San Francisco Film Society

Intouchables

At a Tuesday night San Francisco International Film Festival screening of Intouchables, the projectionist found an apropos time to stop the film. Just as protagonist Driss was corralled by cops after a bout of Steve McQueen-like driving and exclaimed "Merde!" the screen went black.

The problem wasn't Driss saying "Merde!" The problem was the subtitle noting its English equivalent. There was none. In fact, the film fest had been mistakenly sent a copy of the movie without subtitles, according to festival staff. But the crowd didn't know this as several attempts were made to remedy the problem. Certainly it turned out to be a boon for the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas' concessionaire.

In the end, the crowd was offered a deal: Stay and watch the film or get a refund/exchange for the ticket. It very quickly became obvious who was and was not a French speaker, as a large portion of the audience filed out.

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Al Pacino stands with Jack Calhoun (left), president of event-sponsor Banana Republic, and Chris Nicklo, vice president of marketing for the company

For a brief and tantalizing moment on the Castro Theatre stage last night, a sly Al Pacino appeared set to go Cruising. The house was packed and primed for the U.S. premiere of Wilde Salome, the actor-director's powerhouse amalgam of documentary, stage production, and film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's harrowing 1891 play about privilege, power, desire, and revenge. Flown up from L.A. for the event -- a benefit for the GLBT Historical Society -- Pacino summoned a sweet-spot memory of San Francisco before setting the stage for his movie.

"I played at the Curran Theatre many years ago in [David Mamet's] American Buffalo," he recalled with his trademark rasp. "A very controversial film I made also opened then."

Pacino smiled as a wave of chuckles and random applause drifted toward the stage. The audience had instantly summoned the 1980 image of a wiry, butch Pacino as an undercover detective hunting a serial killer in Greenwich Village's queer underground and, unexpectedly, discovering an appetite for leather. William Friedkin's Cruising was panned on release as a sordid, unappetizing crime story. Mainstream audiences didn't want to see the movie star who played Frank Serpico and Michael Corleone ogling guys in a seedy bar, while the gay community attacked the film for propagating negative stereotypes.

Cruising is now ranked with the great, gritty New York movies of the 1970s. Pacino's risk-taking performance -- just five years after Dog Day Afternoon, no less, which is about a gay bank-robber -- is unimaginable for today's image-obsessed male stars. Any lingering detractors of either the movie or the eight-time Academy Award nominee were assuredly not at the Castro last night.

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Money rained, and money reigned.

Las Vegas has arrived in San Francisco via a 19-foot stripper pole. The Penthouse Club has its grand opening last night. The crew went all out with this event. Everything was perfect inside, including the people working there. By the time they'd checked your ID and taken your coat they had also welcomed you with a smile, spoken their names, and extended a hand. You felt very special upon your arrival, which is the whole point, I would imagine.

The ground floor of the Penthouse Club is packed with lavish tables and a very pretty stage. The stripper pole that dawns it, stretches 19 feet in the air. I went upstairs to the press area and found another decadently decorated room. The second floor was filled with dancers and all the sexy ladies of Penthouse. They were all very attractive. The dresses were bold and neck-plunging. The makeup was amazing, the hair well coiffed, and the shoes were 90 percent clear-heeled.

The bartenders were three gorgeous girls who worked their asses off. They were overwhelmed to say the least and they never once lost their cool. The food was delicious, including New York steak and pork-roast bites that kept the masses from getting too drunk too quickly. I will admit this was my first time in a strip club of this kind. In all my sexy writing I had never once really done the strip club experience, and it's an experience for sure.

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Pop-Up Magazine released its fifth issue last night in front of a sold-out audience at Davies Symphony Hall -- and it's already too late to read it.

It's a flash magazine show that lasts one night, where a couple of dozen authors, journalists, and witty folk of varying stripes take the stage with words and varying degrees of public speaking ability. Pieces cover many aspects of a magazine -- feature, profile, essay, front-of-book shorts, crossword (crossword?) -- except with a microphone and a slide deck rather than computer and printing press. You can see the program after the fact, but the show is never recorded or disseminated (which is why we can't share photos of the event here).

That fact is a shame, because the people telling and starring in the stories have some noteworthy and funny things to share, including messages in a bottle, video of Japanese surfers, and a string quartet playing with an iPad.

The shows, which pop up (ha) on an irregular schedule, sell out quickly. We'll do our best to tell you about the next issue beforehand. To tide you over until then, we chose five favorite tidbits from the two-hour show.

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"I'm clean ... and that means I'm probably going to be around for a lot longer," said Cary Tennis.

​A group of people filed into a large room. Seven of them got up in front of the crowd and told stories about their addictions and the terrible things they did. Most of the stories were true. Deeply confessional. Brutally personal. It should have felt like an AA meeting. It didn't.

"Re Write: An Evening of Prose from Writers in Recovery" presented some of the Bay Area's best known addicts to a Litquake crowd at Delancey Street Theater that already knew their names. Bucky Sinister, Alan Kaufman, Cary Tennis ... these are writers who have in one way or another made their struggles with addiction and rehabilitation central to their artistic lives.

They didn't invent the connection between art and insatiable appetites, of course. As event host and organizer Patrick Hughes noted: "Several hundred years of documented debauchery has left the indelible impression that the life of a writer requires us to be the first to arrive at every party, a witty raconteur, doused in champagne, and adept at finding the last crumb of drugs on the shag carpet." From Samuel Johnson to Dorothy Parker to Hunter S. Thompson, "writers seem to possess an insatiable need for extremism in all forms to counter their solitary existence."

Bucky Sinister put it another way: "All of my artistic heroes were addicts."

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Photos by Casey Burchby

George R.R. Martin with emcee and fellow author Tad Williams (left) at the Fox Theatre on Wednesday

George R.R. Martin may be the world-famous bestselling author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, a creative force named to the Time 100 list of most influential people for 2011, and the winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards -- the highest honors available to science fiction and fantasy writers. But, in addition to those laudatory things, he is something else entirely.

He is a gnome.

And I'm not just referring to the fact that he looks strikingly like a garden gnome -- a look that appears in no way to be a mere accident of nature. He also has that aura of gnomish wisdom about him -- a manner of speaking that is precise, articulate, and knowing. Appearing at Redwood City's spectacular Fox Theatre last night, Martin positively glowed with that gnomishness, spilling over with a combination of native intelligence and warmth toward his fans, about 1,400 of whom packed the venue, filling it with a cozy adoration.

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Robin Hardwick

Andrew Leland at Trampoline Hall

"Grammarians would agree -- there is no such thing as a two-part question," artist and lecturer Misha Glouberman declared before a Q&A on Tuesday night. "Just ask two questions!"

Glouberman hosts Trampoline Hall, the unique lecture series in which invited lecturers to speak on subjects outside their area of expertise and then take questions from the audience. For 10 years now, the series (created by Glouberman and author Sheila Heti) has enjoyed success in Toronto. Tuesday night, Trampoline Hall -- and its local lecturers -- hit the San Francisco Jewish Community Center as part of a tour in support of their book, The Chairs Are Where the People Go.

The first lecturer was Andrew Leland, former managing editor of The Believer. He shared a story about his days as a naive music editor at the Oberlin College newspaper. Tasked with reviewing a fellow student's experimental music album, he knocked out the kind of piece that was (in his words) the "type of pretentious music review that was one line about the album, and twenty-four lines about my thoughts and experiences with this genre of music."

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The galleries at 49 Geary are always among the hot spots on First Thursday in San Francisco.

​ Dear 49 Geary: I'm afraid you just got served.

First Thursdays at the prestigious address are always intellectually, perhaps even spiritually satisfying, not only for art's enriching effect on the mind and soul, but also because, as with any intellectual or spiritual pursuit, you must suffer physical discomforts, deprivations, and abstentions to achieve enlightenment. The elevators are invariably so busy you don't bother to take them from floor to floor in the five-story complex, and instead opt to squeeze past the corridor texters to schlep the cold stone stairs, regretting the high heels you thought looked so Helmut Newton.

The galleries are lit and kept at a similar temperature to Whole Foods' hot buffet, and when you visit one of the few that offer refreshment, you are given a plastic cup of water that would be enough to soak your contacts in. You find yourself lingering near the refreshment stand, pretending to find whatever art happens to be nearby particularly mesmerizing, and return three or four times, hand outstretched like some sweaty, blotchy Oliver Twist in senseless shoes and Rorschach mascara cheeks: "Please, intern, can I have some more?"

To be sure, notable works were on display at the venerable art-mall. But first, 49 Geary, I'll speak of your First Thursday competition. Its name is the San Francisco Jazz Heritage Center.

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Matthew Stadler (right) holds Chloe Jarren's La Cucaracha, a "cover" of John le Carré's A Murder of Quality.

Is the book dead?

I've heard this question so many times you'd think books were as impossible to find as dinosaurs. In peril is the publishing industry as we know it, not the book, and with the advent of print-on-demand publishing, some are finding new models to create and distribute books. One such innovator is Matthew Stadler, who appeared in conversation last night with author and curator Lawrence Rinder at Kadist Art Foundation. In 2009 Stadler cofounded the Portland-based Publication Studios with Patricia No. Now with six imprints spanning North America, Publication Studios offers a glimpse of the possibilities of independent outfits producing handcrafted books.

Stadler is also an innovator in literature itself. He discussed at length his new novel, Chloe Jarren's La Cucaracha, which is what he calls a "cover novel" -- much like a cover song, essentially writing over and expanding upon an established work.

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