Monsters of Riddim

Sly &  Robbie rolled into Yoshi's with the Taxi Gang in tow for a two night stand at Yoshi's this week and I caught the second show after a double feature at the Viz. These two guys have worked together for more than thirty years and they are probably the world's best rhythm section. They've worked with and for more people than you can even imagine. It's somewhat staggering. Sometimes their albums are fantastic (Rhythm Killers) sometimes confusing (Material's The Third Power) sometimes just so-so (Silent Assassins) but this show was guaranteed to have some serious chops on display and they didn't disappoint.

I have to admit to not being able to understand the name of anyone in the Taxi Gang, though they were announced twice. I can't find the current line-up online, but know that the two keyboard players, sax, trombonist/vocalist who threw it down with them were great. The guitarist however, was fantastic. I wish I knew who he was- if you do, please mention it in the comments. A singer named Peter G. came out and did a couple of tunes with the band toward the end and almost got done by a woman from the audience.

The hour and a half set, played for an enthusiastic, often high, distressingly and overwhelmingly Caucasian full-house, was heavy on monster slabs of dub. Though Dunbar's drum kit was more modest than I expected, the band doesn't shy away from using computer effects on their instruments and Dunbar crafted thick percussive beats that seemed to come from three different players. The sound of the drums shifted all night, and you could never tell where he was going to take it next. While he sometimes called out cues, more often the music just suddenly shifted into another zone with no effort, smooth as glass but sharp as a knife.

Shakespeare is simply an amazing bass player- he plays it with right hand, he plays it with his left, and he makes it  look so effortless as he rolls his shoulders to the rhythm. He almost never looked at Dunbar, yet the two of them were as in sync as any two musicians I've ever seen play together. Never flashy, but the man can make you move your body with his bass like you're a puppet. The songs ranged from straightforward reggae to dub with heavy metal guitar laid over the top like a machine gun. But mostly it was about the rhythm and on that score, it was a funkin' dub monster gig.

Once again, a shout-out to Yoshi's for being a great place to see a show. I went by myself and when I told the host upstairs I wanted to eat she asked me if minded sharing a table with a child. Surprised by the question, I said "not at all" and sat down next to Eduardo and Kelly from Bishop, there to get their groove on with their charming young son Mattias.  A super-nice family who chatted me up while I ate my burger and fries, quickly and efficiently delivered by one of the joint's excellent servers. Though I've seen a couple of mishaps in the place, all in all Yoshi's has to be one of the very best venues in San Francisco for live music.

Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?

There exists a cadre of people who like to take pictures of shoes that seem to have lost their wearers over the course of the weekend in the Tenderloin. It is a well-documented phenomenon on Flickr. I caught these barely worn sandals on Polk between Ellis and Eddy on Sunday morning.

Nearby, less than 25 feet away, I came across this fun summer slip-on. I think you can figure out everything but the end of its mate by just the picture alone. It's like a little mystery, isn't it? In my version, I call the owner of the missing mate with the nuts in her mouth Trudy.

Times keep getting tougher here in the City. I came across these two on my way to work this morning and no one was even paying any attention to them, even though they had just knocked off their pimp after what looks like a pretty horrific fight.The one on the left reminds me of Cheryl Tiegs. Don't you think so?

Well, at least they have each other.

Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives

Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives had its local premiere at the Roxie last night as part of Another Hole in the Head. While the title's offensive and the film drew protests when it was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, the large audience who turned out for the screening gave last night responded with a loud and enthusiastic response. This reaction wasn't held until the end of the film either as rather a sizeable portion of the audience was having a Rocky Horror time of it talking back to the screen pretty much during the entire duration of the film. I was sitting too close to the screen to hear many of the comments from one lone jokester, who kept cracking up most of the people seated in the rear of theater.

The film's an homage to 70s exploitation flicks, though it owes a huge debt to Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill and is also reminiscent of Tarantino's Death Proof. The plot concerns a trans-woman who's been raped by a guy who gave her a roofie and then got a surprise. He's enlisted a couple of equally disgusting pals to lure some more girls so they can... well, you know where this going, don't you?

TOTWK could easily have been a horrible film but it's actually a pretty good time. The women in the cast are obviously having a ball, the guys are perfect sleazes and the acts of revenge are nasty fun. The downside is that trans people are rarely featured in films and this one is pure exploitation camp. Sometimes you just have to take something at face value and realize it's not meant to be nothing more than entertainment. What makes TOTWK a success is that it would pretty much be the same thing if it were cast with the women from Death Proof. It's just not.That in itself is a positive thing.

There's one more screening tonight at the Viz in Japantown. I have no idea if there's an after-party at Divas.

starring:

Krystal Summers

Kelexis Davenport

Jenna Skyy

Erica Andrews

Tom Zembro

Richard Curtin

Gerardo Davila

Kenny Ochoa

Willam Belli

Written and directed by Israel Luna

Shots

I enjoy taking pictures of things I see around town, but I usually take the shots with the crappy camera in my phone. I've recently come across two really great local photography blogs about San Francisco I wanted to bring to your attention. Both of them great photographs taken by people who obviously know what they're doing- unlike me.

Caliber and The Tens. Check 'em out.

He's Alive!

Somehow I knew on a night where I was going to see a movie called Shadow that it would be inevitable to see him on the street tonight, lurking somewhere. As I made my way cautiously home, scanning every face in the crowd, it seemed my mind was playing tricks on me. He was nowhere to be seen.

Then I saw it. Him. My shadow. The Little Chinese Man was now coming toward me on a block we have haven't encountered one another before- Geary at Shannon- an alley full of despair and detritus. I gasped, but I had my camera at the ready. Would I be able to shoot my shot this time?

Thankfully, he was already stuffing his maw with some strange object, a thing once alive, that he had now crammed into a bag like a victim of Buffalo Bill, to devour as he minced his way through the Tenderloin. My neighborhood, my streets. I share them with him like a prison cell. Here he is, faithful readers, it's The Little Chinese Man:

My second shot was premature and my load hit the ground, landing on filthy cement. I regained my composure, and as the world grew hot with dread around me, I was able to capture his image as he passed me by, stuffing his face with who-knows-what. But I dared not make a sudden move.

The sporty sweater and pink hoodie were obviously the spoils of his previous kill, and the pants were looser than usual- perhaps from the earlier struggle, but here he is- and closer to me than he's ever been. And yet I live.


I'm telling you, it's been a month of horrors!

Psycho at the Symphony

Few, if any, films have a more memorable score than Hitchcock's Psycho. Now 50 years old, the original slasher movie was screened at Davies Symphony Hall with live accompaniment by the San Francisco Symphony, led by conductor Donato Cabrera last night to a sold-out, extremely enthusiastic and appreciative audience. It's been 30 years or so since I've seen Psycho with an audience, and never with one this large. Being San Francisco, certain lines elicted laughter from the audience where they may not have in other cities, most notably toward the end where someone bluntly states "He's a transvestite" during the "What's the matter with Norman" discussion. When it was all over, the applause was the loudest I've heard in the hall since Martha Argerich was on the stage a couple of seasons ago.



So why the fuss?


No doubt as time passes composer Bernard Herrmann's stature only grows larger. The man who penned the scores for Citizen Kane, Vertigo and Taxi Driver (talk about longevity) may have hit his peak with Hitchcock's critically panned shocker, creating one of the most recognizable motifs in film history, perhaps only surpassed by John Williams' shark motif from Jaws (another horror movie, btw). Certainly the music stands on it own as masterful, but does it merit that kind of response?



Yes, but only because of what it contributes to the film- which, as Jack Sullivan recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, is more than substantial. In fact, many have argued that without Herrmann's score, Psycho would have been a failure.


Then again, there's the film itself- a nasty thing, full of Freudian nooks and crannies, that imprints itself upon the brain like few others. Recalling seeing it for the first time, my mother swore Janet Leigh's blood was red as it flowed down the drain. It wasn't of course, but that's how potent the images (and sound) are. You think you see things in Psycho that aren't really there. Still, is the film itself worth paying a lot more money to see than you would at the Castro during a Hitchcock retrospective? Of course not. It's combination that makes it work.

Being able to see the film on a large screen with a couple of thousand other people while the Symphony performs the score live underneath is a rare opportunity. Few films justify such extravagant treatment and generally they aren't horror movies. Actually, with the exception of Psycho, they're never horror movies unless we're taling about silent classics such as Nosferatu, the original Phantom of the Opera or Caligari and even these are more likely than not to get a live organ accompaniment in a revival house rather than a full orchestra in a concert hall. Orchestras typically save this kind of treatment for The Battleship Potemkin, Modern Times or the "Qatsi" films scored by Philip Glass, or they make a a more calculated commercial move and create programs around Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings, John Williams' Star Wars or the Final Fantasy video games soundtracks.

Psycho doesn't fit either of those categories. Its merit derives from something else. When they are well-executed, horror movies elicit a response from an audience unlike other film genres- they are threatening and yet cathartic. When it's over, we've survived and can walk out of the theater, or the concert hall in this case, leaving our fears behind us in the dark. At least until we have to get in the shower. After fifty years of slasher films which followed in its wake, what's still unique about Psycho is its score, which elevates it to something beyond a genre film. There are few films I consider perfect enough in every aspect to be called a work of art, and I wouldn't consider Psycho to be one of them, but it is a masterful fusion of sound and vision and thus the true legacy of the film's power probably belongs more to Herrmann than to Hitchcock.

Kudos to SFS for putting this on and for the orchestra for doing a magnificent job. In hindsight, considering the audience, this would have been a perfect evening to hold a Davies After Hours event. In any case, given the success of the evening, one can only hope for more programming like this in the future.

Antibalas

After leaving the Uptown I caught BART and a few minutes later was back in my own neighborhood scarfing down a couple of delicious pastor tacos and a Modelo before walking up the street to meet MAP at the Great American Music Hall to catch Antibalas. When we went in the crowd was sparser than I expected it to be, but it seems 9:15 turned out to be earlier than I thought because when the band hit the stage about an hour later the joint was packed.


I first saw Antibalas last November when they were the house band for the brilliant Fela! production on Broadway. Now I got a chance to see them doing their own thing and in short, these guys walked onstage and proceeded to blow the doors off for two solid hours in a super-tight, propulsive, explosive orgy of grooves and rhythms. They just seemed unstoppable. Originating from Brooklyn, the band is:

                                 AMAYO (Vocals & Percussion and MAP's favorite- she's so predictable)
VICTOR AXELROD (Organ/Clavinet)
ERIC BIONDO (Trumpet)
STUART BOGIE (Tenor Sax)
MARCUS FARRAR (Shekere)
MARCOS GARCIA (Guitar)
AARON JOHNSON (Trombone)
JORDAN MCLEAN (Trumpet)
NICK MOVSHON (Bass)
LUKE O'MALLEY (Guitar)
MARTIN PERNA (Baritone Sax, founder)
CHRIS VATALARO (Drums)

Working in a vein that combines Afrobeat with serious strains of latin and funk meticulously woven into the mix, the band had the entire house dancing with them like there was going to be no tomorrow, creating that all-too-rarely experienced perfect symbiosis between audience and performer: you can no longer tell where the energy is coming from, the audience or the stage, because the line simply disappears between the two.

The remaining tour dates are:

Sat, July 17 - Garberville, CA - Reggae on the River
Mon, July 19 - Portland, Or - Berbati’s Pan*
Tue, July 20 - Seattle, WA - Neumos*
Thu, July 22 - New York City - River to River Festival, Castle Clinton
Thu, July 29 - Philadelphia, PA - Kimmel Center, Perelman Theater

Don't miss them if you live in one of these cities- it was one of the best shows I've seen in a very, very long time, only made that much better by the sudden appearance of Steve and John, who appeared out of nowhere to be standing right next to us.

Afterward, having burned off the tacos, MAP and I went to Osha Thai for a late dinner, which no matter how upscale the two sisters who own the place try to make it, still has the same old disgusting bathrooms they've had forever.

Grotesque

Koji Shiraishi's Grotesque could easily be dismissed as torture porn trash and if you wanted to do so I wouldn't put up much of an argument attempting to change your mind. When, after reading my post on "A Serbian Film," Femme Fatale expressed her desire to attend a film with me during Another Hole in the Head, I suggested we see this one together. We met at Dalva next door for a cocktail, because I was sure at least one drink would probably be a good idea before seeing the only film to have been recently banned in Britain.

The plot is simple. A young couple, out on their first date, is kidnapped and held in the basement/torture chamber of a crazy doctor who wants to seek his own sexual pleasure by torturing them. If they do as he says he will release them once he had his jollies. That's the plot.

For the next hour the doctor does just that. I won't go into details because if you want to read about that kind of stuff you should just go see the movie, which has two more screenings during the festival (July 18th & 22nd). There's a respite in the middle where the couple is recuperating, thinking they'll be set free, only to find themselves back in the torture chamber for a second round more vicious and cruel than the first.


It's very sick and twisted material, with no redeeming value to it whatsoever and yet the movie is captivating because of the strong performances and production values. Maybe I'm trying to find a justification for this kind of film because I also thought it raises a couple of interesting questions about masculinity and the stupidity of being in love. The doctor, who by the way has a penchant for listening to Tchaikovsky and Puccini while dismembering his victims (and in this case dismemberment is a very accurate term), asks the young man numerous times if he's willing to die for the young girl, to which he always affirms his willingness. But he hasn't even slept with this girl yet- this is their first date. Foolish boy.


The doctor proceeds to render both of them unable to ever consummate their love and yet still this guy, now memberless, sans one eye and with his intestines trailing behind him, tries to save her in the name of love by executing pointless act of chivalry. It's ridiculous, but the young people's earnestness never rings false and this is why from my perspective the movie isn't easily dismissed as pure trash. Or again, maybe I'm just fooling myself? I don't think so because unlike The Girl Next Door, probably the most vile thing I've ever seen, Grotesque seems more like a parable than just a cinematic excursion into the bottomless depths of human depravity.

When it was all over, Femme Fatale and I made our way over to the Uptown, where we had a few Manhattans amid the low-key, extremely cordial regulars at the bar. She then went her way and I went back downtown, in search of some quick food before catching Antibalas at the Great American Music Hall.

Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl

I honestly don't think I've enjoyed a movie as much as Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl in years. Certainly not since Superbad. Maybe since Re-Animator or Evil Dead Part II . That delight comes from walking into a theater with no expectations and watching a movie so expertly done that it's just a delight from start to finish. I really did know nothing about the film, deciding to attend it during the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival just because of its preposterous title. Everything about this Mean Girls meets The Evil Dead Japanese import is spot on. I noticed during the credits that it's based on a comic book. Add one more thing to the long list of things I find myself needing to be further educated about.

Without even bothering to go into detail about the plot (really, the title does explain it all), this is sheer exuberant film-making on every level. The soundtrack is a phenomenal, perfect supporting cast member, always finding the most hilarious way to underscore what is taking place onscreen. And oh-my-goodness what takes place onscreen is a ridiculouly bloody, completely inappropriate riot of gore, goofiness and political-incorrectness that can only come from Japan. I should mention here that I've never been to Japan and I've found that Japanese cinema really confuses me.

I mean really, what is going on in this country?

Lolita fashion, splatter movies, torture porn, electronics and autos are their primary exports. I just can't figure it out. The cast is gorgeous and perfect and have an enthusiasm for the material that's evident in every scene. No one looks like they're slumming it on their way to something bigger.

Here's the trailer. Yes, it contains lots of blood, spurting, gushing and flowing, as well as various body parts in various stages of dismemberment and some great cheesy music from the movie:




If you get a chance to see this, don't miss it. It's the most fun you'll have in a long time. There is one more showing here in SF on July 17th at the Roxie.

Bettye Lavette, Better Late than Never

Bettye Lavette released her first single, “My Man--He’s a Loving Man” in 1962. It was a top 10 R'n'B hit, but failed to crack the pop charts. 1965 and 1969 saw further activity and she kept recording but it wasn't until twenty years later she finally managed to release an entire album in 1982. Somehow, another twenty-odd years then passed without a real follow-up in the States, though there were a few imports available, spaced years apart. Then finally, as she neared the age of 60, her momentum started to build, first with A Woman Like Me, released in 2003, then with the grammy-nominated The Scene of the Crime from 2007, and now with the brilliant Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook, Bettye, now at retirement age, is finally getting recognized as one of the greatest living American blues singers and has assumed a pretty high profile in the music world. Yes, that was her singing "A Change is Gonna Come" with Jon Bon Jovi at Obama's inauguration concert and she's been very visible the past couple of years.

Last night she and her four-piece band rolled into the Great American Music Hall to highlight material from the new album in an hour and a half show that at times felt incredibly intimate and at others like she was about to blow the walls off the relatively small confines of the GAMH. A pretty impressive feat for a 65 year old woman. I've read Esquire has dubbed her "the sexiest singer alive." I can understand why. Talent, and mean hip-shake are pretty damn sexy.

The band opened on its own for one song about whiskey and then Lavette hit the stage to do a romped-up swamp-boogie version of the Beatles' "The Word." I was hooked and she held me through the next thirteen or fourteen songs. An American blues singer singing the British rock songbook doesn't sound that promising on paper until you're reminded by hearing these songs done this way how indebted the British were to American music, especially the blues. For a different take on this I'd urge you to get a copy of the TAMI Show and watch it. Focusing on material mostly from the sixties and seventies, Lavette ranged from Ray Charles (yes, not British) to Led Zeppelin. Highlights included an amazing, sexually charged-blues-laden version of the Moody Blues "Nights in White Satin," Bernie Taupin's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" (which sounded nothing like any version I've heard before) and the Who's Love Reign O'er Me." A crowd favorite was certainly Zeppelin's "All of My Love" but since I think that's the worst Zeppelin song ever and the band missed a great opportunity to exchange the cheesy keyboard part for some serious guitar- for me it was the weak point in the set but the audience ate it up.

Before she sang "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me," Lavette claimed "senior privilege" and asked the standing crowd to part so the people in back could see her as she sat down on the stage to rest her legs while she sung the song. It was incredibly moving and for me it was the highlight of a set that had many to choose from.

Lavette also spurned the love of a young woman who wanted to show how much she loved Bettye by yelling out everything she knew. When Lavette mentioned that she's had the honor of singing in front of two Presidents, the girl yelled out "A Change is Gonna Come!" to which Lavette replied "It's my show. Let me do the show." If for no other reason, though there are so many more, I too, love Bettye Lavette. If she's coming your way, don't miss her. The only other female blues singer I've ever seen who is this good was Etta James back in the 70's. And that's the word.

Randy and Steve- great meeting you guys and thanks for being chill once we got it all worked out. Drinks are on me next time we all meet again, which in this town, is inevitable- especially since we live in the same neighborhood.

Psycho Sell Out?

UPDATE 07/15/10: SOLD OUT!

There are very few tickets left for this best-of-both-worlds event. Goldstar is sold out. Get 'em while you can and in the meantime read this brilliant article, hyperbole-filled as it is, and get a clue as to why the 50th anniversary of this classic really matters.

Get a ticket while you can here: sfsymphony.org

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue

One of the very best things about going to a horror-oriented film festival is the titles of the blog posts pretty much write themselves. On Sunday I saw the thoughtful and carefully considered documentary Nightmares in Red, White and Blue. The strong point about the film from my own selfish perspective is that it more or less validates my own perspective that the horror genre reflects what's going on in our culture. Changes in the U.S. psyche show up on the screen, and the film tracks these evolutions in a ways I was and wasn't aware of.



Edited and directed by Andrew Monument, it features clips from hundreds of films between interviews with directors John Carpenter, George Romero, Joe Dante, Larry Cohen, Roger Corman, Tom McLoughlin and producer Brian Yuzna. The interviews are revealing and entertaining. Carpenter may be the most intellectual of the bunch and the variety found in his films reflect the curiosity of a keen mind. Documentaries like this, of which this one is far better than most, are fun because they remind us of films we may have long forgotten about and how really great the classics are. And if they're really good, they leave us with a list of movies we have to see again or watch for the first time. I made a list of more than fifteen films I need to review or watch for the first time based on clips or comments in the movie. That's time well-spent.




I was really interested in the last segments which discussed how horror has changed since 9/11 because I've been thinking about this for awhile now. The genre has turned to the 70's for inspiration, yet it's a far darker view this time around. Thinking about recent films, many of which are obviously destined to be considered classics (Saw, Hostel and The Devil's Rejects to name the three most obvious ones) and sub genres that have emerged since then, it's interesting food for thought. Make the analogies for yourself- there are so many places to start. Also, for a documentary focused on American film making, there's an interesting analysis of how foreign horror is different from our own. Especially in the past decade, as European horror grows increasingly sophisticated, Asian horror borders the fetishist extremes and ours becomes increasingly violent and nihilistic.

Of course the exception is "A Serbian Film." I didn't know until after I wrote my post about it that it's something of a world-wide phenomenon. In three days this post has become the fourth most-visited link I've ever written and based on the traffic I'm seeing, it will no doubt replace 1001 Albums as the most-read post on the Beast. Probably in the next two or three days. Even more surprising to me is that hits have come from more than 20 countries. Not bad for a movie that very few people have actually seen and most never will. It's been three days and I'm still thinking about. Yeah- it is that good.

The Violent Kind, the Incoherent Kind

I really had high hopes for The Violent Kind to be a movie I truly enjoyed. Local production, lots of violence, exploitation genre, good looking still photos with lots of hot brunettes. So far a multitude of pluses. I have a thing for hot brunettes. In reality however, the movie is an incoherent mess and I came "this close" to walking out on it, which is something I've only done a couple of times in my entire life.

All the sadder because it's not as if the people involved in making the film have no clue- they obviously do, but somewhere along the line they obviously became too enamored with their own vision and failed to seek an outside reality check, which if any movie ever needed one besides Eraserhead it's this one (on a side note, I have never understood why people think Eraserhead is a great film, much less even watchable, because I really think it's a piece of crap- so at least now you know where I'm coming from).

So before I totally tear this to shreds, let me tell you the good stuff. I mentioned hot brunettes and there are plenty of 'em. Lots of product placement for Lagunitas IPA, one of my favorite brews; there's a really great car which I think is a Hudson; and the camera work in this movie is exceptional. That's about all there is on the positive side.

Now, why is this movie a mess? Allow me to count the ways, and I doubt I'll even get to all of them before I grow tired of bitching about it so figure there are another 20 or so stupid things about The Violent Kind I'm not even going to mention.

Note: the comments below contains spoilers revealing the entire plot of the movie. Seriously.

1. There is one of those tags letting us know the film opens in Oakland. Really? When you open a movie in Oakland we expect black thugs or pretty scenes of Lake Merritt. Not a bunch of good-looking white guys hanging out in a front yard that actually looks more like Pleasanton or the lower rent areas of Santa Rosa.
2. There is never a follow-up location announcement and the story could really take place anywhere, so what's the point of calling out Oakland, especially when it doesn't look like anything is actually taking place there? It may as well be Cleveland.
3. Some mean looking white guy named Tim or Tick or whatever (half the dialogue is completely inaudible, mumbled gunk) pulls up in an Escalade and all menacing-like gets in the face of the pretty white guys, who proceed to kick his ass right in the middle of their comfy, suburban street. Oh wow, I guess the tone is set. Two minutes in, max, and I'm thinking "shit, I could be home watching the last disc of "Mad Men, Season 3."
4. These good-looking, fake tatted white guys are supposed to be part of tough-ass biker gang. HA HA HA HA- you've got to be fucking kidding me. They look like Abercrombie models. And their women? HA HA HA- they look like they would be fucking Abercrombie models, not bikers.
5. An hour into the movie and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED except some weird-ass shit involving a car accident that makes no sense whatsoever.
6. An hour and a minute into the movie the one nasty chick is suddenly possessed by some freaky spirit as a result of a car accident, even though the car didn't even crash or hit anything at all. Out of the blue, all of a sudden, she's possessed by the EVIL DEAD!
7. The bikers are all pussies. Well really, Cody (what kind of name is that for a biker, especially when he looks like he should have been cast in a Twilight movie) isn't so much a pussy as a sensitive type. WTF?
8. All of a sudden someone is walking on the ceiling.
9. I repeat, all of a sudden, someone is walking on the ceiling. Sure, she just took a chunk out of someone's neck, just after they started doing it necrophilia-style, but now she's hanging out on the ceiling like Spiderman.
10. Can anyone even understand half of the poorly miked mumblelogue?
11. Suddenly, Joe Strummer, the closeted gay guy from Mad Men (wearing eyeliner and red socks), and random guy on the bus with a head set show up with two Bettys in tow and proceed to kick the shit out everybody and wrap the Veronicas in Saran Wrap.
12. The Bettys chew gum and don't do much else.
13. The Veronicas are restrained by the Saran Wrap.
14. The ceiling-walking chick is now about to give birth to Joe Strummer's queen, which has some obvious portent for who-the-fuck-knows-what because not a whit of this shit makes sense.
15. Joe Strummer, weighing all of 120 lbs and wearing a pompadour that would get his ass kicked in almost any bar in America, proceeds to kick the shit of everybody.
16. Joe Strummer is invincible. You can shoot him, you bruise him, but you'll still have to listen to his whiny faux Brixton bullshit.
17. Out of nowhere, Joe, Mad Men gay guy, bus dude and the Bettys are transformed into Poltergeists. Or some stupid original Battlestar Galactica junk happens. I have no idea at this point and I really don't care..
18. Uber-hot, sensitive Veronica lives, while the even hotter Veronica gets her throat sliced while restrained in Saran Wrap.
19. Ceiling-walking, throat-munching girl is laid out naked on the coffee table. She has a pretty decent Brazilian wax job, even though she's bloodied from head to toe.
20. Speaking of the coffee table, this all supposedly takes place in a legendary biker farmhouse- and yet there are portraits of preppy-looking guys in suits and bow ties on the walls all over the house. The nature of this particular gang of suits is never explained. But then again, nothing else is either.
21. Ass-kicking bikers drink PBR? Me thinks not.
22. Joe Strummer gives the still-living Veronica and sensitive Cody the keys to his Hudson and wishes them well before the apocalypse begins, which is about to start at any moment and woe to them, but at least they have a nice ride.
23. The space ship from District 13 shows up over Santa Rosa. The rapture begins. Seriously. At least that's how I undestood it.
24. The End. Roll credits. Cue rockabilly music in place of Bach.
25. An hour and a half of my life has passed. I will never get it back.

Sorry Butcher Bros- major FAIL. Next time, just film yourselves Cassavetes-style sitting around the Nite Cap after doing a bunch of meth, talking through the ideas for your next movie, then let the cameras follow as you beat the shit out of the silly-ass moped gang that hangs out there. Now that would be entertainment!

Luckily for you, dear reader, Another Hole in the Head only scheduled this stinker once and you likely missed it- though there was inexplicably a fair amount of applause from the audience when it ended. I suspect the Butcher Bros had all their relatives in attendance.

Satan Hates You

On Saturday the Another Hole in the Head presented the world premiere of Satan Hates You, a hard-to-define genre film written and directed by James Felix McKenney. Talking briefly before the screening, McKenney said the film was an homage/parody of the scared-straight-to-Jesus films made in the sixties and seventies. I'm not sure where he grew up, but I've never seen one of those films, though I have heard of them. Maybe an exposure would have given me a greater appreciation for the film, but the main impression it left with me was puzzlement about McKenney's underlying motives for making the film in the first place.

Satan Hates You has a weird combination of horror movies veterans and actors that look like they're in it strictly because the know McKenney. Phantasm's Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm have prominent roles, as does Michael Berryman from The Devil's Rejects and The Hills Have Eyes. The presence of these guys gives the film some credibility (at least as far as this genre goes) but after thinking about this I'd say if you make it worth their while they'll probably show up for just anything. I mean, no one is casting them in "Breaking Bad" or something more visible to make them pickier about what roles they take.

In the movie we follow two people, Marc and Wendy, as they follow their individual paths to the hands of Satan and an inevitable trip to hell. Marc is a closeted homosexual alcoholic who sits at Bannister's bar every night drinking a "six point and a bourbon" who insists he's not gay and whenever anyone suggests that he is- like the guy he wakes up in bed with one morning after- he brutally murders them and dumps their body into the trash.

Wendy is an underage, drug-addicted slut who like to do crystal and have sex in the stall of the men's room in Bannister's bar, the more times in a night the better. She lives with her drug-addict older sister and their mutual tarot-card reading, crystal-snorting lesbian friend seems to always be on hand. When she isn't doing blow in one form or another, Wendy likes to watch Angus Scrimm read the bible on television because he seems like the most honest man there is.

In fact, on every TV in this movie, the same religious programs play over and over again. Seriously, what bar on Earth would have a Christian TV station playing in the background? In this film, if a TV is on, someone is talking about Jesus. Now maybe this was the convention of the films McKenney is working from, but as parody it doesn't really work. The movie plays too much like a gleefully bloody version of the real thing, including a long ending that has both Marc and Wendy giving their lives to Jesus and getting saved, only to end in an O. Henry-like twist where they get to go to heaven a lot sooner than we may have thought. The movie's tagline "God loves you, Satan hates you," seems to be sincerely meant by the film's end, but who the hell wants to pay $10 to see that?

While it makes sense to a certain extent given the genre, the anti-gay agenda of the movie goes a bit too far for my tastes as does all of the bible reading. Is this really a parody? Or is it an homage by someone who really believes the road to hell is paved with sex, drugs and homosexuality but who himself is an out-of-the-closet horror fan and seeking to make one kind of movie under the guise of another? The greatest evidence that McKenney isn't really mocking the genre is the abortion scene. It's the one really disturbing part of the movie and McKenney obviously relishes putting the gory details of the procedure onscreen to the point of nausea. He tips his hand however, or that of the aborted fetus, when it emerges from a jar of bloody muck and moves its tiny fingers.

Another thing that bothered me about Satan Hates You is its racial casting. Beezlebub has two hot, salacious attendants- both black women in bikinis. They are the only black faces in the entire film and there isn't much more diversity on display. Why is that? Is that sort of racial-typecasting necessary in an updated treatment? If it is, why not go whole hog and give those two women more evil things to do as Satan's minions. Speaking of Satan's minions, there are two white, cheaply-horned devils clad in red velvet tuxedos who camp their way through the whole film, vying for Marc and Wendy's souls. Seriously.

The film plays again on 07/13/10 at 5:00 pm at the Roxie. I don't recommend it, but if you're into this sort of thing or know more about this genre than I do, maybe you'll appreciate it.

Tickets and the rest of the Hole in the Head schedule are here.

"A Serbian Film" is a Horrific Masterpiece

"Srpski Film" ("A Serbian Film") may just be the best movie I've seen in the past 10 years. The last time I walked out of a movie theater so stunned by what I had just seen was when I saw "Requiem for a Dream" which left me feeling beat-up after it was over. More than two hours later, I'm still trying to come up with adjectives to describe how "A Serbian Film" made me feel- and think [the next morning the film is still weighing heavily on my mind].


First of all, if you've read of the film's notoriety- it's banned in Serbia and prompted numerous walk-outs at SXSW when it made its U.S. premiere there in March- know that it's well-deserved. It's flat-out shocking. It's also an incredibly well-made, stunning film that makes Gaspar Noe's attempts at a cinema of endurance look like Tim Burton.


Here is the Red-Band Trailer for the film. Do not even think about watching this at work or with kids around. It contains nudity, explicit sex and scenes of blood and violence. It also has some of the great music from the film and gives an idea of what it's like.




The plot centers around Milos, a retired porn star now living a relatively mundane life with his gorgeous wife and their young son. Milos is offered a ton of money to star in an "artistic" porn film to be directed by the fawning yet mysterious Vukmir Vukmir. The catch is that Milos, who used to make his own films, doubts Vukmir's intentions from the get go. Why would he pay him money like this to make porn? Things become even more dubious to Milos when the director insists Milos agree beforehand to not know what he's going to do in the film. It's to be shot live, and broadcast outside of the country to well-heeled connoisseurs of the director's unique vision. It's Vukmir's film, but he insists he can't make it unless he has Milos in it, whom he considers an artist that no one understands. Milos has no pretensions that any of this is true, but the money is too good to pass up and he signs the contract.

Director/co-writer Srdjan Spasojevic starts laying a sense of dread for where he's taking us early on, aided by the most effective soundtrack (by Sky Wikluh) for a film I've heard since, well, "Requiem for a Dream." By the film's conclusion, it's almost physically uncomfortable to experience. The viewer is assaulted by sound and vision and though it's awful, it's also undeniably thrilling to experience a film that is so sure-handed while operating so far outside the bounds of anything acceptable.

The film's cast is perfect. Milos, played by Srdjan Todorovic looks a bit like Mark Wahlberg gone to hell, but has a weariness in his face more in common with Clint Eastwood in his later films. It's a performance no American actor of any stature would dare attempt. He may be Serbia's most legendary porn star, but he's also the only one with a university degree. He doesn't exude the faintest whiff of sleaze.

As Vukmir Vukmir, Sergej Trifunovic has a subtle malice masked by a high level of sophistication. He's a mash-up of the Marquis de Sade, Tony Robbins and Stanley Kubrick. There are a number of striking women in the film, led by Sergej Trifunovic as Milos' wife Maria and Katarina Zutic as his ex-partner in porn who introduces him to the deal and ends up paying for it through the mouth- literally in ways I don't even want to describe. Milos' older brother Marko, a nasty cop with an obvious attraction to his sister-in-law, is sleaze personified and well-played by Slobodan Bestic.

"A Serbian Film" is smart film-making. It opens with Milos' son watching one of his father's old movies that was accidentally left lying around. When the boy's parents explain that "it's like a cartoon for grown-ups" and later explain sexual arousal and masturbation to the child, it's done with an honesty, sophistication and warmth that's disarming given the content. There are a number of touches like this which elevate the film to something far greater than a horrific torture porn thriller.

But it is indeed just that, and in abundance. It's ultra-violent, contains very explicit sex, and crosses the line at so many points into taboo it guarantees the film is never going to be seen widely, if ever, outside of the festival circuit. Which is too bad, because in the same way David Fincher's "Fight Club" and Scorcese's "Goodfellas" say so much about the culture in which they take place, "A Serbian Film" is an analogy for post-war Serbia. What it says is too dark to even want to think about as an outsider, and understandably many Serbs have come out vociferously against this film, but having seen it I at least now understand why it's been banned. To call it scathing isn't even close. It's a blow-torch at full blast held six inches from the Serbian national identity and it aims to burn everything in front of it. It makes me wonder what an American version of the same story would look like. After all, we invented this stuff, right?

Sadly, there isn't another showing of it at the Another Hole in the Head festival scheduled, but if they add one or it shows up somewhere else, if you can stomach it, I can't recommend this film strongly enough. It's brilliant- and believe me, you've never seen anything like it- at least I hope you haven't.

Finally, if you wish to comment, please do not include spoilers about the film in your comment. While many articles have described specific parts of the film, I haven't because when I saw the film I had no idea what to expect and I think that's why it had such a profound effect on me. The less you know, the more disturbing it is.

The film is set to be released in the U.S. on May 13th, 2011, in an edited version in theaters.

24 hours on the Streets of San Francisco

Seen on the street in the past 24 hours:

Damn, lady- the riots haven't even started yet!

But they're getting ready at the Walgreen's near the Powell Street station.

I admire a forthright and honest man- don't you?

What the headline (and the rest of the media seems to have) missed is that Wells has quietly been doing this in smaller numbers for the past year to hundreds of people in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

And another rock and roll dream bites the dust. Sigh.

A Month of Horror

Just when I was beginning to think July was going to be a quiet month, I realized that it's full of horror movies all over the City.

Rescheduled for Friday July 30th, the Paramount Theatre in Oakland presents the original 1933 version of King Kong.I've seen it on the big screen before, and if you haven't don't miss this opportunity to see a true classic as it should be seen. Besides, tickets are only $5 and there's plenty of fun beforehand. I'd get there early as the last few times I've gone the huge theater gets packed.

Starting tonight, SF Indiefest presents Another Hole in the Head, the annual horror/fantasy/sci-fi film festival takes place at the Roxie and Viz theaters from July 8th - 29th. There are 31 films in all and after going through the site I've chosen 16 that I think are worth checking out. Of course this is just my taste talking, so you should take a look at the calendar yourself and make your own decisions.

You can get advance tickets here for everything. The whole deal for $150 seems like the best bet as you can get in to all 31 films, 7 music shows and a play. Not a bad deal.

These are the films that caught my eye:

Satan Hates You features 70's horror legends Angus Scrimm (Phantasm) and Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes). I'd have to see it just for that, but it looks promising regardless.

A Serbian Film was banned in Serbia. I want to know why, of course because how shocking must a film be that a country that has put itself through a genocidal war decides it's too much for its populace?

The Violent Kind and Shadow look to be more grindhouse/exploitation than horror, a genre explored in the documentary American Grindhouse and these kinds of movies are just too scarce to pass up, as are serious documentaries about them.

Fell looks to be a more psychological horror, like a gentle version of Argento's Jenifer, which if you've never seen, is a genuinely creepy and disturbing horror movie.

Strigoi is a vampire flick that looks promising. I can't think of a decent vampire movie since Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 masterpiece Near Dark, so it's about time one showed up.

Phasma Ex Machina is a straight-up ghost story- these are so hard to do right, but when they are, what's better?

There is a must-see documentary about the horror genre, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, that looks much better than any of those silly docs about the genre you see produced by AFI or organizations like that.

Symbol just sounds flat-out weird, but the bizarre premise holds some potential and this one is going to be my "okay, let's see if it's great though it will probably suck" choice.

Ticked-off Trannies with Knives. Having been educated on how the word "tranny" is a pejorative term that really should be retired for the same reasons people with any brains no longer use the words fag and nigger, I have mixed feelings about tacitly approving the use of it by seeing the movie, but I have to see this anyway. I do live in the Tenderloin- enough said.

Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre features the original Leatherface, Gunnar Hansen, and the trailer makes it look much better than the ridiculously lame title suggests. Icelandic horror- who knew? This one looks like a contender for best of fest.

J-Horror is over-represented in the schedule, though I'm not surprised, especially since it's taking place at the Viz Theater in Japantown. Generally, I'm not a fan of this genre but Mutant Girls Squad, Samurai Princess, Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl and Grotesque (described as "two parts horror porn and a dash of snuff film") sound promising enough

So there you have it. Those are my choices. If you see one that you liked that's not on my list, please leave a comment about it.

Running concurrently during the festival are a few more performances of Much Ado About Lebowski, which is described on the ticket site as "An adaptation of an adaptation of a parody of a farce. White Russians served at 7p. The Dude Abideth at 8p." and tickets for this are going pretty fast and you must be over 21 to get in. How this relates to a horror/sci-fi/fantasy film festival is beyond me, but I can abide with it. At the Off Market Theater

Also running in tandem is the Summer Music Fest, taking place at the Parkside and the Bottom of the Hill with a ton of bands July 9th-13th.

Then there's the "when worlds collide" delight later this month when the San Francisco Symphony accompanies the original slasher-flick, Psycho, on Saturday, July 17th. See, some people get that high and low culture can be paired with great results, which has always been my belief.

"Merely kinky"? How about stunningly outrageous?

It's taken me weeks to make my way through what has to be the longest article ever published in the New Yorker- Janet Malcolm's Iphigenia in Forest Hills, from the May 3rd, 2010 issue. At 28 pages, minus cartoons, it's mammoth even by New Yorker standards. However, what kept me reading was the expectation of a twist eventually making its way into the narrative. The twist never comes, but I kept reading to the conclusion because of the sheer weirdness of the murder-for-hire trial it documents.

Shortly into it I thought to myself, this must be the most poorly-written piece I've ever encountered in this magazine. Now for me, the thought of finding anything poorly written in the NYer is a surprise, even though some of the "Shouts and Murmers" columns often fail to amuse me. But that's humor, and humor is a fickle thing. The writing in the NYer is almost uniformly excellent, though once in awhile (rarely, actually) I do find a sentence of dubious grammar. The poor quality of the writing in Malcolm's piece kept nagging at me though, with it's neither third nor first person narrative, detours into a collective omniscience and its 20 chapter length. There is just something off about it.

Then came the shocker, which made me want to go back to every issue since and check if anyone had commented on a sentence which appears in the article. The sentence stunned me. I read it twice. I read it a third time. And then I wondered how the hell it made it into print and that in the two months since the publication of this article I haven't heard nor read a single word about it.

What is the sentence?

It's surrounded by a loaded question and a distinctly presumptuous conclusion. Read this, which appears on page 55:

Here we come to another of the questions about Borukhova that blur her portrait
and give it its strange tinge. Why did she keep harping on the sexual abuse? If Daniel's "grave misconduct directed at the vagina of his young daughter" (or what Fass [Borukhova's attorney] called "inappropriate touching") actually occurred, it surely wasn't the cause of the child's fear of him - it was merely kinky. It would have served Borukhova better - it would have been rational and logical - to connect Michelle's fearful, clinging behavior during the visits to scary scenes of domestic violence.

The story is about the murder trial of Marina Borukhova, who was found guilty of conspiracy to have her husband murdered when she lost custody of her young daughter during divorce proceedings. Now yes, I have been super busy these past couple of months and way behind all the news and 2nd tier stories, but how has this comment not prompted any outrage? Have I missed it? Did it not happen? The Western world almost collapsed when one line from the long sermon of a fiery preacher was taken out context, creating a media maelstrom that almost derailed an entire presidential campaign. Yet here is one of the most respected magazines in the country, indeed my very favorite magazine, tacitly stating that the sexual abuse of a child wouldn't cause the child to fear an adult- it's "merely kinky"?

God damn America, what the hell is going on? And what the hell is going on with my formatting for this post? Sorry, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I hate Blogger sometimes.

The photo from the court room is by James Messerschmidt/Polaris.

Jewdoo and Other Incongruities

My friend Carrie Kahn is a reporter with NPR and has been in Haiti off and on since the quake. She's posted a number of interesting pictures, many quite sad, on her Facebook page, but this one really made me smile. It seems like some things are getting back to normal because at least now you can buy booze at your local CVS Pharmacie in Haiti again. But what is this Manischewitz doing on the shelf next to the Barbancourt 5 Etoilles Rum?

Jewdoo? Who knew!

It reminded me of something else I recently saw, this past Wednesday actually, right outside my office building. Apparently there's a night shift I was unaware of and it seems the janitorial staff isn't as thorough as one would hope, because this kind of work really must be cleaned up immediately after completing:

The above picture was taken at Bechtel Plaza in San Francisco. It's kind of fitting actually, when you think about how regularly Bechtel screws people for a profit, but I didn't know they were willing to take it to this level.

The following day I witnessed another little incongruity- free coke that nobody wanted. These cases of coke sat on the Beale Street sidewalk for more than two hours before finally disappearing. I thought about taking them for myself, but there's a well-stocked fridge on our floor and besides, I prefer ginger ale. But seriously- two hours and not one recyclist or bum grabbed them? Even selling them for $.50 a can, someone could have made enough cash for a nice little hit of the real thing, right?

Below is another incongruity I came across on my way to work one morning- a toxic disposal kit sitting on the sidewalk that someone had rummaged through and taken stuff from. Seriously.

Enjoy the holiday weekend and watch your step- one never knows what you'll find on the streets of San Francisco.