Come Out of the Closet!

Call us sick and twisted, but the Bay Area has an appreciation for the ridiculous musical humor of R. Kelly, the embattled R&B star who's expected to finally go to trial this year on child pornography charges dating to 2002. Kelly fills large local venues to capacity in concert; he filmed his 2006 live DVD at the Paramount in Oakland. He's a favorite among some of the area's creative hip-hop DJs — KALX DJ Matt Africa even created a mixtape dedicated to the crooner. And he has been a surprise hit with the San Francisco Film Society, which is bringing back a second installment of its "Trapped in the Closet" Sing-Along, based on Kelly's 22-part (and counting) sonic soap opera with unexpected twists that trumps anything All My Children has to offer. Curator Henri Mazza presents several episodes and videos for our guilty pleasure.

Also screening is a selection of Kelly-influenced oddities, including Andrew Bancroft (aka Jelly Donut) and Zach Slow's three-part claymation short, "Trapped in the Clauset," which trumps all of the collective wrongness of Kelly's opus. Let's just say it's not for the religious. To steal the narrator's best phrase from Episode 13, "It all be crazier than a fish with titties."
Fri., Jan. 25, 7 p.m., 2008