Goings on in San Francisco.

"Watching Kamal Aljafari's astonishing film The Roof (2006) - a work at once explicitly personal, coolly contemplative, and full of coruscating protest - is to recognize a marvelously intuitive artist and the momentum of a larger cinematic movement at the same time," writes Robert Avila at SF360. "Although its approach remains dramatically different, Bay Area filmmaker James T Hong's This Shall Be a Sign (2007), which screens with The Roof tonight as part of Kino21 and the Arab Film Festival's program Palestine: Interior/Exterior at Artists' Television Access, also grounds the ongoing history of conflict in Israel/Palestine in the contested physical landscape."

"Is it possible that, with the fragmenting of niche cinema audiences, the existence of such a large repertory venue in town may actually be stunting the ability of smaller venues to develop interesting programming and interested audiences?" News that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be screening at San Francisco's Castro for four weeks sparks a train of thought in Brian Darr - who also looks ahead to other programs lined up for the 1400-seat repertory theater.

At the Evening Class, Michael Hawley has a thorough preview of this year's San Francisco International Film Festival, running April 24 through May 8.

"Watching the feverish films in the Pacific Film Archive's short Frank Tashlin retrospective, we see an artist pushing the outermost limits of cinematic realism, gorging 1950s America on its desire for bigger, better, and faster," writes Max Goldberg in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Friday through April 18.

Also: Matt Sussman previews No Borders, No Limits: 1960s Nikkatsu Action Cinema, running Thursday through Sunday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Meantime, there's a movement afoot: "Should the City and County of San Francisco rename the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility the George W Bush Sewage Plant?"

Posted by dwhudson at April 9, 2008 12:50 PM