Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

The economies of desire

Andrew Lam
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The economies of desire

THEATER Since 2010, This Is What I Want has hitched its program to the National Queer Arts Festival to explore the artistic and social ground between intimacy and performance. Privileging the immediate, even confused elaborations of desire over the canny or slickly theorized, TIWIW (produced by THEOFFCENTER in association with SOMArts, the Center for Sex and Culture, and the Queer Cultural Center) challenges adept, professional performance makers to risk forgoing the usual control or cohesion in the hope of finding new avenues for creation and participation.

TIWIW’s free-ranging curatorial approach, which includes artists operating outside queer or identity-based practices, gets a further boost this year with the inclusion of several Los Angeles–based artists and a symposium at the Center for Sex and Culture moderated by Carol Queen.

San Francisco–based performance artist and choreographer Tessa Wills took over as artistic director this year at the invitation of TIWIW’s founder, choreographer Jesse Hewit. Wills’s own piece caps the five-day program with a “participatory experience” at the Center for Sex and Culture, and in general she brings a particular stamp to this year’s festival, even as TIWIW stretches out within and beyond the Bay Area via a curatorial team that includes Hewit, Rachael Dichter, and Los Angeles–based artists Anna Martine Whitehead and Doran George.

Wills, a thirtysomething whose relaxed mien belies a probing stare, is an internationally produced performance maker who grew up studying music, ballet, and contemporary dance in England before relocating to the Bay Area. She’s one of those artists always worth going out of your way for. In fact, she was behind one of the more memorable contributions to last year’s TIWIW program (more on that below). Wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that nonchalantly compliments the shorn sides of her sandy brown bob, Wills sat down at a Mission café last week to discuss her directorial vision for TIWIW and the economies of desire.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Can you describe briefly the curatorial process this year?

Tessa Wills We asked people to apply, either people whose work we like or with a specific piece in mind, like Sara Kraft’s — Rachael [Dichter] knew exactly what the piece was. [Multimedia artist Sara Kraft’s The Truth employs a pair of dueling narratives in what the artist describes as a desperate search for objectivity, “fueled by the deeply subjective madness of desire, loss and the chaos of experience.” It premiered at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2007.]

I had the curatorial statement underway, and the other curators added to it, enriched it or changed parts, and we invited people from there. About half of them are new commissions from people we are just excited by, like Dia [Dear] and Mica [Sigourney], and half of them are pieces that already exist. There are loads of people coming up from LA this time because two of the curators are down there.

SFBG One of those is British artist Doran George. How did he become involved?

TW I followed his work in England but never met him. Then he came to San Francisco, and we made very fast, intense connections around work and politics, and also a friendship. So we were looking for a way to work with each other.

When Jesse asked me to direct TIWIW and invite in curators, it seemed like that was really where Doran was at. A lot of his work is about somatics as it relates to gender. Because he was [in Los Angeles], it seemed sensible to think about other people that could support him and his choices down there. Anna Martine [Whitehead] is also down there working, and obviously she has this strong history with the festival, and her voice is clear, rich and powerful.

SFBG Can you explain the emphasis on desire and economy in your work and in your directorial approach overall?

TW Broadly, people in this festival [in the last two years] have looked at desire through the lens of sexuality — but they also have not. My artistic direction has put it very specifically; I really wanted to bring in that question of how money and desire weave together, and where the places of empowerment and disempowerment are around that. I’ve brought sex work to the fore in that. Doran also is interested in that. But we were very careful in the curating to broaden that out a lot. The pieces are not all about sex; but the pieces are all about desire. So there is breadth, but also that very specific thing that I’ve brought in.

In my piece, at Center for Sex and Culture on Saturday, there are nine people who are “charging,” they’re doing one-on-one performances with audiences. Basically, they’re facilitating you talking about your desire. But it’s not like straight sex work. It’s not like they’re going to meet your desire. They’re going to interrogate it with you and charge it up.

SFBG So “charge up” has a double entendre.

TW It’s got a double entendre, exactly. All of the chargers are sex workers. I identify as a sex-worker ally, and I identify in the space between performance and sex work. Those are my two communities. So this theme, the value of desire, somehow has those two together.

SFBG Where do you see subversive or radical points of departure in the intersections of desire and economy? 

TW People will take money and then use it for their subversive practices. So there’s that. Then there’s the fact that everybody is working for free to put this festival on. I think that adds a really interesting perspective to the conversation about how desire and money relate. Because the thing that’s really driven this festival is this passionate desire to put it on for its own sake. It defies any economic logic that any of us are working this hard. I mean, it’s ridiculous. I feel stupid how hard I’m working on this.

SFBG That’s the position of a lot of art-making in this society. But then, ridiculousness is a tried-and-true strategy of subversion too. I’m reminded of the argument in Judith Halberstam’s book, The Queer Art of Failure, where a willingness to “fail” — in the terms set by the dominant social and economic order — may offer a way out from under that order, and suggest alternatives beyond its reach or ken.

TW There are all these other economies that come to light when you look at that disconnect or failure [vis-à-vis the dominant economic model]—then it’s like, ok, that’s obviously not working, so what else can be motivating? There are just so many diverse economies at work. Like DavEnds piece, for example. She was really motivated by wanting to have close, intimate exchanges and make more friends. The people she’s brought into her piece, she’s very clear about it, are people that she wants to be friends with.

SFBG There’s a social impulse mixed in there. I also like the idea that desire could be tied to giving away or losing, as opposed to taking, receiving, gaining or possessing. Does that resonate with some of the pieces this year? 

TW Yes, I think that’s right. Mica Sigourney’s piece is one that I was very keen to curate. He’s the only one who’s been in all the iterations of the festival, and I think each time he’s done [TIWIW], it’s gotten a little closer to actually managing to stage desire, in motion, on the stage. His piece is kind of a secret, but there’s a way in which he is working directly with money. He’s trying to figure out his erotic value in the moment, with the audience. There’s a way in which his work always gets right to the heart of the theme for me.

SFBG Back to your piece: Does it build on previous work?

TW Yes. Last year, when I was at the festival, I did this piece with electric butt plugs. [Note: In this piece, Wills and co-performer Harold Burns were naked inside (what looked like) giant pink bath scrunchies (designed by Honey McMoney), wearing electric butt-plugs attached to a microphone set low before a pillow at the front of the stage. Individual audience members could come kneel and whisper their fantasies, their words registering solely in the physical responses and expressions of the performers.]

When they asked me to be in the festival, I identified that what I’m really excited about is the process of saying what you want, the somatic experience of saying what you want — especially if it feels transgressive inside of you. I don’t really care what the content of the thing is. And I don’t care whether society thinks it’s ok or not. I’m not really interested in any of that. I’m just interested in the physical, somatic experience of saying what you want. That seems like the most valuable thing for me.

So what I did in the butt-plug piece was to get the audience to come up and say things, to say what they wanted, and they couldn’t really be heard, and then we would just get the sensation — we would get the quality of how they were talking but we wouldn’t get the content. And we’d experience that in a very intimate, deep way. That’s what I wanted to try and develop a bit further this year. So after this week of people watching other people struggle and interrogate and stage their desire, [in this piece] they get to have all of that research land in their own body. They have their own process of saying what they desire, and they have their own somatic experience.

SFBG So it’s very individual and private, there’s no larger audience, there’s no documentation of the whole thing.

TW Exactly. It’s kind of rough for me as an artist, because I’ve put so much work into it, and it’s a very generous piece in terms of the amount — like we talked about the economic worth and the amount of one-on-one time with the audience. So it’s very sad for me to never get an audience response, actually.

SFBG No payoff?

TW Yeah, I’ll never get that.

 

THIS IS WHAT I WANT

Performances Wed/27-Fri/29, 8pm, $20

SOMArts Cultural Center

934 Brannan, SF

“Slow Sex Symposium” Sat/30, noon-4pm, free

“This Is What You Want — Experiential” Sat/30, 5-11pm, $15-$25

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

thisiswhatiwant.eventbrite.com

Garage Days re-revisited

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Garage Days re-revisited

MUSIC In 2003, at Moses Music in East Oakland, I stumbled across a CD labeled “Numskull of the Luniz Presents…Hittaz on tha Payroll, Ghetto Storm” (Hitta Records). I bought it and was blown away, not simply by the rappers — one of whom, Eddi Projex, has gone on to be a Bay hitmaker — but also by the cinematic expressiveness of the music, with its moody, minor-key atmospheres and rapid counterpunctual basslines, courtesy of the Mekanix: Dotrix 4000 and Kenny Tweed.

Who were they? I found out in ’04, when I met Dot at a Digital Underground show. Turned out, he’d been the group’s late ’90s tour DJ, but left to pursue production, forming the Mekanix with Tweed in 2001. They invited me to their High Street studio, the Garage, to meet J-Stalin, a rapper they were developing who’d debuted as a teen on Richie Rich’s Nixon Pryor Roundtree (Ten-Six, 2002).

Soon after, the yet-unnamed hyphy movement began to foment and I got a gig covering rap for a great metropolitan alt-weekly….

I’d say the rest is history but nothing in Bay Area rap is ever that simple. On the one hand, the prolific Stalin is among the most popular local rappers — currently second biggest seller after E-40, according to Rasputin rap buyer Saeed Crumpler — with Dot and Tweed producing his entire solo debut, On Behalf of the Streets (Zoo Ent., 2006) and a chunk of his sophomore effort, The Pre-Nuptial Agreement (SMC, 2010).

Besides Stalin and Eddi, the duo helped launch former Delinquent G-Stack’s solo career, as well as newer artists like Shady Nate, DB the General, and Philthy Rich. Last year, they even landed a track on the deluxe version of E-40’s Revenue Retrievin (Heavy on Da Grind), and 40 declares his intention to continue working with them.

“The Mekanix are pure talent,” 40 enthuses over the phone. “Even though they make mob music, you can tell they grew up listening to soul music from the R&B days; they could make a killer cry!”

On the other hand, in the digital age, when anyone can slap a beat together, the question is, how do you get paid for production in a region like the Bay, whose rap suffers the twin neglect of corporate radio and major labels? With the decline in album sales, rappers out here derive their music income chiefly from live performances, an option unavailable to producers.

Despite their undeniable artistic impact, the Mekanix today find themselves in a tiny East Oakland studio not far from the Garage where it all began.

“We can’t go outside without somebody playing our music,” Dot says. “That’s cool, but it’s not that fly if your rent ain’t paid.”

“We sell beats but it’s never consistent enough to feed our families and pay our bills,” Tweed admits. “That’s why we’re putting out albums now.”

Thus the duo have made 2012 the year of the Mekanix, beginning with February’s The Chop Shop (Zoo Ent.), a digitally-released compilation of Youtube and street hits they’ve produced for various artists, with a handful of new cuts like the Yukmouth-driven title song.

They followed in April with the Go Boyz, Everything Must Go (Zoo Ent.), a “lost” supergroup project from the hyphy era (ca. ’05), featuring Kaz Kyzah (the Team), Stalin and Shady (Livewire), and Dot himself on vocals in addition to producing with Tweed. Almost released half-a-dozen times, in deals that collapsed at the last minute, the darkly comedic, Ecstasy-themed Everything destroys most Bay albums of that period and remains fresh, even if Shady especially is a far greater beast on the mic today.

Both releases, however, are merely set-up for an album “coming all the way new,” according to Tweed: The Chop Shop 2 (Zoo Ent.), due late July. With a pair of monster lead singles — “Bay Area Perspective” teaming 40, Stalin, Keak Da Sneak, and Turf Talk, and “Money” featuring a vintage verse by Mac Dre recorded at the Garage, alongside fresh contributions from Stalin, Keak, and Bay R&B phenom R.O.D. — Chop 2 is the most ambitious Mekanix project to date, its judiciously matched voices sewn together by the gradual emergence of Dot’s rapping alter ego, 4rax.

Oddly enough, 4rax has had airplay outside the Bay, largely from DJ Premier, who’s spun several tracks on his SiriusXM show, Live from Headqcourterz, over the past two years. But Dot’s only begun sprinkling the conscious thug persona into the mix locally, dropping a very Oakland video, “Kerosene,” in January.

“4rax always been there,” Dot says. “I just ain’t focused on him. But it’s at the point where, shit, we done focused on everyone in the Bay, so either I do it now or not at all.”

“We’ve laid the groundwork, but people gotta pay for it this time,” he laughs. “But we made it; we’re still here.”

Walk this way

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Walk this way

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE If you’ve ever had to create a multi-course meal from random fridge contents, or pulled together a smashing outfit moments before a big party, you are well familiar with the fine art of making do.

ODC Theater Director Christy Bolingbroke might have been thinking along these lines as she put together the Walking Distance Dance Festival — SF, a three-day marathon of 12 companies both local and national, with one from Singapore thrown in for good measure. These are the ingredients that she had to work with; the occasion is that Dance/USA, the national service organization for dance, is in town. That’s a big opportunity to show the rest of the country who we are and what we do.

The ten-year-old but little-known Scuba, a multi-city initiative between San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia, offers touring opportunities to mid-career artists to and from participating cities. ODC has a long tradition of offering developmental residencies to local choreographers. And last, but not least, ODC has an elegant multi-venue “campus,” as they call it, suitable for simultaneously showcasing performances both intimate and large. For Walking Distance, Bolingbroke curated a mix of Scuba and former ODC resident artists performing in three ODC venues.

But she also had something else in mind. Walking Distance presents most works in shared line-ups. “We know that audiences follow individual artists,” she explains. “We wanted to create opportunities for them to see different artists in one sitting to get a taste of a variety of choreographies.”

It’s a model that has been the norm in other performing arts, such as symphony orchestras. Dance companies, however, have for the most part stuck to one-artist programs, though Robert Moses’ Kin Dance Company’s recent “The BY Series” and Amy Seiwert and Imagery’s upcoming “Sketch 2” may be indications of change to come.

One of Walking Distance’s most intriguing pairings just might be ODC Dance with Maya Dance. Maya is a five-year-old contemporary ensemble from Singapore that bases its work on Asian esthetics and traditional dance forms. In May, ODC and Maya performed in a shared program in Singapore. Both groups performed Brenda Way’s 2008 Unintended Consequences: A Meditation; KT Nelson set a work on Maya, and Kavitha Krishnan set one on ODC. The repeat will be Maya’s first US appearance.

Making their first appearance in San Francisco are three Scuba artists; it’s impossible not to be impressed with the sheer variety of dance being created outside the Eastern corridor. A colleague from Seattle described Alice Gosti’s Spaghetti Co — Are you Still Hungry? as “basically a food fight with kinetically interesting things happening.” For her Halo, Gabrielle Revlock is bringing one prop — a hoop — from Philly. And then there is the German-born Minneapolis choreographer Angharad Davies, who in Security examines the effect of tedious shift work on relationships.

Of the work by former ODC Theater residents, only the excerpt of Catherine Galasso’s Fall of the Rebel Angels is new. Perhaps that’s not what festivals traditionally do, but for Bolingbroke this one is an opportunity to gather works that have proven themselves.

Walking Distance also reflects the theatrical strengths among former ODC resident artists. There is no pure dance, and no ballet unless you count the revival of Kunst-Stoff’s deliciously deconstructed Less Sylphide. The festival’s choreographers — Ben Levy, Monique Jenkinson, Ryan Smith and Wendy Rein, and Shinichi Iova Koga — have extraordinarily broad perspectives on how dance communicates.

“It’s a taster, a sampler of many different things,” Bolingbroke says of Walking Distance, which was inspired by a 2011 version held in the Mendocino County town of Willits. At that festival, several theaters in close proximity to each other collaborated to present BARE Dance (from Los Angeles), AXIS Dance Company, and Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu; it focused local attention on California dance in an informal, easily accessible manner. This approach just might work in San Francisco as well — now and at future incarnations of the fest.

WALKING DISTANCE DANCE FESTIVAL — SF

Fri/29-Sat/30, 6:30pm; Sun/1, 2pm, $20-$75

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

www.odctheater.org

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/27-Tue/3 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features and marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Pina (Wenders, 2011), Wed, 3:05, 7, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Herzog, 2010), Wed, 5:05, 9. •Barbarella (Vadim, 1968), Thu, 3:05, 7, and Cherry 2000 (De Jarnatt, 1987), Thu, 5, 8:55. Grease (Kleiser, 1978), June 29-July 5, 7 (also Sat-Sun, 2:30; no show July 4). Presented sing-along style; this event, $10-15.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Bel Ami (Donnellan and Ormerod, 2012), call for dates and times. Bernie (Linklater, 2012), call for dates and times. Oslo, August 31st (Trier, 2011), call for dates and times. Peace, Love and Misunderstanding (Beresford, 2011), call for dates and times. Pink Ribbons, Inc. (Pool, 2011), June 29-July 5, call for times.

LIFECROWD MOVIE THEATRE 356 Sixth St, SF; www.lifecrowd.com. Free (advance sign-up required). Dazed and Confused (Linklater, 1993), Thu, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Gregory Peck: An Agreeable Gentleman:" Duel in the Sun (Vidor, 1969), Wed, 7; Arabesque (Donen, 1966), Fri, 7. "One-Two Punch: Pulp Writers Dorothy B. Hughes, Mickey Spillane, Elmore Leonard:" My Gun is Quick (White, 1957), Thu, 7; The Girl Hunters (Rowland, 1963), Thu, 8:50; Stick (Reynolds, 1985), Sat, 6:30; Valdez is Coming (Sherin, 1971), Sat, 8:40. "Three Czech New Wave Classics:" Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Jires, 1969), Fri, 9.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Gerhard Richter Painting (Belz, 2011), Thu, 6:30. Marley (Macdonald, 2012), Thu, 8:30. Ultrasonic (Rao, 2011), Wed-Thu, 7, 8:45. Arab Film Festival presents: The War Around Us (Omeish, 2012), Wed, 7:30. With director Abdallah Omeish in person. Beyond the Black Rainbow (Cosmatos, 2011), June 29-July 5, 7:15. 9:30 (also Sat-Sun, 2:30, 4:45). The Connection (Clarke, 1962), June 29-July 5, 7, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 2:30, 4:45).

SF FILM SOCIETY CINEMA 1746 Post, SF. $10-11. The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Part Five: American Cinema of the 70s and Movies to Change the World (Cousins, 2011), Sat, noon. British TV series; new episodes weekly through July 21. Found Memories (Murat, 2011), Wed-Thu, 2:30, 4:30, 6:30, 8:30. Corpo Celeste ( Rohrwacher, 2011), June 29-July 5, 2:30, 4:30, 6:30.

Midnight in Woodyland

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Midnight in Woodyland

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Woody Allen’s film legacy is not like anybody else’s — his imitators don’t count — and is likely to grow ever more interesting in retrospect, as it becomes clear how even his (by now many) bad or indifferent movies still provided some idiosyncratic diversity in American comedy. (For the most part his few straight dramas are, face it, only really interesting as digressions from his strengths.)

At present, however, he suffers from a sense that he’s been too prolific for too long. It’s been nearly two decades since a new Woody Allen was any kind of “event,” and the 19 features since Bullets Over Broadway (1994) have been hit and-miss — the “hits” just nice rather than truly memorable, the misses landing with a soft, listless thud. Every few films there’s a heralded “return to form,” whether it’s Melinda and Melinda (2004), Match Point (2005), Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008), or last year’s Midnight in Paris. But they’re just pretty good, and no one should be surprised anymore when something as dismal as Cassandra’s Dream (2007) or Anything Else (2003) pops up between them.

Still, there’s the hope that Allen is still capable of really surprising us — or that his audience might, as they did by somewhat inexplicably going nuts for Midnight in Paris. That mild, harmless amusement had a half-developed clever concept and a snugly-fitting lead in Owen Wilson, one of few actors who’ve held on to their own personality while playing Allen’s surrogate. It was Allen’s most popular film in eons, if not ever, probably helped by the fact that he wasn’t in it — for reasons beyond the real-life distaste some have felt toward him ever since the Mia/Soon-Yi fracas. With increasing age, he’s become an onscreen liability to his own movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZcip9HY1Pw

Unfortunately, he’s up there again in the new To Rome With Love, familiar mannerisms not hiding the fact that Woody Allen the Nebbish has become just another Grumpy Old Man. He has trouble making eye contact with other actors, and his fussbudgeting is now a long way from cute, well into annoying. He’s meant to annoy the other characters in his scenes, but still, there’s a doddering quality that isn’t intended, and is no longer within his control.

But then To Rome With Love is a doddering picture — a postcard-pretty set of pictures with little more than “Have a nice day” scribbled on the back in script terms. Viewers expecting more of the travelogue pleasantness of Midnight in Paris may be forgiving, especially since it looks like a vacation, with Darius Khondji’s photography laying on the golden Italian light and making all the other colors confectionary as well. But if Paris at least had the kernel of a good idea, Rome has only several inexplicably bad ones; it’s a quartet of interwoven stories that have no substance, point, credibility, or even endearing wackiness. The shiny package can only distract so much from the fact that there’s absolutely nothing inside, not even Styrofill.

Allen’s segment has him as Jerry, a retired opera director married to Judy Davis (wasted, which could be said of everyone here), reaching the Eternal City to meet the fiancé (Flavio Parenti) of his daughter (Alison Pill). He’s distracted by discovering the latter’s father (tenor Fabio Armiliato) is a superb singer — albeit only in the shower. The joke is that Jerry gets him to sing publicly … in showers. Yep, that’s the whole joke.

The other threads are, if anything, even feebler. Through inane mix-ups a honeymooning couple (Alessandro Tiberi, Alessandra Mastronardi) end up separated, paired respectively with a prostitute (Penélope Cruz) and veteran movie star (Antonio Albanese).

The relationship between study-abroad students Jack (Jesse Eisenberg) and Sally (Greta Gerwig) is complicated when her seductive actress friend (Ellen Page) shows up; Alec Baldwin plays a visiting architect who, for no apparent reason, acts as their omnipresent adviser à la the Bogart ghost in 1972’s Play It Again, Sam.

Worst of all is an utterly stupid non-story in which Roberto Benigni — who doesn’t need to imitate Woody because he’s already annoyingly mannered enough — plays an ordinary family man suddenly treated, and paparazzi-hounded, as a celebrity. There’s no explanation for this, and the presumably intended spoof of meaningless media fascinations famous-for-being-famous folk is so cluelessly handled you wonder if Allen was having a senior moment while writing it.

At the beginning a stereotypical traffic-directing polizia tells the camera directly that he sees all of Rome pass by and knows all their stories. At the end, he tells us there are plenty more where the ones we’ve just seen came from. Pretty as it’s been to look at, after 112 barely chuckle-prodding minutes of To Rome With Love that sounds very much like a threat.

 

TO ROME WITH LOVE opens Fri/29 in San Francisco.

Psychic Dream Astrology: June 27-July 3

Andrew Lam
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ARIES

March 21-April 19

You need to look at your circumstances for what they are, and be willing to have some potentially unpleasant conversations. Don’t decide what’s right or possible for other people; talk things out, even if it’s scary. Combat your lack of decisiveness by looking at the big picture. The worst thing is the not knowing.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

You must learn how to trust in your internal compass. You are being challenged to look inward to feel out what’s right for you, Taurus. Other people’s opinions will distract you from figuring out what you think if you aren’t careful, so first get clear with yourself, and then invite in other people’s opinions.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Love does not absolve you from needing to deal with the details of your life, but it sure does a good job of improving it, and making your work sweeter. Don’t worry about what comes next! Tend to the things you love most dearly with an open and caring heart this week and the results will be your reward.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

You’re ready to confront your problems, but your biggest obstacle is yourself. Stop making things worse by obsessing on them! You must relax before anything can get solved, so find the time to clear your head and fortify your spirit. Negative thinking will take you for a long walk on a short pier this week.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Write a list of your most fearful expectations with the situations in your life, and then, write a list of the most hopeful potential outcomes alongside it. You must name your fears in order to overcome them, Leo. You have so much support to call on, but first you need to reign in your worried head.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You are meant to be going through some major stuff, and the less you resist it, the easier it’ll go. Appearances can fool you, Virgo, so beware: some things that have the look of problems are here to expedite change, and others that may look easy are here to block it. Carefully evaluate before you make a move.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Use kindness and compassion as your stealthiest weapon and most soothing salve this week, Libra. You are being indoctrinated in lessons of the heart, and the greatest way to rise to the occasion is with the wisdom that only an empathetic approach can yield. What goes around comes around, pal.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Now is the time for openings, if you’re willing to see things from a new perspective. There is so much promise in your life. Look outside of your black or white thinking to see the whole spectrum of possibilities in front of you, Scorpio! You must change yourself in order to receive what comes next.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Don’t let your fears motivate you! Rely on your inner resources this week, Sag, even though there is so much stress and pressure around you that it’s likely to be infectious. Nobody knows exactly how things will turn out, so make sure to pace yourself carefully through your situations.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

The devil is in the details and he will run you ragged if you let him. This week it is best to trust in the big picture, and to put your creative and pragmatic energies there, Capricorn. If you let yourself get too caught up in the pieces you’ll miss the whole and end up spinning your wheels uselessly.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

The good times are a gift that is easy to misuse. This week you don’t have to do much to have things go along without trouble, but if you are willing to take extra care, you can pave the road to excellence! Practice fearless loving, Aquarius, and share the best of what your heart has to offer with others.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

You are on your way to a new beginning, Pisces, which is a wonderful thing, given your recent stresses! Allow your self to let go of the past, and practice building new, and brighter expectations. Take great care so as to avoid bringing the crap you’re trying to release into the next phase in front of you.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 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

 

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Adios Amigo, Dreamdate, Garrett Pierce Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Civil War Rust, Air Show Disaster, Why I Hate Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Keith Crossan Invitational Pro Blues Jam Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Trini Lopez Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40-$45.

Jason Marion vs. Lee Huff Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Symbolick Jews, Konichiwa Baby, Impersonations Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Tanlines, Aaron Axelsen, Miles the DJ Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $10.53.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo AlleyCats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7-10pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Nachito Herrera Trio Yoshi’s. 8pm, $20.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. DJs Daneekah and Green B spin reggae and dancehall with weekly guests.

Full-Step! Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, reggae, soul, and funk with DJs Kung Fu Chris and Bizzi Wonda.

Mary Go Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

Megatallica Fiddler’s Green, 1333 Columbus, SF; www.megatallica.com. 7pm, free. Heavy metal hangout.

Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. With DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

Southern Fried Soul Knockout. 9:30pm, $3. With Selectors Medium Rare, Psychy Mikey spinning barbecue greasy soul.

THURSDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Anthem Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

AVICII, Chuckle, Cazzette Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. 8pm, $49.50.

Harper Blynn, Madi Diaz Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Butch Whacks & the Glass Packs Bimbo’s. 8pm, $45.

Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.

Fake Your Own Death, Glass Trains, Le Panique Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $6.

High and Tight, Flexx Bronco, Lonely Kings, Parachute on Fire Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.

Lee Huff vs. Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Japonize Elephants Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

J Boog, Katchafire, Irie Dole, Hot Rain Mezzanine. 9pm $35.

Trini Lopez Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40-$45.

Magic Trick California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, SF; www.calacademy.org. 6pm, $10-$12.

Russian Circles, An So I Watch You From Afar, Deafheaven Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $14.

Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Terry Malts, Rat Columns, Synthetic ID Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Chuchito Valdes Latin Jazz Band Yoshi’s. 8pm, $18; 10pm, $12.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Ned Boynton Trio Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-$7. With DJ/host Senor Oz and guests DJ Oneman, B Sears & Coolhands.

Andy Rourke (DJ set) Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $12. Popscene vs the Smiths.

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Get Low Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. Jerry Nice and Ant-1 spin Hip-Hop, ’80s and Soul with weekly guests.

Ritual Dubstep Thursdays Temple Nightclub, 540 Howard, SF; www.templesf.com. 10pm, $5. Dubstep with alternating DJs.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with DJ’s Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Baby Dee, Carletta Sue Kay Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $12-$15.

Back Pages Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Blues Brothers Review Yoshi’s. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $25.

Bpos Showdown, 10 Sixth St, SF; www.showdownsf.com. 9pm, free.

Butch Whacks & the Glass Packs Bimbo’s. 8pm, $50.

Delta Rae, Victoria George, Helena Independent. 9pm, $12.

El-P, Killer Mike, Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire, Despot Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $25.

Ian Franklin & Infinite Frequency Rockit Room. 9:30pm, $5.

Noah Griffin Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 7:30pm, $10.

Growlers, Extra Classic, Cosmonauts Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $13-$15.

Guido, Jason Marion, Lee Huff Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Paula Harris Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Austin Hastings, Stellar J, Mischa Pollack Brainwash Cafe, 1122 Folsom, SF; www.brainwash.com. 8pm.

Trini Lopez Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40-$45.

Laura Marling Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; www.lauramarling.com. 9pm, $39.50.

Moggs, Sons of Huns, Porch Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Mrs. Magician, Mantles, Kids on a Crime Spree Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Rad Cloud, Assateague, Sean Flinn and the Royal We, Sparrow’s Gate Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

Chris Sprague & His 18 Wheelers, Mitch Polzak and 10-4, Kit & the Branded Men Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $10-$12.

Justin Townes Earle, Tristen Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9pm, $10.

Terry Disely Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 5:30-8:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

El Sonido Callejero, Santos De Los Angeles Slim’s. 8pm, $13-$15.

Taste Fridays 650 Indiana, SF; www.tastefridays.com. 8pm, $18. Salsa and bachata dance lessons, live music.

DANCE CLUBS

Bloke Salutes Roxy Music Truck. 8pm, free. With DJ Bobby Please.

DJ What’s His Fuck Riptide Tavern, 3639 Taraval, SF; www.riptidesf.com. 9pm, free.

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs, shirt-off drink specials.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Pledge: Fraternal Lookout. 9pm, $3-$13. Benefiting LGBT and nonprofit organizations. Bottomless kegger cups and paddling booth with DJ Christopher B and DJ Brian Maier.

Sandwell District Showcase Public Works. 9pm, $15. With Function, Silent Servant, RRose, and more.

Sweater Funk Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With DJs Jon Guillermo, Selecter DJKirk, Sabrina, Chun-Tech, special guests Mark Grusane and Mike Cole, and more.

Teenage Dance Craze Knockout. 10pm, $5. DJs Russell Quan, Okie Oran, and dX the Funky Granpaw spin surf, soul, garage, and more.

SATURDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alaric, La Corde, Crimson Scarlet, DJ Brown Amy El Rio. 10pm, $7.

Ben Benkert, Caldecott, Lifted Roots, Speed Goat Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

Big Tree, City Tribe, Yesway Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Blisses B, Green Door Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $5.

Blues Brothers Review Yoshi’s. 8pm, $35; 10pm, $30.

Butch Whacks & the Glass Packs Bimbo’s. 8pm, $50.

Glitter Wizard, Shrine, Hot Lunch Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Growlers, Extra Classic, Summer Twins Independent. 9pm, $15.

He’s My Brother She’s My Sister, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Strange Vine Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Kafana Balkan, Brass Menazeri, Fishtank Ensemble Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

Trini Lopez Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40-$45.

Major Powers & the Lo-Fi Symphony, Billy Cramer & Share the Land, Prairiedog Amnesia. 9pm, $8-$10.

New Monsoon, Tim Carbone Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $12-$15.

Northerlies, Raven Marcus, Slow Motion Cowboys Amnesia. 5:30pm, $8-$10.

Quintron & Miss Pussycat, Dent May, Shannon and the Clams Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $12.

Royal Deuces, Jinx Jones & the King Tones, Miss Lonely Hearts Knockout. 10pm, $6.

Earl Thomas & the Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Thundercult, Vir, Lotus Moons Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

Top Secret Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Trainwreck Riders Riptide Tavern, 3639 Taraval, SF; www.riptidesf.com. 9:30pm, free.

Via Coma, I The Mighty, Atlas Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Voco, Minot Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Greg Zema, Lee Huff, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Elliot Simpson Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco, 1187 Franklin, SF; www.tangentguitarseries.com. 7:30pm, $15.

Two Grands One Heart: Lynn Yew Evers and Margie Balter Salle Pianos, 1632 C Market, SF; www.lynnyewevers.com. 7-9pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 4-6pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Icee Hot: Robert Hood Public Works Loft. 10pm, $10.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Woogie Nights with Alex Rose, Alexi Delano, Sammy Bliss, Sex Pixels Public Works. 9pm.

SUNDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Apparitions, Rat Columns, Bad Backs Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Con Brio, Dia, Steer the Stars Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Delicate Steve, Yalls, Al Lover Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8:30pm, $8-$10.

Dream Theater, Crimson Projekct Warfield. 8pm, $52-$65.

Kally Price Old Blues and Jazz Band Amnesia. 8pm, $5.

Trini Lopez Rrazz Room. 5pm, $40-$45.

Lower Dens, No Joy, Ellie Beziat Independent. 8pm, $15.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Vastum, Whitehorse, Laudanum Elbo Room. 4pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dwaine Spurlin Band Bliss Bar, 4026 24 St, SF; www.blissbar.com. 4:30-7:30pm, $10.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Stone Foxes Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard, SF; www.sterngrove.com. 2pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Twang Sunday Thee Parkside. 4pm, free. With Lone Star Retrobates.

DANCE CLUBS

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, DJ Shockman.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs and drink specials.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bass Drum of Death, DZ Deathrays, Warm Soda Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

French Cassettes, Butcher Brown, West Wingz Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Theo Katzman, Joey Dosik Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Mates of State, Stepkids Independent. 8pm, $18.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Vieux Farka Toure Yoshi’s. 8pm, $22.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop from 1960s-early ’90s with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza, and more.

TUESDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Driftless Pony Club Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Family Folk Expolision Amnesia. 9:15pm, free.

Colleen Green, White Fang, Pamela Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, free.

“Hip Hop, Hope, and Harmony” Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. SF AIDS Walk benefit with Junior Toots, Zamico, DJ Lady Ryan.

Libyans, Adults, Face the Rail Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Sad Ladders El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Valient Thorr, Holy Grail, Royal Thunder, Kickass Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $12.

Young Empire, Humans, Rio Rio Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Gaucho Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Post-Dubstep Tuesdays Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521.10pm, free. DJs Dnae Beats, Epcot, Footwerks spin UK Funky, Bass Music.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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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.

THEATER

OPENING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Opens Thu/28, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Fri/29 or July 6). Through Aug 18. A multi-character solo show about the characters of San Francisco.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Opens Wed/27, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 8pm; Fri-Sat, 7 and 9:30pm; July 8, 5pm. Through July 8. Boxcar Theatre performs John Cameron Mitchell’s musical about a transgendered glam rocker.

Jip: His Story Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Previews Fri/29, 7:30pm. Opens Sat/30, 5pm. Runs Sun/1, 4:30; Thu-Fri, 7:30pm; Sat, 2pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 15. Marsh Youth Theater remounts its 2005 musical production of Katherine Paterson’s historical novel.

Waiting… Larkspur Hotel Union Square, 525 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $69-75. Opens Fri/29, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 5. Comedy set behind the scenes at a San Francisco restaurant.

ONGOING

Aftermath Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Thu/28-Sat/30, 8pm. Theatre, Period presents Jessica Blank and Erik Jenson’s docu-drama, based on interviews with Iraqi civilians forced to flee after the US military’s arrival in 2003.

A Behanding in Spokane SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-70. Wed/27-Thu/28, 7pm; Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm (also Sat/30, 3pm). If Garth Ennis had been asked to write a comic book about a one-handed sociopath with a dark obsession, he might well have written something similar to Martin McDonagh’s A Behanding in Spokane. And admittedly, approached from that angle, a lot of the script’s dramatic flaws are more easily forgiven. There’s not a whole lot of subtle context or languid metaphor to be found in McDonagh’s criminal caper about the little-known “hand-dealing” trade, but as in Ennis’ best known work, Preacher, the pretty girl (Melissa Quine) is the smartest one in the room; the sociopath (Rod Gnapp) is interested in enacting as vicious a revenge on all humanity while spewing as many blatantly offensive invectives as possible; the boyfriend (Daveed Diggs) has some arrested development issues to work out; and the receptionist (Alex Hurt) takes the caricature of man-child to a whole new level. In fact, while all four actors deliver rock-solid performances of their mostly unsympathetic characters, it’s Hurt’s that impresses most. His spooky intensity and goofily tone-deaf determination plays like a combination of Adam Sandler and Arno Frisch, and if there’s a real sociopath in the room, the evidence suggests it’s probably him. Ultimately though the piece relies too heavily on hollow one-liners to remain interesting — a 20-minute farce stretched to 90 minutes — and quite unlike an Ennis comic, it does not leave one wanting more. (Gluckstern)

Bruja Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Extended run: Wed/27-Fri/29, 8pm; Sun/1, 2:30pm and 7pm. Although San Francisco’s Mission District is inexorably morphing into an empire of twee boutiques and haute cuisine, it’s still the first port of call for many Latin American migrants, and there are plenty of panaderias and botanicas tucked in between the sushi joints. In the Magic Theatre’s production of Bruja, playwright Luis Alfaro transplants the story of Medea to 24th Street by way of Michoacán, exploring the tension between retaining old-country values and staking out a future in a new world. Directed by artistic director Loretta Greco, the title role played by a stunning Sabina Zuniga Varela, this chamber version of the Greek tragedy hits hard, exposing each character’s darkest secrets to an unforgiving light. And every character, save the doomed brothers Acan and Acat (played the night I saw it by Daniel Castaneda and Gavilan Gordon-Chavez), has a secret to hide, even Medea, a curandera or healer by trade, whose powers run deeper and darker than her new world acquaintances, or even her old servant (Wilma Bonet) suspect. And when Jason (Sean San José) and his callous boss Creon (Carlos Aguirre), ruthlessly push Medea to her breaking point, her bloody vengeance proves, if little else, that she can play at ruthlessness better than anyone, whatever the consequences. (Gluckstern)

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 10pm). Through July 21. Tides Theatre performs Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood’s comedy about five women forced into a bomb shelter during a mid-breakfast nuke attack.

The Full Monty Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.roltheatre.com. $25-36. Thu/28-Sat/30, 8pm (also Sat/30, 2pm). In desperate times, how far would you go to turn a buck? The central premise of the 1997 movie and its namesake musical comedy The Full Monty, the answer to this question is right in the title, which limits the suspense, but amps up the expectations. Set not in Sheffield, England as in the movie, but the similarly economically challenged climate of Buffalo, New York circa the late nineties, the comical romp follows a group of unemployed steel workers who decide, rather optimistically, that spending one night as exotic dancers will solve their immediate financial woes. Banish all notions of a Hot Chocolate sing-along; the soundtrack of the stage musical has little in common with its cinematic predecessor, but there are a couple of toe-tappers, particularly the songs writ for the ladies: a belter’s anthem for their spry but elderly accompanist Jeanette (Cami Thompson), a snarky commentary on male beauty, “The Goods,” for the ensemble. On opening night, Ray of Light’s production ran about 15 minutes long after a late start, and the tempo seemed sluggish in parts, but once it hits its stride, The Full Monty should provide a welcome antidote to the ongoing, we’re-still-in-a-recession blues, red leather g-strings and all. (Gluckstern) Fwd: Life Gone Viral Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (July 15, show at 7:30pm). Extended through July 22. The internet becomes comic fodder for creator-performers Charlie Varon and Jeri Lynn Cohen, and creator-director David Ford.

Lips Together, Teeth Apart New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/27-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/1, 2pm. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Terrence McNally’s play about two straight couples spending July 4 amid Fire Island’s gay community.

100 Saints You Should Know Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.therhino.org. $10-30. Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/1, 3pm. Homespun scenic design notwithstanding, Theatre Rhinoceros and artistic director John Fisher offer a fine, engrossing production of this 2007 play by Kate Fodor (Hannah and Martin, RX), a sturdy comedy-drama about two fractured families colliding awkwardly in a sort of spiritual vacuum. Matthew (an intriguingly restrained Wiley Herman) is a desolate but forbearing Catholic priest sent on a leave of absence after a venial transgression involving some artful nude male photographs. Returning home, he endures a pained relationship with his devout, passively domineering Irish mother (Tamar Cohn, channeling a nicely measured mixture of stony discipline and childlike vulnerability). Soon Matthew gets an unexpected visit from single mom Theresa (a bright but shrewdly self-possessed Ann Lawler), a former Deadhead who now cleans the rectory and finds herself overcome with an urge to ask the gentle priest about prayer — just at the moment his faith seems to have left him. Meanwhile, Theresa’s too-cool-for-school teenager, Abby (a deft and hilarious Kim Stephenson), waits outside and does some preying of her own on a slower-witted but game young man from the neighborhood (a charmingly quirky Michael Rosen), both of them roiling with confused yearnings. The appealing characters and unexpected storyline come supported by some excellent dialogue, developing a searching theme that ultimately has less to do with formal religion than the ordinary but ineffable need it promises (problematically) to meet. “I think I could be religious or whatever if it made any sense,” notes Abby, “but it doesn’t make any sense.” It’s easy to agree with the teenager on this one. 100 Saints is a genuinely funny and compassionate play discerning enough to avoid naming the depths it sounds. (Avila)

Proof NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.proofsf.com. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through July 14. $28. Expression Productions performs David Auburn’s Pulitzer-winning play about a mathematician and his daughter.

Reunion SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Wed/27-Thu/28, 7pm; Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm. SF Playhouse presents a world premiere drama by local playwright Kenn Rabin.

“Risk Is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; (415) 525-1205, www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating; $50 donation for five-play reserved seating pass). Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 14. Cutting Ball’s annual fest of experimental plays features two new works and five new translations in staged readings.

The Scottsboro Boys American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Opens Wed/27, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (Tue/3 performance at 7pm; also Wed and Sat, 2pm; no matinee July 4); Sun/1 and July 8, 7pm. Through July 15. American Conservatory Theater presents the Kander and Ebb musical about nine African American men falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit in the pre-civil rights movement South.

Slipping New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/27-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/1, 2pm. Midwestern high-school senior Eli (Evan Johnson), a recent transfer from San Francisco, is a rebellious gay teen with issues — what American teen doesn’t have issues? But then Eli’s, which include the loss of a beloved father and a Hamlet-like resentment for his recently widowed, sexually liberated academic of a mom (a subtle Stacy Thunes), have already driven him over the ledge. Eli’s “slip” into a state of deep grief is further accelerated by the complicated, violently closeted love he left back in San Francisco. In flashbacks, Eli relives this punishing, irresistible relationship with Chris (a coiled, forceful Fernando Navales) as meanwhile new best friend Jake (Benjamin T. Ismail) gradually expresses more than platonic interest and life with mother builds toward a showdown, in New Conservatory’s Bay Area premiere of Bay Area–born playwright Daniel Talbott’s thoughtfully drawn if dramatically underdeveloped play. In contrast to Ron Gasparinetti’s purposefully vague “anywhere” of a monochrome set (consisting of several low or sloped stone slabs), director Andrew Nance’s cast are engagingly precise in their clear-eyed take on adolescent anguish. Johnson proves gracefully multifaceted as Eli, at turns unbearable in his loose, simmering rage and disarming in his helplessness and heartbreak. And a charmingly awkward and earnest Ismail makes wholly convincing Jake’s innocent moth-to-flame attraction. Indeed, the play’s weaknesses — including a dizzying amount of hopping around the time-space continuum and, more critically, a dramatic arc that’s too neat and shallow to be really satisfying — do not completely detract from a worthwhile subject that often feels drawn from life. (Avila)

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Through July 21. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through July 7. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $18-25. Thu/28-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/1, 2pm. Symmetry Theatre Company presents Bay Area playwright Lauren Gunderson’s romantic drama centering on the life of 18th-century French physicist and mathematician, Émilie du Châtelet (Danielle Levin) and her (here tempestuous) long-term romance with Voltaire (Robert Parsons). In a familiar conceit left accordingly vague, fate rematerializes Emilie from some hazy afterlife so that she may relive key moments in her life and account for herself. A Cartesian mind/body split rules the replay, with Emilie finding herself painfully attenuated from the world of the senses — her flashback self (played by an impressive Blythe Foster) alone able to enjoy sensual contact with her surroundings. Meanwhile, love and loyalty face the test as Emilie goes head-to-head with a male-dominated scientific establishment over a certain theorem she calls “force vivre” — a formula into which Gunderson cleverly folds theoretical physics and the irrational heart. There’s even a visual aid: a running tally is kept throughout on a screen at the back of the stage, where hash marks appear and disappear under the headings “philosophy” and “love” as the scenes wind their desultory way back toward the moment of her demise. Chloe Bronzan directs a cast of strong actors but their work is uneven. Foster alone is consistently commanding in a part that, while minor, suggests what a more muscular approach overall might have accomplished. The normally formidable Parsons seems uncommitted in the part of Voltaire, admittedly a character too simpering and watery as written to merit much credence. Instead of palpable relationships — whether with lovers or ideas — Emilie deploys self-conscious verbiage, strained repartee and heavy thematic underscoring to churn what amounts to thin drama. (Avila)

Emotional Creature Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show July 13); Wed, 7pm (no show July 4); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through July 15. Berkeley Rep presents Eve Ensler’s world premiere, based on her best-seller I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through July 15. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri/29, 8pm; Sat/30, 5pm. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. Note: review from the show’s 2011 run at the Marsh San Francisco. (Avila)

The Odyssey Angel Island; (415) 547-0189, www.weplayers.org. $40-76 (some tickets include ferry passage). Sat/30-Sun/1, 10:30am-4pm (does not include travel time to island). We Players present Ava Roy’s adaptation of Homer’s epic poem: an all-day adventure set throughout the nature and buildings of Angel Island State Park.

Salomania Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $30-55. Previews Wed/20, 8pm. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Throgh July 22. The libel trial of a politically opportunistic newspaper publisher (Mark Andrew Phillips) and the private life of a famous dancer of the London stage — San Franciscan Maud Allan (a striking Madeline H.D. Brown) — become the scandalous headline-grabber of the day, as World War I rages on in some forgotten external world. In Aurora’s impressive world premiere by playwright-director Mark Jackson, the real-life story of Allan, celebrated for her risqué interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, soon gets conflated with the infamous trial (20 years earlier) of Wilde himself (a shrewdly understated Kevin Clarke). But is this case just a media-stoked distraction, or is there a deeper connection between the disciplining of “sexual deviance” and the ordered disorder of the nation state? Jackson’s sharp if sprawling ensemble-driven exploration brings up plenty of tantalizing suggestions, while reveling in the complexly intermingling themes of sex, nationalism, militarism, women’s rights, and the webs spun by media and politics. A group of trench-bound soldiers (the admirable ensemble of Clarke, Alex Moggridge, Anthony Nemirovsky, Phillips, Marilee Talkington, and Liam Vincent) provide one comedy-lined avenue into a system whose own excesses are manifest in the insane carnage of war — yet an insanity only possible in a world policed by illusions, distractions and the fear of unsettled and unsettling “deviants” of all kinds. In its cracked-mirror portraiture of an era, the play echoes a social and political turmoil that has never really subsided. (Avila)

Wheelhouse TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Wed/27, 7:30pm; Thu/28-Sat/30, 8pm (also Sat/30, 2); Sun/1, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks’ 60th world premiere is a musical created by and starring pop-rock trio GrooveLily.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Fri/29, 6pm; Sat/30, 11am. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alicia Dattner Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. Thu/28-Sat/30, 8pm. $26. The comedian performs.

“DEEPER, Architectural Meditations at CounterPULSE” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/29-Sun/1, 8pm. $25. Lizz Roman and Dancers perform a site-specific work.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

“I Heart Hamas: And Other Things I’m Afraid to Tell You” Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm. $20. Jennifer Jajeh performs her solo show, soon to be presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

“Jillarious Tuesdays” Tommy T’s Showroom, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.jillarious.com. Tue, 7:30. Ongoing. $20. Weekly comedy show with Jill Bourque, Kevin Camia, Justin Lucas, and special guests.

“Majestic Musical Review Featuring Her Rebel Highness” Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.herrebelhighness.com. Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 12. $25-65. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, performers in Baroque-chic gowns, music, and more.

“Mission in the Mix” Dance Mission Theatre, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/1, 7pm. $17. SF Hip-Hop DanceFest producer Micaya presents new work by her SoulForce Dance Company, plus guest performances.

“Nerdgasm” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; wonderdave.wordpress.com. Thu/28, 8pm. $12. Poetry, storytelling, and more, for nerds and by nerds. Part of the National Queer Arts Festival.

“One Night Only Benefit Cabaret” Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter, SF; www.richmondermet.org. Mon/2, 7:30pm. $25-65. Cast members from the American Idiot tour perform original music and comedy to raise money for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

“Picklewater Clown Cabaret: Robot’s Revenge!” Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/2, 8pm. $15. Picklewater and guests perform physical comedy and other circus acts.

“Same Amor” Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.ftloose.org. Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/1, 3pm. $10-20. Flamenco and contemporary dance, comedy, and live music, featuring Acuña Danza Teatro.

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.worldartswest.org. Sat/30-Sun/1, 3pm (also Sat/30, 8pm). $18-58. This final weekend of programming includes dance from Hawaii, India, Indonesia, Japan, Liberia, Mexico, the Philippines, Spain, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Sex and the City: Live!” Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Tue, 7 and 9pm. Through June 26. $25. Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, Lady Bear, Trixxie Carr play the fab four in this drag-tastic homage to the HBO series.

“This Is What I Want Performance Festival” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; thisiswhatiwant.eventbrite.com. Wed/27-Fri/29, 8pm. $20. Part of the National Queer Arts Festival, this event features different bills each night of new, multidisciplinary performances from San Francisco and Los Angeles-based artists.

“Walking Distance Dance Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/29-Sat/30, 6:30pm; Sun/1, 2pm. $20-75. LEVYdance, inkBoat, Kunst-Stoff, and more participate in this new festival, featuring dance artists performing throughout ODC’s two-building campus.

“When We Fall Apart” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Wed/27-Sat/30, 7pm (also Fri/29-Sat/30, 9pm). $25-35. Joe Goode Performance Group presents a world premiere, an exploration of “home” with a set designed by architect Cass Calder Smith.

Film Listings

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

OPENING

The Amazing Spider-Man Spidey returns in a post-Raimi reboot. (Opens Tue/3.) (2:18)

Beyond the Black Rainbow Sci-fi in feel and striking look even though it’s set in the past (1983, with a flashback to 1966), Canadian writer-director Cosmatos’ first feature defies any precise categorization — let alone attempts to make sense of its plot (such as there is). Arboria is a corporate “commune”-slash laboratory where customers are promised what everyone wants — happiness — even as “the world is in chaos.” Just how that is achieved, via chemicals or whatnot, goes unexplained. In any case, the process certainly doesn’t seem to be working on Elena (Eva Allan), a near-catatonic young woman who seems to be the prisoner as much as the patient of sinister Dr. Nyle (Michael Rogers). The barely-there narrative is so enigmatic at Arboria that when the film finally breaks out into the external world and briefly becomes a slasher flick, you can only shrug — if it had suddenly become a musical, that would have been just as (il-)logical. Black Rainbow is sure to frustrate some viewers, but it is visually arresting, and some with a taste for ambiguous, metaphysical inner-space sci-fi à la Solaris (1972) have found it mesmerizing and profound. As they are wont to remind us, half of its original audience found 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey boring, pointless and walk out-worthy, too. (1:50) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Connection The first re-release in a project to restore all of quintessential 1960s American independent director Shirley Clarke’s features, this 1961 vérité-style drama was adapted from a controversial off-Broadway play by Jack Gelber. Set exclusively in a dingy Greenwich Village crash pad, it captures a little time in the lives of several junkies there — many off-duty jazz musicians — listlessly waiting for the return of their dealer, Cowboy. To mimic the stage version’s breaking of the fourth wall between actors and spectators, Clarke added the device of two fictive filmmakers who are trying to record this “shocking” junkie scene, yet grow frustrated at their subjects’ levels of cooperation and resistance. With actors often speaking directly to the camera, and all polished stage language and acting preserved, The Connection offers a curious, artificial realm that is nonetheless finally quite effective and striking. A prize-winner at Cannes, it nonetheless had a very hard time getting around the censors and into theaters back home. Hard-won achievement followed by frustration would be a frequent occurrence for the late Clarke, who would only complete one more feature (a documentary about Ornette Coleman) after 1964’s Cool World and 1967’s Portrait of Jason, before her 1997 demise. She was a pioneering female indie director — and her difficulty finding projects unfortunately also set a mold for many talented women to come. (1:50) Roxie. (Harvey)

Corpo Celeste A 13-year-old girl comes of age in Italy’s deeply Catholic Calabrian region. (1:40) SF Film Society Cinema.

Magic Mike A movie about male strippers with an unlikely director (Steven Soderbergh) and a predictably abs-tastic cast: Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, and Joe Manganiello. (1:50)

People Like Us The opening song — James Gang’s can’t-fail “Funk #49” — only partially announces where this earnest family drama is going. Haunted by a deceased music-producer patriarch, barely sketched-out tales of his misadventures, and a soundtrack of solid AOR, this film has mixed feelings about its boomer bloodlines, much like the recent Peace, Love and Misunderstanding: these boomer-ambivalent films are the inverse of celebratory sites like Dads Are the Original Hipsters. Commodity-bartering wheeler-dealer Sam (Chris Pine) is skating on the edges of legality — and wallowing in his own kind of Type-A prickishness — so when his music biz dad passes, he tries to lie his way out of flying back home to see his mother Lillian (Michelle Pfeiffer), with his decent law student girlfriend (Olivia Wilde). He doesn’t want to face the memories of his self-absorbed absentee-artist dad, but he also doesn’t want to deal with certain legal action back home, so when his father’s old lawyer friend drops a battered bag of cash on him, along with a note to give it to a young boy (Michael Hall D’Addario) and his mother Frankie (Elizabeth Banks), he’s beset with conflict. Should he take the money and run away from his troubles or uncover the mysterious loved ones his father left behind? Director and co-writer Alexa Kurtzman mostly wrote for TV before this, his debut feature, and in many ways People Like Us resembles the tidy, well-meaning dramas about responsibility and personal growth one might still find on, say, Lifetime. It’s also tough to swallow Banks, as gifted as she is as an actress, as an addiction-scarred, traumatized single mom in combat boots. At the same time People Like Us isn’t without its charms, drawing you into its small, specific dramas with real-as-TV touches and the faintest sexy whiff of rock ‘n’ roll. (1:55) Shattuck. (Chun)

Pink Ribbons, Inc. This enraging yet very entertaining documentary by Canadian Léa Pool, who’s better known for her fiction features (1986’s Anne Trister, etc.), takes an excoriating look at “breast cancer culture” — in particular the huge industry of charitable events whose funds raised often do very little to fight the cease, and whose corporate sponsors in more than a few cases actually manufacture carcinogenic products. It’s called “cause marketing,” the tactic of using alleged do gooderism to sell products to consumers who then feel good about themselves purchasing them. Even if said product and manufacturer is frequently doing less than jack-all to “fight for the cure.” The entertainment value here is in seeing the ludicrous range to which this hucksterism has been applied, selling everything from lingerie and makeup to wine and guns; meanwhile the march, walk, and “fun run” for breast cancer has extended to activities as extreme (and pricey) as sky-diving. Pool lets her experts and survivors critique misleading the official language of cancer, the vast sums raised that wind up funding very little prevention or cure research (as opposed to, say, lucrative new pharmaceuticals with only slight benefits), and the products shilled that themselves may well cause cancer. It’s a shocking picture of the dirt hidden behind “pink-washing,” whose siren call nonetheless continues to draw thousands and thousands of exuberant women to events each year. They’re always so happy to be doing something for the sisterhood’s good — although you might be doing something better (if a little painful) by dragging friends inclined toward such deeds to see this film, and in the future question more closely just whether the charity they sweat for is actually all that charitable, or is instead selling “comforting lies.” (1:38) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Ted Here’s that crass comedy about a talking teddy bear from Seth MacFarlane you didn’t ask for. (1:46) California.

To Rome with Love See “Midnight in Woodyland.” (1:52) Albany, Embarcadero.

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection Pretty sure Madea has made more movies than James Bond at this point. (1:54)

ONGOING

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Are mash-ups really so 2001? Not according to the literary world, where writer Seth Graham-Smith has been doing brisk trade in gore-washing perfectly interesting historical figures and decent works of literature — a fan fiction-rooted strategy that now reeks of a kind of camp cynicism when it comes to a terminally distracted, screen-aholic generation. Still, I was strangely excited by the cinematic kitsch possibilities of Graham-Smith’s Lincoln alternative history-cum-fantasy, here in the hands of Timur Bekmambetov (2004’s Night Watch). Historians, prepare to fume — it helps if you let go of everything you know about reality: as Vampire Hunter opens, young Lincoln learns some harsh lessons about racial injustice, witnessing the effects of slavery and the mistreatment of his black friend Will. As a certain poetic turn would have it, slave owners here are invariably vampires or in cahoots with the undead, as is the wicked figure, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), who beats both boys and sucks Lincoln’s father dry financially. In between studying to be a lawyer and courting Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the adult Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) vows to take revenge on the man who caused the death of his mother and enters the tutelage of vampire hunter Henry (Dominic Cooper), who puts Abe’s mad skills with an ax to good use. Toss in a twist or two; more than few freehand, somewhat humorous rewrites of history (yes, we all wish we could have tweaked the facts to have a black man working by Lincoln’s side to abolish slavery); and Bekmambetov’s tendency to direct action with the freewheeling, spectacle-first audacity of a Hong Kong martial arts filmmaker (complete with at least one gaping continuity flaw) — and you have a somewhat amusing, one-joke, B-movie exercise that probably would have made a better short or Grindhouse-esque trailer than a full-length feature — something the makers of the upcoming Pride and Prejudice and Zombies should bear in mind. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Bel Ami Judging from recent attempts to shake off the gloomy atmosphere and undead company of the Twilight franchise, Robert Pattinson enjoys a good period piece, but hasn’t quite worked out how to help make one. Last year’s Depression-era Water for Elephants was a tepid romance, and Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod’s belle epoque–set Bel Ami is an ungainly, oddly paced adaptation of the Guy de Maupassant novel of the same name. A down-and-out former soldier of peasant stock, Georges Duroy (Pattinson) — or “Bel Ami,” as his female admirers call him — gains a brief entrée into the upper echelons of France’s fourth estate and parlays it into a more permanent set of social footholds, campaigning for the affections of a triumvirate of Parisian power wives (Christina Ricci, Uma Thurman, and Kristin Scott Thomas) as he makes his ascent. His route is confusing, though; the film pitches forward at an alarming pace, its scenes clumsily stacked together with little character development or context to smooth the way, and Pattinson’s performance doesn’t clarify much. Duroy shifts perplexingly between rapacious and soulful modes, eyeing the ladies with a vaguely carnivorous expression as he enters drawing rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms, but leaving us with little sense of his true appetites or other motivations. (1:42) Lumiere, Smith Rafael. (Rapoport)

Bernie Jack Black plays the titular new assistant funeral director liked by everybody in small-town Carthage, Tex. He works especially hard to ingratiate himself with shrewish local widow Marjorie (Shirley MacLaine), but there are benefits — estranged from her own family, she not only accepts him as a friend (then companion, then servant, then as virtual “property”), but makes him her sole heir. Richard Linklater’s latest is based on a true-crime story, although in execution it’s as much a cheerful social satire as I Love You Philip Morris and The Informant! (both 2009), two other recent fact-based movies about likable felons. Black gets to sing (his character being a musical theater queen, among other things), while Linklater gets to affectionately mock a very different stratum of Lone Star State culture from the one he started out with in 1991’s Slacker. There’s a rich gallery of supporting characters, most played by little-known local actors or actual townspeople, with Matthew McConaughey’s vainglorious county prosecutor one delectable exception. Bernie is its director’s best in some time, not to mention a whole lot of fun. (1:39) Balboa, Embarcadero, Shattuck, SF Center, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (1:42) Albany, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki.

Brave Pixar’s latest is a surprisingly familiar fairy tale. Scottish princess Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) would rather ride her horse and shoot arrows than become engaged, but it’s Aladdin-style law that she must marry the eldest son of one of three local clans. (Each boy is so exaggeratedly unappealing that her reluctance seems less tomboy rebellion than common sense.) Her mother (Emma Thompson) is displeased; when they quarrel, Merida decides to change her fate (Little Mermaid-style) by visiting the local spell-caster (a gentle, absent-minded soul that Ursula the Sea Witch would eat for brunch). Naturally, the spell goes awry, but only the youngest of movie viewers will fear that Merida and her mother won’t be able to make things right by the end. Girl power is great, but so are suspense and originality. How, exactly, is Brave different than a zillion other Disney movies about spunky princesses? Well, Merida’s fiery explosion of red curls, so detailed it must have had its own full-time team of animators working on it, is pretty fantastic. (1:33) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

A Cat in Paris This year’s Best Animated Film nominees: big-budget entries Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, and eventual winner Rango, plus Chico and Rita, which opened just before Oscar night, and French mega-dark-horse A Cat in Paris. Sure, Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol’s film failed to cash in on 2011’s Paris craze, but it’s still a charming if featherweight noir caper, being released stateside in an English version that features the voices of Marcia Gay Harden and Anjelica Huston. A streetwise kitty named Dino spends his days hanging with Zoey, a little girl who’s gone mute since the death of her father — a cop killed in the line of duty. Zoey’s mother (Harden), also a cop, is hellbent on catching the murderer, a notorious crook named Costa who runs his criminal empire with Reservoir Dogs-style imprecision. At night, Dino sneaks out and accompanies an affable burglar on his prowlings. When Zoey falls into Costa’s clutches, her mom, the thief, and (natch) the feisty feline join forces to rescue her, in a series of rooftop chase scenes that climax atop Notre Dame. At just over an hour, A Cat in Paris is sweetly old-fashioned and suitable for audiences of all ages, though staunch dog lovers may raise an objection or two. (1:07) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

The Dictator As expected, The Dictator is, yet again, Sacha Baron Cohen doing his bumbling-foreigner shtick. Said character (here, a ruthless, spoiled North African dictator) travels to America and learns a heaping teaspoon of valuable lessons, which are then flung upon the audience — an audience which, by film’s end, has spent 80 minutes squealing at a no-holds-barred mix of disgusting gags, tasteless jokes, and schadenfreude. If you can’t forgive Cohen for carbon-copying his Borat (2006) formula, at least you can muster admiration for his ability to be an equal-opportunity offender (dinged: Arabs, Jews, African Americans, white Americans, women of all ethnicities, and green activists) — and for that last-act zinger of a speech. If The Dictator doesn’t quite reach Borat‘s hilarious heights, it’s still proudly repulsive, smart in spite of itself, and guaranteed to get a rise out of anyone who watches it. (1:23) Metreon, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Elena The opening, almost still image of breaking dawn amid bare trees — the twigs in the foreground almost imperceptibly developing definition and the sky gradually growing ever lighter and pinker in the corners of the frame — beautifully exemplifies the crux of this well-wrought, refined noir, which spins slowly on the streams of dog-eat-dog survival that rush beneath even the most moneyed echelons of Moscow. Sixtyish former nurse Elena (Nadezhda Markina) is still little more than a live-in caretaker for Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov), her affluent husband of almost 10 years. She sleeps in a separate bed in their modernist-chic condo and dutifully funnels money to her beloved layabout son and his family. Vladimir has less of a relationship with his rebellious bad-seed daughter (Yelena Lyadova), who may be too smart and hedonistic for her own good. When a certain unlikely reunion threatens Elena’s survival — and what she perceives as the survival of her own spawn — a kind of deadly dawn breaks over the seemingly obedient hausfrau, and she’s driven to desperate ends. Bathing his scenes in chilled blue light and velvety dark shadows, filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev (2003’s The Return) keeps a detached but close eye on the proceedings while displaying an uncanny talent for plucking the telling detail out of the wash of daily routine and coaxing magnetic performances from his cast. (1:49) Lumiere. (Chun)

Found Memories The literal Portuguese-to-English translation of this film’s title — “stories that exist only when remembered” — is clunky, but more poignantly accurate than Found Memories. At first, it’s not entirely clear if Brazilian Júlia Murat is making a narrative or a documentary. In an tiny, isolated community populated by elderly people, Madalena (Sonia Guedes) follows a schedule she’s kept for years, probably decades: making bread, attending church, doing chores, tending the cemetery gates, writing love letters to a long-absent partner (“Isn’t it strange that after all these years, I still find your things around the house?”), and grousing at the “annoying old man” who grinds the town’s coffee beans. One day, young photographer Rita (Lisa Fávero) drifts into the village, an exotic import from the outside, modern world. Slowly, despite their differences, the women become friends. That’s about it for plot, but as this deliberately-paced film reflects on aging, dying, and memories (particularly in the form of photographs), it offers atmospheric food for thought, and a few moments of droll humor. Note, however, that viewer patience is a requirement to reap its rewards. (1:38) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

Headhunters Despite being the most sought-after corporate headhunter in Oslo, Roger (Aksel Hennie) still doesn’t make enough money to placate his gorgeous wife; his raging Napoleon complex certainly doesn’t help matters. Crime is, as always, the only solution, so Roger’s been supplementing his income by stealthily relieving his rich, status-conscious clients of their most expensive artworks (with help from his slightly unhinged partner, who works for a home-security company). When Roger meets the dashing Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of Game of Thrones) — a Danish exec with a sinister, mysterious military past, now looking to take over a top job in Norway — he’s more interested in a near-priceless painting rumored to be stashed in Greve’s apartment. The heist is on, but faster than you can say “MacGuffin,” all hell breaks loose (in startlingly gory fashion), and the very charming Roger is using his considerable wits to stay alive. Based on a best-selling “Scandi-noir” novel, Headhunters is just as clever as it is suspenseful. See this version before Hollywood swoops in for the inevitable (rumored) remake. (1:40) Lumiere. (Eddy)

The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a teenager living in a totalitarian state whose 12 impoverished districts, as retribution for an earlier uprising, must pay tribute to the so-called Capitol every year, sacrificing one boy and one girl each to the Hunger Games. A battle royal set in a perilous arena and broadcast live to the Capitol as gripping diversion and to the districts as sadistic propaganda, the Hunger Games are, depending on your viewpoint, a “pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice” or a brutal, pointless bloodbath involving children as young as 12. When her little sister’s name comes up in the annual lottery, Katniss volunteers to take her place and is joined by a boy named Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares an old, unspoken bond. Tasked with translating to the screen the first installment of Suzanne Collins’s rabidly admired trilogy, writer-director Gary Ross (2003’s Seabiscuit, 1998’s Pleasantville) telescopes the book’s drawn-out, dread-filled tale into a manageable two-plus-hour entertainment, making great (and horrifying) use of the original work’s action, but losing a good deal of the narrative detail and emotional force. Elizabeth Banks is comic and unrecognizable as Effie Trinket, the two tributes’ chaperone; Lenny Kravitz gives a blank, flattened reading as their stylist, Cinna; and Donald Sutherland is sufficiently creepy and bloodless as the country’s leader, President Snow. More exceptionally cast are Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta’s surly, alcoholic mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, and Stanley Tucci as games emcee Caesar Flickerman, flashing a bank of gleaming teeth at each contestant as he probes their dire circumstances with the oily superficiality of a talk show host. (2:22) 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Hysteria Tanya Wexler’s period romantic comedy gleefully depicts the genesis of the world’s most popular sex toy out of the inchoate murk of Victorian quackishness. In this dulcet version of events, real-life vibrator inventor Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) is a handsome young London doctor with such progressive convictions as a belief in the existence of germs. He is, however, a man of his times and thus swallows unblinking the umbrella diagnosis of women with symptoms like anxiety, frustration, and restlessness as victims of a plague-like uterine disorder known as hysteria. Landing a job in the high-end practice of Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce), whose clientele consists entirely of dissatisfied housewives seeking treatments of “medicinal massage” and subsequent “parosysm,” Granville becomes acquainted with Dalrymple’s two daughters, the decorous Emily (Felicity Jones) and the first-wave feminist Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal). A subsequent bout of RSI offers empirical evidence for the adage about necessity being the mother of invention, with the ever-underused Rupert Everett playing Edmund St. John-Smythe, Granville’s aristocratic friend and partner in electrical engineering. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

The Intouchables Cries of “racism” seem a bit out of hand when it comes to this likable albeit far-from-challenging French comedy loosely based on a real-life relationship between a wealthy white quadriplegic and his caretaker of color. The term “cliché” is more accurate. And where were these critics when 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy and 2011’s The Help — movies that seem designed to make nostalgic honkies feel good about those fraught relationships skewed to their advantage—were coming down the pike? (It also might be more interesting to look at how these films about race always hinge on economies in which whites must pay blacks to interact with/educate/enlighten them.) In any case, Omar Sy, portraying Senegalese immigrant Driss, threatens to upset all those pundits’ apple carts with his sheer life force, even when he’s shaking solo on the dance floor to sounds as effortlessly unprovocative, and old-school, as Earth, Wind, and Fire. In fact, everything about The Intouchables is as old school as 1982’s 48 Hrs., spinning off the still laugh-grabbing humor that comes with juxtaposing a hipper, more streetwise black guy with a hapless, moneyed chalky. The wheelchair-bound Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is more vulnerable than most, and he has a hard time getting along with any of his nurses, until he meets Driss, who only wants his signature for his social services papers. It’s not long before the cultured, classical music-loving Philippe’s defenses are broken down by Driss’ flip, somewhat honest take on the follies and pretensions of high culture — a bigger deal in France than in the new world, no doubt. Director-writer Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano aren’t trying to innovate —they seem more set on crafting an effervescent blockbuster that out-blockbusters Hollywood — and the biggest compliment might be that the stateside remake is already rumored to be in the works. (1:52) Embarcadero. (Chun)

The Invisible War Kirby Dick’s searing documentary takes a look at the prevalence of rape within U.S. military ranks, a problem whose unbelievably high levels of occurrence would long ago have caused huge public outcry and imposed reform in any other institutional context. Yet because it’s the military — where certain codes of loyalty, machismo, and insularity dominate from the grunt level to the highest ranks — the issue has not only been effectively kept secret, but perpetrators almost never suffer any disciplinary measures, let alone jail time or dishonorable discharges. Meanwhile the women — some studies estimate 20% of all female personnel (and 1% of the men) suffer sexual assault from colleagues — are further traumatized by an atmosphere that creates ideal conditions for stalking, rape, and “blame the victim” aftermaths from superiors. (Indeed, for many the superior to whom they would have reported an attack was the one who attacked them.) Most end up quitting promising service careers (often pursued because of generations of family enlistment), dealing with the serious mental health consequences on their own. The subjects who’ve come forward on the issue here are inspiring in their bravery, and dedication to a patriotic cause and vocation that ultimately, bitterly betrayed them. Their stories are so engrossing that The Invisible War is as compulsively watchable as its topic and statistics are inherently appalling. (1:39) Metreon. (Harvey)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of “deliciousness” — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) Bridge. (Eddy)

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (1:33) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Marvel’s The Avengers The conflict — a mystical blue cube containing earth-shattering (literally) powers is stolen, with evil intent — isn’t the reason to see this long-hyped culmination of numerous prequels spotlighting its heroic characters. Nay, the joy here is the whole “getting’ the band back together!” vibe; director and co-writer Joss Whedon knows you’re just dying to see Captain America (Chris Evans) bicker with Iron Man (a scene-stealing Robert Downey Jr.); Thor (Chris Hemsworth) clash with bad-boy brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston); and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) get angry as often as possible. (Also part of the crew, but kinda mostly just there to look good in their tight outfits: Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow.) Then, of course, there’s Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) running the whole Marvel-ous show, with one good eye and almost as many wry quips as Downey’s Tony Stark. Basically, The Avengers gives you everything you want (characters delivering trademark lines and traits), everything you expect (shit blowing up, humanity being saved, etc.), and even makes room for a few surprises. It doesn’t transcend the comic-book genre (like 2008’s The Dark Knight did), but honestly, it ain’t trying to. The Avengers wants only to entertain, and entertain it does. (2:23) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Men in Black III Why not? It’s been ten years since Men in Black II (the one where Lara Flynn Boyle and Johnny Knoxville — remember them? — played the villains), Will Smith has barely aged, and he hasn’t made a full-on comedy since, what, 2005’s Hitch? Here, he does a variation on his always-agreeable exasperated-guy routine, clashing with his grim, gimlet-eyed partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones, and in a younger incarnation, a spot-on Josh Brolin) in a plot that involves a vicious alien named Boris (Flight of the Conchords’ Jermaine Clement), time travel, Andy Warhol, the moon (as both space-exploration destination and modern-day space-jail location), and lines that only Smith’s delivery can make funny (“This looks like it comes from planet damn.“) It’s cheerful (save a bit of melodrama at the end), crisply paced, and is neither a must-see masterpiece nor something you should mindfully sleep through if it pops up among your in-flight selections. Oh, and it’s in 3D. Well, why not? (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Moonrise Kingdom Does Wes Anderson’s new film mark a live-action return to form after 2007’s disappointingly wan Darjeeling Limited? More or less. Does it tick all the Andersonian style and content boxes? Indubitably. In the most obvious deviation Anderson has taken with Moonrise, he gives us his first period piece, a romance set in 1965 on a fictional island off the New England coast. After a chance encounter at a church play, pre-teen Khaki Scout Sam (newcomer Jared Gilman) instantly falls for the raven-suited, sable-haired Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward, ditto). The two become pen pals, and quickly bond over the shared misery of being misunderstood by both authority figures and fellow kids. The bespectacled Sam is an orphan, ostracized by his foster parents and scout troop (much to the dismay of its straight-arrow leader Edward Norton). Suzy despises her clueless attorney parents, played with gusto by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand in some of the film’s funniest and best scenes. When the two kids run off together, the whole thing begins to resemble a kind of tween version of Godard’s 1965 lovers-on the-lam fantasia Pierrot le Fou. But like most of Anderson’s stuff, it has a gauzy sentimentality more akin to Truffaut than Godard. Imagine if the sequence in 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums where Margot and Richie run away to the Museum of Natural History had been given the feature treatment: it’s a simple yet inspired idea, and it becomes a charming little tale of the perils of growing up and selling out the fantasy. But it doesn’t feel remotely risky. It’s simply too damn tame. (1:37) California, Metreon, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Michelle Devereaux)

Oslo, August 31st Heroin movies are rarely much fun, and Oslo is no exception, though here the stress lies not in grisly realism but visceral emotional honesty. Following an abortive, Virginia Woolf-esque suicide attempt during evening leave from his rehab center, recovering addict Anders visits Oslo for a job interview. He reconnects bittersweetly with an old friend, tries and fails to meet up with his sister, and eventually submerges himself in the nightlife that once fueled his self-destruction. Expressionistic editing conveys Anders’ sense of detachment and urge for release, with scenes and sounds intercut achronologically and striking sound design which homes in on stray conversations. A late intellectual milieu is signified throughout, quite humorously, by serious discussions of popular television dramas, presumably an update of similar concerns addressed in Pierre Drieu La Rochelle’s 1931 novel Le Feu follet, on which the film is based. (1:35) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Sam Stander)

Peace, Love and Misunderstanding How is that even as a bona fide senior, Jane Fonda continues to embody this country’s ambivalence toward women? I suspect it’s a testament to her actorly prowess and sheer charisma that she’s played such a part in defining several eras’ archetypes — from sex kitten to counterculture-heavy Hanoi Jane to dressed-for-success feminist icon to aerobics queen to trophy wife. Here, among the talents in Bruce Beresford’s intergenerational chick-flick-gone-indie as a loud, proud, and larger-than-life hippie earth mama, she threatens to eclipse her paler, less colorful offspring, women like Catherine Keener and Elizabeth Olsen, who ordinarily shine brighter than those that surround them. It’s ostensibly the tale of high-powered lawyer Diane (Keener): her husband (Kyle MacLachlan) has asked for a divorce, so in a not-quite-explicable tailspin, she packs her kids, Zoe (Olsen) and Jake (Nat Wolff), into the car and heads to Woodstock to see her artist mom Grace (Fonda) for the first time in two decades. Grace is beyond overjoyed — dying to introduce the grandchildren to her protests, outdoor concerts, and own personal growhouse — while urbanite Diane and her kids find attractive, natch, diversions in the country, in the form of Jude (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Cole (Chace Crawford), and Tara (Marissa O’Donnell). Yet there’s a lot of troubled water for the mother and daughter to cross, in order to truly come together. Despite some strong characterization and dialogue, Peace doesn’t quite fly — or make much sense at its close — due to the some patchy storytelling: the schematic rom-com arch fails to provide adequate scaffolding to support the required leaps of faith. But that’s not to deny the charm of the highly identifiable, generous-spirited Grace, a familiar Bay Area archetype if there ever was one, who Fonda charges with the joy and sadness of fallible parent who was making up the rules as she went along. (1:36) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Prometheus Ridley Scott’s return to outer space — after an extended stay in Russell Crowe-landia — is most welcome. Some may complain Prometheus too closely resembles Scott’s Alien (1979), for which it serves as a prequel of sorts. Prometheus also resembles, among others, The Thing (1982), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Event Horizon (1997). But I love those movies (yes, even Event Horizon), and I am totally fine with the guy who made Alien borrowing from all of them and making the classiest, most gorgeous sci-fi B-movie in years. Sure, some of the science is wonky, and the themes of faith and creation can get a bit woo-woo, but Prometheus is deep-space discombobulation at its finest, with only a miscast Logan Marshall-Green (apparently, cocky dude-bros are still in effect at the turn of the next millennium) marring an otherwise killer cast: Noomi Rapace as a dreamy (yet awesomely tough) scientist; Idris Elba as Prometheus‘ wisecracking captain; Charlize Theron as the Weyland Corportation’s icy overseer; and Michael Fassbender, giving his finest performance to date as the ship’s Lawrence of Arabia-obsessed android. (2:03) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Rock of Ages (2:03) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Safety Not Guaranteed San Francisco-born director Colin Trevorrow’s narrative debut feature Safety Not Guaranteed, written by Derek Connolly, has an improbable setup: not that rural loner Kenneth (Mark Duplass) would place a personal ad for a time travel partner (“Must bring own weapons”), but that a Seattle alt-weekly magazine would pay expenses for a vainglorious staff reporter (Jake Johnson, hilarious) and two interns (Aubrey Plaza, Karan Soni) to stalk him for a fluff feature over the course of several days. The publishing budget allowing that today is true science-fiction. But never mind. Inserting herself “undercover” when a direct approach fails, Plaza’s slightly goth college grad finds she actually likes obsessive, paranoid weirdo Kenneth, and is intrigued by his seemingly insane but dead serious mission. For most of its length Safety falls safely into the category of off-center indie comedics, delivering various loopy and crass behavior with a practiced deadpan, providing just enough character depth to achieve eventual poignancy. Then it takes a major leap — one it would be criminal to spoil, but which turns an admirable little movie into something conceptually surprising, reckless, and rather exhilarating. (1:34) Metreon, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World A first directorial feature for Lorene Scafaria, who’d previously written Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008) — another movie dubiously convinced that sharing its Desert Island Discs equals soulfulness — Seeking is an earnest stab at something different that isn’t different enough. Really, the film isn’t anything enough — funny, pointed, insightful, surprising, whatever. Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), for all its faults, ended the world with a bang. This is the whimper version. An asteroid is heading smack toward Earth; we are fucked. News of this certainty prompts the wife of insurance company rep Dodge Peterson (Steve Carell) to walk out — suggesting that with just days left in our collective existence, she would rather spend that time with somebody, anybody, else. When vandals force Dodge to flee his apartment building, he teams up with “flaky, irresponsible” neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley) for a tepid road-trip dramedy. Carell’s usual nuanced underplaying has no context to play within — Dodge is a loser because he’s … what? Too nice? His character’s angst attributable to almost nothing, Carell has little to play here but the same put-upon nice guy he’s already done and done again. So he surrenders the movie to Knightley, who exercises rote “quirky girl” mannerisms to an obsessive-compulsive degree, her eyes alone overacting so hard it’s like they’re doing hot yoga on amphetamines. It’s an empty, showy performance whose neurotically artificial character one can only imagine a naturally reserved man like Dodge would flee from. That we’re supposed to believe otherwise stunts Scafaria’s parting exhale of pure girly romanticism — admirable for its wish-fulfillment sweetness, lamentable for the extent that good actors in two-dimensional roles can’t turn passionate language into emotion we believe in. (1:41) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Snow White and the Huntsman It’s unclear why the zeitgeist has blessed us this year with two warring iterations of the Snow White fairy tale, one broadly comedic (April’s Mirror Mirror), one starkly emo. But it was only natural that Kristen Stewart would land in the latter rendering, breaking open the hearts of swamp beasts and swordsmen alike with the chaste glory of her mien. As Snow White flees the henchmen and hired killers dispatched by her seriously evil stepmother, Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), and traverses a blasted, virulent forest populated with hallucinogenic vapors and other life-threatening obstacles, Stewart need not act so much as radiate a dazzling benignity, weeping the tears of a martyr rather than a frightened young girl. (Unfortunately, when required to deliver a rallying declaration of war, she sounds as if she’s speaking in tongues after a heavy hit on the crack pipe.) It’s slightly uncomfortable to be asked, alongside a grieving, drunken huntsman (The Avengers’ Chris Hemsworth), a handful of dwarfs (including Ian McShane and Toby Jones), and the kingdom’s other suffering citizenry, to fall worshipfully in line behind such a creature. But first-time director Rupert Sanders’s film keeps pace with its lovely heroine visually, constructing a gorgeous world in which armies of black glass shatter on battlefields, white stags dissolve into hosts of butterflies, and a fairy sanctuary within the blighted kingdom is an eye-popping fantasia verging on the hysterical. Theron’s Ravenna, equipped in modernist fashion with a backstory for her sociopathic tendencies, is credible and captivating as an unhinged slayer of men, thief of youth, destroyer of kingdoms, and consumer of the hearts of tiny birds. (2:07) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

That’s My Boy (1:55) SF Center.

Ultrasonic Is it madness to imagine a stylish new twist on the claustrophobic conspiracy thriller? Multi-hyphenate director, co-writer, and cinematographer (and musician and software engineer) Rohit Colin Rao manages just that with this head-turning indie feature film debut, while managing to translate a stark indie aesthetic encapsulated by Dischord and Touch and Go bands, lovers of Rust Belt warehouses and waffle houses, culture vultures who revere both Don DeLillo and Wisconsin Death Trip, and critics who lean too hard on the descriptor “angular.” Musician Simon York (Silas Gordon Brigham) is one denizen firmly placed in that cultural landscape, but the pressures of funding his combo’s album, coping with the diminishing returns of his music teacher livelihood, and anticipating the arrival of a baby with his wife, Ruth (Cate Buscher), seem to be piling on his murky brow. Simon begins to hear a hard-to-pin-down sound that no one else can detect, though Ruth’s eccentric and possibly certified conspiracy-theorist brother Jonas (Sam Repshas) is quick to affirm — and build on — his fears. Painting his handsome, stylized mise-en-scène in noiry blacks and wintry whites, Rohit positively revels in this post-punk jewel of a world he’s assembled, and it’s a compelling one even if it’s far from perfect and ultimately shies away from the deepest shadows. (1:30) Roxie. (Chun)

Your Sister’s Sister The new movie from Lynn Shelton — who directed star and (fellow mumblecore director) Mark Duplass in her shaggily amusing Humpday (2009) — opens somberly, at a Seattle wake where his Jack makes his deceased brother’s friends uncomfortable by pointing out that the do-gooder guy they’d loved just the last couple years was a bully and jerk for many years before his reformation. This outburst prompts an offer from friend-slash-mutual-crush Iris (Emily Blunt) that he get his head together for a few days at her family’s empty vacation house on a nearby island. Arriving via ferry and bike, he is disconcerted to find someone already in residence — Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), who’s grieving a loss of her own (she’s split with her girlfriend). Several tequila shots later, two Kinsey-scale opposites meet, which creates complications when Iris turns up the next day. A bit slight in immediate retrospect and contrived in its wrap-up, Shelton’s film is nonetheless insinuating, likable, and a little touching while you’re watching it. That’s largely thanks to the actors’ appeal — especially Duplass, who fills in a blunderingly lucky (and unlucky) character’s many blanks with lived-in understatement. (1:30) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

On the Cheap Listings

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

WEDNESDAY 27

Swing in the Square Union Square Park, SF. www.unionsquarelive.org. Fourth Wednesdays, 6pm-8pm, free. All you jazzy cats can get your groove on in 1930s and ’40s style at this outdoor party. Move to the Western swing sounds of the B-Stars, who will play live all evening. If you show up early, professional dance instructors await to give you lessons.

San Francisco’s 236th birthday Presidio, SF. www.presidio.gov/calendar. 11am-midnight, free. Join Los Californianos in celebrating SF’s anniversary at the location of the city’s founding, the Presidio. Commemorate the people of early California with music and a horse riding ceremony performed by the Amigos de Anza drill team.

Music on the Main 12th Street and Macdonald, Richmond. www.richmondmainstreet.org. 5pm, free. Enjoy some classic rhythm and blues as it floats over the children’s activities and outdoor bazaar at the first installment of this annual concert series. Blues artist Jesse James will lay down his soul, R&B crooner Reed Fromer will make your hair stand tall, and pop performers from the Richmond Police Activities League will keep your feet tappin’

THURSDAY 28

“So You Think You Can Paint” art party Club Six, 60 6th St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. Thursdays, 6pm-11pm, free. All you have to bring is a friend to this self-titled “world’s most creative happy hour.” The venue will provide all the paint, brushes, tunes, and cheap drinks you need to paint a masterpiece on one of Club Six’s walls. The idea is to complete as many eight-foot-long walls as possible prior to the end of the night, as a party.

Jazz Summerfest Citizen Rhythm Project Stanford Shopping Center, 180 El Camino Real, Palo Alto. www.sfjazz.org. 6pm-7:30pm, free. Citizen Rhythm is an award winning Bay Area fusion group. Come jam with Bay Area fusion group Citizen Rhythm – they’ll be infusing the works of Mingus, Monk, Miles, and more with funk, hard rock, and hip-hop.

Costume roller disco party Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com. 9pm, $5. Ladies and gents rolling around in revealing disco outfits? Check. Saturday night classics all night long? Check. Bring a pair of quads or rent skates from David “Skate Godfather” Myles who will be at the front desk. Costumes are optional, boogie is mandatory.

Underground Market Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 5pm, $10. It’s been away for a year (dang health inspectors, let us live!) but ForageSF’s DIY market of mealtime is back, and better than ever. All food items – prepared by such rad local vendors as Rice Paper Scissors and Homeroom – will be under $5, and sustainable sweeties abound. A date auction will go off, another facet of the evening that’ll contribute to a drive for a new community kitchen space run by ForageSF.

FRIDAY 29

Circus Bella in the park Yerba Buena Gardens, Third St. and Mission, SF. www.circusbella.com. Noon, free. It was the shared dream of David Hunt and Abigail Munn to create this open air, one-ring circus, so in 2008 they made it come true. Ever since, lucky park-goers have been known to happen across Munn’s loping aerial acrobatics and ground-level clowning by the rest of Bella’s talented pack. Bring a blanket and enjoy a picnic lunch as you watch their antics set to live music.

Sonny and the Sunsets concert Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. www.amoeba.com. 6pm, free. Sonny Smith recorded his album Longtime Companion (out June 26 on Polyvinyl Records) directly onto tape in a musty basement that smelt of beer and tobacco. By way of acoustic guitars, intimate lyrics, and pedal steel, Smith explores love and heartache with songs that sound a little like the results of a Johnny Cash-Kinks-Gene Clark jam session. Hear him perform live today.

SATURDAY 30

Flickr photo walk Treasure Island, 1 Avenue of the Palms, SF. www.meetup.com/flickr. 2pm-4pm, $5. Snag your real camera and give Instagram a break for this photo walk through the man-made island in the middle of the Bay. Flickr peeps will guide you to spectacular views of the city, bay, and the construction that’s underway on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge.

Toothpick Golden Gate Bridge Exhibit final day Hyatt Regency, 5 Embarcadero, SF. www.sanfranciscoregency.hyatt.com. 9am-midnight, free. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not presents this 13-foot model of the Golden Gate Bridge, constructed out of 30,000 toothpicks. You can also gawk at a scale model of a cable car made from matchsticks, and enormous 3-D portraits of Jerry Garcia and legendary Spanish guitarist Carlos Santana made from chicken wire.

French cinema night with wine Alliance Francaise, 1345 Bush, SF. www.afsf.com. 6:45pm, $5 donation. This evening was designed to help non-French speakers discover French cinema. Enjoy wine, refreshments, and free popcorn — and learn to speak French through conversing with cinema buffs.

Russian River water carnival and fireworks show Monte Rio Public Beach, Monte Rio. www.mrrpd.org. Enjoy Independence Day in high California-style — at a beach crowded with people and BBQ. This annual event features a water boat parade, and a “water curtain” — patriotic images projected onto a curtain of water that flows from the Monte Rio bridge. Plus, yes, fireworks.

SUNDAY 1

Sonoma Winery charity classic car show B.R. Cohn Winery, 15000 Sonoma Highway, Glen Ellen. www.brcohn.com. Noon-5pm, free. Visitors can enjoy live music as they gaze at a hand-picked collection of vintage cars from various eras. Food from local vendors will be available, and B.R. Cohn wines will abound. Bring your wallet if you’d like to support Redwood Empire Food Bank of Santa Rosa, donations will be accepted on site.

Park electronic dance music party Pioneer Log Cabin picnic area, Stow Lake Dr. East, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.goldengateparkparty.com. 2pm, free. Bring dancing shoes, something to BBQ, face paint, beer to share, perhaps some earplugs, and boogie down with fellow house music fans at this all-day dance extravaganza.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band Stern Grove, 19th Ave. and Sloat, SF. www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free. Have you gotten your Stern Grove Festival fix yet this summer? The Sunday free concert series is once more in glorious swing – pack up your hummus and homies and head to the leafy glade for Big Easy brass from Preservation Hall, headlining a bill that also includes bluesers the Stone Foxes.

Monday 2

Beatles karaoke night Café Royale, 800 Post, SF. www.caferoyale-sf.com. 8pm, free. Pianist Joshua Raoul Brody plays your blackbird singing in the dead of night – sit back and let the evening go with beer and cocktails at this Tenderloin neighborhood bar. Brody’s turning it into a Beatle-driven piano bar tonight.

Women of Jazz fan appreciation night Yoshi’s Jazz Club, 510 Embarcadero, Oakl. www.yoshis.com. 8pm, $5. Celebrate the female jazz world as you tap your feet (and enjoy delicious sushi, if you like) to the tunes of “Sweet” Sue Terry, an internationally-known soloist on the sax and clarinet. Then hear composer Peggy Stern riff on everything from her original work to re-harmonized standards.

TUESDAY 3

Colleen Green Brick and Mortar Music Hall, 1710 Mission, SF. www.brickandmortar.com. 8pm, free. Colleen Green sings catchy, heart-wrenching songs that range from psychedelic drone to ’80s pop goulash and ’90s power punk. She plays her Daniel Johnston-inspired live shows alone on stage with only an electric guitar and a drum machine to accompany her. Come down to this free show and see.

A’s post-game fireworks show Oakland Coliseum, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakl. www.oakland.athletics.mlb.com. 10pm, free. As soon as the Athletics (hopefully) defeat the Boston Red Sox, just make sure you’re anywhere near the Coliseum. If you are, you can enjoy this spectacle of fireworks that will boom over the stadium following the game in celebration of our nation’s independence from Great Britain. And baseball, obviously baseball.

 

Out of the paincave

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Out of the paincave

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Apocalypse doesn’t exactly identify what Brooklyn-born producer and rapper El-P conjures in his music. Sure, furtive sirens blare out almost immediately in his new record Cancer 4 Cure (Fat Possum). Synthetic melodies disfigure themselves while break beats rumble with the intensity of the Bomb Squad, all drowned out through a wash of distorted noise. The lyrics are just as unsettling too: an overpowering technological violence brought to bear on soft human bodies, whose voices are fractured, rendered nearly schizophrenic.

El-P’s satire has here become more cutting, discordant — refining the unrest signature to his former group Company Flow, a host of solo and production credits, and his recently disbanded indie label Definitive Jux. But apocalyptic? Just another blockbuster word that conceals far more than it reveals.

“I’m not writing about an insane apocalyptic world,” says El-P, whose official documents give him the name Jaime Meline. “This is reality. I’m not writing sci-fi; I’m writing about Brooklyn. Yes, there’s an obvious sense of dread in my records. There’s a part of me that is fucking terrified of the world right now, and has been for a long time, and maybe always will be.”

From this fear, even an overwhelming paranoia, El-P gathers fuel for both incendiary attacks and self-abjection. So if there’s any rubble left by an apocalyptic catastrophe in his music, its value is that in showing us our world reduced to ash, it also gives us a chance to see what it is that we’re running from.

El-P’s protest finds a kindred spirit in William S. Burroughs, who introduces “Request Denied” amidst a haze of electric signals: “Prisoners of the earth, come out — Storm the studio,” he roars. Translating this incitement as a call to arms, El-P unleashes an onslaught of modulated rhythms and rapid-fire wordplay that jars you out of your sleeping flesh. “I want these records to be a blast of truth,” he says. “When you’re dealing with music and dealing with what’s real, screaming and crying and kicking and punching has something of the truth — in its reaction.”

Another way of putting it is that El-P’s music is not a diagnosis but a symptom. Rather than devising some sort of sonic therapy that would allegedly purify us of the systematic disease, he sets out to immerse himself as fully and desperately as possible into its cancerous cells in order to explode them from within. Words themselves come to suffer in this exaggerated space.

In “Drones Over Brooklyn,” El-P growls, “I’m a holy fuck what did he just utter marksman/Orphan, a whore born war torn, life for the harvest.” And in the concluding elegy, “$4 Vic” he navigates the threshold of a language stretched to its limits: “That Paincave Kid talk, at the end of the painbow/ The permanent stain bop/Maligning my name will holy ark up your squad’s face/ Viewers of the divine rage learn to worship the hard way/You get it? I don’t fade, just float where the poem slays.”

For El-P, the poem also struggles to survive, fighting against a syntax that embodies societal pressures of normalization, and an absolute pain on the horizon that ultimately spells death. He calls this jokingly the paincave: “the most horrible psychological place that you could possibly inhabit.” The word stems from the comedic yet admittedly still horrifying experience of when smoking excessively turns on you — when getting too high brings about a fall into madness.

But it’s within this naked fall that El-P finds an unexpected promise, even a chance for renewal. “I’m operating from a point of confusion and despair, but I don’t see it as pessimism. Maybe there’s an optimism to admit it: to stop running, to work through your own fear,” he says. “I want to make music that is the signifier of fighting to live, fighting for sanity, recognizing that it ain’t what it should be. So I’m going to scream. I’m going to run into the middle of the street, and take my clothes off, and scream.”

EL-P

With Killer Mike, Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire, Despot

Fri/29, 8pm, $25

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com

Queen bee

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Queen bee

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC “You wanna be this Queen Bee, but ya can’t be. That’s why you’re mad at me.” That was one of many audacious lines delivered by a much younger Lil Kim in her beautiful, black, Brooklyn accent on Hardcore, her raunchy debut album from 1996.

Now coming up on her 38th birthday, she just returned to the stage at San Francisco’s Mezzanine earlier this month; her performance not only had hip-hop fans who missed out asking, “How was the show?,” but also, “How did she look?”

Followers of the Geneva Diva’s career know these past 16 years since her debut LP dropped haven’t been easy. Sure, she’s released three more albums and got a Grammy for the Lady Marmalade remake, but rougher times saw her spend about 12 months in the slammer on perjury charges, and she’s been widely criticized for accusations of having undergone plastic surgery (photos may prove that point, and BET credits her as being one of the first hip-hop stars to have work done to their face).

Still, the fact remains, Kim loves her fans in SF, and the feeling is mutual. Appearing more youthful compared to some of the recent botched looking photos, Kim wore a crispy-looking blonde wig — perhaps extensions, whatever — and not surprisingly donned a skimpy sequined black and red ensemble that accompanied her backup dancers’ (I guess I’ll call them militant) looks. Think Rhythm Nation Janet, but scantily clad. Somehow she still had it goin’ on.

Four opening acts wore on the patience of a large number of feisty ladies in the audience. My photographer was even shoved for allegedly stepping “all over” the shoes of one particularly pushy woman’s sister. It was after midnight when Kim finally took the stage for a set that lasted little more than an hour. There she did her thing, delivering a rapid fire, foul- language trip down memory lane from rap’s pre-Auto-Tune era.

She always had a way with words and while they did grab our attention through shock value, I’ve always felt she didn’t receive enough credit for lyrical merit. Instead we focused attention on looks and her beefs with fellow female rappers (although that often made for great subject matter). To this day, these are still the kind of lyrics that can make you cringe.

Take for instance these slickly-delivered rhymes from “Queen Bitch” and “Not Tonight”, both deserving of gold medals: “Got buffoons eatin’ my pussy while I watch cartoons.” Now there’s a visual. And who can blame her for wanting to speak out for fed up ladies who were unsatisfied in the sack? “I don’t want dick tonight. Eat my pussy right.” Well said.

Back in the day a friend of mine once reduced her to being nothing more than a prostitute with a microphone, but let’s not sell her short. In “Big Momma Thang,” when Kim lets us know exactly how many times she wants to cum, (21, for those of you not in the know) she’s spreading her own original brand of sex ed.

“We Don’t Need It” is physiologically forthcoming in its call and response about what to lick, suck, and stroke, even advising to “work the shaft”. Elsewhere on the album she may be acting pseudo-psychological when she wonders: “What’s on ya mind?”, while that certain someone goes downtown.

Because hip-hop’s golden age had previously been male dominated, the timing was right for someone like Kim to pave the way, bringing in some say from the female perspective, especially with how she pointed out there’d be no such thing as a free fuck anymore.

It’s true the Biggies, the Puffies, and the Jay-Zs were all instrumental in Lil Kim’s success, but now it’d be tit for tat, so to speak, and it couldn’t have been pulled off without a pioneer like her — who was willing to take sexually charged content to a new, and quite frankly ridiculous, level of filth.

Pipe dreams and nightmares

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Pipe dreams and nightmares

LIT In the early pages of his new memoir, Steven Martin admits he’s obsessive. This is not uncommon, he explains, for collectors — not to be confused with the dilettantes he calls “gatherers.” Serious hobbyists hunt down highly specific items, fervently scrutinize them, and then evangelize to whoever’ll listen about their findings.

This kind of behavior can manifest around just about anything that people collect: Civil War artifacts, Depression glass, Beanie Babies. San Diego-born Martin became fascinated with Asian culture at a young age; after a stint in the military, he ended up living in Bangkok. A few decades later, he’s chronicled his adventures thereabouts in Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction (Ballantine, 396 pp., $26).

Yep: as unlikely as it sounds, he became hooked on opium. If you thought what Martin calls the cause of “the world’s first real drug epidemic” vanished along with the Model T — well, you’d mostly be right. Opium Fiend, which is crammed with plenty of historical information as well as Martin’s first-hand experiences with the drug, explores how an obsessive interest in antique opium-smoking paraphernalia — a formerly obscure thing to collect, at least until Martin’s own photo book, The Art of Opium Antiques, came out in 2007 — led to, perhaps inevitably, a full-blown dependence on opium itself.

He’s clean now; in the first chapter, he discusses the gruesome agony of detoxing. Later, one of his close friends, a fellow addict, doesn’t survive the experience. It’s a sobering moment in a book that, though clearly a cautionary tale, propels forward with the particular energy of someone who’s really, really stoked to share his story.

“Some people watch movies or sports, but my favorite past time is seeking out and studying whatever I happen to be collecting at the moment,” Martin says. “When I got serious about collecting opium-smoking paraphernalia, around 2001, I realized there was just nothing really out there about it. I took it as a challenge to collect as much as I could, and learn as much as I could about it.

“It had this outlaw chic about it that was interesting. But it also seemed to have this really odd juxtaposition — you have these beautiful, finely-crafted pieces of art, made from the best materials a century or so ago: jade, silver, or ivory. Really, really strikingly beautiful. But in actuality these things were instruments of self-destruction. It’s a bit dark, but I found that appealing.”

Though he’d dabbled in smoking even before he began building his trove of implements, he did not expect to become a raging addict — mostly because he didn’t think becoming an opium addict was even physically possible.

“Most of the research that I did was coming from Victorian-era accounts of what opium smoking was like. I was very skeptical of what these books said. The tone was often very shrill, almost like a Reefer Madness kind of thing, so I didn’t take it as seriously as I should,” he says. “But opium’s not like these modern drugs we hear about, a one-hit-and-you’re-hooked-for-life sort of thing. It can take months — or in my case, years — to develop a serious addiction.”

And “opium tends to rebuff the amateur,” Martin says. “People often try it once and never try it again. But I happened to be in a place where it was possible to get opium that was processed specifically for smoking, which is actually a misnomer. The paraphernalia that’s used is designed to vaporize the drug, not burn it.”

For the curious, Opium Fiend describes the actual experience of smoking, including the specific feelings associated with the high (tranquil, but “it turns you inward,” says Martin; he took detailed notes daily, even at the height of his addiction) and the preparation required to achieve the highest-quality result. It’s a delicate, time-consuming process, but for Martin that was part of the thrill.

“For me, that was the best part. I was really hooked on the ritual. Once I’d actually learned to prepare the pipes myself, that became my favorite source of entertainment: lying there next to the opium layout, within the glow of the opium lamp, watching myself prepare pipe after pipe. It was just mesmerizing,” he says.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I miss it very much. Sometimes I’ll have these very vivid dreams about smoking, and I’ll wake up in the morning, lying on my left side, in the same position I used to smoke in. It’s crazy — even though I’ve quit, it won’t leave me alone. I think about it all the time.”

Seeking local control

Andrew Lam
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0

news@sfbg.com

As a potentially troublesome court decision threatens the existence of cannabis dispensaries in cities throughout California, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera submitted an amicus brief last week urging the California Supreme Court to reverse the decision.

In October, the state Court of Appeal ruled in the case of Pack v. City of Long Beach that city ordinances regulating medical cannabis dispensaries are preempted by federal law. Local jurisdictions across the state have adopted discretionary rules for permitting cannabis dispensaries that vary by jurisdiction. The court decision throws out local ordinances, making it illegal for cities and counties to develop regulations.

“The Court of Appeal’s decision strips cities of an essential tool for protecting public health and welfare,” reads Herrera’s amicus brief, which is joined by Santa Cruz Counsel Dana McRae. An amicus brief is commonly filed in an appeal concerning broad public interest by parties not directly involved the court proceedings.

The ruling could have drastic consequences for cannabis dispensaries and the clients they serve. Most cities in the state, including San Francisco, rely on local ordinances to regulate the medical marijuana industry. Herrera says cities will be forced to choose between banning cannabis dispensaries altogether or allowing their operation without local controls, such as San Francisco’s extensive regulations on where and how dispensaries can operate.

In the absence of local regulations, he argues that ” dispensaries and cultivation sites have the potential to generate serious impacts on surrounding communities, including electrical fires, criminal activity, hazards to children’s safety, pollution, harm to wildlife, traffic, noise and odors.”

The appellate court ruled local ordinances go beyond Prop. 215, the California voter-approved decriminalization of medical marijuana, and cross into the realm of actually legalizing it, conflicts with the federal Controlled Substance Act.

In the wake of the court’s decision, the impact was felt immediately. Across the state, cities suspended all new permit activity.

Since the decision was sent to the state Supreme Court in January, where it is currently under review, San Francisco resumed its permitting process. Not all cities resumed. Herrera noted that as many as 12 jurisdictions continue to suspend or severely limit new cannabis dispensary permits, including Santa Cruz.

Rory Bartle, a lawyer at Pier 5 law offices and medical marijuana advocate, says that if the decision isn’t overturned, the entire industry could be upended. However, Bartle says the ruling isn’t widely supported, many counties have filed amicus briefs, and in his opinion the ruling will be overturned.

It is hard to imagine Ryan Pack and Anthony Gale, plaintiffs in the Pack v. City of Long Beach case and members of a cannabis collective that was shut down because of local ordinances, realized the implication of challenging such regulations. Long Beach required a $14,000 non-refundable application fee and annual $10,000 fee.

“Long Beach has some crazy regulations designed to pull as much money as they can out of the medical marijuana industry,” says Bartle. “It’s stupid and unfair.”

In San Francisco, the fees for an application permit are $8,656 and another $4,019 for a license and re-inspection.

Two for the road

Andrew Lam
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0
Two for the road

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER On a warm evening last week in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Jason Craig and Jessica Jelliffe were milling around the sidewalk outside the Collapsable Hole, a small warehouse performance venue one subway stop from Manhattan, dressed in dark blue one-piece suits, skull caps, heavy-rimmed glasses, and long beards.

“You wanna see a show?” asks Jelliffe, looking a little like a Hassid at the public pool. It’s a physical fact that passersby can’t always pass by fast enough to escape the sideshow gravity of a woman in a beard, and sure enough one or two wanderers fall in with the rest of the crowd arriving already determined to see Space//Space, the much anticipated new show from the bicoastal company that most recently brought Bay Area audiences (with co-producers the Shotgun Players) Beardo and Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage.

The audience comes through the front door and slips passed a silvery space ship set snuggly inside the painted brick garage, a combination that carries the vague threat of an aluminum container shoved in the microwave, only you’re inside with it. Some airy, oxygenated house music thrumming the room like a zither adds nicely to this anticipatory pre-show mood. Soon the lights go down leaving only a clip lamp on a sidewall illuminating the figure of some rambling madman-scientist-grease monkey (Peter Blomquist) who introduces a half-comprehensible “experiment.”

And with that, the stunning space pod — a self-contained octagon with milky translucent glass walls, an old-school turntable for a control console, and a series of small bare speakers clinging magnetically to its aluminum framework — comes to life, rumbling and flickering like a miniature nightclub, a plush DJ booth, or an industrial-sized hi-fi egg chair. Its passengers, wearing furry suits with ear hoodies, are the bearded pair of brothers seen outside a few minutes earlier. Penryn (Jelliffee) is waking up confused from a deep sleep. Lumus (Craig) cautiously explains to his addled brother that he’s been asleep for the better part of three years. In that time their mission has been going forward: they’re still bound for some unknown destination as representatives of earth civilization, a madcap message in a half-corked bottle recording their words and deeds for some future audience.

But like a latter-day Gregor Samsa, Penryn has awakened to find himself metamorphosed, still hairy as a Harry but sporting the “girl bits” of a Henrietta. This change will propel the mission in an unanticipated direction. Penryn reborn is full of questions and challenges for his/her brother and their gender blender of a mission inside this increasingly stuffy intergalactic studio apartment.

Meanwhile, it seems Lumus, when not studying his brother’s transmogrifying bod, has spent the last few years working out a comedy routine, bits of which wend their way through the narrative as an alternately hilarious and eerie metanarrative of sorts, inviting a Henny Youngman–grade hermeneutics of the patriarchal social construct left back on earth. “I’m dying up here,” Lumus likes to say in an increasingly ominous showbiz metaphor, hitting a button for canned laughter as his inept struggle with off-color bar jokes and Rat Pack–era machismo gives way to a darker prophesy of his own demise.

Too much more plot will spoil the surprises in store for venturers to Brooklyn or those awaiting the production’s hoped-for (but not yet scheduled) future landing in the Bay Area. But let’s just say this oeuvre Lumus is making — a summation of a life, the echo of a civilization now reduced to two — is up for grabs, and Penryn may be the person to grab it. The outcome of their space//space odyssey contains the seed of a new world and an old one, both slouching toward Alpha Centauri to be born.

Composer and BB&B regular Dave Malloy’s wonderfully vital music-sound scape brings a deep, dark, low creep under this or that moment, as the exquisitely Dada-esque space program and its thornier implications come to light in playwright Craig’s inimitably arch dialogue, and Craig and Jelliffe’s masterfully subtle performances. Directed with cool precision by Mallory Catlett, Space//Space features another incredible BB&B low-or-no–budget set (conceived by Craig and Jelliffe with choice video, lighting, and sound designs by Zbigniew Bzymek, Miranda k Hardy, and Brandon Wolcott, respectively). While less epic than recent shows past, this cosmic two-hander is also more romantic, thematically complex and moodily resonant in its half-haunted, half-blissful reflection on the intimate universe between one human being and another.

bananabagandbodice.org

 

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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0

Schedules are for Wed/20-Tue/26 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features (and more) are marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “Colectivo Cinema Errante presents: Brazilian Voices of Cinema:” Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Barreto, 1976), Sun, 8.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.cinemasf.com/vogue. $7.50-10. “Best of God” and “Best of Drugs,” illustrated talks by comedian Owen Egerton using religious films and educational scare films, Wed (“God”) and Thu (“Drugs”), 7:30.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, SF; (510) 841-4824. Donations welcome. A Noble Lie: Oklahoma City 1995 (Lane, 2011), Sat, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. Frameline 36: San Francisco LGBT Film Festival, Wed-Sun. Visit www.frameline.org for schedule and tickets. •Pina (Wenders, 2011), June 26-27, 7 (also June 27, 3:05), and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Herzog, 2010), June 26-27, 9 (also June 27, 5:05).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. Bel Ami (Donnellan and Ormerod, 2012), call for dates and times. Bernie (Linklater, 2012), call for dates and times. Peace, Love and Misunderstanding (Beresford, 2011), call for dates and times.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Old Mill Park, 300 block of Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Enchanted (Lima, 2007), Fri, 8. Dolores Park, Dolores at 19th St, SF. Mamma Mia! (Lloyd, 2008), Sat, 8.

LUMIERE 1572 California, SF; www.48hourfilm.com. “48 Hour Film Project,” premiere screenings, June Wed-Thu, 6:45, 9:15.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Behind the Scenes: The Art and Craft of Cinema with Editor Curtiss Clayton:” To Die For (Van Sant, 1995), Wed, 7; Rick (Clayton, 2003), Fri, 7; Maladies (Carter, 2012), Fri, 9:20. “Gregory Peck: An Agreeable Gentleman:” The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (Johnson, 1956), Thu, 7; To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan, 1962), Sun, 4:45. “One-Two Punch: Pulp Writers Dorothy B. Hughes, Mickey Spillane, Elmore Leonard:” In a Lonely Place (Ray, 1950), Sat, 6:30; Fallen Sparrow (Wallace, 1943), Sat, 8:30. “Afterimage: Three Nights with Nathaniel Dorsky:” “Films of Nathaniel Dorsky: Devotional Songs (2002-04),” Sun, 7:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Frameline 36: San Francisco LGBT Film Festival, Wed-Sat. Visit www.frameline.org for schedule and tickets. How to Grow a Band (Meatto, 2011), Wed-Thu, 9:15. Marley (Macdonald, 2012), Wed-Thu, 6:30. Ultrasonic (Rao, 2011), June 22-28, 7, 8:45 (also Sat-Sun, 3:30, 5:15).

SF FILM SOCIETY CINEMA 1746 Post, SF. $10-11. The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Part Four: European New Wave; New Directors, New Forms (1960s) (Cousins, 2011), Sat, noon. British TV series; new episodes every Sat through June 21. Found Memories (Murat, 2011), June 22-28, 2:30, 4:30, 6:30, 8:30. The Woman in the Fifth (Pawlikowski, 2011), Wed-Thu, 3, 5, 7, 9.

Psychic Dream Astrology: June 20-26

Andrew Lam
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0

ARIES

March 21-April 19

It is the way that you respond to things that counts now, Aries. When you feel threatened or overwhelmed it’s easy to act defensively and engage in or start stupid fights. No matter how passionately you feel entitled to your feelings, slow down and consider the consequences before you act.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

Keep your eyes on the prize. You are meant to thrive, and this week you need to stay focused on your goals so that you can do just that! Reach out to others for help, and learn the value of collaborating without diluting your vision or will. Flexibility and vitality will carry you through.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

This week, clear, unequivocal communication will bring your game to the next level, Gemini. Be direct and compassionate as you assert your needs, or respond to the needs of those around you. Make the kind of deep changes that you need in your relationships by gently asserting your true wishes with others.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Your gut feelings will guide you to where you need to go if you let them, Moonchild. Your instincts live in a place that requires some stillness to get to. Alone time may feel counter-intuitive this week, but you need to spend some time in a sweet little place called Me. Minimize activity and maximize your receptivity.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

When you feel bad, it’s hard to believe that you have any choice in the matter. Heartache and disappointments can be like a sieve for your good vibes, but you should remember that you have options. Look for possibility in even the crappiest of your circumstances and choose to put your energies into that, Leo.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

Effort, hard work, and patience will bring you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The kind of success that awaits you this week is most gracefully achieved when you share with others. If you forget to include others in the good of your life, it has a way of eclipsing your abundance, so put yourself out there.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

You’re looking for love in all the wrong places again, Libra. Until you start with yourself, you are unlikely to get off this carousel. Unplug everything and cancel plans! Quit it with the distractions until you get right with yourself. Only then will you be able to take care of things in a way that makes things good.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

When things get stuck you can try to unstick ’em, but what do you do when that isn’t working? There needs to be a point when you accept the limitations of your situation, Scorpio. Stop trying to get your square peg into that round hole, and put your energy where it can thrive instead. Move onwards and upwards, pal.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Where you focus your energies, they multiply! So simple, but easy to forget. This week, your challenge is to be real with yourself about your concerns while not letting them blossom into major fears. If you don’t know what will happen next, try imagining things turning a corner and improving, Sag.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You are engaged in a process in which you can better get to know yourself, and even let others get closer to you, too. Be patient this week! You can most certainly move through things quickly now, but if you do that, you are unlikely to stay emotionally present. Slow and steady yields the best results, Cap.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Be open to change, both the kind that you need to create and the stuff that happens out of your control. If you can be your own anchor, you don’t need to define your security or happiness through outside conditions. Bring the best you’ve got to the inevitable in your life this week.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Remain true to your ideals, even when your moods try to tear you away from them. When you’re freaking out it’s easy to convince yourself that you deserve to do whatever you want, but it isn’t so. Rise to the occasion and act with integrity this week, especially when the going gets rough.

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

 

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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.

THEATER

OPENING

The Scottsboro Boys American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Previews Thu/21-Sat/23 and Tues/26, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2pm); Sun/24, 7pm. Opens June 27, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (July 3 performance at 7pm; also Wed and Sat, 2pm; no matinee July 4); July 1 and 8, 7pm. Through July 15. American Conservatory Theater presents the Kander and Ebb musical about nine African American men falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit in the pre-civil rights movement South.

ONGOING

Aftermath Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through June 30. Theatre, Period presents Jessica Blank and Erik Jenson’s docu-drama, based on interviews with Iraqi civilians forced to flee after the US military’s arrival in 2003.

A Behanding in Spokane SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through June 30. If Garth Ennis had been asked to write a comic book about a one-handed sociopath with a dark obsession, he might well have written something similar to Martin McDonagh’s A Behanding in Spokane. And admittedly, approached from that angle, a lot of the script’s dramatic flaws are more easily forgiven. There’s not a whole lot of subtle context or languid metaphor to be found in McDonagh’s criminal caper about the little-known “hand-dealing” trade, but as in Ennis’ best known work, Preacher, the pretty girl (Melissa Quine) is the smartest one in the room; the sociopath (Rod Gnapp) is interested in enacting as vicious a revenge on all humanity while spewing as many blatantly offensive invectives as possible; the boyfriend (Daveed Diggs) has some arrested development issues to work out; and the receptionist (Alex Hurt) takes the caricature of man-child to a whole new level. In fact, while all four actors deliver rock-solid performances of their mostly unsympathetic characters, it’s Hurt’s that impresses most. His spooky intensity and goofily tone-deaf determination plays like a combination of Adam Sandler and Arno Frisch, and if there’s a real sociopath in the room, the evidence suggests it’s probably him. Ultimately though the piece relies too heavily on hollow one-liners to remain interesting — a 20-minute farce stretched to 90 minutes — and quite unlike an Ennis comic, it does not leave one wanting more. (Gluckstern)

Bruja Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2:30pm); Sun/24, 2:30pm. Although San Francisco’s Mission District is inexorably morphing into an empire of twee boutiques and haute cuisine, it’s still the first port of call for many Latin American migrants, and there are plenty of panaderias and botanicas tucked in between the sushi joints. In the Magic Theatre’s production of Bruja, playwright Luis Alfaro transplants the story of Medea to 24th Street by way of Michoacán, exploring the tension between retaining old-country values and staking out a future in a new world. Directed by artistic director Loretta Greco, the title role played by a stunning Sabina Zuniga Varela, this chamber version of the Greek tragedy hits hard, exposing each character’s darkest secrets to an unforgiving light. And every character, save the doomed brothers Acan and Acat (played the night I saw it by Daniel Castaneda and Gavilan Gordon-Chavez), has a secret to hide, even Medea, a curandera or healer by trade, whose powers run deeper and darker than her new world acquaintances, or even her old servant (Wilma Bonet) suspect. And when Jason (Sean San José) and his callous boss Creon (Carlos Aguirre), ruthlessly push Medea to her breaking point, her bloody vengeance proves, if little else, that she can play at ruthlessness better than anyone, whatever the consequences. (Gluckstern)

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 10pm). Through July 21. Tides Theatre performs Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood’s comedy about five women forced into a bomb shelter during a mid-breakfast nuke attack.

The Full Monty Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.roltheatre.com. $25-36. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 30. In desperate times, how far would you go to turn a buck? The central premise of the 1997 movie and its namesake musical comedy The Full Monty, the answer to this question is right in the title, which limits the suspense, but amps up the expectations. Set not in Sheffield, England as in the movie, but the similarly economically challenged climate of Buffalo, New York circa the late nineties, the comical romp follows a group of unemployed steel workers who decide, rather optimistically, that spending one night as exotic dancers will solve their immediate financial woes. Banish all notions of a Hot Chocolate sing-along; the soundtrack of the stage musical has little in common with its cinematic predecessor, but there are a couple of toe-tappers, particularly the songs writ for the ladies: a belter’s anthem for their spry but elderly accompanist Jeanette (Cami Thompson), a snarky commentary on male beauty, “The Goods,” for the ensemble. On opening night, Ray of Light’s production ran about 15 minutes long after a late start, and the tempo seemed sluggish in parts, but once it hits its stride, The Full Monty should provide a welcome antidote to the ongoing, we’re-still-in-a-recession blues, red leather g-strings and all. (Gluckstern) Fwd: Life Gone Viral Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (Sun/24, show at 2pm; July 15, show at 7:30pm). Extended through July 22. The internet becomes comic fodder for creator-performers Charlie Varon and Jeri Lynn Cohen, and creator-director David Ford.

Lips Together, Teeth Apart New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 1. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Terrence McNally’s play about two straight couples spending July 4 amid Fire Island’s gay community.

100 Saints You Should Know Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.therhino.org. $10-30. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Extended through July 1. Homespun scenic design notwithstanding, Theatre Rhinoceros and artistic director John Fisher offer a fine, engrossing production of this 2007 play by Kate Fodor (Hannah and Martin, RX), a sturdy comedy-drama about two fractured families colliding awkwardly in a sort of spiritual vacuum. Matthew (an intriguingly restrained Wiley Herman) is a desolate but forbearing Catholic priest sent on a leave of absence after a venial transgression involving some artful nude male photographs. Returning home, he endures a pained relationship with his devout, passively domineering Irish mother (Tamar Cohn, channeling a nicely measured mixture of stony discipline and childlike vulnerability). Soon Matthew gets an unexpected visit from single mom Theresa (a bright but shrewdly self-possessed Ann Lawler), a former Deadhead who now cleans the rectory and finds herself overcome with an urge to ask the gentle priest about prayer — just at the moment his faith seems to have left him. Meanwhile, Theresa’s too-cool-for-school teenager, Abby (a deft and hilarious Kim Stephenson), waits outside and does some preying of her own on a slower-witted but game young man from the neighborhood (a charmingly quirky Michael Rosen), both of them roiling with confused yearnings. The appealing characters and unexpected storyline come supported by some excellent dialogue, developing a searching theme that ultimately has less to do with formal religion than the ordinary but ineffable need it promises (problematically) to meet. “I think I could be religious or whatever if it made any sense,” notes Abby, “but it doesn’t make any sense.” It’s easy to agree with the teenager on this one. 100 Saints is a genuinely funny and compassionate play discerning enough to avoid naming the depths it sounds. (Avila)

Reunion SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through June 30. SF Playhouse presents a world premiere drama by local playwright Kenn Rabin.

“Risk Is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; (415) 525-1205, www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating; $50 donation for five-play reserved seating pass). Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 14. Cutting Ball’s annual fest of experimental plays features two new works and five new translations in staged readings.

Slipping New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 1. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Daniel Talbott’s drama about a gay teen who finds new hope after a traumatic breakup.

Tenderloin Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; (415) 525-1205, www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Extended run: Thu/21, 7:30pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2pm); Sun/24, 5pm. Annie Elias and Cutting Ball Theater artists present a world premiere “documentary theater” piece looking at the people and places in the Cutting Ball Theater’s own ‘hood.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri/22, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through July 21. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through July 7. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Black n Blue Boys/Broken Men Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Wed/20 and Sun/24, 7pm (also Sun/24, 7pm); Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2pm). Berkeley Rep presents a world premiere from writer-performer Dael Orlandersmith (a Pulitzer finalist for 2002’s Yellowman).

Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $18-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 1. Symmetry Theatre Company presents Bay Area playwright Lauren Gunderson’s romantic drama centering on the life of 18th-century French physicist and mathematician, Émilie du Châtelet (Danielle Levin) and her (here tempestuous) long-term romance with Voltaire (Robert Parsons). In a familiar conceit left accordingly vague, fate rematerializes Emilie from some hazy afterlife so that she may relive key moments in her life and account for herself. A Cartesian mind/body split rules the replay, with Emilie finding herself painfully attenuated from the world of the senses — her flashback self (played by an impressive Blythe Foster) alone able to enjoy sensual contact with her surroundings. Meanwhile, love and loyalty face the test as Emilie goes head-to-head with a male-dominated scientific establishment over a certain theorem she calls “force vivre” — a formula into which Gunderson cleverly folds theoretical physics and the irrational heart. There’s even a visual aid: a running tally is kept throughout on a screen at the back of the stage, where hash marks appear and disappear under the headings “philosophy” and “love” as the scenes wind their desultory way back toward the moment of her demise. Chloe Bronzan directs a cast of strong actors but their work is uneven. Foster alone is consistently commanding in a part that, while minor, suggests what a more muscular approach overall might have accomplished. The normally formidable Parsons seems uncommitted in the part of Voltaire, admittedly a character too simpering and watery as written to merit much credence. Instead of palpable relationships — whether with lovers or ideas — Emilie deploys self-conscious verbiage, strained repartee and heavy thematic underscoring to churn what amounts to thin drama. (Avila)

Emotional Creature Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Previews Wed/20-Thu/21, 8pm. Opens Fri/22, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show July 13); Wed, 7pm (no show July 4); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through July 15. Berkeley Rep presents Eve Ensler’s world premiere, based on her best-seller I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.

The Great Divide Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed/20-Thu/21, 7pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 5pm. Shotgun Players performs Adamn Chanzit’s drama about the hot topic of fracking, inspired by Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through July 15. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through June 30. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. Note: review from the show’s 2011 run at the Marsh San Francisco. (Avila)

The Odyssey Angel Island; (415) 547-0189, www.weplayers.org. $40-76 (some tickets include ferry passage). Sat-Sun, 10:30am-4pm (does not include travel time to island). Through July 1. We Players present Ava Roy’s adaptation of Homer’s epic poem: an all-day adventure set throughout the nature and buildings of Angel Island State Park.

Salomania Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $30-55. Previews Wed/20, 8pm. Opens Thu/21, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Throgh July 22. Aurora Theatre Company closes its 20th season with writer-director Mark Jackson’s world premiere, commissioned especially for the company, about a San Francisco-born dancer notorious for her take on the “Dance of the Seven Veils.”

The Tempest Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; (510) 809-3290, www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Wed/20-Thu/21, 7:30pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2pm); Sun/24, 4pm. California Shakespeare Theater opens its season with this dance-filled interpretation of the Bard’s classic tale.

Wheelhouse TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through July 1. TheatreWorks’ 60th world premiere is a musical created by and starring pop-rock trio GrooveLily.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Fri, 6pm; Sun/24 and June 30, 11am. Through June 30. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Bare Bones Butoh Presents: Showcase 24” Studio 210, 3435 Cesar Chavez, SF; deborahslater.org/studio210.php. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $5-20. New material and works-in-progress by both local and national cutting-edge artists.

Alicia Dattner Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. Fri/22, 8pm. $26. The comedian performs.

“DEEPER, Architectural Meditations at CounterPULSE” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri-Sun, 8pm. Through July 1. $25. Lizz Roman and Dancers perform a site-specific work.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

“hOPPomage” Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $10-15. An evening of “mental dance” inspired by artist Dennis Oppenheim with Driveway Dancers.

“Jillarious Tuesdays” Tommy T’s Showroom, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.jillarious.com. Tue, 7:30. Ongoing. $20. Weekly comedy show with Jill Bourque, Kevin Camia, Justin Lucas, and special guests.

“Majestic Musical Review Featuring Her Rebel Highness” Harlot, 46 Minna, SF

; www.herrebelhighness.com. Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 12. $25-65. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, performers in Baroque-chic gowns, music, and more.

“Mission in the Mix” Dance Mission Theatre, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through July 1. $17. SF Hip-Hop DanceFest producer Micaya presents new work by her SoulForce Dance Company, plus guest performances.

“Porch Light: California Dreaming” Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. Thu/21, 7pm. $15. Storytelling with Janet Varney, John Law, Dayvid Figler, and more.

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.worldartswest.org. Sat/23-Sun/24, 3pm (also Sat/23, 3pm). $18-58. This weekend’s program includes dance Appalachia, Huntary, China, India, Mexico, the Middle East, Peru, Tahiti, and Zimbabwe.

Sex and the City: Live!” Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Tue, 7 and 9pm. Through June 26. $25. Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, Lady Bear, Trixxie Carr play the fab four in this drag-tastic homage to the HBO series.

“Snob Theater” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; snobtheater.tumblr.com. Fri/22, 10pm. $10. With comedians Rick Overton, Drennon Davis, Chris Thayer, and Coree Spencer, and musicians Debbie Neigher, Laura Weinbach, and Anton Patzner.

“When We Fall Apart” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Wed/20-Thu/21 and June 27-28, 7pm; Fri/22-Sat/23 and June 29-30, 7 and 9pm. $25-35. Joe Goode Performance Group presents a world premiere, an exploration of “home” with a set designed by architect Cass Calder Smith. *

 

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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Music listings are compiled by Emily Savage. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Brian Bergeron Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Jonathan Coulton, John Roderick Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $29.

Dot Punto, Major Powers and the Lo-Fi Syphony, Greening, Tall Sheep Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Samantha Fish Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Graffiti6, Yuna Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $15.

Indigo Girls, Shadowboxers Slim’s. 8pm, $31.

Jeff vs. JC Rockit Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Amy La Vere Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Parlotones, Ryan Star, Silent Comedy Independent. 8pm, $14.

Pins of Light, Hot Victory, Lozen Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Hélène Renaut, Bramble and Briar Lost Church, 65 Capp, SF; www.thelostchurch.com. 8pm.

Matt Skiba & the Sekrets, Case in Theory Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $20.

Stone in Love: A Tribute to Journey Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $25.

Tu Fawning Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $9-$12.

Vardensphere, W.A.S.T.E., E.S.A., End: The DJ DNA Lounge. 9pm, $14.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo AlleyCats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7-10pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Carlos Aldama with Umi Vaughan City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm.

Amy LaVere Hotel Utah.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. DJs Daneekah and Green B spin reggae and dancehall with weekly guests.

Mary Go Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

Megatallica Fiddler’s Green, 1333 Columbus, SF; www.megatallica.com. 7pm, free. Heavy metal hangout.

THURSDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Baby and the Macks, Dresses, Phoebe Hunt, DAD Amnesia. 9pm, $5-$10.

Brad Wilson Blues Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Capital Cities, Gemini Club, popscene DJs Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm, $13-$17.

Clamhawk Manor Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $5-$8.

Fuckaroos, Pillars and Tongues, Joseph Childress, Grace Cooper Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $10.

Gunshy Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Lisa Hannigan, Joe Henry Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $26.

HowellDevine, Aaron Leese & the Panhandlers Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10-$12.

Radio Noise, H is 4 Hector, Insecurities Grant & Green. 9pm, free.

Randy vs. Jeff Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Rose Royce Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $20.

Scene of Action, Pavement Sea, Gold Medalists Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Spider Heart 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 10pm, free.

Van Hunt, Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist Independent. 8pm, $20.

Younger Lovers, School Knights, Grandma’s Boyfriend Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Ned Boynton Trio Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

Stephanie Mills Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $60.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Summer Solstice Soiree with Musica Delira” Bissap, 3372 19 St, SF; (415) 826-9287. 8pm.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-$7. With DJ-host Pleasuremaker spins Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Base: Lee Burridge Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; www.vesselsf.com. $10-$15.

SF Riot Grrrl “Mine” Knockout. 9pm, $5. Benefit for Lyon-Martin.

Arcade Lookout. 9pm, free. Indie dance party.

Get Low Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. Jerry Nice and Ant-1 spin Hip-Hop, ’80s and Soul with weekly guests.

SkisM DNA Lounge. 8pm, $15.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with DJ’s Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Cool Ghouls, Cigarette Burns, Courtney and the Crushers, Glitz Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Death to All, Gorguts Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $32.

Jenni & the Jerks 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 10pm.

Joe Krown/Walter Wolfman/Russell Batiste Trio Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $15-$20.

Last Ambassadors, Cash Pony, 3 Ring Simian Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Larry McCray Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Rahsaan Patterson Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $26; 10pm, $22.

Retroz, Funkery, Raya Zion Collective Slim’s. 8pm, $14-$16.

Sister Crayon, Sea of Bees, Jhameel Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $12.

Sole Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Spyrals, Poor Sons, Wild Wild Wets, Arabs Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

THEESatisfaction Independent. 9pm, $14.

Rags Tuttle, Jeff, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9pm, $10.

Terry Disely Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 5:30-8:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

David Berkeley SFO Airport, Terminal Three. 10am-2pm, free.

Ozark Mountain Music Show Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $8-$10. With Chapmans.

Taste Fridays 650 Indiana, SF; www.tastefridays.com. 8pm, $18. Salsa and bachata dance lessons, live music.

DANCE CLUBS

Baxtalo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10. Live music, gypsy punk, belly dance.

Drag Yourself to Pride: Disney Prom Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm, $5.

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs, shirt-off drink specials.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Original Plumbing Elbo Room. 10pm, $7-$10. Trans March after-party with DJs Rapid Fire and Average Jo.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Pledge: Fraternal Lookout. 9pm, $3-$13. Benefiting LGBT and nonprofit organizations. Bottomless kegger cups and paddling booth with DJ Christopher B and DJ Brian Maier.

SATURDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Curumin Slim’s. 9pm, $16-$18.

Dark Hollow Riptide, 3639 Taraval, SF; www.riptidesf.com. 9:30pm, free.

Fast Times Maggie McGarry’s, 1353 Grant, SF; www.maggiemcgarryscom. 10pm, free.

Foreverland, Planet Booty Bimbo’s. 9pm, $22.

Fusion Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Mark Gardener, Sky Parade, Silent Pictures Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12-$15.

“Go Van Gogh Celebrates the Sexual Revolution” Revolution, 3248 22 St, SF; www.revolutioncafesf.com. 9pm.

Hammers of Misfortune, Grayceon, Wild Hunt Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

It Gets Indie, It Gets Better and the Trevor Project’s Princeton, Local Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $25.

Jeff, Randy, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Kicker, P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S., Modern Pets, Rock Bottom Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Locos Por Juana, Bang Data Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $9-$12.

New Position, American Professionals Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Otis Heat, Quick & Easy Boys, Caldecott Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $12.

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

“Vans Warped Tour” McCovey Cove at AT&T Park, SF; warpedtoursf.eventbrite.com. Noon, $42. With Taking Back Sunday, All Time Low, Used, New Found Glory, and more.

Whirr, Lorelie, Moonbeams, Half String Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Citizen’s Jazz Red Poppy Art House. 8:30pm, $10-$15.

May’n Yoshi’s SF. 1:30pm, $50.

Pat Martino Organ Trio Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $25; 10pm, $20.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Fete de la musique” Alliance Francaise, 1345 Bush, SF; www.afsf.com.1pm. With Tod Hamilton and Jerry Kiernan, Zu Zed, Safe Under the Tree, Helene Renaut, Hot Six, and more.

Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 4-6pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Glitter 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.

Bootie SF: Lady Gaga vs Madonna DJ DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-$20. Resident DJs A Plus D, Smash-Up Derby, with Lindsay Slowhands, MJ Paul and La Femme.

Cockblock’s Dyke March After-Party Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10-$20. With DJs Natalie Nuxx, Chelsea Starr, and Kidd Sysko.

J Rocc, Shortkut, Beat Junkie Sound, Triple Threat DJs Mighty. 9pm.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

SUNDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Amaral Independent. 8pm, $20.

Anita Baker, Family Stone, Glide Ensemble Stern Grove Festival, Stern Grove, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

Future Twin, Modrag, Cruel Summer Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

J. Geils & Friends Yoshi’s SF. 6pm, $25; 8pm, $30.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Men, Wax Idols, Burnt Ones Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $12.

Lisa Marie Presley Slim’s. 8pm, $22.

Shady Maples, Blind Willies Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Viola Booth Group, Mike Bloom, Alan Semerdjian Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Linda Zulaica, Brad Buethe, Chris Amberger Bliss Bar, 4026 24 St, SF; www.blissbar.com. 4:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kata-vento Brazilian Ensemble Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-$15.

Twang Sunday Thee Parkside. 4pm, free. With Famous.

DANCE CLUBS

Aesthetic Perfect, X-RX, BlakOpz DNA Lounge. 9pm, $19.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Vinnie Esparza.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs and drink specials.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“An Evening with Philip Glass and Joanna Newsom and Tim Fain” Warfield. 8pm, $62.50-$150. Benefit for Big Sur’s Henry Miller Memorial Library.

“Blue Bear School of Music Showcases” Cafe Du Nord. 7:30pm.

Jimmy Cobb’s So What Band Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $18.

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Friends, Splash!, Young Digerati Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Scott Lucas & the Married Men Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $7-$10.

2:54, Widowspeak Independent. 8pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Earl Brothers Amnesia. 6pm.

Anna Fermin Osteria, 3277 Sacramento, SF; www.osteriasf.com. 7pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop from 1960s-early ’90s with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza, and more.

TUESDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Arcadio Residency: Dedications, Brendan Thomas Amnesia. 9:15pm, $5.

“Blue Bear School of Music Showcases” Cafe Du Nord. 7:30pm.

Daniel Castro Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Jimmy Cobb’s So What Band Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $18.

Hundred in the Hands, Silver Swans, Teenage Sweater Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10-$12.

K-Holes, Dirty Ghosts, Blasted Canyons Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $8-$10.

KWJAZ, Aloonaluna, Aja Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Queen Extravaganza Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32-$45.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Trini Lopez “Mr. La Bamba” Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40-$45.

DANCE CLUBS

Gumbo Lab Little Baobab, 3388 19 St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 7-10pm, free. Hip-hop, reggae, and improv open mic hosted by MSK.FM and Chris-B.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Post-Dubstep Tuesdays Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521.10pm, free. DJs Dnae Beats, Epcot, Footwerks spin UK Funky, Bass Music.

San FraNOLA Public Works. 7pm, free. With DJ Brice Nice, Lagniappe Brass Band, and Cook Me Somethin Mister jambalaya. Study Hall John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. Hip-hop, dancehall, and Bay slaps with DJ Left Lane.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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Frameline36, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, runs through Sun/24 at Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., SF; Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St., SF; and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk. For tickets (most shows $9-$11) and schedule, visit www.frameline.org.

OPENING

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter America’s 16th president jumps aboard the bloodsucker bandwagon. (1:45) Presidio.

Brave Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, and Billy Connolly star in Pixar’s fantasy about a strong-willed girl who brings turmoil upon her Scottish kingdom when she defies a long-held tradition. (1:33) Balboa, Presidio, Shattuck.

5 Broken Cameras Palestinian Emad Burnat bought his first camcorder in 2005 with the intention of bottling family memories, but when Israeli forces began the construction of settlements in Bil’in (his home village in the West Bank) Burnat stumbled into activist-filmmaker territory. In documenting his community’s nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation, Burnat’s friends and family (much like his cameras) are shot at, injured, and even killed. His son Gabreel’s first words are “wall” and “cartridge,” epitomizing the psychological toll of the struggle. Israeli forces are depicted as an eerily faceless entity, with colonialist aspirations run amok. Burnat isn’t interested in highlighting the political delicacy of the situation, and frankly, he’s given us something far more powerful than your average piece of fair-and-balanced journalism on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Splitting the difference between home-video montage and war-zone nightmare, 5 Broken Cameras skillfully merges the political and the personal, profoundly humanizing the Palestinian movement for independence. (1:30) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Taylor Kaplan)

Found Memories The literal Portuguese-to-English translation of this film’s title — “stories that exist only when remembered” — is clunky, but more poignantly accurate than Found Memories. At first, it’s not entirely clear if Brazilian Júlia Murat is making a narrative or a documentary. In an tiny, isolated community populated by elderly people, Madalena (Sonia Guedes) follows a schedule she’s kept for years, probably decades: making bread, attending church, doing chores, tending the cemetery gates, writing love letters to a long-absent partner (“Isn’t it strange that after all these years, I still find your things around the house?”), and grousing at the “annoying old man” who grinds the town’s coffee beans. One day, young photographer Rita (Lisa Fávero) drifts into the village, an exotic import from the outside, modern world. Slowly, despite their differences, the women become friends. That’s about it for plot, but as this deliberately-paced film reflects on aging, dying, and memories (particularly in the form of photographs), it offers atmospheric food for thought, and a few moments of droll humor. Note, however, that viewer patience is a requirement to reap its rewards. (1:38) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

The Invisible War Kirby Dick’s searing documentary takes a look at the prevalence of rape within U.S. military ranks, a problem whose unbelievably high levels of occurrence would long ago have caused huge public outcry and imposed reform in any other institutional context. Yet because it’s the military — where certain codes of loyalty, machismo, and insularity dominate from the grunt level to the highest ranks — the issue has not only been effectively kept secret, but perpetrators almost never suffer any disciplinary measures, let alone jail time or dishonorable discharges. Meanwhile the women — some studies estimate 20% of all female personnel (and 1% of the men) suffer sexual assault from colleagues — are further traumatized by an atmosphere that creates ideal conditions for stalking, rape, and “blame the victim” aftermaths from superiors. (Indeed, for many the superior to whom they would have reported an attack was the one who attacked them.) Most end up quitting promising service careers (often pursued because of generations of family enlistment), dealing with the serious mental health consequences on their own. The subjects who’ve come forward on the issue here are inspiring in their bravery, and dedication to a patriotic cause and vocation that ultimately, bitterly betrayed them. Their stories are so engrossing that The Invisible War is as compulsively watchable as its topic and statistics are inherently appalling. (1:39) Metreon. (Harvey) 

Oslo, August 31st Heroin movies are rarely much fun, and Oslo is no exception, though here the stress lies not in grisly realism but visceral emotional honesty. Following an abortive, Virginia Woolf-esque suicide attempt during evening leave from his rehab center, recovering addict Anders visits Oslo for a job interview. He reconnects bittersweetly with an old friend, tries and fails to meet up with his sister, and eventually submerges himself in the nightlife that once fueled his self-destruction. Expressionistic editing conveys Anders’ sense of detachment and urge for release, with scenes and sounds intercut achronologically and striking sound design which homes in on stray conversations. A late intellectual milieu is signified throughout, quite humorously, by serious discussions of popular television dramas, presumably an update of similar concerns addressed in Pierre Drieu La Rochelle’s 1931 novel Le Feu follet, on which the film is based. (1:35) Elmwood, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Sam Stander)

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World See “Apocalypse Meh.” (1:41) Marina, Piedmont, Shattuck.

Ultrasonic Is it madness to imagine a stylish new twist on the claustrophobic conspiracy thriller? Multi-hyphenate director, co-writer, and cinematographer (and musician and software engineer) Rohit Colin Rao manages just that with this head-turning indie feature film debut, while managing to translate a stark indie aesthetic encapsulated by Dischord and Touch and Go bands, lovers of Rust Belt warehouses and waffle houses, culture vultures who revere both Don DeLillo and Wisconsin Death Trip, and critics who lean too hard on the descriptor “angular.” Musician Simon York (Silas Gordon Brigham) is one denizen firmly placed in that cultural landscape, but the pressures of funding his combo’s album, coping with the diminishing returns of his music teacher livelihood, and anticipating the arrival of a baby with his wife, Ruth (Cate Buscher), seem to be piling on his murky brow. Simon begins to hear a hard-to-pin-down sound that no one else can detect, though Ruth’s eccentric and possibly certified conspiracy-theorist brother Jonas (Sam Repshas) is quick to affirm — and build on — his fears. Painting his handsome, stylized mise-en-scène in noiry blacks and wintry whites, Rohit positively revels in this post-punk jewel of a world he’s assembled, and it’s a compelling one even if it’s far from perfect and ultimately shies away from the deepest shadows. (1:30) Roxie. (Chun)

Ongoing 

Bel Ami Judging from recent attempts to shake off the gloomy atmosphere and undead company of the Twilight franchise, Robert Pattinson enjoys a good period piece, but hasn’t quite worked out how to help make one. Last year’s Depression-era Water for Elephants was a tepid romance, and Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod’s belle epoque–set Bel Ami is an ungainly, oddly paced adaptation of the Guy de Maupassant novel of the same name. A down-and-out former soldier of peasant stock, Georges Duroy (Pattinson) — or “Bel Ami,” as his female admirers call him — gains a brief entrée into the upper echelons of France’s fourth estate and parlays it into a more permanent set of social footholds, campaigning for the affections of a triumvirate of Parisian power wives (Christina Ricci, Uma Thurman, and Kristin Scott Thomas) as he makes his ascent. His route is confusing, though; the film pitches forward at an alarming pace, its scenes clumsily stacked together with little character development or context to smooth the way, and Pattinson’s performance doesn’t clarify much. Duroy shifts perplexingly between rapacious and soulful modes, eyeing the ladies with a vaguely carnivorous expression as he enters drawing rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms, but leaving us with little sense of his true appetites or other motivations. (1:42) Lumiere, Smith Rafael. (Rapoport) 

Bernie Jack Black plays the titular new assistant funeral director liked by everybody in small-town Carthage, Tex. He works especially hard to ingratiate himself with shrewish local widow Marjorie (Shirley MacLaine), but there are benefits — estranged from her own family, she not only accepts him as a friend (then companion, then servant, then as virtual “property”), but makes him her sole heir. Richard Linklater’s latest is based on a true-crime story, although in execution it’s as much a cheerful social satire as I Love You Philip Morris and The Informant! (both 2009), two other recent fact-based movies about likable felons. Black gets to sing (his character being a musical theater queen, among other things), while Linklater gets to affectionately mock a very different stratum of Lone Star State culture from the one he started out with in 1991’s Slacker. There’s a rich gallery of supporting characters, most played by little-known local actors or actual townspeople, with Matthew McConaughey’s vainglorious county prosecutor one delectable exception. Bernie is its director’s best in some time, not to mention a whole lot of fun. (1:39) Embarcadero, Four Star, Presidio, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (1:42) Albany, Four Star, Piedmont, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

A Cat in Paris This year’s Best Animated Film nominees: big-budget entries Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, and eventual winner Rango, plus Chico and Rita, which opened just before Oscar night, and French mega-dark-horse A Cat in Paris. Sure, Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol’s film failed to cash in on 2011’s Paris craze, but it’s still a charming if featherweight noir caper, being released stateside in an English version that features the voices of Marcia Gay Harden and Anjelica Huston. A streetwise kitty named Dino spends his days hanging with Zoey, a little girl who’s gone mute since the death of her father — a cop killed in the line of duty. Zoey’s mother (Harden), also a cop, is hellbent on catching the murderer, a notorious crook named Costa who runs his criminal empire with Reservoir Dogs-style imprecision. At night, Dino sneaks out and accompanies an affable burglar on his prowlings. When Zoey falls into Costa’s clutches, her mom, the thief, and (natch) the feisty feline join forces to rescue her, in a series of rooftop chase scenes that climax atop Notre Dame. At just over an hour, A Cat in Paris is sweetly old-fashioned and suitable for audiences of all ages, though staunch dog lovers may raise an objection or two. (1:07) Opera Plaza. (Eddy) 

Dark Shadows Conceptually, there’s nothing wrong with attempting to turn a now semi-obscure supernaturally themed soap opera with a five-year run in the late 1960s and early ’70s into a feature film. Particularly if the film brings together the sweetly creepy triumvirate of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter and emerges during an ongoing moment for vampires, werewolves, and other things that go hump in the night. Depp plays long-enduring vampire Barnabas Collins, the undead scion of a once-powerful 18th-century New England family that by the 1970s — the groovy decade in which the bulk of the story is set — has suffered a shabby deterioration. Barnabas forms a pact with present-day Collins matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) to raise the household — currently comprising her disaffected daughter, Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz), her derelict brother, Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), his mournful young son, David (Gulliver McGrath), David’s live-in lush of a psychiatrist, Dr. Hoffman (Carter), and the family’s overtaxed manservant, Willie (Jackie Earle Haley) — to its former stature, while taking down a lunatic, love-struck, and rather vindictive witch named Angelique (Eva Green). The latter, a victim of unrequited love, is the cause of all Barnabas’s woes and, by extension, the entire clan’s, but Angelique can only be blamed for so much. Beyond her hocus-pocus jurisdiction is the film’s manic pileup of plot twists, tonal shifts, and campy scenery-chewing by Depp, a startling onslaught that no lava lamp joke, no pallid reaction shot, no room-demolishing act of paranormal carnality set to Barry White, and no cameo by Alice Cooper can temper. (2:00) SF Center. (Rapoport)

The Dictator As expected, The Dictator is, yet again, Sacha Baron Cohen doing his bumbling-foreigner shtick. Said character (here, a ruthless, spoiled North African dictator) travels to America and learns a heaping teaspoon of valuable lessons, which are then flung upon the audience — an audience which, by film’s end, has spent 80 minutes squealing at a no-holds-barred mix of disgusting gags, tasteless jokes, and schadenfreude. If you can’t forgive Cohen for carbon-copying his Borat (2006) formula, at least you can muster admiration for his ability to be an equal-opportunity offender (dinged: Arabs, Jews, African Americans, white Americans, women of all ethnicities, and green activists) — and for that last-act zinger of a speech. If The Dictator doesn’t quite reach Borat‘s hilarious heights, it’s still proudly repulsive, smart in spite of itself, and guaranteed to get a rise out of anyone who watches it. (1:23) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Double Trouble When crooks nab a priceless painting from a Taipei museum, two security guards — wannabe hero Jay (Jaycee “Son of Jackie” Chan) and Chinese-tourist-on-vacation Ocean (Xia Yu) — reluctantly team up to recover the piece. A road trip of sorts ensues, laden with petty bickering, wacky melees, bonding moments, mistaken identity, gangsters both comical and sinister, and other buddy-comedy trappings. As expected, there are a few high-flying fight scenes; in the film’s production notes, director David Hsun-Wei Chang reveals he was inspired by the Rush Hour movies. Alas, Chan is neither as charismatic nor as breathtakingly nimble as his father (and, obvi, Xia is no Chris Tucker). It should be noted, however, that one of the slithery art thieves is played by underwear model Jessica C., famed in Hong Kong for her “police siren boobs.” So there’s that. (1:29) Metreon. (Eddy)

Elena The opening, almost still image of breaking dawn amid bare trees — the twigs in the foreground almost imperceptibly developing definition and the sky gradually growing ever lighter and pinker in the corners of the frame — beautifully exemplifies the crux of this well-wrought, refined noir, which spins slowly on the streams of dog-eat-dog survival that rush beneath even the most moneyed echelons of Moscow. Sixtyish former nurse Elena (Nadezhda Markina) is still little more than a live-in caretaker for Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov), her affluent husband of almost 10 years. She sleeps in a separate bed in their modernist-chic condo and dutifully funnels money to her beloved layabout son and his family. Vladimir has less of a relationship with his rebellious bad-seed daughter (Yelena Lyadova), who may be too smart and hedonistic for her own good. When a certain unlikely reunion threatens Elena’s survival — and what she perceives as the survival of her own spawn — a kind of deadly dawn breaks over the seemingly obedient hausfrau, and she’s driven to desperate ends. Bathing his scenes in chilled blue light and velvety dark shadows, filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev (2003’s The Return) keeps a detached but close eye on the proceedings while displaying an uncanny talent for plucking the telling detail out of the wash of daily routine and coaxing magnetic performances from his cast. (1:49) Lumiere. (Chun)

Headhunters Despite being the most sought-after corporate headhunter in Oslo, Roger (Aksel Hennie) still doesn’t make enough money to placate his gorgeous wife; his raging Napoleon complex certainly doesn’t help matters. Crime is, as always, the only solution, so Roger’s been supplementing his income by stealthily relieving his rich, status-conscious clients of their most expensive artworks (with help from his slightly unhinged partner, who works for a home-security company). When Roger meets the dashing Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of Game of Thrones) — a Danish exec with a sinister, mysterious military past, now looking to take over a top job in Norway — he’s more interested in a near-priceless painting rumored to be stashed in Greve’s apartment. The heist is on, but faster than you can say “MacGuffin,” all hell breaks loose (in startlingly gory fashion), and the very charming Roger is using his considerable wits to stay alive. Based on a best-selling “Scandi-noir” novel, Headhunters is just as clever as it is suspenseful. See this version before Hollywood swoops in for the inevitable (rumored) remake. (1:40) Lumiere. (Eddy)

The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a teenager living in a totalitarian state whose 12 impoverished districts, as retribution for an earlier uprising, must pay tribute to the so-called Capitol every year, sacrificing one boy and one girl each to the Hunger Games. A battle royal set in a perilous arena and broadcast live to the Capitol as gripping diversion and to the districts as sadistic propaganda, the Hunger Games are, depending on your viewpoint, a “pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice” or a brutal, pointless bloodbath involving children as young as 12. When her little sister’s name comes up in the ann­ual lottery, Katniss volunteers to take her place and is joined by a boy named Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares an old, unspoken bond. Tasked with translating to the screen the first installment of Suzanne Collins’s rabidly admired trilogy, writer-director Gary Ross (2003’s Seabiscuit, 1998’s Pleasantville) telescopes the book’s drawn-out, dread-filled tale into a manageable two-plus-hour entertainment, making great (and horrifying) use of the original work’s action, but losing a good deal of the narrative detail and emotional force. Elizabeth Banks is comic and unrecognizable as Effie Trinket, the two tributes’ chaperone; Lenny Kravitz gives a blank, flattened reading as their stylist, Cinna; and Donald Sutherland is sufficiently creepy and bloodless as the country’s leader, President Snow. More exceptionally cast are Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta’s surly, alcoholic mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, and Stanley Tucci as games emcee Caesar Flickerman, flashing a bank of gleaming teeth at each contestant as he probes their dire circumstances with the oily superficiality of a talk show host. (2:22) 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Hysteria Tanya Wexler’s period romantic comedy gleefully depicts the genesis of the world’s most popular sex toy out of the inchoate murk of Victorian quackishness. In this dulcet version of events, real-life vibrator inventor Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) is a handsome young London doctor with such progressive convictions as a belief in the existence of germs. He is, however, a man of his times and thus swallows unblinking the umbrella diagnosis of women with symptoms like anxiety, frustration, and restlessness as victims of a plague-like uterine disorder known as hysteria. Landing a job in the high-end practice of Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce), whose clientele consists entirely of dissatisfied housewives seeking treatments of “medicinal massage” and subsequent “parosysm,” Granville becomes acquainted with Dalrymple’s two daughters, the decorous Emily (Felicity Jones) and the first-wave feminist Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal). A subsequent bout of RSI offers empirical evidence for the adage about necessity being the mother of invention, with the ever-underused Rupert Everett playing Edmund St. John-Smythe, Granville’s aristocratic friend and partner in electrical engineering. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

The Intouchables Cries of “racism” seem a bit out of hand when it comes to this likable albeit far-from-challenging French comedy loosely based on a real-life relationship between a wealthy white quadriplegic and his caretaker of color. The term “cliché” is more accurate. And where were these critics when 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy and 2011’s The Help — movies that seem designed to make nostalgic honkies feel good about those fraught relationships skewed to their advantage—were coming down the pike? (It also might be more interesting to look at how these films about race always hinge on economies in which whites must pay blacks to interact with/educate/enlighten them.) In any case, Omar Sy, portraying Senegalese immigrant Driss, threatens to upset all those pundits’ apple carts with his sheer life force, even when he’s shaking solo on the dance floor to sounds as effortlessly unprovocative, and old-school, as Earth, Wind, and Fire. In fact, everything about The Intouchables is as old school as 1982’s 48 Hrs., spinning off the still laugh-grabbing humor that comes with juxtaposing a hipper, more streetwise black guy with a hapless, moneyed chalky. The wheelchair-bound Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is more vulnerable than most, and he has a hard time getting along with any of his nurses, until he meets Driss, who only wants his signature for his social services papers. It’s not long before the cultured, classical music-loving Philippe’s defenses are broken down by Driss’ flip, somewhat honest take on the follies and pretensions of high culture — a bigger deal in France than in the new world, no doubt. Director-writer Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano aren’t trying to innovate —they seem more set on crafting an effervescent blockbuster that out-blockbusters Hollywood — and the biggest compliment might be that the stateside remake is already rumored to be in the works. (1:52) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of “deliciousness” — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) Bridge. (Eddy)

Lola Versus Greta Gerwig’s embattled late-twentysomething, the titular Lola, apologetically invokes the Saturn return to explain the chaos that enters her life when her emotionally underdeveloped boyfriend proposes, panics, and dumps her. Workaday elements of the industry-standard romantic comedy surface, lightly revised: a crass, loopy BFF (co-writer Zoe Lister Jones) who can’t find true love and says things like “I have to go wash my vagina”; a vaguely soulful male friend (Hamish Linklater, 2011’s The Future) who’s secretly harboring nonplatonic feelings (or maybe just an opportunistic streak); wacky yet vaguely successful Age of Aquarius parents (a somewhat toneless Debra Winger and a nicely gone-to-seed Bill Pullman). One can see why it would be tempting to blame a planet’s galactic travels for the solipsistic meandering that Lola engages in, bemusedly lurching, often under chemical influences, from one bout of poor decision-making to the next. She claims to be searching for a path out of the chaos into some calmer place (fittingly, she’s a comp lit Ph.D. candidate who’s writing her dissertation on silence), but as the movie transports us mercilessly from one scene of turmoil to the next, we have little reason to believe her. The script has funny moments, and Gerwig sometimes succeeds in making Lola feel like a charming disaster, but her personal discoveries, while certainly valuable, feel false and forced. (1:26) Metreon. (Rapoport)

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (1:33) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Marvel’s The Avengers The conflict — a mystical blue cube containing earth-shattering (literally) powers is stolen, with evil intent — isn’t the reason to see this long-hyped culmination of numerous prequels spotlighting its heroic characters. Nay, the joy here is the whole “getting’ the band back together!” vibe; director and co-writer Joss Whedon knows you’re just dying to see Captain America (Chris Evans) bicker with Iron Man (a scene-stealing Robert Downey Jr.); Thor (Chris Hemsworth) clash with bad-boy brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston); and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) get angry as often as possible. (Also part of the crew, but kinda mostly just there to look good in their tight outfits: Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow.) Then, of course, there’s Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) running the whole Marvel-ous show, with one good eye and almost as many wry quips as Downey’s Tony Stark. Basically, The Avengers gives you everything you want (characters delivering trademark lines and traits), everything you expect (shit blowing up, humanity being saved, etc.), and even makes room for a few surprises. It doesn’t transcend the comic-book genre (like 2008’s The Dark Knight did), but honestly, it ain’t trying to. The Avengers wants only to entertain, and entertain it does. (2:23) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Men in Black III Why not? It’s been ten years since Men in Black II (the one where Lara Flynn Boyle and Johnny Knoxville — remember them? — played the villains), Will Smith has barely aged, and he hasn’t made a full-on comedy since, what, 2005’s Hitch? Here, he does a variation on his always-agreeable exasperated-guy routine, clashing with his grim, gimlet-eyed partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones, and in a younger incarnation, a spot-on Josh Brolin) in a plot that involves a vicious alien named Boris (Flight of the Conchords’ Jermaine Clement), time travel, Andy Warhol, the moon (as both space-exploration destination and modern-day space-jail location), and lines that only Smith’s delivery can make funny (“This looks like it comes from planet damn.“) It’s cheerful (save a bit of melodrama at the end), crisply paced, and is neither a must-see masterpiece nor something you should mindfully sleep through if it pops up among your in-flight selections. Oh, and it’s in 3D. Well, why not? (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Moonrise Kingdom Does Wes Anderson’s new film mark a live-action return to form after 2007’s disappointingly wan Darjeeling Limited? More or less. Does it tick all the Andersonian style and content boxes? Indubitably. In the most obvious deviation Anderson has taken with Moonrise, he gives us his first period piece, a romance set in 1965 on a fictional island off the New England coast. After a chance encounter at a church play, pre-teen Khaki Scout Sam (newcomer Jared Gilman) instantly falls for the raven-suited, sable-haired Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward, ditto). The two become pen pals, and quickly bond over the shared misery of being misunderstood by both authority figures and fellow kids. The bespectacled Sam is an orphan, ostracized by his foster parents and scout troop (much to the dismay of its straight-arrow leader Edward Norton). Suzy despises her clueless attorney parents, played with gusto by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand in some of the film’s funniest and best scenes. When the two kids run off together, the whole thing begins to resemble a kind of tween version of Godard’s 1965 lovers-on the-lam fantasia Pierrot le Fou. But like most of Anderson’s stuff, it has a gauzy sentimentality more akin to Truffaut than Godard. Imagine if the sequence in 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums where Margot and Richie run away to the Museum of Natural History had been given the feature treatment: it’s a simple yet inspired idea, and it becomes a charming little tale of the perils of growing up and selling out the fantasy. But it doesn’t feel remotely risky. It’s simply too damn tame. (1:37) California, Metreon, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Michelle Devereaux)

Music From the Big House See review at sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:27) Sundance Kabuki.

Peace, Love and Misunderstanding How is that even as a bona fide senior, Jane Fonda continues to embody this country’s ambivalence toward women? I suspect it’s a testament to her actorly prowess and sheer charisma that she’s played such a part in defining several eras’ archetypes — from sex kitten to counterculture-heavy Hanoi Jane to dressed-for-success feminist icon to aerobics queen to trophy wife. Here, among the talents in Bruce Beresford’s intergenerational chick-flick-gone-indie as a loud, proud, and larger-than-life hippie earth mama, she threatens to eclipse her paler, less colorful offspring, women like Catherine Keener and Elizabeth Olsen, who ordinarily shine brighter than those that surround them. It’s ostensibly the tale of high-powered lawyer Diane (Keener): her husband (Kyle MacLachlan) has asked for a divorce, so in a not-quite-explicable tailspin, she packs her kids, Zoe (Olsen) and Jake (Nat Wolff), into the car and heads to Woodstock to see her artist mom Grace (Fonda) for the first time in two decades. Grace is beyond overjoyed — dying to introduce the grandchildren to her protests, outdoor concerts, and own personal growhouse — while urbanite Diane and her kids find attractive, natch, diversions in the country, in the form of Jude (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Cole (Chace Crawford), and Tara (Marissa O’Donnell). Yet there’s a lot of troubled water for the mother and daughter to cross, in order to truly come together. Despite some strong characterization and dialogue, Peace doesn’t quite fly — or make much sense at its close — due to the some patchy storytelling: the schematic rom-com arch fails to provide adequate scaffolding to support the required leaps of faith. But that’s not to deny the charm of the highly identifiable, generous-spirited Grace, a familiar Bay Area archetype if there ever was one, who Fonda charges with the joy and sadness of fallible parent who was making up the rules as she went along. (1:36) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Prometheus Ridley Scott’s return to outer space — after an extended stay in Russell Crowe-landia — is most welcome. Some may complain Prometheus too closely resembles Scott’s Alien (1979), for which it serves as a prequel of sorts. Prometheus also resembles, among others, The Thing (1982), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Event Horizon (1997). But I love those movies (yes, even Event Horizon), and I am totally fine with the guy who made Alien borrowing from all of them and making the classiest, most gorgeous sci-fi B-movie in years. Sure, some of the science is wonky, and the themes of faith and creation can get a bit woo-woo, but Prometheus is deep-space discombobulation at its finest, with only a miscast Logan Marshall-Green (apparently, cocky dude-bros are still in effect at the turn of the next millennium) marring an otherwise killer cast: Noomi Rapace as a dreamy (yet awesomely tough) scientist; Idris Elba as Prometheus‘ wisecracking captain; Charlize Theron as the Weyland Corportation’s icy overseer; and Michael Fassbender, giving his finest performance to date as the ship’s Lawrence of Arabia-obsessed android. (2:03) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Rock of Ages (2:03) California, Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Safety Not Guaranteed San Francisco-born director Colin Trevorrow’s narrative debut feature Safety Not Guaranteed, written by Derek Connolly, has an improbable setup: not that rural loner Kenneth (Mark Duplass) would place a personal ad for a time travel partner (“Must bring own weapons”), but that a Seattle alt-weekly magazine would pay expenses for a vainglorious staff reporter (Jake Johnson, hilarious) and two interns (Aubrey Plaza, Karan Soni) to stalk him for a fluff feature over the course of several days. The publishing budget allowing that today is true science-fiction. But never mind. Inserting herself “undercover” when a direct approach fails, Plaza’s slightly goth college grad finds she actually likes obsessive, paranoid weirdo Kenneth, and is intrigued by his seemingly insane but dead serious mission. For most of its length Safety falls safely into the category of off-center indie comedics, delivering various loopy and crass behavior with a practiced deadpan, providing just enough character depth to achieve eventual poignancy. Then it takes a major leap — one it would be criminal to spoil, but which turns an admirable little movie into something conceptually surprising, reckless, and rather exhilarating. (1:34) Metreon, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Snow White and the Huntsman It’s unclear why the zeitgeist has blessed us this year with two warring iterations of the Snow White fairy tale, one broadly comedic (April’s Mirror Mirror), one starkly emo. But it was only natural that Kristen Stewart would land in the latter rendering, breaking open the hearts of swamp beasts and swordsmen alike with the chaste glory of her mien. As Snow White flees the henchmen and hired killers dispatched by her seriously evil stepmother, Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), and traverses a blasted, virulent forest populated with hallucinogenic vapors and other life-threatening obstacles, Stewart need not act so much as radiate a dazzling benignity, weeping the tears of a martyr rather than a frightened young girl. (Unfortunately, when required to deliver a rallying declaration of war, she sounds as if she’s speaking in tongues after a heavy hit on the crack pipe.) It’s slightly uncomfortable to be asked, alongside a grieving, drunken huntsman (The Avengers’ Chris Hemsworth), a handful of dwarfs (including Ian McShane and Toby Jones), and the kingdom’s other suffering citizenry, to fall worshipfully in line behind such a creature. But first-time director Rupert Sanders’s film keeps pace with its lovely heroine visually, constructing a gorgeous world in which armies of black glass shatter on battlefields, white stags dissolve into hosts of butterflies, and a fairy sanctuary within the blighted kingdom is an eye-popping fantasia verging on the hysterical. Theron’s Ravenna, equipped in modernist fashion with a backstory for her sociopathic tendencies, is credible and captivating as an unhinged slayer of men, thief of youth, destroyer of kingdoms, and consumer of the hearts of tiny birds. (2:07) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

That’s My Boy (1:55) Metreon, SF Center.

Turn Me On, Dammit! The 15-year-old heroine of writer-director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen’s Turn Me On, Dammit! is first heard in voice-over, flatly cataloging the over familiar elements of the small town in rural Norway where she lives — and first seen lying on the kitchen floor of her house sharing an intimate moment with a phone sex operator named Stig (Per Kjerstad). Largely ruled by her hormones and longing to get it on with someone other than herself and the disembodied Stig, Alma (Helene Bergsholm) spends large segments of her life unspooling sexual fantasies starring Artur (Matias Myren), the boy she has a crush on, and Sebjorn (Jon Bleiklie Devik), who runs the grocery store where she works and is the father of her two closest friends: burgeoning political activist Sara (Malin Bjorhovde) and full-fledged mean girl Ingrid (Beate Stofring). Back in real life, a strange and awkward physical interaction with Artur leads Alma, excited and confused, to describe the experience to her friends, a mistake that precipitously leads to total social ostracism among her peers. With the possible exception of some unnecessary dog reaction shots during the aforementioned opening scene, documentary maker Jacobsen’s first narrative feature film is an engaging and impressive debut, presenting a sympathetic and uncoy depiction of a young girl’s sexuality and exploiting the rich contrast between Alma’s gauzier fantasies and the realities of her waking world to poignantly comic effect. (1:16) Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

The Woman in the Fifth A rumpled American writer with a hinted-at dark past (Ethan Hawke) shows up in Paris, to the horror of his French ex-wife and confused delight of his six-year-old daughter. An ill-advised nap on public transportation results in all of his bags being stolen; broke and out of sorts, he takes a grimy room above a café and a gig monitoring the surveillance-cam feed at what’s obviously some kind of illegal enterprise. During the day he stalks his daughter and romances both sophisticated Margit (Kristen Scott Thomas) and nubile Ania (Joanna Kulig); he also dodges his hostile neighbor (Mamadou Minte) and shady boss (Samir Guesmi). Based on Douglas Kennedy’s novel, the latest from Pawel Pawlikowski (2004’s My Summer of Love), offers some third-act twists (gory, distressing ones) that suggest Hawke’s character (and, by extension, the viewer) may not be perceiving reality with 100 percent accuracy. Moody, melancholy, not-entirely-satisfying stuff. (1:23) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

Your Sister’s Sister The new movie from Lynn Shelton — who directed star and (fellow mumblecore director) Mark Duplass in her shaggily amusing Humpday (2009) — opens somberly, at a Seattle wake where his Jack makes his deceased brother’s friends uncomfortable by pointing out that the do-gooder guy they’d loved just the last couple years was a bully and jerk for many years before his reformation. This outburst prompts an offer from friend-slash-mutual-crush Iris (Emily Blunt) that he get his head together for a few days at her family’s empty vacation house on a nearby island. Arriving via ferry and bike, he is disconcerted to find someone already in residence — Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), who’s grieving a loss of her own (she’s split with her girlfriend). Several tequila shots later, two Kinsey-scale opposites meet, which creates complications when Iris turns up the next day. A bit slight in immediate retrospect and contrived in its wrap-up, Shelton’s film is nonetheless insinuating, likable, and a little touching while you’re watching it. That’s largely thanks to the actors’ appeal — especially Duplass, who fills in a blunderingly lucky (and unlucky) character’s many blanks with lived-in understatement. (1:30) Albany, Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

 

After the raid

Andrew Lam
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1
After the raid

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE It is exceedingly difficult to get Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee to talk about himself. I have him — the person who drove the Proposition 19 legalization campaign, whose house and cannabis trade school were raided by federal agents in April, who through his businesses’ success has helped revitalize and make safe a previously gloomy stretch of downtown Oakland — on the phone to talk about the lifetime achievement award he will be receiving from High Times at this week’s Cannabis Cup (Sat/23-Sun/24).

I want him to share his emotional journey since government agents poured into his home, what’s it’s like to be the public face of the flashpoint between California and national government over marijuana. High Times editorial director Malcolm MacKinnon calls Lee a “fearless trailblazer,” perhaps he’d like to make grand predictions about the future of pot? At least describe exactly what’s happening with Oaksterdam, post-raid. But Lee prefers to stress the latest poll numbers on legalization.

“All the national polls and the Colorado polls are going our way,” he says. “If you could get the word out about that, that’d be great.” FYI, on June 6 Rasmussen Reports found that 61 percent of Coloradoans support regulating cannabis like alcohol and cigarettes.

Lee has retired from university administration — he’s referred to as a professor emeritus, although he is still teaching classes in cannabis policy, history, and advocacy. In his “big Converse All-Stars” (as she calls them) now stands Dale Sky Jones. She once developed Oaksterdam’s curriculum and now joins a short list of female leaders in the marijuana industry as the university’s president.

“When the federal government came in, they took the curriculum, the computers — everything else that was the blood and breathe, heart and soul of the school short of the tables and chairs and teachers,” Jones says in a phone interview. Under her watch, the finances of “top-heavy” Oaksterdam’s gift shop, dispensary, and university have split and are now under separate ownership. Staff is attempting to rebuild curriculum from email records. 45 employees have lost their job because of the disruption in business affairs. “This was a violation on so many levels for the staff of Oaksterdam,” Jones says, sadly.

But life goes on. Lee says his “students are great, they have lots of energy and enthusiasm.” And the cultural contributions that the school and its founder have hardly been negated by federal intervention. “[Lee] brought the debate about marijuana policy reform to the kitchen table,” says Jones. “Before Prop. 19, the only time parents and kids had conversations around marijuana it was ‘where the hell did you find it? who are your jackass friends?’ It was always a negative discussion. This was the first time that families were able to discuss marijuana as a policy issue.”

This weekend’s Cannabis Cup will bring the pot world’s focus back here, as some of NorCal’s [author’s note: and hence, the world’s] best strains compete for the title of best indica, sativa, edibles, etc. Lee’s lifetime achievement award (presented at 7pm on Sun/24) will just confirm what we all already knew: even when it comes to activists, we grow things better out here.

HIGH TIMES CANNABIS CUP

Sat/23 noon-10pm, Sun/24 noon-9:30pm; one-day pass $40, two-day pass $65 advance, $80 at door

Craneway Pavilion

1414 Harbour Way, Richmond

www.medcancup.com

Apocalypse meh

Andrew Lam
-
0
Apocalypse meh

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Being a movie star is a precarious business. It seemed very good news when The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) made Steve Carell one after years of very good work as a sketch comedian and supporting player (and with years of The Office to come). He was smart, funny, personable, and versatile. But Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and the animated Despicable Me (2010) aside, movies have been trying to pound his round peg into a square hole ever since. Evan Almighty (2007), Dan in Real Life (2007), Get Smart (2008), Date Night (2010), Dinner for Schmucks (2010), Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) — there are worse lists (see: Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler), but each failed him and its audience in some way. At this point he seems just a few more flops away from re-entering the network sitcom world.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World won’t help. A first directorial feature for Lorene Scafaria, who’d previously written Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008) — another movie dubiously convinced that sharing its Desert Island Discs equals soulfulness — it’s an earnest stab at something different that isn’t different enough.

Specifically, it’s a little too similar in premise to the 1998 Canadian Last Night (which wasn’t all that hot, either). But the problem is more that Scafaria’s film isn’t anything enough — funny, pointed, insightful, surprising, whatever. Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), for all its faults, ended the world with a bang. This is the whimper version.

An asteroid is heading smack toward Earth; we are fucked. News of this certainty prompts the wife of insurance company rep Dodge Peterson (Carell) to walk out — suggesting that with just days left in our collective existence, she would rather spend that time with somebody, anybody, else. A born self-defeatist, he accepts this rejection as proof of total failure in life. So while the multitudes go nuts with apocalyptic fervor — partying, fucking, weeping, etc. — he anticipates quietly crawling toward the hereafter on a business-as-usual schedule.

Public hysteria turns from giddy to violent, however, and rioting vandals force Dodge to flee his apartment building. By now, however, he has acquired two strays: A mutt he names Sorry (after the terse note its owner left in surrendering custody) and professedly “flaky, irresponsible” neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley), who’s just broken up with her useless boyfriend (Adam Brody) and missed the last available planes to England, where her family lives. She decides she must reunite Dodge with the long-ago love of his life — an event that could have happened months ago, had the mail carrier not delivered that woman’s flame-rekindling letter by mistake to Penny’s mailbox, and if she hadn’t simply forgotten to slip it under his door.

Thus ensues a tepid road-trip dramedy of episodic encounters with interesting actors — William Petersen, Martin Sheen — primed to shine in better material than they get. (One fresh if hardly slam-dunk sequence has comedian T.J. Miller as the host at Friendly’s, a chain restaurant where “everyone’s your friend,” perhaps because its orgiastically inclined staff seems to be “rolling pretty hard” on Ecstasy.) Needless to say, however, Carell and Knightley’s odd couple connects en route.

Except they don’t, in the chemistry terms that this halfway adventurous, halfway flatlined film ultimately, completely depends upon. Carell’s usual nuanced underplaying has no context to play within — Dodge is a loser because he’s … what? Too nice? Too passive? Has obnoxious friends (played early on by, in ascending order of humiliation, Rob Corddry, Patton Oswalt, Connie Britton, and Melanie Lynskey)?

His character’s angst attributable to almost nothing, Carell has little to play here but the same put-upon nice guy he’s already done and done again. So he surrenders the movie to Knightley, who exercises rote “quirky girl” mannerisms to an obsessive-compulsive degree, her eyes alone overacting so hard it’s like they’re doing hot yoga on amphetamines. It’s the kind of role, conceived to be dithering-helpless-eccentric-charming, that too often plays instead as annoying. Knightley makes it really annoying. She’s certainly been capable before — and might yet be in Joe Wright’s forthcoming Anna Karenina, scripted by Tom Stoppard. Here she’s so forcedly over-agitated she sucks life from scenes in which she never seems to be acting with fellow cast-members, but rather with line-feeders or a video monitor. It’s an empty, showy performance whose neurotically artificial character one can only imagine a naturally reserved man like Dodge would flee from.

That we’re supposed to believe otherwise stunts Scafaria’s parting exhale of pure girly romanticism — admirable for its wish-fulfillment sweetness, lamentable for the extent that good actors in two-dimensional roles can’t turn passionate language into emotion we believe in.

 

SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD opens Fri/22 in Bay Area theaters.

Homebodies

Andrew Lam
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0
Homebodies

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Anyone who watches dance — and perhaps any of the other arts — over a period of time will experience the excitement of discovery for one of two primary reasons. Proven choreographers may come up with fresh perspectives on who they are and what drives them. The voice may be familiar, but the intonation is new. Or you can have a first encounter with an artist who pushes you right to the edge of your seat — the work’s ingredients are good, but it’s the way they interlock or bounce off each other that makes you look forward to what else this person will come up with in the future.

Such was the case with Nicole Klaymoon, who founded her Embodiment Project company in 2009. For her latest project, House of Matter (performed at Dance Mission Theater June 8-10), she collaborated with jazz singer Valerie Troutt and her vocal ensemble, also founded in 2009. The result was one of the most rocking, joyous dance theater pieces that have hit the town in a long time.

Jamie Tracey’s multi-level panels, perhaps inspired by calligraphy, however, were not up to par; the set design was a weak link. Klaymoon is a writer, social activist, poet, performer, and dancer who grounds her choreography in modern and “urban” (read: hip-hop) styles. Troutt, who created House‘s musical universe, calls what she does house music, though to my ears it sounded more jazz and soul-influenced. Dance-y, however, it is.

“The body as our home” is one of those post-structuralist tropes that academia has bequeathed on us. In her opening spoken and danced monologue about “wanting to let you in” but not daring to do so, Klaymoon didn’t push it. The image of the house did set the tone — not for a series of narratives, but stories nonetheless. Jennifer “JenAy” Anolin and Rama Mahesh Hall longingly yanked and confronted each and yet separated. Ndubuisi Madu, rooted in place, popped so violently it seemed his limbs might fall off. When during Solas B. Lalgee’s ecstatic vocal solo he embraced Assad Conley, the moment was both grand and intimate. I can’t pretend to have followed the details of Troutt’s song cycle, which started with “Make Me Ovah” and ended with “Peace Lives Here,” but House‘s trajectory from tension to reconciliation flowed seamlessly.

The finale looked a bit too protracted and flirted with sentimentality. But there was something so grand and operatic about this house that became a home that I couldn’t help but feeling pulled in.

 

GOODE BUT NOT GREAT

Joe Goode has used the image of the body as a home — the only one we have — in many of his dances. In his latest, the house literally collapses on top of him. It’s a rickety, unstable lattice structure that is the visual focal point of the hour-long When We Fall Apart. Putting a libretto together from inquiries among acquaintances, Goode paints a multi-hued portrait of the dashed hopes and failed expectations that come with living. Looking around the audience, with just about every seat having a nametag on it, I couldn’t help but think but how many patrons could identify with those voices.

Goode’s ability to shed skins with but a few props kept me gasping and laughing at the same time. His splendily versatile dancers, with choreography in which they reached and stretched towards each other and some invisible goals on the ground and above, amplified the sense of life as inherently unstable. At one point they surrounded Goode as characters from his dreams. The scene looked like a merry-go-round. These days, performers Melecio Estrella and Damara Vita Ganley also shine vocally.

Still, with all its charm, wit and theatrical skill, Fall struck me as ultimately facile; its plaintive tune didn’t ring as true as others I have heard from Goode. *

‘WHEN WE FALL APART’

Through June 30

Wed.-Sat., 7pm (also Fri.-Sat., 9pm), $25-$35

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.joegoode.org

 

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