If you wanna drink some drinks and trip out to the Monkees’ Head, the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, Hendrix’s Rainbow Bridge, and Zappa’s Baby Snakes, head for Rock Bar tonight!

RSVP and invite your friends!

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There’s an opening party on Friday, a full program of rad biking films on Saturday, and a race at GG Park on Sunday, with an afterparty at (where else?) Bender’s.

Check out all the details here, and RSVP and invite your friends here.

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And it’s hosted by Peaches Christ and Sam Sharkey, so you know it’s definitely going to be a raucous occasion!  The fun starts tomorrow at 7pm at the Victoria Theatre, and you can check out all the details and also get tickets here.

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The Disposable Film Festival returns! And it’s a new era, according to their official press release:

“The whole video landscape has changed since DFF launched 7 years ago. Back then, making a film on your cell phone was a weird, experimental idea. But now the revolution has happened and disposable has completely mainstreamed, with films like SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN shooting on iPhone,” said Festival Cofounder and Executive Director Carlton Evans. “Our focus has changed with the times too. We’re still committed to showing fresh approaches and techniques, but the days of counting pixels are long gone. Disposable is the new reality of filmmaking.’

Be there as the festival kicks off tonight at 8pm at the Castro Theater with the Competitive Shorts program. Get advance tickets here!

And remember, festivities continue throughout the weekend.

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All of your nostalgic comments pertaining to the demise of Giant Value seems to have elicited a similar reaction from distinguished reader David, who contacted us with a blast from the past:

All this recent talk of thieves on roofs and yesteryear’s Mission (Value Giant) makes me think of Crackers, that 80s B movie caper flick starring Donald Sutherland and a young Sean Penn and set on 24th and Alabama, right where Discolandia would later come and go.  Recently found the whole movie on YouTube.  Really fun to pick out the shops that are still here (hey Casa Lucas!).

Wow, he’s right!  And look, just down the street is La Palma (only the best place to buy tortillas en todo el mundo)!  If the avocados at Casa Lucas are sometimes 5 for a dollar these days, I wonder how cheap they were in the 80s?  Anyway, let us know what other spots are to be found after you watch the whole thing here:

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Tomorrow night, as part of SF Sketchfest‘s pre-festival events, director Terry Zwigoff (of Crumb and Ghost World fame, swoon) will be presenting his director’s cut of Bad Santa (2003) at the Castro Theatre. After the film, Zwigoff will be holding a Q&A with actors Tony Cox and Lauren Tom. Tickets are available here.

We had the opportunity to chat briefly with Zwigoff, where we talked to him about Robert Crumb, Dan Clowes, the ties between comics and old-timey things, cynicism, and San Francisco’s changing landscape. Read the rest of the interview after the jump.

MM: You lived in San Francisco in the 70s, can you tell us what it was like and how it’s changed over the years?

TZ: [Laughs] I laugh because I hardly leave my house. I’m probably not be the best person to ask. But I’d say it’s more gentrified. In my neighborhood, anyway.

MM: What was the Mission like then?

TZ: It was a working class neighborhood. It’s strange to see it it now, especially Valencia Street. It’s like restaurant row now, like the Village. Mission Street still feels the same, especially around 16th Street. With the check-cashing stores and drug addicts and homeless people. Now, the homeless are being pushed towards Market Street. The skyline has changed, I liked it so much better before, it used to remind me of the San Francisco in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Now there are all of these awful skyscrapers and condos.

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Read the rest of Terry Zwigoff presents director’s cut of Bad Santa at the Castro Theatre

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The Found Footage Festival is a riot. They scour video stores and garage sales all over the country and turn their findings into a tight little incredibly hysterical cinematic presentation each year. And then they take it on tour. Nick and Joe host the screenings, and they’re pretty funny too, so it’s like live comedy and a YouTube K-hole rolled into one.

Here are some highlights new for 2012:

-A mysterious video found in Vancouver last year titled “Hand Made Love”
-A video featuring a woman whose enthusiasm for craft sponging borders on psychotic
-A new collection of exercise tapes, including one called “The Sexy Treadmill Workout”
-Never-before-seen clips from the Kenny “K-Strass” Strasser yo-yo pranks that the FFF hosts pulled on news stations in the Midwest last year
-An “opening act” of found classroom films from the ‘60s and ‘70s, curated especially for the show by renowned collector Skip Elsheimer of A.V. Geeks

And here’s the trailer:

Advance tickets here, or just show up at the Roxie tonight at 8pm.

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And she’s got a lot to say, namely that Lee Harvey Oswald was NOT the lone assassin of JFK.  Someone get Oliver Stone on the line!  In the meantime, destroy all electronic devices that have accessed this communication, and don’t be surprised if the CIA pays you a visit after you check out all the details after the jump…

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Read the rest of Celebrate Thanksgiving with Lee Harvey Oswald’s girlfriend at the Roxie

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You probably know Tim Heidecker as one-half of the comedy duo Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Well, if you’re expecting that kind of thing with his new movie, “The Comedy“, be prepared for a lot of brutal darkness.

The film is about Swanson, an aging, Williamsburg-living, PBR-swigging hipster-type on the cusp of inheriting his wealthy father’s estate. In his boredom, disconnection with the real world, and subliminal grief, he and his buddies engage in some truly awful behavior at the expense of a world presenting him with endless options. Hmm entitled, trust-funded, society leeches hiding behind a cloud of irony? We wouldn’t know anything about that around these parts, now would we?

I recently got an opportunity to chat with writer/director Rick Alverson and actor Tim Heidecker about the film’s mixed reception, how scripted dialogue is so passé, experiencing the end of comedy (9/11-unrelated), and about PBR as a cost-cutting production technique.

Read on:

Mission Mission: I understand some other SF publications declined the interview after seeing the film and that it had the most walk-outs at Sundance. Were you expecting such a polarized reaction?

Rick Alverson: I suppose we knew it was possible. It’s sort of designed in some way and we kind of embraced it. It’s a little confusing from the get-go and maybe provocative because of some of that confusion. But you know, it’s definitely uh… hell, I don’t know.

Tim Heidecker: Yeah, first of all I think the notion of “the most walk outs in Sundance” is a bit of an exaggeration. I don’t know if anyone was standing out the door with a clicker. We had tremendous screenings at Sundance and SXSW and the reaction for the film certainly isn’t unanimously positive, but amongst a certain demographic it’s very positive. It’s a film that appeals to a generation that can dial in to not only the humor that’s in the film, but the underlying subliminal quality that the film has. And frankly, there’s an older establishment out there that’s incapable of embracing some of the themes in the film. But I’ve had plenty of conversations with people that I respect and come to watching films from an open-minded place and nobody that I know has a problem with it and considers it a successful film. So if you’re somehow angered by this film or offended or anything… you’re probably gonna be a person that I don’t want to know.

MM: Yeah, I think it’s very similar to the Tim and Eric show in that there’s a sort of person that will get this and someone who would probably walk out after getting the eyeful on the opening scene. It certainly wasn’t what I expected. I think I was expecting something more Tim and Eric-y but instead I got something that was funny but also incredibly dark.

RA: Yeah.

TH: Yeah, it’s dark.

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Read the rest of We chat with the creators of ‘The Comedy’ (Tim and Rick Decent Interview, Acceptable Job!)

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Stephen Elliott is raising money via Kickstarter to make a feature length film of his novel, Happy Baby. Tonight he launches the campaign at 6pm at The Makeout Room (3225 22nd Street) with all kinds of rad entertainment:

Music by Jill Sobule

Comedy by Caitlin Gill

Yo Yo mastery by Doc Pop

Readings by Bucky Sinister and Lorelei Lee

A brief talk by Josh Bearman about how his Wired magazine article became the movie Argo

And a screening of Mr. Gracie, a five minute movie based on Happy Baby

Hosted by Stephen Elliott

Happy Baby is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen Elliott, edited by Dave Eggers and originally published by McSweeney’s.

To purchase advance tickets just make a $20, or more, donation to the Happy Baby Kickstarter campaign.

 

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Support local film!

This poignant and darkly comedic debut feature from Sean Gillane focuses on Nolan, an aspiring writer who feels stuck. He is frustrated with his career, his relationships, the world and ultimately with himself. Unable to keep from displaying his considerable disdain, he focuses on everything wrong in his life as he treads the same dissatisfying paths. When he meets the stunning and unpredictable Cassie, she invites him to let down his guard and enjoy the world around him. Nolan slowly gives in to Cassie’s exuberance, but just as he begins to change his perspective, circumstances conspire to throw his already fragile psyche into turmoil. Turning even more deeply inward, Nolan attempts escape, but must ultimately face his life as he has made it.

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It’s election season, and even though we take it for granted around here that California is gonna vote Obama, it’s not necessarily that simple in other states around the country.  In some places (ahem, Florida), new voter restriction measures have even made it more likely that many citizens (a high proportion of which are minorities) may not be able to get their votes counted.

The only way to move towards preventing these kind of shenanigans is to educate ourselves, and the best way to get started on that is to come out to Artists Television Access on Valencia this Friday to watch Struggle, a film by Roger Hill about what happens in U.S. elections when the forces of racism, corruption, technological manipulation and old fashioned ballot-box stuffing coalesce to deny Americans their right to vote and steal elections.

RSVP and invite your friends here, and check out all the details including the trailer below:

Struggle is a case study of the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio, the deciding swing state which delivered the presidency once again to George W. Bush.  Diligently researched by the key contributors to the film, Struggle is a bold film that challenges the legitimacy of that Presidential Election and brings the entire U.S. electoral process into question.

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Read the rest of Struggle airing at ATA this Friday

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Hustle and bustle!

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Local cinephile David Enos offers a remembrance:

In 2007 I saw Blade Runner here for the first time – I’d never been interested, it looked too boring when I was growing up.  They had the re-release for a couple weeks.  Anyway, a memorably good time.   It was freezing cold outside, and during the movie it started raining loudly on the panels of the ceiling. [link]

Sad beans! Beasts of the Southern Wild opens there tomorrow; shall we? Here’s everything else that’s playing.

Also, let’s all go patronize the Roxie a bunch before they have to shutter too.

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Back in 2008 I took a trip to Los Angeles and tweeted about what a good time I was having and got into a Twitter feud about whether or not my excitement would impact my “Mission cred” or something. I wrote a post about the ordeal, and one of the things I mention as I’m ticking off great things about LA is Wayne White and his paintings (such as the one above). Well, turns out he’s got a lot of other talents too, and somebody just made a movie about him:

Part biography, part live performance, BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING tells the irreverent and inspiring story of this one-of-a-kind visual artist and raconteur. The film traces White’s career from an underground cartoonist in the East Village to his big break as a designer, puppeteer and voice-over actor on Pee Wee’s Playhouse for which he won three Emmy’s. It follows Wayne’s success designing and animating for other children’s shows like Beakman’s World and The Weird Al Show and music videos for Peter Gabriel (“Big Time”) and Smashing Pumpkins (“Tonight, Tonight”) through a dark period of struggle and self-reflection before emerging in his present-day incarnation as a respected painter and performer. The film, like White, embraces the ragged edges and messy contradictions of life, art, and family with rabid humor and honesty. Dir: Neil Berkeley. Featuring Wayne White, Mimi Pond, Mark Motherbaugh, Todd Oldham, Matt Groening, Gary Panter and Paul Reubens. 2012. Digital. 87 mins. Nightly at 7pm & 8:45pm, plus Sun. at (3:15pm) & 5pm.

Get tickets!

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