Cheryl Eddy

Missing person: have you seen Mandy Stokes?

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Getting the word out for a friend whose cousin has been missing for 2 weeks:

Alicia Amanda Stokes, who goes by Mandy, is 33 years old, 5’4″ with blonde hair and green eyes. She was last seen on Sunday, November 25 at her home in Oakland. Her car was found abandoned containing her wallet and cell phone at 5000 Park Blvd, one freeway exit away from her home. If you have any information that could lead to Mandy’s safe
return home to her family, please call 404-931-7044 or 702-318-1590 or the Oakland Police Department who is investigating her case.

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Brian on the brain

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RINK MASTER Even before South Park anointed Brian Boitano the coolest ice-skater ever to strap on blades, I was a fan. As a wee junior high schooler, I cheered his triumph at the Battle of the Brians at the 1988 Winter Olympics. (In your face, Brian Orser!) Now a full-time pro, the Bay Area native and resident is gearing up for one of his most ambitious undertakings: the "Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular," the first ice show to be held at AT&T Park, with rink legends like Dorothy Hamill and Viktor Petrenko — and a live performance by Barry Manilow. Naturally, I had to get Boitano on the phone for some inside dirt.

SFBG So are you stoked for the spectacular?

BRIAN BOITANO Yeah, I think it’s gonna be exciting! The ballpark’s really excited about it, and Barry’s really excited about it.

SFBG Will there be any baseball routines on the ice?

BB Yeah, we’re gonna do a baseball number. And since it’s a ’70s number, we’re gonna do a streaking thing. We’re gonna get a Barry Manilow look-alike and have him streak through the ball field.

SFBG [Stunned pause] Seriously?

BB [Laughing] No!

SFBG Dude, that would be awesome, though.

BB We did throw it out at the production meeting, because it’s a ’70s-themed show. But I don’t know if Barry would appreciate that!

SFBG How did you pick which Manilow songs to skate to?

BB It’s actually not all his songs. It’s a show with ’70s music, but there’s a lot of different ’70s music. He’s gonna sing eight of his songs. Four of them will be classics, and four will be from his new album, The Greatest Songs of the Seventies.

SFBG How’d you hook up with him?

BB I do shows every year with musical guests. I’m doing one with Seal this year and another with Wynonna Judd. I met [Manilow] years ago — he had a theatrical show called Copacabana, and I had a friend who was the lead in that. When we were throwing out names for the show this year, I said, "I wonder if we could get Barry. I would really love to have his music to skate to."

SFBG Being from the Bay Area, how did you get into ice skating? I mean, there’s the rink at the Yerba Buena Gardens….

BB That’s where I’m just leaving from! [Growing up,] I sort of was this daredevil roller skater, and I saw the "Ice Follies" one time at Winterland. And I was, like, "Wow, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

SFBG Where do you keep your gold medal?

BB It’s in my parents’ safety-deposit box. The last time I saw it was about 10 years ago. I think to see it every day would take away from the special quality of it. But I don’t forget what it looks like!

SFBG There’s one question I have to ask you, which I’m sure everyone asks —

BB "What Would Brian Boitano Do?"

SFBG Of course!

BB I still don’t know how that happened. I’ve still never met the [South Park] guys! It was funny because I went to the movie theater — it was that old movie theater on Sutter and Van Ness. I was scared! I didn’t know if they were going to trash me. And it was just sort of surreal sitting there watching a cartoon character of yourself with the whole movie theater laughing. The movie’s very funny, and I’m a big fan of their comedy. They’re so timely and so politically incorrect — it’s hilarious.

SFBG Do you get sick of hearing the song?

BB I still think it’s funny. People get a kick out of it — what the heck. All I can say is, thank god they were nice to me! (Cheryl Eddy)

BRIAN BOITANO SKATING SPECTACULAR

Dec. 5, 8 p.m., $50–$150

AT&T Park

801 Third St., SF

1-800-225-2277

www.tickets.com

For "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" T-shirts — sales of which benefit Boitano’s Youth Skate Program — visit www.brianboitano.com.

Rocka rolla 4-eva

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The man needs no introduction, really.

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He’s Rob Halford, and he’s coming to town tomorrow for an in-store at Rasputin Music downtown and a screening of a new film about his first post-Judas Priest band, Fight. I have a few rules to live by, and one of them is: if you get the chance to interview a god – much less the Metal God – you absolutely take it. Our phone conversation follows.

Play “The Mist” for me

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By Maria Komodore

Warning: this post may contain spoilers — if you haven’t seen The Mist yet, read on with caution.

The Mist, director Frank Darabontʼs third collaboration with writer Stephen King (the other two being 1994ʼs The Shawshank Redemption and 1999ʼs The Green Mile), is a blend of horror cult films such as Them! (1954) and The Fly (1958, 1986) — among many, many others — and John Carpenterʼs The Fog. And thatʼs exactly why itʼs sooo good.

But in the case of The Mist, keeping with the cult extravaganzasʼ marvelously ridiculous plots, the dangerous mystery that the fog holds doesnʼt involve peopleʼs past sins returning to mercilessly haunt them down. That would be way too simple. Rather, the threat engulfed in the thick white cloud is a number of apocalyptic and pre-historic looking creatures that found their way into our world when scientific experiments to open up windows to different dimensions got out of control. In other words, fears about science and the ways it has put us in serious trouble, a subject perhaps more urgent today than ever, make their triumphant return.

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Just a guess, but whatever they’re looking at probably ain’t too friendly.

All about Bob

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

It’s not that I’m anti–Bob Dylan. I’ve just never been a fan in particular. I’m too young or too fond of metal or too shallow or some combination of the three. But I found I’m Not There — Todd Haynes’s sorta biopic of the icon — entirely fascinating. By now you’ve heard the pitch: six actors (Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw) play facets of Dylan without actually playing Dylan, though Bale and Blanchett come dangerously close. The movie begins with the death of this nebulous character, identifiable only by his distinctive mop of dark curls, and a somber narrator informing us, "Even the ghost was more than one person." And I’m Not There is nearly more than one movie, with different film stocks, casts, tones, and styles deftly stitched together by Dylan’s music (performed, appropriately enough, by an array of artists).

Perhaps you didn’t realize that one of Dylan’s personae is an African American boy (Franklin) obsessed with boxcars, guitars, and Woody Guthrie. Strangers are drawn to this nostalgic little soul, including a kindly woman who feeds him before sternly advising him to "live your own time." This sweet tale, filmed in warm hues with touches of magical realism, is a more abstract reading of Dylan — unlike the story of Jack Rollins (Bale), which is told documentary-style and features Julianne Moore as a Joan Baez clone reminiscing about Jack’s impact on the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene. He was a visionary, using traditional folk stylings to comment on contemporary concerns. His life becomes intertwined with the showbiz fate of Robbie Clark (Ledger), a James Dean–ish young actor whose starring role in a Jack Rollins biopic catapults him to stardom.

After a freewheeling courtship — with montage-spun happiness undermined by televisions constantly broadcasting the Vietnam War — Robbie marries Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who later leaves him when fame and ego turn him into something of an asshole. But aside from big-head syndrome, Robbie’s worst offense is saying that women can’t be poets. The sins of Jude (Cate Blanchett) are far dirtier, and it’s no coincidence that Jude’s saga — a black-and-white British tour from hell, with snooty reporters and drug-enhanced moments of surreality — is I’m Not There‘s most magnetic segment.

Sexy androgyne Blanchett’s probably got her next Supporting Actress win sewn up with this one, or she should. Her performance is the heart of the movie — snarling, weary, uncanny, and able to make David Cross’s hairy cameo as Allen Ginsberg seem totally logical. Don’t Look Back would be the most obvious frame of reference here, but Haynes is less interested in Dylan’s performances or fans than his inner conflicts. It’s hard to sing about the oppressed when you are rich, famous, and beloved. It’s hard to keep your head on your shoulders when everyone views you as the voice of a generation. It’s hard to be patient when the Man (Bruce Greenwood — OK, his character has a name, but he’s the Man nonetheless) digs into your past, unable to beat you in a war of words but smugly proud of finding dirt that cracks your cooler-than-thou armor. Whoa, you mean his name isn’t really Bob Dylan?

Less compelling are a pair of shorter segments — Whishaw as Arthur (as in Rimbaud), who pops up occasionally to drop science via actual Dylan quotes, and Gere as Billy the Kid, a retired outlaw in hiding whose Halloween-obsessed hometown appears art-directed by Tim Burton. As in other chapters, there are surely nuances that sailed past me but that Dylan obsessives will seize on. Thankfully not represented are Dylan’s less-interesting years — the Victoria’s Secret pitchman era, for example.

As a rock doc–slash–biopic, I’m Not There is proof that the best rendering of a legend isn’t necessarily done with straight, tidy lines. I may not have been a huge Dylan fan before I’m Not There, but I was a Haynes fan. With this, his most ambitious work to date, the director’s affection for re-creating the past finds its match in his innovative dissection of a complex artist’s soul. *

I’M NOT THERE

Opens Wed/21 in Bay Area theaters

See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

www.imnotthere-movie.com“>www.imnotthere-movie.com”>www.sfbg.com

www.imnotthere-movie.com

The messengers

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By Sara Schieron

Michael Peña and Andrew Garfield give the illusion of a long association. Funny enough, they never appear together in Robert Redford’s new war drama Lions for Lambs, and yet they get along well enough to finish each other’s sentences. Perhaps we can credit this familiarity with their shared experience working with actor and director Redford, whom they imply, helped them smooth out their respective anxieties. And who wouldn’t be anxious? They’re working with the freakin’ Sundance Kid. Anxious is exactly the right mindset.

Lions for Lambs is split into three storylines in three locales: one takes place in a California university, another in Washington D.C., and the third in Afghanistan. Revolving around the plight of two soldiers (played by Derek Luke and Peña), the story in California (starring Redford and Garfield) relates to the soldier’s decision to enlist, while the story in DC (starring Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise) explains the tragic strategy these two soldiers are en route to execute.

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Lions for Lambs director and star “Bob” Redford.

Ultimately, Lions is a message film about America at war, and it’s rare in that no other message films are filling the role of direct criticism. The Kingdom was an action movie with a comment about retribution, The Situation was a suspense film with an observation about truth in war, and In the Valley of Elah was a family drama with a massive overstatement about the nation in peril. Lions, on the other hand, is a straight up message film. But Garfield and Peña would explain it a little differently.

British by birth, Garfield made waves in Toronto with his film debut, Boy A, but before that he had a run playing lead character Billy in a theatrical adaptation of Kes, a lesser-known gem in the oeuvre of the great Ken Loach. Peña, in contrast, is far more seasoned than you’d expect such a young actor to be. He’s worked alongside many American bigwigs, appearing in Crash, World Trade Center, Shooter, and Babel. Both actors toured with the film to answer questions at a myriad of pre-screenings with Q&A devised by Redford to get the word out. Our conversation about acting, conviction and working with Redford follows.

Visit King City!

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Guardian Class of 2007 members King City have three new videos posted on YouTube.

Check out “Road to Madrid” below, and the rest here!

True grace

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By Rita Felciano

Bay Area Odissi dancer Asako Takami died on November 3, 2007 in San Francisco after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 47 seven years old. Founder and artistic director of the East Bay-based Pallavi Dance Group, Takami was an exquisite dancer and much-revered teacher of who had lived in the Bay Area for fifteen years. As a sign of their love and affection for this remarkable woman and artist, the Bay Area dance community honored her in a benefit at the Cultural Integration Fellowship in San Francisco on October 27, 2007.

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Born in Nigata, Japan, Takami became interested in Odissi, the Indian classical dance style from the state of Orissa, at the age of 20. In 2000, in an interview with Hinduism Today she explained her fascination with the art. “I’d never seen women who were really beautiful and really powerful. That energy I’d never felt in anything — that was my first impression. I could not forget it.” For the next 15 years she studied with Smt. Kumkum Lal and Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra in India and Japan. She gained international attention through her participation in Ralph Lemon’s Tree, part two of “The Geography Trilogy.” The work was performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in October 2000.

Mythili Kumar, Artistic Director of Abhinaya Dance Company in San Jose, remembers Takami for her “exquisite grace and perfect technique.” Her death, she said, “is a tremendous loss to the dance world but I feel so fortunate that we got to know such a wonderful, humble and sweet person. We will miss her so much.” Takami is survived by friends and her partner Ralph Lemon. A memorial service will take place Sun/18 at 2 p.m. in the Bolinas Community Center, 14 Wharf Road, Bolinas.

In the grand tradition of Metal SpongeBob and Metal Cookie Monster

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Cannibal Corpse really does cross all boundaries.

Goldie winner — Film: Kerry Laitala

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A casual observer might simply call Kerry Laitala a filmmaker and leave it at that. But anyone who’s seen her spooky, intricate, delightfully creative works, including 2003’s Out of the Ether, 2005’s Torchlight Tango, and 2006’s Muse of Cinema, would certainly disagree. A self-described "media artist-archaeologist" whose art hinges not just on subject matter but on the physical manipulation of film stock, Laitala makes movies for viewers who’re willing to leave their preconceived notions about cinema at the screening-room door.

"Ninety-nine point nine percent of the people in the world don’t know what [experimental film] is," she said from the living room of her San Francisco apartment. The eclectic decor includes an array of Halloween decorations that Laitala displays year-round, stacks and stacks of books, and curiosities seemingly plucked from a cabinet of dusty Victorian delights. "A lot of people don’t like [experimental film] because it doesn’t fulfill their expectations of what cinema should be. They’re not interested in engaging with something that they’re not familiar with. That’s just human nature."

Having a limited audience doesn’t bother Laitala, who’s been making films since high school. She was first inspired after seeing a 16mm archival print of the Hindenburg explosion. "I was blown away by the paradox of how beautiful it was and how tragic it was too. How horrific and simultaneously incredible it was."

In college at the Massachusetts College of Art and grad school at the San Francisco Art Institute, Laitala pursued experimental filmmaking. At MassArt, "I saw Joseph Cornell’s Rose Hobart when I was 18 or 19 years old. That was where I became interested in experimental film and working with a medium in a way that’s more personal."

Since the late 1980s, Laitala has completed an impressive array of short films, installations, and projector performance works (including 2007’s Hocus Pocus, ABRACADABRA, recently staged at Francis Ford Coppola’s Napa Valley winery). Her art has screened all over the United States, Europe, and Asia, and she’s about to head down under for her Australian debut. The reason for her international popularity is clear: even if only point-one percent of the population embraces experimental film, Laitala’s works are exceptional — and anyone with a pair of eyeballs, even a befuddled popcorn-movie fan, can see it. Muse of Cinema, a 20-minute re-creation of the experience of going to the movies when movies were still being born, makes use of a serendipitous flea market find: antique magic lantern slides. The result is inspired, multilayered, and visually astonishing.

Five years in the making, Muse of Cinema also highlights Laitala’s technical skills. I asked her to explain hand processing, the technique she uses to create her vivid images. She told me, "After you’ve exposed your film in the camera, you have an image on the film, but you can’t see it. It’s a latent image. In order to bring the image out to the viewer’s eyes when you project it, you have to process it. You can either have a lab do that or you can do it yourself. When you process it yourself, you can manipulate the material. You’d have the pay a lab a lot more money to do that, but also [when you do it yourself] you have a lot more control. Oftentimes it has a handmade look to it because there might be certain kinds of idiosyncrasies with the way that you do the hand processing that’s different than how a lab would do it, where everything’s in a very standardized, sterile setting. With hand processing you can get a lot of interesting effects that are very hard to replicate digitally."

Muse of Cinema‘s soundtrack, created in collaboration with Robert Fox, is similarly complex, an evocative mix of sound effects and music snippets. Because they require her to gather plenty of material for her images and her soundtrack — and endlessly manipulate both to achieve the effects she desires — Laitala’s films are labor-intensive, which is part of the reason she enjoys making them. "I get a lot of ideas during the process of working with the material," she said. "You discover things that you would never set out to achieve if you had everything mapped out from beginning to end. I think a lot of artists work that way. People keep saying, ‘You gotta stop using the phrase experimental film, because experimental film makes it sound like you don’t know what you’re doing.’ It’s a really tricky thing. A lot of people call themselves film artists. You’re working with a medium in the same way that a painter would work with paint. You’re working directly with the stuff itself."

In a follow-up e-mail after our meeting, Laitala further explained herself: "My process is organic, utilizing elliptical forms, allowing my projects to evolve and become entities unto themselves. I am more interested in ideas that arise in a nonlinear fashion where my images can carry myriad meanings, for literal connotations are limiting." And there’s no limit to what this talented artist can achieve.

www.othercinema.com/klaitala

Goldie winner — Film: Samara Halperin

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It’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re watching the films of Samara Halperin. Take, for example, the minute-long Plastic Fantastic #1 (2006). Jaunty bleeps keep the beat as a pair of ketchup-and-mustard-bedecked hot dogs are shredded into meaty octopuses. Freed from their buns, they frolic across a checkered tablecloth and embrace atop layers of sauerkraut and relish.

All of Halperin’s works — especially the ones that use her trademark technique, stop-motion with plastic toys — convey the filmmaker’s ability to find gleeful joy in unexpected places, be it a construction site (as in 2006’s Hard Hat Required), the Wild West (1999’s Tumbleweed Town), or the homoerotic subtext of Beverly Hills, 90210 (2001’s Sorry, Brenda). Her films also reflect her love of bright colors and, especially, pop culture.

"I grew up a few blocks from where they would shoot Sesame Street," the New York City–born, now Oakland-based Halperin explains. "I’ve always had this disconnect where I didn’t really understand that television wasn’t real. I saw Snuffleupagus on the street! So from a very early age, I was deep into [pop culture]."

As a child, Halperin dreamed of becoming a cartoonist and later worked in ceramics. After she entered the Rhode Island School of Design, she realized filmmaking was her calling.

"I’ve always made shorts, and [in 1989] I started making films that I wanted to see that I didn’t see, like queer youth represented or really queer people represented at all," she says. "I got a lot of shit for [my queer subject matter] in the beginning. It just wasn’t fashionable yet."

Now, of course, there’s an entire TV network devoted to queer programming. Logo screened Tumbleweed Town — Halperin’s eight-minute graduate thesis project for California College of the Arts — when programming in response to the Brokeback Mountain renaissance. A marvel of mise-en-scène in miniature, with expressive plastic characters and a score by Corner Tour that perfectly complements the action (another characteristic of Halperin’s films: pitch-perfect musical choices), Tumbleweed Town had a genesis that was equal parts imagination and inspiration.

"I had never done animation before," Halperin recalls. "I’m not really an animation person, but I am a toy person. [The cowboy toy looked] so gay, I thought I’d find a boyfriend for him and build a world where they could be gay together. I’d just moved from Texas, where there were real, handlebar-mustachioed gay cowboys shining boots in the bars. I’m a New York Jew, and I’d never seen anything like this."

Tumbleweed Town is Halperin’s best-known work besides Sorry, Brenda, a black-and-white marvel of suggestive reediting that’s a must-see for anyone who was ever addicted to "BH Niner."

"I really loved the show," she says, inching up her pant leg to reveal a 90210 tattoo on her calf. "I always thought, ‘[Brandon and Dylan] are so gay’ — I just wanted to bring out their relationship and show people what I saw." The piece made its way into the hands of Conan O’Brien, who discussed it on the air with the Brandon Walsh.

"Jason Priestly loved it," Halperin says. "He stole the tape to show to Luke Perry, so that was the crowning glory for a fanatic such as myself."

When she’s not tuning in to new pop-culture craziness — like MTV’s "revolutionary" celebration of bisexuality, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila — Halperin teaches at Mills College and works on an array of new films: a sequel to Tumbleweed Town set in early 1980s New York City; a live-action, nonnarrative homage to her beloved Coney Island, Astroland; and a video project that pays tribute to Richard Simmons and "loving yourself, no matter what you are."

On that note, Halperin’s final thought is especially fitting: "I encourage people to make movies. It’s my personal view that the world can be changed through art."

www.steakhaus.com/samara

Raising the barre

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Marking National American Indian Heritage Month, the American Indian Film Festival kicks off with a pair of ballet-dancer biographies. Of course, you know one of ’em is gonna be about eternally elegant George Balanchine muse Maria Tallchief — and indeed, Sandra Osawa’s Maria Tallchief will have its world premiere at the fest. Praised as the first American prima ballerina and a standout in an art form that had, until her rise to prominence in the 1940s, been largely European, Tallchief brought audiences to their feet and critics to tears. She married Balanchine, and their creative collaboration continued even after their divorce (she wanted a baby; he didn’t) — a notable result of which was her role as the original Sugar Plum Fairy in his Nutcracker.

Maria Tallchief — bound for PBS after its festival screening, a fact that’s evident in its straightforward style — spends ample time contextualizing its subject’s importance not just as a dancer during one of ballet’s most historically significant periods (stateside, anyway) but also as a Native American woman proud of her Osage heritage. Black-and-white archival footage illustrates her considerable gifts, with testimonials from peers and observers (and Tallchief herself) recalling the thrilling life of a talented artist.

More contemporary is Gwendolen Cates’s Water Flowing Together (also bound for PBS), which focuses on recently retired New York City Ballet star Jock Soto, one of the last dancers to work with Balanchine. Part Navajo Indian, part Puerto Rican, Soto — who also happens to be gay — is shown from his teens through his 40s, earning praise along the way from seemingly every ballerina he ever partnered, as well as from choreographers like Christopher Wheeldon, who saw him as an inspiration. For a guy who was initially told he didn’t have the body of a dancer (and whose dad bought him blue fishnet tights for his first ballet class), Soto’s impact on the dance world is shown to be immeasurable.

The 32nd annual AIFF also features fictional narratives (including a ghostly tale set at South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation), shorts, and the American Indian Film Institute’s American Indian Motion Picture Awards Show, at which the fest awards will be presented and Native musicians and dancers will perform.

AMERICAN INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Nov. 2–7, $5–$10

Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinema

One Embarcadero Center, promenade level, SF

Nov. 8–10, $5–$10

Palace of Fine Arts

3301 Lyon, SF

(415) 554-0525

www.aifisf.com

This stuff’ll kill ya!

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CULT FILM GOD Blood Feast, Color Me Blood Red, The Gruesome Twosome, and The Gore Gore Girls — between 1960 and 1972, Herschell Gordon Lewis ruled the drive-in with a steady stream of exploitation movies, made on the cheap for crowds unafraid to experience the kind of special effects that earned Lewis the nickname "the Godfather of Gore." Nowadays, the 81-year-old is a highly respected authority on direct marketing (check out his column, Curmudgeon at Large, at directmag.com), but he’s proud (if bemused) that his films continue to thrill audiences today. As part of the Clay Theatre’s Late Night Picture Show, Lewis will appear in person with his 1970 surreal magician splatterfest The Wizard of Gore (remade this year, by another director, as a Crispin Glover vehicle). He’ll also appear at Amoeba Music with — saddle up, Two Thousand Maniacs! fans — a jug band. Naturally, I seized on the chance to talk to one of my personal heroes prior to his visit.

SFBG I’m so excited to see The Wizard of Gore on the big screen.

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS [Laughs] That’s a way to start a conversation.

SFBG Back when you were making your films, did you have any idea that they would still be popular so many years later?

HGL Good heavens, no. All we were trying to do was to stay alive in the film business by making the kind of movies the major companies either couldn’t make or wouldn’t make. I had expected [my films] would simply disappear the way so many major-company pictures do. It’s like Hamlet: they strut and fret their hour upon the stage, and then are heard no more. It is astounding to me that this strange … I’ll call it a movement, which we didn’t even think was a movement, has survived all this time.

SFBG What is the lasting impact of your films?

HGL One benefit that we brought to the arena was that a motion picture that attracts attention can be totally outside the orbit of (1) star name value and (2) great production values. I’ve seen critical comments on these movies, and they weren’t critics’ pictures. Good heavens. They were made simply to startle people. This renaissance that’s taken place in the last few years, first with videocassettes and then with DVDs, it astounds me.

SFBG It proves your theory that reaching the audience is the most important thing.

HGL Yes, and in fact, when I was making these things, I reached a point at which other schlock film producers were sending me their movies to do the [advertising] campaigns. They began to recognize that the campaign not only caused people to come into the theater, but it caused theaters to book these pictures all together. Today I see major-company product — they don’t know how to title a movie. It stupefies me. And the campaign is stultifying. It’s bewildering. It’s exasperating. It’s obfuscatory. I’m using all kinds of adjectives here.

SFBG A film’s title is important. Obviously The Wizard of Gore is a brilliant title.

HGL She-Devils on Wheels was [originally] called Man-Eaters on Motorbikes. And in fact, the theme song in She-Devils on Wheels is called "Man-Eaters on Motorbikes." As we were developing the campaign, it occurred to me that She-Devils on Wheels was a more dynamic title, and we switched. If you think in terms of somebody who is looking through a newspaper or a listing of titles, [if you don’t have] your own ego superimposed on everything you do, the response goes up. I’m no auteur, never claimed to be. Somebody said to me, "Did any of your movies ever get two thumbs up?" And my answer was "No, but we got two middle fingers up."

SFBG It depends on who’s reviewing them, I guess.

HGL Critics’ pictures? Not ever. But they don’t lose money, and that’s how you keep score. I was grinding these things out like so much hamburger.

SFBG What’s been the most surprising moment of your film career?

HGL As you may or may not know, I have a totally different career these days. In the film business I was a schmuck with a camera, and in the world of direct marketing I’m regarded as something of an expert, and I’m in the Direct Marketing Association Hall of Fame. I was writing a piece of copy — this is [in the middle 1980s] — and the phone rang. The fellow on the phone said, "Mr. Lewis, we are having a screening of The Wizard of Gore on Halloween night, and we would like you to put in a personal appearance." And I said, "Come on, who is this?" Because it had been years since I had heard from anyone about movies. I accepted the invitation, fully expecting the whole thing to be a big joke. It was not a joke at all. I was treated with the reverence I certainly don’t deserve. I couldn’t understand it at the time. I said, "What’s wrong with these people?" I no longer ask dumb questions like that. I figure if they invite me, and I accept, if there’s something wrong, it’s wrong with both of us.

SFBG What’s the best part about meeting your fans?

HGL What’s amazing to me about meeting my fans today is that they remember things from these movies that I don’t. It astounds me that people who weren’t alive when I made these movies still regard them as entertaining. That has to be the ultimate compliment to a film director. After all the time has passed, here are movies that cost nothing to make, with casts of nobodies, and totally primitive effects, and people still go to see them. It’s not surprising to me anymore, but I can tell you, it’s quite gratifying.

SFBG Are you excited to come to San Francisco?

HGL San Francisco is one of my favorite towns in all the world, and I am just very pleased to have been invited to come there. I tell you, somebody there is insane to invite me in the first place, but I admire insanity on that level, and I shall show up with great enthusiasm.

THE WIZARD OF GORE

Fri/2–Sat/3, midnight, $9.75

Clay Theatre

2261 Fillmore, SF

(415) 267-4893

www.landmarkafterdark.com

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS IN-STORE APPEARANCE

Sat/3, 2 p.m., free

Amoeba Music

1855 Haight, SF

(415) 831-1200

www.amoebamusic.com

Speed demons!

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Driving out to Altamont Motorsports Park on the night after a full moon, just a few days before Halloween, even my metal-maimed eardrums could faintly hear the sound of Mick Jagger’s famous plea for peace, uttered from the Altamont concert stage in 1970’s Gimme Shelter: “Who’s fighting, and what for?”

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The cars that go boom.

Well, I’ll tell ya, fighting on Oct 27 were some 50 roached-out, jerry-rigged race cars, hellbent less on victory than on the glory of completing 300 laps — or in many cases, somewhat less — at the track’s annual Pumpkin Smash.

What about them pumpkins? The reason for the season, no doubt — hundreds of orange mofos gave their lives valiantly for this event. The asphalt was luridly smeared with pumpkin guts and gallons of soapy water. Facilitating and maximizing smash-ups never looked so festive…nor made onlookers long so much for pumpkin pie.

Darling Nikki

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Don’t try to front like you never liked Motley Crue. You know you shouted at the devil. You know you tapped out the poignant opening bars of “Home Sweet Home” on your big sister’s Casio keyboard. And you know you turn up the iPod when shuffle kicks you into “Dr. Feelgood.”

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Girl, don’t go away mad.

Ok, maybe all of the above — that’s just me (I also own Motley Crue: Behind the Music on DVD, and have routinely claimed band auto-bio The Dirt to be my favorite book of all time). But if you don’t like the Crue, what’s wrong with … uh .. yue?

Founding Motley member Nikki Sixx don’t need no Rock of Love, sex-tape scandal, nor Surreal Life stint to retain his coolness. And I say this because, well, he was always my favorite. (Love you too, Mick Mars.) Now the Sixx-pack’s got a new side-project band (Sixx: AM — get it??), who’ve just put out a soundtrack of sorts to Sixx’s new memoir, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star (Pocket Books, 2007).

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Learn it. Love it.

Head over to Barnes and Noble in San Mateo to pick up a copy and get it signed by Sixx hisself — in person this weekend. Partial proceeds from book sales go to Sixx’s Running Wild in the Night, a fundraising initiative that helps runaway, abandoned, and abused youth via Covenant House California. Here’s the deets:

Sun/28, 2 p.m.
Barnes and Noble
11 West Hillsdale Blvd., Hillsdale Shopping Center
San Mateo, CA
(650) 341-5560

The book, which is designed to look like a diary and is packed with ghoulish, red-white-and-black illustrations, contains some pretty amazing rock ‘n’ roll nightmare-isms:

“April 4, 1987
Van Nuys, 2:30 a.m.

I think things are looking up. Pete and me have now got porn stars doing our drug runs for us.”

“August 28, 1987
Capital Center, Landover, MD
Backstage, 11:55 p.m.

I just got a blow job from a girl who started crying and thanked me after. What the fuck?”

“November 21, 1987
Backstage, Chattanooga, 6:40 p.m.

Fuck, I feel like dog shit.”

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(Author’s note: this was my Halloween costume costume more than once.)

Torn apart

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

Let’s start with the Ian Curtis dance. Part march in place, part ecstatic flail, it conveyed the singer’s trancelike connection to Joy Division’s music; it also eerily echoed the epileptic seizures he began suffering at age 21, just as his band was becoming famous. If you don’t have the Curtis dance down — let alone his gaunt frame or haunted eyes — you don’t have Curtis.

Fortunately, Control director Anton Corbijn — making his feature debut after a long career photographing musicians including Joy Division — found Sam Riley, an unknown who more or less resembles Curtis physically. But beyond that, the performance is uncanny — the dance is there, along with the anguish and the hunger of a first-time lead actor anxious to do right by the star he’s portraying, not to mention his own career. Apologies to Joaquin Phoenix, but imitation isn’t always the best route. If you want to make your troubled-artist biopic feel authentic, the spirit of desperate urgency is well in order.

Of course, Johnny Cash lived a long life; post-punk poster child Curtis only lived to be 23, though he packed a lot of drama into his adult years. Control swoops in circa 1973; we first meet Curtis as a David Bowie–obsessed, William Wordsworth–quoting, dreaming-of-a-way-out-of-Manchester high school student. Soon after, he marries Deborah Woodruff (Samantha Morton), and the film hustles ahead to Joy Division’s formation, with early gigs, recordings, and a performance on Tony Wilson’s Granada Reports TV show (sparked when Curtis passes a note to Wilson urging him to book the group in so many words: "Joy Division you cunt"). Though Control is based on Deborah Curtis’s biography of her husband, Touching from a Distance (Faber and Faber, 1996), the film devotes ample attention to dynamics within the band, with Factory Records mogul Wilson (Craig Parkinson), and with manager Rob Gretton (Tony Kebbell). Concerts are re-created with keen realism, enhanced by Corbijn’s decision to shoot in no-frills black and white, a choice that also complements the dreary, working-class surroundings that inspired the band’s music. (For more on Joy Division and late 1970s Manchester, check out Grant Gee’s richly detailed doc, Joy Division, which screened alongside Control at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and should be hitting theaters in 2008. Or there’s always Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 goofy-insane look at the Manchester scene, 24 Hour Party People.)

The heart of Control, though, is Curtis’s tangled home life. After impulsively marrying at 19, he tries to fit the role of dutiful family man, even keeping his desk job (while wearing his coat with "HATE" written on the back) as Joy Division takes off. Deborah gives birth to Natalie, and despite his intentions of doing the right thing, Curtis can’t help but fall for Annik Honoré (Alexandra Maria Lara), a bewitching journalist who’s portrayed as sympathetically here as any Other Woman could hope to be.

So yeah, you have your wife (whom you feel incredibly devoted to, despite everything), your mistress (whom you love more than anything), your burgeoning fame (which you’re not sure you want), and a mysterious disease that requires you to take so many pills your sense of self is completely compromised. What do you do? Everyone knows what happened to Curtis, and while Control — beautifully filmed and performed — can’t quite crack his entire enigma, it’s almost enough that it hints at answers. Control‘s final shot, a haunting image as gorgeous as it is morbid, is a lingering wonder. *

CONTROL

Opens Fri/26 in Bay Area theaters

See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

Dethklok! Dethklok! Dethklok!

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By Duncan Scott Davidson

Dethklok, “the most brutal band in the world” and stars of Adult Swim’s juggernaut of animated murder, Metalocalypse, are on a nationwide tour in support of their recently released Dethalbum (Williams Street), which peaked at number three on the Billboard Hard Rock Album charts and reached number 21 on the Billboard 200, making it the best-selling death metal album of all time. The fact that a cartoon band bested Slayer’s Reign In Blood (Def Jam, 1986) might bum out old tyme metalists, but facts have to be faced here: not even Slayer are more brutal than the almighty ‘Klok.

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Fear them. No, seriously.

Even when tackling stand-up comedy or band therapy, Dethklok are unquestionably dark and unrelenting (and hilarious). As stated by an anonymous fan on metalsucks.com: “I’d pay money to see Dethklok. I’d leave after they were done. Lyrically and musically, they are better than any death metal or metal core band out.” Unfortunately, the band is slated to open for indie rock icons …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, who, despite their metal-sounding name, are destined to be decapitated by Dethklok, only to have their headless corpses eaten by ravenous hell bats.

Recently, I called Metalocalypse creator Brendon Small to discuss the carnage.

India, brothers, the Kinks, and a train

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Hey, Wes Anderson fan – why haven’t you seen The Darjeeling Limited yet? It’s currently playing in both San Francisco and the East Bay, and while it may not capture the genius promised by Anderson’s “My Life, My Card” American Express commercial, it’s still a thoughtful, impeccably stylish look at what happens when three estranged brothers take a train ride across India, stumbling upon moments of spiritual enlightenment, family bonding, and the inevitable slew of life lessons. Anderson, co-writer Roman Coppola, and co-writer and star Jason Schwartzman were in town recently, so I packed my enormous set of monogrammed luggage with tapes and pencils, and took a wild taxi ride through the streets of San Francisco to their hotel.

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Passage to India: Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, and Adrien Brody on the road.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Wes, I read that you got to know India through the movies. What initially drew you to the idea of setting a film there? When you got there, was the country how you expected it to be?

Wes Anderson: The movie that really made me want to go to India was [Jean Renoir’s 1951] The River, and that’s a different part of India from where we were, and it’s a different time. But I guess we sort of researched it a bit, and I felt like there was a lot that was what I expected, anyway. But then, for as much time as we’ve all spent in India, every day, every hour, we’re learning something new and being surprised by something. It’s just a place where there’s so much, and we’ve only scratched the surface.

Imitation of life

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

Lonely, socially awkward dude becomes obsessed with an eerily lifelike female doll. Uh, I’ve seen that movie before, when it was a horror flick called Love Object. But if you can imagine the same plot transferred into a bittersweet romance and with the kink factor dialed way down, you’ll have a grip on Lars and the Real Girl, a movie so softhearted it implies the silicone-worshiping misfit in question (Ryan Gosling) doesn’t even have sex with his sex doll. They do smooch on occasion, though.

From Craig Gillespie — the director of Mr. Woodcock, a far less gentle 2007 affair — and scripter Nancy Oliver (a frequent Six Feet Under writer), Lars and the Real Girl couches its outrageous concept in classic Amer-indie trappings, including a naturalistic setting that incorporates small-town vistas, snowy cinematography, and a Sundance Channel–ready cast. Besides genre darling Gosling, there’s Patricia Clarkson as Dagmar, a sympathetic doctor; Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer as Lars’s concerned brother, Gus, and pregnant sister-in-law, Karin; and Kelli Garner as Margo, Lars’s endearingly dorky coworker. Margo’s sweet on Lars, but he’s so terrified of human interaction that he’d rather form a relationship with Bianca, the Angelina Jolie–esque plastic vixen that arrives via UPS one chilly morning.

Naturally, Gus and Karin are horrified — Gus is perhaps more mortified — when they meet Lars’s much-exalted new girlfriend (he met her on the Internet, you see). Having an anatomically correct doll as a constant companion is spooky enough, but Lars believes she’s real and conducts one-sided conversations with her and tenderly looks after her well-being. Before long, Bianca trades in her fishnets and hooker makeup for sweatpants and bangs, settles into her very own wheelchair, and accompanies Lars everywhere he goes.

Surprisingly, the community comes to accept Lars’s new friend — they all love Lars, a lifelong resident. His mother died in childbirth, and older bro Gus has only recently reentered his life, having moved away to sow oats while leaving Lars in the care of their cold, distant, now-deceased father. This is a guy who feels pain when he’s touched — no wonder his dream girl is even less alive than Kim Cattrall in Mannequin (or, to cite my favorite movie with an inanimate humanoid as its main character, Terry Kiser in Weekend at Bernie’s). Thanks to the fact that everyone in town plays along with Lars’s Bianca-is-real delusion, the doll does begin to take on a life of her own. She volunteers! She gets a job! She’s elected to the school board! Much to Lars’s annoyance, she’s too busy to spend every waking moment with her boyfriend — even though she is technically not awake.

Lars and the Real Girl has its moments of broad comedy, but its delicate tone demands that it underplay any sight-gag potential. After Half Nelson (and, perhaps no less so, The Notebook) cinephiles have come to expect great things from Gosling’s performances; he’s got a way of elevating even uninspiring material to a more meaningful plane, in the manner of Edward Norton or Sean Penn. As Lars he’s pudgy, slovenly (except for his perfectly slicked-back hair), and mustachioed, with a nervous blink and a hunched, shy demeanor. He interprets Lars’s overflowing reserves of fear and grief with subtle grace. At first a salve for loneliness, Bianca becomes both a coping strategy and a way for Lars to externalize his repressed anguish. Any actor able to transfer such complicated emotions onto a plastic costar is clearly as real as they come. *

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

Opens Fri/19 in Bay Area theaters

www.larsandtherealgirl-themovie.com

“Your pet cat”

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People always ask me why I love horror movies so much. That, I can’t answer … though probably for some dark, disturbing psychological reason we needn’t speculate upon here. More concrete is when I started getting into horror movies. There was the first time I saw Poltergeist (at a slumber party in fifth grade; a year later, at the sixth-grade slumber party for my own birthday, I gleefully played host to a roomful of terrified classmates as we huddled in my basement, watching Psycho). Recently, I unearthed a junior-high creative-writing exercise entitled “How to Watch a Scary Movie Alone in the Dark.” I must have been around 13 when I wrote that. But I think the horror-movie thing goes even further back. In fact, I blame Walt Disney, from whose Haunted Mansion-spawning mind sprung this impression-maker:

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Whose light is on up there??

I heart the Heartless Bastards…

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and they heart me too, cause they’re playing this weekend’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival!

Our coverage of the festival here.

Heartless Bastards here:


“Since you took my breath again, would you share your oxygen?”

And live:

Beauty and the beasts

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SCREAM QUEEN What kind of a woman tempts both Dracula and Frankenstein? Gorgeous Veronica Carlson, that’s who — star of Hammer classics Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969). Now an artist and devoted grandmother living in Florida, Carlson’s coming to town to share her memories of the golden age of British goth horror as part of this weekend’s "Shock It to Me!" film fest. I spoke with the classy Carlson over the phone to get some blood-curdling scoop.

SFBG Were you always a fan of horror films?

VERONICA CARLSON Absolutely! I skipped college classes to go and see them. I was a fan of the gothic horror of Hammer. It was absolutely magical. [Movies today, as well as the real world,] are too scary — you could be safely horrified back then.

SFBG What was it like working at the Hammer studios?

VC The set was always beautiful, and [after I got my hair and makeup done] I would wander around and just see everything, all the details. It was quite extraordinary. I loved every minute of it. When I wasn’t in a scene, I would sit and watch the other actors and be part of it.

SFBG Who’s scarier, Dracula or Frankenstein?

VC When [Christopher Lee] is in character, he is really spooky. But then when Peter [Cushing] is his own cold self, he’s really scary too — that cold, calcuutf8g, distant person that’s chopping people up. They’re so convincing in what they do. I can’t choose who’s worse!

SHOCK IT TO ME!

Fri/5–Sun/7, $6–$10 (festival pass, $48)

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.shock-it-to-me.com

SF DocFest: “Breaking Ranks”

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By Kevin Langson

Breaking Ranks, which plays at SF DocFest Oct 2 and 3, will surely be appreciated by anyone still engaged with and infuriated by the war in Iraq. It’s particularly powerful to hear the first hand accounts of US soldiers who have been there and have changed their minds — and have withdrawn their support from an endeavor they now see as a malicious folly. The film tells the story of four Americans who joined the military for reasons as clear and practical as needing a viable economic option, to more abstract motivations such as needing to be a part of something bigger than themselves. The first part of the film interweaves their change-of-heart testimonies with footage from Iraq that correlates with the atrocities they describe. These men all seem clear-headed, assured, and conscientious, so it is hard to imagine their compatriots — or even their own family members — shunning them as cowardly traitors. The film later becomes about their plight to attain official refuge in Canada so as to not face disdain and imprisonment in the US. Their families and wives or girlfriends also figure into this story about torn relationships and standing up for one’s beliefs.

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Film subject Brandon Hughey.

Breaking Ranks‘ looming question? Whether or not the Canadian government will have the gall to make a move that is not obsequious to the US government and grant these men refuge.

More info on the film here.

Awww…freak out!

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File under: “I don’t really care:”

Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its nominees this week. Of the nine nominees, five actually get inducted into that great hallowed institution, and get to take part in one of the more self-congratulatory ceremonies that makes its way to VH-1.

And they are:

Madonna
Donna Summer
John Mellencamp
Leonard Cohen
The Dave Clark Five
The Ventures
Chic
Afrika Bambaataa
The Beastie Boys

Madonna is maybe the most surprising — or least? — name. Hell, I remember being ten years old and hearing “Holiday” for the first time. She may have lost me a little bit with the Kabbalah and the British accent and the Britney Spears duet and whatnot in recent years — and her music is not, per se, “rock,” — but you gotta admit, the lady’s pretty undeniable.

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Big ups, Madge!

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