SFist Watches: Movies This Weekend
You know your movie stinks when even SFist, worshipper of all things crap, watches the trailer to your movie and thinks we're watching a substandard parody. Such was the case when we saw a commercial for Alone in the Dark, a movie which has a detective played by (recently seperated) Christian Slater going to a place called Shadow (freakin') Island. We laugh, but it's actually the latest installment in an empire that includes a video game (aren't all the best movies based on video games?) and comic book. Alas, this ubiquity and stellar cast (theatrical luminaries Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff join Slater in the film) are not enough to save this film from being just awful looking. That said, we'd rather watch it 10 times than have to watch A Love Song For Bobby Long even once. Ugh!
But instead of doing either, how about heading out to The Balboa to see "Bollywood’s current epic romance hit" VEER-ZAARA? Bollywood film reminds of of The Simpsons, in that so much goes on in every film, it's impossible to summarize gracefully. We can tell you that VEER-ZAARA has been described as a melodrama, a comedy, and a "womens' rights manifesto". A portion of every ticket sold will be donated to Give2Asia’s Tsunami Recovery Fund
Fear X photo from Roxie Theater site
If you're looking for something a litle less fanciful, there's the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival, which kicks off tonight with a launch party at the San Francisco Maritime Park, where "We will salute sustainable seafood with a generous donation of fresh catch from the Pacific Coast Federaton (sic) of Fishermen's Association and prepared as hors d'oeuvres by our restaurant partners." Because when we're not watching documentaries about sea life, we're scarfing it down! (I think I just ate Nemo, and he was yummy!)(Thanks to former SFist Dahl for the tip)
If you perfer your documentaries a little more on the landlubber tip, we recommend The Manson Family, which opens tonight at The Red Vic. Described as "equal part TV movie-of-the-week, experimental narrative and exploitation gore film all whooshed up in a psychedelic bad trip", it sounds like it will give you the bad-seafood experience without having to go to any $50 film festival receptions.
OK, enough with the documentaries. How about Fear X, which opens tonight at The Roxie? Directed by novelist Herbert Selby Jr., it's the tale of "Wisconsin security guard Harry Cain (John Turturro) as he tries to piece together the identity of his late wife's murderer." It looks creepy and depressing, but sometimes SFist is into that.
So, there's planty to do this weekend - and remember to clear your schedule the first two weeks of February for SF IndieFest, which opens Thursday February 3. And never fear, we will be reporting from the trenches with 'Fist 'Fest reports that entire two weeks, so see y'all then!