What is the best San Francisco TV show of all time?
Chronicle Culture Critic Peter Hartlaub recently rediscovered what he says is the best, the short-lived 'Midnight Caller,' which followed a cop-turned-late-night-radio-host as he offered talk therapy to the Bay Area over the air waves and solved a crime or two.
Now, we're looking for Chronicle readers' picks. Choose your favorite scripted series set in San Francisco from the list below and tell us why it deserves the crown.
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Tom's Guide
8 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
All 5 Fantastic Four movies, ranked — including the one Marvel doesn't want you to see
It's proven remarkably difficult for Marvel to make a good movie about the Fantastic Four, considering that it's the company's flagship superhero property and the series that kicked off Marvel's comic-book Silver Age resurgence in 1961. The superhero family of Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing has a spotty history at the movies, beginning with a low-budget 1994 feature film that was never officially released (but is available online if you know where to look). The later, larger-scale adaptations haven't fared much better, from a pair of Tim Story-directed movies in the pre-MCU '00s to 'Chronicle' director Josh Trank's misbegotten 2015 reboot. Comics readers have very particular standards — I first saw the 1994 movie at an unauthorized screening full of fans yelling out their negative comments — and now that the team has entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' has the chance to finally get things right. Here's my take on how all five Fantastic Four movies stack up. A notoriously troubled production that was extensively altered during reshoots, Trank's franchise reimagining could be regarded as a missed opportunity. But I can't see how Trank's initial approach would have ever made sense for these characters, who are defined by their heroic optimism and solidarity. Trank turns the team's origin story into dark body horror, making their powers into curses. Trank and the various screenwriters give the characters absurdly grim backstories, even making The Thing's 'It's clobberin' time' catch phrase into a motto of abuse. Stars Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell all seem completely lost, and there's no sense of camaraderie or even cooperation among the characters. The horribly paced story takes place almost exclusively in dimly lit science and military facilities, barely getting around to a half-hearted battle in its final moments. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Watch on Disney Plus As detailed in the documentary 'Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four,' this 1994 movie was put into production solely so that Constantin Film could retain the film rights to the characters. B-movie legend Corman engaged his famous resourcefulness to produce a low-budget film that mimics an epic scale, with mostly underwhelming results. Still, director Oley Sassone and stars Alex Hyde-White, Rebecca Staab, Jay Underwood and Michael Bailey Smith put their full effort into the cheesy, Saturday morning-style adventure, and Joseph Culp is easily the best onscreen Doctor Doom. Culp brings grandiose Shakespearean villainy to the Fantastic Four's arch-nemesis, despite being surrounded by chintzy sets and costumes, and even worse special effects. The story is dull and takes way too long to give the characters their powers, but the movie is a semi-endearing reminder of the era when superhero movies were underfunded underdogs. Watch 'Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four' on Prime Video The second movie starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis gets a few things right, including a goofy, upbeat tone and an eerie take on the Silver Surfer (played physically by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne). Its version of the planet-devouring villain Galactus is a bust, though, opting to depict the distinctively designed comic-book character as an amorphous cloud of space dust. Julian McMahon's return as Doctor Doom goes nowhere, and there's an equally pointless power-switching gimmick among the main four superheroes. The focus on the impending marriage of Gruffudd's Reed Richards and Alba's Sue Storm results in some painful sitcom-style hijinks, and the rushed storytelling never convincingly conveys the world-ending stakes of Galactus' impending arrival. The only thing more horrific than the threat of Galactus is the horrendous wig that Alba is forced to wear, which is emblematic of the movie's slapdash approach. Watch on Disney Plus The first adventure for the team's '00s incarnation is marginally better, thanks to the real sense of menace that McMahon brings to Doctor Doom. He's not as bombastic as Joseph Culp, but he's more insidiously dangerous, reimagined as a tech mogul rather than a foreign monarch. The team's oft-retold origin story is a mess, though, and including Doom as part of it only undermines his authority and influence. By the time he emerges as a genuine villain, the plot has lost most of its momentum. The bickering between Evans' Johnny Storm and Chiklis' Ben Grimm is more mean-spirited than charming, and Evans' version of Johnny as an extreme sports-obsessed jerk is barely distinguishable from the character's foul-mouthed resurrection in 'Deadpool & Wolverine.' The dated pop-culture references don't help, although they can be amusingly quaint, much like the movie itself. Watch on Disney Plus I might make the argument that being the best Fantastic Four movie is a fairly low standard to reach, but 'First Steps' is an entertaining movie on its own, and the only Fantastic Four movie to capture the whiz-bang wonder of the best Fantastic Four comic books. It also benefits from the substantial resources of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to deliver a sci-fi saga that lives up to the team's adventures on the page. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are the first Fantastic Four to truly come off like a family, and that makes the emotions at the heart of the story more meaningful. The alternate retro-futuristic setting lets the story unfold on its own terms, away from the clutter of the MCU. Maybe there still hasn't been a great Fantastic Four movie, but at least now there's a good one.
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
2025 is the year of Pedro Pascal. Here's why he's having a moment
A light, drizzly rain had started to pour, interrupting what began as a balmy March evening in Oakland, and Pedro Pascal was wistful. In exactly two weeks, he would turn 50, and he was feeling it. 'I chase nostalgia a lot, now that I'm getting older,' Pascal told the Chronicle. 'I'm a moviegoer more than I am anything else in life, to be honest.' As he walked the red carpet, then attended the premiere of the Oakland-shot ' Freaky Tales ' at the Grand Lake Theatre, and gently held court at the after-party at Dragon Gate in Jack London Square, Pascal seemed to be treasuring the experience, as if taking a career victory lap. But the end is hardly near. If Pascal is truly an alpha moviegoer, then he's been seeing a lot of Pedro Pascal movies lately. Over the past four months, beginning with April's release of ' Freaky Tales,' the Chilean-born actor has starred in four movies and one limited series. In May, he was featured in the second season of HBO Max's epic post-apocalyptic series ' The Last of Us,' for which he earned his fourth Emmy nomination. In June he co-starred with Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans in ' Materialists,' Celine Song's sharp takedown of the New York dating scene. In July, he is co-headlining in Ari Aster's pandemic potboiler ' Eddington ' and the Marvel superhero reboot ' The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' which opened Friday, July 25, and has already pulled a 2025-best $24.4 million in Thursday previews. It is so obvious: 2025 is the Year of Pascal. He's even on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair with the title, 'Everyone wants a piece of Pedro.' Indeed. Dial it back to 2024, when he appeared in four movies, including ' Gladiator II,' and that's eight movies in a year and a half. That's an amazing run for a longtime journeyman actor who began as a Spanish-speaking immigrant, although a privileged one: His aristocratic parents fled Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship and eventually settled in San Antonio, then Southern California. But for more than a quarter of a century he had struggled, cobbling together a career with credits that include TV guest shots in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' 'Touched By an Angel' and 'NYPD Blue' to name just a few. So why Pedro Pascal, and why now? Strangely, his big breakthrough was a role that hid his face. The Disney+ 'Star Wars' spinoff ' The Mandalorian ' (2019-23) starred Pascal as Din Djarin, the helmeted bounty hunter charged with protecting the Yoda-like Baby Grogu. He's never been off the A-list since. Pascal had been in high profile projects before — a recurring role in Season 4 of 'Game of Thrones' in 2014 and a co-lead in the Netflix series ' Narcos ' (2015-17). But 'The Mandalorian' made him flaming hot. To capitalize, he accepted the role as the villain in the 2020 pandemic box office casualty 'Wonder Woman 1984,' opposite Gal Gadot. To prove his versatility, he shaved off his trademark mustache. Big mistake. 'Strongly disagree with a clean shaven me,' Pascal groused to Variety recently. 'I was so appalled by the way I look in 'Wonder Woman 1984.'' Which brings up another part of the Pascal mystique. Has there been a Hollywood star as defined by his mustache since Burt Reynolds? That might be one key to Pascal, who in the eyes of many of his growing number of fans is getting better looking with age. Every scraggly facial hair, every crinkly wrinkle around the eyes, every graying hair of his unruly mop adds depth. The guy increasingly feels lived-in, like an REI-outfitted dreamboat. In 'Materialists,' Johnson, as a Manhattan matchmaker, calls his character 'perfect,' one who 'checks every box.' In 'The Last of Us,' he is confronted by a young woman seeking revenge for her father's death, a man he killed. Even as she is consumed by vengeance, the woman, played with wonderful bloodlust by Kaitlyn Dever, stops for a moment and observes, 'You actually are pretty handsome. Congrats on that.' In 'Eddington,' Joaquin Phoenix's sheriff with an inferiority complex is intimidated by the charisma of Pascal's small-town New Mexico mayor. And obviously, Pascal's role as Mr. Fantastic, stud scientist and astronaut in 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' speaks for itself. Forget the Silver Surfer; he's the Silver Fox. Yet sex appeal only partially explains Pascal's popularity. What has really made him a star is that we have come to instinctively trust him. In 'The Mandalorian,' 'The Last of Us' and 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' he's a protector. Pascal, who has a transgender sister, is that way in real life, too. In April he slammed an anti-trangender Instagram post by 'Harry Potter' author J.K. Rowling, calling it ' Heinous LOSER behavior,' just one example of his willingness to engage on social and political issues. But even in 'Freaky Tales,' in which he's a contract killer looking to reform, he's a man holding on to hard-won truth and experience. And that's ultimately what Pascal brings to the table. He doesn't have time for B.S. He's lived a life, and it shows, especially in those melancholy eyes that seem to say so much. That experience informs the sixth episode of the second season of 'The Last of Us,' which features some of his best acting and is one of the best hours of television this year.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Why I traveled hundreds of miles to this disappearing California wine region
For a long time, my only association with the city of Rancho Cucamonga was as the setting of the defunct Comedy Central series 'Workaholics.' If you've seen the show, which follows a trio of stoners who flit between their office-park telemarketing job and subdivision rental home, you might find it impossible to believe that this San Bernardino County city could have any connection to wine. But Rancho Cucamonga and the surrounding Cucamonga Valley is in fact an essential landmark on the map of California wine. Once the epicenter of the state's early wine industry, it fell victim to urbanization in the mid-20th century until its vineyards all but disappeared. The Cucamonga Valley's rise, fall and, now, possible redemption is the subject of a major story I published on Wednesday. I hope you'll give it a read. In today's newsletter I want to explain how I came to write about this beleaguered southern California wine region, hundreds of miles outside of the Chronicle's typical coverage zone. I started hearing mutterings of Cucamonga (and not just on the 'Workaholics' subreddit) a few years ago. Winemaker Abe Schoener, formerly of the Scholium Project, told me he was relocating from Napa to Los Angeles for the express purpose of working with Cucamonga Valley vineyards like Lopez Ranch. When I visited Raj Parr at his winery vineyard in Cambria, he poured me wines from his Scythian Wine Co., a brand he created just for Cucamonga vineyards. Suddenly, I noticed, a lot of producers were making Cucamonga wine: In addition to Parr and Schoener, there's Scar of the Sea, A Tribute to Grace, Herrmann York, Carol Shelton and Municipal Winemakers. And I'd read Frances Dinkelspiel's excellent book 'Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California,' which devotes an entire section to the salacious early history of wine in Cucamonga, where the battle for control of one revered vineyard resulted in five murders. Probably, somewhere, there was a story there, but I didn't know enough about Cucamonga to really know what the story was — certainly not enough to convince my editor to send me down there. Sure, it's got an interesting past, but what was the news hook? Former Chronicle wine editor Jon Bonné had written an article about Cucamonga in 2014, depicting the area as the wine-region equivalent of a ghost town. It seemed like this was a story for the history books, not today's paper. But then last fall I got a call from Erik Castro, a talented Bay Area photographer who has shot many wine stories for the Chronicle over the years. (He also made all the photos for Bonné's book 'The New California Wine.') Erik had been spending time down there with Schoener, documenting the 2024 harvest at Lopez Ranch and vinification at Schoener's urban winery in Los Angeles. He provided me with a key piece of information: Lopez — the largest remaining vineyard in the Cucamonga Valley, planted in 1919 — had been sold to a plastics manufacturer and was slated for development. Just as it was gaining renown with these up-and-coming winemakers, it was going to vanish. There was the hook. In March, I drove down and spent a day with Schoener, treading through the sandy soil at Lopez, whose gargantuan, leafless vines resembled tumbleweeds swaying in the wind. We visited the vineyard that he calls Maglite — because it's next to the flashlight factory — where scattered, century-old vines blended into the scraggly landscape. (It's known to others as the Francis Road Vineyard.) If there hadn't been a small crew pruning that day, I wouldn't have clocked it as a vineyard at all. I understood why Erik's photojournalist eye had been drawn to this place, with its unexpected, incongruous visuals. This place has none of the typical wine-region romance. The Cucamonga Valley is a seemingly endless expanse of logistics hubs and chain retail. It's home to the largest Amazon warehouse in the U.S. And yet the few hundred acres of vines that improbably survive, remnants of the Cucamonga Valley's former glory, are hiding in plain sight. Still, I didn't really get the full picture until I returned in May, clocking a single-day roundtrip from SFO to Ontario International Airport, to spend the day with Domenic Galleano. The owner of the valley's last commercial winery, Galleano has made it his life's mission to save the last of the region's vineyard acreage — and maybe, I learned, even expand it. To write about wine is to write about a sense of place. This story is about the potential erasure of a place: the transformation of a slice of earth from something distinctive and extraordinary — a wine paradise unlike any other — into something colorless. This is a common American tale, unfolding in small towns, suburbs and cities across the country. The question becomes whether anyone is interested in preserving the local color. In the Cucamonga Valley, a few people are. This story is about them.
