Results tagged “sfindiefest”

• Hal Holbrook in "Mark Twain Tonight": Julia Sugarbaker's husband and Oscar nominee for this year's Into the Wild, Broadway veteran Hal Holbrook won a Tony Award in 1966 for playing satirical American writer in this performance, and he's been doing it ever since. This one-man show draws on observations taken from Twain's own material. A real treat for admirers of American literature. The show starts tonight at 8 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco; $55.
• Robyn at popscene: This Swedish "pint-sized atom bomb" import -- who sounds a whole lot like Kate Bush, and we mean that in the best way possible -- spits out bite-sized pop ballads on love, heartbreak, and the "post-adolescent condition." Oh my. Doors open at 10 p.m. at 330 Ritch; $10, $12 (18-and-over).
• Ben X (2007): An autistic teenager immerses himself in the comfy world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (i.e., MMORPG) The film is based on Nic Balthazar's novel that was inspired by the real-life story of an autistic boy who committed suicide in part due to constant bullying. Though not the most cheery film, it is a most fascinating one nevertheless. This kicks off the 10th Annual SF Indiefest. Screens tonight at 9:15 p.m. at the Castro Theatre; $6-9.

We love documentaries -- they're like reality TV, with a popcorn stand! So you know we're totally psyched for SF Indiefest's sixth annual Docfest, which starts up tomorrow and goes through next week!

Tonight, the SF Indiefest anschlüss continues, with a party celebrating the Coen Brothers' at Balazo Gallery (2183 Mission at 18th). Costumes encouraged. (9pm)

The two SF Indie Fest films we watched on Friday night at the Victoria Theatre made for a very thought-provoking juxtaposition. The short film was related to us through the countless anecdotes of the many amazing artists, performers and activists who have called Greenwich Village home over the years. There is a second screening of these films again tonight at the Victoria Theatre at 9:30.

Come late January, most national publications are usually too overwhelmed (and understaffed) to even consider covering any film fest outside of Sundance. Even SF publications are hard pressed to see past the flurry of Park City and look over their shoulders into The Mission. It’s a shame, because if they looked, they’d find a really meaty, crafty, saucy festival offering a smattering of hard to find films and some films even harder to miss.

We've been doing far too much reading about relevance and contemporary classical music as of late, so we're looking forward to the opportunity to hear it in a nice room with other people. The SF Tape Music Festival going on all weekend at ODC Theater (3153 17th St at Shotwell) features three distinct programs of audio art over a pristine 16-speaker surround sound system. We like the mix of legends (Brian Eno, with a world premiere, Gyorgy Ligeti and James Tenney, both recently deceased) and locals (Cliff Caruthers, George Cremaschi, Mary Clare Brzytwa, and more). (8pm)

This week's giveaway comes from The Finches, a local duo who play endearing folk pop. The songs are refreshingly gentle and Carolyn's voice rings with a true sincerity. See them Saturday afternoon at 2pm when they play a free in-store at Amoeba, or celebrate their CD release at Cafe Du Nord on Wednesday night with The Moore Brothers, Colossal Yes and The Mantles. We're giving away a copy of their brand new CD Human Like A House to one lucky winner. (Contest ends 1/30. Winner will be notified via email.)

How DARE you suggest that independent movies are pretentious, self-satisfied, masturbatory, and heavy-handed? What an accusation. Just glance at the SF Indie Fest's puke-green website, which just struggled to life a few days ago; here's a few of our favorite excerpts from the films' descriptions.

SFist interviews JL Aronson, director of Danielson: A Family Movie

We can't count the number of times we've left a movie announcing "That sucked! This is what they should have done..." And then we'd go on in great detail to our long suffering better half, who had to sit through both the flawed work AND our backseat screenwriting and direction.

SF Indie's Another Hole In The Head is the film fest we enjoy the most (that's why we sponsor it), and we couldn't be happier to see it back for its third year of blood, guts, and mayhem.

Our first exposure to the work of director Takashi Miike was the film Audition. At the time, we were content for that to be our last exposure to Miike's work, because as soon as we saw what Asami had been keeping in that burlap bag in her apartment, we spent the rest of the movie with one hand over our eyes and the other hand on the fast forward button.

Way way way back in the day, when we were in school back east, people would ask us what our major was, and we'd reply, "film," then always found ourselves adding, "but we're not actually all that bad." But the truth is that ALL film majors are, in fact, "that bad"; and a Guffmanesque mockumentary called (screening in the SF Indiefest this Saturday at 4:30) shows us just how bad "that bad" is.

"I want to put the awe back in superhero movies," says filmmaker Michael Sparaga, "The characters have sort of become blasé about what they could do, as well as the people watching them." His movie, , screens as part of SF Indiefest on Thursday and Saturday at 4:30pm at The Roxie, has no shortage of awe: mild-mannered comic enthusiast Norman is bowled over to discover a coworker with superpowers. As a sidekick, Norman loyally prepares Victor to fight crime and defend liberty ... but Victor has other ideas. It was important to Michael that Victor's freaky abilities be handled with reverence -- "in the real world," he told us, "if we saw anybody do anything phenomenal, we'd be so awestruck we'd think about it the rest of our lives. I wanted to make a realistic superhero movie. We can't identify with somebody flying from outerspace -- although we love superman -- but you can put a lot of magic in something simpler."

We snickered to ourselves when we learned that the movie was selected to be screened at the SF Indie Fest this year. The anime/manga/arcade game phenomenon from Japan featuring import car racing down Japanese mountain roads using drifting techniques (steering though corners while maintaining the highest speed possible) was the be scourge of our existence a couple of summers ago.

You look at the SF IndieFest logo, it says February 2-14. Look at the schedule, and you only see films to February 12. What gives?

SFist reviews the world premiere of "Pirates of the Great Salt Lake" at the Roxie in San Francisco

A review of Twitch, a short playing at the SF Indie Fest.

As we find ourselves gearing up for this year's SF Indie Fest (of which we're a sponsor! whoo yay us!) we find ourselves wondering ... is it enough? All these festivals that SF has -- the Indie Fest, Frameline, the Int'l Fest, Hole in the Head, the recently-concluded Noir Fest -- sure, they're all swell, but is that all there is?

Our good friends at SF IndieFest are gearing up for their 8th annual festival (February 2-14), with their Benefit Party this Saturday at the Rickshaw Stop.

We can't even begin to tell you how tired we are, but it's a great tired, like we're running a marathon, if they had marathons where you're sitting down watching blood go everywhere and drinking beer. (If they actually had marathons like this we might find a reason to exercise, but until then, hello sloth!)

While our better half is very interested in seeing , the Depression-era story of boxer James Braddock, we have been less convinced. We feel vindicated in our contempt by the fact that Nemesis of SFist Mick LaSalle loves Richie Cunningham's latest foray into directing so much that he's calling it "what is easily the best American film so far this year." Honey, please just admit that you are wrong and we are right. Again.

Oh holy cow SFist loves scary movies. Last year, before we had this glorious soapbox to teeter on, we spent two glorious nights at SF IndieFest's first horror film festival Another Hole in the Head. In fact, when SFist was stil in fetal form, we remember telling the folks who would be our fellow editors how much we were looking forward to covering this year's festival -- and now it is upon us! (We won't even tell you about all the time we've spent on IndieFest's Cafe Press site wishing for a HoleHead dog shirt, before reluctantly settling for a tote bag.)

SFist wasn't quite sure what to expect when we went to last night's screening of , and our mind continues to reel almost 20 hours after experiencing the film.

A funny little thing happened to the movie . Of course, this movie shows just how wide the definition of "indie" is in that while most of the movies being shown at Indie Fest appear to be made by someone with a video camera and a budget of whatever is left on their AmEx card, this one had a big enough budget to get Queen, the Who, and U2 for the soundtrack.

SFist was met with quite the scene as we approached The Castro Theatre last night for our first SF IndieFest screening, . The IndieFest dress code was apparently being enforced last night, with special dispensations made for Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford certified attire. We wish we had pictures, but you'll just have to trust us when we say that the beautiful people were shining bright.