2012

On the Om Front: In the name of love

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On the Om Front: In the name of love

It’s February—feeling a little love in your heart? Srutih Asher Colbert’s been feeling the love all year long. She’s a Bay Area yoga teacher (and hairdresser) who raised $24,000 in one year through grassroots fundraising to fight sex trafficking in India, where she’ll be going next week to volunteer her time to the cause.

Om Front talked to her about how, and why, she undertook the challenge.

SFBG Wow. You raised $24,000 in one year. Tell us about the organization you raised the money for.

COLBERT Off The Mat and Into the World is a yoga-based organization [founded by internationally-acclaimed yoga teacher/activist Seane Corn]. It initiates different projects around the world to create sustainable change. The idea is that people take their yoga practice “off the mat and into the world” to become leaders in their community and use that leadership to make a difference. Every year, Off the Mat conducts something called the Seva Challenge, in which people everywhere are challenged to raise at least $20,000 for a particular cause. If you can raise the money, you are invited to go on a trip with Off the Mat to volunteer your time to that cause.

SFBG  What inspired you to do the 2012 Seva Challenge?

COLBERT  The cause this year is to stop sex trafficking in India. Sex trafficking is happening all over the world, but there are over 3 million girls in India alone that are being held prisoner and being raped on a daily basis. Some of them have been tricked by being promised a job in the factory and then they end up in a brothel. Some of them have been sold by their own parents. There are so many ways they can be coerced. I have two daughters and it hit close to home to think that my eight year old daughter could be trafficked for sex. I wanted to see if I could help stop that kind of action. I didn’t think I’d be able to raise $20,000 but I thought I would try!

SFBG  So, how did you do it?

COLBERT I reached out to everyone in my yoga community, students and teachers, and planned all of these events. I don’t know how I did it, but it all added up in the end. Some of the events I held were a benefit Kirtan [chanting event] with Ananda Rasa and Prajna Vieira at the Sivananda Yoga Center; a yoga-DJ-dance party at Equinox in Palo Alto, where I teach; and a Thanksgiving benefit class at Namaste Yoga in Oakland with Vickie Russell Bell. I sold Stop Slavery Now tee-shirts, and held a cocktail party and a silent auction. Also, [legendary kirtan singer] Krishna Das did an amazing fundraiser in NYC on the Bhajan Boat and he donated his whole portion to me for the cause. It was incredible.


Thanksgiving benefit class at Namaste Yoga in Oakland with Vickie Russell Bell

SFBG  What was the biggest fundraiser?

COLBERT  It was actually at my hair salon, Monica Foster Salon, in Palo Alto. I got everyone to work on a Monday when we’re usually closed, and they all donated their proceeds, over $4000 altogether, to Off the Mat.

SFBG  So you’re going to India then?

COLBERT Yes! I’ve never been to India and I am so thrilled that I get this opportunity. We leave on February 17 for 10 days in Kolkata. We’ll be working every day with the local charities that are partnered with Off the Mat to help rescue girls, and teach them trades like jewelry-making. We’ll also be helping to build a new room onto a dance-and-yoga therapy center that helps these girls transition back into society.

It’s an interesting time to be going to India to do this work. After the recent gang rape in India, there’s been an uprising of women banding together saying we’re not going to stand for this anymore. It feels really good that we can be part of that timing and affect some social change.

SFBG  Is your fundraising effort over?

COLBERT  Technically, yes, but people are still giving me cash and writing me checks! We’re asked to bring a donation bag over with us filled with first aid supplies, art supplies, and things to draw with, that we can give to the different charities—so I’ve been using the additional funds for that. Once that bag is full, I’ll give the remaining money to Off the Mat.


Colbert with yoga teacher Vickie Russell Bell (left) at Namaste Yoga

SFBG  What has this year of fundraising taught you?

COLBERT That I am not in control of anything. Every fundraiser, I would think it would go this way or that way—and it was never like that. I would think there would be 75 people there and in walked 12. Or I thought a person was going to give me $5 and he gave me $500. I had to learn to not try to control things, and to just be in the present moment with what is.

SFBG  You’re leaving on February 17. Nice timing for Valentine’s Day, eh?

COLBERT Yes, but every day should be Valentine’s Day! Every day we should all be giving each other as much love as we can, helping each other and holding each other up.

If you want to donate to Off the Mat or learn about the 2013 Seva Challenge, visit www.offthematintotheworld.org.

Karen Macklin is a writer and yoga teacher in San Francisco — her On the Om Front column appears biweekly here on SFBG.com.

It’s All About Love
Yoga and Spirituality Listings by Joanne Greenstein

Seven Month Chakra Awakening Intensive with Anodea Judith
Open your heart through the chakras. Award winning author and internationally renowned teacher Anodea Judith is coming to the Bay Area to lead a series of seven workshops on the seven chakras over seven months.  Each month will focus on one of the chakras, offering asana practice, bioenergetic exercises, breathing techniques, guided trance journeys, chanting, art, music and more to clear blockages and active chakra energy.  Workshops will be supplemented by weekly emails.
Sat 2/9 – Sat 2/13, 1:00 – 5:45 PM, Yoga Kula SF, 3030A 16th, SF with 2 sessions at Yoga Kula Berkeley, 1700 Shattuck, Berkeley, $90/workshop or $560 for all 7.  Livestream also available at $45/sessionor $285 for all sessions. yogakula.com/chakra-awakening

Valentine’s Day Contact Yoga Class with Alok Rocheleau and Anjuli Mahendra
Open your heart through touch.  Connect physically, emotionally and spiritually through partner yoga, contact improvisation and Thai massage.
Thurs/14, 7:30 – 10:00 PM, Mindful Body, 2876 California, SF, $70 per couple in advance/$80 at the door. www.themindfulbody.com/main/workshopsevents.htm

Celebration of Heart with Deborah Lee
Open your heart through movement.  Flow through a series of poses designed to help you release tension, improve your posture and connect to your heart. 
Sun/10, 2:00 – 4:15 PM, Yogaworks, 1823 Divisadero, SF, $20 in advance/$30 at the door. More info here.

Kirtan with David Newman (Durga Das)
Open your heart through song.  David and his wife Mira will lead a fun, joyous evening of call-and-response chanting letting you access your heart space. 
Fri/15, 8:00 – 10:00 PM, Urban Flow, 1543 Mission, SF, $20 in advance/$25 at the door. www.urbanflowyoga.com/workshop.html
 
Tantra & Massage Valentine’s Workshop with Dee Dussault
Open your heart through connection.  Explore and deepen your relationship through these workshops for couples. On day one, learn tantric practices to enhance the intimacy, energy, communication and sensuality in your relationship.  On day two, improve your love-making through tantric massage, breathing and visualization.  Day two is clothing optional, with a non-genital focus.
Tantra Workshop: Expanding Erotic Energy
Sat/16, 1:30 – 4:30 PM, 548 Fillmore, SF, $45
Sensual Massage: Conscious Intimate Touch
Sun/17, 2:00 – 5:00 PM, 548 Fillmore, SF, $45
More info here.

Ten years after Powell’s U.N. speech, old hands are ready for more blood

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Ten years after Powell’s U.N. speech, old hands are ready for more blood

By Norman Solomon

Norman Solomon is the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He is the founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org.

When Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003, countless journalists in the United States extolled him for a masterful performance — making the case that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The fact that the speech later became notorious should not obscure how easily truth becomes irrelevant in the process of going to war.

Ten years later — with Powell’s speech a historic testament of shameless deception leading to vast carnage — we may not remember the extent of the fervent accolades. At the time, fawning praise was profuse across the USA’s mainline media spectrum, including the nation’s reputedly great newspapers.

The New York Times editorialized that Powell “was all the more convincing because he dispensed with apocalyptic invocations of a struggle of good and evil and focused on shaping a sober, factual case against Mr. Hussein’s regime.” The Washington Post was more war-crazed, headlining its editorial “Irrefutable” and declaring that after Powell’s U.N. presentation “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

Yet basic flaws in Powell’s U.N. speech were abundant. Slanted translations of phone intercepts rendered them sinister. Interpretations of unclear surveillance photos stretched to concoct the worst. Summaries of cherry-picked intelligence detoured around evidence that Iraq no longer had WMDs. Ballyhooed documents about an Iraqi quest for uranium were forgeries.

Assumptions about U.S. prerogatives also went largely unquestioned. In response to Powell’s warning that the U.N. Security Council would place itself “in danger of irrelevance” by failing to endorse a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the adulation from U.S. media embraced the notion that the United Nations could only be “relevant” by bending to Washington’s wishes. A combination of cooked intelligence and geopolitical arrogance, served up to rapturous reviews at home, set the stage for what was to come.

The invasion began six weeks after Powell’s tour de force at the United Nations. Soon, a search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was in full swing. None turned up. In January 2004 — 11 months after Powell’s U.N. speech — the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace released a report concluding that top officials in the Bush administration “systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile programs.”

Left twisting in the wind was Powell’s speech to the U.N. Security Council, where he’d issued a “conservative estimate” that Iraq “has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent.” The secretary of state had declared: “There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.”

Nineteen months after the speech, in mid-September 2004, Powell made a terse public acknowledgment. “I think it’s unlikely that we will find any stockpiles,” he said. But no gingerly climb-down could mitigate the bloodshed that continued in Iraq.

A decade ago,  Powell played a starring role in a recurring type of political dramaturgy. Scripts vary, while similar dramas play out on a variety of scales. Behind a gauzy curtain, top officials engage in decision-making on war that gives democracy short shrift. For the public, crucial information that bears on the wisdom of warfare remains opaque or out of sight.

Among the powerful and not-so-powerful, in mass media and on Capitol Hill, the default position is still to defer to presidential momentum for war. Public candor and policy introspection remain in short supply.

The new secretary of state, John Kerry — like the one he just replaced, Hillary Clinton — voted for the Iraq war resolution in the Senate, nearly four months before Powell went to the U.N. Security Council. During the crucial lead-up months, Senator Kerry was at pains to show his avid support for an invasion. In early October 2002, appearing for an hour on MSNBC’s “Hardball” program live from The Citadel as an audience of young cadets filled the screen, Kerry said: “I’m prepared to go. I think people understand that Saddam Hussein is a danger.”

Since then, Kerry has publicly said that he would have voted for the war resolution even if he’d known that Iraq actually had no weapons of mass destruction. But on the Senate floor, Kerry prefaced his vote for war by rhetorically demanding to know why Saddam Hussein was “attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don’t even try.” The senator emphasized that “according to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons.”

Months later, when Powell trumpeted that theme at the United Nations, the landslide of testimonials included this one from a future U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice: “I think he has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don’t think many informed people doubted that.”

Meanwhile, the Washington Post edition with the editorial headlined “Irrefutable” also included unanimous agreement from each of the opinion columns on the facing page.

Longtime Post columnist Richard Cohen attested to Powell’s unquestionable veracity with these words: “The evidence he presented to the United Nations — some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail — had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn’t accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool — or possibly a Frenchman – could conclude otherwise.”

Inches away, another venerable pundit held forth. Powell managed to “present the world with a convincing and detailed X-ray of Iraq’s secret weapons and terrorism programs yesterday,” wrote Jim Hoagland, a Post foreign-policy specialist. He concluded: “To continue to say that the Bush administration has not made its case, you must now believe that Colin Powell lied in the most serious statement he will ever make, or was taken in by manufactured evidence. I don’t believe that. Today, neither should you.”

Fast forward to the current era. What are Richard Cohen and Jim Hoagland writing — about Iran?

On February 6, 2012, exactly nine years after proclaiming that “only a fool” could doubt Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Cohen’s column declared flatly: “The ultimate remedy is Iranian regime change.” Four months ago, Cohen wrapped up a column by observing “there is still time for Iran to back down before President Obama’s red line — no nuclear weapon — is crossed. This is a war whose time has not yet come.” Not yet.

Hoagland — a decade after telling readers they should put their trust in Colin Powell’s “convincing and detailed X-ray of Iraq’s secret weapons” — is now making clear that his patience with Iran is wearing thin. “Until recently,” Hoagland wrote five weeks ago, “I had been relatively comfortable with Obama’s assertions that there is time to reach a peaceful resolution with Iran.” Hoagland’s column went on to say that military strikes on Iran “threaten disastrous political and economic consequences for the world,” so diplomatic efforts should try to avert the need for such strikes — before they become necessary.

So goes the dominant spectrum of opinionating and policymaking for war, from eagerness to reluctance. Propaganda lead-ups to warfare are as varied as wars themselves; and yet every style of such propaganda relies on deception, and every war is unspeakable horror.

After jumping onto ghastly bandwagons for one war after another, the nation’s media establishment is available to do it again. So is the current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. So is the new secretary of state. They’re old hands, dripping with blood. They have not had enough.

Norman Solomon is the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He is the founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org.

Six pack

Andrew Lam
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Six pack

Antiviral (Brandon Cronenberg, Canada, 2012) Yes, that Cronenberg. The spawn of veteran filmmaker David makes an auspicious feature debut with this, uh, Cronenberg-esque body-horror tale. In the stark, gloomy near-future, celebrity worship has become so out of control that healthy people visit special clinics to be injected with diseases gathered from superstars. When he’s not offering “biological communion” via shared flu germs plucked from blonde goddess Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon of Cronenberg Sr.’s 2012 Cosmopolis), medical technician Syd (Friday Night Lights’ Caleb Landry Jones) is working black-market deals on the side, peddling illnesses to a sketchy broker who works out of a butcher shop that sells steaks grown from celebrity muscle cells. And if that sounds gross, just know that as Antiviral‘s clever, sci-fi noir plot twists itself into ever-darker (and gorier) contortions, there’s plenty more stomach-turning mad science ahead. You done good, son. Sat/9, 7:15pm; Tue/12, 9:30pm, Roxie.

Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, UK, 2012) 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. Fri/8, 9:30pm; Feb. 13, 7:15pm, Roxie.

Bound By Flesh (Leslie Zemeckis, US, 2012) Following up her 2010 burlesque doc Behind the Burly Q, Leslie Zemeckis (wife of Robert, director of 2012’s Flight) tackles another subject sprinkled with the tarnished glitter of a bygone era: conjoined twins Violet and Daisy Hilton, vaudeville and film (1932’s Freaks) stars who were exploited from birth by a series of shady guardians. When they finally earned their freedom in a landmark emancipation trial, their triumph was short-lived; not only were they ill-equipped to negotiate the perils of show biz on their own, they also suffered from grown-up-child-star syndrome, having tasted a level of fame early in life that they’d never reach again, though not for lack of trying. And, of course, they were conjoined twins — so amplify every possible life obstacle by about a million. Though Bound By Flesh suffers a bit from its limited source materials — be prepared to see the same photos of the Hiltons used over and over throughout the film — it nonetheless tells a tragic, fascinating, and utterly unique tale. Feb. 16, 5pm; Feb/ 17, 2:45pm, Roxie.

Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp (Jorge Hinojosa, US, 2012) Ice-T presents this study of a man (real name: Robert Beck) whose early years dabbling in “the second oldest profession” led him first to prison, and then — rather improbably — to the top of best-seller lists, as books like Pimp: The Story of My Life and Trick Baby (which became a 1972 blaxsploitation film) achieved cult status. Though the film’s first 30 minutes lay on the hero worship a bit thick (yeah, pimps are cool cats as far as movies and hip-hop’s concerned, but the real Beck is described as someone who “got a thrill out of degrading women”), the author’s talkative first wife and three daughters soon appear to offer some perspective. Archival interviews with Beck, and a detailed examination of his publisher, Holloway House (which employed only whites but specialized in African American literature), only add to this vivid biography. Sat/9, 5pm; Mon/11, 7:15pm, Roxie.

The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus (Alexandre Philippe, US, 2012) Eight correct predictions, eight tentacled arms, millions of enraptured cephalopod admirers: who could forget Paul, whose apparent ESP earned him nearly as much vuvuzela-blaring fanfare as the 2010 World Cup itself? This “fairytale” from the director of 2010’s The People vs. George Lucas begins with Paul’s death — he was young for an oracle, but old for an octopus, explains an employee at Sea Life Oberhausen, Paul’s German home. The doc then doubles back to examine how a publicity stunt involving acrylic boxes with taped-on flags and food tucked inside, plus one hungry octopus, could incite a global frenzy: epic lines at the aquarium, scrambling bookmakers, a full-scale media blitz, death threats, a rich Russian offering to buy Paul for a cool million Euros, an “Ask the Octopus” app, YouTube tributes, and more. At 90 minutes the doc stretches a little thin (fellow psychic animal Punxsutawney Phil even puts in an appearance), but this is fun stuff nonetheless. Sat/9, 2:45pm; Sun/10, 5pm, Roxie.

Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, UK, 2012) Ooh, yes, it’s the US premiere of the latest from rising star Ben Wheatley, who exceeds even 2011’s very fine hitman-goes-bananas Kill List with the sick and hilarious Sightseers. Awkward, nerdy couple Tina and Chris (Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, comedians who wrote the script with Amy Jump) pile into an RV and burn rubber toward some of Britain’s lesser-known attractions: Crich Tramway Village, the Cumberland Pencil Museum, etc. But it’s clear from the start that all’s not well in this relationship, and it doesn’t take long before their “erotic odyssey” also includes screaming fights, dognapping, and multiple homicides. So wrong, and yet so right — the evocative Sightseers manages to invent, and perfect, its own genre: the serial-killer road-tip rom-com. Sat/9 and Mon/11, 9:30pm, Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy) *

SAN FRANCISCO INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

Feb 7-21, most shows $12

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St, SF

www.sfindie.com

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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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.

INDIEFEST

The 15th San Francisco Independent Film Festival runs Feb 7-21 at the Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; the Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; and the Vortex Room, 1082 Howard, SF. For complete schedule and tickets (most shows $12), visit www.sfindie.com. For commentary, see "Muppets, Manholes, and Mayhem" and "Short Takes."

OPENING

Identity Thief When Melissa McCarthy steals Jason Bateman’s identity, this movie happens. (1:25) Four Star, Marina.

John Dies at the End See "Weird Tales." (1:40) California, Embarcadero.

Shanghai Calling Hotshot lawyer Sam Chao (Daniel Henney) is his NYC firm’s top choice to be their man in Shanghai — much to his chagrin, since he puts the American in Chinese American. But off to the bustling, rapidly-expanding city he goes, knowing exactly only one word of Chinese ("fart"), and a classic fish-out-of-water comedy follows. His first day on the job, he bungles a billion-dollar deal, and spends the rest of the movie trying to set things right for his prickly client (Alan Ruck) — with the help of his ambitious assistant (Zhu Zhu), a perky relocation expert (Eliza Coupe), a fried-chicken mogul who runs an American-style bar (Bill Paxton), and a reporter who goes by the improbable moniker of "Awesome Wang" (Geng Le). Along the way, of course, he does some personal soul-searching, realizing there’s more to life than fancy-restaurant reservations and a high-stakes career. Writer-director Daniel Hsia’s Shanghai Calling doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s an undeniably entertaining tale of culture clash, backed up by an appealing cast to boot. (1:40) Presidio. (Eddy)

Side Effects Though on the surface Channing Tatum appears to be his current muse, Steven Soderbergh seems to have gotten his smart, topical groove back, the one that spurred him to kick off his feature filmmaking career with the on-point Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) and went missing with the fun, featherweight Ocean’s franchise. (Alas, he’s been making claims that Side Effects will be his last feature film.) Here, trendy designer antidepressants are the draw — mixed with the heady intoxicants of a murder mystery with a nice hard twist that would have intrigued either Hitchcock or Chabrol. As Side Effects opens, the waifish Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara), whose inside-trading hubby (Tatum) has just been released from prison, looks like a big-eyed little basket of nerves ready to combust — internally, it seems, when she drives her car into a wall. Therapist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who begins to treat her after her hospital stay, seems to care about her, but nevertheless reflexively prescribes the latest anti-anxiety med of the day, on the advice of her former doctor (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Where does his responsibility for Emily’s subsequent actions begin and end? Soderbergh and his very able cast fill out the issues admirably, with the urgency that was missing from the more clinical Contagion (2011) and the, ahem, meaty intelligence that was lacking in all but the more ingenious strip scenes of Magic Mike. (1:30) California, Presidio. (Chun)

Top Gun 3D MAVERICK! (1:50)

West of Memphis See "West Memphis Blues." (2:26) Embarcadero.

ONGOING

Amour Arriving in local theaters atop a tidal wave of critical hosannas, Amour now seeks to tempt popular acclaim — though actually liking this perfectly crafted, intensely depressing film (from Austrian director Michael Haneke) may be nigh impossible for most audience members. Eightysomething former music teachers Georges and Anne (the flawless Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are living out their days in their spacious Paris apartment, going to classical concerts and enjoying the comfort of their relationship. Early in the film, someone tries to break into their flat — and the rest of Amour unfolds with a series of invasions, with Anne’s declining health the most distressing, though there are also unwanted visits from the couple’s only daughter (an appropriately self-involved Isabelle Huppert), an inept nurse who disrespects Anne and curses out Georges, and even a rogue pigeon that wanders in more than once. As Anne fades into a hollow, twisted, babbling version of her former self, Georges also becomes hollow and twisted, taking care of her while grimly awaiting the inevitable. Of course, the movie’s called Amour, so there’s some tenderness involved. But if you seek heartwarming hope and last-act uplift, look anywhere but here. (2:07) Albany, Embarcadero, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Argo If you didn’t know the particulars of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, you won’t be an expert after Argo, but the film does a good job of capturing America’s fearful reaction to the events that followed it — particularly the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran. Argo zeroes in on the fate of six embassy staffers who managed to escape the building and flee to the home of the sympathetic Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Back in Washington, short-tempered CIA agents (including a top-notch Bryan Cranston) cast about for ways to rescue them. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs), exfil specialist and father to a youngster wrapped up in the era’s sci-fi craze. While watching 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with what Cranston’s character calls "the best bad idea we have:" the CIA will fund a phony Canadian movie production (corny, intergalactic, and titled Argo) and pretend the six are part of the crew, visiting Iran for a few days on a location shoot. Tony will sneak in, deliver the necessary fake-ID documents, and escort them out. Neither his superiors, nor the six in hiding, have much faith in the idea. ("Is this the part where we say, ‘It’s so crazy it just might work?’" someone asks, beating the cliché to the punch.) Argo never lets you forget that lives are at stake; every painstakingly forged form, every bluff past a checkpoint official increases the anxiety (to the point of being laid on a bit thick by the end). But though Affleck builds the needed suspense with gusto, Argo comes alive in its Hollywood scenes. As the show-biz veterans who mull over Tony’s plan with a mix of Tinseltown cynicism and patiotic duty, John Goodman and Alan Arkin practically burst with in-joke brio. I could have watched an entire movie just about those two. (2:00) Balboa, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Beasts of the Southern Wild A year after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting. Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. But not all is well: when "the storm" floods the land, the holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate. With its elements of magic, mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology, Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. (1:31) New Parkway, Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Beware of Mr. Baker This mesmerizing bio-doc about volatile, wildly talented drummer Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith) begins with the 70-something musician clocking director Jay Bulger in the face. After this opening, Bulger — who also wrote a deeply compelling article about Baker for Rolling Stone last year — wisely pulls himself out of the narrative, instead turning to a wealth of new interviews (with Baker, his trademark red locks faded to gray, and many of his musical and personal partners, including Eric Clapton and multiple ex-Mrs. Bakers), vintage performance footage, and artful animation to weave his tale. Baker’s colorfully-lived, improbably long life has been literally all over the map; he overcame a hardscrabble British childhood to find jazz and rock stardom, and along the way jammed with Fela Kuti in Nigeria (where he picked up his fierce love of polo), broke many hearts (his own kids’ among them) and lost multiple fortunes, spent a stint in the US, and eventually landed at his current farm in South Africa. Two constants: his musical genius, and his frustratingly jerky behavior — the consequence of a naturally prickly personality exacerbated by copious drug use and bitterness. A must-see for musicians and those who love them. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Bullet to the Head Not to be mistaken for the John Woo passion play, this head wound of a revenge flick instead pits a hired assassin (Sylvester Stallone) against an outsider cop (Sung Kang), the corroded action star who emerged from the thicket of ’70s Italian American iconic actors against a smooth-faced Asian American indie actor associated with the Fast and Furious franchise. Sly’s James Bonomo and his partner have been set up by a set of tepid bad guys (Oz fave Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, here sleep-raging his way through Bullet; a very unpumped Christian Slater; and Jason Momoa, who glowers like he’s still playing a warlord on Game of Thrones). So Bonomo and Kang’s Taylor Kwon — the former’s got the brawn, the latter’s got the smartphone with access to criminal databases — must reluctantly team up to mete out some kind of justice. Yawn. The uninspired oh-so-gritty camera effects don’t help matters when it comes to staving off the sleepies induced by this tired enterprise — director Walter Hill certainly seems to have succumbed to the big snooze. The only real fun to be gleaned here is in watching your random, uh, ax fight and studying the Stallone’s weirdly crumbling yet inert rubble of face, which almost seems to scream to us about — yo, not Adrian, but the ravages of age, surgery, and excess. (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western homage features a cameo by the original Django (Franco Nero, star of the 1966 film), and solid performances by a meticulously assembled cast, including Jamie Foxx as the titular former slave who becomes a badass bounty hunter under the tutelage of Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing the evil yet befuddlingly delightful Nazi Hans Landa in Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds, is just as memorable (and here, you can feel good about liking him) as a quick-witted, quick-drawing wayward German dentist. There are no Nazis in Django, of course, but Tarantino’s taboo du jour (slavery) more than supplies motivation for the filmmaker’s favorite theme (revenge). Once Django joins forces with Schultz, the natural-born partners hatch a scheme to rescue Django’s still-enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), whose German-language skills are as unlikely as they are convenient. Along the way (and it’s a long way; the movie runs 165 minutes), they encounter a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose main passion is the offensive, shocking "sport" of "Mandingo fighting," and his right-hand man, played by Tarantino muse Samuel L. Jackson in a transcendently scandalous performance. And amid all the violence and racist language and Foxx vengeance-making, there are many moments of screaming hilarity, as when a character with the Old South 101 name of Big Daddy (Don Johnson) argues with the posse he’s rounded up over the proper construction of vigilante hoods. It’s a classic Tarantino moment: pausing the action so characters can blather on about something trivial before an epic scene of violence. Mr. Pink would approve. (2:45) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Gangster Squad It’s 1949, and somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a man has been tied hand and foot to a pair of automobiles with the engines running. Coyotes pace in the background like patrons queuing up for a table at Flour + Water, and when dinner is served, the presentation isn’t very pretty. We’re barely five minutes into Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and fair warning has been given of the bloodletting to come. None of it’s quite as visceral as the opening scene, but Fleischer (2009’s Zombieland) packs his tale of urban warfare with plenty of stylized slaughter to go along with the glamour shots of mob-run nightclubs, leggy pin-curled dames, and Ryan Gosling lounging at the bar cracking wise. At the center of all the gunplay and firebombing is what’s framed as a battle for the soul of Los Angeles, waged between transplanted Chicago mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — who wields terms like "progress" and "manifest destiny" as a rationale for a continental turf war — and a police sergeant named John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), tasked with bringing down Cohen’s empire. The assignment requires working under cover so deep that only the police chief (Nick Nolte) and the handpicked members of O’Mara’s "gangster squad" — ncluding Gosling, a half-jaded charmer who poaches Cohen’s arm candy (Emma Stone) — know of its existence. This leaves plenty of room for improvisation, and the film pauses now and again to wonder about what happens when you pit brutal amorality against brutal morality, but it’s a rhetorical question, and no one shows much interest in it. Dragged down by talking points that someone clearly wanted wedged in (as well as by O’Mara’s ponderous voice-overs), the film does better when it abandons gravitas and refocuses on spinning its mythic tale of wilder times in the Golden State. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters So here’s something you may not have been wondering: what exactly happened to Hansel and Gretel after they killed the gingerbread-house witch and made their way to freedom? Did they really live happily ever after? Did they land in the foster care system? Did they enter adulthood bearing the deep psychic wounds a person might well suffer after shoving a living creature into an oven and listening to her agonized howls as she burned alive? Or did they realize they’d discovered their life’s vocation without even having to complete the Myers-Briggs test? Shutting his eyes and pointing at random, director and screenplay cowriter Tommy Wirkola (2009’s Dead Snow) chooses the latter scenario, keeping his eyes closed to stab out some weak dialogue and half a plot for a script that leans heavily on the power of 3D technology to send eviscerated-witch guts and other biological shrapnel flying toward the eyeballs of audience members. Hansel (why, Jeremy Renner?) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) have grown up to share the intense sibling bond and wandering ways you might expect from a brother and sister abandoned at a tender age to starve and be rent limb from limb by wild animals. They’ve also taken full advantage of a niche witch-slaying market in and around the gloomy forest where they made their first kill. When they’re hired to track down a particularly loathsome practitioner of the dark arts (Famke Janssen) who’s been snatching up local children, multidimensional mayhem ensues. Arterton’s Gretel is pretty much a badass and the brains of the operation, while Renner’s Hansel is more of a strong, silent, and occasionally shit-faced type. Neither makes for a particularly memorable protagonist, but that flat look on their faces could just be disappointment or boredom with the material. (1:41) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Make no mistake: the Lord of the Rings trilogy represented an incredible filmmaking achievement, with well-deserved Oscars handed down after the third installment in 2003. If director Peter Jackson wanted to go one more round with J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved characters for a Hobbit movie, who was gonna stop him? Not so fast. This return to Middle-earth (in 3D this time) represents not one but three films — which would be self-indulgent enough even if part one didn’t unspool at just under three hours, and even if Jackson hadn’t decided to shoot at 48 frames per second. (I can’t even begin to explain what that means from a technical standpoint, but suffice to say there’s a certain amount of cinematic lushness lost when everything is rendered in insanely crystal-clear hi-def.) Journey begins as Bilbo Baggins (a game, funny Martin Freeman) reluctantly joins Gandalf (a weary-seeming Ian McKellan) and a gang of dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen homeland and treasure, batting Orcs, goblins, Gollum (Andy Serkis), and other beasties along the way. Fan-pandering happens (with characters like Cate Blanchett’s icy Galadriel popping in to remind you how much you loved LOTR), and the story moves at a brisk enough pace, but Journey never transcends what came before — or in the chronology of the story, what comes after. I’m not quite ready to declare this Jackson’s Phantom Menace (1999), but it’s not an unfair comparison to make, either. (2:50) Metreon, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Impossible Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (2007’s The Orphanage) directs The Impossible, a relatively modestly-budgeted take on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on the real story of a Spanish family who experienced the disaster. Here, the family (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, three young sons) is British, on a Christmas vacation from dad’s high-stress job in Japan. Beachy bliss is soon ruined by that terrible series of waves; they hit early in the film, and Bayona offers a devastatingly realistic depiction of what being caught in a tsunami must feel like: roaring, debris-filled water threatening death by drowning, impalement, or skull-crushing. And then, the anguish of surfacing, alive but injured, stranded, and miles from the nearest doctor, not knowing if your family members have perished. Without giving anything away (no more than the film’s suggestive title, anyway), once the survivors are established (and the film’s strongest performer, Watts, is relegated to hospital-bed scenes) The Impossible finds its way inevitably to melodrama, and triumph-of-the-human-spirit theatrics. As the family’s oldest son, 16-year-old Tom Holland is effective as a kid who reacts exactly right to crisis, morphing from sulky teen to thoughtful hero — but the film is too narrowly focused on its tourist characters, with native Thais mostly relegated to background action. It’s a disconnect that’s not quite offensive, but is still off-putting. (1:54) Metreon, Presidio, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

The Last Stand With gun control issues dominating the news, what better time to release a movie that lovingly glorifies the wonders of excessive firepower? Fortunately for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his return to leading-man status after that little fling with politics, The Last Stand is stupidly enjoyable enough to make any such PC-minded realizations relatively fleeing ones. When a Mexican drug lord (who also happens to be an expert race-car driver) escapes from federal custody and begins speeding home in a super-Corvette, the lead FBI agent (Forest Whitaker, slumming big-time) realizes his only hope is a teeny Arizona border town that happens to be overseen by Sheriff Schwarzenegger. (Other residents include a couple of hapless deputies; an Iraq war vet; and a gun nut played by a cartoonishly obnoxious Johnny Knoxville.) Can this ragtag crew hold off first the drug lord’s advance team (led by a swaggering Peter Stormare), and then the head baddie himself? Duh. The biggest surprise The Last Stand offers is that it’s actually pretty fun — no doubt thanks to the combo of Korean director Kim Jee-woon (2008’s eccentric The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; 2003’s spooky A Tale of Two Sisters) and the heft of Schwarzenegger’s still-potent charisma. (1:47) Metreon. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s "unfilmable" novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, New Parkway, SF Center. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

LUV Baltimore native Sheldon Candis drew from his own childhood for this coming-of-age tale, which takes place in a single day as 11-year-old "little man" Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) tags along with his uncle, Vincent (Common), recently out of jail and rapidly heading back down the criminal path. With both parents out of the picture, Woody’s been raised by his grandmother (Lonette McKee), so he idolizes Vincent even though it’s soon clear the short-tempered man is no hero. Of course, things go horribly awry, bloody lessons are learned, tears are shed, etc. Despite the story’s autobiographical origins, the passable LUV suffers greatly by inviting comparisons to The Wire — the definitive docudrama examining drug crime in Baltimore. Most blatantly, sprinkled into an all-star cast (Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton) are supporting characters played by Wire icons Michael K. "Omar" Williams (as a cop) and Anwan "Slim Charles" Glover (as a meaner Slim Charles, basically). Perhaps if you’ve never seen the show this wouldn’t be distracting — but if that’s the case, you should really be watching The Wire instead of LUV anyway. (1:34) New Parkway. (Eddy)

Mama From bin Laden to wild babes in woods, Jessica Chastain can’t seem to grab a break. Equipped with just the bare outlines of a character, however, she’s one of the few pleasures in this missed-opportunity of a grim, ghostly fairy tale. Expanding his short of the same name, director Andres Muschietti kicks off his yarn on a sadly familiar note in these days of seemingly escalating gun violence: little sisters Victoria and Lily have disappeared from their home, shortly after their desperate father (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has gone on a shooting spree. They repair to an abandoned cabin scattered with mid-century modern furniture. Five years on, the girls’ scruffy artist uncle Lucas (also Coster-Waldau) is still searching for them, supported by his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The little girls lost are finally found by trackers — and they appear to be hopelessly feral, with the angelic-looking Victoria (Megan Charpentier), acting as the ringleader and the younger, bedraggled Lily (Maya Dawe) given to sleeping under beds and eating on all fours next to the dog bowl. The arty couple take them in and move into a "test house" provided by the sisters’ enthralled therapist (Daniel Kash), obviously psyched to study not one but two Kaspar Hausers. The traumatized kids are clearly haunted by their experience — in more ways than one — as inexplicable bumps go off, night and day, and Misfits t-shirt-clad Annabel discovers the real meaning of goth while getting in touch with her seemingly deeply buried maternal urges. Unfortunately, despite possessing the raw material for a truly scary outing that plunges to the core of our primal instincts (what’s scarier than an unsocialized kid that’s capable of anything?) and showing off Muschietti’s occasional instances of cinematic flair (as when multiple rooms are shown using split-screens), Mama ends up running away from the filmmaker and is finally simply spoiled by its mawkishly sentimental finale. It doesn’t help that the inadequate script sports logic holes that a mama could drive a truck though. (1:40) California, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Les Misérables There is a not-insignificant portion of the population who already knows all the words to all the songs of this musical-theater warhorse, around since the 1980s and honored here with a lavish production by Tom Hooper (2010’s The King’s Speech). As other reviews have pointed out, this version only tangentially concerns Victor Hugo’s French Revolution tale; its true raison d’être is swooning over the sight of its big-name cast crooning those famous tunes. Vocals were recorded live on-set, with microphones digitally removed in post-production — but despite this technical achievement, there’s a certain inorganic quality to the proceedings. Like The King’s Speech, the whole affair feels spliced together in the Oscar-creation lab. The hardworking Hugh Jackman deserves the nomination he’ll inevitably get; jury’s still out on Anne Hathaway’s blubbery, "I cut my hair for real, I am so brave!" performance. (2:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Movie 43 (1:37) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Searching for Sugar Man The tale of the lost, and increasingly found, artist known as Rodriguez seems to have it all: the mystery and drama of myth, beginning with the singer-songwriter’s stunning 1970 debut, Cold Fact, a neglected folk rock-psychedelic masterwork. (The record never sold in the states, but somehow became a beloved, canonical LP in South Africa.) The story goes on to parse the cold, hard facts of vanished hopes and unpaid royalties, all too familiar in pop tragedies. In Searching for Sugar Man, Swedish documentarian Malik Bendjelloul lays out the ballad of Rodriguez as a rock’n’roll detective story, with two South African music lovers in hot pursuit of the elusive musician — long-rumored to have died onstage by either self-immolation or gunshot, and whose music spoke to a generation of white activists struggling to overturn apartheid. By the time Rodriguez himself enters the narrative, the film has taken on a fairy-tale trajectory; the end result speaks volumes about the power and longevity of great songwriting. (1:25) New Parkway. (Chun)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated" If you caught Wreck-It Ralph, nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, you’ve already seen John Kahrs’ Paperman, about a junior Mad Men type who bumbles through his pursuit of a lovely fellow office drone he spots on his commute. Or, if you saw Ice Age: Continental Drift, you’ve seen Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, starring Homer and Marge’s wee one as she grapples with the social order at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Among the stand-alones, Minkyu Lee’s Adam and Dog features a quick appearance by Eve, too, but the star is really the scrappy canine who gallops through prehistory playing the world’s first game of fetch with his hairy master. Two minutes is all PES (nom de screen of Adam Pesapane) needs to make Fresh Guacamole — which depicts grenades, dice, and other random objects as most unusual ingredients. The only non-US entry, UK director Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels, is about an elderly married couple whose relationship has deteriorated to the point where they (literally) no longer see eye to eye on anything. The program is rounded out by three more non-Oscar-nominated animated shorts: Britain’s The Gruffalo’s Child, featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane; French art-thief caper Dripped; and New Zealand’s sci-fi tale Abiogenesis. (1:28) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentary" (3:29) Opera Plaza.

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Live Action" (1:54) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

Parker (1:58) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Quartet Every year there’s at least one: the adorable-old-cootfest, usually British, that proves harmless and reassuring and lightly tear/laughter producing enough to convince a certain demographic that it’s safe to go to the movies again. The last months have seen two, both starring Maggie Smith (who’s also queen of that audience’s home viewing via Downton Abbey). Last year’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which Smith played a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself in India, has already filled the slot. It was formulaic, cute, and sentimental, yes, but it also practiced more restraint than one expected. Now here’s Quartet, which is basically the same flower arrangement with quite a bit more dust on it. Smith plays a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself forced into spending her twilight years at a home for the elderly. It’s not just any such home, however, but Beecham House, whose residents are retired professional musicians. Gingerly peeking out from her room after a few days’ retreat from public gaze, Smith’s Jean Horton — a famed English soprano — spies a roomful of codgers rolling their hips to Afropop in a dance class. "This is not a retirement home — this is a madhouse!" she pronounces. Oh, the shitty lines that lazy writers have long depended on Smith to make sparkle. Quartet is full of such bunk, adapted with loving fidelity, no doubt, from his own 1999 play by Ronald Harwood, who as a scenarist has done some good adaptations of other people’s work (2002’s The Pianist). But as a generator of original material for about a half-century, he’s mostly proven that it is possible to prosper that long while being in entirely the wrong half-century. Making his directorial debut: 75-year-old Dustin Hoffman, which ought to have yielded a more interesting final product. But with its workmanlike gloss and head-on take on the script’s very predictable beats, Quartet could as well have been directed by any BBC veteran of no particular distinction. (1:38) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Rabbi’s Cat A rabbi, a Muslim musician, two Russians (a Jew and a boozy Christian), and two talking animals hop into an antique Citroën for a road trip across Africa. No, it’s not the set-up for a joke; it’s the premise for this charming animated film, adapted from Joann Sfar’s graphic novel (the author co-directs with Antoine Delesvaux). In 1930s Algiers, a rabbi’s pet cat suddenly develops the ability to talk — and read and write, by the way — and wastes no time in sharing opinions, particularly when it comes to religion ("God is just a comforting invention!") When a crate full of Russian prayer books — and one handsome artist — arrives at the rabbi’s house, man and cat are drawn into the refugee’s search for an Ethiopian city populated by African Jews. Though it’s not suitable for younger kids (there’s kitty mating, and a few bursts of surprising violence) or diehard Tintin fans (thanks to a randomly cranky spoof of the character), The Rabbi’s Cat is a lushly illustrated, witty tale of cross-cultural clashes and connections. Rockin’ soundtrack, too. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Rust and Bone Unlike her Dark Knight Rises co-star Anne Hathaway, Rust and Bone star Marion Cotillard never seems like she’s trying too hard to be sexy, or edgy, or whatever (plus, she already has an Oscar, so the pressure’s off). Here, she’s a whale trainer at a SeaWorld-type park who loses her legs in an accident, which complicates (but ultimately strengthens) her relationship with Ali (Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, so tremendous in 2011’s Bullhead), a single dad trying to make a name for himself as a boxer. Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to 2009’s A Prophet gets a bit overwrought by its last act, but there’s an emotional authenticity in the performances that makes even a ridiculous twist (like, the kind that’ll make you exclaim "Are you fucking kidding me?") feel almost well-earned. (2:00) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Sessions Polio has long since paralyzed the body of Berkeley poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) from the neck down. Of course his mind is free to roam — but it often roams south of the personal equator, where he hasn’t had the same opportunities as able-bodied people. Thus he enlists the services of Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a professional sex surrogate, to lose his virginity at last. Based on the real-life figures’ experiences, this drama by Australian polio survivor Ben Lewin was a big hit at Sundance this year (then titled The Surrogate), and it’s not hard to see why: this is one of those rare inspirational feel-good stories that doesn’t pander and earns its tears with honest emotional toil. Hawkes is always arresting, but Hunt hasn’t been this good in a long time, and William H. Macy is pure pleasure as a sympathetic priest put in numerous awkward positions with the Lord by Mark’s very down-to-earth questions and confessions. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Silver Linings Playbook After guiding two actors to Best Supporting Oscars in 2010’s The Fighter, director David O. Russell returns (adapting his script from Matthew Quick’s novel) with another darkly comedic film about a complicated family that will probably earn some gold of its own. Though he’s obviously not ready to face the outside world, Pat (Bradley Cooper) checks out of the state institution he’s been court-ordered to spend eight months in after displaying some serious anger-management issues. He moves home with his football-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) and worrywart mother (Jacki Weaver of 2010’s Animal Kingdom), where he plunges into a plan to win back his estranged wife. Cooper plays Pat as a man vibrating with troubled energy — always in danger of flying into a rage, even as he pursues his forced-upbeat "silver linings" philosophy. But the movie belongs to Jennifer Lawrence, who proves the chops she showcased (pre-Hunger Games megafame) in 2010’s Winter’s Bone were no fluke. As the damaged-but-determined Tiffany, she’s the left-field element that jolts Pat out of his crazytown funk; she’s also the only reason Playbook‘s dance-competition subplot doesn’t feel eye-rollingly clichéd. The film’s not perfect, but Lawrence’s layered performance — emotional, demanding, bitchy, tough-yet-secretly-tender — damn near is. (2:01) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon. (Ben Richardson)

Sound City Dave Grohl adds "documentary director" to his ever-lengthening resume with this tribute to the SoCal recording studio, where the grimy, funky décor was offset by a row of platinum records lining its hallway, marking in-house triumphs by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Neil Young, and others (even, yep, Rick Springfield). Top acts and producers (many of whom appear in the doc to dish and reminisce) were lured in by a unique recording console, installed in the early 1970s, whose legend grew with every new hit it helped engineer. Despite its reputation as a hit factory — and the attraction of its laid-back vibe and staff — old-school Sound City began to struggle once the highly-polished sound of digital technology overtook the music industry. That is, until Grohl and Nirvana recorded Nevermind there, keeping the studio alive until the unstoppable march of Pro Tools hammered the final nails in. Or did it? Sound City‘s final third follows Grohl’s purchase of the studio’s iconic console ("A piece of rock ‘n’ roll history," he proclaims, though he installs it in a swanky refurbished space) and the recording of an album featuring luminaries from the studio’s past … plus Paul McCartney. The resulting doc is nostalgic, sure, but insider-y enough to entertain fans of classic rock, or at least anyone who’s ever sneered at a drum machine. (1:46) Roxie. (Eddy)

Stand Up Guys Call it oldster pop, call it geriatricore, just don’t call it late for its meds. With the oncoming boomer elder explosion, we can Depends — har-dee-har-har — on the fact that action-crime thrillers-slash-comedies like 2010’s Red, 2012’s Robot and Frank, and now Stand Up Guys are just the vanguard of an imminent barrage of grumpy old pros locking and loading, grousing about their angina, and delivering wisdom with a dose of hard-won levity. As handled by onetime teen-comedy character actor Fisher Stevens, Stand Up Guys is a warm, worthy addition to that soon-to-be-well-populated pantheon. It grows on you as you spend time with it — much like the two aging reprobates at its core, Val (Al Pacino) and Doc (Christopher Walken). Val, the proverbial stand-up guy who took the fall for the rest of his gang, has just completed a 25-year-plus stint in the pen. There to meet him is his only pal, and former partner in crime, Doc, who has been leading a humble life but has one last hit to commit for their old boss Claphands (Mark Margolis), who’s inexplicably named after a Tom Waits song. Sex, drugs, and some Viagra commercial-esque bluesy guitars are in order, but first Val and Doc must find their drive, in the form of their old driver buddy Hirsch (Alan Arkin), who they break out of a rest home, and, perhaps, their moral compass, which arrives with the discovery of a victim (Vanessa Ferlito) of baddies much less couth than themselves. The pleasure comes with following these stand-up guys as they make that leap from craven self-preservation to heroism, which might seem implausible to some. But to the cast’s, and Stevens’s, credit, they make it work — and even give the sentiment-washed finale a swashbuckling buddy-movie romanticism, the kind that a young Tarantino might dislike and an older Tarantino would be loathe to begrudge his lovable louses. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Warm Bodies A decade and a half of torrid, tormented vampire-human entanglements has left us accustomed to rooting for romances involving the undead and the still-alive. Some might argue, however, that no amount of pop-cultural prepping could be sufficient to get us behind a human-zombie love story for the ages. Is guzzling human blood really measurably less gross than making a meal of someone’s brains and other body parts? Somehow, yes. Recognizing this perceptual hurdle, writer-director Jonathan Levine (2011’s 50/50, 2008’s The Wackness) secures our sympathies at the outset of Warm Bodies by situating us inside the surprisingly active brain of the film’s zombie protagonist. Zombies, it turns out, have internal monologues. R (Nicholas Hoult) can only remember the first letter of his former name, but as he shambles and shuffles and slumps his way through the terminals of a postapocalyptic airport overrun by his fellow corpses (as they’re called by the film’s human population), he fills us in as best he can on the global catastrophe that’s occurred and his own ensuing existential crisis. By the time he meets not-so-cute with Julie (Teresa Palmer), a young woman whose father (John Malkovich) is commander-in-chief of the human survivors living in a walled-off city center, we’ve learned that he collects vinyl, that he has a zombie best friend, and that he doesn’t want to be like this. We may still be flinching at the thought of his and Julie’s first kiss, but we’re also kind of rooting for him. The plot gapes in places, where a tenuous logic gets trampled and gives way, but Levine’s script, adapted from a novel by Isaac Marion, is full of funny riffs on the zombie condition, which Hoult invests with a comic sweetness as his character staggers toward the land of the living. (1:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of "realness" that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that "America does not torture." (The "any more" goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or "CIA black sites" in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations ("KSM" for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon ("tradecraft") without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. "Washington says she’s a killer," a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Out of place

Andrew Lam
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news@sfbg.com 

In his State of the City address last week, Mayor Ed Lee cheerfully characterized San Francisco as “the new gravitational center of Silicon Valley.” He touted tech-sector job creation. “We have truly become the innovation capital of the world,” Lee said, “home to 1,800 tech companies with more than 42,000 employees — and growing every day.”

From a purely economic standpoint, San Francisco is on a steady climb. But not all residents share the mayor’s rosy outlook. Shortly after Lee’s speech, renowned local author Rebecca Solnit published her own view of San Francisco’s condition in the London Review of Books. Zeroing in on the Google Bus as a symbol of the city’s housing affordability crisis, she linked the influx of high-salaried tech workers to soaring housing costs. With rents trending skyward, she pointed out, the dearth of affordable housing is escalating a shift in the city’s cultural fabric.

“All this is changing the character of what was once a great city of refuge for dissidents, queers, pacifists and experimentalists,” Solnit wrote. “It has become increasingly unaffordable over the past quarter-century, but still has a host of writers, artists, activists, environmentalists, eccentrics and others who don’t work sixty-hour weeks for corporations — though we may be a relic population.”

LIMITED OPTIONS

The issue of housing in San Francisco is highly emotional, and there is perhaps no greater flashpoint in the charged debate than Ellis Act evictions.

When the housing market bounces upward, Ellis Act evictions tend to hit long-term tenants whose monthly payments, protected by rent control, are a comparative bargain. Even if they’ve submitted every payment on time and upheld every lease obligation for 20 years, these renters can find themselves in the bind of being forced out.

And they don’t just lose their homes; often they lose their community. San Francisco has become so expensive that many Ellis Act victims are tossed out of this city for good.

Enacted in 1986, the state law allows a landlord to stop renting units, evict all tenants, and sell the building for another purpose. Originally construed as a way for landlords to “go out of business” and move into their properties, the Ellis Act instead gained notoriety as a driving force behind a wave of evictions that slammed San Francisco during the tech boom of the late 90s. Between 1986 and 1995, just 29 Ellis evictions were filed with the San Francisco Rent Board; in the 1999-2000 fiscal year alone, that number ballooned to a staggering 440.

Under the current tech heyday, there are indications that Ellis Act evictions are gaining fresh momentum. The San Francisco Rent Board recorded 81 this past fiscal year, more than double that of the previous year, and there appears to be an upward trend.

TIC CONTROVERSY

Buildings cleared via the Ellis Act are typically repackaged as tenancies-in-common (TIC), where several buyers jointly purchase a multi-unit residence and each occupy one unit. Realtors often market TICs as a path to homeownership for moderate-income individuals, creating an incentive for buyers to enter into risky, high-interest shared mortgages in hopes of later converting to condos with more attractive financing.

The divide between TIC owners and renters came into sharp focus at a contentious Jan. 28 hearing, when a Board of Supervisors committee met to consider legislation that would allow some 2,000 TIC units to immediately convert to condos without having to wait their turn in a requisite lottery system.

One TIC owner said he was financially burdened, but had only entered into the arrangement because “I wanted to stay here and raise my family, but we couldn’t afford a single family home.” Yet tenants brought their own set of concerns to the table, saying the temptation to create TICs was putting a major dent in the city’s finite stock of rent-controlled units — the single greatest source of affordable housing in San Francisco.

“My feeling is, let’s stop doing TICs,” Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a tenants right activist with the Housing Rights Committee, told the Guardian following the hearing. “The city has to just start making sure that the condos that are built are the kind of thing [TIC buyers] can afford. Instead, we cannibalize our rental stock? That’s a reasonable way? You evict one group of people to house another: How does that make sense?”

The grueling five-hour hearing illustrated the sad fact that San Franciscans in a slightly better economic position were being pitted against economically disadvantaged renters. The two groups were bitterly divided, and all seemed weary, furious, and frustrated by their housing situations.

The condo-conversion legislation, co-sponsored by Sups. Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell, did not move forward that day. Instead, Board President David Chiu made a motion to table the discussion until Feb. 25, to provide time for “an intensive negotiation process.” Chiu, who rents his home, added: “While I myself would like to become a homeowner someday … I do not support the legislation in its current form.”

Sup. Jane Kim sought to appeal to the tenants as well as the TIC owners. “It’s very tragic that we have set up a situation where [TICs and renters] are pitted against one another,” she said. She hinted at what a possible alternative to might look like. “We should be looking at a ban of scale,” she said. “If we allow 1,800 potential units to go thru this year, are we willing to do a freeze for the next 8 to 10 years?”

It’s unclear what will happen in the next few weeks, but if this legislation makes it back to the full board in some form, the swing votes are expected to be Sups. London Breed, Malia Cohen and Norman Yee.

CASH OR EVICTION?

New protections were enacted following the late-90s frenzy to discourage real-estate speculators from using the Ellis Act to turn a profit on the backs of vulnerable seniors or disabled tenants. Yet a new wave of investors has discovered they can persuade tenants to leave voluntarily, simply by offering buyouts while simultaneously wielding the threat of an Ellis Act eviction. “The process got more sophisticated,” explains San Francisco Rent Board Deputy Director Robert Collins.

Once a tenant has accepted a check in lieu of eviction, rent-controlled units can be converted to market rate, or refurbished and sold as pricey condos, without the legal hindrances of an eviction blemish. Buyouts aren’t recorded with the Rent Board, and the agency has no real guidance for residents faced with this particular dilemma. “We don’t have the true number on buyouts,” says Mecca. “We don’t know how many people have left due to intimidation.”

Identity-wise, renters impacted by the Ellis Act defy categorization. A contingent of monolingual Chinese residents rallied outside City Hall recently to oppose legislation they believed would give rise to evictions; in the Mission, many targeted tenants are Latinos who primarily speak Spanish. From working immigrants, to aging queer activists, to disabled seniors, to idealists banding together in collective houses, the affected tenants do have one thing in common. When landlords or real-estate speculators perceive that their homes are more valuable unoccupied, their lives are susceptible to being upended by forces beyond their control.

The upshot of San Francisco’s affordability crisis is a cultural blow for a city traditionally regarded as tolerant, forward thinking, and progressive. In the words of Rose Eger, a musician who faces an Ellis Act eviction from her apartment of 19 years, “it changes the face of who San Francisco is.

Out of the Castro

By Tim Redmond

You can’t get much more Castro than Jeremy Mykaels. The 62-year old moved to the neighborhood in the early 1970s, fleeing raids at gay bars in Denver. He played in a rock band, worked at the old Jaguar Books, watched the rise of Harvey Milk, saw the neighborhood transform and made it his home.

He’s lived in a modest apartment on Noe Street for 17 years, and for the past 11 has been living with AIDS. Rent control has made it possible for Mykaels, who survives on disability payments, to remain in this city, in his community, close to the doctors at Davis Hospital who, he believes, have saved his life.

And now he’s going to have to leave.

In the spring of 2011, his longtime landlords sold the building to a real-estate investment group based in Union City — and the new owners immediately sought to get rid of all the tenants. Two renters fled, knowing what was coming; Mykaels stuck around. In September of 2012, he was served with an eviction notice, filed under the state’s Ellis Act.

He’s a senior, he’s disabled, his friends are mostly dead and his life is in his community — but none of that matters. The Ellis Act has no exceptions.

Mykaels spent a fair amount of his life savings fixing up his place. The walls are beige, decorated with nice art. Dickens the cat, who is chocolate brown but looks black, wanders in and out of the small bedroom. Mykaels has been happy there and never wanted to leave; “this,” he told me, “is where I thought I would live the rest of my life.”

There’s no place in the Castro, or even the rest of the city, where he can afford to move. Small studios start at $2,500 a month, which would eat up all of his income. There is, quite literally, nowhere left for him to go.

“A lot of my friends have died, or moved to Palm Springs,” he said. “But this is where my doctors are and where I’m comfortable. I’m not going to find a support system like this anywhere else in the world.”

Mykaels is the face of San Francisco, 2013, a resident who is not part of the mayor’s grand vision for bringing development and high-paying jobs into the city. As far as City Hall is concerned, he’s collateral damage, someone whose life will have to be upended in the name of progress.

But Mykaels isn’t going easily. The former web designer has created a site — ellishurtsseniors.org — that lists not only his address (460 Noe) and the names of the new owners (Cuong Mai, William H. Young and John H. Du) but the addresses of dozens of other properties that are facing Ellis Act evictions. His message to potential buyers: Boycott.

“Do not buy properties where seniors or the disabled have been evicted for profit by real estate speculators using the Ellis Act,” the website states.

Mykaels is a demon researcher — his site is a guide to 31 properties with 94 units where seniors or disabled people are being evicted under the Ellis Act. In some cases, individuals or couples are filing the eviction papers, but at least 14 properties are owned by corporations or trusts.

Mai told me that he knew a disabled senior was living in the building when he and his two partners bought it, but he said his plan all along was to evict all the tenants and turn the three-unit place into a single-family house. He said he hasn’t decided yet whether to sell building; “I might decide to live there myself.” (Of course, if he wanted to live there himself, he wouldn’t need the Ellis Act.)

Mai said he “felt bad about the whole situation,” and he had offered to buy Mykaels out. The offer, however, wouldn’t have covered more than a few months of market rent anyplace else in the Castro.

By law, Mykaels can stay in his apartment until September. If he can’t stave off the eviction by then, San Francisco will lose another longtime member of the city community.

 

Dark days in the Inner Sunset

By Rebecca Bowe

The living room in Rose and Willie Eger’s Inner Sunset apartment is where Rose composes her songs and Willie unwinds after playing baseball in Golden Gate Park. Faded Beatles memorabilia and 45 records adorn the walls, and a prominently displayed poster of Jimi Hendrix looms above a row of guitar cases and an expansive record collection.

It’s a little worn and drafty, but the couple has called this 10th Ave. apartment home for 19 years. Now their lives are about to change. On Jan. 5, all the tenants in their eight-unit building received notice that an Ellis Act eviction proceeding had been filed against them.

“The music that I do is about social and political things,” explains Rose, dressed from head-to-toe in hot pink with a gray braid swinging down her back. Determined to derive inspiration from this whole eviction nightmare, she’s composing a song that plays with the phrase “tenants-in-common.”

Cindy Huff, the Egers’ upstairs neighbor, says she began worrying about the prospect of eviction when the property changed hands last summer. Realtor Elba Borgen, described as a “serial evictor” in online news stories because she’s used the Ellis Act to clear several other properties, purchased the apartment building last August, through a limited liability corporation. The notice of eviction landed in the mailbox less than six months later. (Borgen did not return Guardian calls seeking comment.)

“With the [average] rent being three times what most of us pay, there’s no way we can stay in the city,” Huff says. “The only option we would have is to move out of San Francisco.” She retired last year following a 33-year stint with UCSF’s human resources department. Now, facing the prospect of moving when she and her partner are on fixed incomes, she’s scouring job listings for part-time work.

The initial notice stated that every tenant had to vacate within 120 days, but several residents are working with advocates from the Housing Rights Committee in hopes of qualifying for extensions. Huff and the Egers are all in their fifties, but some tenants are seniors—including a 90-year-old Cuban woman who lives with her daughter, and has Alzheimer’s disease.

Willie works two days a week, and Rose is doing her best to get by with earnings from musical gigs. Both originally from New York City, they’ve lived in the city 35 years. When they first moved to the Sunset, it resembled something more like a working-class neighborhood, where families could raise kids. The recent tech boom has ushered in a transformation, one that Rose believes “changes the face of who San Francisco is.” Willie doesn’t mince words about the mess this eviction has landed them in. “I call it ‘Scam-Francisco,'” he says.

The trio recently joined tenant advocates in visiting Sup. Norman Yee, their district supervisor, to tell their stories. Yee, who is expected to be one of the swing votes on an upcoming debate about condo-conversion legislation vehemently opposed by tenant activists, reportedly listened politely but didn’t say much.

As for what the next few months have in store for the Egers? “I can’t really visualize the outcome,” Rose says. “I can only visualize the day-to-day fight. And that’s scary.”

 

Fighting for a home in the Mission

By Tim Redmond

Eleven years ago, Olga Pizarro fell in love with Ocean Beach. A native of Peru who was living in Canada, she visited the Bay Area, saw the water and decided she would never leave.

Fast forward to today and she’s built a home in the Mission, renting a small room in a basement flat on Folsom Street. The 55-year-old has lived in the building for eight years; polio has left her wearing a leg brace and she can’t climb stairs very well, but she still rides her bike to work at the Golden Gate Regional Center. She’s a sociologist by training; the walls in her room are lined with bookshelves, with hundreds of books in Spanish and English.

The place isn’t fancy, and it needs work, but it’s hard to find a ground-floor apartment in the Mission that’s affordable on a nonprofit worker’s salary. Since 2011, when she moved in, she and her three housemates have been protected by rent control. And Pizarro’s been happy; “I love the neighborhood,” she told me.

The letter warning of a pending eviction arrived Jan. 16. A new owner of the building wants to turn the place into tenancies in common and is prepared to throw everyone out under the Ellis Act. There’s no place else in town for Pizarro to go.

“I’ve looked and looked,” she said. “The cheapest places are $2,500 a month or more. Maybe I’ll have to move out of the city.”

Pizarro’s building is owned by Wai Ahead, LLC, a San Francisco partnership registered to Carol Wai and Sean Lundy. I couldn’t reach Wai or Lundy, but their attorney, Robert Sheppard, had plenty to say. “San Francisco is going the way of New York,” he told me. “Manhattan is full of co-ops that used to be rentals, and lower-income people are moving to Brooklyn and Queens. That’s happening here with Oakland and further out.” He argued that TICs, like co-ops, provide home-ownership opportunities for former renters.

Sheppard, who for years represented tenants in eviction cases, said the Ellis Act is law, and America is a capitalist country, and “as long as there is a private housing market, there will be shifts of people as the housing market shifts.” He agreed that it’s not good for lower-income people to lose their homes, but “the poor will always be hurt by a changing economy. It’s called evolution.”

Pizarro told me she’s shocked at how expensive housing has become in the Mission. “It’s gotten so gentrified,” she said. “People show up in their BMWs. It’s starting to feel very isolated.”

She’s fighting the eviction. “I didn’t intend it to be this way,” she explained. “I just want to live here.” Lacking any family in the area, the Mission has become her community — “and I’m frustrated by the violence of how expensive it is.”

 

Affordability goes out of style

By Rebecca Bowe

Hester Michael is a fashion designer, and her home doubles as a project space for creating patterns, sewing custom clothing, weaving cloth, and painting. She’s lived in her Outer Sunset two-bedroom unit for almost two decades, but now she faces an Ellis Act eviction. Michael says she initially received notice last June. The timing was awful -– that same month, her husband passed away after a long battle with terminal illness.

“I’ve been here 25 years. My friends are here, and my business. I don’t know where else to go, or what else to do,” she says. “I just couldn’t picture myself anywhere else.”

Michael rents the upstairs unit of a split single-family home, a kind of residence that normally isn’t protected by rent control. Yet she leased the property in 1994, getting in under the wire before that exemption took effect. Since she pays below-market-rate rent in a home that could be sold vacant for top dollar, a target was essentially inscribed on her back when the property changed hands in 2004. That’s about when her long battle with the landlords began, she says.

From the get-go, her landlords indicated that she should look for a new place, Michael says, yet she chose to remain. The years that followed brought things falling into disrepair, she says, and a string of events that caused her feel intimidated and to fear eviction. Finally, she consulted with tenant advocates and hired an attorney. A complaint filed in superior court alleges that the property owners “harassed and retaliated [Michael] when she complained about the defective and dangerous conditions …telling [her] to move out of the property if she did not like the dangerous conditions thereat … repeatedly making improper entries into [the] property, and wrongfully accusing [her] of causing problems.”

Records show that Angela Ng serves as attorney in fact for the property owner, Ringo Chung Wai Lee. Steven Adair MacDonald, an attorney who represents both landlords and tenants in San Francisco housing disputes, represents the owners. “An owner of a single family home where the rent is controlled and a fraction of market has virtually no other choice but to terminate the tenancy,” MacDonald said when the Guardian reached him by phone. “They’ve got to empty it, and the only way to empty it is the Ellis Act.”

While Michael received an extension that allows her to remain until June 5, she fears her custom sewing business, Hester’s Designs, will suffer if she has to move. There’s the issue of space. “I have so much stuff in this house,” she says. And most of her clients are currently located close by, so she doesn’t know where her business would come from if she had to relocate. “A lot of my clients don’t have cars,” she says, “so if I live in some suburb in the East Bay, forget it. I’ll lose my business.”

The prospect of eviction has created a major dilemma for Michael, who first moved to San Francisco in 1987. While moving to the East Bay seems untenable, she says renting in San Francisco feels out of reach. “People are renting out small, tiny bedrooms for the same price as I pay here,” she says. With a wry laugh, she adds: “I don’t think there’s any vacant apartments in San Francisco -– unless you’re a tech dude and make seven grand a month.”

Freak show

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Freak show

emilysavage@sfbg.com

TOFU AND WHISKEY As Homer Flynn describes to me the Bay Area musical landscape during the time when iconic, experimental music-arts collective the Residents first rolled into town in 1966, I can’t help but picture a tiny gold hammer cracking the earth wide open like it was a piñata, with glitter, powdered wigs, freakish masks, oversized eyeballs, and gingerbread men spewing out in a magnificent tangle.

“A lot of what attracted the Residents to the Bay Area was the psychedelic music scene of the mid-to-late ’60s,” he says, with a pleasant Southern drawl. “What was so interesting about that era, was that it was wide open. Because the money was not as big, there was a lot more freedom.”

Flynn’s talking to me as a van carrying the current members of the Residents careens through the New Mexico desert on their first tour in two years, their 40th anniversary tour, which crawls to San Francisco on Feb. 24 (8pm, $35. Bimbo’s, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com).

Looking back at the beginning of the band’s career, he includes early FM radio as part of that equation: “FM radio was really getting its start, in terms of broad exposure, and it was wide open. You would turn on KSAN Radio at that time, [and] you could hear Mozart, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, swing music. It was very eclectic, and that’s what made it interesting.”

He could be describing the Residents themselves with that last descriptor. The mysterious band (always covered in the face, often in whimsical dada-tastic costumery) might have been lured to the Bay by the psychedelia scene, but they took cues from far broader reaches of sound. There was cosmic jazz composer Sun Ra — “I mean, Sun Ra said he was from the planet Saturn.”

“There was a lot of mystery about Sun Ras…and when he spoke, everything was all poetic and enigmatic. He was a huge influence on the Residents, in terms of style and music presentation, although, they never really tried to emulate him in terms of music. But there was a lot of respect and influence.”

Musically, and composition-wise, there was influence from Captain Beefheart, more on the fringes of psychedelia, and far weirder than the acts that made it exponentially bigger by decade’s end. But the Residents have staying power — releasing 60 albums and multimedia CD-ROMs over four decades, including first single Santa Dog (1972), and milestone records like Eskimo (1979) and Freak Show (1990).

This is probably a good time to point out that we the listeners don’t exactly know who the band members are, or who Flynn is.

This much is true: the Cole Valley neighborhood resident is part of the band’s two-person management team, Cryptic Corporation. He’s also the art director who created most of their album covers, and who ushered in the concepts for the Residents’ many memorable faceless looks (specifically, and most well-known, the eyeball masks, though his original concept for that was giant silver globes).

The heavy globes were a no-go, so someone suggested eyeballs (the better to see you with).

“It was like, well if you have an eyeball, what goes with that? At this time it was still hippie to some extent. What was in for bands was sloppy and slovenly — which, of course, it still is at this time — so the idea of tuxedos they thought, that’s cool and classy. And then the top hat was just the perfect compliment to the eyeball and the tuxedo.”

He may also be in the band, and the band’s main lyricist, but claims to this day otherwise. It’s been a long debate, as to who is actually a member of the Residents, because, again, they all wear masks.

However Flynn’s connected with the group, he’s certainly been along for the journey — the Shreveport, La.-native has long been in that bumpy Residents bus, not least for this tour, the 40th anniversary special, which began a day before our conversation.

The live show this time around is a retrospective of the Residents entire career, laying out the colorful story of the band, with monologues and musical bits throughout. The show kicks off — where else? — with “Santa Dog.” Flynn says it’s meant to paint a broad and entertaining picture of the band.

To add a punctuation mark to the anniversary, the group is offering an ultimate box set: a 28 cubic-foot refrigerator containing releases from the group’s entire career, 100 different first pressings including 40 vinyl LPs, 50 CDs, DVDs, and a signature eyeball-with-top-hat mask. Asking price? A cool $100,000 to the lucky buyer.

On the road, the group is also bringing more practical merch, such as t-shirts and commemorative coins. Hopefully there’ll be plenty left at the Bimbo’s show near the end of the tour. While there will still be a couple more dates after it, Flynn considers the SF show to be the big return home.

“I’ve traveled around quite a bit, I’ve seen a lot of places that I like, I’ve never seen any place else that I’ve wanted to live. In terms of the Residents, best thing I can say is that they’ve been happy to call the Bay Area home.,” Flynn says dreamily. “I know it will feel really good to pull up in front of Bimbo’s and take all our stuff in, our well-worn crew at that point, coming to play the show.”

 

GHOST BEACH

Are you familiar with the term “tropical grit-pop.” Neither was I, but listen to the NYC band Ghost Beach’s Modern Tongues EP, and it should all come together. Or better yet, see it live this weekend. It’s all electronic burps and yacht rock vocals, from a pop duo (possibly?) named after a Goosebumps book, with ’90s-baiting lyrics, and ’80s synth layers. With ONUINU, popscene DJs.

Thu/7, 9:30pm, $10. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com.

 

BIG FREEDIA

If you’re celebrating Mardi Gras without Big Freedia, you’re doing it wrong. Lights Down Low is bringing the New Orleans bounce queen out especially for you, the sexy people. Oh, and don’t forget to twerk. With MikeQ, Hard French DJs.

Fri/8, 9pm, $16 (advanced tickets). Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com.

 

BEAK>

Beak> is at one once unsettling and charming; its Krautrock backbone and angular guitars create eerie, paranoid grooves, à la Silver Apples — you know the itchy, building beats — but those hushed, mumbly vocals soothe the senses. Drummer-singer Geoff Barrow, keys-guitarist Matt Williams, and bassist Billy Fuller, are all members of other bands (including Barrow’s Portishead), so they split their time between acts, but have already released two albums in the few short years they’ve been able to get together, including critically-lauded 2012 full-length, >>. And their albums are all live recorded improv sessions in the same room, which translates well to shows, making the appearances mesmerizing extensions of previous jam sessions. With Vex Ruffin, Peanut Butter Wolf.

Feb. 13, 8pm, $20. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

 

Feds continue war on California’s medical marijuana industry

Sasha Cuttler
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12
Feds continue war on California’s medical marijuana industry

San Francisco medical marijuana dispensaries may be bouncing back from last year’s crackdown by the federal government, but the industry statewide continues to be besieged by the federal authorities, winning some battles but losing others.

Oakland-based Harborside Health Center, the nation’s largest not-for-profit model medical cannabis dispensary, experienced a big victory last month when a judge refused a federal motion for injunctive relief that would have shut down the club and enforce a forfeiture action and a 30-day notice to evacuate that the feds filed in July 2012.  

The City of Oakland decided to file its own motion against the U.S. attorneys, banks, and landlords that were all trying to evict Harborside, one of the top two tax-payers in Oakland, a first for city to officially back one of its clubs against the feds. But the judge also denied a city motion to dismiss the case, so it continues to work its way toward trial.

Hopes that the November votes in Washington and Colorado to legalize even recreational weed smoking would cause the feds to back off in California haven’t materialized. Aaron Sandusky, a dispensary operator from Southern California, was sentenced to 10 years of federal prison last month for conspiracy and possession with the intent to distribute marijuana. The feds claim the charges were so high because he had upwards of 1,000 plants.

Stockton resident Matthew Davies owned various dispensaries (keepmattfree.org), but they were shuttered after the feds, which charged him with two counts of manufacturing marijuana. U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner is offering Davies a plea bargain for a minimum of five years, and threatening 10 years in prison if he doesn’t comply. A recent Politco article makes the point that this case probably won’t be the one to turn over federal law, as it is unclear whether Davies was in compliance with California state law on marijuana.

These harsh examples are just a couple of dozens of dispensaries being shut down across the state. Just last month, in a case filed by Americans for Safe Access, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC ruled that marijuana has no proven medical value and should still classified as a Schedule I substance. ASA plans to appeal the ruling, hoping the US Supreme Court will take up the issue.

People across the country are signing online petitions and vocalizing their opposition to the contradictory stance on the legality of pot. Joining in on this public debate, Morgan Spurlock, director and star of Supersize Me, is the host of a new CNN documentary series, “Inside Man”, in which Spurlock investigates various issues in American life. In one episode, Spurlock focuses on the state of medical marijuana in California, and the ongoing struggle between federal and state lawmakers. He will feature both the Harborside and the Davies case.

For now, marijuana advocates are waiting on the court decisions on these various cases and if they will affect changes regarding the federal law. The City of Oakland had a hearing last week but no ruling was made. Harborside will continue to remain open and serving patients until its case goes to trial, a date that is uncertain at the moment.

 

Suhr apologizes for sparse spying report, pledges more info

Sasha Cuttler
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0
Suhr apologizes for sparse spying report, pledges more info

Police Chief Greg Suhr has issued an apology for the sparse report on joint SFPD-FBI surveillance activities that his department gave last week, pledging to work with the activists who had criticized it as failing to comply with a city law adopted last year. But it remains to be seen whether the two sides will agree on the level of detail that would constitute meaningful civilian oversight of sensitive domestic spying operations.

“The report was accurate and complied with the ordinance, but briefer than what he had hoped for,” SFPD Sgt. Michael Andraychak told the Guardian this afternoon. “Chief Suhr has ensured compliance with the ordinance but did not have an opportunity to review the report prior to the presentation to the commission. The chief personally apologizes to those who attended the commission meeting for the brevity of the report and promised to have future reports more developed. The Chief’s Office is in the process of scheduling meetings with Nasrina Bargzie [of the Asian Law Caucus] to develop a report with more detail so those concerned and the public can be as informed as possible. Chief Suhr is committed to remain in compliance with the ordinance.”

While Bargzie said she welcomes the apology and pledge to be more forthcoming, “We disagree that the report that was issued was in compliance with the ordinance.” While that watered down version of a stronger ordinance that Mayor Ed Lee had vetoed was vague, Bargzie said that, “It does require that the commission be given enough information to provide oversight.”

In correspondence between Bargzie and Suhr over the last year, the Coalition insisted that the report include details on the number of investigations or assessments requested by the FBI, how many requests SFPD personnel refused, how disputes were resolved, and other information, which she said Suhr told her last year that he would provide.

But he seemed to dispute that in a Jan. 23 letter to her, writing, “I assured you that the Department’s JTTF report would include all public information required by the ordinance. I did not commit to provide all information requested in your letter dated June 8, 2012.”

Sup. Jane Kim, who sponsored both the stronger original legislation that Lee vetoed and the compromise measure that followed, expressed hope Suhr and the Coalition will find common ground. “The chief himself met with me and apologized for it,” she told us. “He acknowledged that it was not a good report and said he would work with the Coalition on this.”

She acknowledged that the ordinance itself doesn’t spell out the specificity that the Coalition is seeking. “In order for us to get the compromise, we had to work with the Mayor’s Office. It was watered down,” she said. Yet Kim said meaningful oversight is still what she expects to see: “We need a lot more specificity and the details the Coalition would like to see.”

Stallone, Walken, zombies, Oscar shorts, and more: new movies!

Sue Vaughan
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0
Stallone, Walken, zombies, Oscar shorts, and more: new movies!

Yes you can find time to see a movie this otherwise football-y weekend. The ongoing Noir City and Sketchfest still have a lot of great upcoming programming, Sly Stallone is back in evocatively-titled action flick Bullet to the Head, a zombie finds love in Warm Bodies (review below), and all the Academy Award-nominated shorts are now available for big-screen viewing, for anyone who takes winning the office Oscar pool as seriously as … the Superbowl.

And speaking of the big game, the Roxie will be hosting its annual “Men in Tights” viewing party, a benefit for the theater and the upcoming SF IndieFest. So you can have your pigskin, and eat your popcorn too. GO NINERS!


“Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated” If you caught Wreck-It Ralph, nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, you’ve already seen John Kahrs’ Paperman, about a junior Mad Men type who bumbles through his pursuit of a lovely fellow office drone he spots on his commute. Or, if you saw Ice Age: Continental Drift, you’ve seen Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, starring Homer and Marge’s wee one as she grapples with the social order at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Among the stand-alones, Minkyu Lee’s Adam and Dog features a quick appearance by Eve, too, but the star is really the scrappy canine who gallops through prehistory playing the world’s first game of fetch with his hairy master. Two minutes is all PES (nom de screen of Adam Pesapane) needs to make Fresh Guacamole — which depicts grenades, dice, and other random objects as most unusual ingredients. The only non-US entry, UK director Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels, is about an elderly married couple whose relationship has deteriorated to the point where they (literally) no longer see eye to eye on anything. The program is rounded out by three more non-Oscar-nominated animated shorts: Britain’s The Gruffalo’s Child, featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane; French art-thief caper Dripped; and New Zealand’s sci-fi tale Abiogenesis. (1:28) (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8SbmPhavhs

“Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentary” Selections include San Francisco filmmaker Sari Gilman’s poignant study of a Florida retirement community, Kings Point; Cynthia Wade’s Mondays at Racine, about a beauty salon that provides free services for women who have lost their hair to cancer treatments; Sean Fine and Andrea Nix’s Inocente, a profile of a young, homeless, aspiring artist; Redemption, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill’s take on New York dumpster divers; and Open Heart, Keif Davidson’s look at Rwandan children who travel to Sudan for high-risk surgery. (3:29)

“Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Live Action” Selections include Bryan Buckley’s Asad, about a Somali boy who must choose between fishing and piracy; Sam French’s Buzkashi Boys, about two young friends coming of age in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan; Shawn Christensen’s babysitting yarn Curfew; Tom Van Avermaet’s supernatural love story Death of a Shadow; and another (sort-of) love story, Canadian Yan England’s Henry. (1:54)

Sound City Dave Grohl adds “documentary director” to his ever-lengthening resume with this tribute to the SoCal recording studio, where the grimy, funky décor was offset by a row of platinum records lining its hallway, marking in-house triumphs by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Neil Young, and others (even, yep, Rick Springfield). Top acts and producers (many of whom appear in the doc to dish and reminisce) were lured in by a unique recording console, installed in the early 1970s, whose legend grew with every new hit it helped engineer. Despite its reputation as a hit factory — and the attraction of its laid-back vibe and staff — old-school Sound City began to struggle once the highly-polished sound of digital technology overtook the music industry. That is, until Grohl and Nirvana recorded Nevermind there, keeping the studio alive until the unstoppable march of Pro Tools hammered the final nails in. Or did it? Sound City‘s final third follows Grohl’s purchase of the studio’s iconic console (“A piece of rock ‘n’ roll history,” he proclaims, though he installs it in a swanky refurbished space) and the recording of an album featuring luminaries from the studio’s past … plus Paul McCartney. The resulting doc is nostalgic, sure, but insider-y enough to entertain fans of classic rock, or at least anyone who’s ever sneered at a drum machine. (1:46) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)

Stand Up Guys Call it oldster pop, call it geriatricore, just don’t call it late for its meds. With the oncoming boomer elder explosion, we can Depends — har-dee-har-har — on the fact that action-crime thrillers-slash-comedies like 2010’s Red, 2012’s Robot and Frank, and now Stand Up Guys are just the vanguard of an imminent barrage of grumpy old pros locking and loading, grousing about their angina, and delivering wisdom with a dose of hard-won levity. As handled by onetime teen-comedy character actor Fisher Stevens, Stand Up Guys is a warm, worthy addition to that soon-to-be-well-populated pantheon. It grows on you as you spend time with it — much like the two aging reprobates at its core, Val (Al Pacino) and Doc (Christopher Walken). Val, the proverbial stand-up guy who took the fall for the rest of his gang, has just completed a 25-year-plus stint in the pen. There to meet him is his only pal, and former partner in crime, Doc, who has been leading a humble life but has one last hit to commit for their old boss Claphands (Mark Margolis), who’s inexplicably named after a Tom Waits song. Sex, drugs, and some Viagra commercial-esque bluesy guitars are in order, but first Val and Doc must find their drive, in the form of their old driver buddy Hirsch (Alan Arkin), who they break out of a rest home, and, perhaps, their moral compass, which arrives with the discovery of a victim (Vanessa Ferlito) of baddies much less couth than themselves. The pleasure comes with following these stand-up guys as they make that leap from craven self-preservation to heroism, which might seem implausible to some. But to the cast’s, and Stevens’s, credit, they make it work — and even give the sentiment-washed finale a swashbuckling buddy-movie romanticism, the kind that a young Tarantino might dislike and an older Tarantino would be loathe to begrudge his lovable louses. (1:34) (Kimberly Chun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FVyUL1Q06M

Warm Bodies A decade and a half of torrid, tormented vampire-human entanglements has left us accustomed to rooting for romances involving the undead and the still-alive. Some might argue, however, that no amount of pop-cultural prepping could be sufficient to get us behind a human-zombie love story for the ages. Is guzzling human blood really measurably less gross than making a meal of someone’s brains and other body parts? Somehow, yes. Recognizing this perceptual hurdle, writer-director Jonathan Levine (2011’s 50/50, 2008’s The Wackness) secures our sympathies at the outset of Warm Bodies by situating us inside the surprisingly active brain of the film’s zombie protagonist. Zombies, it turns out, have internal monologues. R (Nicholas Hoult) can only remember the first letter of his former name, but as he shambles and shuffles and slumps his way through the terminals of a postapocalyptic airport overrun by his fellow corpses (as they’re called by the film’s human population), he fills us in as best he can on the global catastrophe that’s occurred and his own ensuing existential crisis. By the time he meets not-so-cute with Julie (Teresa Palmer), a young woman whose father (John Malkovich) is commander-in-chief of the human survivors living in a walled-off city center, we’ve learned that he collects vinyl, that he has a zombie best friend, and that he doesn’t want to be like this. We may still be flinching at the thought of his and Julie’s first kiss, but we’re also kind of rooting for him. The plot gapes in places, where a tenuous logic gets trampled and gives way, but Levine’s script, adapted from a novel by Isaac Marion, is full of funny riffs on the zombie condition, which Hoult invests with a comic sweetness as his character staggers toward the land of the living. (1:37) (Lynn Rapoport)

Live Shots: Wovenhand at Bottom of the Hill

Tony Robles
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0

Although the notoriously devout David Eugene Edwards would probably be appalled to hear it, attending his shows is about as close to a religious experience as I ever get.

The ferociously intense frontperson of Wovenhand (as well as the former 16 Horsepower), Edwards was instrumental in the foundation of the hyper-localized alt-Americana/gothic-folk genre known as the Denver Sound, a category filled with moody ballads of shaken faith and raucous, C&W-tinged fire-and-brimstone.

And there’s just something about the sheer unapologetic bombast of his live presence that makes me want to don sackcloth and ashes on the spot and follow the path of the righteous — a feeling which lasts at least until I manage to break away from his sermon on the mount (or any rate, the Bottom of the Hill) to stumble home, still a sinner.

Clearly I’m not the only heathen who feels this way, as evidenced by a cluster of audience members at Saturday’s show clad earnestly in t-shirts proclaiming pagan-esque affinities (“Keep Thor in Thursday” is my favorite) bobbing their heads solemnly like everyone else to Edwards’ unmistakably Christian lyrics; music our common sacrament.

Watching Edwards onstage is not unlike watching the charismatic theatre of a revival-meeting minister, from his unwavering focus, to his fearless exhortations for repentance and mercy. Himself the grandson of a traveling preacher man on one side of the family, and a nomadic Native American entertainer who traveled (it’s said) from town to town with a trained bear, Edwards always appears to be equally influenced by both.

At one point speaking in tongues, eyes rolled back, at another whooping into the mic as Ordy Garrison on drums pounds out a tribal rhythm seemingly pulled from the very bones of the continent. In various incarnations, Edwards has displayed facility with all kinds of instruments, but for Saturday’s show he limited himself to three — two guitars and his signature hybrid mandolin-banjo built in the late 1800s, which gives off an almost ethereal twang from four nylon strings.

A word about Garrison. A Wovenhand collaborator for every album since ‘03’s Blush Music, he may well be the unsung driving force behind the evolution of the music, which grows heavier and more deeply layered with every progressive album. His timing is impeccable and he clearly sits in a position of power, directing much of the ebb and flow from his upstage perch.

A much newer recruit, Sir Charles French, who played guitar on Wovenhand’s latest album The Laughing Stalk (Sounds Familyre, 2012), but bass for the show, gave off a less anchored aura, perhaps due to less familiarity with the instrument in his hands, perhaps for other reasons, but fortunately with Wovenhand there are few fancy bass lines to worry about — a throbbing pulse sufficed quite well, pairing neatly with an undercurrent of pre-recorded drone — another Edwards signature.

The set-list, comprised in large part with tracks from The Laughing Stalk included representatives from almost every album since Consider the Birds — including a melancholy old favorite, “Swedish Purse,” an introspective “Kingdom of Ice,” and a bone-shaking “Long Horn”. 

But ultimately with Wovenhand, it’s rarely the precise setlist that gets remembered, so much as the overall effect of spending a solid hour communing with the band. You could almost liken the experience to a midnight mass for lost souls in search of redemption in song — we the flock, and Wovenhand the guiding light.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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0

Schedules are for Wed/30-Tue/5 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

BAY MODEL 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito; www.tiburonfilmfestival.com. Free. "Tiburon Film Society:" Banganà (Sincich, 2012), Tue, 6.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. Noir City: The 11th Annual San Francisco Film Noir Festival: •The Sniper (Dmytryk, 1952), Wed, 1:30, 7, and Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962), Wed, 3:30, 9; •The Other Woman (Haas, 1954), Thu, 7:30, and The Come-On (Birdwell, 1956), Thu, 9:15; •Man in the Dark (Landers, 1953), Fri, 7:30, and Inferno (Ward Baker, 1953), Fri, 9; •Street of Chance (Hively, 1942), Sat, 1, 6; The Chase (Ripley, 1946), Sat, 2:35, 7:30; and The Window (Tetzlaff, 1949), Sat, 4:20, 9:15; •Smooth as Silk (Barton, 1946), Sun, 12:30; Mary Ryan, Detective (Berlin, 1949), Sun, 1:50; Strange Impersonation (Mann, 1946), Sun, 3:20; and Fly By Night (Siodmak, 1942), Sun, 4:45; •Night Editor (Levin, 1946), Sun, 7:30, and High Tide (Reinhardt, 1947), Sun, 9. More info at www.noircity.com; advance tickets ($10-15) at www.brownpapertickets.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Amour (Haneke, 2012), call for dates and times. Quartet (Hoffman, 2012), call for dates and times. The Rabbi’s Cat (Sfar and Delesvaux, 2011), call for dates and times. Sparrows (Beaudine, 1926), Thu, 7. With live piano accompaniment and introduction by Mary Pickford expert Christel Schmidt. This event, $12. "World Ballet on the Big Screen:" "An Evening With Sol León and Paul Lightfoot from the Netherlands Dance Theater," Sun and Tue, 6:30. This event, $15.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $9-10. "Midnight Movies:" Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968), Sat, midnight. With host Miss Misery.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). "CinemaLit Film Series: Hollywood Dames: In the Name of Love:" Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophüls, 1948), Fri, 6.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. Free. "Documentary Film Series:" The Loving Story (Buirski, 2011), Tue, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Film 50: History of Cinema: The Cinematic City:" Metropolis (Lang, 1926), Wed, 3:10. With lecture by Marilyn Fabe; advance tickets (special pricing: $5.50-$11.50) recommended as programs often sell out. "Alfred Hitchcock: The Shape of Suspense:" North by Northwest (1959), Wed, 7; Suspicion (1941), Fri, 9. "Campus Connections: Playwright-Director Stan Lai:" The Peach Blossom Land (1992), Thu, 7. "The Sounds of Silence:" Silence (Collins, 2012), Fri, 7; "A Kind of Hush: Experimental Works," Sun, 5. "Screenagers: 15th Annual Bay Area High School Film and Video Festival," Sat, 3. "On Location in Silent Cinema:" Études sur Paris (Sauvage, 1928), Sat, 6. "African Film Festival 2013:" How to Steal 2 Million (Vundla, 2011), Sat, 8:20; Our Beloved Sudan (Elsanhouri, 2011), Sun, 2:30; Broken Stones (Felin, 2012), Tue, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Beware of Mr. Baker (Bulger, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. Yes, We’re Open (Wong, 2012), Wed, 7:15. First Generation (Fenderson and Fenderson, 2011), Thu, 7. Presented by ScholarMatch with a post-screening discussion moderated by Dave Eggers. Sound City (Grohl, 2012), Jan 31-Feb 6, call for times. Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (Neilan, 1924), Fri, 7:15. With introduction by Mary Pickford expert Christel Schmidt. "SF Sketchfest:" The Bitter Buddha (Feinartz, 2012), Sat, 1, with subject Eddie Pepitone in person, Sat, 1; "The Benson Movie Interruption:" The Notebook (Cassavetes, 2004), Sat, 4:20; "On Cinema with Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington:" Beyond the Doors (Buchanan, 1984), Sat, 7; "Olde English: The Exquisite Corpse Project with Colin Mahan in ‘Preview: The Movie!’," Sat, 10; American Splendor (Springer Berman and Pulcini, 2003), Tue, 9. More info and advance tickets (these events, $15-20) at www.sfsketchfest.com. "Superbowl XLVII: Men in Tights," Sun, 3. Superbowl viewing party; $10 donation to benefit SF IndieFest and the Roxie. "A Tribute to Arch Hall, Jr:" The Choppers (Jason, 1961), Mon, 6:30; The Sadist (Landis, 1963), Mon, 8; Wild Guitar (Steckler, 1962), Mon, 9:45. Hosted by Johnny Legend.

SUNDANCE KABUKI 1881 Post, SF; www.sundancecinemas.com. $15. "Sundance Film Festival USA:" In a World… (Bell, 2012), Thu, 7:15. With director Lake Bell in person.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. "The Wooster Group On Screen:" Rumstick Road (1977), Sun, 2.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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.

OPENING

Bullet to the Head Walter Hill directs this tale of a hired gun (Sylvester Stallone) and a cop (Sung Kang) who become unlikely partners in vengeance. (1:32)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated" If you caught Wreck-It Ralph, nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, you’ve already seen John Kahrs’ Paperman, about a junior Mad Men type who bumbles through his pursuit of a lovely fellow office drone he spots on his commute. Or, if you saw Ice Age: Continental Drift, you’ve seen Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, starring Homer and Marge’s wee one as she grapples with the social order at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Among the stand-alones, Minkyu Lee’s Adam and Dog features a quick appearance by Eve, too, but the star is really the scrappy canine who gallops through prehistory playing the world’s first game of fetch with his hairy master. Two minutes is all PES (nom de screen of Adam Pesapane) needs to make Fresh Guacamole — which depicts grenades, dice, and other random objects as most unusual ingredients. The only non-US entry, UK director Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels, is about an elderly married couple whose relationship has deteriorated to the point where they (literally) no longer see eye to eye on anything. The program is rounded out by three more non-Oscar-nominated animated shorts: Britain’s The Gruffalo’s Child, featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane; French art-thief caper Dripped; and New Zealand’s sci-fi tale Abiogenesis. (1:28) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentary" Selections include San Francisco filmmaker Sari Gilman’s poignant study of a Florida retirement community, Kings Point; Cynthia Wade’s Mondays at Racine, about a beauty salon that provides free services for women who have lost their hair to cancer treatments; Sean Fine and Andrea Nix’s Inocente, a profile of a young, homeless, aspiring artist; Redemption, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill’s take on New York dumpster divers; and Open Heart, Keif Davidson’s look at Rwandan children who travel to Sudan for high-risk surgery. (3:29) Embarcadero.

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Live Action" Selections include Bryan Buckley’s Asad, about a Somali boy who must choose between fishing and piracy; Sam French’s Buzkashi Boys, about two young friends coming of age in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan; Shawn Christensen’s babysitting yarn Curfew; Tom Van Avermaet’s supernatural love story Death of a Shadow; and another (sort-of) love story, Canadian Yan England’s Henry. (1:54) Embarcadero.

Sound City Dave Grohl adds "documentary director" to his ever-lengthening resume with this tribute to the SoCal recording studio, where the grimy, funky décor was offset by a row of platinum records lining its hallway, marking in-house triumphs by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Neil Young, and others (even, yep, Rick Springfield). Top acts and producers (many of whom appear in the doc to dish and reminisce) were lured in by a unique recording console, installed in the early 1970s, whose legend grew with every new hit it helped engineer. Despite its reputation as a hit factory — and the attraction of its laid-back vibe and staff — old-school Sound City began to struggle once the highly-polished sound of digital technology overtook the music industry. That is, until Grohl and Nirvana recorded Nevermind there, keeping the studio alive until the unstoppable march of Pro Tools hammered the final nails in. Or did it? Sound City‘s final third follows Grohl’s purchase of the studio’s iconic console ("A piece of rock ‘n’ roll history," he proclaims, though he installs it in a swanky refurbished space) and the recording of an album featuring luminaries from the studio’s past … plus Paul McCartney. The resulting doc is nostalgic, sure, but insider-y enough to entertain fans of classic rock, or at least anyone who’s ever sneered at a drum machine. (1:46) Roxie. (Eddy)

Stand Up Guys Call it oldster pop, call it geriatricore, just don’t call it late for its meds. With the oncoming boomer elder explosion, we can Depends — har-dee-har-har — on the fact that action-crime thrillers-slash-comedies like 2010’s Red, 2012’s Robot and Frank, and now Stand Up Guys are just the vanguard of an imminent barrage of grumpy old pros locking and loading, grousing about their angina, and delivering wisdom with a dose of hard-won levity. As handled by onetime teen-comedy character actor Fisher Stevens, Stand Up Guys is a warm, worthy addition to that soon-to-be-well-populated pantheon. It grows on you as you spend time with it — much like the two aging reprobates at its core, Val (Al Pacino) and Doc (Christopher Walken). Val, the proverbial stand-up guy who took the fall for the rest of his gang, has just completed a 25-year-plus stint in the pen. There to meet him is his only pal, and former partner in crime, Doc, who has been leading a humble life but has one last hit to commit for their old boss Claphands (Mark Margolis), who’s inexplicably named after a Tom Waits song. Sex, drugs, and some Viagra commercial-esque bluesy guitars are in order, but first Val and Doc must find their drive, in the form of their old driver buddy Hirsch (Alan Arkin), who they break out of a rest home, and, perhaps, their moral compass, which arrives with the discovery of a victim (Vanessa Ferlito) of baddies much less couth than themselves. The pleasure comes with following these stand-up guys as they make that leap from craven self-preservation to heroism, which might seem implausible to some. But to the cast’s, and Stevens’s, credit, they make it work — and even give the sentiment-washed finale a swashbuckling buddy-movie romanticism, the kind that a young Tarantino might dislike and an older Tarantino would be loathe to begrudge his lovable louses. (1:34) (Chun)

Warm Bodies Zombies need love too! (1:37)

ONGOING

Amour Arriving in local theaters atop a tidal wave of critical hosannas, Amour now seeks to tempt popular acclaim — though actually liking this perfectly crafted, intensely depressing film (from Austrian director Michael Haneke) may be nigh impossible for most audience members. Eightysomething former music teachers Georges and Anne (the flawless Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are living out their days in their spacious Paris apartment, going to classical concerts and enjoying the comfort of their relationship. Early in the film, someone tries to break into their flat — and the rest of Amour unfolds with a series of invasions, with Anne’s declining health the most distressing, though there are also unwanted visits from the couple’s only daughter (an appropriately self-involved Isabelle Huppert), an inept nurse who disrespects Anne and curses out Georges, and even a rogue pigeon that wanders in more than once. As Anne fades into a hollow, twisted, babbling version of her former self, Georges also becomes hollow and twisted, taking care of her while grimly awaiting the inevitable. Of course, the movie’s called Amour, so there’s some tenderness involved. But if you seek heartwarming hope and last-act uplift, look anywhere but here. (2:07) Clay, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Argo If you didn’t know the particulars of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, you won’t be an expert after Argo, but the film does a good job of capturing America’s fearful reaction to the events that followed it — particularly the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran. Argo zeroes in on the fate of six embassy staffers who managed to escape the building and flee to the home of the sympathetic Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Back in Washington, short-tempered CIA agents (including a top-notch Bryan Cranston) cast about for ways to rescue them. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs), exfil specialist and father to a youngster wrapped up in the era’s sci-fi craze. While watching 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with what Cranston’s character calls "the best bad idea we have:" the CIA will fund a phony Canadian movie production (corny, intergalactic, and titled Argo) and pretend the six are part of the crew, visiting Iran for a few days on a location shoot. Tony will sneak in, deliver the necessary fake-ID documents, and escort them out. Neither his superiors, nor the six in hiding, have much faith in the idea. ("Is this the part where we say, ‘It’s so crazy it just might work?’" someone asks, beating the cliché to the punch.) Argo never lets you forget that lives are at stake; every painstakingly forged form, every bluff past a checkpoint official increases the anxiety (to the point of being laid on a bit thick by the end). But though Affleck builds the needed suspense with gusto, Argo comes alive in its Hollywood scenes. As the show-biz veterans who mull over Tony’s plan with a mix of Tinseltown cynicism and patiotic duty, John Goodman and Alan Arkin practically burst with in-joke brio. I could have watched an entire movie just about those two. (2:00) Balboa, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Beasts of the Southern Wild A year after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting. Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. But not all is well: when "the storm" floods the land, the holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate. With its elements of magic, mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology, Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. (1:31) Four Star. (Harvey)

Beware of Mr. Baker This mesmerizing bio-doc about volatile, wildly talented drummer Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith) begins with the 70-something musician clocking director Jay Bulger in the face. After this opening, Bulger — who also wrote a deeply compelling article about Baker for Rolling Stone last year — wisely pulls himself out of the narrative, instead turning to a wealth of new interviews (with Baker, his trademark red locks faded to gray, and many of his musical and personal partners, including Eric Clapton and multiple ex-Mrs. Bakers), vintage performance footage, and artful animation to weave his tale. Baker’s colorfully-lived, improbably long life has been literally all over the map; he overcame a hardscrabble British childhood to find jazz and rock stardom, and along the way jammed with Fela Kuti in Nigeria (where he picked up his fierce love of polo), broke many hearts (his own kids’ among them) and lost multiple fortunes, spent a stint in the US, and eventually landed at his current farm in South Africa. Two constants: his musical genius, and his frustratingly jerky behavior — the consequence of a naturally prickly personality exacerbated by copious drug use and bitterness. A must-see for musicians and those who love them. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Broken City Catherine Zeta-Jones’ measured performance and killer wardrobe run away with this uneven political thriller about a made-up Manhattan with real(-ish) problems. Russell Crowe is only slightly improving his record post-Les Mis, as he plays another harried and morally confused agent "for the people." Here, he’s Mayor Hostetler, a swaggering politico with fingers in New York’s real estate cookie jar and the sort of "get shit done" directive that results in bodies lying in NYC’s overfilled gutters. Good thing he has Mark Wahlberg in his back pocket, a cop who slipped a murder wrap and now scrapes the bottom for gigs as a private detective. Seven years ago Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) was seeking vigilante justice for the victim of a rape-murder in the city’s biggest ghetto. The victim became a household name but the killer was let off, leading to cries about the validity of NY’s justice system and to allusions to the Central Park Five. Broken City is less about a broken City and more about broken Men, and there are certain elements that seem too subtle for a story built on such bald-faced and predictable strategy. Between a script that’s struggling to demonstrate moral compromise and integrity, and direction (by Allen Hughes) that’s as sensitive to nuance as a border collie, it’s hard to find much beyond Zeta-Jones’ shoe stylings to admire. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western homage features a cameo by the original Django (Franco Nero, star of the 1966 film), and solid performances by a meticulously assembled cast, including Jamie Foxx as the titular former slave who becomes a badass bounty hunter under the tutelage of Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing the evil yet befuddlingly delightful Nazi Hans Landa in Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds, is just as memorable (and here, you can feel good about liking him) as a quick-witted, quick-drawing wayward German dentist. There are no Nazis in Django, of course, but Tarantino’s taboo du jour (slavery) more than supplies motivation for the filmmaker’s favorite theme (revenge). Once Django joins forces with Schultz, the natural-born partners hatch a scheme to rescue Django’s still-enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), whose German-language skills are as unlikely as they are convenient. Along the way (and it’s a long way; the movie runs 165 minutes), they encounter a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose main passion is the offensive, shocking "sport" of "Mandingo fighting," and his right-hand man, played by Tarantino muse Samuel L. Jackson in a transcendently scandalous performance. And amid all the violence and racist language and Foxx vengeance-making, there are many moments of screaming hilarity, as when a character with the Old South 101 name of Big Daddy (Don Johnson) argues with the posse he’s rounded up over the proper construction of vigilante hoods. It’s a classic Tarantino moment: pausing the action so characters can blather on about something trivial before an epic scene of violence. Mr. Pink would approve. (2:45) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Gangster Squad It’s 1949, and somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a man has been tied hand and foot to a pair of automobiles with the engines running. Coyotes pace in the background like patrons queuing up for a table at Flour + Water, and when dinner is served, the presentation isn’t very pretty. We’re barely five minutes into Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and fair warning has been given of the bloodletting to come. None of it’s quite as visceral as the opening scene, but Fleischer (2009’s Zombieland) packs his tale of urban warfare with plenty of stylized slaughter to go along with the glamour shots of mob-run nightclubs, leggy pin-curled dames, and Ryan Gosling lounging at the bar cracking wise. At the center of all the gunplay and firebombing is what’s framed as a battle for the soul of Los Angeles, waged between transplanted Chicago mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — who wields terms like "progress" and "manifest destiny" as a rationale for a continental turf war — and a police sergeant named John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), tasked with bringing down Cohen’s empire. The assignment requires working under cover so deep that only the police chief (Nick Nolte) and the handpicked members of O’Mara’s "gangster squad" — ncluding Gosling, a half-jaded charmer who poaches Cohen’s arm candy (Emma Stone) — know of its existence. This leaves plenty of room for improvisation, and the film pauses now and again to wonder about what happens when you pit brutal amorality against brutal morality, but it’s a rhetorical question, and no one shows much interest in it. Dragged down by talking points that someone clearly wanted wedged in (as well as by O’Mara’s ponderous voice-overs), the film does better when it abandons gravitas and refocuses on spinning its mythic tale of wilder times in the Golden State. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters So here’s something you may not have been wondering: what exactly happened to Hansel and Gretel after they killed the gingerbread-house witch and made their way to freedom? Did they really live happily ever after? Did they land in the foster care system? Did they enter adulthood bearing the deep psychic wounds a person might well suffer after shoving a living creature into an oven and listening to her agonized howls as she burned alive? Or did they realize they’d discovered their life’s vocation without even having to complete the Myers-Briggs test? Shutting his eyes and pointing at random, director and screenplay cowriter Tommy Wirkola (2009’s Dead Snow) chooses the latter scenario, keeping his eyes closed to stab out some weak dialogue and half a plot for a script that leans heavily on the power of 3D technology to send eviscerated-witch guts and other biological shrapnel flying toward the eyeballs of audience members. Hansel (why, Jeremy Renner?) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) have grown up to share the intense sibling bond and wandering ways you might expect from a brother and sister abandoned at a tender age to starve and be rent limb from limb by wild animals. They’ve also taken full advantage of a niche witch-slaying market in and around the gloomy forest where they made their first kill. When they’re hired to track down a particularly loathsome practitioner of the dark arts (Famke Janssen) who’s been snatching up local children, multidimensional mayhem ensues. Arterton’s Gretel is pretty much a badass and the brains of the operation, while Renner’s Hansel is more of a strong, silent, and occasionally shit-faced type. Neither makes for a particularly memorable protagonist, but that flat look on their faces could just be disappointment or boredom with the material. (1:41) California, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Make no mistake: the Lord of the Rings trilogy represented an incredible filmmaking achievement, with well-deserved Oscars handed down after the third installment in 2003. If director Peter Jackson wanted to go one more round with J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved characters for a Hobbit movie, who was gonna stop him? Not so fast. This return to Middle-earth (in 3D this time) represents not one but three films — which would be self-indulgent enough even if part one didn’t unspool at just under three hours, and even if Jackson hadn’t decided to shoot at 48 frames per second. (I can’t even begin to explain what that means from a technical standpoint, but suffice to say there’s a certain amount of cinematic lushness lost when everything is rendered in insanely crystal-clear hi-def.) Journey begins as Bilbo Baggins (a game, funny Martin Freeman) reluctantly joins Gandalf (a weary-seeming Ian McKellan) and a gang of dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen homeland and treasure, batting Orcs, goblins, Gollum (Andy Serkis), and other beasties along the way. Fan-pandering happens (with characters like Cate Blanchett’s icy Galadriel popping in to remind you how much you loved LOTR), and the story moves at a brisk enough pace, but Journey never transcends what came before — or in the chronology of the story, what comes after. I’m not quite ready to declare this Jackson’s Phantom Menace (1999), but it’s not an unfair comparison to make, either. (2:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Impossible Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (2007’s The Orphanage) directs The Impossible, a relatively modestly-budgeted take on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on the real story of a Spanish family who experienced the disaster. Here, the family (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, three young sons) is British, on a Christmas vacation from dad’s high-stress job in Japan. Beachy bliss is soon ruined by that terrible series of waves; they hit early in the film, and Bayona offers a devastatingly realistic depiction of what being caught in a tsunami must feel like: roaring, debris-filled water threatening death by drowning, impalement, or skull-crushing. And then, the anguish of surfacing, alive but injured, stranded, and miles from the nearest doctor, not knowing if your family members have perished. Without giving anything away (no more than the film’s suggestive title, anyway), once the survivors are established (and the film’s strongest performer, Watts, is relegated to hospital-bed scenes) The Impossible finds its way inevitably to melodrama, and triumph-of-the-human-spirit theatrics. As the family’s oldest son, 16-year-old Tom Holland is effective as a kid who reacts exactly right to crisis, morphing from sulky teen to thoughtful hero — but the film is too narrowly focused on its tourist characters, with native Thais mostly relegated to background action. It’s a disconnect that’s not quite offensive, but is still off-putting. (1:54) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

In Another Country This latest bit of gamesmanship from South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo (2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors) has Isabelle Huppert playing three Frenchwomen named Anne visiting the same Korean beachside community under different circumstances in three separate but wryly overlapping stories. In the first, she’s a film director whose presence induces inapt overtures from both her married colleague-host and a strapping young lifeguard. In the more farcical second, she’s a horny spouse herself, married to an absent Korean man; in the third, a woman whose husband has run away with a Korean woman. The same actors as well as variations on the same characters and situations appear in each section, their rejiggered intersections poking fun at Koreans’ attitudes toward foreigners, among other topics. Airy and amusing, In Another Country is a playful divertissement that’s shiny as a bubble, and leaves about as much of a permanent impression. (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

The Last Stand With gun control issues dominating the news, what better time to release a movie that lovingly glorifies the wonders of excessive firepower? Fortunately for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his return to leading-man status after that little fling with politics, The Last Stand is stupidly enjoyable enough to make any such PC-minded realizations relatively fleeing ones. When a Mexican drug lord (who also happens to be an expert race-car driver) escapes from federal custody and begins speeding home in a super-Corvette, the lead FBI agent (Forest Whitaker, slumming big-time) realizes his only hope is a teeny Arizona border town that happens to be overseen by Sheriff Schwarzenegger. (Other residents include a couple of hapless deputies; an Iraq war vet; and a gun nut played by a cartoonishly obnoxious Johnny Knoxville.) Can this ragtag crew hold off first the drug lord’s advance team (led by a swaggering Peter Stormare), and then the head baddie himself? Duh. The biggest surprise The Last Stand offers is that it’s actually pretty fun — no doubt thanks to the combo of Korean director Kim Jee-woon (2008’s eccentric The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; 2003’s spooky A Tale of Two Sisters) and the heft of Schwarzenegger’s still-potent charisma. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s "unfilmable" novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Mama From bin Laden to wild babes in woods, Jessica Chastain can’t seem to grab a break. Equipped with just the bare outlines of a character, however, she’s one of the few pleasures in this missed-opportunity of a grim, ghostly fairy tale. Expanding his short of the same name, director Andres Muschietti kicks off his yarn on a sadly familiar note in these days of seemingly escalating gun violence: little sisters Victoria and Lily have disappeared from their home, shortly after their desperate father (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has gone on a shooting spree. They repair to an abandoned cabin scattered with mid-century modern furniture. Five years on, the girls’ scruffy artist uncle Lucas (also Coster-Waldau) is still searching for them, supported by his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The little girls lost are finally found by trackers — and they appear to be hopelessly feral, with the angelic-looking Victoria (Megan Charpentier), acting as the ringleader and the younger, bedraggled Lily (Maya Dawe) given to sleeping under beds and eating on all fours next to the dog bowl. The arty couple take them in and move into a "test house" provided by the sisters’ enthralled therapist (Daniel Kash), obviously psyched to study not one but two Kaspar Hausers. The traumatized kids are clearly haunted by their experience — in more ways than one — as inexplicable bumps go off, night and day, and Misfits t-shirt-clad Annabel discovers the real meaning of goth while getting in touch with her seemingly deeply buried maternal urges. Unfortunately, despite possessing the raw material for a truly scary outing that plunges to the core of our primal instincts (what’s scarier than an unsocialized kid that’s capable of anything?) and showing off Muschietti’s occasional instances of cinematic flair (as when multiple rooms are shown using split-screens), Mama ends up running away from the filmmaker and is finally simply spoiled by its mawkishly sentimental finale. It doesn’t help that the inadequate script sports logic holes that a mama could drive a truck though. (1:40) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Master Paul Thomas Anderson’s much-hyped likely Best Picture contender lives up: it’s easily the best film of 2012 so far. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Lancaster Dodd, the L. Ron Hubbard-ish head of a Scientology-esque movement. "The Cause" attracts Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, in a welcome return from the faux-deep end), less for its pseudo-religious psychobabble and bizarre personal-growth exercises, and more because it supplies the aimless, alcoholic veteran — a drifter in every sense of the word — with a sense of community he yearns for, yet resists submitting to. As with There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson focuses on the tension between the two main characters: an older, established figure and his upstart challenger. But there’s less cut-and-dried antagonism here; while their relationship is complex, and it does lead to dark, troubled places, there are also moments of levity and weird hilarity — which might have something to do with Freddie’s paint-thinner moonshine. (2:17) Albany, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Les Misérables There is a not-insignificant portion of the population who already knows all the words to all the songs of this musical-theater warhorse, around since the 1980s and honored here with a lavish production by Tom Hooper (2010’s The King’s Speech). As other reviews have pointed out, this version only tangentially concerns Victor Hugo’s French Revolution tale; its true raison d’être is swooning over the sight of its big-name cast crooning those famous tunes. Vocals were recorded live on-set, with microphones digitally removed in post-production — but despite this technical achievement, there’s a certain inorganic quality to the proceedings. Like The King’s Speech, the whole affair feels spliced together in the Oscar-creation lab. The hardworking Hugh Jackman deserves the nomination he’ll inevitably get; jury’s still out on Anne Hathaway’s blubbery, "I cut my hair for real, I am so brave!" performance. (2:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Movie 43 (1:37) Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Parker (1:58) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Move over, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series — there’s a new shrinking-violet social outcast in town. These days, life might not suck quite so hard for 90-pound weaklings in every age category, what with so many films and TV shows exposing, and sometimes even celebrating, the many miseries of childhood and adolescence for all to see. In this case, Perks author Stephen Chbosky takes on the directorial duties — both a good and bad thing, much like the teen years. Smart, shy Charlie is starting high school with a host of issues: he’s painfully awkward and very alone in the brutal throng, his only friend just committed suicide, and his only simpatico family member was killed in a car accident. Charlie’s English teacher Mr. Andersen (Paul Rudd) appears to be his only connection, until the freshman strikes up a conversation with feline, charismatic, shop-class jester Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his magnetic, music- and fun-loving stepsister Sam (Emma Watson). Who needs the popular kids? The witty duo head up their gang of coolly uncool outcasts their own, the Wallflowers (not to be confused with the deeply uncool Jakob Dylan combo), and with them, Charlie appears to have found his tribe. Only a few small secrets put a damper on matters: Patrick happens to be gay and involved with football player Brad (Johnny Simmons), who’s saddled with a violently conservative father, and Charlie is in love with the already-hooked-up Sam and is frightened that his fragile equilibrium will be destroyed when his new besties graduate and slip out of his life. Displaying empathy and a devotion to emotional truth, Chbosky takes good care of his characters, preserving the complexity and ungainly quirks of their not-so-cartoonish suburbia, though his limitations as a director come to the fore in the murkiness and choppily handled climax that reveals how damaged Charlie truly is. (1:43) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Quartet Every year there’s at least one: the adorable-old-cootfest, usually British, that proves harmless and reassuring and lightly tear/laughter producing enough to convince a certain demographic that it’s safe to go to the movies again. The last months have seen two, both starring Maggie Smith (who’s also queen of that audience’s home viewing via Downton Abbey). Last year’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which Smith played a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself in India, has already filled the slot. It was formulaic, cute, and sentimental, yes, but it also practiced more restraint than one expected. Now here’s Quartet, which is basically the same flower arrangement with quite a bit more dust on it. Smith plays a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself forced into spending her twilight years at a home for the elderly. It’s not just any such home, however, but Beecham House, whose residents are retired professional musicians. Gingerly peeking out from her room after a few days’ retreat from public gaze, Smith’s Jean Horton — a famed English soprano — spies a roomful of codgers rolling their hips to Afropop in a dance class. "This is not a retirement home — this is a madhouse!" she pronounces. Oh, the shitty lines that lazy writers have long depended on Smith to make sparkle. Quartet is full of such bunk, adapted with loving fidelity, no doubt, from his own 1999 play by Ronald Harwood, who as a scenarist has done some good adaptations of other people’s work (2002’s The Pianist). But as a generator of original material for about a half-century, he’s mostly proven that it is possible to prosper that long while being in entirely the wrong half-century. Making his directorial debut: 75-year-old Dustin Hoffman, which ought to have yielded a more interesting final product. But with its workmanlike gloss and head-on take on the script’s very predictable beats, Quartet could as well have been directed by any BBC veteran of no particular distinction. (1:38) Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Rabbi’s Cat A rabbi, a Muslim musician, two Russians (a Jew and a boozy Christian), and two talking animals hop into an antique Citroën for a road trip across Africa. No, it’s not the set-up for a joke; it’s the premise for this charming animated film, adapted from Joann Sfar’s graphic novel (the author co-directs with Antoine Delesvaux). In 1930s Algiers, a rabbi’s pet cat suddenly develops the ability to talk — and read and write, by the way — and wastes no time in sharing opinions, particularly when it comes to religion ("God is just a comforting invention!") When a crate full of Russian prayer books — and one handsome artist — arrives at the rabbi’s house, man and cat are drawn into the refugee’s search for an Ethiopian city populated by African Jews. Though it’s not suitable for younger kids (there’s kitty mating, and a few bursts of surprising violence) or diehard Tintin fans (thanks to a randomly cranky spoof of the character), The Rabbi’s Cat is a lushly illustrated, witty tale of cross-cultural clashes and connections. Rockin’ soundtrack, too. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Rust and Bone Unlike her Dark Knight Rises co-star Anne Hathaway, Rust and Bone star Marion Cotillard never seems like she’s trying too hard to be sexy, or edgy, or whatever (plus, she already has an Oscar, so the pressure’s off). Here, she’s a whale trainer at a SeaWorld-type park who loses her legs in an accident, which complicates (but ultimately strengthens) her relationship with Ali (Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, so tremendous in 2011’s Bullhead), a single dad trying to make a name for himself as a boxer. Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to 2009’s A Prophet gets a bit overwrought by its last act, but there’s an emotional authenticity in the performances that makes even a ridiculous twist (like, the kind that’ll make you exclaim "Are you fucking kidding me?") feel almost well-earned. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

The Sessions Polio has long since paralyzed the body of Berkeley poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) from the neck down. Of course his mind is free to roam — but it often roams south of the personal equator, where he hasn’t had the same opportunities as able-bodied people. Thus he enlists the services of Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a professional sex surrogate, to lose his virginity at last. Based on the real-life figures’ experiences, this drama by Australian polio survivor Ben Lewin was a big hit at Sundance this year (then titled The Surrogate), and it’s not hard to see why: this is one of those rare inspirational feel-good stories that doesn’t pander and earns its tears with honest emotional toil. Hawkes is always arresting, but Hunt hasn’t been this good in a long time, and William H. Macy is pure pleasure as a sympathetic priest put in numerous awkward positions with the Lord by Mark’s very down-to-earth questions and confessions. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Silver Linings Playbook After guiding two actors to Best Supporting Oscars in 2010’s The Fighter, director David O. Russell returns (adapting his script from Matthew Quick’s novel) with another darkly comedic film about a complicated family that will probably earn some gold of its own. Though he’s obviously not ready to face the outside world, Pat (Bradley Cooper) checks out of the state institution he’s been court-ordered to spend eight months in after displaying some serious anger-management issues. He moves home with his football-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) and worrywart mother (Jacki Weaver of 2010’s Animal Kingdom), where he plunges into a plan to win back his estranged wife. Cooper plays Pat as a man vibrating with troubled energy — always in danger of flying into a rage, even as he pursues his forced-upbeat "silver linings" philosophy. But the movie belongs to Jennifer Lawrence, who proves the chops she showcased (pre-Hunger Games megafame) in 2010’s Winter’s Bone were no fluke. As the damaged-but-determined Tiffany, she’s the left-field element that jolts Pat out of his crazytown funk; she’s also the only reason Playbook‘s dance-competition subplot doesn’t feel eye-rollingly clichéd. The film’s not perfect, but Lawrence’s layered performance — emotional, demanding, bitchy, tough-yet-secretly-tender — damn near is. (2:01) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon, Sundance Kabuki. (Ben Richardson)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of "realness" that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that "America does not torture." (The "any more" goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or "CIA black sites" in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations ("KSM" for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon ("tradecraft") without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. "Washington says she’s a killer," a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) Balboa, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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This week holds big, anticipated-return shows like Local Natives at the Fox and Cody ChesnuTT at the Independent, new pairings like Adam Green and Binki Shapiro at the Chapel, an anniversary celebration at BAGel Radio’s locally curated Bottom of the Hill night with Mister Loveless and CHURCHES, legendary Malian offspring Vieux Farka Touré at Yoshi’s, and a possible faux listing (Jackie-O Motherfucker is supposedly playing Casa Sanchez).

Only time will tell. Go out, Bay Area music lovers, into the chilly night, and report back to us.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Cody ChesnuTT
The soul troubadour returns. Aside from his debut double-album, The Headphone Masterpiece (Ready Set Go), Roots collaboration, and brief 2010 EP Black Skin No Value (Vibration Vineyard), singer-songwriter Cody ChesnuTT just hasn’t been on the radar enough, given his powerful pipes. He brought it all back in late 2012, releasing socially-conscious soul gem, Landing on a Hundred (Redeye Label), which he’s touring on now.
Tue/29, 8pm, $15
Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF
www.theindependentsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAlAmbewaZo

Local Natives
“Local Natives stole our collective hearts in 2009 with their self-funded debut Gorilla Manor, an irresistible slice of unearthly folk rock, before cruelly fading into the background. Finally, four years later, they’ve resurfaced with a sophomore effort, Hummingbird. Though the Orange Country-bred group recorded the album in Brooklyn, the California sunshine still shines through its meandering, ethereal soundscapes. The band’s songs draw heavily from indie peers Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes, but manage to add a refreshing, summery glow to the reverb-heavy pop murk. The album, which was produced by Aaron Dessner of the National, promises to translate well to a live format, keeping the band’s trademarked harmonies in place while also allowing vocalist Kelcey Ayer’s dreamy falsetto to soar.” — Haley Zaremba
With Superhumanoids
Wed/30, 8pm, $25
Fox Theater
1807 Telegraph, Oakland
(510) 302-2250
www.thefoxoakland.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1dFjloBZYo

Jackie-O Motherfucker
[Disclaimer: I’ve found this show on two different punk listservs, yet nowhere else thus far. Got a call in to the shop.] Experimental, ’90s-born Portland act Jackie-O Motherfucker live at Mexican restaurant, Casa Sanchez, where I can also eat chips and salsa during the set? That’ll do just fine, thank you.
With You Nori, Cuttle Buttle, Baus.
Thu/31, 7:30pm, free
Casa Sanchez
2778 24 St, SF.
www.casasanchezfood.com

Brass Menažeri
The 12-year-old Balkan dance party band bids farewell at this final concert, with two live sets. Check this week’s issue (Wed/30) for more on the group’s demise.
Fri/1, 9pm, $15
New Parish
579 18th St., Oakl.
www.thenewparish.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twGgff89eno

BAGel Radio Anniversary Show
Ted Leibowitz has been doing Internet radio far longer than the majority of your favorite podcast hosts. His indie rock-oriented Internet radio station, BAGel Radio, is turning 10 this year. So the station founder-music director is throwing this show with local rock bands including Pixies-honoring Mister Loveless, angsty Churches, tender Birdmonster. A lineup worth showing up early for.
Fri/1, 9:30pm, $12
Bottom of the Hill,
1233 17th St., SF
www.bottomofthehill.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n990CcF_uuA

Adam Green and Binki Shapiro
“Opposites do attract. Adam Green is a so-called “anti-folk” Manhattanite with an extensive catalog of foul-mouthed, tongue-in-cheek ballads and admirably humble beginnings as Kimya Dawson’s counterpart in the Moldy Peaches. Binki Shapiro hails from LA, is a retro fashion icon and former member of Brazilian-American supergroup Little Joy, along with her ex-boyfriend and Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. The duo’s vastly different backgrounds and musical leanings don’t seem compatible at first glance, but in practice they blend beautifully. During the writing of the record, both Green and Shapiro were going through romantic rough patches, which ultimately pushed the musicians to help write each other’s breakup albums, creating a finished product rife with earnestness and vulnerability.” — Haley Zaremba
With the Range of Light Wilderness
Sat/2, 9pm, $18
The Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
(415) 551-5157
www.thechapelsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrbeDDiU92g

Vieux Farka Touré
“It should be enough to say that Vieux Farka Touré follows the footsteps of his father, the late, Grammy-winning Ali, or that he’s known as “the Hendrix of the Sahara.” But not quite. In “Gido (featuring John Scofield)” — yes, of jazz-rock fame — an acoustic guitar expertly noodles in a Malian scale, a bend on an electric cues bass and drums, then the two guitars continue to converse. It’s tempting to fashion this into some metaphor about the melding of African music and Western rock, and though this wouldn’t be misplaced, the main takeaway from “Gido” and the whole album, The Secret (2011), is that it sounds great. As Yoshi’s will prove, Touré creates his own breed of music, and he does it well.” — Laura Kerry
With Markus James
Sun/3, 7pm, $25
Yoshi’s
1330 Fillmore, SF
(415) 655-5600
www.yoshis.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMI46WhdjRE

Scott Jones (Hank IV) medical benefit and rock show

Maria Poblet
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Scott Jones (Hank IV) medical benefit and rock show

In March 2012, Scott Jones, drummer for the San Francisco rock band Hank IV, was injured in a terrible accident and suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). His wife awoke to a loud crash and found Scott unconscious at the bottom of the stairs of their Bernal Heights home. He’d fallen backwards while climbing the steps and landed striking the back of his head on the concrete landing at the bottom of the staircase. It’s suspected that his accident was related to a back injury he experienced a few days prior to his fall. And now, having at last emerged from several months in a coma and multiple surgeries, Scott is finally back living home with his wife and their three-year old son but he requires 24-hr.-a-day medical and nursing care not covered by insurance.
 
Scott’s bandmates and friends from the local and national rock scene, including Hank IV, Hot Lunch, Mitchell & Manley (Isaiah from Earthless, Phil from Trans Am), and extra special guests Brickbat (feat. David Yow and Mac McNeilly of The Jesus Lizard), are rallying together to host this benefit show, in conjunction with Bottom of the Hill, from which 100% of the proceeds will go to the Scott Jones Medical Fund towards Scott’s ongoing medical and nursing care. Purchase advance tickets here.

Sunday, Feb. 24 from 3-8pm @ Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF | $15

Brickbat is the band for which Scott Jones drummed in the late 1980s/early-mid 1990s, Brickbat is reuniting for this benefit show and will be comprised of original members James Sardone and Scott Renner plus extra special guests, vocalist David Yow and drummer Mac McNeilly, from The Jesus Lizard.

The 3-piece post punk band Brickbat was formed in Wilmington, NC in 1987 by members Scott Jones, James Sardone and Scott Renner. Part Classic Rock N’ Roll-part Space Rock-part Southern Punk, the trio joined to create a kind of music much ahead of its time. Their self-titled debut album Brickbat, (on Torsion Records) was recorded in Chicago, IL by David Wm Sims, their 2nd album was recorded by Steve Albini, and they completed two national tours as supporting act for the Jesus Lizard.

Hot Lunch is comprised of ex-members of Parchman Farm and Men’s Club, Hot Lunch plays heavy, hard-driving punk ‘n’ roll influenced by Crushed Butler, Grand Funk Railroad, Black Flag, UFO, Coloured Balls, Dead Kennedys and Hawkwind. They’ve just released their long-awaited debut album.

Isaiah Mitchell is the guitarist for Earthless and Golden Void. Phil Manley, founding member of the pioneering DC-trio Trans Am, recently released his debut solo album on Chicago label, Thrill Jockey. Phil’s music is more minimal and adheres to the structures of German rock of the mid 70’s that has long inspired Phil, specifically the free-spirited and loose arrangements, the propulsive “motorik” pulse, and the sonic textures or “Klangfarben” (translated “sound colors”). Together they are Mitchell & Manley.

San Francisco quintet Hank IV still has no relation whatsoever to the Hank Williams clan. Their hard-charging and visceral dual-guitar rock punk has been likened to “Crime meets Viletones meets Styrenes punk” (Z-Gun Magazine) and by WFMU’s DJ Terre T as “a sick combination of Volcano Suns and Blue Cheer and Chain Gang!”

This will be the release show for the band’s sixth record, a new 7” single on the Holy Mountain label.

Scott Jones was Hank IV’s drummer up until the time of his accident. Instead of replacing Scott, the band has instead reconfigured itself as a 4-piece.

San Francisco comedian Sean Keane co-hosts San Fancisco’s’s award-winning alt-comedy night, The Business, weekly at The Darkroom. A 4-time winner of the Iron Comic competition, Sean has performed at SF Punchline, SF Sketchfest, Bridgetown Comedy fest, and has opened for the likes of Tig Notaro, Jen Kirkman, Arj Barker, and Rory Scovel.

If there is anyone in San Francisco deserving of the sobriquet “scene fixture”, it’s none other than Parker T. Gibbs. Noted comedy emcee (Funny Shitz) and philanthropist (Gibbmo’s Xmas Craptacular fundraiser for the SF Food Bank), Parker never fails to frighten and entertain the masses with the best of stolen bits from likes of Paula Poundstone, Gilbert Godfried, and Jiminy Glick.

Bratton controversy divides Oakland community as council approves contract 7-1

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Following a highly attended and closely watched meeting on Tuesday, Oakland City Council voted 7-1 to approve a $250,000 contract to hire a team of police consultants which includes controversial stop-and-frisk advocate Bill Bratton. During an eight-hour meeting that went until 2 a.m., hundreds of residents crammed into the council chambers to weigh in, some voicing concerns about what Bratton would mean for Oakland and others offering support for bringing him on to advise the Oakland Police Department (OPD) on combating crime.

While several council members voiced reservations about Bratton’s association with the controversial stop-and-frisk policy, only District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks voted against the contract. Brooks stressed that any effort to fight crime in Oakland would require more than aggressive policing, and must address the root causes of criminal activity.

“A vote against this contract tonight is not about not being serious about crime,” she said. “It’s about [how] we need to do the real work. The real work to address crime in this community.”

Speaking to the SF Bay Guardian after the meeting, District 3 Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney echoed many of Brook’s concerns. “Of course we have deal with poverty and access to education,” she said. “But that isn’t going to stop the bleeding now.” But in the end, McElhaney deferred to Jordan. “It’s about supporting the police chief who says he needs new resources to get the job done,” she said.

African American clergymen Bishop Bob Jackson, Bishop Frank Pincard and Reverend Gregory Payton voiced support for the contract. Jackson, who leads the 7,500-member Acts Full of Gospel Church in East Oakland, lamented a wave of violent crime that claimed more than 130 lives in 2012. “It’s gotten way out of control,” he said. “If Bratton can help stop the bloodshed, then I am for Bratton.”

Yet opponents of the contract expressed concern that Bratton’s support for stop-and-frisk policing would further exacerbate tensions between OPD and the community. “Stop-and-frisk will blow up in our face,” said Adam Blueford, whose teenage son Alan Blueford was fatally shot by Oakland police last May.

This clip was originally posted to Vimeo by Daniel Arauz.

George Holland, president of the Oakland branch of the NAACP, echoed these concerns, saying the NAACP opposes stop-and-frisk because “it invariably leads to racial profiling.”

In a presentation outlining the details of the $250,000 contract, Jordan stated that despite Bratton’s support for stop-and-frisk, there were no plans to implement the controversial tactic in Oakland.  “I do not support stop-and-frisk, I will not condone it, and we will practice constitutional policing,” the police chief assured the crowd.

But the practice, which was deemed unconstitutional earlier this month by a federal court ruling on its use in the Bronx in New York, is central to Bratton’s philosophy on policing. In a recent interview, Bratton told CBS San Francisco, “For any city to say they don’t do ‘stop-and-frisk’…I’m sorry, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about … Any police department in America that tries to function without some form of ‘stop-and-frisk,’ or whatever terminology they use, is doomed to failure. It’s that simple.”

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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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.

OPENING

Beware of Mr. Baker This mesmerizing bio-doc about volatile, wildly talented drummer Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith) begins with the 70-something musician clocking director Jay Bulger in the face. After this opening, Bulger — who also wrote a deeply compelling article about Baker for Rolling Stone last year — wisely pulls himself out of the narrative, instead turning to a wealth of new interviews (with Baker, his trademark red locks faded to gray, and many of his musical and personal partners, including Eric Clapton and multiple ex-Mrs. Bakers), vintage performance footage, and artful animation to weave his tale. Baker’s colorfully-lived, improbably long life has been literally all over the map; he overcame a hardscrabble British childhood to find jazz and rock stardom, and along the way jammed with Fela Kuti in Nigeria (where he picked up his fierce love of polo), broke many hearts (his own kids’ among them) and lost multiple fortunes, spent a stint in the US, and eventually landed at his current farm in South Africa. Two constants: his musical genius, and his frustratingly jerky behavior — the consequence of a naturally prickly personality exacerbated by copious drug use and bitterness. A must-see for musicians and those who love them. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton star in this fairy-tale action film directed by Tommy Wirkola (2009’s Dead Snow). (1:41) California.

In Another Country This latest bit of gamesmanship from South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo (2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors) has Isabelle Huppert playing three Frenchwomen named Anne visiting the same Korean beachside community under different circumstances in three separate but wryly overlapping stories. In the first, she’s a film director whose presence induces inapt overtures from both her married colleague-host and a strapping young lifeguard. In the more farcical second, she’s a horny spouse herself, married to an absent Korean man; in the third, a woman whose husband has run away with a Korean woman. The same actors as well as variations on the same characters and situations appear in each section, their rejiggered intersections poking fun at Koreans’ attitudes toward foreigners, among other topics. Airy and amusing, In Another Country is a playful divertissement that’s shiny as a bubble, and leaves about as much of a permanent impression. (1:39) (Harvey)

Movie 43 An A-list ensemble cast (Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Kate Winslet) and multiple directors (Peter Farrelly, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk) combine their star power for this 12-chapter comedy film. (1:37)

Parker "Jason Statham" is pretty much a distinct genre at this point, yeah? (1:58) Shattuck.

Quartet See "Smith Happens." (1:38) Embarcadero.

ONGOING

Amour Arriving in local theaters atop a tidal wave of critical hosannas, Amour now seeks to tempt popular acclaim — though actually liking this perfectly crafted, intensely depressing film (from Austrian director Michael Haneke) may be nigh impossible for most audience members. Eightysomething former music teachers Georges and Anne (the flawless Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are living out their days in their spacious Paris apartment, going to classical concerts and enjoying the comfort of their relationship. Early in the film, someone tries to break into their flat — and the rest of Amour unfolds with a series of invasions, with Anne’s declining health the most distressing, though there are also unwanted visits from the couple’s only daughter (an appropriately self-involved Isabelle Huppert), an inept nurse who disrespects Anne and curses out Georges, and even a rogue pigeon that wanders in more than once. As Anne fades into a hollow, twisted, babbling version of her former self, Georges also becomes hollow and twisted, taking care of her while grimly awaiting the inevitable. Of course, the movie’s called Amour, so there’s some tenderness involved. But if you seek heartwarming hope and last-act uplift, look anywhere but here. (2:07) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Argo If you didn’t know the particulars of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, you won’t be an expert after Argo, but the film does a good job of capturing America’s fearful reaction to the events that followed it — particularly the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran. Argo zeroes in on the fate of six embassy staffers who managed to escape the building and flee to the home of the sympathetic Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Back in Washington, short-tempered CIA agents (including a top-notch Bryan Cranston) cast about for ways to rescue them. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs), exfil specialist and father to a youngster wrapped up in the era’s sci-fi craze. While watching 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with what Cranston’s character calls "the best bad idea we have:" the CIA will fund a phony Canadian movie production (corny, intergalactic, and titled Argo) and pretend the six are part of the crew, visiting Iran for a few days on a location shoot. Tony will sneak in, deliver the necessary fake-ID documents, and escort them out. Neither his superiors, nor the six in hiding, have much faith in the idea. ("Is this the part where we say, ‘It’s so crazy it just might work?’" someone asks, beating the cliché to the punch.) Argo never lets you forget that lives are at stake; every painstakingly forged form, every bluff past a checkpoint official increases the anxiety (to the point of being laid on a bit thick by the end). But though Affleck builds the needed suspense with gusto, Argo comes alive in its Hollywood scenes. As the show-biz veterans who mull over Tony’s plan with a mix of Tinseltown cynicism and patiotic duty, John Goodman and Alan Arkin practically burst with in-joke brio. I could have watched an entire movie just about those two. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Broken City Catherine Zeta-Jones’ measured performance and killer wardrobe run away with this uneven political thriller about a made-up Manhattan with real(-ish) problems. Russell Crowe is only slightly improving his record post-Les Mis, as he plays another harried and morally confused agent "for the people." Here, he’s Mayor Hostetler, a swaggering politico with fingers in New York’s real estate cookie jar and the sort of "get shit done" directive that results in bodies lying in NYC’s overfilled gutters. Good thing he has Mark Wahlberg in his back pocket, a cop who slipped a murder wrap and now scrapes the bottom for gigs as a private detective. Seven years ago Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) was seeking vigilante justice for the victim of a rape-murder in the city’s biggest ghetto. The victim became a household name but the killer was let off, leading to cries about the validity of NY’s justice system and to allusions to the Central Park Five. Broken City is less about a broken City and more about broken Men, and there are certain elements that seem too subtle for a story built on such bald-faced and predictable strategy. Between a script that’s struggling to demonstrate moral compromise and integrity, and direction (by Allen Hughes) that’s as sensitive to nuance as a border collie, it’s hard to find much beyond Zeta-Jones’ shoe stylings to admire. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away (1:31) Metreon.

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western homage features a cameo by the original Django (Franco Nero, star of the 1966 film), and solid performances by a meticulously assembled cast, including Jamie Foxx as the titular former slave who becomes a badass bounty hunter under the tutelage of Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing the evil yet befuddlingly delightful Nazi Hans Landa in Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds, is just as memorable (and here, you can feel good about liking him) as a quick-witted, quick-drawing wayward German dentist. There are no Nazis in Django, of course, but Tarantino’s taboo du jour (slavery) more than supplies motivation for the filmmaker’s favorite theme (revenge). Once Django joins forces with Schultz, the natural-born partners hatch a scheme to rescue Django’s still-enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), whose German-language skills are as unlikely as they are convenient. Along the way (and it’s a long way; the movie runs 165 minutes), they encounter a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose main passion is the offensive, shocking "sport" of "Mandingo fighting," and his right-hand man, played by Tarantino muse Samuel L. Jackson in a transcendently scandalous performance. And amid all the violence and racist language and Foxx vengeance-making, there are many moments of screaming hilarity, as when a character with the Old South 101 name of Big Daddy (Don Johnson) argues with the posse he’s rounded up over the proper construction of vigilante hoods. It’s a classic Tarantino moment: pausing the action so characters can blather on about something trivial before an epic scene of violence. Mr. Pink would approve. (2:45) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Gangster Squad It’s 1949, and somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a man has been tied hand and foot to a pair of automobiles with the engines running. Coyotes pace in the background like patrons queuing up for a table at Flour + Water, and when dinner is served, the presentation isn’t very pretty. We’re barely five minutes into Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and fair warning has been given of the bloodletting to come. None of it’s quite as visceral as the opening scene, but Fleischer (2009’s Zombieland) packs his tale of urban warfare with plenty of stylized slaughter to go along with the glamour shots of mob-run nightclubs, leggy pin-curled dames, and Ryan Gosling lounging at the bar cracking wise. At the center of all the gunplay and firebombing is what’s framed as a battle for the soul of Los Angeles, waged between transplanted Chicago mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — who wields terms like "progress" and "manifest destiny" as a rationale for a continental turf war — and a police sergeant named John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), tasked with bringing down Cohen’s empire. The assignment requires working under cover so deep that only the police chief (Nick Nolte) and the handpicked members of O’Mara’s "gangster squad" — ncluding Gosling, a half-jaded charmer who poaches Cohen’s arm candy (Emma Stone) — know of its existence. This leaves plenty of room for improvisation, and the film pauses now and again to wonder about what happens when you pit brutal amorality against brutal morality, but it’s a rhetorical question, and no one shows much interest in it. Dragged down by talking points that someone clearly wanted wedged in (as well as by O’Mara’s ponderous voice-overs), the film does better when it abandons gravitas and refocuses on spinning its mythic tale of wilder times in the Golden State. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Make no mistake: the Lord of the Rings trilogy represented an incredible filmmaking achievement, with well-deserved Oscars handed down after the third installment in 2003. If director Peter Jackson wanted to go one more round with J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved characters for a Hobbit movie, who was gonna stop him? Not so fast. This return to Middle-earth (in 3D this time) represents not one but three films — which would be self-indulgent enough even if part one didn’t unspool at just under three hours, and even if Jackson hadn’t decided to shoot at 48 frames per second. (I can’t even begin to explain what that means from a technical standpoint, but suffice to say there’s a certain amount of cinematic lushness lost when everything is rendered in insanely crystal-clear hi-def.) Journey begins as Bilbo Baggins (a game, funny Martin Freeman) reluctantly joins Gandalf (a weary-seeming Ian McKellan) and a gang of dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen homeland and treasure, batting Orcs, goblins, Gollum (Andy Serkis), and other beasties along the way. Fan-pandering happens (with characters like Cate Blanchett’s icy Galadriel popping in to remind you how much you loved LOTR), and the story moves at a brisk enough pace, but Journey never transcends what came before — or in the chronology of the story, what comes after. I’m not quite ready to declare this Jackson’s Phantom Menace (1999), but it’s not an unfair comparison to make, either. (2:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

How to Survive a Plague David France’s documentary chronicles the unprecedented impact political activism had on the course of AIDS in the U.S. — drastically curtailing its death toll within a few years despite considerable institutional indifference and downright hostility. As the epidemic here first surfaced in, and decimated, the gay male community, much of Reagan America (particularly in religious quarters) figured the death sentence was deserved. The President himself infamously refrained from even saying the word "AIDS" publicly until his final year of office, after thousands had died. Both terrified and outraged, the gay community took it upon themselves to demand treatment, education, and research. Most of this urgent 1980s overview is concerned with the rise of ACT-UP, whose angry young men successfully lobbied and shamed corporate, academic, medical, and pharmaceutical bodies into action, with the result that by the mid-90s new drugs existed that made this dreaded diagnosis no longer a necessarily terminal one. France is a journalist who’s been covering AIDS practically since day one, and his first feature (made with the help of numerous first-rate collaborators) is authoritative and engrossing. Just don’t expect much (or really any) attention paid to the contributions made by S.F. or other activist hotspots — like many a gay documentary, this one hardly notices there’s a world (or gay community) outside Manhattan. (1:49) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Impossible Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (2007’s The Orphanage) directs The Impossible, a relatively modestly-budgeted take on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on the real story of a Spanish family who experienced the disaster. Here, the family (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, three young sons) is British, on a Christmas vacation from dad’s high-stress job in Japan. Beachy bliss is soon ruined by that terrible series of waves; they hit early in the film, and Bayona offers a devastatingly realistic depiction of what being caught in a tsunami must feel like: roaring, debris-filled water threatening death by drowning, impalement, or skull-crushing. And then, the anguish of surfacing, alive but injured, stranded, and miles from the nearest doctor, not knowing if your family members have perished. Without giving anything away (no more than the film’s suggestive title, anyway), once the survivors are established (and the film’s strongest performer, Watts, is relegated to hospital-bed scenes) The Impossible finds its way inevitably to melodrama, and triumph-of-the-human-spirit theatrics. As the family’s oldest son, 16-year-old Tom Holland is effective as a kid who reacts exactly right to crisis, morphing from sulky teen to thoughtful hero — but the film is too narrowly focused on its tourist characters, with native Thais mostly relegated to background action. It’s a disconnect that’s not quite offensive, but is still off-putting. (1:54) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

The Last Stand With gun control issues dominating the news, what better time to release a movie that lovingly glorifies the wonders of excessive firepower? Fortunately for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his return to leading-man status after that little fling with politics, The Last Stand is stupidly enjoyable enough to make any such PC-minded realizations relatively fleeing ones. When a Mexican drug lord (who also happens to be an expert race-car driver) escapes from federal custody and begins speeding home in a super-Corvette, the lead FBI agent (Forest Whitaker, slumming big-time) realizes his only hope is a teeny Arizona border town that happens to be overseen by Sheriff Schwarzenegger. (Other residents include a couple of hapless deputies; an Iraq war vet; and a gun nut played by a cartoonishly obnoxious Johnny Knoxville.) Can this ragtag crew hold off first the drug lord’s advance team (led by a swaggering Peter Stormare), and then the head baddie himself? Duh. The biggest surprise The Last Stand offers is that it’s actually pretty fun — no doubt thanks to the combo of Korean director Kim Jee-woon (2008’s eccentric The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; 2003’s spooky A Tale of Two Sisters) and the heft of Schwarzenegger’s still-potent charisma. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

The Law in These Parts Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s documentary is a rather extraordinary historical record: he interviews numerous retired Israeli judges and lawyers who shaped and enforced the country’s legal positions as occupiers of Palestinian land and "temporary guardians" of a Palestinian populace living under foreign occupation. The key word there is "temporary" — in using here a different (military rather than civil) justice from the one Israeli citizens experience, Israel has been able to exert the extraordinary powers of an invading force in wartime. But what is "temporary" about an occupation that’s now lasted nearly 45 years? How can the state justify (under Geneva Convention rules, for one thing) building permanent Jewish settlements that now house about half a million Israelis on land that is as yet not legally Israel’s? By constantly changing the terms and laws of occupation, they do just that. If many policies have been perhaps necessary to control terrorist attacks, one can argue that they and other policies have created the climate in which oppositional fervor and terroristic acts were bound to flourish. That, of course, is a political-ethical judgement far beyond the public purview of the judges and others here, whose dry legalese admits no personal culpability — and indeed sometimes seems almost absurdly divorced from real-world ethics and consequence, which of course serves an increasingly rigid governmental stance just fine. Without preaching, The Law in These Parts raises a number of discomfiting questions about bending law to suit an agenda that in any other context would seem frankly unlawful. (1:40) Roxie. (Harvey)

Let Fury Have the Hour Though its message — that creative expression is a powerful, meaningful way to fight oppression — is a valuable one, Antonino D’Ambrosio’s Let Fury Have the Hour covers turf well-trod for anyone who has ever seen a documentary about punk rock and social justice. (Especially when it contains usual suspects like Ian MacKaye, Shepard Fairey, and Billy Bragg waxing nostalgic about how nonconformist they were in the 1980s.) In truth, Fury is more collage than doc, pasting together talking-head interviews (also here: Chuck D, John Sayles, Van Jones, Tom Morello, Boots Riley, and Wayne Kramer, plus a few token women, chiefly Eve Ensler) with a mish-mash of sepia-toned stock footage that more or less thematically compliments what’s being discussed at the time. A more focused examination of D’Ambrosio’s thesis might have resulted in a more effective film — like, say, an in-depth look at how Sayles’ politically-themed films (here, he reads from the script for 1987’s Matewan in a frustratingly brief segment) are echoed in works by contemporary artists and citizen journalists, particularly now that the internet has opened up a global platform for protest films. Listen: I admire what the film is trying to do. I am OK with watching yet another doc that contains the phrase "Punk rock politicized me." But with too much lip service and precious little depth, Fury‘s fury ends up feeling a bit diluted. (1:40) Balboa. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s "unfilmable" novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

LUV Baltimore native Sheldon Candis drew from his own childhood for this coming-of-age tale, which takes place in a single day as 11-year-old "little man" Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) tags along with his uncle, Vincent (Common), recently out of jail and rapidly heading back down the criminal path. With both parents out of the picture, Woody’s been raised by his grandmother (Lonette McKee), so he idolizes Vincent even though it’s soon clear the short-tempered man is no hero. Of course, things go horribly awry, bloody lessons are learned, tears are shed, etc. Despite the story’s autobiographical origins, the passable LUV suffers greatly by inviting comparisons to The Wire — the definitive docudrama examining drug crime in Baltimore. Most blatantly, sprinkled into an all-star cast (Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton) are supporting characters played by Wire icons Michael K. "Omar" Williams (as a cop) and Anwan "Slim Charles" Glover (as a meaner Slim Charles, basically). Perhaps if you’ve never seen the show this wouldn’t be distracting — but if that’s the case, you should really be watching The Wire instead of LUV anyway. (1:34) Metreon. (Eddy)

Mama From bin Laden to wild babes in woods, Jessica Chastain can’t seem to grab a break. Equipped with just the bare outlines of a character, however, she’s one of the few pleasures in this missed-opportunity of a grim, ghostly fairy tale. Expanding his short of the same name, director Andres Muschietti kicks off his yarn on a sadly familiar note in these days of seemingly escalating gun violence: little sisters Victoria and Lily have disappeared from their home, shortly after their desperate father (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has gone on a shooting spree. They repair to an abandoned cabin scattered with mid-century modern furniture. Five years on, the girls’ scruffy artist uncle Lucas (also Coster-Waldau) is still searching for them, supported by his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The little girls lost are finally found by trackers — and they appear to be hopelessly feral, with the angelic-looking Victoria (Megan Charpentier), acting as the ringleader and the younger, bedraggled Lily (Maya Dawe) given to sleeping under beds and eating on all fours next to the dog bowl. The arty couple take them in and move into a "test house" provided by the sisters’ enthralled therapist (Daniel Kash), obviously psyched to study not one but two Kaspar Hausers. The traumatized kids are clearly haunted by their experience — in more ways than one — as inexplicable bumps go off, night and day, and Misfits t-shirt-clad Annabel discovers the real meaning of goth while getting in touch with her seemingly deeply buried maternal urges. Unfortunately, despite possessing the raw material for a truly scary outing that plunges to the core of our primal instincts (what’s scarier than an unsocialized kid that’s capable of anything?) and showing off Muschietti’s occasional instances of cinematic flair (as when multiple rooms are shown using split-screens), Mama ends up running away from the filmmaker and is finally simply spoiled by its mawkishly sentimental finale. It doesn’t help that the inadequate script sports logic holes that a mama could drive a truck though. (1:40) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Les Misérables There is a not-insignificant portion of the population who already knows all the words to all the songs of this musical-theater warhorse, around since the 1980s and honored here with a lavish production by Tom Hooper (2010’s The King’s Speech). As other reviews have pointed out, this version only tangentially concerns Victor Hugo’s French Revolution tale; its true raison d’être is swooning over the sight of its big-name cast crooning those famous tunes. Vocals were recorded live on-set, with microphones digitally removed in post-production — but despite this technical achievement, there’s a certain inorganic quality to the proceedings. Like The King’s Speech, the whole affair feels spliced together in the Oscar-creation lab. The hardworking Hugh Jackman deserves the nomination he’ll inevitably get; jury’s still out on Anne Hathaway’s blubbery, "I cut my hair for real, I am so brave!" performance. (2:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

My Worst Nightmare First seen locally in the San Francisco Film Society’s 2012 "French Cinema Now" series, My Worst Nightmare follows icy art curator Agathe (Isabelle Huppert) as her airless, tightly-controlled world begins to crumble — thanks in no small part to an exuberantly uncouth, down-on-his-luck Belgian contractor named Patrick (Benoît Poelvoorde). (His obnoxious, freewheeling presence in Agathe’s precision-mapped orbit gives rise to the film’s title.) Director and co-writer Anne Fontaine (2009’s Coco Before Chanel) injects plenty of offbeat, occasionally raunchy humor into what could’ve been a predictable personal-liberation tale — the sight of classy dame Huppert driving through a bikini car wash, for instance. (1:43) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Parental Guidance (1:36) Metreon.

Promised Land Gus Van Sant’s fracking fable — co-written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, from a story by Dave Eggers — offers a didactic lesson in environmental politics, capped off by the earth-shattering revelation that billion-dollar corporations are sleazy and evil. You don’t say! Formulated like a Capra movie, Promised Land follows company man Steve Butler (Matt Damon) as he and sales partner Sue (Frances McDormand) travel to a small Pennsylvania town to convince its (they hope) gullible residents to allow drilling on their land. But things don’t go as smoothly as hoped, when the pair faces opposition from a science teacher with a brainiac past (Hal Holbrook), and an irritatingly upbeat green activist (Krasinski) breezes into town to further monkey-wrench their scheme. That Damon is such a likeable actor actually works against him here; his character arc from soulless salesman to emotional-creature-with-a-conscience couldn’t be more predictable or obvious. McDormand’s wonderfully biting supporting performance is the best (and only) reason to see this ponderous, faux-folksy tale, which targets an audience that likely already shares its point of view. (1:46) SF Center. (Eddy)

The Rabbi’s Cat A rabbi, a Muslim musician, two Russians (a Jew and a boozy Christian), and two talking animals hop into an antique Citroën for a road trip across Africa. No, it’s not the set-up for a joke; it’s the premise for this charming animated film, adapted from Joann Sfar’s graphic novel (the author co-directs with Antoine Delesvaux). In 1930s Algiers, a rabbi’s pet cat suddenly develops the ability to talk — and read and write, by the way — and wastes no time in sharing opinions, particularly when it comes to religion ("God is just a comforting invention!") When a crate full of Russian prayer books — and one handsome artist — arrives at the rabbi’s house, man and cat are drawn into the refugee’s search for an Ethiopian city populated by African Jews. Though it’s not suitable for younger kids (there’s kitty mating, and a few bursts of surprising violence) or diehard Tintin fans (thanks to a randomly cranky spoof of the character), The Rabbi’s Cat is a lushly illustrated, witty tale of cross-cultural clashes and connections. Rockin’ soundtrack, too. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Silver Linings Playbook After guiding two actors to Best Supporting Oscars in 2010’s The Fighter, director David O. Russell returns (adapting his script from Matthew Quick’s novel) with another darkly comedic film about a complicated family that will probably earn some gold of its own. Though he’s obviously not ready to face the outside world, Pat (Bradley Cooper) checks out of the state institution he’s been court-ordered to spend eight months in after displaying some serious anger-management issues. He moves home with his football-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) and worrywart mother (Jacki Weaver of 2010’s Animal Kingdom), where he plunges into a plan to win back his estranged wife. Cooper plays Pat as a man vibrating with troubled energy — always in danger of flying into a rage, even as he pursues his forced-upbeat "silver linings" philosophy. But the movie belongs to Jennifer Lawrence, who proves the chops she showcased (pre-Hunger Games megafame) in 2010’s Winter’s Bone were no fluke. As the damaged-but-determined Tiffany, she’s the left-field element that jolts Pat out of his crazytown funk; she’s also the only reason Playbook‘s dance-competition subplot doesn’t feel eye-rollingly clichéd. The film’s not perfect, but Lawrence’s layered performance — emotional, demanding, bitchy, tough-yet-secretly-tender — damn near is. (2:01) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon, Sundance Kabuki. (Ben Richardson)

Texas Chainsaw 3D (1:32) Metreon.

This is 40 A spin-off of sorts from 2007’s Knocked Up, Judd Apatow’s This is 40 continues the story of two characters nobody cared about from that earlier film: Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife) and Pete (Paul Rudd), plus their two kids (played by Mann and Apatow’s kids). Pete and Debbie have accumulated all the trappings of comfortable Los Angeles livin’: luxury cars, a huge house, a private personal trainer, the means to throw catered parties and take weekend trips to fancy hotels (and to whimsically decide to go gluten-free), and more Apple products than have ever before been shoehorned into a single film. But! This was crap they got used to having before Pete’s record label went into the shitter, and Debbie’s dress-shop employee (Charlene Yi, another Knocked Up returnee who is one of two people of color in the film; the other is an Indian doctor who exists so Pete can mock his accent) started stealing thousands from the register. How will this couple and their whiny offspring deal with their financial reality? By arguing! About bullshit! In every scene! For nearly two and a half hours! By the time Melissa McCarthy, as a fellow parent, shows up to command the film’s only satisfying scene — ripping Pete and Debbie a new one, which they sorely deserve — you’re torn between cheering for her and wishing she’d never appeared. Seeing McCarthy go at it is a reminder that most comedies don’t make you feel like stabbing yourself in the face. I’m honestly perplexed as to who this movie’s audience is supposed to be. Self-loathing yuppies? Masochists? Apatow’s immediate family, most of whom are already in the film? (2:14) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Wreck-It Ralph Wreck-It Ralph cribs directly from the Toy Story series: when the lights go off in the arcade, video game characters gather to eat, drink, and endure existential crises. John C. Reilly is likable and idiosyncratic as Ralph, the hulking, ham-fisted villain of a game called Fix-It-Felix. Fed up with being the bad guy, Ralph sneaks into gritty combat sim Hero’s Duty under the nose of Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch), a blond space marine who mixes Mass Effect‘s Commander Shepard with a PG-rated R. Lee Ermey. Things go quickly awry, and soon Ralph is marooned in cart-racing candyland Sugar Rush, helping Vanellope Von Schweetz (a manic Sarah Silverman), with Calhoun and opposite number Felix (Jack McBrayer) hot on his heels. Though often aggressively childish, the humor will amuse kids, parents, and occasionally gamers, and the Disney-approved message about acceptance is moving without being maudlin. The animation, limber enough to portray 30 years of changing video game graphics, deserves special praise. (1:34) Metreon. (Ben Richardson)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of "realness" that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that "America does not torture." (The "any more" goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or "CIA black sites" in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations ("KSM" for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon ("tradecraft") without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. "Washington says she’s a killer," a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Our Weekly Picks: January 23-29

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 23

The Tambo Rays

If you’re looking for a San Francisco-based band to adore in the new year, keep your eye on the Tambo Rays. The punkish young chillwave foursome released Kaleidoscope, its debut EP, last summer and has speedily garnered an enthusiastic audience. The group — a collaboration between brother and sister Brian and Sara DaMert along with friends Greg Sellin and Bob Jakubs — makes catchy, introspective pop music characterized by B. DaMerts’ crooning vocals and a hazy wall of dissonance. The Tambo Rays played Café du Nord, Rickshaw Stop, and the Hemlock last year, but they still might be down to play your house party. (Mia Sullivan)

With Evil Eyes, Moonbell, Jesus Sons

9pm, $6

Brick and Mortar

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 371-1631

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

The Mallard and LENZ

Last year treated The Mallard well. Aside from winning recognition in the Guardian’s 2012 GOLDIES, the band’s dynamic garage-psych-rock also earned it a spot on MTV Hive’s list of “Five Indie-Rock Records to Look Forward to in 2013.” Evidently, this year promises more. LENZ, another Bay Area favorite, is also preparing for a fruitful 2013, with the release of its first full-length LP, Ways to End a Day, which it will celebrate at the New Parish. Containing punk influences, ’80s synth, and the self-identification “ice-pop,” the band promises intriguing music and a good time. And with both bands poised for greatness in 2013 (and $3 Trumer Pils), there’s no better time to see them then at this free show. (Laura Kerry)

With Casey and Brian, Dragontime

8pm, free New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com


THURSDAY 24

“How to Move A Mountain”

Consider this fact: many kids love to play with ants. The insect evokes some innate fascination that leads to prolonged observation (and frequently an unfortunate end by magnifying glass or the filling in of an ant hole). At Southern Exposure’s “How to Move a Mountain,” Dr. Deborah Gordon, a celebrated Stanford biologist, will elevate this fascination as she presents her studies on collaboration in the colonies of harvester ants, in this first installment of a three-part series. Thursday’s ends with a discussion led by conceptual artist Brad Borovitz and a responding art piece, the education-meets-art event will approach larger notions of societal organization and collectivism. It seems that those kids are on to something. (Kerry)

7-9pm, free Southern Exposure 3030 20th St., SF

(415) 863-2141

www.soex.org

 

“Dan Dion: The Musical Image” closing party

Fantastically prolific soul-snapper Dan Dion has been the house photographer for the Fillmore for 20 years and the Warfield for 15 — which gives him the kind of access to famous and intriguing subjects many would claw their own lenses out to get. For the past couple months he’s had a show of his eye-popping portraits of musical fascinators — from Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, Tony Bennett, James Brown, even Katy Perry — up at the hoppin’ Madrone on Divisadero. This closing party brings down on the curtain on the punchy exhibition, but there’s no rest for Dion, of course: along with his continued musician pics (check out www.dandion.com for an index of legends), he’s hard at work on a new project: 365 days of Comedian Portraits. (Marke B.)

6-9pm, free

Madrone Art Bar

500 Divisadero, SF

www.madroneartbar.com


FRIDAY 25

Noir City 11

Here’s a sweet early Valentine’s Day gift for your favorite dude or dame: a “passport” ticket good for admission to all of Noir City’s 27 films (many of which will sell out in advance), plus a chance to hang with opening-night special guest Peggy Cummins before a screening of her 1950 breakout Gun Crazy. Way cooler than a box of chocolates, and at $120, way cheaper than diamond jewelry. Billed as “the most popular film noir festival in the world,” Eddie Muller’s annual event flies the flag of 35mm projection proudly as it spotlights a host of classics and not-available-on-DVD rareties. Look for themed double-features like “Showbiz Noir” (can’t go wrong with 1950’s Sunset Boulevard on the big screen), “San Francisco Noir,” “African American Noir,” and — a Noir City first — “3D Noir.” (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Feb. 3, most shows $10–$15

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.noircity.com

 

The Bay: Creators of Style

San Francisco fashion encompasses more than just glamor, style, and grit; it is an art of ideas and principles, creativity, and personality. Photographer Liz Caruana captures these many dimensions in her new book, The Bay: Creators of Style, a collection of black-and-white portraits of many of the Bay Area’s most distinguished designers. With an opening reception, an artist talk, and an exhibit of selected images from the book on view for three weeks, Carte Blanche has supplied an excellent opportunity to see prints that testify both to the skill of Liz Caruana and the originality and range of the Bay Area’s fashion community. (Kerry)

Through Feb. 13

Opening reception, 7-9:30pm, free

Artist talk Sat/26, 7:30pm

Carte Blanche

973 Valencia, SF

(415) 821-1055

www.gallerycarteblanche.com


SATURDAY 26

Joffrey Ballet

“Longtime no see” used to be a common greeting among friends. It has such an old-fashioned, convivial quality about it, yet sounds out of tune for our modern 24/7 being-connectedness. So why not say, “great to see you, what are you up to?” to the Joffrey Ballet, which used to regularly make the trip from New York, having made its reputation with showing ballet as a distinctly contemporary art. Now located in Chicago and under the artistic directorship of former SFB Principal Ashley Wheater, the Joffrey is bringing Kurt Jooss’ superb The Green Table, a seminal work of modern dance that thematically, unfortunately, is as up-to-date as it was in 1932. Edwaard Liang’s 2008 Age of Innocence and Christopher Weeldon’s After the Rain — two of today’s hottest choreographers complete this intriguing program. (Rita Felciano)

8pm, $30–$92

Also Sun/27, 3 p.m.

Zellerbach Hall

101 Zellerbach Hall, Berk.

(510) 642-9889

www.calperformances.org

 

“An Evening of Silent Films at Grace Cathedral”

Grace Cathedral is a non-traditional movie theater — obviously, you wouldn’t head to the Nob Hill landmark to see the latest superhero epic. But what it lacks in Dolby surround sound, it more than makes up for with its major league pipe organ, which provides the perfect accompaniment when the cathedral (which hosts concerts and events between services) screens silent films. Tonight, renowned musician Dorothy Papadakos provides the soundscape for two silent-era classics: Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 propaganda film Battleship Potemkin (7pm), which elevated film editing with scenes like its tense “Odessa Staircase” sequence; and F.W. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu (9pm), the long-fingernailed granddaddy of all vampire films. (Eddy)

7 and 9pm, $10–$20 (both films, $17–$24)

Grace Cathedral

1100 California, SF

www.gracecathedral.org/concerts

 

Stellar Corpses

Santa Cruz rockers Stellar Corpses have been around for the part of a decade, mixing psychobilly, punk, rockabilly, surf guitar and much more into their sound. Having toured across the US and Europe as an independent act, the band released its third record last year, Dead Stars Drive-In (Santa Carla Records), which showcases an uncanny talent for meshing horror film imagery and addictive sing-along anthems into a monstrous creation that even Dr. Frankenstein would be proud of. With MTV recently featuring the group’s video for “Vampire Kiss,” things are looking up more than ever — these children of the night, what music they make! (Sean McCourt)

With The Rocketz, Memphis Murder Men, Limnus.

8:30pm, $13–$15

Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

Blond:ish

In a section of the music industry where club promoters and marketers all too frequently rely on glamor headshots layered over photoshopped neon clouds, London based, Montreal bred Anstascia D’elene and Vivie Ann Bakos have smartly chosen a name that immediately undercuts appearances. (Plus the tag-line: “not all dumbs are blonde.”) With that out of the way, this posh, Kompakt-approved duo has spent the last couple of years making a real name for itself, releasing credible 4×4 house sets and EPs with callbacks to ’60s psychedelia and ’80s new wave, while providing remixes for Todd Terje, Pete Tong, and Tomas Barfod. (Ryan Prendiville)

With DJ M3, Anthony Mansfield

9pm, $10-20

Monarch

101 Sixth St., SF

(415) 284-9774

www.monarchsf.com

 

SUNDAY 27

Stephen Tobolowsky

Stephen Tobolowsky will always be an honorary member of the “that guy” character actor club, (you’ve seen him in the margins of Groundhog Day, Memento, and HBO’s Deadwood) but lately, his podcast The Tobolowsky Files has become his signature project, revealing his depths as a storyteller. Whether he’s recounting a collaboration with David Byrne, his constant effort to balance Hollywood with family life, or the time he was held hostage at the supermarket, Tobolowsky’s tales of life, love, and showbiz engage the listener effortlessly. Presented by SF Sketchfest, Sunday’s event will feature new stories, as well as selections from his newly released book, The Dangerous Animals Club. (Taylor Kaplan)

8pm, $25

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com


MONDAY 28

Steve Reich

Yes, Steve Reich is probably the most influential composer alive. And yes, his legendary mid-’70s output irreversibly mechanized the dynamics of Western music. Still, his greatest gift to the music world remains his ability to breathe life into minimalist structures, making room for dynamic, grooving rhythms, rich, warm tonal colors, and catchy, arpeggiated melodies that sound almost club-friendly in 2012. On Monday, the SF Contemporary Music Players will treat our fair city to a rare performance of Reich’s flagship composition, Music for 18 Musicians (1976), bookended by Clapping Music (1972) and Electric Counterpoint (1987). Essential, for devotees and newcomers, alike. (Kaplan)

8pm, $20

SF Conservatory of Music

50 Oak, SF

(415) 503-6275

www.sfcm.edu


TUESDAY 29

Vintage Trouble

When I started listening to The Bomb Shelter Sessions — Vintage Trouble’s 2012 release — I was pretty certain its authors could not be of this century. (And looking at photos of this old-timey quartet, might I add, only reinforced my initial contention.) Well, I was wrong. This blues rock group, comprised of vocalist Ty Taylor, guitarist Nalle Colt, drummer Richard Danielson, and bassist Rich Barrio Dill, formed in Los Angeles in 2010 and has achieved success and international renown not least for Taylor’s deep, rambling vocals that bring to mind mid-century legends like Otis Redding and Ray Charles. (Sullivan)

8:30 p.m., $15

Café du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Peace of mind

Andrew Lam
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Peace of mind

culture@sfbg.com

HEALTH AND WELLNESS When New Leaf Services closed its doors in 2010, after 35 years of providing vital mental health and substance abuse services to the queer community of San Francisco, a huge gap was left in its wake. New Leaf was the victim of budget shortfalls when the city reduced funding allocated for various nonprofits.

In response, four like-minded New Leaf colleagues — Nancy Heilner, Chris Holleran, Stacey Rodgers and Joe Voors — banded together to create a safe space in which LGBTQQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex) people can receive client-directed services specifically oriented toward their community. Just days after the closing of New Leaf, the four opened SF Therapy Collective, a marriage and family therapist corporation owned and operated by the colleagues in the heart of the Castro.

In July of 2011 the group launched Queer LifeSpace, an LGBTQQI-focused nonprofit counseling agency located on the same floor as SF Therapy Collective that provides quality, low-cost mental-health and substance-abuse care with a focus on people who have been historically marginalized or who are at risk, as well as individuals who belong to underserved communities.

Although the four colleagues supervise and serve as the staff for Queer LifeSpace, the nonprofit’s services are provided by a team of nine trainees who come from four different graduate schools in the Bay Area, as well as six volunteer postgrad interns who receive LGBTQQI-specialized training hours to count toward their licensure.

The Queer LifeSpace team provides therapy in individual, couples, and group settings, addressing issues that commonly affect the lives of queer people including anxiety, depression, relationship and intimacy issues, substance-abuse issues, trauma, HIV/AIDS-related issues, gender identity issues and aging-related concerns. Depending on a client’s income, the service provides low-fee, sliding-scale therapy at $20 for individual sessions, $40 for couples sessions and $5 for group therapy.

Included in Queer LifeSpace’s roster of services are support groups for trans and gender-variant individuals, queer people of color, individuals seeking to address such issues as men’s relationships, and sober folks, and the intersex community (the sole services of their kind available in the city.) The operation has been tremendously successful, having provided 1,800 units of service to 215 clients as of December 2012 — a goal they hadn’t anticipated reaching until the end of 2013.

Queer LifeSpace was founded not only to provide services that had previously been available at New Leaf, but also to serve as a vanguard institution for the next generation of queer trainees in psychotherapy. Given the tenuous nature of government funding for nonprofits, the formation of the service was a risky undertaking, and one that the group commenced against the advice of nearly everyone they spoke to.

As executive director Nancy Heilner recalls, “It wasn’t our intention to open a nonprofit, but what happened was people began calling and needing services at a fee lower than what we offered [at the Collective]. We also discovered that we couldn’t have a training program if we were to remain a for-profit corporation. And having a training program was something we felt really strongly about.”

What’s most remarkable about the service is that it’s entirely volunteer-run. As Heilner describes it, Queer LifeSpace has been a “labor of love. Nobody gets paid for it. We have donated at least half our workweek to making it a reality.”

In spite of their success to date, the colleagues recently learned that the lease for Queer LifeSpace cannot be renewed after April. As the staff and board of the nonprofit look toward the future, they are eager to reach their fundraising goal of $60,000 to cover the costs of moving and establishing plans for a long-term center that can serve 350 members by the end of 2013.

Eventually, they hope to expand their capacity for clients and trainees in the new space and develop a financial model for long-term success and sustainability. But in the meantime, they face the crisis of not having a home in the spring.

As Heilner made clear, “Our next step is finding funds to sustain growth and reach. We’ve been reassuring people that we will make it through this. We will.”

Queer LifeSpace 470 Castro, Suite 202, SF. (415) 358-2000, www.queerlifespace.org.

Old joy — and pain

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1
Old joy — and pain

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Film editor Sari Gilman — her resume includes 2007’s Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and 2002’s Blue Vinyl — made her directorial debut with the 30-minute documentary Kings Point, a bittersweet exploration of a Florida retirement community. The film first screened locally as part of the 2012 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and will air on HBO in March. In the meantime, it’s been nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Short. I caught up with Gilman to talk about her film — and little gold men.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Congratulations on your nomination! You knew your film was on the shortlist, but were you surprised when you made the final cut?

Sari Gilman Thank you! You know, I had no idea. I have worked very hard in my life to try not to predict the future. [Laughs.] I was very happy when I found out, but I don’t think it would have destroyed me if it hadn’t happened. Obviously, though, it’s a total thrill and a complete honor, and more than I ever expected when I started making this movie.

SFBG Do you get to, like, walk the red carpet?

SG I do! I gotta get a dress! I mean, not that anyone’s going to care who I’m wearing, but for me, it’ll be fun.

SFBG What’s your connection to Kings Point, the place, and what made you want to create a documentary about it?

SG My grandmother moved to the community in 1978, when I was about nine years old. I visited her there many times a year for 30 years. About 15 years in, I was starting to get involved in storytelling and still photography, and I was always really fascinated with the place on a couple of different levels: socially, it sort of seemed like it was a summer camp for old people, and then visually — it’s 7500 identical one- and two-bedroom condominium units, spread out over miles. So there’s a lot of architectural homogeneity. These long hallways that look exactly the same, with these palm-tree shadows on them. It seemed like a natural place to start exploring.

SFBG Since you knew the residents already, was it easier to get them to open up in interviews?

SG I think so. None of the subjects in the final film were people that I knew personally before I started making it, but some of them did know my grandmother, and they all knew me as the granddaughter of someone who lived there. I think that’s what made it easy for them to talk to me. I also shared a lot with them about my grandmother’s experience and my experience there, so the interviews weren’t so much interviews as they were conversations. Obviously, we cut my voice out in most cases, but I think that I was able to get the kind of candid stories that I got because I was on the other end of the camera talking to them.

SFBG Though you’ve worked extensively as an editor on other people’s films, you didn’t edit Kings Point. Why was that?

SG As an editor, I knew how badly I needed an editor. I know that directors need to have a collaborator to provide perspective, and look at the footage with a little more of an objective eye. I got incredibly lucky in that I was able to hire Jeffrey Friedman [co-director, with Rob Epstein, of 2010’s Howl and 1995’s The Celluloid Closet, among others], who is a local luminary and an amazing filmmaker who edits occasionally. He was actually my mentor when I was learning how to edit in the 1990s in San Francisco, so working with him on my first film was a really great experience.

SFBG The tone of the film is unique in the way that it balances light-hearted moments with the sort of sad undertone that runs throughout.

SG That was the biggest challenge. I knew there was going to be sadness and darkness, and humor and lightness, and I had a sense of what I wanted that to be, but I knew from the beginning that it would be hard to achieve. Jeffrey and I spent a lot of time achieving the tone. It was kind of like salt and sugar — “A little sprinkle here, oh, now it’s too dark, let’s add more of the other.” The feeling that I wanted to evoke, more than anything, was that certain feeling that I had when I was visiting there.

SFBG Had you always intended for Kings Point to be a short film?

SG No, I actually intended it to be a feature. It was in the cutting room that we decided to make it a short. A large part of that was because of the tone, actually — we had enough story to keep it going, but the tone of those stories were shifting the film in a direction that I wasn’t comfortable with. It was a little more of that “cute old person” movie. Kitschy, kind of, “Look at the old people doing belly dancing,” or whatever.

I was extremely sensitive to the fact that most people, when they heard about the film, would think that’s what they were going to be seeing. I was a little crazy-determined not to make that movie, because that wasn’t what my experience was. That’s not what I saw. In cutting it down, we got rid of a lot of the lighter stuff, which is what helped us achieve the tone that we did.

SFBG There have been several films with themes about aging lately: Amour, Quartet, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (all 2012) come to mind. Why do you think that is?

SG Oh, I definitely want to see Amour. I think it’s a moment whose time has come. As a population, the baby boomers have now started to retire, and in the next 20 years, we are going to see a major shift in the demographics of this country. There will be many, many more elderly than there are now. I think that people are starting to think about aging issues in a new way.

I truly hope Kings Point will encourage people to have those kinds of discussions. Nobody likes to grow old or think about what’s going to happen, but the truth is that we kind of need to. There’s a bit of a denial about the realities of aging; there’s so much emphasis placed on being independent, self-reliant, and remaining active. On the cover of AARP Magazine, you always see pictures of, like, 75-year-olds on bicycles riding to the beach. And that’s great, and everyone wants that to be their experience, but not everyone is so lucky. *

www.kingspointmovie.com

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