Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Peter Galvin, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.
OPENING
Alpha and Omega A pair of relocated wolves try to make their way home in this 3D animated comedy. (1:28)
Catfish Please do not reveal the secret to Catfish — relax, I’m not going to. What I will say is this: Catfish’s uber-secretive, Paranormal Activity-esque ad campaign is effective, but the film ultimately stands on its own merits. This is an intriguing, relatable documentary, and if the studio feels that they’ll sell more tickets by promoting it in a certain way, so be it. Without giving away too much, Catfish is the spontaneous documentary that arose when filmmakers Rel Schulman and Henry Joost began filming Rel’s brother, Nev. Like so many of us, Nev finds himself drawn to a person he’s never met — embarking on a relationship through Facebook photos and wall posts. Of course, as is so often the case with the internet, nothing is quite what it seems. Catfish has already found its critics, particularly those who insist the documentary is a fake. I believe it, but either way it’s an impressive achievement: the best film yet about social networking. (1:26) Metreon. (Peitzman)
Devil "From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan," caution the commercials. (1:20) Shattuck.
*Easy A See "Life on the ‘A’ List." (1:30) Marina, Shattuck.
*Heartbreaker See "The Break-Up Artist." (1:44) Albany, Embarcadero.
*Sicilian Girl Spoiled daddy’s girl Rita Atria (Veronica D’Agostino) is traumatized at age 11 when her beloved papa is killed by Mafia associates. At 17, she’s pushed over the edge when an older brother meets the same fate. It’s then, in 1991,
that she breaks the omertà, or code of silence, by cooperating with judicial authorities, putting herself under severe witness-protection limitations while still at high assassination risk. This dramatized real-life story doesn’t offer cliché heroism: as portrayed by fireball D’Agostino, Rita is bratty, obstinate, not especially bright or pretty, her dedication more selfishly vengeful than concerned with the public good. She’s also a naive teenager susceptible to manipulation, especially by questionably motivated boyfriends. Yet she takes a stand and refuses to back down. The likely consequences of that courage make for a suspenseful drama director Marco Amenta ably steers to a conclusion both tragic and inspiring. (1:50) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)
The Town Ben Affleck directs and stars in this drama about a conflicted bank robber. (2:10) California, Cerrito, Presidio.
*Undertow See "Peruvian Twist." (1:40) Bridge.
The Virginity Hit To its credit, The Virginity Hit is not what you’d expect. The trailer and concept recall the teen sex comedy trend that sprung up after 1999’s American Pie, but the actual film is a far more grounded in reality. It’s also not nearly as good. The Virginity Hit is a well executed mockumentary, in that it feels amateur even in its most absurd moments. The movie follows Matt (Matt Bennett) in his attempts to lose his virginity after a disastrous attempt with his girlfriend Nicole (Nicole Weaver). As you’ve probably guessed, hilarity ensues — and it ensues, for a YouTube generation, in the form of viral videos and crude parodies. The problem with The Virginity Hit is that it just isn’t funny: the tone is all over the place, and the bits that should be amusing fall flat. It’s interesting as an experiment and the cast is quite convincing, but the material never elevates the film past its gimmick. (1:26) Metreon. (Peitzman)
ONGOING
*The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector Alternately slavish and critical, simultaneously buying into and subtly resisting the hype, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector is a bit like the renowned producer himself, who said this to biographer Mick Brown in 2007’s Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: the Rise and Fall of Phil Spector: "I have a bipolar personality … I have devils inside that fight me. And I’m my own worst enemy … I would say I’m probably relatively insane." You can see why director Vikram Jayanti scored the interview with Spector at the center of Agony, since he gets on board the musicmaker’s bifurcated, multichannel tip. The doc is both fascinating and monotonous, respectful of Spector’s achievements as well as the sensation surrounding his blighted celebrity. The filmmaker stays away from the specifics of the night in 2003 when Lana Clarkson was found dead at Spector’s mansion, while recontextualizing the producer’s words and music with images culled from the murder trial and other footage. The end result is an innuendo-laden pastiche that resembles an echo chamber reverberating with all the doomed dramatics of "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)." (1:42) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Chun)
*The American George Clooney caught in a moodily paranoid, yet exquisitely photographed, ’70s-style suspense-arthouse death-trap? Belmondo and Beatty could empathize. Nonetheless, veteran rock photographer and Control (2007) director Anton Corbijn suffuses the chilly proceedings with a fresh, wintry beauty, the carefully balanced sense of highly charged tension and silky smoothness that a gunsmith would appreciate, and a resonance that feels personal. How else would an ex-rock shooter like Corbijn, who’s made iconic images of the Clash, U2, and others, connect with this tale of an assassin masquerading as a photographer, one who’s constantly glancing behind and around himself — justifiably wary of being caught in another killer’s sights — and seemingly just as wary of the director’s, and audience’s, gaze? A character who wouldn’t be out of place in a Camus novella or a Melville brooder, Jack/Edward, or more accurately "the American," (Clooney) is in exile after a bad collision with a girlfriend and hitmen in Sweden and hiding out in a picturesque Italian village, conspicuously the more-cold-than-cool outsider and doing one immaculate job for a gorgeous mysterious woman (Thekla Reuten). Is he a good or bad guy? The local priest (Paolo Bonacelli), who knows and sees all like a great eye in the sky, is trying to find out, as is the most beautiful prostitute in town (Violante Placido). The answers are nowhere near as clear or as plainly painted as a Sergio Leone Western, although Corbijn nods to the maestro when stone-cold killer Henry Fonda, then playing shockingly against type, appears on a cafe TV screen in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). But the director’s care and attention to beauty — as well as the lines carved in the face of Clooney’s lean, mean-looking American, a whore like any other — say more than words. (1:43) Cerrito, Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)
*Animal Kingdom More renowned for its gold rush history and Victorian terrace homes than its criminal communities, Melbourne, Australia gets put on the same gritty map as Martin Scorsese’s ’70s-era New York City and Quentin Tarantino’s ’90s Los Angeles with the advent of director-writer David Michôd’s masterful debut feature. The metropolis’ sun-blasted suburban homes, wood-paneled bedrooms, and bleached-bone streets acquire a chilling, slowly building power, as Michôd follows the life and death of the Cody clan through the eyes of its newest member, an unformed, ungainly teenager nicknamed J (James Frecheville). When J’s mother ODs, he’s tossed into the twisted arms of her family: the Kewpie doll-faced, too-close-for-comfort matriarch Smurf (Jacki Weaver), dead-eyed armed robber Pope (Ben Mendelsohn), Pope’s best friend Baz (Joel Edgerton), volatile younger brother and dealer Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), and baby bro Darren (Luke Ford). Learning to hide his responses to the escalating insanity surrounding the Codys’ war against the police — and the rest of the world — and finding respite with his girlfriend, Nicky (Laura Wheelwright), J becomes the focus of a cop (Guy Pearce) determined to take the Codys down — and discovers he’s going to have use all his cunning to survive in the jungle called home. Stunning performances abound — from Frecheville, who beautifully hides a growing awareness behind his character’s monolithic passivity, to the adorably scarifying Weaver — in this carefully, brilliantly detailed crime-family drama bound to land at the top of aficionados’ favored lineups, right alongside 1972’s The Godfather and 1986’s At Close Range and cult raves 1970’s Bloody Mama and 1974’s Big Bad Mama. (2:02) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)
Bran Nue Dae An energetic screen translation of a 1990 Australian stage musical, Rachel Perkins’ film is tourist cliché spun into crowd-pleasing slop, like a Down Under Riverdance. Young Aboriginal Willie (Rockie McKenzie) escapes the "corrective" environ of a 1969 Perth Catholic boarding school and flees homeward, only to be pursued by mercilessly hammy Geoffrey Wright’s racist priest baddie. The crude humor, generic tunes, and hectically shot and dance-poor numbers have about as much to do with Aussie abo culture as The Lion King does with "Africa" — it’s prefab feel-good pap posing as multicultural representation. (1:28) Elmwood, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)
Cairo Time (1:29) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.
Change of Plans (1:40) Sundance Kabuki.
The Concert (1:47) Opera Plaza.
Eat Pray Love The new film based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s chart-busting memoir, Eat Pray Love, benefits greatly from the lead performance by Julia Roberts, an actor who can draw from her own reserves of pathos when a project has none of its own. The adaptation, about a whiny American author farting around the globe in search of what amounts to spiritual room service, is nothing without her. The journey begins with the Type-A, book contract-inspired premise that Gilbert will travel to three appointed countries over the course of a year in order that, having thrice denied herself absolutely nothing, she might come out the other end a better-balanced human being. The first stop is Italy, where her entire plan is to finally unbutton her jeans and indulge in a celebrated cuisine, as if her home base of Manhattan were a culinary backwater. But this film is all about tired equivalencies, so Italy equals food, and expressive hand gestures, and "the art of doing nothing." India, her next stop, equals enlightenment (her discovery that the guru she’s come to see is currently at an ashram in New York is an irony lost on the movie). And Bali, her final getaway, apparently equals contradictory but flattering aphorisms and thematically hypocritical romances. The sole appeal to a moviegoer here is aspirational. What’s so embarrassing about Eat Pray Love is its insistence that this appeal sprouts from the spiritual quest itself, and not just from the privilege that enables Gilbert to have such an extravagant quest in the first place. But then, self-awareness is supposed to be a obstacle to enlightenment. She’s got nothing to worry about there. (2:30) Elmwood, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Jason Shamai)
The Expendables Exactly what you’re expecting: a completely ludicrous explosion-o-thon about mercenaries hired by Bruce Willis to take down a South American general who’s actually a puppet for evil CIA agent-turned-coke kingpin Eric Roberts. Clearly, Sylvester Stallone (who directed, co-wrote, stars, and even coaxed a cameo out of Schwarzenegger) knows his audience, but The Expendables — bulging with a muscle-bound cast, including Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Jason Statham, and Steve Austin, plus Jet Li, who suffers many a short-guy joke — is content to simply tap every expected rung on the 80s-actioner homage ladder. There’s no self-awareness, no truly witty one-liners, no plot twists, and certainly no making a badass out of any female characters (really, couldn’t the South American general’s daughter have packed some heat, or kicked someone in the balls — anything besides simply heaving her cleavage around?) The only truly memorable thing here is the inclusion of Mickey Rourke as Stallone’s tattoo-artist pal; I would possibly wager that Rourke was allowed to write his own weepy monologue, delivered in a close-up so extreme it’s more mind-searing than any of the film’s many machine-gun brawls. (1:43) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)
The Extra Man The polar opposite of buddy cop action flicks and spoofs a la The Other Guys, with only a faint resemblance to the bromances of Judd Apatow, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, and so on, The Extra Man is a gently weird throwback to another era, much like its title character, Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline). Sweet, cross-dressing-curious teacher and would-be writer Louis Ives (Paul Dano) is drifting though life passively when he stumbles on eccentric playwright Harrison’s room-for-let and his oddball realm of hangers-on. A blustery, prickly, proudly misogynistic collector of Christmas balls, given to spasms of improvisational dancing, Harrison relishes his role as an escort to aged socialites, crankily shucking and jiving to score invites to fancy dinner parties and vacation homes in Florida. When Ives isn’t courting environmental magazine editor Mary (Katie Holmes) or hiding from the fearsome-looking wooly recluse Gershon (John C. Reilly), the mentor-able young man turns out to be more adept at the role than Harrison ever imagined. And like fossilized grande dames in Chanel, literate audiences also might be charmed by director-writer Shari Springer Berman’s unassuming, crushed-out bon mot, based on the novel by Jonathan Ames, to a few mannered, less-than-examined, happily twisted New York City subcultures. (1:45) Four Star. (Chun)
Get Low Born from the true story of Felix Bush, an eccentric Tennessee hermit who invited the world to celebrate his funeral in advance of his own death, Get Low is a loose take on what might inspire a man to do a thing like that. It’s a small story, and unlikely to attract the attention of popcorn-addled viewers in the midst of the summer blockbuster season, but Get Low has a whopper of a character in Felix Bush. Robert Duvall becomes Bush, constructing a quiet man who sees it all and speaks only when he has something to say, and supporting roles from Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray are expectedly solid, but the real surprise is what a strong eye director Aaron Schnieder has. In allowing scenes to unfold on their own terms and in their own time, Schneider gives a real humanity to what could have been a Hallmark movie. (1:42) Empire, Presidio, Shattuck. (Galvin)
*The Girl Who Played With Fire Lisbeth Salander is cooler than you are. The heroine of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling book series is fierce, mysterious, and utterly captivating: in the movie adaptations, she’s perfectly realized by Noomi Rapace, who has the power to transform Lisbeth from literary hero to film icon. Rapace first impressed audiences in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009), a faithful adaptation of Larsson’s premiere novel, and she returns as Lisbeth in The Girl Who Played With Fire. The sequel, as is often the case, isn’t quite on par with the original, but it’s still a page-to-screen success. And while the first film spent equal time on journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), The Girl Who Played With Fire is almost entirely Lisbeth’s story. Sure, there’s more to the movie than the hacker-turned-sleuth — and the actor who plays her — but she carries the film. Rapace is Lisbeth; Lisbeth is Rapace. I’d watch both in anything. (2:09) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)
Going the Distance If you live in San Francisco, don’t try to date someone in New York. It’s just not worth the hassle. But hey, maybe you’re as adorable as Drew Barrymore, and your boyfriend’s as charming as Justin Long — you can’t be expected to let a little geographical complication get in the way. That’s the driving force behind Going the Distance, a romcom that stars real-life couple Barrymore and Long as Erin and Garrett, two crazy kids trying to make it work cross-country. In many ways, the film is your standard boy-meets-girl story, but it’s cute enough that the predictability factor doesn’t really matter. The cast is universally strong, with bonus points to the standouts: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Charlie Day as Garrett’s embarrassing roommate, and Christina Applegate as Erin’s germaphobe sister. The humor is surprisingly sharp — and raunchy, which earned Going the Distance an R-rating. I’m not going to say Long’s bare ass is worth the price of admission, but it’s certainly a selling point. (1:43) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Peitzman)
I’m Still Here This examination of Joaquin Phoenix’s self-imposed Hollywood exile is neither fascinating nor insightful. More like tedious and aggravating, really. Whether or not "JP" — as the erstwhile Oscar nominee refers to himself as he takes on a new persona as unwashed hip-hop artist — is faking his downward spiral is supposed to be the great attraction for Casey Affleck’s apparently vérité vehicle. But Phoenix is so (deliberately?) unlikable it’s hard to care one way or the other. If he is having a breakdown, conveniently captured on film from multiple angles, he’s still a spoiled, private jet-taking movie star moping about existential woes while living a privileged life (hotel suites, fawning personal assistants, etc.) If he’s faking it, it’s unclear what the point of I’m Still Here is supposed to be, other than a "fuck you" to the industry that made Phoenix rich and famous. Either way, ugh. (1:48) Elmwood, Embarcadero. (Eddy)
Inception As my movie going companion pointed out, "Christopher Nolan must’ve shit a brick when he saw Shutter Island." In Nolan’s Inception, as in Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio is a troubled soul trapped in a world of mind-fuckery, with a tragic-vengeful wife (here, Marion Cotillard) and even some long-lost kids looming in his thoughts at all times. But Inception, about a team of corporate spies who infiltrate dreams to steal information and implant ideas, owes just as much to The Matrix (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and probably a James Bond flick or two. Familiar though it may feel, at least Inception is based on a creative idea — how many movies, much less summer blockbusters, actually require viewer brain power? If its complex house-of-cards plot (dreams within dreams within dreams) can’t quite withstand nit-picking, its action sequences are confidently staged and expertly directed, including a standout sequence involving a zero-gravity fist fight and elevator ride. Though it’s hardly genius — and Leo-recycle aside — Inception is worth it, if you don’t mind your puzzle missing a few pieces. (2:30) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)
*The Kids Are All Right In many ways, The Kids Are All Right is a straightforward family dramedy: it’s about parents trying to do what’s best for their children and struggling to keep their relationship together. But it’s also a film in which Jules (Julianne Moore) goes down on Nic (Annette Bening) while they’re watching gay porn. Director Lisa Cholodenko (1998’s High Art) co-wrote the script (with Stuart Blumberg), and the film’s blend between mainstream and queer is part of what makes Kids such an important — not to mention enjoyable — film. Despite presenting issues that might be contentious to large portions of the country, the movie maintains an approachability that’s often lacking in queer cinema. Of course, being in the gay mecca of the Bay Area skews things significantly — most locals wouldn’t bat an eye at Kids, which has Nic and Jules’ children inviting their biological father ("the sperm donor," played by Mark Ruffalo) into their lives. But for those outside the liberal bubble, the idea of a nontraditional family might be more eye-opening. It’s not a message movie, but Kids may still change minds. And even if it doesn’t, the film is a success that works chiefly because it isn’t heavy-handed. It refuses to take itself too seriously. At its best, Kids is laugh-out-loud funny, handling the heaviest of issues with grace and humor. (1:47) Opera Plaza, Presidio, Piedmont, SF Center. (Peitzman)
The Last Exorcism Latest in a long line of Louisiana preachers, genial extrovert Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) isn’t even sure he believes in God anymore — but it’s the family business, and it’s a living. He definitely doesn’t believe in demonic possession, yet has presided over many an "exorcism" if only to fool the psychologically damaged into thinking they’re "cured" of delusional ails. But now he’s decided such hijinks might be more harmful than helpful. So to debunk the whole idea, he takes a documentary filmmaking crew on one last "soul-saving" trek, answering a desperate letter from a widowed farmer (Louis Herthum) whose 16-year-old daughter (Ashley Bell) is believed possessed. Cotton deploys theatrical tricks to rig an alleged purging of Satan’s minion. And it works … but this wouldn’t be a horror movie if that rationalist triumph didn’t turn out to be a false finish, followed by all kinds of inexplicable WTF. German director Daniel Stamm’s first English-language feature (written by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland) is being positioned by Lionsgate as the next viral word-of-mouth horror sensation a la prior faux-docs The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007). But the "reality" illusion is more transparent here. Despite some clever buildup tactics, okay twists, and a handful of scares, this ultimately disappoints — a preview audience’s catcalls at its underwhelming fadeout suggested there will be no Last Exorcism 2. (1:27) 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)
*Machete Probably the first movie that was initially conceived solely as a fake-movie trailer (as part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s 2007 Grindhouse), Rodriguez’s Machete emerges in full-length form to take on everyone’s sky-high expectations. I mean, the trailer promised motorcycles soaring through flames, a gun-toting priest, and the line "You just fucked with the wrong Mexican." Fortunately, Machete the film does Machete the trailer proud; its deliberately silly revenge plot is both spot-on vintage homage and semi-serious commentary on America’s ongoing immigration debate. In addition, it features more severed limbs, gunshots to the head, irresponsible sex, and smirking Steven Seagal close-ups than any other movie in recent memory. Frequent Rodriguez supporting player Danny Trejo pretty much kills it as the title badass — but then, you already knew he would. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Eddy)
*Mademoiselle Chambon Stéphane Brizé’s new Mademoiselle Chambon is a movie whose protagonists lunge toward each other — even though they shouldn’t, for their own sakes and everyone else’s. Grave-voiced, craggy-faced Jean (Vincent Lindon) is a construction-site laborer; Anne Marie (Aure Atika) his assembly-line worker wife; Jeremy (Arthur Le Hourerou) the eight-year-old offspring who’s already better educated than either of them. One day Anne Marie suffers a temporarily disabling factory accident, leaving Jean to pick up Jeremy from school. There, Jean first encounters Jeremy’s teacher, Véronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain). She has the willowy body of a veteran ballet dancer and a naturally refined air — at least by his limited experiential standards. There’s an immediate if unadmitted spark between them, yet Mademoiselle Chambon doesn’t get cheap about it. None of these people are more than ordinary, kinda-attractive. As temptations and related tensions unravel their stability, Brize allows his characters to slip grip gracefully. No one behaves well, but they do behave credibly. Mademoiselle Chambon sees rational folk with well-organized lives stubbornly resisting a mutual pull whose logical outcome will surely suck for all concerned. It’s a fine, measured drama presented with typical Gallic insouciance — tenderly discreet even when conventional art and commerce shout for something more crudely dramatic. (1:41) Albany, Clay. (Harvey)
*Mao’s Last Dancer Based on the subject’s autobiography of the same name, this Australian-produced drama chronicles the real-life saga of Li Cunxin (played as child, teen, and adult by Huang Wen Bin, Chengwu Guo, and Chi Cao), who was plucked from his rural childhood village in 1972 to study far from home at the Beijing Dance Academy. He attracted notice from Houston Ballet artistic director Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood) during a cultural-exchange visit, and was allowed to go abroad for a Texas summer residency. At first the film looks headed toward well-handled but slightly pat inspirational territory pitting bad China against good America, as it cuts between Li’s grueling training by (mostly) humorless Party ideologues, and his astonishment at the prosperity and freedom in a country he’d been programmed to believe was a capitalist hellhole of injustice and deprivation. (Though as a Chinese diplomat cautions, not untruthfully, he’s only been exposed to "the nice parts.") Swayed by love and other factors, Li created an international incident — tensely staged here — when he chose to defect rather than return home. But Jan Sardi’s script and reliable Aussie veteran Bruce Beresford’s direction refuse to settle for easy sentiment, despite a corny situation or two. Our hero’s new life
isn’t all dream-come-true, nor is his past renounced without serious consequence (a poignant Joan Chen essays his peasant mother). The generous ballet excerpts (only slightly marred by occasional slow-mo gimmickry) offer reward enough, but the film’s greatest achievement is its honestly earning the right to jerk a few tears. (1:57) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)
*Mesrine: Killer Instinct This first half of a two-part film about notorious French bank robber Jacques Mesrine examines the early life of its subject, before he was a flamboyant, headline-grabbing folk hero. The very first scene uses 70s-style split-screens to revel Mesrine’s violent 1979 death; writer-director Jean-François Richet (2005’s Assault on Precinct 13) then jumps back 15 or so years for a glimpse of our (anti-) hero’s soldiering days in Algeria. Before long, "Jacky" (an outstanding Vincent Cassel, in a César-winning performance) is back in Paris, horrifying his upper-class parents and young wife by choosing the underworld over conventional pencil-pushing. (A near-unrecognizable Gérard Depardieu appears as a mob boss.) Killer Instinct, which is adapted from Mesrine’s own prison-penned autobiography, suffers from some standard biopic problems — it tries to cram in too much, and feels mighty rushed at times. But there’s still plenty of bad, bad behavior to enjoy, including the film’s spectacular last act, a breakneck recreation of one of the daring prison escapes that helped make Mesrine a legend. Continuation Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1, which beings where this film ends, is now playing. (1:53) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)
*Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 If you see writer-director Jean-François Richet’s Mesrine: Killer Instinct (review above), you’re pretty much obligated to see this sequel, especially since the earlier film beings with the main character’s death, then flashes back and never catches up to it. This installment was actually filmed first, allowing star Vincent Cassell to pack on nearly 50 pounds to play the oldier, portlier version of the legendary French bank robber. Mesrine’s prowess as an escape artist allows him to spend much of this film on the lam with partner François (Mathieu Amalric) and girlfriend Sylvia (Ludivine Sagnier). Along the way, the headline-hungry crook declares himself a revolutionary, poses for Paris Match, kidnaps a billionaire, spends his ill-gotten money on diamonds and BMWs, tortures a journalist, and does as much as he can to further the Myth of Mesrine. The foreknowledge of Mesrine’s ultimate end lends a sense of ticking-clock doom; the first time we see it, in Killer Instinct, it’s from the point of view of Mesrine and Sylvia. Richet films the death scene here from the perspective of the police who tracked him, with increasing frustration, for years. Clever twists like this make it preferable to watch both films back-to-back, though Cassell’s commanding performance makes each a worthwhile stand-alone. (2:14) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)
The Other Guys Will Ferrell and Adam McKay can do no wrong in some bro-medy aficionados’ eyes, but The Other Guys is no Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) or Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). The other two Ferrell-McKay team-ups made short work of men’s jobs, in addition to genre filmmaking tropes, with crisper, cut-to-the-gag punchiness. And despite its laugh-out-loud first quarter — and some surprising TLC references by Michael Keaton, of all people, The Other Guys is about half a genuinely hilarious film that pokes fun at masculinity, as well as, interestingly, whiteness and beyond-the-pale, big-bucks white-collar crime. This lampoon of action buddy-cop flicks is dealt a semi-fatal blow when excess-loving, damage-dealing supercops Samuel Jackson and Dwayne Johnson exit, manically chewing scenery as they go. Two forgotten desktop jocks, forensic accounting investigator-with-a-past Allen (Ferrell) and ragaholic screwup Terry (Mark Wahlberg), must step it up when the dynamic duo dissipates, and go after crooked financier David Ershon (Steve Coogan). The second half of The Other Guys could have used some of the dramatic tension budding between buddy team Jackson-Johnson and reluctant cohorts Ferrell-Wahlberg, especially when Wahlberg begins to get bogged down in single-gear disbelief. But perhaps we should just be grateful for what few yuks we can glean from the atrocities of Great Recession-era robber barons. (1:47) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)
Piranha 3D (1:29) 1000 Van Ness.
Resident Evil: Afterlife (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.
*Scott Pilgrim vs. The World For fans of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s just-completed comics saga Scott Pilgrim, the announcement that Edgar Wright (2004’s Shaun of the Dead, 2007’s Hot Fuzz) would direct a film version was utterly surreal. Geeks get promises like this all the time, all too often empty (Guillermo del Toro’s Hobbit, anyone?). But miraculously, Wright indeed spent the past five years crafting the winning Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The film follows hapless Toronto 20-something Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), bassist for crappy band Sex Bob-omb, as he falls for delivery girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), only to find he must defeat her seven evil exes — like so many videogame bosses — before he can comfortably date her. As it happens, he’s already dating a high-schooler, Knives (Ellen Wong), who’s not coping well with Scott moving on. Cera plays a good feckless twerp; his performance isn’t groundbreaking, but it dodges the Cera-playing-his-precious-self phenomenon so many have lamented. The film’s ensemble cast maintains a sardonic tone, with excellent turns by Alison Pill, Aubrey Plaza, and newcomer Wong. Jason Schwartzman is perfectly cast as the ultimate evil ex-boyfriend — there’s really no one slimier, at least under 35.The film brilliantly cops the comics’ visual language, including snarky captions and onomatopoetic sound effects, reminiscent onscreen of 1960s TV Batman. Sometimes this tends toward sensory overload, but it’s all so stylistically distinctive and appropriate that excess is easily forgiven. (1:52) California, 1000 Van Ness. (Sam Stander)
Soul Kitchen Director Fatih Akin (2004’s Head-On) offers a tribute to the German Heimat ("homeland") film, as well as to his own hometown, Hamburg, with this gritty comedy set in a restaurant dubbed Soul Kitchen. Star Adam Bousdoukos, who co-wrote the script with Akin, really did own a similar greasy spoon, and his knowledge of what makes an eatery soar or fail is exaggerated here to humorous and occasionally surreal effect. Bousdoukos’ character, the scruffy Zinos, loves funk music; he’s also in an existential funk, having just seen his girlfriend move to Shanghai. What’s worse, he’s just injured his back, necessitating the hiring of snooty chef Shayn (Head-On‘s Birol Ünel); his ne’er-do-well brother (Moritz Bleibtreu) is freshly out of jail; and he owes big bucks to the local tax board. Also, an old childhood pal turned sleazy businessman (Wotan Wilke Möhring) is circling his property with sharky hunger. Will everything that can possibly go wrong, go wrong, with a side of ketchup and mayonnaise? Of course it will. Stylish direction and a game cast, including winning newcomer Anna Bederke as Zinos’ shot-gulping waitress, make Soul Kitchen a fun if non-essential diversion. (1:33) Elmwood, Opera Plaza. (Eddy)
*The Switch Has any hard-working actor ever made as many mediocre, albeit vigorously marketed, movies as Jennifer Aniston? It seems like an age since her last good one, Nicole Holofcener’s Friends with Money (2006), though some might go as far back as 2002’s The Good Girl, her dramatic and cinematic breakthrough. Perhaps that dry spell seems extra long due to Aniston’s tabloid overexposure, or maybe it’s just the feeble conceits (a la 2009’s Love Happens) that Aniston allows herself to get roped into. In any case, armed with a sharp script based on a Jeffrey Eugenides short story and a less-than-perfect but comically well-equipped everyman foil in Jason Bateman, The Switch turns out to be a refreshing break from Aniston’s run of predictability: it’s actually good, girl (if a bit far-fetched that even a neurotic, successful financial whiz could be so emotionally constipated). Heeding her biological alarm clock over the objections of best friend Wally (Bateman), Kassie (Aniston) decides to get artificially inseminated by handsome, smart, and charming donor Roland (Patrick Wilson), but nothing goes according to plan when Wally gets wasted at her insemination party and — no use crying over spilled semen — woozily decides to substitute his own emissions for Roland’s. Funny, tender, heart-strings-tugging shenanigans ensue when Kassie returns to NYC after seven years with her adorable, neurotic mini-Wally Sebastian (Thomas Robinson). Bateman is as reliably excellent as ever. Blades of Glory (2007) directors Will Speak and Josh Gordon put care into the details — from the lighting, to the scene-swiping cameos by Juliette Lewis and Jeff Goldblum, to the on-point yet relatively realistic dialogue, and it shows, making this, along with The Kids Are All Right, a, ahem, seminal year for donor-coms. (1:56) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)
*Takers Likely the best movie to be advertised on billboards all over Oakland in a while, Takers is one of those likeable, smart, and faintly ludicrous genre flicks — a gangsta B with a hip-hop heart, centered on a cadre of high-style, Rat Pack-like bank robbers — that redeems its playas all around. It gives T.I., in both starring and executive producer roles and tellingly emerging from the clink in his first scene, a career beyond the rap game and the pen: he’s a snottily charmismatic Little Caesar here, a slight, serpentine mini-Snoop. It gives the formidable Idris Elba (The Wire) as the group’s leader something to wrap his sonorous Cockney around as he plays off crack ‘ho sister (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) as if they were English-accented castaways on island L.A. It gives Paul Walker, the second-banana princeling of the urban action flick, something to do: namely function as Elba’s lieutenant. And it gives the benighted Chris Brown, who gets his share of fast-stepping glory via a nice, meaty chase scene, a way to recast and strive toward redeeming himself on the silver screen — while giving the little-girls-who-love-bad-boys something to scream about. See, something for everyone (except maybe Zoe Saldana, who gets saddled with the arm candy role). (1:57) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)
*The Tillman Story To what extent is our government prepared to lie to us? Not just on a policy level, but a personal level, perverting actual instances of heroic self-sacrifice into propagandistic pablum? The answer during our prior White House administration was clearly: as far as possible, until caught. Perhaps the most egregious such instance was the case of Pat Tillman, who gave up a lucrative NFL contract, becoming a U.S. Army Ranger enlistee in a burst of genuine patriotic fervor post-9/11. He was subsequently killed in Afghanistan — but the "friendly fire" circumstances of that death, and its apparent cover-up, scandalized not only his military superiors but a command chain of deliberate disinformation stretching all the way to the White House. Amir Bar-Lev’s The Tillman Story is a documentary expose of unusual immediacy, narrative thrust, and outrage, which may partly stem from its being such a Bay Area story. The deceased subject’s South Bay family were diehard liberals dedicated to values that might be considered eccentric anywhere else. The mistake authorities made in casting Tillman’s death as a battlefield martyrdom — a scenario amply undermined by footage and testimony here — lay in underestimating the well-educated skepticism and doggedness of his blood relations, most notably mom, Mary. While other families might have simply accepted an official scenario, the Tillmans found logistical gaps, then pushed, and pushed. The Tillman Story is a journey toward justice (if not nearly enough). It’s engrossing, appalling, heartrending, and enraging, the nonfiction equivalent to last year’s underseen body bag drama The Messenger. (1:34) SF Center, Shattuck. (Harvey)
*The Two Escobars In America, the World Cup ends, and most sports fans turn their attentions elsewhere. In other countries, soccer is a year-round happening that inspires religious devotion. Putting this fact into perspectives both glorious and cruel is The Two Escobars, Jeff and Michael Zimbalist’s involving new doc about the rise of "narco-soccer" in Colombia, circa the coke-crazed 1980s and early 90s. One Escobar, we’ve all heard of: Pablo, a noted drug kingpin who was also a hero to the slum-dwellers who benefited from his donations of housing and, perhaps more importantly, soccer fields. A rabid footy fan himself, Pablo invested in Colombian teams, an influx of cash that helped the national team become one of the strongest in the world. Escobar number two is Andrés, the affable, wholesome defender who served as team captain in the 1994 World Cup. The events that caused both Escobars to meet untimely and brutal deaths are detailed here, by people who knew them well, in a moving, well-edited film that’s as cautionary as it is celebratory. Highly recommended. (1:40) Roxie. (Eddy)
*Winter’s Bone Winter’s Bone has already won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, but it’s the kind of downbeat, low-key, quiet film that may elude larger audiences (and, as these things go, Oscar voters). Like Andrea Arnold’s recent Fish Tank, it tells the story of a teenage girl who draws on unlikely reserves of toughness to navigate an unstable family life amid less-than-ideal economic circumstances. And it’s also directed by a woman: Debra Granik, whose previous feature, 2004’s Down to the Bone, starred Vera Farmiga (2009’s Up in the Air) as a checkout clerk trying to balance two kids and a secret coke habit. Drugs also figure into the plot of the harrowing Winter’s Bone, though its protagonist, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), is faced with a different set of circumstances: her meth head father has jumped bail, leaving the family’s humble mountain home as collateral; the two kids at stake are her younger siblings. With no resources other than her own tenacity, Ree strikes out into her rural Missouri community, seeking information from relatives who clearly know where her father is — but ain’t sayin’ a word. It’s a journey fraught with menace, shot with an eye for near-documentary realism and an appreciation for slow-burn suspense; Lawrence anchors a solid cast with her own powerful performance. Who says American independent film is dead? (1:40) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)
A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop An intriguing misfire on par with his 2006 OTT bodice-heaver Curse of the Golden Flower, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop sees filmmaker Zhang Yimou playfully dispensing with the serious rep cultivated by such films as Red Sorghum (1987) and Raise the Red Lantern (1981), movies that made Zhang a central figure amid Chinese film’s Fifth Generation. Deep into middle age, with crowd-pleasers like Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004) behind him, Zhang appears fully committed to the low road of commercial entertainments — an approach completely in line with his country’s embrace of market-driven economics. But why remake the Coen brothers’ career-making 1984 noir tribute, Blood Simple? Zhang does little to refresh and improve on Coens’ noir retool, apart from drenching the proceedings in his homeland’s very dated, broad slapstick, including a jarringly out-of-place noodle-dough twirling scene, and setting some of the action on the glorious painted-desert mountainsides of the Gansu province. It’s as if Zhang has decided to send up himself — the film’s vivid palette and adulterous couple compares unfavorably with 1990’s Ju Dou — as well as with the brudders Coen. (1:35) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)