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Frameline is underway! Plus: crooners, ping-pong champs, and more, in new movies

Sue Vaughan
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Frameline 38, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, kicked off last night and runs through June 29; check out our big list o’ blurbs right here. Elsewhere, Clint Eastwood directs a musical, Guy Pearce prowls the outback, a very good suburban noir emerges from the Netherlands, a documentary takes on the cost of higher education, and more! Read on for the goods (and bads). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-VBgShBKlY

 Borgman Popping out from his underground hidey hole, narrowly escaping organized armed vigilantes — indicating an ongoing, possibly global secret battle this movie is content to leave entirely unexplained — the titular figure (Jan Bijvoet) shambles to a nearby home and demands comfort. Refused, he persists, and housewife Marina (Hadewych Minis) acquiesces — at first on the sly, as husband Richard (Jeroen Perceval) has already beaten their paunchy, disheveled, weird would-be guest. But soon Borgman is insinuating himself with the well-off suburban couple’s three children, gradually warping the family dynamic until he has everyone under his power. You’ve seen this kind of “Enigmatic stranger invades complacent bourgeoisie home, wreaks liberating and/or terrifying havoc” thing before, both in thrillers and in artier parables from Teorema (1968) to The King (2005). There is nothing wildly original about Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam’s seductive, macabre black comedy in outline, not its satire of oblivious upper-middle-class entitlement or even (perhaps especially) when the too-generous hosts and any unlucky interlopers start getting killed off one by one. You can debate Borgman’s precise point, or whether it has one at all. But there’s a tart, bracing quality to this cruel absurdist joke that is as perversely delightful as the film is utterly misanthropic. (1:53) (Dennis Harvey)

A Coffee in Berlin How do you say “mumblecore” in German? Jan Ole Gerster’s debut feature has certain arty pretensions — it’s shot in black-and-white, and scored with peppy jazz — but it’s more or less a rambling day in the life of law school dropout Niko (Tom Schilling). It happens to be the very day Niko’s golf-loving father decides to stop funding his shiftless son’s slacker lifestyle, though that crisis (which, you know, Lena Dunham built an entire HBO comedy around) receives nearly equal heft as a cutesy ongoing gimmick that sees Niko incapable of getting a cup of coffee anywhere in Berlin. Hipster ennui can be compelling if it has some underlying energy and purpose (see: 2013’s Frances Ha, to which this film has been compared), but A Coffee in Berlin comes up short on both. That said, it does offer an intriguing portrayal of Berlin — a city whose modern-chic façade barely contains the history that haunts it — and some of its supporting characters, particularly Friederike Kempter as a former schoolmate of Niko’s who has outgrown him emotionally by about one thousand percent, provide pleasant enough distractions. (1:28) (Cheryl Eddy)

Fateful Findings Oh my. With the technical sophistication of Birdemic (2008), Doris Wishman-worthy attention to superfluous detail, and the obliviousness of The Room (2008) toward any semblance of narrative or character continuity, this supernatural drama — or, uh, something like that — is making a bid to be the latest so-bad-it’s-surreal midnight movie hit. Writer-director-producer-editor-star Neil Breen, a man of many hats if no apparent talents, plays Dylan, a writer. As a child, he and friend Leah had found a mushroom that turned into a jewelry box (““Look what I found! A treasure! It’s a magical day!”), and which will come to effect their lives in ways that never make any sense whatsoever. They reunite as re-infatuated adults (Jennifer Autry now playing Leah), which is bad news for the pill-popping wife (Klara Landrat) Dylan is kinda over anyway. Meanwhile, their friends Jim (David Silva) and Amy (Victoria Valene) fight a lot, because he drinks to compensate for their nonexistent sex life, and she’s just incredibly bitchy. Eventually we realize that Dylan is working on a new book that will shockingly expose the rampant global corporate and political corruption that apparently no one has ever noticed before. The climax, which must be seen to be believed, has him triumphantly announcing these (extremely vague) revelations to the cheers of invisible thousands, while disgraced officials are seen committing suicide en masse rather than, you know, retiring to the Canary Islands. There’s a fine line between the hilarious and tortuous that is exactly where Fateful Findings lives. With its flatlined pacing, not-from-this-planet dialogue (Dylan straight facedly tells a dead body “I can’t help you outta this one”), gratuitous nudity, and curious insistence that its characters express emotions by throwing things (laptops, pieces of meat, etc.), this inscrutable vanity project is indeed unique. What it lacks to get you through the (many) boring parts is the compelling personality of a Tommy Wiseau — Breen is (like everyone here) awful, but he’s just a zero onscreen, not a fascinating weirdo. You will want to be drunk for this movie. (1:40) Clay. (Dennis Harvey)

Ivory Tower The latest “issue doc” to come down the pipeline is this very timely and incisive look at the cost of higher education from director Andrew Rossi (2011’s Page One: Inside the New York Times). Rossi is a Yale and Harvard Law grad, and he begins his film in the hallowed halls of the latter to frame the question: In the era of skyrocketing tuition, and with the student loan debt hovering at a trillion bucks, is college still worth it? The answer is left open-ended, though with the very strong suggestion that nontraditional education (including community colleges, online learning, and the Silicon Valley-spawned “uncollege” movement) is certainly something worth exploring, particularly for the non-wealthy. Along the way, we do see some positive tales (a kid from the mean streets of Cleveland gets a full-ride scholarship to Harvard; students at rural Deep Springs College follow philosophy discussions with farm work; African American women at Spelman College thrive in an empowering environment), but there’s a fair amount of cynicism here, too, with a hard look at how certain state schools are wooing deep-pocketed out-of-staters with fancy athletic stadiums, luxurious amenities, and a willingness to embrace, however unofficially, their hard-partying reputations. Segments following a student protest at New York’s Cooper Union, a formerly free school forced to consider collecting tuition after a string of financial troubles, echo Frederick Wiseman’s epic At Berkeley (2013), a thematically similar if stylistically very different work. (1:37) (Cheryl Eddy)

Jersey Boys The musical that turned the back story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons — the 1960s hit making machines behind upbeat doo-wop ditties like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” and a zillion more; you will recognize all of them — into Broadway gold ascends to the big screen thanks to director Clint Eastwood, a seemingly odd choice until you consider Eastwood’s own well-documented love of music. Jersey Boys weaves a predictable tale of show biz dreams realized and then nearly dashed, with a gangster element that allows for some Goodfellas-lite action (a pre-fame Joe Pesci is a character here; he was actually from the same ‘hood, and was instrumental in the group’s formation). With songs recorded live on-set, à la 2012’s Les Misérables, there’s some spark to the musical numbers, but Eastwood’s direction is more solid than spontaneous, with zero surprises (even the big finale, clearly an attempt at a fizzy, feel-good farewell, seems familiar). Still, the cast — including Tony winner John Lloyd Young as Valli, and Christopher Walken as a sympathetic mobster — is likable, with Young in particular turning in a textured performance that speaks to his years of experience with the role. Interview with cast members Young, Michael Lomenda (who plays original Four Season Nick Massi), and Erich Bergen (as Bob Gaudio, the member who wrote most of the group’s hits), right here. (2:14) (Cheryl Eddy)

Ping Pong Summer Eighties teen flicks of the My Bodyguard (1980), smart-dweebs-beat-the-bullies ilk are paid homage in Michael Tully’s deadpan satire, which is closer in spirit to the Comedy of Lameness school whose patron saint is Napoleon Dynamite. Radley (Marcello Conte) is an average teen so excited to be spending the summer of 1985 in Ocean City, Md. with his family that he renames himself “Rad Miracle.” He acquires a new best friend in Teddy (Myles Massey), who as the whitest black kid imaginable might make even Rad look cool by comparison. However, they are both dismayed to discover the local center for video gaming and everything else they like is ruled by bigger, older, cuter, and snottier douchebag Lyle Ace (Joseph McCaughtry) and his sidekick. Only kicking Lyle’s ass at ping pong — with some help from a local weirdo (a miscast Susan Sarandon, apparently here because she’s an off screen ping pong enthusiast) — can save Rad’s wounded dignity, and the summer in general. A big step up from Tully’s odd but pointless prior Septien (2011), this has all the right stuff (including a soundtrack packed with the likes of the Fat Boys, Mary Jane Girls, New Edition, Whodini, and Night Ranger) to hilariously parody the era’s inanities. But it’s just mildly amusing — a droll attitude with lots of period detail but not much bite. (1:32) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)

The Rover Future days have never seemed quite so bleak as they are depicted in the wild, wild Aussie west of The Rover — rendered by Animal Kingdom (2010) director David Michod, who co-wrote The Rover with Joel Edgerton. Let’s just say we’re probably not going to see any primo Burner ensembles inspired by this post-apocalyptic yarn: Michod ventures to a plausible future only a decade out, after a global economic collapse, and breaks down the brooding road trip to its hard-boiled bones, setting it in a beauteous, lawless, and unceasingly violent outback. A heist gone wrong leads a small gang of robbers to steal the car belonging to monosyllabic, ruthless mystery man Eric (Guy Pearce). The latter wants his boxy little sedan back, badly, and, in the cat and mouse game that ensues, seems willing to die for the trouble. Meanwhile, one of the gang of thieves — the slow, dreamy Rey (Robert Pattinson), who has been left to die of a gunshot wound in the dirt — turns out to be more of a survivor than anyone imagined when he tracks down the tracker hunting for his brother and cohorts. Michod seems most interested in examining and turning over the ties that bind, in a mean time, an eminently absurdist moment, when everything else has fallen away in the face of sheer survival. Cineastes, however, will appreciate the elemental, existential pleasures of this dog-eat-dog Down Under out-Western, not the least of which include the performances. Pearce’s rework of the Man With No Name exudes intention in the very forward thrust of his stance, and Pattinson breaks his cool — and the confines of typecasting — as a blubbering, babbling, thin-skinned man-child. Clad in the mystic expanses of the South Australia desert, which tip a hat to John Ford Westerns as well as scorched-earth-of-the-mind movies such as El Topo (1970) and Paris, Texas (1984), The Rover is taken to the level of tone poem by the shuddering, moaning cellos of Antony Partos’s impressive, atonal electroacoustic score. (1:42) (Kimberly Chun)

Think Like a Man Too Kevin Hart and company head to Vegas in this sequel to the 2012 hit comedy based on Steve Harvey’s best-selling relationship tome. (2:02)

Enter if you dare! Spirited local actors highlight Jefferson Street’s ghoulish new attraction

Sue Vaughan
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Enter if you dare! Spirited local actors highlight Jefferson Street’s ghoulish new attraction

A new attraction is coming to Fisherman’s Wharf June 26, and it’s pretty surreal. The San Francisco Dungeon, the eighth in a series by Merlin Entertainments and the first stateside (most of the other dungeons focus on medieval history and are scattered throughout Western Europe), is a subterranean labyrinth where actors lead patrons on a hodgepodge tour of creepy SF-inspired historical haunts. 

There’s obviously a lot to be skeptical of here. For one, Merlin, which is centered in the UK, is a gargantuan enterprise second only to Disney in the themed tourist trap world — other assets include Madame Tussauds, Legoland, and a bevy of contrived wildlife safaris. San Franciscans already talk a ton of smack about the half-assed efforts by huge corporate attractions on Jefferson St. to appear “local” — the one or two scattered Californian sports figures or cultural icons in Tussauds, for example, don’t conceal the sterility of the whole operation. 

My visit to the Dungeon didn’t run entirely contrary to these concerns.

The stories that the actors tell occasionally slip into generalities that have little to do with the city, some of the rooms are similarly vague, and the exclusion of the 1906 Earthquake (despite the Dungeon’s focus on 1857-1907), while explained away by artistic director Kieron Smith as too large-scale of an event to cover, feels wrong. There’s also a random water ride that, while impressive from an engineering perspective in that a boat and mini-canal was placed in a very contained space, distracts from any legitimate exchange of history or theatrics. We didn’t get to ride it though, so I’m really in no place to judge. 

Despite its adherence to certain stereotypes, the Dungeon transcends a lot of the more toxic elements that drag down other Jeffersonian locales. Smith, an extremely charming Brit who wrote the entire script for the 50-odd minute tour and has done so at all other Dungeon locations, seems genuinely passionate about the city’s more macabre lore and clearly did his research. Most of the actors’ ghoulish tales of drunken Barbary Coasters and mining ghosts are subtle and relatively specific. I can imagine the full show being nominally educational. 

The preview we received included a scary 1850s Alcatraz ghost tale that packed a legitimate punch. The barred Alcatraz Room, one of nine themed areas, provided a chilling backdrop for a crazed young woman’s recounting of her military prisoner father’s murder and subsequent haunting of the Rock. When the lights flickered and the dead father appeared, complete with gory makeup, the entire room shrieked deliriously. 

Another room, a facsimile of the headquarters of the San Francisco Hounds, a sinister crime organization that flourished in the city after the Gold Rush, was less compelling. An actor playing real-life Hounds leader Sam Roberts mimicked torture tools (including a gag penis-cutter that elicited a few half-hearted laughs) and nervously beckoned the group out of the room when the sounds of a police raid interrupted his demonstration. 

Despite the inconsistency in humor and scares, the actors themselves were all enthusiastic and believable. Since beginning rehearsal a month ago, they have learned to play every part in the tour and will alternate roles when the Dungeon opens. Many of the performers have real chops, and while they likely don’t see two-minute frenetic monologues to scared tourists as their career zeniths, the Dungeon, unlike many of the other less interactive wharf traps, is employing burgeoning artists. 

In addition to hiring local actors, the Dungeon has also worked with several area businesses. Wee Scotty, the prolific costumers headed by Lynne Gallagher, provide all of the period clothes, which look authentic and have an effectively drab and dusty aesthetic. Daniel’s Wood Land scavenged wood from the ruins of a Japanese internment camp in Arizona to panel the walls of many of the rooms — the fact that the rooms looked like they feasibly could have been from over 100 years ago as opposed to cheap plastic imitations makes the experience feel slightly more real. 

The Dungeon isn’t revolutionary — it still belongs in the gimmicky world of Fisherman’s Wharf. The artistic enthusiasm and local involvement, however, lends the entertainment a realness and grittiness that elevates it above most other overpriced diversions. 

 

Opens June 26, $19-$26

San Francisco Dungeon 

145 Jefferson, SF

http://sanfrancisco.thedungeons.com

Doo-wop (that thing): talking with the cast of ‘Jersey Boys’

Sue Vaughan
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0
Doo-wop (that thing): talking with the cast of ‘Jersey Boys’

The backstage musical that turned the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons — known for 1960s doo-wop ditties like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” and a zillion more; you will recognize all of them — into Broadway gold ascends to the big screen Fri/20 thanks to director Clint Eastwood, a seemingly odd choice until you consider Eastwood’s own well-documented love of music. 

Jersey Boys weaves a predictable tale of show biz dreams realized and then nearly dashed, with a gangster element that allows for some Goodfellas-lite action (a pre-fame Joe Pesci is a character here; he was actually from the same ‘hood, and was instrumental in the group’s formation). With songs recorded live on-set, à la 2012’s Les Misérables, there’s some spark to the musical numbers, but Eastwood’s direction is more solid than spontaneous, with zero surprises (even the big finale, clearly an attempt at a fizzy, feel-good farewell, seems familiar). 

Still, the cast — including 2006 Tony winner John Lloyd Young as Valli, and Christopher Walken as a sympathetic mobster — is likable, with Young in particular turning in a textured performance that speaks to his years of experience with the role. I spoke with Young, Michael Lomenda (who plays original Four Season Nick Massi), and Erich Bergen (as Bob Gaudio, the member who wrote most of the group’s hits) when the trio made a recent visit to San Francisco to promote the movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tC1yOUvvMo

SF Bay Guardian This must be a crazy time for you guys.

John Lloyd Young It’s a very exciting time for all three of us, and including our fourth colleague Vincent Piazza [who plays Four Season co-founder Tommy DeVito]. This is our first major studio feature film, and we got to be directed by Clint Eastwood. 

SFBG Did he ever break into song on the set?

Michael Lomenda [Laughs.] It was very interesting, actually, to see him between takes trying to capture that Frankie Valli falsetto. I think it was an ongoing challenge for him the whole 38 days that we shot, to try and figure out how to manipulate his voice in that way.

JLY It was a tongue-in-cheek challenge, because it was all playful. He knew he wasn’t gonna sing like Frankie!

SFBG Few can! Though, you’ve been able to do it for several years. How do you keep your voice in shape to hit those notes?

JLY Well, you either have a falsetto or you don’t. If you have it, you just keep it in shape the same way any singer does. Obviously, singers, there’s certain things we can’t do. We can’t go out and yell all night in a bar. We shouldn’t smoke, we shouldn’t drink. The voice is very delicate. Those are very delicate muscles. Anything you do that’s not good for your body in general won’t be good for your voice. But, basically, just living a clean life. And Frankie Valli himself will tell you the same thing.

SFBG It’s interesting that you bring up clean living. I hadn’t seen the stage show, and I didn’t know much about the group before I saw the movie. But in every show-biz biopic, there’s always some kind of vice (usually drugs or booze, as in Walk the Line) that threatens to ruin the performer’s success. Here, it’s the mobster subplot — mobsters are not the typical vice.

Erich Bergen I think that’s one of the things that’s very interesting is that Frankie didn’t get into [drugs or alcohol]. That’s sort of the reason why he’s still around and he’s still on the road, because he’s been able to preserve not only his gift, but his life. Of course, he went through some harsh things in life. He went through a couple of marriages and divorces, and obviously he lost a daughter. Actually, and we don’t go into this in the movie, but he’s lost two daughters. He’s lived a very hard life. He didn’t need drugs or alcohol; that hard life came to him naturally. 

I think that’s what makes this story so interesting: we’re watching someone whose life is hitting him in the face. And we sort of identify with that. I don’t know about you, but for me personally, when I watch a lot of biopics and they start to get into the drugs and all that type of stuff — that’s where I sort of lose them a little bit, because that’s just sort of the generic story at this point. What makes Jersey Boys work is that we really connect with these guys because we identify with them. It’s written in a way that even when they’re not at their highest point, when they’re doing things that aren’t so great — especially the character of Tommy DeVito — we still root for them, and we still want them to succeed. 

SFBG The movie really shows how hard they had to work to be successful. It’s a stark contrast to the music business of today, where someone can become famous overnight thanks to a YouTube video.

EB That’s exactly what we talk about when we’re asked the question, “What makes this story so interesting?” If you look at the groups of today, whether it’s a One Direction or a Justin Bieber, before we actually know their songs, we know what they had for breakfast. But [the Four Seasons] really came at a time when you were trying to hide your real story and project out a shiny, clean image, because that’s what everyone wanted. That’s why Jersey Boys can exist today, because the story was never known. 

JLY I have a thought about that, too, which is that nowadays — without naming anyone by name — a lot of successful music acts are created as an idea in a marketing boardroom first, and then they find someone to fit that image. You know what I’m saying? It seems like the marketers are the stars nowadays. The more you can get an audience to feel there’s something really exciting there, and then get them there, then you’ve won. But when they get there and they don’t have a great experience, well, you already got their money, so who cares?

But I think at the time of Jersey Boys, to succeed you had to work really hard. There were only three networks, and there were very few print outlets. If you actually got on the cover of a magazine, or you got on a network, you made it. But you had to have something to show for it. You had to have talent, and especially that generation of Baby Boomers — the biggest generation we’ve ever had in American history. That’s a lot of people competing for which of the talented ones among them would become known. And the Four Seasons had the talent, but they also had that special, very distinctly East Coast, riveting-to-an-audience kind of thing, with that Mob connection that makes their story unique among that era of bands.

SFBG The movie makes it clear that they had to succeed, because they didn’t have anything to go back to.

ML It’s true. These guys are from the wrong side of the tracks. You have some choices. You can go in the army, you can get mobbed up, or you can become famous, as they say in the film. We also sort of say that they did two out of the three. But I think their music spoke for itself. They broke when their music had to speak for them, and that’s what made them successful.

EB The proof of that is that everyone knows these songs, but not the band. There are so many songs we don’t even get to in this movie, because we’d run out of time! That tells you how much talent they really had as performers, writers, producers — all of those things. Their catalog is endless, and yet nobody knew they were all by the same group.

JL I just saw Clint Eastwood on the Today show, and when they introduced him, they said the Four Seasons had 71 chart-topping hits. 71! I think that’s incredible for that band, coming out of that decade.

SFBG They were also commercially savvy. The songs were so catchy. No wonder people liked them.

ML I think that’s they key to why their music has stood the test of time. Maybe it’s commercially viable, and it is good pop music. But if you did a little deeper into some of the lyrics — for example, “Dawn” is one of my favorite songs, and they’re singing, “Dawn, go away, I’m no good for you, think about what the future would be with a poor guy like me…” It’s that kind of lyric that brings depth so what initially could be perceived as just pop, bubblegum music. It spoke to an audience that I think was sort of the fabric of America.

JLY Their early attempts at marketing are sort of outlined in the movie. You got [producer] Bob Crewe giving them advice on how to get their songs out there. You have Bob Gaudio figuring out how to get his songs out there. I know, and am friends with, the real Bob Gaudio, and it’s funny, he’s a hugely successful songwriter, but he almost seems more proud of his business successes than he does of his songwriting. He gets pumped by being smart in business as he gets pumped by writing a good song.

SFBG As actors, does it present a particular challenge to play a real person, a famous person, particularly if that person is still living? Or were you able to put your own stamp on the characters?

EB I think John had the most pressure out of all of us, because he’s playing someone that’s so well-known, and John can tell you about that experience. But for the rest of us, we really did invent these characters. Even though they were real people, and while we wanted to pay respect to these people, and their families, we did have the luxury of not having to play John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They’re not well-known to the public. So we did get to use our skills as actors and create characters from the ground up.

JLY One of the benefits as an actor approaching the role of Frankie, even in the beginning in the original cast, is that he is known. People know what he looks like and they know what he sounds like. He did some talk show stuff, so they kind of know how he moves. So I knew that I needed to get his physical attributes down. I needed to evoke his sound, look like him, talk like him. But outside of those physical things, the internal life of Frankie Valli, we don’t really know. We didn’t know. 

When I was researching the original Broadway show, all I could find were maybe 12 minutes of footage of him at the Museum of Television and Radio. That was, like, the year before YouTube broke, so now there’s footage of him everywhere, but I didn’t have the benefit of that. But now I have seen a lot of YouTube and everything. So I thought, as long as I get those physical characteristics down, the story of the Four Seasons, the story of Frankie Valli, is still largely unknown to audiences. So I had free reign to kind of build the psychological reality of the character using my own imagination, and the cues that I had from the script. And knowing Bob Gaudio, Frankie Valli’s real-life best friend, and the things he told me about Frankie, and knowing, of course, the man himself. 

But I didn’t feel pressure so much. The pressure I felt was to honor the people who put this movie together, which was Frankie and Bob, and to portray the character in a way that was compelling and riveting to an audience so that we’d have as successful a show as we could have. And now, I think that I feel very proud of what we’ve accomplished with this movie, and I think it’s an enhancement, actually, of what has been out there all these years, with the successful stage musical across the world. 

SFBG How true is the movie to the stage production?

ML It’s actually very similar. We were lucky to work with [screenwriters and musical authors] Marshall [Brickman] and Rick [Elice] on the film, which I think we were all very grateful for, because it meant that we didn’t have to learn too many new lines. [Laughs.] But it was great. I think when I first found out that the movie was being done, I was really concerned that the final product would be true to the stage, because the script is so fantastic. But beauty of film is that you get to flesh out certain relationships, and certain storylines. I think fans of Jersey Boys are going to love a lot of the scenes that they loved from the stage version, but they’re also going to go crazy over the other stuff, the extra stuff that is put into the film.

The stage production is directed in a very slick fashion, but logistics dictate that you have to move from scene to scene very quickly to keep up the energy going in the two-and-a-half hour show. But what Mr. Eastwood does so beautifully with this movie, and with all of his movies, is create a real environment that’s rich and tangible, that you can really sense in the theater. I think Jersey Boys fans are going to love that as well.

JYL If people love the stage show of Jersey Boys, the movie is going to give then a much deeper, more thorough, and much more detailed experience.

SFBG I did not realize, until I was reading up on the movie, that there were Jersey Boys superfans who have seen the show hundreds of times.

EB Michael and I opened the national tour of Jersey Boys in San Francisco, and six years later Michael closed that tour in the same theater. This was my first discovery with anything remotely like that. I remember seeing these fans come in over and over again. At first I thought, “What are they doing?” and “Where are they getting the money that they’re buying such great seats three times a week?” I remember I got a letter one time, we all got these letters, from a fan who said, “I know you probably think it’s crazy that I’m here all the time, but this is the first time I’ve felt happy in 10 years.”

When we get things like that, we don’t really know what to make of that. But we are so thrilled that it’s had an impact. I don’t know if it can be explained. People often ask us, “What is it about Jersey Boys that keeps people coming back?” I don’t know if I know. I don’t know if anyone knows. I know that when people come to see the show, they’re affected by it for whatever reason. It moves them, it changes them. They are really passionate about it, and we’re just sort of lucky that we got to be a part of that somehow. I don’t really know what else to say about it!

JYL I have something else to say about it, and that is: if a person has seen the stage play of Jersey Boys 100 times, let them know, please, on our behalf, that for the price of one Broadway ticket, they can see this movie 10 times! [All three laugh.] So we hope that they decide to make their investment in 10 tickets for the movie. 

SFBG What’s up next for you guys? More musicals?

ML I think we’ve all been bitten by the movie bug. To start on a Clint Eastwood set, we’ve been a bit blessed and totally spoiled. So, I think certainly, we would all like to dive further into this genre and explore it.

EB I agree. My album comes out next week, some new music that I just recorded down in Nashville, and I’m in a new series on CBS this fall called Madame Secretary. I will also be hosting lots of Jersey Boys viewing parties once the DVD comes out. [Laughs.]

JLY I have a new album that I just released, My Turn — it’s R&B hits from the 60s in my voice, not Frankie’s, and it’s on iTunes and Amazon. I’m also a recent appointee by Barack Obama to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. So I’ll be working with kids in the lowest-performing schools, re-inserting arts into their curriculum to increase their school performance and their school culture. The actor Kal Penn and I will be sharing a school district in Des Moines, Iowa. I’m really looking forward to it.

JERSEY BOYS opens Fri/20 in Bay Area theaters.

American revolution: Smith Henderson talks ‘Fourth of July Creek’

Sue Vaughan
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American revolution: Smith Henderson talks ‘Fourth of July Creek’

Smith Henderson is all smiles. His debut novel, Fourth of July Creek, has been receiving rave reviews since its release two weeks ago, has a 100,000 copy pressing from HarperCollins, and was recently called “the best book I’ve read so far this year” by Washington Post critic Ron Charles.

“I was not expecting the Ron Charles thing … that was amazing,” Henderson says, sipping his beer on the outdoor patio of Farley’s East in Oakland. (He’ll be reading from the book Tue/17 at San Francisco’s Book Passage.) While the degree of success that the book is receiving tickles Henderson, he doesn’t pretend to be shocked that people are enjoying his work. “When people tell me ‘I love your book,’ I’m happy, but not chagrined. I wrote the book toward my interests, so of course I like my book.” Henderson smokes a cigarette as he chuckles. 

His novel explores the plight of Pete Snow, a Montana social worker who discovers a feral boy, Benjamin, and his survivalist father Jeremiah Pearl. While dealing with the dissolution of his own family, several other cases, and a tumultuous romance, Snow uncovers Pearl’s revolutionary ideas and begins to question his own safety and that of his entire community, the rural town of Tenmile. Henderson’s intertwining plot confronts a plethora of contemporary societal ailments, including alcoholism, suspicion of government, child neglect, cultural polarization, and the gift and curse of religion. 

Much of our conversation concerned the intricate plot points that Henderson somehow manages to sew together seamlessly. Such a combination of topicality and technical flourish has led Charles and several other high-profile critics to throw around words like “Great American Novel,” meaning work consistent enough and broad enough in  political scope to say something profound and lasting about the nation. 

Henderson isn’t one to label his own work, but he doesn’t entirely laugh off the potential hyperbole either. “I think it’s tricky to use words like ‘Great American Novel’ because it’s set in Montana — it’s a very white state. There’s a lack of diversity that I think is necessary in talking about the whole country.” After a moment of rumination, however, he offers a partial refutation of his own point. “That being said, the novels that come to mind are pretty regional as well; Beloved is pretty focused on a single location and group.”

While Montana might not be the optimal mirror for America, it’s a place that Henderson knows quite well. A native son, he grew up in the state and went to college, like Pete Snow, in Missoula. (He now lives in Portland, Ore.) “My whole family are cowboys and loggers. My dad is still a logger,” he says proudly. “Montana is a weird place … there’s a libertarian streak that is pretty unique in how it manifests itself.” 

Henderson cites the 2004 election, in which Montana voted for George W. Bush, legalized medical marijuana, and constitutionally banned gay marriage all on the same ballot. The odd mix between “live free or die” and socially conservative practices in the state provided an ideal climate for the confrontation between Snow, a government employee with the Department of Family Services, and the fiercely anti-authority Pearl. The eventual escalation between the government and the community is easy to believe. 

“Things are always liable to get a bit wacky and out of control up there,” says Henderson. 

Yet Henderson, while by no means conservative or religious, isn’t trying to write a book about extreme zealots. “At first it’s possible to look at Pearl and think he’s completely insane. But a lot of his paranoia is not entirely unfounded.” 

Near the end of the book, Pearl uses an example of government agencies  replenishing the Montana wolf population as an example of how dangerous Federalism can become. “Pearl basically suggests, ‘You may think your wolves are pretty, but they are liable to eat me.’ That lack of practicality is real.” 

While Henderson set Fourth of July Creek in the early 1980s, he was inspired by the rhetoric going on in national politics today. “Arguments like those of Pearl’s are all over the place right now, and initially they may seem just as paranoid. But when you have unmitigated drone strikes and NSA surveillance it isn’t impossible to see where people are coming from.” 

He does, however, see the value of government intervention — Helena pays his ultimately heroic (or at least likeably anti-heroic) protagonist, after all. “On the other hand, you have health care, gay rights, the environment, all receiving meaningful support.”

Though informed and interested in the modern state of affairs, Henderson was very intentional in his chronological setting of the book. He leans forward and takes on a quieter, more intense tone as he talks about the era directly succeeding Carter’s economic and military failures. “1980 was an inflection point. Obviously Carter, while getting a lot right, struggled a ton in the implementation. And the backlash to that, coming in the form of the Reagan Revolution, has really defined modern society … We learned how to make wealth out of thin air — at least for some people.” 

Reagan’s election and the surrounding rhetoric takes center stage in the book. Judge Dyson, an aging and alcoholic Democrat, openly weeps as he watches the election results with Snow. “It was the death of the LBJ, rural-big-government Democrat. And that’s something I’m not sure we’ll ever get back.” 

In addition to highlighting the philosophical shifts that have led to the urbanization of liberal thought, Henderson also uses the relatively unorganized pre-digital bureaucracy as a major plot device. “There was no concept of secondary trauma in 1980 Montana. There was no social worker to help Pete deal with the horrific things that he sees on a daily basis.” 

The dearth of support systems fuel Snow’s drinking bouts, depression, and difficulty in handling his daughter’s disappearance and ex-wife’s instability; he may be a great social worker, but the state’s inability to track his emotional progress and casework eats away at his life.

A fascinating storyteller and political force, Henderson is also often  technically experimental. The portion of the book that details Snow’s daughter’s descent is done in the form of an anonymous question and answer. “When I write, I almost always write questions to myself: ‘Where is Pete Snow from?’ ‘Choteau.’ ‘Why Choteau?’ For the Rachel section, I just left it in that form.” 

But the section is far from unfinished. Henderson left the section as is because of the intensity of its content — in a pure third-person narrative it felt too stilted. “The voices are full of an anxiety and intensity that couldn’t be captured with the more impartial voice in the rest of the book.”

The frenetic 90 minutes that we spent discussing Fourth of July Creek further convinced me that the book cannot be distilled to one message, but is rather a varied rumination on insecurity, suspicion, and government. When I asked Henderson what he thinks the primary takeaway is, however, he was remarkably candid and quick in his response. He pointed me to the Thoreau quotation that opens the book: “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.” 

Henderson then highlighted a passage in which Snow is likened to a priest for how much he gives up to help dysfunctional families. “America in the ‘80s was losing trust for institutions, and continues to. Despite all of his flaws, Pete is worthy of our trust, and hopefully represents a powerful refutation of Thoreau’s instant suspicion for government or those who come to help us.”

Henderson’s creation, while transcending political ideology, powerfully shows the potential for altruism even in a country as broken as the US.

 

Smith Henderson

Tue/17, 12:30pm, free

Book Passage

1 Ferry Building, SF

www.bookpassage.com

If you even have time to make it to the movies between World Cup matches…

Sue Vaughan
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If you even have time to make it to the movies between World Cup matches…

…read on for our takes on the new flicks of the week. Pssst: lots of good stuff still to come at DocFest, too!

Alone Yet Not Alone Remember that Christian historical drama that was Oscar-nominated for Best Song but then got kicked out of the running because of the songwriter’s sketchy campaign tactics? No? Well, here ’tis. (1:43)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INW6i6K1NmQ&feature=kp

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia Nicholas Wrathall’s highly entertaining documentary pays tribute to one of the 20th century’s most brilliant, original, and cranky thinkers, with extensive input from the man himself before his death in 2012 at age 86. The emphasis here is less on Vidal’s life as a literary lion and often glittering celebrity social life than on his parallel career as a harsh scold of US social injustices and political corruption. (Needless to say, recent history only sharpened his tongue in that department, with George W. Bush dismissed as “a goddam fool,” and earlier statements such as “This is a country of the rich, for the rich and by the rich” seeming more apt than ever.) He’s a wellspring of wisdoms both blunt and witty, sometimes surprising, as in his hindsight doubts about the virtues of JFK (a personal friend) as a president. We get plenty of colorful archival clips in which he’s seen verbally jousting with such famous foes as William F. Buckley and Norman Mailer, invariablyreducing them to stammering fury while remaining exasperatingly unruffled. His “out” homosexuality and outré views on sexuality in general (at odds with an increasingly assimilationist gay community) kept him controversial even among many liberals, while conservatives were further irked by his rock-solid family connections to the ruling elite. In our era of scripted political rhetoric and pandering anti-intellectualism, it’s a joy merely to spend an hour and half in the company of someone so brilliantly articulate on seemingly any topic — but particularly on the perpetually self-mythologizing, money-worshipping state of our Union. (1:29) (Dennis Harvey)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 Sequel to the 2010 animated hit about Vikings and their dragon buddies, with voices by Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Djimon Honsou, America Ferrera, Kit Harington, Jonah Hill, and others. (1:42) 

Obvious Child We first encounter the protagonist of writer-director Gillian Robespierre’s funny, original film — a Brooklyn-dwelling twentysomething named Donna (Jenny Slate), who works at a lefty secondhand bookstore and makes regular (if unpaid) appearances at a local comedy night — onstage mining such underdiscussed topics as the effects of vaginal discharge on your garden-variety pair of underwear. This proves a natural segue to other hefty nuggets of embarrassment gold concerning her love life, to the dismay of boyfriend Ryan (Paul Briganti), auditing from the back of the club. He pretty much deserves it, however, for what he’s about to do, which is break up with her in a nasty, well-populated unisex bathroom, taking time to repeatedly glance at the texts coming through on his phone from Donna’s good friend, with whom he’s sleeping. So when Donna, mid-drowning of sorrows, meets a nice-looking fellow named Max (Jake Lacy) at the bar, his post-fraternity-presidency aesthetic seems unlikely to deter her from a one-night stand. The ensuing trashed make-out dance-off in Max’s apartment to the Paul Simon song of the title is both comic and adorable. The fractured recap of the evening’s condom-free horizontal events that occurs inside Donna’s brain three weeks later, as she hunkers down with her best friend, Nellie (Gaby Hoffmann), in the bookstore’s bathroom after peeing on a stick, is equally hilarious — and unwanted-pregnancy jokes aren’t that easy to pull off. Robespierre’s treatment of this extended windup and of Donna’s decision to have an abortion is a witty, warmhearted retort to 2007’s Knocked Up, a couple generations’ worth of Hollywood rom-com writers, and an entertainment industry that continues to perform its sweaty contortions of storytelling in the gutless cause of avoiding the A-word. (1:15) (Lynn Rapoport)

The Signal Sharing its title with a 2007 film — also a thriller about a mysterious transmission that wreaks havoc in the lives of its protagonists — this offbeat feature from co-writer and director William Eubank belies its creator’s deep affection for, and knowledge of, the sci-fi genre. Number one thing The Signal is not is predictable, but its twists feel organic even as the story takes one hairpin turn after another. MIT buddies Nic (Brenton Thwaites) and Jonah (Beau Knapp) are driving Nic’s girlfriend, Haley (Olivia Cooke), cross-country to California. Complicating the drama of the young couple’s imminent separation is Nic’s deteriorating physical condition (it’s never explained, but the former runner apparently has MS or some other neurological disease). The road trip turns dark when the trio (who also happen to be hackers) realize an Internet troll they’ve tangled with in the past is stalking them. After a brief detour into found-footage horror — fooled ya, Eubank seems to be saying; this ain’t that kind of movie at all! — the kids find themselves embroiled in ever-more-terrifying realities. To give away more would ruin the fun of being shocked for yourself, but think Twilight Zone meets Area 51 meets a certain futuristic trilogy starring Laurence Fishburne, who turns up here to play a very important role in Nic and company’s waking nightmare. (1:37) (Cheryl Eddy)

Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon See “Puff Piece.” (1:24) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm8UaNdq24c&feature=kp

22 Jump Street In this TV-inspired sequel, “Previously on 21 Jump Street…” is all the backstory we get. 22 wastes no time sending Officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) back to school to solve another case. A few details have changed (they’re in college now, where the drug of choice is “Why Phy”), but the situation is self-consciously boilerplate, which lets the filmmakers cast (ironic) judgment on sequels — and imply the TV show was redundant. College proves hilarious, from the rundown of dorm room essentials to Schmidt’s walk of shame, and the touchstones are sharp and embarrassing. An extended fight between Schmidt and a girl (Jillian Bell, fabulous) twists gender issues and sexual assault into gloriously absurd politics. Best of all is a fairly understated joke in front of the Benjamin Hill School of Film Studies. I laughed as much at 22 as I did at 21, but 22 spends so much time calling out its number-two status that it almost becomes performance art. (1:45) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)

The World Cup is almost here! Where are you gonna watch?

Sue Vaughan
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The World Cup is almost here! Where are you gonna watch?

The World Cup runs June 12-July 13. Will the US make it out of its group? Will Cristiano Ronaldo get past the (alleged) curse upon his injured knee? Will Neymar Jr. debut a new hairstyle in front of the Brazilian home crowd? And where will you go to watch all this happen? Some suggestions below.

1) SoMa StrEat Food Park: international array of food trucks, beer garden (with Brazilian beer specials), “lots of big-screen HDTVs.” www.somastreatfoodpark.com

2) For those who prefer to party indoors, with a full bar, club Monarch is going to be broadcasting all the games. (OK, “all the big matches” — so if your chosen side is too far down in the FIFA rankings you might be out of luck). www.monarchsf.com

3) North Beach’s Cigar Bar hosts a screening of Sat/14’s key clashes (i.e., you’re on your own for the early-AM Greece vs. Colombia game) with DJs spinning special World Cup jams. This weekend also happens to be the North Beach Festival, so you can get your street fair on before the games. www.aykuteevents.com

4) Once again, there’ll be a giant screen outside of SF City Hall broadcasting most of the games. Also: food trucks, soccer skills clinics, mini-games, and other kid-friendly activities. www.worldcupsf.com

5) In the Metreon, Jillian‘s will be screening all the games, with full bar and special menus. www.jillianssf.com

Celebrate the whole shebang with an opening party (samba dancers!) Sat/14 at Supperclub (www.supperclub.com). Also in SF, don’t forget futbol standbys Mad Dog in the Fog, Danny Coyle’s, Ireland’s 32, Kate O’Brien’s, and Balompie Café.

New historical hipster photos showcase big-wheeled bikes from San Francisco to Oakland circa 1880

Erica Hanna
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Hipsters and bikes are as close as Instagram posts of five dollar cups of organic, free trade, Japanese drip coffee. Historical photos recently posted to the California Historical Society’s Flickr page show cycling clubs of the late 19th-century riding around the Bay Area. Yes this includes Oakland, more than a century before Oakland was cool (just kidding, Oakland was always cool).

The photos show the famous (and very dangerous) bikes known as “High Wheelers,” “Penny Farthings,” and “Bone Shakers,” at the height of early bike craze. These are the bikes with the tall leading wheel and a tiny rear wheel. Since these bikes were limited to direct-drives, the bigger leading wheels meant the rider could fly faster.

But falling off an old-timey five foot bike led to quite the kerfuffle (especially since it wasn’t customary to wear helmets). “Safety bicycles” became the norm, the missing link between Penny Farthings and modern bicycles. Safety bicycles had gears, a technological innovation replacing the need of the five foot wheel to achieve respectable speeds.

Also included in the gallery are scans of pages of cycling catalogs, showcasing attire every respectable cyclist from the 1880s could need — include a four dollar “extra-heavy jacket” and a “extra heavy stockings.” (Because riding atop a five foot bike with no brakes isn’t quite dangerous enough, you should also wear trendy, movement restricting, heavy wool apparel while doing it!)

If anything, these beautiful and historic pictures show that everything old is new and ironic today. That silly and incoherent trends have their time in the limelight but ultimately die off. Except for mustaches. Mustaches are awesome.

Thanks to Slate for the original find.

bikes 1

Undated photograph showing a high wheel bicyclist at Lake Merritt, Oakland, California.

bikes 2

Tights and men on bikes are a historical match. Undated.

bikes 3

O.G. Mission cyclists. Photo shot by George R. Butler on June 1, 1890. Taken at 21st and Capp streets, looking toward Mission Street.

bike 4

A group of gentleman after a long ride from Oakland to Mission San Jose.

bike 5

The gentlemen of the San Francisco Bicycle club on San Leandro Road near Milpitas. Note the abundant mustaches (and lack of helmets).

bike 6

Page 55 from the J. J. Pfister Knitting Co., San Francisco. Dated 1882.

bike pamphlet

Find the full photo gallery here.

Get some: ‘This Is What I Want’ fest continues through June 21

Sue Vaughan
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Get some: ‘This Is What I Want’ fest continues through June 21

This Is What I Want — the Bay Area’s fifth annual performance festival devoted to performing and investigating desire — seems to want it all this year, with no less than three weeks of far-flung programming. It all started last Sunday with TIWIW’s first-ever film festival, Left Eye/Right Eye, an evening of short subjects curated by San Francisco and Kansas artist Peter Max Lawrence. It continues this weekend with a performance installation and party at the Dollhouse (CounterPULSE’s new space at 80 Turk) for female-identified audience members (a category TIWIW organizers say they’re prepared to interpret liberally), followed by performances through the weekend for the all and sundry.

The impressive Dollhouse lineup of artists includes Mara Poliak and Maryanna Lachman (of the SALTA collective), Elizabeth Cooper, Minna Harri, Ronja Ver, Pearl Marill, Kat Yoas, Montreal’s VK Preston, and SF-based arts collective the Lost Season.

There are also workshops, symposia, and fringe events throughout the festival — including (for anyone in Bristol, England, this month) My Favorite Auntie by Bristol-based performance artist Tom Marshman. A bit closer to home is a community discussion and video-share investigating the relation between feminism and dance, hosted by Oakland’s SALTA collective at the Underground Yoga Parlour for Self Knowledge & Social Justice.

Find information on all TIWIW events here!

Cruise into the weekend (oh yes we did) with new flicks!

Sue Vaughan
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Cruise into the weekend (oh yes we did) with new flicks!

Dudes! The (lucky) 13th San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, aka DocFest to those in the know, is underway now, running through June 19 with all kinds of weird and wonderful docs. Check out Dennis Harvey’s recommendations here. 

From the spangly tentacles of Hollywood, we’ve got Shailene “I Am Not the Poor Man’s Jennifer Lawrence” Woodley in a certified tearjerker, and Tom “Still a Big Enough Star to Avoid Being Cast in an Expendables Flick Just Yet” Cruise fighting aliens (and, surprisingly, his own ego). Plus: indie picks, including the latest from Kelly Reichardt and Lukas Moodysson. Read on for more.

 

Edge of Tomorrow Is it OK to root for Tom Cruise again? (The Oprah thing was almost a decade ago, after all.) The entertaining Edge of Tomorrow, crisply directed by Bourne series vet Doug Liman, takes what’s most irritating about Cruise’s persona (he’s so goddamn earnest) and uses it to great advantage, casting him as military PR guru Cage — repping our armed forces on talk shows amid battles with alien invaders dubbed “Mimics” — whose oiliness masks the fact that he’s terrified of actual combat. When he’s forced to fight by a no-nonsense superior (Brendan Gleeson), he’s gruesomely killed, along with nearly every other human soldier. But wait! Thanks to a particularly close encounter with outer-space pixie dust, he awakens, unharmed, to re-live the day, over and over again (yep, shades of a certain Bill Murray comedy classic). Each “reset” offers Cage a chance to work his way closer to changing the course of the war in humanity’s favor, with key help from a badass (Emily Blunt) whose heroics on the battlefield have earned her the nickname “Full Metal Bitch.” Nothing groundbreaking here — but Edge of Tomorrow manages to make its satisfying plot as important as its 3D explosions, which means it automatically rises above what passes for popcorn fun these days. (1:53) (Cheryl Eddy)

The Fault in Our Stars Shailene Woodley stars in this based-on-a-best-seller romance about two teens who meet at a cancer support group. (2:05)

Night Moves Not to be confused with Arthur Penn’s same-named 1975 Gene Hackman thriller, Kelly Reichardt’s latest film nonetheless is also a memorably quiet, unsettling tale of conspiracy and paranoia. It takes us some time to understand what makes temporary allies of jittery Josh (Jesse Eisenberg), Portland, Ore.-style alterna-chick Dena (Dakota Fanning) and genial rural recluse Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard), beyond it being a mission of considerable danger and secrecy. When things don’t go exactly as planned, however, the three react very differently to the resulting fallout, becoming possibly greater threats to one another than the police or FBI personnel pursuing them. While still spare by mainstream standard, this is easily Reichardt’s most accessible work, carrying the observational strengths of 2010’s Meek’s Cutoff, 2008’s Wendy and Lucy, and 2006’s Old Joy over to a genuinely tense story that actually goes somewhere. (1:52) (Dennis Harvey)

Rigor Mortis Spooky Chinese folklore (hopping vampires) meets J-horror (female ghouls with long black hair) in this film — directed by Juno Mak, and produced by Grudge series helmer Takashi Shimizu — inspired by Hong Kong’s long-running Mr. Vampire comedy-horror movie series. Homage takes the form of casting, with several of Vampire’s key players in attendance, rather than tone, since the supernatural goings-on in Rigor Mortis are more somber than slapstick. Washed-up film star Chin Siu-ho (playing an exaggerated version of himself) moves into a gloomy apartment building stuffed with both living and undead tenants; his own living room was the scene of a horrific crime, and anguished spirits still linger. Neighbors include a frustrated former vampire hunter; a traumatized woman and her white-haired imp of a son; a kindly seamstress who goes full-tilt ruthless in her quest to bring her deceased husband back to life; and an ailing shaman whose spell-casting causes more harm than good. Shot in tones so monochromatic the film sometimes appears black-and-white (with splashes of blood red, natch), Rigor Mortis unfortunately favors CG theatrics over genuine scares. That said, its deadpan, world-weary tone can be amusing, as when one old ghost-chaser exclaims to another, “You’re still messing around with that black magic shit?” (1:45) (Cheryl Eddy)

Test Writer-director Chris Mason Johnson sets his film at a particular moment in the early years of the AIDS epidemic — when the first HIV blood test became publicly available, in 1985 — within a milieu, the world of professional modern dance, that rarely makes an appearance in narrative films. Test’s protagonist, Frankie (Scott Marlowe), is a young understudy in a prestigious San Francisco company, and the camera follows him on daily rounds from a rodent-infested Castro apartment, where he lives with his closeted roommate, to the dance studio, where he marks the steps of the other performers and waits anxiously for an opportunity to get onstage. Larger anxieties are hovering, moving in. We get a rehearsal scene in which a female dancer recoils from her male partner’s embrace, lest his sweat contaminate her; conversations about the virus in changing rooms and at parties; a sexual encounter between Frankie and a stranger, after which he stares at the man as if he might be a mortal enemy; a later, aborted encounter in which the man sits up in bed, appalled and depressed, after Frankie hesitantly proffers a condom, remarking, “They say we should use these…” A neighbor watches Frankie examine himself for skin lesions. Rock Hudson dies. Frankie warily embarks on a friendship with a brash, handsome fellow dancer (Matthew Risch) who offers a counterpoint to his cerebral, watchful reserve. And throughout, the company rehearses and performs, in scenes that beautifully evoke the themes of the film, a quiet, thoughtful study of a person, and a community, trying to reorient and find footing amid a cataclysm. (1:29) Elmwood (director in person Sat/7, 7:15pm show), Presidio (director in person Fri/6, 8:30pm; Sat/7, 3:50pm; and Sun/8, 6:15pm shows). (Lynn Rapoport)

We Are the Best! Fifteen years after Show Me Love, Lukas Moodysson’s sweet tale of two girls in love in small-town Sweden, the writer-director returns to the subject of adorably poignant teen angst. Set in Stockholm in 1982, and adapted from a graphic novel by Moodysson’s wife, Coco Moodysson, We Are the Best! focuses on an even younger cohort: a trio of 13-year-old girls who form a punk band in the interest of fighting the power and irritating the crap out of their enemies. Best friends Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin) spend their time enduring the agonies of parental embarrassment and battling with schoolmates over personal aesthetics (blond and perky versus chopped and spiked), nukes, and whether punk’s dead or not. Wreaking vengeance on a group of churlish older boys by snaking their time slot in the local rec center’s practice space, they find themselves equipped with a wealth of fan enthusiasm, but no instruments of their own and scant functional knowledge of the ones available at the rec center. Undaunted, they recruit a reserved Christian classmate named Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne), whose objectionable belief system — which they vow to subvert for her own good — is offset by her prodigious musical talents. Anyone who was tormented by the indignities of high school PE class will appreciate the subject matter of the group’s first number (“Hate the Sport”). And while the film has a slightness to it and an unfinished quality, Moodysson’s heartfelt interest in the three girls’ triumphs and trials as both a band and a posse of friends suffuses the story with warmth and humor. (1:42) (Lynn Rapoport)

Good green: Lessons from the 4th annual SF Green Film Festival

Steven T. Jones
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I can count on my two hands the days it’s rained in San Francisco this year. You’d have to be living in a cave to not know that our city is having its worst drought in decades.

For that reason, the theme of the fourth annual San Francisco Green Film Festival is “Water in the West.” The festival, which began on Thu/29, is pushing us to reevaluate our relationship with water. As our state is faced with its worst drought since 1977, it is imminent that we answer the question on everyone’s minds: What is the future of water in California?

With over 60 films coming from 21 countries, the SFGFF is tackling our complicated relationship with water. Like a river flowing through the week-long festival, six feature films address this issue in varying ways: DamNation, Watermark, Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek, The Great Flood, Lost Rivers, and Chinatown.

Yesterday’s centerpiece film at the Roxie Theater, Watermark, explores humans’ relationship with water, traveling to countries far beyond what most of us have experienced. The film, directed by Canadian documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal and landscape photographer Edward Burtynsky, superimposes breathtaking aerial perspectives of water scenes from around the world. Watermark travels to the National Ice Laboratory in Greenland, the disturbing and daunting Xiluodu Dam in China, a heavily-polluted leather tannery in Bangladesh, a pilgrimage of 30 million people bathing in the Ganges river, and a parched, cracked desert in Mexico where the Colorado River used to run wild, among many other beautiful sites.

The film exposes the manifold layers of our water consumption and offers awe-inspiring cinematography but leaves something to be desired. With no narrator and minimal context, the documentary shows rather than tells. It excels visually, but flounders thematically. We see how the world consumes water for farming, for energy, for spiritual and recreational purposes and most importantly for survival but what does it all mean?

The Green Film Festival finds answers with a handful of other films. On Saturday night, Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek was awarded the Green Tenacity Award for capturing the inspiring community fight for environmental justice in Mississippi. Over the weekend, the festival hosted two shorts showcases, several workshops, various panel discussions and nightly feature films, including a special 40th anniversary screening of Chinatown.

The event’s opening ceremony last Thursday night was fittingly held at the Aquarium of the Bay. It’s difficult to process the imminence of climate change with the majestical bay at fingertips length. But the opening night’s feature film DamNation drove the point home. The award winning documentary weaves together the ecological, political, economical and psychological implications of river dams. Focusing on the Pacific Northwest, the 87-minute film tracks the “era of dam removal.”

With nature-drenched cinematography and a candid narrator — co-director Ben Knight who admits in the first five minutes to his embarrassingly minimal knowledge on rivers dams when he signed onto the film — DamNation offers an excellent introduction to how the removal of river dams restore watershed ecosystems, revive fish migrations, improve water quality and the lives of adjacent communities and cultures. “The great beauty about wild fish is we don’t have to do a damned thing for them except leave them the hell alone,” says one of the activists in the film. At the end of the night, DamNation took home a 3-D printed award for Best Feature Film. The festival came full circle with Sunday night’s showing of The Great Flood, a film-music collaboration about the Mississippi River Flood of 1927, a catastrophe that prompted the “era of dams.”

The first leg of the Green Film Festival offered a wide array of perspectives about the green movement. Water is the world’s most precious resource and it affects all environmental issues from food security, healthy kids, and livable cities. The festival continues on with daily panel discussions and films promoting social change. Wednesday night’s Lost Rivers is the final installation of the six-part “Water in the West” theme. “Do you know what is hiding beneath our cities?” the film asks. Lost Rivers retraces history in search for disappeared rivers around the world. The film not only offers insight on how and why most rivers in major cities have disappeared today but also answers the question of whether we will see these rivers again.

Activism is rooted in community. For the fourth year, the Green Film Festival is engaging with the community through discussion and film. The community support in San Francisco is heartening. From the filled theaters to the community organizations who’ve partnered with this event: Earthjustice, American Rivers, Save the Bay, Restore the Delta and many others.

Water is invaluable to our daily lives but we treat water as an inexhaustible resource. The films showcased this week prove that this is not the case. Climate change is imminent and we are at the root of it. We can make a difference through education, engagement, activism, and our vote. And if you’re too lazy to do any of that, why not watch a film?

MONDAY JUNE 2

Seeds of Time + panel discussion with Sandy McLeod, director; Cary Fowler, agriculturalist; Greg Dalton, Climate One 

6pm, Roxie Theater


A Will for the Woods

8:30pm, Roxie Theater

 

TUESDAY JUNE 3

Free Screening: Thin Ice: The Inside Story of Climate Science

12pm, SF Public Library

 

Angel Azul  + panel discussion with Marcy Cravat, director

6pm, Roxie Theater


Uranium Drive-In

8:15pm, Roxie Theater


WEDNESDAY JUNE 4

Lost Rivers

6pm, Roxie Theater

 

Wrenched: The Legacy of the Monkey Wrench Gang + discussion with Ariana Garfinkel, archivist; David J. Cross, Earth First! photographer; Karen Pickett, activist; and other guest activists from the film.

8pm, Roxie Theater

 

Closing Night Wrap Party

10pm, Slate Bar

Thieves! Duboce Triangle free library stolen, replaced

Erica Hanna
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Thieves! Duboce Triangle free library stolen, replaced

Thievery! The little free library on Noe went missing Wedenesday, and initially in its place was only a chalk outline decrying its loss.

“I was pissed,” librarian Jamison Wieser told reporter (and Bay Guardian freelancer) Sara Bloomberg for her blog, A Room with a View in San Francisco.

The little free library sits outside 233 Noe, and people can freely borrow from its collection of 20 or so books. No checkout system exists, it’s all based on the honor system. Unfortunately, someone decided to act less than honorably.  After the case was stolen, chalk outlines were drawn on the ground where the books from the stolen bookcase were thrown.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending.

The book case was shortly replaced, with books already filling the shelves, Bloomberg reported. There was one new addition though, a sign, reading “These books may be freely borrowed. (Please do not take bookcase).”

The Duboce Triangle little free library is part of the Little Free Library network, with 15,000 participating little libraries and counting. The Duboce Triangle little free library is taking donations at Paypal using the email noesocute@gmail.com, or you can leave cash with the librarians right on Noe.

littlelibrary


Intersection for the Arts lays off staff, halts programming

Erica Hanna
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8
Intersection for the Arts lays off staff, halts programming

Intersection for the Arts, one of the city’s most established alternative arts venues, is the latest casualty in a city slowly strangling its arts and music scene. 

The decades-old studio and artists space will lay off most of its staff and program directors by the end of the month, and will no longer produce its own arts programming.

“With the specific shifts in the economy and culture of San Francisco, it has been increasingly difficult to operate and sustain a community-based nonprofit arts organization like Intersection,” ousted program directors Kevin B. Chen, Rebeka Rodriguez and Sean San Jose wrote in a joint statement. “For the decade-plus that we have been able to work together, we have collaborated and worked for varied and multiple voices – the marginalized, under-represented, young, immigrant, queer, people of color, disenfranchised voices.“

The layoffs were confirmed by Intersection for the Arts’ Board of Directors Chair Yancy Widmer in a post on Intersection for the Arts’ website.

“Our financial situation is deeply challenged,” he wrote, “and it has become apparent that the current business model is no longer sustainable.”

He explained the move in the post:

Our financial situation has always been fragile. Like many non-profit, grassroots arts organizations, it has been a perpetual struggle, dependent on “angel donors,” “heroic” leadership and unpredictable trends. The move from our long-time home in the Mission to an improved facility in SOMA was a significant effort to address this issue, but it was increasingly clear that they were not enough to build the financial foundation we need not merely to survive, but to grow and thrive.

Recognizing that the organization needed fundamental change to sustain its contributions to community life, the Board embarked on a deep organizational examination that led to a substantial rethinking of our role in the community and a refining of our mission.

The layoffs follow a sold-out run of Chasing Mesherle, a play tackling white privelige and the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale Station, in Oakland. 

Intersection’s own programming will end, but they’ll still play host for other art shows. Additionally, Intersection’s Incubator programs will remain unaffected. The incubator spawned Litquake, Youth Speaks, Cutting Ball Theater, and many other arts programs and organizations are still being brewed there even now. 

artgallery

An art show on prison life at Intersection for the Arts.

In his post, Widmer invited the public to weigh in on the changes at Intersection by emailing transitions@theintersection.org.

We’ll post the full text of Chen, Rodriguez and San Jose’s email below.

We want to personally write you as our work and time at Intersection is suddenly coming to a close. As of June 1, Intersection will be undergoing substantial changes. As part of these changes, the three of us, in addition to other staff, will be laid off at the end of May. With the specific shifts in the economy and culture of San Francisco, it has been increasingly difficult to operate and sustain a community-based nonprofit arts organization like Intersection.

It is truly miraculous that we were able to exist for so long and be able to thrive with programs for as long as we did. Working together with Deborah Cullinan and other amazing colleagues for all the years we did, it worked not just because of the genuine investment and dedication of all at Intersection and us as a staff, but rather, it worked because of YOU — your creative vision, your zeal for social justice, your enthusiasm to collaborate, your desire to communicate and connect. We can not thank you enough for how much you have inspired us, changed us, and taught us.  We are proud, still inspired, and ever changed by being able to support, develop, produce, and premiere new works of the highest order by artists and collaborators of the utmost amazing quality, originality, creativity, and heart – more than 15 years of new works and voices. Thank YOU. We look forward to witnessing more.

For the decade-plus that we have been able to work together, we have collaborated and worked for varied and multiple voices – the marginalized, under-represented, young, immigrant, queer, people of color, disenfranchised voices. We are proud of the work we have accomplished, birthing countless beautiful, resonant, and profound projects. Our work with community based organizations, schools, after-school programs, lock down facilities, coalitions, and individuals has allowed us to collectively flourish and grow.

We look forward to seeing you, experiencing new work, hearing and being part of dialogues, and partaking in both action and reaction to this world we all live in together. If you feel strongly about this kind of work that has happened at, with, and through Intersection over these past 15 years, we ask of you all:

DO IT!

MAKE IT HAPPEN!

TELL PEOPLE!

TELL OUR STORIES!

SUPPORT COMMUNITY!

CREATE ART!

In continued solidarity,

Kevin B. Chen 

Rebeka Rodriguez 

Sean San Jose 

 

Go do this thing tomorrow: Speak up for Viracocha

Steven T. Jones
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7

If you’ve ever set foot in Viracocha, the Never-Never-Land-esque antiques store/typewriter shop/arts space/music venue at 21st and Valencia, you know it’s a pretty magical place — especially in contrast to some of the shiny new businesses springing up around it in the Mission as of late. The brain child and passion project of poet Jonathan Siegel, it’s a homey haven for writers, musicians, visual artists, and dreamers of all kinds; for the past four years, it’s also been hosting intimate live shows and spoken word events in its downstairs performance space. Only problem — Siegel hasn’t been able to promote that aspect of the business, as the room’s not ADA-compliant, meaning the space has remained a (relatively open) secret, since each of those shows has been illegal.

Now, the little speakeasy that could is trying to go legit once and for all: At a City Hall hearing tomorrow, Tue/20 at 5:30 pm, Siegel and the store’s employees are hoping supporters will show up to help convince the SF Entertainment Commission that Viracocha should be granted a Place of Entertainment Permit.

ezza
Ezza Rose performing in the Viracocha basement. Photo by Pete Lee.

“We’ve been operating underground for four years: building, strengthing, and expanding a diverse community of artists, writers, and musicians,” Siegel wrote to supporters. “Not to mention an incredibly supportive and loving mass of patrons and neighbors. But now, it’s time to share with the world how this all works…what, exactly, we’re about, and what our potential is for the future.”

The hearing is open to the public, and Siegel says the commission knows everything about the space’s operations at this point (including its squeaky-clean track record in terms of noise complaints, thank you very much), and nothing’s on the DL anymore. So if you’ve had a good experience there, or just give a shit about the survival of affordable, independent, community-minded arts spaces in this city, come on down.

(Oh yeah, the bathroom’s pretty great, too.)

A few quick hits from the SF International Film Festival as it comes to a close

Sue Vaughan
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0
A few quick hits from the SF International Film Festival as it comes to a close

Sexual jealousy, filial betrayal, and bloodshed amid a civilization’s ruins. The SF International Film Festival began on these cheerful notes, with Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac, and Kirsten Dunst tensely keeping company in opening-night film The Two Faces of January, Hossein Amini’s adaptation of the 1964 Patricia Highsmith novel. Mortensen plays Chester MacFarland, a New York con artist who, having bilked investors out of large wads of cash back in the States, is on the lam in Greece with his pretty young wife, Colette (Dunst).

When they catch the eye of Rydal (Isaac), a fellow American who’s idling in Athens — leading impressionable female tourists around the Acropolis and engaging in petty acts of grift — he becomes entangled in their affairs through a volatile mix of chance and attraction. The three become uneasy travel companions, as Rydal helps them evade Chester’s enemies and the local authorities. The sexual tension between Colette and Rydal runs along a foreseeable track, their shared youthful resilience a relentless rebuke to Chester, as he grimly knocks back whiskeys and fails to keep pace. But as Amini — a first-time feature director whose screenplay credits include Snow White and the Huntsman, Drive, and The Wings of the Dove — pointed out during the post-film Q&A, the relationship between Rydal and Chester proves much more complicated and fluid, shifting repeatedly, unpredictably, from con and mark (and mark and con) to sexual competitors to unwilling collaborators to quasi–father and son. The suspense heightens and the drama deepens as the characters struggle to keep their emotional footing and save their skins.

There’s no saving Mia Wasikowska’s skin — scarlet and blistering under a punishing desert sun — in John Curran’s Tracks, another adaptation, whose source material is the 1980 memoir of a young woman named Robyn Davidson, Tracks: A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback (and the 1978 National Geographic article that preceded it). In the film, Robyn’s single-minded aim is to walk, for six or seven months, across nearly 2,000 miles of desert from Alice Springs in central Australia to the Indian Ocean, with, for company, a team of four feral camels (Australia apparently has the world’s largest population of them), which she would tame and train and use as pack animals, and her black lab Diggity. There’s some Into the Wild here, and some All Is Lost as well — in Robyn’s driving impulse toward deep isolation, her almost frantic need to remove herself from the cacophony of human transaction and commune with her animals in the empty desert, as well as in the film’s steady focus on logistics.

Nearly everyone — with the loopy exception of Adam Driver as Rick Smolan, an admiring freelance photographer who periodically joins her on the trail, at the behest of National Geographic — Robyn encounters at the film’s outset thinks she’s nuts, and doomed, and the viewer is likely sympathetic to this viewpoint. Robyn, radiating an unyielding idealism and a white-knuckled ethic of self-reliance, can seem naïve and unreasonable, and doesn’t much trouble to explain herself. The camera, meanwhile, follows in her tracks without judgment, accepting her decision and watching, solicitously, to see who she is out there and how she will make her way.

Three other films that left a mark: James Ward Byrkit’s twisty Coherence is a sci-fi thriller in which the possible influences of a comet passing overhead disrupt the urbane table talk and relationship tensions among four couples at a dinner party. François Ozon’s latest film, Young & Beautiful (now in theaters after its fest debut) takes a 17-year-old girl’s summer-vacation sexual discoveries as a jumping-off point for an uneasy exploration of a teenager’s decision to engage in prostitution. Even more than Tracks’ protagonist, the young Isabelle (Marine Vacth), and the film itself, is tight-lipped about her motivations, leaving us to wonder and worry — and scan her household (voyeuristic little brother, possibly philandering mother, oddly laid-back stepfather) for clues, an activity that Ozon, through the structure of the film, both encourages and critiques. And fellow French director Sophie Fillières gives us scenes from a marriage in decline in her sometimes absurd yet poignant If You Don’t, I Will, wherein Pierre (Mathieu Amalric) and Pomme (Emmanuelle Devos) struggle to navigate the glitches — physical, verbal, emotional — that have overtaken their every interaction.

It’s not that the relationships in The Skeleton Twins are less riddled with dysfunction, but at least the film, starring Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, and Luke Wilson, gives us permission to laugh out loud amid the psychic wreckage. Wiig plays the melancholy, quietly floundering Maggie, one half of a long-estranged pair of twins, who is brought back into the life of her brother, Milo (Hader), under dire circumstances. When he comes to live with Maggie and her husband, oblivious sweetheart and nature lover Lance (Wilson), the two siblings are placed in uncomfortable proximity to a history of loss and upheaval they’ve both worked hard not to reexamine.

This sounds like the difficult, even dismal material of familial drama, and there are moments of pathos here, as well as sweetness. But director Craig Johnson’s script, cowritten with Mark Heyman (Black Swan), gives Hader and Wiig — who showed up with Johnson to the fest’s first screening to answer a few questions in between stand-up riffing off of the audience — plenty of room to generate hilarity (see, in particular: a power ballad lip-synch routine and an after-hours dental office visit involving clouds of laughing gas).

‘Neighbors,’ ‘Belle,’ and more new movies!

Sue Vaughan
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Not to detract from the drawing power of Seth Rogen’s comic chops (or Zac Efron’s abs, pecs, etc.) in this week’s Neighbors, but it seems Hollywood is taking a little blockbuster breather between last week’s Spider-Man cash grab and next week’s Godzilla onslaught. So now’s a great time to catch up on some smaller films that might’ve otherwise escaped your radar, including brains-and-beauty costume drama Belle, opening theatrically after its recent bow at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Reviews, trailers, and links below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qx90wdRD2I

Belle See “Skin Deep.” (1:45) 

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return Computer-animated musical which does not look to resemble 1985’s spooky-great Return to Oz. Case in point: Dorothy is voiced by Glee‘s Lea Michele. (1:28) 

Neighbors Seth Rogen and Zac Efron star in this comedy about a family with a newborn forced to live next door to a frat house. (1:37) 

Now: In the Wings on a World Stage In 2011, a production of Richard III starring Kevin Spacey played SF’s Curran Theatre; it was but one stop on a dreamy world tour (London, Istanbul, Beijing, Sydney, Doha, Brooklyn, and Epidaurus, Greece) for an American and British company and crew directed by Brit Sam Mendes, who guided Spacey to an Oscar (and earned one himself) for 1999’s American Beauty. This backstage doc — fully endorsed by Spacey and co., so don’t expect any juicy spats or diva routines — follows this rambling troupe around the world as they work through one of Shakespeare’s most iconic history plays. Initially, some of the younger actors feel intimidated (and some of the Americans feel nervous about interpreting the Bard alongside Brits, despite the fact that superstar Spacey is spearheading the whole thing), but gradually the group becomes close-knit. Pretty scenery aside, most of the travel stuff is featherweight (“The culture [in Istanbul] is just crazy!” is one typically shallow insight), but watching the show from the inside out offers an intriguing look at the dramatic process. Still, as Mendes and others point out, “the thrill of theater is the fact that it’s live” and “ephemeral” — qualities not captured by this rather conventional doc. If you’re an aspiring actor, however, Now is probably essential viewing nonetheless. (1:33) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)

Young and Beautiful The titular attributes may be obvious surface ones, but they’re pretty much all we can take for granted in the character of Isabelle (Marine Vacth), a 17-year-old Parisian first met on a summer beach vacation with her family. With younger brother Victor (Fantin Ravat) as confidante, she methodically if haltingly sets out to shed her virginity, choosing as the lucky deflowerer a nice, very handsome German tourist (Lucas Prisor). The experience seems to leave her ambivalent, however, and a certain cool psychological opacity lingers after the clan goes home, and Isabelle returns to school while commencing a secret life so outré and baffling we would dearly love to understand her motivations. (Suffice it to say that the obvious reasons, love and/or need of money and/or sex, do not appear applicable in her case.) Is she rebelling? If so, against what? Probably not her easygoing mother and stepfather, played by Geraldine Pailhas and Frederic Pierrot. Reminiscent of Belle de Jour (1967) not just in premise but in dispassionate treatment of it, François Ozon’s latest sports his usual crisp directorial authority and eye for telling detail. But it’s built around a cipher, requiring an 11th-hour appearance by his past muse Charlotte Rampling in order to suddenly snap into focus — even as Isabelle remains something of a blur. (1:35) (Dennis Harvey)

Pow! Zap! Free comic book day with Ace of Geeks

Erica Hanna
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Pow! Zap! Free comic book day with Ace of Geeks

Saturday’s Free Comic Book Day was like Christmas morning for comic lovers, and San Francisco is blessed with an abundance of comic book stores to celebrate from. Luckily for us, podcast Ace of Geeks decided to take a video tour of a few of SF’s most beloved dens of geekery on the beloved nerd holiday.  

Watching the Ace of Geeks crew (Mike, Jarys and Mae Linh) tour some of our city’s comic shops is a reminder of our bounty of nerdy-goodness, as each store has a distinct flavor.

Reflecting the Richmond district neighborhood, Cards and Comics Central has almost as many toys and collectibles as they do comics. Their anime and manga figurine collection alone is worth checking out (Neon Genesis Evangelion! Naruto!), and it’s one of the few places in the city you can find a stuffed Yoshi outside of Japantown.  

Ace of Geeks tours some of SF’s comic book shops.

The salesperson the Ace of Geeks crew talked to, Darrel, even has a Spider-Man themed New Era 59-50 flat brimmed hat (something a b-boy might wear before breakin’) that feels right at home in a neighborhood with schools like Washington High, attended by SF natives from the ‘hood. 

On the flipside, Hayes Valley is home to the ever-hilarious James Sime’s Isotope Comic Lounge, a comic shop with a hip, indie feel to it. Luckily, it predates the gentrification of the Hayes Valley ‘hood, and keeps the San Franciscan weird flavor alive (check out Sime’s hair, whoo!). But past its looks, Isotope is awesome because Sime is always trying something new. As he says in the video: “I get bored easily.” 

Two surprises on comic book day made Sime’s shop the one to beat. Firstly Isotope’s “featured” comic book artist was an adorable 11-year-old named Aidan Hernacki, who sat a table signing copies of his comic Onion Bros. 

But that’s Isotope, always trying to help out the little guy. 

The second surprise was a visit from J.J. Willliams III, the ultra-talented artist behind Promethea, Batwoman, and the new Sandman: Overture. Williams III donned a vest and was a hidden “shop boy” at Isotope, helping people find comics and answering questions. When a customer happened to actually buy a copy of Sandman: Overture, he whipped out his permanent marker and gave it a free autograph. 

Two Cats Comics in West Portal, Amazing Fantasy in the Inner Sunset and Comix Experience on Divisadero also made the tour. Check out the video to see the flavors of SF’s comic shops for yourself. 

Swing away — Urban Putt opens today!

Sue Vaughan
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24
Swing away — Urban Putt opens today!

After a sneak peek and a couple of delays, Urban Putt finally opens at 4pm today. The high concept mini-golf course, restaurant, and bar combination arrives just in time for some Cinco de Drinko fiesta time.

The former mortuary at South Van Ness and 22nd Streets is freshly coated with a new paint job that seamlessly blends with the neighborhood. There’s nothing flashy about Urban Putt from the outside but as you step inside, you’re transported into a gadgety, steampunk world — a techie’s Disneyland.

The elaborate 14-hole golf course designed by the guys behind Mission Bowling Club can hold 40 golfers at a time, so expect a wait list as long as Nopa’s on a Friday night. Golfers start out at the Earthquake Hole where they navigate around Lotta’s Fountain and moving buildings into a fire hydrant hole. Expect kitschy San Francisco references scattered around the course: a Transamerica windmill, the Day of the Dead hole, and a robot hole built by the people from Make Magazine. Several other of our city’s landmarks also make an appearance.

While it’s a tad cramped, the course’s beauty remains in the details. A lot of the course was built by Urban Putt’s in-house 3-D printing machine. With custom ironwork, wood designs, and digital features, there are many surprises! At the Music Hole, the golf ball is lifted 10 feet in the air and dropped down an elaborate chute bouncing on drums, tambourines, and xylophones before making its way back onto the turf. In the left corner is a dark room resembling something out of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The two-hole underwater course includes an LED-lit floor, a moving octopus, and an interactive submarine decked out in bells and whistles, levers, and buttons. 

If mini-golf isn’t for you, the building’s second floor is entirely dedicated to a different kind of sport: eating and drinking. The full bar and restaurant UP @ Urban Putt is run by chef Dane Boryta, formerly of Bottle Cap. The restaurant will serve up traditional Americana dishes that include burgers, pizza, salads, and desserts — basically what you’d find at any mini-golf course. Guests can eat at communal wooden picnic tables or private high tables. Other upstairs divertissements include skee ball and Caddyshack on repeat. Expect weekend brunch offerings in the near future, because what new restaurant is complete without the city’s favorite weekend pasttime?

Urban Putt is basically every eight-year-old’s birthday party dream. Pizza, ice cream, mini golf … what more can a kid ask for? Moreover, later in the night, adults can have their own fun. No one under 21 will be admitted onto the course after 8pm. While the restaurant stops serving food at 11pm on weekends, drinking and golfing is available until 2am, and putters can sip drinks designed by the Bon Vivants — strong and tasty enough to decrease your chances of getting a hole in one. Pro-tip: the Duck Shooting hole is exceptionally difficult to master, even while sober. Fore!

Urban Putt

Mini-golf: Mon-Thu, 4pm-midnight; Fri, 4pm-2am; Sat, 10am-2am; Sun, 10am-midnight, $8-10

Restaurant: Sun-Thu, 5:30-10pm; Fri-Sat, 5:30-11pm

1096 South Van Ness, SF

(415) 341-1080

www.urbanputt.com

SFIFF 57: Strange love, Varda, Swedish grrrls, and more!

Sue Vaughan
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2
SFIFF 57: Strange love, Varda, Swedish grrrls, and more!

The 57th San Francisco International Film Festival runs through May 8; all the details are here. Guardian correspondent and confirmed film fest addict Jesse Hawthorne Ficks checks in with his mid-SFIFF picks and reactions.

Charlie McDowell’s The One I Love (screens tomorrow; ticket info here) showcases exceptional performances by Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss and should be a multiple Independent Spirit Award nominee come next statuette season. This unique genre fluster-cluck digs much deeper into marital problems than you would ever expect (audiences seemed quite flipped upside down after the film’s world premiere at Sundance). Similar to films like Darren Araonfsky’s Pi (1998), Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000), and Shane Caruth’s Primer (2004), this will be a film that’ll spark conversations and inspire repeat viewings.

Mexican auteur Fernando Eimbcke, who directed Duck Season (2004) and Lake Tahoe (2008) is back with another coming-of-age stunner: Club Sandwich. The director’s slow-burning method of sticking two people in a room and allowing life’s natural moments to unfold is as precise as the tiny moustache on the protagonist’s upper lip. Rewarding to those who are patient, Club Sandwich is the perfect reminder of that pre-adolescent summer that changed just about everything.  

Agnes Varda’s latest opus, From Here to There, is a 225 minute, five-part miniseries originally made for French television. It casually chronicles her guest appearances at film festivals and cinematheques around the world with numerous asides and melancholic moments that have made Varda one of the most likable icons of cinema. In fact, the episodes work similarly to her earliest films Cleo From 5-7 (1962) and La Pointe Courte (1955), gracefully moving the viewer through moments that seem minor at first, but are in fact profound. (Listening to an 85-year-old Varda get distracted and start talking about the history of chairs brought me to tears.) Like her 2008 film The Beaches of Agnes (2008), this is a must see.

Swedish auteur Lukas Moodysson is back and he may have just created one of the most riotous punk rock extravaganzas ever. We Are the Best! (Sweden/Denmark), which takes place in the early 1980s and is based on wife Coco Moodysson’s graphic novel, allows the all-grrrl band to blossom into real-life punk rockers. Evoking passionate punk portrayals like 1980’s Times Square and 1981’s Ladies & Gentleman, The Fabulous Stains (fun fact: Moodysson was unaware of the latter film until I interviewed him!), this drama seems to capture Stockholm circa 1982 in perfect detail. The soundtrack was a major part of discussion during the Q&A, becoming the perfect entry point for those of us desiring an history lesson on the Swedish punk scene. But what I found most exciting about We Are the Best! is its approach to gender roles, as its young female characters attempt to cast aside pressures to look pretty. Either way, Moodysson has created a film just as enjoyable as his debut feature, 1998’s Show Me Love. It has the potential to become a worldwide hit in the same vein as Trainspotting (1996) and Run Lola Run (1999). (Info on screenings today and May 7 here!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL-0RLaFcSg

In the 1990s, Tsai Ming-liang’s films were often mentioned alongside works by Hirokazu Kore-eda and Hou Hsiao-hsien. But two decades later, only Tsai has stayed the determined course of creating endurance-driven, contemplative cinema. Presenting his tenth feature (and showcasing yet again his alter ego, actor Lee Kang-sheng), Stray Dogs (Taiwan) is a breathtaking meditation on a homeless Taiwanese family, who are quietly doing what they can to get by. With this film, Tsai has almost abandoned story completely, instead favoring long, drawn-out, surreal, one-shot sequences — next-level abstractness that will either send you running for the hills or leave you unblinkingly glued to the screen.

The film is made to be watched more than once and upon multiple viewings you gain not only patience for Tsai’s masterful aesthetic but an appreciation for how futuristically meditative it is. Someone should program Stray Dogs with his 2012 short Sleepwalk, which follows a monk as he walks, and his follow-up film Journey to the West (2014) which stars Lee and Denis Lavant(!) Whether that would equal absolute transcendence or absolute boredom depends on the viewer, of course. I can’t think of a more emotionally implosive filmmaker working today. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnvSUGgF2R0

Rewatching Hong Sang-soo’s Our Sunhi (South Korea) is in fact as monumentally enjoyable as viewing his previous film, In Another Country (2012). This new film represents another solid entry for the director. The succinct ways in which his male characters are emotionally self-destructive with one another can and should be compared to best of Eric Rohmer and Woody Allen’s films. And this time out, he has created a female protagonist (played by hilariously by Jung Yoo-mi) that adds a complexity to his alcoholic-ridden world. If you were a fan of Hong’s films and stopped watching them, it’s time to come back and enjoy one of the funniest films of the festival circuit.

The surprise documentary hit at this year’s SFIFF most definitely has to be Julie Bertuccelli’s School of Babel (France). Simple catalogue description: “The film details a year in the life of a Parisian class of immigrant youth from countries around the globe — boys and girls ages 11 to 15 — who have come to France to seek asylum, escape hardship or simply better their lives.” What is so overwhelming about this personal journey is how the film not only showcases the student-teacher relationships, but the parent-student dynamics. It culminates in a devastating filmmaker-audience relationship.

Exploring pedagogy as a whole caught me off guard so intensely that I, like many in the theater, felt we were back in school trying to figure out all of life’s problems in between breaks for recess. The film ties in perfectly to the San Francisco Film Society’s Education program, which serves more than 11,000 students and teachers every year, from kindergarten through college, to develop media literacy, cultural awareness, global understanding, as well as a lifelong appreciation of cinema. Do whatever it takes to see this film yourself, and if you’re a teacher, share it with your own students.

Big batch of SF archival films new on YouTube, featuring ‘Hello Girls’ of Chinatown, bay swimming ‘Frog Man’, city-stopping strikes, and more!

Erica Hanna
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0
Big batch of SF archival films new on YouTube, featuring ‘Hello Girls’ of Chinatown, bay swimming ‘Frog Man’, city-stopping strikes, and more!

Media company British Pathé uploaded thousands of archival films to its Youtube channel, and in the batch are hundreds of vintage newsreels showcasing San Francisco history as far back as the 1906 earthquake.

The films cover milestones in Baghdad by the Bay’s history, but more obscure films like “Hello Girls” of Chinatown (1929) and Frog Man Swims Under Golden Gate Bridge (1954) offer a look at quirky San Franciscans of the past. 

The news-radio style announcers on film vary from droll and monotone to Kentucky Derby levels of excitement: 

“San Francisco’s rail commerce is at a virtual stand still, warehouses are full!” 

“San Francisco’s ever smoldering railway war breaks out anew. Twenty-seven department store operators have united to squelch union demands for a 35 hour week!”

“After five years of work the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge is completed.”

“San Francisco lies under a blanket of snow, its heaviest in 75 years.”

“Alcatraz… it doesn’t seem possible that they’d close it down.”

A nod to Curbed for the great find. Below we’ve embedded some of our favorites, but there are hundreds more at British Pathé’s YouTube channel, here. 

San Francisco Cable Cars Threatened (1954)
San Francisco Strike(1938)
Golden Gate Bridge Open (1937)
Fine Arts Palace Demolished (1964)
Frog Man Swims Under Golden Gate Bridge (1954)
“Hello Girls” Of Chinatown (1929)
San Francisco Earthquake (1906)
Alcatraz – Everybody Out! (1963)

Hunky Jesus, Foxy Mary, and Easter bonnets to make your eggs spin

Peter Cohen
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1
Hunky Jesus, Foxy Mary, and Easter bonnets to make your eggs spin

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence held their 35th anniversary Easter party — an “Emerald Jubilee” — at Golden Gate Park’s Hellman Hollow on Sunday. The annual event once again featured an Easter bonnet competition and a Hunky Jesus contest, plus a brand-new Foxy Mary pageant. Several Pope lookalikes graced the crowd, and a Little Bo Peep burlesque show rounded out the scheduled entertainment.

All photos by Amanda Rhoades.

Q&A: Queer Rebels on accessibility, representation, and the challenges queer people of color still face

Steven T. Jones
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1

It’s not that Modern Family and your Gender Studies reading list aren’t doing anything for queer and trans representation — but there are still stories to be told, and ears to be reached.

Since 2008, it has been the mission of Queer Rebels founders Celeste Chan and KB Boyce to bring the art, history, and stories of queer and trans people of color to stages and screens, where it can be shared and celebrated. This weekend, Queer Rebels return with Liberating Legacies, a free, all-ages, multi-ethnic, multi-genre show at the San Francisco Public Library [Sun/20]. As the show date approaches, we caught up with Queer Rebels via email to get an idea of what to expect from Liberating Legacies, and the importance of accessibility to the arts.

San Francisco Bay Guardian What was the planning process for Liberating Legacies? What is different or new about this show compared to other Queer Rebels performances?

Queer Rebels Liberating Legacies celebrates the vibrant visions of queer/trans artists of color today. It is multi-ethnic, offering a sampling of all our different programs — from experimental film to SPIRIT: Queer Asian, Arab, and Pacific Islander Artivism, to our popular Queer Harlem Renaissance show. We’re so thrilled that Liberating Legacies is free, all ages, and multi-ethnic. We’ve wanted to do this for a while.

SFBG What is the importance of making a show like Liberating Legacies free and all ages?

QR We’re so excited to partner with the SF Public Library to provide access through this great venue. Our mission is to showcase queer and trans artists of color, connect generations, and honor our histories with art for the future. In keeping with our mission, we really want to reach youth and elders, and anyone barred access to art due to economic stress. Art has long been a tool for resistance in communities of color. It is the passing on of histories, and cultural reclamation. We do this to energize our community through the arts, to create our own culture, and to inspire hope. Art can create the world anew.

SFBG What are the current issues of accessibility in terms of art and representation of QTPOC communities? It’s a popular opinion that media and popular entertainment have become more progressive and inclusive, but what’s still missing?

QR It is true, we’re in a different place than we were 10, 20, or 30 years ago, when queer/trans of color representation was a real rarity. Now we have role models like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, but we still have RuPaul’s DragRace using slurs like “she-male,” and disrespecting trans women. Queer/trans youth of color face racial violence and homophobia. Approximately 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT, LGBT people of color face multiple barriers or forms of oppression, and LGBT elders of color face isolation. So we still have a lot of work to do. We want art that speaks to these realities, created by our communities. There needs to be space for all of us. Beyond positive representation, we need to see queer and trans people of color in all of our complexities and diverse histories!

SFBG What can we look forward to seeing at Liberating Legacies? What would you tell someone who has never been to a QR show to expect from your performances?

QR We’re bringing diverse arty interpretations to Liberating Legacies. From “tropical Sci-Fi” to transgressive torch singers; Afrocentric literary duets to pop music manifestos; experimental film, world class Blues — and beyond! We’ve got something for everyone, and it is free, vibrant, and alive — very much of this moment! We pay homage to our ancestors and march boldly into the future. Artist MA Brooks once told us, “you two embody your mission statement.” It really resonates now. We are a multi-generational, Queer Black and Asian artist and activist couple. Queer Rebels is our lovechild: beautiful and rebellious, aesthetic and experimental, born from our experiences as people of color in punk and DIY scenes, and created with riotously gay love and joy.
 
Liberating Legacies
Sun/20, 2pm, free
San Francisco Public Library, Koret Auditorium
100 Larkin, SF
 (415) 581-3500
www.queerrebels.com

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