Report

"Full Grown Men" road trip reaches theaters

Not so long ago, theatrical distribution was the Holy Grail for independent filmmakers. But if you’ve been to an art house in the last six months or longer, or semi-regularly peruse the arts section of any newspaper or magazine (let alone the trades), you’re well aware that the box-office returns for foreign films, indies and documentaries are at a dangerously low ebb. So the winners who do score distribution in the current environment, like local filmmakers David Munro and Xandra Castleton’s Full Grown Men, which opens July 25 at the Lumiere, SF, experience something more akin to tempered enthusiasm than unadulterated joy. A theatrical run isn’t quite a hollow victory, but (with apologies to David Mamet) it increasingly feels less like a Cadillac El Dorado than a set of steak knives.

topics: bay area, comedy, directors, independent film

Insider

Of bunnies and backstories: SFFS Screen's "Hank and Mike"

Thomas Michael remembers well the birth of Hank and Mike, the titular blue-collar Easter bunnies in director Matthiew Klinck’s absurdist workplace comedy on the SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki starting Friday. It was a decade ago and the then 19-year-old writer/actor was spitballing ideas with the rest of the writing staff of Y B Normal?, a Canadian Comedy Network sketch show.

"I said, ‘Hey, what about an Easter bunny and I pretended to take a drag on a cigarette, ‘Those fucking kids and their fucking chocolates!’" Michael relates in a conference call with SF360.org and his writing partner and co-star Paolo Mancini. "That got a big laugh. Then Paolo and I locked ourselves in the basement for a few hours and came up with the actual characters."

topics: comedy, san francisco film society, sffs screen at the sundance kabuki