Arts & Entertainment 'Snatched' Proves That A Terrible Movie Can Still Make You Laugh I'm going to be completely honest here: Amy Schumer's new comedy made me laugh a lot, and for some, that will be enough. But it's also possible for a comedy to both make
Arts & Entertainment 'Battlefield' At ACT Offers Some Ancient Wisdom On War, Not A Lot Else I'm willing to accept that, perhaps, I am not the right audience for the work of Peter Brook the acclaimed English theater and film director who once brought the epic Indian myth The
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink 'Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent' Allows The Legend To Retain Some Mystery I think I went to Jeremiah Tower's Stars Restaurant only once when it was close to the height of its fame. I remember this occasion because it was around 1988 or '89, and
Arts & Entertainment 'The Encounter' At The Curran Is A Trippy Existential Podcast Come To Life Actor and playwright Simon McBurney probably did not anticipate the explosion of old-fashioned radio theater that's been happening lately via podcasts when he began working on The Encounter several years back. Like many
Arts & Entertainment 'Needles & Opium' at ACT Combines Stunning Design With Some Humdrum Text It isn't often enough that ACT plays host to a work of such jaw-dropping visual innovation as Needles and Opium, and so I come around to my thoughts on the piece as a
Arts & Entertainment 'Hamilton' Opens In San Francisco And Several Cast Members Stand Out As Its Stars Hamilton had its official opening night in San Francisco Thursday, marking the official-official kickoff of the smash hit musical's national tour following two weeks of previews here and a separate, confusingly unaffiliated production
Arts & Entertainment 'Roe' At Berkeley Rep Tells The Frustratingly Real Story Behind The Landmark Abortion Case In the world of legal activism, there may be no such thing as a perfect plaintiff. But in the landmark court case that opened the door to legal abortion in the United States,
Arts & Entertainment 'Eclipsed' Is A Harrowing And Essential Glimpse At Liberia's Recent History Danai Gurira's 2009 play Eclipsed made a splash on Broadway last year with Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o starring, and it's currently finishing a short, two-week run at the newly reopened Curran Theater the second
Arts & Entertainment ACT's 'John' Is A Weird, Delicious Treat Annie Baker's latest play , currently running at ACT's Strand Theatre, is a story about truth, lies, madness, God, ghosts, and Vienna Fingers, although not necessarily in that order. John is set in a
Arts & Entertainment A Reimagined, Stripped-Down 'Into The Woods' Is A Sondheim Lover's Delight For those who waited decades to see Into the Woods given the full Hollywood treatment, CGI giant and all, the current production of the musical at SHN's Golden Gate Theater may come as
Arts & Entertainment 'Hand To God' Is A Raucous, Irreligious Riot At Berkeley Rep Robert Askins's somewhat frightening, wholly hilarious black comedy Hand to God is less likely to scare off too many unsuspecting Christians unclear about its blasphemous premise in its run at Berkeley Rep as
Arts & Entertainment What It's Like To See 'Rent' Again 20 Years Later, 20 Years Older It was a hot August Saturday in 1996 when two college friends and I camped out on West 41st Street to score $20 rush tickets to see Rent, the original Broadway cast still
Arts & Entertainment 'Fun Home' At The Curran Is As Funny, Wrenching, And Complicated As It Was On Broadway For the inaugural production at the newly renovated, thoroughly gorgeous Curran producer and artistic director Carole Shorenstein Hays brought a show that had won wide praise and several Tony Awards, despite being a
Arts & Entertainment 'Finding Neverland' Is Escapist, Schmaltzy, And Visually Dazzling The latest show in the SHN season is Finding Neverland, the 2014 musical based on the 1998 play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee and subsequent 2004 film Finding Neverland,
Arts & Entertainment Bill Irwin's 'On Beckett' Is A Sweet If Rambling Tribute To An Actor's Favorite Playwright Most actors pay lip service to the all-important role of playwrights and screenwriters, saying something cliché to the effect of "I'm nothing without his/her words." But most actors are also great egotists
Arts & Entertainment Icky Stalker Scenario Spoils Intriguing Premise Of 'Passengers' is being billed as an sci-fi action romance starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt as two passengers on an interstellar voyage who accidentally wake up decades before they're set to arrive at their
Arts & Entertainment 'The Speakeasy' Remains An Unpredictable, Immersive Delight In Its New North Beach Digs The first entry point for The Speakeasy is Jack Kerouac Alley, the narrow walking street between Vesuvio and City Lights Books named for an American writer who was himself born too late to
Arts & Entertainment It's Hard Not To Be Swept Away By 'La La Land' I'm a bitter cynic who's long insisted I don't like musicals, even though there's more than one in my list of top 20 favorite movies, and just hearing songs from my favorite childhood
Arts & Entertainment '946: The Amazing Story Of Adolphus Tips' Brims With Inventive Energy At Berkeley Rep In what's become a welcome, holiday-season tradition at Berkeley Rep, Britain's Kneehigh Theatre company has returned once more for their fourth production on a Berkeley stage, a new piece adapted from a World
Arts & Entertainment 'Arrival' Is Both Sci-Fi Spectacle And Art House Head Trip It's an interesting time for a movie like . Had I seen it a week ago, and not the day after the beginning of the apocalypse election, my reaction to it may have been
Arts & Entertainment 'Moonlight' Is One Of The Best Films Of 2016 is easily one of, if not the best, films I've seen this year. It crushed me, and made me remember just why I love the movies. That's something easily forgotten when you have
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Bon Iver Shines In Shadow At The Fox To emphasize that I like Bon Iver, I would say that I know all the words to his songs, but that's not possible and nobody does. His lyrics, if they can be called
Arts & Entertainment Darren Criss Growing Into Big Heels For 'Hedwig And The Angry Inch' In two decades of performances, John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch has seen many performers, male and female, embody Hedwig, the bawdy, self-assured, third-tier German-American rock goddess
Arts & Entertainment 'It Can't Happen Here' At Berkeley Rep Is A Timely If Heavy-Handed Political Cautionary Tale Frightened and dismayed by this dumpster fire of an election year, the creative team at Berkeley Rep decided to fast-track the adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's scarily prescient 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here,
Arts & Entertainment Tim Burton Fails Again With 'Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children' While I've often appreciated the films of Tim Burton, I've very rarely loved them, finding him too often to be so involved with the the look of his films that he forgets he's
