Movies

Indie indeed

MILL VALLEY FILM FEST: Allison Anders stays true to her roots with lo-fi 'Strutter'

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM The 35th Mill Valley Film Festival is a star-studded affair, with tributes to Dustin Hoffman and 1977's Star Wars and celebrity guests (Ben Affleck! Ang Lee! Stevie Nicks!), but indie cinema fans won't want to miss Strutter. It doesn't have any movie stars, but it comes courtesy of indie heroes Allison Anders (1992's Gas Food Lodging, 1993's Mi vida loca) and Kurt Voss, Anders' co-director and co-writer on 1987's Border Radio and 1999's Sugar Town.Read more »

To be Dee

Ms. Wallace talks aliens and zombies
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We were here

Detropia chronicles urban decline in a fresh light

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FILM "I feel like I was maybe here, a while back. Or I'm older than I really am, and I just have this young body and spirit and mind — but I have a memory of this place when it was bangin'," says video blogger Crystal Starr in new doc Detropia, gazing at the Detroit skyline from an abandoned building somewhere on the West Side, puffing a little joint.Read more »

Déjà who?

Berlin and Beyond showcases top German talents more than once

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Chronic youth

'Liberal Arts' and other new releases take on aging (gracefully and otherwise). Plus: a new action-sports film fest.

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM It can't be a coincidence that within a week, a pair of films have been released about 35-year-olds who contemplate hooking up with 19-year-olds. That 16-year age gap — with an immature or other otherwise emotionally stunted thirtysomething on one end, and a precocious millennial on the other — is narrow enough to be plausible, but just wide enough to be awkward.Read more »

Cinetology

This week's movies: gurus, beauty queens, beat cops, and 3D super cops

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Goodbye to romance

Raunchy 'Bachelorette' is a funny but flawed wedding comedy

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM A movie called Bachelorette is inevitably going to be accused of riding Bridesmaids' coattails, even if — as it happens — Bachelorette's source-material play was written years before the 2011 comedy hit theaters.Read more »

False idol

A filmmaker impersonates a guru to distasteful ends in Kumaré

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM It's easy to make fun of religion — particularly this election year — but when people aren't trying to kill or control one another over it, it's best to leave the subject alone. Why begrudge anyone whatever makes sense of the world for them, or gives comfort when in need?Read more »

Highlights in the dark

FALL ARTS PREVIEW: Seasonal tips for giving the multiplex a wide berth (with a few exceptions, of course)

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When in Venice

An author struggles with his relationships in André Téchiné's casually intense 'Unforgivable'
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