Appetite

Appetite: 2 delicious food events on the horizon

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: 2 delicious food events on the horizon

8/21 LA COCINA SF STREET FOOD FESTIVAL: Everyone who was there last year recalls the nightmare that was the SF Street Food Festival: three hour waits for a bite, only to find much of it gone by the time you reached the front of the line. I went at the 11am start time last year, yet still only got to try two vendors in two hours. At least I was able to hang out in the cocktail and beer garden awhile, as I heard that, too, was an impossible wait before long.

The organizers of the event are intent on making it different this year. Only time will tell, but the physical space is seven times larger, with four times as many vendors. I have long been a fan of La Cocina as a community treasure, and there are some new people behind the scenes this year who have a good track record with organizing large events. I’m hopeful… but you’ll still find me there at 11am, just in case.

Yes, beer, wine and spirits gardens have returned. You know I’m looking forward to cocktails by bartenders from Rye, The Alembic, and Beretta. There’s an eating contest hosted by none other than Pepto-Bismol (oh, the irony!) How about a scavenger hunt and silent auction? Or an after party at Cocomo with live salsa, dancing and street food? La Cocina will host the first annual San Francisco Street Food Conference on August 22-23 following the festival, with panelists discussing the political, economic, and social impact of street food vending.

At the festival, expect 40 food vendors and restaurants, plenty of drink and a celebration of all things street food in SF. Whether you’re eating street food treats from stellar restaurants like Aziza, Nombe or Flour+Water, from actual street carts and trucks like Curry Up Now or Kung Fu Tacos, or La Cocina greats such as Kika’s and El Huarache Loco, you should not leave hungry.

Saturday, August 21, 11am-7pm
In the Mission at Folsom from 24th-26th Sts., 25th from Shotwell-Treat Sts., Treat St. from 25th-26th Sts.; Garfield Park
Passports for eating range from $25-$150 can be purchased in advance, or bought a la carte the day of
www.sfstreetfoodfest.com

8/27-29 EAT REAL FESTIVAL IN JACK LONDON SQUARE: I also attended Oakland’s three-day Eat Real Festival last year and, being in a much bigger space with more vendors, it was considerably easier to navigate than the SF Street Food Festival. In fact, I tried well over a 15 vendors last year, finding many exciting eats and drinks from SF and East Bay purveyors. About five hours into Saturday, the heat and lines became unbearable, but I got in five great hours of eating first, with no body-to-body crowds.

Eat Real Fest focuses on sustainably produced products and regional food producers and farmers. With 80 street food trucks and carts comes a limitless amount of eating possibilities. There’s also an Urban Homesteading Zone highlighting DIY food acts like canning and preserving, cheesemaking, animal husbandry, and vertical gardening – with contests, in case you want to enter your own wares. Try fermentation tasting stations with kombucha, wine, handcrafted beer, iced teas and lemonades. There’s an outdoor short film fest, a literary portion of the festival with Bay Area writers talking food, and an entertainment stage with music, sure, but also pizza tossing, noodle pulling and a Flying Knives butchery contest.

Friday-Sunday, 8/27-29, 2pm-9pm (Fri), 10:30am-9pm (Sat), 10:30am-5pm (Sun)
Jack London Square, Oakland
Food and drink tickets will be sold on-site
www.eatrealfest.com

Appetite: 3 gourmet cheap eats on Sonoma

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: 3 gourmet cheap eats on Sonoma

Not far off Sonoma’s idyllic town square lie these three unique gems – you can eat high quality Eastern European, BBQ or Mexican food at a reasonable price.

EL MOLINO CENTRAL: In a sea of taquerias lining Sonoma’s Highway 12, there’s a new addition I’ve been excited to tell you about that opened early this Summer: El Molino Central. I pulled over after doing a double take — it looks like a charming taqueria, but reading hand-painted “tortillas… tamales… blue bottle coffee” on the side of the building made me say, “Wait… what?”

With no dining space inside, there’s a leisurely patio out back. Inside, it’s an open kitchen where you survey Mexican street food prepared with a high level of care and quality ingredients. The staff hand-grinds corn masa and press tortillas in wood presses. There are even fresh tortillas and pre-prepared dishes to heat up at home. The menu offers merely a handful of items: chilaquiles, tostadas, enchiladas and delightful tamales (I like the white corn and cheese version).

What surprises is the Blue Bottle Coffee menu straight down to New Orleans’ Iced Coffee (perfect on a hot Wine Country summer day). You can get your individual drip or a cappuccino, happily savored with a tamale made from local ingredients.

The place looks plucked out of LA with palm trees and all, but exemplifying Slow Food sensibilities. The shock is the quality level (which costs a little more than an average taqueria, though still under $10)… and the Blue Bottle. You, too, can have your Blue Bottle and homemade tamales in a Mexican food joint. Sonoma is lucky to get this lovably quirky new addition.

Pork Schnitzel sandwich and white corn soup at Lokal

LOKAL: Just off the Sonoma square, Lokal has been getting some love lately from SF folk like Michael Bauer. I’m in when you say Eastern European and Hungarian food — difficult to find done well anywhere, much less in Wine Country.

Lokal won me over with shelves full of records and LPs in the dining room, then with sunny, back patio picnic tables. There’s a fine selection of beers making the patio beer garden-reminiscent. Service has it’s kinks, including a pricing discrepancy on their menu it took awhile to work out on my bill, but the food is a pleasure and is now a favored stop in downtown Sonoma.

Lokal makes a mean German Potato Salad ($5), sweetened by grilled red onions, punchy with mustard, maintaining a fresh profile despite starchiness. A Summer special of White Corn Puree Soup ($3.50 a cup) is sweet and bright. Count me in on the Eva Gabor’s Pork Schnitzel Sandwich/”Rueben” ($12). You almost forget there’s no pastrami in there with a breaded pork cutlet layered with mustard and sauerkraut. There’s a satisfying savoriness here reminiscent of a great Rueben. Lightly crunchy brown bread and house pickles seal the deal.

Jalapeno poppers stuffed with carnitas and cheese at Mondo

MONDO: Mondo, a short drive from downtown Sonoma, has the largest beer selection in the area: 23 on tap and more by the bottle, with a little beer garden courtyard through the restaurant. A couple years ago, this was a sausage and burger joint.

The burgers remain but there’s also the kind of bar food that puts a grin on my face: plump Jalapeno Poppers ($7.50) oozing with cheese and shreds of carnitas (pork). There’s fatty Braised Beef Brisket Sandwich ($9.50) piled with crumbly blue cheese and shaved red onion. For a little healthy balance, try specials like Sweet White Corn Salad ($5) tossed in lime, cilantro, red peppers and red onion.

This is a welcome Wine Country respite where you can break from excess wine for beer and cheap, gourmet bar fare. 

The Performant: A mutable feast — or, theater, buffet-style

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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If the venerable San Francisco Fringe Festival is a full-on Circus Circus-style, all-you-can-eat-buffet, I like to think of its kid cousin the San Francisco Theatre Festival  — which took place Sunday, August 8 — as more of a pu-pu platter. Tasty little morsels of performance presented in manageable, bite-sized chunks designed to whet the appetite for the main courses (the full productions) to come. I don’t know about you, but when I’m confronted with the choice between dainty nibbling, or cleaning each plate as it comes, I tend to adapt the life-is-uncertain principle and gorge myself on all the available goodies in sight.


Gorging comes more easily than restraint at all-day festivals, and it’s hard to determine before you bite whether your picks will be sweet or savory. A delectable treat, first of the day, was an excerpt from a brand new company: The 11th Hour Ensemble. The 11th Hour members’ 20-minute preview of their movement-based, Lewis Carroll-inspired “Alice” was fresh, exciting, hilarious, and completely unexpected. If their full-length production (opening September 8th) is half as charming as their highlights reel, it’ll be a don’t-miss. A quick dash across the park and into the Metreon brought me to Mugwumpin’s excerpt of their current show “This is all I Need” (playing at NOHspace through September 4). Thematically-connected to their last, site-specific “Occurrence” which took place in a semi-residential motel in June, “Need” explores the relationships between ourselves and our possessions. A particularly funny bit involved a convoluted daydream of property ownership and a barricade of berry boxes, but over too soon, it was back outside for a glimpse of No Nude Men (ha! there weren’t any! But there were zombies!). On my way to see San Francisco Recovery Theatre’s modernized take on the Amiri Baraka classic “Dutchman” (opening in October, I believe) I slipped into Ray of Light’s “Jerry Springer, the Opera” (opens September 10). Classically-trained singers reveling in lyrics about adult diaper-play, stripping, and self-abuse? Someone ought to write a show about that.

*******
A one-man smorgasbord of theatrical tropes and truisms, Will Franken played the Clubhouse this past weekend,serving up a bubbling stew of new material mixed in with a few old favorites. As physical as he is cerebral, commedian Franken’s act conforms far less to the traditional stand-up routine but rather to that of the highly-refined, abstracted-reality sketch comedy of Monty Python, The Kids in the Hall, and The Cody Rivers Show. Jim Carrey might be the man with the rubber face, but Franken’s whole persona is as elastic as a rubber band, and in a whirlwind 20-minute set, Franken portrayed a panoply of distinct characters from cross-dressing panhandler to schizophrenic marriage counselor, Al Gore to General Petraeus, an outsourced solar panel salesman in China to a well-meaning yet ultimately self-deluding “condom lady” in Whitechapel circa 1888. No passively-progressive sacred cow ever emerges from Franken’s contrarian logic unscathed—he’s out there gleefully hacking off the hindquarters and serving them up on a slightly tarnished platter before you can say “yoga mat.” But even late on a Friday night with no BYOB, just a taste of Franken’s mad creations left us salivating for more.

Appetite: Tales from Tales

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Tales from Tales

In 100 percent humidity at nearly 100 degrees (and no relief at night), spending a week drinking and eating doesn’t sound like the best idea, but for eight years running, it happens every July in New Orleans at Tales of the Cocktail. For cocktail lovers and industry, this is THE drink event of the year.

My first, or virgin, year at Tales, was as sleepless and packed as everyone said it would be, but moderation is the name of my game (at least outside of the sleep arena), and I managed to indulge and enjoy without so much as one hangover from anything other than sleep deprivation. Of course, it meant merely tasting most drinks, eating a lot (NO problem in New Orleans!) and promptly turning around upon surveying nightly after crowds at Old Absinthe House, heading to quieter bars or the Monteleone lobby for civilized conversation instead.

Opening party at Elms Mansion — a truly magical setting

I already feel completely alive in my skin when I’m in New Orleans. Any reason to be in that queen of cities is a good reason for me. Tales itself grew progressively better as the week went on, despite awful heat and waning sleep… mainly because I continued to meet great people which led to further excursions, tastings, dinners, parties, and as the cumulative effect added up to a host of memories and experiences.  Let me try to summarize a mere few highlights for you – read more about the 2010 Tales and New Orleans in my upcoming 8/15 issue of The Perfect Spot:

LIFE-ALTERING TASTING of 1865 & 1805 COGNAC!
7/25 The Mysteries & Secrets of Distilling in Cognac
Cognac masters, Olivier Paultes and Alain Royer, moderator Dale DeGroff, and spirited bartender extraordinaire, Salvatore Calabrese, were keepers of the surprise that awaited at the end of a fascinating, seemingly routine seminar on the methods of distilling cognac, along with a token five cognac side-by-side tasting.

The seminar suddenly escalated to once-in-a-lifetime experience when Calabrese informed our small group that he had brought not only a bottle of 1865 Rouyer Guillet & Co. cognac to share together, but also an 1805 Maison De L’Emprereur cognac he was going to make a Sazerac with! The room erupted in applause as we stood on chairs to take photos and watch him mix what he called a “$10,000 cocktail”. We passed the Sazerac around, each savoring a profound sip.

Dale DeGroff pours us an 1865 cognac

We all had a pour of the silky 1865. I exhaled and placed my head down on the table after first taste. It was remarkably full, refined with raisin and floral notes initially, a finely balanced burn, evolving into chocolate and nutty notes. I could barely begin to fathom the history wrapped up in each sip. As Calabrese exclaimed, “This was made when Abraham Lincoln was alive!”

Worth far more than the $40 price of admission, the lucky few who happened to be in this seminar got an education beyond what we could have ever expected. We lived a moment that, for drink lovers, will remain a marker of earth-shattering tastes for the rest of our lives.

GREEN GORILLAS DESCENDING on the PELICAN CLUB
7/22 at The Pelican Club Spirited Dinner, French Quarter
Thursday night there were Spirited Dinners across town. I chose the one at Pelican Club mainly because of the all-star line-up of bartenders from across the country pairing cocktails with a six-course dinner: Marcos Tello – The Varnish, LA; Jim Meehan – PDT, NY; Misty Kalkofen – Drink, Boston; Peter Vestinos – Wirtz Beverage Group, Chicago; and our own rockstar, Neyah White, formerly of Nopa.

The food was not as fine as I’d hoped, but the atmosphere was convivial, festive, a warmly welcoming party. The cocktails all featured the night’s spirit: Bols Genever. Neyah clearly had fun creating the dessert cocktail, Drum Shag: Bols, sarsaparilla, PX sherry, infused with smoke.

But the highlight of the night? A foursome of green gorillas descended on the bar during aperitif hour before we were seated at our tables. I’d seen them at the pool of the Monteleone before, or roaming the streets, surely hot and sweaty in their cheap, neon green garb. The site of these guys at the elegant Pelican bar while some of our country’s best bartenders poured them shots was a memorable image, one that somehow typifies the wacky exuberance that is Tales.

DEL MAGUEY – RON COOPER – MEZCAL
7/25 La Verdad (The Truth) about Mezcal Seminar
Everyone who knows anything about mezcal knows Ron Cooper of Del Maguey is the master, having done more to further the mezcal gospel than anyone, even being called the “mezcal missionary”. As my friend whispered to me during the seminar, describing the panel of mezcal distillers: “They’ve all drunk the kool-aid, haven’t they?” Despite the fact that I’ve already been a mezcal fan for years, so did I… so did we all… by the end of the session.

I’m must be honest and say, much as I appreciated every distiller there (Illegal Mezcal, Los Amantes, and Sombra), as has been my common experience in previously tasting these and other mezcals, none hold a candle to Ron’s entire product line. This was sorely highlighted in a side-by-side tasting of all the above next to five Del Maguey mezcals. But all these guys were heartfelt and inspiring, while Ron himself is a small, peace-filled  powerhouse of a man… the Yoda of the mezcal world.

Every single Del Maguey mezcal is a revelation, whether the creamy, smoky sweet of Crema de Mezcal, or the chocolate earthiness of other-worldly Chichicapa. More to come soon in my Guardian column and here about his mezcals. Thanks to Neyah White, try Del Maguey by the shot at Nopalito, in cocktails throughout SF, or order some bottles. Once you dig further into mezcal, particularly through the Del Maguey lens, you, too, will “drink the kool-aid”.

SOUTHERN ROMANCE of DIXIELAND JAZZ under SWEEPING OAKS
7/22 William Grant & Sons Opening Party at Elms Mansion in the Garden District
Yes, by 1am it felt like it was actually getting hotter as I wilted in the oppressive humidity, but what could have been more romantic than the stately, white Elms Mansion with stunning wood carved fireplaces and ceilings, scotch bar in the drawing room, white lights and absinthe in the garden, and live Dixieland band playing under a white-pillared rotunda? Not much. As massive oak trees loomed over us, even larger than the mansion, I felt fully alive and grateful… I was in the South.

A SUDDEN DOWNPOUR entering the BARTENDER’S BREAKFAST
7/24 Bartender’s Breakfast – Spirited Awards after party
A second line jazz funeral was held for Sex on the Beach, a cocktail that surely needed to be buried, on the walk from the Spirited Awards Ceremony to the Bartender’s Breakfast, where the likes of Audrey Saunders and Jim Meehan were making us drinks. Before entering the building, a sultry Summer storm rushed through, dampening our dresses, suits and hair. A warm rain, it wasn’t exactly a respite from the unrelenting heat, but it somehow refreshed, invigorated, injecting us with energy to celebrate late into the night.

Viva La Vanguardia!

Sue Vaughan
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Viva La Vanguardia!

The folks behind San Francisco’s Cutting Ball Theater have a lot to celebrate after ten years, so they are. The tenth anniversary of the company recently voted Best Theater in SFBG’s Best of the Bay readers poll is being marked by a year’s worth of special programs, all culminating in a season-opening party they’re calling “10-10-10 Tempest!” on October 10. But first, this Sat/7, the theater founded by Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers continues to advance its experimental mission with a rare (and free!) program of staged excerpts from new work by Latino and Latina playwrights called “Vanguardia.”

This is the first time Cutting Ball has featured the work of living Latino playwrights (they promise it won’t be the last either) and the evening will feature some of the country’s most vital voices — meaning both alive and ass-kicking: Kristoffer Diaz (author of Pulitzer-finalist The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity), Marisela Treviño Orta, Octavio Solis, Caridad Svich, Enrique Urueta (of the recent Impact Theatre hit Learn to Be Latina), and Karen Zacarías.
Cutting Ball is matching the lineup with top-notch directing and acting talent too. Take, for example, fucking vigwan by Kristoffer Diaz, which will be helmed by Campo Santo cofounder Sean San José. The snarky warning on the company’s website only whets the appetite:

“There are a lot of horrible people in the world. fucking vigwan is a horrible play about some of those horrible people. Warning: play contains sex, drugs, police brutality, horrendously (and stupidly) foul language, necrophilia, neo-colonialism, and some approximation of true love. This play should probably not be seen by anyone.”

Capped by an after-party featuring a DJ and (por supuesto) tequila shots, Vanguardia promises to be a high-spirited celebration all around. You can read more about the lineup and other important details at http://cuttingball.com/10th-anniversary.

Sat/7, 8 p.m. (pre-show soiree at 6 p.m.), free (donations accepted)

Cutting Ball Theater

In residence at the Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF

http://cuttingball. com

Appetite: 2 sodas for the epicure

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: 2 sodas for the epicure

I’ll get this out of the way: I am not a soda drinker. I stopped drinking Coke in high school when I was getting a lot of headaches, in an attempt to eliminate excess sugar from my diet, and not only did it help, but I never cared to revisit the habit. Of course, there are always exceptions and certainly I have tasted a number of worthy sodas over the years. Here are two of the best producers out there.

TAYLOR’S TONICS
Almost savory, spicy, herbal, Taylor’s Tonics are newer, local sodas, and ones that truly stand out. I love the traveling sideshow, Vaudeville-like spirit to the website and packaging, which reflects the passion for performance art and flair of founder, Taylor Peck, who once even worked as ringmaster for small circuses in San Francisco and New York City. His tonics evoke an old fashioned, American medicine show vibe. Healing powers seem possible in the spicing. They also thankfully uphold a trend away from too-sweet or cloying.

Chai Cola has elements of a traditional chai but a soda effervescence and strong, pleasant bitterness. Mate Mojito is a brilliant refresher that takes the tart of lime and balances it with hints of vanilla, spearmint and Yerba Mate tea. Cola Azteca is a bold, spicy mix of coffee, cocoa and cinnamon bark. I recommend the entire line. Check out Imbibe magazine’s story of these unique sodas and their creator.

Taylor’s Tonics are available in the Rancho Parnassus cafe and at Whole Foods.

FENTIMANS
Another yesteryear presentation comes with Fentimans botanically brewed beverages, around since 1905. Fentimans covers a range of sodas from a Victorian Lemonade or Mandarin & Seville Orange Jigger (jigger being an old English word for “good measure”), the latter balancing various orange juices with fermented ginger and juniper. There’s a shandy, ginger beer, and popular Curiosity Cola, a more herbal, apothecary-style soda. I find Dandelion & Burdock flavor an intriguing, traditionally English soda, infused with dandelion leaves, burdock root, pear juice and a hint of ginger and anise.

Fentiman’s gains rogue status when you find out it were banned in the state of Maine to minors (read more on the company’s blog). Why? Because the sodas are just under 0.5% alcohol by volume, which even the FDA considers “non-alcoholic,” but apparently not Maine, which won’t allow minors to purchase a Curiosity Cola.

Email info@drinkfentimans.com for where to buy it in your area.

Check out Virginia’s culinary itinerary site, www.theperfectspotsf.com

Appetite: Smoothing out with Camus’ fabulous cognac

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Smoothing out with Camus’ fabulous cognac

Cognac has a taste I’ve yearned to dive more fully into ever since I had my first cognac flight at Brandy Library in NY years ago. I have made attempts to learn more by attending cognac seminars at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans or the Manhattan Cocktail Classic. But where is the cognac equivalent to the excellent Ministry of Rum, which, thanks to founder, Ed Hamilton, has done much to educate the country on the complexities and range in rum? There is a stigma to cognac in some circles that it’s too elitist, expensive or unapproachable. As with any spirit, this is not true if you know where to sip.

I am smitten with Camus cognac, the last of the independent, family-owned cognac houses (since 1863) in Cognac, France. Though it’s the fifth largest cognac producer in the world, and readily known in Asia and Eastern Europe, it’s only just beginning to permeate the US market, and is, for the moment, only available in CA through Wine Warehouse (ask for it at your local liquor shop). I had the privilege of enjoying lunch with Cyril Camus, the president and fifth-generation distiller, after I tasted through the line beforehand. By the time I got to my second taste-through with Cyril, it confirmed my initial impressions.

There is much to love in any one of their cognacs, all blended, 80 proof, some with innovative screw-caps which double as a one ounce measuring shot, aged in lightly-oaked cognac barrels so there is less oak influence and a smoother taste.

Camus VS: I serve this one as an introductory cognac for those unfamiliar, and also as proof that cognac can be both exquisite and affordable. At a mere $25 a bottle, this lively cognac balances citrus fruit with subtle vanilla and is light and smooth, while being rich and full. Excellent on the rocks or in a cocktail, you won’t likely find a better deal for cognac at this level.

Lunch with Cyril Camus. Photo by Virginia Miller

Camus VSOP: With a little more oak and vanilla in the profile, this crisp, lively VSOP retails around $45 a bottle and works neat, on the rocks or in cocktails. As their best-seller, I actually prefer the VS, though you won’t go wrong with the VSOP.

Camus XO Elegance: Now we move to greater age and a $120 price tag, but the signature Camus taste of fruit with subtle vanilla, mild oak, even hints of liquorice, remains. This is a fine sipping eaux-de-vie blend that holds up for whisk(e)y drinkers like myself. I could sip it after dinner on a regular basis.

Camus XO Borderies: In a stunning, perfume-like bottle (for the XO Elegance the bottle is clear, for XO Borderies, it’s frosted), this the only non-vintage, single estate cognac in existence, made from 100% borderies grapes in Camus’ vineyards. With a raisin-like sweetness, this silky cognac still remains light, complex with citrus and a robust floral quality balanced by hazelnut and dried fruits. An exquisite imbibement.

Our Weekly Picks: July 28-August 3, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 28

VISUAL ART

“(Por)trait Revealed: A Juried Exhibition of Portrait Photography”

The latest RayKo offering runs the gamut of portraiture in American photography: Elvis impersonators, Arbus-esque twins (potentially Kubrick-esque too), among others. Combining You Are What You Eat by Mark Menjivar and Fritz Liedtke’s Skeleton in the Closet, this exhibit looks up and down the non-proverbial food chain and an obsession with keeping up appearances: the ectomorphic, the body-dysmorphic, and finally, the contents of the American fridge. This raw size-up of eating disorders and trends might leave you hungry, so I found several nearby restaurants (Supperclub, La Briciola, Chaat Café) with decent reviews on Yelp to make you feel better –– or possibly worse –– about yourself. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Through Sept. 10

Reception 6 p.m., free

RayKo Photo Center

428 Third St., SF

(415) 495-3773

www.raykophoto.com

 

THURSDAY 29

COMEDY

Tracy Morgan

Getting his first major mainstream exposure on the TV show Martin in the mid-1990s, Tracy Morgan quickly went on to join the cast of Saturday Night Live based on the strengths of his hilarious comedic talents. On SNL he created classic characters such as the moonshine-swilling “Uncle Jemima” and performed a host of side-splitting celebrity impersonations. Now turning the tables, in a manner of speaking, he pokes fun at his own celebrity on the hit NBC show 30 Rock in the guise of “Tracy Jordan” — Morgan has proven on the air that anything is possible, so expect nothing less when he hits the stage in front of a live audience. (Sean McCourt)

Thurs/29–Sat/31, 8 p.m. (also Fri/30–Sat/31, 10:15 p.m.);

Sun/1, 7:30 p.m., $40.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.livenation.com

 

DANCE

Napoles Ballet Theater

Napoles Ballet Theater might be considered a newbie in terms of other dance companies in the Bay Area, but this ballet-based modern dance company has a Cuban flair that says: NBT is here to stay. Under the artistic direction of Cuban choreographer Luis Napoles, NBT’s “First Home Season” features six different ballets by Napoles and includes the world premiere of his newest work, Lecuona. Reinventing classical ballet with elements of Afro-Cuban dance, contemporary movement, theater, and jazz, it wouldn’t be surprising if NBT’s first full-length performance in SF marks the first of many seasons to come. (Katie Gaydos)

Thurs/29-Sat/31, 8 p.m.; Sun/1, 4 p.m., $20

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St., SF

(415) 273-4633

www.napolesballet.org

 

FRIDAY 30

DANCE

“ODC’s Summer Sampler”

If you’re in the mood for modern dance but not sure if you can commit to sitting through a full-length performance, contemporary dance company ODC has what you want. With wine sampling, hors d’oeuvres, and a one-hour showing of some of ODC’s best works, its fourth annual “Summer Sampler” will satisfy your appetite without overloading your senses. The dance portion of the evening includes choreography by ODC artistic directors Brenda Way and KT Nelson, with audience favorites such as Nelson’s Stomp a Waltz (2006), Way’s John Somebody (1993), and ODC’s most recent premiere: Way’s sassy satire on feminine manners, Waving Not Drowning (A Guide to Elegance). (Gaydos)

Through Sat/31

6:30 p.m. (also Sat/31, 4:30 p.m.), $20

ODC Dance Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

www.odcdance.org

 

MUSIC

Zola Jesus

Opera is hardly the musical language of the young, but 21-year-old Nika Roza Danilova is as suited to the form as any goth kid from Madison, Wis/, can be. Danilova’s opera is no Carmen after all; she uses the techniques but favors atmospheric noise and murky echo, letting those sounds take the foreground over her powerful voice. As a sometime member of the band Former Ghosts and one-half of the synth-pop duo Nika + Rory (where she makes a significant case for the benefits of Auto-Tune), Danilova seems primed to find herself the catalyst for a new generation of opera singers — and fans. (Peter Galvin)

With Wolf Parade and Moools

8 p.m., $27.50

Fox Theatre

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

1-800-745-3000

www.thefoxoakland.com

 

DANCE

Man Dance

His experiences running Central Dancer Theater in Nebraska had taught Man Dance Company founder Bryon Heinrich that audiences like theme-based programs. So for the company’s (sold-out) opening season last year, he let himself be inspired by ballet. This time he looked to romance in ballroom dancing. Joining his own company of seven men — women appear as guest artists — are ballroom professionals Roby Tristan, Chelsea Wielstein, and Eric Koptke. The first half of the evening offers mixed choreography, including young Alec Guthrie’s award-winning trio which he will perform in pointe shoes. The second half, “It Takes Two to Tango,” is a love story for ballroom and ballet dancers. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sat/31

8 p.m., $25–$45

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

50 Oak, SF

1-800-838-3000

www.mandance.org

 

VISUAL ART

“Between Currencies”

Texas-raised artist Erik Parra’s collage works prominently feature photographic images with an abiding retro aesthetic (probably because they appear to be actual old photographs), dappled with blobs or confetti-like clouds of color. The appealing result is vibrant and surprising, humorous but also a bit eerie, as colors creep into a black-and-white plane like so many stills from a forgotten, more austere version of Pleasantville (1998). Though perhaps it’s irrelevant to the ideas behind Parra’s art, this critically skewed lens on images of the not-so-distant past seems curiously complementary to the recent premier of Mad Men‘s fourth season. The gallery show opens today, but the official reception happens a week later. (Sam Stander)

Through Sept. 11

Reception Aug. 6, 5–8 p.m., free

Johansson Projects

2300 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 444-9140

www.johanssonprojects.com

 

SATURDAY 31

EVENT

Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory wake for 1519 Mission

Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, having a few years ago taken over the space formerly occupied by the Jon Sims Center for the Arts, has carried forward nearly three decades of work by queer artists at 1519 Mission St. MCVF (and its new but unaffiliated off-shoot, THEOFFCENTER) promises to continue the mission of incubating queer performance, but the traditional Mission Street incubator must close its doors at the end of the month. A search for a new permanent home is underway, but in the meantime, MCVF will hold a “final performance and wake” on Saturday night to mourn, remember, and celebrate. (Robert Avila)

8 p.m., free

Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory

1519 Mission, SF

www.mcvf.org

www.theoffcenter.org

 

MUSIC

Swingin’ Utters

San Francisco’s street-punk stalwarts the Swingin’ Utters have steadily built a loyal following since they formed back in the late ’80s in Santa Cruz, and the band is back in action with a new seven-inch titled “Brand New Lungs.” Teeming with all the working-class attitude and piss and vinegar that fueled their early releases, the three-track single features Johnny Bonnel’s wonderfully ragged vocals once again mixing with Darius Koski’s searing guitars and the jackhammer rhythms of the rest of the group. A new full-length album, Here, Under Protest, is due in October, so catch them now before they hit the road for extended U.S. and European tours. (McCourt)

With Cute Lepers and Stagger and Fall

9 p.m., $16

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimstickets.com

 

EVENT

25th Annual Berkeley Kite Festival

Only in Berkeley do the world’s largest octopi fly through the sky in a giant octopile. No, the East Bay is not home to a freak show aquarium (as far as I know) — but it does host the annual Berkeley Kite Festival. So bust out your most impressive kites — bigger is not always better (especially when you’re trying to avoid kite-on-kite collisions) — and head over to Berkeley Marina. This might be your only chance to watch 30,000 square feet of creature kites take flight, eat corn on the cob at the kite ballet, and cheer on the Berkeley Kite Wranglers in the West Coast Kite Championships. (Gaydos)

Through Sun/1

10 a.m.–5 p.m., free

(free shuttle service to and from North Berkeley BART, 11 a.m.–5:30 p.m.)

Berkeley Marina, Cesar Chavez State Park

www.highlinekits.com

 

FILM

“Midnites for Maniacs: Macho Man-iacs Quadruple Feature”

In typical Castro Theatre tradition, Midnites For Maniacs unites Bay Area movie geeks with esoteric tastes and a palate for the weird and cult-y. Saturday is “Macho Man-iacs,” the quinto-mother of all manly movies with Stallone-starring Nighthawks (1981), Jean Claude Van Damme’s breakout film Bloodsport (1986), and two gems from the mine of John Carpenter B-movie bliss: They Live (1988) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986). Finally, this testosterone-charged program, with no X chromosomes in sight, concludes with a “Secrete Midnite Film.” All we know is it’s from 1989, not on DVD, and as the website insists, “You won’t believe there’s a 35mm print of this!” I’d bet money it’s a low-budget action flick starring a retrosexual with bad hair. (Lattanzio)

Films start at 2 p.m., $10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

 

MONDAY 2

MUSIC

Bomb the Music Industry!

If punk rock’s traditional values are DIY and egalitarianism, then Jeff Rosenstock of Bomb the Music Industry! is a stone cold reactionary. He’s known for blurring the line between fans and bandmates until it’s more or less invisible — bring a guitar or horn to a BTMI show, and there’s a good chance you’ll be invited onstage. Unswerving as the band’s commitment to aesthetic integrity might be, however, nobody could ever accuse BTMI of taking itself too seriously. Like their labelmates Andrew Jackson Jihad, Rosenstock and company leaven their scathing social commentary with lighthearted wit and eminently pogo-worthy arrangements. (Zach Ritter)

With Shinobu and Dan Potthast

9 p.m., $8

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

TUESDAY 3

THEATER

MacHomer: The Simpsons Do Macbeth

Two of the most influential cultural icons ever, Shakespeare and The Simpsons, and two of art’s saddest sacks, Homer and Macbeth, finally arrive together on one stage, and in the form of one actor, in MacHomer: The Simpsons Do Macbeth. This solo show puts the Bard in Bart as Canadian import Rick Miller performs a daunting feat of incantation –– aside from that bewitching incantation “Double, double, toil and trouble” –– with voice impressions of more than 50 characters from the animated series. Miller is damn’d spot on, in both his display of an uncanny vocal talent and a commitment to making Shakespeare more accessible for younger audiences. (Lattanzio)

Through Aug.. 7

8 p.m. (also Aug. 6–7, 10:30 p.m.), $30–$40

Bruns Amphitheater

100 California Shakespeare Way, Orinda

(510) 548-9666

www.calshakes.org 

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Appetite: NYC Food Cheat Sheet, part two

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: NYC Food Cheat Sheet, part two

During my latest visit to my beloved New York, I spent eight days gleefully eating my way around the city, as I have done in countless trips past. I am continually asked for NY recommends as many of us in the Bay Area are either East Coast transplants, do business in both cities, or are savvy frequent travelers. Check out my Perfect Spot newsletter-archives for much more NY food and drink, but now I bring you part two. (Check out part one here.) A mini-list of great eats in varying categories:

GREEK SEAFOOD in QUEENS
Taverna Kyclades – You won’t regret trekking to Astoria, Queens, for an unforgettable Greek seafood feast at Taverna Kyclades. The humble, convivial space feels like a casual seafood/fish house, which in fact, it is, serving family-style platters of Greek food. House bread arrives piping hot, addictive with olive oil or one of their house dips, like yogurt-garlic-cucumber ($5.50). Peasant salad ($7.50 small; $10.95 large) is plenty large, even as a small. Plump, red tomatoes, heaping amounts of onions and olives, and a big slab of  fresh feta cheese… a beautiful salad. Mythos beer washed down grilled sardines ($14.95) and lemon potatoes, tasting vividly lemony but with an almost unnatural yellow hue. Filet of sole stuffed with crab meat (19.75) was the one ok dish: old school, not the freshest crab, reminding me of the 1950’s style of seafood entrees you find at SF’s Tadich Grill. The piece de resistance is grilled octopus ($11.95), a succulent spread of plump invertebrates, envigorated by a squeeze of lemon. Opa!

Lookin’ good at Luke’s

CHEAP, AUTHENTIC LOBSTER ROLLS
Luke’s Lobster Shack – In the heart of the East Village you’ll find Luke’s Lobster Shack, a humble hole-in-the-wall with a couple stools, take-out Maine seafood and a second location on the Upper East Side. Operating on principles of sustainability and New England authenticity, the prices are “cheap” for NY and for lobster rolls: get a whole Lobster Roll for $14 or an ideal “snack size” for $8. Loaded with buttery lobster from Maine and a light coating of mayo, it may not be my beloved (and the ultimate seafood stop) Pearl’s in the Village, but it’s a tasty steal. For an extra $2, get the roll with Maine Root Soda, Miss Vickie’s chips and a pickle.

Aquavit’s aquavit.

SCANDINAVIAN FEAST
Aquavit Bistro – Aquavit, the restaurant through which chef Marcus Samuelsson left a mark on modern Scandinavian cooking, has become one of the great Scandinavian restaurants, a cuisine not easy to find in the US. I adore the region’s focus on fresh fish, salmon, caviar, herring and, of course, the namesake spirit, aquavit. Looking for deals, I dined in the spare, upscale IKEA bistro, versus the more stuffy, pricey dining room. Quality does not suffer in the bistro, while service is gracious and well-orchestrated. I ordered a $17 flight of three (or $7 each) of the house-infused aquavits, though narrowing down flavors was problematic, as all three were all lovely, from a crisp cucumber, hot mango-lime-chili, to my favorite: horseradish. Each dish delights and portions are generous. Gravlax is heaping slices of bright, cured salmon in hovmastar (a mustard/white vinegar based sauce) with dill and lemon. I equally fell for matjes herring: thin slices of herring with finely diced yellow beets, red onions and sour cream. Swedish meatballs were the best I’ve ever had, redolent with cinnamon and gentle spicing in the meat, piled next to whipped potato puree, pickled cucumbers, sweet lingonberries, and addictive cream sauce. This is a New York favorite and I’m more than a little sad not to have a place like it here in SF.

Addicts unanimous

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Addicts unanimous

arts@sfbg.com

LIT What is it about addiction memoirs? Like Pringles — something food junkie Frank Bruni might know something about — you just can’t have one. They’re easy to devour and easy to digest, as compulsively consumable as the impulsions they’re filled with.

While they certainly won’t have the final say in the matter, two recent addiction memoirs, Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man (Little, Brown, and Company; 240 pages, $23.99) by Bill Clegg and Born Round (Penguin, 368 pages, $16) by Frank Bruni, fit the genre’s high-stakes bill.

“I can’t leave and there isn’t enough,” declares the first line of Portrait, as Clegg stares at the crumbs in a bag of crack and the crumbs of his successful career as a literary agent. This is only the beginning of what quickly becomes a journey into an all too lucid nightmare.

The articles in the title suggest that Clegg’s story — while not anonymous the way Go Ask Alice was in the ’70s when readers were convinced of its authenticity — isn’t remarkable because addiction is, well, wholly unremarkable. Clegg makes this clear in his episodic telling of day after day, night after night of crack binges and self-inflicted explosions and implosions.

Clegg’s prose is like beautiful quicksand — calm in its capture, deadly in its swallow. In some of the book’s ugliest moments, he abstracts himself from the mire through third-person, conjuring an out-of-body experience and pressing himself against the glass case of his own madness. ” … He feels the high at first as a flutter, then a roar … It is the warmest, most tender caress he has ever felt and then, as it recedes, the coldest hand.” The book’s brazen unsentimentality is its best and most addictive ingredient.

Yet whatever goes down comes up. There’s always the flipside to addiction and consumption: expulsion. While Clegg, with the crack toke count rising, arrives at a sickly ectomorphic physique — perfectly captured in the perhaps unfelicitously cartoonish book cover — Frank Bruni, in his college years, aims for a similar build with the help of amphetamines and bulimia. In Born Round, he “regurgitates” — his words, not mine — his insatiable struggle with appetite as he moves up the food chain from addict to critic. It’s something he believes he was “congenitally rigged” for, he tells me in a phone interview.

Born hungry into a large Italian family of enablers, Bruni pokes fun at his gut — and his gastronomical gusto — with flippant prose that puts everything out on the proverbial five-course table. Food is Bruni’s own version of crack, and Born Round shows how his diet stood in the way of promotions, led to body dysmorphia, and found him getting cozy with the fridge on date night. (“It was Haagen-Dazs or love. I couldn’t have both.”)

In working with a genre that’s been tried-and-sometimes-true (think James Frey’s 2003 A Million Little Pieces), these books beg the question: Do we really need another addiction memoir?

“I didn’t think of keeping it fresh or whether or not the world needed another one,” Clegg tells me when I broach the question. “The landscape of other addiction memoirs didn’t occur to me. The writing of [Portrait] preceded any idea of it being published. When I first started, it was just a transcription of memories while I was in rehab.”

Bruni, former food critic for the New York Times and still a writer there, performs a similar rewinding of the memory-tape. He even goes back to a time when, as a toddler, he wept for a third hamburger. “I couldn’t just sit down and … reproduce chapters of my life,” he says during our conversation. “I had to do an in-my-head interview with myself like I would with a profile subject.”

Bruni is among a minority of men in dialogue about eating disorders today. “Almost all the discussion about eating disorders is focused on women,” he says. “Society … tells men to be stoic and that talking about ooey-gooey vulnerabilities is not masculine.”

Both memoirs get at the heart of addiction’s tedium. In each tawdry vignette of Clegg’s cracked-out narrative, he moves like a sleepwalker with no hope of waking, prodding the underbelly of New York in the mean search for a fix. It’s a broken record: cab ride, hotel room, cab ride, hotel room, and the paranoia in-between. These urban encounters are the stuff of Hubert Selby Jr.

Bruni moves at a like rhythm, throwing up meals as if it were breathing or blinking: a habit he just can’t kick. Something, as he writes, “encoded in [his] genes.”

Perhaps the act of buying into a memoir is like paying admission for a nasty, self-indulgent carnival (for example, Eat Pray Love). Or perhaps it’s just fuel for postmodern narcissism. Ex-denizens of addiction’s terrain will marvel at how both Bruni and Clegg balk at blaming others. Though if I were Bruni, I might blame his mom and her bacon-wrapped hot dogs.

There are moments in Portrait where Clegg peers beneath the detritus to blame some bad parenting, but in the end, he really blames no one. “The process of repair will be going on for the rest of my life,” Clegg tells me. “My primary work is with other alcoholics and addicts. It’s through that work I stay sober and rebuild my relationships.”

Bruni says the heavy lifting is in “constantly reminding yourself where you’ve been, where you don’t want to go, and how you got to those places that make you unhappy.” His temptations to binge remain at large. “Just last night after … a really good meal in a restaurant,” he explains, “I came close to buying a pint of ice cream. I took a deep breath and said, okay, are you really hungry? Are you thinking about the potential subtle difference you’ll feel in your pants tomorrow if you eat this?” Bruni’s a funny guy, and I want to laugh, but I don’t. “It’s … an ongoing struggle that I don’t think will ever end.”

Though there’s no end in sight for Clegg and Bruni, at least they’re not tacking on a happy ending and pulling any punches, because, ultimately, that would be relapsing.

FRANK BRUNI: BORN ROUND

Sun/25, 4 p.m. free

Omnivore Books

3885 Cesar Chavez, SF

www.omnivorebooks.com

Mon/26, 7 p.m., free

Books Inc.

1760 Fourth St., Berk.

www.booksinc.net

Appetite: Paging through M.F.K. Fisher’s kitchen

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Appetite: Paging through M.F.K. Fisher’s kitchen

Like any self-respecting food lover (and writer), I’m well aware that, hands down, M.F.K. Fisher (Mary Frances) is our greatest food writer, and I’ve been pursuing the pleasurable endeavor of working my way through her entire catalog over the years.

As with my literature preferences, I find myself more often drawn to the classics, or, in this case, first flush of food writers who set the tone mid-20th century, like A.J. Liebling (read “Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris”) and Angelo Pellegrini (read “The Unprejudiced Palate”), though none have the impact on me that Fisher does.

She writes of food, travel, life but most importantly, she writes… drawing you in, enveloping you first and foremost with her person, heart, and poetic style.

There have been numerous books written about her over the years but one that landed on my desk was a 2008 UC Press edition of M.F.K. Fisher Among the Pots & Pans by Joan Reardon.


The book is a straightforward biography summarizing key points in Mary Frances’ (I love that Reardon calls her by the name she preferred to be called) life and complicated relationships, but through the intriguing slant of the many homes she lived in, particularly the kitchens she cooked in, from California to France.

Irish illustrator Avram Dumitrescu paints warm vignettes of her kitchens, imparting a friendly glow to the book, and complimenting photos of Mary Frances. Whether it be the cover illustration of her kitchen in Hemet, CA, or those in her St. Helena and Glen Ellen homes, one gets a glimpse into Mary Frances, the cook, though she was first and foremost a writer.

As her birthday recently came and went on July 3rd (she would have been 102), it’s as good a time as any to read and reflect on one of our most gifted writers, who just also happened to love food.

Appetite: With Campo de Encanto, SF gets its own pisco

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Appetite: With Campo de Encanto, SF gets its own pisco

You might have heard? There’s a new pisco on the streets “for bartenders, by bartenders”: Encanto Pisco, created by Duggan McDonnell of Cantina, sommelier and spirits guru Walter Moore, and Peruvian master distiller Carlos Romero. Although an authentically Peruvian pisco (distilled — and already making waves — in Peru), it’s a homegrown San Francisco product, a labor of love from locals who know their spirits.

I had the privilege of tasting this acholado (blended) pisco before its release and now with the finished product, am delighted at how balanced it is: floral, with hints of citrus and white pepper. It stands up on its own, going down smoothly much as a brandy or eau-de-vie would, but also an ideal base for cocktails, with a large number of bars around town already stocking it. Alembic was the first to do so, it’s also at pisco havens La Mar Cebichería and Pisco Lounge, while Carlos Yturria showcased it with fig, sage and lemon at the inaugural Pickled, in Absinthe’s back room.

Campo de Encanto means ‘Field of Enchantment’, a romantic spirit evident in gorgeous, vintage-style bottling to the artisanal production of this grape brandy in the Ica Valley of Peru, combining three different grape varietals: Quebranta (76%), Torontel (6%), and Italia (18%). Encanto is sustainably harvested and distilled without preservatives, sugar or even a drop of water.

San Francisco has a rich history and love affair with pisco, inventing some of pisco’s greatest drinks like the Pisco Punch, so it seems fitting that we now have a pisco to call our own. And one of the finer, more approachable piscos at that.

You can purchase Encanto at stores like Cask or The Jug Shop

www.encantopisco.com

Appetite: Don’t forget to remember — Mission Beach Cafe

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Appetite: Don’t forget to remember — Mission Beach Cafe

In the wake of last year’s closings, at the beginning of the year I began reflecting on those neighborhood spots or classic restaurants we often forget are there but don’t want to lose. From time to time, I share reviews of places we’d do well to re-visit… or get to for the first time. They might be receiving a fresh infusion of flavor from recent chef or menu changes, or remain noteworthy, despite floods of new openings and (over)hyped hot spots.

Mission Beach Cafe, aka MBC, a welcoming corner restaurant many go to for brunch or incredible baked goods and Blue Bottle coffee in the morning, has maintained a rare level of quality through a handful of chef changes. I am amazed at how delicious dinners here remain: from chef Thomas Martinez (see my 2009 review at The Perfect Spot) to heartwarming Pot Pie Tuesdays. For about six months, they’ve had a new chef, Trevor Ogden, who most recently worked at Umami, at the now defunct Frisson and with Stephanie Izzard in Chicago. Though young, like former Chef Martinez, there’s inventive maturity in Ogden’s work.

A recent visit yielded literally one pleasurable dish after the other:

– MBC has thankfully kept their killer flatbread of the day ($14) on the menu. Ogden prepared ours with a goat gouda infused with hops (yes, you heard right), layered with crisp corn, caramelized ramps, chicken and two pepper purees (red pepper and padron).

– One of the stand-outs in a stand-out meal, is tea-smoked albacore tuna ($14) topped with quail eggs, caviar, chili creme fraiche and dotted with crispy lemon-saffron risotto. A visual work of art and a lightly seductive pleasure to the palate.

– Mixed baby lettuces ($10) are shaped into bowl cupping mounds of avocado, red spring onions, toybox tomatoes, herbed tofu and walnuts in a creamy cabernet vinaigrette.

Artful smokes and grilled Hodo tofu

– I’m so not a vegetarian, but one of two vegetarian entrees was a favorite of mine: smoked and grilled Hodo tofu ($17) is in good company with zucchini, toybox summer squash, eggplant, grilled corn and forbidden black rice. A little sweet comes in the form of strawberries and strawberry rhubarb glaze.

– Organic pork tenderloin ($23) is comforting with roasted German butterball potatoes, cipollini onions, baby carrots and sugar snap peas. But when it’s cooked in rosemary brown butter and drizzled with white peach pork jus, it’s downright luxurious.

– Pan-seared branzino ($25) arrives stacked over shaved fennel, summer squash and pea tendrils. The fish is delicate but the skin adds crisp and saltiness. Most addictive is the Vidalia onion/Yukon gold soubise and tomato-lemon verbena broth accenting the dish.

– Those truffle fries resting under shaved parmesan ($5) are as fabulous as they ever were.

– Alan Carter holds the crown of pastry chef extraordinaire and his pies ($6.50-7 a slice) are still mama’s home cooking and a long-awaited holiday rolled into one. It’s like coming home to his banana butterscotch cream or chocolate pecan pies, but I was especially entranced with my beloved rhubarb (thank you, summer!) in his strawberry rhubarb pie.

Alan Carter’s magnificent pies

I am happy to (continue) to say, do not forget to return to Mission Beach Cafe.

198 Guerrero Street (at 14th Street)
(415) 861-0198
www.missionbeachcafesf.com

Appetite: Rogue wines and hearty burgers

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Appetite: Rogue wines and hearty burgers

B3 — or B-cubed, as in “Bottles, Burgers and Bites” — should finally see the light of day on July 20 (call to confirm as this is the hoped-for grand opening). I had the privilege a couple months ago of being part of a test dinner for B3, which set up shop in the former Senses space on Valencia, redone in warm, neutral tones. I’m delighted to give you the preview scoop (see original details in The Perfect Spot), as I have been following this concept since inception.

Basically, B3 is part wine tasting spot, part full-service restaurant with a burger and sausage emphasis as well as a retail wine source. You taste wines as if you were at a tasting room (don’t call it a wine bar!) and can purchase what you’re tasting by the bottle or case at retail prices rather than at restaurant mark-up.

Rogue wines for days. Photo by Virginia Miller

Wine guys Johnny Gato and Ron Elder invested personal passion into a hand-selected list of affordable local bottles difficult to procure from small-production winemakers — most don’t even have a wine tasting facility. Many are influenced by Old World technique with modern interpretations. Just start talking to Gato and Elder and you’ll begin to discover all kinds of Wine Country gems you had no idea were there… not your typical California wines. Initially the focus will be Napa and Sonoma producers, but they eventually plan to showcase wines (roughly 50 on hand at any given time) from regions like Dundee Hills, Willamette Valley, or Santa Barbara, with a goal to rotate wines monthly.

The wine aspect of B3 is called the Winemakers’ Speakeasy, an idea in development since 2008, referring to the underground status of the type of wines they want to share with the consumer… truly “small batch”, without wine tasting facilities, “by appointment” tours, or major distributors. In many cases, you wouldn’t be able to try the kind of wines served here unless you bought a bottle at one of the few restaurants or shops that carry them. They’re what Gato calls “rogue” or “punk rock” wines.

Through Gato, who has worked at Moussy’s and Bouchon in Napa, I’ve discovered incredible wineries such as Napa’s Forlorn Hope, bittersweetly named after the term used to describe the front line of soldiers in a high-risk military operation. I’m smitten with their floral, bright ‘08 La Gitana Torrontes, fabulously layered ‘07 Nacre Semillion, and ‘05 Gascony Cadets Petit Verdot. Then there’s Poem Cellars in Yountville, who’s wines are often sold out completely, particularly their light and spicy 2006 Tastevin Napa Valley Red (only 140 cases produced). Or Beaucanon’s ‘07 Cabernet Franc, Y. Rousseau’s ‘08 Russian River Valley Colombard and ‘08 ‘Milady’ Mount Veeder Chardonnay, Peripolli’s ‘06 Sauvignon Blanc. Just ask Gato, who has followed these wineries closely in his Napa years with a dream to bring them “on the road” to the general public, and he’ll tell you about the wine itself but also stories behind winemakers and wineries. Each glass becomes something personal, fascinating.

Chef Kevin Ahajanian, who worked with Gato at Bouchon, is keeping it solid with a burger and sausage menu. If the test dinner and initial menu is any indication, you won’t suffer on the food front. You can top your burger with everything from a fried Petaluma egg to Humboldt Fog cheese. There’s lush salads, like a B-Cubed cobb with chicken breast confit, bourbon brown sugar Hobbs bacon and Point Reyes blue cheese.

Yep, there’s some luscious salad in there, too. Photo by Virginia Miller

Or maybe you want a Boudin Noir (aka blood) sausage with choice of pineapple salsa, roasted apples, roasted red peppers or house slaw on top? Ahajanian doesn’t leave vegans and vegetarians out — there will be burgers for them. He has fun with the details, like making his own ketchup, blanching fresh-cut potatoes in rice bran oil, or serving sausages in buns layered with mashed potatoes. In a nod to all things local, dessert is Humphry Slocombe ice cream (including those addictive foie gras ice cream sandwiches), Mission Mini cupcakes or Recchiuti chocolates.

The B3 crew eventually plans to launch lunch and weekend brunch, becoming a go-to for wine lovers and a pre and post-shift source for industry types to stop in for a bite or drink. Though wine is clearly the focus, they’ll also offer six beers on tap, another 8-10 by the bottle. And with a twice nightly happy hour, it’s going to be an unusual wine and burger spot where you can meet lovingly-made, truly small batch wines… and even take them home with you.

Tue-Sun, 3pm-2am (wine happy hours: 3-6pm, 10pm-12am)
1152 Valencia, SF.
415-401-7258
Reservations: should have Open Table reservations by opening date

Appetite: Bar buzz

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Appetite: Bar buzz

Shuffling action around SF’s best bars has been steady in recent weeks: Neyah White leaves Nopa to become Yamazaki’s brand ambassador, Brooke Arthur exits Range to head up the bar at brand new Prospect, Reza Esmali departs Smuggler’s Cove to revamp Long Bar on Fillmore, Steven Liles journeys from Fifth Floor over to Smuggler’s Cove… Thankfully, there are others holding steady offering new seasonal menus or launching a new pop-up bar:

RICKHOUSE — It’s been a rewarding summer thus far for Rickhouse and its talented bar manager, Erick Castro, already. First, Castro won one of two mixologist of the year awards at StarChefs Rising Stars, then Rickhouse was nominated for three awards (more than any other SF bars) in the international nominees list for Tales of the Cocktail this year: Best American Cocktail Bar, World’s Best Cocktail Menu, World’s Best New Cocktail Bar. So it seems as a good a time as any to re-visit Rickhouse to try their brand new Seasonal Summer Cocktail menu — with eight original drinks plus one new punch — especially when they’re as good as Ginger’s Trois ($8).This was tops of the few I tried last week, effervescent with sparkling wine, smooth with Plymouth Gin, fresh lime and mint, balanced with bitters, lightly spicy with ginger. I hope this is a permanent menu fixture. A Cherry Blossom Cobbler ($8) is a sno-cone tower of ice, topped with a cherry, rich with Yamazaki 12-year whisky, organic cherry blossom jam and lemon juice. On the spirituous side is a Paper Plane ($9), refreshingly strong with bourbon, Aperol, Amaro Nonino and lemon juice.
246 Kearny, SF
415-398-2827
www.rickhousebar.com

 

CLOCK BAR — Clock Bar’s fairly new GM, Phillip Barcio (formerly of Ramblas), launches his first seasonal menu, one of three throughout the year (“seasons” being grouped by produce): a May-September/berry season menu ($12-14 per cocktail). At a preview night last week, it was a joy to witness farmers and producers congregated at Clock Bar who provided much of the produce or ingredients for the menu’s cocktails.

Clock Bar’s inviting decor

The menu is ambitious, playful and farm fresh, with every drink featuring a different spirit and seasonal produce or local and house-made sodas and syrups. An Oregon 609 is complex but bright with Bols Genever, olallieberry marmalade, Cynar, Benedictine and lemon, though maybe my least favorite of the three I tried. Carl is a lighter take on absinthe (featuring Swiss Kubler absinthe) with apricot reduction and a zippy house root beer. Nutty, creamy dessert comes in the form of a Mission Flip with Pampero Aniversario Rum, house cane syurp, Mission fig reduction and a whole fresh egg. It seems a locally-embracing new season has dawned at Clock Bar.
335 Powell, in Westin St Francis Hotel, SF
(415) 397-9222
www.michaelmina.net

 

PICKLED at ABSINTHE — Yes, it’s a pop-up bar called Pickled, happening on the last Monday of every month in Absinthe’s private dining room, with ever-changing drinks created by bar manager Carlos Yturria.

Carlos Yturria behind the bar at Pickled at Absinthe

I stopped in inaugural night, June 28. A wide range of spirits are represented, from armagnac to mezcal ($10-12 a cocktail), and there’s also a revolving offering of bar bites to go with. Pisco showed itself beautiful in Carlos’ crushed ice presentation with figs, sage, lemon and a candied fig chip on top. Kudos for using my new local favorite pisco, Encanto. Close the night with a little finish of Carlos’ candied strip of rhubarb.
Last Monday of every month, 5:30-10pm
388 Hayes, SF.
(415) 551-1590
www.absinthe.com

Our Weekly Picks: June 31-July 6

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 30

FILM

The Hidden Fortress

There are certain experiences that, when given the chance, you should never pass up. Skydiving, for instance. Eating unusually good pizza. Seeing a Kurosawa film on the big screen. Well rejoice, reader, because at least one of those three is within your immediate grasp. UC Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive is celebrating the centennial of Akira Kurosawa’s birth with a summer-long retrospective. On June 30, it will be showing The Hidden Fortress (1958), which directly inspired the (good) Star Wars trilogy and by proxy, pretty much every lighthearted action/fantasy caper you’ve ever seen. Also keep an eye out for The Seven Samurai (1954) on July 17, Yojimbo (1961) on July 24, and Ran (1985) on Aug. 21. (Zach Ritter)

7 p.m., $5.50–$9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk

(510) 642-5249

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

EVENT

God’s Lunatics

One of the main problems with today’s secularist revival is that it has no sense of the grotesque. Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are bright dudes, but they can be just as dour and unyielding as their fundamentalist targets. They tend to lose sight of the notion that fanatics are more susceptible to mockery than they are to sober polemics. Enter award-winning author Michael Largo, whose new book God’s Lunatics takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of faith’s more ridiculous manifestations. The work presents a Victorian freak show of cult leaders, mystics, and crusaders from throughout history, chronicling the chaos and pitch-black comedy that inevitably results when humans exchange rational thought for passionate, earnest insanity. (Ritter)

7 p.m., free

Modern Times Bookstore

888 Valencia, SF

(415) 282-9246

www.mtbs.com

 

THEATER

Young Frankenstein

If you’ve seen Mel Brooks’ classic spoof Young Frankenstein (1974), you know that migrating humps, rolls in ze hay, and correcting people’s mispronunciation of his name are all in a day’s work for the young Dr. Frankenstein. But apart from his monster’s debut, which features a classy take on “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” he’s not necessarily one for musical numbers. Until 2007, that is, when the stage musical adaptation of the film premiered in Seattle, then migrated to Broadway, following in the footsteps of Brooks’ successful musical reworking of The Producers (1968) with collaborator Thomas Meehan. Now SF gets a taste of the wackiness, perhaps followed by the inevitable (if unfortunate) readaptation into film. (Sam Stander)

Through July 25

Tues.–Sat., 8 p.m. (also Wed. and Sat., 2 p.m.);

Sun, 2 p.m., $30–$99

Golden Gate Theatre

One Taylor, SF

(415) 551-2000

www.shnsf.com

 

THURSDAY 1

VISUAL ART

“Renaissance”

Many of the images in Bill Armstrong’s “Renaissance” series possess the eeriness of a certain strain of uncanny portrait photography, but these photos don’t incorporate living models. They’re defocused captures of Renaissance-era drawings that Armstrong has painted over with bright swathes of color. The out-of-focus effect combines with his choice of colors to lend the photos a haunting depth, so much so that it’s sometimes easy to forget the inanimate qualities of the subjects. Despite their vivaciousness, the sometimes bizarre hues prevent the images from seeming entirely organic. By photographing works of printed art, Armstrong plays with the idea of the photographic subject, resulting in these deceptively simple and fascinating shots. (Stander)

Through Aug. 28

Opening 5:30–7:30 p.m., free

Dolby Chadwick Gallery

210 Post, SF

(415) 956-3560

www.dolbychadwickgallery.com

 

FRIDAY 2

FILM

San Francisco Frozen Film Festival

The San Francisco Frozen Film festival’s mission statement insists “we seek to unfreeze the arts frozen beneath the weighty realities of prejudice, poverty, ignorance, and isolation.” I’m just hoping that means the name does not, in fact, reference Mark Twain’s played-out ol’ chestnut about summer temperatures in San Francisco. Whatever. This intriguing, up-and-coming fest plunges into its fourth incarnation with Dive, a doc about Dumpster diving, and continues with a variety of shorts programs (doc, experimental, animated, comedic — there’s even a “crime and western” category!), plus features like Do It Again (Kinks), about a fan’s rabid quest to get his favorite band to reunite, and 16 mm New Jersey surf film A Pleasant Surprise. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sat/3, $10

Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF

www.frozenfilmfestival.com

 

THEATER

Left of Oz

No matter how many times The Wizard of Oz is revamped, remade, or spoofed, the results are always different from what came before. This summer season, Left of Oz comes to Ashby Stage, and if you couldn’t guess by the title, the tagline — “Dorothy Comes Out!” — gives away the game. Dorothy swaps the yellow brick road for a bus to San Francisco, where she hopes to find herself and some Sapphic loving. Left borrows clichés associated with San Francisco (tie-dye, marijuana, yoga) and merges them with the fantasy elements of Victor Fleming’s 1939 movie, flipping the whole sparkly thing on its head. There may have been previous queer readings of Oz, but Left has to be among the most playful. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Through July 18

Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun, 7 p.m., $25–$50

Ashby Stage

1901 Ashby, Berk.

(510) 841-6500

www.leftofoz.com

 

MUSIC

Carte Blanche

It may be impossible to predict the music game, but so far DJ Mehdi is 1 for zero. Sure, these days it’s not uncommon for a hip-hop single to blatantly cop a beat from Daft Punk, but French DJ Mehdi Favéris-Essadi has been mixing the hip-hop and dance since the days when finding Daft Punk on your rap CD was like finding a cockroach in your cereal. Now the Ed Banger cohort has hooked up with U.K. house DJ Riton to form the duo Carte Blanche, and the pair are banging out hard Chicago house like it’s next in line to take over the world. With Mehdi’s track record, I wouldn’t necessarily count it out. With White Girl Lust, Alona, and Shane King. (Peter Galvin)

9 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

EVENT

“Mission Muralismo Celebrates the Graff Convention”

If there’s one thing the de Young Museum is prospering at recently, it’s the way it has been bringing SF communities not usually done right by the fine art world into its fold, and respectfully. From establishing its Native American Programs Board to this week’s continuation of the Mission Muralismo street art event series, more of the neighborhood is finding reasons to get its bags searched to enter that crazy bronze building. At the Graff Convention, the city’s top burners and sprayers will share their knowledge in lecture form, and Audiobraille will supply funky Latin jazz beats. Just don’t bring your new aerosol — that shit will get taken for sure. (Caitlin Donohue)

5–8:45 p.m., free

de Young Museum

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., SF

(415) 750-3600

www.famsf.org

 

SATURDAY 3

MUSIC

Fillmore Jazz Festival

San Francisco has no shortage of street fairs. But unlike those held in the duller byways of suburbia, each gathering has its own neighborhood flavor: the Haight hosts a hippie happening, Union Street conveys a yuppie flair, and the Fillmore pays homage to the music that made it famous back in the day: jazz. Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington rocked the local clubs then, and while the area has changed dramatically over the years, there’s a bit of a flashback feel during this annual fest. Along with the usual street food and craft vendors, there’ll be stages of talent, including Bobbie Webb and the Smooth Blues Band, Kim Nalley, Marcus Shelby Orchestra, the Coltrane Church, and much more. (Eddy)

Through Sun/4

10 a.m.–6 p.m., free

Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF

www.fillmorejazzfestival.com

 

SUNDAY 4

EVENT

“Pooches on Parade”

For its second year in a row, Half Moon Bay hosts “Pooches On Parade,” where you can show off your dog-walking skills — oh, and your dog, of course — if Fido or Fifi is up to par, that is. If you don’t have a dog, the event coordinators are willing to spare their imaginary dogs, Cuff and Link. Even a stuffed animal will suffice. Afterward, if all the doggone mayhem awakens your carnivorous appetite, there’s a “Bark BQ” where you and your pooch can dine while enjoying a live band. Unless you’re a staunch cat person, so many dogs in one place is probably reason enough to make the trip down coastside. (Lattanzio)

Noon, free ($10 for same-day parade registration)

Main Street

Half Moon Bay

www.poochesonparade.org

 

EVENT/DANCE

“Tango in the Square”

As we’ve all been repeatedly reminded, “it takes two to tango.” But before pairing off, it might be useful to learn a few basics by yourself. You can start by promenading (yes, that’s a step) over to Union Square for “Tango in the Square.” The event is part of Union Square’s 2010 Jewels in the Square series, which offers free lessons in milonga, tango, and vals (tango waltz). With hot new moves, you’ll be ready to hit the square’s open dance floor. Choose among a variety of partners (professional and amateur), watch performances by experienced tango dancers, or simply enjoy the live music by the Argentine tango band Tangonero. (Gaydos)

2 p.m., free

Union Square

Powell and Geary, SF

www.unionsquarepark.us/JewelsJuly

 

EVENT

Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration

If patriotic displays of gunpowder are what you seek on America’s 234th birthday, Bay Area skies will not let you down. Particularly brave San Francisco residents and their pushy out-of-town guests can head to Pier 39 for a full day of Uncle Sam-endorsed fun, with live music (including “the soft rock explosion of Mustache Harbor” — God bless irony, and God bless the U.S.A.), street performers, and fireworks galore. Pray for an unfoggy night, kids. Alternative: live in the Mission? Get thee to your roof to spot all the homespun, charmingly dangerous fireworks that inevitably appear every July 4. You’ll be up all night listening to them anyway. (Eddy)

3–9:30 p.m., free

Pier 39, SF

www.pier39.com/Events

 

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Appetite: More intriguing June openings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: More intriguing June openings

It’s been an exhausting, thrilling whirl of new openings this month (check out last week’s Appetite). As usual, I hit most new SF openings right away, then continue to revisit as they settle in (if they are worth revisiting, which is often the case). Here’s an initial take on more recent openings. For further details, check out my upcoming July 1st issue of The Perfect Spot)

SKOOL – On a sunny, Potrero Hill afternoon during Skool’s (soft) opening week, June 21, I wandered over to this new fish haven run by husband and wife duos, Toshihoro and Hiroko Nagano (of my beloved Bushi Tei) and Andy and Olia Mirabell (of Blowfish Sushi to Die For). The Zen-peace of the patio, enclosed in gorgeous Japanese foliage, is brightened by orange Aperol umbrellas. Inside it’s sleek, Japanese minimalism in the form of warm, brown woods and gentle lighting. I’m already plotting another visit this week and anticipating their addition of dinner once they get their liquor license (lunch only at the moment). They make good sans alcohol with fine teas, Illy coffee and virgin drinks like Teacher’s Pet ($4): apple juice, honey water, topped with ginger foam and a basil leaf. I almost don’t miss a cocktail.There’s hefty “lunch box” sandwiches, like Dungeness crab ($13) tossed in a light mayo with yuzu whole grain mustard, topped with avocado, butter lettuce, tomato, and a poached free range egg; or a Washugyu Sandwich ($15) with coffee-marinated washu-beef, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, caramelized onion, pepper cress and wasabi aioli. Dessert offers a seductively jiggly Lavender Panna Cotta ($6), surprisingly light, delicately drizzled with a honey vanilla bean sauce. I definitely see a Bushi Tei freshness and creativity at work here. And how can you not fall in love with that patio?

1725 Alameda, SF
(415) 255-8800
www.skoolsf.com

SPICE KIT — Just opened June 28, this airy, high-ceilinged take-out spot with a few tables inside and out on a patio in the shadow of SoMa high-rises, Spice Kit keeps its menu simple. Choose a ssam (stuffed Korean rice paper wrap), Vietnamese banh mi or salad with five-spice chicken, beef shortrib, roasted pork or seared/braised organic tofu. Sides are simple (crispy lotus chips, grilled pork belly buns), as are drinks (Calamansi Limeade, Vietnamese iced coffee), and prices happily under $8. Spice Kit may not exactly be Momofuku West, but it does have hints of that ethos, opened by two self-proclaimed French-trained Asian guys who cooked at restaurants you may have heard of: The French Laundry and Per Se? I wouldn’t say travel across town for it, but if you work nearby, it’ll most likely be added to your lunch rotation.

405 Howard, SF.
(415) 882-4581
www.spicekit.com

 

ROAM ARTISAN BURGERS — I’ve tasted through all four burgers at Cow Hollow’s new burger joint, which opened on June 21: grass-fed beef, bison (lean, meaty), turkey, and veggie. All come with various topping choices, whether fried egg or Southwestern veggies, but the veggie burger especially impressed. Veggie burgers never taste like (or replace) meat burgers for me, but this is a unique, veggie sandwich with patties made primarily of quinoa and beets, loaded with avocado. Straus Creamery (http://www.strausfamilycreamery.com) shakes are lush in flavors like Salted Caramel and Matcha Green Tea. Kombucha on tap is refreshingly smooth. But Sweet Potato Fries cooked in maple syrup may have been my favorite item at this casually chic burger lounge.
 

1785 Union Street
(415) 440-7626
www.roamburgers.com

Appetite: Intriguing June openings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Intriguing June openings

It’s been an exhausting, thrilling whirl of new openings in SF this month. And it’s not quite over yet… as usual, I hit most new SF openings right away, then continue to revisit as they settle in (if they are worth revisiting, which is often the case). Here’s a quick, initial take on openings of the past week or two, with more to come next week (for more details, check out my upcoming July 1st issue of The Perfect Spot):

SAISON — Walk through the side gate of Stable Cafe, with unique 1800’s carriage house setting, and enter Saison’s newly remodeled garden, evocative of an Italian or Mediterranean villa patio: white lights strung across the courtyard, lemon tree emitting a soft citrus scent, rocking chair and vintage ashtray stand inviting you to linger with a glass of wine, and wood-burning hearth (which will also be a bread baking oven with mention of whole animal cooking to come)? Entirely transporting.

Chef and owner Joshua Skenes has taken his acclaimed weekly “pop-up” and launched a full, Tuesday through Saturday restaurant, opened June 22.  Cooking on the only Molteni stove in the Bay Area, the 30-seat interior is minimalist, but warm and glowing, with open flow between dining room and kitchen. Prices are hefty for this unusual dining experience, from a one nightly seating, $98 per person/8-course tasting menu, to a four-seat chef’s counter at $200 per person, or a two-seat chef’s table with 20 customized courses at $200 to $500 per person (!) They were very smart to add the casual, enchanting patio to the mix with a la carte options for those not partaking in multi-courses. Something for everyone.

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Saison’s garden entrance

At a pre-opening dinner, I sampled possible menu offerings, while Sommelier Mark Bright kept us satiated with wine pairings like affordable 2005 Chateau de Montpezat Coteaux du Languedoc and 2004 Neal Ellis Shiraz. Dishes were delicate, tiny, artistic, and, of course, farm fresh, from hand-picked, local ingredients. Highlights include crispy sweetbreads roasted with caramelized honey and intriguing slant of berbere spicing, as well as a perfect rendition of one of my favorites: rhubarb as a sorbet on milk granite with tart strips of rhubarb decorating the sorbet.
2124 Folsom, SF.
(415)828-7990
www.saisonsf.com

 

PROSPECT — Nancy Oakes, Kathy King and Pamela Mazzola of Boulevard opened the long-anticipated Prospect restaurant with a stellar crew: Ravi Kapur as chef, Brooke Arthur (long a favorite for her cocktail menu at Range), and Amy Currens as Wine Director (formerly of Luce). You couldn’t ask for a better line-up, with all the elegance of Boulevard but more of an experimental, hip approach.

The space is huge, almost corporate-looking, but warmed by brown tones and centered bar. Granted, I haven’t dined fully here yet but at the pre-opening party, I sampled a wide range of the food (at least ten dishes), pretty much all of it stellar, as well as three fine cocktails. The kitchen is impressive, allowing a finely tuned team to crank out Dayboat scallops ($16) with summer truffles and shaved squash, better-than-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches, and whole wheat crepes ($19) stuffed with ricotta, nettles and roasted mushrooms. I love black cod ($14) in red curry with snap peas, shiitakes, and lightly-fried shiso shrimp fritters. Desserts were equally intriguing from a blissfully dark, creamy chocolate mousse/cake topped with berries, to the truly unique presentation and taste of cherries atop a thyme pavlova ($8) with vanilla, black pepper and frozen yogurt.

Cocktails ($10-11) were all high quality from a tart, bracing Mr. White (Pueblo Viejo blanco tequila, St. Germain elderflower, strawberry mint shrub, lime) to a balanced Prospector (Wild Turkey Rye 101, Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur, Drambuie, pineapple gum, lemon). I suspect Prospect is going to become a key SF dining and drinking destination.
300 Spear, SF.
(415) 247-7770
www.prospectsf.com

HOOKER’S SWEET TREATS — The name continually prompts the obvious jokes, but all that aside, Hooker’s Sea Salt Dark Chocolate-covered Caramels are as addictive and bitchin’ as everyone says.

Hooker’s caramel and a capuccino

Visiting opening day, I found it’s not merely a storefront for the caramels (expensive at $2 each, $7 for 3, or $20 for 10), but also for wonderful coffee and capuccinos from Sightglass, serving the first of their own roasted beans here (returning the favor since Sightglass first sold Hooker’s caramels). They bake bread pudding daily (always wins points with me), a nod to the owner’s Louisiana roots (another point!) The space is cozy, with one communal table that gazes lazily out a window framed by a leafy tree, and turn-of-the-century country kitchen decor of dark blue and wood. Along with microscopic Farm:Table, there’s two linger-worthy, coffee mecca cafes in this neck of the ‘Loin.

442 Hyde, SF.
www.hookerssweettreats.com

Appetite: Elizabeth Falkner’s fantastic new dessert menu at Bubble Lounge

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Elizabeth Falkner’s fantastic new dessert menu at Bubble Lounge

Elizabeth Falkner is easily one of the widely acknowledged pastry greats in the US and chef of two SF restaurants, including Citizen Cake, which is moving to Fillmore Street, hopefully open by the beginning of July. Bubbly lover Falkner has created something sweet at Bubble Lounge, eager to take on creating desserts meant to pair with champagne/sparkling wine. She trained Bubble Lounge’s crew on preparing the menu which launched on 6/16.

At a sneak preview tasting of the entire menu with Falkner, I was impressed by the range of tastes covered in these five unique desserts, as well as their approachability. It gets even better when paired with Bubble Lounge Wine Director, Sabawun Kakar’s fine champagne pairings (more on Kakar and Bubble Lounge in my Perfect Spot newsletter).

Falkner says, “I love the balance of acid, sweetness and richness these desserts offer and it makes pairing with champagne really fun. I want to wake up the palate with refreshing flavors, no overkill anywhere.” Her creative whimsy shows in the Spring menu:

LEMON DROP

Ingredients: lemon curd, yogurt, blueberry sauce, maple crunch, champagne granita – bright, tart dessert in a glass

Pairing: Fleury Carte Rouge – organic, biodynamic champagne, lovely and crisp on its own, but the only one that didn’t work for me with the dessert

UPSIDE-DOWN CHEESECAKE: A little sweet in the big city

Ingredients: creamy cheesecake-like dessert topped with buttery graham crust and amarena cherries – almost savory, strong, silky cheese; the most unique item on the menu and one of my favorites

Pairing: Gaston Chiquet Blanc de Blancs – lovely small producer; clean, with notes of herbal tea, tangy apple

OLIVE OIL MADELEINES (pictured above)

Ingredients: madeleine baked in brown butter and grassy olive oil, with olive oil ice cream, a Spring-fresh strawberry and fennel salad in rose vinaigrette; probably my favorite all around dessert for unique combination of savory/sweet salad with baked madeleine

Pairing: Pol Roger Brut – a gorgeous, flowery/toasty nose, dry with fruit and cream, bringing out the earthiness in the fennel; possibly my favorite pairing of the menu

ICE CREAM SANDWICH

Ingredients: pizzelle wave cookies, layered with three sorbets/ice creams: chocolate (with a brilliant whiff of tobacco), passion fruit, pistachio

Pairing: Jean Milan Blanc de Blancs – acidic, fruity, with light balance of toast

DARK CHOCOLATE PAIN PERDU

Ingredients: dark chocolate “French toast” in delicate orange-caramel sauce with genius pink peppercorn chantilly

Pairing: Bruno Paillard Brut – family run, small production; fresh fruit and spice

Go … Germany?

David Talbot
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Go … Germany?

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Everyone assumes that because I love to play soccer, I’m interested in the World Cup. Rather than contradict them, I have become interested in the World Cup. How is that for flexing one’s codependency?

At first I merely feigned interest, but then the feigning turned into affectation, then adoption, and now I find myself legitimately, actually, gut-wrenchingly interested — albeit by accident.

Unlike a lot of people, I don’t care who the hell wins. I could probably root for Brazil, since that’s who most of my soccer buds back (I play on a team of Brazilians). I could get away with rooting for Italy, the defending World Cup champions, because that’s the flavor of the blood that I have, and, on the third hand, never in my life have I felt more patriotically-inclined, God bless America, given my recent failed attempt at expatriation. Plus I love an underdog.

But my capacity for love is temporarily out of service, thanks to a certain German person who absolutely, positively, and very very stroppishly hates soccer — not the sport so much as the hoopla. Or, in other words, go Germany!!!

May the streets of that fine, fucked country be filled with whooping fans, national songs, shouts, bells, whistles, shenaniganism, hooliganism, and general mayhem. May the peace be disturbed! May it be impossible for writers to write there, and for lovers to love, and may the spirit of lowbrow, sports-related celebration annoy the living crap out of every stodgy old lady and artsy fartsy middle-aged loser couple in all of Bavaria, in particular, the old-town district of Regensburg. Mwa-ha-ha-ha.

You thought I was going to go against the Germans, didn’t you? I thought I was too. I still do feel, or at least hope, that passion will win out over discipline on at least some playing fields, such as soccer ones. That’s why, while German national teams tend to do well, Brazil and Italy win more World Cups.

Nevertheless: Go Germany!

I tried to watch their first game at the closest Irish pub to my house, the Phoenix, but it was way too crowded so I walked to Mission Street. All my many friends who had asked me about my interest in the World Cup, inciting my interest … I called all of them but nobody could join me, and this was on a weekend.

So my only friend was my appetite.

Perfect! I wound up at La Oaxaqueña, the little corner hole-in-the-wall at Mission and Clarion, near 17th Street. I’d eaten there once before. It’s good. But more to the point, they had a fuzzy little TV going up in the corner, and in sharp contrast to the Phoenix, there was nobody in the place.

Nobody at all, eating.

So I stayed and ate and tried to put up with the TV. The picture kept locking up and making temporarily cubist photography out of live sports, and the audio sounded like bees. I have since come to realize that all World Cup soccer matches sound like bees, but at the time I didn’t know this.

Anyway, I didn’t let it ruin my meal, which was fish cooked in coconut milk with ginger. Points for them for taking forever to cook it, even though I was, as I said, the only one there. They must have sensed I was in it for the television, and kindly made it easy for me to nurse my way through as much of the second half as it was possible to watch.

The fish was great, the rice and the beans were fine, and the Australians played like chickens with their heads cut off. It started to look like Germany had one extra player out there. Which they did, one of the headless chickens having gone and gotten hisself red-carded.

Come to think of it, I don’t remember Germany ever even committing a foul, which reminds me of how nobody ever even jaywalks there. Not even in the middle of the night.

Christ, it’s going to be hard to root for a team like that.

LA OAXAQUEÑA BAKERY AND RESTAURANT

Daily: 6 a.m.–2 a.m.

2128 Mission, SF

(415) 621-5446

D/MC/V

Beer and wine

 

Appetite: NYC food cheat sheet, part one

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: NYC food cheat sheet, part one

During my latest visit to my beloved New York for the Manhattan Cocktail Classic, I spent eight days gleefully eating my way around the city, as I have done on countless trips past. I am continually asked for NY recommends as many of us in the Bay Area are either East Coast transplants, do business in both cities, or are savvy frequent travelers to the Big Apple. Check out my Perfect Spot newsletter archives for much more NY food and drink, but this week, I give you a mini-list of recommends in varying categories:

PIZZA THAT FEELS LIKE HOME Roberta’s, in the Bushwick area, has the spirit of both Brooklyn and classic Neopolitan-style pizza, the likes of which we see almost to the point of overkill here in SF. At Roberta’s, every aspect of the place dares you not to be crazy about it: a sketchy, off-the-beaten path location in Brooklyn reveals a warm dining room with wood-fired pizza oven and rustic, eclectic decor. Eat at picnic tables indoors or head out back to the tiki bar (alas, no cocktails, but wine and quality beers on draft, like NY’s Ommegang), where there are more picnic tables, thatched roofs, smoking area off to one side, expansive garden and nursery growing herbs you’ll find in your meal. The menu offers charcuterie, cheeses, sweetbreads, cuttle fish, tripe and killer, blistered pizzas, like Millennium Falco, with tomato, Parmigiano, pork sausage, garlic, onions, bread crumbs and basil. You’ll feel like you never left SF.
www.robertaspizza.com

OLD SCHOOL NY BAGEL EXPERIENCE Russ & Daughters, a fourth generation, family-owned, Lower East Side deli has been around for over a century… and is quintessential New York. With amicably crusty staff, this pristine shop is efficiently doles out Bagel & Lox, the salmon cut fresh before you. Put it on an “everything” bagel with horseradish cream cheese and you have perfection. There’s a wide array of joys here, such as pickled herring, caviar, and a lovely whitefish salad.
www.russanddaughters.com

CHEAP, DELICIOUS AREPAS Caracas Arepa Bar is a cheap, utterly satisfying NY meal: Venezuelan homemade arepas stuffed with all kinds of goodness. The tiny, charming East Village spot became so popular, there’s a to-go side and now a Brooklyn location. Everything is under $7.50 and waits are long unless you arrive early, but you can order Camburada (banana cinnamon milkshake) and Guasacaca & Chips (Venezuelan-style guacamole with plaintain and sweet potato chips) while you wait outside. I love the La de Pernil Arepa stuffed with tender pork shoulder, tomato and spicy mango sauce.
www.caracasarepabar.com

Film listings

David Talbot
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

FRAMELINE34

The 34th San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival runs June 17-27 at the Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; Victoria, 2961 16th St, SF; and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk. Tickets (most shows $8-15) can be purchased at www.frameline.org. All times pm unless otherwise noted.

THURS/17

Castro The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister 7. Off World 10.

FRI/18

Castro The Real Anne Lister noon. "Curious Thing" (shorts program) 1:45. Sasha 4:30. The Owls 7. Grown Up Movie Star 9:30.

Roxie "Hustlers and Exhibitionists: Andy Warhol Retrospective" 7. "Bi Request" (shorts program) 9:30.

Victoria 8: The Mormon Proposition 7. Open 9:30.

SAT/19

Castro "Fun in Boys’ Shorts" (shorts program) 11am. "Fun in Girls’ Shorts" (shorts program) 1:30. Elvis and Madona 4. I Killed My Mother 6:45. A Marine Story 9:30.

Roxie Mississippi Queen 11am. On These Shoulders We Stand 1:30. Postcard to Daddy 4. Hooters 6:30. "Sex, Leather Jackets, and Hustlers: Andy Warhol Retrospective" 9:30.

Victoria "Trans Francisco" (shorts program) 11am. The Adonis Factor 2. "Gay Aesthetics and Iconography in the Films of Andy Warhol" (illustrated talk) 4:15. Arias With a Twist 6:30. The Man Who Loved Yngve 9:30.

SUN/20

Castro "Dottie’s Magic Pockets Live!" 11am. We Were Here: Voices From the AIDS Years in San Francisco 1. The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls 3:45. The Four Faced Liar 6:30. The Consul of Sodom 9:30.

Roxie Mountains That Take Wing 11am. "Skinnyfat" (shorts program) 1:45. "Generations: Youth and Elders Making Movies" (shorts program) 4:15. Bear Nation 6:45. Out of the Blue 9:30.

Victoria Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride 11am. Paulista 1:30. "F**king Traditional Values: Queer Women of Color Shorts" (shorts program) 4:15. William S. Burroughs: The Man Within 7. The Queer X Show 9:30.

MON/21

Castro Dzi Croquettes 11am. Swimming with Lesbians 2. Off World 4. The Last Summer of La Boyita 7. Brotherhood 9:30.

Roxie New York Memories 7. "Are You Krazy?" (shorts program) 9:30.

Victoria Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance 7. My Normal 9:30.

Elmwood The Sea Purple 7. Plan B 9:30.

TUES/22

Castro The Motionless 11am. Sex in an Epidemic 1:15. Is It Just Me? 3:45. Undertow 7. Baby Jane? 9:45.

Roxie Gayby 7. One Night 9:30.

Victoria The Sisters 7. Eyes Wide Open 9:30.

Elmwood William S. Burroughs: The Man Within 7. The Fish Child 9:30.

OPENING

Bluebeard Writer-director Catherine Breillat returns to her 2001 Fat Girl‘s motifs of troubled sisterhood and the adolescent female imagination in this stealthy adaptation of Charles Perrault’s pathological fairy tale. Bluebeard‘s parable of murder coiled around marriage resonates rather obviously with Breillat’s own signature themes, but she avoids obviousness by serving the punishing logic of Perrault’s story chilled. That Breillat is concerned with how the fairy tale is experienced, and specifically the adolescent desires it awakens, is clear from the frame narrative in which two sisters (named autobiographically) ritualistically read "Bluebeard," both of them knowing it (and each other’s reactions) by heart. Their dualities mirror those of the sisters trapped inside the story, the younger of whom, prone to romantic fantasies of castles and marooned by her father’s death, joins Bluebeard in unholy matrimony. Marie-Catherine (Lola Créton) may be a sprite next to the titular ogre (Dominique Thomas), but never underestimate the appetite of a younger sibling. Breillat’s visual style is unassuming in its tableaus, but her mastery of point-of-view and restricted narration brings great insight to the mechanisms of the fairy tale. Créton conjures the younger girl’s familiar mix of confidence and innocence with something like joy, while Thomas plays Bluebeard as a tender foil. He appears nearly forlorn when he uncovers his young wife’s fateful act of disobedience and realizes he will now and forever carry out the terrible deed we expect of him. A sharp turn provides a different moral than we might expect, and while it’s not so self-consciously shocking an ending as Fat Girl‘s, it inscribes the birth of a storyteller named Catherine with far greater piquancy.(1:20) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. (Goldberg)

*Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky Revered for the innovative fashion house that set the bar for style and was always knocked off but never cut prices for the real deal (and still sniffs at online clothing sales), Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel gets her second biopic, as an artist on par with composer Igor Stravinsky in this rhapsodically sensuous love letter to an unlikely romance. It opens with the designer and future branding legend (depicted with burning eyes and pantherine mystery by Anna Mouglalis) attending the controversial, riot-starting 1913 premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in Paris. Recognizing Stravinsky (a viral avant-garde stud-muffin in the hands of Mads Mikkelsen, last in deadlocks and warrior face in Clash of the Titans) as a simpatico radical spirit, Chanel lends her house to the composer. He comes with considerable baggage: a slew of children and a consumptive wife, Katarina (Elena Morozova). Morozova’s performance as the angel-faced earth mother scorned, so blatantly disrespected by the rad lovers madly getting down on the music-room carpet, almost steals the show, but then the house-porn fabulosity of the recreated Chanel villa in Garches — a symbol of their hermetic attraction and shot like a seductive, claustrophobic, black-and-white deco womb — takes over, and we’re back in the thick of CoGor’s somewhat inexplicable affair once again. (1:55) Shattuck. (Chun)

Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then Before it was torn down by a new landowner, multimedia artist Brent Green went to visit the house built by late Kentucky hardware store clerk Leonard Wood — a poor man’s Winchester Mystery House, endlessly elaborated with newly knocked-down walls and weird handmade detailing. This obsessive one-man construction effort was commenced as a hopeful "healing machine" for its other resident, his beloved wife Mary, and continued after her death from cancer. Green built his own backyard replica of the house for this experimental first feature, a sort of live-action stop motion movie whose characters like move like puppets in stuttering frame jumps, with animation, dubbed occasional dialogue, crude intertitles, and some gently fantastical imagery adding to its dreamlike aura. Mary (played by Donna K.) makes a curious living breeding and selling wild bird eggs; Leonard (Michael McGinley), among his other callings, composes and records droning minimalist "church music." They met, purportedly, in a car crash. Green’s strangle-voiced blank verse narration and filmic folk-art affectations can sometimes make Gravity just sit there — certainly it feels longer than its 75 minutes. But it also has an off-center lyricism that in the end serves honorably this story of profound love between two very odd people. The director (who currently has an installation across the street at the Berkeley Art Museum) will appear at this one-night Pacific Film Archive screening. (1:20) Pacific Film Archive. (Harvey)

Jonah Hex Josh Brolin and Megan Fox star in this Wild West-set graphic novel adaptation. (1:81) Elmwood.

Lovers of Hate Living out of his car after being dumped by Diana (Heather Kafka), perpetually dour Rudy (Chris Doubek) can hardly find a place to take a shower. In stark contrast to his desperate situation, Rudy’s brother Paul (Alex Karpovsky) is a successful children’s fantasy writer, holed up in a borrowed mansion in Utah to work on his next book. Rudy decides to pay his bro an unwelcome surprise visit, but he arrives just behind Diana, who has come to have a serious chat (and also some sex) with Paul. Still in love with Diana, Rudy skulks unnoticed through the tremendous house, playing vengeful voyeur to the new couple’s already rather weird relationship. Lovers of Hate‘s central trinity are not especially nice people, but neither are any of them evil; writer-director Bryan Poyser balances pity and disgust at their painfully human actions, without necessarily making a case for why we care. (1:33) Roxie. (Sam Stander)

*The Oath Laura Poitras’ disturbing documentary is a portrait of two men closely bound to al Qaeda, though only one is interviewed. That would be Abu Jandal, a husband, father, current Yemen taxi driver, erstwhile jihadist operating from Bosnia to Afghanistan, and former chief bodyguard to Osama bin Laden. The off-camera one is his brother-in-law Salim Hamdan, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner from late 2001 whom he’d recruited as bin Laden’s driver-mechanic. Was Salim merely a for-hire worker with no knowledge of the 9/11 conspiracy or other terrorist actions? Was his lengthy imprisonment an example of the War on Terror’s flaunting of legal conventions? (After Hamdan won a Supreme Court victory, Congress invented a whole new kind of charge — "material support to terrorism" — to keep him in custody.) These are questions more pondered than answered here. We do, however, get a big close-up dose of Jandal, who laments the harm he might have done his bro-in-law while still counseling young Muslim Yemenites and his own barely-past-toddler son in jihadist righteousness, not excluding justification of killing Western civilians. He comes off as dangerous and charming, a hustler and braggart. Offering further insight into what makes up (or sculpts) a terrorist mindset is a pre-9/11 clip of an elegant, prissy bin Laden — a salt pillar of airless judgment
sure he’s channeling the intentions of Allah. (1:36) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Sun Behind the Clouds In this doc, the Dalai Lama comments on the 2008 Tibetan demonstrations against Chinese rule. (1:19) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Toy Story 3 Somehow, it’s terrifying that in this installment, the toy-owning kid is heading off to college. (1:49) Cerrito, Marina.

*Winter’s Bone See "True Grit." (1:40) California, Embarcadero.

ONGOING

The A-Team Why was the original A-Team the most popular band of mercenaries on TV? The estimable chemistry and comedic skills of Mr. T; legit Breakfast at Tiffany‘s star George Peppard; conservative commentator Dwight Schultz; and Dirk Benedict, fresh from his role as the original Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, played a major part, as did the quasi-anti-authoritarian, boyish, blow-’em-up-real-good tone, making it more of a cartoonishly violent kin to MASH than First Blood (1982). The cheeky humor and snappy writing were the real key to The A-Team‘s popularity — the reason impressionable protein units like yours truly tuned in. Director Joe Carnahan (2006’s Smokin’ Aces) and cast seem to have sussed out a bit of that magic, especially when the sun-roasted Bradley Cooper as Faceman and Sharlto Copley as Murdock roll with the what-the-hell non-sequiturs (less sure is the star of last year’s District 9‘s grip on exactly what accent he’s been charged with). But the cinematic version won’t be rehabbing the public’s view of guns-for-hire like Blackwater anytime soon. Liam Neeson lacks the cigar-chomping paternal bravado of Peppard, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson is tasked with the unenviable job of following T time, and the script, complete with the ludicrously elaborate plans and a spark-challenged romance between Cooper and Jessica Biel, is just a rough excuse to watch boys and their toys. (1:57) Cerrito, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Chun)

*Babies Thomas Balmes’ camera records the first year in the lives of four infants in vastly different circumstances. They’re respectively born to hip young couple in Tokyo’s high-tech clutter; familiar moderately alterna-types (the father is director Frazer Bradshaw of last year’s excellent indie drama Everything Strange and New) in SF’s Mission District; a yurt-dwelling family isolated in the vast Mongolian tundra; and a Namibian village so maternally focused that adult menfolk seem to have been banished. Yes, on one level this is the cutest li’l documentary you ever saw. But if you were planning to avoid thinking that is all (or most) of what Babies would be like, you will miss out big time. Void of explanatory titles, voice-over narration, or subtitle translations, this is a purely observatory piece that reveals just how fascinating the business of being a baby is. There’s very little predictable pooping, wailing, or coddling. Instead, Balmes’ wonderful eye captures absorbing moments of sussing things out, decision-making, and skill learning. While the First World tykes firstborns both — are hauled off to (way) pre-school classes, the much less day planned Third Worlders have more complex, unmediated dealings with community. Those range from fending off devilish older siblings to Mongol Bayarjargal’s startlingly casual consorting with large furry livestock. (Imagine the horror of parents you know were their baby found surrounded by massive cows — a situation that here causes no concern whatsoever for adults, children, or bovines.) So accustomed to the camera that it doesn’t influence their behavior, the subjects here are viewed with an intimacy that continually surprises. Babies is getting a wider-than-usual release for a documentary, one cannily timed to coincide with Mother’s Day. But don’t be fooled: this movie is actually very cool. (1:19) Presidio, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*City Island The Rizzo family of City Island, N.Y. — a tiny atoll associated historically with fishing and jurisdictionally with the Bronx — have reached a state where their primary interactions consist of sniping, yelling, and storming out of rooms. These storm clouds operate as cover for the secrets they’re all busy keeping from one another. Correctional officer Vince (Andy Garcia) pretends he’s got frequent poker nights so he can skulk off to his true shameful indulgence: a Manhattan acting class. Perpetually fuming spouse Joyce (Julianna Margulies) assumes he’s having an affair. Daughter Vivian (Dominik García-Lorido) has dropped out of school to work at a strip joint, while the world class-sarcasms of teenager Vinnie (Ezra Miller) deflect attention from his own hidden life as an aspiring chubby chaser. All this (plus everyone’s sneaky cigarette habit) is nothing, however, compared to Vince’s really big secret: he conceived and abandoned a "love child" before marrying, and said guilty issue has just turned up as a 24-year-old car thief on his cell block. Writer-director Raymond De Felitta made a couple other features in the last 15 years, none widely seen; if this latest is typical, we need more of him, more often. Perfectly cast, City Island is farcical without being cartoonish, howl-inducing without lowering your brain-cell count. It’s arguably a better, less self-conscious slice of dysfunctional family absurdism than Little Miss Sunshine (2006) — complete with an Alan Arkin more inspired in his one big scene here than in all of that film’s Oscar-winning performance. (1:40) Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Exit Through the Gift Shop Exit Through the Gift Shop is not a film about the elusive graffiti-cum-conceptual artist and merry prankster known as Banksy, even though he takes up a good chunk of this sly and by-no-means impartial documentary and is listed as its director. Rather, as he informs us — voice electronically altered, face hidden in shadow — in the film’s opening minutes, the film’s real subject is one Thierry Guetta, a French expat living in LA whose hangdog eyes, squat stature, and propensity for mutton chops and polyester could pass him off as Ron Jeremy’s long lost twin. Unlike Jeremy, Guetta is not blessed with any prodigious natural talent to propel him to stardom, save for a compulsion to videotape every waking minute of his life (roughly 80 percent of the footage in Exit is Guetta’s) and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. When Guetta is introduced by his tagger cousin to a pre-Obamatized Shepard Fairey in 2007, he realizes his true calling: to make a documentary about the street art scene that was then only starting to get mainstream attention. Enter Banksy, who, at first, is Guetta’s ultimate quarry. Eventually, the two become chummy, with Guetta acting as lookout and documenter for the artist just as the art market starts clambering for its piece of, "the Scarlet Pimpernel of street art," as one headline dubs him. When, at about three quarters of the way in, Guetta, following Banksy’s casual suggestion, drops his camcorder and tries his hand at making street art, Exit becomes a very different beast. Guetta’s flashy debut as Mr. Brainwash is as obscenely successful as his "art" is terribly unimaginative — much to the chagrin of his former documentary subjects. But Guetta is no Eve Harrington and Banksy, who has the last laugh here, gives him plenty of rope with which to truss himself. Is Mr. Brainwash really the ridiculous and inevitable terminus of street art’s runaway mainstream success (which, it must be said, Banksy has handsomely profited from)? That question begs another: with friends like Banksy, who needs enemies? (1:27) Lumiere, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Sussman)

*The Father of My Children Grégoire Canvel (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) is a perpetual motion machine: a Paris-based veteran film producer of complicated multinational whose every waking moment is spent pleading, finessing, reassuring, and generally putting out fires of the artistic, logistic, or financial kind. But lately the strain has begun to surpass even his Herculean coping abilities. Debtors are closing in; funding might collapse for a brilliant but uncommercial director’s already half-finished latest. After surviving any number of prior crises, Gregoire’s whole production company might finally dissolve into a puddle of red ink and lawsuits. He barely has time to enjoy his perfect family, with Italian wife Sylvia (Chiara Caselli) and three young daughters happily ensconced in a charming country house. Something’s got to give — and when it does, writer-director Mia Hansen-Love’s drama (very loosely based on the life of a late European film producer) drastically shifts its focus midway. Her film’s first half is so arresting — with its whirlwind glimpse at a job so few of us know much about, yet which couldn’t be more important in keeping cinema afloat — that the second half inevitably seems less interesting by comparison. Still, for about 55 minutes The Father of My Children offers something you haven’t quite seen before, an experience well worthwhile even if the subsequent 55 are less memorable. (1:50) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*The Full Picture The unusually high proportion of non-native San Franciscans not only underlines our living in a "destination" city, but also suggests that many of us were eager to leave something behind. Certainly it’s no accident The Full Picture’s fraternal protagonists both chose to live here. Yes, it’s a lovely place. It also happens to be 3,000 insulating miles from where they were raised, and where the dragon still dwells. Unfortunately, she can fly: sensible heels clacking militaristically across airport tarmac first clue us to the personality of monster-mother Gretchen Foster (Bettina Devin), who sweetly announces she’s off to visit "my boys" in SF, then breathes fire when that charm fails to secure a first class upgrade. Clearly it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Jon Bowden’s first feature is based on his original play, and this screen incarnation doesn’t entirely leave the whiff of stagecraft behind. It’s smart, fluid, funny, and biting, as well as a nice addition to the roster of movies that really do convey something about living here. (1:20) Roxie. (Harvey)

Get Him to the Greek At this point movie execs can throw producer Judd Apatow’s name on the marquee of a film and it’s a guaranteed blockbuster. It’s hard to say whether this Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) spin-off benefits from the Apatow sign of approval or if it would be better off standing on its own, but it definitely doesn’t benefit from comparisons to its predecessor. Russell Brand returns as the British rock star Aldous Snow, and Jonah Hill, playing a different character this time, is given the task of chaperoning the uncooperative Snow from London to LA in 48 hours. Despite a great cast, including a surprisingly animated P. Diddy, the story is pretty bland and can’t match the blend of drama and comedy that Marshall achieved. Of course, none of that matters because the movie execs are right: if you like Apatow’s brand of humor, you’re going to have a good time anyway. (1:49) Empire, Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peter Galvin)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo By the time the first of Stieg Larsson’s so-called "Millennium" books had been published anywhere, the series already had an unhappy ending: he died (in 2004). The following year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became a Swedish, then eventually international sensation, its sequels following suit. The books are addicting, to say the least; despite their essential crime-mystery-thriller nature, they don’t require putting your ear for writing of some literary value on sleep mode. Now the first of three adaptive features shot back-to-back has reached U.S. screens. (Sorry to say, yes, a Hollywood remake is already in the works — but let’s hope that’s years away.) Even at two-and-a-half hours, this Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by necessity must do some major truncating to pack in the essentials of a very long, very plotty novel. Still, all but the nitpickingest fans will be fairly satisfied, while virgins will have the benefit of not knowing what’s going to happen and getting scared accordingly. Soon facing jail after losing a libel suit brought against him by a shady corporate tycoon, leftie journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) gets a curious private offer to probe the disappearance 40 years earlier of a teenage girl. This entangles him with an eccentric wealthy family and their many closet skeletons (including Nazi sympathies) — as well as dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), androgynous loner, 24-year-old court ward, investigative researcher, and skillful hacker. Director Niels Arden Oplev and his scenarists do a workmanlike job — one more organizational than interpretive, a faithful transcription without much style or personality all its own. Nonetheless, Larsson’s narrative engine kicks in early and hauls you right along to the depot. (2:32) Clay, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Harry Brown Shades of Dirty Harry (1971) for the tea cozy and tweed set: elegantly rendered and very nicely played, Harry Brown might be the dark, late-in-the-day elder brother to 1971’s Get Carter, in the hands of eponymous lead Michael Caine. He’s a pensioner mourning the passing of his beloved wife, his mysterious life as a Marine stationed in Northern Ireland firmly behind him. Then his chess-playing pal Leonard (David Bradley) is terrorized and killed by the unsavory gang of heroin dealing hoodlums who lurk near their projects in a tunnel walkway like gun-toting, foul-mouthed, sociopathic trolls. Harry Brown is, er, forced to forsake a vow of peace and go commando on the culprits’ asses, triggering some moments of ultraviolence that are unsettling in their whole-hearted embrace of vigilante justice. Like predecessors similarly fixated on vengeance in their respective urban hells, a la Hardcore (1979) and Taxi Driver (1976) (Harry Brown echoes key moments in the latter, in particular — see, for instance, its keenly tense, eerily humorous gun shopping scene), Harry Brown is essentially an arch-conservative film, if good looking and even likable with Caine meting out the punishment. The overall denouement just might make some seniors feel very, very good about the coiled potential for hurt embedded in their aging frames. (1:42) Four Star. (Chun)

Holy Rollers Holy Rollers isn’t a movie — it’s a headline stretched out to 90 minutes. Yes, the set-up is worthy of adaptation: Hassidic Jewish kid begins importing ecstasy from Amsterdam. And it’s based on a true story! But the film is far too matter-of-fact, never delving into the important questions that might elevate it past a glorified reenactment. That’s not to say the performances aren’t good. Jesse Eisenberg continues to prove he can do well in leading roles, while supporting actors Justin Bartha and Ari Graynor are both charming, in their own ways. The problem is the material. What is Holy Rollers saying about the war on drugs, or organized religion, or the desire to live above one’s means? Nothing, really. The tone is equally problematic, as it repeatedly fails to find the right blend of comedy and drama. The movie’s major selling point is that it will make you want to visit Amsterdam — you know, if you didn’t already. (1:29) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Peitzman)

*Iron Man 2 Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) returns, just as rich and self-involved as before, though his ego his inflated to unimaginable heights due to his superheroic fame. Pretty much, he’s put the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing on the back burner, exasperating everyone from Girl Friday Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow); to BFF military man Rhodey (Don Cheadle, replacing the first installment’s Terrence Howard); to certain mysterious Marvels played by Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson; to a doofus-y rival defense contractor (Sam Rockwell); to a sanctimonius Senator (Garry Shandling). Frankly, the fact that a vengeful Russian scientist (Mickey Rourke) is plotting Tony’s imminent death is a secondary threat here — for much of the film, Tony’s biggest enemy is himself. Fortunately, this is conveyed with enjoyable action (props to director Jon Favreau, who also has a small role), a witty script (actor Justin Theroux — who knew? He also co-wrote 2008’s Tropic Thunder, by the way), and gusto-going performances by everyone, from Downey on down. Stay for the whole credits or miss out on the geek-gasm. (2:05) California, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work Whether you’re a fan of its subject or not, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s documentary is an absorbing look at the business of entertainment, a demanding treadmill that fame doesn’t really make any easier. At 75, comedian Rivers has four decades in the spotlight behind her. Yet despite a high Q rating she finds it difficult to get the top-ranked gigs, no matter that as a workaholic who’ll take anything she could scarcely be more available. Funny onstage (and a lot ruder than on TV), she’s very, very focused off-, dismissive of being called a "trailblazer" when she’s still actively competing with those whose women comics trail she blazed for today’s hot TV guest spot or whatever. Anyone seeking a thorough career overview will have to look elsewhere; this vérité year-in-the-life portrait is, like the lady herself, entertainingly and quite fiercely focused on the here-and-now. (1:24) Bridge, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

The Karate Kid The most baffling thing about The Karate Kid is its title: little Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) never actually learns karate. He practices kung-fu, an entirely different form of martial arts — you know, from a different country. There’s something obnoxious and absurd about the misnomer: the film seems to suggest that if you’ve seen one Asian culture, you’ve seen them all. That aside, it’s not a bad movie. Smith is mostly pretty likeable, and there’s a definite satisfaction to seeing him grow from bullied weakling to kung-fu star. And Jackie Chan gets to exercise his dramatic chops — he even gets a crying scene! But Karate Kid is a "reboot," the preferred term for the endless stream of unnecessary remakes Hollywood keeps churning out. You can’t help but think about the superior 1984 version. Jaden Smith is no Ralph Macchio, Jackie Chan is no Pat Morita, and kung-fu is no karate. Don’t even get me started on the "jacket on, jacket off" crap. Which, if you say it quickly, sounds a little adult for a PG movie. (2:20) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Killers (1:40) 1000 Van Ness.

Letters to Juliet If you can stomach the inevitable Barbara Cartland/Harlequin-romance-style clichés — and believe that Amanda Seyfried as a New Yorker fact-checker — then Letters to Juliet might be the ideal Tuscan-sunlit valentine for you. Seyfried’s Sophie is on a pre-honeymoon trip to Verona with her preoccupied chef-restaurateur intended, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), who’s more interested in sampling cheese and purchasing vino than taking in the romantic attractions of Verona with his fiancée. Luckily she finds the perfect diversion for a wannabe scribe: a small clutch of diehard romantics enlisted by the city of Verona to answer the letters to Juliet posted by lovelorn ladies. They’re Juliet’s secretaries — never mind that Juliet never managed to maintain a successful or long-term relationship herself. When Sophie finds a lost, unanswered letter from the ’50s, she sets off sequence of unlikely events, as the letter’s English writer, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), returns to Verona with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan), in search of her missed-connection, Lorenzo. Alas, Lorenzo’s long gone, and the fact-checker decides to help the warm-hearted, hopeful Claire find her lost lover. Unfortunately Sophie’s chemistry with both her matches isn’t as powerful as Redgrave’s with real-life husband Franco Nero — after all he was Lancelot to her Guenevere in 1967’s Camelot and the father of her son. Still, Redgrave’s power as an actress — and her relationship with Nero — adds a resonance that takes this otherwise by-the-numbers romance to another level. (1:46) SF Center. (Chun)

*Looking for Eric Eric Bishop (Steve Everts) is a single dad, frustrated at his inability to bond with his teenage sons and heartbroken over his failed marriage to Lily (Stephanie Bishop), the woman he walked out on 20 years ago but never managed to get over. Just when things are looking dire, Eric is delivered in surprising, magical fashion by hallucinatory visitations from Eric Cantona, his favorite soccer player, a philosophical Frenchman who was as renowned for his inscrutable press conferences as he was for his scintillating goals. Cantona plays himself, and passes pensive joints with Bishop as they slowly piece his shattered life back together. American viewers might be have trouble deciphering the intricacies of soccer culture or the molasses-thick Mancunian accents, but at its heart the movie (by Brit director Ken Loach) is an amusing, tautly crafted fable of middle-aged alienation giving way to hope and gumption. (1:57) Smith Rafael. (Richardson)

Marmaduke (1:27) 1000 Van Ness.

Micmacs An urge to baby-talk at the screen underlines what is wrong with Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s new film: it is like a precocious child all too aware how to work a room, reprising adorable past behaviors with pushy determination and no remaining spontaneity whatsoever. There will be cooing. There will be clucking. But there will also a few viewers rolling their eyes, thinking "This kid rides my last nerve." It’s easy to understand why Jeunet’s movies (including 2001’s Amélie) are so beloved, doubtless by many previously allergic to subtitles. (Of course, few filmmakers need dialogue less.) They are eye-candy, and brain-candy too: fantastical, hyper, exotic, appealing to the child within but with dark streaks, byzantine of plot yet requiring no close narrative attention at all. The artistry and craftsmanship are unmissable, no ingenious design or whimsical detail left unemphasized. In Micmacs, hero Bazil (Dany Boon) is a lovable misfit who lost his father to an Algerian landmine, then loses his own job and home when he’s brain-injured by a stray bullet. He falls in with a crazy coterie of lovable misfits who live underground, make wacky contraptions from junk, and each have their own special, not-quite-super "power." They help him wreak elaborate, fanciful revenge on the greedy arms manufacturers (André Dussollier, Nicolas Marié) behind his misfortunes, as well as various human rights-y global ones. So there’s a message here, couched in fun. But the effect is rather like a birthday clown begging funds for Darfur — or Robert Benigni’s dreaded Life is Beautiful (1997), good intentions coming off a bit hubristic, even distasteful. (1:44) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

La Mission A veteran S.F. vato turned responsible — if still muy macho — widower, father, and Muni driver, fortysomething Che (Benjamin Bratt) isn’t the type for mushy displays of sentiment. But it’s clear his pride and joy is son Jess (Jeremy Ray Valdez), a straight-A high school grad bound for UCLA. That filial bond, however, sustains some serious damage when Che discovers Jes has a secret life — with a boyfriend, in the Castro, just a few blocks away from their Mission walkup but might as well be light-years away as far as old-school dad is concerned. This Bratt family project (Benjamin’s brother Peter writes-directs, his wife Talisa Soto Bratt has a supporting role) has a bit of a predictable TV-movie feel, but its warm heart is very much in the right place. (1:57) Four Star, Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Ondine You want to believe in mermaids, leprechauns, tooth fairies, and Father Christmas — and director Neil Jordan plays with those hopes, and fears, in this unabashedly romantic fable set in a Irish fishing village. Mullet-ed fisherman Syracuse (Colin Farrell), dubbed "Circus," thanks to his days as a drinking fool, is the butt of everyone’s jokes till he happens to catch a mysterious girl (Alicja Bachleda) in his net. She calls herself Ondine, shies away from people, and sings in an unknown tongue to the sea, drawing salmon, lobster, and fortune to the fisherman otherwise down on his luck. His precocious daughter, Annie (Alison Barry), is in need of a kidney transplant — and a measure of hope — and she grows convinced that her father’s hidden-away water baby is a selkie, a mythical Celtic sea creature that can shed its seal skin, bond with humans, and make wishes come true. Unfortunately believing in magic doesn’t always make it so, though Ondine gracefully limns that space between belief and reality, squeezing small moments of pleasure and humor from its rough, albeit attractive, characters and absolutely stunning landscapes in scenes beautifully lensed by onetime Wong Kar Wai cinematographer Christopher Doyle. (1:43) Albany, Piedmont, Opera Plaza. (Chun)

*Please Give Manhattan couple Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are the proprietors of an up-market vintage furniture store — they troll the apartments of the recently deceased, redistributing the contents at an astonishing markup — and they’ve purchased the entire apartment of their elderly next-door neighbor (Ann Guilbert). As they wait for her to expire so they can knock down a wall, they try not to loom in anticipation in front of her granddaughters, the softly melancholic Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and the brittle pragmatist Mary (Amanda Peet). Filmmaker Nicole Holofcener has entered this territory before, examining the interpersonal pressures that a sizable income gap can exert in 2006’s Friends with Money. Here she turns to the pangs and blunderings of the liberal existence burdened with the discomforts of being comfortable and the desire to do some good in the world. The film capably explores the unexamined impulses of liberal guilt, though the conclusion it reaches is unsatisfying. Like Holofcener’s other work, Please Give is constructed from the episodic material of mundane, intimate encounters between characters whose complexity forces us to take them seriously, whether or not we like them. Here, though, it offers these private connections as the best one can hope for, a sort of domestic grace accrued by doing right, authentically, instinctively, by the people in your immediate orbit, leaving the larger world to muddle along on its axis as best it can. (1:30) Elmwood, Lumiere, Piedmont. (Rapoport)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time It takes serious effort to make a movie with a story dumber than the video game it’s based on. Director Mike Newell somehow accomplishes this feat with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a Disneyfied flop that flails clumsily in the PG-13 demilitarized zone, delivering sanitized violence, chaste romance, and dreary drama. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, an urchin boy — one jump, ahead of the bread line — adopted by the king and raised to be the wise-cracking black sheep in a family of feuding princes. He’s got Middle East ninja skills — one swing, ahead of the sword — and his infiltration of a sacred city nets him the magical Dagger of Time, a gilded rewind button coveted by his evil uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley), who wants to use it for, well, evil, and Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), who’s sworn to protect it. Pressing a button on the dagger’s hilt allows its wielder to undo past events. If you have the misfortune of seeing this movie, you’ll want one for yourself. (2:10) California, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Richardson)

Robin Hood Like it or not, we live in the age of the origin story. Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood introduces us to the outlaw while he’s still in France, wending his way back to Albion in the service of King Richard III. The Lionheart soon takes an arrow in the neck in order to demonstrate the film’s historical bona fides, and yeoman archer Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) — surrounded by a nascent band of merry men — accidentally embroils himself in a conspiracy to wrest control of England. The complications of this intrigue hie Robin to Nottingham, where he is thrown together with Maid Marion (Cate Blanchett), a plucky rural aristocrat who likes getting her hands dirty almost as much as she likes a bit of smoldering Crowe seduction. A lot of hollow medieval verisimilitude ensues, along with a good bit of slow-mo swordplay, but the cumulative effect is tepid and rote. (2:20) 1000 Van Ness. (Richardson)

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07) Albany, Embarcadero.

Sex and the City 2 Sex and the City 2 couldn’t be anymore brazenly shameless, dizzyingly shallow, or patently offensive if it tried. This is aspiration porn, pure and simple, kitted out in the Orientalist trappings of a Vogue spread and with all the emotional intelligence of a 12 year-old brat. As the first SATC film nearly made short work of any shred of nuance or humanity that Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda carried over from their televised selves, SATC 2 fully embraces the bad pun-spewing, couture-clad clichés the girls have hardened into. Sure they have kids, husbands, career changes, and menopause to deal with, but who cares about those tired signposts of middle age when there is more shit to buy, more champagne to swill, private airlines to fly on, $22,000-a-night luxury suites to inhabit, Helen Reddy songs to butcher, and whole other peoples — specifically, the people of Abu Dhabi, who speak funny, dress funnier, and have craaazy notions about what it means to be "one of the girls" — to alternately boss around, offend, and pity? (Fun SATC2 fact: did you know that in the "new Middle East" women secretly wear designer duds underneath their abayas?) Oh, that one tiny pang of sympathy you feel during the tipsy confessional between Charlotte and Miranda in which they bond over how being a mother and giving up one’s life ambition is difficult? A mirage. Because really, the greater concern is flying back to JFK first class or bust. And let’s not even get into the few bones the film tosses to the homos, such as the opening set piece: a gay wedding only a straight man could’ve thought up, replete with a shopworn Liza Minnelli having her Gene Kelly-in-Xanadu moment. But seriously, Michael Patrick King, don’t get it twisted: Stanford may call it such, but it’s not "cheating" if you’re already in an open relationship. Then again, if being a foil for your straight BFF’s insecurities about the luxe confines of monogamy gets you a gift registry at Bergdorf’s, why not? The laughs are cheaper this time around, but SATC 2‘s fuckery is strictly price-upon-request. (2:24) Castro, Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Sussman)

Shrek Forever After 3D It’s easy to give Dreamworks a hard time for pumping out a fourth sequel to a film that never really needed a sequel in the first place. But Shrek Forever After isn’t all that bad — it’s mostly just irrelevant. The film does begin on an interesting note, with Shrek discovering the consequences of settling down with a wife and kids: serious ennui. It’s refreshing to see a fairy tale in which "happily ever after" is revealed to be rather mundane. But soon there are wacky magical hijinks that spawn an alternate universe, a cheap way to inject new life into tired old characters. (You like Puss in Boots? Well, he’s fat now.) Luckily, the voice actors are still game and the animation remains top-notch. The 3D effects are well used for once, fleshing out Shrek’s world rather than providing an unnecessary distraction. The end result is a mildly entertaining addition to the franchise, but like the alternate universe in which Shrek finds himself stranded, there’s no real reason it should exist. (1:33) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

Solitary Man Consider this another chapter in a larger recession-era cinematic narrative: a kind of corollary to Up in the Air and another dispatch from the flip side of the American dream — namely, American failure. Wheeling, dealing, disgusting, and charming in turns, Michael Douglas manages the dubious achievement of making a hungry and lecherous BMW dealership honcho compelling, even as we roll our eyeballs in disgust. His Ben Kalmen was once at the top of the world, a fairy-tale self-made star whose luxury auto commercials were all over TV, a sharp-tongued wife (Susan Sarandon) and tenderly tolerant daughter (Jenna Fischer) by his side. After his career lands in the crapper, Ben begins a long climb up, trading favors with his girlfriend Jordan (Mary-Louise Parker) and taking her daughter Allyson (Imogen Poots) to his alma mater for her college interview. During this trip down memory lane he renews his ties with old pal Jimmy (Danny DeVito) and befriends budding schlub Daniel (Jesse Eisenberg), all while making some very bad, reflexively womanizing choices. If you can stomach its morally bereft, perpetually backsliding yet endearingly honest protagonist, you’ll be rewarded with on-point dialogue and a clear-eyed yet empathetic character study concerning the free fall of a self-sabotaging, old-enough-to-know-better prick, individualistic to the core and even more. Is Ben as worthy of a bailout, or a second chance, as the American auto industry? The answer remains up in the air. (1:30) Empire, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Splice "If we don’t use human DNA now, someone else will," declares Elsa (Sarah Polley), the brash young genetic scientist bent on defying the orders of her benign corporate benefactors in Vincenzo Natali’s pseudo-cautionary hybrid love child, Splice. From that moment on, it’s pretty clear that any ethical conundrums the movie raises aren’t really worthy of debate: what Elsa wants to do in the name of scientific progress — splice human DNA into gooey muscle masses to provide said corporation with proteins for gene therapy — is, you know, deranged. Elsa bucks both corporate policy and sound moral judgment and does it anyway, much to the horror of her husband and fellow hotshot research scientist, Clive (Adrien Brody). Her genetic tinkering soon results in the dramatic birth of something akin to a homicidal fetal chick crossed with a skinned bunny. It grows at an alarming rate, and when human characteristics become apparent, Elsa clings to it with the instinctual vigor of a tigress protecting her cub. When Elsa and Clive are forced to hide their creation at Elsa’s abandoned family farmhouse to escape detection from prying corporate eyes, Splice evolves into another kind of hybrid: a genetically engineered Scenes from a Marriage (1973) crossed with the DNA of The Omen (1976) and grafted onto the most very special My So-Called Life episode ever. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Splice may be a ludicrous, cut-rate exercise in Brood-era David Cronenberg — but it’s a damned entertaining one. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Devereaux)

Touching Home Hometown boys (Logan and Noah Miller) make good in this based-on-a-true-story tale of identical twins who must divide their time at home between training for major league baseball and looking after their alcoholic father. The brothers, who also wrote and directed the film, aim for David Gordon Green by way of Marin, but fall short of mastering that director’s knack for natural dialogue. Ed Harris is, unsurprisingly, compelling as the alcoholic father, but the actors in the film who are not named Ed Harris tend to contribute to the script’s distracting histrionics. Touching Home has some amazing NorCal cinematography, and I could see how family audiences might enjoy its "feel bad, then feel good" style of melodrama. But while it’s awkward to say that someone’s real-life experiences come off as trite, there are moments here that feel as clichéd as a Lifetime movie. (1:48) Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

Women Without Men Potent imagery has always been at the forefront of photographer and installation artist Shirin Neshat’s explorations of gender in Islamic society, and her debut feature Women Without Men certainly has its share. Loosely based on Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel of the same name, the film follows four Iranian women (down from the novel’s original five) — Fakhri, an upper-class military wife who longs to reconnect with an old lover; Zarin, a traumatized prostitute who escapes captivity; Munis, a housebound young woman reborn as a political dissident; and her friend, Faezeh, who longs to marry Munis’ domineering brother — in the days leading up to the 1953 coup d’etat that overturned democracy and restored the Shah to power. From the suicidal leap — filmed so as to suggest flight as much as falling — which opens the film, to the mist-shrouded groves of a rural orchard that becomes a refuge for the women, each shot is as striking for its beauty as it is uneven in conveying the allegorical significance behind all the lushness. The casts’ largely stilted performances don’t help much in this regard either. "All that we wanted to was to find a new form, a new way," says Munis in voiceover. As a creative act of mourning for Iran’s short-lived experiment in democracy — a moment, Neshat acknowledges in the film’s postscript, that clearly resonated with last year’s Green revolution — Women Without Men ambitiously attempts, albeit with mixed success, to envision just that. (1:35) Elmwood. (Sussman)

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