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Political Alerts

June 25, 2013

WEDNESDAY 26

Report back from George Zimmerman trial First Congregational Church, 2505 Harrison, Oakl. stopmassincarcerationbayarea@gmail.com. 7-9pm, free. Cephus Johnson, the uncle of Oscar Grant — who was fatally shot by a BART police officer in 2009 — will share his observations so far in the murder trial of George Zimmerman. He flew to Sanford, Florida for the trial as part of a delegation of activists who remain committed to demanding justice for Trayvon Martin, the African American youth who was gunned down by Zimmerman. Other speakers at this event will share information about California’s Pelican Bay State Prison, where inmates are gearing up to launch a hunger strike in early July. Sponsored by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.

THURSDAY 27

Film screening: “Wild Things” Goldman Theater, David Brower Center. 2150 Allston Way, Berk. Browercenter.org. 6-8:30pm, free. Many ranchers are rejecting the traditional practice of killing large carnivores, like wolves, to protect livestock. They’re increasingly turning to new technology, and this new Natural Resources Defense Council film introduces audiences to progressive ranchers learning to coexist with these animals. The film features scientists, conservationists and even former Wildlife Services trappers who believe it’s time for a major change in the way we treat our these magnificent wild creatures. Screening is free, RSVP recommended.

Daniel Ellsberg in support of Bradley Manning First Unitarian Universalist Society, 1187 Franklin, SF. sanfranpda@aol.com. 7-9pm, free. Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers, will speak on the trial of whistleblower Bradley Manning. Michael Thurman, of the Bradley Manning Support Network, will provide information on the Bradley Manning Contingent at the Pride Parade. Sponsored by Progressive Democrats of America San Francisco and Unitarian Universalists for Peace San Francisco.

Stand with Port of Oakland fast food workers Port of Oakland Administrative Building, 530 Water Street, Oakl. www.facebook.com/UniteHere2850. 4-6pm. The National Labor Relations Board has charged Subway and Jamba Juice at the Oakland Airport with breaking labor laws, and a separate Port of Oakland investigation found that these employers violated the living wage and fired workers who complained about it. But so far, the employers haven’t complied with orders to pay back wages and reinstate the terminated employees. On the one-year anniversary of the campaign for fair food at the Oakland Airport, workers from Unite Here 2850 and supporters will rally and call on the Port to enforce the law.

SUNDAY 30

Joystick warfare: On the legality and morality of combat drones Palo Alto High School, 50 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto. (650) 326-8837. 11am-noon, free. Paul George, a grassroots human rights activist and organizer and the Director of the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, will speak on the use of drones in U.S. military operations. Sponsored by the Humanist Company of Silicon Valley.

Guide to Pride 2013*

Maria Poblet

June 25, 2013

WED/26

Pullin’ Pork for Pride The Bay Guardian and Hard French Present the Ninth Annual Queer Pride Happy Hour hosted by Lil Miss Hot Mess with performances by Dick Van Dick, Tara Wrist, and Rotimi Agbabiaka with DJs Carnita and Brown Amy. Celebrate LGBT culture and our progressive heroes that keep San Francisco legit with kick-ass soul jams, free comfort food, and ice cold adult beverages. Plus: bring a dark-colored t-shirt and get your Bradley Manning screen print to wear proudly during Pride. All of the Bay Area’s queer singles, marrieds, residents, visitors, boys, girls, bears, and babydykes are invited to our hottest happy hour of the year! Wed/26 from 6-9pm @ Pilsner Inn, 225 Church, SF | FREE

THU/27

Slow Knights and Bright Light Bright Light Folsom Street Events is throwing one big-ass, sordid concert to help kick off your SF Pride weekend! Slow Knights is the new side project from Del Marquis of Scissor Sisters fame. Check out his bump-and-grind debut album Cosmos now. Bright Light Bright Light is Welsh-born Rod Thomas, a singer, writer, and producer that NME has called “the boy Robyn in all but name.” His debut album Make Me Believe In Hope is a tour-de-force, drawing influences from late 80s electro-pop and early 90s classic house to help get your juices flowing. Honey Soundsystem DJs will keep the sexy vibes going long after the bands are done. This is a must for any Scissor Sisters fan (as other band members may be in attendance). Thu/27 from 9pm-2am @ Public Works, 161 Erie, SF | $25 | showfolsompride.eventbrite.com

FRI/28

Sissy Darlings in the Night Bay Area radical queer dance parties Ships in the Night and Sissy Strut are joined by Darling Nikki for their Fourth Annual Friday Pride party, Sissy Darlings in the Night. Each of these fabulous parties has deep community roots, throwing benefits and raising cash for various local organizations. This Pride, they bring their local style of durty, bumpin’ gay-fabulousness, where every shape, size, color, and flavor of queer and queen can come shake it till they’re sweating glitter. There will be soul music in the early evening followed by hip-hop and booty jams ‘til close, featuring DJ Durt, Pony Boy, Sissyslap, and more to make you weak in the knees. After the Trans March, celebrate all things queer the way we do in the Bay of Gay. Fri/28 from 8am-2am @ Underground, 424 Haight, SF | $5

Original Plumbing Original Plumbing, the trans guy quarterly magazine born in San Francisco (and since moved to Brooklyn) is back for their fourth year in a row to host Unofficial: OP’s Dance Party After the Trans March. After a prideful day in the park stumble over to the Elbo Room to grind, sweat, and cruise with other queerios. Join hosts Rocco Katastrophe and Amos Mac and dance all night with music by DJ Average Jo from New York, Stay Gold’s DJ Rapid Fire, and DJ Chelsea Starr from Portland. Also featuring Go-Go Trans Boy Heart Throbs and Starr Violet at the door, and a creepy colorful Troll Doll photo booth that will ensure you never forget the evening. Fri/28 from 9:30pm-2am @ Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. | $6-$10 | originalplumbing.com

Bearracuda It’s the high-holy gay holiday of Bearracuda Gay Pride at Public Works where 1000 bears from all over pack it into the party and kick off Pride weekend in San Francisco. This year they have a lineup you will go gay for! On the main floor are San Francisco favorites, Craig Gaibler and Steve Sherwood, who together have played for Bearracuda all over the world, from Atlanta to Auckland. Joining them are hot go-go bears Shawn (from RuPaul’s Drag Race pit crew) and Ryan. Upstairs will be two big names from San Francisco’ legendary DJ collective, Honey Soundsystem: P. Play and Josh Cheon! Jump the line with $12 advanced tickets at Body on Castro or at bearracuda.com. Fri/28 from 9pm-3am @ Public Works, 161 Erie, SF | $12| bearracuda.com

SAT/29

Dark Room Dark Room and The Black Glitter Collective Present: Black Hole – The Queer Pink Saturday After Party featuring Believe live on stage with special guest DJ and drag superstar Heklina from Trannyshack along with the debut of Per Sia and Daddies Plastik’s new single “Google Google Apps Apps,” while host Lady Bear and her Dark Dolls give dark drag and sexy looks. Dark Room resident DJs Le Perv, Omar Perez, Rachel Aiello, and Daniel Toribio blend dark electro, techno, industrial, freestyle, and more to keep you dancing all night long. Add custom visuals/art, human art installations, and drink specials, and you have one of San Francisco’s most unique and sexy queer parties ever! Sat/29 from 9:30pm-2am @ Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF | $10

The House of Babes Three of San Francisco’s beloved queer dance parties – Stay Gold, Fix yr Hair, and Swagger Like Us – present The House of Babes. Walking distance from Dolores Park and the Castro, the party kicks off with drag acts, cheap happy hour drinks, and food vendors. Look forward to performances by Micahtron, Double Duchess, and Vogue & Tone, Baltimore superstar DDm, and local and guest DJs spinning the best in booty dropping jams. Get cute for the photobooth hosted by installation artist Matt Picon and photographer Shot in the City. Feel good knowing that local queer youth heroes, Lyric, are beneficiaries of the event. This promises to be an ecstatic, sweaty Pride party not to be missed. Sat/29 from 7pm-3am @ Public Works, 161 Erie, SF | $12-$15 | thehouseofbabes.eventbrite.com

SUN/30

Hard French Hearts los Homos Hard French is hosting an intergalactic Pride Party at the historic Roccapulco nightclub on Mission Street and will keep you on your feet with a combination of classic all vinyl soul combined with live performances by some of the hottest queer bands and DJs. Hard French has hand picked their favorite artists including Seattle-based funk-psychedelic duo THEESatisfaction, Portland post-punk darlings Magic Mouth, and SF nine-piece neo-soul band Midtown Social. Joining them will be guest DJs Olga T and Taco Tuesday. Of course, no Hard French party would be complete without DJs Brown Amy and Carnita and smoking hot moves from the Hard French Jiggalicious Drag Babes. Sun/30 from 4-11pm @ Roccapulco, 3140 Mission, SF |$20-$65 | hardfrench.com

Queerly Beloved Courtney Trouble’s Queer Pride Pink Sunday Dance Party is back, hosted by Courtney Trouble and Jenna Riot – SF’s Femme Dream Team! Featuring intergalactic space group Icy Lytes, DJs Jenna Riot, Chelsea Starr, and special guest Automaton, video booth by Ajapopfilms and QueerPorn.TV, and the Queer Porn Circus with performances by Courtney Trouble, Jade Phillips, and sexy gender fucking go-go dancers. Plus, if you’re in dire need of a spanking, a smooch, or just a damn good foot rub, the Cum and Glitter Kissing Booth has got you covered with super cheap massage, lap dance, and whatever else you’re perverted heart may desire. Sun/30 from 3-9pm @ El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF | $8 | queerlybeloved.brownpapertickets.com

Big Freedia This is going to be ridiculous. The undisputed Queen Diva of NOLA Bounce is droppin’ by this unofficial Pride after party at Public Works. Words cannot do justice to the all-out sparkle-sweat blast that is a Freedia show. Bring a towel and someone to get freaky with on the dance floor with warrior-stripper-rapper Brooke Candy, the godfather of Detroit Ghettotech DJ Assault, Lady Tragik, Dick Van Dick, Marco de la Vega, and more! This show will be legend. Do. Not. Miss. Sun/30 from 7pm-1am @ Public Works, 161 Erie, SF | $20-$30| publicsf.com

Honey Soundsystem Honey Soundsystem presents its annual Extended Pride event at the Holy Cow Nightclub featuring its line-up of residents Jason Kendig, P-Play, Josh Cheon, and Robot Hustle. In celebration of Pride they will be going after-hours until 4am with the same world class dance music you have come to expect from Honey. Sun/30 from 9pm-4am @ The Holy Cow Nightclub, 1535 Folsom, SF | $10 | honeysoundsystem.com

TUE/2

Switch Tuesdays: Pride Decompression Get nasty with Jenna Riot and Deejay Andre as they present this special post-Pride edition of Switch and what may be your last chance to find the Pride babe of your dreams. QBAR has been keeping the queer-girl dream alive for seven years now, making your Tuesday nights a whole lot hotter. Get wet with DJs Jenna Riot, Andre and guest Leah Mcfly and impress all the babes with your twerkin’ skills, as they spin the hottest Top 40, hip-hop, electronic, pop, and booty bouncing beats. Cruise, werq, twerk, get naughty, and dance ’till you sweat. Tue/2 from 9pm-2am @ QBAR, 456 Castro, SF | $5

Elm Street state of mind

June 20, 2013

FRAMELINE FILM FEST In 1985, a new family moved into Nancy Thompson’s house on Elm Street. Though the stairs no longer had the consistency of sloppy oatmeal, the window bars remained — and a certain razor-fingered fellow still lurked in the shadows. Teen hunk Jesse soon encountered Freddy Krueger in, where else, a nightmare — though this time, the murderous Freddy had a high-concept scheme: “You’ve got the body, and I’ve got the brains!”

Released just a year after 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge vexed fans (and Nightmare creator Wes Craven) with a storyline that enabled its formerly dream-bound villain to kill in the real world. But Nightmare 2 eventually earned a cult following, largely due to readings of the film that identified its gay subtext: a leather-daddy gym coach; the fact that Jesse had a hotter relationship with his best friend than his girlfriend; Jesse’s butt-bumping dance moves and effeminate screams; and lines like “Something is trying to get inside my body!” Plus, that campy scene involving an exploding parakeet.

Is it any wonder that Midnight Mass hostess Peaches Christ chose Nightmare 2 for Frameline’s late-night spotlight, with star Mark Patton in attendance? These days, the erstwhile Jesse lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he runs a thriving gallery and boutique business with his husband, Hector.

“I left show business really consciously, shortly after Elm Street. There really was no way to get ahold of me, so my sister-in-law was my interlocutor when people would call. At the beginning, many people did, and I would turn them down. As time went by, she just collected royalties for me and that type of thing,” he says. “But then these guys from a documentary called Never Sleep Again [2010] — which is about Nightmare on Elm Street and 20th century pop culture — called. They said, ‘We have Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette — literally everybody [who was in the series], except for you. And we’d really like to talk to you, since yours is one of the more interesting Elm Street films.’ I agreed, and almost overnight the publicity was pretty overwhelming. It turned out I was called ‘The Greta Garbo of Horror,’ and everybody wanted my autograph. It had become very valuable over the course of time!”

Patton has since met Nightmare 2 fans from all over the world, including queer folks who grew up inspired by his performance. “When I did Never Sleep Again, they put up a Facebook page for me and I had 5,000 people within maybe a week or two. At this point, I have a couple of different Facebooks, a website — around 30,000 people altogether. It seems like a lot of boys wanted to follow Jesse home from school,” he laughs.

As an openly gay man, Patton embraces the film’s legacy, though he doesn’t regret leaving Hollywood behind. “My [Nightmare film] is called ‘the Homo Nightmare on Elm Street.’ Basically, I played a girl’s part; it caused controversy at the time, and it still does. Out Magazine just named it the gayest horror film of all time, and I was the number one scream queen in the world, according to Out and the Advocate,” he says. He has fond memories of making the film, but “what I really wanted to do was have a conversation about it. The people who wrote the movie always swore that they had no intention of writing a gay movie, so a lot of [the fallout] was sort of put on my back at the time. It damaged my career in a lot of ways, but it wasn’t something that I couldn’t overcome.”

Still, “I got tired of the BS in show business. I’d been in it a long time, and I’d been successful enough to know what that felt like,” he says. “I wanted a certain kind of life, and I found another way to do it that was just as lucrative and entertaining and creative to me. I would rather be embraced for my homosexuality than stay in the closet my whole life.”

After a few years spent touring with the documentary and making stops on the horror-convention circuit, Patton — who donates most of the money he earns from appearances, and the t-shirts he created “based on things people had said about me on the internet, like ‘Jesse’s A Homo’,” to the Trevor Project — is ready to settle back into his life in Mexico.

“I sort of reclaimed a part of myself, which was really cool. And I got to travel and taste a little bit, at my age, of what it was like to be a movie star again,” he says. “It’s been a lot of fun, but I’m coming to the end of my journey with this. San Francisco is going to be one of the last events that I do. In my heart, now’s the time to step away from it again because it’s not my life. I like my life here, and being with my family.”

With a chuckle, he adds, “Although I’m vain enough that, this event that’s coming up in San Francisco? I’m gonna love it. Fourteen hundred screaming drag queens and gay guys at the Castro Theatre — it really doesn’t get any better than that for someone like me!”

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE

Sat/22, 11:59pm, $15

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.frameline.org

On Guard

June 19, 2013

Read the unabridged online version of this story here.

steve@sfbg.com, rebecca@sfbg.com

Longtime Bay Guardian Editor Tim Redmond left the newspaper last week in a dispute with its new owners over personnel changes and his autonomy within San Francisco Print Media Company, which also includes the San Francisco Examiner and SF Weekly.

Redmond led the Guardian newsroom for most of his 31 years with the newspaper and engineered last year’s sale to Todd Vogt and a Canadian ownership team. As part of that sale — which Redmond cast to staff as saving the Guardian from bankruptcy and closure — Bruce B. Brugmann and Jean Dibble, the couple who founded the Guardian in 1966, retired from the paper, its Potrero Hill office building was sold, and the Guardian moved into the Examiner’s downtown office in June 2012.

Redmond was the Guardian editor and publisher, the name at the top of the masthead and the person solely in charge of Guardian operations, and he told staff he had been guaranteed full autonomy by the new ownership, which was important to the Guardian staff. As such, he resisted Vogt’s periodic efforts to control the newspaper, including early threats to fire City Editor Steven T. Jones for unspecifed reasons.

Nonetheless, Vogt did make some successful incursions on the Guardian’s independence, initially by encouraging layoffs, later by interfering with Guardian endorsements in the November 2012 election.

Then, on Oct. 26, 2012, without consulting Redmond, Vogt named Examiner Editor Stephen Buel to be vice president for editorial overseeing both newspapers, announcing that Buel would “oversee the editorial direction, content, tone, and voice of our newspapers and web sites.”

Shortly after the purchase of the longtime Guardian rival SF Weekly two months later, Vogt similarly appointed Weekly writer Erin Sherbert to oversee online communications at all three papers.

Neither Buel nor Sherbert directed or reviewed any Guardian editorial content prior to publication, although some stories from the Guardian and the Weekly began to appear in the Examiner’s newspaper and website, often edited by Examiner editors but giving credit to their original source.

The Guardian’s weekly revenues continued to remain flat or decline, at least partially because of the departure of two of the Guardian’s commission-based advertising representatives, positions which remain unfilled. The Guardian’s sales staff remains significantly smaller than that of the other two publications.

Vogt, Buel, and Chief Financial Officer Pat Brown began a conversation with Redmond about the need to cut expenditures, focusing on the newsroom, which until June 14 had seven full-time Guardian staffers and a part-time art director, who also works for the Examiner.

Redmond expressed a willingness to make cuts while also emphasizing the need to hire more ad reps to boost revenue, Redmond and Buel both told us. “He made it very clear that we need more salespeople,” said Buel, who also told us that he supported Redmond’s stance with Vogt and Brown that he should be allowed to choose where the cuts would be made.

“Todd and I were in the middle of difficult and ongoing negotiations for how to cut costs. My position is that it is entirely appropriate for the owner to ask us to cut costs, and then I would come back with a plan,” Redmond told us.

Instead, on June 12, shortly before Redmond left the office to moderate a well-attended forum that he had organized on Plan Bay Area and San Francisco’s long-term growth policies (see related story), Vogt called Redmond and Buel into Brown’s office and demanded he lay off three specific people in the newsroom (ironically, not including Jones, whose work Vogt has come to publicly praise in recent months) as soon as the current issue is complete. That would have cut in half the number of writers and editors working under Redmond, making it difficult to put out a paper.

“To have me lay off three people by name is not acceptable,” Redmond told us, holding firm that he would cut expenses but that he wouldn’t let Vogt micromanage the Guardian in that fashion. Redmond informed Buel of his decision on June 13 and sought to meet with Vogt, who wasn’t in the office that day.

“Tim told me in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t do it,” Buel told us. “He was civil and cordial and adult about it, but he was very clear he was going to leave the Guardian” rather than be forced to implement that decision. Buel then conveyed to Vogt that Redmond had offered to resign rather than making the cuts.

The next night, Redmond and Vogt exchanged a series of emails in which Redmond repeatedly offered to leave and help create a smooth leadership transition and Vogt repeatedly insisted that Redmond make the cuts and/or clarify whether he was resigning.

It culminated shortly before midnight with Vogt telling Redmond that his resignation had been accepted — to which Redmond responded the next morning that he hadn’t offered his resignation — and that he was barred from returning to the office or speaking for the Guardian.

VOGT’S EXPLANATION

Guardian staffers arrived to the office earlier than usual for a 9:30am meeting Vogt had called shortly before midnight, but Vogt was absent. The meeting commenced around 10:15am, with Vogt phoning in from Canada for his first meeting exclusively with Guardian staff.

He described his email exchange with Redmond the night before. “I accepted his resignation as editor of the Guardian, effective immediately,” Vogt said. “I didn’t ask for his resignation, I didn’t want him to resign. But it was Tim’s decision.”

“For 12 months, we let — I let — Tim run the Guardian pretty much hands off,” he said, allowing that on a few seldom occasions, “I actually made demands, some of which Tim listened to, some of which Tim disregarded.” Vogt went on to say that he, Redmond, Buel, and Brown had been meeting to discuss “very serious and significant changes” at the paper, which would have included staffing cuts.

Vogt went on to say, “Last month, it became painfully apparent that we had to make some radical changes to the Guardian…What we’ve been doing … isn’t resonating with advertisers, and I honestly don’t believe it’s resonating with readers.”

He went on: “Whatever you heard yesterday with respect to layoffs, or freelancers no longer writing for the paper, all of those decisions…are off the table.”

Going forward, he said, “I’m going to look to Marke [Bieschke, appointed interim editor], and Dulc [Vice President of Advertising Dulcinea Gonzalez], and Steve [Buel] to quickly come up with a plan of what we need to do … to get the Guardian back on solid financial and, and sort of ideological footing, in the community…I’m not saying… that there won’t be layoffs. There may well indeed be.”

Jones asked about how Redmond’s departure would be presented to the community, and what he meant by the change in editorial tone. “No disrespect to Bruce [Brugmann], but I think the editorial changes that need to happen at the paper need to reflect sort of, progressive — the new progressive — movement, the new progressive values,” Vogt responded.

Vogt insists that Redmond helped develop the plan to lay off two of the three people they discussed. Buel also said that particular staffers had been discussed in meetings among the four of them, although Buel said only supported two of the three cuts that Vogt insisted upon.

“He fully supported two of the three cuts until Thursday,” Vogt said of Redmond. “Suddenly something happened on Thursday. I don’t know whether it was a conscience thing, or a change of heart or mind.”

Redmond denies that he supported any specific layoffs, telling us that he insisted on being the one to make decisions on who worked for the Guardian and that he wanted to broadly review the Guardian’s expenses, including what the company was charging it for rent and printing the paper.

SHRINKING THE GUARDIAN

Guardian Culture Editor Caitlin Donohue severed ties to the newspaper shortly after the meeting. “I was just shocked that I was being told by intercom to disbelieve my editor and mentor of four years,” Donohue said when asked for her response to the meeting.

In that meeting, Donohue accepted a voluntary layoff. With regard to Redmond’s ouster, Donohue said, “Getting rid of Tim, and the others they told him were next, is part and parcel of the company’s slice and dice attitude to their acquisitions. You can’t run that paper after cutting nearly 50 percent of its editorial staff — or a good one, at least.”

On Monday, Gonzalez also resigned from the Guardian, effective July 1, further reducing its advertising staff. She had no comment for this story, but Vogt called her departure “a huge blow.”

Redmond said that he was cut out of the loop on decisions that Vogt and other managers made to restructure the advertising sales team to have reps selling into all three products.

“They never asked me how the ad department should be set up,” Redmond said.

And while Redmond and Buel both say he strongly advocated for more employees to be dedicated to selling the Guardian, Redmond found himself playing the same role he had played as executive editor under the previous ownership: reacting to the paper’s financial fortunes by cutting costs.

The Guardian had seven full-time staff writers when Jones was hired in 2003, which Redmond whittled down to just one by the time the paper was sold, despite the Guardian winning a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the SF Weekly and the chain that owned it, Village Voice Media, for unfair competition and anti-competitive pricing.

“I recognized in May that Guardian sales were down and I was not opposed to the idea that we had to cut costs,” Redmond told us, later adding, “I came back with two plans. One, sell me the Guardian, or two, tell me how much I need to cut.”

Vogt didn’t accept either idea, insisting Redmond lay off the staffers that he had identified. Whether that final standoff is seen as a straight business decision, a personality conflict, or a question of the autonomy of Redmond and the Guardian, it’s certainly true that it was the last in a series of conflicts between the two men.

INTERNAL FRICTION

Friction between Vogt and the Guardian’s newsroom had been building for some time, centered around a couple of issues: payment of tens of thousands of dollars in debts to freelance writers that Vogt assumed when taking over the Guardian, and Redmond’s authority as editor/publisher of the Guardian.

While the terms of the Guardian’s sale to Vogt’s group haven’t been made public, sources say there were a couple areas of disagreement that delayed Vogt’s acceptance of his responsibility to pay the freelance debt, although that was settled earlier this year.

Guardian staffers who work directly with the freelancers consistently complained about the unpaid debt and the bulk of the past freelance debt remains unpaid.

“We didn’t have a ton of free money to pay the debt owed under Bruce’s leadership,” Vogt told us.

Vogt also began complaining to Redmond about specific writers in the paper that he didn’t like. “I had made demands about certain freelancers, ‘I don’t want so and so writing for the paper,’ and they were still in the paper.”

Redmond resisted the owner’s suggestions to fire certain writers, including L.E. Leone. “I think it was the coolest thing in the world that we had a transgender sports columnist who was one of the best writers in San Francisco. Todd strongly disagreed,” Redmond told us. Leone resigned from the Guardian on June 15.

During the fall election Vogt clashed with Redmond over the supervisorial endorsement in District 5. After the Guardian revoked its Julian Davis endorsement, it contemplated endorsing Christina Olague, but Vogt refused to allow it.

“He told me his newspapers would not be endorsing Christina Olague,” Redmond said, a point that Vogt confirmed.

Redmond said that Vogt then “threatened to fire me” for running a pro-Olague op-ed from longtime queer activist Cleve Jones.

Vogt and Buel insist they have allowed the Guardian to remain an independent, progressive voice and that will continue. Buel said, “All I’m saying is keep reading and see if we live up to what I’m saying.”

TIM’S SAN FRANCISCO

The day news of Redmond’s firing hit the Guardian newsroom, the ousted editor created a website titled “Tim’s San Francisco” on blogspot.com and posted a statement about what had happened.

“Hi, my friends, all the people I love and care about in this city. I’m sad to announce that after 30 years, I have left the Bay Guardian,” he wrote. “I am proud of all the work that we did over those years, but sadly, it has come to an end.”

After briefly explaining the details of his departure, he added, “The good news is that Blogger is free, and I will fancy up this blog in the next couple days, and I will continue to present perspectives and news about progressive San Francisco.”

In the days that followed, online comments on Facebook, sfbg.com, and Redmond’s new blog demonstrated an outpouring of support from community members.

Brugmann also offered this statement to the Guardian: “Tim…was largely responsible for making the Guardian the major progressive voice in San Francisco.”

Redmond said he’s been engaging in lots of discussions with the Guardian’s community.

“I do have to give Todd credit for buying the Guardian and keeping it alive this year,” Redmond said, adding that he was disappointed that Vogt chose to “basically destroy the newsroom” rather than taking him up on his offer to buy back the newspaper or explore other ideas for making the Guardian sustainable.

As Redmond told us, “I’m looking at my options for ensuring progressive, independent journalism is alive in San Francisco.”

Hot mess

June 19, 2013

emilysavage@sfbg.com

TOFU AND WHISKEY Battlehooch might be a tad ridiculous. The San Francisco six-piece has said it simply focuses on “colorful sounds and heavy rhythm” but that’s like saying a mud run might get you a little dirty. Or, a gooey glazed donut burger being listed on a low-cal menu.

No, Battlehooch is not subtle. And those colorful sounds pop in all sorts of surprising ways. They hit you over the head with a chaotic masterpiece jumble of guitars and synths, percussion, hints of horns layered over cello and searing robotic bleeps or vintage printer-reminiscent dot matrix screeches or lyrics like “Laugh ’till I choke/I get the joke” off newest album, Hot Lungs, opener “Joke.”

The band’s twisty, psych-inflected orchestral pop (meets industrious cyborg army) gives a sense of ultimate art-rock camaraderie. Indeed, when I chat with the band members, they’re all giggling and playing darts with guitarist A.J. McKinley’s dad in Santa Cruz before a show on a weekend mini-tour. For the next couple of months the band is doing little weekend jaunts in the greater Bay Area, as opposed to one long summer tour.

But the Battlehooch six will all be back in San Francisco this weekend for a triple vinyl release show with fellow locals Major Powers and the Lo Fi Symphony, and Hungry Skinny. Battlehooch will celebrate the release of Hot Lungs on vinyl, Major Powers and Hungry Skinny of new seven-inches (Sat/22, 9pm, $14. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slimspresents.com).

“We did this crazy US tour in 2010 that was like, four months long,” McKinley says. “When we got back from that we decided to devote the majority of our time to just recording the gnarliest album we could, instead of just trying to crank it out really fast, we spent as much time as we wanted and went as deep as we possibly could.”

It was recorded in bits and pieces over the course of a year and a half, all over California. The musicians did a lot of work on the mixing with Kyle McGraw at Faultline Studios in SOMA, and recording with Mike Scully at In The Pocket Studios, Jason Kick of Maus Haus and Exray’s, and with Jay Pellicci at Tiny Telephone (“he did our song ‘I’m Exploding,’ which is kind of our loud and stupid rock song, and we mean that in the best way possible,” McKinley adds).

The band also took a trip to Mendocino County to an off-the-grid communal living space. It did a work-trade with the community there in which the band members got to record in the space and stay there, and in exchange did some outdoor work. They were shoveling the earthen roof, which badly needed to be rebuilt. The band’s resident wind instrument expert Tom Hurlbut describes it as “back-breaking labor for a band of six dudes who don’t do anything like that normally.” The big, palatial space of this location with its stone floors created the drum sound in the song “Yeah That” and showed up in a few other instances on the album.

Lyrically, Hot Lungs is all over the map, but singer Pat Smith and Hurlbut agree the most common themes were “animal behaviors” and “breaking up.”

New songs were added into the mix whenever Battlehooch could scrounge up enough money to book a few days here or there in this studio or that. This piecemeal process lends itself to the band’s sound, creating a dense and multidimensional pop record.

“The end result is a very kaleidoscopic listening experience,” McKinley says.

Throughout all of this, the group listened heavily to contemporary psych band Tame Impala, along with famed dub producer Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Prince. It learned all of Prince’s Purple Rain for a Halloween show.

“I think that was super important because that’s an album that’s super dancey and complex, but also very poppy and populous. It taught us about making songs that were idiosyncratic but everyone can get into it in an immediate fashion,” McKinley says.

And thus, he lays out the Battlehooch way, a fun-loving group of friends that long ago absorbed pop and now stretches it to weirder planes. Plus, there’s that inclusive, all-in thing — the group is very much a part of the local Bay Area music community. It participates in nearly every creative project the city has to offer musicians. That Prince-cover Halloween show was part of the band’s month long residency at the Knockout.

Battlehooch also was a part of the UnderCover Presents series of live full-album tribute shows in SF, participating this February in the Radiohead show by recording and performing a cover of “In Limbo.”

“The original version is smothered in atmosphere, there’s this dense, thick fog hanging over it, with complex polyrhythm madness,” McKinley says. “So what we did was try to strip away all of that and present it as an actual song, just chords and a melody, and when we did that we discovered the song is actually really beautiful. So instead of having this very processed sound, we ended up having this kind of chamber pop sound with bass clarinet, synthesizers, electronic drums, acoustic guitars, and all of that.”

Most recently, Battlehooch participated in the Music Video Race, profiled in last week’s Bay Guardian cover story. The video made to the song “I’m Exploding” includes the band playing live, spliced with images of the musicians being nutty, dropping things into a bathtub, sticking a fork in a light socket.

Bassist Grant Goodrich explains, “I don’t know if our concept got across, but in the act of us playing we were all involved in doing something a little bit stupid…then at the end we see our demise. It translates that Battlehooch is not just ridiculous, but fun too. I mean, don’t even know if it’s ridiculous.”

And adding to that, the group has something else new to plug: an offer on BandPage Experiences (bandpage.com/BATTLEHOOCH/experiences). It’s an app that bands use on Facebook as a way to promote themselves, and create their own sellable ideas and concepts. Battlehooch came up with an idea called “Scantily-Clad Housecleaning” ($300) offering themselves as your new housecleaning team in fashionable, seasonable sexy wear. There are no takers just yet.

FEMALE DRUMMER SHOWCASE

Finding a good drummer is always one of the hardest parts of forming a band. And yet, for some reason, there haven’t been too many world-famous lady drummers — you can likely count them on one hand. Tom Tom Magazine set out to fix such gender inequalities by raising awareness about female percussionists and inspiring girls to pick up the sticks. It’s covered Patty Schemel, Janet Weiss, Kim Schifino (of Matt and Kim), tUnE-yArDs, and the Dum Dum Girls, along with hundreds more in its four years of publishing existence. Now it’s time for the drummers to give back, at this fundraiser for Tom Tom, also presented by Mission Creek Oakland and East Bay Express. The female drummer showcase includes local Oakland bands such as two-piece garage-punk act Dark Beach, vintage pop band Upside Drown, party duo Bam!Bam!, and Silver Shadows.

Sat/22, 9pm, $7. Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. www.uptownnightclub.com.

MT. TAM JAM

Summer forever. If you missed last weekend’s Huichica Music Festival, here’s another chance to enjoy live indie rock in a striking natural environment: the Mt. Tam Jam, like the name implies, is a fest atop a mountain (actually in a 4,000-seat stone amphitheater atop said mountain). And though it seems the perfect locale for such an event, the Mt. Tam Jam will be the first major concert here in decades — it’s a benefit for Mount Tamalpais State Park. The Jam includes live performances by talk-singing ’90s rock stalwarts, Cake, carnival funk New Orleans natives Galactic, the Taj Mahal Trio, Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue, and more.

Sat/22, 10am, $50. www.tamjam.org.

Undercover Juggalo

June 19, 2013

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC When I pitched attending one of the Insane Clown Posse’s shows from its two-night stand at the Oakland Metro as an “undercover juggalo,” I felt the need to make it clear to my editor that I was not a fan. This would just be for a story and fun pics. I wanted documentation of the Detroit “horrorcore”-rap duo’s strange appearance in the Bay Area, but more importantly, of the fucked-up subculture and fan base that ICP has bred over the years.

Given the band’s notoriety for misogynistic lyrics, alleged violence at shows (plus the added element of the FBI’s 14-month investigation of juggalos as a potential gang threat); my perceptions of the band and its followers being a generally trashy bunch who boast bad music had me thinking, this could be my scariest assignment ever.

Going in drag was partly to protect myself. As a native Midwesterner (born and raised in Michigan) I thought I knew damn well what I was getting into. Elements of my past were about to come crashing into my present-day self and surroundings. My preconceived notions of juggalos, largely based on living in Michigan when the group found fame in the mid-to-late ’90s, were superficial and prejudiced, but not completely unfounded (grabbing the nearest trucker hat, donning ugly cargo pants, and putting on a pair of 10-year-old Nikes was totally the right thing to do). I thought hiding behind face paint would be an easy in for acceptance or at least a good cover.

I had important questions: What are Bay Area juggalos like? Why is this happening in Oakland? Would it really just be the Central Valley invading? Black juggalos?! WTF?! Does that even exist?

Beforehand a friend of mine agreed with my concerns and quipped it was going to be like entering some “ultimate societal vortex.” Others warned me to brush up on my juggalo lore as I wouldn’t want to be exposed as a poser. I did my homework, read a few good articles on The Gathering and watched a really sad YouTube video about a juggalette mom who calls in to a radio show to tell the story of her baby who died shortly after birth in the hospital. She uses that story to fulfill her obsession with scoring free ICP merch.

Reverse racist, white-trash poser

Nervous about walking the streets and getting on BART with my face painted, I still had to get from San Francisco to my destination. I wasn’t sure how people would react.

I was glad to have my friend and photographer, Dallis, along for the ride. Although he wouldn’t join me in wicked clown make-up, he did help me feel as if I wasn’t completely alone. He quizzed my knowledge on the topic at hand and casually dropped the term “white trash.” It’s not an epithet I like to use, but I agree there are worse. Unfortunately, this is the one assigned to the juggalo.

Just about everyone looks down upon and ostracizes them like they’re a symbol for what’s wrong with Middle America. I got some strange stares on the train, but that was about it. Once we popped through the tunnel and found our stop, some fellow “ninjas” (who looked like frat boys) noticed me. They asked if I had any more face paint. Unaware if they were legit fans or if this was mockery, I asked if they were going to the show. It turned out they were being un-ironic (I saw them later at the Metro), so I guess I was the poser.

Waiting in a long line wrapped around the building with “The Family” was the best part of the night. Finally, I had power in numbers (though not all juggalos wear the paint). It was familiar to me, not just because of Midwest roots, but because of fanaticism over a music act. Their energy was electric. They wanted to see their heroes, Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J perform. That’s when it clicked. This was all about inclusion.

We couldn’t get over how nice everyone was. At one point Dallis was trying to get a picture, but was tapped on the shoulder by a juggalo who told him to get closer for a better angle. It was uncharacteristic of the pretense among the crowd at a typical Bay Area show.

Sure, my jaw dropped when I finally deciphered that one of the opening act’s lyrics that I was bopping my head to was, “dead girls don’t say no,” but why is it that I give fellow Detroiter DJ Assault a pass when I laugh hysterically at his raunchy sampled lyrics like “suck my mutha-fucking dick,” or consider “Ass ‘n Titties” to be anthemic? Am I a reverse racist, or is it simply taste in music and the understanding that you don’t have to believe in the lyrics or take them to heart, kill people with a hatchet, etc.?

Shock value and entertainment are nothing new here. Witnessing the unrelenting Faygo shower (Faygo “pop” is from Michigan and comes in a variety of weird flavors) is like being a kid on the Fourth of July watching fireworks. Scary clowns dressed in glittered gowns dance on stage and shake two-liter bottles, letting the candy-scented foam spray onto the audience as it shimmers in the light, and it is a true spectacle. The takeaway: juggalos are the salt of the Earth.

One ringy-dingy

June 19, 2013

marke@sfbg.com

STAGE “Oh, Ernestine has plenty to say about the current phone-surveillance thing,” the irrepressible Lily Tomlin told me, referencing her famous “one ringy-dingy” phone operator character and the recent NSA spying revelations. (Tomlin was driving down an LA freeway on her way to do some errands, popping in and out of coverage on her hands-free.)

In fact, another classic phrase from Ernestine, who’s been snooping on calls since Tomlin’s 1970s days on Martin and Rowan’s Laugh-In, rather appropriately sums up the civilian surveillance clusterbuck: “Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o

“Back during the whole Bush wiretapping time, Ernestine became an emblem for political cartoonists,” Tomlin continues. “But her association with government shenanigans goes back through Iran-Contra, all the way to Nixon and Watergate. In fact, during Iran-Contra in the ’80s, I was performing at the Emmys — I was up for one that year — and I called up G. Gordon Liddy to do a skit with Ernestine. He was going to play Oliver North! And I would be eavesdropping on him. He agreed, but then I backed off because I thought I was making too much light of the whole thing.”

The rogue’s gallery in the above paragraph gives some indication of Tomlin’s longevity in the biz, as well as her necessity. “I’ve been performing since I could basically walk,” she says. “When I was growing up in Detroit, I used to hang a blanket as a curtain on my back porch and put on shows for my family and neighbors. And then, because it started to get dangerous on the streets, I immersed myself in afterschool arts programs. I started incorporating film in to my performances, as well as comedy, drama, a little of this and a whole lot of that. I think I was the original performance artist!”

Along with Ernestine, Tomlin’s essential characters like Edith Ann, Mrs. Beaszley, Sister Boogie Woman — maybe even her characters from 9 to 5 and Big Business, please? — will be in tow for “An Evening of Classic Lily Tomlin” worth trekking up to Napa to catch. The show, a version of which Tomlin performs 30-50 times a year, is a a kind of constantly evolving greatest hits extravaganza. “These characters never leave me; I’m constantly playing with them in my head, like some weird kind of checkerboard,” Tomlin said with a laugh. “But they have to say something, something relevant. Somehow, of course, it always seems like there’s something for them to say, especially lately.”

Now 73, Tomlin’s coming off a season on TV as the pot-happy hillbilly grandma from Reba McEntire’s sitcom Malibu Country and the Tina Fey movie Admission. She’s also a regular as Lisa Kudrow’s mother on web series Web Therapy, an avid social media user, and a crusader for several causes. “Darn good genes,” she says when I gasp at her energy, roughly 1000 times any other human’s. “I had an aunt just pass away at 91. Marke, she would have lived to 120 if the smoker’s emphysema hadn’t slowed her down.”

And her maverick feminist spirit still shines bright. “There’s more opportunity for women in this business now than when I started out. Working with Tina and Lisa was inspirational, and now with new media, the possibilities are really opening up. I mean, people used to think women did comedy only because they were too ugly to do anything else. When I first started getting better known, I can’t tell you how many people came up to me saying, ‘Oh, Lily, you’re so much prettier than you are on television!’ Ha. Can you believe that?”

“AN EVENING OF CLASSIC LILY TOMLIN”

Doors 7pm, show 8pm, $70-$85

The Uptown

1350 Third St., Napa

(707) 259-0123

Father’s day

June 19, 2013

arts@sfbg.com

LIT In late-1980s San Francisco, Steve Abbott hosted a gay writer’s workshop at his small apartment at the fabled corner of Haight and Ashbury. One fleeting but reliable occurrence was an appearance by Alysia, the daughter he’d raised since his wife died in a car accident years earlier.

Each week, the teenager stormed about just long enough so we could feel her wrath before slamming the bedroom door. It was funny, but also understandable: at that age, who wants their personal space regularly invaded by strangers? Let alone gay male adults, reinforcing your separation from the heterosexual family norm?

Steve was a significant presence in SF’s literary scene for nearly two decades, publishing his own adventuresome small-press books in various idioms (poems, essays, fiction). He edited small magazines including the influential Poetry Flash; was first to promote such edgy “postmodernist” voices as Kathy Acker and Dennis Cooper; and was an idiosyncratic cultural commentator for local weeklies (including the Bay Guardian). He was unfailingly generous with other fledgling writers, myself included.

He barely kept the rent paid via rote day jobs, while raising a child alone — an awkward match to the carefree gay community he joined upon moving to SF (and coming out) in 1974. As Alysia Abbott writes in her acclaimed new release Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father (W.W. Norton and Company, 352pp., $25.95), there were no role models then for gay single parents. Their very close but turbulent relationship amplified the clash between her often-peevish parental needs and his belated self-discovery in a sexual-artistic bohemia. They found balance as she found her own identity upon leaving for college. But then the AIDS epidemic swept both up in its devastation.

Abbott, now living in Boston with a husband and two children, answered questions in advance of two local appearances this week.

San Francisco Bay Guardian You had an unconventional childhood with an unconventional parent. Has that influenced your own parenting?

Alysia Abbott My father was raised in a strict Catholic household where family members rarely showed affection. He kept his feelings bottled up. By the time he had me, he wanted a completely different family experience, transparent and open. He often shared his romantic and professional woes, sometimes seeking my advice.

I absorbed a lot of my dad’s worry, and sometimes found myself in situations where I had to be more adult than I was ready to be. I want to be my true self with my children. But I also want to protect their innocence to some degree.

SFBG You’re frank about having been an “obnoxious” unhappy teenager. Are there things you or your father could have done differently? Was it a phase you just had to work through?

AA We were trying to create a life with a lot of setbacks, sharing a cramped one-bedroom in the Haight with little money or family help. My father was lonely, and trying to get sober just when I discovered drugs and alternative culture. We did our best under the circumstances. But as often as we clashed, there was a lot of love. This was a period we needed to go through.

SFBG Your father identified so strongly as a writer, but Fairyland doesn’t address how you became one yourself.

AA I’d always wanted to be a writer, or an artist. But after watching him struggle financially, I pursued steady-paycheck work in cushy corporate structures (which I now hate). I also didn’t know if I had his native talent, or could be as intellectually rigorous and pure. I always had our story to tell, but worried I wasn’t worthy of it. The idea of writing Fairyland and having it not meet my own expectations was unbearable. Now I realize perfectionism is the enemy of creativity. To succeed, you have to be willing to fail.

SFBG When Steve was facing mortality, he wrote that you’d probably better appreciate his writing after he’d passed on. What do you think about his literary legacy now?

AA I’m embarrassed to admit I really didn’t read my father’s books until ten years after he died. During his lifetime, the work’s weirdness, its attraction to transgressive figures and ideas threatened me. I accused him of not being a “real writer” because no one had heard of him and he didn’t make any “real money.” What a terrible thing for a daughter to say!

Researching for Fairyland, I came to respect his contributions and integrity. All the writers I know today have to be such master self-promoters. My father was almost embarrassingly naïve in this regard. That may be why few people know his work today. But he was so devoted to writing, and supporting writers that impressed him, even if that effort did nothing for his own career.

I now really love several of his poems and books, especially Lives of the Poets — but some still make me uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it’s because they aren’t good, or still too “out there” for me.

SFBG After so many years, how do you feel about returning to SF? Many of your father’s creative generation are dead. It’s a much yuppie-er burg.

AA San Francisco is very different from the city I knew in 1974, or even 1994. I’ve worried that those who remember the old San Francisco, or appreciate its history, are dwindling — they’ve died or been forced out by Ellis laws. But new residents are attracted by the city’s beauty just as we were. And though much better-heeled, these tech workers and professional types are also trying to reinvent culture, if with much greater odds of profit — and interest in profit.

ALYSIA ABBOTT

Wed/19, 7pm, free

City Lights Books

261 Columbus, SF

www.citylights.com

Thu/20, 6:30pm, free

San Francisco Public Library

100 Larkin, SF

www.sfpl.org

Console prizes

June 19, 2013

arts@sfbg.com

GAMER The days of game consoles being all about pretty graphics are over. The leap in visual fidelity when we went from PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3 isn’t going to happen this time, which is one reason it’s been seven years since the current consoles have been refreshed. All that changes this year, with the impending release of the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4.

Microsoft had a false start last month, with the reveal of Xbox One occurring ahead of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3. Showing off the sleek new console, the One was positioned as a unifying “everything” box, addressing the many Xbox users who regard the system as a gateway to all things movies, TV, and Netflix. However, by ignoring games and being cagey on important issues of DRM (a type of copy protection that has caused much past furor) and positioning the console as a high-speed always-online device, Microsoft willfully alienated a chunk of its audience.

The Xbox conference in Los Angeles last week saw the company hoping to gain ground by backing off its usual focus on sports, Kinect, and kids games and keeping true to “core game” experiences. In this regard, Microsoft was smart to tempt the Metal Gear Solid franchise to launch simultaneously on Xbox for the first time, and likewise big-time Sony-only developer Insomniac Games announced the One-exclusive Sunset Overdrive. Other Xbox-only experiences included Titanfall from the newly formed Respawn Games, which has the chops to be as big as the team’s last huge success — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. And of course, more Halo is ever imminent.

Initially, Sony’s E3 conference appeared less cohesive, and quite a bit sloppier, than the Xbox conference as it proclaimed a new life for its struggling Vita handheld, but failed to follow its passionate declaration for the console with big game announcements. The company chose instead to revisit previously announced PS4 games, Killzone: Shadow Fall and Infamous: Second Son.

But Sony’s presentation deficiencies were quickly forgotten as the show drew to a close. Directly addressing complaints about Microsoft’s next-gen policies, Sony loosed a salvo of not so subtle digs against Xbox One, announcing the PS4 to be DRM-free and offline-friendly — not to mention the PS4 at $399 would cost $100 less than the One. Such brazen acts of competition are rare between these two, but Sony apparently found the cracks in Microsoft’s strategy too tempting to ignore.

Since the 2011 PlayStation network hack that left many users’ personal data at risk, Sony has performed the humble, pro-consumer act well and, even if it doesn’t always offer a superior console experience, it knows its audience. For once, it didn’t matter who had the better games, the bigger hard drive or the best specs. This E3 was all about attitude.

THE BEST FOR ‘LAST’

As we wave goodbye to the consoles that have kept us warm for the past seven years, gamers have been looking for a game to dub “the last great game of the generation.” Releasing amid all the hubbub of E3, The Last of Us (Naughty Dog/Sony; PS3) is a fitting final hurrah, capping the reign of the PS3 with not so much a bang but with an assurance and a confidence that are unfamiliar to the medium of video games.

Set a number of years after a worldwide infection has destabilized the country, The Last of Us follows Joel, a no-nonsense smuggler, as he attempts to transport a 14-year-old girl named Ellie out of Boston. From the developers behind the Uncharted series, one might expect big action set-pieces and witty banter, but The Last of Us is more true to the conceits of survival horror. At heart, this is a stealth adventure, until the odds invariably and adamantly force your hand into acts of ferocious brutality. There are bad people, bad monsters, and a whole lot of riveting moments — which I won’t spoil — but it’s not so much the story as how it is told. Despite its gloom, The Last of Us has sweetness and a sense of hope that shapes the characters and makes their journey all the more impactful.

In other words, The Last of Us is the game to beat in 2013.

More to grow on

June 19, 2013

Pit Stop (Yen Tan, US) One of the very best narrative features at Sundance this year, Yen Tan’s drama nonetheless completely flew under the radar of media attention. It’s a beautifully low-key tale of two 40-ish gay men in a Texas small town. Neither are closeted, but they aren’t exactly fulfilled, either, both being in awkward domestic situations. Gabe (Bill Heck) is still living with angry ex-wife Shannon (Amy Seimetz) for the sake of their six year-old daughter. Ernesto (Marcus DeAnda) still shares his apartment with younger, slackerish ex-BF Luis (Alfredo Maduro), who keeps dragging his feet about actually moving out. Everyone is dissatisfied, but not quite willing to risk making a leap into unfamiliar territory. We know Gabe and Ernesto are fated to meet, yet it’s Tan’s terrifically nuanced portrayal of the relationships they must exit first that dominates almost the entire feature. Pit Stop is the kind of slow burner that sneaks up on you, surprising with the force of well-earned climactic joy after so much concise observation of credibly ordinary, troubled lives. Fri/21, 4pm, Castro; June 27, 7pm, Elmwood. (Dennis Harvey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rhaXvoGf0s

Free Fall (Stephan Lacant, Germany) A young German police cadet, Marc (Hanno Koffler), finds himself disturbingly drawn to a fellow cadet, Kay (Max Riemelt), during a weekend of training exercises — a regimen that proves to be not quite enough of an outlet to diffuse the erotic tension between them. Back home, though, are Marc’s very pregnant girlfriend, Bettina (Katharina Schüttler), and a circle of friends and family who expect him to continue along his current track of shacking up, forming a family, and demonstrating his loyalty to the macho brotherhood of his colleagues on the force. When Kay transfers into the department, his presence exerts a pressure on Marc that threatens to derail him. Director Stephan Lacant’s film, co-written with Karsten Dahlem, movingly depicts the painful breakdown of a man ruled by impulses he’s unable to face up to, and the consequences that come of remaining paralyzed in an impossible state. Fri/21, 6:30pm, Castro; Mon/24, 9:30pm, Elmwood. (Lynn Rapoport)

C.O.G. (Kyle Patrick Alvarez, US) The first feature adapted from David Sedaris’ writing, Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s film captures his acerbic autobiographical comedy while eventually revealing the misfit pain hidden behind that wit. Tightly wound David (Jonathan Groff), on the run from problematic family relations and his sexual identity, takes the bus from East Coast grad school to rural Oregon — his uninhibited fellow passengers providing the first of many mortifications here en route. Having decided that seasonal work as an apple picker will somehow be liberating, he’s viewed with suspicion by mostly Mexican co-workers and his crabby boss (Dean Stockwell). More fateful kinda-sorta friendships are forged with a sexy forklift operator (Corey Stoll) and a born-again war vet (Denis O’Hare). Under the latter’s volatile tutelage, David briefly becomes a C.O.G. — meaning “child of God.” Balancing the caustic, absurd, and bittersweet, gradually making us care about an amusingly dislikable, prickly protagonist, this is a refreshingly offbeat narrative that pulls off a lot of tricky, ambivalent mood shifts. Sat/22, 9:15pm, Castro. (Harvey)

Bwakaw (Jun Robles Lana, Philippines, 2012) Grumpy old man in the rural Philippines — OK, Jun Robles Lana’s seriocomedy isn’t going to top many lists as the sexiest movie at Frameline. But it’s one of the most deeply satisfying films at this year’s festival. Six-decade Filipino cinema veteran Eddie Garcia plays Rene, a crusty loner who lives alone and works without pay (he’s officially retired) at the local post office just to have something to do. He has cranky relationships — “friendships” would be a stretch — with the area priest, a widowed neighbor, and two over-the-top queens who run a hair salon. His closest bonds are to a rest-home denizen now too senile to remember who he is, and to the stray mutt who’s sort of his dog — though not so much that he’ll actually let it in the house. After decades in denial, Rene finally accepted his homosexuality at age 60, when “my time was [already] passed.” But he gets an unanticipated new surge of hope, possibly misdirected, upon befriending rough-hewn younger bicycle-taxi driver Sol (Rez Cortez). With its leisurely pace and seemingly stereotypical characters who turn out to be much more complex than they initially appear, Bwakaw is a disarmingly modest movie that gradually reveals a rather beautiful soul. Sun/23, 5:45pm, Victoria. (Harvey)

The Out List (Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, US) Documentarian Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, whose previous projects have focused on prominent African Americans and Latinos, supermodels, and porn stars, turns his lens on the LGBTs for a survey film set to air on HBO this month. While there’s no sign of the radical faeries or the poly queers with negative interest in the marriage equality battle, Greenfield-Sanders has gathered a decently varied collection of 16 LGBT individuals, mostly but not only celebrities, whose common thread is having gone public. Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and ex-NFLer Wade Davis describe their time in the closet and their coming-out episodes, while Hollywood stars Neil Patrick Harris and Cynthia Nixon comment on strategies for getting work and fighting the good fight (which for the latter includes closeting her bisexuality). Only an hour long, The Out List merely skims the surface of its subjects’ experiences, but we do get some sense of their scope, which includes finding family in NYC’s ballroom scene, getting elected as a lesbian Democratic sheriff in Dallas County, Texas, and learning to view one’s orientation as a gift from god. Tue/25, 4:30pm, Castro. (Rapoport)

Beyond the Walls (David Lambert, Belgium/Canada/France, 2012) Aptly compared in the Frameline catalog to such intelligent recent gay relationship studies as Weekend (2011) and Keep the Lights On (2012), David Lambert’s finely crafted debut feature charts its protagonists through an unpredictable, rocky romance. Paolo (Matila Malliarakis) is living with an older woman when he meets bartender-musician Ilir (Guillaume Gouix), who’s amused by the young blonde’s drunken antics while wary of the mutual attraction between them. When immature, puppyish Paolo gets thrown out by his exasperated girlfriend, he lands on Ilir’s doorstep as an uninvited instant-boyfriend, and despite some initial grumbling, that’s pretty much how it works out. Yet an unfortunate turn of events forces a long, involuntary separation between the two that their coupledom might not survive. While it requires a certain suspension of disbelief that focused, self-confident Ilir would fall for the flighty, needy Paolo, the eventual complexity of their relationship makes for a powerful cumulative impact. June 27, 9:30pm, Castro. (Harvey)

Reaching for the Moon (Bruno Barreto, Brazil) Brazilian director Bruno Barreto (1997’s Four Days in September) offers a moving account of the romantic relationship between the American poet Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto) and the Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires), which spanned the 1950s and the better part of the ’60s. The pair meet under inauspicious circumstances: traveling to Brazil, Elizabeth visits her old Vassar friend Mary (Tracy Middendorf) at the gorgeous rural estate where she lives with Lota, a wealthy woman from one of Brazil’s prominent political families. Unfortunately for Mary, Lota’s regard for the timid, restrained Elizabeth moves along a precipitous arc from irritation to infatuation, her subsequent impetuous pursuit of her lover’s friend revealing a heartless egoism — as well as an attitude toward householding that blends a poly sensibility with a ruling-class sense of entitlement. The film tracks Elizabeth and Lota’s enduring affair during a period marked by professional triumphs, personal lows, and political turmoil, all of which take their toll on the relationship. June 28, 6:45pm, Castro. (Rapoport)

Out Here: A Queer Farmer Film Project (Jonah Mossberg, US) Jonah Mossberg’s documentary crosses the country seeking out the perspectives of LGBT farmers, visiting some 30 farms before narrowing the focus to seven disparate subjects growing food in settings that range from a community garden in West Philadelphia to a farmstead in rural Alabama (or what one participant calls “the toenail of the Appalachians”). An allegiance to organics and other sustainable practices establishes some common ground. However, asked to encapsulate how queerness impacts her farming life, a woman raising crops and chickens in the Bronx’s Garden of Happiness observes, “I don’t think the land asks that question — if you’re gay or straight,” while others tease queerness out of acts like turning to permaculture and draw connections between heteronormativity and industrial agriculture. Look for fermentation guru Sandor Katz at Tennessee’s Little Short Mountain Farm, and stay seated for the longish closing credits interspersed with earnest (and otherwise) discussions of which veggie wins the title of queerest piece of produce. June 29, 1:30pm, Victoria. (Rapoport)

Young and Wild (Marialy Rivas, 2012) Structured around the anonymous and oft-graphic blog posts of a Chilean teenager, director-cowriter Marialy Rivas’s inventive, engaging film depicts a young woman’s navigation — both solitary and very, very public — of her sexual and romantic impulses as they clash with a rigid upbringing of spiritual indoctrination. Raised in an evangelical Christian household, Daniela (Alicia Rodríguez) bluntly documents, under the screen name Young and Wild, a period of upset and exploration during which she is outed as a fornicator and expelled from school, threatened by her hard-edged mother (Aline Küppenheim) with missionary exile, and faced with the sorrow of watching a beloved aunt (Ingrid Isensee) battle cancer. As Daniela begins a relationship with a young man (Felipe Pinto), begins a relationship with a young woman (María Gracia Omegna), and records the proceedings with a complicated mixture of comic insights, lyrical observations, and obscenities, her introspections play with the device of the straightforward voice-over—broadcast to untold numbers of unknown peers who avidly follow and comment on her adventures and misadventures. June 29, 8:30pm, Roxie. (Rapoport)

Frameline37 runs June 20-30 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St, SF; Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk. For tickets (most shows $12) and complete schedule, visit www.frameline.org.

Lives less ordinary

June 19, 2013

arts@sfbg.com

FRAMELINE Each year Frameline’s program vividly reflects issues that of late have seemed most urgent in the LGBT community — for many years, for instance, there was an understandably overwhelming amount of films about AIDS. Most recently, the fights for gay marriage and trans rights have dominated many a dramatic and documentary selection.

It is sometimes nice, therefore, in the fray of pressing public debate and community activism to escape topicality and sink into the achievements and personalities of more distant queer-history eras. Several documentaries at Frameline37 offer just that, as they chronicle the lives and times of five extraordinary men (albeit one normally found in a dress and fright wig).

The most San Francisco-centric of them is Stephen Silha, Eric Slade, and Dawn Logsdon’s Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton, about “a golden secret of West Coast bohemia.” The late James Broughton was a poet, prankster, and experimental filmmaker who began making films in the late 1940s “to see what my dreams really looked like.” A significant figure in the pre-Beat San Francisco renaissance of avant-garde art, he won a prize at Cannes for 1953’s typically playful, hedonistic The Pleasure Garden, but declined the commercial directing career offered him — in fact he didn’t make another movie for 15 years, when free-love hymn The Bed became a counterculture smash.

Broughton married and had three children (including one with not-yet-famous local film critic Pauline Kael), but at age 61 found his soulmate in 26-year-old fellow director Joel Singer, thereafter devoting his life and work to celebrations of gay male sexuality. (Interviewed here, his ex-wife Susanna calls this turn of events “a very unwelcome incident from which I never recovered.”) The documentary provides a treasure trove of excerpts from a now little-seen body of cinematic work, as well as much archival footage of SF over the decades.

Bringing joy to a lot of people during his too-brief life was Glenn Milstead, the subject of Jeffrey Schwarz’s I Am Divine. A picked-on sissy fat kid, he blossomed upon discovering Baltimore’s gay underground — and starring in neighbor John Waters’ underground movies, made by and for the local “freak” scene they hung out in.

Yet even their early efforts found a following; when “Divine” appeared in SF to perform at one of the Cockettes’ midnight movie/theater happenings, he was greeted as a star. This was before his greatest roles for Waters, as the fearsome anti-heroines of Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974), then the beleaguered hausfraus of Polyester (1981) and Hairspray (1988). Despite spending nearly his entire career in drag, he wanted to be thought of as a character actor, not a “transvestite” novelty. Sadly, he seemed on the verge of achieving that — having been signed to play an ongoing male role on Married … with Children — when he died of respiratory failure in 1988, at age 42.

A different kind of tragedy is chronicled in Clare Beaven and Nic Stacey’s British Codebreaker, about Alan Turing — perhaps the most brilliant mathematician of his era, who basically came up with the essential concept of the modern-day computer (in 1936!) He played a huge role in breaking the Nazi’s secret Enigma code, thus aiding an Allied victory. But instead of being treated as a national hero, he was convicted of “gross indecency” (i.e. gay sex) in 1952 and hounded by police until he committed suicide two years later. Half conventional documentary and half reenactment drama (with Ed Stoppard, playwright Tom’s son, as Turing), Codebreaker illustrates the cruel price even an upper-class genius could pay for his or her sexuality in the days before Gay Lib.

Two literary lions are remembered in the last of these historical bio-docs. Daniel Young’s Swiss Paul Bowles: The Cage Door is Always Open recalls the curious life of a successful American composer turned famous expat novelist. He and wife Jane Bowles moved to post-World War II Tangiers, where they entertained a parade of visiting artists — and, by all accounts, a succession of same-sex lovers. Clips from Bernardo Bertolucci’s underrated adaptation of Bowles’ literary masterwork The Sheltering Sky (1990) are here alongside input from acquaintances and observers including John Waters and Gore Vidal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INW6i6K1NmQ

The latter is the whole focus in Nicholas Wrathall’s Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, and what could be better than that? Perhaps undervalued as a frequently very fine novelist because he was so prolific (and popular), he’s considered here primarily as a public intellectual — a term that seems positively antiquated in our climate of pundits and ranters — and fierce lifelong critic of American hypocrisy in all its forms, especially the political. He was a scold (or a “correctionist,” as he put it), albeit of the wittiest, most clear-headed and informed type. Among myriad highlights here are seeing him on TV reduce friend-rival Norman Mailer to sputtering fury, shred the insufferable right-wing toady William F. Buckley, and make poor Jerry Brown squirm under his effortless tongue-lashing.

Endlessly quotable (“We’ve had bad Presidents in the past but we’ve never had a goddam fool,” he said of George W. Bush), obstinately “out” from an early age if never very PC in his views (“Sex destroys relationships … I’m devoted to promiscuity”), Vidal is aptly appreciated here as “a thorn in the American Establishment, of which by birth he is a charter member.” There will never be anyone quite like him — but we sure could use some who are at least in the general ballpark. *

FRAMELINE37

June 20-30, various venues

www.frameline.org

Where to next?

June 19, 2013

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Ben Levy sure knows how to throw a party. For the 10th anniversary celebration of his LEVYdance company, he once again closed off SOMA alley Heron Street, where his studio is located, and hung balloons, speakers, and lights. He put up bars and set out soft sofas, and erected a large stage with a central pit full of pillows (for those who might prefer to recline). It was one of those rare San Francisco evenings with clear skies — and just the slightest of breezes — which made you glad you don’t live across any bridges.

But does Levy know to choreograph? You bet he does. A decade ago he burst onto the San Francisco dance scene with clarity of vision and skills to match, unheard-of in a dancer just barely out of college. But that’s exactly why this festive event lacked an essential ingredient.

Seeing the four works — one from 2002, two from 2004, and one from 2005 — put a damper on the evening. No amount of finessing and rethinking of repertoire can take the place of the risk and excitement involved when a choreographer steps into unknown territory. Looking back on a decade’s accomplishments may be gratifying, but more essential is giving an audience an inkling of where the artistic trajectory is going.

Grant Diffendaffer’s open-air stage, essentially an elevated square of walkways around an open center, necessitated some reconfigurations that diluted what sometimes felt like volcanic forces about to explode in Levy’s choreography. But it also allowed for increased intimacy, depending on where you sat.

Levy’s four dancers dove into the choreography with an impressive unity of purpose. They attacked complex interactions — often at top speed — with razor sharp timing. Seeing the dancers dressed in brilliant white against the riotous chaos of the graffiti covered brick walls suggested an unexpected symbiotic relationship between dance and murals.

pOrtal, the oldest piece on the program, still fascinated in the way Scott Marlowe, Yu Kondo Reigen, Paul Vickers, and Sarah Dianne Woods upset each other’s balances. They grabbed, yanked, and poked; flipped a partner; or pushed a knee against a belly. When a dancer leaned over a colleague’s knee, it would drop away beneath them. The idea seems to be avoiding stability at any cost — like living in the middle of a non-stop earthquake. What might look like violence or aggression in another case is delivered in such a matter-of-fact way that it becomes a self-contained image of one way of being.

Originally, If this small space, choreographed by Levy and Rachael Lincoln, was performed on a five-by-five lit square that set up limitations. Shifted to the open, the attention immediately shifted onto the internal forces that strained against the confines of Marlowe’s body. Performed magnificently by this beautiful dancer, If this small space might have him look up and push against invisible walls — but it was the small trembles, muscular contractions, currents, and mysterious somethings rolling through his torso that collapsed his knees. The effect indicated just how at the mercy of imprisoning forces this human being was. Perhaps the most touching moment came when Marlowe lifted one leg and it looked like it might try to float away from him.

The engaging Holding Pattern opened with Reigen’s stunningly performed solo, in which warring forces seemed to tear her body apart as Vickers and Woods traced a cautious circle around her. The trio engaged in a contentious give and take, part wrestling match, part karate engagement. For a while it looked like the two women were ganging up on Vickers, but then he gave as good as he got.

That Four Letter Word (apply your own definition) finds the quartet in every possible permutation of relationships between two men and two women. Some of it is quite funny — though I could have done without the balloon jokes — but here the spatial reconfigurations created too much distance. Four ran out of steam though it did showcase Vickers and Marlowe — super-articulate, elegant dancers — exquisitely mirroring each other.

The program also highlighted Levy’s excellent musical choices — many of them commissioned. Let’s hope he’ll soon have an opportunity to use some more.

Tablehopping

June 19, 2013

CHOW NOW

There are a couple new spots to rock your sweet tooth — or grill, depending on how many teeth we’re talking about — starting with the brick-and-mortar Mission location of the Crème Brûlée Cart (3338 24th St., SF. www.cremebruleecart.com) that just opened by the 24th Street BART station. Yup, you can dive into a traditional crème brûlée (torched to order) or go new school with rotating flavors like the Tupac (with Champagne, cranberries, and pecans), plus other topping options. Also: pinball (fun), housemade drinks, and take-home dessert sauces in case you wanna get freaky with your honey. Hours for now are Wed–Thu and Sun 2pm–10pm and Fri–Sat 12pm–12am (closed Mon–Tue).

If you’re in the Richmond, you’re going to want to swing by the brand-new Heartbaker (1408 Clement, SF. www.theheartbaker.com) from Sybil Johnson. The name may sound sweet, but the look is definitely edgy, with creepy-cool large-format photographs by Merkley??? of Heartbaker pals wearing masks covered in cream puffs and other edible items. Whether you want to grab a baguette sandwich before heading the park, hang out at the marble bar over some baked goods and coffee, or sit down for a salad and dessert (uh huh), this place has you covered. There’s also beer and wine, how civilized. Hours are Tue–Wed 7am–10pm, Thu–Sat 7am–11pm, Sun 8am–10pm, closed Mon.

Let’s talk brunch, shall we? If you dig chicken and waffles, Soul Groove (422 Larkin SF. www.chickenandwafflesandwich.com) is now busting out a Southern-fried brunch on the weekend. Whatever damage you did Saturday night, I imagine a fried chicken–waffle sandwich, an eggs Benedict made with a waffle, or Bourbon Street waffles (banana cake waffles with praline butter, bourbon-maple syrup, and vanilla bean whipped cream) will help fix things. And since more is more, brunch also includes DJs spinning records from the Motown on Monday crew and Today’s Future Sound. If you’re a night owl, there are also late-night takeout hours, until 3am on Thu–Sat. Hours are Sun–Wed 10am–3pm and 5pm–10pm, Thu–Sat 10am–3pm and 5pm–11pm; takeout only 11pm–3am.

For a little bit of Mexico City sabór, there’s a new pop-up called Loqui (3609 18th St. SF. www.eatloqui.com) on Friday and Saturday nights from Tartine baker Cameron Wallace and Mexico City native Ari Ampudia. Think street food like mesquite-grilled carne asada tacos on handmade flour and corn tortillas, and pelonas (sandwiches) stuffed with birria, and other antojitos. Fri–Sat 7:30pm until they sell out (11pm or so).

BALLIN’ ON A BUDGET

If you dig barbecue, you’ll want to check out this upcoming pop-up on Tue/25, S&S Pop-Up from chefs Sarah Burchard and Spencer O’Meara, because these two know their way around some meats. They’ll be doing a Latin American night, with happy hour small bites (at 6pm) and dinner kicks in at 7pm with build-you-own barbacoa (goat) tacos, ceviche, feijoada, fried plantains, and three kinds of dessert. At Mission Rock Resort, 817 Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF. Tickets are $42 (not including drinks and gratuity): ss-shack.ticketleap.com.

YOU GOTTA EAT THIS

There’s fried rice, and then there’s the fried rice at Ramen Shop in Rockridge (5812 College, Oak. www.ramenshop.com). No rubbery pieces of egg in this bowl of bodaciousness: one night it came packed with plump oysters, squid, and little bites of chashu pork, plus wild nettles, cilantro, and a special, secret sauce: Siew’s spicy shrimp-chile paste (which gives it just enough vroom). The crisp texture, quality ingredients, and mad flavor make this bowl a steal for $12. Bonus: Ramen Shop is only a couple blocks from the Rockridge BART.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

Rep Clock

June 19, 2013

Schedules are for Wed/19-Tue/25 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ANSWER COALITION 2969 Mission, SF; www.answersf.org. $5-10 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds). Assata: Eyes on the Rainbow (Rolando, 1997), Wed, 7.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-7. “Periwinkle Cinema: Rejected!”, films rejected from festivals, Wed, 8. We Are Not Afraid: Inside the Coup in Honduras (Lara, 2012), Sun, 5.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.waronwhistleblowers.com. $5-10 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds). War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State (Greenwald, 2013), Thu, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-13. •Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich, 1955), Wed, 7, and Repo Man (Cox, 1984), Wed, 9. Frameline 37: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, June 20-30. Visit www.frameline.org for ticket info and complete schedule.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Becoming Traviata (Béziat, 2012), call for dates and times. Fill the Void (Burshtein, 2012), call for dates and times. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. Midnight’s Children (Mehta, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. Stories We Tell (Polley, 2012), call for dates and times. Voyage to Italy (Rossellini, 1954), Thu and Sun, 7. Stromboli (Rossellini, 1950), Sun, 4:15.

ELLEN DRISCOLL PLAYHOUSE 325 Highland, Piedmont; www.diversityfilmseries.org. Free. “Piedmont Diversity Film Series:” Room to Breathe (Long, 2012), Wed, 6:30.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Old Mill Park, 300 block of Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). Hugo (Scorsese, 2011), Fri, 8. Chinese Fishing Village, 899 N. San Pedro Rd, China Camp, San Rafael. Skyfall (Mendes, 2012), Sat, 8.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). “CinemaLit Film Series: On the Road:” Harry and Tonto (Mazursky, 1974), Fri, 6.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. $6-10. “New Parkway Family Classics:” Willow (Howard, 1988), Fri, 4; Sat, 12:30. “Thrillville Theater:” Death Race 2000 (Bartel, 1975), Sun, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “A Theater Near You:” The Tin Drum (Schlöndorff, 1979), Wed, 7; The Man Who Fell to Earth (Roeg, 1976), Thu, 7; The Mill and the Cross (Majewski, 2010), Sat, 6:30; Tristana (Buñuel, 1970), Sat, 8:30. “From the Archive: Treasures of Eastern European and Soviet Cinema:” The Girl (Mészáros, 1969), Fri, 7, and Love (Makk, 1971), Fri, 8:40.”Castles in the Sky: Masterful Anime from Studio Ghibli:” Kiki’s Delivery Service (Miyazaki, 1989), Sun, 4.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. DocFest: 12th SF Documentary Film Festival, Wed-Thu. For complete schedule and ticket info, visit www.sfindie.com. Berberian Sound Studio (Strickland, 2012), June 21-27, 9:15.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; Facebook: The Vortex Room. $10. “The Vortex Phenomena:” •Yeti: The Giant of the 20th Century (Parolini, 1977), Thu, 9, and Encounter with the Unknown (Thomason, 1973), Thu, 11.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise Trilogy:” Paradise: Faith (2012), Thu and Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2.

Music Listings

June 19, 2013

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

WEDNESDAY 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Joseph Arthur Chapel, 777 Valencia, SF; www.thechapelsf.com. 9pm, $20-$25.

Camera Obscura, Photo Ops Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $25.

Dig, Tambo Rays, Low Magic, Sunfighter Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Mark Eitzel, Carletta Sue Kay, Will Sprott Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $12.

David Ford Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Geto Boys, Phranchyze Yoshi’s SF. 10:30pm, $36.

Gunshy Johnny Foley’s. 10pm, free.

Craig Horton Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Lust for Life, Pharmakon, DJs Omar and Justin Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Sam Chase, Gallery, Dogcatcher Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Water Liars, Standard Poodle, Houses of Light Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Fatoumata Diawara Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $24.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Terry Disley Burritt Room, 417 Stockton, SF; www.burrittavern.com. 6-9pm, free.

Big Bones Royal Cuckoo, 3203 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30-10:30pm, free.

Cecile McClorin Salvant SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $18-$25. SF Jazz Festival.

Michael Parsons Trio Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; www.revolutioncafesf.com. 8:30pm, free.

Reuben Rye Rite Spot. 8:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Hans Araki and Kathryn Claire Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Aki Kumar Blues Band Tupelo, 1337 Grant, SF; www.tupelosf.com. 9pm.

Timba Dance Party Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Cash IV Gold Double Dutch, 3192 16th St, SF; www.thedoubledutch.com. 9pm, free.

Coo-Yah! Slate Bar, 2925 16th St, SF; www.slate-sf.com. 10pm, free. With Vinyl Ambassador, DJ Silverback, DJs Green B and Daneekah.

Hardcore Humpday Happy Hour RKRL, 52 Sixth St, SF; (415) 658-5506. 6pm, $3.

Martini Lounge John Colins, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 7pm. With DJ Mark Divita.

THURSDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Jay Ant Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 10:30pm, $15.

Come, Tara Jane O’Neil Independent. 8pm, $15.

Couches, Boys, Burrows Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $7.

D Pryde, Mike-Dash-E, J. Lately Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 6pm, free.

Hey Champ, popscene DJs Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm, $12-$14.

Hooded Fang, Record Company DNA Lounge. 8pm, $12.

Chris James and Patrick Rynn Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Anya Kvitka and the Getdown, Jonny Craig Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $13.

Dave Moreno and Friends Johnny Foley’s. 10pm, free.

Scary Little Friends, TV Mike and the Scarecrows, Indianna Hale Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Cody Simpson, Ryan Beatty, Before You Exit Warfield. 7pm, $45.

Strange Vine, Before the Brave, Avi Vinocur Metal Experience Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Ugly Winner, C’est Dommage, Future, Space and Time, Hanalei Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Will Blades Trio SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $18-$25. SF Jazz Festival.

Lucy Horton Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; www.revolutioncafesf.com. 8:30pm, free.

Gregory Porter SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-$45. SF Jazz Festival.

Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3203 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30-10:30pm, free.

Dr. L. Subramaniam Global Fusion Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $36; 10pm, $28.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Hot Einstein Tupelo, 1337 Grant, SF; www.tupelosf.com. 9pm.

Pa’lante! Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm, $5.

Kyle Thayer, Anne Kirrane, Gerry Hanley Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8. With DJ-hosts Pleasuremaker and Senor Oz.

All 80s Thursday Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). The best of ’80s mainstream and underground.

Ritual Temple. 10pm-3am, $5. Two rooms of dubstep, glitch, and trap music.

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

FRIDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Body and Soul Johnny Foley’s. 10pm, free.

Chris Cain Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Cigarette Bums, Virgin Hymns, Bad Vibes Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

Ex-Cult, Glitz Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $10.

Hands, Be Calm Honcho, Ally Hasche and the Bad Boys Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $10.

Jon Langford, Jean Cook, Jim Elkington-Skull Orchard Acoustic Chapel, 777 Valencia, SF; www.thechapelsf.com. 9pm, $20.

New Trust, Creative Adult, Culture Abuse Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $10.

Petty Theft, Beer Drinks and Hell Raisers Slim’s. 8:30pm, $15-$20.

Josh Rouse, Field Report Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.

Staves, Musikanto Independent. 9pm, $12.

Steve Miller Band America’s Cup Pavilion, 27-29 San Francisco Pier 33, SF; americascup.com/concert-series. 7:30pm, $52.

Stripmall Architecture, Books on Fate, Return to Mono DNA Lounge. 8pm, $12.

ZAVALAZ, EV Kain Café Du Nord. 9pm, $15-$20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Pino Daniele SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8 and 10pm, $25-$65. SF Jazz Festival.

Roberta Donnay and the Prohibition Mob Trio Live Worms Art Gallery, 1345 Grant, SF; www.sflivewormsgallery.com. 8pm, $10-$20.

Emily Ann Band Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; www.revolutioncafesf.com. 9pm, free.

Hammond Organ Soul Jazz, Blues Party Royal Cuckoo, 3203 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30-10:30pm, free.

La Chatonne Electrique Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $15. Electro-swing with Bart and Baker, Delachaux, Kitten on the Keys, and more.

Loose Ends feat. Jane Eugene Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $34; 10pm, $27.

Dmitri Matheny’s Sagebrush Rebellion Old First Concerts, 1751 Sacramento, SF; www.oldfirstconcerts.org. 8pm, $14-$17.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Adria Amenti Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Bluegrass Bonanza Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Lee Vilensky Trio Rite Spot. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

DJ What’s His Fuck Riptide Tavern. 9pm, free.

5ive DNA Lounge. 9pm, $5-$15. With Ross FM, Frank Nitty, Switchblade, and more.

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

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

Paris Dakar Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm, $5.

Thirsty Third Fridays Atmosphere, 447 Broadway, SF; www.a3atmosphere.com. 10pm, $10.

SATURDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Battlehooch, Major Powers and the Lo-Fi Symphony, Hungry Skinny Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

Big Blu Soul Revue Park Chalet, 1000 Great Hwy, SF; www.bigblusoulrevue.com. 2pm, free.

BLVD, Pink Mammoth Independent. 9pm, $20.

Daisy World, Space Trash, Naw’m Sayin Knockout. 3:30-8pm, $5.

Delgado Brothers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Doctor Krapula Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $25.

Fake Blood, Alex Metric Mezzanine. 9pm, $12.50.

Fusion Johnny Foley’s. 10pm, free.

Hell Fire, Midnight Chaser, My Victim Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

Honey Wilders Riptide. 9pm, free.

Noisia, M Machine Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $30.

Rabbles. Strawberry Smog, Unruly Ones Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Record Winter, Imperfections, Casey Jones Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

“Valencia Film Party” Elbo Room. 9pm, $15. With Need, filmmaker-DJs Snow Tiger, NSFW.

Yadokai, Condominium, White Wards, Provos El Rio. 10pm, $8.

Rachel Yamagata, Sanders Bohlke Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $19-$21.

Yassou Benedict, O Presidente, Campbell Apartment Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

“Gospel Brunch: Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir” SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 11am, $30-$65. SF Jazz Festival.

Low Behold Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; www.revolutioncafesf.com. 9pm, free.

Chris Mann Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $33..

Michael McIntosh Rite Spot. 8:30pm, free.

Anton Schwartz Church of the Advent of Chris the King, 261 Fell, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 5pm, $10. SF Jazz Festival.

John Scofield Uberjam Band SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-$70. SF Jazz Festival.

Lavay Smith Royal Cuckoo, 3203 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30-10:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Mark Hummel Tupelo, 1337 Grant, SF; www.tupelosf.com. 9pm.

La Chilanga Banda, Pata de Perro, Zigzagz Balancoire, 2565 Mission, SF; www.balancoiresf.com. 9pm, $10.

Muddy Roses Plough and Stars. 9pm.

North Beach Brass Band Tupelo, 1337 Grant, SF; www.tupelosf.com. 1pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Bootie SF: Monster Show DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-$15. With Monster Show mashup drag extravaganza, and more.

Club 1994 Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10-$20.

Paris Dakar Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm, $5.

Temptation Cat Club. 9:30pm. $5–<\d>$8. Indie, electro, new wave video dance party.

SUNDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

A Wilhelm Scream, Flatliners, Such Gold Thee Parkside. 8pm, $15.

Michael Barrett Johnny Foley’s. 10pm, free.

“Blue Bear School of Music Band Showcases” Café Du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-$20.

Dot Hacker Chapel, 777 Valencia, SF; www.thechapelsf.com. 8pm, $12-$15.

Hans Eberbach Castagnola’s, 286 Jefferson, SF; www.castagnolas.com. 2pm, free.

Patty Griffin, Max Gomez Fillmore. 8pm, $35.

“Metal Meltdown” DNA Lounge. 4:30pm, $12. With Anisoptera, No More Solace, Holy Blowout, Demacia.

Modern Kicks, February Zero, Requiem for the Dead Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Monster Rally, Steezy Ray Vibes, Shortcircles, duckyousucker Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $10.

Odd Owl 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 8pm.

Tomihira, Mosaics, Animal Super Species Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $6.

Two Tone Steiny and the Cadillacs Biscuits and Blues. 7 and 9pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Ralph Carney Church of the Advent of Christ the King, 261 Fell, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 5pm, $10. SF Jazz Festival.

Gerald Clayton Trio SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $18-$25. SF Jazz Festival.

Howell Divine Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; www.revolutioncafesf.com. 8:30pm, free.

Ramsey Lewis and Dee Dee Bridgewater with Quadron Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Avenue and Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.com. 2pm, free.

“Micro-Concert: Matt Clark” SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 4, 5, 6pm, $5. SF Jazz Festival.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Brazil and Beyond Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 6:30pm, free.

Famous Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Pat O’Donnell, Sean O’Donnell Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Beats for Brunch Thee Parkside. 11am, free.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $8. With Prince Fatty Soundsystem, DJ Sep.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2.

MONDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Blue Bear School of Music Band Showcases” Café Du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-$20.

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 10pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Classical Revolution Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; www.revolutioncafesf.com. 8pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Nobody From Alabama Tupelo, 1337 Grant, SF; www.tupelosf.com. 9pm.

Kyle Williams Osteria, 3277 Sacramento, SF; www.osteriasf.com. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-$5. With Decay, Joe Radio, Melting Girl.

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

Soul Cafe John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. R&B, Hip-Hop, Neosoul, reggae, dancehall, and more with DJ Jerry Ross.

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

TUESDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Big Business, Pins of Light, Grayceon Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Blood of Kvasir, Mecury’s Antenna Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $6.

“Blue Bear School of Music Band Showcases” Café Du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-$20.

Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown, Girls and Boys Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

John Garcia Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Geoff Rickly, Vinnie Cauana, Picture Atlantic, Owl Paws Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

Glitter Wizard, Terminal Fuzz Terror, Planes of Satori Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Harry and the Potters Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 5pm, $10.

Nordeson/Shelton Duo, NAMES, DJ Special Lord B and Phengren Oswald Amnesia. 9:30pm, $5.

So Many Wizards, Local Hero, Kera and Lesbians Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10-$12.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 10pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Karl Alfonso Evangelista Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; www.revolutioncafesf.com. 8:30pm, free.

Terry Disley Burritt Room, 417 Stockton, SF; www.burrittavern.com. 6-9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Toshio Hirano Rite Spot. 8:30pm, free.

Song Session with Cormac Gannon Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Underground Nomads Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

DJ4AM Laszlo, 2526 Mission, SF; www.laszlobar.com. Boom bap hip-hop, beats, and dub.

Hug Life Tuesdaze Laszlo, 2526 Mission, SF; www.laszlobar.com/. 9pm. With DJ4AM.

Stylus John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. Hip-hop, dancehall, and Bay slaps with DJ Left Lane.

Takin’ Back Tuesdays Double Dutch, 3192 16th St,SF; www.thedoubledutch.com. 10pm. Hip-hop from the 1990s.

Film Listings and Reviews

June 19, 2013

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

FRAMELINE

The 37th San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival runs June 20-30 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St, SF; Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk. For tickets (most shows $12) and complete schedule, visit www.frameline.org.

OPENING

Berberian Sound Studio It’s the 1970s, and frumpy British sound designer Gilderoy (a flawless Toby Jones) has, somewhat inexplicably, been hired by a flamboyant Italian filmmaker to work on his latest lurid genre piece, The Equestrian Vortex — about a girl who realizes her riding academy is haunted by witches. Any resemblance to 1977’s Suspiria is entirely intentional, as writer-director Peter Strickland crafts a meta-horror film that’s both tribute to Argento and co. and a freaky number all its own, as Gilderoy begins to realize that the “vortex” he’s dealing with isn’t merely confined to the screen. Fans of vintage Euro horror will appreciate the behind-the-scenes peek at the era’s filmmaking process, as well as Strickland’s obvious affection for one of cinema’s most oddly addictive genres. Bonus points for the Goblin reference. (1:28) Roxie. (Eddy)

The Bling Ring When it was revealed that high schoolers were behind a series of robberies targeting the lavish homes of Hollywood’s famous-for-being-famous types — most notably Paris Hilton — the fallout became fodder for gossip websites like TMZ.com, plus a memorable Vanity Fair article. The latter (recently expanded into a book by author Nancy Jo Sales) is the basis for Sofia Coppola’s new film, a fictionalized take on the crimes. Bored by upper-middle-class lives that leave them with lots of free time and habitually absent parents, a posse of SoCal teens (newcomers Katie Chang and Israel Broussard, and Harry Potter‘s all-grown-up Emma Watson, lead the charge) begin creepy-crawling the homes of Hilton and others, dovetailing their celebrity obsessions with a raging hunger for expensive shit. (Was ever a crime so victimless, one wonders, than a heist perpetrated at the expense of a starlet’s handbag collection, so vast she won’t even notice a few missing Birkins?) Flashing their ill-gotten new clothes, jewelry, and wads of cash in Facebook selfies, the burglars miss the most valuable lesson of all: that the friendships they share are fleeting and meaningless — kind of like fame, kind of like blowing (stolen) money on designer clothes that will soon be out of style. Ironically, with The Bling Ring, Coppola has delivered her least-vapid film since 1999’s The Virgin Suicides; it’s both candy-colored and canny, a cautionary tale that lingers just long enough on its scenes of youthful excess to let you know it’s in on the joke. (1:27) Shattuck. (Eddy)

“From the Archive: Treasures of Eastern European and Soviet Cinema: A Tribute to George Gund III” One rich guy who really, really loved art — not just as an investment or public charity platform — recently deceased Bay Area resident George Gund III was a burly entrepreneur and athlete who grew fascinated with Soviet-bloc cinema early on. He spread that passion as a longtime board member for the San Francisco Film Society, and as a donor of prints to Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive. A selection from the latter collection is being showcased in a month-long PFA tribute that starts this week. Spanning from Hungary to Czechoslovakia to former USSR territories over a richly creative cinematic era (1960s to 1970s), it offers numerous seldom-revived gems including Juraj Herz’s macabre 1968 Czech black comedy The Cremator, Georgian master Otar Iosseliani’s 1975 Pastorale, and decorous kitsch-classic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) director Jaromil Jiles’ contrastingly stark 1972 follow-up And Give My Love to the Swallows, which depicts the fate of a young woman sentenced to death for supporting the resistance under Nazi occupation. Pacific Film Archive. (Harvey)

A Hijacking Danish director Tobias Lindholm’s thriller is not based on a specific incident, but its story feels ripped-from-the-headlines familiar, and it’s part of a larger trend of films — including the upcoming Captain Phillips, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Tom Hanks — about Somali pirates. Coincidentally, A Hijacking is reminiscent of Greengrass’ style, shot almost like a documentary with great attention to realism. At sea, we follow good-natured cargo-ship cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) as he deals with the sudden invasion of machine-gun toting thugs (who speak neither Danish nor English, and aren’t given subtitles to translate their own language), and is drawn into drama with the one member of their team he can communicate with: capricious go-between Omar (Abdihakin Asgar), who’s armed with power instead of weapons. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, reserved shipping-company CEO Peter (Søren Malling) steps into the delicate role of negotiator when the ransom demands start rolling in. A Hijacking is tense and tightly constructed, as when an exhausted, frustrated Peter removes his shirt and tie and reveals he’s wearing the same type of undershirt as the grimy, terrified Mikkel. And if the film tends to view the hijackers as an indistinguishable mob of trigger-happy villains, at least there’s the Omar character — and one briefly uplifting scene where the whole group fishes off the boat to replenish their dwindling food supply — to humanize them somewhat. (1:39) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Monsters University Seven-year-old Mike Wazowski is even more adorable than grown-up, Billy-Crystal-voiced Mike Wazowski. It’s a pity, then, that one of the big lessons Monsters University teaches is that the essence of monster-identity is how scary one is. What Mike loses in frightfulness he forcefully recovers in spunk, and after a trip to the scare floor that briskly reminds us the premise of 2001’s Monsters, Inc., mini-Mike becomes the first ever career-driven Pixar character. (For this, I love him.) We all know he eventually becomes a superstar in this scare-powered retro-verse, but first he has to overcome frat boy-inflicted embarrassment and flunk out of school. The most noteworthy thing about Pixar’s first prequel is how very massively its characters fail — it’s a lovely tilt that suggest the greatness of tomorrow begins when you overcome the failures of today. The administrators of Monsters University (in particular Helen Mirren’s dragon-lady Dean) require formal perfection in the scares they grade, but in the world of actual scarers, oddness and difference actually become advantages. It’s all theory but no rulebook. And doesn’t that sound like a good lesson from the studio that once proudly said “story is king,” yet now scrambles to meet Disney’s once-a-year feature demands? Such rigidity comes at a price. (1:50) Presidio. (Vizcarrondo)

Somm First-time filmmaker Jason Wise follows four wine-obsessed men (including three from the Bay Area) on their quest to become Master Sommeliers. Their genial rivalry — the stuffiest member of the quartet is nicknamed “Dad” — somewhat offsets the immense pressure they’re under, though every guy turns into Rain Man when he starts ID-ing each unmarked glass, detecting subtle yet highly specific aromas like “sage, truffle, wet forest floor, decaying dried red rose petals,” “a freshly opened can of tennis balls,” and (in the weirdest example) “grandma’s closet.” It’s an insular, elite world, but Wise’s camera gets right to the front lines as the candidates prep for the grueling, multi-day test, interviewing the long-suffering spouses of the candidates (one of whom ruminates on the grossness of “spit buckets” left behind after late-night tasting marathons). As the day of reckoning looms, the tension mounts along with the piles of flash cards — but the friendships and good humor remain, even after the results are revealed. (1:33) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

World War Z Max Brooks’ horror novel comes to the big screen, following an ensemble cast (Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Bryan Cranston) as they grapple with a worldwide zombie outbreak. (1:56) California, Four Star, Presidio, Shattuck.

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

Epic (1:42) Metreon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man of Steel As beloved as he is, Superman is a tough superhero to crack — or otherwise bend into anything resembling a modern character. Director Zack Snyder and writer David S. Goyer, working with producer Christopher Nolan on the initial story, do their best to nuance this reboot, which focuses primarily on Supe’s alien origins and takes its zoom-happy space battles from Battlestar Galactica. The story begins with Kal-El’s birth on a Krypton that’s rapidly going into the shitter: the exploited planet is about to explode and wayward General Zod (Michael Shannon) is staging a coup, killing Kal-El’s father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe), the Kryptonians’ lead scientist, and being conveniently put on ice in order to battle yet another day. That day comes as Kal-El, now a 20-something earthling named Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) — resigned to his status as an outsider, a role dreamed up by his protective adoptive dad (Kevin Costner) — has turned into a bit of a (dharma) bum, looking like a buff Jack Kerouac, working Deadliest Catch-style rigs, and rescuing people along the way to finding himself. Spunky Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is the key to his, erm, coming-out party, necessitated by a certain special someone looking to reboot the Kryptonian race on earth. The greatest danger here lies in the fact that all the leached-of-color quasi-sepia tone action can turn into a bit of a Kryptonian-US Army demolition derby, making for a mess of rubble and tricky-to-parse fight sequences that, of course, will satisfy the fanboys and -girls, but will likely glaze the eyes of many others. Nevertheless, the effort Snyder and crew pack into this lengthy artifact — with its chronology-scrambling flashbacks and multiple platforms for Shannon, Diane Lane, Christopher Meloni, Laurence Fishburne, and the like — pays off on the level of sheer scale, adding up to what feels like the best Superman on film or TV to date — though that bar seems pretty easy to leap over in a single bound. (2:23) Balboa, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

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

Mud (2:18) Balboa, Opera Plaza.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Is the End It’s a typical day in Los Angeles for Seth Rogen as This Is the End begins. Playing a version of himself, the comedian picks up pal and frequent co-star Jay Baruchel at the airport. Since Jay hates LA, Seth welcomes him with weed and candy, but all good vibes fizzle when Rogen suggests hitting up a party at James Franco’s new mansion. Wait, ugh, Franco? And Jonah Hill will be there? Nooo! Jay ain’t happy, but the revelry — chockablock with every Judd Apatow-blessed star in Hollywood, plus a few random inclusions (Rihanna?) — is great fun for the audience. And likewise for the actors: world, meet Michael Cera, naughty coke fiend. But stranger things are afoot in This Is the End. First, there’s a giant earthquake and a strange blue light that sucks passers-by into the sky. Then a fiery pit yawns in front of Casa Franco, gobbling up just about everyone in the cast who isn’t on the poster. Dudes! Is this the worst party ever — or the apocalypse? The film — co-written and directed by Rogen and longtime collaborator Evan Goldberg — relies heavily on Christian imagery to illustrate the endtimes; the fact that both men and much of their cast is Jewish, and therefore marked as doomed by Bible-thumpers, is part of the joke. But of course, This Is the End has a lot more to it than religious commentary; there’s also copious drug use, masturbation gags, urine-drinking, bromance, insult comedy, and all of the uber-meta in-jokes fans of its stars will appreciate. (1:46) Four Star, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck. (Eddy)

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

Stage Listings

June 19, 2013

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

The Ape Woman: A Rock Opera Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theapewoman.com. $15-30. Opens Thu/20, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat and June 26, 8pm; Sun/23, 4pm. Through June 29. Dark Pork Theatre presents May van Oskan’s rock opera, inspired by a Victorian-era circus performer.

Betrayal Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.offbroadwaywest.org. $40. Previews Thu/20, 8pm. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through July 20. Off Broadway West Theatre Company performs Harold Pinter’s out-of-sequence drama about an unfaithful married couple.

ONGOING

Abigail’s Party San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through July 6. Although it’s tempting to compare Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party to Edward Albee’s rancorous Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Abigail‘s escalating nastiness skews emphatically British, giving it as much in common with televised exports such as Fawlty Towers and the Ricky Gervais version of The Office. As with these, the humor in Abigail’s Party is of the bleakest and cruelest kind, and there are moments when the five Americans onstage don’t quite convey the wit that lurks beneath the ire, but when they do the results are hysterical and uncomfortable in equal measure. Though the party we witness is not Abigail’s (she’s having a teenage house party next door, the music of which keeps throbbing through the walls of Bill English’s attractively-appointed set) the adults-only cocktail party is just as awkward as any high school mixer. Hosted by the fiercely self-absorbed Beverly (Susi Damilano) and her obnoxiously classist husband Laurence (Remi Sandri), the guest list includes the mousy Angela (Allison Jean White), her monosyllabic husband Tony (Patrick Kelley Jones), and Abigail’s ill-at-ease mum, Susan (Julia Brothers), who’s agreed to keep out of the house during her daughter’s wild soiree. The acting — as well as Brendan Aanes’ sound design, Jacqueline Scott’s props, and Tatjana Genser’s costuming — is pitch perfect, but unless you haven’t already been to enough bad parties, you might find it difficult to sit through this one. If you do, don’t be surprised if you find yourself secretly envying Laurence by the end of the play — at least he finds a way out. (Gluckstern)

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Solo performer Don Reed returns with a prequel to his autobiographical coming-of-age hits, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel.

Darling, A New Musical Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20. Wed-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory performs Ryan Scott Oliver and Brett Ryback’s jazz-age musical.

The Divine Sister New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. Charles Busch’s latest comedy pays tribute to Hollywood films involving nuns.

Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? Costume Shop, 1117 Market, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Extended run: Wed/19-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 3pm. Theatre Rhinoceros performs Caryl Churchill’s play that asks, “Do countries really behave like gay men?” Included in the program are two one-act plays: Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza and Deborah S. Margolin’s Seven Palestinian Children.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

410[GONE] Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 29. Crowded Fire Theater presents the world premiere of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s fanciful, Chinese folklore-inspired look at the underworld.

Frisco Fred’s Magic and More Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $35-50. Thu-Sat, 7pm. Through June 29. Performer Fred Anderson presents his latest family-friendly show, complete with magic, juggling, and “crazy stunts.”

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

Into the Woods Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Thu-Sat, 8pm (check website for matinee schedule). Through June 29. Ray of Light Theatre performs Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale mash-up.

Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Extended run: Thu/20, 7:30pm; Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm (also Sat/22, 2pm); Sun/23, 5pm. For patrons of last year’s production of Annie Elias’ documentary theater piece Tenderloin, walking into Cutting Ball’s take on Andrew Saito’s Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night brings about a slight sensation of déjà vu. It’s not so much that the cast actually resembles that of Tenderloin (save the familiar face of Cutting Ball associate artist David Sinaiko), but there’s a similar atmosphere of decay and powerlessness that roils beneath a surface of surrealistic flash. Framed by Michael Locher’s versatile, split-level set, clad in Meg Neville’s savvy costumes, the trampled-upon characters hurl poetic invective around the stage, delight in fish heads and petrified gerbils, plot to torture, seduce, and murder, and form clumsy, temporary alliances in order to accomplish the above. David Sinaiko’s crass, legless patriarch Pap Pap and Marjorie Crump-Shears’ deceptively fragile-looking brothel proprietor Gran Ma Ma preside over the inexorable decline of their insular households while their immediate kin, the cheerfully morbid Drumhead (Wiley Naman Strasser) and the irresistible temptress, Scarlett (Felicia Benefield), desperately seek to break free of their overbearing elders and the stifling routines that chain them to their circumstances. Much like the fish heads beloved by the characters as food, the play isn’t easy to digest, and there are gaps left in the narrative that even heavy abstraction can’t explain away, but Saito’s topsy-turvy world is nonetheless one worth visiting, and inaugurates his three-year playwriting residency at Cutting Ball with a weird and wonderful flourish. (Gluckstern)

Pansy New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through June 29. Feeling isolated and angry in a queer culture seemingly shy of commitment and thin on the meaning of community, a lonely young man stumbles over a box of old VHS tapes in the basement and makes a powerful connection to his doppelganger, a San Francisco club maven named Peter Pansy, who died of AIDS in 1993. From this synchronicity (based on a true story), actor-playwright Evan Johnson and director-collaborator Ben Randle take the measure of a generational divide and an attendant cultural amnesia, as the narrative spins two parallel arcs 20 years apart but now in open conversation with each other. That conversation is most powerful in moments that prove largely dialogue-free, as in the excellent interplay between Peter and his shadow, which reinforces a sense that the dialogue in general could benefit by being more succinct or elliptical. At the same, Johnson (actor-playwright behind 2010’s outstanding solo play about Jeffrey Dahmer, Don’t Feel) has a commanding presence as he cuts nimbly back and forth between 2013’s Michael and 1993’s Peter, tracing ever subtler lines of pride and alienation, utopian dissent and quotidian oppressions, until the import of the recent but heretofore hazy past offers itself as a quiet but profound afflatus. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through June 29. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Sylvia Fort Mason Theater, Fort Mason Center, Bldg C, Rm 300, Marina at Laguna, SF; sylvia.brownpapertickets.com. $20-45. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 30. Independent Cabaret Productions and Shakespeare at Stinton present AR Gurney’s midlife-crisis comedy.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through June 29. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

American Night: The Ballad of Juan José Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $43-48. Wed/19-Thu/20, 7:30pm; Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm (also Sat/22, 3pm); Sun/23, 4pm. Juan José (Sean San José) is a Mexican immigrant and family man trying to navigate the nightmare of history — his own and that of his respective countries — on the night before his citizenship exam. Much slapstick, winking allusion, and self-referential in-joking follow, amid a parade of loopy figures that include, in no particular order, Ben Franklin (Margo Hall), Lewis and Clark (Dan Hiatt and Sharon Lockwood), Joan Baez (Dena Martinez) and Bob Dylan (Brian Rivera), Jackie Robinson (Tyee Tilghman), Neil Diamond (Richard Ruiz), Harry Bridges (Hiatt), and lesser known but admirable figures of cross-border solidarity like Chicano teenager turned Manzanar-internee Ralph Lazo (Martinez) and early-20th-century African American nurse Viola Pettus (Hall). As a comedy on the history of the Mexican American immigrant experience, it may be superficially timely, but the real “American night” is vaster, wider, and more terrorizing — and deserves a fresher, more radical treatment — than the kitschy and familiar riffs, ungainly structure, and too-easy moral offered by playwright Richard Montoya (of storied Latino performance trio Culture Clash, who along with Jo Bonney contributed to the play’s development) in California Shakespeare Theater and director Jonathan Moscone’s desultory Bay Area premiere. The expert cast is the best part of the evening, but one nevertheless wants to escape this well-trodden comedic-dramatic terrain for some more real place. (Avila)

Bubbles for Grown-Ups Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Wed/19, 8pm. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl presents a show aimed at adults.

By & By Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 23. Shotgun Players presents a new sci-fi thriller by Lauren Gunderson.

Dear Elizabeth Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $24-77. Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun and July 3, 2pm); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Thu/6, 2pm; no show July 4). Through July 7. Berkeley Rep performs Sarah Ruhl’s play written in the form of letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.

George Gershwin Alone Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Wed/19 and Sun/23, 7pm (also Sun/23, 2pm); Thu/20-Sat/22, 8pm (also Sat/22, 2pm). Hershey Felder stars in his celebration of the music and life of composer George Gershwin.

The Medea Hypothesis Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu/20-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 3pm. Medea is perhaps one of the most problematic tragic protagonists in theater history, as even the most flexibly sympathetic viewpoint is severely challenged when faced with a filicidal mother. But at Central Works, rather than just updating an old tale of bloody vengeance, The Medea Hypothesis further takes a page from the pop science book of the same name written by Peter Ward, in which he speculates on the latent suicidal and self-destructive tendencies of the planetary superorganism. As the brittle, middle-aged Em, Jan Zvaifler dominates the stage, holding herself and her glamorous career in fashion together as her husband leaves her for a woman with a “perfect neck” and her daughter Sweetie (Dakota Dry), who appears only as a video projection, becomes contested property in an angry custody battle. Relentlessly egged on by her Mephistophelian flunky Ian (Cory Censoprano), and enraged by the interference of her ex-husband’s prospective father-in-law (Joe Estlack), Em does lash out at the happy couple in the Euripides-approved manner (though with flunky-provided “Plutonium 210” instead of plain old poison) but when it comes to the expected act of ultimate violence playwright Marian Berges provides a surprising twist to the familiar Grecian formula, giving Em a shot at a redemption never allowed the Euripidean matriarch. It’s still undeniably a tragedy, but concurrently, also a triumph. Kind of like the continued presence of multicellular life on earth. (Gluckstern)

This Is How It Goes Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Opens Thu/20, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through July 21. Aurora Theatre Company performs the Bay Area premiere of Neil LaBute’s edgy comedy about an interracial couple.

Wild With Happy TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 30. TheatreWorks presents the West Coast premiere of Colman Domingo’s new comedy, starring the playwright himself.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. “Director’s Cut!” Fri, 8pm, $20. Through June 28. “Improvised Noir Musical,” Sat, 8pm, $20. Through June 29.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/22, June 30, July 13, 21, and 27, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Flamenco Del Oro” Emerald Tablet, 80 Fresno, SF; www.emtab.org. Fri/21, 8pm. $10 suggested donation. Flamenco music and dance.

“Fresh Meat Festival” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.freshmeatproductions.org. Thu/20-Sat/22, 8pm. $15-25. Performances by ten trailblazing transgender and queer performance groups.

“Harvey’s Funny Tuesdays” Harvey’s, 500 Castro, SF; www.harveyssf.com. Tue/25, 9pm. Free. Comedy with headliner Shaun Landry.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Randy Roberts: Live!” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Fri-Sat through June 29 and July 9, 16, and 23, 9pm. $30. The famed female impersonator takes on Cher, Better Midler, and other stars.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival: Weekend Three” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.sfethnicdancefestival.org. Sat/22-Sun/23, 2pm (also Sat/22, 8pm). $18-58. With Chinese Performing Arts of America, OREET, La Tania Baile Flamenco, Vishwa Shanti Dance Academy, and more.

“San Francisco Gay Pride Comedy Show 2013” 1772 Market, SF; facebook.com/hellagaycomedyshow. Sun/23, 8pm. $10. With Ariel Smith, Carrie Avritt, Rich Hutchison, and more.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

Amara Tabor-Smith Various locations (starts at 32 Page), SF; www.dancersgroup.org. Fri/21-Sun/23, 3:30-8:30pm. Free. Dancers’ Group’s ONSITE Series presents the performer’s site-specific work, He Moved Swiftly But Gently Down the Not Too Crowded Street: Ed Mock and Other True Tales in a City That Once Was…

“This Is Dedicated …” CounterPULSE, 1301 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 7pm. $10-100. Here Now Dance Collective presents a benefit in the form of a dance theater game “with rules, a referee, a winner, and lots of losers.”

“Topsy-Turvy: A Queer Circus Extravaganza” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/22, 2pm (family matinee) and 8pm (18 and over show), $8-20. Part of the National Queer Arts Festival, this performance features circus artists from across the country.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th Sts, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 15. Free. This week: Darren Johnson and the Trans-Global People’s Chorus (Sat/22, 1pm); AXIS Dance Company (Sun/23, 1pm).

BAY AREA

“Marga Gomez: Pride Baby” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri/21, 8pm. $15. The comedian performs her “very gay stand-up.”

“The Pocket Watch” Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo, Berk; www.vagabondopera.com. Sat/22, 8pm. $12-15. Gypsy cabaret ensemble Vagabond Opera performs, with a set list that includes songs in seven languages. *

Alerts

June 19, 2013

Wednesday 19

Discussion: Latinos and the criminal justice system Eric Quezada Center, 518 Valencia, SF. www.sflatinodemclub.com. 7-8pm, free. Join SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, Criminal Justice Network for youth program manager Roselyn Berry, and Haywood Burns of the Institute for Juvenile Justice, Fairness and Equity for a frank discussion on how the Latino community is affected by systemic aspects of the criminal justice system. The discussion will cover immigrant offenders, the city’s Sanctuary City policy, restorative justice, and juvenile crime. Moderated by Mike Alonso. Sponsored by the SF Latino Democratic Club.

Author Jonathan Alter on Obama — and his enemies St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College, Berk. $12 advance. www.brownpapertickets.com, (800) 838-3006 This event features the author of The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, a book that portrays the president at an historic moment. Alter offers “fresh details about the Koch brothers, Grover Norquist, and the online haters who suffer from ‘Obama Derangement Syndrome,'” according to the KPFA announcement. “He portrays the Obama analytics geeks working out of ‘The Cave’ and the man who secretly videotaped Mitt Romney’s infamous comments on the ’47 percent.'” This is a benefit for KPFA.

Thursday 20

Screening of ‘War on Whistleblowers: Free Press & the National Security State’ Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall, 1924 Cedar, Berk. http://www.bfuu.org. 7-9pm, $5–$10 suggested donation. A timely screening of a documentary featuring four stories of whistleblowers who took action because they wanted to expose government corruption, misconduct or wrongdoing. Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Ctee as part of our Conscientious Projector Series for the 99% For more, visit www.waronwhistleblowers.com

You can’t see me

June 19, 2013

caitlin@sfbg.com

SURVEILLANCE It’s all a mess: the government is suddenly (to those of us waking from our Twinkie nap) spying on us. Mulder and Scully were right, trust is for the foolish and undisturbed sleep is for the ignorant.

All the more reason to go out. Authoritarian regime is no excuse for poor style, says New York high tech fashion designer Adam Harvey. And armed with his projects, drone-defeating tactics can look damn good.

Even before Edward Snowden’s heroic leak of documents laid bare the NSA’s wide-ranging surveillance of American citizens, Harvey was busying himself merging privacy rights with fashion. Witness his LED-aided clutches that deflected the flash of cameras — the ultimate accessory for A-list independents (“Camoflash”, 2009).

But perhaps you are more of the sporty type? Harvey’s newest collection, “Stealth Wear” includes a half-hoodie that deflects thermal imaging surveillance. Heat-seeking systems won’t be able to see you, but that babe in the club sure will. His designs have an anti-colonial gaze: two “Stealth Wear” garments take the form of burqa and hijab. He’s also developed “CV Dazzle”, a series of makeup looks that foil facial recognition software and “OFF Pocket”, a sleek envelope that blocks one’s cell phone from sending or receiving signals.

We caught up with him through an insecure email account.

SFBG “CV Dazzle”‘s look seems very of-the-moment when it comes to the avant-garde fashion you see in clubs. What’s the inspiration?

Adam Harvey The first look, with the black-and-white makeup, developed from my fascination with the Boombox scene in London. I studied party photographs as well as tribal face painting, especially from Pacific Islands. What I found was that only one of these styles worked, club fashion. Tribal body decoration does more to enhance key facial features which make a face easier to detect. The bold, ambiguous looks of the club scene were more algorithmically resistant. From there, I worked with Pia Vivas, a hair stylist to create the first look. And then collaborated with DIS Magazine to create the second and third looks.

SFBG How have the recent NSA revelations informed your work?

AH The news struck while my collaborator and I were planning production for the “OFF Pocket.” It’s the first time I’m taking an art project and turning it into a marketable product. A lot of my work in privacy arts is speculative and provocative, but I think some concepts can be even more provocative when they’re accessible to more people. What happens when countersurveillance goes mainstream? That’s a discussion we need to have because if the government doesn’t respect privacy, then I think we should have the right to countersurveillance.

SFBG Where is “OFF Pocket” at in the production process? Have you sent one to Edward Snowden?

AH It’s very close. I’ve gone through a lot of prototyping and testing to ensure that the product works well. Once a phone is inside and the case is properly closed, you really can’t access any part of it. If I knew where Edward Snowden was, I would send him a thankful dozen.

The end of an era, but not of a legacy

June 19, 2013

Tim Redmond has a big heart. He cares deeply about this city and he cared deeply about this newspaper. But last Thursday was Tim’s last day at the Bay Guardian, the place where he worked for the bulk of the past three decades. In typical fashion, he stuck to his principles to the end.

The Guardian is not as economically healthy as it once was, and 2013 has not been kind to the paper. Revenues are down and many issues lose money, a trend that threatens our mission if left unchecked. During the past month, Guardian management had been contemplating some painful but necessary changes that included layoffs. Tim participated in these discussions, but in the end he chose to resign rather than downsize a staff he loved like family.

I understand Tim’s decision, but believe it was shortsighted. During the past year and a half, the Guardian’s two sister papers — the San Francisco Examiner and SF Weekly — have undergone similar restructuring, which included layoffs. The goal was not to extract obscene profits — a mission I wouldn’t support even if it were still possible in 2013 — but rather to ensure both papers’ survival and recovery. It was an unpleasant process, and one that Tim could not abide.

But today, the Examiner and Weekly are both significantly healthier than they used to be. The Examiner is no longer the mouthpiece of right-wing buffoons, and in recent months has expanded its Peninsula coverage and enlarged its editorial staff. And the Weekly boasts significantly more new coverage, listings and advertising than it did just six months ago.

I want the Guardian’s future as a progressive voice to be similarly assured. So now, 32 years after selling my first freelance news article to the paper — a brief about BART’s effort to evict the Ashby Flea Market — I find myself replacing Tim as publisher. Longtime Managing Editor Marke Bieschke, aka Marke B., is filling his shoes as interim editor.

I know some Guardian readers assume that this means the end of progressive journalism in the paper. Please let me assure you that will not occur. I have spent the bulk of my career editing investigative newsweeklies and have no intention of going down in history as the guy who dumbed-down the Guardian.

The very night before Tim told me he was leaving, he presided over a packed forum on the topic of economic dislocation in San Francisco. At the height of a tech boom that has inflated rents and led to a wave of migration and evictions, it’s hard to imagine few other topics of greater importance. Tim and the Guardian have reported extensively on this issue in the year since the paper was acquired by the San Francisco Print Media Company. Of course, the Guardian was already writing about evictions long before Tim’s predecessor assigned me to write that 1981 article about the flea market.

Under Tim’s successor, that emphasis will not change.

All eyes on us

June 18, 2013

rebecca@sfbg.com

About 500 people packed into Berkeley’s St. John’s Presbyterian Church on June 11, days after revelations of a massive National Security Agency electronic surveillance program had hit the news.

They were there for panel talk titled “Our Vanishing Civil Liberties,” and the discussion revolved around Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former employee of NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton who leaked top-secret documents to reveal the scope of the massive NSA spying infrastructure, triggering a firestorm of public debate internationally.

The panel featured Daniel Ellsberg, a Berkeley resident famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971, and Birgitta Jónsdóttir, an Icelandic member of parliament whose Twitter account records were sought by the U.S. Justice Department several years ago due to her connection to Wikileaks, the whistleblower organization that published secret U.S. government cables leaked by Pfc. Bradley Manning.

“I have no doubt at all that Snowden did the right thing in revealing it,” Ellsberg later told the Guardian in an interview, “at whatever cost he pay himself. He shouldn’t have to pay any, very simply. In his case, given what he’s revealing, he should not be prosecuted. But he will be, almost surely.”

Within days of the revelations, a number of public responses had already sprung up, many originating in the Bay Area. The ACLU filed suit challenging the surveillance program as illegal, arguing that it “violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and association as well as the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. Online communities mobilized too. As of June 17, more than 200,000 had signed onto an online petition launched by Stop Watching Us, a coalition of 86 civil liberties organizations who drafted an open letter to Congress and decried the surveillance operation as “a stunning abuse of our basic rights.”

Mozilla, which has an office in San Francisco, played a key role in launching Stop Watching Us and called for greater transparency. “In the US, these companies are required to respect a court order to share our information with the government, whether they like it or not,” the organization pointed out in a press statement. “Mozilla hasn’t received any such order to date, but it could happen to us as we build new server-based services in the future.” It also pointed out that “the Internet is making it much easier” for intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance, because “There’s a lot more data to be had,” “the laws are written broadly,” and “it’s all happening behind closed doors.”

Stop Watching Us coalition membership includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union of California, Boing Boing, the Center for Democracy and Technology, reddit, The Utility Reform Network, and other organizations with a presence in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, news of the NSA’s massive spying endeavor sent shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley, catching some tech company employees off guard. Google CEO Larry Page, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the heads of other tech companies issued statements vigorously denying voluntary participation in PRISM, the program that vacuums up massive communications content flowing between the U.S. and foreign nations via the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.

The question of whether leading tech companies were participating voluntarily, or were secretly compelled to do so, or if this data was being collected without their knowledge or cooperation altogether still seems far from settled. “I have my own suspicions — which I won’t go into here — about what PRISM was actually about,” Google+ Chief Architect Yonatan Zunger noted in a G+ thread the following day. “I’ll just say that there are ways to intercept people’s Google, Facebook, etc., traffic in bulk without sticking any moles into the org — or directly tapping their lines.”

Meanwhile, nearly 40,000 individuals had signed an online thank-you note to Snowden, “for his principled and courageous actions as a whistleblower, informing the public about vast surveillance by the National Security Agency that undermines our civil liberties.” That website, SupportEdwardSnowden.org, was set up by Roots Action, co-founded by Marin County resident Norman Solomon, author and president of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Solomon was also a panelist at the June 11 forum, where he sharply criticized Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and former mayor of San Francisco, for publicly characterizing Snowden’s leak as “an act of treason.” When Feinstein’s name came up during the panel talk on civil liberties, the crowd responded with boos and hisses.

“Where are the progressives of the Bay Area — beginning with San Francisco?” Solomon wondered later in a telephone call with the Guardian. “We should be insisting that she leave that job as chair of the Intelligence Committee. … In the court of public opinion, she should be condemned. Because really. It’s democracy at stake. To hear her talk and examine her behavior, you would think that the Fourth Amendment was … mere advisory.”

Meanwhile, activists who were already organizing in support of Manning had begun investigating what options might be available to Snowden, who, as of press time, was still believed to be in Hong Kong and hadn’t yet been formally charged. Birgitta Jónsdóttir told the Bay Guardian that her organization, International Modern Media Institute, was ready to respond to Snowden’s reported interest in seeking political asylum in Iceland.

“I’m quite concerned, because there are no direct flights to Iceland,” she explained. “I’m just worried about the extradition process in other countries — if he needs to do a layover, or if we’re not quick enough to grant him asylum. And, frankly speaking, one of the parties in the government in Iceland is never going to agree to support it. So, it’s tricky.”

Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, highlighted the similarities between himself, Manning, and Snowden. “The question that each of us faced was: Was it worth our lives, our freedom, and possibly our physical existence to reveal these secrets, which were wrongly held from the American public, in order to inform the public?” he said. “And each of us decided that it was worth, essentially, a life in prison and possibly death. And I think the decisions were right in each case.”

Metadata nightmare

Technologists explain how to protect your communications from government surveillance

The bad news: You cannot effectively counter the government’s ability to snoop on your communications unless you live out the rest of your existence under a rock (i.e., give up your cell phone altogether). The good news: There are some free software programs that can help you to shield the contents of your communications, should you feel the need to shield your privacy.

The domestic telecom surveillance program doesn’t grant intelligence agencies automatic access to what’s being said over the phone, but it requires major carriers, including Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T, to forward all “metadata” to the NSA. Metadata can be quite revealing. It can show that an elected official communicated with a powerful CEO just before casting a key vote, or whom a reporter spoke with just before breaking a significant national news story.

“The laws of physics do not let you lie about cell phone location,” explains Chris Soghoian, principal technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union’s speech, privacy and technology project.

Eleanor Saitta is a systems analyst with the Open Internet Tools Project and the International Modern Media Institute, working on an encrypted communications project called the Briar communications tool. “What’s not clear yet, is whether [the NSA] is extracting full-time location information,” Saitta notes, spotlighting a looming question about the domestic spying program with serious implications. This full-time information is automatically logged by telecoms anytime a mobile device is on.

PRISM is understood to be able to sweep in the contents of vast amounts of communication between the U.S. and foreign nations. However, Soghoian and Saitta note that some tools can provide a higher degree of privacy.

For web browsing, Tor (torproject.org) is free software that provides online anonymity by bouncing communications through a randomly distributed network. (Caution: Read up on it for some important do’s and don’ts, like why you shouldn’t log into your bank account while you’re running Tor.)

Tor doesn’t hide the content, only the location that a message is being sent from. But it can be run in conjunction with CryptoCat (crypto.cat), a web plug-in that supports encrypted instant messaging. There’s also the option of using Off The Record (OTR) messaging with either Jitsi (jitsi.org) or Adium (adium.im), both IM clients.

For mobile devices, Saitta suggests looking into TextSecure for SMS messaging, and RedPhone for voice calls. For other ideas, visit the resource guide compiled by the Tactical Technology Collective (alternatives.tacticaltech.org). It features detailed information on alternatives that afford a higher degree of privacy, such as Duck Duck Go, a search tool that won’t aggregate data about your queries; RiseUp, an alternative email provider run by a collective dedicated to security; Gibberbot, an open-source Android application that helps you manage IM accounts and uses OTR software; ChatSecure for iPhones and other iOs devices; Orbot and Orweb, to facilitate anonymous browsing on Android devices, and other programs.

It’s important to remember that with any of these software options, as Saitta says, “There are no guarantees. This comes as close as we know how to get.”

Nor do any of these options effectively shield mobile users from the collection of metadata. “The domestic program that is affecting most Americans is something that no one can effectively hide from,” Soghoian notes. “And that sucks.” (Bowe)

Timeline: NSA spying in Silicon Valley and SF

Summer 2002

Mark Klein, a technician at AT&T, learns of the existence of a secret room being built in cooperation with the National Security Agency at AT&T’s San Francisco facility on Folsom Street.

December 2005

The New York Times breaks the news that the NSA “has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications.”

January 31, 2006

Civil liberties organizations, including the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, file suit against AT&T for collaborating with the NSA, including technical documents provided by Klein as part of the complaint.

March 12, 2008

NSA collection of Yahoo data begins under PRISM, according to a top-secret slide leaked by Edward Snowden to The Guardian UK and the Washington Post. (Yahoo is based in Sunnyvale.)

June 20, 2008

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act passes in the U.S. House of Representatives, retroactively granting AT&T and other telecoms immunity from being sued for cooperating with the NSA.

January 14, 2009

NSA collection of Google data begins under PRISM, according to a top-secret slide Edward Snowden leaked to The Guardian UK and the Washington Post. (Google is based in Mountain View.)

June 3, 2009

NSA collection of Facebook data begins under PRISM, according to a top-secret slide Snowden leaked to The Guardian UK and the Washington Post. (Facebook is based in Menlo Park.)

September 24, 2010

NSA collection of YouTube data begins under PRISM, according to a top-secret slide Snowden leaked to The Guardian UK and the Washington Post. (YouTube is owned by Google, and based in Mountain View.)

October 2012

NSA collection of Apple data begins under PRISM, according to a top-secret slide Snowden leaked to The Guardian UK and the Washington Post. (Apple is based in Cupertino.)

June 6, 2013

The Guardian UK breaks the news that the NSA has access to the contents of communications flowing through the servers of Silicon Valley tech giants, through PRISM.

June 7, 2013

Google CEO Larry Page and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond release a statement saying Google has “not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. … We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.” The same day, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg releases a statement saying, “Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers. … We hadn’t even heard of PRISM before yesterday.” Other tech companies issue similar denials over following days.

June 11, 2013

The Stop Watching Us campaign kicks off as more than 80 civil liberties organizations, many of them based in the Bay Area, set up an online petition and open letter to Congress.

June 14-17, 2013

In separate statements, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple reveal that they had received 4,000-10,000 requests each from US government and law enforcement agencies in 2012 for information regarding up to 30,000 devices and accounts.

(Information from eff.org, optin.stopwatching.us, and guardian.co.uk.)

‘Money is a tool’

Andrew Lam

June 13, 2013

Jack Abramoff says “legalized bribery” is corrupting our political system, and as a lobbyist who went to prison for taking the practice of buying favors from Congress to obscene new depths, he should know. But if we’re relying on him to help reform that system, a cause he’s now taken up, we could be in real trouble.

Watching Abramoff address “public ethics” at a University of San Francisco class of aspiring political professionals on June 6 was a little surreal. Part charming rogue, part penitent reformer, Abramoff told inside tales of how easily money corrupts even well-intended people who work in Congress.

“I didn’t create a new way of lobbying, I just did more of it,” Abramoff told the students, noting that while some lobbyists had a few good tickets to Washington Redskins or Wizards games to give away to members of Congress, he had 72 of them. And while some lobbyists would take members golfing, “I would put them on a Gulfstream and fly them to Scotland. What’s the difference? It’s still playing golf.”

It was particularly strange for someone of Abramoff’s obviously questionable moral fiber to be addressing political students at this Jesuit-run academic institution, whose local advertising slogans include “How to succeed in business and still go to heaven” and “Wicked smart without the wicked part.”

Yet forgiveness is supposed to be divine, and the instructor who lured Abramoff to speak with his class, local lobbyist and political consultant Alex Clemens, was certainly pleased to attract someone with Abramoff’s inside knowledge, avoiding Abramoff’s usual speaking fees of up to $20,000 by piggybacking on a Southern California speech he gave and paying only his airfare.

I was a bit more skeptical of a guy who equates political donations with bribery while hawking a book and narrow reform proposal — while at the same time soliciting corporate lobbying clients and telling the San Francisco Chronicle that Silicon Valley should be spending far more money to influence politicians.

“It needs a much bigger view of political involvement,” Abramoff told the Chron. “It should be spending much more. They’re not playing as smart as they should, and they could lose big.”

That’s part of the muddle of contradictions that defines Abramoff and his advocacy today, which is consistent with the anti-government, wealth-worshipping conservatism he has pushed with missionary zeal since his college days, along with pals Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, who still play key roles in keeping religious fundamentalists and the rich in the Republican Party fold.

“I’m not against money in the system, I’m against money being used the wrong way in the system,” Abramoff told me after the talk, as I probed the contradictions in his statements and views. My efforts to pin him down caused him to scornfully brand me a “socialist,” the old bully replacing the affable face he showed the students.

“Money is a tool,” Abramoff told me.

Abramoff is also a tool, I decided as I listened to him, although it’s still tough to discern who is wielding him now and where this effort may be headed.

LESSON FOR STUDENTS

Abramoff told the students that even after he got busted in 2005, for a long time he indignantly wondered why he was being prosecuted for the same sorts of actions that were endemic to Washington DC. Eventually, he began to realize he had done something wrong.

“I thought maybe some of this [the charges against him] is right,” he said. “I decided to be honest with myself. Am I the saint I always thought I’d been, or the devil they said I was?”

Yet in the end, Abramoff never did really rethink his own worldview and history — from his early days of shilling for the South African government against efforts to end apartheid to later bribing members of Congress to oppose regulation of sweatshops and sex trafficking in US territories — he just blamed the political system.

“I thought this system is maybe not right,” he told students studying to be a part of that system. “I thought when I got out, I should probably try to help.”

So he wrote a book, Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Corruption From America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist, and he says that he’s been developing political reform legislation that he intends to start pushing next year along with unnamed others.

Abramoff has consulted with Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, who founded Rootstrikers to push political reforms, but Abramoff doesn’t support many of the central tenets of that and other reform groups, including public financing of elections and overturning “corporate personhood” court rulings that deem political spending by the rich to be a free speech right.

In fact, Abramoff is still a right-winger who shows little interest in limiting the ability of wealthy corporations and individuals to freely spend their money on political candidates and issues, placing him at odds with pretty much the entire political reform movement.

Phillip Ung, a spokesperson for Common Cause — which has been working on these political reform efforts for decades — was a little skeptical about getting help from someone who once embodied the most corrupt and excessive aspects of the current system.

“As much as we enjoy his newfound support for political reform, we also understand that he has a debt to pay, and not just to society,” Ung said of the $44 million in restitution that Abramoff still owes to his victims.

Ung said that a stark example of political corruption like Abramoff represents does help the cause, but that has little to do with his current advocacy. “The reform flag at the federal level goes almost nowhere if there’s not a political scandal,” Ung said, although even that isn’t saying much because, “Congress and DC only have tolerance for political reform one every 10 years or so.”

With Democrats now overwhelmingly controlling California’s Legislature and executive offices, Ung sees opportunities for important reforms here. The most promising is Senate Bill 27, which would require political groups that raise more than $500,000 to disclose their donors.

By contrast, Abramoff’s proposal seems tepid at best, and his strategy for selling it relies on using political spending to elect sympathetic people to Congress, which would seem to undermine his reform message almost as much as pitches to corporate clients to hire him for lobbying consulting services (see www.abramoff.com).

“He seems to be going back to his old ways,” Ung said of Abramoff.

Abramoff said his legislation would broaden the definition of lobbyist, limit their campaign contributions to $500 per election cycle, and prevent public officials from working as lobbyists for 10 years after they leave government.

Then Abramoff said that he and his unspecified “we” will dump money into six contested Congressional races in 2014, trying to elect three Democrats and three Republicans who pledge to support his legislation, following that up in 2016 by targeting 25 to 50 races.

“Then and only then will Congress take it seriously,” Abramoff concluded, arguing that politicians respond to losing their jobs more than other means of persuasion. He’s going to use aggressive political spending to win the reforms he seeks, which don’t really do anything to limit political spending.

When I asked Abramoff how increased political spending can reform a political system corrupted by money, he replied, “You play with the tools and the battlefield you’re on.”

THE SYSTEM, OR ITS SPONSORS?

Abramoff blames Congress for corruption far more than the lobbyists or wealthy special interests who are doing the corrupting, noting how difficult it is to get political reforms approved by legislators who want to later cash in on their public service.

“The lobbyists are a response to the system set up by Congress,” he told the students, building on his earlier point that “99 percent of everything I did was legal, and that’s a bigger deal than the 1 percent that was illegal. That’s what has to change.”

But he acknowledges that reforming the system will be “impossibly difficult” because those who are invested in the current system will always find loopholes to any new regulation. “They’re extremely brilliant people and their goal is to get around things,” he said.

Omitted from Abramoff’s recitation of what’s wrong in Washington are the people doing the corrupting, that other 1 percent, the very rich. When I asked him about how he can really attack institutionalized political corruption without going after the cash that feeds that corruption, he told me, “I tend to be nervous about a political approach that says, ‘It’s the rich.”

Abramoff actually supports the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling, which ended controls on the political spending of wealthy individuals and corporations, telling the students, “We all want certain corporations to have the rights that we individuals have.”

Abramoff also seems to dismiss the possibility of a grassroots political reform effort, saying that any change in the system would need support from both the left and the right, and the latter will kill any effort to actually removes private money from political campaigns.

“You’re not going to have federal financing of elections. The right will die before they let that happen,” Abramoff said.

That might have been the most insightful thing that Abramoff said to the students, although he certainly didn’t intend it the way that I heard it: maybe the right needs to die, in the political sense, before the system that Abramoff both decries and supports will change.

Guardian Intelligence

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

June 12, 2013

NO RESPECT

We had lunch this week with a Silicon Valley insider who had an interesting take on the tech boom in SF. The way we heard it, the established Valley crowd isn’t all that happy with the upstarts up the Peninsula: All this social media stuff (and all the money that’s gone with it) has eclipsed the role of the companies that actually make something. The silicon chip — that little sliver of material that makes all of the rest of this possible — isn’t sexy any more. When it comes to VC money, it’s all about the next Twitter, not the next Intel. Those uppity kids; no respect for their elders.

RON LANZA MEMORIAL

Friends and admirers of the late impresario Ron Lanza — and there are plenty — will gather Saturday/15 at El Rio to celebrate his life and legacy. Lanza was one of the giants of the early LGBT movement in the Bay Area and the founder of Valencia Rose and Josie’s Cabaret and Juice Joint. He helped launch the careers of Whoopie Goldberg, Marga Gomez, and Margaret Cho, kept queer arts alive and lively through the worst of the AIDS pandemic, and created the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center. The memorial is from 11am — 1pm, and features an open mic, where it’s safe to say you’ll hear some amazing, funny, and poignant stories.

NAUGHTY NUPTIALS

Wow, Sean Parker! We haven’t heard so much about a wedding since Kate Middleton and Prince William! The Napster founder and Facebook billionaire has now embarrassed a growing list of state politicians and industry leaders who showed up at a nice ceremony in the redwoods to discover that the place had been bulldozed, built up with concrete, and turned into something of a Lord of the Rings set that violated state coastal protection laws. Lite Guv Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris were reportedly there, and are ducking comment. Newark Mayor Cory Booker was also there, and the guest list, according to the British tabs, included Sting and his wife Trudie, Allison Williams, Emma Watson, Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, Perry and Etty Farrell and Lucian Grainge.

A year from now, most of the celebs will deny ever showing up.

THE DEVELOPER AND THE IRS

Simon Snellgrove, the developer who wants to build ultra-luxury condos at 8 Washington, appears to be getting desperate. He’s facing a November referendum that would overturn the Board of Supervisors vote approving an exemption from the waterfront height limits, and polls show that most voters don’t like highrise buildings on the water. So he’s spent $850,000 collecting signatures for a competing ballot measure that would approve the project, state records show. And he’s resorted to a highly unusual tactic: He’s trying to sic the Internal Revenue Service on project opponents. Kevin Heneghan, attorney for Snellgrove’s group, has asked the feds (who are already in a bit of trouble for investigating political groups) to look into whether Friends of Golden Gateway illegally used tax-deductible contributions to lobby against the project. (The evidence for that is pretty darn thin.)

It’s pretty common in this town to file complaints against your opponents with the Ethics Commission and the Fair Political Practices Commission (oh, and by the way, the FPPC has already nailed Snellgrove for a prior campaign violation). But bringing in the IRS? That’s a pretty new one. "How politically tone deaf can you be?" asked project foe Jon Golinger. "Once they’re done with the Tea Party in Ohio, the IRS can come out here and start investigating a bunch of senior citizens who want to save their swimming pool."

GO, KIWIS!

We have a favorite team in the America’s Cup: New Zealand.

The Kiwis are the only group in the race that lacks a billionaire sponsor. They’re using public money and sponsorships to try to take on Larry Ellison, who is spending a fortune on his boat, acting like a total asshole, and refusing to cover the costs (as much as $20 million) the city could wind up paying. Imagine if, after all the hype, the underfunded Kiwis took the trophy? (Amanda Witherell, Our Correspondent in Wellington, notes that sailing in NZ is "definitely not the pink pants and loafer set — much more a typical sport with low barriers to entry." Besides, she tells us, "it’s sort of uncool to be rich here. Or, if you’re rich you’re not really supposed to flash it. No fancy cars. No champagne fountains, unless you’re a member of Parliament.")

Go New Zealand.

IN THE BAR BIZ

Fans of friendly watering holes rejoice: Lexington Club owner Lila Thirkield opened the doors to Virgil’s Sea Room (3152 Mission, SF. www.virgilssf.com) last week, filling the space that used to house neighborhood dive Nap’s with happy tipplers. Don’t worry: The small spot next to El Rio will still have karaoke. Plus a dedicated clientele, given the ardent followings of Thirkield and her co-owners, sunshine-y Nickies bartender Gillian Fitzgerald and Tom "DJ Carnita" Temprano of queer soul party Hard French and Harvey Milk Club presidency fame.

TO QUEER THE SCHOOLS

A bubbly and diverse group of LGBTQQ high schoolers assembled on the steps of City Hall last Friday, waving signs saying "Celebrate Difference" and "Queer Our Schools." The kids were part of LYRIC — the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information center in the Castro — and they were there, along SF’s two queer supervisors, Scott Weiner and David Campos, to announce LYRIC’s "School-Based Initiatives" which works within schools to educate students and faculty about LGBTQQ youth issues, and to celebrate a $75,000 allotment in the just-released mayor’s budget. Student assembly speeches and Pride events, one-on-one meetings, training sessions for teachers, and family engagement are all part of the plan to help schools deal with anti-gay bias and bullying. LYRIC reports that an astonishing 1,000 of the 3,000 LGBTQQ-identified San Francisco Unified School District students attempts suicide annually (the ratio jumps to 1 out of two for transgender students), so the timing couldn’t be better. www.lyric.org

OH, MARY!

The annual SF Opera summer season is always a treat — the programmers get a little wild, and the risks, like last year’s extraordinary Nixon in China, always pay off in adventurous spirit. (Ticket prices, starting at $22, aren’t bad, either). This year’s season opened June 5, runs through July 7, and includes Mozart’s cheeky Cosi fan tutte and Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman. The buzzy highlight is new work The Gospel of Mary Magdalene by Mark Adamo. Mary is based on an alternative gospel found by archeologists in 1896, and sprang from six years of Adamo’s own research. It gives a different spin on the Jesus tale, and it bound to raise a few eyebrows. It opens Weds/19 and stars Sasha Cooke and Nathan Gunn. www.sfopera.org

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