Berkeley Social Club Is a Different Kind of Korean Restaurant Bang Bombs and 'Millionaire's Bacon.' Silence: The Last Temptation of Martin Scorese Ambushed: Contra Costa County Law Enforcement Sets Up Surprise Stings To Help Federal Immigration Agents Arrest and Deport Immigrants Protest Trump's Inauguration in Oakland, But Please Don't Vandalize or Become Violent More News & Opinion Stories >> More Arts Stories >> Arts & Culture Staff Picks >> More Food Stories >> Food & Drink Listings >> More Movie Reviews >> More Music Stories >> Music Staff Picks >> Seven Days - January 10, 4:38 PM Gunfight on Broadway Interrupts Oakland Council Committee Meeting Seven Days - January 9, 6:43 AM Town Business: Increasing Financial Aid for Renters Displaced Due to Code Enforcement Seven Days - January 6, 10:56 AM Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee Refuses to Certify Trump's Electoral College Win Seven Days - January 6, 7:53 AM

Oakland Privacy Commission Approves Surveillance Transparency and Oversight Law Seven Days - January 4, 11:35 AM Deadline Extended: Send Us Your 'Letters to Trump' Before the Bay Area Women's March on January 21 More from the Blogs Product Development for Artists In this 6-week workshop series, artists will learn 9 product development tools... Booze, bragging rights, tacos and prizes. Trivia Night goes down every Tuesday... Guerra Civil @ 80 Marking the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War,... SUBMIT AN EVENT >> "Local law enforcement should not be involved in these kinds of activities." Jim Kaiser, Eccentric Champion of Incredibly Strange Music, Dies at 46 Friends and collaborators remember the musician, record shop fixture, and label operator. In less than two weeks, the people will fill Bay Area streets, reclaiming Dr. Martin Luther King's radical legacy. The Queer & Trans Issue 2016 How a Handful of Pro-Charter Billionaires Flooded Oakland's School Board Elections With Cash

The Oakland schools should be put in receivership again. Very few vocational skills are taught… on January 10, 2017 Contra Costa County needs to elect new leadership. It's time to clean house in order… Are you kidding me? Lets follow the facts: Kim commits a violent armed robbery. jiro dreams of sushi megavideo A guide to this holiday season's gifts, outings, eats, and more.game magic sushi s60v5Find a Landmark Theatre Near You:sushi bento box leopoldstr Olde Town Stadium 14sushi in suhl zeulenroda The Landmark at Merrick Parkichiban sushi menu houma

The Landmark at 57 West Ritz at the Bourse San Francisco East Bay"Though shalt not take the Portage Theater in vain!"As you may have read on this very blog, over the idea that the Portage Theater may change hands in 2015 and be converted into a church. Among the many fine organizations that would be evicted is the , which, on Saturday night, will present a special 35-millimeter screening of . . . . suzumo sushi machine australiaNice try, guys, but I'm pretty sure you can't petition the Lord with popcorn. This morning the New York Times published an interesting story about the 1944 killing that became a cornerstone of the beat generation legend, and coincidentally, today Facets Cinematheque opens a week-long run of Alan Govenar's documentary The Beat Hotel, about the Paris rooming house that became a nerve center for the beats in the late '50s and early '60s. It's the subject of this week's long review.

We also have a box for the first week of the Asian American Showcase at Gene Siskel Film Center, and new reviews of American Reunion, the latest installment in the American Pie franchise; Four Lovers, a French drama about spouse-swapping; and Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a foodie doc about the revered chef Jiro Ono. Best bets for repertory: Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters (1984), tonight at the Portage; Mervyn LeRoy's Gold Diggers of 1933, with dance numbers by Busby Berkeley, Sunday at Doc Films; Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life (1959), Saturday and Sunday morning at Music Box; Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994), Friday at Doc; Robert Wise's The Sound of Music (1965), captioned for audience sing-alongs, Saturday afternoon at Music Box; and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), Friday and Tuesday at Doc, the second screening with a lecture by Daniel Eisenberg. But the real event this week is Music Box's four-film series on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, with screenings of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1946), and The Red Shoes (1948).

This week also brings a chance to see two noted underground filmmakers in person: at Chicago Filmmakers, Jon Jost will introduce his 2007 video Over Here on Friday and his 2008 video Parable on Saturday, and at Film Center, Yvonne Rainer will introduce her 1972 feature Lives of Performers on Thursday.DOA: Starring (from left) Olivia Wilde, Evan Peters, and Mark Duplass, The Lazarus Effect is a poorly written and boringly conceived take on the Frankenstein myth. Review: The Lazarus Effect Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, and Evan Peters star in a film written by Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater and directed by David Gelb. Wednesday, March 4, 2015 Near the beginning of this latest revamp of the Frankenstein myth — itself a revision of good old Prometheus — the dull-witted scientists at Berkeley’s fictional Saint Paternus College successfully bring a dog back to life. After accomplishing the most desperate desire humanity has ever yearned after, our apparently idiotic researchers take a vow of silence and toast themselves with tepid off-brand champagne.

Then they scurry home to bed, bringing the revived dog with them on a leash. Here is my puzzler: See if you can correctly identify their dumbest move. They should have sprung for the expensive stuff. Besides harboring stupid plot points and multiple promising ideas that fizzle into inanity and then lead to an almost perfectly un-scary conclusion, there is also the matter of wasted talent. In the ads, Olivia Wilde looks great with black contact lenses, and we know she can work wonders in a mad scene (remember her in Her?), and indie darling Mark Duplass is usually the soul of moral ambiguity replete with anxious tics, but here nothing either plausible or outlandish comes off the screen from either of them. And there is still another, deeper mystery: Why would director David Gelb, who made the honest, beautiful documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, want to follow up with this poorly written and boringly conceived cross between Flatliners and Pet Sematary? Admittedly, he excels at the opening credits, which are a long, juicy cavalcade of organs, tissue, and goopy liquids.