Movies

Hello, Carol!

Carol Channing: Larger Than Life celebrates a legend

02.03.12 - 7:02 am | Matt Sussman |

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FILM It is close to impossible not to love Carol Channing; those who would protest otherwise are simply heartless. The only adequate response to her is unconditional surrender, as if standing before an oncoming cyclone filled with puppies.Read more »

Cheers, puppeteers!

Gelfling classic The Dark Crystal is 30 years old -- join the celebration at Castro Theatre, but watch out for Skeksis

02.01.12 - 11:57 am | Sean McCourt |

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Showcasing the boldly imaginative and innovative talents of the artisans at the Jim Henson Company, the 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal broke new ground when it came to visual special effects and believable creature creations.Read more »

Have you heard the good news?

Marjoe (and other praise-worthy oddities) at "The Second Coming of the Vortex Room"

01.31.12 - 9:25 pm | Dennis Harvey |

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM Today, seeing high-profile evangelical Christians reveal themselves to be charlatans or hypocrites is old news. Even the spectacle of homophobic mega church prig Ted Haggard, outed as a fan of male hustlers and crystal meth, resurfacing on Celebrity Wife Swap induced a few shudders but no real surprise. The plunge from public sanctimoniousness to scandal and newly angled self-promotion is by now too familiar to shock. Read more »

Ding dong, you're dead

Horrors await all who enter Lucio Fulci's The House By the Cemetery

01.24.12 - 5:21 pm | Cheryl Eddy |

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TRASH It takes a certain kind of sicko to fall in love with Italian horror, what with all the oozing maggots, spurting jugulars, WTF plot twists, weird zooms, jarring musical cues, and supporting characters who do completely bizarre things that are never explained.Read more »

Female trouble

Noir City X raises a glass to cinematic bad girls

01.17.12 - 8:40 pm | Matt Sussman |

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM Rooney Mara's chalk-complected cyberpunk Lisbeth Salander is one of the more fearsome and curious creatures to stalk across movie screens in recent memory, her freak genius and impassive veneer concealing deep reservoirs of pain and rage — and also desire. Cold and distant to the extreme, Salander makes for an odd duck of a femme fatale to disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist's accidental gumshoe.Read more »

Frame missing

The unorthodox visions of "Not Necessarily Noir"

11.02.11 - 1:09 pm | Max Goldberg |

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM Of all Elliot Lavine's noir programs for the Roxie, "Not Necessarily Noir" is both the toughest sell and the most creative from a curatorial perspective. There are two programs in this abbreviated "Not Necessarily Noir" run that should have built-in audiences — a slam dunk Joan Crawford double bill of Johnny Guitar (1954) and Female on the Beach (1955), and a full course of Ed Wood — but the terrifically nervous movies at the start of the series do the most to stake out its intuitive terrain.Read more »

Peel your eyes for the SF Underground Short Film Fest

11.01.11 - 3:00 pm | Marke B. |

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The ininimitable Peaches Christ has just released the teaser for her annual filmic funfest for those who take their movies wee, happening Nov. 19. Talking head in a toilet! Need we say more.