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Feature

Go, Bugs!

By Gary Morris

Published: January 7, 1998

The best (American) film of the year was Starship Troopers. The material wasn't promising; Robert A. Heinlein's late-'50s juvenile sci-fi novel was a typical paean to a fascist future that puts its...

Feature

The Lighthouse at the End of the World

By Tod Booth

Published: January 7, 1998

Imagine a medical condition in which you retain your memories for only an hour or two at a time. The recent past disappears from your consciousness like water pouring from a pitcher. Family and...

Feature

One of Us Stinks

By Andy Klein

Published: January 7, 1998

In Hollywood, writer/director Garson Kanin's wonderful book of film-biz reminiscences, Kanin tells of a mortifying incident in the career of John Forsythe. In the early '50s, the young actor, while...

Feature

Films for a Tired and Cynical Age

By Gregg Rickman

Published: January 7, 1998

The best American movie of 1997 was Tim Hunter's The Maker, which screened at the S.F. Film Festival but was not picked up for theatrical distribution. The film did run on HBO a few times, if that...

Feature

Kooky Proles and Gucci Buddhism

A neo-noir, an Ur-neo-noir, and a black political satire color a pallid year of retreads, bogus events, and charity cases.

By Michael Sragow

Published: January 7, 1998

I try not to use the word "I." I try not to be too "self-referential" or self-consciously "literary." But this isn't exactly the kind of movie year that makes you feel "cinematic." As I ran through...

News

The Full Treatment

Is TV ready for the Web?

By Steve Boland

Published: January 7, 1998

When we first heard of a TV series called South Park, we laughed. We wept. And we cringed. Because the only South Park we'd heard of was an oval-shaped enclave of grass, trees, and '80s-vintage...

Letters

Letters

Published: January 7, 1998

Big Bucks on the Line I read the article entitled "Bag It, Larry" (Bay View, Dec. 24) with great interest. As evidenced by the title, your writer, David Pasztor, seems more interested in...

Music

Night Crawler

By Silke Tudor

Published: January 7, 1998

A Rage to Scoot As usual, Scooter Daddy is the first to arrive on the scene. He cracks open a soda can and leans against the back of his van, eying the slate-gray sky with distrust. He had...

Music

Riff Raff

By Robert Arriaga, Johnny DiPaola, Karl D. Esturbense, Jeff Stark, Silke Tudor, Heather Wisner, Bill Wyman

Published: January 7, 1998

Perry Tale Bring out the menorah, the dreidels, and the rock stars -- it's a Bill Graham Hanukkah. Twenty-five years ago the late rock promoter sponsored what is supposed to be the first public...

Music

Reviews

By Martin Johnson, Jeff Kaliss

Published: January 7, 1998

Erykah Badu Live (Universal) Many of the best black popular musicians consciously attempt to maintain a healthy cynicism toward mainstream values and dreams of upward mobility. Since the...

Music

Ball Hog

By Jeff Stark

Published: January 7, 1998

Mike Watt Transmission Theater Wednesday, Dec. 31 Mike Watt's got a story to tell. It starts with three kids who meet in a small sailor's town. (Actually, it starts with Watt's dad, but...

Music

The House of Tudor

By Silke Tudor

Published: January 7, 1998

Don't let the angelic photo lull you into a false sense of security. If Reid Paley turned his sunken eyeholes toward the camera, you would see, recorded there in the dark folds that cushion his...

Eat

Back Home

By Naomi Wise

Published: January 7, 1998

Bitterroot 3122 16th St. (at Valencia), 626-5523. Open daily from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for breakfast and lunch; for dinner from 6 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, until 11 p.m. Friday and...

Night&Day;

Night + Day

By Heather Wisner

Published: January 7, 1998

wednesday january 7 Fencing August Wilson won two Pulitzers for playwriting, in 1987 for The Piano Lesson and again in 1990 for Fences, but within the last year and a half, more attention...

Night&Day;

Don't Delay, Act Now

By Heather Wisner

Published: January 7, 1998

"Ghettoblaster/L'il Darlings" is an exhibit, but it's set up like a trade show, with two faux advertising campaigns designed to sell products ranging from mouse pads to whiskey. Artists Jim Schatz...

Night&Day;

Good-Time Gals

By Heather Wisner

Published: January 7, 1998

When Wanda Jackson sings "No Good, Full Time Cheating, Good for Nothing Son of a Gun," she isn't singing about Elvis specifically -- although she and the King did go steady for a while, back in the...

Halloween

REAL ASTROLOGY For an Unreal World

By Rob Brezsny

Published: January 7, 1998

Aries (March 21-April 19): Those of you born under the sign of the Ram are, like your totem, renowned for meeting challenges head-on. But sometimes you go too far. Your directness is admirable, but...

Halloween

The Grid

By George Cothran, John Mecklin

Published: January 7, 1998

Union Disorganizing San Francisco loves to remind itself that it's a union town. Unions are powerful here, we like to claim. We are pro-union. Look for the union label. Union town, loud and...

Stage

Stage

By Apollinaire Scherr, Carol Lloyd

Published: January 7, 1998

A Very Smuin Xmas The Christmas Ballet. Choreography by Michael Smuin. Performed by Smuin Ballets/SF at Center for the Arts, 700 Howard (at Third Street), Dec. 17-30. Call 978-2787. At some...