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Southern French Cuisine with an Italian Flair
Don't let the swank, Euro décor fool you. The food at this new Mission eatery, which replaced Amira, remains on par with the original restaurant, which means it's nothing to rave about -- nor to sneeze at. Along with the thick-cut Belgian fries and creative dipping sauces for which Frjtz is known, the restaurant's crepes, salads, sandwiches and mussels add a much-needed mellow, inexpensive option to this restaurant-rich strip of Valencia.
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Singer/Songwriter Bounces Back to SF
Some say José González's music career was jump-started with thousands of tiny rubber balls bouncing down a hill in San Francisco -- a savvy Sony commercial that introduced a new television along with the singer/songwriter's music to the masses. Promotional tools aside, González is back with a new album In Our Nature that closely mirrors the minimalist acoustic style, if not slightly more aggressive and political, of his breakout debut Veneer.
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SF Station Blows It Up
The UK's Editors returned to The Fillmore in front of a sold out crowd and did what they do best: rocked. The show being one of the last shows on this leg of their US tour promoting the new album An End Has a Start, you would think the boys would slack but they brought it full force with songs like "An End Has a Start" and "Munich" that show not only Tom's amazing vocals but the rest of the boys' musical skills.
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Can I help you, Sir?
When Seattle-based customer care specialist Todd Anderson's (Josh Hamilton) smug boss tells him that he is firing his entire department and shipping him off to India to, in effect, train his own replacement, it is done with an almost malicious glee. Little does he know that he has just handed his employee a gift. Whether he is ready for it or not is a different issue.
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The Monarch of Madness
There have been many movies about treasure hunting, but none quite like this one. First time writer and director Mike Cahill brings us a sweet, quirky comedy about fathers and daughters, Spanish gold and, of course, Costco. Three very disparate things which pull King of California in three different directions.
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Hope Springs Eternal
There are currently two million orphans in South Africa. 1.2 million of these orphans have lost one or both parents to AIDS. Current projections indicate that there 25 million children in South Africa will be orphans by 2010. Who will take care of these children? Angels in the Dust is a powerful and moving examination of the Boikarabelo Orphanage in South Africa that provides a home (and hope) for countless orphaned children in Africa.
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Hell Hath No Fury Like An Environment Scorned
Writer/director Larry Fessenden is one of the most original voices in the horror genre today. His previous efforts (Wendigo, No Telling) were understated, slow burning headtrips that reflect various societal fears. In a similar vein, Fessenden has crafted perhaps the first "environmental" horror film in The Last Winter. An oil drilling team heads to the Artic tundra in Alaska for a job. With temperatures rising and the weather all over the map, the team begins to wonder if they've incurred the wrath of something supernatural.
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Exploring the Sleazy Underbelly of the Sex Industry
Inspired by a New York Times Magazine exposé of the international sex trafficking industry, Trade is an unsettling tale of abduction and forced prostitution, centered around Adriana, a 13-year old Mexican girl (Paulina Gaitan), and Veronica, a Polish teenager (Alicja Bachleda), who are abducted and forced into sexual slavery by Russian mobsters. It is relentlessly bleak, lurid in its depiction of the harsh indignities its underage victims must endure, and should be alarming to those who consider themselves insulated from such depravity.
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Not Very Appetizing
Over four decades, writer/director Robert Benton ([bThe Human Stain, Places in the Heart, Kramer vs. Kramer) has specialized in "adult" dramas, small-scale, intimate character studies that favor observation and emotional authenticity over the usual melodramatic flourishes we've come to expect from Hollywood-produced dramas. Not surprisingly, Benton's old school filmmaking style and concerns have left him well out of step with contemporary Hollywood. Benton's latest, effort, Feast of Love, an adaptation of Charles Baxter's National Book Award-nominated novel, isn't going to change that, nor, to be frank, should it.
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Near Flawless Filmmaking
In 1990, Christopher McCandless, the son of a successful aerospace designer, gave away his life savings of $24,000 and, over the next two years, hitchhiked across America; he planned on getting to Alaska, where he hoped to live in the wilderness. McCandless' aim was to discover himself by discovering the country. Four years later, Jon Krakauer (Under the Banner of Heaven, Into Thin Air) wrote a 9,000-word article (later expanded into non-fiction bestseller Into the Wild) for Outside magazine on this undertaking.
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Action Mixed with Politics Makes for Muddled Storytelling
Part procedural, part action with contemporary politics as a backdrop, The Kingdom is a semi-successful film directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Rundown, Very Bad Things) and written by Matthew Michael Carnahan that unsurprisingly raises fascinating, if no less perplexing, questions about the "special relationship" between the Saudi Arabia, one of the richest, oil-producing countries in the world and the United States, whose presence in the Middle East even before the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 was, at best, controversial.
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Communications and Inspirations in the Modern Age
Unless you live in the rural countryside, chances are that you use email and/or a cell phone to stay in touch with people and to keep up-to-date with goings on in the world. Instant messaging programs and text messaging have morphed communication today into an often context-less space with lack of intonation and increased probability of mixed messages and miscommunication. SF Camerawork's current exhibition, "There is Always a Machine Between Us", explores these new modes of communication propelled by the advent of the Internet, in methods and mediums that promise an intriguing visit and provide ample fodder for discussion in the aftermath.
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Shopping For a Cause
I've never been one to drop money on logo-patterned handbags a la Louis Vuitton, Coach, Fendi, Gucci, etc. No, I'm more of a Dutchy, Balenciaga, Ferragamo, Marc Jacobs kind of girl. That being said, I have trouble justifying spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on handbags. Imagine if proceeds from your luxury handbag purchase could benefit a local charity. Regardless of your style preference, the upcoming This Old Bag event at the W on October 19th presents exactly this opportunity.
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