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Feature

Chinatown Ghost Story

A history of grand movie theaters haunts a commercialized neighborhood

By Tara Shioya

Published: December 11, 1996

In the fall of 1940, filmmaker Joseph Sunn Jue brought a little Hollywood to San Francisco's Chinatown. The neon-banded marquee of his new 300-seat Grandview Theater lit up Jackson Street....

Feature

Once (and Future?) Landmarks

By Tara Shioya

Published: December 11, 1996

1) World Theater, 644 Broadway (1949 to ?). Formerly the Verdi, which showed American movies in the 1920s. Rebuilt in 1985. 2) Great Star Theater, 636 Jackson (1925 to ?). Formerly the Great...

Feature

A Dream Half-Fulfilled

By Tara Shioya

Published: December 11, 1996

Filmmaker Joseph Sunn Jue dreamt big. In 1933, he built a movie director's paradise in Kowloon, China -- a warehouse-size studio on 7,000 square feet of property, landscaped with trees, gardens,...

Letters

Letters

Published: December 11, 1996

Wesley's World and Welcome to It In reading Michael Batty's criticism of the "Wesley Willis Art Joyride" ("Mediocre Sickness," Music, Dec. 4), I find it curious that Batty did not speak with...

News

School Work Needing Supervision

Superintendent Rojas says he was just trying to avoid red tape; a lawsuit claims he willfully ignored city law

By Lisa Davis

Published: December 11, 1996

The public tab continues to run in the bizarre Hunters Point school renovation fiasco. The fracas pits state Sen. Quentin Kopp and the tax vigilantes against San Francisco Unified School...

Music

Recordings

By Michael Batty, Martin Johnson, Curtis Bonney, Sam Prestianni

Published: December 11, 1996

Bush Razorblade Suitcase (Trauma) Instead of making the obvious invocation here -- namely, the indignant, sputtering apparition of Kurt Cobain -- let's find something else to chat...

Music

Hear This

By Sam Prestianni

Published: December 11, 1996

Those Darn Accordions! There's something scary, stoopid, and just a little repulsive about a half-dozen accordionists who try to rock out on tunes about the dispossessed. Memorable odes on No...

Music

Suspicious Minds

By Sarah Vowell

Published: December 11, 1996

Remember when organized religion meant stately elders, imposing architecture, and a penchant for heavy-handed dignity? You can sum up Christianity's final plunge into embarrassment in two words:...

Music

Divine Noise, Arty Dreck

By Andrew Lentz

Published: December 11, 1996

Godflesh, Coal Chamber, Fueled Trocadero Friday, Nov. 29 "Listen up, people," a troglodyte doorman bellowed. "Vision of Disorder canceled ... they will not be playing tonight." A series...

Music

Samples

By Michael Batty

Published: December 11, 1996

Silence! Yeah, but weren't they asking for it? I mean, however noble the intentions of the many West Coast just-add-a-cause charity organizations like H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education and Awareness...

Music

Anti-depressants

By Jeff Stark

Published: December 11, 1996

Heatmiser, Brendan Benson Bottom of the Hill Sunday, Dec. 1 When I saw Elliott Smith perform alone a year ago he seemed only a safety cap away from accidentally overdosing on...

Music

Night Crawler

By Silke Tudor

Published: December 11, 1996

Early Sunday night finds the festive, star-strung environs of Cesar's Latin Palace thumping under the auspicious hand of DJ Josh. He winds through a savage set of hip hop with telling ease. The...

Music

The House of Tudor

By Silke Tudor

Published: December 11, 1996

It's The Time, ladies and gentlemen. You remember them -- Prince's early pet project whose street-wise flash practically stole the show in the little man's wet rock effigy Purple Rain. By the early...

Eat

Through a Glass Darkly

The madding crowd and the serious palate converge on Mecca

By Paul Reidinger

Published: December 11, 1996

On the charm scale, Mecca's exterior rates a clean zero. It looks like a misplaced Ice Station Zebra, with a punitive concrete facade and broad, blank steel-framed windows smoked over with mesh...

Eat

Dish

By Paul Reidinger

Published: December 11, 1996

Tangerine Dream The holiday season elsewhere might be heralded by snowstorms, mailers full of credit-card checks ("works just like a real check!") to make living beyond one's means more...

Film

Cruisified

By Michael Sragow

Published: December 11, 1996

Jerry Maguire Written and directed by Cameron Crowe. Starring Tom Cruise, Renee Zellweger, and Cuba Gooding Jr. Opens Friday, Dec. 13, at area theaters. Some amusing stuff about sports...

Film

Second Time Around

By Michael Sragow

Published: December 11, 1996

Lawrence of Arabia Still the most satisfying attempt in modern movies to interpret spectacular historical events from one man's perspective. As seen by David Lean and his scenarist, Robert...

Film

Second Time Around

By Michael Sragow

Published: December 11, 1996

Deliverance A couple of decades after its original 1972 release, this landmark adventure movie has achieved new relevance as Iron Johns of every variety follow its antiheroes' quest into the...

Film

Second Time Around

By Gary Morris

Published: December 11, 1996

Female Trouble Less notorious than Pink Flamingos, which made history by ending with a literal shit-eating grin, Female Trouble is probably John Waters' funniest, most inventive work, a seminal...

Film

Second Time Around

By Gregg Rickman

Published: December 11, 1996

Five Easy Pieces This Bob Rafelson film of 1970, playing for a week at the Red Vic in a handsome new print, has immense historical importance both as a key film of its era and as the fix that...