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A Good Time at the Barracks
Walk into Presidio Social Club and step back in time. Set in a historic barracks building a century old, this spacious meeting/drinking/dining spot charms and promises a good time as easily as it could have sixty years ago. Of the three just-opened Presidio establishments, including La Terrasse and Pres A Vi, Presidio Social Club is the newest and most casual of the national forested bunch. The restaurant serves classic American fare -- solid comfort food with an occasional departure -- and offers a relaxed and convivial ambiance, attracting the neighboring Presidio/Pacific Heights and Marina clientele.
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A Work-in-Progress
It has been five years since Brooklyn rapper EL-P has released an album, but he has been far from idle. In addition to doing production work and other administrative duties at Definitive Jux, the underground hip hop record label that he founded, he has remixed tracks for a grocery list of musicians, including Beck, Nine Inch Nails, The Marsh Volta and TV on the Radio. He was also in a near catastrophic airplane journey that ended with an emergency landing after an engine blew up -- an incident that serves as fodder for the first single on I'll Sleep When You're Dead. EL-P spoke with SF Station during a phone interview from New York.
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800,000 killed in 10 days
In April of 1994, a secondary school in Kigali, Rwanda became a refugee camp for thousands of Tutsi citizens as the Hutu militia initiated genocide against the Tutsis. Beyond the gates of this school, the Hutus taunted the Tutsis and angrily waved machetes menacingly. A UN peacekeeping force struggled to keep the Hutus at bay and the Tutsis safe. Five days later the UN peacekeeping force left and virtually all of the Tutsis were slaughtered.
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A Sporadically Entertaining Misfire
Chris Rock's second film in the director's chair (2003's Head of State was his first), I Think I Love My Wife is a wildly uneven, sporadically insightful, intermittently hilarious take on sex and the long-married, desperate male. The semi-clever tagline "In marriage no one can hear you scream," riffs on the tagline for Ridley Scott's Alien, "In space no one can hear you scream", and sets up the central character's moral dilemma: to remain in a romance-free marriage or break his wedding vows and pursue an adulterous relationship with a beautiful younger woman.
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The Great British Teen 80s Flick that Never Was
Brian Jackson (James McAvoy) is a young man who is a charming mix of complete, utter naiveté and an enormous storehouse of random factoids. The former quality is largely due to his sheltered upbringing in working class Essex. Brian's vast store of random factoids is largely a result of the countless hours spent watching UK's version of "Jeopardy", "University Challenge" as a child. The utility of Brian's knowledge and the depths of his naiveté are put to the test as he heads off to Bristol University in Starter for 10.
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Semi-Compelling Drama With a Twist
Only a year after The Lake House, Sandra Bullock is back in the similarly structured and similarly themed Premonition, a non-linear thriller with a science-fiction or supernatural twist. As in The Lake House and the earlier 28 Days, Bullock proves she can handle material that requires a deeper emotional range.
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Superb Documentary Stays True To Its Subject
Twenty years ago, German filmmaker Philip Groening (L'Amour, l'argent, l'amour) approached the strict, reclusive Carthusian Order about making a documentary detailing their daily lives in the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. Thirteen years later, the Carthusian monks agreed to participate in Groening's project.
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Convenience for the Jet Setters
With all the new safety regulations and restrictions, traveling by plane today is a far cry from the glory and glamorous days of the jet setting era. Alas, dry your tears, weary travelers. Flylite and PlanetTran are two companies striving to maximize convenience and minimize the headache for you when it comes to air travel. FlyLite suggests: "Never pack or carry another suitcase again", while earth-friendly airport shuttle service PlanetTran offers a green alternative to car services and taxis.
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Chekov's Gun Control (Or Lack Thereof)
David Denby, writing in The New Yorker on March 5th of this year, commented on the recent trend in films of deploying increasingly complex, overlapping, fractured narratives. Think Memento, Pulp Fiction, Babel, and Amores Perros. It's not only a film trend though, and it's actually been going on for several decades -- or more if you look back to the early twentieth century.
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Wistful for Cuba pre-Castro?
In a time long, long ago before the nation state of the Bahamas captured American media attention due to one Anna Nicole Smith, another Caribbean country riveted our gaze: Cuba. Today Cuba boils down to the three C's: cigars, Castro, and classic cars. In the 50s, as Maya Montero suggests in her sixth novel, Dancing to "Almendra,", Cuba's national identity was intertwined with our own.
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