Bay Area Films Not To Miss
Richard Wong, Roxie Opening Night Film
Three young men with disabilities flee their overbearing parents for a road trip to a brothel that caters to people with special needs, in order to lose their virginity and embrace their independence. Gabourey Sidibe stars as their nurse driver, Janeane Garofalo and C.S. Lee also star as concerned parents hot on their trail. Come As You Are is a dark comedy meant to put a human touch on everyone’s longing for connection. With signature snappy dialogue and straight-faced humor, Bay Area filmmaker Richard Wong adds another hit to a buzz-worthy resume that already includes the cult hit Colma, The Musical.
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Kara Herold
39 1/2 mixes drama laced with irony, documentary, and animation to follow a San Francisco Mission District experimental filmmaker named Kara (actor/writer Beth Lisick), approaching 40 and determined to have a kid.
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Oliver Krimpas
“Sort of a British, female-driven Before Sunrise crossed with an episode of Cosmos?” is how Bay Area-based screenwriter Jonathan Kiefer once tried describing Around the Sun. As good as anything else, at least, which is to say that this sumptuous indie is really not like much of anything else but itself. A pleasure for lovers of talk, life and love.
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Jason Cohn
If you ever wondered how the great public ambitions of postwar America collapsed into Reagan era parsimony and the permanent tax revolt, look no farther than Howard Jarvis, whose 1978 ballot initiative, Proposition 13, changed everything in California and beyond. The First Angry Man unpacks the dramatic campaign, its quirky characters and its enduring consequences.
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Milena Pastreich
A cluster of pigeons somersault through the air like synchronized swimmers in the sky. Welcome to South Central’s curious subculture of competitive pigeon flying, in which a tight-knit community of Black and Latino trainers gather to prove that their flocks of Roller Pigeons have the skills to compete for the World Cup.
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Tanya Raymonde and Zio Zigler
In Bad Art five art world archetypes show up to a female artist’s studio to buy a painting they’ve never seen (that may or may not exist) engaging in a hilarious debate about commerce, value, and identity.
