A collection of shorts from this year's San Francisco International Film Festival demonstrates what can happen when people steer their thoughts in a positive, rather than negative direction.

During the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000, the wall between contemporary opera and musical theater was pretty thoroughly demolished.

Most creative talents have a professional bag of tricks they like to employ in the course of creating art. From alliteration to asymmetry, from pointilism to pizzicato, these gimmicks help startle an audience and add to an artist's personal style.

Much of the evening's success is due to Wilma Bonet's performance as Vieja. Short, squat, and filled with foreboding, the emotional and dramatic power of Bonet's nurse make the self-satisfied machismo of Creon and Jason seem downright puny.

Time flies when you're having fun. It's hard to believe that half a century has passed since A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum debuted at the Alvin Theatre on May 8, 1962.

If one were to look for unlikely social climbers in literature, one of the most obvious examples is Eliza Doolittle. The character created by George Bernard Shaw for 1912's Pygmalion was further immortalized in the 1956 hit musical, My Fair Lady.

From the sirens of the silver screen to the fierce feminists who helped change the world, many a proud woman has left her mark on civilization.

One of the most popular shorts at the Frameline 34 Film Festival put a comic spin on what happens when a straight woman convinces her best gay friend from college to help her make a baby. The big question on everyone's mind was whether it would translate into a 90-minute feature film.