Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

Original sin

Andrew Lam
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Original sin

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Early this year came the announcement that Brian De Palma was hot to do an English remake of Alain Corneau’s Love Crime, saying “Not since Dressed to Kill have I had a chance to combine eroticism, suspense, mystery, and murder into one spellbinding cinematic experience.” Apparently he thinks his intervening decades’ meh-to-awful “erotic thrillers” Body Double (1984), Raising Cain (1992), Femme Fatale (2002), and Black Dahlia (2006) don’t compare (a good call, that).

The results, should they come to fruition, may well prove a landmark in the annals of lurid guilty-pleasure trash. (Although you could argue it can’t possibly get any guiltier than Femme Fatale already managed.) And who doesn’t want to wish De Palma well in nostalgic salute to 1976’s Carrie, 1973’s Sisters, 1974’s Phantom of the Paradise, 1983’s Scarface, and such? But with the original Love Crime finally making it to local theaters, it’s an opportune moment to be appalled in advance: because there is no way he’s not going to pour the equivalent of greasy massage oil, Hershey’s Syrup, and vermilion stage blood over what is a neat, dry, fully clothed model of a modern Hitchcockian thriller, one more Rear Window (1954) than Psycho (1960).

No doubt in France Love Crime looks pretty mainstream. But here its soon-to be-despoiled virtues of narrative intricacy and restraint are upscale pleasures, an occasion to get just a little dirty at a Landmark, as one can feel both high-minded and devilish reading a Patricia Highsmith novel. Ludivine Sagnier, France’s limpid answer to Chloë Sevigny, plays assistant to high-powered corporate executive Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas). The boss enjoys molding protégée Isabelle to her own image, making them a double team of carefully planned guile unafraid to use sex appeal as a business strategy. But Isabelle is expected to know her place — even when that place robs her of credit for her own ideas — and when she stages a small rebellion, Christine’s revenge is cruelly out of scale, a high-heeled boot brought down to squash an ant. It doesn’t help that Isabelle has by now fallen in love with Philippe (Patrick Mille), who is Christine’s boy toy and may merely be enlivening the other woman’s bed on loan.

Halfway through an act of vengeance occurs that is shocking and satisfying, even if it leaves the remainder of Corneau and Nathalie Carter’s clever screenplay deprived of the very thing that had made it such a sardonic delight so far. The rest is a question of whether that crime (which really doesn’t have much to do with “love”) can be covered up or not, a matter that holds interest but stretches story and performance credibility somewhat. Nonetheless, this is pulp fun of an elegant and intelligent type. With Scott Thomas’ inherent frostiness — which she is actor enough to completely lose on other occasions — ideally employed as the chic superior anyone would eventually want to strangle, Love Crime has no need of the naked writhing across desktops and Playboy “lesbian” frissons very likely to surface as “improvements” in the forthcoming Brian De Palma joint.

Corneau (who died at age 67 last August, just after the film’s premiere) had an interesting, diverse, not-always-distinguished career, some highlights being the 1979 Jim Thompson adaptation Série Noire and 1991’s glacial costume-drama hit Tout les Matins du Monde. No masterpiece, Love Crime closes the book on his career not with a bang but with a crisp, satisfying snap. 

LOVE CRIME opens Fri/9 in Bay Area theaters.

 

Earth mover

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Earth mover

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC I didn’t mean to bring the earthquake to Eleanor Friedberger’s Brooklyn — it just felt that way when I rang a few weeks ago, minutes after her ‘hood shivered and shook like it was attempting a weak imitation of, well, San Francisco. “Actually it sounded like someone was stomping on my roof,” she says wryly, phasing in and out over the line as if spirited away by unexplained forces.

A coincidence, too, that she closes her first, wonderful solo long-player, Last Summer (Merge), with a number titled “Early Earthquake,” a minimalist love song that evokes early solo Lou Reed and spins from those ground-bending emotions that hit far too soon, far too hard. “It was an early earthquake and my heart’s trembling just for you / And when the walls came crumbling down / You know I was waiting right here for you,” she sings with her charmingly verbose hipster-priest phrasing, in a feather-light voice.

“Early Earthquake” ends with a sliver of exotica culled from an optigan. “It’s almost like a toy for adults,” Friedberger says of the ’70s-era instrument. Her brother, Matthew, used one on a song for their band, the Fiery Furnaces, and, she adds, “I said if I ever found one I’d buy it.” That she did, from “an expensive music store in Brooklyn — not very cool,” she murmurs.

That brand of disarming, hyper-self-aware honesty — dotted with a dry, playful sense of irony — runs like a startling thread throughout Friedberger’s conversation, making me wanna be instant BFFs. I can see us now: telling the truth about birthdays (“Always bleak,” Friedberger declares of her Sept. 2 birthday, though she’ll be in the Bay Area that week, so bring her a gift), laughing that she’d make the perfect Patti Smith in the film version of Just Kids, scaring ourselves with the spooky effects in “Inn of the Seventh Ray,” pondering the puzzle of Google-ing dates in “Scenes from Bensonhurst,” and cruising through the borough with the rubbery-bass-bumping “Roosevelt Island” blaring. The latter is the closest thing to a genuine summer song on Last Summer; Friedberger agrees — it’s built to be pouring out of “a Buick, definitely an American car, if there are any of those left,” she says.

Last Summer is the solo record she’s always wanted to make — and when she had the time and summoned the confidence that comes with age and experience, she did, writing the songs last summer and recording them that fall, in Brooklyn. “I felt it was now or never. I always thought I’d regret if I didn’t do something myself,” Friedberger says. “There was no lightning bolt of inspiration—I don’t believe in that.

And in contrast to all those who refuse to ‘fess up to the autobiographical nature of their work, Friedberger offers, “All of it is drawn from my personal life — no imagination used. I’m trying to decide if it’s lazy or brave, I don’t know.”

In the same spirit of full disclosure, she opens the album with an infectious ditty called “My Mistakes,” climaxing with a gloriously cheesy tenor sax solo. “I was trying to copy a Van Morrison-sounding saxophone solo,” she freely admits, though it was a fight trying to get sax player Dylan Heaney to agree. “He has a jazz school background and wanted to do something new or original. I don’t believe in that, though — I’m all for copying.”

Yet Friedberger, whether solo or with the Fiery Furnaces, still manages to have one of the most original voices of her generation. Perhaps it stems from the creative support of a sib. “We have this musical language that I just don’t have with anybody else,” she says of Matthew. “But at the same time, we constantly feel like we need an excuse to do something together — because we’re not a normal band. There has to be an elaborate thought process that justifies it.”

“That’s getting tiring. So it’s liberating to make something that’s small and personal. For me, it’s more about expressing my tiny pathetic feelings.” Slight pause. “I’m kidding.”

ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER

With the Kills and Mini Mansions

Fri/9, 8:30 p.m., $29.50

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 302-2277

www.apeconcerts.com

 

Happy accidents

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Happy accidents

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC What’s so funny about sweetness and light? Bright, explosive jolts of jubilance and snappy uplift? Everything and nothing, Givers might say. The Lafayette, La., band embraces an ecstatic fun-for-all aesthetic on its debut, In Light (Glassnote) — though sultry-voiced vocalist-percussionist Tiffany Lamson still feels a need to defend her group’s rollicking, bubbling bliss bombs.

“This is the era where we need to support each other as a human race,” she says from Lafayette as Givers readies itself to hit the road for a tour that lands in SF Sept. 7. “There’s not enough space to be a band that sings about depressing shit and stuff that’s negative toward others. That era is kind of over.”

Still, Lamson, 23, sounds the teeniest bit defensive. “We do get the whole happy coin — that we’re obsessively happy,” she continues, “which is fine. I’m not going to say we’re not. If you come in the van with us for a couple days, you’ll see we’re more like a family. We have our trials and tribulations in turn that help us grow, though we generally love life and try to be happy. Who doesn’t want to be happy?”

So there — hater nation can just go suck on Givers’ generous odes to joy. As Lamson and band co-founder, vocalist, and guitarist Taylor Guarisco yelp, “I choose life!” in In Light‘s final word, “Words,” a shimmering backdrop of elastic West African-inspired guitar, glassy synth textures, and punchy polyrhythms sing out behind them in affirmation.

“The stigma is that the only thing we provide is surface-level statement,” adds Lamson. “There’s deeper roots and introspection, too.”

That music flowed forth immediately, the first time in 2008 that Lamson and Guarisco, both studying music at the University of New Orleans, played together at a friendly, last-minute fill-in show in Lafayette. Drummer Kirby Campbell, trumpet player Josh LeBlanc, and keyboardists Will Henderson and Nick Stephan joined them, improvising two hours of music. “We were just friends who all played in different bands with each other,” recounts Lamson. “It was a magical thing. We were having a really naturally good time, and we were just moving around with these instruments, being free, playing any instrument we wanted to at the moment.”

That night’s music continued to resonate for Givers, providing the basis for the self-produced In Light when the combo sat down to assemble the album last January. “We spent a lot of time arranging the songs and working on them, so they could be the best they could be for the record,” Lamson says. Engineer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Cee-Lo) and mix engineer Chris Coady (TV on the Radio, Beach House) helped the process along.

Those veterans might have helped to make In Light an album with surprising dimensions, with fresh angles on shiny, happy sounds, but the band would likely look to their upbringing in southwest Louisiana, steeped in the music of the Cajun-zydeco capital of the world, as having a greater impact. “We were born and raised in this environment, this very rhythm-oriented environment,” explains Lamson.

“It plays a huge part in the way that we play music and the way we live ourselves. Without putting cliches on it, there’s a huge sense of unity — it’s such a diverse area, and you have West African music and Haitian music, and those all soak into Cajun and zydeco culture. People live life a lot slower here — there isn’t the hustle and bustle, and people tend to slow down and appreciate things.” She chuckles. “Maybe it’s the heat.”

GIVERS

With Kopecky Family Band

Sept. 7, 8 p.m., $10–$12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

Keep it raw

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Keep it raw

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC Does the Godfather of Punk really need an introduction? It’s Iggy Pop. He’s been doing this — this meaning spitting out underground ethos in a signature growl and writhing shirtless — for nearly 50 years. With the untimely death of original Stooge guitarist Ron Asheton, Pop regrouped and tapped Raw Power-era player James Williamson to rejoin the band a couple of years back.

I spoke to Pop in Paris over the phone — his current world tour was supposed to land in San Francisco on Sept. 12 and 13. As we were going to press, however, we were informed that the ever-wild Pop broke his foot and his appearance here will be rescheduled, with new dates TBA Dec. 4 and 6 at the Warfield. We wish him a speedy recovery!

SFBG: What songs are you playing this tour?

Iggy Pop: All of Raw Power, some of Funhouse, some songs from the eponymous debut the Stooges, and some stuff that was too hot to handle, too raw for the times — stuff that came out on bootlegs in the ’70s like “Cock in My Pocket,” “Open Up and Bleed,” “Head on the Curve.”

SFBG: And James Williamson is on guitar?

Iggy Pop: Yeah, it’s James. The three principles in the group are James, myself and [drummer] Scott Asheton, — [Scott] had a medical emergency…after our appearance at the Hellfest. He’s now home — he’s benched for the rest of the year. I expect he’ll fully recover and be back next year. His replacement on drums is somebody that grew up listening to our records — Toby Dammit. And Mike Watt is with us, and Steve Mackay. Mike’s there being Mike, you know?

SFBG: I do. At this point in your career do feel pressure to maintain this ‘Wild Child’ image?

Iggy Pop: You mean you’ve noticed my style? [Laughs]. It’s interesting. I feel a desire to — [screams] “still do that, BABY!” — at certain times when it’s going to do me good. And I can’t think of a better time than when the Stooges are cranking, and there are a bunch of people who are sick of this shit-soup that white rock has become and want to see some action. I let some of those elements live and breath, and I always feel good about it.

I don’t think there’s so much an image I have to live up to because one of the beautiful things about being me and about being the Stooges is that we never, ever received any legitimate or uncontested exposure from either the official music industry, when it existed, or the official media. We’re more popular now than we ever were. I’m 64 and I’m just starting to hit a career peak. I consciously try to introduce as many new things as I can into what I do and try to keep moderating it. My hair’s not gray, I haven’t lost interest in life.

SFBG: So what are you looking forward to in the future? The future being later tonight, and six months down the line?

Iggy Pop: [Laughs] well, later tonight, my wife’s with me, and I’m going to open half a bottle of Bordeaux, watch the French news, and practice my French. I’ve made a small album of my own [Existence] that’s along the lines of [2009’s] Préliminaires so I’m working on seeing if I can bamboozle some record company into putting that out. But I’m also working on [Stooges] stuff with James. He’s a real prolific talent, and wasn’t playing music for something like 37 years — he’s got a lot of pent-up energy. It’s funny because he’s an eminently sane, responsible family man who has become a very successful tech executive in San Jose. But he has still reserved his unreasoning, adolescent, spiteful side for our group — so out it comes!

SFBG: How did you end up on American Idol?

Iggy Pop: Well, my agent was begging and threatening — and I’m the sort of person that likes to take a dare. I don’t know how many times I’ve slunk past the television set when that thing was on fuming, “this stinks, what a bunch of shit this is, look at these people — they might as well be parrots!” Yet, behind all that you’re always thinking, “I can do better than that.” I thought of all 102 reasons why I shouldn’t do it, but you’re being offered a chance to do one of your own songs…on the same stage, with the chance to do it your way. I did it for that. To give four minutes of my life and put that on the record in America.

SFBG: On that same note, what was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame experience like for you, finally getting inducted in 2010?

Iggy Pop: It always reminds me of that movie Carrie. She didn’t start out wanting to be homecoming queen, did she? They keep nominating you, and I didn’t ask, nobody asked me if I wanted to be nominated. So then with every nomination comes the rejection, so you start feeling all like, “fuck!” Then you start looking around and think, “well there’s a silly-ass prick and he’s in the Hall of Fame” and “there’s a no-talent weasel and he’s in the Hall of Fame” — why the hell can’t I be in the Hall of Fame?

Shortly after Ron and Scott and I started working together again I said, “are there any specific things you want to accomplish?” And both said, “well, I want to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That would be the big thing.” So at that point I started doing things that would tend to let that happen. I did a couple of Grammy-related events. And then we did Madonna’s [induction]. I figured if the voters for this thing didn’t know who we were before, they’d know now. It’s a shame, Ron was really pissed when they didn’t induct us the next year — he hated doing the Madonna song but I didn’t mind. Hell, we could do “Happy Birthday” and it would sound good, too. It would sound like us. 

Roeg, warrior

Andrew Lam
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Roeg, warrior

arts@sfbg.com

FILM It’s grown obvious in ways it couldn’t have been originally that from 1970 to 1980 Nicolas Roeg was the most adventuresome English director, even if then as now his work seems less “British” than just about any colleague you could name. Perhaps not quite knowing where he was coming from — in any sense — made Performance (1970), Walkabout (1971), Don’t Look Now (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), and Bad Timing (1980) messy, strange, and interesting in ways that then felt borderline gimmicky, as disjointed as they were deliberately dislocative. Yet all those qualities have helped the films age beautifully. In fact they’ve scarcely dated at all, perhaps because their lateral rather than linear storytelling, seemingly contrary audio and visual cues, and pervasive cultural unease reflect a mindset familiar enough now but very strange those decades ago.

That remarkable run comes to mind because of Earth‘s return in a newly struck 35th anniversary print that offers the complete 139-minute “director’s cut.” That version has in fact been available for years — the heavily-cut original U.S. theatrical release is doubtless harder to find now — but remains full of surprises. Even after so long a span, it’s a science fiction movie unconventional enough to annoy the hell out of many professed sci-fi film fans. But then their template was formed the next year by Star Wars (1977), then shortly thereafter by Alien (1979) — two expressions of sci-fi rooted in comic books and ’50s monster movies respectively, spawning innumerable imitations since equally focused on action over ideas.

The Man Who Fell to Earth, stubbornly, has no interest in spaceships, let alone battles or creatures. Instead, its subject is human society, which from the title character’s viewpoint really is nothing for our planet to brag about. It’s still an alien piece of filmmaking because Roeg wants us to view earthly life with fresh eyes that gradually dim from amused curiosity to the cynicism of a reluctant émigré forced into permanent residency in a land he despises.

In his first major film role, David Bowie plays Thomas Newton, who turns up in the American Southwest out of the blue — no one realizes at first quite how literally — with ideas for “toys” of extraordinary technological advancement that quickly make him a very, very wealthy man. Amassing money seems to be his only real interest, toward a goal he eventually reveals to hand-picked confederates including patent attorney Buck Henry and technician Rip Torn, plus singularly dim companion Mary-Lou (Candy Clark). That goal is constructing a space vehicle capable of returning Newton to his planet, which is dying from drought. (Our protagonist’s decline is charted in his changing beverage choices, from precious water to the cheap consolation of alcohol.) He intends no harm. But despite all efforts at evading notice, he inevitably attracts invasive government attention as a freak of potential scientific, capitalist, or militaristic use.

Taking considerable liberties with Walter Tevis’ novel, Paul Mayerberg’s screenplay and Roeg’s direction enlarge several subsidiary characters, add a number of new incidents, and minimize Newton’s backstory. Yet when Earth was first released in the U.S., its 20-minutes-shorter edit removed much of the more outré inventions — including a whole lotta sex scenes, mostly between college prof Torn and myriad female students — oddly re-asserting the story’s science-fiction emphasis. Yet what remains fascinating about the film, beyond Bowie’s silvery performance and Roeg’s arresting stylistic strategies, is that it’s every bit as much a stunned observation of mid-decade middlebrow Americana as the same year’s Nashville. Like a Tibetan monk transplanted to a papier-mâché dinosaur theme park, Newton is agog at a vigorous garishness that’s as invasive as the probes eventually stuck into his body. Chocolate chip cookies, evangelical hysteria, Elvis musicals, and Mary-Lou’s ever-changing hairdos are all an equal amazement to him. The people around him age decades, but he never does, and strangely neither does the culture; when Clark and Torn visit a record store in their twilight years, it’s still selling Jim Croce records to Me Decade longhairs. Newton’s tragic fate is to be trapped in a space-time warp of alien triviality.

Famously crossing over to direction from cinematography (on movies like 1967’s Far From the Madding Crowd and 1968’s Petulia), Roeg brought a sensibility to his own projects that owed less to film and theater than to modern still photography, experimental cinema, and the literary avant-garde. Before anyone else thought likewise, his soundtracks felt like wildly unpredictable (but apt) mix tapes.

None of his features strictly fit any genre they’re aligned to, when there is one. Don’t Look Now is less interested in the supernatural than the psychological deterioration of a marriage. Bad Timing is still under appreciated as the decade’s more disturbing follow-up to Last Tango in Paris (1972), wherein male control of the female sex object grows increasingly desperate and destructive. Performance, co-directed with the late Donald Cammell, was supposed to be a Swinging London snapshot a la Blow-Up (1966) — fashionable, arty, a little kinky, with Mick Jagger acting as lure. It turned out such a druggy, gender-bending mindfuck that Warner Bros. initially refused to release it. A processing lab destroyed some “obscene” footage without permission; even without that, audiences walked out, demanded refunds, even vomited. Performance no longer shocks, but it’s still subversive.

After 1980, Roeg’s output grew steadily less compelling. After years of silence suddenly there was 2007’s Puffball: The Devil’s Eyeball, a seriocomic semi-fantasy curio based on a Fay Weldon novel. No one saw it; they didn’t miss much. At 82, it’s quite possible Roeg won’t make another feature. Yet that single decade of remarkable work still points forward, and has influenced many of the more interesting younger directors’ approaches to style and storytelling since.

 

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH opens Fri/9 in Bay Area theaters.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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0

Schedules are for Wed/7–Tues/13 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. Call for program info.

CERRITO 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. $8. “Cerrito Classics:” Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock, 1954), Thurs, 7. The Power of Two (Smolowitz, 2011), Sat, 2, 7:30. This event, $20; tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. The Hedgehog (Achache, 2010), call for dates and times. The Names of Love (Leclerc, 2010), call for dates and times. Senna (Kapadia, 2011), call for dates and times. The Whistleblower (Kondracki, 2010), call for dates and times. Love Crime (Corneau, 2010), Sept 9-15, call for times.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; (415) 267-4893, www.landmarktheatres.com. $8.50-9.50. The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Old Mill Park, 300 block of Throckmorton, Mill Valley; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Some Like it Hot (Wilder, 1959), Fri, 8. Washington Square Park, Union at Columbus, SF; same contact info. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964), Sat, 8.

GRAND LAKE 3200 Grand, Oakl; www.communitycurrency.org. $10. “9/11 Truth Film Festival,” Thurs, 1. Also Sun, 1, Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF. Benefits the Northern California Norhter California 9/11 Truth Alliance.

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF SAN FRANCISCO Kanbar Hall, 3200 California, SF; www.jccsf.org/ $10. Love Hate Love: A Response to 9/11 (Hardy and Nachman, 2011), Thurs, 7.

MANDELA VILLAGE ARTS CENTER 1357 Fifth St, Oakl; www.brainwashm.com. $10. “17th Annual Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival,” unique independent movies from around the world, Fri-Sat, 9pm.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). “CinemaLit Film Series: Euro Passages:” Live Flesh (Almodóvar, 1997), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” Martha Colburn’s Collage Animation,” Wed, 7:30. “Sounding Off: Portraits of Unusual Music:” Trimpin: The Sound of Invention (Esmonde, 2009), Thurs, 7; Ne change rien (Costa, 2009) Sat, 6:30. “The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies:” Cisco Pike (Norton, 1971), Fri, 7; Payday (Duke, 1972), Fri, 8:55. “UCLA Festival of Preservation:” Cry Danger (Parrish, 1951), Fri, 8:35.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Love Exposure (Sono, 2008), Wed-Thurs, 7:30 (also Sat-Sun, 2:30). “SF Shorts: The San Francisco International Festival of Short Films,” Thurs-Sat, 7:30, 9:30 (also Sat, 5:30). This event, $10; more info at www.sfshorts.com. Littlerock (Ott, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7, 9 (also Sat, 1:30, 3:15, 5); Sept 11-15, 7, 8:45 (also Sun, 1:30, 3:15, 5).

SAN FRANCISCO ART INSTITUTE 800 Chestnut, SF; www.www.iranianfilmfestival.org. $8-10. “Iranian Film Festival,” Sat-Sun, 11am. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Free. “Filming Performance: Work-In-Progress Screening and Discussion with Carrie Lozano and Charlotte Lagarde,” Thurs, 7:30. 

Psychic Dream Astrology: August 7-13

Andrew Lam
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0

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Relationships are so important; they allow us to see ourselves in action. Watch the ways that you create closeness or distance yourself from others, Aries. You are poised to learn more about yourself than would be otherwise possible through your people connections this week.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

Allow yourself to get excited about whatever challenges are at hand, Taurus. Trust in your ability to handle things, even if only a tiny bit of ’em. Next, gather up your energy and get ready for the road ahead. You are about to hit a growth cycle that will go best if you are ready for it.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

What is it that you aren’t doing, Gemini? Sure, things are “OK,” but taking the path of least resistance may bring you some major problems this week. Be willing to deal head-on with the stuff in your life that need to be majorly changed or ended completely. Things’ll go better for it, promise.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

If you rush to fix things, then you may never truly understand them. This week, try and sit in your own muck and confusions in order to grasp what is all blocked in your insides, Moonchild. Nurture yourself out of stagnancy instead of trying reasoning with yourself for best results.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

It’s time for you to assume responsibility for where you’re taking your life. There is a fine line between going with the flow and letting your life choose you, and you need to make sure you’re on the right side of it, Leo. Make choices that support you in creating the life you want to be living.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You need to be free and self-directed in order to be happy, Virgo, but that’s hard to pull off when you keep looking outside of yourself for answers. Cultivate a closer relationship with your inner wise guy! Insecurity can needlessly hold you back this week; don’t let it, pal.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Do some self-examination so that when you are called upon to make choices in the coming weeks you’re able to differentiate between a good opportunity on paper versus a good one in reality. The better you know yourself the better equipped you’ll be to handle that fickle Lady Luck.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Sometimes the only way out of depressive thinking is to stop attaching so much importance to your thoughts. You cannot ruminate yourself someplace better, so stop trying! Adjust your emotional attitudes and put yourself in positive situations with positive people this week, Scorpio.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Ah yes, Sagittarius, the ol’ “you made your bed and now you’ve got to lie in it” game. Own your decisions this week, even if you are uncertain they were the right ones. All you can do is try your best, and learn from whatever mistakes you make along the way.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You are on your way to having a more balanced approach to self-care, Capricorn. Be clear enough to assert what you need and dynamic enough to step out on a limb for it. You are being tested on your fortitude; just make sure your staying power is being used to stay on the right path.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

You have hit a wall, and that wall is there for a reason, Aquarius. You have been trying to go in a direction that doesn’t give you energy and it’s finally catching up with you. Focus first on getting right with yourself, then you’ll be able to figure out what next steps to take to improve matters.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

The most effective way to cut through your anxieties this week is to step up and do something. Don’t let worry and what-ifs stall your progress! You are at risk for making compromises before you even begin, but don’t do it, Pisces. Let hope be your co-pilot.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 17 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com or contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading at (415) 336-8354 or dreamyastrology@gmail.com.

 

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

OPENING

The Apparition Genre-movie vets Ashley Greene and Tom Felton star in this supernatural thriller set on a college campus. (runtime not available)

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star Comedian Nick Swardson stars as a wannabe porn star in this comedy from the director of The Hot Chick (2002). (runtime not available)

Chasing Madoff Doc about the investigators who brought down the notorious Ponzi scammer. (1:31)

Circumstance Thirteen (2003) goes to Tehran? The world of sex, drugs, and underground nightclubs in Iran provides the backdrop for writer-director Maryam Keshavarz’s lusty, dreamy take on the passionate teenagers behind the hijabs. Risking jail and worse are the sassy, privileged Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and the beautiful, orphaned Shireen (Sarah Kazemy), who, much like young women anywhere, just want to be free — to swim, sing, dance, test boundaries, lose, and then find themselves. The difference here is that they’re under constant, unnerving surveillance, in a country where more than 70 percent of the population is less than 30 years old. Nevertheless, within their mansion walls and without, beneath graffitied walls and undulating at intoxicating house parties, the two girls begin to fall in love with each other, as Atafeh’s handsome, albeit creepy older brother Mehran (Palo Alto-bred Reza Sixo Safai) gazes on. The onetime musical talent’s back from rehab, has returned to the mosque with all the zeal of the prodigal, and has hooked up with the Morality Police that enforces the nation’s cultural laws. Filmed underground in Beirut, with layers that permit both pleasure and protest (wait for the hilarious moment when 2008’s Milk is dubbed in Farsi), Circumstance viscerally transmits the realities and fantasies of Iranian young women on the verge. (1:45) (Chun)

Contagion Steven Soderbergh directs every movie star on the planet (Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, and about 67 others) in this thriller about a worldwide disease epidemic. (1:42)

Creature From Wikipedia: “The group decides to stop at a roadside convenience store owned by Chopper (Sid Haig), who tells them the tale of Lockjaw, a fabled god-like creature who is half-man, half-alligator.” Ergo, this is either gonna be terrible or the greatest movie ever made. (1:33)

Little Rock When the rental car driven by Atsuko (Atsuko Okatsuka) and Rintaro Sakamato (Rintaro Sawamoto) breaks down in nowheresville, California (actually, a small town called Little Rock), an air of disillusion hangs between the siblings, on vacation to “see America.” Holed up in a motel room, their disappointment is palpable, until a chance encounter with some locals sucks the pair into exurban American life. By the time their car is again roadworthy, Atsuko can’t bear to leave and decides to stay behind as her brother, the only one of the two who speaks a word of English, continues ahead without her. Communication is the driving force behind Little Rock and the language barrier somehow never gets stale; it certainly allows Okatsuka the opportunity for some superb acting. Despite some directorial flourishes (by Mike Ott), however, the story doesn’t really hold many surprises, and its inevitable conclusion is glimpsed long before it’s reached. (1:25) Roxie. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

*Love Crime See “Original Sin.” (1:46)

*The Man Who Fell To Earth See “Roeg, Warrior.” (2:19)

Puzzle A middle-aged housewife finds herself through jigsaw competitions in this Argentina-France co-production. (1:29) SFFS New People Cinema.

Shaolin Jackie Chan and Andy Lau star in Benny Chan’s historical kung fu extravaganza. (2:11) Four Star.

*Warrior Those wondering why the mixed martial arts scene has captured the imagination of so many can finally understand what the fuss is all about, now that it comes filtered through a melodramatic narrative akin to The Fighter (2010). Warrior‘s mis-en-scene is immediately recognizable: a prodigal returns, in the form of Tom Conlon (Tom Hardy). Once a talented teenage wrestler, the now-battered man is the damaged youngest son of alcoholic ex-boxer Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte). Tom wants his father to train him for a major mixed martial arts tournament with a multimillion-dollar purse, though the two obviously still have a deadly hold on each other — the repentant Paddy is on the wagon and the emotionally bruised Tom harbors secrets he won’t reveal — and battle with cutting comments rather than fists. Tom isn’t the only prodigal in the house: Paddy has lost the trust of Tom’s bro, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former fighter and present-day physics high school teacher who’s struggling to make ends meet with an underwater mortgage. Though Warrior is no Raging Bull (1980), it almost outdukes The Fighter in terms of its brutal bouts, conveying the swift, no-holds-barred action of MMA in the ring, while giving actors plenty of drama to wrap their jowls ’round — particularly in Nolte’s case. His tore-up turn as an all-excuses patriarch is as heartbreaking as a solid kick to the jaw. (2:19) (Chun)

ONGOING

Apollo 18 (1:26)

*Beginners There is nothing conventional about Beginners, a film that starts off with the funeral arrangements for one of its central characters. That man is Hal (Christopher Plummer), who came out to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) at the ripe age of 75. Through flashbacks, we see the relationship play out — Oliver’s inability to commit tempered by his father’s tremendous late-stage passion for life. Hal himself is a rare character: an elderly gay man, secure in his sexuality and, by his own admission, horny. He even has a much younger boyfriend, played by the handsome Goran Visnjic. While the father-son bond is the heart of Beginners, we also see the charming development of a relationship between Oliver and French actor Anna (Mélanie Laurent). It all comes together beautifully in a film that is bittersweet but ultimately satisfying. Beginners deserves praise not only for telling a story too often left untold, but for doing so with grace and a refreshing sense of whimsy. (1:44) (Peitzman)

*Bellflower Picture Two Lane Blacktop (1971) drifters armed with “dude”-centric vocabulary and an obsession with The Road Warrior (1981) and its apocalypse-wow survivalist chic. There are so many pleasures in this janky, so-very-DIY, heavy-on-the-sunblasted-atmosphere indie that you’re almost willing to overlook the clichés, the dead zones, and the annoying characters. Seeming every-dudes Woodrow (director-writer-producer Evan Glodell) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson) are far too obsessed with tricking out their cars and building a flamethrower for their own good — the misfits must force themselves out of the metal shop of the mind to meet women. So when Woodrow goes up against Milly (Jessie Wiseman) in a cricket-eating contest at a bar, it’s love at first bite. Their meet-gross morphs into a road trip and eventually a relationship, while the flamethrower nags, unexplained, in the background, like an unfired gun — or an unconsummated, not-funny bromance. These manifestations of male fantasy — muscle cars, weapons, and tough chicks — are cast in a dreamy, saturated, and burnt-at-the-edges light, as Glodell and company weave together barely articulated reveries and bad-new-west imagery with a kind of fuck-all intelligence, culminating in a finale that will either haunt you with its scattershot machismo-romanticism or leave you scratching your noggin wondering what just happened. (1:46) (Chun)

Brighton Rock Writer Rowan Joffe (2010’s The American) moves into the director’s chair for this Graham Greene adaptation, previously filmed in 1947 with an early-career star turn by Richard Attenborough. Joffe’s version updates Greene’s 1938 story to 1964, allowing the brutal actions of small-time hood Pinkie Brown to unfold as Britain’s mods vs. rockers youth riots boil in the background. Don’t get too excited, though — despite a cool premise and even cooler setting, and the presence of veterans Helen Mirren and John Hurt in supporting roles, Brighton Rock rages without a rudder. Pinkie is played by Sam Riley (so good as Ian Curtis in 2007’s Control), who snarls like a sociopathic James Dean and is so transparently hateful it’s hard to root for anything other than his hastened demise. Brighton Rock‘s most memorable element is probably Andrea Riseborough, an on-the-verge young Brit who’s being touted as the next Carey Mulligan. She has the thankless (yet showy) role of Rose, a naïve waitress who becomes entangled in Pinkie’s web after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A far-from-storybook ending awaits, and you’ll experience little enjoyment watching the characters claw their way there. (1:51) (Eddy)

Buck This documentary paints a portrait of horse trainer Buck Brannaman as a sort of modern-day sage, a sentimental cowboy who helps “horses with people problems.” Brannaman has transcended a background of hardship and abuse to become a happy family man who makes a difference for horses and their owners all over the country with his unconventional, humane colt-starting clinics. Though he doesn’t actually whisper to horses, he served as an advisor and inspiration for Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer (1998). Director Cindy Meehl focuses generously on her saintly subject’s bits of wisdom in and out of a horse-training setting — e.g. “Everything you do with a horse is a dance” — as well as heartfelt commentary from friends and colleagues. In the harrowing final act of the film, Brannaman deals with a particularly unruly horse and his troubled owner, highlighting the dire and disturbing consequences of improper horse rearing. (1:28) (Sam Stander)

Captain America: The First Avenger OK, Marvel. I could get behind 2008’s Iron Man (last year’s Iron Man 2, not so much), but after Thor and now Captain America, I’m starting to get cynical about this multi-year build-up to the full-on Avengers movie, due in May 2012. Can even a superhero-stuffed movie directed by Joss Whedon live up to all this hype? There’s plenty of time to ponder, and maybe worry a little, with Captain America’s backstory-explaining picture now in theaters. Chris Evans stars as the 90-pound weakling who morphs into a supersoldier, thanks to the World War II-era tinkerings of a scientist (Stanley Tucci) and an inventor (Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man’s dad). The original plan for the musclebound shield-bearer (fighting Nazis, natch) gets waylaid a bit when the newly famous Captain America becomes a PR prop for the U.S. government; it’s abandoned entirely when a worse-than-Hitler foe, in the guise of power-obsessed Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), threatens the world. Directed by Spielberg cohort Joe Johnston, Captain America is gee-whiz enjoyable enough, but it’s very nearly the same movie as Thor, which no amount of Tommy Lee Jones (as a sarcastic army colonel) wisecracks can conceal. And here’s an anti-spoiler: there’s no post-credits surprise in this one, so you can bolt as soon as they start to roll. (2:09) (Eddy)

Colombiana (1:47)

Conan the Barbarian Neither 3D (unnecessary) nor Game of Thrones‘ Jason Momoa (beefcake-y) are enough to make this Conan the Barbarian competition for the 1982 Schwarzenegger classic. This new take is a barely adequate adventure movie helped along by Rose McGowan’s leering turn as an evil witch with Freddy Krueger claws. Would that everyone involved (including frequent remake director Marcus Nispel) had McGowan’s razor-sharp grasp of tone; as a whole, the film is never quite sure if it’s a camp-tastic voyage (the prologue, containing Conan’s birth and much Ron Perlman nostril-flaring, suggests what might have been) or a semi-straightforward fantasy actioner. A totally forgettable female lead (Rachel Nichols), a he-was-scarier-in-Avatar villain (Stephen Lang), a blah mixture of two tired plots (revenge + “chosen one”) — there’s just not a lot here, aside from a few hilarious lines of dialogue and Momoa’s muscles. He was so great in Game of Thrones, though, I suspect this dud won’t keep his career from skyrocketing. (1:42) (Eddy)

Cowboys and Aliens Here ’tis in a nutshell: the movie’s called Cowboys and Aliens — and that’s exactly, entirely what you’ll get. Director Jon Favreau may never best 2008’s Iron Man (actor Jon Favreau will prob never top 1996’s Swingers, but that’s a debate for another time), but that doesn’t mean he won’t have a good time trying. Cowboys is a genre mash-up in the most literal sense; as the title suggests, it pits Wild West gunslingers (Harrison Ford as a crabby cattleman, Daniel Craig as an amnesiac outlaw) against gold-seeking space invaders who also delight in kidnapping and torturing humans. As stupidly entertaining as it is, this is a textbook example of a pretty OK movie that could have been so much better … if only. If only the alien characters had a little bit more District 9-style personality. If only the story had a shred of suspense — look ye not here for “spooky” and “mysterious;” this shit is 100 percent full-on explosions. If only Craig’s comically fine-tooled physique didn’t outshine his wooden acting. And so forth. (1:58) (Eddy)

Crazy, Stupid, Love Keep the poster’s allusion to 1967’s The Graduate to one side: there aren’t many revelations about midlife crises in this cleverly penned yet strangely flat ensemble rom-com, awkwardly pitched at almost every demographic at the cineplex. There’s the middle-aged romance that’s withered at the vine: nice but boring family man Cal (Steve Carell) finds himself at a hopeless loss when wife and onetime teenage sweetheart Emily (Julianne Moore) tells him she wants a divorce and she’s slept with a coworker (Kevin Bacon). He ends up waxing pathetic at a slick nightclub where he catches the eye of the well-dressed, spray-tanned smoothie Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who appears to have taken his ladies man stance from the Clooney playbook. It’s manly makeover time: GQ meets Pretty Woman (1990)! Cut to Cal and Emily’s babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who is crushing out on Cal, while the separated couple’s tween Robbie (Jonah Bobo) hankers for Jessica. Somehow Josh Groban worms his way into the mix as the dullard suitor of Hannah (Emma Stone) in a hanging chad of a storyline that must somehow be resolved in this mad, mad, mad, mad — actually, the problem with Crazy, Stupid, Love is that it isn’t really that crazy. It tries far too hard to please everybody in the theater to its detriment, reminding the viewer of a tidy, episodic TV series (albeit a quality effort) like Modern Family more than an actual film. Likewise I yearned for a way to fast-forward through the too-cute Jessica-Robbie scenes in order to get back to the sleazy-smart, punchy complexity of Gosling, playing adeptly off both Carrell and Stone. (1:58) (Chun)

The Debt On paper, The Debt has a lot going for it: captivating history-based plot, “it” actor Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren vs. Nazis. And while the latest from John Madden (1998’s Shakespeare in Love) is fairly entertaining, the film is ultimately forgettable. Chastain plays Rachel, a member of an Israeli team tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal and bringing him to justice. Mirren is the older Rachel, who is haunted by the long-withheld true story of the mission. Although The Debt traffics in spy secrets, it’s actually rather predictable: the big reveal is shrug-worthy, and the shocking conclusion is expected. So while the entire cast — which also includes Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, and Ciaran Hinds — turn in admirable performances, the script is lacking what it needs to make The Debt an effective drama or thriller. Like 2008’s overrated The Reader, the film tries to hide its inadequacies under heavy themes and the dread with which we remember the Holocaust. (1:54) (Peitzman)

The Devil’s Double Say hello to my little friend, again— and rest assured, it’s not a dream and you’re seeing double. New Zealand filmmaker Lee Tamahori gets back to his potboiler roots with this campy, claustrophobic look back at the House of Saddam Hussein, based on a true story and designed to win over fans of Scarface (1983) with its portrait of mad excess and deca-dancey ’80s-ish soundtrack. The craziest poseur of all is Hussein’s son Uday (Dominic Cooper), a petty dictator-in-the-making — and, according to this film, a full-fledged murderous pedophile — who chomps cigars and wraps his jaws around schoolgirls while Cooper happily chews scenery. Uday needs a double to sidestep all those troublesome assassination attempts, so he enlists look-alike childhood friend Latif (also Cooper) to get the surgery, pop in the overbite, bray like a madman, make appearances in his stead, and function as a kind of pet human. Never mind Ludivine Sagnier, glassy-eyed and absurd in the role of Uday’s favorite sex kitten Sarrab — Double is completely Cooper’s, who seizes the moment, investing the morally upstanding Latif with a serious sincerity with just his eyes and body language and infusing evil odd job Uday with a dangerous, comic-book unpredictability. To his credit, Cooper imbues such cult-ready, blow-the-doors-off lines as “I love cunt! I love cunt more than god!” with, erm, believability, even as the denouement rings somewhat false. (1:48) (Chun)

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark If you’re expecting a traditional haunted house story, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark might be a disappointment. The film, which was co-written by Guillermo del Toro, has a lot in common with his Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) — both movies are more dark fairy tale than horror. They follow a young girl who discovers a mystical world around her, much to the disbelief of the adults around her. It’s worth noting that Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is lighter fare: despite all the peril involved, it’s actually pretty fun. Young Bailee Madison, who made such an impression in 2009’s Brothers, is a charming lead, precocious but believable. And Katie Holmes is surprisingly sympathetic in her role as the caring stepmother, a nice switch from the standard fairy tale trope. As with Fright Night, the ad campaign for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is misleading, so here’s hoping audience members looking for a gory slasher will appreciate a whimsical fable instead. (1:40) (Peitzman)

Fright Night Don’t let the spooky trailer fool you: the Fright Night remake is almost as silly as the original. In fact, it follows the 1985 film closely, as young Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) comes to realize that his neighbor Jerry (Colin Farrell) is a vampire. The biggest change is a smart one — this Fright Night transforms late-night TV host Peter Vincent into Criss Angel-type illusionist Peter Vincent (David Tennant). The casting is spot on all-around, and frankly, Farrell is a lot more believable than Chris Sarandon as the seductive bad boy. The only real problem with the new Fright Night — other than the unnecessary 3D — is that it never fully commits to camp the way the original did. There’s a bit too much back-and-forth between serious scares and goofy blood splatters. Luckily, it’s still an entertaining remake that doesn’t crap all over a classic. It’s also a great reminder that vampires don’t have to be moody — remember, they used to be fun. (2:00) (Peitzman)

*The Future Dreams and drawings, cats and fantasies, ambition and aimlessness, and the mild-mannered yet mortifying games people play, all wind their way into Miranda July’s The Future. The future’s a scary place, as many of us fully realize, even if you hide from it well into your 30s, losing yourself in the everyday. But you can’t duck July’s collection of moments, objects, and small gestures transformed into something strangely slanted and enchanted, both weird and terrifying, when viewed through July’s looking glass. Care and commitment — to oneself and others — are two vivid threads running through The Future. Cute couple Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) — unsettling look-alikes with their curly crops — appear at first to be sailing contently, aimlessly toward an undemanding unknown: Jason works from home as a customer-service operator, and Sophie attempts to herd kiddies as a children’s dance instructor. But enormous, frightening demands beckon — namely the oncoming adoption of a special-needs feline named Paw-Paw (voiced by July as if it’s a traumatized, innocent child). Lickety-splitsville, they must be all they can be before Paw-Paw’s arrival. The weirdness of the familiar, and the kindness of strangers, become ways into fantasy and escape when the couple bumps up against the limits of their imagination. This ultra-low-key horror movie of the banal is obviously remote territory for July (2005’s Me and You and Everyone We Know). The Future is her best film to date and finds her tumbling into a kind of magical realism or plastic fantastic, embodied by a talking cat that becomes the conscience of the movie. (1:31) (Chun)

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (1:35)

The Guard Irish police sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is used to running his small town on his own terms — not in a completely Bad Lieutenant (1992) kind of way, though he’s not afraid to sample drugs and hang with hookers. More like, he’s been running the show for years, and would prefer that big-city cops stay the hell out of his village. Alas, a gang of drug smugglers is doing business in the area, so an officious group of investigators from Dublin (horrors!) and America (in the form of an FBI agent played by Don Cheadle) soon descend. His mother’s dying, his brand-new partner’s missing, and between all the interlopers on both sides of the law, Boyle’s having a hard time having a pint in peace. Good thing he’s not as simple-minded as all who surround him think he is. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin, who directed 2008’s In Bruges — also starring Gleeson) puts an affable Irish spin on what’s essentially a pretty typical indie comedy, with some pretty typical crime-drama elements layered atop. Boyle’s character is memorably clever, but the film that contains him never quite elevates to his level. (1:36) (Eddy)

Gun Hill Road Though the visibility of gays and lesbians in cinema remains (largely) confined to independent film, Rashaad Ernesto Green, in his debut feature Gun Hill Road, uses the creative freedom afforded by that closeting to explore issues of race and confused sexuality amid the Latino population of the Bronx. Esai Morales is Enrique, a former drug dealer returning from prison to his wife Angela (Judy Reyes) and teenage son Michael (Harmony Santana). But everyone seems to have moved on with their lives. Angela is having an affair, and Michael has created a new persona, Vanessa. Green’s film focuses on the relationship between the damaged Enrique and Michael, whose cross-dressing and budding transsexuality puts the family members at odds. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and an entry in this year’s Frameline Film Festival, Gun Hill Road is one in a recent spate of films that deals with coming out in an urban setting. Like Green’s film, Peter Bratt’s La Mission (2009) offered a picture of homophobia in the Latino community. But Gun Hill Road, despite its bulging dramatic heft, shirks the after-school-special formula of La Mission by imagining complex characters rather than hewing them from instantly recognizable, sympathetic archetypes. (1:28) (Ryan Lattanzio)

*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Chances are you aren’t going to jump into the Harry Potter series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. So while the movie is probably the best Harry Potter film yet, it’s more a fitting conclusion than a standalone film. For fans of the books, there are no real surprises — this is a close adaptation. And for those Harry Potter movie fans who haven’t read the books, shame on you, and kudos if you managed to not get spoiled. It’s hard for me to offer a serious critical analysis of Part 2, because it represents the end of a long and very emotional journey. (Everyone in that audience was crying. Everyone.) I will say that, as was the case in the book, there are a few overdone, schmaltzy moments that aren’t really necessary. But in the context of the series, they’re forgivable — this may not be the great cinematic event of our generation, but Harry Potter as a whole is sure to be one of our most enduring cultural icons. (2:10) (Peitzman)

*The Hedgehog You needn’t possess the rough, everyday refinement of the characters of The Hedgehog to appreciate this debut feature by director-screenwriter Mona Achache — just an appreciation for a delicate touch and a tender heart. Eleven-year-old Paloma (the wonderful Garance Le Guillermic) is too smart for her own good, bored, neglected by her parents, and left to fend for herself with only her considerable imagination and a camcorder. She drifts around her fishbowl of privilege, a deluxe art nouveau-style apartment building in Paris, leveling her all-too-wise gaze on its denizens and plotting certain suicide on her 12th birthday — that is until a new resident appears in her viewfinder: a kindly Japanese gentleman Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa). He has as much of a connoisseur’s eye as Paloma — the proof is in his unlikely focus of attention, the building’s concierge Renée Michel (Josiane Balasko, resembling a burly Gertrude Stein), who hides her cultured and bookish inclinations behind a gruff, drab exterior. They recognize in each other a reverence for an almost monkish life of the mind, the austere elegance of wabi-sabi, and the transient beauty of rough-hewn imperfection, even in the sleek, well-heeled heart of the City of Light. To the credit of Achache, working with Muriel Barbery’s novel, these unlikely fragile friendships between outsiders take hold in a way that sidesteps preciousness and stays with you long after its pages have turned. (1:40) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Help It’s tough to stitch ‘n’ bitch ‘n’ moan in the face of such heart-felt female bonding, even after you brush away the tears away and wonder why the so-called help’s stories needed to be cobbled with those of the creamy-skinned daughters of privilege that employed them. The Help purports to be the tale of the 1960s African American maids hired by a bourgie segment of Southern womanhood — resourceful hard-workers like Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) raise their employers’ daughters, filling them with pride and strength if they do their job well, while missing out on their own kids’ childhood. Then those daughters turn around and hurt their caretakers, often treating them little better than the slaves their families once owned. Hinging on a self-hatred that devalues the nurturing, housekeeping skills that were considered women’s birthright, this unending ugly, heartbreaking story of the everyday injustices spells separate-and-unequal bathrooms for the family and their help when it comes to certain sniping queen bees like Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard). But the times they are a-changing, and the help get an assist from ugly duckling of a writer Skeeter (Emma Stone, playing against type, sort of, with fizzy hair), who risks social ostracism to get the housekeepers’ experiences down on paper, amid the Junior League gossip girls and the seismic shifts coming in the civil rights-era South. Based on the best-seller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help hitches the fortunes of two forces together — the African American women who are trying to survive and find respect, and the white women who have to define themselves as more than dependent breeders — under the banner of a feel-good weepie, though not without its guilty shadings, from the way the pale-faced ladies already have a jump, in so many ways, on their African American sisters to the Keane-eyed meekness of Davis’ Aibileen to The Help‘s most memorable performances, which are also tellingly throwback (Howard’s stinging hornet of a Southern belle and Jessica Chastain’s white-trash bimbo-with-a-heart-of-gold). (2:17) (Chun)

*Higher Ground Higher Ground does not bite off more than it can chew. I guess that should go without saying, but it’s striking how comfortably Vera Farmiga (in her directorial debut) tackles this story of devotion and doubt. Based on the memoirs of Carolyn S. Briggs, who co-wrote the screenplay, this deeply personal film follows Corrine Walker (Vera Farmiga) from her adolescence through the trials of youth and middle age, her marriage to high school sweetheart Ethan (Joshua Leonard), and their lives as members of a small hippie Christian community. Although religion serves as a backdrop for Higher Ground, it doesn’t suffocate the human element of the story; it’s less a film about Christianity than it is about the challenges one woman faces as she tries to find room for herself amidst faith. Farmiga treats her subjects with empathy and humor and crafts a thoughtful, tender slice of sixties Midwest Americana. (1:49) (Cooper Berkmoyer)

*The Interrupters With concern from society and government as a whole at low ebb, communities at greater risk of violence from within than ever have had to come up with their own peace-making solutions. The Interrupters, the latest documentary by Steve James (1994’s Hoop Dreams), shows dedicated efforts to help one of the nation’s worst centers of such bloodshed: Chicago. “Violence is like the great infectious diseases of all history,” says epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, in that it can be stopped from spreading to epidemic proportions by numerous “initial interruption(s) of transmission” at its source. He translated that perspective into the founding of CeaseFire, an organization that doesn’t aim to summarily end the existence of gangs and drug trade. Instead, its plain but hardly simple mission is to stop the shootings, stabbings, etc. which are exacerbated by unemployment, broken families, and other sources of stress whose cumulative effect can rapidly escalate a casual dis to a mortal confrontation. Under CeaseFire’s auspices, Tio Hardiman created the Violence Interrupters program, which drafts people from the community — many former gangbangers themselves — as mediators wading into conflicts to defuse them before things get out of hand. It takes considerable will and nerves of steel; “interrupters” have been shot at, and during the course of this documentary’s year-long span one volunteer lands in the hospital for his trouble. But The Interrupters makes a powerful case against the inevitability of hopelessness turning into violence. (2:05) (Harvey)

*Love Exposure Sion Sono’s Love Exposure opens with the claim that it’s “based on a true event,” which is no doubt its first joke. After the death of his saintly mother, youthful protagonist Yu (Takahiro Nishijima) adapts to the adoption of the priesthood by his father (Atsuro Watabe), though it’s harder to accept the eventual intrusion of an insanely needy new parishioner (a memorable Makiko Watanabe), a crackhead-acting real-life succubus who swiftly destroys dad’s faith and vocation. As a result Yu falls in with a bad crowd, becoming its Jesus in a weird pseudo spiritual observance of taking “peek-a-boo panty photos” while remaining otherwise chaste in anticipation of meeting his own personal Madonna — Holy Virgin and Ciccone personae inclusive. High school heartache, martial arts, Ravel’s Boléro, female impersonation, and the insidious manipulations of an agent (Sakura Ando) from the mysterious, Scientology-like Zero Church all factor prominently in a careening story whose takes on religion, sin, and redemption are nothing if not antic. Just what Sono is saying, however, tends to get lost in the blur. Exposure‘s sheer onslaught, not to mention its scale, have made bowled-over converts out of many viewers. Whether its crazy quilt requires 237 minutes, or 90, or 900 for that matter, is an open question — is the writer-director really going somewhere here, or just going and going and going? (3:57) Roxie. (Harvey)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) (Harvey)

Motherland When Raffi Tang (Francoise Yip) learns of her estranged mother’s death, the prodigal-daughter returns to her hometown, San Francisco, only to discover that nothing is as first supposed. Forced to contend with the protracted legal battle between her late mother and re-married father (Kenneth Tsang) as well as an incompetent (and poorly acted) police detective (Jason Payne), Tang drifts, looking distracted, lost, and maybe vaguely concerned throughout the first two thirds of the film. Yip does little to enliven a flat script rife with stock phrases and worn cinematic conventions, and while her emotional distance seems genuine, it’s boring nonetheless. Motherland is, to its credit, an angry movie — director Doris Yeung drew on her own experience with the murder of her mother — but the rage fizzles when it finally does erupt, smothered by uninspired acting and a directionless screenplay. (1:33) (Berkmoyer)

*My Perestroika Robin Hessman’s very engaging documentary takes one very relatable look at how changes since glasnost have affected some average Russians. The subjects here are five thirtysomethings who, growing up in Moscow in the 70s and 80s, were the last generation to experience full-on Communist Party indoctrination. But just as they reached adulthood, the whole system dissolved, confusing long-held beliefs and variably impacting their futures. Andrei has ridden the capitalist choo-choo to considerable enrichment as the proprietor of luxury Western menswear shops. But single mother Olga, unlucky in love, just scrapes by, while married schoolteachers Lyuba and Boris are lucky to have inherited an apartment (cramped as it is) they could otherwise ill afford. Meanwhile Ruslan, once member of a famous punk band (which he abandoned on principal because it was getting “too commercial”), both disdains and resents the new order just as he did the old one. Home movies and old footage of pageantry celebrating Soviet socialist glory make a whole ‘nother era come to life in this intimate, unexpectedly charming portrait of its long-term aftermath. (1:27) Balboa. (Harvey)

*The Names of Love Arthur (Jacques Gamblin) is a 40-ish scientist being interviewed about the threat of a bird flu epidemic when his radio broadcast is interrupted by 20-something Baya (Sara Forestier), who denounces him on-air as a “fascist” for frightening the public. But then, Baya tends to use that label rather indiscriminately, applying it to anyone who might conceivably have views to the right of the dial — and Arthur is in fact a solid liberal, which means she can bed him for love. As opposed to the many, many other men she beds as a self-described “political whore,” seeking out conservative types in order to seduce them and hopefully induce an idealogical shift by whispering sweet nothings (“Not all Arabs are thieves,” etc.) as they orgasm. Raised by parents whose emotions are so tightly wound his mother won’t acknowledge her parents were Jews killed at Auschwitz, Arthur has a hard time adjusting to a relationship with a lover who is faithful emotionally but sees promiscuity as her propagandic gift to the world. Meanwhile Baya’s largely Algerian family treats garrulous political argument as the very air they breathe. This odd-couple story written by Baya Kasmi and director Michel Leclerc deals with serious issues in both humorous and respectful fashion, making for one of the more novel, delightful and depthed French romantic comedies in a long time. Added plus: lots of antic gratuitous nudity. (1:42) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*One Day Why do romantic comedies get such a bad rap? Blame it on the lame set-up, the contrived hurdles artificially buttressed by the obligatory chorus of BFFs, the superficial something-for-every-demographic-with-ADD multinarrative, and the implausible resolutions topped by something as simple as a kiss or as conventional as marriage, but often no deeper, more crafted, or heartfelt than an application of lip gloss. Yet the lite-as-froyo pleasures of the genre don’t daunt Danish director Lone Scherfig, best known for her deft touch with a woman’s story that cuts closer to the bone, with 2009’s An Education. Her new film, One Day, based on the best-selling novel by David Nicholls, flirts with the rom-com form — from the kitsch associations with Same Time, Next Year (1978) to the trailer that hangs its love story on a crush — but musters emotional heft through its accumulation of period details, a latticework of flashbacks, and collection of encounters between its charming protagonists: upper-crusty TV presenter Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and working-class aspiring writer Emma (Anne Hathaway). Their quickie university friendship slowly unfolds, as they meet every St. Swithin’s Day, July 15, over a span of years, into the most important relationship of their lives. Despite the blue-collar female lead and UK backdrop that it shares with An Education, One Day feels like a departure for Scherfig, who first found international attention for her award-winning Dogme 95-affiliated Italian for Beginners (2000). (1:48) (Chun)

*Our Idiot Brother If you thought 1998’s The Big Lebowski had eked all the humor that it could from the Dude, well, screenwriter (and Vanity Fair contributor) Evgenia Peretz, her not-so-idiotic brother (director Jesse Peretz), and star Paul Rudd would differ. They correctly guessed that there are still laughs to be wrung from a shaggy stoner in floral jams, only this time with less fuuuck-s and more benevolent, idiot-savant good vibrations. Dazed and confused broheim 2.0 (Rudd) is glimpsed through the jaded, harried prism of his three dysfunctional, supposedly normal sisters: frumpadelic mom Liz (Emily Mortimer), queen-bitch Vanity Fair writer Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), and slatternly would-be comedian Natalie (Zooey Deschanel). A good-hearted naïf who’s easily entrapped by a uniformed police officer claiming to need some pity doobage, Ned has just emerged from the joint and is now couch-surfing among his sibs, exposing the hypocrisies of bourgie-hipster Brooklyn, as well as the infidelities and vanities of family, friends, and partners (Steve Coogan, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, and Hugh Dancy) as he goes, in his own good-natured, aw-shucks way. As innocuous (and desexualized) as Andy Griffith beneath the hippie trappings, this dude-with-a-little-d knows where his real family is — with his dog, Willie Nelson, who loves him just as unconditionally. Beastie besties have never seemed so innocent as they are in this proudly feel-good comedy, and despite a cringe-y, saccharine soundtrack and lackadaisical pacing, Rudd’s charismatic sunny slacker and some pointed jabs at the follies of the cooler-than-thou save this indie-that-could. (1:36) (Chun)

*Point Blank Not for nothing did Hollywood remake French filmmaker Fred Cavaye’s last film, Anything for Her (2008) as The Next Three Days (2010) — Cavaye’s latest, tauter-than-taut thriller almost screams out for a similar rework, with its Bourne-like handheld camera work, high-impact immediacy, and noirish narrative economy. Point Blank — not to be confused with the 1967 Lee Marvin vehicle —kicks off with a literal slam: a mystery man (Roschdy Zem) crashing into a metal barrier, on the run from two menacing figures until he is cornered and then taken out of the action by fate. His mind mainly on the welfare of his very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anaya), nursing assistant Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) has the bad luck to stumble on a faux doctor attempting to make sure that the injured man never rises from his hospital bed. As police wrangle over whose case this exactly is — the murder of an industrialist seems to have expanded the powers of the stony-faced, monolithic Commandant Werner (Gerard Lanvin) — Samuel gets sucked into the mystery man’s lot, a conspiracy that allows them to trust no one, and seemingly impossibly odds against getting out of the mess alive. Cavaye never quite stops applying the pressure in this clever, unrelenting cat-and-mouse and mouse-and-his-spouse game, topping it with a nerve-jangling search through a messily chaotic police station. (1:24) (Chun)

*Rise of the Planet of the Apes “You gotta love a movie where the animals beat up on the humans,” declared my Rise of the Planet of the Apes companion. Indeed, ape must not kill ape, and this Planet of the Apes prequel-cum-remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) takes the long view, back to the days when ape-human relations were still high-minded enough to forbid smart apes from killing those well-armed, not-so-bright humanoids. I was a fan of the original series, but honestly, I approached Rise with trepidation: I dreaded the inevitable scenes of human cruelty meted out to exploited primates — the current wave of chimp-driven films seems focused on holding a scary, shaming mirror up to the two-legged mammalian violence toward their closest living genetic relatives. It’s a contrast to the original series, which provided prisms with which to peer at race relations and generational conflict. But I needn’t have feared this PG-13 “reboot.” There’s little CGI-driven gore, apart from the visceral opening and the showdown, though the heartbreak remains. Scientist Will (James Franco, brow perpetually furrowed with worry) is working to find a medicine designed to supercharge the brain in the wake of Alzheimer’s — a disease that has struck down his father (John Lithgow). When the experimental chimp that responds to his serum becomes violently aggressive, the project is shut down, although the primate leaves behind a surprise: a baby chimp that Will and his father name Caesar and raise like a beloved child in their idyllic Bay Area Victorian. Growing in intelligence as he matures, Caesar finds himself torn by an existential dilemma: is he a pet or a mammal with rights that must be respected? Rise becomes Caesar’s story, rendered in heart-wrenching, exhilarating ways — to director Rupert Wyatt and his team’s credit you don’t miss the performance finesse of Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter in groundbreaking prosthetic ape face in the original movies — while resolving at least one question about why humans gave up the globe to the primates. One can only imagine the next edition will take care of the lingering question about how even the cleverest of apes will feed themselves in Muir Woods. (1:50) (Chun)

Sarah’s Key (1:42)

*Senna When Ayrton Senna died in 1994 at the age of 34, he had already secured his legacy as one of the greatest and most beloved Formula One racers of all time. The three-time world champion was a hero in his native Brazil and a respected and feared opponent on the track. This eponymous documentary by director Asif Kapadia is nearly as dynamic as the man himself, with more than enough revving engines and last minute passes to satisfy your lust for speed and a decent helping Ayrton’s famous personality as well. Senna was a champion, driven to win even as the sometimes-backhanded politics of the racing world stood in his way. A tragic figure, maybe, but a legend nonetheless. You don’t have to be an F1 fan to appreciate this film, but you may wind up one by the time the credits roll. (1:44) Smith Rafael. (Berkmoyer)

Seven Days in Utopia (1:38)

Shark Night 3D (1:31)

Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness This documentary cuts to the chase right at the beginning: yeah, Sholem Aleichem was the guy who wrote the Tevye stories that inspired Fiddler on the Roof. But filmmaker Joseph Dorman isn’t trying to make Fiddler: Behind the Musical. Instead, he takes an in-depth look at the life, writing career, and cultural significance of “one of the great modern Jewish writers — and our greatest Yiddish writer,” per the film’s press notes. Fans of Jewish lit will be particularly engaged by Sholem Aleichem’s tale; raised in a shtetl in what’s now the Ukraine, he moved around Europe and to the United States pursuing various careers, but always writing the popular stories that addressed not just Jewish life, but broader issues facing turn-of-the-last-century Jews, including the cross-generational conflicts that make up much of Fiddler‘s plot and humor. That said, this film does rely an awful lot on PBS-style slow pans over black-and-white photos and intellectual talking heads; one suspects the subject himself (so devoted was he to entertaining the regular folk who gobbled up his tales) would’ve preferred his life story to unfold in a livelier fashion. (1:33) (Eddy)

*Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure Once upon a time (1987 to be exact), two young men moved to San Francisco from the Midwest. Eddie Lee “Sausage” and Mitchell “Mitch D” Deprey wound up living in a somewhat derelict apartment in the Lower Haight. The paint was peeling and the walls were thin, but the rent was cheap. What Eddie and Mitch didn’t count on was having Peter J. Haskett and Raymond Huffman as their neighbors. “You blind cocksucker. You wanna fuck with me? You try to touch me and I will kill you in a fucking minute.” “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up little man!” The insults, tantrum throwing, and threats of violence coming from next door were constant. Eddie and Mitch started to lose sleep; after one failed attempt at complaining to Raymond’s face (he threatened death), they started tape-recording the endless geyser of vitriol — first, as possible future evidence, but also out of a growing voyeuristic fascination with these two seniors who had to be the world’s oddest and angriest odd couple. The rest is history. Mitch and Eddie started including snippets of Peter and Ray’s bickering on mix tapes for friends. Somehow, the editor of the now-defunct SF noise music zine Bananafish heard a snippet and approached Mitch and Eddie about distributing compilations of the recordings to a large network of found sound fans. Gradually “Peter and Raymond” became known and much-beloved characters. Their warped repartee inspired several theatrical adaptations, short animated films, pages of comic book panels by artists such as Dan Clowes, and even a one-off single from Devo side project the Wipeouters. Matthew Bate’s documentary Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure is much an attempt to comprehensively recount the above long, strange trip from start to finish; it is also the newest chapter in the now 20-year saga of Peter, Raymond, Mitch, and Eddie. (1:30) Roxie. (Sussman)

30 Minutes or Less In some ways, 30 Minutes or Less is reminiscent of 2008’s Pineapple Express: both are stoner action comedies about normal people shoved into high-stakes criminal activity. But while Pineapple Express was an exciting addition to the genre, 30 Minutes or Less is a flimsy 80-minute diversion that still feels like a waste of time. Jesse Eisenberg plays Nick, a pizza delivery boy who is forced to rob a bank after two would-be criminals strap a bomb to his chest. Strangely, Eisenberg was more charming as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (2010) — and his buddy Chet (Aziz Ansari) doesn’t exactly up the likability factor. There’s actually the potential for an interesting story here: something darker seems appropriate, given that 30 Minutes or Less was inspired by a true story with a very unhappy ending. But the film completely fumbles, delivering an action comedy that’s neither tense nor funny. That means the pizza’s free, right? (1:29) (Peitzman)

The Tree of Life Mainstream American films are so rarely adventuresome that overreactive gratitude frequently greets those rare, self-conscious, usually Oscar-baiting stabs at profundity. Terrence Malick has made those gestures so sparingly over four decades that his scarcity is widely taken for genius. Now there’s The Tree of Life, at once astonishingly ambitious — insofar as general addressing the origin/meaning of life goes — and a small domestic narrative artificially inflated to a maximally pretentious pressure-point. The thesis here is a conflict between “nature” (the way of striving, dissatisfied, angry humanity) and “grace” (the way of love, femininity, and God). After a while Tree settles into a fairly conventional narrative groove, dissecting — albeit in meandering fashion — the travails of a middle-class Texas household whose patriarch (a solid Brad Pitt) is sternly demanding of his three young sons. As a modern-day survivor of that household, Malick’s career-reviving ally Sean Penn has little to do but look angst-ridden while wandering about various alien landscapes. Set in Waco but also shot in Rome, at Versailles, and in Saturn’s orbit (trust me), The Tree of Life is so astonishingly self-important while so undernourished on some basic levels that it would be easy to dismiss as lofty bullshit. Its Cannes premiere audience booed and cheered — both factions right, to an extent. (2:18) (Harvey)

*The Trip Eclectic British director Michael Winterbottom rebounds from sexually humiliating Jessica Alba in last year’s flop The Killer Inside Me to humiliating Steve Coogan in all number of ways (this time to positive effect) in this largely improvised comic romp through England’s Lake District. Well, romp might be the wrong descriptive — dubbed a “foodie Sideways” but more plaintive and less formulaic than that sun-dappled California affair, this TV-to-film adaptation displays a characteristic English glumness to surprisingly keen emotional effect. Playing himself, Coogan displays all the carefree joie de vivre of a colonoscopy patient with hemorrhoids as he sloshes through the gray northern landscape trying to get cell reception when not dining on haute cuisine or being wracked with self-doubt over his stalled movie career and love life. Throw in a happily married, happy-go-lucky frenemy (comic actor Rob Brydon) and Coogan (TV’s I’m Alan Partridge), can’t help but seem like a pathetic middle-aged prick in a puffy coat. Somehow, though, his confused narcissism is a perverse panacea. Come for the dueling Michael Caine impressions and snot martinis, stay for the scallops and Brydon’s “small man in a box” routine. (1:52) (Devereaux)

The Whistleblower (1:58) Smith Rafael.

*!Women Art Revolution Bay Area artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson’s vibrant look back at the first waves of feminist art in the ’60s and ’70s is an extremely necessary and impassioned recounting of a history that perpetually seems to be on the edge of erasure. Mixing old and new interviews with artists, critics, and scholars — many of which are from Hershman Leeson’s own personal archive — !W.A.R. lets those who stood at the frontlines of one the most significant movements in contemporary art tell their own stories. Seeing and hearing the testimonies of the likes of Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman, B. Ruby Rich, Judy Chicago, Carolee Scheeman, Rachel Rosenthal, and Ingrid Sischy, one after another, is dazzling — like being in the presence of an Olympian summit — even as their overlapping tales of pushback, casual misogyny and outright ridicule from critics, the art establishment, and in some cases, their colleagues, paint a damning picture of just how endemic sexism was, and as the need for a film such as !WAR attests to, in many ways still is. (1:23) (Sussman)

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. Due to the Labor Day holiday, theater information was incomplete at presstime.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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THEATER

OPENING

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Phoenix Theatere, 414 Mason, Sixth flr, SF; (415) 509-8656. $10-20. Previews Wed/7, 8pm. Opens Fri/8, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/10, 2pm; Sept 17, 3pm). Through Sept 17. Ninjaz of Drama and Divinity Productions Presents Rey Carolino’s contemporary staging of the Bard’s classic.

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Previews Thurs/8-Fri/9, 8pm; Sat/10, 8:30pm; Sun/11, 3pm. Opens Thurs/15, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 23. Marga Gomez performs her comedy about “lies, vanity, and the good old days.”

Patience Worth Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; (415) 456-8892, www.symmetrytheatre.com. $20-30. Opens Sat/10, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 2. Symmetry Theatre Company performs Michelle Carter’s world premiere about a spirit who appears via Ouija board in 1913. Erika Chong Shuch directs.

“San Francisco Fringe Festival” Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; (415) 673-3847, www.sffringe.org. $7-10 (passes, $40-75). Sept 7-18. The 20th annual fest contains over 40 shows highlighting unique indie theater.

Show Ho New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $20-32. Previews Thurs/8, 8pm. Opens Fri/9, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Oct 9, 2pm. Through Oct 9. Sara Moore performs her multi-character story about a clown in a low-rent circus.

“3 Guys in Drag Selling Their Stuff” Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Opens Fri/9, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 17. Edward Crosby Wells’ bawdy comedy is about a trio of friends who host an unusual yard sale.

Turandot War Memorial Opera House, 201 Van Ness, SF; (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. $21-389. Opens Fri/9, 8pm. Runs Sept 14, 22, and Oct 4, 7:30pm; Sept 17 and Oct 1, 8pm; Sept 25, 2pm. The San Francisco Opera performs Puccini’s classic in conjunction with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Unveiled Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; (415) 647-2822, www.brava.org. $10-25. Previews Wed/7-Thurs/8, 7pm. Opens Fri/9, 7pm. Runs Sat/10, 3pm; Sun/11-Mon/12 and Sept 15-17, 3pm (also Sun/11, 3pm). Brava Theater presents Rohina Malik’s solo show about five Muslim women in the post-9/11 world.

ONGOING

“AfroSolo Arts Festival” Various venues, SF; www.afrosolo.org. Free-$100. Through Oct 20. The AfroSolo Theatre Company presents its 18th annual festival celebrating African American artists, musicians, and performers.

All Atheists Are Muslim Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 517-3581, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 1. Zahra Noorbakhsh performs her solo comedy.

American Buffalo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through Sept 17. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs the David Mamet crime classic.

Cymbeline Parade Ground Lawn, Main Post, Presidio (between Graham and Keyes), SF; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2:30pm. Through Sept 25. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival presents its annual “Free Shakespeare in the Park” performance.

Exit, Pursued By a Bear Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 17. Crowded Fire performs Lauren Gunderson’s new play, a feminist revenge comedy.

Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055. $25-100. Thurs, 8pm; Sat-Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 18. Geoff Hoyle returns to the Marsh with his acclaimed solo show.

King Henry the Sixth Boxcar Studios, 125a Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $12-15. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 17. Do It Live Productions debuts with a contemporary Shakespeare adaptation.

Tigers Be Still SF Playhouse, 522 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-50. Wed/7, 7pm; Thurs/8-Sat/10, 8pm (also Sat/10, 3pm). SF Playhouse performs Kim Rosenstock’s quirky comedy.

True West NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.truewestsf.com. $10-28. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 17. Expression Productions presents Sam Shepard’s tale of two brothers.

Waiting for Giovanni Decker Theater, New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-36. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 18. This world-premiere play by Jewelle Gomez in collaboration with Harry Waters Jr. imagines a split-second of indecision in the mind of author James Baldwin.

BAY AREA

The Complete History of America (abridged) Dominican University of California, Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 1475 Grand, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Performance times vary; check website for schedule. Through Sept. 25. Marin Shakespeare Company performs Adam Lon, Reed Martin, and Austin Tichenor’s three-person romp through American history.

A Delicate Balance Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-48. Previews Wed/7, 8pm. Opens Thurs/8, 8pm. Runs Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 9. Aurora Theatre performs Edward Albee’s comedy of manners.

The Merry Wives of Windsor Old Mill Park, 375 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.curtaintheatre.org. Free. Sat-Sun and Sept 5, 2pm. Through Sept 18. Curtain Theatre performs Shakespeare’s Falstaff-centric comedy.

Not a Genuine Black Man Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 5pm (also Sept 8 and 22, 7:30pm). Through Sept 24. This is it: the final extension of Brian Copeland’s solo show about growing up in (nearly) all-white San Leandro.

Of Dice and Men La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 1. Impact Theatre performs Cameron McNary’s comedy about a group of adult Dungeons and Dragons players.

Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Opens Wed/7, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sun, showtimes vary. Through Oct 30. Rita Moreno stars in a show created specifically for her by Berkeley Rep’s Tony Taccone and David Galligan.

The Road to Hades John Hinkel Park, Southampton Ave, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $10 (suggested donation; no one turned away for lack of funds). Sat/10-Sun/11, 3pm. Shotgun Players presents a new comedy written by and starring veteran comedian and clown Jeff Raz.

Sense and Sensibility Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 18. TheatreWorks performs Roger Parsley and Andy Graham’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel.

The Tempest Dominican University of California, Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 1475 Grand, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Performance times vary; check website for schedule. Through Sept. 25. Marin Shakespeare Company presents Shakespeare’s romance with a steampunk twist.

Toke Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Thurs/8-Sat/10, 8pm; Sun/11, 5pm. Swirl Media presents Deedee Kirkwood’s pot-fueled comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Comedy Returns to El Rio” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon, 8pm, $7-20. Stand-up performers include Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Josh Healey, Nathan Habib, Conrad Roth, and Lisa Geduldig.

FACT/SF and Lenora Lee Dance CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; (415) 626-2060, www.counterpulse.org. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. $15-20. The companies present Pretonically Oriented v.3 and Reflections.

“Hand to Mouth Comedy” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; handtomouthcomedy.tumblr.com. Thurs, 8pm. Pay what you can. This month, comedians Kurt Weitzmann, Cory Loykasek, and Bryan Yang take on conspiracy theories.

“Mortified SF” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.getmortified.com. Fri, 8pm, $17. The embarassing-tales smorgasbord rolls on in a back-to-school edition.

“Opera in the Park” Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.sfopera.com. Sun, 2pm. Free. SF Opera pays tribute to the victims of 9/11 with a free program of Mozart, Leonard Bernstein, and others.

“Porchlight Season 10 Kickoff: Shipwrecked! Stories from the Sea” Maritime Museum, foot of Polk (at Beach), SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thurs, 8pm, $15. The storytelling series beings its tenth year with a special seafaring edition.

“Process as Adventure” ODC Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thurs, 8pm. Free. Dance company Project Bandaloop presents this multi-media event and discussion.

“Second Sandwiches” Purple Onion, 140 Columbus, SF; www.willfranken.com. Sat, 8pm. $20. Comedian Will Franken performs his new solo show.

“True Stories Lounge” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.makeoutroom.com. 7:30pm, $10. Narrative journalism and other nonfiction readings from Joyce Maynard, the Guardian’s Steven T. Jones, and others.

“WestWave Dance: A Monday a Month” ODC Theater, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.westwavedancefestival.org. Mon, 8pm, $18-25. Thus month’s program, “Duets,” features Ethan and Nikki White, Pearl Marill Dance Theater, Dana Lawton, Jean Isaacs, and more.

 

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 7

Grant application seminar Independent Film Center, 145 Ninth St., SF. (415) 402-2794, www.creativeworkfund.org. 6-7:30pm, free. The Creative Work Fund is giving out up to $810,000 to local artists — and it’s hosting a series of workshops that will guide potential applicants through the process of submitting their proposal. The program is focusing on media (computer, audio, digital, and film) and performing artists this time around — if you fit the bill, you might want to look at letting this organization fit out your bills.

THURSDAY 8

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex reading Modern Times Bookstore, 2919 24th St., SF. 7-9pm, free. A ground-breaking new book examines the relationship of queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people and the prison industrial complex. Contributors to the book — a group that includes past and present prisoners, academics, and activists — will speak at this reading. The event could be a call to action on an under-reported conflict.

Back to school dog and kid party Wag Hotel, 25 14th St., SF. (415) 876-0700, www.waghotels.com. 5-7pm, $5 suggested donation. The SF SPCA is bringing adoptable woofs to this meet-and-greet (don’t bring Junior if you’re not trying to walk away with a new best friend?). Kids will also be able to participate in the shelter’s Puppy Dog Tales Reading Room program.

FRIDAY 9

Rally in the Alley 100-199 Ames, SF. www.alleyproject.ning.com. 5:30-8pm, free. Ames Alley (between 22nd and 23rd streets and Dolores and Guerrero) has recently been renovated — the new alleyway features solar lighting, vertical gardens… whoa, water-permeable pavement!? This calls for a celebration, and a celebration is what you’ve got coming to you. Today, join food vendors, an art exhibit, live music, and more to welcome the newly spruced-up walkway to the neighborhood.

SATURDAY 10

Babylon Salon Cantina, 580 Sutter, SF. www.babylonsalon.com. 7pm, free. ZYZZYVA’s longtime editor Howard Junker is a free agent now, so he’s got the time to focus on his own projects — share in their glory at this event, where Junker will be reading from his “proto-memoir-ish blog novel of ideas” tentatively titled An Old Junker. Other readers for the night include authors Nick Krieger, Laura Goode, and magician Robert Strong.

Haight Street Hop Milk, 1840 Haight, SF. www.milksf.com. 9pm, $5 before 10pm, $10 afterwards. Bingo, boobies, DJs, dancing: such is the multi-faceted entertainment that awaits you at this something-for-everyone ho-down. Burlesque bingo? Free hairdos from professional stylists? What is going on here really, this is just getting too crazy.

Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival Ghirardelli Square, SF. www.ghirardellisq.com. Noon-5pm, free. Sure, you’ve got shell out some dough to sample the goods at this fest in the heart of tourist town, but monkeys come free! Paul Frank — the company of that iconic Julian monkey face, and all your adolescent nieces favorite cartoon-cute T-shirts — is coming to town. Representatives from the brand will be holding a contest for “king and queen of puppy prom,” and while we hesitate to qualify what the hell that means, it seems safe to say you should bring your dog.

SUNDAY 11

Drum for Peace gathering Numi Tea Garden, 2230 Livingston, Oakl. (877) 686-4832, www.numiteagarden.com. 3-6pm, free. A fundraiser for Altitudinal Healing Connection’s ArtEsteem youth arts education program, this gathering is sure to be very “Kumbaya” — which given this day’s recent history, probably isn’t the worst thing ever. Love your neighbor and all that, people. 

 

Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

Grinning and bearing it

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Grinning and bearing it

THEATER A sweet, normally placid Southern working-class wifey named Nan Carter (Erin Gilley) — no relation to Jimmy, but oh how for some reason she wishes! — takes revenge on her abusive husband Kyle (Patrick Jones) with the help of two close friends, a roll of duct tape, a fresh deer carcass, and a working knowledge of the dramatic arts in Crowded Fire’s world premiere of playwright Lauren Gunderson’s light but witty comedy.

Taped to a ratty living room chair as the play opens, Kyle (a scruffy, gruff, gritty charmer in Jones’s skillful rendering) is getting his comeuppance in the form of a theatrical performance. Center stage is aggrieved wife Nan as herself, with admirable supporting work from new pal Sweetheart (Andrea Snow), a.k.a. Peaches, a stripper and amateur thesp who plays “Kyle” in a series of scenes meant to detail the real Kyle’s wicked ways, and make manifest Nan’s heretofore disregarded perspective. Out of the wings and through the front door also comes Simon Beaufort (Reggie D. White), Nan’s longtime best friend and champion as well as somewhat bitchy cheerleader (complete with pompoms).

Meanwhile, Kyle is prepped with hunks of venison and plastic bottles of honey for the bears that apparently still roam the mountains of North Georgia. His instinct, under the circumstances, is to pitch some overdue woo to his wavering wife, as fast as possible. Hence, more or less, the title of Gunderson’s play, which repeats a famously evocative stage direction in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. The play has less to do with Shakespeare per se, however, than the role of imagination and theater as a vehicle for personal and communal transcendence.

Not to put too fine a point on it. Exit is a spirited comedy, able and clever, with likeable performances under Desdemona Chiang’s sure direction. There’s a trickle of treacle running through it, but Gunderson has a fine way with comic dialogue and demonstrates restraint in the sentiment department, while pivoting respectfully around the subject of domestic violence. At the same time, the invention and exploration feel tame for all the wild life running around the text — which also includes more arbitrary flights, like Nan’s emphasis on the words and quote-unquote wisdom of former president Carter, which flavor her dialogue like a sweet but vague slathering of peanut sauce. Moreover, the plot never holds much in way of suspense, the moral coming way out front. In fact, this easy pleasures here bring to mind another new play running on a local stage just now (and not just for its animal-imagery magnetism), Kim Rosenstock’s adept but ultimately glancing dramedy Tigers Be Still at SF Playhouse.

 

EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR

Through Sept. 17

Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m., $10–$35

Boxcar Playhouse

505 Natoma, SF www.crowdedfire.org

Refusing to be hotboxed

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Refusing to be hotboxed

HERBWISE Karen Cue, CEO of this weekend’s International Cannabis and Hemp Expo is taking me to school. “It’s insulting to switch up those terms,” she tells me.

The terms I switched up? I just asked her why it was important to have legal-for-cannabis-consumption “215 areas” at her upcoming event, which will draw a projected 30,000 marijuana patients and cannabis-curious folk, turning a full mile’s worth of streets into an exhibition area in middle of downtown Oakland.

I’m standing by the validity of the question — but apparently I shouldn’t have phrased it “why is it important for people to be able to smoke weed?”

“That’s the terminology for recreational use,” Cue says. The expo is not, she says, about getting blazed and blunted. Medical marijuana users pay $20 million a year to the California state government in what are called taxable donations. That should buy them some civil rights — and many advocates see having places to legally consume cannabis as a big deal. “95 percent” of the people that her expo is marketed to, Cue says, are medical marijuana patients.

The event has been growing larger every year. This is the first year it will be held in downtown Oakland, having outgrown 2010 and 2009’s site, Candlestick Park. Cue calls the expo’s old digs “kind of old, kind of rustic — it’s got its good qualities about it, but we’re looking at advancement.” An Oakland local herself, she saw the possibility of holding the expo in a more accessible location — an outdoors area with a shady park, no less — a way to improve everyone’s enjoyment of the weekend.

And after years of dealing with Candlestick (a state-owned facility), holding the event in the heart of Oaksterdam was a breeze. City government had rejected two cannabis expo event applications in the past, but Cue says the reputation of her group coupled with positive media reviews it has earned made the city’s process relatively easy to work through.

“They did not ask anything of us out of the norm. But it definitely did raise the attention of the Oakland police” — a security concern that she hopes will be unfounded.

But this is no simple smoke-out (which I say in the most medicine-respecting way possible). Cue says the exhibition is also meant as an important learning opportunity about the parts of the marijuana plant you consume — and the parts you wear.

Hemp, as any good stoner should know, was once used by the US military to make uniforms, ropes, and parachutes. The government even released a short movie entitled Hemp For Victory during World War II promoting the material’s importance to the American war machine. Drafts of the Declaration of Independence was written on the stuff, for chrissakes. It’s more durable than cotton, hemp oil is a prime source of essential fatty acids — the list of reasons for its full legalization goes on.

For a crash course in hemp’s utilitarian glory, Cue recommends checking out David (“Doctor”) Bronner’s talk at the expo. Bronner is a member of Canada’s International Hemp Association, a hemp advocacy group that has no equivalent here in the United States. Learnin’ will also be on tap at the expo’s three stages of speakers, at vendor booths, and at Grow Op’s portable marijuana-growing trailer.

Have fun, learn stuff — and don’t call it weed. 

INTERNATIONAL CANNABIS AND HEMP EXPO

Sat/3-Sun/4 noon- 8 p.m., $18-300

Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakl.

www.intcheevents.com

WEST COAST CANNABIS AND MUSIC FESTIVAL

For even more cannabis celebration, check out next month’s tune-and-toke fest — three days of live music powered by Rock The Bike’s generator bicycles.

Oct. 7-9. Fri., 3-9 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.-7 p.m., $18 one day pass/$45 three day pass

Cow Palace

Daly City

www.westcoastcannabisexpo.com

 

Reprogramming the hardware

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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9
Reprogramming the hardware

MUSIC Technology can be so existentially mystifying. One minute you’re a kid in the back seat of your parents’ car with thumbs aimed and eyes glued to the screen of your modern handheld gaming console, the next you’re on stage with blinding lights and an audience, smashing into a modified old-school Gameboy on a snare drum. One second you’re doubled over in bed with the stomach flu, the next you’re in a box on Google+, simultaneously interviewing two band members from their respective Bay Area cities.

It’s enough to melt your mind, and we haven’t even begun to discuss those Gameboy modifications. Chiptune or 8-bit music is nothing new — nerded out musicians have been tinkering with the sounds on gaming consoles since the products hit the shelves in the 1980s — but now the music has the distinction of being both technologically advanced by some standards, and vintage, given its nostalgic sound.

Plus, in these financially-strapped times, it’s an economical way of creating music. “You don’t need anything fancy to make it,” says drummer-synth programmer Matt Payne. “The equipment is dirt cheap and it’s so accessible.”

Chiptune community outreach is big for him, Payne adds from his home in Oakland, holding up a mutant Gameboy with a blinking fuzzed out screen. He and musician-@GAMER magazine associate editor Lizzie Cuevas make up Bay Area-based 8-bit band the Glowing Stars. Cuevas, joining us in the Google+ video chatroom from her office in Daly City, agrees that once people see a live chiptune band, they’re usually inspired to try out the technology themselves. “We always have people who come up at shows and ask, ‘how do you do it?'”

The duo has demonstrated just how they do that at the Maker Faire and Pulse Wave SF — a friendly monthly gathering for chiptune bands. Up next, they play the free CONVERGENCE International Alternative Music and Arts Festival at the Japantown Peace Plaza.

Cuevas and Payne met in 2005, each playing in different punk bands. Payne joined Cuevas’ band (Sputterdoll), which broke up a few years ago. “We knew we wanted to do something video game related, we just didn’t know exactly what,” says Cuevas.

Payne had futzed with a program called LSDJ (LittleSound DJ) when it first came out, but hadn’t been serious about it initially, he says. “There’s a learning curve, it’s one of those easy to learn, difficult to master things.” With the new band starting up in 2010, he began gathering Gameboys and filling them with his own sounds. Given Cuevas’ affinity for early Weezer, the music they make is poppy, but it also has that nostalgic synthesized MIDI sound.

“There’s a misconception about it, that we’re using samples from video game somehow or that we’re doing something using actual songs from video games,” says Payne. “But what we’re actually doing is basically stripping down the console to a little sound making computer and getting it to play back our music.”

The process works like this: Cuevas writes the first skeleton of a song on guitar then sends it to Payne. He then programs it using LSDJ and loads it onto the Gameboy for that 8-bit transformation. They ping it back and forth, adding layers to the song. Payne also just started making music with a Sega Genesis — you can make chiptune on any console — so that might come into play soon.

Live, Cuevas sings and play distorted guitar, and sometimes taps a fresh Gameboy, like in the song “Bounce Bounce” where she solos over the final instrumental part. Payne plays drums and, occasionally, picks up the keytar. He also keeps his modded Gameboy on his snare, which has only once caused significant damage.

“I hit it with the drum stick — it made a loud, awful noise,” he says.

Cuevas smiles and replies, “I think you lost a chunk of your Gameboy.”

 

CONVERGENCE FESTIVAL

The Glowing Stars

With the Bran Flakes, Planet Booty, Teenage Sweater

Sun/4, 12-5 p.m., free

Japantown Peace Plaza Post Street Between Webster and Laguna, SF www.convergencefest.com

Analytics

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Analytics

caitlin@sfbg.com

MUSIC “I know I don’t speak English good, but I make music. So fuck it.”

Half the audience can’t understand a word of her songs, but it hardly seems to matter — Chilean emcee Ana Tijoux is killing it onstage at her recent show at Moe’s Alley in Santa Cruz. The tiny rapper stalks around confidently in an outfit you’d probably read about in M.I.A.’s style book; an oversized blue T-shirt, athletic high-tops, and psychedelic, geometric black-and-white tights that I promise you cannot be found in this country.

The band surges behind her as she launches into her breakout single “1977,” about the year she was born, living with politically exiled Chilean parents in Europe during Augusto Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship. “Todo lo que cambia lo hará diferente,” she chants in the song’s chorus — that was the year that everything changed.

Tijoux’s banter is in English (don’t believe the self-deprecation, she speaks it rather well), but her flow is español puro, tight verses that, when you’re unable to keep up with their meaning, impress anyway with their complex structures. When she slyly throws out that “fuck it,” the crowd kind of freaks out. They love her, they get her.

It doesn’t make sense, really. The power of hip-hop — the most verbal of all musical genres — is in the meaning of the lyrics. How many non-English-speaking emcees make it big in the United States? Even Dizzee Rascal had trouble over crossover appeal and his first language, at least, was English. How do we interpret an emcee like Tijoux appealing to music fans who can’t possibly be tracing the metaphors in her verses? I Skyped Tijoux last week to get her take on things.

“The music industry convinces you that you’ll never be popular [performing] in another language — and in rap, even more,” Tijoux says, sounds of children playing in the background of her phone call. “But it’s about music in the end. Hip-hop is international, it’s the language of flow.” She says she was nervous before her US debut at South By Southwest in 2010, she thought that maybe people wouldn’t have the patience for an emcee that spat in another language.

But experience has calmed her doubts. Tijoux has since played stages from New York to Outside Lands 2011 — not to mention gigs across the world. She says she finds common threads of hip-hop counterculture wherever she goes, but is still surprised by regional variances, like Cuba’s cumbia inflected music.

Tijoux returns to the Bay next Sunday, September 11, a show at the Regency Ballroom with Venezuelan disco rockers Los Amigos Invisibles and members of Tijuana electronica-norteño group Nortec Collective.

“Sometimes it’s frustrating not being able to communicate with some people. It’s not about trying to have more crowd or market, it has to do with the number of people you can share a message with. If that means rapping in Chinese, fuck I will do it.” Sounds good — so when are her verses in English dropping?

“When it’s natural I will do it.” She’s freestyled in English before she says, but it’s not a pretty picture. I guess her monolingual California fans are going to have to wait for the next tour to be able to sing along with Ana.

But in place of new English cuts she’s keen, it turns out, on lending her flair to another crew who could use some help these days, um, communicating. What’s up, United Nations?

“Yeah! Contract me right now,” she laughs. “I’ll do all the translations in rapping.”

ANA TIJOUX

With Los Amigos Invisibles and the Nortec Collective’s Bostich and Fussible

Sun/11 8 p.m., $20

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

Muslim and proud (and hilarious)

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Muslim and proud (and hilarious)

THEATER Onstage, a woman and her father battle over modern sensibilities versus religious tradition. The father leads with a left jab and the mantra “in the Koran, in the Koran, in the Koran,” which the daughter counters with a roundhouse punch and “third-wave feminism.” Both characters are being played by Zahra Noorbakhsh, a feisty, spirited, thoroughly modern woman — and a Muslim, an important part of her identity she’s not about to let anyone forget. But believing in God doesn’t mean your interpretation of “God’s law” is going to be the same as your parents’, and her notion that her long-distance, white, atheist boyfriend Duncan ought to move in with her, purely for reasons of economy of course, is not a prospect her devout Iranian parents can whole-heartedly embrace.

“It’s against the Koran, man,” her father states definitively. “What you want me to do?”

What he will do is the greatest draw of the show, provocatively entitled All Atheists Are Muslim, which made its New York International Fringe Festival debut to a sold-out house on August 12, weeks away from the tenth anniversary of 9/11 — a date most New Yorkers are all too aware of. Not that Iran has anything to do with that particular date (even George W. wouldn’t go that far), but the intricacies of Islam are nonetheless of enduring topical interest.

“Growing up Muslim-Iranian, I had to constantly, vehemently defend my faith, my culture, and my family everyday,” Noorbakhsh reminisces. Even today, people she is close with freely equate “Muslim” with “terrorist” in polite conversation — even people who have seen her show and know her personally.

Deciding to apply to the New York International Fringe Festival seemed like a logical way to bring her comedic message of tolerance and inter-cultural exchange to New York, especially after having accompanied her director W. Kamau Bell to the 2009 Fringe to run tech for his show The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in about an Hour. After several months of meeting deadlines for program blurbs, participant fees, and tech specs, Noorbakhsh and her “Authorized Company Representative” (also her atheist boyfriend) have been tirelessly navigating the Fringe from the clusters of black-box theaters that dot the brownstone landscape of the East Village.

Working the post-show crowds of her own and others’ shows, Noorbakhsh exudes big sisterly camaraderie and casual confidence rather than rehearsed marketing speak, and a good percentage of her audiences has been made up of fellow performers — a true sign of Fringe success. Of course the run hasn’t been without its surprises. One front-row audience member abruptly refused to be “converted” (“It says right on the postcard that the first three rows will be converted to Islam,” Noorbakhsh points out with amused exasperation). Along those lines, the emphasis placed on handing out postcards as marketing strategy was a surprise; “in San Francisco, it’s a faux pas,” she says of the practice in the local comedy club scene. Above all, her major sense of frustration has come from trying to attract fellow Persians to the show, a difficulty she has not experienced in California.

“In San Francisco I’m an active member of the Persian community,” she explains. “I’m vocal and participate in many organizations. [In New York], nobody knows me outside of this very bold, divisive, and controversial title.”

That many Iranian-Americans she knows identify as atheist rather than Muslim, distancing themselves as much as possible from Iran’s Islamic regime, is certainly part of the obstacle. It seems it’s not just misguided Caucasian theatre-goers who are guilty of confusing “Muslim” with “terrorist”

“This fear of the word Muslim has to stop,” Noorbakhsh opines. “We’ve got to point out how much people flinch at just the word and how horrifyingly racist and damaging that demonization is.”

At Noorbakhsh’s last show of her New York run, a record 20 people are turned away at the door (including, alas, the long-awaited Persians), and the packed house roars appreciatively at her lovingly-skewered portrayal of her foul-mouthed father (“What the shit hell is this, man?”) and her winsome mother, who offers to buy her a Persian rug if she’ll just get married already. Leading the audience through the terms of the compromise they all agree to in order to preserve the peace, Noorbakhsh makes it possible for the audience to fall in love with her tradition-bound family despite their initial resistance to Noorbakhsh’s American-born sensibilities.

And how do her parents feel about Noorbakhsh’s audiences? “They usually sell my tickets,” laughs Noorbakhsh. “They love it.”

ALL ATHEISTS ARE MUSLIM

Through Oct. 1, $20

Opens Thurs/1, 8 p.m.

Runs Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.

Stage Werx Theatre

533 Sutter, SF

(415) 517-3581

www.brownpapertickets.com

A wave

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
A wave

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO And so, interest in user-friendly dance music has come to the point where it can support a full-fledged, all-ages, traveling arena festival tour, a kind of mid-period Lollapalooza for ravers of all stripes called Identity, which features a pretty thrilling grab bag of 35 acts in 20 cities, and rolls into Shoreline Amphitheatre on Sat/3. Well, why the hell not? It’s good to go big once in a while.

(Unlike Lollapalooza, however, Identity carries nary a hint of grassroots activism or cosmic enlightenment — although there are “glow products” for sale in the Vendor Village. Also, for something called “Identity” there’s an awfully pale-faced sausage-fest lineup. Both of these things, however, may just be an accurate reflection of contemporary electronic dance music mega-party affairs in general.)

Alongside marquee names like DJ Shadow, Crystal Method, Pete Tong, and Hercules and Love Affair and intriguing, less-familiar-Stateside acts Rusko, Nero, and Steve Lawler — not to mention heroes of hype Steve Aoki and Skrillex — is someone very familiar to San Franciscan clubgoers. Headlining Identity is Kaskade, a.k.a. Ryan Raddon, who made his early career in the city at OM Records before leaping to Billboard Dance Chart fame and becoming SF’s entry into that overwhelming, slightly horrifying, always fascinating pop-tech monster ball that includes Deadmau5, Tiësto, and David Guetta.

“It wasn’t really my ambition to get so big that here I am headlining this massive tour, which can be exhausting,” Kaskade told me over the phone as he prepared to jet off between Identity dates to play the UK’s famed Creamfields Fest. (As someone whose appearance at a block party sparked a full-on riot in LA last month, Kaskade’s down-to-earth, surfer-dude demeanor is a bit disarming.)

“My passion is really more about producing than DJing, although doing I.D. has been awesome and exposed me to new sounds and different audiences. It’s a great party. And it does feel more and more that the pop sound is coming around to what I’ve been doing. A wave of electronic music seems to be taking over right now. I don’t specifically compose for pop singers like Guetta, but I can see how my sound fits in with what’s happening, and that’s why it’s reaching more people.”

That sound is a thoroughly accessible, silky smooth, slightly melancholic series of usually vocal-based anthems that always seems to be shimmering on a Mediterranean beach somewhere (expensive sunglasses come to mind) even as it inexorably builds to its climaxes and breakdowns. New release “Eyes,” with singer Mindy Gledhill is emblematic, the aching breeziness pioneered by local OM and Naked Music labels in the early 2000s pumped up on the big-money, stadium-sized steroids of Kaskade’s current home, Ultra Records, based in New York City.

Headlining Identity has buoyed Kaskade’s mainstream standing, but hopping aboard has had other advantages as well. “One of the best things about the Identity tour is that I get to work on my own stage show, to turn the music into a whole experience. Most of the time as a DJ, I just come into predetermined venues like Ruby Skye and at least have a good light rig. But now I can really expand my musical ideas conceptually, with video projections and amphitheater effects. Opening up to that kind of thing, along with hearing what the other Identity acts like Datsik and Le Castle Vania are doing — I don’t get to go to other peoples’ shows very much because I’m always playing somewhere — that’s changed some of my ideas drastically.”

Is coming back to San Francisco a kind of triumphant homecoming? “I don’t think of it that way. I really don’t think I ever left San Francisco, or that anyone can ever really leave San Francisco. Obviously the Bay Area means a lot to me in terms of my development, but I think a lot about moving back there. The people are genuinely into the music — and they’re used to a high level of quality.”

Identity Festival Sat/3, 1 p.m., $60. Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View. www.idfestival.com.

 

BAD SHOES ANNIVERSARY

The local electro label pumps out a good share of thoughtful bangers, this free party at recently expanded swankity club Sloane Squared is a perfect chance to plug in to the crews’ mindbending doings. With Baan, Ear Jerker, MPHD, Dane O, and Teleport.

Wed/31, 10 p.m., free. Sloane Squared, 1525 Mission, SF. www.badshoesrecords.com

 

MATTHIAS TANZMANN

Cleverly fiendish, heavily electric house and techno, expertly mixed by this famous German, celebrated for his close association with Ibiza club Circoloco.

Fri/2, 10 p.m., $5 advance. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

 

ZUZUKA PODEROSA

Brazil-via-Brooklyn baile funk warrior queen gets provocative and splashes some neon rap over bass-heavy electronic tracks at one of my favorite monthly parties for downright friendliness and forward-thinking global jams, Braza!

Fri/2, 10 p.m., $10. SOM, 2529 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com

 

D. DIGGLER AND KOLLEKTIV TURMSTRASSE

Repping Frankfurt and Hamburg respectively, these two acts are heroes of headspace-commandeering minimal techno — with duo Kollektiv considered by many to be among the best live acts in the world. Their sometimes haunting tracks will give the monthly Kontrol party an intense vibe.

Sat/3, 10 p.m.-6 a.m., $20. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.kontrolsf.com

 

OPTIMO

Glaswegian geniuses of the extended 12-inch, this duo can make any retro track sound delightfully contemporary: classic rock, ska, dub, ’80s pop, it’s all fair game. Local “punch-drunk disco nihilists” Mi Ami, a band that’s garnered its own international fame, leads the charge.

Sat/3, 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $10 advance. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

ADRIAN SHERWOOD

One of the almighty princes of dub ruled the ’80s with treatments of Depeche Mode, Coldcut, the Woodentops, and Sinead O’Connor, released the first Black Uhuru records, cofounded the storied On-U Sound System, and is now helping celebrate excellent weekly Dub Mission’s 15th (!) anniversary. This is one of those “wows.”

Sun/4, 9 p.m., $15 advance. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.dubmission.com

 

TOM MIDDLETON

British Jedi master of smart tech-house in the 1990s has gone through a number of stylistic changes and clever monikers, but has never been afraid to let his classical and jazz training shine through his tracks. He’s headlining the grand Stompy + Sunset Labour of Love party.

Sun/4, 2 p.m., $20. Cafe Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.pacficsound.net

To the extreme

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
To the extreme

TRASH In the West we’ve basically known two kinds of Japanese cinema. One is that of Ozu, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and their inheritors — somber, formal, detailed. The other is the cinema of crazy shit: gangster and “pink” movies from the 1960s onward, cracked visionaries from Seijun Suzuki to Takashi Miike, the exercises in tongue-in-cheek fanboy excess like Tokyo Gore Police (2008) and Big Man Japan (2007).

Definitely falling in the gonzo category is Sion Sono, a poet-performance artist who’s been making (and occasionally acting in) films since the mid-80s. But awareness of his work abroad didn’t really spike until 2002’s Suicide Club, which famously opened with a chorus line of angelic schoolgirls cheerfully leaping into the path of a subway train.

Since then he’s made the first of two projected Suicide sequels, the surreal psychosexual nightmare Strange Circus (2005), and deadly-‘do J-horror exercise Exte: Hair Extensions (2007), to name a few. Though not in the Miike league of complete unpredictability (let alone productivity), Sono’s films have been a diverse lot, not excluding an exercise or two in straight-ahead naturalism.

The mega-dose of Sono that the Roxie offers this month, however, feels like two very large pieces cut from the same pie. Opening Friday is 2008’s Love Exposure, clocking just under four hours (not counting intermission); next up is 2010’s Cold Fish (starting Sept. 16), a comparatively succinct sit at 144 minutes. Such lengths might normally suggest epic longeurs and a meditative pace. Sono, however, fills each canvas to bursting with demented narrative turns, frantic activity, extreme emotions, and absurdist logic. Not to mention sizable quantities of over-the-top violence and warped sexuality.

Love Exposure opens with the claim that it’s “based on a true event,” which is no doubt its first joke. After the death of his saintly mother, youthful protagonist Yu (Takahiro Nishijima) adapts to the adoption of the priesthood by his father (Atsuro Watabe), though it’s harder to accept the eventual intrusion of an insanely needy new parishioner (a memorable Makiko Watanabe), a crackhead-acting real-life succubus who swiftly destroys dad’s faith and vocation. As a result Yu falls in with a bad crowd, becoming its Jesus in a weird pseudo-spiritual observance of taking “peek-a-boo panty photos” while remaining otherwise chaste in anticipation of meeting his own personal Madonna — Holy Virgin and Ciccone personae inclusive.

High school heartache, martial arts, Ravel’s Boléro, female impersonation, and the insidious manipulations of an agent (Sakura Ando) from the mysterious, Scientology-like Zero Church all factor prominently in a careening story whose takes on religion, sin, and redemption are nothing if not antic. Just what Sono is saying, however, tends to get lost in the blur. Exposure‘s sheer onslaught, not to mention its scale, have made bowled-over converts out of many viewers. Whether its crazy quilt requires 237 minutes, or 90, or 900 for that matter, is an open question — is the writer-director really going somewhere here, or just going and going and going?

Similarly occupied with indoctrination, masochism, and extreme behavior is Cold Fish, which is somewhat better able to sustain a tone of hysteria escalating toward dementia. An unhappy family (father Mitsuru Fukikoshi, daughter Hikari Kajiwara, stepmother Megumi Kagurazaka) is yanked into the orbit of a tropical-fish tycoon (Denden) who at first seems a boisterous benefactor providing shock therapy to their depressed lives out of simple altruism. But he and his bombshell wife (Asuka Kurosawa) soon reveal sides not just sinister but psychopathic, ensnaring all three in diabolical doings that encompass murder, rape, grisly corpse disposals, and more. Structured like Love Exposure as one long countdown to a transformative moment, Cold Fish pushes black comedy way beyond the bounds of taste with an oddly neutralizing good cheer. It’s a manic Grand Guignol set to the soothing kitsch strains of retro Hawaiian-flavored lounge music. (Dennis Harvey) 

LOVE EXPOSURE opens Fri/2 at the Roxie.

Rep Clock

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Schedules are for Wed/31-Tues/6 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise noted.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $17.50-20. Nabucco, from Teatro Antico, Taormina, Wed, 7:30.

“BERNAL HEIGHTS OUTDOOR CINEMA” Old Clam House, 299 Bayshore, SF; (415) 641-0324, www.bhoutdoorcine.org. Suggested donation $15 (includes two drink tickets; benefits Bernal History Project). “Opening Night Party and Preview,” films and live music by Stoo Odom and the Odom Poles, Wed, 6:30. Tiffany and 29th St, SF; same contact. Free. Block party with films and live music by the Patsy Chords, Thurs, 6:30. Red Hill Books, 401 Cortland, SF; same contact. Free. “Film Crawl on Cortland Ave,” Sat, 6:30. Precita Park, Folsom at Precita, SF; same contact. Free. “Outdoor Cinema Under the Stars,” Sat, 6:30. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; same contact. Suggested donation $10. “Closing Night and Season Finale,” Sun, 7:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-13. “Cary Grant: Definitive Star” •The Philadelphia Story (Cukor, 1940), Wed, 2:50, 7, and Holiday (Cukor, 1938), Wed, 5, 9:05; •Arsenic and Old Lace (Capra, 1944), Thurs, 3, 7, and The Awful Truth (McCarey, 1937), Thurs, 5:10, 9:15; •North By Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959), Fri, 2:20, 7, and Charade (Donen, 1963), Fri, 4:45, 9:25; •Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938), Sat, 3, 7, and Monkey Business (Hawks, 1952), Sat, 4:55, 8:55; •Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938), Sun, 7, and I Was a Male War Bride (Hawks, 1949), Sun, 8:55; •His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940), Mon, 2:50, 7, and Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939), Mon, 4:35, 8:45; •Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946), Tues, 3, 7, and Suspicion (Hitchcock, 1941), Tues, 4:55, 8:55.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. The Hedgehog (Achache, 2010), call for dates and times. The Names of Love (Leclerc, 2010), call for dates and times. Senna (Kapadia, 2011), call for dates and times. The Whistleblower (Kondracki, 2010), call for dates and times. Third Star (Dalton, 2010), Thurs and Sun, 7.

“CONVERGENCE MMXI FILM SERIES” Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; www.convergencefest.com. $7. Naco es Chido (Arau, 2010), Wed, 7. SF Film Society-New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; same contact. $12. The Holy Mountain (Jodorowsky, 1973), Thurs, 8. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; same contact. $8-10. Everybody’s Dying Here (Gardoki, 2002), Fri, 7:30.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974), Fri, 8; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One (Yates, 2010), Sat, 8; North By Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959), Sun, 8.

JACK LONDON SQUARE 66 Franklin, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. “Waterfront Flicks:” Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (Kotcheff, 1978), Thurs, sunset.

MANDELA VILLAGE ARTS CENTER 1357 Fifth St, Oakl; www.brainwashm.com. $10. “17th Annual Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival,” unique independent movies from around the world, Sat/3, 8pm; Sept 9-10, 9pm.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “The Timeless Cinema of Marcel Pagnol:” The Well-Digger’s Daughter (1940), Wed, 7. “UCLA Festival of Preservation:” The Crusades (DeMille, 1935), Thurs, 7. “The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies:” The Heartbreak Kid (May, 1972), Fri, 7; Wanda (Loden, 1970), Sat, 8:50. The Landlord (Ashby, 1970), Fri, 9:10; “Sounding Off: Portraits of Unusual Music:” The Reach of Resonance (Elkins, 2010), Sat, 6. ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure (Bate, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. Love Exposure (Sono, 2008), Sept 2-8, 7:30 (also Sat-Sun, 2:30)

Psychic Dream Astrology

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AUG 31-SEPT 6

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Your greatest enemy this week is likely to be your mind, that trick-playing little rascal! Don’t allow fear-mongering to masquerade as practical thinking, and don’t convince yourself that your only option is to rush through things. This week, create your own choices and pursue them with care.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

This is the week to look for possibilities for expansion in everything you do. If you approach your life with interest in what is possible you are likely to see more options than if you anticipate history repeating itself. Learn from the past but don’t be hemmed in by it, pal.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Sometimes it’s hard to gauge where intuition breaks off to become anxiety (and vice-a versa). You are in no state to read your instincts when you’re running ragged and insecure. Get grounded and energized before evaluating options or making decisions this week for best results.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

The most important thing to focus on is your responsibility to yourself. Your entanglements are trying to mirror to you the ways that you are in or out of step with yourself. Be the change you want to see in your life, instead of waiting for other people or situations to turn into what you want them to be.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Don’t allow vanity or pride get in the way of creating the conditions in your life that will make you happy, Leo. With transiting Saturn in Libra you are in the right position for setting your life up for success. This requires that you have a clear and accurate vision of what that means for you.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You are ready to deal with your fears of failure, Virgo. Write a list of all the worst-case scenarios that are tripping up your mind, and then for each one write up preventative measures you can take. Let go of trying to predict things and instead take practical steps to support yourself with.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

If you’ve got to have problems, you might as well make them work for you, Libra. Don’t waste your struggles by avoiding them! Look head on at what’s troubling you so that you can better understand, and ultimately change it. Make your blocks your bitch this week.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Be patient, Scorpio, and while you’re at it, you’ve gotta adjust your attitude. There is no merit to infusing your wait time with hand wringing when you could be calming your nerves. If you’re not working on solutions, then you are likely to be adding to the problems.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

They say that the higher you fly, the further you fall and this week you need to watch out for a crash. Don’t let the first sign of barriers to your progress to stymie you, pal. Concentrate on developing the kind of balance that does not require everything to be ideal for you to maintain it.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

This week remember that it’s not your problems that define you, but how you rise to the occasion of them. Don’t rush forwards until your sure of where you’re going and don’t add anything to your plate until you’ve finished what you’ve started. Cope strategically for best results.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Your friendships are mad important this week. Make sure you are treating your chosen family with as much care as they deserve. You are in an excellent place for laying foundations that allow you to share the highs and lows of life with your people for a long time to come, so make it count.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

It’s time for you to let go and make a major change, Pisces. Use your ego as the fire under your ass that helps you mobilize, but not as your primary motivation. Whether you feel like the worst or the best, its still self-centered. Account for others’ perspectives as you forge ahead. *

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 17 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com or contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading at (415) 336-8354 or dreamyastrology@gmail.com

 

Film Listings

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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

Apollo 18 Faux-found-footage horror flick about a top-secret moon landing gone terribly awry. (1:26)

The Debt On paper, The Debt has a lot going for it: captivating history-based plot, “it” actor Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren vs. Nazis. And while the latest from John Madden (1998’s Shakespeare in Love) is fairly entertaining, the film is ultimately forgettable. Chastain plays Rachel, a member of an Israeli team tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal and bringing him to justice. Mirren is the older Rachel, who is haunted by the long-withheld true story of the mission. Although The Debt traffics in spy secrets, it’s actually rather predictable: the big reveal is shrug-worthy, and the shocking conclusion is expected. So while the entire cast — which also includes Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, and Ciaran Hinds — turn in admirable performances, the script is lacking what it needs to make The Debt an effective drama or thriller. Like 2008’s overrated The Reader, the film tries to hide its inadequacies under heavy themes and the dread with which we remember the Holocaust. (1:54) (Peitzman)

Film Socialisme For the record, Jean-Luc Godard is alive and well and still making thought-provoking films. (1:41) SFFS New People Cinema.

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy Thirtysomethings in the Hamptons do the darndest things. (1:35)

*Higher Ground Higher Ground does not bite off more than it can chew. I guess that should go without saying, but it’s striking how comfortably Vera Farmiga (in her directorial debut) tackles this story of devotion and doubt. Based on the memoirs of Carolyn S. Briggs, who co-wrote the screenplay, this deeply personal film follows Corrine Walker (Vera Farmiga) from her adolescence through the trials of youth and middle age, her marriage to high school sweetheart Ethan (Joshua Leonard), and their lives as members of a small hippie Christian community. Although religion serves as a backdrop for Higher Ground, it doesn’t suffocate the human element of the story; it’s less a film about Christianity than it is about the challenges one woman faces as she tries to find room for herself amidst faith. Farmiga treats her subjects with empathy and humor and crafts a thoughtful, tender slice of sixties Midwest Americana. (1:49) (Cooper Berkmoyer)

*The Interrupters See “Chicago Hope.” (2:05)

*Love Exposure See Trash. (3:57) Roxie.

Seven Days in Utopia If the sports sub-sub-genre “existential golf drama” is your idea of a good time, you’re in luck this week. (1:38)

Shark Night 3D Just realized this movie is rated PG-13. DISLIKE. (1:31)

ONGOING

*Beginners There is nothing conventional about Beginners, a film that starts off with the funeral arrangements for one of its central characters. That man is Hal (Christopher Plummer), who came out to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) at the ripe age of 75. Through flashbacks, we see the relationship play out — Oliver’s inability to commit tempered by his father’s tremendous late-stage passion for life. Hal himself is a rare character: an elderly gay man, secure in his sexuality and, by his own admission, horny. He even has a much younger boyfriend, played by the handsome Goran Visnjic. While the father-son bond is the heart of Beginners, we also see the charming development of a relationship between Oliver and French actor Anna (Mélanie Laurent). It all comes together beautifully in a film that is bittersweet but ultimately satisfying. Beginners deserves praise not only for telling a story too often left untold, but for doing so with grace and a refreshing sense of whimsy. (1:44) (Peitzman)

*Bellflower Picture Two Lane Blacktop (1971) drifters armed with “dude”-centric vocabulary and an obsession with The Road Warrior (1981) and its apocalypse-wow survivalist chic. There are so many pleasures in this janky, so-very-DIY, heavy-on-the-sunblasted-atmosphere indie that you’re almost willing to overlook the clichés, the dead zones, and the annoying characters. Seeming every-dudes Woodrow (director-writer-producer Evan Glodell) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson) are far too obsessed with tricking out their cars and building a flamethrower for their own good — the misfits must force themselves out of the metal shop of the mind to meet women. So when Woodrow goes up against Milly (Jessie Wiseman) in a cricket-eating contest at a bar, it’s love at first bite. Their meet-gross morphs into a road trip and eventually a relationship, while the flamethrower nags, unexplained, in the background, like an unfired gun — or an unconsummated, not-funny bromance. These manifestations of male fantasy — muscle cars, weapons, and tough chicks — are cast in a dreamy, saturated, and burnt-at-the-edges light, as Glodell and company weave together barely articulated reveries and bad-new-west imagery with a kind of fuck-all intelligence, culminating in a finale that will either haunt you with its scattershot machismo-romanticism or leave you scratching your noggin wondering what just happened. (1:46) (Chun)

Brighton Rock Writer Rowan Joffe (2010’s The American) moves into the director’s chair for this Graham Greene adaptation, previously filmed in 1947 with an early-career star turn by Richard Attenborough. Joffe’s version updates Greene’s 1938 story to 1964, allowing the brutal actions of small-time hood Pinkie Brown to unfold as Britain’s mods vs. rockers youth riots boil in the background. Don’t get too excited, though — despite a cool premise and even cooler setting, and the presence of veterans Helen Mirren and John Hurt in supporting roles, Brighton Rock rages without a rudder. Pinkie is played by Sam Riley (so good as Ian Curtis in 2007’s Control), who snarls like a sociopathic James Dean and is so transparently hateful it’s hard to root for anything other than his hastened demise. Brighton Rock‘s most memorable element is probably Andrea Riseborough, an on-the-verge young Brit who’s being touted as the next Carey Mulligan. She has the thankless (yet showy) role of Rose, a naïve waitress who becomes entangled in Pinkie’s web after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A far-from-storybook ending awaits, and you’ll experience little enjoyment watching the characters claw their way there. (1:51) (Eddy)

Buck This documentary paints a portrait of horse trainer Buck Brannaman as a sort of modern-day sage, a sentimental cowboy who helps “horses with people problems.” Brannaman has transcended a background of hardship and abuse to become a happy family man who makes a difference for horses and their owners all over the country with his unconventional, humane colt-starting clinics. Though he doesn’t actually whisper to horses, he served as an advisor and inspiration for Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer (1998). Director Cindy Meehl focuses generously on her saintly subject’s bits of wisdom in and out of a horse-training setting — e.g. “Everything you do with a horse is a dance” — as well as heartfelt commentary from friends and colleagues. In the harrowing final act of the film, Brannaman deals with a particularly unruly horse and his troubled owner, highlighting the dire and disturbing consequences of improper horse rearing. (1:28) (Sam Stander)

Captain America: The First Avenger OK, Marvel. I could get behind 2008’s Iron Man (last year’s Iron Man 2, not so much), but after Thor and now Captain America, I’m starting to get cynical about this multi-year build-up to the full-on Avengers movie, due in May 2012. Can even a superhero-stuffed movie directed by Joss Whedon live up to all this hype? There’s plenty of time to ponder, and maybe worry a little, with Captain America’s backstory-explaining picture now in theaters. Chris Evans stars as the 90-pound weakling who morphs into a supersoldier, thanks to the World War II-era tinkerings of a scientist (Stanley Tucci) and an inventor (Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man’s dad). The original plan for the musclebound shield-bearer (fighting Nazis, natch) gets waylaid a bit when the newly famous Captain America becomes a PR prop for the U.S. government; it’s abandoned entirely when a worse-than-Hitler foe, in the guise of power-obsessed Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), threatens the world. Directed by Spielberg cohort Joe Johnston, Captain America is gee-whiz enjoyable enough, but it’s very nearly the same movie as Thor, which no amount of Tommy Lee Jones (as a sarcastic army colonel) wisecracks can conceal. And here’s an anti-spoiler: there’s no post-credits surprise in this one, so you can bolt as soon as they start to roll. (2:09) (Eddy)

Colombiana (1:47)

Conan the Barbarian Neither 3D (unnecessary) nor Game of Thrones‘ Jason Momoa (beefcake-y) are enough to make this Conan the Barbarian competition for the 1982 Schwarzenegger classic. This new take is a barely adequate adventure movie helped along by Rose McGowan’s leering turn as an evil witch with Freddy Krueger claws. Would that everyone involved (including frequent remake director Marcus Nispel) had McGowan’s razor-sharp grasp of tone; as a whole, the film is never quite sure if it’s a camp-tastic voyage (the prologue, containing Conan’s birth and much Ron Perlman nostril-flaring, suggests what might have been) or a semi-straightforward fantasy actioner. A totally forgettable female lead (Rachel Nichols), a he-was-scarier-in-Avatar villain (Stephen Lang), a blah mixture of two tired plots (revenge + “chosen one”) — there’s just not a lot here, aside from a few hilarious lines of dialogue and Momoa’s muscles. He was so great in Game of Thrones, though, I suspect this dud won’t keep his career from skyrocketing. (1:42) (Eddy)

Cowboys and Aliens Here ’tis in a nutshell: the movie’s called Cowboys and Aliens — and that’s exactly, entirely what you’ll get. Director Jon Favreau may never best 2008’s Iron Man (actor Jon Favreau will prob never top 1996’s Swingers, but that’s a debate for another time), but that doesn’t mean he won’t have a good time trying. Cowboys is a genre mash-up in the most literal sense; as the title suggests, it pits Wild West gunslingers (Harrison Ford as a crabby cattleman, Daniel Craig as an amnesiac outlaw) against gold-seeking space invaders who also delight in kidnapping and torturing humans. As stupidly entertaining as it is, this is a textbook example of a pretty OK movie that could have been so much better … if only. If only the alien characters had a little bit more District 9-style personality. If only the story had a shred of suspense — look ye not here for “spooky” and “mysterious;” this shit is 100 percent full-on explosions. If only Craig’s comically fine-tooled physique didn’t outshine his wooden acting. And so forth. (1:58) (Eddy)

Crazy, Stupid, Love Keep the poster’s allusion to 1967’s The Graduate to one side: there aren’t many revelations about midlife crises in this cleverly penned yet strangely flat ensemble rom-com, awkwardly pitched at almost every demographic at the cineplex. There’s the middle-aged romance that’s withered at the vine: nice but boring family man Cal (Steve Carell) finds himself at a hopeless loss when wife and onetime teenage sweetheart Emily (Julianne Moore) tells him she wants a divorce and she’s slept with a coworker (Kevin Bacon). He ends up waxing pathetic at a slick nightclub where he catches the eye of the well-dressed, spray-tanned smoothie Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who appears to have taken his ladies man stance from the Clooney playbook. It’s manly makeover time: GQ meets Pretty Woman (1990)! Cut to Cal and Emily’s babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who is crushing out on Cal, while the separated couple’s tween Robbie (Jonah Bobo) hankers for Jessica. Somehow Josh Groban worms his way into the mix as the dullard suitor of Hannah (Emma Stone) in a hanging chad of a storyline that must somehow be resolved in this mad, mad, mad, mad — actually, the problem with Crazy, Stupid, Love is that it isn’t really that crazy. It tries far too hard to please everybody in the theater to its detriment, reminding the viewer of a tidy, episodic TV series (albeit a quality effort) like Modern Family more than an actual film. Likewise I yearned for a way to fast-forward through the too-cute Jessica-Robbie scenes in order to get back to the sleazy-smart, punchy complexity of Gosling, playing adeptly off both Carrell and Stone. (1:58) (Chun)

The Devil’s Double Say hello to my little friend, again— and rest assured, it’s not a dream and you’re seeing double. New Zealand filmmaker Lee Tamahori gets back to his potboiler roots with this campy, claustrophobic look back at the House of Saddam Hussein, based on a true story and designed to win over fans of Scarface (1983) with its portrait of mad excess and deca-dancey ’80s-ish soundtrack. The craziest poseur of all is Hussein’s son Uday (Dominic Cooper), a petty dictator-in-the-making — and, according to this film, a full-fledged murderous pedophile — who chomps cigars and wraps his jaws around schoolgirls while Cooper happily chews scenery. Uday needs a double to sidestep all those troublesome assassination attempts, so he enlists look-alike childhood friend Latif (also Cooper) to get the surgery, pop in the overbite, bray like a madman, make appearances in his stead, and function as a kind of pet human. Never mind Ludivine Sagnier, glassy-eyed and absurd in the role of Uday’s favorite sex kitten Sarrab — Double is completely Cooper’s, who seizes the moment, investing the morally upstanding Latif with a serious sincerity with just his eyes and body language and infusing evil odd job Uday with a dangerous, comic-book unpredictability. To his credit, Cooper imbues such cult-ready, blow-the-doors-off lines as “I love cunt! I love cunt more than god!” with, erm, believability, even as the denouement rings somewhat false. (1:48) (Chun)

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark If you’re expecting a traditional haunted house story, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark might be a disappointment. The film, which was co-written by Guillermo del Toro, has a lot in common with his Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) — both movies are more dark fairy tale than horror. They follow a young girl who discovers a mystical world around her, much to the disbelief of the adults around her. It’s worth noting that Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is lighter fare: despite all the peril involved, it’s actually pretty fun. Young Bailee Madison, who made such an impression in 2009’s Brothers, is a charming lead, precocious but believable. And Katie Holmes is surprisingly sympathetic in her role as the caring stepmother, a nice switch from the standard fairy tale trope. As with Fright Night, the ad campaign for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is misleading, so here’s hoping audience members looking for a gory slasher will appreciate a whimsical fable instead. (1:40) (Peitzman)

Fright Night Don’t let the spooky trailer fool you: the Fright Night remake is almost as silly as the original. In fact, it follows the 1985 film closely, as young Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) comes to realize that his neighbor Jerry (Colin Farrell) is a vampire. The biggest change is a smart one — this Fright Night transforms late-night TV host Peter Vincent into Criss Angel-type illusionist Peter Vincent (David Tennant). The casting is spot on all-around, and frankly, Farrell is a lot more believable than Chris Sarandon as the seductive bad boy. The only real problem with the new Fright Night — other than the unnecessary 3D — is that it never fully commits to camp the way the original did. There’s a bit too much back-and-forth between serious scares and goofy blood splatters. Luckily, it’s still an entertaining remake that doesn’t crap all over a classic. It’s also a great reminder that vampires don’t have to be moody — remember, they used to be fun. (2:00) (Peitzman)

*The Future Dreams and drawings, cats and fantasies, ambition and aimlessness, and the mild-mannered yet mortifying games people play, all wind their way into Miranda July’s The Future. The future’s a scary place, as many of us fully realize, even if you hide from it well into your 30s, losing yourself in the everyday. But you can’t duck July’s collection of moments, objects, and small gestures transformed into something strangely slanted and enchanted, both weird and terrifying, when viewed through July’s looking glass. Care and commitment — to oneself and others — are two vivid threads running through The Future. Cute couple Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) — unsettling look-alikes with their curly crops — appear at first to be sailing contently, aimlessly toward an undemanding unknown: Jason works from home as a customer-service operator, and Sophie attempts to herd kiddies as a children’s dance instructor. But enormous, frightening demands beckon — namely the oncoming adoption of a special-needs feline named Paw-Paw (voiced by July as if it’s a traumatized, innocent child). Lickety-splitsville, they must be all they can be before Paw-Paw’s arrival. The weirdness of the familiar, and the kindness of strangers, become ways into fantasy and escape when the couple bumps up against the limits of their imagination. This ultra-low-key horror movie of the banal is obviously remote territory for July (2005’s Me and You and Everyone We Know). The Future is her best film to date and finds her tumbling into a kind of magical realism or plastic fantastic, embodied by a talking cat that becomes the conscience of the movie. (1:31) (Chun)

The Guard Irish police sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is used to running his small town on his own terms — not in a completely Bad Lieutenant (1992) kind of way, though he’s not afraid to sample drugs and hang with hookers. More like, he’s been running the show for years, and would prefer that big-city cops stay the hell out of his village. Alas, a gang of drug smugglers is doing business in the area, so an officious group of investigators from Dublin (horrors!) and America (in the form of an FBI agent played by Don Cheadle) soon descend. His mother’s dying, his brand-new partner’s missing, and between all the interlopers on both sides of the law, Boyle’s having a hard time having a pint in peace. Good thing he’s not as simple-minded as all who surround him think he is. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin, who directed 2008’s In Bruges — also starring Gleeson) puts an affable Irish spin on what’s essentially a pretty typical indie comedy, with some pretty typical crime-drama elements layered atop. Boyle’s character is memorably clever, but the film that contains him never quite elevates to his level. (1:36) (Eddy)

Gun Hill Road Though the visibility of gays and lesbians in cinema remains (largely) confined to independent film, Rashaad Ernesto Green, in his debut feature Gun Hill Road, uses the creative freedom afforded by that closeting to explore issues of race and confused sexuality amid the Latino population of the Bronx. Esai Morales is Enrique, a former drug dealer returning from prison to his wife Angela (Judy Reyes) and teenage son Michael (Harmony Santana). But everyone seems to have moved on with their lives. Angela is having an affair, and Michael has created a new persona, Vanessa. Green’s film focuses on the relationship between the damaged Enrique and Michael, whose cross-dressing and budding transsexuality puts the family members at odds. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and an entry in this year’s Frameline Film Festival, Gun Hill Road is one in a recent spate of films that deals with coming out in an urban setting. Like Green’s film, Peter Bratt’s La Mission (2009) offered a picture of homophobia in the Latino community. But Gun Hill Road, despite its bulging dramatic heft, shirks the after-school-special formula of La Mission by imagining complex characters rather than hewing them from instantly recognizable, sympathetic archetypes. (1:28) (Ryan Lattanzio)

*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Chances are you aren’t going to jump into the Harry Potter series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. So while the movie is probably the best Harry Potter film yet, it’s more a fitting conclusion than a standalone film. For fans of the books, there are no real surprises — this is a close adaptation. And for those Harry Potter movie fans who haven’t read the books, shame on you, and kudos if you managed to not get spoiled. It’s hard for me to offer a serious critical analysis of Part 2, because it represents the end of a long and very emotional journey. (Everyone in that audience was crying. Everyone.) I will say that, as was the case in the book, there are a few overdone, schmaltzy moments that aren’t really necessary. But in the context of the series, they’re forgivable — this may not be the great cinematic event of our generation, but Harry Potter as a whole is sure to be one of our most enduring cultural icons. (2:10) (Peitzman)

*The Hedgehog You needn’t possess the rough, everyday refinement of the characters of The Hedgehog to appreciate this debut feature by director-screenwriter Mona Achache — just an appreciation for a delicate touch and a tender heart. Eleven-year-old Paloma (the wonderful Garance Le Guillermic) is too smart for her own good, bored, neglected by her parents, and left to fend for herself with only her considerable imagination and a camcorder. She drifts around her fishbowl of privilege, a deluxe art nouveau-style apartment building in Paris, leveling her all-too-wise gaze on its denizens and plotting certain suicide on her 12th birthday — that is until a new resident appears in her viewfinder: a kindly Japanese gentleman Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa). He has as much of a connoisseur’s eye as Paloma — the proof is in his unlikely focus of attention, the building’s concierge Renée Michel (Josiane Balasko, resembling a burly Gertrude Stein), who hides her cultured and bookish inclinations behind a gruff, drab exterior. They recognize in each other a reverence for an almost monkish life of the mind, the austere elegance of wabi-sabi, and the transient beauty of rough-hewn imperfection, even in the sleek, well-heeled heart of the City of Light. To the credit of Achache, working with Muriel Barbery’s novel, these unlikely fragile friendships between outsiders take hold in a way that sidesteps preciousness and stays with you long after its pages have turned. (1:40) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Help It’s tough to stitch ‘n’ bitch ‘n’ moan in the face of such heart-felt female bonding, even after you brush away the tears away and wonder why the so-called help’s stories needed to be cobbled with those of the creamy-skinned daughters of privilege that employed them. The Help purports to be the tale of the 1960s African American maids hired by a bourgie segment of Southern womanhood — resourceful hard-workers like Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) raise their employers’ daughters, filling them with pride and strength if they do their job well, while missing out on their own kids’ childhood. Then those daughters turn around and hurt their caretakers, often treating them little better than the slaves their families once owned. Hinging on a self-hatred that devalues the nurturing, housekeeping skills that were considered women’s birthright, this unending ugly, heartbreaking story of the everyday injustices spells separate-and-unequal bathrooms for the family and their help when it comes to certain sniping queen bees like Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard). But the times they are a-changing, and the help get an assist from ugly duckling of a writer Skeeter (Emma Stone, playing against type, sort of, with fizzy hair), who risks social ostracism to get the housekeepers’ experiences down on paper, amid the Junior League gossip girls and the seismic shifts coming in the civil rights-era South. Based on the best-seller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help hitches the fortunes of two forces together — the African American women who are trying to survive and find respect, and the white women who have to define themselves as more than dependent breeders — under the banner of a feel-good weepie, though not without its guilty shadings, from the way the pale-faced ladies already have a jump, in so many ways, on their African American sisters to the Keane-eyed meekness of Davis’ Aibileen to The Help‘s most memorable performances, which are also tellingly throwback (Howard’s stinging hornet of a Southern belle and Jessica Chastain’s white-trash bimbo-with-a-heart-of-gold). (2:17) (Chun)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) (Harvey)

Motherland When Raffi Tang (Francoise Yip) learns of her estranged mother’s death, the prodigal-daughter returns to her hometown, San Francisco, only to discover that nothing is as first supposed. Forced to contend with the protracted legal battle between her late mother and re-married father (Kenneth Tsang) as well as an incompetent (and poorly acted) police detective (Jason Payne), Tang drifts, looking distracted, lost, and maybe vaguely concerned throughout the first two thirds of the film. Yip does little to enliven a flat script rife with stock phrases and worn cinematic conventions, and while her emotional distance seems genuine, it’s boring nonetheless. Motherland is, to its credit, an angry movie — director Doris Yeung drew on her own experience with the murder of her mother — but the rage fizzles when it finally does erupt, smothered by uninspired acting and a directionless screenplay. (1:33) (Berkmoyer)

*My Perestroika Robin Hessman’s very engaging documentary takes one very relatable look at how changes since glasnost have affected some average Russians. The subjects here are five thirtysomethings who, growing up in Moscow in the 70s and 80s, were the last generation to experience full-on Communist Party indoctrination. But just as they reached adulthood, the whole system dissolved, confusing long-held beliefs and variably impacting their futures. Andrei has ridden the capitalist choo-choo to considerable enrichment as the proprietor of luxury Western menswear shops. But single mother Olga, unlucky in love, just scrapes by, while married schoolteachers Lyuba and Boris are lucky to have inherited an apartment (cramped as it is) they could otherwise ill afford. Meanwhile Ruslan, once member of a famous punk band (which he abandoned on principal because it was getting “too commercial”), both disdains and resents the new order just as he did the old one. Home movies and old footage of pageantry celebrating Soviet socialist glory make a whole ‘nother era come to life in this intimate, unexpectedly charming portrait of its long-term aftermath. (1:27) Balboa. (Harvey)

*The Names of Love Arthur (Jacques Gamblin) is a 40-ish scientist being interviewed about the threat of a bird flu epidemic when his radio broadcast is interrupted by 20-something Baya (Sara Forestier), who denounces him on-air as a “fascist” for frightening the public. But then, Baya tends to use that label rather indiscriminately, applying it to anyone who might conceivably have views to the right of the dial — and Arthur is in fact a solid liberal, which means she can bed him for love. As opposed to the many, many other men she beds as a self-described “political whore,” seeking out conservative types in order to seduce them and hopefully induce an idealogical shift by whispering sweet nothings (“Not all Arabs are thieves,” etc.) as they orgasm. Raised by parents whose emotions are so tightly wound his mother won’t acknowledge her parents were Jews killed at Auschwitz, Arthur has a hard time adjusting to a relationship with a lover who is faithful emotionally but sees promiscuity as her propagandic gift to the world. Meanwhile Baya’s largely Algerian family treats garrulous political argument as the very air they breathe. This odd-couple story written by Baya Kasmi and director Michel Leclerc deals with serious issues in both humorous and respectful fashion, making for one of the more novel, delightful and depthed French romantic comedies in a long time. Added plus: lots of antic gratuitous nudity. (1:42) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*One Day Why do romantic comedies get such a bad rap? Blame it on the lame set-up, the contrived hurdles artificially buttressed by the obligatory chorus of BFFs, the superficial something-for-every-demographic-with-ADD multinarrative, and the implausible resolutions topped by something as simple as a kiss or as conventional as marriage, but often no deeper, more crafted, or heartfelt than an application of lip gloss. Yet the lite-as-froyo pleasures of the genre don’t daunt Danish director Lone Scherfig, best known for her deft touch with a woman’s story that cuts closer to the bone, with 2009’s An Education. Her new film, One Day, based on the best-selling novel by David Nicholls, flirts with the rom-com form — from the kitsch associations with Same Time, Next Year (1978) to the trailer that hangs its love story on a crush — but musters emotional heft through its accumulation of period details, a latticework of flashbacks, and collection of encounters between its charming protagonists: upper-crusty TV presenter Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and working-class aspiring writer Emma (Anne Hathaway). Their quickie university friendship slowly unfolds, as they meet every St. Swithin’s Day, July 15, over a span of years, into the most important relationship of their lives. Despite the blue-collar female lead and UK backdrop that it shares with An Education, One Day feels like a departure for Scherfig, who first found international attention for her award-winning Dogme 95-affiliated Italian for Beginners (2000). (1:48) (Chun)

*Our Idiot Brother If you thought 1998’s The Big Lebowski had eked all the humor that it could from the Dude, well, screenwriter (and Vanity Fair contributor) Evgenia Peretz, her not-so-idiotic brother (director Jesse Peretz), and star Paul Rudd would differ. They correctly guessed that there are still laughs to be wrung from a shaggy stoner in floral jams, only this time with less fuuuck-s and more benevolent, idiot-savant good vibrations. Dazed and confused broheim 2.0 (Rudd) is glimpsed through the jaded, harried prism of his three dysfunctional, supposedly normal sisters: frumpadelic mom Liz (Emily Mortimer), queen-bitch Vanity Fair writer Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), and slatternly would-be comedian Natalie (Zooey Deschanel). A good-hearted naïf who’s easily entrapped by a uniformed police officer claiming to need some pity doobage, Ned has just emerged from the joint and is now couch-surfing among his sibs, exposing the hypocrisies of bourgie-hipster Brooklyn, as well as the infidelities and vanities of family, friends, and partners (Steve Coogan, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, and Hugh Dancy) as he goes, in his own good-natured, aw-shucks way. As innocuous (and desexualized) as Andy Griffith beneath the hippie trappings, this dude-with-a-little-d knows where his real family is — with his dog, Willie Nelson, who loves him just as unconditionally. Beastie besties have never seemed so innocent as they are in this proudly feel-good comedy, and despite a cringe-y, saccharine soundtrack and lackadaisical pacing, Rudd’s charismatic sunny slacker and some pointed jabs at the follies of the cooler-than-thou save this indie-that-could. (1:36) (Chun)

*Point Blank Not for nothing did Hollywood remake French filmmaker Fred Cavaye’s last film, Anything for Her (2008) as The Next Three Days (2010) — Cavaye’s latest, tauter-than-taut thriller almost screams out for a similar rework, with its Bourne-like handheld camera work, high-impact immediacy, and noirish narrative economy. Point Blank — not to be confused with the 1967 Lee Marvin vehicle —kicks off with a literal slam: a mystery man (Roschdy Zem) crashing into a metal barrier, on the run from two menacing figures until he is cornered and then taken out of the action by fate. His mind mainly on the welfare of his very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anaya), nursing assistant Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) has the bad luck to stumble on a faux doctor attempting to make sure that the injured man never rises from his hospital bed. As police wrangle over whose case this exactly is — the murder of an industrialist seems to have expanded the powers of the stony-faced, monolithic Commandant Werner (Gerard Lanvin) — Samuel gets sucked into the mystery man’s lot, a conspiracy that allows them to trust no one, and seemingly impossibly odds against getting out of the mess alive. Cavaye never quite stops applying the pressure in this clever, unrelenting cat-and-mouse and mouse-and-his-spouse game, topping it with a nerve-jangling search through a messily chaotic police station. (1:24) (Chun)

*Rise of the Planet of the Apes “You gotta love a movie where the animals beat up on the humans,” declared my Rise of the Planet of the Apes companion. Indeed, ape must not kill ape, and this Planet of the Apes prequel-cum-remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) takes the long view, back to the days when ape-human relations were still high-minded enough to forbid smart apes from killing those well-armed, not-so-bright humanoids. I was a fan of the original series, but honestly, I approached Rise with trepidation: I dreaded the inevitable scenes of human cruelty meted out to exploited primates — the current wave of chimp-driven films seems focused on holding a scary, shaming mirror up to the two-legged mammalian violence toward their closest living genetic relatives. It’s a contrast to the original series, which provided prisms with which to peer at race relations and generational conflict. But I needn’t have feared this PG-13 “reboot.” There’s little CGI-driven gore, apart from the visceral opening and the showdown, though the heartbreak remains. Scientist Will (James Franco, brow perpetually furrowed with worry) is working to find a medicine designed to supercharge the brain in the wake of Alzheimer’s — a disease that has struck down his father (John Lithgow). When the experimental chimp that responds to his serum becomes violently aggressive, the project is shut down, although the primate leaves behind a surprise: a baby chimp that Will and his father name Caesar and raise like a beloved child in their idyllic Bay Area Victorian. Growing in intelligence as he matures, Caesar finds himself torn by an existential dilemma: is he a pet or a mammal with rights that must be respected? Rise becomes Caesar’s story, rendered in heart-wrenching, exhilarating ways — to director Rupert Wyatt and his team’s credit you don’t miss the performance finesse of Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter in groundbreaking prosthetic ape face in the original movies — while resolving at least one question about why humans gave up the globe to the primates. One can only imagine the next edition will take care of the lingering question about how even the cleverest of apes will feed themselves in Muir Woods. (1:50) (Chun)

Sarah’s Key (1:42)

*Senna When Ayrton Senna died in 1994 at the age of 34, he had already secured his legacy as one of the greatest and most beloved Formula One racers of all time. The three-time world champion was a hero in his native Brazil and a respected and feared opponent on the track. This eponymous documentary by director Asif Kapadia is nearly as dynamic as the man himself, with more than enough revving engines and last minute passes to satisfy your lust for speed and a decent helping Ayrton’s famous personality as well. Senna was a champion, driven to win even as the sometimes-backhanded politics of the racing world stood in his way. A tragic figure, maybe, but a legend nonetheless. You don’t have to be an F1 fan to appreciate this film, but you may wind up one by the time the credits roll. (1:44) Smith Rafael. (Berkmoyer)

Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness This documentary cuts to the chase right at the beginning: yeah, Sholem Aleichem was the guy who wrote the Tevye stories that inspired Fiddler on the Roof. But filmmaker Joseph Dorman isn’t trying to make Fiddler: Behind the Musical. Instead, he takes an in-depth look at the life, writing career, and cultural significance of “one of the great modern Jewish writers — and our greatest Yiddish writer,” per the film’s press notes. Fans of Jewish lit will be particularly engaged by Sholem Aleichem’s tale; raised in a shtetl in what’s now the Ukraine, he moved around Europe and to the United States pursuing various careers, but always writing the popular stories that addressed not just Jewish life, but broader issues facing turn-of-the-last-century Jews, including the cross-generational conflicts that make up much of Fiddler‘s plot and humor. That said, this film does rely an awful lot on PBS-style slow pans over black-and-white photos and intellectual talking heads; one suspects the subject himself (so devoted was he to entertaining the regular folk who gobbled up his tales) would’ve preferred his life story to unfold in a livelier fashion. (1:33) (Eddy)

*Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure Once upon a time (1987 to be exact), two young men moved to San Francisco from the Midwest. Eddie Lee “Sausage” and Mitchell “Mitch D” Deprey wound up living in a somewhat derelict apartment in the Lower Haight. The paint was peeling and the walls were thin, but the rent was cheap. What Eddie and Mitch didn’t count on was having Peter J. Haskett and Raymond Huffman as their neighbors. “You blind cocksucker. You wanna fuck with me? You try to touch me and I will kill you in a fucking minute.” “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up little man!” The insults, tantrum throwing, and threats of violence coming from next door were constant. Eddie and Mitch started to lose sleep; after one failed attempt at complaining to Raymond’s face (he threatened death), they started tape-recording the endless geyser of vitriol — first, as possible future evidence, but also out of a growing voyeuristic fascination with these two seniors who had to be the world’s oddest and angriest odd couple. The rest is history. Mitch and Eddie started including snippets of Peter and Ray’s bickering on mix tapes for friends. Somehow, the editor of the now-defunct SF noise music zine Bananafish heard a snippet and approached Mitch and Eddie about distributing compilations of the recordings to a large network of found sound fans. Gradually “Peter and Raymond” became known and much-beloved characters. Their warped repartee inspired several theatrical adaptations, short animated films, pages of comic book panels by artists such as Dan Clowes, and even a one-off single from Devo side project the Wipeouters. Matthew Bate’s documentary Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure is much an attempt to comprehensively recount the above long, strange trip from start to finish; it is also the newest chapter in the now 20-year saga of Peter, Raymond, Mitch, and Eddie. (1:30) Roxie. (Sussman)

30 Minutes or Less In some ways, 30 Minutes or Less is reminiscent of 2008’s Pineapple Express: both are stoner action comedies about normal people shoved into high-stakes criminal activity. But while Pineapple Express was an exciting addition to the genre, 30 Minutes or Less is a flimsy 80-minute diversion that still feels like a waste of time. Jesse Eisenberg plays Nick, a pizza delivery boy who is forced to rob a bank after two would-be criminals strap a bomb to his chest. Strangely, Eisenberg was more charming as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (2010) — and his buddy Chet (Aziz Ansari) doesn’t exactly up the likability factor. There’s actually the potential for an interesting story here: something darker seems appropriate, given that 30 Minutes or Less was inspired by a true story with a very unhappy ending. But the film completely fumbles, delivering an action comedy that’s neither tense nor funny. That means the pizza’s free, right? (1:29) (Peitzman)

The Tree of Life Mainstream American films are so rarely adventuresome that overreactive gratitude frequently greets those rare, self-conscious, usually Oscar-baiting stabs at profundity. Terrence Malick has made those gestures so sparingly over four decades that his scarcity is widely taken for genius. Now there’s The Tree of Life, at once astonishingly ambitious — insofar as general addressing the origin/meaning of life goes — and a small domestic narrative artificially inflated to a maximally pretentious pressure-point. The thesis here is a conflict between “nature” (the way of striving, dissatisfied, angry humanity) and “grace” (the way of love, femininity, and God). After a while Tree settles into a fairly conventional narrative groove, dissecting — albeit in meandering fashion — the travails of a middle-class Texas household whose patriarch (a solid Brad Pitt) is sternly demanding of his three young sons. As a modern-day survivor of that household, Malick’s career-reviving ally Sean Penn has little to do but look angst-ridden while wandering about various alien landscapes. Set in Waco but also shot in Rome, at Versailles, and in Saturn’s orbit (trust me), The Tree of Life is so astonishingly self-important while so undernourished on some basic levels that it would be easy to dismiss as lofty bullshit. Its Cannes premiere audience booed and cheered — both factions right, to an extent. (2:18) (Harvey)

*The Trip Eclectic British director Michael Winterbottom rebounds from sexually humiliating Jessica Alba in last year’s flop The Killer Inside Me to humiliating Steve Coogan in all number of ways (this time to positive effect) in this largely improvised comic romp through England’s Lake District. Well, romp might be the wrong descriptive — dubbed a “foodie Sideways” but more plaintive and less formulaic than that sun-dappled California affair, this TV-to-film adaptation displays a characteristic English glumness to surprisingly keen emotional effect. Playing himself, Coogan displays all the carefree joie de vivre of a colonoscopy patient with hemorrhoids as he sloshes through the gray northern landscape trying to get cell reception when not dining on haute cuisine or being wracked with self-doubt over his stalled movie career and love life. Throw in a happily married, happy-go-lucky frenemy (comic actor Rob Brydon) and Coogan (TV’s I’m Alan Partridge), can’t help but seem like a pathetic middle-aged prick in a puffy coat. Somehow, though, his confused narcissism is a perverse panacea. Come for the dueling Michael Caine impressions and snot martinis, stay for the scallops and Brydon’s “small man in a box” routine. (1:52) (Devereaux)

The Whistleblower (1:58) Smith Rafael.

*!Women Art Revolution Bay Area artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson’s vibrant look back at the first waves of feminist art in the ’60s and ’70s is an extremely necessary and impassioned recounting of a history that perpetually seems to be on the edge of erasure. Mixing old and new interviews with artists, critics, and scholars — many of which are from Hershman Leeson’s own personal archive — !W.A.R. lets those who stood at the frontlines of one the most significant movements in contemporary art tell their own stories. Seeing and hearing the testimonies of the likes of Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman, B. Ruby Rich, Judy Chicago, Carolee Scheeman, Rachel Rosenthal, and Ingrid Sischy, one after another, is dazzling — like being in the presence of an Olympian summit — even as their overlapping tales of pushback, casual misogyny and outright ridicule from critics, the art establishment, and in some cases, their colleagues, paint a damning picture of just how endemic sexism was, and as the need for a film such as !WAR attests to, in many ways still is. (1:23) (Sussman)

 

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

All Atheists Are Muslim Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 517-3581, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Opens Thurs/1, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 1. Zahra Noorbakhsh performs her solo romantic comedy.

Cymbeline Parade Ground Lawn, Main Post, Presidio (between Graham and Keyes), SF; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Opens Sat/3, 7:30pm. Runs Sun/4-Mon/5, 2:30pm; Sept 10, 17, and 24, 7:30pm; Sept 11, 18, and 25, 2:30pm. Through Sept 25. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival presents its annual “Free Shakespeare in the Park” performance.

King Henry the Sixth Boxcar Studios, 125a Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $12-15. Opens Fri/2, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 17. Do It Live Productions debuts with a contemporary Shakespeare adaptation.

BAY AREA

A Delicate Balance Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-48. Previews Fri/2-Sat/3 and Sept 7, 8pm; Sun/4, 2pm; Tues/6, 7pm. Opens Sept 8, 8pm. Runs Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 9. Aurora Theatre performs Edward Albee’s comedy of manners.

Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Previews Fri/2-Sat/3 and Tues/6, 8pm; Sun/4, 7pm. Opens Sept 7, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sun, showtimes vary. Through Oct 30. Rita Moreno stars in a show created specifically for her by Berkeley Rep’s Tony Taccone and David Galligan.

ONGOING

“AfroSolo Arts Festival” Various venues, SF; www.afrosolo.org. Free-$100. Through Oct 20. The AfroSolo Theatre Company presents its 18th annual festival celebrating African American artists, musicians, and performers.

American Buffalo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through Sept 17. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs the David Mamet crime classic.

Exit, Pursued By a Bear Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed-Sat (no shows this week; shows resume Sept 7), 8pm. Through Sept 17. Crowded Fire performs Lauren Gunderson’s new play, a feminist revenge comedy.

Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055. $25-100. Thurs, 8pm; Sat-Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 18. Geoff Hoyle returns to the Marsh with his acclaimed solo show.

Tigers Be Still SF Playhouse, 522 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-50. Tues-Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 10. SF Playhouse performs Kim Rosenstock’s quirky comedy.

True West NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.truewestsf.com. $10-28. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 17. Expression Productions presents Sam Shepard’s tale of two brothers.

2012: The Musical! This week: Mill Valley Community Center (back lawn), 180 Camino Alto, Mill Valley; www.sfmt.org. Free. Wed/31, 7pm. Also Thurs/1, 7pm, Mitchell Park, South Field, 600 East Meadow, Palo Alto; Sat/3-Mon/5, 2pm, Dolores Park, 18th St at Dolores, SF. Continues through Sept 25 at various Bay Area venues. San Francisco Mime Troupe mounts their annual summer musical; this year’s show is about a political theater company torn between selling out and staying true to its anti-corporate roots.

Waiting for Giovanni Decker Theater, New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-36. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 18. This world-premiere play by Jewelle Gomez in collaboration with Harry Waters Jr. imagines a split-second of indecision in the mind of author James Baldwin.

BAY AREA

Candida Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theatre Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-66. Wed/31-Thurs/1, 7:30pm; Fri/2-Sat/3, 8pm (also Sat/3, 2pm); Sun/4, 4pm. Cal Shakes artistic director helms this taken on George Bernard Shaw’s classic about a housewife torn between her husband and a new suitor.

The Complete History of America (abridged) Dominican University of California, Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 1475 Grand, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Performance times vary; check website for schedule. Through Sept. 25. Marin Shakespeare Company performs Adam Lon, Reed Martin, and Austin Tichenor’s three-person romp through American history.

The Merry Wives of Windsor Old Mill Park, 375 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.curtaintheatre.org. Free. Sat-Sun and Sept 5, 2pm. Through Sept 18. Curtain Theatre performs Shakespeare’s Falstaff-centric comedy.

Not a Genuine Black Man Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 5pm (also Sept 8 and 22, 7:30pm). Through Sept 24. This is it: the final extension of Brian Copeland’s solo show about growing up in (nearly) all-white San Leandro.

Of Dice and Men La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 1. Impact Theatre performs Cameron McNary’s comedy about a group of adult Dungeons and Dragons players.

The Road to Hades John Hinkel Park, Southampton Ave, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $10 (suggested donation; no one turned away for lack of funds). Sat-Sun, 3pm. Through Sept 11. Shotgun Players presents a new comedy written by and starring veteran comedian and clown Jeff Raz.

Sense and Sensibility Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 18. TheatreWorks performs Roger Parsley and Andy Graham’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel.

Seven Guitars Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Wed/31, 7:30pm; Thurs/1-Sat/3, 8pm (Sat/3, 2pm); Sun/4, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs August Wilson’s 1940s-set entry into his series of plays about the African-American experience.

The Tempest Dominican University of California, Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 1475 Grand, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Performance times vary; check website for schedule. Through Sept. 25. Marin Shakespeare Company presents Shakespeare’s romance with a steampunk twist.

Toke Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 11. Swirl Media presents Deedee Kirkwood’s pot-fueled comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“The Kurt Weill Project” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. Wed, 8pm. Free. Cabaret opera.

“The Romane Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.romaneeventcomedyshow.com. Wed, 7:30pm. $10. Paco Romane hosts, and Nato Green headlines, this comedy variety show.

BAY AREA

“Finian’s Rainbow” Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller, Oakl; (510) 531-9597, www.woodminster.com. $26-42. Opens Fri/2, 8pm. Runs Thurs and Sun, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 11. Outdoor performance of the Irish-tinged Broadway classic.

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