Movies
With such glorious weather bound to attract people in droves to Ocean Beach this weekend, be sure to excercise caution and be on the lookout for roving gangs of martial artist criminals. Richmond SF Blog recently featured one such cautionary tale; the 1974 film Slaughter in San Francisco.
[h/t N Judah]
Previously on Uptown Almanac
Our friends at The Roxie have a "teen-girls-gone-wild double-feature" going down this Friday, featuring the ultra-low-budget punk flick Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and the mega-uplifting skin-popper Christiane F., whose description follows:
It's the mid-1970s in West Berlin. You're a 14 year old girl living in a depressing high rise with your single mom. You sneak into clubs, listen to a lot of David Bowie and fall in with the wrong crowd. Soon you're hooked on heroin, your boyfriend's a hustler and you're walking the streets to feed your habit. Holy sheisse! Released to critical acclaim and with severe backlash from the West German government, this harrowing tale of youth gone wrong became an international cult classic as well as the standard anti-drug film shown in German schools. Based on actual events, Christiane F. stems from a series of articles published in Stern magazine that featured interviews with the real Christiane F. (Christiane Felscherinow). An early work by directed by Uli Edel (of The Baader Meinhof Complex fame) it offers a down and dirty glimpse into the lives the drug denizens that populated Berlin's Zoo Station at that time and includes a memorable concert scene with David Bowie.
If that sounds like your idea of a fun childhood/Friday night, like the relevant post about this contest on our Facebook page and, on Friday morning, we'll select someone at random to get a pair of complimentary tickets. Or go ahead and just buy your tickets now.
Have you ever wanted to be a porn extra? Of course you have! And tonight's your chance, as kink.com takes over La Lengua's Iron & Gold to film a "movie." They promise free food and drinks that'll likely be covered in frothy santorum residue, plus a lifetime of trauma.
[Twitter]
Grub Street brings us the best news we've heard all year:
Alas, we're finally getting word of developer and Medjool owner Gus Murad's plans for the historic New Mission Theater, via the Historic Preservation Commission's agenda for this week. The main item up for discussion at tomorrow's meeting — besides the fight to get some sort of landmark designation for endangered Gold Dust Lounge — is a proposal to convert the single-screen cinema to a five-screen one, with Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse Cinema as the operator. With locations already in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Denver, and D.C., Alamo has been voted the number-one movie theater in the country by Entertainment Weekly, largely due to their beer and food service, and their policy against playing advertisements before shows.
The proposal calls for the first-floor projection room to become a bar, with the main auditorium space getting restored as a large screening room. Additionally, there would be four more auditoriums built into what was the lower and upper balconies of the theater. Also, obviously, they would restore the iconic, Art Deco, 70-foot neon sign on Mission Street.
As Grub Street goes on to point out, Murad has not had the easiest time getting projects through the city in the past (there was that two year long fight about the Medjool roof deck, and the Historic Preservation Commission hasn't been that receptive to remodeling New Mission in the past). And it was only a year ago that it was rumored a bowling alley would move in to New Mission, only for that project to go nowhere. But let's hope this all works out, because even an 'independent' chain that wants to bring us beer, food, and cinema without making us go to the Fillmore would be welcome... so long as it doesn't drive The Roxie out of business.
Previously on Uptown Almanac
There's nothing San Franciscans love more than sanctifying bicycles and celebrating our sexual enlightenment. Now you can do both!
So what is "Bike Smut" exactly? Here's a couple of handy, shockingly safe-for-work GIFs to help paint the picture:
You can browse around their tumblr for more bisexual bicycle intercourse that may or may not get you fired from your job, or just hold out for Saturday's screening (and keep your fingers crossed for some bizarre rear triangle scissoring).
Remember Epic Beard Man? Something like 20 internet years ago, some old dude in an I AM A MOTHERFUCKER t-shirt manhandled a guy on AC Transit and the internet blew the most epic load over its collective keyboard.
Well, the bloodthirsty vampires of Hollywood caught the scent of money in the wind and are turning the Best Thing Ever to Happen to AC Transit into a movie... starring Danny Trejo(???). Just read the official plot synopsis for "Bad Ass":
Decorated Vietnam hero Frank Vega returns home only to get shunned by society leaving him without a job or his high school sweetheart. It’s not until forty years later when an incident on a commuter bus (where he protects an elderly black man from a pair of skin heads) makes him a local hero where he’s suddenly celebrated once again. But his good fortune suddenly turns for the worse when his best friend Klondike is murdered and the police aren’t doing anything about it.
And the trailer:
I have a bunch of questions about this. Did they think calling the movie "Bad Ass" would be somehow better than just calling it "I AM A MOTHERFUCKER"? Did they change history so a white man is protecting an elderly black man instead of brutalizing him to keep the /b/tards from totally nutting all over this? Did they pay the original Epic Beard Man, who's now homeless, a dime of royalties for the movie rights? And most importantly, do I even care?
Anyway, the film has no release date and co-stars what's-his-face from Sons of Anarchy, so yeah, this will probably rule.
Previously on Uptown Almanac
At least, that's the word from an anonymous "local film industry" source to the Petrelis Files. Beginning next year, the theatre will, allegedly, forego their daily movie programming in favor of live performances that are expected to bring in more money:
The Castro will transform itself into a live performance venue, that is supposed to bring in more profits for the owner than movie showings. To better accommodate the needs of musicians, singers, comedians and the like, the small backstage area along with the stage and screen will undergo significant redesigning.
Most of the theatre's management and consulting teams have been let go, and not one gay person remains in a senior position.
It seems as the theatre's "coming soon" page is unusually empty, lending some credibility to claims. Nevermind 2011's reduced screening schedule, which Michael Petrelis had feared was sign that the threatre was no longer economically viable.
Roger Ebert, noted film critic and one-time Uptown Almanac commenter, has declared the whole mess a "crushing blow" and is accusing the theater of "abandoning gays."
UPDATE: Mike Keegen, event programmer at The Roxie, tells us it ain't true:
UPDATE II: Sorry guys: it looks like the '24-hour blog cycle' got the better of us. We're trying to get a hold of the threatre to see if there is any shread of truth in all this. We'll update if we hear anything.
By way of some Christmas miracle, The Roxie has managed to bring everyone's favorite holiday film back to the big screen for one night (This Thursday, 7:30pm). There will be bullets. There will be cheeky one-liners. There will be men with goatees falling out windows (apologies if I ruined the ending). And, best of all, 21st Amendment has thrown in a hot mess of free beer to funnel down your throat while you heckle a gaggle of greedy Germans.
So here's the deal: you can go buy your tickets now ($10! Hella free beer!) or like this post on Uptown's Facebook page for a chance to win a free pair of tickets to the assuredly wild screening (winner randomly selected Wednesday at noon!).
In the meantime, here's one for the road:
Previously on Uptown Almanac
The Roxie Theater, the Mission's venerable curators of films you want to see, when you want to see them, hits us over the head with a "100% medically accurate" double feature that'll most certainly get you in the holiday spirit:
Literally and figuratively rubbing your face in it, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE series immediately superseded everything else in cinema as The Most Extreme Thing Of All Time Ever. Columnists rallied, bloggers blathered and the public couldn’t get enough of this timeless story of unwitting strangers fused together, ass-to-mouth. Please join us at the Roxie to ring in the holiday season with Tom Six’s epic about two men’s dare to dream. Don’t be embarrassed! We know you want to see what all the fuss is about.
Cancel your other plans and get tix for the feast now.
I've got your Mission Friday night adventure all laid out. Some Mission filmmakers made a film in the Mission (and Wyoming) and are premiering it tonight at an oldschool Mission cinema, and then they're throwing an afterparty at a Mission warehouse. "The Advice Of Strangers" is a stylish film about a starry-eyed lover on a drunken search for a girl after an New Years Eve party. The film was made on an $80,000 grant, so it looks decidedly unshitty, combining both gleaming color and epic high-contrast B&W.
Watch the trailer and buy discounted $5 tickets here on their Kickstarter. You'll get admission ito the premier at The Victoria Theatre on 16th between Mission and Van Ness, as well as a swanky afterparty nearby. Tickets are also available at the door, but bigger donations net you photographs from local artiste Alex Greenburg.
A typical 3-D film costs you $20 that goes directly up the nose of some ass-hat in Hollywood. For much cheaper you get a full night of homegrown entertainment, and you get to keep that money in town.
People talk a lot about the local art scene. Well here it is. Make it date night, roll up with your bros, or wear your black film buff turtleneck and go by yourself.
Slideshows and short films start at 7:30pm before the feature. Facebook Event with details here. And that ticket link again.
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