Despite the supposed onset of winter, it’s another sunny day as I pedal up to the San Francisco Columbarium, a stately domed edifice perched at the end of a discreet cul de sac off Geary and Arguello. Currently operated by the secular Neptune Society, the Columbarium is one of the last remaining repositories for the dead within San Francisco city limits, the majority of San Francisco’s deceased having been relocated to Colma from the turn of the 20th century on. A group of about 30 curiosity seekers have gathered at the gates. We’ve all come for an Obscura Society “field trip,” in this instance a tour of the iconic structure, led by the man who has been credited with almost single-handedly presiding over the Columbarium’s resurrection from decades of neglect, Emmitt Watson.
The Obscura Society is an offshoot of four year-old online encyclopedia of wonder, Atlas Obscura, and other local excursions have included ones to Suisun Bay, the Albany Bulb, the San Francisco Motorcycle Club clubhouse, an abandoned train station in Oakland, the Zymoglyphic Museum of San Mateo, and an after-dark tour of the Woodlawn cemetery in Colma. Like a darker, more relentless version of Nerd Nite with stronger drinks and more historians, its Tuesday night salons at the DNA Lounge are equally expansive, covering a whole gamut of hidden histories on topics such as vigilantes, rum-runners, the Donner Party, rail transportation, and absinthe.
Atlas Obscura senior editor Annetta Black eagerly explains the society’s zeal for local exploration. “Originally we [Atlas Obscura] were focused on the idea of far away exotic places, but then we realized that we were falling prey to the idea that the world is only interesting if it’s far away. Once I discovered that I could travel in my hometown with the same sense of curiosity I would apply to Angkor or Paris, it opened up a world of infinite possibilities.”
But back to the Columbarium. Once part of the Odd Fellows cemetery that was relocated in 1929, the Columbarium spent the next few decades rotting from neglect — preserved on paper as a historic landmark, but lacking a caretaker. The loquacious Watson lists its former defects including “cobwebs, fungus, slime, pigeons, and raccoons,” in such quantities that it took him awhile to realize the building wasn’t an empty shell, but a mausoleum for hundreds of cremains, each interred in the walls in a honeycomb series of niches, which he playfully refers to as “apartments.”
Now the Columbarium gleams in the late morning sun, the glass-paneled niches catching the mellow light streaming in the intricate stained glass windows. The baroque trim has been painstakingly hand-painted rose and sky-blue by Watson, who calls them colors of life. Small mementos decorate the later niches, like a series of found-object still lifes: martini shakers, whiskey bottles, baseballs, teddy bears, glass slippers, lottery tickets, love letters, mardi gras beads, hundreds of photographs.
It’s impossible at times to not get separated from the main group, so if Watson mentions one of what I consider to be the most striking characteristic of the Columbarium’s more recent dead I don’t hear him. But as a secular sanctuary, the Columbarium is perhaps the only place I’ve visited where gay couples are buried together in the manner of heterosexual husbands and wives in conventional cemeteries. That there are so many casualties of the AIDS crisis or, as with a memorial built for Harvey Milk (whose ashes were scattered elsewhere), by acts of violence, is an unhappy reality, but at least they have been laid to rest in a place where their equality is never questioned, and the full sum of their lives and loves cause for celebration. Better yet, with a new wing, the Columbarium is open to newcomers and, in death at least, all are welcome.
Despite recent financial troubles, which Comic Outpost has managed to bounce back from thanks to big sales and community support, the comic shop hosted the screening party that had been promised way back when the 50th anniversary special had been announced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkq8pnvsnQg
A full house of Whovians was ready to go well before 11:50 am, the time when the simulcast premiere was scheduled to start in our time zone, but an audio problem held the show up for over an hour before store-owner Gary Buechler came to the rescue with speakers to hook up. And thanks to free food, fan-made cupcakes, big raffle prizes, and good old-fashioned nerd enthusiasm, most, if not the entire crowd, stuck around to see the show.
As for the big episode itself? Admittedly, I belong to the rather large chunk of Whovians who are not happy with what showrunner Steven Moffat has been doing with Doctor Who. When we learned that the episode would deal with the Time War, and that John Hurt would be playing a regeneration of the Doctor that supposedly came between regenerations eight (Paul McGann) and nine (Christopher Eccleston), it felt like, as usual, Moffat was taking liberties he hadn’t earned the right to take, and tackling major plot points he didn’t have the finesse to handle.
But basically, it could have been worse. (Spoilers ahead!)
While it felt like we were stumbling our way through the plot for most of the episode, that’s really how the show has come to feel over the last couple of seasons, so it was business as usual. Nods to past characters, particularly the use of Captain Jack Harkness’s vortex manipulator, had viewers, including myself, squealing in excitement, but it still felt a bit like a cop out. Okay, I don’t know where Jack would have factored into this episode, but don’t tell me seeing John Barrowman back in the RAF coat wouldn’t have blown your mind.
The best callback to an old character (not counting David Tennant returning as the Tenth Doctor) was probably the return of UNIT’s Kate Stewart, daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, whose first appearance on Doctor Who was back in 1968. Even Billie Piper’s return to the show wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped, if only because I’d been so stoked to see her in the preview, it hadn’t occurred to me that she might be playing something in the form of Rose Tyler, rather than Rose Tyler herself.
Though I had been skeptical of the insertion of another Doctor into a more-or-less established timeline, John Hurt was actually a riot. Hurt plays the War Doctor, the one who is supposed to have destroyed Gallifrey, and therefore is never acknowledged by the Doctor himself. But we meet him before he makes the big decision, and he hasn’t lost his humor. He takes jabs at his future regenerations, asking “Am I having a midlife crisis?!” when he sees how young they look, and asking if they must speak like children, in response to the now incredibly overused “timey-wimey” catchphrase.
In the end, even though a major plot point of the series was entirely rewritten and loose ends were tied with oversimplifications, I was cheering right along with everyone else when the big fix that saved rather than destroyed Gallifrey involved archive footage of all the Doctors, from William Hartnell right up to Christopher Eccleston. And of course, there was a stunning cameo by our next Doctor Peter Capaldi(’s eyes and forehead), which drew ecstatic screams from an already emotionally compromised crowd.
The final, final big surprise was an actual cameo by Fourth Doctor Tom Baker, who explains to our current Doctor (Matt Smith) that the painting depicting war-torn Gallifrey was not titled “No More” or “Gallifrey Falls,” but a combination of the two: “Gallifrey Falls No More.” Which leaves the Doctor, at last free of his guilt, to set off in search of his home that he managed to save in the end.
Yesterday, fans got a chance to watch The Day of the Doctor again in movie theaters, which, judging by the photos on Tumblr, was a total blast for Whovians. And though I didn’t feel compelled to spend money to go see the episode again, I might rewatch it at some point, which is saying a lot since I’ve generally been apathetic about the direction of the show for the past two seasons.
This week, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire stands poised to crush all who dare step to it, but there are some alternatives out there. There’s the San Francsico Film Society’s weekend-long Cinema By the Bay festival (my overview here), as well as the latest from acclaimed director Alexander Payne, the small-scale but still very moving Nebraska (Dennis Harvey’s review here.)
Plus: a festival favorite from Belgium, and Vince Vaughn’s sperm-bank comedy. Reviews for both (plus guaranteed big kahuna Catching Fire) below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a50DJkCxqw
Broken Circle Breakdown This Belgian movie by director Felix Van Groeningen arrives bearing major awards (from the Berlin and Tribeca festivals) and promising to nab plenty more of them. Why, you ask? I haven’t the faintest idea. Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) is leader of a bluegrass group; Elise (Veerle Baetens) is a tattoo artist until she meets him, they get together, and it’s discovered that when she opens her mouth Alison Krauss falls out. They have a child, Maybelle (Nell Cattrysse), who develops cancer at age six or so, and whose prospects are grim. So far, so ordinary — Once (2007) meets Lorenzo’s Oil (1992), a tearjerker in which people sing high lonesome American roots music (in English, too) well enough, but not so well that you ever stop wondering “Why are these Belgians doing this?” The expected tragedy hits halfway through, and that’s when the movie really gets into trouble. Its protagonists fall apart, understandably, but in irksome ways — mostly picking on each other — with particularly annoying sequences occurring in both past and present tense. It’s hard to tell which one is worse, the arch flashback wedding scene, her deciding to rename herself “Alabama,” his endless onstage outburst about Yahweh, the climactic psychedelic flashback crisis montage, or the wholly gratuitous final … well, never mind. This was originally a stage play, and in the usual way that seeing musicians act and actors play instruments live is exciting, it probably worked well in that medium. But on film it seems like a contrived pileup of ill-matched ideas and plot devices. Don’t take my word for it, though: From Seattle to Osaka, apparently there’s been nary a dry eye in the house. So knock yerself out. (1:50) (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocMnYUSzniU
Delivery ManTwenty years ago David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) “put love in a cup” 600-plus times to finance a family trip to Italy. His mother was sick, his father couldn’t afford it, and with time running out, David embarked on a harebrained scheme to make (a lot of) “it” happen. The sperm bank that paid him $23K for his “seed” overused it, and 18 years later he has 533 kids, 143 of which are on a hunt to find their biological father, “Starbuck.” (This also the name of the 2011 Canadian comedy on which Delivery Man is based.) With a premise this quirky you’ll have a hard time finding something to hate, even if this is technically a film about runaway jizz. This heartwarming Thanksgiving release isn’t really appropriate for youngsters (unless you’re been trying to find a entrée to explain sperm banks) but the way Delivery Man deals with the seemingly limitless generosity contained in each of us is both touching and inspiring. Maybe David’s contribution to “Starbuck’s Kids” doesn’t obligate him to reveal his identity, but he’s desperately attached, and goes embarrassingly far outside his comfort zone to interact. The kids’ emotional stake in this is murky, but the way their search for identity finds a voice in tune with the current tech-confident yet socially-confused younger generation could make Delivery Man relevant to more generations than X or Y. (1:45) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
The Hunger Games: Catching FireBefore succumbing to the hot and heavy action inside the arena (intensely directed by Francis Lawrence), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire force-feeds you a world of heinous concept fashions that’d make Lady Gaga laugh. But that’s ok, because the second film about one girl’s epic struggle to change the world of Panem may be even more exciting than the first. Suzanne Collins’ YA novel The Hunger Games was an over-literal metaphor for junior high social survival and the glory of Catching Fire is that it depicts what comes after you reach the cool kids’ table. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) inspired so much hope among the 12 districts she now faces pressures from President Snow (a portentous Donald Sutherland) and the fanatical press of Capital City (Stanley Tucci with big teeth and Toby Jones with big hair). After she’s forced to fake a romance with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), the two watch with horror as they’re faced with a new Hunger Game: for returning victors, many of whom are too old to run. Amanda Plummer and Jeffrey Wright are fun as brainy wackjobs and Jena Malone is hilariously Amazonian as a serial axe grinder still screaming like an eighth grader. Inside the arena, alliances and rivalries shift but the winner’s circle could survive to see another revolution; to save this city, they may have to burn it down. (2:26) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
Spoiler alert: Humans survive at the end of the world.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, of course, but it’s good to start on a note of hope. It’s a hope we can afford to have, as Annalee Newitz (editor of science and culture site io9.com, and a former Guardian contributor) discovered in the research that yielded her book Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction (Doubleday, 320 pp., $26.95). She’s among the participants in tonight’s “Last Things”-themed InsideStoryTime at North Beach’s Glass Door Gallery.
Fascinated with the possibility of future disasters, Newitz set out to learn all there is to learn about the history of mass extinctions on Earth. From megavolcanoes to meteor strikes, the common thread of disaster on this planet is that something has always survived. An impressive amount of work is being done to make it possible for us to continue this streak of survival, and we all possess some tools of survival already.
Given my vague and largely unexplored interest in science and my undying obsession with Pacific Rimand the idea that humans could come together and build giant robots to fight giant monsters, Scatter was the book I didn’t know I needed until it was already in my hands. That’s not to say Newitz proposes that we focus our resources to build Jaegers in preparation of a kaiju apocalypse. But the message of world unity in the face of the threat of extinction that shines through in films like these shouldn’t be taken for granted. As Newitz writes, “We can only meet the challenges of surviving whatever the natural world throws at us by working together as a species in small and large ways.”
Perhaps you’re skeptical of humanity’s ability to get along on that great of a scale. I know I am. But in the face of something as dire as mass extinction, our instincts should kick in. As the title suggests, some of the strategies that may save us are to scatter – diaspora has resulted in the survival of groups of people over generations – adapt – to change our ways for a more sustainable future – and remember – passing on the knowledge that will advance us through the years. The latter is particularly important, because while we’re not all scientists, we’re all capable of telling our stories and doing our part.
But that’s not all we can do. Newitz proposes reshaping cities as we know them, and guess what city is said to be a great template for the “mutated metropolis”? That’s right, our very own City by the Bay. Historically considered a “wide-open city,” meaning that it’s a city “prepared to tolerate,” San Francisco is an ideal site for the types of change that could ultimately save us. So maybe we should be building a Jaeger, since San Francisco is the first city to be destroyed by a kaiju attack. Sorry, did I mention I really loved Pacific Rim?
But in all seriousness, the things we should be thinking about combating are climate change and pandemics. Newitz discusses the work we need to do to regulate the space around us and cool down the planet. And if you haven’t already dismissed anti-vaccination discussions, consider this: biomedical model expert Brian Coburn and his colleagues have found that “vaccinating 80% of children (less than 19 years old) would be almost as effective as vaccinating 80% of the entire population.” Meaning we should really consider how we can vaccinate globally.
But though we should be thinking about terraforming Earth to make it more sustainable, in the long run, we should be looking to the stars and considering terraforming other planets. Did anyone else first learn the word “terraforming” from Firefly? Because I sure did, and to think that Captain Malcolm Reynolds’ opening commentary on the show about the Earth getting used up and having to terraform other planets might actually be nonfiction one day is fascinating. And the space elevators that could make day trips off Earth possible are in the works!
Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is part cautionary tale, part how-to guide, and part super cool and nerdy science. Taken to heart, it’ll leave you more knowledgeable and hopeful for our continued existence, and possibly inspire more great minds to take action to ensure our survival.
InsideStoryTime: Last Things
With Annalee Newitz, Lucy Corin, Ransom Stephens, Guy Benjamin Brookshire, and Angelica Oung, with MC James Warner
The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook(Clarkson Potter, 352 pp., $50) takes you on a restaurant tour, beginning with Danny Meyer’s initial conception of opening this New York establishment, continuing past the chief steward and his wheelbarrow of fresh spring produce from the Greenmarket, around the harvest table where the floral designer pairs yellow sprays of sunflowers with splayed summer squash, into the kitchen during the staff’s family meal, past the pastry station where Nancy Olson creates her autumn peanut butter semifreddo, and ending at the dining table with a winter dish of guinea hen prepared by James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Anthony.
By the time you’ve read through this serious and seriously exquisite cookbook, ogled the colorful photos, and closed the enormous, masculine-elegant back cover, you’ve spent a whole year eating inside the Tavern. Your appreciation for the minute mechanics that run a restaurant will have widened, and your list of must-try recipes? Exploded. (I’ve already checked off the curious “Cauliflower with Quinoa, Prunes, and Peanuts” with happy results). Chef Anthony, making his first trip to San Francisco in December, spoke to me about his vision behind the book.
SF Bay GuardianWho did you write this cookbook for?
Michael Anthony For the fans of Gramercy Tavern who’ve eaten at the restaurant and have fallen in love with it over the years. Or, eventually, people who have not yet discovered it, who have heard of the name and want to become insiders. We wrote this book to translate the rich history of the last seven years — the time that I’ve been in the restaurant — to share those recipes with home cooks.
SFBG What do you mean by “translate”?
MA A professional cook uses jargon, a technical language that’s not familiar to most people who have never worked in a professional kitchen. So, we reevaluated the kinds of tools that one would use at home, the way in which I described how to execute a dish, and took into consideration the careful way I cook at home. I have three daughters, so I cook a lot at home.
SFBG Do your girls have a favorite recipe that you make at home?
MA My three daughters are 14, 11, and three and a half. The mushroom lasagna is a particular favorite of the eldest. The zucchini soup is a favorite of Colette, the 11-year-old. And Adeline eats everything [laughs].
In the book I mention this one silly scenario where I’ll wear my Japanese chef outfit and set up an open kitchen, write out the menu, and I serve [my girls] à la carte vegetable sushi at our open window.
SFBG What’s your trick to having a restaurant and a family at the same time?
MA We make an enormous amount of sacrifices to be a part of this business. The great news is there’s an amazing team at Gramercy Tavern, which allows us all to take days off, including me. And during that time at home I enjoy being home, cooking, and shopping at the Greenmarket. It’s a regular part of our lives.
SFBG You pay a lot of attention to vegetables. Where does this influence come from?
MA We have a fascination with vegetables. They’re a way for us to literally stay connected to the changing seasons and the growers. And for our guests, who, in a big city like this, can feel insulated from the changing seasons.
We’d all be a little better off if we allow ourselves to be seduced by the role that vegetables play in our dishes. It’s not about self-deprivation, not veganism, not vegetarianism — I’m not promoting that particular alternative. I’m just saying that when the vegetable component of the dish preoccupies the creative process, and the protein plays a slightly different role in the story, we eat a healthier variety.
SFBG Do you have a favorite vegetable?
MA It’s always changing. We’re just coming out of our first week of very cool, cold weather, so it’s shifted our salads to include things like roasted winter squash. Our soups are made from potatoes and parsnips and turnips. We’re serving things like sunchokes and salsify.
SFBG Tell me about the “harmonious scatter.”
MA It describes the way in which we plate food with intent. It’s not as simple as, say, Alice Waters saying that food is simply beautiful so just put it on the plate, but it’s not as forced as trying to over-manipulate the food. It’s somewhere in between. Sometimes the imperfections of seeing the cook’s hand in the dish lets you know that it’s handmade.
SFBG How does seasonality affect Gramercy Tavern?
MA When it gets warm in the spring it’s the perfect place to go for a carefully seasoned salad. Summertime when it’s sticky and hot, it’s a great place to come for a lightly grilled fish dish with a chilled cucumber garnish. In the wintertime, it’s an impressive use of the Greenmarket. It doesn’t mean the food is boring or dull, through the winter months, it just means that we have to be more creative with it.
SFBG I was drawn to the book’s Winter chapter the most, actually.
MA It’s a time when we can really draw a distinction between the way you guys [in the Bay Area] would be eating. People are always saying, “If only we had a growing season like in California.” But we don’t. So ultimately those are the times when we can really say that our food is the most distinctively different.
SFBG It’s like that moment where you think you think your fridge is empty, but you end up making something even tastier than you imagined for dinner.
MA I’m with you. Have you read Tamar Adler’s book, An Everlasting Meal?
SFBG I love that book.
MA Tamar’s a good friend, and she’s translated the notion that a meal is a continuation of a story, not the sum of a bunch of recipes. It’s how one meal forms the next. One season forms the next.
SFBG Can you interpret your term “American cooking”?
MA So, I think French food is all about harmony; there’s a very gentle feel, like looking at a wave. No sharp turns. Japanese food is actually more a state of mind. Like their language, there’s no intonation. It’s all about nature, the natural flavor with a very hidden hand of the chef.
American food is all about a lot of highs and lows. We use acidity, we use heat, as ways to make it exciting. In the same vein, we’re not bound by a lot of the traditions and rules that we learn, though we take great interest in them. We have a sense of freedom and openness to cooking … especially in a restaurant like Gramercy Tavern, anything and everything is permissible, in terms of sources of inspiration.
SFBG And American cooking at home?
MA I’ve demonstrated in the book how folks can take pleasure in cooking at home, without feeling trapped. “Oh, I can’t find that particular variety,” or “I don’t shop at the Greenmarket so I can’t do these recipes” — that’s not the case. The overriding message is cooking shouldn’t be a spectator sport. If you visit Gramercy Tavern and you like the dishes that we’re cooking, you can certainly easily find those ingredients at home.
SFBG What is the restaurant doing for Thanksgiving?
MA Well, Gramercy Tavern is closed for Thanksgiving, and that’s what we’re doing [laughs]. Everybody gets to go home and enjoy one of the few culinary holidays that we have in our culture.
SFBG What are you doing?
MA I’m in charge of the turkey. I’m going to do one traditional slow-roasted bird, and I’ll serve that with a Swiss chard and mushroom stuffing. The other one is a spice-wrapped and apple-wood smoked turkey. With that one there’s never any leftovers. Just demolished. This year, since my in-laws are Jewish, it becomes Thanksgivingukkah. We’re including latkes, and the butternut squash soup with Brussels sprouts from The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook.
When we talk about feminist and queer exclusion, we aren’t just dealing with gendered pay gaps and marriage rights. In her new book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, Oakland-based author and activist Julia Serano delves into the types of exclusion that she and many others have faced within the very spaces that are supposed to make us feel safe and supported.
Often in “LGBT” activism, it feels like the “B” and the “T” are just for show. Serano, a bisexual femme-tomboy transsexual woman, challenges preconceived notions and debunks myths about gender and sexual identities that our own queer and feminist movements often don’t appear to deem worthy of fighting for. Utilizing her experience as an activist, and often sharing personal accounts of exclusion from queer and women’s spaces, she encourages us to reevaluate some of the mantras of our activism.
“People tend to like memes and sound-bites because they make things sound simple and straightforward,” explained Serano. “This is certainly true within certain queer and feminist settings, where people often say things like ‘bisexuals reinforce the gender binary,’ or ‘all gender is performance,’ or ‘gender is just a construct.’ Sometimes people accept these memes without ever investigating them or fully thinking them through. So I tried to more thoroughly consider these ideas in the book — to point out how they are flawed or over-simplified.”
Excluded is a great read for both the most enthusiastic advocates for queer and feminist causes and anyone making their first foray into this type of activism. Often, material discussing issues of gender, sex, and sexuality are dense and full of jargon that makes it inaccessible to wider audiences.
“When I first became involved in feminism and queer activism, people often suggested that I read Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and other academic writers on these subjects,” said Serano. “To be honest, I found such books to be impenetrable at first, mostly because they were constantly referencing other theorists and concepts that I was not aware of at the time. Nowadays, I can read their works with no problem. But there was a steep learning curve for me to be able to fully understand what they were trying to communicate.”
That’s not to say that she has anything against academics – after all, she is one herself. But because gender, sexuality, sexism, and marginalization affect everyone, she writes on these topics in a way that is accessible, rather than for a strictly academic audience. As a women and gender studies minor myself, I found this refreshing. Given a dense text, I might only come away with a few of these sound-bites Serano speaks of. And when you’ve spent semesters reading about these concepts and writing papers on them, beginning to unlearn them can be startling.
“If one more person tells me that ‘all gender is performance,’ I think I am going to strangle them,” Serano writes at the beginning of “Performance Piece” on page 105. If you only have a minute to flip through Excluded, spend it reading this piece, which was originally written for Fresh Meat, and became a catalyst for writing this book.
I first heard “Performance Piece” late last year when Serano did a reading at the Women’s Building, and the last words of it echoed through my head long after I left that night: “…my gender is a work of non-fiction.” It’s a reminder that when we dismiss gender as “just” anything – just performance, just socially constructed, just biological – we are oversimplifying a something complex and dismissing the person in favor of a concept. In order to truly advocate for queer rights, we must think more critically about even those ideas that queer movements treat as gospel.
“At the end of Excluded, I discuss working to foster intentionally intersectional movements that work to challenge sexism and marginalization more generally rather than favoring the issues faced by people of particular identities, bodies, genders, or sexualities,” said Serano. “Admittedly, this takes us out of our comfort zone and forces us to listen as well as speak, and to acknowledge other people’s differences and needs in addition to our own. But it has the advantage of creating broader and more powerful coalitions.”
Days later Batkid is still warming our hearts, and taking a look at the interwebs shows that Miles Scott, aka Batkid, warmed the hearts of many worldwide. Make-a-Wish turned parts of San Francisco into Gotham City for the day Friday, Nov. 15 and the Guardian was on hand for photos. Below we’ve also compiled some of our favorite Batkid photos and memes from the weekend. Guardian photos by Amanda Rhoades.
When a friend of a friend held his 33 1/3rd birthday party, he filled the rooms of his apartment with turntables and stacks of LPs for his guests to play themselves. It was basically the best party ever, and a good argument for propagating the tradition of celebrating that particular milestone. And of course what better milestone to celebrate if you’re in the music business, like long-time independent label Alternative Tentacles? Particularly in a business climate unkind to independent anything, to be able to celebrate three-plus decades of sticking it to the establishment at all is some cause for jubilee.
Of course there are pitfalls to growing older, which I only discovered when I got to the Alternative Tentacles blowout anniversary show at Slims at the perfectly respectable club-going hour of 11pm, to discover that I had missed most of the show. Well, I never! Not only had a missed out the rare opportunity to see one of my personal musical heroes, Mojo Nixon, tear it up in his indomitable, breakneck way, but I didn’t really get a chance to soak in the atmosphere building up to the main event: headliners Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine.
Fortunately even if my flow was off, the band’s was not, and the fast and furious set punctuated by politicized bon-mots and observations was classic JB. Jello Biafra, of course, is the founder and overlord of Alternative Tentacles, former frontman of the Dead Kennedys, spoken-word raconteur extraordinaire, and occasional political candidate, and while he was sporting the unlikely trimmed beard and mustache combo of “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” his voice was still the strident, yodel of days of yore, and his stage persona full of ham.
Humor and politics have always been the hallmarks of Jello’s work, which songs like “Burgers of Wrath,” “Pets Eat Their Master,” and “Kill the Poor,” perfectly encapsulate, and except for an awkward stagedive that didn’t quite go anywhere, Biafra’s stage performance was as energetic as ever, thankfully proving that aging doesn’t have to be about being graceful, and a punk show that ends at midnight can still rock.
Meanwhile on the other side of the city, an unexpected Alternative Tentacles connection represented at the Emerald Tablet, where Philadelphian Joseph Gervasi held a screening of his Philly punk-scene archive project, Loud! Fast! Philly!, and his co-host/co-organizer turned out to be Jesse “Luscious” Townley, formerly of the Philly scene, and general manager of Alternative Tentacles, who DJ’d an eclectic set before the show.
Originally compiled in the earlier part of the year, Loud! Fast! Philly! was originally shown at the Cinedelphia Film Festival as an “interactive” audio-visual presentation combining old home movie-style footage of various Philly punk bands with live commentary from members in attendance. But in compiling the project, Gervasi realized it was the stories behind the videos he really wanted people to have access to. Thus began the second arm of the project: an audio archive of interviews with a variety of old school Philly punks, which lives in perpetuity online.
Truthfully the archive is probably the most fascinating part of the project. The video clips, while offering a fascinating peek at a particular time and place (and substandard quality of recording devices), don’t offer nearly the same breadth and depth of history as do the interviews. That said, rare footage of bands like More Fiends, Flag of Democracy, Dead Milkmen, and R.A.M.B.O. were unique and frankly humorous enough to transcend their shaky amateur quality and insider appeal, and provided a weirdly cohesive portrait of an ever-morphing scene, from the 80s to the present.
This week, doc lovers are in luck: not only is Chris Marker’s seminal 1962 Le Joli Mai making a return to theaters (Sam Stander’s take here), but Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney delves into cycling’s greatest scandal in The Armstrong Lie (my review here).
American Promise This remarkable look at race, education, parenting, and coming-of-age in contemporary America is the result of 13 years spent following African American youths Seun and Idris (the latter the son of filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson). At the beginning, the Brooklyn pals are both starting at the exclusive Dalton School, where most of their classmates are rich white kids. This translates into culture-clash experiences both comical (a 13-year-old Idris estimates he’s been to 20 bar mitzvahs) and distressing, as both boys struggle socially and academically for reasons that seem to have a lot to do with their minority status at the school. Culled from hundreds of hours of footage — a mix of interviews and cinéma vérité — Brewster and Stephenson’s film captures honest moments both mundane and monumental, sometimes simultaneously, as when Seun’s mother, driving the kids to school, discusses her battle with cancer as his younger siblings trill a Journey song in the back seat. (And even this seemingly light-hearted aside takes on heft later in the film.) Extra props to Brewster and Stephenson, who clearly made a conscious choice not to edit out any of their own foibles — for the most part, they’re caring, involved parents, but be warned: strident homework nagging is a recurrent theme. (2:20) Roxie. (Eddy)
The Best Man HolidayTaye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan lead an ensemble cast in this seasonal sequel to 1999 hit The Best Man. (2:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sPr4snZqcM
The Book Thief One of those novels that seems to have been categorized as “young adult” more for reasons of marketing than anything else, Markus Zusak’s international best seller gets an effective screen adaptation from director Brian Percival and scenarist Michael Petroni. Liesl (Sophie Nelisse) is an illiterate orphan — for all practical purposes, that is, given the likely fate of her left-leaning parents in a just-pre-World War II Nazi Germany — deposited by authorities on the doorstep of the middle-aged, childless Hubermanns in 1938. Rosa (Emily Watson) is a ceaseless nag and worrywart, even if her bark is worse than her bite; kindly housepainter Hans (Geoffrey Rush), who’s lost work by refusing to join “the Party,” makes a game of teacher Liesl how to read. Her subsequent fascination with books attracts the notice of the local Burgermeister’s wife (Barbara Auer), who under the nose of her stern husband lets the girl peruse tomes from her manse’s extensive library. But that secret is trivial compared to the Hubermanns’ hiding of Max Vandenburg (Ben Schnetzer), son of Jewish comrade who’d saved Hans’ life in the prior world war. When war breaks out anew, this harboring of a fugitive becomes even more dangerous, something Liesl can’t share even with her best friend Rudy (Nico Liersch). While some of the book’s subplots and secondary characters are sacrificed for the sake of expediency, the filmmakers have crafted a potent, intelligent drama whose judicious understatement extends to the subtlest (and first non-Spielberg) score John Williams has written in years. Rush, Watson, and newcomer Schnetzer are particularly good in the well-chosen cast. (2:11) (Dennis Harvey)
How I Live Now As 16-year-old Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) arrives to spend the summer with cousins she’s never met, England is on the brink of war with an unnamed adversary. Daisy wants nothing to do with her new family and their idyllic countryside home — she’s too caught up in self-loathing image and diet obsessions, which manifest in the movie as overwhelming voiceover chatter. Her eldest cousin, Eddie (George MacKay), begins to draw her out of her shell, but everything changes when a nuclear explosion hits the country. At first, the cousins’ post-apocalyptic life is a charming bucolic, soundtracked by British folk-rock. But the horrors of war soon find them, and the movie’s latter half takes on a quite different tone. Adapted from Meg Rosoff’s YA novel, How I Live Now is almost eager to tackle the ugliest aspects of wartime existence — mass graves, prisoner abuse, work camps — and this unflinching approach is compelling, despite some flaws in the acting and character development. (1:41) (Sam Stander)
Your Day Is My Night Multidisciplinary artist Lynne Sachs returns to SF with this feature set in the world of NYC’s Chinatown “shift bed” apartments — ones whose crowded tenants take turns using sleeping space, a phenomenon that exists in many US cities and immigrant communities. An experimental mix of documentary and staged narrative, Day’s cohabiting protagonists are primarily older émigrés from China with diverse current jobs and divergent memories of life back home — from fond family reminiscences to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. The individual stories told here are related not just in verbiage (both scripted and improvised), but song, dance, theater, poetical imagery, and composer-sound designer Stephen Vitiello’s collage soundtrack. At Other Cinema, Sachs will also present several of her short film works, including 2006’s Three Cheers for the Whale, a collaboration with the late Chris Marker that revised his 1972 Viva la Baleine, which was co-directed with Mario Ruspoli. In addition to its ATA screening Sat/16, Your Day Is My Night also plays the Pacific Film Archive Nov 20. (1:03) Artists’ Television Access. (Dennis Harvey)
The Stillwell Student Exhibition is San Francisco State University’s annual showcase of undergraduate and second-year MFA artwork celebrated in the name of Leo D. Stillwell, an amateur artist who died at the young age of 22 in 1947.
But a Google search doesn’t even yield that small bit of information about Stillwell. So who was he, and why has SF State honored him for 26 years?
Mark Johnson, director of the Fine Arts Gallery at SF State, explained that the generosity of Stillwell’s mother, Josephine, created opportunities for student artists all in loving memory of her son.
“When Josephine herself was elderly and aware that her days were short, she contacted San Francisco State University to offer us the collection of about 500 works of her son that she had saved 40 years after his death,” said Johnson. “In 1988, the whole collection came to the university, and she bequeathed her house. It was sold in 1988 for $250,000, and that money endowed a scholarship.”
In return, Josephine asked that her son’s work be showcased every year. Stillwell had struggled with health issues and ultimately died of hypertension, but Josephine believed that had he had the chance to attend college, he likely would have chosen SF State. Thus, the student exhibition was named for him, and a small selection of his work is featured every year.
It’s fitting; Johnson said that because Stillwell died so young, his collection is essentially the work of a student. The four pieces displayed this year are watercolors depicting Roman gods, which Johnson feels are some of Stillwell’s strongest works. His entire collection ranges from family portraits to exploration of modernist iconography of surrealism. He was also the co-founder of the short-lived Antinous Gallery.
“Antinous is the name of the boy who the emperor Hadrian loved, so there is a sense that this was a code space for a gay art gallery,” Johnson explained. “For something like that to happen in the mid-1940s is certainly unusual and interesting.”
It is known that Stillwell’s lover was Russell Hartley, the founding collector of the Museum of Performance + Design, then the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum. Recently, a website was discovered that contained letters between Stillwell and Hartley.
“We contacted that person and the site was taken down immediately, but we’re in the process of trying to get access to the letters, because it’s such an important social document of two young gay men interested in the arts from this very early historical period,” said Johnson.
Johnson’s exhibition design students all have this history in mind while organizing the annual show. And while it may be Stillwell’s name in the title, the exhibition very much belongs to the students, who provide the bulk of the work on display and put the gallery together. It’s a difficult, but rewarding experience, and among the bustle of preparing the show, there is a sense of excitement for what the students have to show.
“Different years, different things come to the surface,” said Johnson. “This year, we have, I would say, a number of very strong, large textile works.”
These colorful textiles, as well as stunning prints, paintings, and photography, sculptures, and so much more – all of them are the works of students, many of whom are young, rising artists like Stillwell had been, and they appreciate what it is to be in that position and have a place to display their art.
“[Stillwell’s] work is very cool. It’s visually appealing, it has a message. He was so young, and he could have had a lot more years,” said Karna Southall, a junior who researched Stillwell and put a video about him together for the class. “I think that it’s great that his mother took this unhappy thing that happened to her, and made it a positive experience for students. That’s admirable.”
Junior Lorraine Campos, whose art is displayed in the exhibit for the first time this year, feels that Stillwell remains a great inspiration to SF State’s great variety of talented art students.
“I think it’s an example of how you can be a young artist but still have a legacy,” said Campos. “By taking [exhibition design] class, I learned a lot more about Stillwell and how he was very diverse in his interests, and I think that’s like almost every student at State.”
26th Annual Stillwell Student Exhibition
Through Dec 5
Wed-Sat, 11am-4pm, free (gallery closed Nov 27-30)
The first thing you need to know about Isa Chandra Moskowitz is that she’s a punky legend in the global vegan community. She started the DIY Post Punk Kitchen public access show in Brooklyn and (perhaps more importantly) created the vegan hub website of the same name exactly 10 years ago.
While maintaining PPK she has authored or co-authored eight popular cookbooks, right up to this fall’s unfussy workday vegan cookbook, Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week (320 pps, Little Brown, $30). (She’s on a book tour that brings her to SF this Wed/13 at Book Passage in the Ferry Building, and there will be rosemary chocolate chip cookies there to share.)
The second thing you need to know is that many people mispronounce her name (it’s “EE-sah” not “EYE -sah”), though it doesn’t seem to bother her much. I find myself profusely apologizing for flubbing her name when she picks up the phone — especially since I’ve been following her work, and making her delicious dishes, for the better part of a decade. I should know better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4DOf4btp34
From a hotel room in Minneapolis while on her book tour, the soft-spoken Omaha-based chef shrugs off the faux pas and we quickly get to work pinpointing her favorite recipes from Isa Does It: anything that’s creamy cashew cheese-based like the alfredo and the mac‘n’cheese, along with the lentil-quinoa stew with kale, which she describes as the “classic vegan recipe” that she makes herself more than once a week, mixing up the spices as she goes.
She spouts an important note about preparation, something which is thoroughly dissected in the early sections of Isa Does It, with tofu butchery, and handy pantry tips for making cooking after work more streamlined: “I always have kale in the fridge; I always have lentils and quinoa in the pantry.”
There’s also the recipes from Isa Does It that are featured in her newest video series with production company Zero Point Zero, Make It Vegan, which has Moskowitz whipping up the Meaty Bean Chili and Cornbread, and the Nirvana Enchilada Casserole (“I like a lot of onions in this, and a lot of jalapeno; a lot of everything, really”) to the tune of “Salt” by Kelley Deal. The casserole is part of the “Sunday Night Supper” section of the book — a few more ambitious recipes, like many from her previous cookbooks such as Veganomicon (a must-have for any vegan), Appetite for Reduction, or Vegan Brunch.
That enchilada casserole is next on my list of Isa Does It dishes to tackle. I’ve so far tried the flavorful Tempeh Giardino, Kale Salad with Butternut Squash and Lentils, and the Cast Iron Stir-Fry With Avocado, Basil & Peanuts, which is a light yet super filling weekday stir fry. The avocado really gives it a fresh kick. I’m also now officially obsessed with cashew cheese, and have cashews soaking at all times, just like the author.
Moskowitz has been working on this particular cookbook for the past two years, concocting recipes in her Omaha home — the Brooklyn native moved there three years ago, mainly because she wanted a garden but also thanks to the local music scene. Her inspirations come from her pantry — “I have Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, what can I make with that?” — and sometimes she’s inspired to veganize something she saw on the Food Network. “Like, there might be some secret Guy Fieri recipes in there that I veganized.”
Like her previous cookbooks, each of the recipes went through a rigorous testing process. “I have like, 30 testers. One of the biggest things for people was ‘would you make this on a week night?’” Moskowitz explains. She asks each tester to make the meal and answers a series of questions. For this particular book, she wanted everything to be accessible as possible, so another important question was: were any of the ingredients hard to find?
“I live in Omaha now — I’m in the middle of the country — and that really changed my views on what people have access to. So I just wanted it to be really accessible ingredients,” she says. “Another reason I wanted to write this book is because I was cooking more than ever because there were not that many places to go out to eat.”
It’s another world away from Brooklyn, where meat-free restaurants and offerings dot the streets, and markets have aisles full of items clearly marked “vegan.”
While there are meat-and-dairy free offerings at local sushi spots and coffee shops (and Whole Foods markets) there’s no dedicated vegan restaurant in Omaha — yet.
When we spoke, Moskowitz had recently been handed the keys to her first ever restaurant, which will open in spring 2014. Attached to a bar owned by the members of Saddle Creek band Cursive, Moskowitz’s spot will serve a revolving menu of vegan comfort foods, all made from scratch. “All the mayo is from scratch, I’m going to make my own cheese, [there will] even be house-made sodas, and kombucha on tap.”
Although there have been some rumblings about Moskowitz’s restaurant for some time, she gives the Bay Guardian an exclusive: the name of that new restaurant will be Modern Love. Isa Chandra Moskowitz Wed/13, 6pm, free Book Passage 1 Ferry Building, SF www.bookpassage.com
Ask any gamer, or specialist in pedagogy, and they’ll say the same thing: games are as important to human development as any the rest of our skill-building activities. There’s evidence of game-playing in almost every culture dating all the way back to ancient Sumeria and Egypt. They also offer an entrance point into other cultures, whether by playing a familiar game like chess and seeing how it translates in an unfamiliar environment, or by learning a game representative of a particular place — Xiangqi (Chinese chess), say, or Ghanaian Oware.
But while some games have been around for literally thousands of years, other games seem to drop off the radar almost as quickly as they appear. What essential component gives games like Go, hide-and-go-seek, poker, Monopoly, and Super Mario Brothers such staying power over some of their, perhaps best forgotten peers? This is a question the game designers of San Francisco’s annual Come Out and Play Festival must ask themselves each year, as they present their latest inventions in the hopes of capturing the imaginations, and just maybe the funds, to bring their games to the public at large.
Since the festival itself is free, it’s always fun to drop by for a few hours to see what’s being played. Attending Saturday, myself and my buddy in game, P., stopped to peek at the Mime Boxing tournament, a rowdy free-for-all of imaginary walls and temporary alliances, and play a round of the tabletop Thrown Into Chaos, before assuming our roles as Prohibition-era booze smugglers in Rumrunners, a two hour-long treasure hunt and commodities exchange scenario.
Sent out into the world with a packet of money and a series of orders, we purchase “booze” from a pair of nattily dressed mobsters standing on the street corner, and then hurry to our first drop off point, in order to make more money, in order to buy more booze. We split up in order to make it more confusing for the “agents” who pop out of the shadows occasionally, clipboards in hand, and try to shake us down for the booze we fortunately never have on us when they ask, though one tries to run off with a $500 bill at one point which we protest vigorously.
We come in fifth out of 10 teams, thanks to a pair of particularly persistent agents who stake out one of the drop-off points for at least 20 minutes, forcing us to circle the same block again and again until they leave.
Transitioning into the hide-and-chase game Witness Protection Plan, we draw cards with our characters printed on them: Witness, Detective, Suicide Bomber, Assassin, Handler, Civilian, etc. The “Witness” hurries off to hide, and then the rest of the players spread out through the neighborhood to find them. One-third of the players have to find the witness and hide with them before any assassins or traitors find them first, and each round lasts just 10 minutes, which makes for a tenser, more physically demanding game than Rumrunners.
As far as involved and demanding goes, the centerpiece game of the festival, the annual Journey to the End of the Night can be both, an epic, miles-long scavenger hunt replete with checkpoints, chasers, safe zones, and an outdoor after-party in a unique setting (this year, Corona Heights Park). P. is “game” for it, but I’ve neglected to pre-register so I head off, but before I do we play a few rounds of Stranger Danger, an ice-breaker game clearly aimed for the teen-to-20-something demographic (sample question: “What color describes how horny you are right now?” Answer from stranger: “That’s an awkward question to ask me in front of my 13-year-old brother”).
Whoops, well, still a few bugs in that system, but keep it up friends. Someday you might come up with the next Twister! Now there’s a game with staying power.
When I got to work Friday morning, I found the Arts and Culture editors, along with our publisher, huddled outside a cubicle, mouths agape. I joined them. A large rectangular box sat on the desk. Reminiscent of the strange stone tablet from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), it rose up from the desk, black, and ominous, only this one gleamed with golden letters, spelling out “Catching Fire.” Inside, I found chocolate.
(Here’s a quick rule of thumb in the newsroom: You will get promotional gifts. Another one: rarely will a promo grab your attention. But my favorite is: Do not let thy promo go to waste.)
I did what any food writer would do. I tasted each and every last chocolate bar — a total of 12, one for each “District” inside the post-apocalyptic world of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy The Hunger Games. (The timing of this delivery, of course, is to whet one’s appetite for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, out Nov 22). Crafted by chocolate makers Vosges through their American farmer-sourced Wild Ophelia line, each chocolate bar incorporated aspects of American geography, on which Panem, the segregated, classist country where heroine Katniss lives, was based.
“Luxury,” a milk chocolate cashew bar, tasted mild, nutty, and easy — suspiciously easy, much like the rich, well-off citizens of District One. “Masonry” contained little grains of pecans and the liquid-gold caramel, reminding me of molten metals forged in District Two. “Technology” combined Arabica coffee, crystal salt, and dark chocolate, for a brittle texture, a deep byte — I mean bite, and a dangerous, snappy quality that the digital users of District Three would find addictive.
“Fishing” brought out the District Four ocean through sea salt and coconut. I savored it in a guilty way, as one enjoys the perplexity of vegemite or guzzles too much wine at church. “Power,” though immediately pleasing, contained caramel corn, and I conceded, like the disappointed citizens of District Five, that sometimes power is but spun sugar and air. “Transportation” contained runner peanuts, and carried a comfortable, nostalgic taste of peanut butter sandwiches that District Six children would have nibbled on the ride home from school.
(At this point in my tasting, I began to feel a strange sense of urgency — not unlike the adrenaline-filled fear Katniss experienced during the 60 second countdown to the start of the Games — as office colleagues walked past my desk and doubled back, eyes trained on the sleek packaging.)
“Lumber” tasted bad-ass, with a bright chipotle at the beginning and a spark of chili at the end. The dudes of District Seven, if they looked anything like this chocolate tasted, would be the rugged, outdoorsy, smooth-talking types. “Textiles” contained crispy rice, and could be left in the box; much like the cotton clothing District Eight citizens wear, once put on it was easy to forget. “Grain” played with the palate, as milled oats, vanilla and hemp seeds competed for my attention. I predicted this one, District Nine, would win the next Games, if their representative was as complex, intelligent, and earthy as its chocolate counterpart.
(By now, like the last remaining competitors in the Games, I became territorial. “This is an assignment, not a free-for-all! You can eat some soon — hey! Come back here with that caramel!”)
“Livestock,” tasted of smooth chocolate before the beef jerky hit, leaving behind a few puffs of smoke, like empty cattle fields after a roundup in District Ten. “Agriculture” tasted naïve, hiding harvest cherries among the dark chocolate like the lost fairy children of District 11. “Mining,” a classic, charming milk chocolate flecked with edgy salt, tasted like Katniss herself: simultaneously brave, bold, and nondescript; the every-girl we all inhabit when we read the books and watch the movies.
Some may question the chocolate’s relevancy to the The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. I suppose the characters are, for the most part, hungry. Yet I contend that the sensorial emotions each flavor presented when I took a bite reflect the same thrills, joys, and anxieties I hope to experience in the darkened theater.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkvUNfySGQU
(Take note, promotional gift senders: I do not believe chocolate is exclusively relevant to The Hunger Games, either.)
Two big ‘uns this week: blockbuster-to-be Thor: The Dark World(reviewbelow), and the very fine drama Dallas Buyers Club,featuring standout performances by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto (Dennis Harvey’s review here). If you seek a respite from Hollywood, check out San Francisco’s own South Asian International Film Festival (some recommendations from me, here), or read on for more short takes on this week’s new offerings.
The Motel Life Brothers (Stephen Dorff, Emile Hirsch) go on the run after a tragic accident. Kris Kristofferson and Dakota Fanning co-star. (1:25) Roxie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfGYqdTAxEk
Running From Crazy Can one ever escape one’s toxic genetic legacy, especially when one’s makeup, and even one’s genius, is so entangled with mental illness, the shadow of substance abuse, and a kind of burden of history? Actor, author, healthy-living proponent, and now suicide prevention activist Mariel Hemingway seems cut out to try, as, eh, earnestly as she can, to offer up hope. Part of that involves opening the door to documentarian Barbara Kopple, in this look at the 20th century’s most infamous literary suicide, Mariel’s grandfather Ernest Hemingway, and just one of his familial threads, one full of lives cut deliberately short. For Running From Crazy, Kopple generally keeps the focus on Mariel, who displays all the disarming groundedness and humility of the youngest care-taking, “good” child. Her father, Ernest’s eldest son, Jack, regularly indulged in “wine time” with his ailing wife and, according to Mariel, had a pitch-black side of his own. But we don’t look to closely at him as the filmmaker favors the present, preferring to watch Mariel mountain climb and bicker with her stuntman boyfriend, meet up with her eldest sister Muffet, and ‘fess up about the depression that runs through the Hemingway line to her own daughters. Little is made of Mariel’s own artistic contributions in acting, though Kopple’s work is aided immeasurably by the footage Mariel’s rival middle sister Margaux shot for a documentary she planned to do on Ernest. Once the highest paid model in the world, Margaux leaves the viewer with a vivid impression of her brash, raw, eccentric, and endearingly goofy spirit — she’s courageous in her own way as she sips vino with her parents and older sister and tears up during a Spanish bull fight. Are these just first world problems for scions who never hesitated to trade on their name? Kopple is more interested in the humans behind the gloss of fame, spectacle and sensation — the women left in the wake of a literary patriarch’s monumental brand of masculinity and misogyny. And you feel like you get that here, plainly and honestly, in a way that even Papa might appreciate. (1:40) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPHaLkd4J28
Spinning Plates Joseph Levy’s enjoyable documentary contrasts life at three widely disparate U.S. restaurants: the Martinez family’s modest enterprise La Cocina de Gabby, a Tucson showcase for a wife and mother’s Mexican cooking; Breitbach’s Country Dining in rural Iowa, a 151-year-old purveyor of all-American comfort food; and superstar chef Grant Achatz’s Chicago Alinea, where a 24-course meal of culinary art/science experiments can set you back $800 (yes, that’s for one diner). The latter is a global destination for serious foodies, acclaimed by the industry’s most prestigious observers. (Its nearly 24/7 supply deliveries are also a noisy nightmare for someone I know whose apartment is next door.) The teensy town that’s grown up around Breitbach’s has a population of 70; on a busy weekend, the business attracts up to 2,000, many driving long distances to get there. Yet the people we get to know the best here, the émigré Martinezes, illustrate another side of restaurant life — the side in which a majority of new eateries fail within three years, despite (as seemingly is the case at Gabby’s) all palate-pleasing, reasonable pricing and tireless labor. Tying together these three stories is … well, nothing, really, beyond some vague notion that good food is something that breeds “community.” (Yet high-ticket Alinea can hardly be said to reflect that, while Levy doesn’t actually bother interviewing any patrons to let us know whether the other two establishments’ food is anything special.) Still, and despite some rather bogus dramatic chronology-manipulation of events that happened several years ago, Spinning Plates is an entertaining sampler plate of a movie. And the Martinez family’s story lends it a bit of real gravitas. (1:32) (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npvJ9FTgZbM
Thor: The Dark World Since any tentacle of Marvel’s Avengers universe now comes equipped with its own money-printing factory, it’s likely we’ll keep seeing sequels and spin-offs for approximately the next 100 years. With its by-the-numbers plot and “Yeah, seen that before” 3D effects, Thor: The Dark World is forced to rely heavily on the charisma of its leads — Chris Hemsworth as the titular hammer-swinger; Tom Hiddleston as his brooding brother Loki — to hold audience interest. Fortunately, these two (along with Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Idris Elba, and the rest of the supporting cast, most of whom return from the first film) appear to be having a blast under the direction of Alan Taylor, a TV veteran whose credits include multiple Game of Thrones eps. Not that any Avengers flick carries much heft, but especially here, jokey asides far outweigh any moments of actual drama (the plot, about an alien race led by Christopher Eccleston in “dark elf” drag intent on capturing an ancient weapon with the power to destroy all the realms, etc. etc., matters very little). Fanboys and -girls, this one’s for you … and only you. (2:00) (Cheryl Eddy)
Last Wednesday, Shotwell 50 Studio launched its 11th annual San Francisco AlteredBarbie Exhibition, “The Doll That Has It All!” The show features the doll that dominated so many of our childhoods as she has never appeared before. Statues, dioramas, paintings, and photographs created by dozens of artists test the limits of the familiar figure in this unusual creative reuse exhibit. “To alter Barbie is almost a religious thing,” states Julie Andersen, who curates the exhibit each year. “It’s very blasphemous. That’s how strong the icon is.”
Whether you revere Barbie’s beauty and envy her abundance of accessories, or you despise the provocative hussy’s unearthly perfection and ravenous consumerism, these pieces are sure to fascinate viewers. At the entrance of the gallery, Beyond the Web of Illusion features a partially-nude Barbie trapped in a spider’s web. The doll’s honor is preserved by the cover that the giant tarantula devouring her provides.
In the far corner, Ghost Barbie stands looking like a gothic showgirl, adorned in a skimpy outfit and eerily opaque head mask made of over 1,000 Swarovski crystals. All-Barbie Centaur Dance Ensemble is placed in the center of the space, a collection of six-limbed, two-headed creatures with animal-print bodies made from pairs of Barbie dolls. Framed photographs from a Barbie show that a Dutch artist mounted inside a cathedral capture such scenes as a Princess Barbie under attack by a group of dirty, naked Barbies in chains (The Last Barbie Part One); and a statue of the Virgin Mary with the Baby Jesus sitting beside a Princess Barbie in a matching dress with her own baby doll on her lap (Two Madonnas).
Here, Barbie lies under the blade of a guillotine. There, a picture of her and Ken on their wedding day shows their skin melting to bone. Near the door, two skeletons dressed for the prom stand in a box with the words “Memento Mori” above their heads and “Barbie + Ken” at their feet. At some points humorous, at others haunting, the profusion of works featured in this year’s exhibition nearly overwhelms the small space.
Collectors, take note: all of the pieces featured in the AlteredBarbie Exhibition are for sale. On Nov. 17, the public is invited to meet the artists from 3-10pm at the closing reception. The event will feature live music, cabaret, and a drag performance by the Ethel Merman Experience.
Nothing quite says “Happy Halloween” like an evening full of splatter gore and general mayhem, and this year there were several options to choose from, including an interactive zombie apocalypse battle royale at Chez Poulet and a multi-level haunted house extravaganza at the Old Mint which promised similarly to let patrons “live the horror movie,” hopefully sans actual evisceration of ticket-holders, but these are dangerous times we’re living in. On the theatrical front we had the Thrillpeddlers strutting their creepy stuff onstage at the Hypnodrome (through Nov. 23), buckets of blood and teen angst at Ray of Light’s Carrie: The Musical, and a brief, yet enGROSSing run of the thematically-appropriate Grand Guignol, co-produced by Pianofight.
Not the straightforward revivalism practiced by the Thrillpeddlers, this Grand Guignol is both a play about, as well as a direct descendent of, the form. Penned by Kneehigh Theatre’s Carl Grose, the play centers mainly on one of the most prolific playwrights of the Théâtre du Grand Guinol’s heyday, André de Lorde (Christopher Sugarman) and his sometime collaborator, psychologist Alfred Binet (Thaddeus Bing). Plot points and diversions from several of de Lorde’s best known plays, including The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, Crime in a Madhouse, and The Laboratory of Hallucinations are woven throughout the piece, and the rogue’s gallery of characters are mostly pulled from the actual pages of history — such as Max Maurey (Brian Trybom), the theater’s tireless proprietor and promoter, inventive propsmaster Paul Ratineau (Raymond Hobbs), and actress Paula Maxa (Christy Crowley) “the most-assassinated woman in the world” and original “Queen of Scream”.
Opening with a scene set in a mental institution, the play pulls the oddience quickly into the exaggerated aesthetic of the Grand Guignol, as it becomes quickly apparent that the inmates are running the asylum, and blood-drenched violence ensues until an excitable patron runs up onto the stage and faints with shock, an act that heartens the small company as they think he is a critic who will give their play a rave (perhaps raving) review. Instead it turns out he is Binet, and the seeds for his future artistic collaboration with de Lorde are thus sown.
Bing as Binet bubbles over with nervous tension, while Sugerman’s de Lorde is so pale and withdrawn he appears a specter haunting the corners of his own life, though in truth it is the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe (Cooper Carlson) who comes to haunt him more frequently, a pushy creative partner offering his own work up for adaptation (such as the aforementioned Doctor Tarr). Pianofight regular Christy Crowley inhabits the body and reputation of Maxa with devilish relish, dying dramatically on demand, while Andy Strong rounds out the capable cast as actor George Paulais, whose ego is only exceeded by his extreme self-interest. A side-plot involving the identity of a real-life serial killer who stalks Montmartre results in the play’s most gleefully gross-out moment, and Binet’s unlikely collaboration with de Lorde results in perhaps the messiest artistic divorce since, well, ever.
Messy is a byword of the Grand Guignol, and a segregated splatter zone surrounds the stage, crammed with patrons who have paid extra for the privilege of being randomly drenched by stage blood. It’s a bit of an awkward set-up, the gap between the zone and the rest of the seating is so large it’s almost as if one were perched in the balcony, or in the back of an art-house movie theater, a little too far removed from the up-close and too-personal proximity that really amplifies the Grand Guignol experience. Thankfully Pamila Z. Gray’s lighting, Hannah Birch Carl’s sound design, and Pandora FX helped amp up the bawdy, bloody atmosphere, and as far as All Hallows’ Eve experiences go, an evening at Grand Guignol was a worthy treat.
The movie you need to see this weekend, ASAP, is 12 Years a Slave — one of the most important releases of the year, and a likely contender for all possible awards, including Best Actor and Best Picture. (Review here.) Also new to theaters is the Cannes-winning, controversy-stirring Blue is the Warmest Color. (Review here.)
Read on for more short takes on today’s new releases, plus a 1979 cult classic that’s ripe for rediscovery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Ir5LsraA4
About Time Richard Curtis, the man behind 2003’s Love Actually, must be enjoying his days in England, rolling in large piles of money. Coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of that twee cinematic love fest comes Curtis’ latest ode to joy, About Time. The film begins in Cornwall at an idyllic stone beach house, as Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) describes his family members (Bill Nighy is dad; Richard Cordery is the crazy uncle) and their pleasures (rituals (tea on the beach, ping pong). Despite beachside bliss, Tim is lovelorn and ready to begin a career as a barrister (which feels as out of the blue as the coming first act break). Oh! And as it happens, the men in Tim’s family can travel back in time. There are no clear rules, though births and deaths are like no-trespass signs on the imaginary timeline. When he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), he falls in love, but if he paves over his own evening by bouncing back and spending that night elsewhere, he loses the path he’s worn into the map and has to fix it. Again and again. Despite potential repetition, About Time moves smoothly, sweetly, slowly along, giving its audience time enough to feel for the characters, and then feel for the characters again, and then keep crying just because the ball’s already in motion. It’s the most nest-like catharsis any British film ever built. (2:03) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oOG3vUkKUM
A.K.A. Doc Pomus “All greatness comes from pain.” The simple statement comes from Raoul Felder, brother of legendary R&B songwriter Doc Pomus, in the beautiful, crushing mediation on his brother’s life, A.K.A. Doc Pomus, opening theatrically this week after serving as the closing-night film of the 2012 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Doc wrote some of the greatest music of a generation: R&B and early rock’n’roll standards such as “This Magic Moment,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Save the Last Dance For Me,” and “Viva Las Vegas” — songs made famous by the likes of Dion, the Drifters, and Elvis Presley. Jewish, debilitated by polio, and vastly overweight, Doc defied expectations while struggling with a lifetime of outsider status and physical pain. William Hechter and Peter Miller’s doc offers a revealing look at his remarkable life. (1:38) Vogue. (Emily Savage)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axLcfpj7xeU
Diana The final years of Diana, Princess of Wales are explored in what’s essentially a classed-up Lifetime drama, delving into the on-off romance between “the most famous woman in the world” (Naomi Watts) and heart surgeon Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). Relationship roadblocks (his Muslim family, back home in Pakistan, is hesistant to accept a divorced, Christian Brit as their son’s partner) are further complicated by extraordinary circumstances (Diana’s fame, which leads to paparazzi intrusions on the very private doctor’s life), but there’s real love between the two, which keeps them returning to each other again and again. By the third or fourth tearful breakup — followed by a passionate reunion — Diana’s story becomes repetitive as it marches toward its inevitable tragic end. Still, director Oliver Hirschbiegel (2004’s Downfall, another last-days-in-the-life biopic, albeit of a slightly different nature) includes some light-hearted moments, as when a giggling Diana smuggles Hasnat through the palace gates (past guards who know exactly what she’s up to). As you’d expect, Watts is the best thing here, bringing warmth and complexity to a performance that strives to reach beyond imitation. (1:52) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UNWLgY-wuo
Ender’s Game Asa Butterfield (star of 2011’s Hugo), Harrison Ford, and Ben Kingsley appear in this adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi novel. (1:54)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mueIglaVYDk
Free Birds Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson lend their voices to this animated turkey tale. (1:31)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3_hKv4pEM4
God Loves Uganda Most contemporary Americans don’t know much about Uganda — that is, beyond Forest Whitaker’s Oscar-winning performance as Idi Amin in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland. Though that film took some liberties with the truth, it did effectively convey the grotesque terrors of the dictator’s 1970s reign. But even decades post-Amin, the East African nation has somehow retained its horrific human-rights record. For example: what extremist force was behind the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposed the death penalty as punishment for gayness? The answer might surprise you, or not. As the gripping, fury-fomenting doc God Loves Uganda reveals, America’s own Christian Right has been exporting hate under the guise of missionary work for some time. Taking advantage of Uganda’s social fragility — by building schools and medical clinics, passing out food, etc. — evangelical mega churches, particularly the Kansas City, Mo.-based, breakfast-invoking International House of Prayer, have converted large swaths of the population to their ultra-conservative beliefs. Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, an Oscar winner for 2010 short Music by Prudence, follows naive “prayer warriors” as they journey to Uganda for the first time; his apparent all-access relationship with the group shows that they aren’t outwardly evil people — but neither do they comprehend the very real consequences of their actions. His other sources, including two Ugandan clergymen who’ve seen their country change for the worse and an LGBT activist who lives every day in peril, offer a more harrowing perspective. Evocative and disturbing, God Loves Uganda seems likely to earn Williams more Oscar attention. (1:23) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxGgkEHmHHg
Kill Your Darlings Relieved to escape his Jersey home, dominated by the miseries of an oft-institutionalized mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and long-suffering father (David Cross), Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enters Columbia University in 1944 as a freshman already interested in the new and avant-garde. He’s thus immediately enchanted by bad-boy fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a veteran of numerous prestigious schools and well on the road to getting kicked out of this one. Charismatic and reckless, Carr has a circle of fellow eccentrics buzzing around him, including dyspeptic William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and merchant marine wild child Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston). Variably included in or ostracized from this training ground for future Beat luminaries is the older David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), a disgraced former academic who’d known Carr since the latter was 14, and followed him around with pathetic, enamored devotion. It’s this last figure’s apparent murder by Carr that provides the bookending crux of John Krokidas’ impressive first feature, a tragedy whose motivations and means remain disputed. Partly blessed by being about a (comparatively) lesser-known chapter in an overexposed, much-mythologized history, Kill Your Darlings is easily one of the best dramatizations yet of Beat lore, with excellent performances all around. (Yes, Harry Potter actually does pass quite well as a somewhat cuter junior Ginsberg.) It’s sad if somewhat inevitable that the most intriguing figure here — Hall’s hapless, lovelorn stalker-slash-victim — is the one that remains least knowable to both the film and to the ages. (1:40) (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMnr-R7BkkU
Last Vegas This buddy film may look like a Bucket List-Hangover hybrid, but it’s got a lot more Spring Breakers in it than you’d expect — who beats Vegas for most bikinis per capita? Four old friends reunite for a wedding in Vegas, where they drink, gamble, and are confused for legendary men. Morgan Freeman sneaks out of his son’s house to go. Kevin Kline’s wife gave him a hall pass to regain his lost sense of fun. Kline and Freeman trick Robert De Niro into going — he’s got a grudge against Michael Douglas, so why celebrate that jerk’s nuptials to a 30-year-old? The conflicts are mostly safe and insubstantial, but the in-joke here is that all of these acting legends are confused for legends by their accidentally obtained VIP host (Romany Malco). These guys have earned their stature, so what gives? When De Niro flings fists you shudder inside remembering Jake LaMotta. Kline’s velvety comic delivery is just as swaggery as it was during his ’80s-era collaborations with Lawrence Kasdan. Douglas is “not as charming as he thinks he is,” yet again, and voice-of-God Freeman faces a conflict specific to paternal protective urges. Yes, Last Vegas jokes about the ravages of age and prescribes tenacity for all that ails us, but I want a cast this great celebrated at least as obviously as The Expendables films. Confuse these guys for better? Show me who. (1:44) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v5ZXAxTGHg
Let the Fire Burn In 1985 a long-simmering conflict between Philadelphia police and the local black liberation group MOVE came to a catastrophic conclusion. Ordered to leave their West Philly building after numerous neighborhood complaints about unsanitary conditions, incessant noise, child endangerment and more, the commune refused. An armed standoff came to a halt when a helicopter dropped two FBI-supplied water gel bombs on the roof, killing 11 MOVE members (including five kids) and creating an uncontrollable fire that destroyed some 60 nearby homes. It’s hard to deny after watching Jason Osder’s powerful documentary that MOVE then looked like one crazy cult — its representatives spouting extreme, paranoid rhetoric in and out of court; its child residents (their malnutrition-bloated stomachs nonsensically explained as being due to “eating so much”) in visibly poor health; its charismatic leader John Africa questionably stable. But whatever hazards they posed to themselves and the surrounding community, it’s also almost undeniable here that city law enforcement drastically overreacted, possibly in deliberate retaliation for an officer’s shootout death seven years earlier. The filmed and amply media-reported trials that ensued raised strong suspicions that the police even shot unarmed MOVE members trying to escape the blaze. This outrageous saga, with numerous key questions and injustices still dangling, is an American history chapter that should not be forgotten. Let the Fire Burn is an invaluable reminder. (1:35) (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIKQCZDYfEI
Man of Tai ChiKeanu Reeves directs and plays a supporting role in this contemporary Beijing-set martial-arts drama. (1:45)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6lImifpiZM
The PinCanadian film about a romance between two Eastern European youths, in hiding during World War II. (1:23)
The VisitorDirected by “Michael J. Paradise” (aka Giulio Paradisi), this 1979 Italian-US. co-production is belatedly starting to acquire a cult following. Joanne Nail is Barbara, mother of Katy (Paige Conner), a seemingly normal little girl with a disconcerting tendency to swear like a longshoreman when out of ma’s earshot. Also unbeknownst to mom is that her boyfriend (Lance Henriksen, no less), as well as characters played by Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, John Huston, Sam Peckinpah, and the inimitable Shelley Winters are all very interested — on the good and the evil side — in Katy, a “miracle of nature” with “immense powers.” Those powers apparently include making Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s basketball explode at the hoop, and sending teenage boys through plate glass at an ice rink. Some of the adults nosing around Katy really, really want Barbara to give her a similarly gifted baby brother, others do not. It all involves some kind of interplanetary conspiracy to … well, beats me, frankly. Its utter senselessness part of the charm, The Visitor includes any number of bizarre moments, including Winters’ evident enjoyment of slapping some sense into Katy (the child thesp later confirmed that the Oscar winner went a little too Method in that scene), and crusty old Huston intoning the line “I’m, uh, the babysitter.” This glossy sci-fi horror mess. which the Roxie is showing in a new digital transfer, borrows elements freely from 1977’s Exorcist II: The Heretic (a fiasco that inspired very little imitation), 1976’s The Omen (or rather 1978’s Damien: Omen II) and, strangely, Orson Welles’ 1947 The Lady from Shanghai (directly ripping off its famous hall of mirrors scene). Yet there’s a certain undeniable originality to its incoherence. (1:48) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)
It’s an age-old paradox of urban living that no matter how much there is to do and see it’s a) impossible to experience it all and b) so easy to take it all for granted. And it’s really not such a stretch to figure out that the more we take for granted the more chance there is that one day those things we love will disappear.
Of course a certain amount of flux is healthy, and part of what makes a city vibrant is that it’s a place where new ideas and new energies take root and flourish far more readily than in more insular, more homogenous spaces. And for every street corner band that’s moved indoors, every homey café long gone, every poetry brawl, punk rock peepshow, robot sex symposium, marching band parade, and nomadic dance party that have dropped off the radar, there’s bound to be a new crew of upstart art-agonists rising up to fill the empty spaces, it’s just finding the will or time to seek them out that can be daunting. They’re worth the effort. But sometimes we don’t want to have to put in so much effort.
Like comfort food for the underground, some perennial events are still staking out the remnants of, if not the long-distant past, at least the 90s, where the foundations for much of what is now taken for granted were formed. The Clarion Alley Block Party is one such remnant, and still going strong, as Saturday’s event proved.
Blessed by mild weather and a musically diverse lineup of beloved local bands, attending the annual celebration and fundraiser for CAMP (Clarion Alley Mural Project) was a bit like attending the reunion party that more reunion parties should aspire to be like, full of familiar faces and a distinct lack of hubris.
A couple of new murals glowed from the colorful walls which have been evolving since 1992, a who’s-who of notable works including Chuy Campusano’s homage to Picasso’s Guernica; Jet Martinez’ fantastical, Tomi De Paola-esque landscape Lo Llevas por Dentro; and a venerable, twitchy elephant by Andrew Schoultz, crowded into a much too confined space. Of the newer works, a comic strip detailing the adventures of modern-day, anti-overdose superheroine, Narcania, by Erin Amelia Ruch and Mike Reger (of Mission Mini-Comix infame); an image of busy cartoon ants working over the pale blue corpse of a gadget-toting, tech-type by Mats Stromberg; and Megan Wilson’s playfully anti-capitalist Tax the Rich (with its bed of smiling flowers that carpet the sidewalk) are perhaps the most eye-catching, and provocatively relevant to some of the abiding concerns of the neighborhood.
Of course it wouldn’t be a proper block party without bands, and Clarion Alley always manages to put together a creative and raucous all-day show on its twin stages. Highlights for me this year included a bombastically sludgy set from three-piece doom metal outfit HORNSS; a noisy, drone-y, industrial meets hardcore set from masked musical marauders Death Cheetah; and a sweaty, climactic apotheosis of sound from the last band of the evening, old school rabble-rousers, Apogee Sound Club.
The smell of cigarettes, dope, cheap beer, and tamales mingled in the still evening air, revelers in their Halloween costumes bobbed their heads in time to the tunes, and the only real sign of the times was the occasional ipad lifted aloft for photo-taking, which, given the casual nature of the event, didn’t even seem that intrusive. Proving, at least in the moment, that art and innovation can coexist if we let them.
Incredibly, Hollywood is allowing this hallowed weekend to pass without releasing a single horror movie. (Unless you count Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, which I don’t.) Frights galore exist in local rep houses, however (right this way for a calendar), and for those who’d simply like turn off the lights, pretend nobody’s home, and eat all the Fun Size Snickers themselves, there’s some non-seasonal fare worth checking out (plus, two of those rep-house chillers!) in the below reviews.
All Is Lost As other reviewers have pointed out, All is Lost‘s nearly dialogue-free script (OK, there is one really, really well-placed “Fuuuuuck!”) is about as far from J.C. Chandor’s Oscar-nominated script for 2011’s Margin Call as possible. Props to the filmmaker, then, for crafting as much pulse-pounding magic out of austerity as he did with that multi-character gabfest. Here, Robert Redford plays “Our Man,” a solo sailor whose race to survive begins along with the film, as his boat collides with a hunk of Indian Ocean detritus. Before long, he’s completely adrift, yet determined to outwit the forces of nature that seem intent on bringing him down. The 77-year-old Redford turns in a surprisingly physical performance that’s sure to be remembered as a late-career highlight. (1:46) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ML50I0mVHY
The Counselor Ridley Scott directs Cormac McCarthy’s script about a lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who gets involved in the drug underground. The supporting cast includes Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, and Brad Pitt. (1:57)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_O2OATk97k
I Am a Ghost In local director H.P. Mendoza’s latest, a young woman named Emily (Anna Ishida) wanders the claustrophobic corridors of a sumptuously decorated Victorian house, repeating her actions in each room in a perfunctory loop: frying eggs, flipping through old photographs, dusting the furniture, stretching in bed. Besides herself, the place initially appears to be uninhabited, until the house begins to creak and groan restlessly around her, and a disembodied voice begins to address her by name. It doesn’t give too much away to reveal at this point that Emily is a ghost, and the voice purportedly that of a professional medium (Jeannie Barroga) who has been hired to assist her out of the house and “into the light.” Unraveling who Emily is and what is keeping her from ascending to the next level takes up most of the rest of the film, and the eerie tension that builds as Emily’s memories return, filling in the unpleasant blanks, explodes at the end with a brutal chaos only otherwise hinted at in earlier scenes. Ishida’s Emily is full of complexity and confusion, and much of the movie’s real “horror” stems from her own sense of powerlessness and realization that the world that she’s inhabiting doesn’t appear to be one rooted in reality, or at least in other people’s realities. Experimental musician and Fringe Festival performer Rick Burkhardt makes a terrifying cameo as the presumed source of Emily’s inability to move on — and speaking of experimental music, the movie’s score, penned by Mendoza, does a lot to create the sense of creeping unease that characterizes most of the film. (1:14) Castro. (Nicole Gluckstern)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTlnlam8ZYM
InformantLocal filmmaker Jamie Meltzer’s complex, compelling Informant makes its theatrical bow at the Roxie a year and a half after it premiered at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival (it’s been playing festivals nearly nonstop since). The doc explores the strange life of Brandon Darby, a lefty activist turned FBI informant turned Tea Party operator who helped send two 2008 Republican National Convention protestors to jail. He’s a polarizing guy, but the film, which is anchored by an extensive interview with Darby, invites the audience to draw their own conclusions. (Side note: if you conclude that you want to yell at the screen and give Darby a piece of your mind, chances are you won’t be alone.) (1:21) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MSrAwfagG4
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa Hidden-camera pranks with Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville, and other Jackass alums. (1:32)
Space Battleship Yamato The year is 2199, five years after mysterious aliens began bombarding Earth with radiation. The scrappy humans who’ve managed to survive by living underground are rapidly dying out — so a crew assembles for a deep-space “journey of hope” to a planet where a “radiation elimination device” might be acquired. Based on a 1974 Japanese anime series (it aired in the US under the name Star Blazers), this live-action adventure contains plenty of CG-enhanced battles and a cast stuffed with stock characters: the gifted, brash young pilot who’s haunted by a dark past (Takuya Kimura, whose flowing locks betray his teen-idol origins); the tough chick who gradually softens (Meisa Kuroki); the grizzled, wise captain (Tsutomu Yamazaki of 2009’s Departures), etc. Fans of the original series may gobble this up, but the casual viewer might find there’s not much to distinguish the overlong Space Battleship Yamato — saddled with a score that vacillates between bombastic and sentimental — from space operas (particularly Battlestar Galactica) that’ve come before. (2:18) Four Star. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg5nvnUMbbg
Spine Tingler! The William Castle StoryOther Cinema anticipates Halloween in vintage style with Jeffrey Schwarz’s 2007 documentary about the late, beloved Hollywood schlockmeister. After a mostly undistinguished early career in programmer mysteries, Westerns, and 3D features, William Castle found his métier in the late 1950s making horror thrillers with B budgets (and C scripts) but A-plus marketing gimmicks. Macabre (1958) offered life insurance policies to patrons who might die of fright; the next year’s The Tingler infamously gave patrons in select theater seats slight electric shocks; the same year’s House on Haunted Hill had ushers yank a plastic skeleton over the audience’s heads; Mr. Sardonicus (1961) gave ticket buyers a chance to vote on its title character’s fate. (It was so predictable that they’d vote for mortal punishment, an alternative “happy ending” never actually existed.) Straight-Jacket (1964) had Joan Crawford as a battle-ax axe murderess, a concept that could sell itself. Castle’s perpetual hopes to gain respect and make a “serious” picture were somewhat rewarded by Rosemary’s Baby, even if he wound up merely producing that 1968 smash. (He’d hoped to direct, but was smart enough to realize Roman Polanski was the more inspired choice.) This fond portrait includes input from various Castle collaborators, admirers and family members, as well as plenty of priceless clips. Guest host Christian Divine will offer additional retro horror goodies during this evening of cheap thrills. (1:22) Other Cinema at Artists’ Television Access. (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjyJI2YTOm4
Torn An explosion at a mall throws two families into turmoil in this locally-shot drama from director Jeremiah Birnbaum and scenarist Michael Richter. Maryam (Mahnoor Baloch) and Ali (Faran Tahir) are Pakistani-émigré professionals, Lea (Dendrie Taylor) a working-class single mother. Their paths cross in the wake of tragedy as both their teenage sons are killed in a shopping center blast that at first appears to have been caused by a gas-main accident. But then authorities begin to suspect a bombing, and worse, the principals’ dead offspring — one as a possible Islamic terrorist, another for perhaps plotting retaliation against school bullies. As the parents suffer stressful media scrutiny in addition to grief and doubt, they begin to take their frustrations out on each other. An earnest small-scale treatment of some large, timely issues, the well-acted Torn holds interest as far as it goes. But it proves less than fully satisfying, ending on a note that’s somewhat admirable, but also renders much of the preceding narrative one big red herring. (1:20) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF_jh3_p_gw
The Trials of Muhammad Ali If you’ve seen an Ali doc before (or even the 2001 biopic), a lot of the material in The Trials of Muhammad Ali will feel familiar. But Bill Siegel’s lively investigation, which offers interviews with Louis Farrakhan and Ali’s former wife Khalilah, among others, does well to narrow its focus onto one specific — albeit complicated and controversial — aspect of Ali’s life: the boxing champ’s Nation of Islam conversion, name change, and refusal to fight in Vietnam. And as always, the young, firebrand Ali is so charismatic that even well-known footage makes for entertaining viewing. (1:26) (Cheryl Eddy)
For the fifth year, Sister Baba Ganesh and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will put on their eye-popping, charitable fashion show Project Nunway — an extravaganza seriously not to be missed if you want some only-in-SF flavor. Or, as head sis Sister Roma puts it: “In my 25-plus years of being a sister this is one of the most amazing, jawdroppingly beautiful events we’ve ever produced.”
On Nov. 2 at YBCA, the big Sisters event will delve into the realm of Big Brother, with the theme “Dissident Futures.” Expect chills!Here are a couple behind the scenes looks at the preparations, with press release below.
San Francisco’s preeminent Order of irreverently irreligious nuns returns to YBCA for a spectacular extravaganza of the haute-est couture. Project Nunway V: Dissident Futures brings the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s annual gala back to the place of its glorious birth in the grandest fashion, featuring mistresses of ceremonies Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Gos, and Sister Roma, the Grand Marshal of San Francisco Pride 2012 and guest judge, Pandora Boxx of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Bay Area funketeers, Planet Booty, Honey Mahogany, and SpacEKrafT will provide the soundtrack as the Sisters turn out their best sashay and shantay, bedecked in original high-fashion (and high-concept) looks created from recycled materials in collaboration with local designers. Futuristic fierceness is the new black this year, so bring your Big Brother because it will be a night of glamour, drama—and, of course, cocktails—that you won’t want to miss.
If you consume the news at all you’ll find a lot to be afraid of that seems endemic to the modern age: swine flu, restless leg syndrome, Ellis Act evictions, terrorist sleeper cells, compromised data privacy, zombie attacks. But despite its almost constant presence in our lives, this kind of fear merely creates a continuous low-grade malaise, an emotional state which appears to benefit only the evolution of pharmaceutical companies and the self-help book publishing trade.
So it’s no wonder that in our search for “real” sensation, we often turn towards a more primal state of fear. The sort of fear that compels us to skydive out of airplanes, ride roller coasters, and surf giant waves, activities designed to trigger that survivalist fight or flight instinct that we then harness for our own adrenaline-generating, sensation-seeking purposes. The kind of fear that compels us to visit that most seasonal of attractions: the haunted house.
There are haunted houses designed to make you laugh and haunted houses designed to make you scream, and ideally a bit of each, a giddy state of being which San Leandro’s Fear Overload makes a considered effort to provide.
Conveniently located just steps away from the Bayfair BART, in an innocuously suburban shopping center, the R-rated Fear Overload contains two separate labyrinths for its patrons to struggle through: “Ward 9” (a supposed asylum for the criminally insane), and the macabre Abusement Park. Both are equally blood-drenched and disorienting, and are welcome throwbacks to the glory days of haunted houses where the highest-tech prop on display was a guillotine, and the real scares came from the all-too human element lurking in the shadows ready to pounce. Let’s just say ironic detachment won’t get you very far in Fear Overload, and thank goodness for that.
At the door to Ward 9, my companion T and I are handed an almost completely useless flashlight and bid a hearty farewell, the door slamming behind us like a butcher’s cleaver. To navigate the dark and claustrophobically narrow corridors with a pencil-thin beam of intermittent light proves both unnerving and hilarious, and as each twist of the path leads to room after room of blood-splattered furniture, swinging doors and rattling cupboards, rotting corpses with dramatically gory headwounds and severed limbs, dungeon walls lined with bodies in straitjackets, oh, and living monsters who delight in leaping out of random corners our anticipation grows into a kind of delightful dread.
I’ve chosen the right partner for this foray into fear. T’s suspension of disbelief is willing and open, her cool quotient, like mine, hovers close to zero, and she is more than happy to let me hold the flashlight, which I figure could at least serve as a makeshift bludgeon should it come to that. In the FAQ comes the promise that the actors won’t touch you, at least not intentionally, but there’s no promise that won’t get in your face, and we wind up getting pretty close and personal with a lot of great makeup jobs and mask designs. Their timing, I have to say, is mostly impeccable. We scream every time.
From a theatrical standpoint, both haunted “houses” are a scenic designer’s wet dream, full of intricately-conceptualized nooks and crannies filled with scenes of extreme splatter gore. In Ward 9 we find the disturbingly shambolic nursery and the “morgue” inhabited by a double-jointed creature that slithers as much as crawls into our path to be especially evocative, and in the Abusement Park, our theatre-geek hearts are filled with admiration for the atmospheric boiler room and the horrifyingly stark and bloody women’s room, which also proves the hardest room to find our way out of (tip: ask a monster for help).
Sure, there’s not a lot of character development per se, or at least not enough to compel us to stick around and hunt for backstory, but as the protagonists of our own survival story, we make it through to the final xit relatively intact, which is really the only storyline that matters when confronting fear as a means of accessing fun.
Perfectly timed to coincide with the start of basketball season: the release of Franklin Martin’s Long Shot: The Kevin Laue Story, billed as “Hoop Dreams meets Murderball,” with a healthy shot of Linsanity (now playing) to boot.
Martin spent four years following the Pleasanton-raised Laue, who was born with a left arm that ends just below his elbow. We see the budding hoops star — an honor student at Amador Valley High School as the film begins — mature from tousle-haired teen standout to Division I hopeful, refining his skills at a tough Virginia military academy along the way.
Laue is commandingly tall (nearly seven feet) and naturally gifted (despite, as all his coaches agree, also being naturally left-handed). He’s also appealingly self-deprecating, which makes him an ideal doc subject. But college scouts are hesitant to take a chance on a kid with just one hand — even though game footage makes it clear that Laue’s disability has no bearing on his ability to block shots and capture rebounds.
It’s frustrating, to put it mildly, especially for a kid whose entire life seems to revolve around basketball, but Laue is (for the most part; military school’s strict rules do inspire a few rebellions) willing to work harder than any other kid to keep up with the competition. He’s driven not just by his own dreams, but also nagging regrets over not saying a proper good-bye to his father, who passed away from cancer when Laue was 10. It’s clear he views his athletic success as a tribute to his dad.
Long Shot could have benefitted from interviewing more of Laue’s teammates — what’s it like to play with someone with just one hand, whose abilities are underestimated by nearly every opponent? — or even some of his friends. We see him attend one post-high school beer bash and hear a few offhand comments from his classmates. But beyond that, Long Shot focuses on Laue, his family, and his coaches (all of whom seem to be cut from the same gruff-yet-secretly-kind cloth).
Still, sports stories don’t come more inspirational than this, and locals who recall Laue’s rise to national prominence — including coverage in Sports Illustrated which attracted the attention of then-President Bush — will especially enjoy this inside peek at his hard-won success. Oct 25-Nov 1 Vine Cinema 1722 First St, Livermore www.thekevinlauestory.com
A whole botanical and cultural history, as it turns out, including tribal trading spats, terroir to make a oenophile envious, and ancient medicinal remedies — so don’t stop drinking just yet. (Sound enticing? Sign up for SFBGS’s upcoming class with Dandelion Chocolate and Four Barrel Coffee on Nov. 9; more Dandelion events here.) Here’s the report.
Cacao and the cloud forest The cacao plant thrives in Mesoamerican cloud forests, 6,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level and only 10 degrees north or south of the equator. This explains why San Francisco’s climate doesn’t agree with the picky pod. Mesoamerican botanist Dr. Joseph Barbaccia, leading the class on a tour through the cloud forest, explained, “We can grow the trees, but we can’t approximate the environmental factors.”
Nevertheless, many transplants from Mesoamerican cloud forests flourish here in the bay fog instead of down south, where cloud forest cutting has ravaged the flora and fauna. Among the high-scaling daisy trees, oaks, and pines, plants called out to Barbaccia like old friends, and he couldn’t help stopping every few feet.
“Aha! The pièce de résistance!” he said, pointing at yellow and pink flowers hanging from the Deppea splendens in overturned bouquets, shivering like limp fingers. Dr. Dennis Breedlove, the botanist who collected the initial seeds for SFBGS’s cloud forest, took seeds from this stunning, macabre flower while hiking through southern Mexico. Returning 13 years later, that plant had gone extinct in the wild … but before straying too far down this mossy tangent, it’s time to head to the classroom.
A brief history of chocolate Dandelion chocolate makers Alice, Joey and Cynthia — not to be confused with chocolatiers, who make confections from pre-made chocolate — led the class. Joey began with a quick history lesson.
The pre-Columbian natives consumed cacao in a sludgy, half-wet, half-ground gruel of sorts. Sound appetizing? Actually, most of their meals had this consistency, and began on a stone, or metate, where Mesoamerican mamas ground maize, chilies, pumpkin seeds, and cacao. (Every household had one, like your modern KitchenAid wedding present.) Once the cocoa beans released oils, the paste was combined with herbs, honey, vanilla, spices, even dyes, as well as maize and hot water.
We ground our beans on a metate but skipped the corn meal and went straight for hot water. Traditionally, someone poured the boiling drink from one terra cotta bowl at shoulder height into another on the floor, back and forth until the drink foamed, but these chocolate makers didn’t care to get dirty. They used a whisk. “You probably don’t want to taste this,” cautioned Alice.
I took a hesitant sip. Despite her warning, I found something mildly pleasing in the thin drink. It tasted oddly like coffee — sort of beany, without the disguise of milk, sugar, and added fats. It had me thinking, does our exhaustively artisanal coffee-culture have room for a new style of mocha, made from ground cacao bean instead of overly artificial sauce?
Bean to bar Back in 2010, Dandelion Chocolates began experimenting with chocolate-making in a garage using hair dryers and blenders, before moving their factory to Valencia Street. The open space resembles the interior of a barn, if a barn were made of glass and the animals wore aprons.
While most mass producing chocolate companies source from a variety of plantations and over-roast their beans to achieve a uniform “chocolate” flavor in every square, Dandelion makes each bar from a single bean variety, playing around with roasting and mixing until finding a sweet spot, so to speak. Ultimately, they’ve created a broad collection of bars that rival a Napa winery’s selection of pinots, cabs, and malbecs.
Nibbling, melting, slurping I’ve saved the best for last, so let’s cut to the chase, and taste.
The first samples foiled three of Dandelion’s 70 percent darks, emphasizing the variety in beans — the boom without the frills. Joey called the Patanemo, Venezuela bar “platonic,” since it wasn’t too sweet, nor floral, citrusy, intense or bitter. So what is it? Round, warm, and buttery. It tasted of chocolate at its most classic.
The bean from Mantuano, Venezuela was grown on a women’s co-op farm, just a valley and forest away from the Patanemo bar, yet this one arched and changed on the tongue, beginning sweetly, sliding to citrus, and biting, bitterly, just before the swallow.
The Ambanja, Madagascar bar began with a deep, earthly flavor like wet, ripe fruit, rose to an acidic high, and finished “like a raisin,” said Joey, though I thought of pomegranate. If chocolate tasted like colors, this one was red.
The same Madagascar bean made up Francois Pralus’ 100 percent bar, but a different process and darker roast deafened the subtle harmonies, creating one tone. Still delicious, less interesting. Ritual’s southern Belize bar, which processes wet beans together, immediately pleased my taste buds, skipping the tang and going straight for sweet indulgence. The gritty, unrefined texture of TAZA’s bar tasted of slowly cooling desert sand and S’mores. The only milk chocolate sampled, San Francisco’s TCHO 55 percent, made for an anticlimactic, diluted finish.
Before heading back into the bracing chill, the chocolate makers passed out small cups of their Mission Hot Chocolate. It went down frothing and thick, the pasilla chili nipping at the back of my throat. Oddly, the drink lingered even longer, like an oddly pleasant after-aftertaste in my belly. It pleased and purified the same way a spicy curry cures you of the blues on a rainy day. No wonder the Mesoamericans believed in cacao divine.
This week’s fare includes a thoughtful doc about the debate over late-term abortions, Benedict Cumberbatch’s star turn as Julian Assange, the Carrie remake, and more.
After Tiller Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s After Tiller is incredibly timely, as states like Texas and North Carolina continue to push forth increasingly restrictive abortion legislation. This doc focuses on the four (yes, only four) doctors in America who are able to perform late-term abortions — all colleagues of Dr. George Tiller, assassinated in 2009 by a militant anti-abortionist. The film highlights the struggles of what’s inherently a deeply difficult job; even without sign-toting (and possibly gun-toting) protestors lurking outside their offices, and ever-shifting laws dictating the legality of their practices, the situations the doctors confront on a daily basis are harrowing. We sit in as couples make the painful decision to abort babies with “horrific fetal abnormalities;” a rape victim feels guilt and relief after terminating a most unwanted pregnancy; a 16-year-old Catholic girl in no position to raise a child worries that her decision to abort will haunt her forever; and a European woman who decides she can’t handle another kid tries to buy her way into the procedure. The patients’ faces aren’t shown, but the doctors allow full access to their lives and emotions — heavy stuff. (1:25) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BSPh6QhLYc
Broadway Idiot “I can’t act, I can’t dance … compared to a lot of these people, I can’t even sing,” Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong admits, moments before he’s seen taking the Broadway stage in the musical based on his band’s American Idiot. (He played the character of St. Jimmy for stints in both 2010 and 2011.) Director Doug Hamilton’s doc mixes concert, rehearsal, and full-on musical footage; interviews (with Armstrong, show director Michael Mayer, music supervisor Tom Kitt, and others); and behind-the-scenes moments to trace the evolution of American Idiot from concept album to Broadway show. Fans will feast on those behind-the-scenes moments, as when the band stops by Berkeley Rep — where the show had its pre-Broadway workshop performances — to hear new arrangements of their songs for the first time, or cast members prep to perform with Green Day at the Grammys. For everyone else, Broadway Idiot offers a slick, energetic, but not especially revealing look at the creative process. Good luck getting any of those catchy-ass songs out of your head, though. (1:20) Vogue. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdoVioPv0fs
Carrie A high-school outcast (Chloë Grace Moritz) unleashes hell on her bullying classmates (and her controlling mother, played by Julianne Moore) in Kimberly Peirce’s take on the Stephen King classic. (1:32)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOnproVO7NM
Concussion Robin Weigert (Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy) stars in this tale of a lesbian housewife who pursues a new career as a prostitute after suffering a bump on the head. (1:36)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmt89TXjYBI
Escape Plan Extreme prison breaking (from, naturally, an “escape-proof” facility) with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, and Vincent D’Onofrio. (1:56)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT1wb8_tcYU
The Fifth Estate After being our guide through the world of 1970s Formula One racing in Rush, Daniel Brühl is back serving that same role — and again grumbling in the shadows cast by a flashier character’s magnetism — for a more recent real life story’s dramatization. Here he’s German “technology activist” Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who in 2007 began collaborating with the enigmatic, elusive Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) on WikiLeaks’ airing of numerous anonymous whistleblowers’ explosive revelations: US military mayhem in Afghanistan; Kenyan ruling-regime corruption; a Swiss bank’s providing a “massive tax dodge” for wealthy clients worldwide; ugly truths behind Iceland’s economic collapse; and climactically, the leaking of a huge number of classified U.S. government documents. It was this last, almost exactly three years ago, that made Assange a wanted man here and in Sweden (the latter for alleged sexual assaults), as well as putting US Army leaker Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning in prison. The heat was most certainly on — although WikiLeaks was already suffering internal woes as Domscheit-Berg and a few other close associates grew disillusioned with Assange’s megalomania, instability, and questionable judgment. It’s a fascinating, many-sided saga that was told very well in Alex Gibney’s recent documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, and this narrative feature from director Bill Condon and scenarist Josh Singer feels disappointingly superficial by contrast. It tries to cram too information in without enough ballasting psychological insight, and the hyperkinetic editing and visual style intended to ape the sheer info-overload of our digital age simply makes the whole film seem like it’s trying way too hard. There are good moments, some sharp supporting turns, and Estate certainly doesn’t lack for ambition. But it’s at best a noble failure that in the end leaves you feeling fatigued and unenlightened. (2:04) (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uJh2-Sx1Ls
VinylWhen the surviving members of a long-defunct, once-popular Welsh pop punk outfit reunite for a less lucky member’s funeral, the squabbles that have kept them incommunicado for decades are forgotten — with the help of lots of alcohol. They even jam together, and lo and behold, the hungover next morning reveals recorded evidence that they’ve still “got it.” In fact, they’ve even thrown together an insanely catchy new song that would be a perfect comeback single. Only trouble is, when they shop it around to record companies (including their own old one), they’re invariably told that no matter how good the music is, audiences today don’t want old fogeys performing it. (That would be “like watching your parents have sex,” they’re told.) The all-important “tweens to twenties” demographic wants stars as young as themselves, only hotter. So Johnny (Phil Daniels) and company have the bright idea of assembling a quintet of barely-legal cuties to pose as a fake band and lipsynch the real band’s new tune. Needless to say, both take off like wildfire, and eventually the ruse must be exposed. Sara Sugarman’s comedy is loosely inspired by a real, similar hoax (pulled off by ’80s rockers the Alarm), and might have dug deeper into satire of an industry that has seldom deserved mocking evisceration more than it does now. Instead, Vinyl settles for being a brisk, breezy diversion, likable if a bit formulaic — though that single, “Free Rock ‘n’ Roll,” really is catchy in an early Clash-meets-Buzzcocks way. (1:25) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7seQlcJlAg
ZaytounIt’s 1982 in war-torn Beirut, and on the semi-rare occasion that streetwise 12-year-old Palestinian refugee Fahed (Abdallah El Akal) attends school, he’s faced with an increasing number of empty desks, marked by photos of the dead classmates who used to sit there. His own father is killed in an airstrike as Zaytoun begins. When an Israeli pilot (Stephen Dorff — a surprising casting choice, but not a bad one) is shot down and becomes a PLO prisoner, Fahed’s feelings of hatred give way to curiosity, and he agrees to help the man escape back to Israel, so long as he brings Fahed, who’s intent on planting his father’s olive sapling in his family’s former village, along. It’s not an easy journey, and a bond inevitably forms — just as problems inevitably ensue when they reach the border. Israeli director Eran Riklis (2008’s Lemon Tree) avoids sentimentality in this tale that nonetheless travels a pretty predictable predictable path. (1:50) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtgoAt7ZTyE
Zero Charisma Scott (Sam Eidson) is a raging nerd, of the staunchly old-school variety: he lives for the sacred ritual of “game night,” where as Game Master he guides his minions through Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy role-playing. His hobby, which is really more of a lifestyle, is the only thing he really likes; otherwise, he’s a self-described “loser,” in his late 20s but still living with his grandmother (a delightfully acidic Anne Gee Byrd) and working a crappy job delivering tacos and donuts, sometimes to his former co-workers (who all hate him) at a game shop straight out of The Simpsons. When “cool” nerd (and insufferable hipster) Miles (Garrett Graham) joins Scott’s game and threatens his fantasy world — at the exact moment his long-lost mother (Cyndi Williams) swoopes in, intent on selling Nana’s house out from under her — chaos reigns. Writer Andrew Matthews (who co-directed with Katie Graham) clearly knows Scott’s world well; the scenes revolving around gaming (“But we’re almost to the hall of the goblin queen!”) are stuffed with authentic and funny nerd-banter, and while Scott himself is often mocked, RPGs are treated with respect. Scott’s personal journey is a little less satisfying, but Zero Charisma — an Audience Award winner at SXSW — has at least as much quirky appeal as a pair of multi-sided dice. (1:27) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)
