Bay Area filmmakers Arne Johnson and Shane King present Girls Rock! The Movie, a highly moving documentary about Portland's Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls, a place for girls ages eight to eighteen to learn an instrument, form their own bands, write songs, make friends, and then perform in front of 700 people -- all in a week's time. The film is opening in seven cities today -- San Francisco, Berkeley, Portland, New York,......

-- Colors of Christmas: Oh yeah. You know you want to hear this KOIT-ish night of soulful holiday tunes live at Davies, right? Well, we sure do. Peabo Bryson, Oleta Adams, Ben Vereen, and Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. croon R&B-tinged holiday classics and modern hits starting at 8 p.m. at Davies Symphony Hall; $20-$80. -- The SantaLand Diaries & Season's Greetings: David Sedaris' famous dysfunctional and wry Christmastime tales hit the stage.......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: This week is worst than last week. Really though, there's nothing (except the Original Cast Recording of Lovemusik). Even on the Amoeba Records website, they only have two, we repeat, two records on their list. With the holidays approaching, one would think that there would be an avalanche of CDs being released but again, there's only a few. Please......

Growing up west of (the) 5 freeway, the heavy metal sound fo the '80s escaped us. But while vacationing in the far off land of Riverside County during the holidays as a wee tyke, we would listen to our cousins' heavy metal tapes with envy and detached amusement. This was one of the songs we enjoyed most, Quiet Riot's "Cum on Feel the Noize." Sadly, their lead signer, Kevin Dubrow, 52, was found dead......

What with all of the oil spilling, disastrous Hawaiian vacations, neighborhood christening controversy, 49ers humiliation, and Yahoo, Inc.'s naming names, might we offer up, for your late night enjoyment, a crudely filmed cat that has captured SFist's cold, dead heart? Behold, heavy metal cat! (It's the hand at the beginning that makes the bit. Oh whatever, it's totally adorable!)......

-- Patterson Hood: Co-founder of the très hip Athens, Georgia rock/alt-country/cowpunk band Drive-By Truckers performs solo tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Swedish American Hall, 2170 Market (as Sanchez); $15. -- Arise, Hollowhed, Agenda of Swine, and Alta Mira: Scary loud heavy metal will help wipe away poor Brit's depressing performance (and the subsequent vaginal shot sequel later on in the evening [NSFW]). The thrashing starts tonight at 9 p.m. at Elbo Room, 647 Valencia;......

-- Avenue Q: This tee hee-inducing musical features un-Seaseme Street-like puppets (e.g., a closeted homosexual republican, for starters) and an ode to racism. What's more, the indie production won a surprise Tony Award for best musical, as well as best score and book, beating out Disney's Wicked. It opens tonight at 7 p.m at the Orpheum Theater, 1192 Market; $25-$90. -- Ask a Scientist: Are you none too bright? We sure are. Which is......

Theatrical Releases April 13th, 2007 We haven’t seen everything on the roster for this week but we have seen Hot Fuzz and we strongly suggest it. Hot Fuzz does for cop/buddy action films what Pegg, Wright and Frost’s Shaun of the Dead did for zombie films. Fuzz is every bit as researched and diligent as was Shaun. Afterwards you can hit the pub and discuss which you think is funnier. ...

Last week's winner, the Guardian. Tim Redmond says, war, war is stupid. Okay, it's kind of funny that the lead editorial describes PG&E's latest electrical scheme as an extension cord running from Pittsburg to SF. Josh Wolf pens an editorial -- if he wasn't a reporter before, he's certainly a reporter now. Someone who talked to the Guardian about their job on Alcatraz got fired, allegedly in retaliation. More on the anti-war protests (but Matt......

It's funny to consider that the single most used (and abused) drug in America is only not receiving its film debut. Rolling by Billy Samoa Salleebey ambles through the lives of a dozen ecstasy users to organize and document the events that transpired on one average but dangerous night out. To make an awkward parallel: if Swingers met Scared Straight and had a baby on E, that baby might be Rolling. ...

Did anyone else get rocked at The Constantines' show last Friday at Cafe Du Nord? The packed and energetic crowd was treated to songs off their last three albums plus a passionate encore of "I'm A Man" by the Spencer Davis Group. After the show singer Steve Lambke was kind enough to let us compliment their set and tell us what he'd been reading (The Old Testament) and what albums influenced The Cons' sound (he......

OK, so maybe we’re a little addicted to crime dramas, but when we finally rented HBO’s acclaimed Paradise Lost documentaries last year they literally changed our life. We’ve been following the plight of the West Memphis Three ever since. To give you some background: Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were once three young boys in rural Arkansas who happened to listen to heavy metal and wear black. Shortly after three eight-year-old boys......

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly: Tommy Craggs, like Tony Toni Tone, has done it again! This week, he uses the Microsoft Word auto-summarizer to read last week's interminable Sean Penn in Iran articles from the Chron! Could it be that Mr. Craggs heard our desperate cries for help? In other news, Matt Smith hates on Chris Daly's Rincon Hill deal, the Infiltrator pretends to Christian rock, and the cover article's about heavy metal Thor. Savage Love: you know, if you start a letter to Dan with "I'm straight, I'm smart, I'm funny, and I'm hot," you kind of get what you deserve. Next: the Metro! RIP, Bob Moog. The war on terror seemed a little overblown in Lodi. Spongebob Squarepants at Great America! Cover: San Jose gang war. And Secret Asian Man eats your hate up like love. The Guardian and the East Bay Express after the jump, plus the pick of the week! ...

First off, SFist would like to say that while we've been seriously grooving on Indie Fest, we would like to recommend that the people who do the Indie Fest Web site tweak the shopping cart a bit so one can confirm their tickets before finalizing the purchase. While SFist has no problems going to some super divey café in Oakland, that wasn't really what we had planned. Of course, we could have paid more attention......

SFist interviews Jason Blalock...

Even by 3:45 on Saturday, the lines were so packed around the Roxie that we had to walk onto 16th Street to try and read the (extremely poor) signage on the box office before the Indiefest double bill screening of Oakland Raider Parking Lot and 24 Hours on Craigslist. Over and over again: "Is this the line for will call or is it the wish line?" (FYI for future attendees -- buy tickets online, pick them up at the box office, wait in line to the right of the theater, on the Dalva side. If you didn't buy tickets, wish line goes to the left, on the Truly Med side.) The mob was so big, we missed all the other 'Fisters we were supposed to meet (sorry, guys!). Everyone feels at least a little bit proprietary about Craigslist -- that's where I hired a DJ/got moving boxes/signed up for marketing focus groups/paid through the nose for Arcade Fire tickets -- so it would only be fair to expect a movie showing the stories behind one day of the site's postings (August 4, 2003) to attract an unusually devoted crowd eager to see just who their compatriots are. Meet the couple trying to sell six strollers! The dog owner applying for a room! A woman looking for a gay sperm donor! See SFist Cheshire! (We won't spoil the surprise and tell you where he is in the movie, but he is neither the heavy metal chef, nor the guy with a big bottle of formaldehyde in his basement. Ask him in the comments if you want to know.) So... we got out of the movie around 6:15 (thus the title of this post). And how did we like it? Picture from the 24 Hours on Craiglist website...

...and it's the special silver linings edition! We're mixing up the format a little and starting off with the East Bay Express. Why not? Bottom Feeder reports on a fight in a Contra Costa condo complex where one person tore out someone else's topiary duck. So Method and Red. Gay couples aren't sorry they demanded equal rights. Cover article: Julia Butterfly Hill (the chick who lived in a tree for two years) started her own......