The Florida Project is bursting with fun, squalor and tragedy, and it justifies its end-title dedication to Hal Roach and the couple of hundred Our Gang shorts he produced. It's shaggy, with what looks like rough-cut editing at times, and it's seemingly been released under its working title. Director Sean Baker's subject is the adventures of a passel of kids in Kissimmee, not so far from the expensive gates of Disney World, a minimum wage, subtropical holiday land. Baker positively blasts the screen with color and Florida sunsets flamboyant enough to dement a parrot. Consultants from Technicolor worked on this, and it shows. Baker's most recent previous full-length film, Tangerine, was shot on a cellphone; the visuals here are more than » Read More

August Andquiet, occasionally full of pity and violence, Blade Runner 2049 overwhelms: it's a technical juggernaut, orchestrated to the bone-rattling sonics of Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch, the sound of some giant rubbing a pair of ocean liners together. Director Denis Villeneuve blends the solemnness of Tarkovsky and the studied blandness of Kubrick, with the same lack of dynamism he demonstrated in Arrival. This movie called Blade Runner has very little running in it. The soundscapes will keep people from drowsing, as Ryan Gosling-playing K, a synthetic cop-doubles-down on the minimalism he displayed in Drive. Reprising his role as Deckard, a welcome Harrison Ford brings his own humanity to a movie peopled with grim synthetics. » Read More

In September 2009, Amir Rao found himself packing up his desk at Electronic Arts. He was leaving his prized position as a game designer at one of America's biggest video game developers to move back into the house where he grew up--but he wasn't bummed about it. Rao hadn't been sacked. Rather, he had made the weighty decision to return to the suburbs of South San Jose to create something of his own. With the help of his EA colleague Gavin Simon, he would set up camp in his father's house and get to work building a game called Bastion. » Read More

One of the artists most prominently featured in (Re)Writing the Narrative is making a valiant attempt to speak up for the disenfranchised. Ana Teresa Fernández describes her work as "trying to highlight either some event or a people or a place that has dealt with tension or aggression." In this exhibit, all three of her short video narratives address particular political tensions and aggressive stances toward women and minorities--with Fernandez as the star. What's most astonishing about her work, apart from the ravishing imagery, is her ability to feature herself in a scenario without drawing attention to an invented persona or character. » Read More

What better season than autumn to contemplate the meaning of hell. Specifically, Dante Alighieri's Inferno, one third of his 14th-century poem, The Divine Comedy. The artist Michael Mazur created a series of etchings to accompany a translation of the work by Robert Pinsky, a former U.S. Poet Laureate (1997-2000). Mazur's monochromatic response L'Inferno di Dante, on display at the de Saisset Museum, is celebrated for his evocative depiction of Dante's journey and for putting the viewer inside the narrative. We look at the spectral black and white images through Dante's eyes. Just as the author has imagined an entire underworld in verse, Mazur has conjured up its visual equivalent. » Read More

Maurice Carrubba checks his fitted black tuxedo one last time before the doors of the GrandView Restaurant swing open. He glides through the dimly lit foyer as a grand piano in the corner plays "Hotel California," and he stops to speak with a hostess in a natty blue dress, before leaning over the polished wooden bar behind her to greet the barkeep with a tap on the shoulder and a few words of encouragement. He continues on his route. Moving through the restaurant, whose walls are lined with portraits of old-time Hollywood stars such as Sofia Loren, Sinatra and The Rat Pack, the affable Carrubba makes sure to greet every employee by name and with a handshake. After a quick check of the kitchen and its staff, he makes his way to the patio » Read More

King Patrick Eugenio paces in the back of a rented Ryder truck, moving through a clot of other wrestlers. It's a quarter after four on a Sunday afternoon in downtown San Jose, and he's anxious. It's hot, almost unbearably so, but he focuses on what is to come. Most of the other wrestlers sitting in the truck are dressed in spandex leotards. King Patrick wears ripped fishnets and a battered skirt, sports a shock of long blue hair and has Japanese kabuki makeup smeared across his face. The other wrestlers have names like Scorpion, Guido or Bronson. Eugenio goes simply by KP, as if his character is nothing more than a distillation of himself. » Read More

It was an ode to a friend," says Robertino Ragazza, recalling the first All-Womxn's Showcase. "She was an activist and an artist and she wanted to create a space for women. So the first show was actually on her birthday." Even though Ragazza's friend had long since passed away, her memory inspired him to curate an all-ladies performance night in her honor two years ago at Caffe Frascati. A full moon illuminated the evening while nearly a dozen women musicians took over the tiny stage by the front window to share their tunes. A few others hawked their creations outside. » Read More

A winemaker, sought-after vineyard manager, cannabis aficionado and Deadhead, Phil Coturri has loads of stories to tell about the cannabis industry's current upheaval. The founder and CEO of Sonoma's Enterprise Vineyard Management and the co-owner of Winery Sixteen 600, Coturri views wine and weed as compatible in the field and on the dining room table. He'd like to see more pairings of the two, and with food, as well. But perhaps more importantly, Coturri wants to warn us all of the dangers ahead for cannabis culture--before regulators destroy something that has been shaped by growers, smokers, farmers and aficionados during the past half century. » Read More