SF\u00a0Godzillafest\u00a0returns to the Balboa Theater\u00a0in San Francisco,\u00a0presenting more than 20 movies starring or inspired by the indomitable sea monster. Screenings\u00a0are\u00a0Friday through Sunday, beginning\u00a0at 2 p.m. Friday with\u00a0\u201cGodzilla, King of the Monsters!\u201d (1956), the extremely Americanized version of the 1954 Japanese original,\u00a0which addressed the human effects of the atomic bombing.\u00a0Also\u00a0screening\u00a0are\u00a0\u201cGodzilla\u00a01985\u201d (1985),\u00a0\u201cDestroy All Monsters\u201d (1968), \u201cGodzilla vs. Megalon\u201d (1973), \u201cSon of Godzilla\u201d (1967) and \u201cGodzilla vs. Gigan\u201d (1972), to name a few.\u00a0\u00a0Festivities also include toys, trivia and prizes.\u00a0Visit\u00a0balboamovies.com<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0a\u00a0schedule and other information.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Yerba Buena Center for the Arts welcomes\u00a0Criterion Collection curatorial director Ashley Clark\u00a0at 6 p.m. Friday,\u00a0who will sign copies of his new book, \u201cThe World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films.\u201d The evening also includes a screening of Zeinabu\u00a0irene\u00a0Davis\u2019\u00a0\u201cCompensation\u201d (1999) and a post-screening talk with Clark and Davis. Visit\u00a0ybca.org.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Invite,\u201d\u00a0currently in Bay Area theaters, is a smart,\u00a0funny\u00a0and unexpectedly moving comedy about sex, marriage and pleasure, and the best release to date from filmmaker-actor Olivia Wilde (\u201cBooksmart,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t\u00a0Worry Darling\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n Written by Will McCormack and\u00a0Rashida Jones and\u00a0adapted from the Spanish film \u201cThe People Upstairs,\u201d\u00a0the movie is a four-hander set\u00a0almost entirely\u00a0in a San Francisco apartment.\u00a0Its inhabitants are the unhappily married Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde).\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0grumpy\u00a0failed\u00a0musician who teaches at a non-prestigious college.\u00a0She\u2019s\u00a0got an art degree that\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0never used and, clearly depressed, is\u00a0frequently\u00a0redecorating. The two barely communicate.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joe balks when learning that Angela has invited their cool, confident new neighbors \u2014 sexologist Pina (Penelope Cruz) and former firefighter Hawk (Edward Norton) \u2014 to dinner. Joe plans to take the couple to task for their noisy lovemaking, a subject the movie has fun with.\u00a0The evening heats up when Pina and Hawk reveal that they\u00a0frequently\u00a0host sex parties, and they invite the stunned but intrigued Joe and Angela to take part.\u00a0A swap session proves chaotic, confrontational, sensual,\u00a0zany\u00a0and disastrous.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wilde adroitly handles the tonal shifts, and her movie\u00a0contains\u00a0sparklingly talky material along with the carnality. She draws stellar work from her cast. Rogen is comic gold; Cruz, who delivers the closest thing the movie has to a climactic big speech, is magnetic; Norton and Wilde, too, create three-dimensional characters who surprise. And the ambiguous ending\u00a0contains\u00a0a poignancy that might make you cry.<\/p>\n Combining goofy energy with a \u201cWizard of Oz\u201d\u2013inspired plot, \u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,\u201d directed by David Wain (\u201cWet Hot American Summer\u201d), is a mindless, wacky romp that aims solely to make people laugh, and that\u2019s fine. But the\u00a0movie, currently in Bay Area theaters,\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0nearly as\u00a0funny as it purports to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zoey Deutch portrays Gail Daugerty, a chipper Kansas hairdresser. Gail and her\u00a0fiance, Tom (Michael Cassidy), have an arrangement by which each is allowed to cheat on the other with one chosen celebrity. After Tom takes advantage of the deal by bedding Jennifer Aniston (playing herself), Gail decides\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0her turn. In Los Angeles with colleague Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) for a hairstylist convention, Gail pursues her own celebrity pass: actor Jon Hamm.\u00a0Searching for Hamm (who plays himself) in La\u00a0La\u00a0Land, Gail and Otto\u00a0acquire\u00a0companions: a washed-up paparazzo (played by cowriter Ken Marino), a low-level talent agent (Ben Wang), and actor John Slattery (playing himself), Hamm\u2019s real-life \u201cMad Men\u201d costar.\u00a0<\/p>\n Obstacles arise when a switched suitcase\u00a0lands\u00a0Gail in a deadly situation with a Wicked Witchy crime boss (Sabrina\u00a0Impacciatore).\u00a0The movie has moments. The frustrated\u00a0mailman\u00a0(Fred Melamed) who narrates\u00a0is an enjoyable presence. Slattery\u2019s transformation from Cowardly Lion to action\u00a0star\u00a0is nutty fun.\u00a0But the story is too preposterous\u00a0and the characters\u00a0too\u00a0dumb for credibility. The swapped suitcase is a cliche. A bit involving a door closing on a foot repeatedly is tediously unamusing. The perky Gail is too shallow to take seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post Movies: SF Jewish film fest,\u00a0Godzillafest, \u2018World of Black Film,\u2019 \u2018The Invite,\u2019\u00a0\u2018Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass\u2019\u00a0<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jewish films and\u00a0Godzillas\u00a0galore top the slate this week.\u00a0 The 46th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, celebrating Jewish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-397347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Invite.jpg\")
L-R, Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton are excellent in \u201cThe Invite.\u201d (A24 via Bay City News)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Gail.jpg\")
L-R,John Slattery, Ben Wang, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Zoey Deutch and Ken Marino appear in \u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.\u201d (Sony Pictures Classics via Bay City News)<\/p>\n