Dogs

The Fourth of July: Remembering the good old days in Rock Rapids, Iowa, circa 1940s to 1950s

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Note: In July of 1972, when the Bay Guardian was short a Fourth of July story, I sat down and cranked out this one for the front page on my trusty Royal Typewriter. I now reprint it each year on the Bruce blog, with some San Francisco updates and postscripts.)

Back where I come from, a small town beneath a tall standpipe in northwestern Iowa, the Fourth of July was the best day of a long, hot summer.

The Fourth came after YMCA camp and Scout camp and church camp, but before the older boys had to worry about getting into shape for football. It was welcome relief from the scalding, 100-degree heat in a town without a swimming pool and whose swimming holes at Scout Island were usually dried up by early July. But best of all, it had the kind of excitement that began building weeks in advance.

The calm of the summer dawn and the cooing of the mourning doves on the telephone wires would be broken early on July Fourth: The Creglow boys would be up by 7 a.m. and out on the lawn shooting off their arsenal of firecrackers. They were older and had somehow sent their agents by car across the state line and into South Dakota where, not far above the highway curves of Larchwood, you could legally buy fireworks at roadside stands.

Ted Fisch, Jim Ramsey, Wiener Winters, the Cook boys, Hermie Casjens, Jerry Prahl, Elmer Menage, and the rest of the neighborhood gang would race out of  their houses to catch the action. Some had cajoled firecrackers from their parents or bartered from the older boys in the neighborhood: some torpedoes (the kind you smashed against the sidewalk); lots of 2 and 3-inchers, occasionally the granddaddy of them all, the cherry bomb (the really explosive firecracker, stubby, cherry red, with a wick sticking up menacingly from its middle; the kind of firecracker you’d gladly trade away your best set of Submariner comics for.)

Ah, the cherry bomb. It was a microcosm of excitement and mischief and good fun. Bob Creglow, the most resourceful of the Creglow boys, would take a cherry bomb, set it beneath a tin can on a porch, light the fuse, then head for the lilac bushes behind the barn.

“The trick,” he would say, imparting wisdom of the highest order, “is to place the can on a wood porch with a wood roof. Then it will hit the top of the porch, bang, then the bottom of the porch, bang. That’s how you get the biggest clatter.”

So I trudged off to the Linkenheil house, the nearest front porch suitable for cherry bombing, to try my hand at small-town demolition. Bang went the firecracker. Bang went the can on the roof. Bang went the can on the floor. Bang went the screen door as Karl Linkenheil roared out in a sweat, and I lit out for the lilacs behind the barn with my dog, Oscar.

It was glorious stuff – not to be outdone for years, I found out later, until the Halloween eve in high school when Dave Dietz, Ted Fisch, Ken Roach, Bob Babl, and rest of the Hermie Casjens gang and I made the big time and twice pushed a boxcar loaded with lumber across Main Street and blocked it for hours. But that’s another story for my coming Halloween blog.

Shooting off fireworks was, of course, illegal in Rock Rapids, but Chief of Police Del Woodburn and later Elmer “Shene” Sheneberger used to lay low on the Fourth. I don’t recall ever seeing them about in our neighborhood and I don’t think they ever arrested anybody, although each year the Lyon County  Reporter would carry vague warnings about everybody cooperating to have “a safe and sane Fourth of July.”

Perhaps it was just too dangerous for them to start making firecracker arrests on the Fourth – on the same principle, I guess, that it was dangerous to do too much about the swashbuckling on Halloween or start running down dogs without leashes (Mayor Earl Fisher used to run on the platform that, as long as he was in office, no dog in town would have to be leashed. The neighborhood consensus was that Fisher’s dog, a big, boisterous boxer, was one of the few that ought to be leashed).

We handled the cherry bombs and other fireworks in our possession with extreme care and cultivation; I can’t remember a single mishap. Yet, even then, the handwriting was on the wall. There was talk of cutting off the fireworks supply in South Dakota because it was dangerous for young boys. Pretty soon, they did cut off the cherry bomb traffic and about all that was left, when I came back from college and the Roger boys had replaced the Creglow boys next door, was little stuff appropriately called ladyfingers.

Fireworks are dangerous, our parents would say, and each year they would dust off the old chestnut about the drugstore in Spencer that had a big stock of fireworks and they caught fire one night and much of the downtown went up in a spectacular shower of roman candles and sparkling fountains.

The story was hard to pin down, and seemed to get more gruesome every year – but, we were told, this was why Iowa banned fireworks years before, why they were so dangerous and why little boys shouldn’t be setting them off. The story, of course, never made quite the intended impression; we just wished we’d been on the scene.  My grandfather was the town druggist (Brugmann’s Drugstore, “Where drugs and gold are fairly sold, since 1902″) and he said he knew the Spencer druggist personally. Fireworks put him out of business and into the poorhouse, he’d say, and walk away shaking his head.

In any event, firecrackers weren’t much of an issue past noon – the Fourth celebration at the fairgrounds was getting underway and there was too much else to do. Appropriately, the celebration was sponsored by the Rex Strait post of the American Legion (Strait, so the story went, was the first boy from Rock Rapids to die on foreign soil during World War I); the legionnaires were a bunch of good guys from the cleaners and the feed store and the bank who sponsored the American Legion baseball team each summer.

There was always a big carnival, with a ferris wheel somewhere in the center for the kids, a bingo stand for the elders, a booth where the ladies from the Methodist Church sold homemade baked goods, sometimes a hootchy dancer or two, and a couple of dank watering holes beneath the grandstand where the VFW and the Legion sold Grainbelt and Hamms beer  at 30¢ a bottle to anybody who looked of age.

Later on, when the farmboys came in from George and Alvord, there was lots of pushing and shoving, and a fist fight or two.

In front of the grandstand, out in the dust and the sun, would come a succession of shows that made the summer rounds of the little towns. One year it would be Joey Chitwood and his daredevil drivers. (The announcer always fascinated me: “Here he comes, folks, rounding the far turn…he is doing a great job out there tonight…let’s give him a big, big hand as he pulls up in front on the grandstand…”)

Another year it would be harness racing and Mr. Hardy, our local trainer from Doon, would be in his moment of glory. Another year it was tag team wrestling and a couple of barrel-chested goons from Omaha, playing the mean heavies and rabbit-punching their opponents from the back, would provoke roars of disgust from the grandstand. ( The biggest barrel-chest would lean back on the ropes, looking menacingly at the crowd and yell, “ Aw, you dumb farmers. What the hell do you know anyway? I can beat the hell out of any of you.”   And the crowd  would roar back in glee.)

One year, Cedric Adams, the Herb Caen of Minneapolis Star-Tribune, would tour the provinces as the emcee of local  variety shows. “It’s great to be in Rock Rapids,” he would say expansively, “because it’s always been known as the ‘Gateway to Magnolia.” (Magnolia, he didn’t need to say, was a little town just over the state line in Minnesota which was known throughout the territory for its liquor-by-the-drink roadhouses. It was also Cedric Adams’ hometown: his “Sackamenna,” as Caen would say.  Adams kissed each girl (soundly) who came on the platform to perform and, at the end, hushed the crowd for his radio broadcast to the big city “direct from the stage of the Lyon County Fairgrounds in Rock Rapids, Iowa.”

For a couple of years, when Rock Rapids had a “town team,” and a couple of imported left-handed pitchers named Peewee Wenger and Karl Kletschke, we would have some rousing baseball games with the best semi-pro team around, Larchwood and its gang of Snyder brothers: Barney the eldest at shortstop, Jimmy the youngest at third base, John in center field, Paul in left field, another Snyder behind the plate and a couple on the bench. They were as tough as they came in Iowa baseball.

I can remember it as if it were yesterday at Candlestick, the 1948 game with the Snyders of Larchwood. Peewee Wenger, a gawky, 17-year-old kid right off a high school team, was pitching for Rock Rapids and holding down the Snyder artillery in splendid fashion. Inning after inning he went on, nursing a small lead, mastering one tough Larchwood batter after another, with a blistering fastball and a curve that sliced wickedly into the bat handles of the right-handed Larchwood line-up.

Then the cagey Barney Snyder laid a slow bunt down the third base line. Wenger stumbled, lurched, almost fell getting to the ball, then toppled off balance again, stood helplessly holding the ball. He couldn’t make the throw to first. Barney was safe, cocky and firing insults like machine gun bullets at Peewee from first base.

Peewee, visibly shaken, went back to the mound. He pitched, the next Larchwood batter bunted, this time down the first base line. Peewee lurched for the ball, but couldn’t come up with it. A couple more bunts, a shot through the pitcher’s mound, more bunts and Peewee was out. He could pitch, but, alas, he was too clumsy to field. In came Bill Jammer, now in his late 30’s, but in his day the man who beat the University of Iowa while pitching at a small college called Simpson.

Now he was pitching on guts and beer, a combination good enough for many teams and on good days even good enough  to take on the Snyders. Jammer did well for a couple of innings, then he let two men on base, then came a close call at the plate. Jammer got mad. Both teams were off the bench and onto the field and, as Fred Roach wrote in the Reporter, “fisticuffs erupted at home plate.” When the dust cleared, Jammer had a broken jaw, and for the next two weeks had to drink his soup through a straw at the Joy Lunch cafe, John Snyder, it was said later, came all the way in from center field to throw the punch, but nobody knew for sure and he stayed in the game. I can’t remember the score or who won the game, but I remember it as the best Fourth ever.

At dusk, the people moved out on their porches or put up folding chairs on their lawns. Those who didn’t have a good view drove out to the New Addition or parked out near Mark Curtis’ place or along the river roads that snaked out to the five-mile bridge and Virgil Hasche’s farm.

A hush came over the town. Fireflies started flickering in the river bottom and, along about 8:30, the first puff of smoke rose above the fairgrounds and an aerial bomb whistled into the heavens. BOOM! And the town shook as if hit by a clap of thunder.

Then the three-tiered sky bombs – pink, yellow, white, puff, puff, puff. The Niagara Falls and a gush of white sparks.

Then, in sudden fury, a dazzling display of sizzling comets and aerial bombs and star clusters that arched high, hung for a full breath and descended in a cascade of sparks that floated harmlessly over the meadows and cornfields. At the end, the flag – red, white and blue – would burst forth on the ground as the All-American finale in the darkest of the dark summer nights. On cue, the cheers rolled out from the grandstand and the cars honked from the high ground and the people trundled up their lawn chairs and everybody headed for home.

Well, I live in San Francisco now, and I drive to Daly City with my son, Danny, to buy some anemic stuff in gaudy yellow and blue wrapping and I try unsuccessfully each year to get through the fog or the traffic to see the fireworks at Candlestick. But I feel better knowing that, back where I come from, everybody in town will be on their porches and on the backroads on the evening of the Fourth to watch the fireworks and that, somewhere in town, a little boy will put a big firecracker under a tin can on a wood porch, then light out for the lilacs behind the barn.

P.S. Our family moved in l965 from Daly City to a house in the West Portal area of San Francisco. There are, I assure you, few visible fireworks in that neighborhood. However, down at the bottom of Potrero Hill, the professional and amateur action is spectacular on the evening of the Fourth of July.

From any Potrero Hill height, you can see the fireworks in several directions: the waterfront fireworks in the city, fireworks on the Marin side of the Golden Gate bridge, fireworks at several points in the East Bay, fireworks along the Peninsula coast line.

And for the amateur action, parents with kids, kids of all ages, spectators in cars and on foot, congregate after dusk along Terry Francois Boulevard in San Francisco along the shoreline between the Giants ballpark and the  Mission Rock restaurant.

The action is informal but fiery, fast, and furious: cherry bombs, clusters, spinning wheels, high flying arcs, whizzers of all shapes and sizes. The cops are quite civilized and gingerly patrol the perimeter but don’t bother anybody. I go every year. I think it’s the best show in town. B3.

Get trashed

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Get trashed

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC During high school one day in a sleepy Marin County enclave, Tina “Boom Boom” Lucchesi went to a local record shop where Erik Meade of Jackson Saints and the Pukes worked, and he put on a Redd Kross album. “Total obsession,” Lucchesi says now, a few decades later, from her punky, vintage-filled Peewee’s Playhouse home in Oakland. “He was playing the Teen Babes from Monsanto record, and I was like, I’m going to buy that — and I did.”

This week, Lucchesi’s early 1990s-born wild surf-punk group the Trashwomen will play alongside Redd Kross for the first time ever, during the two-day slackfest Burger Boogaloo (Sat/6-Sun/7, noon-9pm, $25/day. Mosswood Park, 3612 Webster, Oakl., www.burgerboogaloo.com). The Boogaloo, a yearly collaboration between Orange County, Calif. label and shop Burger Records, and East Bay promoters Total Trash Booking, is known for bringing an eclectic, sometimes manic mix of surf, punk, garage, doo-wop, and retro rock’n’roll acts commonly associated with both organizers.

This year, for the first time, it’s all outdoors, and the headliners are impressive: Redd Kross, Jonathan Richman, the Zeroes, the Oblivions, Fuzz, the Trashwomen. The rest of the lineup is too, including Audacity, Mean Jeans, Shannon and the Clams, Mikal Cronin, Guantanamo Baywatch, and more.

The Trashwomen immediately stuck out in the stellar lineup, mostly because the other groups are all active bands. The Trashwomen haven’t played together in four years (during a brief reunion for Budget Rock in ’08), and before that, they’d been broken up since ’97. So why now?

For Total Trash’s Marc Ribak, the choice was obvious. “In the Total Trash babe bible, Trashwomen rank number one!”

But for said babes, it was all about Redd Kross. “Redd Kross is playing! We’re all big fans, so we were like,’we’ve got to do it!'” says drummer Lucchesi, sitting on a teal patterned couch in her home next to bassist Danielle “Lead Pedal” Pimm, and guitarist Elka “Kitten Kaboodle” Zolot.

Though they also mention getting stoked to see Mexican punk legends the Zeros, and Portland, Ore. sloppy surf-rock group Guantanamo Baywatch.

“We’ve gotten a lot of offers, but we all have busy lives. There was a time when we were doing it but then you know, it kind of fizzled out,” she adds. “In the early ’90s, when the garage thing was so great in San Francisco, we played with the Mummies, the Phantom Surfers, Supercharger, we all played together. And then it just kind of died out, and we did get sick of it, and each other. But it’s fun, I like getting together and playing with these guys once in awhile.”

While their initial run ended in ’97, the group left a lasting impression on future generations of San Francisco garage groups, particularly girl groups, which has surprised Zolot. “I have my Instagram, and a lot of young bands that are still in high school [post on there] like ‘oh I look up to you,’ ‘you inspire me to write music and be a girl on guitar,’ and I’m like, how did you even hear about us? It’s cool, but sometimes it shocks me that young people know who we are.”

It’s a combination of sound, style, and era that carries on the Trashwomen torch. Likely the Internet accessibility of music had a hand in it too. The music itself, on albums like debut ’93 record Spend the Night with the Trashwomen (Estrus), is a raucous jumble of raunchy original garage anthems (“Cum on Baby,” “I’m Trash”), syrupy rock’n’roll numbers (“Daddy Love”), and surf-punk covers of rare ’60s gems like the Fender Four’s “Mar Guya” and Starfire’s “Space Needle.”

The aesthetic was based in high camp and cheap glamour — also seen on the cover of Spend the Night with the Trashwomen, the trio lounging in bed together, dolled up and looking tough in leopard print bras, red lace crop tops, and black babydoll dresses.

“It came from a lot of pin-up stuff and ’60s go-go girls. We wanted to have a weird persona, I think, like Russ Meyer bad girls,” Lucchesi says.

The group was known to play live in matching outfits, often trashy lingerie. “I don’t know if you’ll see us wearing lingerie on stage again though,” Zolot says.

Though Lucchesi and Pimm do mysteriously mention possible planned outfits for Burger Boogaloo, noting that they’re working on a little something.

“There may be just a little flair,” Pimm says with a laugh.

“No bikinis though!” Zolot again reminds everyone.

The three have an easy rapport, which Pimm says took only about 22 years to master. Each time they get back together in Lucchesi’s garage, it’s like starting over fresh, but the songs eventually come rumbling back to them, she says. They’ve been practicing for about two months this time around, going back through the classic tracks, with no intention of writing new ones. “I get disappointed when I see an older band and they don’t play much of their stuff that we all grow up with,” Zolot says. Everyone nods in agreement.

The group originally came together fresh out of high school. Lucchesi and Pimm had gone to school together in Corte Madera and both moved to San Francisco at age 18, where they met Elka. She’d grown up in Los Angeles, and moved to SF, forming the psychobilly group Eightball Scratch.

The Trashwomen were supposed to be a one-off Trashmen cover band for a New Year’s party at a long-gone venue called the Chameleon, kicking off 1992 in surf garage style. The idea was masterminded by Mike Lucas from the Phantom Surfers, then a popular local surf band.

For NYE, they learned a handful of Trashmen songs, got drunk, and played the set twice.

“After that, people kept calling, so we realized, we better write a bunch of songs,” Zolot says.

Since she’d been in Eightball Scratch, she’d already been playing punk and rockabilly guitar parts, so she continued to do so in the Trashwomen, adding even more surfy reverb.

She’s been playing music since before she can remember, and as a teenager was influenced by the Go-Go’s. “I’d listen to the Go-Go’s and pretend I was on stage.”

“I think every girl did that when that album came out,” says Lucchesi, who since the Trashwomen has gone on to front a dozen bands, including the Bobbyteens. “The Ramones definitely got me more into guitar. Every day after work I would just come home and play to the tape.”

Their personal influences all seem to overlap with those creepy-sexy goth punks, the Cramps. “All the great punk stuff, and new wave, all that stuff was happening. We were lucky we got to see it,” Lucchesi says. Putting on a mock cranky-old-lady accent she adds, “Kids today, they don’t kno-ow.”

In the early days of the Trashwomen, the threesome often played the Chameleon (in the space formerly known as Chatterbox and which is now Amnesia), and also the Purple Onion, frequently popping up at lesbian nights at clubs, warehouse parties, or underground house shows. They once wore bras scrawled with the word “Feminist” to the Faster Pussycat lesbian night at FireHouse 7 in Oakland. Often, fights would break out at their shows at the Purple Onion, just the high drama of the scene.

They also once played Bimbo’s, opening up for Nina Hagen, and they flew to New York to play CBGBs, which was monumental for all three. The day after the show, they went to Coney Island, ate hot dogs, and rode the Cyclone — on which Zolot severely injured her back; she has yet to go on a rollercoaster since. They were also heckled along the boardwalk, Pimm says. “Some of the girls at Coney Island, they were like, ‘excuse me, B-52s!'”

The band also toured Europe and Japan briefly, playing alongside its Japanese equivalent, the 5.6.7.8’s.

“The Germany shows were weird,” Pimm says. “We played somewhere in East Berlin, and all these metalheads walked in and we were like, ‘this is our audience? They’re going to hate us!’ The crowd ended up not letting the Trashwomen leave the stage, standing up front with folded arms, begging them to play more.

From all the stories, it seems like an aggressive, wildly exciting time for the band, but it’s easy to see why it eventually fizzled. Lucchesi has gone on to form acts like the aforementioned Bobbyteens, and is also currently in two-person garage-punk band Cyclops with her boyfriend Jonny Cat, and Midnite Snaxxx, with former Bay Guardian staffer Dulcinea Gonzalez. She also runs Down at Lulu’s a little vintage shop and hair salon in Oakland she opened seven years back with Seth Bogart, a.k.a. Hunx, and now runs solo.

Pimm too opened a salon, Marquee, last year in Oakland, near 1-2-3-4 Go! Records.

Zolot works in catering at wineries in the Napa area, dressing like a pin-up girl and shucking oysters with a mobile oyster bar, and also does photography. She’s not currently in another band, but says she has some secret music projects in the works.

“We didn’t even know that!” Lucchesi says when Zolot reveals this.

“It’s not the same style as people would expect, so I don’t talk about it much,” Zolot says.

“I want to know — is it hip-hop?” Lucchesi jokes.

“No! That’s for Tasha, she’s got that covered,” Zolot says, speaking of her daughter, Natassia Zolot, a.k.a rapper Kreayshawn. (Kreay can be heard at age five screaming the lead on the Trashwomen single “Boys Are Toys.”)

“That’s for the younger generation,” Pimm says.

Film listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

Becoming Traviata Philippe Béziat’s backstage doc offers an absorbing look at a particularly innovative production of Verdi’s La Traviata, directed by Jean-François Sivadier and starring the luminous Natalie Dessay (currently appearing in SF Opera’s production of Tales of Hoffman). Béziat eschews narration or interviews; instead, his camera simply tracks artists at work, moving from rehearsal room to stage as Sivadier and Dessay (along with her co-stars) block scenes, make suggestions, practice gestures, and engage in the hit-and-miss experimentation that defines the creative process. The film is edited so that La Traviata progresses chronologically, with the earliest scenes unfolding on a spartan set (Dessay’s practice attire: yoga clothes), and the tragic climax taking place onstage, with an orchestra in the pit and sparkly make-up in full effect. Dessay will appear in person at San Francisco screenings Sat/15 at 7pm and Sun/16 at 2pm. (1:53) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Dirty Wars Subtitled "the world is a battlefield," this doc follows author and Nation magazine writer Jeremy Scahill as he probes the disturbing underbelly of America’s ongoing counterterrorism campaign. After he gets wind of a deadly nighttime raid on a home in rural Afghanistan, Scahill does his best to investigate what really happened, though what he hears from eyewitnesses doesn’t line up with the military explanation — and nobody from the official side of things cares to discuss it any further, thank you very much. With its talk of cover-ups and covert military units, and interviewees who appear in silhouette with their voices disguised, Dirty Wars plays like a thriller until Osama bin Laden’s death shifts certain (but not all) elements of the story Scahill’s chasing into the mainstream-news spotlight. The journalist makes valid points about how an utter lack of accountability or regard for consequences (that will reverberate for generations to come) means the "war on terror" will never end, but Dirty Wars suffers a bit from too much voice-over. Even the film’s gorgeous cinematography — director Rick Rowley won a prize for it at Sundance earlier this year — can’t alleviate the sensation that Dirty Wars is mostly an illustrated-lecture version of Scahill’s source-material book. Still, it’s a compelling lecture. (1:26) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Guillotines Why yes, that is Jimmy Wang Yu, director and star of 1976 cult classic Master of the Flying Guillotine, in a small but pivotal role commanding a team of assassins who specialize in dispatching heads with airborne versions of you-know-which weapon. Unfortunately, this latest from Andrew Lau (best-known stateside for 2002’s Infernal Affairs, remade into Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Oscar-winner The Departed) doesn’t have nearly as much fun as it should; dudes be chopping heads off in a flurry of CG’d-up steampunky whirlygigs, but The Guillotines‘ tone is possibly even more deadly, as in deadly serious. When a rebellious prophet-folk hero known as Wolf (Xiaoming Huang) runs afoul of the Emperor’s top-secret Guillotine brotherhood, led in the field by Leng (Ethan Juan), the squad travels in disguise to a rural, smallpox-afflicted village to track him down. Along for the journey is the Emperor’s top operative, ruthless Agent Du (Shawn Yue), a boyhood friend of Leng’s. Leng and Du share a dark secret: the Guillotines have been deemed expendable — yep, in the Stallone sense — and the Emperor has decided to kill them off and replace them with armies toting guns and cannons in the name of progress. Lau is no stranger to tales of men grappling with betrayals, misplaced loyalties, and hidden personal agendas — and as historical martial-arts fantasies go, The Guillotines has higher production values than most, with sweeping, luscious photography. Too bad all the action scenes are punctuated by episodes of moody brooding — replete with slo-mo gazing off into the distance, dramatically falling tears, solemn heart-to-hearts, swelling strings, and the occasional howl of anguish. (1:53) Presidio. (Eddy)

Man of Steel As beloved as he is, Superman is a tough superhero to crack — or otherwise bend into anything resembling a modern character. Director Zack Snyder and writer David S. Goyer, working with producer Christopher Nolan on the initial story, do their best to nuance this reboot, which focuses primarily on Supe’s alien origins and takes its zoom-happy space battles from Battlestar Galactica. The story begins with Kal-El’s birth on a Krypton that’s rapidly going into the shitter: the exploited planet is about to explode and wayward General Zod (Michael Shannon) is staging a coup, killing Kal-El’s father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe), the Kryptonians’ lead scientist, and being conveniently put on ice in order to battle yet another day. That day comes as Kal-El, now a 20-something earthling named Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) — resigned to his status as an outsider, a role dreamed up by his protective adoptive dad (Kevin Costner) — has turned into a bit of a (dharma) bum, looking like a buff Jack Kerouac, working Deadliest Catch-style rigs, and rescuing people along the way to finding himself. Spunky Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is the key to his, erm, coming-out party, necessitated by a certain special someone looking to reboot the Kryptonian race on earth. The greatest danger here lies in the fact that all the leached-of-color quasi-sepia tone action can turn into a bit of a Kryptonian-US Army demolition derby, making for a mess of rubble and tricky-to-parse fight sequences that, of course, will satisfy the fanboys and -girls, but will likely glaze the eyes of many others. Nevertheless, the effort Snyder and crew pack into this lengthy artifact — with its chronology-scrambling flashbacks and multiple platforms for Shannon, Diane Lane, Christopher Meloni, Laurence Fishburne, and the like — pays off on the level of sheer scale, adding up to what feels like the best Superman on film or TV to date — though that bar seems pretty easy to leap over in a single bound. (2:23) Balboa, Marina. (Chun)

Pandora’s Promise Filmmaker Robert Stone has traveled far from his first film, 1988’s Oscar-nominated anti-nuke Radio Bikini, to today, with the release of Pandora’s Promise, a detailed and guaranteed-to-be-controversial examination of nuclear power and the environmentalists who have transitioned from fervently anti- to pro-nuclear. Interviewing activists and authors like Stewart Brand, Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas, and Michael Shellenberger, among others, Stone eloquently visualizes all angles of their discussion with media, industrial, and newly shot footage, starting with a visit to the largest nuclear disaster of recent years, Fukushima, which he visits with the hazmat-suited environmental activist and journalist Lynas and continuing to Chernobyl and its current denizens. Couching the debate in cultural and political context going back to World War II, Stone builds a case for nuclear energy as a viable method to provide clean, safe power for planet in the throes of climate change that will nonetheless need double or triple the current amount of energy by 2050, as billions in the developing world emerge from poverty. In a practical sense, as The Death of Environmentalism author Shellenberger asserts, "The idea that we’re going to replace oil and coal with solar and wind and nothing else is a hallucinatory delusion." Stone and his subjects put together an enticing argument to turn to nuclear as a way forward from coal, made compelling by the idea that designs for safer alternative reactors that produce less waste are out there. (1:27) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Chun)

This Is the End See "Hell Boys." (1:46) Four Star, Presidio, Shattuck.

ONGOING

After Earth In around a century, we’ll board penitentiary-style ships and evacuate Earth for a sexier planet. Let’s call it a middle-aged migration — we all saw this coming. It’ll be dour, and we’ll feel temporary guilt for all the trees we leveled, bombs we dropped, and oil refineries we taped for 1960s industrial films. Like any body post-divorce, our planet will develop defenses against its ex — us humans — so when Will Smith and son Jaden crash land on the crater it’s toxic to them, full of glorious beasts and free as the Amazon (because it was partly filmed there). Critically wounded General Raige (Will) has to direct physically incredible Kitai (Jaden) through the future’s most dangerous Ironman triathalon. It’s more than a Hollywood king guiding his prince through a life-or-death career obstacle course, it’s a too-aggressive metaphor for adolescence — something real-world Jaden may forfeit to work with dad. Call that the tragedy beneath After Earth: it makes you wonder why the family didn’t make a movie more like 1994’s The Lion King — they had to know that was an option. Director M. Night Shyamalan again courts the Last Airbender (2010) crowd with crazy CG fights and affecting father-son dynamics, but for once, Shyamalan is basically a hired gun here. The story comes straight from Papa Smith, and one gets the feeling the movie exists primarily to elevate Jaden’s rising star. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Before Midnight Proving (again) that not all sequels are autonomic responses to a marketplace that rewards the overfamiliar, director Richard Linklater and his cowriters Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke reconnect with the characters Céline and Jesse, whom we first encountered nearly 20 years ago on a train and trailed around Vienna for a night in Before Sunrise, then met again nine years later in Before Sunset. It’s been nine more years since we left them alone in a Paris apartment, Céline adorably dancing to Nina Simone and telling Jesse he’s going to miss his plane. And it looks like he did. The third film finds the two together, yes, and vacationing in Greece’s southern Peloponnese, where the expansive, meandering pace of their interactions — the only mode we’ve ever seen them in — is presented as an unaccustomed luxury amid a span of busy years filled with complications professional and personal. Over the course of a day and an evening, alone together and among friends, the two reveal both the quotidian intimacies of a shared life and the cracks and elisions in their love story. (1:48) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The East In Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling’s powerful second film collaboration (Batmanglij directs, and the pair co-wrote the screenplay, as in 2011’s Sound of My Voice), Marling plays Sarah, an intelligence agent working for a private firm whose client list consists mainly of havoc-wreaking multinationals. Sarah, presented as quietly ambitious and conservative, is tasked by the firm’s director (Patricia Clarkson) with infiltrating the East, an off-the-grid activist collective whose members, including Benji (Alexander Skarsgård), Izzy (Ellen Page), and Doc (Toby Kebbell), bring an eye-for-an-eye sensibility to their YouTube-publicized "jams." Targeting an oil company responsible for a BP-style catastrophe, they engineer their own spill in the gated-community habitat of the company’s CEO, posting a video that juxtaposes grisly images of oil-coated shorebirds and the unsettling sight of gallons of crude seeping through the air-conditioning vents of a tidy McMansion. A newspaper headline offers a facile framework for understanding their activities, posing the alternatives as "Pranksters or Eco-Terrorists?" But as Sarah examines the gut-wrenching consequences of so-called white-collar crime and immerses herself in the day-to-day practices of the group, drawn in particular to the charismatic Benji, the film raises more complex questions. Much of its rhetorical force flows from Izzy, whom Page invests with a raw, anguished outrage, drawing our sympathies toward the group and its mission of laying bare what should be unbearable. (1:56) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Elemental Even those suffering from environmental-doc fatigue (a very real condition, particularly in the eco-obsessed Bay Area) will find much to praise about Elemental, co-directed by Gayatri Roshan and NorCal native Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee (who also co-composed the film’s score). This elegantly shot and edited film approaches the issues via three "eco-warriors," who despite working on different causes on various corners of the planet encounter similar roadblocks, and display like-minded determination, along the way: Rajendra Singh, on a mission to heal India’s heavily polluted Ganges River; Jay Harman, whose ingenious inventions are based on "nature’s blueprints"; and Eriel Deranger, who fights for her indigenous Canadian community in the face of Big Oil. Deranger cuts a particularly inspiring figure: a young, tattooed mother who juggles protests, her moody tween (while prepping for a new baby), and the more bureaucratic aspects of being a professional activist — from defending her grassroots methods when questioned by her skeptical employer, to deflecting a drunk, patronizing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a big-ticket fundraiser — with a calm, steely sense of purpose. (1:33) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Epic (1:42) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Fast and Furious 6 Forget the fast (that’s understood by now, anyway) — part six in this popcorny series is heavy on the "furious," with constant near-death stunts that zoom past irrational and slam into batshit crazy. Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) lures the gang out of sunny retirement to bust a fast driver with a knack for strategy and an eye on world domination. Sure, Ludacris jokes their London locale doesn’t mean they’re in a Bond movie, but give cold-blooded Luke Evans some time and he’ll work his way up to antagonizing 007. Shaw (Evans) is smaller than our hero Toretto (Vin Diesel), but he’s convincing, throwing his King’s English at a man whose murky dialect is always delivered with a devilish baritone. If Shaw’s code is all business, Toretto’s is all family: that’s what holds together this cast, cobbled from five Fast and Furious installments shot all over the world. Hottie Gal Gadot (playing Sung Kang’s love interest) reassures Han (Kang) mid-crisis: "This is what we are." It’s not for nothing the gang’s main weapon is a harpoon gun that, once shot, leaves an umbilicus from the shooter to whatever’s in the crosshairs. That’s Torreto for you. Meanwhile, the villain’s weapon is a car with a spatula-like front end, that flips cars like pancakes. The climactic battle on a cargo plane has to give a face time to every member of the eight-person team, so naturally they shot it on the world’s longest runway. Of course the parade features less car porn than previous editions but it’s got a wider reach now — it’s officially international intrigue, not just fun for gearheads. For my money, it’s some of the best action in theaters today. Stick around for the inevitable sequel-suggesting coda during the credits. (2:10) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

Fill the Void Respectfully rendered and beautifully shot in warm hues, Fill the Void admirably fills the absence on many screens of stories from what might be considered a closed world: the Orthodox Hasidic community in Israel, where a complex web of family ties, duty, and obligation entangles pretty, accordion-playing Shira (Hada Yaron). An obedient daughter, she’s about to agree to an arranged marriage to a young suitor when her much-loved sister (Renana Raz) dies in childbirth. When Shira’s mother (Irit Sheleg) learns the widower Yochay (Yiftach Klein) might marry a woman abroad and take her only grandchild far away, she starts to make noises about fixing Shira up with her son-in-law. The journey the two must take, in possibly going from in-laws to newlyweds, is one that’s simultaneously infuriating, understandable, and touching, made all the more intimate given director Rama Burshtein’s preference for searching close-ups. Her affinity for the Orthodox world is obvious with each loving shot, ultimately infusing her debut feature with a beating heart of humanity. (1:30) Albany, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Frances Ha Noah Baumbach isn’t exactly known for romance and bright-eyed optimism. Co-writing 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox with director Wes Anderson is maybe the closest to "whimsy" as he’s ever come; his own features (2010’s Greenberg, 2007’s Margot at the Wedding, 2005’s The Squid and the Whale, 1997’s Mr. Jealousy, and 1995’s Kicking and Screaming) tend to veer into grumpier, more intellectual realms. You might say his films are an acquired taste. But haters beware. Frances Ha — the black-and-white tale of a New York City hipster (Baumbach’s real-life squeeze, Greta Gerwig, who co-write the script with him) blundering her way into adulthood — is probably the least Baumbach-ian Baumbach movie ever. Owing stylistic debts to both vintage Woody Allen and the French New Wave, Frances Ha relies heavily on Gerwig’s adorable-disaster title character to propel its plot, which is little more than a timeline of Frances’ neverending micro-adventures: pursuing her nascent modern-dance career, bouncing from address to address, taking an impromptu trip to Paris, visiting her parents (portrayed by the Sacramento-raised Gerwig’s real-life parents), "breaking up" with her best friend. It’s so charming, poignant, and quotable ("Don’t treat me like a three-hour brunch friend!") that even those who claim to be allergic to Baumbach just might find themselves succumbing to it. (1:26) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Great Gatsby Every bit as flashy and in-your-face as you’d expect the combo of "Baz Luhrmann," "Jazz Age," and "3D" to be, this misguided interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic tale is, at least, overstuffed with visual delights. For that reason only, all the fashion-mag fawning over leading lady Carey Mulligan’s gowns and diamonds, and the opulent production design that surrounds them, seems warranted. And in scenes where spectacle is appropriate — Gatsby’s legendary parties; Tom Buchanan’s wild New York romp with his mistress — Luhrmann delivers in spades. The trade-off is that the subtler aspects of Fitzgerald’s novel are either pushed to the side or shouted from the rooftops. Leonardo DiCaprio, last seen cutting loose in last year’s Django Unchained, makes for a stiff, fumbling Gatsby, laying on the "Old Sports" as thickly as his pancake make-up. There’s nothing here so startlingly memorable as the actor and director’s 1996 prior collaboration, Romeo + Juliet — a more successful (if still lavish and self-consciously audacious) take on an oft-adapted, much-beloved literary work. (2:22) California, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Hangover Part III Even the friendliest little blackout bacchanal can get tiresome the third time around. The poster depicting Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis — stern in suits and ties — says it all: it’s grim men’s business, the care and maintenance of this Hangover franchise, this orgy of good times gone bad. Once a bad-taste love letter to male-bonding, Hangover Part III is ready for a chance, primed to sever some of those misbegotten ties. This time around, the unlikely troika — with the always dispensable normal-dude figurehead Doug (Justin Bartha) in tow — are captured by random sketchy figure Marshall (John Goodman, whose every utterance of the offensive "Chinaman" should bring back Big Lebowski warm-and-fuzzies). He holds Doug hostage in exchange for the amoral, cockfighting, coke-wallowing, whore-hiring, leather-wearing Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong), who stole his gold, and it turns out Alan (Galifianakis) might be his only chum. Jeong, who continues to bring the hammy glee, is still the best thing here, even as the conscience-free instigator; he’s the dark counterpart to tweaked man-child Alan, who meets cute with mean-ass pawn-star soulmate Cassie (Melissa McCarthy). Meanwhile, Cooper and Helms look on, puzzled, no doubt pondering the prestige projects on their plates and wondering what they’re still doing here. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Chun)

The Internship The dirty little secret of the new economy continues to be the gerbil cycle of free/cheap labor labeled "internships" that propels so many companies — be they corporate or indie, digital or print media. But gee, who’s going to see an intern comedy titled The Exploitation, besides me and my local union rep? Instead, spinning off a Vince Vaughn story idea and a co-writing credit, The Internship looks at that now-mandatory time-suck for so many college students through the filter of two older, not-quite-wiser salesmen Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) hoping to make that working guy’s quantum leap from watch sales to Google’s Mountain View campus, which director Shawn Levy casts as a bright and shiny workers wonderland with its free spring rolls and lattes, bikes, and napping pods. Departing from reality: the debugging/coding/game-playing/app-making competition that forces Billy and Nick to bond with their team of castoffs (Dylan O’Brien, Tiya Sircar, Tobit Raphael), led by noob manager Lyle (Josh Brener), in order to win a full-time job. Part of the key, naturally, turns out to be a Swingers-like visit to a strip club, to release those deeply repressed nerd sexualities — nothing like a little retrograde sexism to bring a group together. Still, the moment is offset by the generally genial, upbeat attitude brought to The Internship by its lead actors: Nick and Billy may be flubs at physics and clueless when it comes to geek culture, but most working stiffs who have suffered the slings and arrows of layoffs and dream of stable employment can probably get behind the all-American ideals of self-reinvention and optimism about the future peddled in The Internship, which easily slips in alongside The Great Gatsby among this year’s Great Recession narratives. Blink too fast and you might miss the microcameo by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. (1:59) Four Star, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Vogue. (Chun)

Iron Man 3 Neither a sinister terrorist dubbed "the Mandarin" (Ben Kingsley) nor a spray-tanned mad scientist (Guy Pearce) are as formidable an enemy to Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) as Tony Stark himself, the mega-rich playboy last seen in 2012’s Avengers donning his Iron Man suit and thwarting alien destruction. It’s been rough since his big New York minute; he’s been suffering panic attacks and burying himself in his workshop, shutting out his live-in love (Gwyneth Paltrow) in favor of tinkering on an ever-expanding array of manned and un-manned supersuits. But duty, and personal growth, beckon when the above-mentioned villains start behaving very badly. With some help (but not much) from Don Cheadle’s War Machine — now known as "Iron Patriot" thanks to a much-mocked PR campaign — Stark does his saving-the-world routine again. If the plot fails to hit many fresh beats (a few delicious twists aside), the 3D special effects are suitably dazzling, the direction (by series newcomer Shane Black) is appropriately snappy, and Downey, Jr. again makes Stark one of the most charismatic superheros to ever grace the big screen. For now, at least, the continuing Avengers spin-off extravaganza seems justified. (2:06) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Kings of Summer Ah, the easy-to-pluck, easy-to-love low-hanging fruit of summer — and a coming of age. Who can blame director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta, both TV vets, for thinking that a juicy, molasses-thick application of hee-hee-larious TV comedy actors to a Stand by Me-like boyish bildungsroman could only make matters that much more fun? When it comes to this wannabe-feral Frankenteen love child of Terrence Malick and Parks and Recreation, you certainly don’t want to fault them for original thinking, though you can understand why they keep lurching back to familiar, reliably entertaining turf, especially when it comes in the form of Nick Offerman of the aforementioned P&R, who gets to twist his Victorian doll features into new frustrated shapes alongside real-life spouse Megan Mullally. Joe (Nick Robinson) is tired of his single dad (Offerman) stepping on his emerging game, so he runs off with neurotic wrestling pal Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and stereotypically "weirdo foreign" kid Biaggio (Moises Arias) to a patch of woods. There, from scrap, they build a cool-looking house that resembles a Carmel boho shack and attempt to live off the land, which means mostly buying chicken from a Boston Market across a freeway. Pipes are pummeled, swimming holes are swum, a pathetically wispy mustachio is cultivated — read: real burly stuff, until the rising tide of testosterone threatens to poison the woodland well. Vogt-Roberts certainly captures the humid sensuality and ripe potential of a Midwestern summer — though some of the details, like the supposedly wild rabbit that looks like it came straight from Petco, look a bit canned — and who can gripe when, say, Portlandia‘s Kumail Nanjiani materializes to deliver monster wontons? You just accept it, though the effect of bouncing back and forth between the somewhat serious world of young men and the surprisingly playful world of adults, both equally unreal, grows jarring. Kings of Summer isn’t quite the stuff of genius that marketing would have you believe, but it might give the "weirdo foreign" art house crowd and TV comedy addicts something they can both stand by. (1:33) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Kon-Tiki In 1947 Norwegian explorer and anthropologist Thor Heyderdahl arranged an expedition on a homemade raft across the Pacific, recreating what he believed was a route by which South Americans traveled to Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. (Although this theory is now disputed.) The six-man crew (plus parrot) survived numerous perils to complete their 101-day, 4300-mile journey intact — winning enormous global attention, particularly through Heyderdahl’s subsequent book and documentary feature. Co-directors Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg’s dramatization is a big, impressive physical adventure most arresting for its handsome use of numerous far-flung locations. Where it’s less successful is in stirring much emotional involvement, with the character dynamics underwhelming despite a decent cast led by Pal Sverr Hagen as Thor (who, incredibly, was pretty much a non-swimmer). Nonetheless, this new Kon-Tiki offers all the pleasures of armchair travel, letting you vicariously experience a high-risk voyage few could ever hope (or want) to make in real life. (1:58) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Midnight’s Children Deepa Mehta (2005’s Water) directs and co-adapts with Salman Rushdie the author’s Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel, which mixes history (India’s 1947 independence, and the subsequent division of India and Pakistan) with magical elements — suggested from its fairy-tale-esque first lines: "I was born in the city of Bombay, once upon a time." This droll voice-over (read by Rushdie) comes courtesy of Saleem Sinai, born to a poor street musician and his wife (who dies in childbirth; dad is actually an advantage-taking Brit played by Charles "Tywin Lannister" Dance) but switched (for vaguely revolutionary reasons) with Shiva, born at the same moment to rich parents who unknowingly raise the wrong son. Rich or poor, it seems all children born at the instant of India’s independence have shared psychic powers; over the years, they gather for "meetings" whenever Saleem summons them. And that’s just the 45 minutes or so of story. Though gorgeously shot, Midnight’s Children suffers from page-to-screen-itis; the source material is complex in both plot and theme, and it’s doubtful any film — even one as long as this — could translate its nuances and more fanciful elements ("I can smell feelings!," Saleem insists) into a consistently compelling narrative. Last-act sentimentality doesn’t help, though it’s consistent with the fairy-tale vibe, I suppose. (2:20) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Much Ado About Nothing Joss Whedon (last year’s The Avengers) shifts focus for a minute to stage an adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy, drawing his players from 15 years’ worth of awesome fantasy/horror/sci-fi TV and film projects. When the Spanish prince Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) pays a post-battle visit to the home of Leonato (Clark Gregg) with his officers Claudio (Fran Kranz) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof), Claudio falls for Leonato’s daughter, Hero (Jillian Morgese), while Benedick falls to verbal blows with Hero’s cousin Beatrice (Amy Acker). Preserving the original language of the play while setting his production in the age of the iPhone and the random hookup, Whedon makes clever, inventive use of the juxtaposition, teasing out fresh sources of visual comedy as well as bringing forward the play’s oddities and darker elements. These shadows fall on Beatrice and Benedick, whose sparring — before they succumb to a playfully devious setup at the hands of their friends — has an ugly, resentful heat to it, as well as on Hero and Claudio, whose filmy romance is unsettlingly easy for their enemies, the malevolent Don John (Sean Maher) and his cohorts, to sabotage. Some of Acker and Denisof’s broader clowning doesn’t offer enough comic payoff for the hammy energy expenditure, but Nathan Fillion, heading up local law enforcement as the constable Dogberry, delivers a gleeful depiction of blundering idiocy, and the film as a whole has a warm, approachable humor while lightly exposing "all’s well that ends well"’s wacky, dysfunctional side. (1:49) Albany, SF Center. (Rapoport)

Mud (2:18) Balboa, Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Now You See Me Cheese can be a tough factor to quantify, but you get close to the levels Now You See Me strives for when you picture the hopelessly goofy, tragically coiffed Doug Henning lisping, "It’s magic!" somewhere between Bob "Happy Little Tree" Ross and a rainbow sprinkled with Care Bears. Now You See Me, however, is much less likely to be dusted off and adored by a Bronies-style cult. Four seemingly savvy street and stage magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco) are brought together by tarot card invite by a mysterious host. What follows is a series of corny performances by the crew, now dubbed the Four Horseman, that are linked to a series of Robin Hood-like, or not, thefts. Nipping at their heels are a loudly flustered FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo, working an overcooked Columbo impression), a waifish Interpol detective (Mélanie Laurent, as if slouching through a Sorbonne semester), and a professional debunker (Morgan Freeman, maintaining amusement). In the course of the investigation, the Horsemen’s way-too-elaborate and far-from-apocalyptic illusions are taken apart and at least one vigorously theatrical fight scene takes place — all of which sounds more riveting than what actually transpires under the action-by-the-book watch of director Louis Leterrier, who never succeeds in making the smug, besuited puppets, I mean Horsemen, who strut around like they’re in Ocean’s Eighteen 4D, anything remotely resembling cool. Or even characters we might give a magical rabbit’s ass about. For all its seemingly knowing pokes at the truth behind the curtain, Now You See Me lacks much of the smarts and wit of loving deconstructionists like Penn and Teller —glimmers of which can only be made out in the smirk of Harrelson and the knowing twinkle of Freeman — or even the tacky machismo of Criss Angel, as well as a will to get to a truth behind the mystery. Or is the mystery behind the truth? (1:56) California, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Oblivion Spoiler alert: the great alien invasion of 2017 does absolutely zilch to eliminate, or at least ameliorate, the problem of sci-fi movie plot holes. However, puny humans willing to shut down the logic-demanding portions of their brains just might enjoy Oblivion, which is set 60 years after that fateful date and imagines that Earth has been rendered uninhabitable by said invasion. Tom Cruise plays Jack, a repairman who zips down from his sterile housing pod (shared with comely companion Andrea Riseborough) to keep a fleet of drones — dispatched to guard the planet’s remaining resources from alien squatters — in working order. But Something is Not Quite Right; Jack’s been having nostalgia-drenched memories of a bustling, pre-war New York City, and the déjà vu gets worse when a beautiful astronaut (Olga Kurylenko) literally crash-lands into his life. After an inaugural gig helming 2010’s stinky Tron: Legacy, director Joseph Kosinski shows promise, if not perfection, bringing his original tale to the screen. (He does, however, borrow heavily from 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1996’s Independence Day, and 2008’s Wall-E, among others.) Still, Oblivion boasts sleek production design, a certain creative flair, and some surprisingly effective plot twists — though also, alas, an overlong running time. (2:05) Metreon. (Eddy)

1 Mile Above When his brother dies suddenly, sheltered Taiwanese student Shuhao takes possession of the older boy’s "riding diaries," determined to complete his sibling’s dream of biking to the highest point in Tibet. It’d be a perilous journey even for an experienced cyclist — but Shuhao’s got gutsy determination that (almost) makes up for his wobbly wheels. Fortunately, nearly everyone he meets en route to Lhasa is a kind-hearted soul, including a food-obsessed fellow traveler who doles out advice on how to avoid government checkpoints, prevent "crotch trouble" (from all that riding), and woo women, among other topics. (The cruel weather, steep inclines, and hostile wild dogs he faces, however, aren’t as welcoming.) Jiayi Du’s based-on-true-events drama doesn’t innovate much on similar adventure tales — spoiler alert: it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts — but it admirably avoids melodrama for the most part, and the gorgeous location photography is something to behold. (1:29) Metreon. (Eddy)

The Purge Writer-director James DeMonaco founds his dystopian-near-future tale on the possibly suspect premise that the United States could achieve one percent unemployment, heavily reduced crime rates, and a virtually carb-free society if only it were to sanction an annual night of national mayhem unconstrained by statutory law — up to and including those discouraging the act of homicide. Set in 2022, The Purge visits the household of home security salesman James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), wife Mary (Lena Headey), and their children, Charlie (Max Burkholder) and Zoey (Adelaide Kane), as the annual festivities are about to begin, and the film keeps us trapped in the house with them for the next 12 hours of bloodletting sans emergency services. While they show zero interest in adding to the carnage, James and Mary seem to be largely on board with what a news commentator describes as "a lawful outlet for American rage," not giving too much credence to detractors’ observations that the purge is a de facto culling of the underclass. Clearly, though, the whole family is about to learn a valuable lesson. It comes when Charlie, in an act of baseline humanity, draws the ire of a gang of purgers running around in bathrobes, prep school jackets, and creepy masks, led by a gleaming-eyed alpha-sociopath whom DeMonaco (whose other screenplay credits include 2005’s Assault on Precinct 13 remake) tasks with wielding the film’s blunt-object message alongside his semi-automatic weaponry. (1:25) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Rebels with a Cause The huge string of parklands that have made Marin County a jewel of preserved California coastline might easily have become wall-to-wall development — just like the Peninsula — if not for the stubborn conservationists whose efforts are profiled in Nancy Kelly’s documentary. From Congressman Clem Miller — who died in a plane crash just after his Point Reyes National Seashore bill became a reality — to housewife Amy Meyer, who began championing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area because she "needed a project" to keep busy once her kids entered school, they’re testaments to the ability of citizen activism to arrest the seemingly unstoppable forces of money, power and political influence. Theirs is a hidden history of the Bay Area, and of what didn’t come to pass — numerous marinas, subdivisions, and other developments that would have made San Francisco and its surrounds into another Los Angeles. (1:12) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Renoir The gorgeous, sun-dappled French Riviera setting is the high point of this otherwise low-key drama about the temperamental women (Christa Theret) who was the final muse to elderly painter Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), and who encouraged the filmmaking urges in his son, future cinema great Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee (who’s worked with Hou Hsiao-hsein and Wong Kar Wai) lenses Renoir’s leafy, ramshackle estate to maximize its resemblance to the paintings it helped inspire; though her character, Dédée, could kindly be described as "conniving," Theret could not have been better physically cast, with tumbling red curls and pale skin she’s none too shy about showing off. Though the specter of World War I looms in the background, the biggest conflicts in Gilles Bourdos’ film are contained within the household, as Jean frets about his future, Dédée faces the reality of her precarious position in the household (which is staffed by aging models-turned-maids), and Auguste battles ill health by continuing to paint, though he’s in a wheelchair and must have his brushes taped to his hands. Though not much really happens, Renoir is a pleasant, easy-on-the-eyes experience. (1:51) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Shadow Dancer Watching the emotions flicker across the exquisitely smooth, pale plane of Andrea Riseborough’s face is one of the central pleasures of Shadow Dancer. Likely the surest step Madonna made in making 2011’s W.E. was choosing the actress as her Wallis Simpson — her features fall together with the sweet symmetry of a, well, Madonna, and even when words, or the script, fail her, the play of thoughts and feelings rippling across her brow can fill out a movie’s, or a character’s, failings admirably. The otherwise graceful, good-looking Shadow Dancer fumbles over a few in the course of resurrecting the Troubles tearing apart Belfast in the 1990s. After feeling responsible for the death of a younger brother who got caught in the crossfire, Collette (Riseborough) finds herself a single mom in league with the IRA. Caught after a scuttled bombing, the petite would-be terrorist is turned by Mac (Clive Owen) to become an informant for the MI5, though after getting quickly dragged into an attempted assassination, Collette appears to be way over her head and must be pulled out — something Mac’s boss (Gillian Anderson) won’t allow. Director James Marsh (2008’s Man on Wire) brings a keen attention to the machinations and tested loyalties among both the MI5 and IRA, an interest evident in his Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009), and even imbues otherwise blanked-out, non-picturesque sites like hotel suites and gray coastal walks with a stark beauty. Unfortunately the funereal pacing and gaps in plotting, however eased by the focus on Riseborough’s responses, send the mind into the shadows. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Star Trek Into Darkness Do you remember 1982? There are more than a few echoes of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in J. J. Abrams’ second film retooling the classic sci-fi property’s characters and adventures. Darkness retains the 2009 cast, including standouts Zachary Quinto as Spock and Simon Pegg as comic-relief Scotty, and brings in Benedict "Sherlock" Cumberbatch to play the villain (I think you can guess which one). The plot mostly pinballs between revenge and preventing/circumventing the destruction of the USS Enterprise, with added post-9/11, post-Dark Knight (2008) terrorism connotations that are de rigueur for all superhero or fantasy-type blockbusters these days. But Darkness isn’t totally, uh, dark: there’s quite a bit of fan service at work here (speak Klingon? You’re in luck). Abrams knows what audiences want, and he’s more than happy to give it to ’em, sometimes opening up massive plot holes in the process — but never veering from his own Prime Directive: providing an enjoyable ride. (2:07) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Stories We Tell Actor and director Sarah Polley (2011’s Take This Waltz) turns the camera on herself and her family for this poignant, moving, inventive, and expectation-upending blend of documentary and narrative. Her father, actor Michael Polley, provides the narration; our first hint that this film will take an unconventional form comes when we see Sarah directing Michael’s performance in a recording-studio booth, asking him to repeat certain phrases for emphasis. On one level, Stories We Tell is about Sarah’s own history, as she sets out to explore longstanding family rumors that Michael is not her biological father. The missing piece: her mother, actress Diane Polley (who died of cancer just days after Sarah’s 11th birthday), a vivacious character remembered by Sarah’s siblings and those who knew and loved her. Stories We Tell‘s deeper meaning emerges as the film becomes ever more meta, retooling the audience’s understanding of what they’re seeing via convincingly doc-like reenactments. To say more would lessen the power of Stories We Tell‘s multi-layered revelations. Just know that this is an impressively unique film — about family, memories, love, and (obviously) storytelling — and offers further proof of Polley’s tremendous talent. (1:48) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Violet and Daisy The 1990s revival has already infiltrated fashion and music; Violet and Daisy, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning Precious (2009) screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, suggests that cinema may be next. Unfortunately, not enough time has passed since the first wave of Pulp Fiction (1994) knockoffs to make the genre feel particularly interesting again. And yet here comes a pair of assassins dressed as nuns, cracking long-winded jokes before unloading on their targets with guns they’ve concealed in pizza boxes … as an AM radio hit ("Angel of the Morning") swells in the background, and Danny Trejo stops by for a cameo. At least this Tarantino-lite exploration of crime and daddy issues has an appealing cast; besides Trejo, Alexis Bledel (sporting Mia Wallace bangs) and Saoirse Ronan play the jailbait titular killers, and James Gandolfini pops in as a sad-sack who manages to evade their bullets because, like, he’s nice and stuff. Despite their efforts, the over-stylized Violet and Daisy comes off like a plate of leftovers reheated too long after the fact. (1:28) Metreon. (Eddy)

What Maisie Knew In Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s adaptation of the 1897 Henry James novel, the story of a little girl caught between warring, self-involved parents is transported forward to modern-day New York City, with Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan as the ill-suited pair responsible, in theory, for the care and upbringing of the title character, played by Onata Aprile. Moore’s Susanna is a rock singer making a slow, halting descent from some apex of stardom, as we gather from the snide comments of her partner in dysfunctionality, Beale (Coogan). As their relationship implodes and they move on to custody battle tactics, each takes on a new, inappropriate companion — Beale marrying in haste Maisie’s pretty young nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham), and Susanna just as precipitously latching on to a handsome bartender named Lincoln (True Blood‘s Alexander Skarsgård). The film mostly tracks the chaotic action — Susanna’s strung-out tantrums, both parents’ impulsive entrances and exits, Margo and Lincoln’s ambivalent acceptance of responsibility — from Maisie’s silent vantage, as details large and small convey, at least to us, the deficits of her caretakers, who shield her from none of the emotional shrapnel flying through the air and rarely bother to present an appropriate, comprehensible explanation. Yet Maisie understands plenty — though longtime writing-and-directing team McGehee and Siegel (2001’s The Deep End, 2005’s Bee Season, 2008’s Uncertainty) have taken pains in their script and their casting to present Maisie as a lovely, watchful child, not the precocious creep often favored in the picture shows. So we watch too, with a grinding anxiety, as she’s passed from hand to hand, forced to draw her own unvoiced conclusions. (1:38) Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

True tales, Shakespeare, interns, and more: new movies (plus DocFest)!

Sue Vaughan
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True tales, Shakespeare, interns, and more: new movies (plus DocFest)!

The 12th San Francisco Documentary Film Festival kicked off last night with a screening of Spark: A Burning Man Story (even if you missed the opening event, you can check out Steven T. Jones’ story about the film and changes underway at the Burning Man organization here). It continues through June 23 at venues in San Francisco (mostly the Roxie), Palo Alto, and Oakland; check out my article on the fest here and DocFest’s official website for a full slate of films and ticket information.

Also in this week’s paper: Dennis Harvey’s round-up of “The Vortex Phenomena,” the SOMA venue‘s monthlong series of conspiracy-theory films of the 1970s (Bermuda Triangle! Fog monsters! Yeti!)

And of course, we got all your first-run intel right here. This week’s feast includes the reteaming of tight bros from way back Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, playing Google noobs in The Internship; Joss Whedon’s detour from superheroes to Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing; and Wish You Were Here, an Aussie thriller about a vacation gone awry starring a very good (and very freaked-out) Joel Edgerton. Plus more, all after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJaeMEHVbYE

The East In Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling’s powerful second film collaboration (Batmanglij directs, and the pair co-wrote the screenplay, as in 2011’s Sound of My Voice), Marling plays Sarah, an intelligence agent working for a private firm whose client list consists mainly of havoc-wreaking multinationals. Sarah, presented as quietly ambitious and conservative, is tasked by the firm’s director (Patricia Clarkson) with infiltrating the East, an off-the-grid activist collective whose members, including Benji (Alexander Skarsgård), Izzy (Ellen Page), and Doc (Toby Kebbell), bring an eye-for-an-eye sensibility to their YouTube-publicized “jams.” Targeting an oil company responsible for a BP-style catastrophe, they engineer their own spill in the gated-community habitat of the company’s CEO, posting a video that juxtaposes grisly images of oil-coated shorebirds and the unsettling sight of gallons of crude seeping through the air-conditioning vents of a tidy McMansion. A newspaper headline offers a facile framework for understanding their activities, posing the alternatives as “Pranksters or Eco-Terrorists?” But as Sarah examines the gut-wrenching consequences of so-called white-collar crime and immerses herself in the day-to-day practices of the group, drawn in particular to the charismatic Benji, the film raises more complex questions. Much of its rhetorical force flows from Izzy, whom Page invests with a raw, anguished outrage, drawing our sympathies toward the group and its mission of laying bare what should be unbearable. (1:56) (Lynn Rapoport)

Fill the Void Respectfully rendered and beautifully shot in warm hues, Fill the Void admirably fills the absence on many screens of stories from what might be considered a closed world: the Orthodox Hasidic community in Israel, where a complex web of family ties, duty, and obligation entangles pretty, accordion-playing Shira (Hada Yaron). An obedient daughter, she’s about to agree to an arranged marriage to a young suitor when her much-loved sister (Renana Raz) dies in childbirth. When Shira’s mother (Irit Sheleg) learns the widower Yochay (Yiftach Klein) might marry a woman abroad and take her only grandchild far away, she starts to make noises about fixing Shira up with her son-in-law. The journey the two must take, in possibly going from in-laws to newlyweds, is one that’s simultaneously infuriating, understandable, and touching, made all the more intimate given director Rama Burshtein’s preference for searching close-ups. Her affinity for the Orthodox world is obvious with each loving shot, ultimately infusing her debut feature with a beating heart of humanity. (1:30) (Kimberly Chun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVIipDZCPCU

The Internship The dirty little secret of the new economy continues to be the gerbil cycle of free/cheap labor labeled “internships” that propels so many companies — be they corporate or indie, digital or print media. But gee, who’s going to see an intern comedy titled The Exploitation, besides me and my local union rep? Instead, spinning off a Vince Vaughn story idea and a co-writing credit, The Internship looks at that now-mandatory time-suck for so many college students through the filter of two older, not-quite-wiser salesmen Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) hoping to make that working guy’s quantum leap from watch sales to Google’s Mountain View campus, which director Shawn Levy casts as a bright and shiny workers wonderland with its free spring rolls and lattes, bikes, and napping pods. Departing from reality: the debugging/coding/game-playing/app-making competition that forces Billy and Nick to bond with their team of castoffs (Dylan O’Brien, Tiya Sircar, Tobit Raphael), led by noob manager Lyle (Josh Brener), in order to win a full-time job. Part of the key, naturally, turns out to be a Swingers-like visit to a strip club, to release those deeply repressed nerd sexualities — nothing like a little retrograde sexism to bring a group together. Still, the moment is offset by the generally genial, upbeat attitude brought to The Internship by its lead actors: Nick and Billy may be flubs at physics and clueless when it comes to geek culture, but most working stiffs who have suffered the slings and arrows of layoffs and dream of stable employment can probably get behind the all-American ideals of self-reinvention and optimism about the future peddled in The Internship, which easily slips in alongside The Great Gatsby among this year’s Great Recession narratives. Blink too fast and you might miss the microcameo by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. (1:59) (Kimberly Chun)

The Kings of Summer Ah, the easy-to-pluck, easy-to-love low-hanging fruit of summer — and a coming of age. Who can blame director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta, both TV vets, for thinking that a juicy, molasses-thick application of hee-hee-larious TV comedy actors to a Stand by Me-like boyish bildungsroman could only make matters that much more fun? When it comes to this wannabe-feral Frankenteen love child of Terrence Malick and Parks and Recreation, you certainly don’t want to fault them for original thinking, though you can understand why they keep lurching back to familiar, reliably entertaining turf, especially when it comes in the form of Nick Offerman of the aforementioned P&R, who gets to twist his Victorian doll features into new frustrated shapes alongside real-life spouse Megan Mullally. Joe (Nick Robinson) is tired of his single dad (Offerman) stepping on his emerging game, so he runs off with neurotic wrestling pal Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and stereotypically “weirdo foreign” kid Biaggio (Moises Arias) to a patch of woods. There, from scrap, they build a cool-looking house that resembles a Carmel boho shack and attempt to live off the land, which means mostly buying chicken from a Boston Market across a freeway. Pipes are pummeled, swimming holes are swum, a pathetically wispy mustachio is cultivated — read: real burly stuff, until the rising tide of testosterone threatens to poison the woodland well. Vogt-Roberts certainly captures the humid sensuality and ripe potential of a Midwestern summer — though some of the details, like the supposedly wild rabbit that looks like it came straight from Petco, look a bit canned — and who can gripe when, say, Portlandia’s Kumail Nanjiani materializes to deliver monster wontons? You just accept it, though the effect of bouncing back and forth between the somewhat serious world of young men and the surprisingly playful world of adults, both equally unreal, grows jarring. The Kings of Summer isn’t quite the stuff of genius that marketing would have you believe, but it might give the “weirdo foreign” art house crowd and TV comedy addicts something they can both stand by. (1:33) (Kimberly Chun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk5kkLNPg8g

Much Ado About Nothing Joss Whedon (last year’s The Avengers) shifts focus for a minute to stage an adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy, drawing his players from 15 years’ worth of awesome fantasy/horror/sci-fi TV and film projects. When the Spanish prince Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) pays a post-battle visit to the home of Leonato (Clark Gregg) with his officers Claudio (Fran Kranz) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof), Claudio falls for Leonato’s daughter, Hero (Jillian Morgese), while Benedick falls to verbal blows with Hero’s cousin Beatrice (Amy Acker). Preserving the original language of the play while setting his production in the age of the iPhone and the random hookup, Whedon makes clever, inventive use of the juxtaposition, teasing out fresh sources of visual comedy as well as bringing forward the play’s oddities and darker elements. These shadows fall on Beatrice and Benedick, whose sparring — before they succumb to a playfully devious setup at the hands of their friends — has an ugly, resentful heat to it, as well as on Hero and Claudio, whose filmy romance is unsettlingly easy for their enemies, the malevolent Don John (Sean Maher) and his cohorts, to sabotage. Some of Acker and Denisof’s broader clowning doesn’t offer enough comic payoff for the hammy energy expenditure, but Nathan Fillion, heading up local law enforcement as the constable Dogberry, delivers a gleeful depiction of blundering idiocy, and the film as a whole has a warm, approachable humor while lightly exposing “all’s well that ends well”’s wacky, dysfunctional side. (1:49) (Lynn Rapoport)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUyg78gSZ_A

1 Mile Above When his brother dies suddenly, sheltered Taiwanese student Shuhao takes possession of the older boy’s “riding diaries,” determined to complete his sibling’s dream of biking to the highest point in Tibet. It’d be a perilous journey even for an experienced cyclist — but Shuhao’s got gutsy determination that (almost) makes up for his wobbly wheels. Fortunately, nearly everyone he meets en route to Lhasa is a kind-hearted soul, including a food-obsessed fellow traveler who doles out advice on how to avoid government checkpoints, prevent “crotch trouble” (from all that riding), and woo women, among other topics. (The cruel weather, steep inclines, and hostile wild dogs he faces, however, aren’t as welcoming.) Jiayi Du’s based-on-true-events drama doesn’t innovate much on similar adventure tales — spoiler alert: it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts — but it admirably avoids melodrama for the most part, and the gorgeous location photography is something to behold. (1:29) Metreon. (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2bVeqhzuSs

The Purge Writer-director James DeMonaco founds his dystopian-near-future tale on the possibly suspect premise that the United States could achieve one percent unemployment, heavily reduced crime rates, and a virtually carb-free society if only it were to sanction an annual night of national mayhem unconstrained by statutory law — up to and including those discouraging the act of homicide. Set in 2022, The Purge visits the household of home security salesman James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), wife Mary (Lena Headey), and their children, Charlie (Max Burkholder) and Zoey (Adelaide Kane), as the annual festivities are about to begin, and the film keeps us trapped in the house with them for the next 12 hours of bloodletting sans emergency services. While they show zero interest in adding to the carnage, James and Mary seem to be largely on board with what a news commentator describes as “a lawful outlet for American rage,” not giving too much credence to detractors’ observations that the purge is a de facto culling of the underclass. Clearly, though, the whole family is about to learn a valuable lesson. It comes when Charlie, in an act of baseline humanity, draws the ire of a gang of purgers running around in bathrobes, prep school jackets, and creepy masks, led by a gleaming-eyed alpha-sociopath whom DeMonaco (whose other screenplay credits include 2005’s Assault on Precinct 13 remake) tasks with wielding the film’s blunt-object message alongside his semi-automatic weaponry. (1:25) Shattuck. (Lynn Rapoport)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMsH4kLoWCg

Shadow Dancer Watching the emotions flicker across the exquisitely smooth, pale plane of Andrea Riseborough’s face is one of the central pleasures of Shadow Dancer. Likely the surest step Madonna made in making 2011’s W.E. was choosing the actress as her Wallis Simpson — her features fall together with the sweet symmetry of a, well, Madonna, and even when words, or the script, fail her, the play of thoughts and feelings rippling across her brow can fill out a movie’s, or a character’s, failings admirably. The otherwise graceful, good-looking Shadow Dancer fumbles over a few in the course of resurrecting the Troubles tearing apart Belfast in the 1990s. After feeling responsible for the death of a younger brother who got caught in the crossfire, Collette (Riseborough) finds herself a single mom in league with the IRA. Caught after a scuttled bombing, the petite would-be terrorist is turned by Mac (Clive Owen) to become an informant for the MI5, though after getting quickly dragged into an attempted assassination, Collette appears to be way over her head and must be pulled out — something Mac’s boss (Gillian Anderson) won’t allow. Director James Marsh (2008’s Man on Wire) brings a keen attention to the machinations and tested loyalties among both the MI5 and IRA, an interest evident in his Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009), and even imbues otherwise blanked-out, non-picturesque sites like hotel suites and gray coastal walks with a stark beauty. Unfortunately the funereal pacing and gaps in plotting, however eased by the focus on Riseborough’s responses, send the mind into the shadows. (1:44) (Kimberly Chun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zdQ_UL5vwg

Violet and Daisy The 1990s revival has already infiltrated fashion and music; Violet and Daisy, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning Precious (2009) screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, suggests that cinema may be next. Unfortunately, not enough time has passed since the first wave of Pulp Fiction (1994) knockoffs to make the genre feel particularly interesting again. And yet here comes a pair of assassins dressed as nuns, cracking long-winded jokes before unloading on their targets with guns they’ve concealed in pizza boxes … as an AM radio hit (“Angel of the Morning”) swells in the background, and Danny Trejo stops by for a cameo. At least this Tarantino-lite exploration of crime and daddy issues has an appealing cast; besides Trejo, Alexis Bledel (sporting Mia Wallace bangs) and Saoirse Ronan play the jailbait titular killers, and James Gandolfini pops in as a sad-sack who manages to evade their bullets because, like, he’s nice and stuff. Despite their efforts, the over-stylized Violet and Daisy comes off like a plate of leftovers reheated too long after the fact. (1:28) (Cheryl Eddy)

Wish You Were Here One of few bright spots in The Great Gatsby, Joel Edgerton returns in this Aussie import that doesn’t need to set off 3D glitter bombs to win over its audience — that’s the power of a well-acted, well-written thriller. Under the opening credits we witness married Sydney couple Dave and Alice (Edgerton and Felicity Price, who co-wrote the script with her husband, director Kieran Darcy-Smith), along with Alice’s sister Steph (Warm Bodies’ Teresa Palmer) and new beau Jeremy (Antony Starr), having a blast on their Southeast Asian escape: sampling exotic food, dancing all night, spotting an elephant wandering the streets … oh, and guzzling drinks and gobbling drugs. Next scene: Dave and Alice returning home to their two young children, tension in the air, vacation bliss completely erased. It seems Jeremy is missing, somewhere in remote Cambodia — and that’s not the only lingering fallout from this journey gone terribly awry. Flashbacks mix with present-day scenes, including the police inquiry into Jeremy’s disappearance, to flesh out what happened; the end result is a suspenseful, surprising, precisely-assembled tale that only reveals what it needs to as the minutes tick by. (1:33) (Cheryl Eddy)

Psychic Dream Astrology: June 5-11, 2013

Andrew Lam
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ARIES

March 21-April 19

If you feel snowed under, there may be good reason. This week it’s important to listen to your feelings, even if that means you need to take a step back from things for a minute. Don’t let your circumstances pressure you when you know you need a break; it’s better to lay a thing down than to drop it, Aries.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

There is an ebb and flow to all things. Cultivate your willingness to be a part of the shifting of tides instead of digging your heels in and resisting, Taurus. Nurture your position with flexibility. Things may not be going where you would have directed them, but that will likely prove to be a very good thing.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Secure your foundations, Gemini. That means making sure you’ve paid your bills, responded to all your pressing emails, and followed through on your commitments this week. The goal is to free up your creative energy for more exciting things! You’re almost ready to hit the next playing level, but you’ve gotta power up first.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

In order to keep the peace you need to be tactful, but that doesn’t have to mean avoidant. Skate the line between diplomacy and directness, this week. Be decisive about what you’re able to offer situations or people and follow through on your vision. Then it’ll be perfectly fair to expect the same from others.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

This would be the perfect week for beginnings were it not for your anxieties. While history does have a habit of repeating itself, you can only look to the past to help inform you of what to be on the lookout for, not to predict your future. Don’t be scared of failure, Leo. It’s just an experience that can help you grow.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

The best way to screw up your relationships is to expect the worst of others, Virgo. If you don’t know what someone is thinking, be direct and just ask! You will do damage to by trying to read into other peoples motives in the negative frame of mind that you’re in. Be open and straightforward in your pursuit for clarity.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Even if insecurity dogs you, your mantra this week should be "Onwards and Upwards". You are setting the groundwork for future growth and things are not meant to be stable just yet. Stay true to yourself as you move through unfamiliar territory, and don’t confuse anxiety with intuition, Libra.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

It’s simply not possible to do everything wonderful at once. This week you may find yourself caught in a loop of being inspired and confident and then stymied and ready to pull out your hair. Don’t despair! You can do all things awesome if you pace yourself and prioritize what comes first. That means letting something go, pal.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

If you allow yourself to get distracted by other peoples’ dramas, you will stray from avoiding your own, Sagittarius. Stay invested in your relationships without taking on what isn’t yours. Loyalty can be expressed by being an active listener and helpful friend; you don’t have to douse yourself in their energies, too.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

The best way to have good relationships is to sink intentional good vibes into them. Your loved ones need you as much as you need them, and it’s time to invest love into the folks you care about, especially if there’s no need for it! Where you place is your energies is where you’ll get energy returned, Cap.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

There’s a fine line between being prepared for potential troubles and trying to reach into the future out of fear of all bad things that can happen. This week a positive attitude and willingness to be practical will trump spending time being pessimistic. If you can’t see a bright side, turn to others for a different perspective.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Much will open up to you once you get back in touch with yourself, Pisces. You need to get right with yourself before anything gets clarified this week, so turn off your phone, shut down your computer and find out what you’ll do with the freedom of not being so accessible to others. Invest in self-exploration.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Film listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

DOCFEST

The 12th San Francisco Documentary Film Festival runs June 6-23 at venues including the Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; Balboa, 3630 Balboa, SF; Aquarius, 430 Emerson, Palo Alto; and New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakl. For tickets (most shows $11; opening night $20; passes, $25-$160), additional venue information, and schedule, visit www.sfindie.com. For commentary, see “Realness.”

OPENING

The East In Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling’s powerful second film collaboration (Batmanglij directs, and the pair co-wrote the screenplay, as in 2011’s Sound of My Voice), Marling plays Sarah, an intelligence agent working for a private firm whose client list consists mainly of havoc-wreaking multinationals. Sarah, presented as quietly ambitious and conservative, is tasked by the firm’s director (Patricia Clarkson) with infiltrating the East, an off-the-grid activist collective whose members, including Benji (Alexander Skarsgård), Izzy (Ellen Page), and Doc (Toby Kebbell), bring an eye-for-an-eye sensibility to their YouTube-publicized “jams.” Targeting an oil company responsible for a BP-style catastrophe, they engineer their own spill in the gated-community habitat of the company’s CEO, posting a video that juxtaposes grisly images of oil-coated shorebirds and the unsettling sight of gallons of crude seeping through the air-conditioning vents of a tidy McMansion. A newspaper headline offers a facile framework for understanding their activities, posing the alternatives as “Pranksters or Eco-Terrorists?” But as Sarah examines the gut-wrenching consequences of so-called white-collar crime and immerses herself in the day-to-day practices of the group, drawn in particular to the charismatic Benji, the film raises more complex questions. Much of its rhetorical force flows from Izzy, whom Page invests with a raw, anguished outrage, drawing our sympathies toward the group and its mission of laying bare what should be unbearable. (1:56) California, Embarcadero. (Rapoport)

Fill the Void Respectfully rendered and beautifully shot in warm hues, Fill the Void admirably fills the absence on many screens of stories from what might be considered a closed world: the Orthodox Hasidic community in Israel, where a complex web of family ties, duty, and obligation entangles pretty, accordion-playing Shira (Hada Yaron). An obedient daughter, she’s about to agree to an arranged marriage to a young suitor when her much-loved sister (Renana Raz) dies in childbirth. When Shira’s mother (Irit Sheleg) learns the widower Yochay (Yiftach Klein) might marry a woman abroad and take her only grandchild far away, she starts to make noises about fixing Shira up with her son-in-law. The journey the two must take, in possibly going from in-laws to newlyweds, is one that’s simultaneously infuriating, understandable, and touching, made all the more intimate given director Rama Burshtein’s preference for searching close-ups. Her affinity for the Orthodox world is obvious with each loving shot, ultimately infusing her debut feature with a beating heart of humanity. (1:30) Albany, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Internship Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn weasel their way into being Google’s oldest interns. Yes, but will they ride the GBUS to MTV? (1:59) Four Star, Marina.

Kings of Summer Ah, the easy-to-pluck, easy-to-love low-hanging fruit of summer — and a coming of age. Who can blame director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta, both TV vets, for thinking that a juicy, molasses-thick application of hee-hee-larious TV comedy actors to a Stand by Me-like boyish bildungsroman could only make matters that much more fun? When it comes to this wannabe-feral Frankenteen love child of Terrence Malick and Parks and Recreation, you certainly don’t want to fault them for original thinking, though you can understand why they keep lurching back to familiar, reliably entertaining turf, especially when it comes in the form of Nick Offerman of the aforementioned P&R, who gets to twist his Victorian doll features into new frustrated shapes alongside real-life spouse Megan Mullally. Joe (Nick Robinson) is tired of his single dad (Offerman) stepping on his emerging game, so he runs off with neurotic wrestling pal Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and stereotypically “weirdo foreign” kid Biaggio (Moises Arias) to a patch of woods. There, from scrap, they build a cool-looking house that resembles a Carmel boho shack and attempt to live off the land, which means mostly buying chicken from a Boston Market across a freeway. Pipes are pummeled, swimming holes are swum, a pathetically wispy mustachio is cultivated — read: real burly stuff, until the rising tide of testosterone threatens to poison the woodland well. Vogt-Roberts certainly captures the humid sensuality and ripe potential of a Midwestern summer — though some of the details, like the supposedly wild rabbit that looks like it came straight from Petco, look a bit canned — and who can gripe when, say, Portlandia‘s Kumail Nanjiani materializes to deliver monster wontons? You just accept it, though the effect of bouncing back and forth between the somewhat serious world of young men and the surprisingly playful world of adults, both equally unreal, grows jarring. Kings of Summer isn’t quite the stuff of genius that marketing would have you believe, but it might give the “weirdo foreign” art house crowd and TV comedy addicts something they can both stand by. (1:33) (Chun)

Much Ado About Nothing Joss Whedon (last year’s The Avengers) shifts focus for a minute to stage an adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy, drawing his players from 15 years’ worth of awesome fantasy/horror/sci-fi TV and film projects. When the Spanish prince Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) pays a post-battle visit to the home of Leonato (Clark Gregg) with his officers Claudio (Fran Kranz) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof), Claudio falls for Leonato’s daughter, Hero (Jillian Morgese), while Benedick falls to verbal blows with Hero’s cousin Beatrice (Amy Acker). Preserving the original language of the play while setting his production in the age of the iPhone and the random hookup, Whedon makes clever, inventive use of the juxtaposition, teasing out fresh sources of visual comedy as well as bringing forward the play’s oddities and darker elements. These shadows fall on Beatrice and Benedick, whose sparring — before they succumb to a playfully devious setup at the hands of their friends — has an ugly, resentful heat to it, as well as on Hero and Claudio, whose filmy romance is unsettlingly easy for their enemies, the malevolent Don John (Sean Maher) and his cohorts, to sabotage. Some of Acker and Denisof’s broader clowning doesn’t offer enough comic payoff for the hammy energy expenditure, but Nathan Fillion, heading up local law enforcement as the constable Dogberry, delivers a gleeful depiction of blundering idiocy, and the film as a whole has a warm, approachable humor while lightly exposing “all’s well that ends well”‘s wacky, dysfunctional side. (1:49) (Rapoport)

1 Mile Above When his brother dies suddenly, sheltered Taiwanese student Shuhao takes possession of the older boy’s “riding diaries,” determined to complete his sibling’s dream of biking to the highest point in Tibet. It’d be a perilous journey even for an experienced cyclist — but Shuhao’s got gutsy determination that (almost) makes up for his wobbly wheels. Fortunately, nearly everyone he meets en route to Lhasa is a kind-hearted soul, including a food-obsessed fellow traveler who doles out advice on how to avoid government checkpoints, prevent “crotch trouble” (from all that riding), and woo women, among other topics. (The cruel weather, steep inclines, and hostile wild dogs he faces, however, aren’t as welcoming.) Jiayi Du’s based-on-true-events drama doesn’t innovate much on similar adventure tales — spoiler alert: it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts — but it admirably avoids melodrama for the most part, and the gorgeous location photography is something to behold. (1:29) Metreon. (Eddy)

The Purge Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey star in this sci-fi thriller that imagines the United States has curbed its crime rate by allowing one completely lawless 12-hour period each year. Brilliant plan! What could possibly go wrong? (1:25) Shattuck. Shadow Dancer Watching the emotions flicker across the exquisitely smooth, pale plane of Andrea Riseborough’s face is one of the central pleasures of Shadow Dancer. Likely the surest step Madonna made in making 2011’s W.E. was choosing the actress as her Wallis Simpson — her features fall together with the sweet symmetry of a, well, Madonna, and even when words, or the script, fail her, the play of thoughts and feelings rippling across her brow can fill out a movie’s, or a character’s, failings admirably. The otherwise graceful, good-looking Shadow Dancer fumbles over a few in the course of resurrecting the Troubles tearing apart Belfast in the 1990s. After feeling responsible for the death of a younger brother who got caught in the crossfire, Collette (Riseborough) finds herself a single mom in league with the IRA. Caught after a scuttled bombing, the petite would-be terrorist is turned by Mac (Clive Owen) to become an informant for the MI5, though after getting quickly dragged into an attempted assassination, Collette appears to be way over her head and must be pulled out — something Mac’s boss (Gillian Anderson) won’t allow. Director James Marsh (2008’s Man on Wire) brings a keen attention to the machinations and tested loyalties among both the MI5 and IRA, an interest evident in his Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009), and even imbues otherwise blanked-out, non-picturesque sites like hotel suites and gray coastal walks with a stark beauty. Unfortunately the funereal pacing and gaps in plotting, however eased by the focus on Riseborough’s responses, send the mind into the shadows. (1:44) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Violet and Daisy The 1990s revival has already infiltrated fashion and music; Violet and Daisy, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning Precious (2009) screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, suggests that cinema may be next. Unfortunately, not enough time has passed since the first wave of Pulp Fiction (1994) knockoffs to make the genre feel particularly interesting again. And yet here comes a pair of assassins dressed as nuns, cracking long-winded jokes before unloading on their targets with guns they’ve concealed in pizza boxes … as an AM radio hit (“Angel of the Morning”) swells in the background, and Danny Trejo stops by for a cameo. At least this Tarantino-lite exploration of crime and daddy issues has an appealing cast; besides Trejo, Alexis Bledel (sporting Mia Wallace bangs) and Saoirse Ronan play the jailbait titular killers, and James Gandolfini pops in as a sad-sack who manages to evade their bullets because, like, he’s nice and stuff. Despite their efforts, the over-stylized Violet and Daisy comes off like a plate of leftovers reheated too long after the fact. (1:28) (Eddy)

Wish You Were Here One of few bright spots in The Great Gatsby, Joel Edgerton returns in this Aussie import that doesn’t need to set off 3D glitter bombs to win over its audience — that’s the power of a well-acted, well-written thriller. Under the opening credits we witness married Sydney couple Dave and Alice (Edgerton and Felicity Price, who co-wrote the script with her husband, director Kieran Darcy-Smith), along with Alice’s sister Steph (Warm Bodies‘ Teresa Palmer) and new beau Jeremy (Antony Starr), having a blast on their Southeast Asian escape: sampling exotic food, dancing all night, spotting an elephant wandering the streets … oh, and guzzling drinks and gobbling drugs. Next scene: Dave and Alice returning home to their two young children, tension in the air, vacation bliss completely erased. It seems Jeremy is missing, somewhere in remote Cambodia — and that’s not the only lingering fallout from this journey gone terribly awry. Flashbacks mix with present-day scenes, including the police inquiry into Jeremy’s disappearance, to flesh out what happened; the end result is a suspenseful, surprising, precisely-assembled tale that only reveals what it needs to as the minutes tick by. (1:33) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

ONGOING

After Earth In around a century, we’ll board penitentiary-style ships and evacuate Earth for a sexier planet. Let’s call it a middle-aged migration — we all saw this coming. It’ll be dour, and we’ll feel temporary guilt for all the trees we leveled, bombs we dropped, and oil refineries we taped for 1960s industrial films. Like any body post-divorce, our planet will develop defenses against its ex — us humans — so when Will Smith and son Jaden crash land on the crater it’s toxic to them, full of glorious beasts and free as the Amazon (because it was partly filmed there). Critically wounded General Raige (Will) has to direct physically incredible Kitai (Jaden) through the future’s most dangerous Ironman triathalon. It’s more than a Hollywood king guiding his prince through a life-or-death career obstacle course, it’s a too-aggressive metaphor for adolescence — something real-world Jaden may forfeit to work with dad. Call that the tragedy beneath After Earth: it makes you wonder why the family didn’t make a movie more like 1994’s The Lion King — they had to know that was an option. Director M. Night Shyamalan again courts the Last Airbender (2010) crowd with crazy CG fights and affecting father-son dynamics, but for once, Shyamalan is basically a hired gun here. The story comes straight from Papa Smith, and one gets the feeling the movie exists primarily to elevate Jaden’s rising star. (1:40) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Before Midnight Proving (again) that not all sequels are autonomic responses to a marketplace that rewards the overfamiliar, director Richard Linklater and his cowriters Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke reconnect with the characters Céline and Jesse, whom we first encountered nearly 20 years ago on a train and trailed around Vienna for a night in Before Sunrise, then met again nine years later in Before Sunset. It’s been nine more years since we left them alone in a Paris apartment, Céline adorably dancing to Nina Simone and telling Jesse he’s going to miss his plane. And it looks like he did. The third film finds the two together, yes, and vacationing in Greece’s southern Peloponnese, where the expansive, meandering pace of their interactions — the only mode we’ve ever seen them in — is presented as an unaccustomed luxury amid a span of busy years filled with complications professional and personal. Over the course of a day and an evening, alone together and among friends, the two reveal both the quotidian intimacies of a shared life and the cracks and elisions in their love story. (1:48) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Elemental Even those suffering from environmental-doc fatigue (a very real condition, particularly in the eco-obsessed Bay Area) will find much to praise about Elemental, co-directed by Gayatri Roshan and NorCal native Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee (who also co-composed the film’s score). This elegantly shot and edited film approaches the issues via three “eco-warriors,” who despite working on different causes on various corners of the planet encounter similar roadblocks, and display like-minded determination, along the way: Rajendra Singh, on a mission to heal India’s heavily polluted Ganges River; Jay Harman, whose ingenious inventions are based on “nature’s blueprints”; and Eriel Deranger, who fights for her indigenous Canadian community in the face of Big Oil. Deranger cuts a particularly inspiring figure: a young, tattooed mother who juggles protests, her moody tween (while prepping for a new baby), and the more bureaucratic aspects of being a professional activist — from defending her grassroots methods when questioned by her skeptical employer, to deflecting a drunk, patronizing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a big-ticket fundraiser — with a calm, steely sense of purpose. (1:33) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Epic (1:42) Metreo, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Fast and Furious 6 Forget the fast (that’s understood by now, anyway) — part six in this popcorny series is heavy on the “furious,” with constant near-death stunts that zoom past irrational and slam into batshit crazy. Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) lures the gang out of sunny retirement to bust a fast driver with a knack for strategy and an eye on world domination. Sure, Ludacris jokes their London locale doesn’t mean they’re in a Bond movie, but give cold-blooded Luke Evans some time and he’ll work his way up to antagonizing 007. Shaw (Evans) is smaller than our hero Toretto (Vin Diesel), but he’s convincing, throwing his King’s English at a man whose murky dialect is always delivered with a devilish baritone. If Shaw’s code is all business, Toretto’s is all family: that’s what holds together this cast, cobbled from five Fast and Furious installments shot all over the world. Hottie Gal Gadot (playing Sung Kang’s love interest) reassures Han (Kang) mid-crisis: “This is what we are.” It’s not for nothing the gang’s main weapon is a harpoon gun that, once shot, leaves an umbilicus from the shooter to whatever’s in the crosshairs. That’s Torreto for you. Meanwhile, the villain’s weapon is a car with a spatula-like front end, that flips cars like pancakes. The climactic battle on a cargo plane has to give a face time to every member of the eight-person team, so naturally they shot it on the world’s longest runway. Of course the parade features less car porn than previous editions but it’s got a wider reach now — it’s officially international intrigue, not just fun for gearheads. For my money, it’s some of the best action in theaters today. Stick around for the inevitable sequel-suggesting coda during the credits. (2:10) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

Frances Ha Noah Baumbach isn’t exactly known for romance and bright-eyed optimism. Co-writing 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox with director Wes Anderson is maybe the closest to “whimsy” as he’s ever come; his own features (2010’s Greenberg, 2007’s Margot at the Wedding, 2005’s The Squid and the Whale, 1997’s Mr. Jealousy, and 1995’s Kicking and Screaming) tend to veer into grumpier, more intellectual realms. You might say his films are an acquired taste. But haters beware. Frances Ha — the black-and-white tale of a New York City hipster (Baumbach’s real-life squeeze, Greta Gerwig, who co-write the script with him) blundering her way into adulthood — is probably the least Baumbach-ian Baumbach movie ever. Owing stylistic debts to both vintage Woody Allen and the French New Wave, Frances Ha relies heavily on Gerwig’s adorable-disaster title character to propel its plot, which is little more than a timeline of Frances’ neverending micro-adventures: pursuing her nascent modern-dance career, bouncing from address to address, taking an impromptu trip to Paris, visiting her parents (portrayed by the Sacramento-raised Gerwig’s real-life parents), “breaking up” with her best friend. It’s so charming, poignant, and quotable (“Don’t treat me like a three-hour brunch friend!”) that even those who claim to be allergic to Baumbach just might find themselves succumbing to it. (1:26) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Great Gatsby Every bit as flashy and in-your-face as you’d expect the combo of “Baz Luhrmann,” “Jazz Age,” and “3D” to be, this misguided interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic tale is, at least, overstuffed with visual delights. For that reason only, all the fashion-mag fawning over leading lady Carey Mulligan’s gowns and diamonds, and the opulent production design that surrounds them, seems warranted. And in scenes where spectacle is appropriate — Gatsby’s legendary parties; Tom Buchanan’s wild New York romp with his mistress — Luhrmann delivers in spades. The trade-off is that the subtler aspects of Fitzgerald’s novel are either pushed to the side or shouted from the rooftops. Leonardo DiCaprio, last seen cutting loose in last year’s Django Unchained, makes for a stiff, fumbling Gatsby, laying on the “Old Sports” as thickly as his pancake make-up. There’s nothing here so startlingly memorable as the actor and director’s 1996 prior collaboration, Romeo + Juliet — a more successful (if still lavish and self-consciously audacious) take on an oft-adapted, much-beloved literary work. (2:22) California, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Hangover Part III Even the friendliest little blackout bacchanal can get tiresome the third time around. The poster depicting Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis — stern in suits and ties — says it all: it’s grim men’s business, the care and maintenance of this Hangover franchise, this orgy of good times gone bad. Once a bad-taste love letter to male-bonding, Hangover Part III is ready for a chance, primed to sever some of those misbegotten ties. This time around, the unlikely troika — with the always dispensable normal-dude figurehead Doug (Justin Bartha) in tow — are captured by random sketchy figure Marshall (John Goodman, whose every utterance of the offensive “Chinaman” should bring back Big Lebowski warm-and-fuzzies). He holds Doug hostage in exchange for the amoral, cockfighting, coke-wallowing, whore-hiring, leather-wearing Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong), who stole his gold, and it turns out Alan (Galifianakis) might be his only chum. Jeong, who continues to bring the hammy glee, is still the best thing here, even as the conscience-free instigator; he’s the dark counterpart to tweaked man-child Alan, who meets cute with mean-ass pawn-star soulmate Cassie (Melissa McCarthy). Meanwhile, Cooper and Helms look on, puzzled, no doubt pondering the prestige projects on their plates and wondering what they’re still doing here. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

The Iceman Methody-y changeling Michael Shannon is pretty much the whole show in The Iceman, about a real-life hitman who purportedly killed over 100 people during his career. Despite some scarily violent moments, however, Ariel Vromen’s film doesn’t show much of that body count — he’s more interested in the double life Richard Kuklinski (Shannon) leads as a cold-blooded killer whose profession remains entirely unknown for years to his wife, daughters, and friends. The waitress he marries, Deborah (Winona Ryder), isn’t exactly a brainiac. But surely there’s some willful denial in the way she accepts his every excuse and fake profession, starting with “dubbing Disney movies” when he actually dupes prints of pornos. It’s in that capacity that he first meets Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta), a volatile Newark mobster who, impressed by Kuklinski’s blasé demeanor at gunpoint, correctly surmises this guy would make a fine contract killer. When he has a falling out with Demeo, Kuklinski “freelances” his skill to collaborate with fellow hitman Mr. Freezy (Chris Evans), so named because he drives an ice-cream truck — and puts his victims on ice for easier disposal. For the sake of a basic contrast defined by its ad line — “Loving husband. Devoted father. Ruthless killer.” — The Iceman simplifies Kuklinski’s saga, making him less of a monster. The movie only briefly suggests Kuklinski’s abused childhood, and it omits entirely other intriguing aspects of the real-life story. But Shannon creates a convincing whole character whose contradictions don’t seem so to him — or to us. (1:46) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

In the House In François Ozon’s first feature since the whimsical 2010 Potiche, he returns somewhat to the playful suspense intrigue of 2003’s Swimming Pool, albeit with a very different tone and context. Fabrice Luchini plays a high school French literature teacher disillusioned by his students’ ever-shrinking articulacy. But he is intrigued by one boy’s surprisingly rich description of his stealth invasion into a classmate’s envied “perfect” family — with lusty interest directed at the “middle class curves” of the mother (Emmanuelle Seigner). As the boy Claude’s writings continue in their possibly fictive, possibly stalker-ish provocations, his teacher grows increasingly unsure whether he’s dealing with a precocious bourgeoisie satirist or a literate budding sociopath — and ambivalent about his (and spouse Kristin Scott Thomas’ stressed gallery-curator’s) growing addiction to these artfully lurid possible exposé s of people he knows. And it escalates from there. Ozon is an expert filmmaker in nimble if not absolute peak form here, no doubt considerably helped by Juan Mayorga’s source play. It’s a smart mainstream entertainment that, had it been Hollywood feature, would doubtless be proclaimed brilliant for its clever tricks and turns. (1:45) Roxie. (Harvey)

Iron Man 3 Neither a sinister terrorist dubbed “the Mandarin” (Ben Kingsley) nor a spray-tanned mad scientist (Guy Pearce) are as formidable an enemy to Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) as Tony Stark himself, the mega-rich playboy last seen in 2012’s Avengers donning his Iron Man suit and thwarting alien destruction. It’s been rough since his big New York minute; he’s been suffering panic attacks and burying himself in his workshop, shutting out his live-in love (Gwyneth Paltrow) in favor of tinkering on an ever-expanding array of manned and un-manned supersuits. But duty, and personal growth, beckon when the above-mentioned villains start behaving very badly. With some help (but not much) from Don Cheadle’s War Machine — now known as “Iron Patriot” thanks to a much-mocked PR campaign — Stark does his saving-the-world routine again. If the plot fails to hit many fresh beats (a few delicious twists aside), the 3D special effects are suitably dazzling, the direction (by series newcomer Shane Black) is appropriately snappy, and Downey, Jr. again makes Stark one of the most charismatic superheros to ever grace the big screen. For now, at least, the continuing Avengers spin-off extravaganza seems justified. (2:06) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Kon-Tiki In 1947 Norwegian explorer and anthropologist Thor Heyderdahl arranged an expedition on a homemade raft across the Pacific, recreating what he believed was a route by which South Americans traveled to Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. (Although this theory is now disputed.) The six-man crew (plus parrot) survived numerous perils to complete their 101-day, 4300-mile journey intact — winning enormous global attention, particularly through Heyderdahl’s subsequent book and documentary feature. Co-directors Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg’s dramatization is a big, impressive physical adventure most arresting for its handsome use of numerous far-flung locations. Where it’s less successful is in stirring much emotional involvement, with the character dynamics underwhelming despite a decent cast led by Pal Sverr Hagen as Thor (who, incredibly, was pretty much a non-swimmer). Nonetheless, this new Kon-Tiki offers all the pleasures of armchair travel, letting you vicariously experience a high-risk voyage few could ever hope (or want) to make in real life. (1:58) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Midnight’s Children Deepa Mehta (2005’s Water) directs and co-adapts with Salman Rushdie the author’s Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel, which mixes history (India’s 1947 independence, and the subsequent division of India and Pakistan) with magical elements — suggested from its fairy-tale-esque first lines: “I was born in the city of Bombay, once upon a time.” This droll voice-over (read by Rushdie) comes courtesy of Saleem Sinai, born to a poor street musician and his wife (who dies in childbirth; dad is actually an advantage-taking Brit played by Charles “Tywin Lannister” Dance) but switched (for vaguely revolutionary reasons) with Shiva, born at the same moment to rich parents who unknowingly raise the wrong son. Rich or poor, it seems all children born at the instant of India’s independence have shared psychic powers; over the years, they gather for “meetings” whenever Saleem summons them. And that’s just the 45 minutes or so of story. Though gorgeously shot, Midnight’s Children suffers from page-to-screen-itis; the source material is complex in both plot and theme, and it’s doubtful any film — even one as long as this — could translate its nuances and more fanciful elements (“I can smell feelings!,” Saleem insists) into a consistently compelling narrative. Last-act sentimentality doesn’t help, though it’s consistent with the fairy-tale vibe, I suppose. (2:20) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Mud (2:18) Piedmont.

Now You See Me Cheese can be a tough factor to quantify, but you get close to the levels Now You See Me strives for when you picture the hopelessly goofy, tragically coiffed Doug Henning lisping, “It’s magic!” somewhere between Bob “Happy Little Tree” Ross and a rainbow sprinkled with Care Bears. Now You See Me, however, is much less likely to be dusted off and adored by a Bronies-style cult. Four seemingly savvy street and stage magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco) are brought together by tarot card invite by a mysterious host. What follows is a series of corny performances by the crew, now dubbed the Four Horseman, that are linked to a series of Robin Hood-like, or not, thefts. Nipping at their heels are a loudly flustered FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo, working an overcooked Columbo impression), a waifish Interpol detective (Mélanie Laurent, as if slouching through a Sorbonne semester), and a professional debunker (Morgan Freeman, maintaining amusement). In the course of the investigation, the Horsemen’s way-too-elaborate and far-from-apocalyptic illusions are taken apart and at least one vigorously theatrical fight scene takes place — all of which sounds more riveting than what actually transpires under the action-by-the-book watch of director Louis Leterrier, who never succeeds in making the smug, besuited puppets, I mean Horsemen, who strut around like they’re in Ocean’s Eighteen 4D, anything remotely resembling cool. Or even characters we might give a magical rabbit’s ass about. For all its seemingly knowing pokes at the truth behind the curtain, Now You See Me lacks much of the smarts and wit of loving deconstructionists like Penn and Teller —glimmers of which can only be made out in the smirk of Harrelson and the knowing twinkle of Freeman — or even the tacky machismo of Criss Angel, as well as a will to get to a truth behind the mystery. Or is the mystery behind the truth? (1:56) California, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Oblivion Spoiler alert: the great alien invasion of 2017 does absolutely zilch to eliminate, or at least ameliorate, the problem of sci-fi movie plot holes. However, puny humans willing to shut down the logic-demanding portions of their brains just might enjoy Oblivion, which is set 60 years after that fateful date and imagines that Earth has been rendered uninhabitable by said invasion. Tom Cruise plays Jack, a repairman who zips down from his sterile housing pod (shared with comely companion Andrea Riseborough) to keep a fleet of drones — dispatched to guard the planet’s remaining resources from alien squatters — in working order. But Something is Not Quite Right; Jack’s been having nostalgia-drenched memories of a bustling, pre-war New York City, and the déjà vu gets worse when a beautiful astronaut (Olga Kurylenko) literally crash-lands into his life. After an inaugural gig helming 2010’s stinky Tron: Legacy, director Joseph Kosinski shows promise, if not perfection, bringing his original tale to the screen. (He does, however, borrow heavily from 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1996’s Independence Day, and 2008’s Wall-E, among others.) Still, Oblivion boasts sleek production design, a certain creative flair, and some surprisingly effective plot twists — though also, alas, an overlong running time. (2:05) Metreon. (Eddy)

Rebels with a Cause The huge string of parklands that have made Marin County a jewel of preserved California coastline might easily have become wall-to-wall development — just like the Peninsula — if not for the stubborn conservationists whose efforts are profiled in Nancy Kelly’s documentary. From Congressman Clem Miller — who died in a plane crash just after his Point Reyes National Seashore bill became a reality — to housewife Amy Meyer, who began championing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area because she “needed a project” to keep busy once her kids entered school, they’re testaments to the ability of citizen activism to arrest the seemingly unstoppable forces of money, power and political influence. Theirs is a hidden history of the Bay Area, and of what didn’t come to pass — numerous marinas, subdivisions, and other developments that would have made San Francisco and its surrounds into another Los Angeles. (1:12) Roxie. (Harvey)

Renoir The gorgeous, sun-dappled French Riviera setting is the high point of this otherwise low-key drama about the temperamental women (Christa Theret) who was the final muse to elderly painter Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), and who encouraged the filmmaking urges in his son, future cinema great Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee (who’s worked with Hou Hsiao-hsein and Wong Kar Wai) lenses Renoir’s leafy, ramshackle estate to maximize its resemblance to the paintings it helped inspire; though her character, Dédée, could kindly be described as “conniving,” Theret could not have been better physically cast, with tumbling red curls and pale skin she’s none too shy about showing off. Though the specter of World War I looms in the background, the biggest conflicts in Gilles Bourdos’ film are contained within the household, as Jean frets about his future, Dédée faces the reality of her precarious position in the household (which is staffed by aging models-turned-maids), and Auguste battles ill health by continuing to paint, though he’s in a wheelchair and must have his brushes taped to his hands. Though not much really happens, Renoir is a pleasant, easy-on-the-eyes experience. (1:51) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s This glossy love letter to posh New York City department store Bergdorf Goodman — a place so expensive that shopping there is “an aspirational dream” for the grubby masses, according to one interviewee — would offend with its slobbering take on consumerism if it wasn’t so damn entertaining. The doc’s narrative of sorts is propelled by the small army assembled to create the store’s famed holiday windows; we watch as lavish scenes of upholstered polar bears and sea creatures covered in glittering mosaics (flanking, natch, couture gowns) take shape over the months leading up to the Christmas rush. Along the way, a cavalcade of top designers (Michael Kors, Vera Wang, Giorgio Armani, Jason Wu, Karl Lagerfeld) reminisce on how the store has impacted their respective careers, and longtime employees share anecdotes, the best of which is probably the tale of how John Lennon and Yoko Ono saved the season by buying over 70 fur coats one magical Christmas Eve. Though lip service is paid to the current economic downturn (the Madoff scandal precipitated a startling dropoff in personal-shopper clients), Scatter My Ashes is mostly just superficial fun. What do you expect from a store whose best-selling shoe is sparkly, teeteringly tall, and costs $6,000? (1:33) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

Star Trek Into Darkness Do you remember 1982? There are more than a few echoes of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in J. J. Abrams’ second film retooling the classic sci-fi property’s characters and adventures. Darkness retains the 2009 cast, including standouts Zachary Quinto as Spock and Simon Pegg as comic-relief Scotty, and brings in Benedict “Sherlock” Cumberbatch to play the villain (I think you can guess which one). The plot mostly pinballs between revenge and preventing/circumventing the destruction of the USS Enterprise, with added post-9/11, post-Dark Knight (2008) terrorism connotations that are de rigueur for all superhero or fantasy-type blockbusters these days. But Darkness isn’t totally, uh, dark: there’s quite a bit of fan service at work here (speak Klingon? You’re in luck). Abrams knows what audiences want, and he’s more than happy to give it to ’em, sometimes opening up massive plot holes in the process — but never veering from his own Prime Directive: providing an enjoyable ride. (2:07) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Stories We Tell Actor and director Sarah Polley (2011’s Take This Waltz) turns the camera on herself and her family for this poignant, moving, inventive, and expectation-upending blend of documentary and narrative. Her father, actor Michael Polley, provides the narration; our first hint that this film will take an unconventional form comes when we see Sarah directing Michael’s performance in a recording-studio booth, asking him to repeat certain phrases for emphasis. On one level, Stories We Tell is about Sarah’s own history, as she sets out to explore longstanding family rumors that Michael is not her biological father. The missing piece: her mother, actress Diane Polley (who died of cancer just days after Sarah’s 11th birthday), a vivacious character remembered by Sarah’s siblings and those who knew and loved her. Stories We Tell‘s deeper meaning emerges as the film becomes ever more meta, retooling the audience’s understanding of what they’re seeing via convincingly doc-like reenactments. To say more would lessen the power of Stories We Tell‘s multi-layered revelations. Just know that this is an impressively unique film — about family, memories, love, and (obviously) storytelling — and offers further proof of Polley’s tremendous talent. (1:48) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

What Maisie Knew In Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s adaptation of the 1897 Henry James novel, the story of a little girl caught between warring, self-involved parents is transported forward to modern-day New York City, with Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan as the ill-suited pair responsible, in theory, for the care and upbringing of the title character, played by Onata Aprile. Moore’s Susanna is a rock singer making a slow, halting descent from some apex of stardom, as we gather from the snide comments of her partner in dysfunctionality, Beale (Coogan). As their relationship implodes and they move on to custody battle tactics, each takes on a new, inappropriate companion — Beale marrying in haste Maisie’s pretty young nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham), and Susanna just as precipitously latching on to a handsome bartender named Lincoln (True Blood‘s Alexander Skarsgård). The film mostly tracks the chaotic action — Susanna’s strung-out tantrums, both parents’ impulsive entrances and exits, Margo and Lincoln’s ambivalent acceptance of responsibility — from Maisie’s silent vantage, as details large and small convey, at least to us, the deficits of her caretakers, who shield her from none of the emotional shrapnel flying through the air and rarely bother to present an appropriate, comprehensible explanation. Yet Maisie understands plenty — though longtime writing-and-directing team McGehee and Siegel (2001’s The Deep End, 2005’s Bee Season, 2008’s Uncertainty) have taken pains in their script and their casting to present Maisie as a lovely, watchful child, not the precocious creep often favored in the picture shows. So we watch too, with a grinding anxiety, as she’s passed from hand to hand, forced to draw her own unvoiced conclusions. (1:38) Albany, Opera Plaza. (Rapoport) *

 

Yo La Tengo plays the hits at the Fillmore, covers Black Flag

Tony Robles
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Yo La Tengo plays the hits at the Fillmore, covers Black Flag

The last time I saw Yo La Tengo, on its fabulously gimmicky Spinning Wheel tour, the trio delivered an abrasive, garage-y opening set under an alter-ego, Dump, and closed with a Jackson Browne cover. This past Friday, the band took the Fillmore stage with a loose, meditative acoustic set, before eventually closing with an incendiary rendition of a Black Flag song. There’s no predicting the content, or structure of a Yo La Tengo show; yet, no matter how vigorously it flips from one genre to the next, it sounds unmistakably like Yo La Tengo.

From its yearly run of Hanukkah shows, to its infamously vast archive of cover songs, the Hoboken, NJ trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew has cultivated a rich mythology over nearly three decades as a band. It’s also maintained remarkable consistency and prolificacy within its recorded material, which, like Stereolab, has caused many a fan to take its casual greatness for granted. Alternating between insistently bouncy pop songs, blissfully droned-out jams, and cozy ballads to wear your autumn sweater by, Yo La Tengo has assembled a wildly eclectic back-catalogue that continues to pleasantly surprise, and occasionally confound live audiences.

At Friday’s show, the band threw out a curveball right away, with an understated, acoustic rendition of “Ohm,” the decidedly electric opening track from this year’s Fade: its 13th LP, and arguably its most muted, direct work to date. Kaplan and McNew powered through the drony, hypnotic guitar riff at the song’s center with a quiet, chugging insistence, reinforced by Hubley’s understated, yet undeniably groovy drum brushing. It was a captivating opener, and a shining example of Yo La Tengo’s penchant for elegant simplicity.

The remainder of the opening set showed similar restraint, shuffling through several other new songs (the Beach House-y “Two Trains,” Hubley’s gorgeously vocalized “Cornelia & Jane,” the raga-ish “I’ll Be Around”) intermixed with material from the band’s back-catalogue. One definite highlight was a stripped-down rendition of “Decora” (from 1995’s Electr-o-pura), while “No Water” (from its second LP, 1987’s New Wave Hot Dogs) was easily the night’s most unexpected selection.

After a short break, during which many bespectacled audience members pined for a louder, freakier closing set, Yo La Tengo retook the stage with a full drum kit, and an arsenal of electric guitars, providing a jolt that the first half was missing. “Beanbag Chair” (from 2006’s curiously titled I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass) delivered on the band’s talent for effervescently hooky pop songcraft, while “Deeper Into Movies” (a high point from 1997’s seminal I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One) set a darker, angstier mood, foregrounding Kaplan’s fuzzed-out guitar sensibility.

However, a Yo La Tengo show wouldn’t be complete without a sprawling, 10+ minute epic, and the band delivered handsomely with “The Story of Yo La Tengo.” Beginning with ambient washes of guitar and synth, the sprawling jam morphed slowly into a devastating guitar freakout, complete with Hendrix-esque stage theatrics. Given Kaplan’s soft-spoken, dryly funny live persona, watching him attack his fretboard with prog-like dexterity and ferocity was incredibly endearing, in a brain-melting sort of way. Although Hubley and McNew both took turns fronting the band, proving Yo La Tengo as one of the more democratic ensembles around, Kaplan absolutely stole the show.

In true Yo La Tengo tradition, the band came back for an encore set of cover songs: in this case, Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown,” and the Scene is Now’s “Yellow Sarong.” Following an uncompromisingly pissy, noisy punk number with a kinder, gentler pop selection, the pairing was perfectly symbolic of the trio’s stylistic range.

Few ensembles can claim Yo La Tengo’s dependability while remaining so utterly unpredictable, and fewer can sustain such a balancing act so unpretentiously. Even after three decades and 13 albums together, Kaplan, Hubley, and McNew continue to record and perform as vitally and infectiously as many bands on the first leg of their journey. If Sonic Youth’s dissolution is for real, we can officially claim Yo La Tengo as the reigning champions of the autumn-sweatered indie set.

On the Cheap listings

Andrew Lam
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For information on how to submit events for listing consideration, see the guidelines in Selector.

THURSDAY 9

Bike to work day Various SF locations. www.sfbike.org. 5:30am-7pm, free. Trade in a cramped morning Muni commute for an open-air bike ride today in honor of bike to work day. The SF Bicycle Coalition knows biking the hills of SF is not always an easy task, which is why it has set up 26 "energizer stations" all around the city to serve free snacks, beverages, and reusable, goodie-filled tote bags to use on your to-and-froms. Check the Coalition’s site to find a station along your regular route.

Thirsty Thursday Toga Party Atmosphere, 447 Broadway, SF. www.a3atmosphere.com. 9:30pm, free. RSVP required. Revive your Animal House-esque days with a toga party. Travelers, locals, au pairs, and international students will be decked out in the finest bed sheets around. Show up before 10pm and score a free bingo card with a $3 shot offered every time you check off a square.

Britweek Design Series San Francisco Design Center, 2 Henry Adams, SF. www.babcsf.org. 4:30-10pm, $20-25 advance. The British-American Business Council hosts this design-driven evening. The event will kick off with a panel of British and American architects and interior designers, followed by a second international panel of innovators working in product design and technology, finishing up with an after party at Project One Gallery, just down the street from the design center.

FRIDAY 10

Spirit: A Century of Queer Asian Activism Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. www.queerrebels.com. 8pm, $12-20. Queer Rebels’ organization for queer artists of color brings movers and shakers of the community together to celebrate 100 years of queer Asian activism. The two-day event begins tonight with performances by Eli-Coppola award winning poet Ryka Aoki, performance artist Genevieve Erin O’Brien, and more. The festivities will continue tomorrow night with a panel discussion and film screenings.

SATURDAY 11

Pet Week kick-off Little Marina Green, Marina and Baker, SF. www.marinatimes.com. 11am-3pm, free. Soak up some sun and get your puppy fix today at Pet Week’s kick-off event. Bring your favorite four-legged friend for free microchipping, watch police K-9s show off their detective skills, pick up some free goodies for Fido, and maybe even adopt a new friend. Pet adoption will be available from eight organizations including Pets Unlimited, Muttville, and Rocket Dog Rescue.

Bluegrass Pickin’ Picnic Dahlia Picnic Area, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.countryroundupsf.com. Noon-6pm, free. If you’re a fan of Golden Gate Park and bluegrass but the giant mobs of the Hardly Strictly festival bruise your gentle nerves, here is your second chance. Sponsored by the California Bluegrass Association, this afternoon is an open jam session for all who play or just like listening to bluegrass. Set up your picnic blanket early and score some free hamburgers and hot dogs while supplies last.

SUNDAY 12

Wanderlust Festival Marina Green. sf.wanderlustfestival.com. 12-5pm, free. Register online. If the daily grind of city life is taking its toll, head over to the Marina for a stress-relieving day of yoga and music. The day will begin with yoga sessions led by Pradeep Teotia and Susan Hauser, Lululemon 2012 ambassador. The evening will conclude with musical performances by DJ Drez and the fittingly named MC Yogi.

TUESDAY 14

Cakespy book signing Book Passage, 1 Ferry Building, SF. www.bookpassage.com. 6pm, free. Ever been stuffing your face with a red velvet cupcake or Girl Scout cookie and wondered where the recipe originated? Self proclaimed "dessert detective" Jessie Oleson Moore has these answers and more in her new book The Secret Lives of Baked Goods: Sweet Stories & Recipes from America’s Favorite Desserts. Head over to the Ferry Building to meet Moore and get a signed copy of this sweet literary treat.

"Ask a Scientist: Origins of the Universe" SoMa StrEat Food Park, 428 11th St., SF. www.askascientistsf.com. In this lecture hosted by UC Berkeley Professor Eliot Quataert science fanatics will learn how the universe evolved from its smooth beginnings to its current state. Quataert will focus on how gravity reigns supreme and builds up the planets, stars, and galaxies required for biological evolution. If digesting all this scientific chatter works up an appetite, fuel up at one of the ten gourmet food trucks at SoMa StrEat Food Park.

Secret San Francisco: Adventures in History Balboa Theatre, 3630 Balboa, SF. www.cinemasf.com/balboa. 6:30pm, $10. The history of the downtown neighborhoods of San Francisco are well photographed and documented, but head further west and things tend to get a bit foggy. That’s where the Western Neighborhood Projects comes in. The nonprofit has been documenting all things west of Stanyan Street since 1999. Head to the Balboa Theatre tonight for a dose of SF history — west and east — short films, archival TV footage, and other historic surprises.

Get festy: Burger Boogaloo, BottleRock, and nachos

Tony Robles
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Get festy: Burger Boogaloo, BottleRock, and nachos

Flop, flop, flop. Can you hear that? It could be a burger flipping. Or maybe that’s the sound of your tanned, bloated belly landing between crisp white sheets after long stretches of outdoor music-listening, dirt(y) dancing, craft beer-imbibing, and gourmet food stand-patronizing. It’s festival season, and there’ve been some tasty developments in the past couple of weeks.

Burger Boogaloo (July 6-7) excited Oaklanders and beyond by releasing its delictable lineup full of icons and punks, Outside Lands (Aug. 9-11) announced its even fancier food lineup, and hey, BottleRock is this weekend (May 9-12)

BottleRock Napa (May 9-12)
So BottleRock is a bit of a trek — it’s out in Napa Valley, but it’s a four-day-long fest in a real pretty location (that’s bound to get more unclouded sun than SF). It kicks off this Thu/9 with live music, food, comedy and yes, beer and wine. The top billing on the lineup is a bit ho-hum, with broadly appealing rock’n’roll, blues rock, and folk acts like Kings of Leon, the Black Keys, and Zac Brown Band, but there’s also the Flaming Lips, the Shins, and the thunderous Alabama Shakes. And for a certain breed of ‘90s kid: Primus and Cake.

There’s a safe, solid comedy showing too, with Jim Gaffigan, Demetri Martin, Tig Notaro, Rob Delaney, and Daily Show alums Wyatt Cenac, Kristen Schaal, and Aasif Mandvi (not appearing together).

Tickets: www.bottlerocknapavalley.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svZNjhsk2ys

Burger Boogaloo (July 6-7)
Here’s the one to watch. Burger Records just keeps outdoing itself. It has fests around the country (including a recent biggie on its home turf of Orange County, Burgerama II) and brings together an elite mix of sloppy, legendary, and up-and-coming surf, garage, fun punk, and slack doo-wop acts. Burger Boogaloo is even more special because it brings Burger together with our own local slop heroes Total Trash Booking, for a mega-fest created by two equally appealing masters. Plus, the Boogaloo is in a park, so things could get steamy.

Everyone is talking about the disparate headliners early LA punk band Red Kross and Modern Lover/singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman — and rightfully so, they are incredible — but can we also take a minute to thank satan for the Trashwomen addition to the lineup? Epic. For those somehow unaware, the Trashwomen are Bay Area noisy surf-punk royalty, born of the ‘90s, and featuring Tina Lucchesi (of every band ever), Danielle Pimm, and Elka Zolot (Kreayshawn’s hot mama).

Add to that Ty Segall’s early trio Traditional Fools, Audacity, Guantanamo Baywatch (listen to thumping “Barbacoa” now, please), and Pangea. And, with the addition of NY Night Train’s Jonathan Toubin, there will be a Mosswood Park soul clap dance off.

I can hardly wait to kick off these smelly sneakers.

Tickets: www.burgerboogaloo.com.

Outside Lands (Aug. 9-11)
The crème de le crème of foodie-meets-rocker outdoor fêtes, Outside Lands knows what its fan base wants. So with nearly as much fanfare as its band lineup (which this year includes Paul McCartney, Phoenix, D’Angelo, Foals, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and around 20 or so others), the fest also releases its noted food vendor roundup.

There are 75 food stuff sellers at Outside Lands’ “A Taste of the Bay Area” 2013 including “returning favorites” like massive pizza truck Del Popolo, carnival fare brick-and-mortar business Straw, 4505 Meats, American Grilled Cheese Kitchen, and Pacific Catch. Newbies this year include newish SF favorite Wise Sons Deli, Rich Table, 1300 on Fillmore, Blue Bottle Coffee Co., and Nopa offshoot, Nopalito. And worry not, my personal favorite from last year (besides Metallica), Azalina’s, will be back with the Malaysian nachos that stole my blackened heart.

The vendors are usually placed in two distinct sections, with somewhat close proximity to the main stages, plus there’s the Wine Lands circus tent, Beer Lands, and Chocolate Lands. So much better than overcooked hot dogs and stale keg beer, right?

Tickets: www.sfoutsidelands.com.

Solomon: The Orwellian warfare state of carnage and doublethink

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By Norman Solomon

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He writes the Political Culture 2013 column.

After the bombings that killed and maimed so horribly at the Boston Marathon, our country’s politics and mass media are awash in heartfelt compassion — and reflexive “doublethink,” which George Orwell described as willingness “to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.”

In sync with media outlets across the country, the New York Times put a chilling headline on Wednesday’s front page: “Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim, Officials Say.” The story reported that nails and ball bearings were stuffed into pressure cookers, “rigged to shoot sharp bits of shrapnel into anyone within reach of their blast.”

Much less crude and weighing in at 1,000 pounds, CBU-87/B warheads were in the category of “combined effects munitions” when put to use 14 years ago by a bomber named Uncle Sam. The U.S. media coverage was brief and fleeting.

One Friday, at noontime, U.S.-led NATO forces dropped cluster bombs on the city of Nis, in the vicinity of a vegetable market. “The bombs struck next to the hospital complex and near the market, bringing death and destruction, peppering the streets of Serbia’s third-largest city with shrapnel,” a dispatch in the San Francisco Chronicle reported on May 8, 1999.

And: “In a street leading from the market, dismembered bodies were strewn among carrots and other vegetables in pools of blood. A dead woman, her body covered with a sheet, was still clutching a shopping bag filled with carrots.”

Pointing out that cluster bombs “explode in the air and hurl shards of shrapnel over a wide radius,” BBC correspondent John Simpson wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: “Used against human beings, cluster bombs are some of the most savage weapons of modern warfare.”

Savage did not preclude usage. As a matter of fact, to Commander in Chief Bill Clinton and the prevailing military minds in Washington, savage was bound up in the positive attributes of cluster bombs. Each one could send up to 60,000 pieces of jagged steel shrapnel into what the weapon’s maker described as “soft targets.”

An unusually diligent reporter, Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times, reported from Pristina, Yugoslavia: “During five weeks of airstrikes, witnesses here say, NATO warplanes have dropped cluster bombs that scatter smaller munitions over wide areas. In military jargon, the smaller munitions are bomblets. Dr. Rade Grbic, a surgeon and director of Pristina’s main hospital, sees proof every day that the almost benign term bomblet masks a tragic impact. Grbic, who saved the lives of two ethnic Albanian boys wounded while other boys played with a cluster bomb found Saturday, said he had never done so many amputations.”

The LA Times article quoted Dr. Grbic: “I have been an orthopedist for 15 years now, working in a crisis region where we often have injuries, but neither I nor my colleagues have ever seen such horrific wounds as those caused by cluster bombs.” He added: “They are wounds that lead to disabilities to a great extent. The limbs are so crushed that the only remaining option is amputation. It’s awful, awful.”

The newspaper account went on: “Pristina’s hospital alone has treated 300 to 400 people wounded by cluster bombs since NATO’s air war began March 24, Grbic said. Roughly half of those victims were civilians, he said. Because that number doesn’t include those killed by cluster bombs and doesn’t account for those wounded in other regions of Yugoslavia, the casualty toll probably is much higher, he said. ‘Most people are victims of the time-activated cluster bombs that explode some time after they fall,’ he said.”

Later, during invasions and initial periods of occupation, the U.S. military dropped cluster bombs in Afghanistan and fired cluster munitions in Iraq.

Today, the U.S. State Department remains opposed to outlawing those weapons, declaring on its official website: “Cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility. Their elimination from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of its soldiers and those of its coalition partners at risk.”

The State Department position statement adds: “Moreover, cluster munitions can often result in much less collateral damage than unitary weapons, such as a larger bomb or larger artillery shell would cause, if used for the same mission.” Perhaps the bomber(s) who stuffed nails and ball bearings into pressure cookers for use in Boston had a similarly twisted rationale.

But don’t expect explorations of such matters from the USA’s daily papers or commercial networks — or from the likes of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” or the PBS “NewsHour.” When the subject is killing and maiming, such news outlets take as a given the presumptive moral high ground of the U.S. government.

In his novel 1984, Orwell wrote about the conditioned reflex of “stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought . . . and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.”

The doublethink — continually reinforced by mass media — remains within an irony-free zone that would amount to mere self-satire if not so damaging to intellectual and moral coherence

Every news report about the children killed and injured at the finish line in Boston, every account of the horrific loss of limbs, makes me think of a little girl named Guljumma. She was seven years old when I met her at an Afghan refugee camp one day in the summer of 2009

At the time, I wrote: “Guljumma talked about what happened one morning last year when she was sleeping at home in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Valley. At about 5 a.m., bombs exploded. Some people in her family died. She lost an arm.

In the refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul, where several hundred families were living in squalid conditions, the U.S. government was providing no help. The last time Guljumma and her father had meaningful contact with the U.S. government was when it bombed them.

War thrives on abstractions, but Guljumma was no abstraction. She was no more or less of an abstraction than the children whose lives have been forever wrecked by the bombing at the Boston finish line.

But the same U.S. news media that are conveying the preciousness of children so terribly harmed in Boston are scarcely interested in children like Guljumma.

I thought of her again when seeing news reports and a chilling photo on April 7, soon after 11 children in eastern Afghanistan were even more unlucky than she was. Those children died from a U.S./NATO air strike. For mainline American journalists, it wasn’t much of a story; for American officials, it was no big deal.

“Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip,” Orwell observed, “but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.”

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He writes the Political Culture 2013 column.

Treats

Andrew Lam
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Treats

culture@sfbg.com

THE BLOB Your globe-trotting Blob is currently in her bustling hometown Detroit, gorging on favorite treats, including the kick-ass fried bologna sandwich at Mercury Bar, served on an onion roll with grilled onions, mustard, and local brand Better Made potato chip “smosh.” And of course that Motown favorite, Coney Islands (hot dogs in white bread buns smothered in chili and raw onions) which is everywhere, but best at the old school Lafayette Coney Island downtown. She has some favorite recent treats in SF as well, which she can’t wait to get back to inhaling.

JOOK NOOK AT B STAR BAR

The Blob is calling it: in terms of adventurous flavors, cute and spicy Burma Superstar offshoot B Star in the Inner Richmond has the best brunch going in SF right now. The Zen-lovely space draws a diverse crowd, the prices are “nice brunch” (satisfying entrees, $8–$13, from 10am-3pm) without getting opportunistic about it, and the menu includes Mexican favorites with a Burmese twist.

First, a couple piquant Bloody Marys ($6.75 each) and a dive into a good-sized cauldron of justly renowned roasted Brussels sprouts ($6.75), savory with furikake, fish sauce, and parmesan, but perked up perfectly with crispy popped rice. The star of the dazzling B Star brunch menu is a duck hash quesadilla — probably the least Burmese thing you can think of (roasted potatoes and veggies topped with two eggs over easy and zingy radish slaw), until you notice the “quesadilla” is in fact a platha, a delicately fried and spiced flatbread related to Indian paratha, similar in texture to a tortilla, but both more oily and flaky, giving the shredded duck a hearty base.

If you’re not a duck brunch fan (or you have a share-friendly companion) head to B Star’s yummy “jook nook” menu. The Blob is forever addicted to the home style, DIY version of the steamy-hot, Asian rice porridge comfort food served at Outer Richmond faves like Ton Kiang or Jook Time. But B Star’s gussied up big-bowl selection, starting with base ingredients like shredded chicken with thousand year old egg or pork sung with pickled mustard greens and fried noodles, comes loaded with all the extras, including scallions, chili, ginger, and peanuts. A dash of soy and your day is made.

127 Clement, SF. (415) 933-9900, www.bstarbar.com

DUCK FLAUTAS AT CHILANGO

A recent return to this genteel Mexican hotspot near Church and Market confirmed the Blob’s addiction to the crispy, crema-smothered, incredibly popular duck flautas there. Three huge tubes of delectable shredded quacker with cabbage and cotija cheese ($9) are enough for a filling lunch, but don’t deny yourself the pleasures of the rest of the menu. Feeling light and pescaterian? Splash into tangy ceviche de pescado with chunks of mahi mahi, avocado, and orange ($10), but maybe skip the ceviche de camarones ($10) — the Blob, a ceviche snob freshly back from a tour of the Southern Mexican coast, found the generous bits of shrimp overpowered by a bland, ketchupy cocktail sauce.

Don’t skip, however, an incredible pambazo (Mexican white bread bun stuffed with potatoes and chorizo and dipped in red guajillo pepper sauce, $6) or, if the duck’s left any room, juicy brisket-loaded soft tacos de saudero ($6 for two). Then go back for the pambazo’s big sister, torta ahogado ($10), a carnitas and pickled onion sandwich drowned in mild red sauce and eatable only with a knife and fork, and several napkins.

235 Church, SF. (415) 552-5700, www.chilangorestaurantsf.com

L GNUDI ALLA COSIMO DE MEDICI AT FARINA PIZZA

The new Farina pizzeria at 18th and Valencia, immaculately white-tiled and accented with neat portraits of vintage Italian comics characters (think Mary Worth in Naples), has become one of the latest flashpoints of the ongoing gentrification debate. The Blob detests the Borg, and $15 personal pizzas are a bit of a stretch — although there are $22 ones, though worthy, at Una Pizza Napoletana down the way at SoMa. The Blob’s orifice, however, was soon spattered with an excellently fiery, soft crust pizza diavolo, with spicy salame, San Marzano tomatoes, fior di latte mozzarella, romano cheese, basil and EVOO.

But she was truly blown away by the L Gnudi Alla Cosimo De Medici, i.e. several large spinach ricotta dumplings ($15), hefty balls of al dente pasta sheets, with the slightly chewy give of mochi, stuffed with wonderfully grassy shredded spinach and bathed in butter-sage sauce, a vegetarian treasure worth its own trip (with a glass of Italian red, natch).

700 Valencia, SF. (415) 565-1900, www.farina-foods.com

 

Pet Guide*

Maria Poblet
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Wag Hotels

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Ron Lanza, queer impressario, dies at 78

Zelda Bronstein
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24
Ron Lanza, queer impressario, dies at 78

Ron Lanza, a pioneer in San Francisco’s gay rights movement and an impressario who promoted queer arts through the worst of the AIDS crisis, has died after a long battle with colon cancer. He was 78.

Lanza, a Brooklyn native, was one of the leaders of Bay Area Gay Liberation in the 1970s, and, along with Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and the late activists Hank Wilson and Howard Wallace, was instrumental in building the LGBT movement in San Francisco.

He was the owner and operator of the Valencia Rose Café and later Josie’s Cabaret and Juice Joint, two groundbreaking queer performance venues that helpled launch the careers of  Whoopie Goldberg, Marga Gomez, and Margaret Cho.

“His vision came from looking at people and saying, ‘you have talent, you ought to try this,’ ” Ammiano, who performed as a comedian at Valencia Rose, told me.

“He was a giant in this city,” Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a performer and housing activist and the author of a book on the history of gay liberation, noted. “He created the foundation for what we now know as queer arts in San Francisco. He was really one of a kind.”

Lanza with Dennis Peron and Tom Ammiano

Marke B., our managing editor and a longtime follower of queer culture, put it this way:

“He dedicated his life to promoting theater and arts in San Francisco — even if it sometimes meant playing hardball, but always with that super-charming, goofball smile. Every single drag queen, performance artist, comedian, and actor in the city owes Ron a memorial smoothie — the Valencia Rose and Josie’s Cabaret kept performing arts alive in this town through the worst years of AIDS and political artphobia.”

Lanza, a Navy veteran, arrived in San Francisco in the 1970s, and worked for a while as a teacher in Walnut Creek. “When he came out, he risked being fired, so he quite before they could fire him,” Ammiano said.

With Wilson, Lanza took over the Ambassador Hotel, a Tenderloin SRO with a large number of gay and transgender tenants. In the 1980s, the two helped create what would become the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center.

Lanza never liked the headlines; while his compatriots entered politics, ran for office, and organized on the streets, he stayed in the background, providing the cultural, moral, and financial support.

When Ammiano challenged then-Mayor Willie Brown in a legendary 1999 write-in campaign, Josie’s Cabaret and Juice Joint became the campaign headquarters. “He was so supportive,” Ammiano said. “He was a real San Francisco lefty. He only cared about money if he had to pay the bills.”

Gabriel Haaland, who helped run the Ammiano write-in, told me that “San Francisco is dimished. It’s such a heavy loss. There are people who are just magical, bright lights in the world, and he was one of them.”

Lanza was diagnosed with colon cancer in his 40s, but survived — in part, probably, thanks to adopting a healthy lifestyle. “He didn’t smoke, he was a vegetarian, and back then we teased him about it,” Ammiano said.

But the cancer came back in his later years, and he quietly underwent a series of operations. “He called me a few weeks ago and said he was dying,” Ammiano said. “He wanted to have a good-bye dinner.”

A huge dog-lover, Lanza could often be seen running down Dolores Street with two or three rescue animals. One of his last wishes was for a trip East to leave the dogs with a relative. He’d been driving a limo for income, and one of his wealthy clients paid for the ticket.

“He was always handsome, always loyal,” Ammiano recalled. “There were times you wanted to kill him, but the love was always there.”

A memorial is pending.

Food fight

Andrew Lam
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le.chicken.farmer@yahoo.com

SPORTS Did you see what Jed Lowrie (swoon) did last Wednesday, on the very day my column about him hit the streets? He propelled the A’s to their first win of the regular season, going 3-3 with a walk, the game-winning 2-run double, and a home run. In fact he hit two doubles that game, then two more the next — also a win.

This means he loves me too. Although . . . it’s hard to imagine he got a very good look from way down there on the field.

Well, I stand by everything I said about the new A’s shortstop. In fact, taking his lead, I double it.

Almost everything else about last week’s column, however, I have to retract.

Or correct. As in: of course the A’s record-breaking 20-game win streak was in 2002, not 2001. Last year was the 10-year anniversary, and last year was 2012. And math is math.

More importantly, and even more wrongly, I said that AT&T has better concessions than O.co.

What I meant by that careless assertion was that AT&T has a greater variety of fancier (and generally bad) things to eat for even more money than O.co. I know because Hedgehog and I got ourselves to two of those Bay Bridge Series warm-up games, one on each side of the bay, by way of our own li’l Spring Training.

Surprise surprise. I can’t believe a) how many people go to those games, b) how many innings they are willing to miss while standing in line for garlic fries, and c) that Oakland’s garlic fries are better than San Francisco’s.

What the — ?

I thought I remembered AT&T’s garlic fries being awesome, not to mention edible. True, their fryers, like Marco Scutaro, might not be in mid-season form, but you would think at least some of the fries would have at least some amount of crunch to them.

Nope. Greasy soggy seagull food, every single one.

O.co’s garlic fries had a little more crunch to them for a couple dollars less, but then they don’t have the gluten-free hot dog option over there, or gluten-free beer. I asked around, for my boo, who — believe it or not — is more into the game of the game than I am. Plus she was test-running a new score-keeping app she’d paid $10 for and couldn’t leave her seat.

At AT&T, I’ll tell you: the gluten-free stuff is at section 112 in the Promenade Level. Otherwise, you don’t have to walk far in any direction to find all kinds of tempting yummies. To name a few: carving board sandwiches, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, Chicago dogs, and, for the tourists, clam chowder bread bowls and Dungeness crab on sourdough.

After about four-and-a-half innings of prowling, I pulled the trigger on a Cha Cha Bowl from Orlando’s Caribbean Barbecue in the center field food court, and I paraded it back to our seats like a hunter bringing home her kill: Look, Boo! It’s gluten free too!

Yeah, but not very good. Dry jerk chicken, white rice and black beans, with shredded carrots and zucchini. Best thing about it was the pineapple salsa on top.

Whereas . . . and this is a big whereas: O.co’s gluten-free kill turned out to be barbecue barbecue. As in sloppy, sopping spareribs and sliced pork, or Ameri-cue. And it also turned out to be awesome. Not just for stadium food, either. It was legitimately good ‘cue. And to think, last season I couldn’t even find barbecue at Oakland games. Now this: Ribs n’ Things.

Ribs n’ Things, it turns out, is an actual restaurant in Hayward, and — at the risk of reviewing a restaurant in my sports column — let me tell you that I would go there, if I ever went to Hayward. That’s how good it was. The best of both stadiums.

Okay. I conclude my two-part baseball season preview with sauce on my pants, yes, and the smell of barbecue under my fingernails. But as much as I love these things, and Jed Lowrie, the closing shot comes from the first night of the Bay Bridge Series, in San Francisco.

Not too cold, but not exactly warm either. It’s been a beautiful Spring, rain and all. Hedgehog and I are huddled together in the upper deck, facing the bay, and there is that classic late-inning blizzard of seagulls going on around us. Really, it looks like it’s snowing big white bird-shaped flakes, aglow in the stadium lights. The game and the greasy garlic fries have long since lost our interest, but this is something. It feels like we are on a first date. There’s a big orange moon rising up over the water, attended by wisps of clouds. A plane flies in front of it. Its lights go: blink.

Where the wild dogs are

Andrew Lam
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1
Where the wild dogs are

San Francisco has more dogs than children, which might be a comment on the price of housing — even the largest canine companion doesn’t need a bedroom. But with all of those furry beasts seeking exercise in a dense urban area, the city’s made a point of finding places for dogs to run, romp, and play — with some success, and some … well, not such great success.

We’ve taken on the task of finding some of the best dog parks, and offer this opinionated guide. Remember, not all dog parks are created equal. Some are great if you just want open space to toss a ball; others are better for the dog that likes to wander around and explore. Some are perfect for the social animal that loves lots of canine company; some serve the more solitary types.

Our ratings reflect the level of cleanliness (will I be constantly stepping over, or in, poo?), friendliness (are the park-goers, human and canine, nice to be around and welcoming, or is there a cliquishness or conflicts between different types of users?) and dog-fun terrain (Just dirt? Lots of trees and bushes? Gophers to chase? Water to drink — and play in?)

Results below.

BERNAL HILL 

Legal status: City park, off-leash allowed

Cleanliness: 2 paws

Friendliness: 4 paws

Terrain: 3 paws

Lots of room on this often-windy hilltop. Hiking trails offer spectacular city views; paved roads are nice for jogging. Amazing rock formations surround a couple of open flat areas for romping and ball-chasing. Dog and human water fountains. Very friendly; everyone who uses the place is used to off-leash dogs. Sadly, some take the vegetation and rocky hillsides as an excuse not to clean up; if you’re off trail, watch where you step. Entrances at the top of Bernal Heights Boulevard and at Folsom and Ripley.

GLEN CANYON PARK

Legal status: City park, on-leash rules are not tightly enforced

Cleanliness: 3 paws

Friendliness: 3 paws

Terrain: 4 paws

You can walk a few hundred yards into Glen Canyon and feel miles away from the city. The canyon floor, with a creek (mud! exciting!) running through it, is cool and shady with trees, thickets, and blackberries. The hillsides are grassy, steep, and sometimes attract rock climbers. Most days, there are off-leash dogs walking and playing — but there are also picnic areas, ball fields, and a (fenced) kids’ playground where it’s best not to allow dogs to roam freely, and sensitive habitat restoration areas where off-leash dogs can wreak havoc. Sometimes users complain about off-leash dogs; if you keep poochie on leash, it’s still a great hiking area. Absolutely do not let your dog wander off in the deeper parts of the canyon, where coyotes have made a home; it’s best for all parties if they are undisturbed.

The south side of the park is undergoing renovations right now, but you can enter at Diamond Heights and Sussex (watch the traffic, there’s no crosswalk) or at the end of Bosworth.

McLAREN PARK

Legal status: City park, off-leash areas

Cleanliness: 3 paws

Friendliness: 3 paws

Terrain: 3 paws

The second-largest park in the city is often overlooked, but it’s got some nice wooded trails — and the only pond in the city where dogs are actually allowed to go swimming. It’s not a nasty, slimy-covered puddle, either; the water’s clear and there’s a (concrete) doggie beach where your canine can ease into a dip. It’s shallow enough near shore for those with short legs and deep enough and long enough for the big dogs to have a nice refreshing swim or practice their water-retrieval skills. There’s some misinformation on the web about how to find the dog-swim area. You don’t want McNabb Lake, on the east side of the park; that’s a playground and picnic area with a nice duck pond where dogs are not terribly welcome. The parking lot for the dog area is off the westernmost part of the John F. Shelley loop, near the big blue water tower. You can see the pond from the road, and it’s a very short walk down. Bring a towel and be prepared to get wet; humans can’t swim there, but the beach is small and wet doggies love to shake.

John F. Shelley Drive.

DUBOCE PARK

Legal status: City park, off-leash area

cleanliness: 2 paws

Friendliness: 2 paws

Terrain: 2 paws

This popular spot used to be called “dog shit park.” It’s the place where Harvey Milk famously announced his legislation mandating that people pick up their canine companions’ stinky piles. It’s a lot better now — in fact, this is a rare place where the interaction between dogs and children is well-managed and everyone seems happy. The kids are fenced off in the upper area, the dogs run free in the lower area, and people just out for some sun sit in between. Still: watch where you walk. The ghost of Harvey’s soiled shoe remains.

The dogs here tend to be a bit rambunctious, perhaps because of the limited space, so don’t be surprised if a few more aggressive ones bound up to you as you enter, which can intimidate the more skittish of both species. The (human) regulars tend to know each other. McKinley School’s Dog Fest turns the place into a grand celebration of the canine spirit every spring.

Duboce Avenue and Noe.

FORT FUNSTON

Legal status: National park, off-leash areas (for now)

Cleanliness: 3 paws

Friendliness: 3 paws

Terrain: 4 paws

The walkable trails — surrounded by lush trees, non-native plants, and flora — that lead down to sandy dunes, cliffs, and Ocean Beach itself make up Fort Funston, a former military base, and current highly traveled dog park. In fact, it’s one of the Bay Area’s most popular mixed-use canine-friendly sites, usually sweeping the Bay Woof’s Beast of the Bay awards, this year winning “Best Hiking Trail” and a runner-up for best overall dog park. There are multiple pathways to explore, great views, and a few doggie amenities along the way. On the rare warm weekend (always with a breeze), there might be dozens of pups lapping up the cooling dribble of water from one of the small water fountains. It gets crowded (some dog owners say it’s too crowded) on the weekends, but is less congested during the week. The off-leash factor is also currently up for review, so those in charge caution owners to pick up after and keep a close eye on their pets. It’s part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is operated under the authority of the National Park Service.

Park in the lot off Skyline Boulevard.

ALAMO SQUARE DOG PARK

Legal status: City park, west half is off-leash.

Cleanliness: 4 paws

Friendliness: 3 paws

Terrain: 2 paws

The dogs atop the sloping west side of Alamo Square Park like to play — and they do so in the rather small dirt-and-grass area allotted for off-leash fun. It’s typically a hyper bunch of small pups, chasing, fetching, leaping after frisbees, and entwining regulars in the old twisted leash dance on the vertical pull up the hill. Thankfully, the typically business and/or tech-veering dog owners in Alamo Square are usually quite friendly, pick up after their pets, and won’t give you side-eye if your darling drools on another’s chew toy. There’s also a water fountain for thirsty pups and a give one/take one plastic doo-doo bag stand at the base of the hill. But be forewarned, the other side of that hill is the one with the classic SF view of the Painted Ladies, so it’s where tour buses dump the masses for photos ops. Fido is less than welcome there without a leash, and it can get scary for less sociable pups. Plus, just below, the park dips directly into the busy intersection.

Hayes and Scott.

CRISSY FIELD

Legal status: National park, off-leash areas (excluding the Crissy Field Tidal Marsh and Lagoon)

Cleanliness: 3 paws

Friendliness: 4 paws

Terrain: 4 paws

With boardwalk walkways, grassy play areas, a bombshell view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and long stretches of California coast, Crissy Field, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is a frisky pup’s beachy playland. There are even small outdoor showers, specifically for washing the sand off paws, not human feet. The regulars know where to avoid walking without a leash, and will kindly tell you so on arrival. And there’s plenty of room for running, fetching, and playing (canine) or catching up (human). Plus, check out interesting wave formations due to sand bars, and the marshy areas of the former Army airfield, first opened to the public in 2001. There’s also enough sanded open space to keep a distance from other pets, if you’re dog’s the less-than-cordial type.

Beach and Mason, in the Presidio.

UPPER NOE RECREATION CENTER DOG PARK

Legal status: City park, off-leash

Cleanliness: 2 paws

Friendliness: 2 paws

Terrain: 1 paws

This relatively diminutive fenced enclosure is more typical of suburban neighborhoods — a very pre-planned park feel. Connected to the Noe Valley Recreation Center, it’s helpful that this dog run is in the heart of the city, fully gated, and easy for humans to access, for a quick game of fetch or poop jaunt. The entirely fenced in park is great for new dog owners and those with easily spooked puppies. Weirdly, this kind of enclosure seems a rarity in the city. But other than convenience and safety (both considerably important in the pup playtime world) it offers little amenities to the average pup or companion. Also, there is sometimes a slight urine odor, likely due to the closed in nature, and while friendly, the crowd often seems more focused on getting in and out, quickly.

299 Day.

Food fight

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3

le.chicken.farmer@yahoo.com

IN THE GAME Did you see what Jed Lowrie (swoon) did last Wednesday, on the very day my column about him hit the streets? He propelled the A’s to their first win of the regular season, going 3-3 with a walk, the game-winning 2-run double, and a home run. In fact he hit two doubles that game, then two more the next — also a win.

This means he loves me too. Although . . . it’s hard to imagine he got a very good look from way down there on the field.

Well, I stand by everything I said about the new A’s shortstop. In fact, taking his lead, I double it.

Almost everything else about last week’s column, however, I have to retract.

Or correct. As in: of course the A’s record-breaking 20-game win streak was in 2002, not 2001. Last year was the ten-year anniversary, and last year was 2012. And math is math.

More importantly, and even more wrongly, I said that AT&T has better concessions than O.co.

What I meant by that careless assertion was that AT&T has a greater variety of fancier (and generally bad) things to eat for even more money than O.co. I know because Hedgehog and I got ourselves to two of those Bay Bridge Series warm-up games, one on each side of the bay, by way of our own li’l Spring Training.

Surprise surprise. I can’t believe a) how many people go to those games, b) how many innings they are willing to miss while standing in line for garlic fries, and c) that Oakland’s garlic fries are better than San Francisco’s.

What the-?

I thought I remembered AT&T’s garlic fries being awesome, not to mention edible. True, their fryers, like Marco Scutaro, might not be in mid-season form, but you would think at least some of the fries would have at least some amount of crunch to them.

Nope. Greasy soggy seagull food, every single one.

O.co’s garlic fries had a little more crunch to them for a couple dollars less, but then they don’t have the gluten-free hot dog option over there, or gluten-free beer. I asked around, for my boo, who — believe it or not — is more into the game of the game than I am. Plus she was test-running a new score-keeping app she’d paid $10 for and couldn’t leave her seat.

At AT&T, I’ll tell you: the gluten-free stuff is at section 112 in the Promenade Level. Otherwise, you don’t have to walk far in any direction to find all kinds of tempting yummies. To name a few: carving board sandwiches, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, Chicago dogs, and, for the tourists, clam chowder bread bowls and Dungeness crab on sourdough.

After about four-and-a-half innings of prowling, I pulled the trigger on a Cha Cha Bowl from Orlando’s Caribbean Barbecue in the center field food court, and I paraded it back to our seats like a hunter bringing home her kill: Look, Boo! It’s gluten free too!

Yeah, but not very good. Dry jerk chicken, white rice and black beans, with shredded carrots and zucchini. Best thing about it was the pineapple salsa on top.

Whereas . . . and this is a big whereas: O.co’s gluten-free kill turned out to be barbecue barbecue. As in sloppy, sopping spareribs and sliced pork, or Ameri-cue. And it also turned out to be awesome. Not just for stadium food, either. It was legitimately good ‘cue. And to think, last season I couldn’t even find barbecue at Oakland games. Now this: Ribs n’ Things.

Ribs n’ Things, it turns out, is an actual restaurant in Hayward, and — at the risk of reviewing a restaurant in my sports column — let me tell you that I would go there, if I ever went to Hayward. That’s how good it was. The best of both stadiums.

Okay. I conclude my two-part baseball season preview with sauce on my pants, yes, and the smell of barbecue under my fingernails. But as much as I love these things, and Jed Lowrie, the closing shot comes from the first night of the Bay Bridge Series, in San Francisco.

Not too cold, but not exactly warm either. It’s been a beautiful Spring, rain and all. Hedgehog and I are huddled together in the upper deck, facing the bay, and there is that classic late-inning blizzard of seagulls going on around us. Really, it looks like it’s snowing big white bird-shaped flakes, aglow in the stadium lights. The game and the greasy garlic fries have long since lost our interest, but this is something. It feels like we are on a first date. There’s a big orange moon rising up over the water, attended by wisps of clouds. A plane flies in front of it. Its lights go: blink.

 

The other home team

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1

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

IN THE GAME I still think it’s easier to get to A’s games than Giants ones. You get on BART, you get off BART. Tickets are relatively cheap, and really very all-around available.

What the Giants have on the A’s is a prettier stadium with better concessions, including gluten-free hot dogs and gluten-free beer.

What the A’s have on the Giants, besides tickets, is Jed Lowrie.

Not since my Favorite Player Ever, Omar Vizquel, came to San Francisco from Cleveland in 2004 have Bay Area baseball fans been in for such a pleasant surprise.

Mind, Lowrie is not a flashy defensive shortstop with exciting speed, the world’s sweetest smile, and a sexy Venezuelan accent. He’s just an adorable white guy. From Oregon. Like Omar, he’s also an artist. A photographer. Who plays shortstop very well, and — without drawing too much attention — hits a ton. Well . . . 1,998 pounds, let’s say.

Last Opening Day Hedgehog and I were living in New Orleans, where the only baseball we could get on TV was the Houston Astros. The lowly Houston Astros. The 55-107 Houston Astros.

For once in our life we had a television, a 50-inch one, and a giant leather couch, and what was on was the worst team in baseball.

Bu we watched a lot of Houston Astros games. That’s how we happened to see Matt Cain’s perfect game. And that’s how we happened to fall in love — both of us — with Jed Lowrie.

Who was traded by Houston to Oakland in the off-season.

Lucky us. Lucky him, too. From worst team in baseball to playoff contention is not bad.

In a way, interestingly, Lowrie kind of brought the Astros with him. Like a bad smell, Houston drifts this year from the overcrowded NL Central to the A’s division, the AL West. That means the A’s will see a lot of Lowrie’s old team.

I like the matchup. Combined, the A’s and Astros enter the season with a payroll about two-thirds that of the Giants. Combined.

I know what you’re thinking: what does this have to do with me?

Depends . . .

Who are you? Are you Matt Cain? If so, you won’t be pitching any perfect games this year. Are you Brett Anderson? You might be. Are you neither? Just an average every day cash-strapped alternative weekly sports fan? Well, root root root for the other home team this season, I’m saying. They’ll give you more bang for your buck; it’s kind of a specialty of theirs. Remember? There was a whole movie about this.

Good as we’ve got it on this side of the pond, they have Jed Lowrie and Brad Pitt.

Yeah, but we have World Seriousness, you say.

I say . . . yeah, you’re right. There’s that, but I watched that World Serious, and it was boring. Fun, but boring. The good guys won; but kind of boringly, didn’t you think?

League Championship Series, maybe, but I don’t remember much about the Fall Classic. It went quickly. At the Mission and 22nd Street bonfire, I got spray paint on my favorite coat. Um . . . something about a bus.

Ask me about the Oakland-Texas series, though, and it’s synapse city inside my little head. Ask any A’s fan lucky enough to be there the last day of the regular season, the day the A’s came back from four runs down to sweep the defending (x2) American League champion Rangers and win the division; it is etched in their memory like the 20-game win streak of 2001, or the taste of carnitas in mine.

Texas was in first place all season. They came to Oakland Oct. 1 with three games left and a two-game lead over the surging A’s. On a whim, back in June, when the A’s were at least 10 games back, I had bought $2 tickets for the last game of the season, Oct. 3.

And that’s the other thing: BART $2 Wednesdays. This year there are ten of them, starting April 3. Hey — what are you doing after work?

Oct. 3, 2012, was sold out, the only regular season sellout at the O.co Coliseum except Opening Day. I have never witnessed anything like it in my baseball-game-going-to life. It felt like football in there, that’s how raucous it was. It felt like the fans had a say, like in football. And maybe we did.

And maybe we do.

Wednesday, April 3 vs. the Seattle Mariners. My guy Jed will be playing shortstop, batting probably second.

Oakland A’s

O.co Coliseum

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/oak/ticketing/bart_2_wed.jsp

 

Mind-doggling

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Mind-doggling

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Poor Dolph Springer. His life’s already oozing downhill — he’s been unemployed for months and yet continues to show up at his old job, to the white-hot annoyance of his former co-workers — when his beloved dog, Paul, goes missing. His favorite backyard palm tree is suddenly a pine tree. His alarm clock flips from 7:59 to 7:60 every morning. Pretty much everyone he meets, from a pretty pizza-restaurant cashier to a traffic cop to the “top-level detective” who gets drawn into the search for Paul, behaves precisely the opposite of whatever normal would seem to be. What’s a lonely man living in a permanent state of mindfuck to do?

Wrong is the latest surreal-absurdist-subversive comedy from writer-director-cinematographer-editor Quentin Dupieux, who rightly earned a cult following for 2010’s wickedly funny Rubber (about a tire that goes rogue after summoning Carrie-like powers of destruction). The French filmmaker — also known by his musical pseudonym, Mr. Oizo — attempts a slightly more conventional tale with Wrong; Rubber‘s Jack Plotnick stars as the hapless Dolph. Unfortunately, for all its deadpan weirdness, Wrong contains nothing so genius as that diabolical tire.

However, few movies do, and for every element that telegraphs forced quirk (rain pours down indoors at Dolph’s office, because … why?), there are several that actually do work. As Dolph’s gardener, Victor, French comedian Eric Judor mixes his thick accent with hilariously dry line readings, and the detective character (Eastbound & Down‘s Steve Little) dresses exactly like Indiana Jones for reasons unknown — which is just as nonsensical as the rain thing, but funnier for being more subtle.

The lost-pet narrative that propels the story is nothing original, though Dolph’s quest is perhaps more existential than, say, Diane Keaton’s in last year’s not-dissimilar (but much warm-fuzzier) Darling Companion. Both films put forth the idea that humans and dogs can communicate telepathically — though in Wrong, it’s made out to be hilariously literal. Soon after Paul vanishes, Dolph learns he’s been pooch-napped by one Master Chang (William Fichtner, sporting a rat tail), a Zen-ish self-help guru who steals other peoples’ pets at random to make sure they’re being properly appreciated. Traditionally, he returns the animals once everyone’s attitude has been properly realigned, but there’s been, uh, a complication with Paul, who is now well and truly MIA.

As Dolph rightfully freaks out — amid even more bad news, like when his boss (who already fired him once) tells him he really needs to stop hanging around, or when the pizza clerk turns shrill and decides that Dolph is her destiny — the Master tries to soothe him. See, he happens to be the author of a two-volume series, My Life, My Dog, My Strength, featuring clip-art illustrations (“Diagram 13-D: Mind Link”) that instruct humans on making psychic connections with their canines. Just mind-link with Paul, and he’ll be found!

If that sounds like a lot to take in, it is. I didn’t even get to the subplot about Dolph’s neighbor who goes jogging every morning, but has a mental block against admitting it. (This “joke” is made more than once.) Though Wrong is a mere 90-something minutes, its deliberately slow pace and frustratingly even keel can be off-putting. Clever touches, like the use of ominous sound flourishes at seemingly innocuous moments, enhance the film’s overall bizarro-world milieu. But its overall success likely depends not on Dupieux’s artistic choices, but on the individual viewing it — and whether or not he or she finds its details tedious, twee, or transcendent. Me, I miss the tire. *

 

WRONG opens Fri/29 at the Roxie.

Film listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

From Up on Poppy Hill Hayao (dad, who co-wrote) and Goro (son, who directed) Miyazaki collaborate on this tale of two high-school kids — Umi, who does all the cooking at her grandmother’s boarding house, and Shun, a rabble-rouser who runs the school newspaper — in idyllic seaside Yokohama. Plans for the 1964 Olympics earmark a beloved historic clubhouse for demolition, and the budding couple unites behind the cause. The building offers a symbolic nod to Japanese history, while rehabbing it speaks to hopes for a brighter post-war future. But the past keeps interfering: conflict arises when Shun’s memories are triggered by a photo of Umi’s father, presumed lost at sea in the Korean War. There are no whimsical talking animals in this Studio Ghibli release, which investigates some darker-than-usual themes, though the animation is vivid and sparkling per usual. Hollywood types lending their voices to the English-language version include Jamie Lee Curtis, Christina Hendricks, Ron Howard, and Gilllian Anderson. (1:31) California, Embarcadero. (Eddy)

GI Joe: Retaliation Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson, and Channing Tatum star in this sequel to the 2009 toy-spawned action hit. (1:50) Marina.

The Host Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s sci-fi novel gets the big-screen treatment, with a cast headed up by Saoirse Ronan (2011’s Hanna). (2:01) Presidio.

Mental Toni Collette is a batshit Mary Poppins in this side-splitting comedy about one family and Australia’s identity as the world’s Island of Misfit Toys. According to Shaz (Collette), she and her pit bull Ripper (pronounced “Reippah”) came to the town of Dolphin Head to fulfill their destiny. It’s there philandering Mayor Moochmore (a brilliant Anthony LaPaglia) employs her informally as a “babysitter” (the film’s biggest plot hole). Moochmore’s a pathetic excuse for a dad but he needs someone to take care of his five daughters, since he’s finally pushed his wife into nervous-breakdown mode. Everything in Dolphin Head exists on a fulcrum: when Shaz takes the girls to climb a mountain one asks, “What’s the point of climbing to the top?”, and Shaz answers, “Not being at the bottom.” Mental is not a far cry from the director’s last big import, Muriel’s Wedding, the 1994 film that made Collette a star. Everyone’s nuts here, the message goes, but if we’re confident enough in ourselves, we can sway the rest into seeing how our insanity is better than theirs — or at least strong enough to withstand sharks, knife fights, and pit bulls. Good times, mate, good times. (1:56) Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

The Sapphires The civil rights injustices suffered by these dream girls may be unique to Aboriginal Australians, but they’ll strike a chord with viewers throughout the world — at right about the same spot stoked by the sweet soul music of Motown. Co-written by Tony Briggs, the son of a singer in a real-life Aboriginal girl group, this unrepentant feel-gooder aims to make the lessons of history go down with the good humor and up-from-the-underdog triumph of films like The Full Monty (1997) — the crucial difference in this fun if flawed comedy-romance is that it tells the story of women of color, finding their voices and discovering, yes, their groove. It’s all in the family for these would-be soul sisters, or rather country cousins, bred on Merle Haggard and folk tunes: there’s the charmless and tough Gail (Deborah Mailman), the soulful single mom Julie (Jessica Mauboy, an Australian Idol runner-up), the flirty Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), and the pale-skinned Kay (Shari Sebbens), the latter passing as white after being forcibly “assimilated” by the government. Their dream is to get off the farm, even if that means entertaining the troops in Vietnam, and the person to help them realize that checkered goal is dissolute piano player Dave (Chris O’Dowd). And O’Dowd is the breakout star to watch here — he adds an loose, erratic energy to an otherwise heavily worked story arc. So when romance sparks for all Sapphires — and the racial tension simmering beneath the sequins rumbles to the surface — the easy pleasures generated by O’Dowd and the music (despite head-scratching inclusions like 1970’s “Run Through the Jungle” in this 1968-set yarn), along with the gently handled lessons in identity politics learned, obliterate any lingering questions left sucking Saigon dust as the narrative plunges forward. They keep you hanging on. (1:38) (Chun)

The Silence See “Alternative Medicine.” (1:59) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

The Spanish Mirth: The Comedic Films of Luis Garcia Berlanga Noted for his dexterity in outwitting the vigilant censors of Franco’s regime while getting away with subversive themes, Berlanga’s long career outlasted the despot’s by several decades. His social satires are showcased in this Pacific Film Archive retrospective of seven features that run a gamut from parodies of Spanish cultural stereotypes (as when villagers hungry for postwar economic-incentive dough try to look like the essence of tourist-friendly quaintness in 1953’s Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall!) to literal gallows humor (1964’s The Executioner) and kinky black comedy (Michel Piccoli as a mild-mannered dentist carrying on an “affair” with a realistic sex doll in Tamano Natural, a.k.a. Life Size). Once Franco finally kicked the bucket, the frequently prize-winning filmmaker let loose with 1978’s anarchic La Escopeta Nacional, a.k.a. The National Shotgun, leaving no formerly sacred cow unmilked. He remained active until a few years before his 2010 death at age 89. The PFA series (running March 29-April 17) offers archival 35mm prints of these movies that remain esteemed at home but are relatively little-known today abroad. Pacific Film Archive. (Harvey)

Starbuck See “Alternative Medicine.” (1:48) Embarcadero.

Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor This is a PG-13 movie with the tag line “Seduction is the devil’s playground.” (2:06) Shattuck.

Wrong See “Mind-Doggling.” (1:34) Roxie.

ONGOING

Admission Tina Fey exposes the irritating underbelly of the Ivy League application process as Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan. When her school falls to number two in U.S. News and World Report‘s annual ranking, Portia and her colleagues are tasked by their boss (Wallace Shawn) with boosting application numbers to bring the university back into the lead. Alterna-school headmaster John Pressman (Paul Rudd) has one more applicant to add to the pile: a charmingly gawky autodidact named Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), who John is convinced is the child Portia gave up for adoption back when they were both students at Dartmouth. Stuck in a dreary 10-year relationship with an English professor (Michael Sheen) whose bedtime endearments consist of absentmindedly patting her on the head while reading aloud from The Canterbury Tales, and seeming less than thrilled with the prospect of another season of sifting through the files of legacies and overachievers, Portia is clearly ripe for some sort of purgative crisis. When it arrives, the results are fairly innocuous, if ethically questionable. Directed by Paul Weitz, the man responsible for bringing Little Fockers (2010) into the world, but About a Boy (2002) as well, Admission is sweet and sometimes funny but unmemorable, even with Lily Tomlin playing Portia’s surly, iconoclast mother. (1:50) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Amour Arriving in local theaters atop a tidal wave of critical hosannas, Amour now seeks to tempt popular acclaim — though actually liking this perfectly crafted, intensely depressing film (from Austrian director Michael Haneke) may be nigh impossible for most audience members. Eightysomething former music teachers Georges and Anne (the flawless Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are living out their days in their spacious Paris apartment, going to classical concerts and enjoying the comfort of their relationship. Early in the film, someone tries to break into their flat — and the rest of Amour unfolds with a series of invasions, with Anne’s declining health the most distressing, though there are also unwanted visits from the couple’s only daughter (an appropriately self-involved Isabelle Huppert), an inept nurse who disrespects Anne and curses out Georges, and even a rogue pigeon that wanders in more than once. As Anne fades into a hollow, twisted, babbling version of her former self, Georges also becomes hollow and twisted, taking care of her while grimly awaiting the inevitable. Of course, the movie’s called Amour, so there’s some tenderness involved. But if you seek heartwarming hope and last-act uplift, look anywhere but here. (2:07) Four Star. (Eddy)

Barbara The titular figure (Nina Hoss) looks the very picture of blonde Teutonic ice princess when she arrives — exiled from better prospects by some unspecified, politically ill-advised conduct — in at a rural 1980 East German hospital far from East Berlin’s relative glamour. She’s a pill, too, stiffly formal in dealings with curious locals and fellow staff including the disarmingly rumpled, gently amorous chief physician Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld). Yet her stern prowess as a pediatric doctor is softened by atypically protective behavior toward teen Stella (Jasna Fritzi Bauer), a frequent escapee from prison-like juvenile care facilities. Barbara has secrets, however, and her juggling personal, ethical, and Stasi-fearing priorities will force some uncomfortable choices. It is evidently the moment for German writer-director Christian Petzold to get international recognition after nearly 20 years of equally fine, terse, revealing work in both big-screen and broadcast media (much with Hoss as his prime on-screen collaborator). This intelligent, dispassionate, eventually moving character study isn’t necessarily his best. But it is a compelling introduction. (1:45) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and the Farm Midwives When Ina May Gaskin had her first child, the hospital doctor used forceps (against her wishes) and her baby was sequestered for 24 hours immediately after birth. “When they brought her to me, I thought she was someone else’s,” Gaskin recalls in Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore’s documentary. Gaskin was understandably flummoxed that her first experience with the most natural act a female body can endure was as inhuman as the subject of an Eric Schlosser exposé. A few years later, she met Stephen Gaskin, a professor who became her second husband, and the man who’d go on to co-found the Farm, America’s largest intentional community, in 1971. On the Farm, women had children, and in those confines, far from the iron fist of insurance companies, Gaskin discovered midwifery as her calling. She recruited others, and dedicated herself to preserving an art that dwindles as the medical industry strives to treat women’s bodies like profit machines. Her message is intended for a larger audience than granola-eating moms-to-be: we’re losing touch with our bodies. Lamm and Wigmore bravely cram a handful of live births into the film; footage of a breech birth implies this doc could go on to be a useful teaching tool for others interested in midwifery. (1:33) New Parkway, Roxie. (Vizcarrondo)

The Call (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, SF Center.

The Croods (1:38) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Dead Man Down Pee. Yew. This Dead Man reeks, though surveying the cast list and judging from the big honking success of director Niels Arden Oplev’s previous film, 2009’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, one would hope the stench wouldn’t be quite so crippling. Crime boss (Terrence Howard) is running panic-stricken after a series of spooky mail-art threats — and it isn’t long before we realize why: his most handy henchman Victor (Colin Farrell) is the one out to destroy him after the death of his wife and daughter. The wrinkle in the plot is the moody, beautiful, and scarred French girl Beatrice (Noomi Rapace) who lives across the way from Victor’s apartment with her deaf mom (Isabelle Huppert) and has plans to extract her own kind of vengeance. Despite Rapace’s brooding performance (Oplev obviously hopes she’ll pull a Lisbeth Salander and miraculously hack this mess — unsure about whether it’s a shoot-’em-up revenge exercise or a Rear Window-ish misfit love story — into something worthwhile) and cameos by actors like Dominic Cooper and F. Murray Abraham, they can’t compensate for the weak writing and muddled direction, the fact that Victor conveniently dithers instead of putting an end to his victim’s (and our) agony, and that the entire mis-en-scene with its Czechs, Albanians, et al, which reads like a Central European blood feud played out in Grand Central Station — just a few components as to why Dead Man stinks. (1:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Emperor This ponderously old-fashioned historical drama focuses on the negotiations around Japan’s surrender after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While many on the Allied side want the nation’s “Supreme Commander” Emperor Hirohito to pay for war crimes with his life, experts like bilingual Gen. Bonners Fellers (Matthew Fox) argue that the transition to peace can be achieved not by punishing but using this “living god” to wean the population off its ideological fanaticism. Fellers must ultimately sway gruff General MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) to the wisdom of this approach, while personally preoccupied with finding the onetime exchange-student love (Kaori Momoi) denied him by cultural divisions and escalating war rhetoric. Covering (albeit from the U.S. side) more or less the same events as Aleksandr Sokurov’s 2005 The Sun, Peter Webber’s movie is very different from that flawed effort, but also a lot worse. The corny Romeo and Juliet romance, the simplistic approach to explaining Japan’s “ancient warrior tradition” and anything else (via dialogue routinely as flat as “Things in Japan are not black and white!”), plus Alex Heffes’ bombastic old-school orchestral score, are all as banal as can be. Even the reliable Jones offers little more than conventional crustiness — as opposed to the inspired kind he does in Lincoln. (1:46) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet San Franciscan Mark Kitchell (1990’s Berkeley in the Sixties) directs this thorough, gracefully-edited history of the environmental movement, beginning with the earliest stirrings of the Audubon Society and Aldo Leopold. Pretty much every major cause and group gets the vintage-footage, contemporary-interview treatment: the Sierra Club, Earth Day, Silent Spring, Love Canal, the pursuit of alternative energy, Greenpeace, Chico Mendes and the Amazon rainforests, the greenhouse effect and climate change, the pursuit of sustainable living, and so on. But if its scope is perhaps overly broad, A Fierce Green Fire still offers a valuable overview of a movement that’s remained determined for decades, even as governments and corporations do their best to stomp it out. Celebrity narrators Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, and Meryl Streep add additional heft to the message, though the raw material condensed here would be powerful enough without them. (1:50) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Gatekeepers Coming hard on the heels of The Law in These Parts, which gave a dispassionate forum to the lawmakers who’ve shaped — some might say in pretzel form — the military legal system that’s been applied by Israelis to Palestinians for decades, Dror Moreh’s documentary provides another key insiders’ viewpoint on that endless occupation. His interviewees are six former heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service. Their top-secret decisions shaped the nation’s attempts to control terrorist sects and attacks, as seen in a nearly half-century parade of news clips showing violence and negotiation on both sides. Unlike the subjects of Law, who spoke a cool, often evasive legalese to avoid any awkward ethical issues, these men are at times frankly — and surprisingly — doubtful about the wisdom of some individual decisions, let alone about the seemingly ever-receding prospect of a diplomatic peace. They even advocate for a two-state solution, an idea the government they served no longer seems seriously interested in advancing. The Gatekeepers is an important document that offers recent history examined head-on by the hitherto generally close-mouthed people who were in a prime position to direct its course. (1:37) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Ginger and Rosa It’s the 1960s, nuclear war is a real possibility, and nuclear-family war is an absolute certainty, at least in the London house occupied by Ginger (Elle Fanning), her emotionally wounded mother (Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks), and her narcissistic-intellectual father (Alessandro Nivola). In this downbeat coming-of-age tale from Sally Potter (1992’s Orlando), Ginger’s teenage rebellion quickly morphs into angst when her BFF Rosa (Beautiful Creatures‘ Alice Englert) wedges her sexed-up neediness between Ginger’s parents. Hendricks (playing the accordion — just like Joan!) and Annette Bening (as an American activist who encourages Ginger’s political-protest leanings) are strong, but Fanning’s powerhouse performance is the main focus — though even she’s occasionally overshadowed by her artificially scarlet hair. For an interview with writer-director Potter, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:30) Albany, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

A Good Day to Die Hard A Good Day to Die Hard did me wrong. How did I miss the signs? Badass daddy rescues son. Perps cover up ’80s era misdeeds. They’re in Russia&ldots;Die Hard has become Taken. All it needs is someone to kidnap Bonnie Bedelia or deflower Jai Courtney and the transformation will be complete. What’s more, A Good Day is so obviously made for export it’s almost not trying to court the American audience for which the franchise is a staple. In a desperate reach for brand loyalty director John Moore (2001’s Behind Enemy Lines) has loaded the film with slight allusions to McClane’s past adventures. The McClanes shoot the ceiling and litter the floor with glass. John escapes a helicopter by leaping into a skyscraper window from the outside. John’s ringtone plays “Ode to Joy.” The glib rejoinders are all there but they’re smeared by crap direction and odd pacing that gives ample time to military vehicles tumbling down the highway but absolutely no time for Bruce’s declarations of “I’m on VACATION!” Which may be just as well — it’s no “Yipee kay yay, motherfucker.” When Willis says that in A Good Day, all the love’s gone out of it. I guess every romance has to end. (1:37) Metreon. (Vizcarrondo)

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga The ever-intrepid Werner Herzog, with co-director Dmitry Vasyukov, pursues his fascination with extreme landscapes by chronicling a year deep within the Siberian Taiga. True to form, he doesn’t spend much time in the 300-inhabitant town nestled amid “endless wilderness,” accessible only by helicopter or boat (and only during the warmer seasons); instead, he seeks the most isolated environment possible, venturing into the frozen forest with fur trappers who augment their passed-down-over-generations job skills with the occasional modern assist (chainsaws and snowmobiles are key). Gorgeous cinematography and a curious, respectful tone elevate Happy People from mere ethnographic-film status, though that’s essentially what it is, as it records the men carving canoes, bear-proofing their cabins, interacting with their dogs, and generally being incredibly self-reliant amid some of the most rugged conditions imaginable. And since it’s Herzog, you know there’ll be a few gently bizarre moments, as when a politician’s summer campaign cruise brings a musical revue to town, or the director himself refers to “vodka — vicious as jet fuel” in his trademark droll voice over. (1:34) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Identity Thief America is made up of asshole winners and nice guy losers — or at least that’s the thesis of Identity Thief, a comedy about a crying-clown credit card bandit (Melissa McCarthy) and the sweet sucker (Jason Bateman) she lures into her web of chaos. Bateman plays Sandy, a typical middle-class dude with a wife, two kids, and a third on the way. He’s always struggling to break even and just when it seems like his ship’s come in, Diana (McCarthy) jacks his identity — a crime that requires just five minutes in a dark room with Sandy’s social security number. Suddenly, his good name is contaminated with her prior arrests, drug-dealer entanglements, and mounting debt; it’s like the capitalist version of VD. But as the “kind of person who has no friends,” Diana is as tragic as she is comic, providing McCarthy an acting opportunity no one saw coming when she was dispensing romantic advice on The Gilmore Girls. Director Seth Gordon (2011’s Horrible Bosses) treats this comedy like an action movie — as breakneck as slapstick gets — and he relies so heavily on discomfort humor that the film doesn’t just prompt laughs, it pokes you in the ribs until you laugh, man, LAUGH! While Identity Thief has a few complex moments about how defeating “sticking it to the man” can be (mostly because only middle men get hurt), it’s mostly as subtle as a pratfall and just as (un-)rewarding. (1:25) Metreon. (Vizcarrondo)

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone Steve Carell dips into the men-at-work comic genre so associated with Will Ferrell: he’s Burt Wonderstone, who starts out as a picked-on kid discovering his powers via a kit by Las Vegas magician Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin). The ensuing years have not been kind to Burt, a relatively decent guy struggling to shed the douchey buildup of ego, corn, and dated moves à la David Copperfield (ta-da, who magically appears), while working for benevolently threatening casino boss Doug Munny (James Gandolfini) with his childhood best friend Anton (Steve Buscemi, reviving the naifitude of The Big Lebowski‘s Donny) and side fox Jane (Olivia Wilde). The shot of adrenalin to the moribund heart of Burt and Anton’s act: Jim Carrey’s “Brain Rapist,” who aims to ream his colleagues by cutting playing cards from his flesh and going to bed on fiery coals. How can the old-schoolers remain relevant? Hard work is key for Carell, who rolls out the straight-man sweetness that seem to make him a fit for romantic comedies — though his earnestness and need to be liked, as usual, err on the side of convention, while taking for granted the not-quite-there chemistry with, in this instance, Wilde. Fortunately whatever edge is lacking materializes whenever Carrey’s ridiculously ombré-tressed daredevil is on screen. Using his now-battered, still-malleable features to full effect, he’s a whole different ball of cheese, lampooning those who will go to any lengths — gouging, searing, and maiming — to entertain. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Vogue. (Chun)

Jack the Giant Slayer (1:55) Metreon.

K-11 As her daughter’s middling On the Road adaptation cruises into theaters (see review, below), Jules Stewart’s directorial debut rolls out at the Roxie; it’s a high-camp-but-with-horrifying-rape-scenes drama set in a Los Angeles jail unit reserved for gay and transgender prisoners. The top bitch in the joint is Mousey (Kate del Castillo, one of several women-playing-men-playing-women), who struts around with Divine-style eyebrows, hurling threats (“You play with me, you get uglier“) through her heavily-lined lips. There’s also a sadistic guard with a Hitler haircut (D.B. Sweeney) who controls the prisoners’ much-needed drug supply; a massive bully (Tommy “What Bike?” Lister); a sinewy hustler (Kevin Smith pal Jason Mewes); and a baby-voiced innocent who calls herself Butterfly (Portia Doubleday). Into this lurid set-up stumbles Raymond (Goran Visnijc), who is straight, but is also coked-out and maybe a murderer, so perhaps that’s why he lands there — it’s never really clear. Nothing’s really clear here, not least how a movie that’s so unpleasant most of the time manages also to be puzzlingly entertaining some of the time. Props go to del Castillo, I suppose, for attacking her role with nothing less than Nomi Malone levels of commitment. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s “unfilmable” novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) New Parkway. (Eddy)

No Long before the Arab Spring, a people’s revolution went down in Chile when a 1988 referendum toppled the country’s dictator, Augusto Pinochet, thanks in part to an ad exec who dared to sell the dream to his countrymen and women — using the relentlessly upbeat, cheesy language of a Pepsi Generation. In No‘s dramatization of this true story, ad man Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal) is approached by the opposition to Pinochet’s regime to help them on their campaign to encourage Chile’s people to vote “no” to eight more years under the brutal strongman. Rene’s well-aware of the horrors of the dictatorship; not only are the disappeared common knowledge, his activist ex (Antonia Zegers) has been beaten and jailed with seeming regularity. Going up against his boss (Alfredo Castro), who’s overseeing the Pinochet campaign, Rene takes the brilliant tact in the opposition’s TV programs of selling hope — sound familiar? — promising “Chile, happiness is coming!” amid corny mimes, dancers, and the like. Director-producer Pablo Larrain turns out to be just as genius, shooting with a grainy U-matic ’80s video camera to match his footage with 1988 archival imagery, including the original TV spots, in this invigorating spiritual kin of both 2012’s Argo and 1997’s Wag the Dog. (1:50) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Chun)

Olympus Has Fallen Overstuffed with slo-mo shots of the flag rippling (in breezes likely caused by all the hot air puffing up from the script), this gleefully ham-fisted tribute to America Fuck Yeah estimates the intelligence of its target audience thusly: an establishing shot clearly depicting both the Washington Monument and the US Capitol is tagged “Washington, DC.” Wait, how can you tell? This wannabe Die Hard: The White House follows the one-man-army crusade of secret service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the last friendly left standing when the President (Aaron Eckhart) and assorted cabinet members are taken hostage by North Korean terrorists. The plot is to ridiculous to recap beyond that, though I will note that Morgan Freeman (as the Speaker of the House) gets to deliver the line “They’ve just opened the gates of hell!” — the high point in a performance that otherwise requires him to sit at a table and look concerned for two hours. With a few more over-the-top scenes or slightly more adventurous casting, Olympus Has Fallen could’ve ascended to action-camp heights. Alas, it’s mostly just mildly amusing, though all that caked-on patriotism is good for a smattering of heartier guffaws. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

On the Road Walter Salles (2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries) engages Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera to adapt Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic; it’s translated to the screen in a streamlined version, albeit one rife with parties, drugs, jazz, danger, reckless driving, sex, philosophical conversations, soul-searching, and “kicks” galore. Brit Sam Riley (2007’s Control) plays Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise, observing (and scribbling down) his gritty adventures as they unfold. Most of those adventures come courtesy of charismatic, freewheeling Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund of 2010’s Tron: Legacy), who blows in and out of Sal’s life (and a lot of other people’s lives, too, including wives played by Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). Beautifully shot, with careful attention to period detail and reverential treatment of the Beat ethos, the film is an admirable effort but a little too shapeless, maybe simply due to the peripatetic nature of its iconic source material, to be completely satisfying. Among the performances, erstwhile teen dream Stewart is an uninhibited standout. (2:03) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Oz: The Great and Powerful Providing a backstory for the man behind the curtain, director Sam Raimi gives us a prequel of sorts to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Herein we follow the adventures of a Depression-era Kansas circus magician named Oscar (James Franco) — Oz to his friends — as he cons, philanders, bickers with his behind-the-scenes assistant Frank (Zach Braff), and eventually sails away in a twister, bound for a Technicolor land of massively proportioned flora, talking fauna, and witches ranging from dazzlingly good to treacherously wicked. From one of them, Theodora (Mila Kunis), he learns that his arrival — in Oz, just to clarify — has set in motion the fulfillment of a prophecy: that a great wizard, also named Oz, will bring about the downfall of a malevolent witch (Rachel Weisz), saving the kingdom and its cheery, goodhearted inhabitants. Unfortunately for this deserving populace, Oz spent his last pre-twister moments with the Baum Bros. Circus (the name a tribute to L. Frank Baum, writer of the Oz children’s books) demonstrating a banged-up moral compass and an undependable streak and proclaiming that he would rather be a great man than a good man. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this theme is revisited ad nauseam as Oz and the oppressively beneficent witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) — whose magic appears to consist mainly of nice soft things like bubbles and fog — stand around debating whether he’s the right man for the task. When the fog clears, though, the view is undeniably pretty. While en route to and from the Emerald City, Oz and his companions — among them a non-evil flying monkey (voiced by Braff) and a rather adorable china doll (Joey King) — wander through a deliriously arresting, Fantasia-esque landscape whose intricate, inventive construction helps distract from the plodding, saccharine rhetoric and unappealing story line. (2:07) Balboa, California, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Quartet Every year there’s at least one: the adorable-old-cootfest, usually British, that proves harmless and reassuring and lightly tear/laughter producing enough to convince a certain demographic that it’s safe to go to the movies again. The last months have seen two, both starring Maggie Smith (who’s also queen of that audience’s home viewing via Downton Abbey). Last year’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which Smith played a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself in India, has already filled the slot. It was formulaic, cute, and sentimental, yes, but it also practiced more restraint than one expected. Now here’s Quartet, which is basically the same flower arrangement with quite a bit more dust on it. Smith plays a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself forced into spending her twilight years at a home for the elderly. It’s not just any such home, however, but Beecham House, whose residents are retired professional musicians. Gingerly peeking out from her room after a few days’ retreat from public gaze, Smith’s Jean Horton — a famed English soprano — spies a roomful of codgers rolling their hips to Afropop in a dance class. “This is not a retirement home — this is a madhouse!” she pronounces. Oh, the shitty lines that lazy writers have long depended on Smith to make sparkle. Quartet is full of such bunk, adapted with loving fidelity, no doubt, from his own 1999 play by Ronald Harwood, who as a scenarist has done some good adaptations of other people’s work (2002’s The Pianist). But as a generator of original material for about a half-century, he’s mostly proven that it is possible to prosper that long while being in entirely the wrong half-century. Making his directorial debut: 75-year-old Dustin Hoffman, which ought to have yielded a more interesting final product. But with its workmanlike gloss and head-on take on the script’s very predictable beats, Quartet could as well have been directed by any BBC veteran of no particular distinction. (1:38) Albany, Four Star, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Side Effects Though on the surface Channing Tatum appears to be his current muse, Steven Soderbergh seems to have gotten his smart, topical groove back, the one that spurred him to kick off his feature filmmaking career with the on-point Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) and went missing with the fun, featherweight Ocean’s franchise. (Alas, he’s been making claims that Side Effects will be his last feature film.) Here, trendy designer antidepressants are the draw — mixed with the heady intoxicants of a murder mystery with a nice hard twist that would have intrigued either Hitchcock or Chabrol. As Side Effects opens, the waifish Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara), whose inside-trading hubby (Tatum) has just been released from prison, looks like a big-eyed little basket of nerves ready to combust — internally, it seems, when she drives her car into a wall. Therapist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who begins to treat her after her hospital stay, seems to care about her, but nevertheless reflexively prescribes the latest anti-anxiety med of the day, on the advice of her former doctor (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Where does his responsibility for Emily’s subsequent actions begin and end? Soderbergh and his very able cast fill out the issues admirably, with the urgency that was missing from the more clinical Contagion (2011) and the, ahem, meaty intelligence that was lacking in all but the more ingenious strip scenes of last year’s Magic Mike. (1:30) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

Silver Linings Playbook After guiding two actors to Best Supporting Oscars in 2010’s The Fighter, director David O. Russell returns (adapting his script from Matthew Quick’s novel) with another darkly comedic film about a complicated family that will probably earn some gold of its own. Though he’s obviously not ready to face the outside world, Pat (Bradley Cooper) checks out of the state institution he’s been court-ordered to spend eight months in after displaying some serious anger-management issues. He moves home with his football-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) and worrywart mother (Jacki Weaver of 2010’s Animal Kingdom), where he plunges into a plan to win back his estranged wife. Cooper plays Pat as a man vibrating with troubled energy — always in danger of flying into a rage, even as he pursues his forced-upbeat “silver linings” philosophy. But the movie belongs to Jennifer Lawrence, who proves the chops she showcased (pre-Hunger Games megafame) in 2010’s Winter’s Bone were no fluke. As the damaged-but-determined Tiffany, she’s the left-field element that jolts Pat out of his crazytown funk; she’s also the only reason Playbook‘s dance-competition subplot doesn’t feel eye-rollingly clichéd. The film’s not perfect, but Lawrence’s layered performance — emotional, demanding, bitchy, tough-yet-secretly-tender — damn near is. (2:01) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Somebody Up There Likes Me A textbook illustration of what’s so frequently right and wrong with Amerindie comedies today, Bob Byington’s feature starts out near-brilliantly in a familiar, heightened Napoleon Dynamite-type milieu of ostensibly normal people as self-absorbed, socially hapless satellites revolving around an existential hole at the center in the universe. The three main ones meet working at a suburban steakhouse: Emotionally nerve-deadened youth Max (Keith Poulson), the even more crassly insensitive Sal (Nick Offerman), and contrastly nice but still weird Lyla (Teeth‘s estimable Jess Weixler). All is well until the film starts skipping ahead five years at a time, growing more smugly misanthropic and pointless as time and some drastic shifts in fortune do nothing to change (or deepen) the characters. Still, the performers are intermittently hilarious throughout. (1:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

Spring Breakers The idea of enfant terrible emeritus Harmony Korine — 1997’s Gummo, 2007’s Mister Lonely, 2009’s Trash Humpers — directing something so utterly common as a spring break movie is head-scratching enough, even moreso compounded by the casting of teen dreams Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson as bikini-clad girls gone wild. James Franco co-stars as drug dealer Alien, all platinum teeth and cornrows and shitty tattoos, who befriends the lasses after they’re busted by the fun police. “Are you being serious?” Gomez’s character asks Alien, soon after meeting him. “What do you think?” he grins back. Unschooled filmgoers who stumble into the theater to see their favorite starlets might be shocked by Breakers‘ hard-R hijinks. But Korine fans will understand that this neon-lit, Skrillex-scored tale of debauchery and dirty menace is not to be taken at face value. The subject matter, the cast, the Britney Spears songs, the deliberately lurid camerawork — all carefully-constructed elements in a film that takes not-taking-itself-seriously, very seriously indeed. Korine has said he prefers his films to make “perfect nonsense” instead of perfect sense. The sublime Spring Breakers makes perfect nonsense, and it also makes nonsense perfect. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Stoker None of the characters in Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut, Stoker, devour a full plate of still-squirming octopus. (For that, see Park’s international breakthrough, 2003’s Oldboy; chances are the meal won’t be duplicated in the Spike Lee remake due later this year.) But that’s not to say Stoker — with its Hitchcockian script by Wentworth Miller — isn’t full of unsettling, cringe-inducing moments, as the titular family (Nicole Kidman as Evelyn, the dotty mom; Mia Wasikowska as India, the moody high-schooler) faces the sudden death of husband-father Richard (Dermot Mulroney, glimpsed in flashbacks) and the equally suddenly arrival of sleek, sinister Uncle Charles (Matthew Goode). Lensed with an eerie elegance and an exquisite attention to creepy details, this tale of dysfunctional ties that bind leads to a rather insane conclusion; whether that bugs you or not depends on how willing you are to surrender to its madness. (1:38) California, Metreon, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

21 and Over (1:33) Metreon.

Warm Bodies A decade and a half of torrid, tormented vampire-human entanglements has left us accustomed to rooting for romances involving the undead and the still-alive. Some might argue, however, that no amount of pop-cultural prepping could be sufficient to get us behind a human-zombie love story for the ages. Is guzzling human blood really measurably less gross than making a meal of someone’s brains and other body parts? Somehow, yes. Recognizing this perceptual hurdle, writer-director Jonathan Levine (2011’s 50/50, 2008’s The Wackness) secures our sympathies at the outset of Warm Bodies by situating us inside the surprisingly active brain of the film’s zombie protagonist. Zombies, it turns out, have internal monologues. R (Nicholas Hoult) can only remember the first letter of his former name, but as he shambles and shuffles and slumps his way through the terminals of a postapocalyptic airport overrun by his fellow corpses (as they’re called by the film’s human population), he fills us in as best he can on the global catastrophe that’s occurred and his own ensuing existential crisis. By the time he meets not-so-cute with Julie (Teresa Palmer), a young woman whose father (John Malkovich) is commander-in-chief of the human survivors living in a walled-off city center, we’ve learned that he collects vinyl, that he has a zombie best friend, and that he doesn’t want to be like this. We may still be flinching at the thought of his and Julie’s first kiss, but we’re also kind of rooting for him. The plot gapes in places, where a tenuous logic gets trampled and gives way, but Levine’s script, adapted from a novel by Isaac Marion, is full of funny riffs on the zombie condition, which Hoult invests with a comic sweetness as his character staggers toward the land of the living. (1:37) Metreon, New Parkway. (Rapoport)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of “realness” that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that “America does not torture.” (The “any more” goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or “CIA black sites” in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations (“KSM” for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon (“tradecraft”) without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. “Washington says she’s a killer,” a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) New Parkway. (Eddy)

FEAST: 5 stoner cookbooks

Andrew Lam
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FEAST: 5 stoner cookbooks

culture@sfbg.com

FEAST If that joint’s got you jonesin’ for some serious grub, look no further. We’ve rolled up the latest and greatest in stoner cookbooks, perfect for any discerning bud lover’s taste test. No, we didn’t include any weed-infused recipes in this list, but hey, feel free to augment the recipes in the brownie cookbook. Whether you’re a marathon midnight toker or a one hitter-and-quitter, we understand your need for accessibility, availability, and general ease in eating after that smoke sesh. But move beyond Pop Tarts — even the most gourmand of pot heads could use some guidelines for grilling up goodies every once in awhile.

THE MAC AND CHEESE COOKBOOK BY ALLISON AREVALO AND ERIN WADE

Get your mac on. Allison Areval and Erin Wade, co-owners and authors of The Mac and Cheese Cookbook dish out 117 pages dedicated to one of America’s most beloved dishes, based on the crowd pleasing specialties dished up in their Oakland restaurant Homeroom. The book is an homage to Homeroom’s endless variations on the classic orange variety. That’s good news if your cravings leave you hankering for a variety of tastes. Basic bechamel sauces figure on the pages alongside smoky bacon, blue cheese, sriracha, and jalapeno poppers. There’s even a section on desserts suitable for your post-mac munch.

Ten Speed Press, $16.99

FIFTY SHADES OF BACON BY JENNA JOHNSON AND BEN MYHRE

This self-proclaimed “erotic” cookbook sinks its teeth into all things bacon. Bacon au gratin, bacon-wrapped asparagus, bacon Alfredo (just to name a few) — this pork-inspired parody cookbook has all the seductive appeal of its sexy, silly source material. But instead of a half baked S&M narrative, Johnson and Myhre’s book gets you off with five different carnivorous sections of easy-to-follow recipes. A seductive succession of events unfolds with chapters entitled “Foreplay,” “Multiple Orgasms,” “Morning Wood,” and “Bondage”, where bacon bits, bacon jam, bacon martinis, and bacon peanut stoke your stoner flames. And even if pig parts don’t get you off, they’ll almost certainly taste better when you’re high.

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $19.95

TRY THIS AT HOME: RECIPES FROM MY HEAD TO YOUR PLATE BY RICHARD BLAIS

We’ve all done it. Remember that time when you were so high, you thought putting chocolate sauce on canned jalapeños was the most genius concept ever? Until, of course, you made that dream reality and were left with a wounded mouth and sobering regret. It turns out, however, that unlikely pairings aren’t always painful. Top Chef: All Stars winner Richard Blais proves it to us in this cookbook. From root-beer basted lamb-shanks to coffee butter pancakes, the chef’s recipes do flavor exploration the right way — 125 right ways, to be precise. Go forth and concoct creatively.

Clarkson Potter Publishers, $30

MAD HUNGRY CRAVINGS BY LUCINDA SCALA QUINN

Lucinda Scala Quinn takes on take-out. Her mission in Mad Hungry Cravings is to reconcile the almost unbeatable deliciousness of fast food with the nourishment and nutrition that a home kitchen can produce, without a lot of work. Can good for you also be good for munchies? Damn straight. While raising three boys in NYC, where street food beats about anything found in the fridge (particularly if you’re a ravenous adolescent), Quinn had to create home-cooked meals capable of competition with street dogs and shawarmas.

Artisan, $27.95

BRILLIANT BROWNIES AND BARS: 25 FAVORITE BROWNIE AND BAR RECIPES BY COOKING PENGUIN

Stoners, perhaps more than most, know that not all brownies are created equal. If you have ever tried to make a batch of brownies with your favorite herb, you know it requires a careful balance of elements and timing. This book’s sugary-sweet offerings are winners, and recipes are composed with chocolate and without for more innovative pastry pleasure. The pages start with the standards and segue into non-traditional options, like cocoa-avocado, pumpkin pie, and nonpareil brownies. If you’d rather stick to the classics, try whipping up chocolate walnut brownies or Cooking Penguin’s ace pecan blondies.

168 Publishing, $12.95

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