Run-ins with Sean Penn and figuring out how McCandless died, after the jump. more ›

The dogumentary does an admirable job of setting up the history, the controversies, the doggie (and human) drama and provides lots of interesting tidbits (after WWI, dachshunds were the "freedom fries" of their day and had to be called "liberty pups" so they wouldn't be murdered due to all the anti-German sentiment in the country). more ›

Judith Schaefer's movie, , screened at the Roda Theatre in Berkeley on Tuesday and when the lights went back up, the crowd of mostly senior citizens were on their feet wildly applauding the filmmaker. The gray-haired lady sitting in front of us was shouting, "your movie is a gift! It's a poem!" more ›

, the documentary we saw at the Roda Theatre in Berkeley on Sunday for the SF Jewish Film Festival, was billed as a "wry and hilarious" examination by filmmaker Duki Dror as he follows kids on their daily journeys to and from school. "Dror has the same wondrous gift of bittersweet nostalgia that cartoonists Charles M. Schulz and Lynda Barry have," said the catalog description. To that we say: are you smoking crack? more ›

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) is the first and only Jewish film festival in the world. At least that's what the President of the SFJFF said at the Castro Theatre last night when he introduced the opening night movie, . This is the kind of thing that makes us so proud to live here. Suck it, New York! We'd give our left nut for one morsel of your pastrami (extra juicy with a side of half sours please) but we have a Jewish Film Festival! more ›

We were forced to sit in the low-oxygen, nose-bleed section of the Castro Theatre last night because the place was packed to the rafters for Frameline's screening of more ›

We were surprised when we saw the documentary at the Castro on Saturday at the Frameline film fest. A pageant for big hairy gay men is basically like any conventional beauty contest, only with more harnesses and buttless chaps. more ›

After seeing two women-centered movies at the Frameline LGBT Film Festival on Friday night, we've determined that you can tell the difference between a lesbian movie made for a mainstream audience and a lesbian movie made for lesbians by the so-called "butch" in the film. more ›

After the soft focus melancholy of , we trotted over to The Victoria on 16th Street for some hard core lesbian porn at the Frameline film fest. We though we were all bad-ass but we learned a sad sad lesson about ourselves on Friday night. more ›

The raw sensuality in this film and the sexual vibe in the other movie we saw at the PFA, ,, has led us to the conclusion that oldsters in Berkeley are a sexy bunch. Whatever they're putting in the wheat grass over there, give us some. more ›

-- a French movie about jailbait 15-year-old Livia and her dangerous longing for the hot-fireman-old-enough-to-be-her-father, Jean. more ›

It's easy to make a heroic character lovable and the bad guy despicable, but it's much more of an accomplishment to turn a fallible, sweaty, chubby guy with real flaws, including a seriously questionable moral compass, into a sympathetic character. is a lovely tale about a man looking for his origins (in French Canada) and the myriad ways in which lives are interconnected. more ›

The North American debut of for the SF Int'l Film Festival premiered at the Castro Theatre Friday night and it must have been a sweet moment for Berkeley-born, Bay Area-raised, local boy Daniel Wu who directed and stars in the movie. After graduating from the University of Oregon, Daniel stumbled into modeling and acting gigs while backpacking through Asia and became a bona fide heart-throb in China. more ›

(we'll abbreviate that GHS:TOLT) from last year's DocFest, we've totally wanted to see this documentary, about brilliantly-coiffed Japanese men who are paid to socialize with women in local bars, in a reverse of the infamous "hostess bars" of Japanese fame. Lucky for us it came back to town as part of the SF Int'l Asian-Am film fest! more ›

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The world premiere of played on Saturday night at the Castro Theatre and the house was packed. more ›

Nothing makes us feel more like a big pervy loser than standing in line for a porn movie. On a Friday night. Alone. In the rain. Wearing a trench coat no less. more ›

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we left the theatre absolutely dying for a double cheeseburger. Well, Another Hole in the Head finally did it. We've officially given up food. Eating disorder here we come! more ›

Our mistake was thinking any movie shown during the Hole in the Head Horror Festival would be at least a little scary. Watching a monster that looks like a slightly more sinister version of the Cal mascot, Oskie the Bear pawing a naked lady is kinda horrific but scary? Not so much. more ›

(GHSTOLT) at the Women's Building on Saturday. Those dudes have some freaking crazy hairdos! Imagine a mullet mated with a peacock and gave birth to a Las Vegas showgirl head-dress. Really we were so fixated on the hair that it took us a while to settle down and we couldn't tell you what happened during the first 15 minutes of the documentary. more ›

closed the San Francisco International Film Festival Thursday night to a sell-out crowd. Despite the fact that public radio fans plus Robert Altman devotees do not equal red carpet spectacle, SFIFF did roll out the (albeit very short) red carpet guarded by velvet ropes, with staffers wearing head sets and staring officiously down their noses at the unwashed masses. There were even paparazzi hovering on the other side of the velvet rope, although when we passed by they were mostly just joking around with each other. We would have stuck around to gawk on the off chance that Lindsey Lohan might show up and have a wardrobe malfunction or some other US Weekly notable moment but those public radio fans move pretty fast in those Birkenstocks and we had to race inside to grab a seat before they were all filled with KQED tote bags, Patagonia jackets and hemp scarves. more ›

doesn't hit Bay Area theatres until May 12, but our pals at Larsen (drink!) know that SFist readers are always one step ahead of everyone else, and have given us a crapload of passes to an advance screening of the movie even SFist MiHi couldn't get in to see at the SFIFF. more ›

just seemed like another thing that made us feel good about this city. Nothing could shake the optimistic kick in our step we thought, not even a movie about suicide. Boy were we wrong. more ›

We've gotten two emails, so we're starting a new column: "I Saw Gavin Newsom." Reader ALCSupporter writes in:

Guess who I saw last night at the Asian Law Caucus dinner? Gavin Newsom. He showed up, made fun of the items in the silent auction, didn't bid on anything, and then made a prompt beeline to the only non-Asian female in the room and started touching her.

It was Saturday night at Tosca - got there around 11 pm and the Gav was there in a very fancy tux, surrounded by a lot of other tux wearers and a ravishing, though all-too-plastic for my taste and kind of spaced-out-looking, Sofia Milos. At one point it looked like that Gav was heading back to go to the bathroom so I got up myself to go cruise him...but alas he just stood in the hallway and whispered into the ear of one of his companions. Was it secrets of Scientology? I know not. Nor do I know where they'd come from, but everyone seemed happy and deliciously enthused by their own company. The Gav schmoozed with Matt Dillon, who was fresh from being stalked by SFist MiHi. The Gav and Matty Dillon were exactly the same height!

was nominated for an Oscar, is familiar with the festival circuit where lesser known players are shuttled from hotel room to screenings without ever making contact with festival organizers. He declared that SFIFF festival organizers made him feel like family. The audience was rooting for him even more after that. more ›

. It's porn! It's funny! It's political! And hey, it's porn! more ›

There was a lot of gentle sobbing, some out and out bawling and lots of grown men surreptitiously wiping their eyes at the Kabuki Theatre on Tuesday night. At one point we were distracted from our own sniveling by the sound of low-level keening coming from the row behind us and the realization the whole theatre was erupting in choked-back sobs and loud sniffles. more ›

. Learning how to make movies at Scorsese's elbow--not bad for a B-school dropout. more ›