Flavorpill San Francisco Events

The Baader Meinhof Complex

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Ongoing

Daily

@ Landmark Embarcadero

Adapted from Stefan Aust's 1985 publication, The Baader Meinhof Complex chronicles the reckless idealism and hectic resolve of Germany's Red Army Faction, spearheaded by left-wing journalist Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) and Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) in the early 1970s. Drawing from eyewitness reports, speeches, and other original texts, the film's narrative is coupled with an authentic eye to the past, relying on original photos and documentaries to help guide the art direction. In the 2008 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, director Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn) offers an engaging account of the threat to the precarious state of German democracy as well as a commentary on the practice of pursuing unrealistic ideals.

Free Night of Theater

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Sep 7 – Nov 20

Daily

@ Various locations

There may be no such thing as a free lunch but there is such a thing as a free night of theater. Well, almost free. Theater companies across the Bay, from major league players to the most underground of venues, are offering heavy discounts on select performances over the next month. Whether you go for Shakespeare or prefer the furthest edge of the fringe, you'll be able to turn the slanderous designation "cheap date" into a personal badge of honor.

Outdoor Exploratorium

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Ongoing

Daily

@ Fort Mason Center

Since 1969, the Exploratorium has merged science and fun with its hands-on collection; now, it brings that curatorial savvy outdoors, with 20 interactive exhibits that investigate everything from water and wind to sound and light. Bridge Thermometer demonstrates how the Golden Gate can gauge temperature; Tasting the Tides creates a bayside water fountain; and Corrosion Wedge reveals the secret life of historic waterfront buildings. The exhibit has been two years in the making, and it's guaranteed to teach you a thing or two about the phenomena right before your eyes.

CRUDE

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Ongoing

Daily

@ Landmark Lumiere Theatre

After following Metallica through group therapy in his last film, Some Kind of Monster, Joe Berlinger is back in top form with his new documentary, CRUDE, which chronicles the epic legal battle to hold Chevron accountable for its systematic contamination of the Equadorian Amazon — an environmental tragedy experts agree is one of the worst cases of oil-related contamination on Earth. Featuring everyone from Chevron executives to Trudie Styler and Sting, the story keeps you pinned as 30,000 Amazon natives face down the fifth largest corporation in the world. If you feel inspired after watching (which you will), check out the website for volunteer opportunities.

Wonderland

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Oct 17 – Nov 14

Daily

@ Tenderloin District

Creative types are often pigeonholed as harbingers of gentrification, and the current wave of gallery openings and other creative endeavors underway in the Tenderloin (along with the "cleaning up" of Polk Street) certainly opens up questions of the neighborhood's future. Curator Lance Fung's ambitious Wonderland project, however, insists that working with the local community be a precondition for making art in that community. Working with various TL-based nonprofits, schools, residents, and art orgs, 53 artists created 16-site specific installations of truly public art that reflect the both the upsides and harsh realities of one of SF's most diverse and challenge-filled neighborhoods.

Mark Baugh-Sasaki: Adaptations

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Opens Friday July 24 (6–7:30pm)

Ongoing

Daily

@ Hayes Valley Park

The work of emerging sculptor Mark Baugh-Sasaki reflects both his San Francisco upbringing (including an adolescence spent mountain biking through the Presidio) and his education at Carnegie Mellon, nestled near the industrial detritus of the Rust Belt. Baugh-Saski's large-scale pieces combine organic and man-made materials, pointedly illustrating the fragile and contentious relationship between the natural world and manufactured matter. Adaptations, Baugh-Saski's first public art piece, is comprised of hundreds of branches — salvaged from pruned and felled trees in local parks and yards — sinuously flowing in and out of the ground and winding towards the sky, barely restrained by its steel exoskeleton.

Bronson

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Ongoing

Daily

@ Landmark Lumiere Theatre

Based on a true story, Bronson follows Michael Peterson, aka "Charlie Bronson," from his days as an impetuous petty thief in 1974 England to his years as a comic, writer, artist, professional fighter, and career criminal. Sporting the hottest varieties of moustache 'dos ever to be seen in one film, actor Tom Hardy compellingly channels Bronson's fiery temper, inspiring audiences to reluctantly sympathize with the film's volatile main character. Having spent a total of 34 years as a guest of the state (30 of them in solitary confinement), Charlie Bronson is a living testament to the notion that anyone has the tools to lead a rich and productive life, even behind bars.

Cutting Ice into One with a Motorcycle

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Saturday Nov 7

Sunday Nov 8

@ Exploratorium

Imagine a big block of ice suspended from the ceiling of the Exploratorium. Now imagine a wire wrapped around the middle of that ice block from which is hung a motorcycle. Chill out with other skeptics and watch the motorcycle fall to the floor as the wire very slowly cuts through the ice, but bear witness—the ice block remains one whole piece! Check out this stranger-than-friction phenomenon for yourself at the Exploratorium’s Cutting Ice into One, on Saturday, November 7, 2009, during a free weekend as we continue celebrating our 40th anniversary.

Somers Town

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Ongoing

Daily

@ Landmark Lumiere Theatre

With his gritty, darkly comedic, Midlands-based features such as Twenty Four Seven and Dead Man's Shoes, Shane Meadows has been one of Britain's most respected filmmakers for years. But it wasn't until This Is England, 2006's BAFTA-winning portrait of '80s Britain, that he got the global recognition he deserved. Meadows gave young actor Thomas Turgoose his big break, and the 16-year-old Turgoose returns as Meadows' leading man in Somers Town. Turgoose plays teenage runaway Tomo, who befriends Polish immigrant Marek over one summer in north London. Shot in black and white, Somers is a funny, gentle coming-of-age story.

40th Anniversary Celebration Weekend

2009-11-08T08:00:00Z

Saturday Nov 7

Sunday Nov 8

@ Exploratorium

To celebrate its 40th Anniversary, the Exploratorium offers the following electrifying, evanescent, and enlightening series of events. Note admission is free for the public on the November 4 as well as on the weekend of November 7 and 8. The schedule of events is as follows:

- November 5: Exploratorium After Dark—Electrifying Science with Dr. MegaVolt®
- November 7: Cutting Ice into One with a Motorcycle
- November 7 & 8: Tom Noddy’s Bubble Magic
- November 8: Iron Science Teacher
- November 14: Operate!
- November 15: Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up - A Conversation with Author K.C. Cole
- November 21: Physics of Toys

KUSF Rock 'n Swap

2009-11-08T14:00:00Z

Sunday Nov 8 (6am–3pm)

@ McClaren Hall, University of San Francisco Campus

Keep vinyl and local commercial-free radio alive at KUSF's annual benefit record sale. From the Impulse! back catalog to rarer-than-hen's-teeth punk 45s, the Rock 'n Swap is the place to embrace your inner collector-geek without the sticker shock. If records aren't your thing there are plenty of CDs, DVDs, and posters to browse as well; plus, all the door proceeds go toward ensuring that KUSF continues to fill San Francisco's airwaves with an adventurous and truly eclectic variety of music. After all, as In Deep put it, a DJ just might save your life.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs

2009-11-08T17:00:00Z

June 27 – Mar 28, 2010

Daily (9am–9pm)

@ de Young Museum

"Wonderful things." So said Howard Carter when the archaeologist was asked what he saw upon peeking into the just-opened tomb of boy-king Tutankhamun. Almost a century later and many world tours over, King Tut's wonderful things — enough beautifully crafted, jewel-encrusted, and gilded loot to last a dynastic ruler through the afterlife and beyond —still hold their allure. Perhaps, in these tough economic times, nothing seems simultaneously more fantastically alien, or more apropos a reminder of our last gilded age, than the glittering horde on display at the de Young. Get ready to gawk and awe.

John Baldessari: A Print Retrospective

2009-11-08T17:30:00Z

July 11 – Nov 8

Tuesdays–Sundays (9:30am–5:15pm)

@ The Legion of Honor Museum

John Baldessari's turbulent, on-again, off-again love affair with Los Angeles is as inseparable from the story of contemporary West Coast art as Robert Moses is from the topography of New York City — only without the hate mail. Within the sanguine subversion of his instantly recognizable dot-festooned images, colorful circles irritatingly obscure important bits of content; it's pre-punk, semi-Beatnik surrealism that never really went out of style. Despite nearly five decades of boundary-blurring conceptualism, high-profile curatorial efforts, celebrated scholarship, and coveted accolades (such as last month's receipt of the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale) people keep coming back to the dots. But while this new survey of Baldessari's epic print portfolio certainly delivers the hits, the real treats are the rarely exhibited b-sides.

Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam & Burma

2009-11-08T18:00:00Z

Oct 23 – Jan 10, 2010

Daily (10am–5pm)

@ Asian Art Museum

In the 19th-century Siam and Burma—two neighboring kingdoms in Southeast Asia—were renowned for their golden-roofed temples, lush gardens, and handsomely adorned palaces.

Emerald Cities is the first major exhibition in the West to explore the rich but little known arts of Siam and Burma from this period. Many of the 140 stunning artworks—including gilded ritual vessels, mother-of-pearl inlaid furniture, colorful paintings, manuscripts, exquisite textiles, delicate ceramics, and more—were recently acquired by the museum from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and are on display for the first time.

The Asian Art Museum is the exclusive venue for this exhibition.

Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004

2009-11-08T18:00:00Z

July 11 – Nov 29

Mondays–Tuesdays (10am–5:45pm)

Thursdays (10am–8:45pm)

Fridays–Sundays (10am–5:45pm)

@ SFMOMA

Marilyn Monroe caught in a moment of intense vulnerability. The line of a model's Dior gown mirrored in the curves of the elephants around her. A beekeeper covered in his buzzing flock. These are some of the countless decisive moments caught by Richard Avedon's camera. SFMOMA's huge retrospective presents the largest American survey of Avedon's work to date, from his early, revolutionary fashion work at Harper's Bazaar and the countless '60s portraits of political and cultural movers and shakers, to his magnum opus documenting America's surreal frontier, In the American West, and his final portraits for The New Yorker. Whether photographing pop royalty, politicians, or ranch hands, Avedon followed Aleister Crowley's dictum that "every man, every woman, is a star."