![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Tony.jpg\")
L-R: Antonio Banderas and Dominic Sessa star in \u201cTony.\u201d (Seacia Pavao\/A24 via Bay City News)<\/p>\n
\u201cTony,\u201d directed and cowritten by Matt Johnson (\u201cBlackberry\u201d), is a lightweight but engaging origin story presenting a formative summer in the life of Anthony Bourdain, the celebrity chef, author, and TV host who died in 2018. The 1975-set dramedy is currently showing in Bay Area theaters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s fictionalized adaptation of Boudain\u2019s memoir \u201cKitchen Confidential\u201d depicts Bourdain (played by Dominic Sessa), aka Tony, as a brash, directionless 19-year-old who uses hifalutin language to impress people and lies his way into one opportunity after another.\u00a0When his application for a writing fellowship is rejected, Tony impulsively heads from New Jersey to Provincetown on Cape Cod to pursue his high-school crush, Nancy (Emilia Jones). An awakening begins when he gets a job in a seafood restaurant\u2019s rowdy kitchen, hired by the eatery\u2019s tough-loving owner,\u00a0who\u2019s\u00a0called Chef (Antonio Banderas). Under Chef\u2019s wing, Tony becomes Anthony and learns to cook and appreciate food.\u00a0Another notable character is Sal (Leo Woodall), a hotheaded oyster shucker and druggie who becomes Tony\u2019s\u00a0sort-of\u00a0pal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTony\u201d\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0particularly\u00a0penetrating or insightful;\u00a0Johnson and cowriters gloss over the\u00a0protagonist\u2019s darker aspects, the\u00a0romance unfolds blandly and\u00a0predictably,\u00a0and the\u00a0redemption-filled\u00a0ending\u00a0is\u00a0too\u00a0happy for credibility.\u00a0Still, the movie is an\u00a0enjoyable coming-of-age tale, with wonderful\u00a0performances.\u00a0Sporting lots of curly 1970s hair, Sessa conveys in Tony both teenage restlessness and hints of Tony\u2019s future self.\u00a0Banderas\u2019 Chef, a fabricated character who becomes Tony\u2019s mentor, is\u00a0resonantly warm and soulful; the pair\u2019s\u00a0mentoring scenes are the highlight of the movie.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CampMiasma.png\")
L-R: Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson appear in \u201cTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.\u201d (Mubi via Bay City News)<\/p>\n
One of the most exciting filmmakers\u00a0working in horror cinema, Jane Schoenbrun (\u201cI Saw the TV Glow\u201d) makes movies that\u00a0operate\u00a0with a logic all their own. The results can be hazy or\u00a0puzzling\u00a0but also fascinating.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0again the case with Schoenbrun\u2019s excitingly original \u201cTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,\u201d currently in Bay Area theaters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kris (Hannah Einbinder), a 29-year-old Sundance darling, has been tapped to direct an \u201celevated,\u00a0aka woke\u201d reboot of the \u201cCamp Miasma\u201d franchise, a 1980s slasher series featuring a transphobically depicted gender-fluid spear-wielding monster called Little Death (Jack Haven). That moniker, non-coincidentally, is a French term for orgasm.\u00a0Since childhood, Kris has been obsessed with the franchise \u2014 and with Billy, the\u00a0actress\u00a0who at age 24 (played by Amanda Fix)\u00a0starred in the first picture. Aching to cast Billy, now a 60ish recluse (played by Gillian Anderson),\u00a0in her movie, Kris visits Billy, who lives at the very site where \u201cMiasma\u201d was filmed. An erotic charge occurs between the academic-minded Kris and the sex-positive Billy.\u00a0Both\u00a0note how the \u201cMiasma\u201d films deeply affected them \u2014 Kris as a child watching the movies; and Billy as a young\u00a0actress\u00a0traumatized when filming them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As in Schoenbrun\u2019s\u00a0previous\u00a0films, fiction becomes reality.\u00a0Ambiguity is an ingredient in the work of Schoenbrun, who\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0the most accessible filmmaker, and the results will frustrate some.\u00a0Yet\u00a0the\u00a0movie impresses\u00a0as a grade-A psychological-horror picture and a blood-soaked lesbian love story.\u00a0It also is a consideration of the slasher genre by Schoenbrun, who identifies as trans and nonbinary and, throughout the film, addresses the genre\u2019s hateful stereotypes and their emotional impact.\u00a0Einbinder,\u00a0funny as the inhibited, awkward Kris, and Anderson, whose Billy works magic with lines like \u201cDo you like dipping\u00a0sauce?\u201d supply entertaining chemistry.<\/p>\n
The Noe Valley Girls Film Festival\u2019s\u00a011th edition\u00a0is\u00a0at 4 p.m.\u00a0Saturday at the Noe Valley Ministry\u00a0in San Francisco.\u00a0Designed to inspire girls to make movies and to celebrate the Noe Valley neighborhood, the event includes screenings of short works made by young female filmmakers, plus a guest speaker. Visit\u00a0nvgff.com<\/a>\u00a0for more information.\u00a0<\/p>\n In celebration of the publication of the English-language edition of \u201cElisabeth,\u201d a novel written by Eric Rohmer under a pseudonym in his pre-filmmaking period, the Roxie Theater will screen \u201cMy Night at Maud\u2019s\u201d (1969), the third film in Rohmer\u2019s\u00a0\u201cSix Moral Tales\u201d series, at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Visit\u00a0roxie.com<\/a>\u00a0for more information.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post Movies: SF Queer film fest, \u2018Tony,\u2019 \u2018Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,\u2019 Noe Valley Girls festival\u00a0\u00a0<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A queer indie festival, a teenage Anthony Bourdain and Jane Schoenbrun\u2019s new horror movie are on today\u2019s slate.\u00a0\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-436991","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\/436991","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=436991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}