Results tagged “film”

FILM: The Oakland Underground Film Festival presents the San Francisco premiere of Black Dynamite, an action-packed comedy rooted in the traditions of American Blaxploitation and Kung Fu films, such as Shaft (1971), Super Fly (1972), and The Mack (1974). According to Sundance Film Festival, the film "sustains the comedy while taking a nice big sucker punch at the underlying politics of our time." Director Scott Sanders and co-writer/star Michael Jai White will appear in person at the screening.

Oh dear.

FILM: Director Barry Jenkins joins SF Film Society Director Graham Leggat for a screening of Medicine for Melancholy and a conversation afterwards. M4M, which was shot in a mere three weeks and made its West Coast Premiere at the 2008 SF International Film Festival, is a "love story of bikes and one-night stands told through two African-American twenty-somethings dealing with issues of class, identity and the evolving conundrum of being a minority in rapidly gentrifying San Francisco - the city with the smallest proportional black population of any major American city."

FILM: Multimedia artist Carter riffs off of Robert Rauschenberg's iconic drawing Erased Willem de Kooning in Erased James Franco, in which contemporary actor, James Franco, is stripped of the sureties of his craft and transformed into an almost sculptural object. Franco covers banal scenes from his own films, as well as segments of Julianne Moore's character in Safe and Rock Hudson's in Seconds. Franco, Carter, and SFMOMA Associate Curator of Public Programs Frank Smigiel will take the stage for a post-screening conversation about film, celebrity, identity, and art. The Castro will also be screening Safe, Seconds, and Franco's favorite episodes of Freaks and Geeks during the day as a double feature matinee to get the audience ready for the main feature.

It wouldn't be a weekend in San Francisco without at least two film festivals going on. (What a great town we live in!) The 11th Annual Black Film Festival honors festival founder and executive director Ave Montague, who passed away earlier this year. The event will kick off at 3:30 p.m. with a memorial gala and reception, which will feature a memorial video montage, film screenings, and filmmaker dialogs.

This year’s San Francisco International Animation Festival, running through Sunday, explores the decidedly un-Hollywood side of the art form. From demonstrating Los Angeles traffic scenarios, to an anime documentary about samurai, cartoons are not just for singing princesses.

FILM: Soul legend Bill Withers (of "Ain't No Sunshine," "Lean on Me," and "Just the Two of Us" fame) is profiled in the new documentary Still Bill, which will be screening in San Francisco for one night only at Sundance Kabuki. The screening will be followed by an after-party at the Boom Boom Room, which is free with the purchase of a movie ticket. Curtis Bumpy, a Curtis Mayfield and Bill Withers tribute band will perform.

FILM: Filmmaker Nara Denning will be celebrating the release of her new DVD Neurotique with a premiere screening. Neurotique is a collection of six silent and tragic love stories set to live musical performances by Mister Odom & the Odom Poles, Charith Premawardhana, and Momo and Friends -Cheeskos Junction.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Evolution of a Painter at George Krevsky Gallery, Exploration and Celebration Finale at Sandra Gallery, C3, Akira, KMNDZ at Shooting Gallery, plus many more.

THEATER: It's the first night of Ghosts of the River at Brava Theater, which runs through November 8. Incorporating actors, shadow puppets, and music with the epic writing of Octavio Solís, the play presents vignettes of those who have encountered the Rio Grande throughout time, from both sides of the divide. The performance will be bilingual with Spanish/English translation provided through subtitles.

Jeff Altman of Chicago discovered this beautiful old film reel of his grandfather's, entitled "Alameda 1958." Altman's grandfather, who is pictured in front of the camera and behind the scenes, had traveled to San Francisco via a navy aircraft. Altman also has a reel documenting his grandfather's voyage to SF, which he will be posting on Vimeo soon. (Background music by Air -- "Alone In Kyoto.")

MUSIC: The eccentric, musical genius of Daniel Johnston takes some getting used to, but his sincerely sweet and simple vocals and arrangements win his fans over for life. The melodic Hymns open.

COMEDY: Margot Leitman and Giulia Rozzi present Stripped Stories, a touring night of sex-themed stories. Each show features a comedian, a non-comedian, and a musical act revealing hysterically honest stories about their sex lives plus an interactive jaw-dropping game of "never-have-I-ever" and an audience interview. Tonight's line-up is Chris Garcia (SF Sketchfest, The Onion Comedy Series), Sara Faith Alterman (Author, My Fifteen Minutes, Rooftop Comedy), and music from Mark Silverman (NPR, Dr. Demento)

FILM: SF DocFest is going strong! Waiting for Hockney profiles Baltimore artist Billy Pappas, who has spent the past eight and a half years creating a portrait that requires drawing for seven hours a day using a 20x magnifying glass. Now that the masterpiece is finally completed, Pappas is on a mission to find reclusive modern artist David Hockney, the one person whom Pappas believes can justify his decade of work.

It's time for all you non-fiction junkies out there to get your fix. The 8th Annual SF DocFest, "the film festival that provides a manageable amount of the truth," will showcase over 50 documentaries from around the world. The fest starts Friday and runs through October 29 at Roxie Theater. All tickets are $11, and DocPasses can be purchased for $180.

FILM: Check out a night of handmade personal cinema at Luminous Triptych. Angelina Krahn sews onto the surface of the film in order cover up and obscure images of her own body, Karen Johannesen uses masterful editing and single-framing techniques as a study in quantum mechanics, and Rick Bahto’s utilizes in-camera edited works to capture the people and places of his everyday life.

ART: For their new Echo exhibit, Frey Norris Gallery suggested a painting or sculpture by eight important Surrealists to eight Bay Area artists, asking them to respond or invent a piece around the "resonances between their own interests and the content and ideas in the historical piece," which will be paired together in the gallery. A wide range of objects, including paintings, drawings and mixed media sculptures will be included in the exhibition.

FILM: Punk at the library? Who would've thought. As part of their ongoing exhibit, Punk Passage: San Francisco First Wave Punk 1977-1981, the SF Public Library will screen three films celebrating San Francisco's legendary early punk scene: Louder, Faster, Shorter, Deaf/Punk, and Insect Lounge Sally RemiX 1978. An audience Q & A with filmmaker Mindy Bagdon and photographer Ruby Ray will follow the screening.

FILM: Filmmaker Ken Jacobs is making a rare Bay Area appearance to present Shocked by Existence, a series of his new works in digital video format, some of which feature animated stereographs of family and friends, as well as improvised performance, experimental narrative, personal documentary, and found footage. The screening will also include Jacobs' small-gauge “chamber works” -- his term for the 8mm and 16mm shorts he made in the '60s.

After succumbing to the joy of a perfectly cut and shared cheeseburger, two men hypothesize the homosexual lifestyle, telling each other what they would do to the other if they were bent. Funny stuff. (Note: Dirty words are featured heavily, so this is very much NSFW. Use headphones in case the boss walks by your cubicle.)

FILM: The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, which consists of women from all four corners of the world who joined together out of concern for the planet, will be honored tonight with The Courage Of Conscience Award And Film Screening of For the Next 7 Generations. The documentary about this unique alliance took four years to make and was shot on location in the Amazon rain forest, the mountains of Mexico, and at a private meeting with the Dalai Lama in India. There will be a reception preceding the film screening and award ceremony.

FILM: The San Francisco Zen Center hosts an evening of food, literature, and film with Alix Lambert. Lambert's new book, The Silencing, is a bi-lingual case account of six murdered Russian journalists, paired with photos of the murder sites and first-person accounts of the journalists' work and life. Her documentary, The Mark of Cain, details the role of tattoos in Russia’s criminal world, using them as a device by which to examine the role of prisons and of crime in Russia.

ART: It's the bi-monthly Mission Arts and Performance Project (MAPP), in which 100 artists transform garages, cafes, studios, gardens, street corners, and local businesses into makeshift arts and performance spaces. The event occurs in two parts, The Family MAPP from 1 to 4 p.m., a full afternoon of activities for youths, including mural and sidewalk art, and Evening MAPP from 7 p.m. to Midnight, includes art exhibits, music, poetry, dance and film in multiple locations. Check the schedule for the list of galleries.

THEATER: Foul Play presents The Bride of Frankenstein: Live on Stage as part of their Attack of the Killer B-Movie Series. Performed entirely in black and white, the play will feature the original Franz Waxman score from the 1935 classic, and combines puppetry, shadowplay and myriad other theatricalities of a bygone era.

      

Well, would you look at that. SFist landed an invite to a VIP party at the Contemporary Jewish Museum for a fete honoring Spike Jonze's re-telling of Where the Wild Things Are. Actually, it was also a benefit for 826 Valencia, the Mission district nonprofit that makes people feel good via honing the writing skills of those less fortunate. Or, it's a pirate store. Anyway, last night's festivities, in the end, were all about honoring Hollywood ilk.

FILM: San Francisco Cinematheque presents Of Heaven and Earth, a showcase of nine newly restored 16 mm films created between 1967 and 1971 by Tom Chomont, avant-garde master, New York provocateur, leather fetishist, and HIV survivor. Chomont's films capture the beauty of everyday encounters and illuminate the transcendental possibilities of the physical world.

LIT: The untimely death of David Foster Wallace prompted hundreds of his fans across the world to read Infinite Jest together over the summer, ie. Infinite Summer. Tonight, Bay Area participants will join in an Infinite Summer Celebration. Food and wine will be provided with a suggested $5 donation, and there will be a contest to see whose copy of Infinite Jest has been most abused.

ART: Watch a sweet hot rod race and peruse and bid on hot rod related artwork at the 4th Annual Pinewood Derby & Silent Art Auction, put on by the Hell's Belles Car Club. All proceeds benefit the Bay Area Women's & Children's Center. The race starts at 8 p.m sharp.

FILM: The Expansion Bar may be closed, but it will remain in the hearts of San Franciscans forever, thanks to the documentary, The little man in the Boat. The film consists of footage collected over the last ten years of the bar's existence and includes interviews with Dick Wood, John Anderson, and Gary Milliman.

TOAST: Guinness turns 250 years old today, and several bars around town will be joining the global toast celebrating Arthur's Day at exactly 5:59 p.m., while tuning into a live simulcast from the celebration in Dublin. Here's the list: