Happy New Weird Year at as Amoeba Music joins Alamo Drafthouse New Mission in San Francisco for another month of Weird Wednesdays! 2020 starts strong with January's collection of fringe favorites:
FREEWAY II: CONFESSIONS OF A TRICKBABY (1999)
Wednesday, January 8. 10pm.
Upping the ante even harder from his previous Freeway, subversive legend Matthew Bright pushes the road movie to the furthest extremes of taste, hilarity, and shock with an effervescent touch. Think “Female Trouble meets Natural Born Killers”, with a teenage version of Natasha Lyonne’s Orange is the New Black character on a Hansel-and-Gretel quest to escape prison, bulimia, schizo murders and the clutches of Sister Gomez (Vincent Gallo in drag!) Trust Natasha when she sez: "You're telling me aliens flew all the way down to Earth just to watch you blow your dad?"
THE QUEST (1985)
Wednesday, January 15. 9:45pm.
A one-kid Goonies -- or, Amblin Down Under! The Quest is possibly the coolest film by Ozploitation auteur Brian Trenchard-Smith (BMX Bandits, Stunt Rock), and centers on the charismatic final boyhood performance of Henry Thomas (E.T., The Haunting of Hill House) before he hit adulthood. Orphaned 14-year-old Cody has a MacGyver-ish spirit with fearlessness to match. Living with his guardian in an outback Australian township, Cody hears of an Aboriginal creature myth known as the “Donkegin,” sparking a burning interest that won't rest. Convinced an underwater monster prowls a nearby dam, Cody journeys into the very shadow-land of mystery and intrigue. This film is thoroughly charming, perfectly capturing the infectious spirit of determination and discovery within teen outcast dreamers everywhere.
Amoeba Music is proud to join forces once again with the Film Noir Foundation's epic yearly festival, 
NOIR CITY this January. America doesn't have a monopoly on swaggering gangsters, larcenous lovers, surly ex-cons, corrupt cops, and scheming femmes fatales. Six years after the first NOIR CITY: INTERNATIONAL, the Film Noir Foundation is at it again with NOIR CITY 18: INTERNATIONAL II, presenting an array of classic films from around the globe. It's going to be a wide-ranging, thematically cohesive immersion in a sordid world of sinister and sexy affairs, including the world premieres of two new restorations by the Film Noir Foundation. Yes, "It's a Bitter Little World," but for ten days and nights at the majestic Castro Theatre, NOIR CITY will be cinema paradiso. As always, the festival is programmed and hosted by Eddie Muller, internationally renowned "Czar of Noir" and host of the popular Turner Classic Movies series Noir Alley.
For veteran cinephiles, it's a chance to again experience cherished cinematic masterpieces in a bona 
fide movie palace. For those just starting their cinematic journey, NOIR CITY is the perfect introduction to a wide world of international filmmakers and stars, on the big screen, larger than life. The 10-day excursion travels through hot-blooded nightclubs of the Mexican cabareteras, neon-streaked alleys of Japanese yakuza thrillers, the stylish Parisian underworld, Italian palazzos hiding crimes of every social strata, a Kafkaesque Prague as envisioned by the Czech New Wave, even a rare serial killer film set in Nazi Germany made by Hollywood's finest director of film noir, Robert Siodmak. Tour guides include some of the world's most revered filmmakers: Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrzej Wajda, Julien Duvivier, Jean-Pierre Melville, Roberto Gavaldón, Jirí Weiss, and Masahiro Shinoda.
San Francisco's comedy festival SF Sketchfest is back for its 19th year and runs January 9-26th at 
venues all around the City. Amoeba Music is proud to co-present three hilarious and seriously kool musical events:
The Record Store Day Podcast with Paul Myers, with Dave Foley, Jonah Ray & Caitlin Gill
Saturday January 18, 2020 4pm-5:30pm
Punch Line Comedy Club
Tickets
Brought to you by the people behind Record Store Day, The Record Store Day Podcast is a bi-weekly celebration of "record store culture" hosted by acclaimed musician and journalist Paul Myers, featuring news and events from around the Record Store Day world, plus Paul's interviews with a wide variety of guests, all of whom share their own love of records and record stores of the past and present. $20, 18+
Wheels Off with Rhett Miller, with Ben Acker, Dave Hill, Janet Varney & Jean Grae
Sunday January 19, 2020 9:30pm-11pm
Swedish American Hall
Tickets
SF Sketchfest is thrilled for the return of Wheels Off with Rhett Miller (Old 97s) and his all-star friends. Modeled after old-school variety shows, Wheels Off features music, comedy, a little bit of discussion, and maybe even a skit here and there. This is a partially seated show—arrive early for a seat. $35, 21+
By Jon Longhi
I could have written about 20 or 30 Blu-rays and CDs this year, but here are just a few of my Best Of/favorites from 2019. In my case, “best of” often means “most entertaining.” I watch a lot of Oscar-winning movies every year but that’s not necessarily what I end up plopping down my money on and watching over and over. As the shark movie I’m about to review proves, taste is in your mouth.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged, Lionsgate:
Dumbest shark movie ever! We're talking Sharknado sequel level dumb! I'm not sure if this is a best or a 
worst of 2019 review. The first half hour of any shark movie is a tiresome chore I refer to as "getting to know the bait." This movie starts by introducing you to four of the most annoying teenage girls in cinema history. Seriously, you just can't wait for these people to die. I was tempted to fast forward through their character exposition just to see them get eaten quicker. After the agony of getting to know them, you see these girls make a series of cascadingly bad scuba diving decisions. I'll just lay out a few of them: First they leave the dive boat expedition they are supposed to be on so no one knows where they are. Then they go to some hidden water hole in the middle of the Mexican jungle where no one REALLY knows where they are. They think there's a path down to the watering hole but instead they just jump in off the sheer cliffs because who cares about getting out again? There is a raft in the middle of the watering hole covered with scuba gear that has been left for archeologists who are going to explore the underwater Mayan ruins beneath the surface. They decide to use the gear to check out the ruins themselves, because hey, two of the girls have never dived before and the other two are amateurs and cave diving is the most dangerous diving there is because you go ten feet into a cave and make a wrong turn and then are lost in the darkness where you drown but hey, life is short and even shorter when you're a total idiot like these girls. They make their way into the underwater ruins and then they run into a plot twist that's even dumber than their bad decisions. It turns out that the cave is home to a species of blind giant Great White sharks that became trapped in the submerged catacombs in the distant past and have evolved to the lightless conditions. Now I don't know how these sharks evolved into twenty to twenty-five foot apex predators with no seals to feed on and only little cave fish to eat but by this time we've suspended our belief to the point that we would believe up is down so who cares? Despite the ridiculous premises and unlikeable characters you still find yourself rooting for these idiots just because the producers manage to create an entertaining amusement park ride where you find yourself jumping and shrieking at one shark after another looming out of the Mayan darkness. Because this is a sequel, the film makers feel they really have to ramp up the ridiculousness in the last half hour and we are treated to an over the top thrill ride that gives even the last Sharknado sequel a run for its title of Stupidest Shark Movie Ever. I'm beginning to think this movie is a cinematic masterpiece in disguise because it actually got me to care about these people and sit through a roller coaster ride of utter stupidity till the final credits rolled. Despite being utterly manipulated to the point where I feel deeply ashamed of myself, I have to admit that I loved this movie.
By Jon Longhi
Welcome to the last Having A Movie Moment of 2019. This year I go out with bang and review one über box set...
Godzilla: The Showa Era Films, 1954-1975, The Criterion Collection:
This is arguably the biggest Blu-ray release of 2019. It is the one thousandth Criterion Collection release, 
and what could be a bigger subject matter for a big release than a Godzilla box set? This is all fifteen films from the original classic era of Godzilla. Godzilla is probably the world's most well-known monster. Only Dracula or Frankenstein are on the same level. Godzilla is the ultimate metaphor of the Cold War and the atomic era, an uncontrollable monster that we ourselves created by our warlike ways. Only a few other pop culture creations resonate this strongly in the modern mind of the human race. Over the course of the past 65 years, this giant radioactive lizard has stomped his way through 35 movies. There is a good reason he has been dubbed "King Of The Monsters." Generations of children and adults have grown up watching his movies. For decades they were the staples of Saturday late night horror shows and afternoon matinees. I don't think I've ever met a person who hasn't seen a Godzilla film.
The Big G has always had a special place in my life. I've been obsessed with his films since early childhood and watched them on television whenever they aired. I've bought every Godzilla movie ever released in the US in every format going back to Super 8. When I was in fourth grade, our year-end project was to give a fifteen minute speech to the entire school on a subject we had heavily researched. The topic I chose was Godzilla and his cultural relevance. I gave a good speech and got a good grade, but I'm not sure that everyone in the audience got or agreed with my point. So this Criterion Collection release, and a release of such importance, feels like a kind of personal validation to me. My fourth grade self was right.
