondness for horror themes in everything from music to home decor, and the mere fact that he changed his name to Zombie bode well for his reverence for the series. John Carpenter’s 1978 original is scary-movie perfection, but I’m ghoulishly curious to see what Zombie’s gonna do with ol’ Shatner-face. Werewolf Women of the SS forever! *

Summer 2007 fairs and festivals guide

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ONGOING

ArtSFest Various venues; www.artsfestsf.org. For its fourth year, ArtSFest presents a showcase of theater, dance, visual art, film, music, spoken word, and more. Through May 28.

Night Market Ferry Bldg Marketplace, along the Embarcadero at the foot of Market; 693-0996, www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com. Thurs, 4-8pm, through Oct 26. Marketplace merchants and farmers offer their freshest artisan foods and produce at this weekly sunset event.

United States of Asian America Arts Festival Various venues; 864-4120, www.apiculturalcenter.org. Through June 30. This festival, presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, showcases Asian Pacific Islander dance, music, visual art, theater, and multidisciplinary performance ensembles at many San Francisco venues.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Yerba Buena Gardens, Third St at Mission; 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. Through Oct, free. Nearly 100 artistic and cultural events for all ages takes place at the gardens this summer including Moroccan percussionists, Hawaiian ukulele players, Yiddish klezmer violinists, Balinese dancers, Shakespearean actors, Cuban musicians, and Japanese shakuhachi players.

BAY AREA

Silicon Valley Open Studios www.svos.org. Sat-Sun, 11am-5pm, through May 20. Check out Silicon Valley artists’ works and the spaces they use to create them at this community art program.

MAY 8–20

The Hip-Hop Theater Festival: Bay Area 2007 Various venues; www.youthspeaks.org. Youth Speaks, La Peña Cultural Center, the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, and San Francisco International Arts Festival present this showcase of new theater works that feature break dancing, MCing, graffiti, spoken word, and DJ sampling.

MAY 10-20

Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival Various venues; www.mcmf.org. The Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival features the best and brightest independent musicians and artists, including music by Vincent Gallo, Acid Mothers Temple, Edith Frost, and Gary Higgins. Literary and film events are also planned.

MAY 12

KFOG KaBoom! Piers 30-32; 817-KFOG, www.kfog.com. 4-10pm, free. Kick off the summer with this popular event featuring music, a spectacular fireworks show, food and drinks, and activities for kids. Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Guster, and Ozomatli perform.

BAY AREA

Arlen Ness Motorcycles Anniversary Party Arlen Ness, 6050 Dublin, Dublin; (925) 479-6300, www.arlenness.com. 10am-4:30pm, free. Celebrate the company’s fourth year in Dublin and 37th year in business with a display of the largest selection of Ness, Victory, American Iron Horse, and Big Dog Motorcycles in California, a walk through the museum, and a live music from Journey tribute band Evolution.

Beltane Pagan Festival Civic Center Park, 2151 MLK Jr. Way, Berk; www.thepaganalliance.org.10am-5:30pm, free. This year’s festival focuses on children and young adults and features a procession, performances, vendors, storytelling, an authors’ circle, and information booths.

Peralta in Bloom Spring Festival Carter Middle School, 4521 Webster, Oakl; (510) 655-1502, www.peraltaschool.org. Due to a fire, Peralta’s spring festival will be held at a temporary home this year. Expect the same great live entertainment, carnival games, old-fashioned high-steppin’ cakewalk, free arts and crafts, and delicious barbecue as always.

MAY 13

Hood Games VI "Tender Love" Turk between Mason and Taylor; 11am-4pm. This celebration of youth culture features live skating and music, art, a fashion show, contests, and a raffle. Bonus: every mom who shows up for this Mother’s Day event gets a free skateboard.

BAY AREA

Russian-American Fair Terman Middle School, 655 Arastradero, Palo Alto; (650) 852-3509, paloaltojcc.org. 10am-5pm, $3-5. The Palo Alto Jewish Community Center puts on this huge, colorful cultural extravaganza featuring ethnic food, entertainment, crafts and gift items, art exhibits, carnival games, and vodka tasting.

MAY 16–27

San Francisco International Arts Festival Various venues; (415) 439-2456, www.sfiaf.org. The theme for this year’s multidisciplinary festival is the Truth in Knowing/Now, a Conversation across the African Diaspora.

MAY 17–20

Carmel Art Festival Devendorf Park, Carmel; (831) 642-2503, www.carmelartfestival.org. Call for times, free. Enjoy viewing works by more than 60 visual artists at this four-day festival. In addition to the Plein Air and Sculpture-in-the-Park events, the CAF is host to the Carmel Youth Art Show, Quick Draw, and Kids Art Day.

MAY 18–20

Festival of Greece 4700 Lincoln, Oakl; (510) 531-3400, www.oaklandgreekfestival.com. Fri-Sat, 10am-11pm; Sun, 11am-9pm, $6. Free on Fri 10-4 and Sun 6-9. Let’s hear an "opa!" for Greek music, dance, food, and a stunning view at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension’s three-day festival.

MAY 19

A La Carte and Art Castro St, Mountain View; (650) 964-3395, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. A moveable feast of people and colorful tents offering two days of attractions, music, art, a farmers’ market, and a special appearance by TV star Delta Burke.

Asian Heritage Street Celebration Howard between Fifth and Seventh streets; 321-5865, www.asianfairsf.com. 11am-6pm, free. More than 200 organizations participate in this festival, which features Asian cooking demonstrations, beer and sake, arts and crafts, a variety of food, and live entertainment.

Family Fun Festival and Silent Auction 165 Grattan; 759-2815. 11am-5pm, free. Enjoy this second annual family event in Cole Valley, featuring a kids’ carnival with prizes, street theater, live music, refreshments, and a silent auction.

Oyster and Beer Fest Great Meadows, Fort Mason, Laguna at Bay; www.oreillysoysterfestival.com. 12-7pm, $15-19 ($50 reserved seating). O’Reilly’s Productions presents the 8th annual festival celebrating oysters and beer, featuring cooking demos, competitions, and live performance from Flogging Molly, Shantytown, The Hooks, and more.

Saints Kiril and Metody Bulgarian Cultural Festival Croatian American Cultural Center, 60 Onondaga; (510) 649-0941, www.slavonicweb.org. 3pm-midnight, $15. Enjoy live music, dance, and traditional food and wine in celebration of Bulgarian culture. A concert features Nestinari, Zaedno, Brass Punks, and many more.

Taiwanese American Cultural Festival Union Square; (408) 268-5637, www.tafnc.org. 10am-7pm, free. Explore Taiwan by tasting delicious Taiwanese delicacies, viewing a puppet show and other performances, and browsing arts and crafts exhibits.

Uncorked! Public Wine Festival Ghirardelli Square, 900 N Point; 775-5500, www.ghirardellisq.com. 1-6pm, event free, wine tasting $40-100. This second annual wine festival features wine tasting, five-star chef demonstrations, wine seminars, and a chocolate and wine pairing event.

BAY AREA

Cupertino Special Festival in the Park Cupertino Civic Center, 10300 Torre, Cupertino; (408) 996-0850, www.osfamilies.org. 10am-6pm, free. The Organization of Special Needs Families hosts its third annual festival for people of all walks or wheels of life. Featuring live music, food and beer, bouncy houses, arts and crafts, and other activities.

Pixie Park Spring Fair Marin Art and Garden Center, Sir Francis Drake Blvd at Lagunitas, Ross; www.pixiepark.org. 9am-4pm, free. This fair for preschoolers and kindergarteners features bathtub races, pony rides, a petting zoo, a puppet show, and much more.

MAY 19-20

Bay Area Storytelling Festival Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area, San Pablo Dam Road near Castro Ranch, El Sobrante; (510) 644-2593, www.bayareastorytelling.org.

Sat, 9:30am-8pm; Sun, 9:30am-5:15pm, $8-65. Gather around and listen to stories told by storytellers from around the world at this outdoor festival. Sheila Kay Adams, Charlotte Blake Alston, Bill Harley and others are featured.

Castroville Artichoke Festival 10100 Merritt, Castroville; (831) 633-2465, www.artichoke-festival.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $3-6. Have a heart — eat an artichoke. This festival cooks up the vegetable in every way imaginable and features tons of fun activities for kids, music, a parade, a farmers’ market, and much more.

Day of Decadence Women’s Expo Sedusa Studios, 1300 Dell, Campbell; (408) 826-9087, www.sedusastudios.com. 1-4pm, $5. Twenty-five women-owned businesses exhibit their products and pamper their customers at this decadent event. Includes free services, champagne, refreshments, and a chocolate fountain.

French Flea Market Chateau Sonoma, 153 West Napa, Sonoma; (707) 935-8553, www.chateausonoma.com. 10:30am-5:30pm, call for price. Attention, Francophiles: this flea market is for you! Shop for antiques, garden furniture, and accessories from French importers.

Himalayan Fair Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 869-3995, www.himalayanfair.net. Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 10am-5:30pm, call for price. This benefit for humanitarian grassroots projects in the Himalayas features award-winning dancers and musicians representing Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mongolia. Check out the art and taste the delicious food.

Maker Faire San Mateo Fairgrounds, San Mateo; (415) 318-9067, www.makerfaire.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $5-15. A two-day, family-friendly event established by the creators of Make and Create magazines that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects, and the do-it-yourself mindset.

Muscle Car, Hot Rods, and Art Fair Bollinger Canyon Rd and Camino Ramon, San Ramon; (925) 855-1950, www.hatsoffamerica.us. 10am-5pm, free. Hats Off America presents this family event featuring muscle cars, classics and hot rods, art exhibits, children’s activities, live entertainment, and beer and wine.

Passport to Sonoma Valley Various venues; (707) 935-0803, www.sonomavalleywine.com. 11am-4pm, $55 (weekend, $65). This first of its kind, valleywide event will provide visitors rare access to the many hidden gems of California’s oldest wine region. More than 40 Sonoma wineries are participating, and the cost includes unlimited tasting.

Sunset Celebration Weekend Sunset headquarters, 80 Willow Road, Menlo Park; 1-800-786-7375, www.sunset.com. 10am-5pm, $10-12, kids free. Sunset magazine presents a two-day outdoor festival featuring beer, wine, and food tasting; test-kitchen tours, celebrity chef demonstrations, live music, seminars, and more.

Spring Fling Open House Rosenblum Cellars, 2900 Main, Alameda; (510) 995-4100, www.rosenblumcellars.com. Noon-5pm, $30. Try new and current releases at Rosenblum’s Alameda winery while enjoying wine-friendly hors d’oeuvres and music from local musicians.

MAY 20

ING Bay to Breakers Begins at Howard and Spear, ends at the Great Highway along Ocean Beach, SF; www.baytobreakers.com. 8am, $33-40. See a gang of Elvis impersonators in running shorts and a gigantic balloon shaped like a tube of Crest floating above a crowd of scantily clad, and unclad, joggers at this annual race from the Embarcadero to the Pacific Ocean.

BAY AREA

Jazz on Fourth Street Festival Fourth St, between Hearst and Virginia, Berk; (510) 526-6294, www.4thstreetshop.com. 11am-5pm, free. Local merchants present this annual outdoor music festival featuring Marcus Shelby Quartet, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Group, two Berkeley High combos, and the award-winning Berkeley High Jazz ensemble.

Niles Wildflower Art and Garden Show Niles Blvd at Main, Fremont; www.niles.org. 10am-3pm, event free, garden tour $12-15. Take a self-guided tour of beautiful home gardens and enjoy the creative works of local artists.

MAY 24–27

Sonoma Jazz Plus Festival Field of Dreams, 179 First St W, Sonoma; 1-866-527-8499, www.sonomajazz.org. $45-95. Thurs-Sat, 6:30 and 9pm; Sun, 8:30pm, $45-110. Head on up to California’s wine country for Memorial Day weekend and soak in the sounds of LeAnn Rimes, Tony Bennett, Smokey Robinson, and Harry Connick Jr.

MAY 25–28

Memorial Day Folk Music Camp Out Waterman Creek Camp, Santa Cruz County; (510) 523-6533. www.sffmc.org. $7/night. Preregistration required. Camp and sing along with the San Francisco Folk Music Club. Everybody’s goin’!

MAY 26

Soul Jazz Festival Crown Canyon Park, 8000 Crow Canyon, Castro Valley; www.souljazzfestival.com. 12-8pm, $45-49. A one-day music event celebrating the worlds of jazz, funk, and soul. This year pays tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and features Johnny Holiday, Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets, and Ella Fitzgerald’s son, Ray Brown Jr.

MAY 26–27

Carnaval San Francisco Harrison between 16th and 24th streets; (415) 920-0122, www.carnavalsf.com. 10am-6pm, free. The vibrant Mission District plays host to the best of Latin and Caribbean cultures and traditions with an array of food, music, dance, and art. The theme for this year’s carnaval is Love Happens, and it features speed dating at the Love Nest, a performance by Los Lonely Boys, and a parade on Sunday.

North American Cycle Courier Championship Speakeasy Brewery, 1195 Evans; 748-2941. Sat, 9am-2pm; Sun, 10am-1pm, free. This weekend-long celebration of bike culture features a race on a closed course that tests all areas of bike messenger skill.

BAY AREA

Santa Cruz Blues Festival 100 Aptos Creek, Aptos; (831) 479-9814, www.santacruzbluesfestival.com. 10am-7pm, $20-100. Rhythm and blues buffs beware. This annual festival, in its 15th year, showcases some of the most renowned acts of new and vintage R&B, soul, and blues rock, including Los Lonely Boys, Etta James and the Roots Band, and Little Feat. International food booths, juice bars, and beer make this event add to the appeal.

MAY 26–28

The San Francisco Cup International Youth Soccer Tournament and Festival Golden Gate Park’s Polo Field, SF; (415) 337-6630, www.sfcup.com. 8:30am. This 20th annual premier event brings together 128 national and international teams of both genders for great soccer excitement.

MAY 26–JUNE 30

Bay Area Summer Poetry Marathon Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; (415) 864-8855, www.thelab.org. 7-10pm,. $3-15 sliding scale. Various Bay Area and national poets read their work at this event held throughout the summer.

MAY 27

Antique Street Faire Main St, Pleasanton; (760) 724-9400, www.pleasantondowntown.net. 8am-4pm, free. This semiannual event sponsored by the Pleasanton Downtown Association provides more than a mile of antiques and collectibles displayed by about 300 professional dealers.

Art in the Vineyard Wente Vineyards Estate Winery, 5565 Tesla, Livermore; (925) 456-2305, www.livermoreartassociation.com. 11am-5pm, admission free, wine tasting $15. Mark your calendars for the 35th anniversary of this popular event, featuring 40 talented multimedia artists in addition to music by Vested Interest.

Asian Pacific Heritage Festival Bay Area Discovery Museum, 557 McReynolds, Sausalito; (415) 339-3900, www.baykidsmuseum.org.10am-5pm, free. Experience taiko drumming, the Marin Chinese Cultural Association’s Lion Dance Team, and other Polynesian and Pacific Islander arts groups, as well as traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipino cuisine in honor of Asian Pacific Islander Month.

Caledonia Street Fair Caledonia St, Sausalito; (415) 289-4152, www.ci.sausalito.ca.us.10:30am-6pm, free. This fest boasts multicultural food, dance, music, and more than 120 arts and crafts vendors. Don’t miss out on the Taste of Sausalito luncheon and wine-tasting event featuring food and wine prepared by select Napa and Sonoma wineries and restaurants.

MAY 28

Stone Soul Picnic Cal State East Bay’s Pioneer Amphitheatre, 25800 Carlos Bee, Hayward; 1-800-225-2277, www.kblx.com. Doors at 10am, show at noon, $56-81.50 includes parking. KBLX Radio 102.9 FM presents its 10th annual R&B and soul music event, featuring performances by Isaac Hayes, the Whispers, the Dells, and Tower of Power.

MAY 29–30

BALLE Film Fest Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley, Berk; (415) 255-1108, ext 112, livingeconomies.org. 6 and 8:30pm, $10 for screening, $15 for night. Business Alliance for Local Living Economies presents a two-night film festival reutf8g to BALLE principles, including Everything’s Cool, a film about global warming, and Manufactured Landscapes, a documentary about China’s industrial revolution.

MAY 31–JUNE 3

Contra Costa County Fair Contra Costa County Fairgrounds,10th and L streets, Antioch; (925) 757-4400, www.ccfair.org. Thurs-Fri, noon-11pm.; Sat-Sun, 11am-11pm, $4-7, parking $3. Now 70 years old, this county fair has a little of everything. Daily sea lion shows, a man dressed as a giant tree, and, of course, clown acts, are just some of the events presented to fairgoers this year.

JUNE 1–10

East Bay Open Studios Various venues; (510) 763-4361, www.proartsgallery.org. Open studios: June 2-3, 9-10, 11am-6pm; formal artists’ reception May 31, 6-10pm, free. For more than 25 years, the East Bay Open Studios have drawn more than 50,000 visitors to Pro Arts Gallery and various artist workspaces to support the work of local artists. The public can view exhibits, purchase artwork, attend workshops, and go on an art bus tour.

Healdsburg Jazz Festival Check Web site for ticket prices and venues in and around Healdsburg; (707) 433-4644, www.healdsburgjazzfestival.com. This ninth annual week-and-a-half-long jazz festival will feature a range of artists, from the George Cables Project and Roy Hargrove Quintet to the funky Louisiana-style Rebirth Brass Band and first-rate vocalist Rhiannon.

JUNE 2

Berkeley Farmers Market’s Strawberry Family Fun Festival Civic Center Park, Center at MLK Jr, Berk; (510) 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org. 10am-3pm, free. Living up to its name, this festival is a guaranteed good time for the whole family. Highlights include environmental information booths, hands-on activities, delectable strawberry shortcake, and live performances by Nigerian Brothers, EarthCapades Environmental Vaudeville, Big Tadoo Puppet Crew, and Young Fiddlers.

Heartland Festival Riverdance Farms, Livingston; (831) 763-2111, www.eco-farm.org. 10am-7pm, $10 advance, $12 at gate. Celebrate a summer weekend by picking berries, taking farm and garden workshops, buying fresh produce from a farmers’ market, and enjoying live music at this family event.

Sonoma Valley Vintage Race Car Festival Sonoma Plaza, Sonoma; (707) 996-1090, www.sonomavalleyvisitors.com. 5pm, free entrance. Wine and food $30 in advance, $35 at the door. A gigantic taste explosion filled with more than 30 vintage dragsters, gourmet food, and wine samples.

Springfest 2007 Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, 200 North San Pedro, San Rafael; (415) 499-8891, www.mdt.org. 1 and 5pm, $14-22. Marin Dance Theatre presents this spring program featuring various performances directed by Margaret Swarthout.

JUNE 2–3

Art Deco and Modernism Sale Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St; (650) 599-DECO, www.artdecosale.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 11am-5pm, $7-9. An extravagant art sale featuring pottery, books, art, vintage clothing, glass, furniture, and other accessories dating from 1900 to 1980.

Art in the Avenues Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, Ninth Ave and Lincoln; www.sunsetartists.com. 10am-5pm. This annual exhibition and sale presented by the Sunset Artists Society brings together artists and art lovers from all over the Bay Area.

Great San Francisco Crystal Fair Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna; 383-7837, www.crystalfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, $5. This year’s fair is sure to please anyone interested in mystical and healing arts. Check out the more than 40 vendors catering to all of your crystal, mineral, bead, and jewelry needs.

Union Street Festival Union between Gough and Steiner; 1-800-310-6563, www.unionstreetfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. This year marks the 31st anniversary of one of San Francisco’s largest free art festivals. In addition to more than 200 artists and 20 gourmet food booths, the event features activities that represent the history of the Union Street Festival, including a special photographic exhibit that shows Union Street as it was 100 years ago.

BAY AREA

Marin Home Show and Benefit Jazz Fest Marin Center Exhibit Hall and Fairgrounds, San Rafael; (415) 499-6900, www.marinhomeshow.com. Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, $8 (Sat tix include free return on Sun). Not only will there be hundreds of experts in everything from renovation to landscaping on hand to answer all of your home and garden questions, but there will also be live jazz acts to entertain you throughout the weekend. Proceeds benefit Marin County public schools.

JUNE 3

Santa Cruz LGBT Pride March and Rally Starts at Pacific, ends at Lorenzo Park, Santa Cruz; (831) 427-4009, www.santacruzpride.org. 11am-5pm, free. Join the largest gathering of queers and allies in Santa Cruz County. Stage lineup includes Frootie Flavors, Nedra Johnson, Twilight Vixen Revue, Horizontes, and Assemblymember John Laird. Valet bike parking provided.

JUNE 6

Strollin’ on Main Street Party Main between St John and Old Bernal, Pleasanton; (925) 484-2199, ext 4, www.pleasantondowntown.net. 6-9pm, free. Stroll down Main Street and visit vendor booths, a beer and wine garden, and a stage where featured band Drive will play.

JUNE 6–AUG 29

Summer Sounds Oakland City Center, adjacent to 12th St/City Center BART Station, Oakl; www.oaklandcitycenter.com. Wed, noon-1pm, free. The Oakland City Center presents a weekly spotlight on an array of diverse musical artists.

JUNE 7–17

San Francisco Black Film Festival Various venues; (415) 771-9271, www.sfbff.org. The festival celebrates African American cinema and the African cultural diaspora by showcasing films by black filmmakers and emphasizing the power of film to foster cultural understanding and initiate progressive social change.

JUNE 8–10

Harmony Festival Sonoma County Fairgrounds,1350 Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa; www.harmonyfestival.com. Fri, 12pm-9pm; Sat, 10am-10pm; Sun, 10am-9pm, $20-149. This year’s theme is "promoting global cooling" boasts an ecovillage offering tips for living and consuming, a well-being pavilion featuring natural remedies, and a culinary showcase of dishes using natural ingredients. Festival-goers can camp onsite and musical highlights include Brian Wilson, Erykah Badu, the Roots, moe., and Rickie Lee Jones.

JUNE 9

Dia de Portugal Festival Kelley Park, San Jose; www.diadeportugal.com. 10am, free. The Portuguese Heritage Society of California presents this annual festival featuring a parade, live music, food and wine, a book and art sale, and more.

Temescal Street Fair Telegraph between 48th and 51st streets, Oakl; (510) 654-6346, ext 2, www.temescalmerchants.com. Noon-5pm, free. This fair will feature live music, crafts, martial arts demonstrations and food samplings from local restaurants, including an Italian beer and wine garden, a tribute to days when the district once flourished with beer gardens and canteens.

JUNE 9–10

Italian Street Painting Festival Fifth Ave at A St, San Rafael; (415) 457-4878, ext 15, www.youthinarts.org. 9am-7pm, free. Street painters paint beautiful and awe-inspiring chalk artwork on the streets of San Rafael.

Live Oak Park Fair Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 898-3282, www.liveoakparkfair.com.10am-6pm, free. Is there a better way to revel in the summertime than to enjoy original arts and crafts, delicious fresh food, and live jazz by Berkeley’s Jazzschool all weekend long in beautiful Live Oak Park? Didn’t think so.

San Jose Gay Pride Festival Discovery Meadow, Guadalupe River Park, San Jose; (408) 278-5563, www.sjgaypride.org. Sat, 10am-6pm, free; Sun, 10:30am, $15. This year’s San Jose pride celebration is two days’ worth of events, speakers, and music, including performances by the Cheeseballs, Average Dyke Band, and Smash-Up Derby. After the parade on Sunday, cruise vendor booths peddling their LGBT-friendly goods and services.

JUNE 9–24

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.worldartswest.org. Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm, $22-36. Performers from around the world converge at the Palace of Fine Arts to bring San Francisco a diverse selection of the world’s most talented dancers, including North Indian Kathak, Cantonese style Chinese lion dance, flamenco, and Middle Eastern belly dance.

JUNE 14–16

Transgender and Queer Performance Festival ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; (415) 863-9834, www.freshmeatproductions.org. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 7 and 10pm, $15. Fresh Meat Productions celebrates its sixth annual festival. This year’s artists perform traditional forms and path-blazing ones: hula, taiko, traditional Colombian dance, aerial dance, spoken word, rock ‘n’ roll, theater, hip-hop, and modern dance.

JUNE 14–17

CBA 32nd Annual Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival Nevada County Fairgrounds, McCourtney, Grass Valley; www.cbaontheweb.org. Ticket prices vary. Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Cherryholmes, the Del McCoury Band, Dan Paisley and the Southern Grass, Country Current, the US Navy Band, the Dale Ann Bradley Band, and John Reischman and the Jay Birds perform at this California Bluegrass Association bluegrass jamboree.

JUNE 14–24

Frameline31: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival Various venues; (415) 703-8650. www.frameline.org. The 31st annual film festival by and about the LGBT community continues with a whole new program of innovative queer cinema.

JUNE 15–17

International Robogames Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, SF; www.RoboGames.net. Noon-10pm, $15-20. Engineers from around the world return for the fourth annual event listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest robot competition. Featuring 83 different competitions, including 18 just for walking humanoids.

JUNE 16–17

North Beach Festival Washington Square Park, 1200-1500 blocks of Grant and adjacent streets; 989-2220, www.sfnorthbeach.org. 10am-6pm, free. Touted as the country’s original outdoor arts and crafts festival, the North Beach Festival celebrates its 53rd anniversary with juried arts and crafts exhibitions and sales, a celebrity pizza toss, live entertainment stages, a cooking stage with celebrity chefs, Assisi animal blessings (Vallejo/Columbus), Arte di Gesso (Italian street chalk art competition, 1500 block Stockton), indoor classical concerts (4 pm, at National Shrine of St Francis), a poetry stage, and more.

San Francisco Free Folk Festival San Francisco City College, North Gym, 50 Phelan, SF; www.sffreefolkfest.org. Noon-10pm, free. Folkies unite for the 31st anniversary of this festival that features local and national artists, dances, open mics, family events, and workshops.

San Francisco Juneteenth Celebration Art of the Fillmore Jazz Presentation District, Fillmore from Geary Blvd to Fulton; 931-2729, www.sfjuneteenth.org. 10am-7pm, free. This Bay Area-wide celebration celebrates African American freedom while encouraging self-development and respect for all cultures. Promoted through a community festival that celebrates and shares African American history and culture through music, the performing arts, living history, and other cultural activities. Seven full blocks of food, arts and crafts, and community and corporate information booths. Three stages of entertainment, educational speakers, and health and job fairs. All neighborhoods welcomed.

BAY AREA

Marin Art Festival Lagoon Park, Marin Center, Ave of the Flags at Civic Center, San Rafael; (415) 388-0151, www.marinartfestival.com. 10am-6pm, $8. More than 250 fine artists join in at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Marin Center. Look out for the stilt walkers!

Russian River Blues Festival Johnson’s Beach, Guerneville; (952) 866-9599, www.russianriverbluesfest.com. 10am-6pm, $45-180. Head on down to the river for this annual affair featuring Buddy Guy, Little Richard, Koko Taylor, Roy Rogers and the Delta Kings, Lowrider Band, Elvin Bishop, and many others. Festival organizers also invite attendees to indulge in wine tasting for a nominal fee.

JUNE 17

Native Contemporary Arts Festival Esplanade at Yerba Buena Gardens, Fourth St and Mission, SF; (415) 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. 12pm-3pm, free. This fest features amazing performances, plus kids can make their own dream catchers, baskets, and bracelets.

JUNE 17–AUG 19

Stern Grove Music Festival Stern Grove, 19th Ave and Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. Sun 2pm, free. This beloved San Francisco festival celebrating community, nature, and the arts is in its 70th season.

JUNE 20–24

Sonoma-Marin Fair Petaluma Fairgrounds, Petaluma; www.sonoma-marinfair.org. $8-14. This fair promotes and showcases agriculture, while displaying the diverse talents, interests, and accomplishments of the citizens of California, especially the youth of Sonoma and Marin counties. Catch acts such as Cheap Trick, SHe DAISY, and Bowling for Soup on the main stage.

JUNE 22–24

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14480 Hwy 128, Boonville; www.snwmf.com. Three-day pass, $125; camping, $50-100. Camp for three days and listen to the international sounds of Bunny Wailer, Toots and the Maytals, Luciano, Ojos de Brujo, Les Nubian, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars, Junior Kelly, Sugar Minot, and many others.

JUNE 22–JULY 8

Alameda County Fair Alameda County Fairgrounds, 4501 Pleasanton, Pleasanton; (925) 426-7559, www.alamedacountyfair.com. $4-9. Enjoy opening night fireworks, carnival attractions, a wine competition, a karaoke contest, an interactive sports and fitness expo, concerts, and oh so much more.

JUNE 23

Dyke March Dolores Park between 18th and 20th streets, SF; (415) 241-8882, www.dykemarch.org. Rally at 3pm; march at 7pm, free. Head on out to march with the San Francisco chapter of this now internationally coordinated rally. A Dolores Park celebration and rally precedes the march.

JUNE 23–24

San Francisco Pride 2006 Civic Center, Larkin between Grove and McAllister; 864-FREE, www.sfpride.org. Celebration Sat-Sun, noon-6pm; parade Sun, 10:30am, free. A month of queer-empowering events culminates in this weekend celebration, a massive party with two days of music, food, dancing that continues to boost San Francisco’s rep as a gay mecca. Do not under any circumstances miss the parade!

BAY AREA

Danville Fine Arts Fair Hartz Ave, Danville; (831) 438-4751, www.danvillecachamber.com. 10am-6pm, free. The quintessential arts and crafts fair descends upon Danville each year, bringing with it fine food and drink, Italian-style street painting, and more.

JUNE 23–25

King of the Bay Third Ave, Foster City; www.kingofthebay.com. 1pm, free. See the world’s top kiteboarders and windsurfers compete at this event.

JUNE 23–30

Jazz Camp West 2006 (510) 287-8880, www.jazzcampwest.com. This eight-day jazz program for adults and older teens features more than 100 classes taught by more than 45 nationally and internationally known artists.

JUNE 23–AUG 4

Stanford Jazz Festival Various venues. (650) 736-0324, www.stanfordjazz.org. This acclaimed festival has been injecting Northern California with a healthy dose of both classic and modern jazz for more than three decades.

JUNE 23–SEPT 8

Concert in the Hills Series Cal State East Bay, Concord Campus, 4700 Ygnacio Valley Rd, Concord; (925) 602-8654, www.concord.csueastbay.edu/concertinthehills.htm. Free. This series celebrates its eighth season with performances by acts such as Dr. Loco and His Rockin’ Jalapeño Band, Aja Vu, Joni Morris, and Native Elements.

JUNE 29–JULY 1

Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival Black Oak Ranch, Laytonville; (707) 829-7067, www.katewolf.com/festival. Fri, 1pm-midnight; Sat, 10am-11:30pm; Sun, 11am-10pm, $55-160. This annual tribute to Northern California singer-songwriter Kate Wolf, who is credited with repopularizing folk music in the 1970s, features performances by Utah Phillips, Joe Craven and Sam Bevan, the Bills, and many others. Don’t miss the "Hobo Jungle Campfire," a nightly campfire on the creek shore with story swappin’ and song jammin’ aplenty.

JUNE 30–JULY 1

23rd Annual Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, 1-800-310-6563, www.sresproductions.com. 10am-6pm, free. Three stages of nonstop entertainment featuring top and emerging artists. Ten blocks of art booths and gourmet food.

JUNE 30–JULY 4

Marin County Fair Marin Center, Ave of the Flags at Civic Center, San Rafael; (415) 499-6400, www.marinfair.org. 11am-11pm, $11-13. This county fair stands above the rest with its promise of nightly fireworks, There will be many fun, new competitions to enter this year, including the Dancing Stars Competition, in which contestants may perform any style of dance — from tap to ballroom, salsa to boogie. Also not to be missed is the 18th annual "Creatures and Models" exhibit and the 37th annual "National Short Film and Video Festival," plus food and rides and other fun fair stuff.

JULY 1

Vans Warped Tour 2006 Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View; (650) 967-3000. www.warpedtour.com. 11am, $29.99. As Cities Burn, Bad Religion, Boys Like Girls, Coheed and Cambria, Escape the Fate, Pennywise, the Used, Funeral for a Friend, Revolution Mother, the Matches, and others perform at this annual punk music and culture event.

JULY 3–4

WorldOne Festival Cerrito Vista Park, El Cerrito; www.worldoneradio.org. Mon 5pm, Tue 10:30am, free. Worldoneradio hosts a world music and culture stage in the park. The eighth annual event is produced as a public service and fundraiser for area nonprofits.

JULY 4

City of San Francisco Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration Pier 39, Embarcadero at Beach, SF; (415) 705-5500, www.pier39.com. 1-9:30pm, free. SF’s waterfront Independence Day celebration features live music, kids’ activities, and an exciting fireworks show.

JULY 5–8

International Working Class Film and Video Festival New College Roxie Media Center, 3117 16th St; www.laborfest.net. Held annually to commemorate the San Francisco general strike of 1934 brings together filmmakers and labor artists from around the United States and internationally.

BAY AREA

High Sierra Music Festival Plumas Fairgrounds, 204 Fairground Rd, Quincy; (510) 595-1115, www.highsierramusic.org. 11am-11pm, $35-156. Enjoy your favorite jam bands on five different stages and at five different late-night venues, a kid zone, arts and crafts, food and drinks, beer, yoga, dancing, camping, and more. The lineup features performances by Xavier Rudd, the Disco Biscuits, Yonder Mountain String Band, Martin Sexton, and Les Claypool.

JULY 6–SEPT 29

Marin Shakespeare Company Festival Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, Dominican University of California, Grand Ave, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. Fri-Sun, varying times, $7-30. The Marin Shakespeare Company presents its outdoor festival featuring performances of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2.

JULY 10–21

Mendocino Music Festival Various venues; (707) 937-2044, www.mendocinomusic.com. $15-45. David Lindley, Mollie O’Brien, the Chris Cain Quartet, and others celebrate the 21st anniversary of this classical and contemporary music festival.

JULY 12–15

World California Fest Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley; (530) 891-4098. www.worldfest.net. $30-140. The 11th annual festival features eight stages and four days of music, with performances by everyone from Ani DiFranco to the Venezuelan Music Project. Camping is encouraged.

JULY 13–15

San Francisco Silent Film Festival Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; (415) 777-4908, www.silentfilm.org. Call for times and prices. The Golden Age of the silver screen comes to life, complete with a swelling Wurlitzer.

JULY 14-15

San Francisco International Chocolate Salon Fort Mason Conference Center; www.SFChocolateSalon.com. Sat, 11am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, $20. The first major chocolate show on the West Coast in two decades takes place this summer with the theme Chocolat, in honor of Bastille Day. Experience the finest in artisan, gourmet, and premium chocolate with tastings, demonstrations, chef and author talks, and wine pairings.

BAY AREA

Los Altos Arts and Wine Festival Main and State, Los Altos; (650) 917-9799. www.losaltos-downtown.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, free. Enjoy original art and free entertainment while indulging in gourmet food and fine wine.

San Anselmo Art and Design Festival San Anselmo between Tamalpais and Bolinas, San Anselmo; 1-800-310-6563, www.artanddesignfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. The San Anselmo Chamber of Commerce brings this buffet of cooking, home, and landscape design to the masses.

JULY 19–29

Midsummer Mozart Festival Various venues; (415) 627-9141, www.midsummermozart.org. $30-60. The Mozart-only music concert series features pianist Janina Fialkowska, the Haffner Serenades, and the Coronation Mass.

JULY 19–AUG 6

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Various venues; (415) 621-0556, www.sfjff.org. The world’s first and largest Jewish film festival has toured the Bay Area for 27 years.

JULY 21–22

Connoisseur’s Marketplace Santa Cruz Ave, Menlo Park; (650) 325-2818, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. This annual midsummer festival hosts live jazz, R&B, and rock ‘n’ roll as well as arts and crafts, chef demonstrations, international cuisine, and lots of fun for the kids.

JULY 27–29

Gilroy Garlic Festival Christmas Hill Park, Hwy 101, Gilroy; (408) 842-1625, www.gilroygarlicfestival.com. 10am-7pm, $6-12. If 17,000 pounds of garlic bread isn’t enough of a reason to go, then all the other manifestations of this flavorful food are. Gourmet food and cook-offs, as well as free music and children’s activities, entertain you as you munch.

JULY 29

San Francisco Marathon Begins and ends at the Ferry Bldg, Embarcadero, SF; www.runsfm.com. $110 to compete. Tighten your laces for 26.2 miles around the Bay. The less enthusiastic can run a half marathon, 5K, or "progressive marathon," instead.

Up Your Alley Dore Alley between Folsom and Howard, Folsom between Ninth and 10th streets, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm. Hundreds of naughty and nice leather lovers sport their stuff in SoMa at this precursor to the Folsom Street Fair.

AUG 3–5

Reggae on the River Dimmick Ranch, French’s Camp, Hwy 101, Piercy, Humboldt County; (707) 923-4583, www.reggaeontheriver.com. $165-225. Further details pending. This year’s riverside roots and reggae fest features the Roots, Shaggy, Angelique Kidjo, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Mad Professor, the Itals, Eek-A-Mouse, Sierre Leone’s Refugee Allstars, and many others.

Reggae Rising Dimmick Ranch, French’s Camp, Hwy 101, Piercy, Humboldt County; www.reggaerising.com. $175 for a 3 day pass. Further details pending. This new summer festival will benefit various nonprofit groups in this southern Humboldt community and features Damian Marley, Sly and Robbie, Tanya Stephens, Fantan Mojah, and more.

AUG 4–5

Aloha Festival San Francisco Presidio Parade Grounds, near Lincoln at Graham, SF; www.pica-org.org/AlohaFest/index.html. 10am-5pm, free. The Pacific Islanders’ Cultural Association presents its annual Polynesian cultural festival featuring music, dance, arts, crafts, island cuisine, exhibits, and more.

AUG 9–12

Redwood Empire Fair Redwood Empire Fairgrounds, 1055 N State, Ukiah; (707) 462-3884, www.redwoodempirefair.com. Noon-11pm, $3-6. Bring the family to this old-timey fair, complete with rides, food, and fun.

AUG 10–12

Comcast San Jose Jazz Festival Various venues; (408) 288-7557, www.sanjosejazz.org. $5. This three-day music festival hosts dozens of acclaimed musicians playing all flavors of jazz.

AUG 11

SEEN Festival 2006 People’s Park, Telegraph and Dwight, Berk; (510) 938-2463, www.maxpages.com/seen2000. 11:30am-5pm, $5 suggested donation. This year marks the 12th anniversary of this world music, reggae, and soul festival.

AUG 11–12

Nihonmachi Street Fair Japantown Center, Post and Webster, SF; (415) 771-9861, www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Japantown’s 34th annual celebration of the Bay Area’s Asian and Pacific Islander communities continues this year with educational booths and programs, local musicians and entertainers, exhibits, and artisans.

Pistahan Yerba Buena Gardens, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybgf.org. 11am-5pm, free. The Bay Area Filipino festival of culture and cuisine features arts and crafts, live entertainment, food, and more.

Vintage Paper Fair Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, Ninth Ave at Lincoln, SF; (323) 883-1702, www.vintagepaperfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-4pm, free. Craft lovers will enjoy this fair, which presents works made from all kinds of paper — from photographs, postcards, and memorabilia to brochures and trade cards.

AUG 18–19

Solfest Solar Living Institute,13771 S Hwy 101, Hopland; (707)744-2017, www.solfest.org. "The greenest show on earth" is back for another year featuring exhibits about renewable energy, green building, ecodesign tools, organic agriculture, and much more.

SEPT 1–2

Millbrae Art and Wine Festival Broadway between Victoria and Meadow Glen, Millbrae; (650) 697-7324, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-5pm, free. More than 100,000 visitors will gather for this festive Mardi Gras-style celebration featuring R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and soul music, as well as arts and crafts, food and beverages, live performance, and activities for kids.


SEPT 8–9

Mountain View Art and Wine Festival Castro between El Camino Real and Evelyn Ave, Mountain View; (650) 968-8378, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Known as one of America’s finest art festivals, this vibrant celebration featuring art, music, and a kids’ park draws more than 200,000 arts lovers to Silicon Valley’s epicenter.

SEPT 9

Solano Stroll Solano Ave, Berk and Albany; (510) 527-5358, www.SolanoStroll.org. 10am-6pm, free. The vibes are always mellow and the air filled with rhythm at the Solano Ave Stroll. In its 33rd year, the milelong block party will feature a pancake breakfast, booths, entertainers, a parade, and more, this year with the Going Green — It’s Easy! theme.

SEPT 15

Expo for the Artist and Musician SomArts, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 861-5302; artsandmedia.net. 11am-6pm. This eighth annual event, sponsored by Independent Arts and Media, is the Bay Area’s only grassroots connection fair for independent arts, music, and culture, featuring workshops, performances, and networking.

SEPT 22

California Poets Festival History Park San Jose, 1650 Center, San Jose; californiapoetsfestival.org. 10am-4:30pm, free. Celebrate California’s distinctive heritage of poets, poetry, and presses at this all-day outdoor festival. *

Compiled by Nathan Baker, Angela Bass, Sam Devine, Molly Freedenberg, and Chris Jasmin

Science and Engineering: A Q&A with Vincent Gallo

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Attention, Class of 2007: No matter your age, please read all the way to the end of this conversation with Vincent Gallo to discover what he hopes you will contribute to our future.
All curious others, get ready for an illustrated chat that moves through some of Gallo’s fave screen idols and non-auteur films to explore his ideas about making music and movies, and also includes my story about a lifesize wax candle of Richard Nixon’s head.
Cameos by Hilary Duff and Michael Jackson.

gallo.jpg

Science and Engineering: A Q&A with Vincent Gallo

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Attention, Class of 2007: No matter your age, please read all the way to the end of this conversation with Vincent Gallo to discover what he hopes you will contribute to our future.
All curious others, get ready for an illustrated chat that moves through some of Gallo’s fave screen idols and non-auteur films to explore his ideas about making music and movies, and also includes my story about a lifesize wax candle of Richard Nixon’s head.
Cameos by Hilary Duff and Michael Jackson.

gallo.jpg

Wild Tigers, Painted Bird

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COSTUME One gray Garfield sweatshirt; a blue wool sleeveless sweater with little birds and a white sheep stitched on it; clean Chuck Taylor high-tops; an orange Kawasaki motorcycle T-shirt; a little red hoodie; a beige suede vest with tassels. These are some of the clothes sported by Logan (Malcolm Stumpf), the gender-jumping cusp-of-teens boy at the center of Cam Archer’s debut feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known.

"At that age you aren’t concerned with what other people think. You choose what [clothing] appeals to you – you’re just going for it," says Stephanie Volkmar, the film’s costume designer, as cars whiz by on Guerrero Street. "Logan’s outfits are sometimes outrageous, or some might say a little risque. Cam has an obsession with short-shorts and tank tops. He’ll be mad if that makes it into print, but it does help express the character’s vulnerability. We wanted Logan to wear things that would make him seem awkward and different."

One reason I’m asking Volkmar about her no-budget costume work for Wild Tigers is that she works at the store we’re sitting next to, Painted Bird. Over the past two years, I’ve assembled a Painted Bird wardrobe about as expansive as Logan’s, though riddled with the occasional label (Dior, Gucci, Adidas – all cheap), thus proving Volkmar’s point that in comparison to adults, kids just don’t care.

It turns out that Painted Bird’s connection to Archer’s movie – which, after debuting last year at the Sundance Film Festival, plays as part of the Mission Creek festivities – is also familial. The director’s brother, Nate, who did the movie’s layered, impressionistic sound design, is (along with Sonny Walker) one of the shop’s co-owners. "Nate is good at finding [music] that blows me away," Volkmar says. He certainly succeeds in Wild Tigers, braiding everything from the hand claps and "oo-oowoh" ‘s of the Michael Zager Band’s disco classic "Let’s All Chant" to the drowsy, faraway loneliness of Laura Nyro’s "Desiree" and the Langley Schools Music Project around Logan’s daydreams.

According to Volkmar, both Wild Tigers and Painted Bird emerged from family or familylike bonds formed in Santa Clara, where she met Cam Archer and worked on about 10 other short projects with him. Judging by the many five-star reviews for Painted Bird on sites such as Yelp, I’m not the only one who wants to rave about Walker and Nate Archer’s shop while also being protective of it. Why? It avoids the kitsch pitfalls and the overdressed look favored by SF vintage and secondhand places, and most important, its low prices correspond with a friendly atmosphere. Keeping an eye out for quality moderate vintage labels as much as typical high-end names, the Painted Bird folks are in the clothing biz because they like clothes, and they have a definite, yet easygoing, sensibility.

In Wild Tigers, Logan has a unique sensibility too, but his run through lust is a mostly solitary one. Though its conflation of the titular animals with desire might be a nod to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady (as well as drawn from Santa Clara’s untamed suburban terrain), Archer’s movie emerges from the still too-small genre of US queer kids’ films that includes Todd Haynes’s Dottie Gets Spanked, Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation, Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, and SF director Justin Kelly’s new Cannes-bound short, Front. (Also, one of Wild Tigers‘ executive producers, Darren Stein, was behind the pre-Tarnation queer childhood doc Keep the Camera on Me.) Without a doubt, Volkmar’s costumes have a role in some of the movie’s best scenes, such as when Logan’s friend Joey (Max Paradise) – complete with a golden bowl cut and a striped shirt buttoned all the way up to its collar – tries to get him to contribute to a "ways to be cool" list.

A cynic might point out that there isn’t a huge gap between the outfits sported by the children of Wild Tigers and the clothes favored by San Francisco’s eternal youth of today. (I stand semiconvicted.) In fact, Volkmar drew extensively from the shop where she works while dressing the movie’s primarily preteen and teen characters. But the spirit of Painted Bird’s staff is a lot like Logan from Wild Tigers: not too cool for school, just – as Volkmar says – going for it. (Johnny Ray Huston)

WILD TIGERS I HAVE KNOWN

Wed/16, call or see Web site for time, $4-$8

Roxie Film Center

3117 and 3125 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

www.paintedbird.org

Stalk tips

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> cheryl@sfbg.com

Nothing is what it seems in Red Road, a wonderfully restrained thriller that marks the feature debut of British writer-director Andrea Arnold. Jackie (a fierce Kate Dickie) works as a surveillance camera operator, studying closed-circuit feeds streaming from Glasgow’s streets. Her life is mysterious without being spectacular; for one thing, she lives alone but wears a wedding ring. Clearly, she’s had a tragic past, and her present is haunted by the specter of unfinished business – but what, exactly? And who is the mysterious man (Tony Curran) she pursues after spotting him on one of her monitors?

"The feedback I’m getting is that a lot of people don’t work it out exactly until the end," Arnold told me over the phone from Canada, where we missed meeting at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. "I do sometimes think, ‘Oh god, was I too subtle?’ "

Being too subtle is a problem more directors should have. Arnold’s gift for capturing complicated characters and gritty urban settings was first displayed in Wasp, her 2003 Oscar-winning short film. In it impoverished young mother Zoe (Red Road costar Nathalie Press) parks her unsettlingly large brood in the parking lot of a pub after she determines it’s high time for a child-free date night. Near-tragedy ensues, but through it all Zoe remains sympathetic, not pathetic, despite the questionable decisions she makes along the way. This quality is shared by Red Road‘s Jackie.

"I knew I was taking things far by her behaving in a way that you didn’t completely understand. That was a risk of people running out of patience [with her]," Arnold said of Jackie, whose aloof demeanor makes her actions, including hooking up with a man she apparently hates, all the more surprising. "I think it takes a while to get to know her. But I like characters that are not so easy or straightforward."

Arnold’s interest in complex characters brings depth to her stories, which on the surface seem to simply follow the daily lives of rather ordinary people. "I think all human beings are very complicated in their circumstances and their environments – sometimes people don’t always behave in the best way. It doesn’t mean to say that they’re bad," she said. "I like seeing people that may not be easily likable to start. But then when you get to understand them more, when you see them in a more three-dimensional way, then you at least understand them, or you have empathy for them rather than immediately making a judgment about them."

Though she fielded suggestions to turn Wasp into her first feature, she was set on Red Road – even after she won the Oscar. It’s the first product of Advance Party, a concept project in which three directors will make films featuring the same group of characters, but each with distinct stories.

"Zentropa [cofounded by Danish director Lars von Trier] and [Scotland’s] Sigma Films had the idea of making films with rules, a bit like the Dogme films. Zentropa were very much involved in the Dogme thing. They were looking for filmmakers who hadn’t made a feature film before, and they saw Wasp when it premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival," Arnold recalled. "They rang me up, and it went from there."

Danish filmmakers Anders Thomas Jensen and Lone Scherfig sketched out the characters, who are required to appear in all the films and be played by the same actors. Arnold and the other two Advance Party participants – Dane Mikkel Norgaard and Scot Morag McKinnon – cast together and discussed story lines that each would pursue, but the films are stand-alone narratives in which "the other directors are free to create their entire universe."

Red Road‘s universe is bleak enough even before Jackie explores its seedier pockets, first through TV screens and then by physically visiting the places she’s seen on video. The surveillance theme is a nod to classic cinema (think Rear Window, The Conversation) and the information age.

"I’ve read we’ve got 20 percent of the world’s cameras in the UK," Arnold said. "There’s a lot of CCTV – it’s kind of a fact of life in this day and age. But my character uses it in a way that people are not supposed to use it. It’s supposed to be a crime-prevention tool; you’re not supposed to be following people. But who wouldn’t be tempted? I find just watching people fascinating, people going about their lives and doing ordinary things. I find it riveting." *

RED ROAD

Opens Fri/4

See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

www.myspace.com/redroadfilm“>www.myspace.com/redroadfilm”>www.sfbg.com

www.myspace.com/redroadfilm

Cerebral vortex

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Guy Maddin, that demented dealer in antiquities responsible for such cinematic curiosities as The Saddest Music in the World and the much-loved short The Heart of the World, has a new film showing at the Castro Theatre as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. The semiautobiographical Brand upon the Brain! – a silent quasi-horror film about an orphanage that harvests life-giving brain juice from its wards – will be accompanied by a live orchestra, Foley artists, a castrato, and narration by local star Joan Chen. Maddin, winner of the Persistence of Vision Award at last year’s festival, spoke with the Guardian about his new film and a whole lot of other stuff.

SFBG How involved were you in orchestrating the live performance of Brand upon the Brain!?

GUY MADDIN Well, I was pretty involved in insisting on it. I really, really, really wanted it. In its first incarnation at the Toronto Film Festival, the directors of the festival were good about it. They were gracious, and they made it possible, and then it sort of set the standard for subsequent shows…. I never worried before. You know, when you’re a filmmaker, there’s something in the word film that almost seems to imply the creator is making it more for him or herself. But when you’re putting on a live event, you just automatically …

SFBG You think more about the audience?

GM Yeah, I’ve become more of a showman…. I sort of staged it as an event as a form of boredom insurance, because I do know that you only buy so much audience goodwill with live performances. But then that wasn’t enough for me – I had to add Foley and an interlocutor, and I’m lucky enough to know a bona fide castrato.

SFBG Wait, this is a bona fide castrato?

GM He is, but, well, you know, he wasn’t castrated by the pope [laughs] or anything like that…. He’s an old friend of mine, and I met him many years ago in a steam bath in Winnipeg. I just heard from out of the thick steam a very unearthly voice and for a few nanoseconds thought I was in the wrong steam bath. He sings in a boys’ choir still to this day even though he’s 45 years old. I think his voice just never changed.

SFBG What are you working on right now?

GM I’m pleased to tell you I’m finishing up a documentary on my hometown of Winnipeg. And I’m collaborating with a poet, John Ashbery, on a feature-length Internet interactive movie labyrinth, so that’s kind of exciting for me. And I’m also collaborating on a script in its early stages with Kazuo Ishiguro.

SFBG I heard on some commentary track that you put together features in 20 days or something nuts like that.

GM Yeah, I really like to work quickly. But though most people would never suspect this of me, I really care about scripts being in good shape. And I’m especially proud of the script for Brand upon the Brain!. I feel it’s accessible without at all compromising anything I’ve ever wanted to do. One thing I’ve learned how to do is to become more honest about myself, about how horrible a person I’ve been over the years, and somehow the more honest I am, the more literarily solid my scripts feel.

SFBG Yeah, that’s the dirty secret of film and literature: the nastier you are about yourself –

GM Yeah, the more self-loathing you are, the more self-loving you come off. In this case the protagonist in the movie is actually named Guy Maddin, so it enabled me to be supermasochistic. I just don’t have the imagination to think up the kind of things that are in this movie. There are things that I’ve just outed my family on.

SFBG Really?

GM It’s all there. I just don’t have the time or the genius to –

SFBG To think of nasty things that aren’t true?

GM Yeah, I just had to transplant them pell-mell and wholesale into the body of this thing, and then it was just a simple matter of putting them in order. *

BRAND UPON THE BRAIN

Mon/7, 8 p.m., $20

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

For a longer version of this interview and for short reviews of other films from the second week of the San Francisco International Film Festival, go to www.sfbg.com/blogs/pixel_vision.

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