News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
FINALLY BREAKING A long silence, the new owners of the historic Clay Theater will today unveil plans for its return as a single-screen theater in its familiar but updated home on Fillmore Street. When the renovation of the century-old theater is complete, it will include approximately 200 seats and host more than 500 film screenings…
REMEMBRANCE | ELEANOR COPPOLA (1936-2024) By ALISON OWINGS The sad news spread fast among her friends: Ellie Coppola died. She was 87, and died at home in Napa Valley on April 12. For years she and her creative family lived near Fillmore Street, first on Webster Street and later up on Broadway. Late in life,…
DEMOLITION OF THE interior of the 110-year-old Clay Theatre on Fillmore Street began today, with workers hauling out the seats, the projectors and the popcorn machine. Landmark Theatres, the company that operated the Clay in recent decades, has instructed its staff to leave the building empty by the end of the month. The theater closed…
By ALISON OWINGS The audience gasped. Eleanor Coppola’s triptych, “Love is Love is Love,” comprised of three shortish California-based films, was having a solo showing a few weeks ago at Dolby Laboratory’s splendid theater in downtown San Francisco, her purpose partly to thank people involved in the production. The longest and final of the three,…
FILM | ANDREA CHASE The 16th Annual Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, brought to you by the fine people at SFIndieFest, gathers a scintillating collection of the best of the genres of sci-fi, horror, fantasy and just plain odd films currently out there, along with the now traditional rescoring of a classic. The…
FILM | CLASSICS SHOT LOCALLY Atop the crest of the hill on Divisadero Street, looking north between Pacific and Broadway, a car slowly makes a U-turn, then stops on the opposite side of the street. Buster Keaton filmed almost exclusively on Hollywood lots, but traveled to San Francisco to get this one shot. The first…
FILM | CLASSICS SHOT LOCALLY Walking north on Buchanan Street across Sacramento, you hardly notice the home on the corner. Built in 1900, this sheepish three-story house seems to endeavor not to draw attention to itself. But Alfred Hitchcock saw it differently. It was here that he filmed climactic scenes of his very last film,…
FILM | ANDREA CHASE Italian-born neighborhood resident Pietro Pinto didn’t set out to make a film about boxers. After winning a place in the Jerusalem Film Workshop a few years back, he arrived in Israel for the first time in his life with less than two weeks to find a subject for his short film,…
FILM | JESSICA BERNSTEIN-WAX My mother’s friend Judith Skinner started a Tibetan Buddhist retreat in her Pacific Heights apartment in 1995. At the time, she thought it would last the traditional three years, three months and three days. Almost 24 years later, she remains on retreat, a Buddhist practice that involves solitude, meditation and introspection…
FIRST PERSON | DUSTIN WILSON For me, becoming a sommelier meant taking part in something much larger than myself. Working with a team of like-minded individuals on a restaurant crew for the greater goal of unforgettable hospitality really excited me. I was totally ready for the overall restaurant scene, challenging as it was at times.…