More Than Just Music: Noise Pop Film Picks

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San Francisco's Noise Pop festival, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, is rightly famous as a showcase for new and exciting music. But since 2000, Noise Pop has also shown films about the bands and scenes it celebrates.

A trip through the festival's very thorough archive provides a look at the many great films that have been part of the program, including Flaming Lips documentary "The Fearless Freaks," the amazing and uncomfortable documentary "Heckler," and the band Califone's trippy art piece "All My Friends Are Funeral Singers." (The archive also functions as a charming time capsule of website design.)

This year, Noise Pop offers nine films throughout its six-day run. Here are a few that are worth taking a break from the live bands to see. (All the films play at the Roxie Theater, unless otherwise noted.)

"Hit So Hard" is a documentary look at the life of musician Patty Schemel, who was the drummer for grunge group Hole. It examines her struggles to succeed, her addictions, and her close friendship with Kurt Cobain. Most interestingly, the film makes extensive use of Schemel's own home videos, which provide a behind-the-scenes look at being famous and fucked up in '90s rock. (ATA, Wednesday, 2/22 @ 9pm.)

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Fat Tuesday in the Fillmore

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Creative Commons/Joits

Let the good times roll. Laissez les bons temps rouler. No matter how you say it, it's Fat Tuesday, a day of garish celebration.

In San Francisco's Fillmore District, celebrants will mark Mardi Gras with music and dancing Tuesday night as part of the third annual "Fat Tuesday in the Fillmore" festival.

The outdoor event will feature stilt walkers, jugglers and face painters, as well as free live jazz music by the legendary Bobbie Webb and the Smooth Blues Crew, and dancing in Fillmore Center Plaza.

Fat Tuesday grew from the practice of indulging in rich foods and extravagance on the last night before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent in the Christian calendar, which is marked by ritual fasting.

There will be no shortage of decadent foods Tuesday night, with several Fillmore Street restaurants and clubs — including Gussie's Chicken and Waffles and Rassela's Jazz Club — joining in on the festivities by offering discounts, drink specials, live music and free Mardi Gras beads until midnight.

Meaghan Mitchell, a representative for the event, said that what started off as a small gathering has grown into "a huge success" — both for local businesses and the community overall.

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Musicians Pay Tribute to Warren Hellman at Ocean Beach

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Old Crow Medicine Show performs at the Warren Hellman memorial concert

Every year since 2001, the banjo-plucking Hellman has funded the free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park, so after Hellman's death, organizers and muscians came together to create an event just for him. In a parking lot near the Great Highway on Sunday afternoon, high-profile artists like Emmylou Harris, Boz Scaggs and Gillian Welch and Old Crow Medicine Show celebrated Hellman’s passion for bluegrass music by performing it, free, for thousands of fans.

Fans mingled, seagulls floated overhead and multi-colored flags dipped and snapped in the Ocean Beach wind. As the afternoon went on, one artist after another paid tribute to Hellman.

“One more time for Warren!” said Gillian Welch, before concluding an a cappella version of “Go to Sleep You Little Baby” with David Rawlings and Emmylou Harris.

When Old Crow Medicine Show dedicated the song “Caroline” to Hellman, the audience hopped and clapped along. Someone in the crowd held a large sign that read “Thanks Warren.” And, at the foot of the stage, a decidedly non-threatening security guard welled up and smiled broadly.

It was, said Old Crow Medicine Show frontman Ketch Secor, just what Hellman would have wanted.

“What Warren gave us was a community and a whole lot of spirit, too. He encouraged us to know our neighbors.”

Hellman’s legacy inspired Hazel Jeans, a student at Diablo Valley Community College who had traveled two hours to watch the concert.

“There are so many rich people that are greedy,” he said. “It’s pretty impressive when people who do have wealth really give back.”

In addition to funding Hardly Strictly, Hellman poured his money into other causes in the Bay Area – the Jewish Community Endowment Fund, Mills College and the University of California, Berkeley, to name a few. He also founded The Bay Citizen in 2010 and served as its board chairman until his death.

“A couple of years ago, I was like “who is this man…who does this for free every year?” recalls Kelly Voet, a 37-year old audience member and dedicated Hardly Strictly patron. “I feel like it brings the city together in a really positive way every year.”

Secor remembers very clearly the last time he saw Hellman. It was early 2010, and the two were strumming banjos together onstage at Hellman’s Sugar Bowl ski resort near Lake Tahoe.

“In all of his years as a banjo player, Warren did it his way,” Secor, who has played at Hardly Strictly four times, recalled. “He gave it back with the very same fervor that it came to him. He gave it right back to the place he loved the most.”

As the sun began to fall below the waves and concertgoers trudged back toward cars or Muni, Voet delivered a bit of modest praise that summed up the day’s festivities.

“Thanks, Warren!” she said.

It's Official: New Mission Theater to Become Alamo Drafthouse

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Alamo Drafthouse Cinema CEO and Founder Tim League announced on his blog today that the New Mission Theater will be the company's first property in California. League runs a chain of popular movie theaters that feature a wide swath of programming, including indpendent and repertory films. And, oh yes, they serve beer and food.

League had planned to wait to announce until the restoration project had begun in earnest. But after news broke on SFist yesterday, he writes that "I wanted to fill everyone in on some of our plans."

These include "a full and complete historic renovation" of the structure, which was originally built in 1916. League also writes that his intent is to "...subdivide the balconies into small boutique theaters...in such a way as to preserve nearly all of the amazing architectural details of the space." He also posted some photos he took of the theater's interior recently.

League promises the sort of programing and hospitality that have made the Texas Alamo Drafthouses rightly famous.This includes state of the art projection, the opportunity to eat and drink while enjoying the show, and a gleefully punk-rock attitude towards everything from programing to the standard "turn off your cellphone" announcements.

If you want a taste of League's style of programming, look no further than tomorrow night's screening of "The FP", which is being distributed by League's Drafthouse Films.

Truly this is a great day for movie fans all over the Bay. Stay tuned to this space and the recently created "Alamo Drafthouse at the New Mission" Facebook page for more info.

Is SF Ready for 'The FP', One of the Craziest Dance Movies Ever Made?

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"The FP" may be the best, weirdest, film about dance-fighting gangs you will see for a long time. Possibly ever.

Friday marks the San Francisco premiere of "The FP", at 7:15 p.m. at the Roxie, as part of SF Indiefest. The screening will be hosted by Vince Mancini of Filmdrunk and is followed by a Dance Dance Revolution Throwdown.

Imagine "The Warriors" meets "You Got Served" (but even crazier than that sounds) and you might begin to have an idea of what we're dealing with here. Check out the slightly NSFW trailer:

"'The FP' first came to our attention as a submission to Fantastic Fest," Says Tim League.

League is founder of Drafthouse Films, part of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema empire, based out of Austin. In addition to distributing films, League and his partners run five theaters distinctive for their off-the-beaten path film fare, and for serving booze and meals inside the theater. Fantastic Fest is a festival featuring sci-fi, fantasy, and horror films that plays at multiple venues, but primarily at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin.

"The notes on the envelope that gets passed around by our screening committee members were really funny...mostly along disbelieving 'WTF' lines," said League. "It finally made into my hands and I absolutely adored it."

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Scenes From the 'Dear Sugar' Coming Out Party

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At around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday night, the 43-year-old novelist Cheryl Strayed stood on stage at the Verdi Club in the Mission, bathed in pink light and white speckles from a rotating disco ball overhead. She adjusted her hair, waved to some of the 250 or so people in the audience who had come to see her, and waited for the standing ovation to die down.

Strayed, in a pink dress and matching bracelet, had just revealed herself as the writer behind “Dear Sugar,” an anonymous advice column that appears bi-weekly on the San Francisco-based literary web site The Rumpus. Since March of 2011, she has written more than 70 columns – some of which stretch out over 2,000 words. Sugar’s popularity (the column has been read more than 2 million times since it began) is derived largely from Strayed’s poetic and compassionate approach to giving advice. (Read an in-depth look at how Strayed became Sugar.)

“I feel so happy to be one person now,” she joked.

Steve Almond, a lanky and sardonic Boston-based author who wrote the first 26 Sugar columns, delivered an introduction.

“[Dear Sugar] is the one no-bullshit zone on the Internet,” he said. “It’s not just an honor and a pleasure; it’s a kind of obligation to finally give credit where it’s due and overdue.”

For two years, Strayed delivered deeply personal essays about abuse, sexual freedom, drug use, monogamy and the importance of family. Each column Strayed wrote was sprinkled with details about her own life—except who she was.

For many in the audience, Strayed’s coming out presented an emotional conundrum: On the one hand, they were curious to see who had been writing such “luminous, forgiving prose” for the past 24 months. On the other, they had enjoyed being able to invest any sort of expectations they wanted into the anonymous Sugar character.

“She’s cracking open a lot of stuff,” said Evany Thomas, a content strategist at Facebook who sat near the back. “I feel glad that [the column] is going to be associated with someone.”

Dean Schaffer, a community manager at the web site AllVoices.com, couldn’t help but think that “part of [Strayed’s reveal] is financial.” Still, “it won’t change what she wrote,” he said.

In March, Knopf will publish “Wild,” a memoir Strayed wrote about her time walking the Pacific Crest Trail when she was 26. And on July 10, Vintage will release “Tiny Beautiful Things,” a collection of Sugar’s columns.

After a question and answer session in which audience members asked Strayed about the ethics of polyamory and the exhaustions of “empathic overload,” she thanked the crowd. Her ability to write the column, she said, was nourished by the feedback she received from Sugar readers.

“I was always trying to give you so much love,” she said before descending from the stage to meet her fans. “What was always surprising was how much you were able to give that back to me.”

Local Filmmaker to Become a US Film Ambassador

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Local documentarian Tiffany Shlain's 2011 film "Connected" will be one of the 29 films included in the US Department of State's American Films Showcase. According to the official announcement last week, the project is "an international cultural diplomacy initiative that brings people together worldwide through film."

"Connected", which is subtitled "An Autobiography About Love, Death, & Technology", is an examination of the many ways—both good and bad—that modern life has brought us closer. The subject matter is important to Shlain, who is also a co-founder of the Webby Awards. And now the American Film Showcase offers Shlain an opportunity to continue her discussion with new audiences in developing countries around the world.

On the phone, Shlain revealed just how much this program meant to her film. "Getting into Sundance was so validating and we've had a great tour with the film after our theatrical release in the fall. But to have this happen is such an honor. That was part of the vision of what we hoped this film would do."

Indeed, Shlain was newly energized after a day-long orientation this past Saturday (over Skype, natch). "The people from the State Department told us it was fine if our films had content that challenged the political status quo. They said 'We are representing democracy and America. When you speak for yourself, that represents the fabric of America.'"

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Here's the Deal with the Tony Bennett Sing-along

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Okay, people, it's Valentine's Day —as President Obama noted, "it's important to remember this." (He also opined, "Go big.")

But in San Francisco, it might be hard to forget because Tony Bennett will be blasting from radio stations, City Hall, even loudspeakers at noon today as a tribute to the 50th anniversary of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Here's a brief list of the things to expect, from a press release:

*At noon, Tony Bennett himself will be at City Hall-but not singing. Also featured will be performances by the San Francisco Girls Chorus, the San Francisco Boy’s Chorus, the Choir from the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and Misa Malone from Beach Blanket Babylon.

*Video tributes from politicos, including Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, former Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr., San Francisco Chief of Protocol Charlotte Shultz and others.

*All SF-based radio stations have been asked to play “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” at or near noon. (KOIT 96.5FM will do it exactly at noon.)

*The song will play over public speakers in Union Square and at Hallidie Plaza, courtesy of the Union Square Business Improvement District. Singing in public is encouraged.

*Special "Tony Bennett" themed cable cars will be running and tonight, City Hall will be lit red. 

*Super hardcore fans can go to the Fairmont Hotel to celebrate. Tony Bennett first sang the song in the hotel's Venetian Room in 1961. Tonight, he'll he hosting an event to raise money for heart research (!).