Since this rumor is getting a lot of play these days, it's time to do the Official SFist post on it and that is the Danny Glover for Mayor rumors. The rumors supposedly started on SFJunto and have been picked up by progressives as something doable and even kind of exciting. Hell, somebody has to run against Gavin. The thinking is he'd make perfect candidate because he's a noted lefty (he was so virulently anti-apartheid that he killed a bunch of South Africans diplomats), lives in San Francisco, and is a star, baby, a star. Hell, if Arnie could be governor and Fred Thompson the sudden leading Republican Presidential candidate based on his appearing on "Law and Order" why not Danny? The Examiner has him at 450-1 odds that he's running. more ›

Faithful readers, you've probably noticed that this SFist watches the same types of movies over and over again: Is it a documentary about something weird and/or in San Francisco? Gosh, who could SFist possibly get to watch that? So we figured we'd mix it up a little bit and go watch something a little less provincial for a change -- which is how we ended up at the 9:00 p.m. screening of the Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela at the SFIFF. First of all, the audience for a historical and personal documentary about South Africans in exile from 1960-1990 as apartheid was being dismantled is very different from the usual scruffians we see at our wacky movies about, say, the history of the Mission hipster told through burritos used as puppets -- there were a lot of earnest expressions on faces, internationalist people carrying Global Exchange backpacks, and in the audience, we ran into a friend from New York who's devoted her life to public interest law. Boy, we're usually pretty shallow in our movie picks, aren't we? Filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris told the audience that the documentary itself is a eulogy to his stepfather, who fled South Africa with a group of 11 friends and helped found the African National Congress, and an attempt to tell his story and to resolve posthumously the sometimes-strained nature of their relationship. His stepfather's story is pretty amazing (he fled, mostly by foot, from South Africa to Tanzania, and then emigrated to the Bronx). We started out dubious about the premise, and even more dubious about the dramatic "reenactments," but as the movie progressed, it all of a sudden didn't really matter. It's a great story. We wish there'd been a little more information about modern African history (the movie presumes a fair amount of knowledge) and we also got the sense that Harris was pulling some punches about the conflicts between him and his stepfather, but that's all pretty minor stuff. 12 Disciples plays again tonight at 6:30 at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, and it'll also be airing on PBS in September. more ›