Results tagged “events”

FILM: The Oakland Underground Film Festival presents the San Francisco premiere of Black Dynamite, an action-packed comedy rooted in the traditions of American Blaxploitation and Kung Fu films, such as Shaft (1971), Super Fly (1972), and The Mack (1974). According to Sundance Film Festival, the film "sustains the comedy while taking a nice big sucker punch at the underlying politics of our time." Director Scott Sanders and co-writer/star Michael Jai White will appear in person at the screening.

Just in time for the holidays, Thread will be having a two-day shopping extravaganza this weekend at Fort Mason Center, featuring wares from the top 100 hand-picked independent fashion and art designers.

COCKTAIL PARTY: Wow, we're intrigued. Bold Italic presents 1939. Tog to the Bricks!, a decadent cocktail party from the 1930s, celebrating the opening of the World's Fair. The organizers promise "a raucous good time while the gin and absinthe flow, photographers roam, the piano keys are plunked." Cocktails and food by St. George Spirits, Distillery No. 209, Aidells, Cheese Plus and Pacific Puffs are all included in the cover charge. Attire is 1930s inspired, of course, and the best dressed will get gift certificates to Decades of Fashion and tickets to Long Now's Rick Prelinger Lost Landscapes screening.

Artists: Do you find it hard to get your pieces done? Then let San Francisco Art Institute MFA student and Immediate Future exhibiting artist, Daniel Yovino guide you through a crash course on productivity methods in his lecture A Year of Getting Things Done. Yovino will also speculate on the possibility of increasingly productive artists and reflect on his foray into art without a final product.

LIT: One of the first performance artists and a New York Underground cultural icon, Penny Arcade (Susan Ventura), will make a rare appearance tonight in celebration of her new book, Bad Reputation: Performances, Essays, Interviews, the first book by and about the legend herself. The book consists of three autobiographical plays, as well as a new interview with Penny Arcade by Chris Kraus and a collection of archival photographs of the East Village scene and Arcade's performances.

FILM: Director Barry Jenkins joins SF Film Society Director Graham Leggat for a screening of Medicine for Melancholy and a conversation afterwards. M4M, which was shot in a mere three weeks and made its West Coast Premiere at the 2008 SF International Film Festival, is a "love story of bikes and one-night stands told through two African-American twenty-somethings dealing with issues of class, identity and the evolving conundrum of being a minority in rapidly gentrifying San Francisco - the city with the smallest proportional black population of any major American city."

FILM: Multimedia artist Carter riffs off of Robert Rauschenberg's iconic drawing Erased Willem de Kooning in Erased James Franco, in which contemporary actor, James Franco, is stripped of the sureties of his craft and transformed into an almost sculptural object. Franco covers banal scenes from his own films, as well as segments of Julianne Moore's character in Safe and Rock Hudson's in Seconds. Franco, Carter, and SFMOMA Associate Curator of Public Programs Frank Smigiel will take the stage for a post-screening conversation about film, celebrity, identity, and art. The Castro will also be screening Safe, Seconds, and Franco's favorite episodes of Freaks and Geeks during the day as a double feature matinee to get the audience ready for the main feature.

VARIETY: The Devil-Ettes and The Mini Skirt Mob pay tribute to the great 60’s variety shows like Laugh-In, Shindig, and Hullabaloo in the action-packed Go Go Spectacular. Special guests The Barbary Coasters and Deke Dickerson’s All Star Frat Band will also perform.

It wouldn't be a weekend in San Francisco without at least two film festivals going on. (What a great town we live in!) The 11th Annual Black Film Festival honors festival founder and executive director Ave Montague, who passed away earlier this year. The event will kick off at 3:30 p.m. with a memorial gala and reception, which will feature a memorial video montage, film screenings, and filmmaker dialogs.

ART: Artist Paul Madonna will debut his annual publication, Album, along with an exhibit of his corresponding large-scale, pen-and-ink drawings of '70s and '80s era toys, which serve as a catalog to the book. In the smaller Electric Works gallery, artist Ian Huebert will exhibit his images from an "(imagined?) Plain States landscape." The exhibit runs through January 9, 2010.

GALA: AIGA San Francisco presents Hung up, its annual fall gala. This year, AIGA celebrates the art of skateboarding and has invited its members to contribute custom skate decks, which will be auctioned off at the end of the night. The event also features a live art component and a raffle with prizes including posters, restaurant vouchers, magazine subscriptions, and a copy of Adobe CS4.

Guys and gals, clear out your closets and throw your discarded duds into the giant pile at CellSpace (2050 Bryant St) tomorrow night, as part of the Massive Men's And Women's "Cool Cat" Clothes Swap For Fashionably Conscious Cultural Creatives. (We're sure glad they didn't use the term "frugalistas.") You never know what gems you might find in exchange! (Or in yours truly's experience, we just end up with more crap that gets donated later on.) Enjoy some food and dancing while you swap.

Although it's still rather warm outside, the Holiday Ice Rink at Union Square officially opened this morning. SF Appeal/Bay City News informed us that a snow machine will drop snow on the rink throughout the day, and members of the national figure skating team will be performing at 5 p.m. today. Apparently they also performed at Noon as well. Did anyone see the show?

FILM: Soul legend Bill Withers (of "Ain't No Sunshine," "Lean on Me," and "Just the Two of Us" fame) is profiled in the new documentary Still Bill, which will be screening in San Francisco for one night only at Sundance Kabuki. The screening will be followed by an after-party at the Boom Boom Room, which is free with the purchase of a movie ticket. Curtis Bumpy, a Curtis Mayfield and Bill Withers tribute band will perform.

Veteran San Francisco photographer Gerald Ratto will exhibit his rarely seen collection of photographs, Children of the Fillmore, 1952, which he captured with his Rolleiflex camera while a student at California School of Fine Arts (now known as the San Francisco Art Institute). The photography program was founded by Ansel Adams in 1945.

HISTORY: As part of the SF Museum and Historical Society's 2009 "Neighborhoods of San Francisco" program, author and historian Woody LaBounty will reintroduce the community to Beachside Bohemia: Carville-by-the-Sea and the Birth of the Outer Sunset District, which he researched extensively for his new book, Carville-by-the-Sea: San Francisco’s Streetcar Suburb. Carville-by-the-Sea, which was in its heyday in the 1890s, is one of the quirkiest and least-remembered communities in San Francisco’s history. There will also be a companion walk to this event with Woody LaBounty on Saturday from 2 to 4. Meet at the corner of La Playa and Lincoln Way.

COMEDY: Attention adventurous singles with some extra cash -- Improv Dating Scene might be for you. The event begins with a comedy show with Big City Improv performing sketches based on audience suggestions. Then, dating coaches will lead participants through a series of fun and easy improv games. The evening concludes with a mixer with snacks and drinks, giving singles an opportunity to better get to know the people they connect with the most.

FILM: Filmmaker Nara Denning will be celebrating the release of her new DVD Neurotique with a premiere screening. Neurotique is a collection of six silent and tragic love stories set to live musical performances by Mister Odom & the Odom Poles, Charith Premawardhana, and Momo and Friends -Cheeskos Junction.

MUSIC: Alternative Tentacles have been celebrating their 30th Anniversary with an Incest-A-Thon this weekend. Tonight's line-up is Alice Donut, Victims Family, and Burning Image.

While today's young San Francisco gay gent prefers to (pretend to) skateboard, spend the night frolicking at Bender's, and eschew the art of proper hygiene, there was a day when the effete dandy reigned supreme among the homo sect. (No, Rufus Wainwright doesn't count. Ever.) And those dandies, if only the days of yore had allowed it, would have put on their Sunday best and busted it up on the ballroom floor. Lots of swirling, lots of twirling: the way God programmed gay men.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Evolution of a Painter at George Krevsky Gallery, Exploration and Celebration Finale at Sandra Gallery, C3, Akira, KMNDZ at Shooting Gallery, plus many more.

VIDEO: Check out the West Coast premiere of Target Video's SF Punk, as part of the SF Main Library's Punk Passages exhibit. The film features Bay Area early punk legends The Avengers, Dead Kennedys, DILS, Crime, Nuns, Flipper, Factrix, Noh Mercy, Minimal Man, Chrome, Offs, Z, UXA, Sick Pleasure, KGB, Negative Trend, The Mutants, and the Sleepers. A Q&A with videographer Joe Rees and photographer Ruby Ray will follow.

SFist Jay sent us the scoop that Margaret Cho will be hanging with her pal, Monistat, at the EndUp's Chaser club tonight. There's no word on whether Cho will be MC'ing, performing, or simply dropping in. Tonight's theme at Chaser is "Hung," featuring an all-"male" revue. 9 p.m., $8

THEATER: Comedian and playwright Rick Reynolds presents his hilarious and gut-wrenching personal confessions and childhood remembrances in Love, God, Sex (and and other stuff I don’t have), which is directed by Jason Alexander.

VARIETY SHOW: Tonight is the premiere of PianoFight's Monday Night ForePlays, a female-driven variety show that will run every Monday through November 23. Consisting of comedy sketches, original dance numbers, a rotating line-up of musical acts, and special additions ranging from burlesque acts to comedians, the shows will feature "a titillating collection of comedic sketches touching on performance anxiety, bodily functions, relationships, robots, office politics, writers block and sex."

MUSIC: If you missed Built to Spill's Halloween show last night, in which Doug Martsch played with a fake scar on his forehead and then peeled it off halfway through the set, they'll be at the Fillmore again tonight, promoting their new album, There Is No Enemy. Camper Van Beethoven's Jonathan Segel will accompany the band.

DRAG: Trannyshack and Midnight Mass host Halloween: A Party, starring Heklina as "Dracula" and Peaches Christ as "Tran Hesling," with a special performance by guest star Jackie Beat and a whole line-up of other performers, including a midnight drag show by the darkest divas of Trannyshack. There will also be a costume contest judged by a celebrity panel.

LIT: It's another installment of Muni-inspired entertainment at Muni Diaries Live! Under the Influence, with BART tales added to the mix, too. Entertainment includes the Cock-Ts, Shane Papatolicas, the winning Muni Erotic fiction post, and more. Prizes from Muni Shirts and Routesy will be given away. Costumes encouraged!

If crowded bars and flashmobs aren't your thing, check out this short list of fun events taking place on Saturday, brought to us by FuncheapSF. FuncheapSF also recommends perusing Haunted Bay for even more Halloween activities.

FOOD: Local street cart chefs will discuss their food, their big plans, their permit status and how the new street-eats scene is changing ideas about dining out during the Commonwealth Club's The Street Food Movement: SF Hearts the Cart discussion. There will also be an after-party at 111 Minna, where limited samples will be offered by Bacon Potato Chips, Bike Basket Pies, Creme Brulee Cart, Gobba Gobba Hey, Magic Curry Kart, Mission Street Food, Soul Cocina, Sweet Constructions, and Smitten Ice Cream.