This weekend Jesse Hawthorne Ficks' excellent and audacious Midnight for Maniacs film series returns to the Castro this Friday with a triple dose of palate cleansing power violence that he's chosen to call "Stranded with a Buddy." If your parents came home late when you were a kid, you've probably seen at least one of these films at least ten times, but nothing beats watching them from a plush seat at the Castro with a couple hundred of your weirdest friends.

The perfect lowbrow palate cleanser after the onslaught of artsyness and intellect that was the San Francisco International Film Fest, the onslaught begins at 7:30 with the cable classic "Predator," which somehow manages to be credibly scary while showcasing the incredibly goofy bromance between a youthful Aaahnold and Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed, for those keeping score).

The gore clicks up a notch with John Carpenter's skull-splitting (not figuratively) creature feature "The Thing" at 9:45 and ends with the woefully under-seen "A Boy and His Dog," the first (and best) movie about a boy who talks telepathically with his dog in a post-apocalyptic future wasteland.

San Francisco is probably the best place I can think of to be stranded
with a buddy, so in honor of the buddy theme, I asked Jesse to give me
his top seven things to do in SF with a buddy (before you're dead). Here
are his picks:

1. Yamo Restaurant
Yamo is not only exceptionally cheap and delicious Burmese food, watching the knock-down, drag-out fights between the hard working ladies behind the counter is worth the admission alone!

2. Alcatraz Nite Tour
If you live in the city you've likely been out to Alcatraz before, but have you ever been there AT NIGHT?

3. Recycle Records
While I totally love Amoeba and Aquarius records, the guys at Recycled
Records deliver first hand banter and sincere life stories while digging out the most obscure Alice Cooper LP in a way that the movie "High Fidelity" most definitely was inspired by!

4. Midnite movie at the Metreon on Thursday nights
The metreon runs a midnight screenings on Thursdays of new movies and
often there will only be 3 people in the audience. In these dying days of movie theaters, you'd be foolish to miss out on your opportunity to have a giant screen as your late-night living room!

5. Lost Weekend Video
One of the city's last standing local rental shops, Lost Weekend is a
great place to spend a rainy afternoon browsing, and then take your
picks home for a rowdy evening.

6. Rickshaw Stop

7. City Arts & Lectures at Herbst Theatre
The city's most expansive lecture series brings everything from
Portlandia's Fred Armisen to John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats) being
interviewed by Tobias Wolffe (This Boy's Life) to the upcoming Woody
Allen play "The Kugelmass Episode"!

The Midnite Madness begins at 7:30 tonight at the Castro, more info on
their website