Sunshocked

What is the business of artists? Are we brilliant creators, fashioning the world into our own mad fantasies or are we discoverers, research scientists of pre-existing aesthetic patterns? And what does this have to do with the Wizard of Oz?

In addition to well navigating the sometimes dangerous territory between playful and melancholy, “Reprise” has succeeded in getting Joy Division’s “New Dawn Fades” permanently stuck in my head.

I called my friend Brant to attend a screening of “Everything’s Cool” at the SFIFF last weekend. It turns out that he was already there, as a panelist. That was only the first of many “Think Globally, Act—Hey I Know That Guy!” moments from the film.

When I lived in Indiana, I dreamt of San Francisco as a Bohemian paradise of art, love, and radical politics. Though my fantasies lacked specifics, I could have easily been thinking of the San Francisco International Film Festival, which begins today.