Wholphin

With the Olympics and the DNC dominating the news these past couple weeks I almost missed the latest Bigfoot “discovery.” While hiking through the woods in northern Georgia this past June two men claim to have stumbled upon a dead 7′ 7″ Sasquatch, which they then brought home and put on ice while they made preparations for the proper unveiling. Crazy, right?

Three months ago I would have been rolling my eyes just like you, but that was before I saw David Thayer’s documentary, Bigfoot: A Beast on the Run. Now, I know all about Ray Wallace and his 16-inch wooden feet, I’ve seen the Patterson/Gimlin film at least a dozen times, and I could argue the “mid-tarsel break” theory like a pro. And you know what, it’s a damn convincing theory.

Thayer traveled around the United States meeting with Bigfoot researchers, hunters and enthusiasts, including University professors, cryptozoology experts and Bay Area native, Tom Biscardi, who was the one and only person called in to consult on this recent Bigfoot discovery in Georgia. Biscardi has been called many things, but passionless is certainly not one of them.

So while we all eagerly await the results of the DNA tests to reveal whether this Georgia Bigfoot is human, opossum or other, I highly recommend you whet your appetite with Thayer’s documentary, excerpted on this month’s Wholphin No 6. Camping will never be the same again.

at Cinefamily, the venerable institution at the Silent Movie Theatre

Sunday, 8/24 @ 7:30 & 9:30pm
Frank Zappa’s The Amazing Mr. Bickford

The title is not an exaggeration. Bruce Bickford’s art–a hallucinatory stop-motion amalgamation of Peter Pan, Ray Harryhausen, and The Wild Bunch–is nothing short of amazing. Frank Zappa first used the incredible talents of self-taught claymation wizard Bickford as visual companions to his music in the film Baby Snakes, and continued this collaboration in The Amazing Mr. Bickford. On the film’s original VHS cover, Zappa exclaimed, “Bruce Bickford is a genius!…Few other home video products can compare with the years of effort and attention to detail contained in less than an hour of The Amazing Mr. Bickford. It is a show that will be watched again and again, freeze-framed, and gasped at for years to come.” Bruce Bickford will be in attendance for a Q&A after this incredibly rare screening.

Dirs. Bruce Bickford & Frank Zappa, 1987, digital presentation, 60 min.
Tickets – $14/ $10 for members

Tuesday, 8/26 @ 8pm
Cas’l and Other Unreleased Bruce Bickford Films

While the greater mass of animator Bruce Bickford’s work seen by the public consists of the films he made while working for Frank Zappa, he never stopped working, either before or after his employ. We will screen some of Bruce’s early Super-8 experiments as a teenager, as well as his unfinished 45-minute opus Cas’l, the inspired result of years of solitary work, featuring a live score by The Gaslamp Killer. Also, Bickford will perform on of his “blues raps”, with musical accompaniment by Gerry Fialka.

Tickets – $14/ $10 for members

SF360 Film+Club will be presenting Dispatches from Dimension X, a showcase of work by Wholphin favorite, Carson Mell, next Thursday, August 28th at Club Mezzanine in San Francisco.  

Take equal parts country-rock star, science-fiction writer, undersexed adolescent and uncomfortable malcontent and you’ve merely cracked the door into the world of Carson Mell. Carson will be in attendance to present his animated short films and music videos, and to read from his illustrated novel, Saguaro, about the life and times of ex-rock star Bobby Bird, the fictional protagonist of many of Carson’s short films, which can be seen on Wholphin 1, 3, 5 and the upcoming 7. 

After Carson appeared with screenings of Chonto at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival, the requests came pouring in for more. So here’s your chance, as Elston Gunn of Ain’t It Cool News said, to “hop on the cusp of an American original.”

Tickets are $8 with an RSVP to sf360@sffs.org or $12 at the door. Doors open at 7PM. Screening starts at 7:30PM. Mezzanine is located at 444 Jessie Street in San Francisco.