Movies

Castro Theatre Ditching Movies to Become a Live Venue [Updated]

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

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.

[Petrelis Files | Photo by titanium22]

Timeless Christmas Classic DIE HARD Returns to the Big Screen (And Win Yourself Some Tickets to See It)

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

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: 

Holidays with The Human Centipede

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

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.

Mission-Made Film About Drunk Love Premieres Tonight at The Victoria, Warehouse Afterparty to Follow

— By Josh Constine |

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.

Documentary About Aggro Pair of Elderly Lower Haight Bromates Premieres Tomorrow at The Roxie

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Shut Up, Little Man! is the birth name of this twisted cinematic exploration into the recorded life of a pair of warring Lower Haight alcoholics, and it positively sounds like the best way you could spend $10 this weekend:

In 1987, Eddie and Mitch, two young punks from the Midwest, moved into a low-rent dump in the Lower Haight district of San Francisco. Through paper-thin walls, they were informally introduced to their middle-aged alcoholic neighbors, Raymond Huffman, a raging homophobe, and Peter Haskett, a flamboyant gay man. Night after night, the boys were treated to and terrorized by a seemingly endless stream of vodka-fueled altercations between the two unlikely roommates. Oftentimes nonsensical and always vitriolic, the diatribes of Peter and Ray were an audio goldmine just begging to be recorded and passed around on the underground tape market. For 18 months, Eddie and Mitch hung a microphone from their kitchen window to chronicle the bizarre and violent relationship between their borderline-insane neighbors.

The showings start Friday at 7pm at our favorite Mission District theater, The Roxie, and go through the week (including a special drunken 9pm showing Tuesday after the Uptown Almanac Comedy Night).

[The Roxie]

CONTEST: Win Tickets to The Roxie's Screening of "Skatetown, U.S.A."

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

This Friday, our favorite neighborhood theater, The Roxie, 21st Amendment and CellSpace are hosting “the best roller disco movie party of the summer.”  The Roxie will be showing the Scott Baio (just ask anyone born before the Cobain assassination who he is) feature, “Skatetown, U.S.A.,” pouring cheap 21st Amendment beer for the crowd, and then sending everyone over to CellSpace for their infamous roller disco party.

If you're unfamiliar with the film, the trailer says it all: terrible music, a bad haircut on wheels discharging a firearm, a man wearing a top hat with beard covered in cocaine, tits, and Patrick Swayze.  From the trailer's YouTube description:

The third installment in the devil's unholy trilogy of godawful Eighties roller disco flicks meant to destroy mankind's collective sense of good taste once and for all. Naturally, I could not possibly recommend this movie any more highly.

The Roxie adds:

Patrick Swayze’s big screen debut! Two hunks are pitted against one another in a skate competition at a roller disco. At stake? A thousand bucks and a moped. Ninety-eight minutes of non-stop music, roller skating and comedy. According to her autobiography, former Brady Bunch starlet Maureen McCormick fell into severe cocaine addiction on the set of this movie. FREE TUBE SOCKS! BEER!

If you want to take part of this drunken, cocaine-fueled evening for free, tell us your best 4-wheeled, tube sock, or cocaine story in the comments, and if we like it, we'll hook you up with a pair of tickets.  Otherwise, you can go score yourself some tickets for $10 over at the Roxie's website.

Dolores Park Movie Nights No More

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

The smaller, neighborhood-focused Dolores Park Movie Nights have been going down on Thursday nights for years, giving us all a chance to watch iconic old movies while eating fresh popcorn and drinking cheap wine.  But as many have noticed, the event hasn't been happening since last fall.  Dolores Park Works caught up with one of the promoters, who confirmed the event is over for the time being:

“We have decided not to produce the event this year for various reasons, among them being the park renovation, cost, and different priorities amongst the team members.”

DPMN always seemed to be a DIY effort with low key calls for funds and the “boys” always seeming to get it do somehow. But now they were calling for a break.  ”We need to regroup and see if we are jazzed to make a commitment for our regular April-October timeframe next year.” Sean wrote.  ”It was a great 6 year run for us, and we enjoyed it.”

[Dolores Park Works | Photo by Mongo Time!]

Check Out the Premiere of "Career Courier" and Drink All the PBR You Want

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Mission Bikes is hosting the premiere of “Career Courier” Sunday evening [6:30 doors / 7:00 film] at The Woman's Building on 18th and Lapidge.  From Mission Bikes' blog:

Career Courier is a deeply personal portrait of 8 real people that have made a career out of bicycle delivery.  It's about risk, freedom, sacrifice, and love.

We'll be screening this new film and presenting “The Making Of” a short presentation by director Kenton Hoppas. Kenton filmed this documentary in 5 cities from coast to coast and will share with us his behind-the-scenes perspective.

Not only do you get to check out the film and rub elbows with the director, but you can apparently put back all the free PBR you want before and during the premiere.  Yessir, all that for 5 bucks if you buy tickets in advance at Mission Bikes' shop or $10 if you buy online or at the door.

Red Vic a Bloody Mess, Could Shutter in July

— By Zach Perkins |

The Red Vic Movie House on upper Haight, aka the awesome venue that does annual screenings/BYOB dance parties of Stop Making Sense, is financially in the shitter.  KQED reports that it could be slated to cease operations as soon as July 25th, unless a lucky docent happens to find a bag of money stashed underneath a theater seat.  KQED points out that the Roxie Theater has had several “near death experiences” and lived to tell the tale, but from the mouth of Red Vic employee Claudia Lehan, the situation sounds pretty desperate.

We're hoping for a miracle. But it's not looking good. […] We need George Lucas or Pixar or somebody really big to step in and we haven’t found them yet. Or they haven’t found us.

Hoping for Steve Jobs to come out of the wood work and save the theater is a nice fantasy and all, but my questions are, one, why are we just hearing about this now? And two, what can we do to help? From what I can tell I haven't seen any sort of community action to save the 30+ year old Red Vic with a sudden influx of donations via fundraiser or any other means.  

So who wants to get organized and save this landmark? For real, holler. Let's talk. Because where else are we going to be able screen The Room year round? 

(Hat tip: Haighteration)

 

Machotaildrop: The Trippiest Skateboarding Movie You'll Ever Watch

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

If you love drug-induced fantasy and skateboarding as much as I do, make your way to the Roxie Friday night for SF Indiefest's screening of Machotaildrop.  The Willy Wonka-esque film has been summarized by its writer as a “fantastical and farcical journey of a young boy trying to live out his dreams as a professional skateboarder.”  While that sounds nice and all, the film is more of a dark criticism of the skateboard industry that is focused on marketing and profits than the sport itself.  Not that we didn't know that sports industries are fucked already, but this criticism involves horses in mansions and matching shirts.  Besides, the film was written during a 7 day drug binge in a cabin in British Columbia by then-unknown professional dishwasher Corey Adams, so you know it's worth a least a peak.

Grab tickets at SF Indiefest or read the bizarre interview with director Corey Adams over at Fecal Face.

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