MUSIC: As we already mentioned, Why? is performing this evening along with Dose One, Cryptacize, DJ Odd Nosdam, DJ Jel. 8 p.m. // Great American Music Hall [859 O'Farrell] // $13 *THEATER: Eve Ensler's Obie Award-winning play the Vagina Monologues -- featuring such monologues as I Was Twelve, My Mother Slapped Me, My Angry Vagina, My Vagina Was My Village, The Little Coochie Snorcher, and more -- takes the stage in the Castro for......

According to the fine folks over at The Sword (NSFW), the GayVNs (NSFW) will be held here on Saturday -- you know, those homosexual pornography achievement awards, which led to Mayor Gavin Newsom getting all Berkeley City Council on us after he declared Feb. 23 to be Colt Studio Day last year? -- coinciding with that hairy-large-gay-appreciation festival thing happening. Anyway, last year the GayVNs had comedienne and social critic Kathy Griffin hosting the......

Starting this week, as we all know by now, Palme d'Or-winning writer/directer Gus Van Sant starts filming Milk on our pretty yet smelly streets. But Gustave needs your help, folks. On Monday night, Feb. 4, and Friday night, Feb. 8, he will require you use your thespionic skills during several march reenactments. If you go here and register, you will be used. All ages, races and genders are just dandy; however, you must be......

SFist interviews Crispin Hellion Glover, who is screening his films at the Castro Theater this weekend. ...

SFist Wendy skips Harry Potter for the SF Jewish Film Fest! Who woulda thought. . . . we weren’t the only ones not completely immersed in isolation with the final Harry Potter book this weekend... although we did see a couple books neatly tucked under the seats at the Castro Theater on Saturday at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. If you weren’t there, well, then you missed out on a couple of good romantic......

That's it for the SFIFF this year! As SFist Wendy wraps up SFist's coverage with part 2 of her marathon week, congratulations to the San Francisco Film Society for two weeks of great cinema and we're already looking forward to the 51st! And on to Mezzanine Thursday night for the SFIFF closing night party -- with a surprise performer . . . . but before the final sendoff, we headed over to the Castro......

The Bay Area Hip-Hop Theater Festival kicks off its two-week run of politically-inspired and racially-conscious dramatic and spoken word arts at Berkeley's La Pena Cultural Center at an event featuring the teen poets of Youth Speaks and their Brave New Voices College Tour. $10, 8 p.m., 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley (between Ashby and Alcatraz Aves.) Other events: --A documentary about Patrice Lumumba, an anti-colonialist who became the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of......

Everyone say hi to our newest correspondent, SFist Grace. Hi, SFist Grace! Sunday night, the SF International screened the world premiere of the film Fog City Mavericks at the Castro Theater. There were shades of Sundance as many of the films featured filmmakers and actors, including George Lucas and Robin Williams, casually red carpeted-their way to the theater, complete with flashbulbs and film cameras documenting the night. Mavericks, a new documentary by Gary Leva......

From the Chron's Peter Hartlaub, we get word that the Castro Theater is going to be showing all three movies of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Yep, that's Fellowship of the Rings, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King back-to-back-to-back. And yes, that's a lot of movie watching but if you were going to watch like eight hours of movies, you couldn't do wrong there. Name another movie trilogy that's even as half good as these three, come on we dare you. The Godfather Trilogy? Godfather III. Star Wars IV-VI? Ewoks. American Pie I-III? Not even close-- hell, Tara Reid wasn't even in the last two. See, the way we see it is it'll be cold, the stores will be mayhem, we've already seen "A Christmas Story" over twenty times, and we have no life. What could be better than 559 minutes of Middle Earth-goodness? Show starts at 1:30. Tickets are $10...

We don't know about you, but we are a bit drained from the excitement of last night's election and constantly "refreshing results" while our better half patiently indulged us. It is this sort of compulsive behavior that led us to swear off ebay. But we digress. We're feeling like some instant gratification tonight, and this event should fit the bill. YLEM presents “How Techies Have Fun," a show and tell featuring moving light sculptures,......

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Hey, the EBX is starting a blog -- we hear those are very trendy. But they've got us listed as a link, right below the Culture Blog, so it's all okay! Bottom Feeder mocks the errors made by the Bay Guardian in its East Bay endorsements. Would you buy expensive organic meals prepared by these folks? Confrontational atheists meeting near Walnut Creek. Cover article: the woes of air......

We have a winner in our Fake Tales of San Francisco contest! As you may recall, we're giving out "The Heart Is Deceitful" movie swag to the person who came up with the best, most fakest San Francisco story. After disqualifying Matier and Ross when the Gavin dating a Scientologist actress thing came true, our winner is...... KWillets, for this tragic tale of San Francisco gone very, very wrong. "Speak up Patrick", I said breathlessly......

We're awash in trannies! Frameline, San Francisco's annual GLBT film festival, has decided to highlight the "T" portion of the acronym this year, but there's still plenty of G, L, B, and P on the incredibly massive schedule. With 115 screenings, yikes that's a lot, between June 16 and 26, there's sure to be something for everyone. Including heterosexuals. If there really even is such a thing. Anyway, trust SFist to scurry about like......

Just when you were starting to worry that The Castro Theater might've gone all ex-gay, along comes Frameline 29, the 29th annual San Francisco International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Film Festival, or SFILGBTFF (pronounced sifil-gib-tiff). Let's just call it Frameline. Anyway, it's easy for patrons of the homo-arts (and for cheapskates like us) to support this noble endeavor and see a bunch of free movies: just donate a bit of your time to......

Covering the SFIFF this week, we've spent a lot of time in the Fillmore and in the Castro -- two places that are notoriously hard to get stuffed in for less than ten bucks. We should qualify that. We don't know if it's the Noe Valley effect that's inflating prices at shops around the Castro theater, Pat Robertson's theories about DINKs, or curious foreign tourists with their super-strong currencies that make it nearly impossible......

When we heard that Geoff Callan and Mike Shaw's project, "Pursuit of Equality," a documentary about San Francisco's 'Winter of Love,' was premiering at the San Francisco International, we were happy, as we've been waiting for months since the film's trailer went online (under the working title "Rush to the Civil Altar"). When we got the press release about the red carpet treatment for the film's stars, we figured there would be the added......

NAATA must be so proud of the great opening night screening of Saving Face at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. There was a big crowd outside the Castro Theater as we arrived, and as we entered the theater we were disconcerted by all the folks who seemed to be reserving seats for others. Then, we realized that we were being total rubes, and that the "purses" in the theater chairs were......

SFist regrets not following up on our coverage of the Castro Theater controversy sooner, but we really wanted to get the perspectives of the involved parties. However, litigation seems to be afoot from a number of sides, so no one we contacted was willing to comment. In any case, we were at Saturday's protest organized by Audiences in Action and headed by Monica Nolan. We got to speak with Monica briefly between her protest duties,......

SFist was dismayed when we heard rumors surrounding the controversial firing of the Castro Theater's long-time programming director, Anita Monga. We first heard these rumors when we read the Chron story detailing the ire Monga's firing has wrought, including several Castro staff resigning in support, as well as several other staff members experiencing termination in early November. Supporters of Anita Monga have asserted that the owners of the Castro Theater, Karen and Ted Nasser, are......

We could barely read the paper this morning, we were so depressed. So we thought, "hey! Read the Datebook! It's always quote unquote fun!" So what should our scarred soul see? Infighting over the future of the Castro Theater, where the newly-involved family owners of the theater fired their programming director, Anita Monga, over what they perceived to be overly-quirky films. Wonderful. ...