Misfit Medleys

Comments (0) By Michael Fox Wednesday, Feb 10 2010

More About

Slap a title like “Freaks, Punks, Skanks, and Cranks” on a film series, and it can mean only one thing: Fun for the whole family. “San Francisco Punks and Beyond” (Feb. 18 at 6, 8, and 10 p.m.) hot-wires the proceedings with a torrent of late-’70s clips of Dead Kennedys, Iggy Pop, and other enemies of the state, shot by local artist Joe Rees and his cohorts at Target Video. A slightly different kind of public presentation — the deafening and smoky machine wars staged under S.F. freeway overpasses by Mark Pauline and friends — is saluted in “Survival Research Laboratories Performance Films” (Feb. 20 at 7 and 9 p.m.). The colorful compendium of hellraisers and taboo-smashers continues with the impossibly brave and/or notoriously exhibitionistic Italian actress-writer-director Asia Argento plumbing the depths (or heights) of narcissism in her 2001 flick, Scarlet Diva (Feb. 21 at 2 p.m.). The series wraps with a pair of genuine curiosities: Jeff Sumerel’s To My Great Chagrin: The Unbelievable Story of Brother Theodore (Feb. 25 at 7:30 p.m.) profiles the actor and oddball infamous for his singularly bizarre guest TV appearances, while the hippie desert comedy, Gold (Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m.), made under the influence of free love and cheap drugs in Northern California in 1968 (but unreleased until it played British theaters in 1972), offers a time capsule of sex, music, and metaphors. It’s never too late — or too early — to turn on, tune in, and drop out.
Feb. 18-27, 2010