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Feature

The Big Picture

The view from the top at the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival

By Michael Fox

Published: April 19, 2006

The sandwiches at Miller's East Coast West Delicatessen on Polk are perfectly tasty, but nearly an hour has passed and Graham Leggat has barely taken three bites. The new executive director of the...

Feature

Unexpected Endings

Published: April 19, 2006

Amid grumblings that the festival's new regime neglects women directors and isn't looking hard enough for African and Middle Eastern films, there are few complaints about the continued strong...

Feature

Southern Exposure

Published: April 19, 2006

When the casual viewer thinks of films from Central and South America, he most likely thinks of classics — from Los Olvidados to City of God — that show the effects of grinding...

Feature

Plugging In

Published: April 19, 2006

Since "new media" is associated with the overhyped dot-com boom and bust, the new favored buzzwords are "emergent uses of media technologies," "new platforms," and the ever-popular "digital...

Feature

SFIFF Film Capsules

Published: April 19, 2006

All About Love (Hong Kong, 2005) Fans of Hong Kong megastar Andy Lau can weep hot tears and swoon to their hearts' delight in this magic-filled fantasy of the ideal husband. Lau plays...

Matt Smith

Artistic Deception

Membership dues to the de Young museum are funneled into political hyperbole

By Matt Smith

Published: April 19, 2006

At only $70 per year, membership in The Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums, referred to in promotional materials as a "de Young membership," is a bargain. You get to view great art for a year,...

Sucka Free City

No $$ for Blood

By Eliza Strickland

Published: April 19, 2006

Three years into the Iraq War, some protesters have blisters on their heels from marching and are looking for new ways to express their disapproval. So last week, a handful of Bay Area firebrands...

Sucka Free City

The Collectible Journey

By Garrett Kamps

Published: April 19, 2006

It's no exaggeration to call Herbie Herbert one of the Bay Area's most important people. As the manager of Journey from 1973 to 1993, Herbert delivered unto the region one of its most commercially...

Sucka Free City

I Was an Online Mother, Part 2

By Chris Dahlen

Published: April 19, 2006

Editor’s Note: On March 27 Chris Dahlen became pregnant. In this three-part series, we follow his story. Incidentally, Dahlen’s story takes place within the “multiverse” Second Life, a massively...

News

Should journalist Josh Wolf be afraid?

The Assistant U.S. Attorney, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the SFPD want to get their hands on a video shot by a San Francisco blogger

By Ryan Blitstein

Published: April 19, 2006

At times, Josh Wolf is a journalist. At others, he's a blogger, an activist, or an anarchist. At this particular time, one thing's for certain: He's got a videotape the federal government wants....

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Published: April 19, 2006

Smoking KRONic Local snooze-cast: Ron Russell's KRON story ["KRON's Last Gasp," April 12] was interesting but it still doesn't get to the heart of the problem. The 9 p.m. newscast,...

Music

Disco Braniacs

Matmos slides a healthy dose of funk into cryptic compositions

By Mike Rowell

Published: April 19, 2006

Local electronic duo Matmos is notorious for using unusual sound sources — liposuction surgery, amplified crayfish nerves — on its recordings, and the group's upcoming release The Rose...

Music

Feeling the Fuck-a-Thon

Matthew Dear comes on strong as Audion

By Justin F. Farrar

Published: April 19, 2006

As your average noise-rock freak-a-zoid, I'm a club music rookie. But over the past six months, ass kickin' electronic dance music commonly referred to as minimal techno or microhouse — a kind...

Music

Unusual Operators

Local rockers No Doctors eschew the formulaic

By Justin F. Farrar

Published: April 19, 2006

A few years back, when No Doctors called Chicago home, the quartet was active in the Midwest's now-flourishing underground noise and freak-rock scene, a sprawling network of bands and musicians who...

Music

Made in the Shade

The Jade Shader gives San Diego's washed-up scene its moment in the sun

By Maya Kroth

Published: April 19, 2006

When major-label A&Rs; started swarming San Diego's dives in the mid-'90s, everyone was saying the city was primed to be the next Seattle. Local bands like Drive Like Jehu and Three Mile Pilot were...

Let's Get Killed

Lukewarm Lidell; Rademacher shows shades of Pavement

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: April 19, 2006

Although I hitched a ride for the night last week, I couldn't stop fidgeting on the Jamie Lidell bandwagon. Frankly, I just don't get the hype. Sure, the guy displays a certain experimental...

Reviewed

Birdmonster

No Midnight

By Mark Keresman

Published: April 19, 2006

Most rock bands will open an album with a blustery, attention-grabbing tune that to an extent sets the tone for what lies ahead. But San Francisco's Birdmonster is refreshingly atypical, instead...

Reviewed

The Streets

The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living

By Nate Cavalieri

Published: April 19, 2006

Mike Skinner's cockney argot and squirrelly cynicism always plays well Stateside — even if the U.S. audience comprises more hipsters than hip-hop heads — but back in the land of boiled...

Reviewed

Boris

Pink

By Scott Goodwin

Published: April 19, 2006

Japan's musical underground has long been fascinated with sublime destruction. The country's denizens have produced an ample catalog of huge, enveloping sounds in the genres of rock, noise, and...

Bouncer

It's the sober life for me

By Katy St. Clair

Published: April 19, 2006

I need to come clean about something, gentle reader. I haven't been drinking. I'm not supposed to imbibe because I had surgery, and I run the risk of coma or death if I take a swig. It's sort of...