Page 2 of 3
Exploratorium. Saturday Cinema: Weekly thematic film screenings presented in the Kanbar Forum by the Exploratorium's Cinema Arts program. Saturdays. Free with museum admission. Pier 15, San Francisco, 528-4444, exploratorium.edu.
The Luggage Store. #QUEERFAIL Festival: Queer Shorts: Clement Hil Goldberg curates a series of short films "from the vault and others new to the planet" on the second day of RADAR Productions' quintessentially provocative #QUEERFAIL Festival. Tue., June 16, 5:30 p.m. $5. radarproductions.org. 1007 Market, San Francisco, 255-5971, luggagestoregallery.org.
Multiple San Francisco Locations. San Francisco Black Film Festival XVII: With dozens of short films and select independent features at five different venues, this year's SFBFF continually shifts its focus between the personal and the political, balancing ongoing tragedies of social injustice with moments of humor and celebration. Some films of special local note include the world premiere of America Is Still the Place, based on S.F. native Charlie Walker's book about turning an environmental accident into a business opportunity (institutionalized racism be damned); the Bay Area Video Coalition's documentary Point of Pride: The People's View of Bayview/Hunters Point; and Zachary Butler's hourlong hip-hop doc Mac Dre: Legend of the Bay, which closes the festival with a free screening at the Boom Boom Room. June 11-14. sfbff.org. SF DocFest: With all due respect to fiction, reality where it's really at, and this year's 14th annual SF DocFest will be dropping plenty of truth-bombs on the Roxie, Brava, Balboa, and Vogue Theaters. Film subjects range from Vietnam war re-enactors, Japanese country singers, Canadian wannabe metal gods, Tibetan expat beauty pageants, and Mexican psychiatric asylums to quasi-satanic churches, undocumented immigrants, avant-garde filmmakers, public access TV goofballs, and much more. Through June 18. sfindie.com. Multiple addresses, San Francisco.
Oddball Films. Scientific Psychedelia: From time-lapsed opium poppies to spacious Martian landscapes, these short films take you on a scientific trip without requiring any special chemicals (other than those needed to develop the film itself). Thu., June 11, 8 p.m. $10. Sex, Death, and Cartoons: Eros and thanatos combine for a night of spooky 'toons and sexy short films. Fri., June 12, 8 p.m. $10. 275 Capp, San Francisco, 558-8112, oddballfilms.blogspot.com.
Opera Plaza Cinemas. About Elly: Reviewable only with heavy spoiler protection, Asghar Farhadi's About Elly is masterfully character-driven, full of narrative switchbacks, reveals within reveals, and electrifying recriminations. Farhadi has a uniformly excellent ensemble cast and a fine sense of dramatic proportion, and while the cultural tension between progressivism and religious tradition seems explicitly Iranian, the human behavior seems precisely universal. Daily. The Tales of Hoffmann: A pinnacle of Technicolor expressionism, this 1951 movie based on an 1881 opera is one of history's strangest, most sumptuous somethings-you-don't-see-every-day. In a series of amorous escapades, a poet encounters an automaton ballerina, a soul-sucking courtesan, and a consumptive opera singer — all transpiring within a lushly appointed stage-arena of fabrics, painted backdrops, and wide watchful eyes — with lots of art-for-art's-sake ecstasies bubbling up through in the lava flow of febrile romanticism. Through June 11. The Apu Trilogy: Even before The Simpsons, the whole world knew the name Apu. That began with an unprecedented portrait of rural Indian boyhood in Satyajit Ray's 1955 debut Pather Panchali (which won Best Director and Best Picture awards at the very first San Francisco International Film Festival). In Aparajito (1956), the enduringly sensitive, observant, and intelligent Apu reaches adolescence and goes away to school. In Apur Sansar (1959), he becomes a father. But any summary is reductive; what makes the films work is the sense they give of accumulating life experience. They've aged well because they were made with complete conviction, and it's hard to understate the value they place on human dignity. June 12-18. Results: Andrew Bujalski's new comedy stars Kevin Corrigan as wealthy sad-sack Danny, who joins a gym run by the very Australian Trevor (Guy Pearce), and is taken on by personal trainer Kat (Cobie Smulders, who continues to be the best), whom Danny starts to take a liking to in his own weird but mostly harmless way. Starting June 12. Daily. Iris: The final film from late, great documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles is this intimate profile of 93-year-old NYC fashion icon (and stunna shades superstar) Iris Apfel. Starting June 12. Daily. 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, 777-3456, landmarktheatres.com.
Presidio Theatre. Love at First Fight: Thomas Cailley's Love at First Fight is a French romantic comedy that's a good thing for a change. Films in the genre tend to ramp up the ooh-la-la factor, with the object of the man's gaze often conforming to the most banal male fantasies, but Cailley resists objectifying. If the strong, survivalism-obsessed female lead remains something of a cipher, it's not because the male protagonist and/or the camera are only interested in her as a shapely piece of meat, but because she has an interior life that the men are not privy to. Starting June 12. Daily. 2340 Chestnut, San Francisco, 776-2388, lntsf.com.
Temescal Arts Center. Shapeshifters Cinema: Free monthly film series featuring experimental image manipulators and ambient sound shamans. Second Sunday of every month, 8 p.m. Free. shapeshifterscinema.com. 511 48th St., Oakland, 510-923-1074, temescalartscenter.org.
Comments are closed.
