Spotlight - Metreon and Kabuki

It's both a good thing and a sad thing that I went into the movie Spotlight not knowing all that much about the molestation scandal that rocked the Catholic community in Boston — and the entire country — in 2002. Good because the shocking truths that are slowly and painfully revealed throughout the course of the movie make for some pretty suspenseful viewing. Sad because Jesus Christ everyone should know about this! Hopefully this movie will make sure that happens.

Comparisons to All the Presidents Men are easy but accurate to make: they both present journalism as exciting, important, and riveting stuff. Michael Keaton heads the cast as Walter "Robby" Robinson, lead editor of the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe, a team of investigative journalists that are able to work separately from the daily reporters, following stories for as long as it takes to get them told right. When Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) takes over as the Globe's Editor-in-Chief, he decides to dig deeper in a story about molestation by local Catholic priests, and puts Spotlight on the story.

Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Brian d'Arcy James are solid as the other Spotlight reporters, and their investigation uncovers years and years of abuse and cover-ups within the Catholic Church, as well as a devastating number of abusers and victims. For the most part, the reporters' private lives are left out of the story, and what we see is the team doing their jobs, something that certainly doesn't sound movie-worthy, but most definitely is. The cast is also, for the most part, delightfully subdued, with only Mark Ruffalo having a scene that's just a little too "For Your Consideration."

Love the Coopers - Everywhere

As I've previously noted, if the cast is large and full of well-known names, you can be pretty sure the movie will be terrible. Love the Coopers proves that point once again. If you think this looks like an uplifting Christmas story about the love of family, think again. Sure, it wants to be, but instead it's a depressing mess. And I'm not talking depressing in the way say, It's a Wonderful Life is a depressing Christmas movie that makes you cry but also feel good about humanity. Love the Coopers is about as enjoyable as one would imagine spending the holidays with a highly dysfunctional family would be.

And that huge cast is just all wrong! Diane Keaton and John Goodman play mom and dad Cooper. I was wondering why the camera seemed to be smeared with Vaseline every time they were on screen, then saw who was cast as their siblings and grandparents and understood; they're suppose to be playing a lot younger than they actually are. Keaton is 69. Alan Arkin, who is 81, plays her father. Marissa Tomei plays her younger sister, and we're talking younger by like six years, not the actual, real-life, 20 year difference between them. Finally, Ed Helms plays their son, who became a father during high school, but whose oldest child is only about 15 and WHAT?!

I bring this all up because it makes for a confusing movie when you're spending the first half trying to understand how all these people could possibly be related to each other. (And don't even get me started on why Steve Martin narrates the whole thing.)

The movie does have its one bright spot, and that's the romantic storyline centered on the Cooper daughter, played by Olivia Wilde, and a newly enlisted solider, (Jake Lacy) she recruits to be her pretend-boyfriend. They'e the source of the film's only real laughs and heart-tugs.

The 33 - Everywhere

Antonio Banderas stars in this fact-based drama about the 33 who men who were trapped in a Chilean mine for 69 days in 2010. Also starring Lou Diamond Phillips, James Brolin, and Juliette Binoche. Includes one of the last scores by composer James Horner, who died earlier this summer.

Brooklyn - Embarcadero

Nineteen-fifties Brooklyn is the setting of this drama starring Saoirse Ronan as an Irish immigrant who moves to the New York, finds love, but then must choose between her new life, and her home back in Ireland. Nick Hornby co-wrote the screenplay, based on the book of the same name by author Colm Tóibín.

Trumbo - Kabuki

Bryan Cranston stars in this biopic about Dalton Trumbo, the 1940's screenwriter who refused to testify before the congressional House Un-American Activities Committee, was deemed a Communist, and was then blacklisted in Hollywood. He continued to write stupendous films (including Roman Holiday) that won Oscars, all while using a pseudonym.

By the Sea - Embarcadero

Sounds like Angelina Jolie, director, has found her filmmaking niche: really slow and boring movies! In this one she directs herself and husband, Brad Pitt, in a story about a couple in the 1970's who take a trip to the south of France to try and fix their troubled marriage. Because that worked so well for Scott and Zelda!

It looks like a startup: You've seen the minimalist, mobile-friendly design before. It squawks like a startup: Twitter account? Check. But Qoopy, which purports to be a "waitlist only" doggy daycare for your chickens, is a ruse.

Couldn't tell? You weren't alone — Twitter was collectively scratching its head — and that's the point.

"People thought — 'hey, Is it a joke?,'" Qoopy's "founder" Andi Plantenberg confided to SFist. "And therein lies the kinda tension it pulled."

Sadly, she had to let us down. "The whole impetus was total boredom on Friday. I had a bit of a lull on my calendar, and I was shit talking. I ended on the idea of luxury daycare for hipster urbanite chickens," the shittalker slyly confessed. "Yes, it's all pretend."

Portland, Brooklyn, and Bernal Heights are Qoopy's rather convincing faux-locations, and Plantenberg herself is (not coincidentally) a Bernal resident. But on the phone with SFist, she shared her view from downtown San Francisco at 3rd and Market.

"I moved to San Francisco for the first bubble, and I've been in the [technology] industry for this whole time. I love this place and it's been interesting watching it change! It's a very schizophrenic time here, now, because you have a very well-meaning generation that wants to get back in touch with sustainability, with food, and they have a really strong sense of ethics, and they have all that awareness.

"But to the same extent, it's a very spoiled group as well, one catering to its own needs, because with the push of a button you can have someone who can bring you food or do your laundry. I wanted to ask: Are we building the right things?"

Everything down to Qoopy's name is spot-on — "I just wanted to grab something that was short and very nouveau-service industry sounding," Plantenberg admits. "The 'q' was pretentious and the 'y' made it available as a cheap domain." That's a common startup name story: Qoop was $30, while Qoopy was just $2.99. And ".co" instead of ".com' is as 2015 as it gets.

Plantenberg may have finally revealed Qoopy's real mission in an email followup: "Qoopy’s biggest innovation has not been our hand-crafted chicken curriculum," she wrote, "but our willingness to ask the question 'Is the innovation economy solving the right problems?'"

If we San Franciscans are shaking our heads, take solace in this one fact. Says Plantenberg: "We have had serious inquiries and they have all come from Brooklyn."

Related (But Real): Startup Doze Monetizes Nap Time For Tired Techies

"It's the only town that goes in 6 directions," Brooklynite Phil Foster says of San Francisco in this 1956 travelogue, "East, South, North, West, Up, and Down."

The gem of a short, shared to Reddit from the Prelinger Archives, is written by Arthur Cohen and features expert narration from Foster, best known for playing Frank DeFazio on Laverne & Shirley and for his thick Brooklyn accent.

"Just about when you think you've got the hang of it you run into Lombard street," Foster continues, "which not only goes down, but goes around and around. Lombard Street has the distinction of being the crookedest street in the world. Guess they've never heard of Wall Street." Somebody bang some cymbals!

Barring a racist joke or two (okay, several), the humor is as timeless as the city itself. Enjoy.

Related: See S.F. in All Its Glory, Via Car, Circa 1955

In an interview with the National Journal published this week, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan discussed her beleaguered city's biggest challenge for the future. Which, surprise, is not "ensuring public safety," but rather the following question: can Oakland ever escape San Francisco's shadow?

Quan lays it out like so [emphasis ours]:

Oakland has been in the shadow of San Francisco for a long time, but it has a very interesting history of its own, of being very diverse and a place where innovation takes place. It was the end of the transcontinental railroad and the home of the Pullman porters. Like New York, it's a port city where immigrants first come and maintain ties.

We're contradictory. I have neighborhoods in the African-American community where more than 50 percent of the young men don't graduate from high school. But we also have high numbers of graduate degrees. We're the original home of the University of California; we're close to the University of Berkeley. You've got this immense diversity, not just in terms of ethnicity but also income. It generates a kind of energy and innovation that's at the heart of the city.

We're a little bit like Brooklyn. Because Oakland is so much more affordable than San Francisco, the whole arts scene has shifted over here. The food scene has taken off. Those kinds of cultural things have made Oakland very desirable.

While we can't speak definitively about Brooklyn's art scene (which is currently enamored with a Banksy project), Quan has a point about the East Bay. Oakland's lively Art Murmur is more spirited than any regular art or culture event happening in San Francisco right now and consistently draws crowds from the city every first Friday in a sort of reverse bridge-and-tunnel effect. That's not to say that there isn't art happening in San Francisco — just that Oakland's art scene is far more accessible, diverse and inclusive.

On the other hand, Oakland's artsy caché can also work against it, as it has in Brooklyn, where the borough's name has become nearly synonymous with the dreaded hipster label. Art projects like last month's Station to Station event (held in an historic Oakland train station and sponsored by Levi's) was either "the best party" or an "epic fail," depending on who you asked. Last year's Special Delivery event was celebrated for converting an abandoned warehouse into a massive canvas for street art, but many attendees got fed up with waiting in the entry line and skipped out to tag the surrounding neighborhood.

As for the food, we doubt San Francisco will give up its mantle as the epicenter of Bay Area cuisine anytime soon, but available space and cheap rents have made the East Bay an attractive place for upcoming chefs looking to break out on their own, as well as established restaurants looking to expand their Bay Area empires. Neighborhoods like Rockridge and Temescal have expanded on Berkeley's gourmet ghetto with spots like Juhu Beach Club from Top Chef alum Preeti Mistry or Chez Panisse spin-off Pizzaiolo, among others. Oakland's Eat Real Festival — now in its fifth year at Jack London Square — also rivaled S.F.'s own Street Food Festival in the Mission.

On the other hand, being "like Brooklyn" isn't all new restaurants and New York Times trend pieces. There are already indications that home prices are quickly creeping up in previously cheap sections of town and large-scale developers are snapping up homes and turning them around for higher profits. In the National Journal interview, Quan also discusses how Oakland dealt with the loss of redevelopment funds in 2012: by accepting a $1.5 billion dollar investment from a Chinese group to build the Brooklyn Basin development, which will create 3,100 apartments on the Oakland waterfront. We'll have to wait and see if the development keeps Oakland's character, or if it quickly devolves into a high-priced waterfront nightmare.

Then there's still that looming public safety issue: While more Oakland neighborhoods are crowdsourcing private security, Bryan Parker, Quan's opponent in next year's mayoral election, told the Chronicle, "Oakland’s most pressing issue is safety. To lose that important point in this discussion feels irresponsible."

Anyhow, Oakland also just got its very own sushi burrito place, which is certainly indicative of something.

Proving that a good UFO story never gets old, a Mission man's admittedly tequila-influenced witnessing of lights in the sky has gotten some traction on the Web, with the Drudge Report linking to a KCBS story on the incident. Enrique Barrios was headed home from drinking in the Mission with his wife on Saturday night when he witnessed a formation of strange lights in the sky. Whipping out his iPhone, he captured video of the event, complete with commentary track:

"I wasn’t sure if at first if it was another Tequila hazed mirage, but myself and a few bystanders were all in complete awe at the lights we saw on Valencia. Please excuse my drunken reaction," Barrios told Mission Mission. "This was the first time I ever saw something like this. There’s also a yellow speck which is from my iPhone lens but it’s clear which lights I’m referring to. At first glance, I thought it might be fireworks but when they started to form a triangular formation, I knew this was uncommon. You folks be the judge. My final conclusion….UFO’s are here for Papalote salsa."

A handful Mission Mission commenters also reported seeing the strange lights while walking through the Mission and Castro, with multiple descriptions of seven lights that resembled candles and eventually lined up in a triangle formation. (One commenter also claims she saw them in southeast Ohio.) The FAA didn't report any unusual activity in the Bay Area over the weekend, though.

KCBS sought an expert opinion from the excellently named Bing Quock, assistant director of the planetarium at the Academy of Sciences, who says they definitely weren't part of the night sky, and thinks they were probably balloons with lights attached. Our guess? Sky lanterns, probably sent up from someone's wedding or holiday party. We hope someone wrote "I wish I could start a useless media cycle and play into people's weird 2012 superstitions" on the side.

Meanwhile, in New York: our overlords at the Gothamist mothership report several people claim they saw similar light formations hovering over Brooklyn last week. Which totally makes sense that America's hipster enclaves would hear about aliens first. Endtimes, folks.

[Mission Mission, KCBS]

As the new BBC America crime drama COPPER shows, 1860s New York was a dangerous, backstabbing place. And the real-life 1864 murder of "John Smith", whose body was chopped up, packaged and dropped into the East River, went unsolved—and his identity a mystery— for seven years until the killers confessed half a world away.

The first package containing the torso of victim, actually named Joseph Smith, was found on October 3, 1864, by the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The second package, with his "pelvic region," was found on October 9, by the Corlears Street wharf (about Cherry Street and the FDR today); the third package (Smith's thighs) washed up in Gravesend on the 10th; the fourth package, the booted feet, emerged in Bay Ridge on the 13th and, on the 17th, Smith's head, with bullet wounds, was found in Fort Hamilton.

However, police did not know who the victim was. They photographed the man's head and sent it and a description of the man to police stations around the country. In the meantime, the police also preserved the head in a jar and kept it in the "dead-house." Thousands of people, perhaps lured by the coverage of the sick killing or perhaps to truly see if this could be a missing relative, visited the head and more than two dozen people identified the victim as a friend or relative. One woman insisted it was her husband—when she was shown the victim's socks, she swooned—and the Five Points Mission minister who married the couple said the victim was definitely her husband... expect then the minister realized that marriage occurred after the body had been found.

A government detective also emerged and suggested that the victim was Joseph Smith, a sergeant-major in Regiment F. He was also apparent Army deserter, who had been granted leave in January of 1864, but hadn't been seen by his wife since the fall of 1862. The detective learned that Smith's brother saw him, very drunk, in Fort Green Park before October 1864. The brother scolded him and encouraged him to re-enlist, but his friends continued to see him in the company of bad characters. The detective showed a photograph of the victim's head to Smith's friends, many of whom said it was definitely Smith, but his widow refused to positively identify him.

They had all been gambling, except Smith, who still had his $300 left. So the three men led Smith to an alley on Prince Street and into a workshop where one had worked, attacking him, shooting him in the head and taking his money. Then they carved his body, wrapped the pieces, and drove to Brooklyn, dumped his body from the Willamsburg waterfront and then set off for Australia.

In 1871, the NY Times complained that the police could have figured out who the murder victim was if they had bothered to follow up on the government detective's hunch that it was Joseph Smith: "The story is now so clear, in fact, that one is led to wonder that the mystery has so long remained a mystery that it was not at once cleared up."

Thanks for the hundreds of readers who entered! We did select a winner—from the D.C. area, in fact!—who will receive a new 32GB iPad with Retina Display, a season pass to watch Copper, and a reproduction 1864 map of New York City!

The bad, very old days are back in BBC America's COPPER. New episodes every Sunday at 10/9c, only on BBC America. For more updates on the series, be sure to like COPPER on Facebook and follow COPPER on Twitter.

"In the Tenderloin, By Way of Brooklyn" by Travis Jensen. (Thanks for the image recommendation, Beth Spotswood.)

Barton Carroll (seen above) will be headlining, on Tuesday, at Hotel Utah. Carroll's new CD, The Lost One, comes out the same day. His genuine, story-telling folk songs creates the perfect North Carolina backwoods' atmosphere of his childhood home. Wednesday, if you are ready for some true rock n' roll, then head over to The Independent to see Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

Vampire Weekend is back on Thursday. This time, they are taking their over-buzzed, yet still completely lovable, afro-punk music to 330 Ritch Street hosted by the ever-so-hot popscene. Last time, we were at popscene, it was packed. We have a feeling, it will be again. Don't worry if you already bought tickets to The Lovemakers (who we recommended a couple of weeks ago), Vampire Weekend will be back for two nights in March.

For our weekend recommendations and the full weekly listings, take the jump...

Festishizing that "authentic, old-school New York experience," Adam Fisher moved to NYC to frolic with hipsters, sing selections from Rent, or snap his fingers to the jazzy beats along with the other bohemian artists when he moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn. Unfortunately, his time there was a bit too real. Severely beaten and mugged of $28 while at the Morgan Avenue L subway station, Fisher hightails it back to his hometown, San Francisco. In his jarring piece for New York Magazine ("The Bleeding Edge"), he goes into graphic detail and explains his move back West.

Within 24 hours of my release from the hospital, I made it back to San Francisco, where I grew up; within 48 hours, I decided to quit my job and move back there ... I carry a knife now, a small utility blade that I picked up at the hardware store. And when friends of mine get nostalgic for the bad old days, when lofts were cheap and New York was edgy, I tell them that it’s all still there, if you know where to look.

Having twice experience the not-so-gentle hands of a violent mugger ourselves, we feel for Fisher. We do. But why back to San Francisco, where crime is making a fearless comeback?

Oh, and a commenter going by the moniker "poopmast," on Gothamist's post of the same subject, declares that "I lived in SF for a bit and believe me SF is more dangerous because they let the homeless roam freely and follow you home, whereas they get nypd beatings to keep them in check here."

How lovely. Anyway, although we disagree on SFPD-sanctioned torture on the homeless, this begs the question: is SF safer than NYC?

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said, "Wouldn't a kinder, gentler Gawker be hideously unreadable? No, we never talked about that. It would be hysterical but we haven't."

Londonist was proud to announce the winner of this year's Turner Prize was Mark Wallinger who made long-standing London protester Brian Haw a work of art, after he has previously been made into a sort of law due to his lengthy banner-waving vigil outside parliament. The strength of the pound made real in the form of a 25 foot high coin on a quiet patch of the Thames river bank, aiming to inspire all Londoners in a publicly voted decision on spending £50 million Lottery money. Perhaps some new play projects for London kids who, for the lack of youthful entertainment, are trying to amuse themselves by collecting prostitute calling cards, which are worryingly rigged and booby-trapped. And for those who are anticipating a lovely fat check from a great-aunt this Christmas and wondering what to spend it on, the London Marathon will need a new sponsor after 2009. How does The Londonist London Marathon sound?

Bostonist ducked and covered when a gas tanker tipped over and exploded in the nearby town of Everett. No one got hurt, but cars and homes were destroyed in the blaze. Making matters worse, the driver of the tanker had a few smudges on his record. Bostonist was then agog as their former governor, who usually doesn't hang out in Massachusetts that much, made the news in every possible way. Mitt Romney gave a speech about every religion except his own. However, several other individuals were more interested in the news that Romney still had illegal immigrants working at his mansion. In other Mitt-free news, transit police put out the alert for a "Green Line Groper" who had been making the lives of high-school teens extremely unpleasant. Bostonist also joined a polyamory club and found out that polyamorous people are a lot like normal people, only with more variety.

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just in time for Halloween, the Chocolate Jesus is back.

By the time you read this, Bostonist will either be elated or will have had its heart broken by the Cleveland Indians during the ALCS. The Red Sox has taken Bostonist on a tummy-turning roller-coaster ride. At one point, they thought Cleveland was messing with its head when the Indians hired Josh Beckett's old girlfriend to sing the National Anthem. In non-Sox-related news, Bostonist found out what an Iron Butt is and mourned the imminent closure of one of the city's finest theaters. And an astronaut is planning on taking a little bit of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with her when she flies.

SFist interviewed New Yorker scribe Alex Ross, saw Archbishop George Niederauer apologize to the Catholic Church for giving communion to the anti-Catholic Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and had a time-honored NYC vs. SF debate. SFist also questioned the practice of "tipping" cable car drivers. The eco-y Lights Out SF ended up a dim success. Oh, and therapeutic sound healers? Are interesting. And bizarre. Just listen for yourself.

It really is all about the other side of Market Street now.

Along with neighborhoods that we've heard of before like Pike Place in Seattle; Hillcrest in San Diego; and Park Slope in Brooklyn, N.Y. -- our xenophobia runs deep, folks -- as well as hoods that we've never heard of such as Chatham Village, Pittsburgh; Eastern Market neighborhood of Washington, D.C.; Elmwood Village in Buffalo, N.Y.; and Old West Austin in Austin, our very own historic North Beach arrondissement was named one of the top 10 U.S. neighborhoods by the American Planning Association.

The study was based on this neighborhood having the cutest little coffee shop, that neighborhood having the most darling homes, their OMG!!!-factors, etc.

Ever think of starting your own crafty business? Want to meet a bunch of people who have, including a local author who wrote a book on the topic? Or maybe you just want to surround yourself with booze and cute people? Whatever your flavor, head downtown to 111 Minna tomorrow night for the book-launch party of Craft, Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco. The party is being hosted by Rare Device, a hip housewares store in Brooklyn, which will open its doors on Market Street at the end of the month.

Craft, Inc. Book Launch Party
111 Minna Gallery (at Second Street)
Tuesday, Oct 2nd
6 p.m.-9 p.m.
free