Film A festival of short films made on smart phones, web cams and Flip cameras? There really is such a thing, and it is The Disposable Film Festival, which makes its San Francisco debut this Thursday at the Castro Theatre. Executive director Carlton Evans and his staff are kicking off their Read More…
“The FP” is not for the faint-hearted. It relays the epic story of a turf rivalry that can only be settled by the deadly dance video game “Beat Beat Revolution.” Struggling to survive in this middle-of-nowhere wasteland, JTRO leads his gang in dance battle against the enemy crew, headed by Read More…
There are three people on the “Kill List:” a priest, a librarian and a politician. These are the public figures that ex-British soldiers Jay (Neil Maskell) and Gal (Michael Smiley) are given nondescript instructions to assassinate. Their employer is a mystery man who knows something about Jay’s past, a shadowy Read More…
I know what you’re thinking,” a disgruntled Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) tells a group of baby-faced cops in an early scene in “21 Jump Street.” “Angry, black captain! Ain’t nothing but a stupid stereotype!” Whatever problems with stereotypes these cops have, Captain Dickson suggests they better start embracing the ones Read More…
At a quick glance, “Casa De Mi Padre” looks like an utterly racist movie. But then you see the angelic face of Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays La Onza, the evil drug lord, smoking two cigarettes at a time with utmost seriousness, and the skepticism cools. Then you have the Read More…
Film This Friday, The Castro Theatre shows Andrzej Zulawski’s newly unearthed “Possession.” This 1981 film has been traveling the repertory circuit, at the BAMcinematek in New York and The Cinefamily in Los Angeles. The film is half body horror nightmare, half poem to broken East Berlin, and a wholly anxiety-filled Read More…
From March 8 to 18, the Center for Asian American Media presents the 30th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. This is one of many homegrown Bay Area fests that pays tribute to cineastes of difference who have otherwise been marginalized by the Hollywood machine. We cannot turn to Read More…
If only there were a better way to say “billowing curtains.” That phrase barely scratches the essence of the first image of Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” which is a prelude to hell. The curtains, set to the sound of a sputtering lawn sprinkler, reveal an orgy Read More…
Shit is probably a word thrown around often when discussing the work of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Reactions such as “This is a load of shit!” or “Who put this shit on screen?” would not be uncommon coming from your average audience. And they would be factually correct. Tim Read More…
Film This Friday afternoon, at 3 p.m., the Berkeley Art Museum is hosting Film Forward, a colloquium on the state of film education, curation and criticism. Prominent Bay Area film personalities will be on the panel, including independent filmmakers Tiffany Shlain (“Connected”) and Barry Jenkins (“Medicine for Melancholy”), film journalists Read More…
