This was the scene tonight in the Castro with hundreds of extras helping to make movie magic....

Undergoing a procedure to erase 30 years from its face, the Castro neighborhood is going retro, circa 1978, for the filming of Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, which starts shooting this week. Already the Castro Theatre, right, and boutique shop Given, formerly Milk's camera store / campaign headquarters, are being renovated to get that '70s vibe. Rumor has it that Castro Street between 18th and 19th streets (i.e., the staphicenter) will be......

Local movie star, sometimes activist, and Tosca regular Sean Penn will play gay for pay in the long-incubated version of Randy Shilts' 1982 "The Mayor of Castro Street". (An amazing book for those of you who have yet to read it.) He'll play murdered San Francisco Supervisor and gay rights activist Harvey Milk, who was shot and killed along with Mayor George Moscone by Supervisor Dan White. Perma-boy Matt Damon gets to play the......

SFist Jim (hardest working man in the biz!) sends along these pictures from City Hall, at the unveiling of the three finalists in the Harvey Milk sculpture contest. Harvey Milk is, of course, the first openly-gay supervisor elected to office, who was assassinated in 1978 along with Mayor George Moscone by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White. There's a free reception tonight at City Hall, from 5:30-7:30, in the Van Ness lobby, and the public......

--Gavin Newsom's decided to run for reelection after all. Here's the text of his fundraising letter, which appears to have been sent to previous donors only. (Thanks to reader Tiffany for the tip!) --Charities feeding the needy. --Vegetarians feeding turkeys. --Termites feeding on the Larkspur City Hall. --Vigil on Monday Nov. 27, which is the anniversary of Harvey Milk and George Moscone's assassination. --Yes on an injunction barring the Oakdale mob from loitering, but......

Anyone who's interested in San Francisco history must see this movie. Director and MacArthur genius grant recipient Stanley Nelson (who previously directed the Emmy-award-winning The Murder of Emmett Till) has put together a sensitive and thoughtful history of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple that stays away from the usual pat explanations of the situation (as Nelson said in the post-screening Q&A, the story of "900 crazy people drinking Kool-Aid in the jungle") to outline a story that's even more disturbing when you realize how almost-acceptable the situation was that Jones created. As you can see in the picture at the left, Jim Jones was tight in San Francisco local politics, and was considered a key part of George Moscone's (short-lived) mayoral triumph in 1977. Peoples Temple promoted a religious doctrine of interracial brotherhood, responsibility for the poor, and a socialist utopia in which everyone looked out for everyone else. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Peoples Temple also participated in a number of progressive social movements, attending rallies and organizing get-out-the-vote campaigns, and as a result, Jim Jones was awarded a seat on the board of the San Francisco Housing Authority (!!!) before he fled for Guyana, killed a state congressman, and orchestrated the mass suicide of over 900 people. Our mouth kept dropping open at the footage that Nelson had obtained -- interviews with Jones's childhood acquaintances (all of whom agreed he was a weird little dude, torturing and killing cats so he could hold funerals for them), sermons by Jones at his Fillmore/Geary temple (now the post office next to the Fillmore Theater, where the downtown-bound 38 Geary stop is), footage of followers seeing Guyana for the first time, and the most chillingly, live film of the final days in Jonestown and the fateful visit by Congressman Leo Ryan (and a very young Jackie Speier) and tape recordings of Jim Jones urging people to "drink faster, faster, faster." Dude, we were freaked out. Interviews with survivors, Intersection for the Arts, and Jim Jones Jr. at the Q&A, after the jump....

Here at SFist, we like to highlight local bloggers who are at the top of their game. But sometimes we also like to use this column to show our support to kids who are new to the neighborhood. So even though this guy has only written one post (though it has gotten 46 comments so far), we want to encourage him to keep cranking away at his site. Who's the man in question? Why,......