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Judge denies Mirkarimi motions; city process begins Monday

Sasha Cuttler
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Judge denies Mirkarimi motions; city process begins Monday

Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn today denied all motions by Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s legal team challenging his suspension without pay, city procedures, and the constitutionality of the city’s official misconduct charter language, saying it’s premature to conclude Mirkarimi isn’t being treated fairly.

“But the courthouse door remains open,” Kahn concluded, inviting Mirkarimi to return after the Ethics Commission establishes rules of procedure and evidence, which it will begin doing on Monday. Today’s rulings, and another yesterday, in which Kahn ruled against a motion to disqualify the City Attorney’s Office from overseeing the proceedings, clears the way for the Ethics Commission to consider recommending to the Board of Supervisors that Mirkarimi be removed from office.

Kahn also seemed to agree with Mirkarimi’s team that Mayor Ed Lee didn’t give him a fair hearing before suspending him or that he made an argument for suspending him without pay. But Kahn sided with the city on the legal question of whether Mirkarimi has a “property interest” in his salary, which would have triggered the right to a hearing before being suspended, making such procedural questions moot.

“If there was a property right, what the mayor stated would not be adequate due process,” Kahn said, referring to Lee’s affidavit describing their March 19 meeting, where Lee told Mirkarimi to resign or be suspended. Lee claims he gave Mirkarimi the opportunity to tell his side of the story, which Mirkarimi denies, saying the mayor had made up his mind and wasn’t interested in the real story. On the salary question, Deputy City Attorney Sherri Kaiser said Mirkarimi would be entitled to full back pay from his suspension period if the supervisors vote to keep him in office, arguing that he isn’t being harmed.

Mirkarimi was suspended based on language in the city charter that was adopted in 1996 – banning “conduct that falls below the standard of decency, good faith and right action impliedly required of all public officers” – that has never been reviewed by the courts and which Mirkarimi attorney David Waggoner contends is unconstitutionally vague.

But Kahn didn’t agree, saying, “The charter is not so clearly outside the bounds of California law that I should preempt the processes.”

Waggoner complained that the city procedures didn’t set rules of evidence or procedure or standards of guilt, making it difficult to prepare a defense, a point to which Kahn seemed sympathetic, noting the variety of legal standards for different types of cases, from “beyond reasonable doubt” to “a preponderance of evidence.”

“We don’t know which of any of those is going to apply here. Is that a problem?” Kahn asked Kaiser.

She said no, that Mirkarimi and his legal team could return to court for help “if the commissioners really mess up” in the work they’ll begin on Monday. “That summarizes my view. It is hypothetical to say the procedures are going to be unfair,” Kahn agreed. 

Addressing reporters after the hearing, Kaiser praised the judge’s rulings and offered a small window into what will likely transpire in the coming months: “Certainly, the sheriff is going to have to testify under oath and not just to the media.” (Waggoner told reporters “no comment” when asked whether Mirkarimi will indeed testify under oath).

Kaiser’s apparent dig at the various media interviews that Mirkarimi has just started to grant this week echoes statements that have come from District Attorney George Gascón, who has criticized Mirkarimi’s characterization of his guilty plea and the behaviors that constituted false imprisonment, calling the media accounts “disturbing and telling.”

But Mirkarimi shot back at Gascón today, noting that the two men “have had some very high-profile disagreements” when Gascón was police chief and Mirkarimi chaired the Board of Supervisors Public Safety Committee. They had high-profile clashes over requiring police to do foot patrols, the crime lab controversy, budget issues (including Mirkarimi’s unsuccessful efforts to find out how much Mayor Gavin Newsom’s police security detail was costing the city as he ran for governor), and Gascón’s controversial public statement equating people of Middle Eastern descent (such as Mirkarimi, who is Persian) with terrorists.

“It sometimes bubbles up in the course of these proceedings,” Mirkarimi said of Gascón’s alleged personal or political animosity toward him.

Asked for a response, District Attorney’s Office spokeperson Stephanie Ong Stillman wrote, ““It is the duty of the San Francisco District Attorney to uphold the law,
regardless of who violates it and without political motivation.  Ross Mirkarimi was afforded the same rights as any defendant. We treated his case no differently than any of the 776 domestic violence cases our office charged and reviewed last year.”

SEIU rally draws 1,000 to city hall

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SEIU rally draws 1,000 to city hall

More than 1,000 city employees gathered at City Hall April 18 for a protest that ended in 23 arrests.

The protest comes as the SEIU Local 1021 contract negotiations with the city’s employee relations division are underway. According to Larry Bradshaw, Local 1021 vice president, the city’s proposal may result in pay cuts and health care cost increases for city workers.

“Here’s your negotiations update. The city and county wants you to take another 2 ½ percent pay cut this year and next year. The courts want their court-workers to take a five percent pay cut indefinitely,” Bradshaw, who works as a paramedic, told the crowd.

He also claimed that: “If you have Kaiser, under the city’s proposal you’re going to pay six times more than you’re paying currently. If you have Blue Shield, you’re going to pay twice as much. If you’re on the city plan—I’m not making this up—you’re going to pay one hundred times more than what you’re paying right now.”

Workers at the rally ranged from hall janitors to General Hospital nurses to Department of Emergency Management dispatchers donning shirts reading, “we run 911!”

Workers from the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21 also attended to show solidarity.

Sups Avalos, Mar, Kim, Chiu, Campos and Olague offered their support at the rally.

Around 6:30, the group left city hall and marched down Polk St. City workers then stretched caution tape across Market at Van Ness, in front of a Bank of America branch, and 23 sat down on the street. After a police warning, they were arrested for obstructing the sidewalk.

“We’re sitting to protest the greed of the city. The man is getting raises. The district attorney and the city attorney are getting raises. And they want us to take more pay cuts and furloughs,” said Arlette Smith, a protective services social worker, ten minutes before she was arrested.

The union wants to take these pay cuts off the table.

SEIU Local 1021 spokesperson Carlos Rivera also noted, “we’re sitting by Bank of America because banks and corporations don’t pay their fair share.”

The union is calling into question a tax settlement from 2001, in which a court ruled in favor of several corporations that sued the city over a hybrid payroll and gross receipts tax structure. The union characterizes the resulting loss of about $25 million per year in tax revenue as a loophole.

“The payroll tax is only paid by ten percent of San Francisco businesses, yet they’re asking city workers and non profit workers to continue to shoulder these massive budget deficits year after year,” said SEIU spokesperson Anna Bakalis.

Bakalis said that the SEIU is focusing on reinstating a gross receipts tax after researching alternative solutions for the city budget, if the pay cut and health care increases do not go though.

“We want to be able offer some solutions,” she told the Guardian. “We want to help them fix the budget.”

The union plans to return to city hall for further demonstration April 30 “if they have not taken those pay cuts and health care cuts off the table,” according to Bradshaw.

“This was such a wipeout psychologically”: Mirkarimi tells the story Lee didn’t want to hear

Sasha Cuttler
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“This was such a wipeout psychologically”: Mirkarimi tells the story Lee didn’t want to hear

As Ross Mirkarimi and his legal team prepare for a trio of legal hearings that could determine the future of his career, the suspended sheriff sat down with the Guardian for nearly two hours in his first extended interview recounting what happened during that fateful New Year’s Eve conflict with his wife, their actions in its aftermath, and whether any of it should cost him his job.

As the story continues to unfold, and the facts come out, it’s becoming more and more clear that neither of two central players – Mirkarimi’s wife, Eliana Lopez, and the neighbor who called the police, Ivory Madison – had any idea how this would play out, or, apparently, any desire for the incident to bring down the elected sheriff.

Mirkarimi has been in a bind for much of the last four months: Because of a pending criminal case, he hasn’t been able to tell his side of the story. And since he pled guilty instead of going to trial, his version of events is only now beginning to trickle out.

And the interview made clear that the man who has in the past been accused of arrogance has lost a lot of his ego.

“This was such a wipeout psychologically,” Mirkarimi said. “It makes me immensely insecure and has left me in vulnerable state.”

He looks it – the elected sheriff’s face is drawn, almost haggard. His once-frequent smile and laughter is almost gone.

>>Read our full Mirkarimi coverage here.

He’s a politician who freely admits he had marital troubles, was in some ways a bad husband, treated his wife poorly and, in an incident sparked by his own anger, physically hurt her. He knows he’s let down his supporters and damaged his once-bright political future.

He’s struggling to keep his job, arguing that the incident has been blown out of proportion and inappropriately used to remove him from elected office, with Mayor Ed Lee showing a reckless disregard for the truth before making the rare decision to institute official misconduct proceedings.

And you don’t have to endorse Mirkarimi’s actions or even agree that he should stay in office to find indications that the mayor’s case against him is shaky and at times clearly unfair.

Judge Harold Kahn will hear arguments today [April 19] that the City Attorney’s Office should be barred for overseeing the official conduct proceedings, and the next day he will hear Mirkarimi’s main challenges to Lee’s actions, including the arguments that the city’s official misconduct statute is unconstitutionally broad and that Mirkarimi was denied due process before being suspended without pay.

Then, on April 23, the Ethics Commission will convene to discuss procedures for handling the case.

Some key issues that could affect the outcomes of the city and court processes involve what Mirkarimi actually did – as opposed to what others have suggested he did. The whole thing may hinge on whether the sheriff did anything to hinder the domestic violence investigation, what his plea deal to official misconduct entailed – and whether the mayor made efforts to differentiate between fact and rumor.  

But let’s start at the beginning, just before lunchtime on New Year’s Eve, with a story that Mirkarimi told in great detail as we peppered him with questions seeking details on what happened, what his motivations and thoughts were at critical junctures, and what it all meant.

Around 11:45 am on Dec. 31, Mirkarimi, Lopez, and their nearly three-year-old son, Theo, got into their red 1998 Dodge Caravan to go to lunch at Delfina Pizzeria. Just before leaving their house on Webster Street, the couple had started talking about how Lopez wanted to take Theo on a trip to her native Venezuela to visit her father, who is battling cancer.

“It was not an unfamiliar topic,” Mirkarimi said, recounting how it had become an issue of increasing concern by him after her three previous trips had each been extended. They had been having marital problems, and he told us he was concerned that she might not come back – or that Theo could be at risk of kidnapping.

“We didn’t have a plan and there was no permission,” Mirkarimi said, with “permission” meaning his written permission to take their son out of the country, which he had learned from a lawyer was required. “The body of our quarrel on Dec. 31 is we need a plan.”

But Lopez told him in the car than she had also talked to an attorney and she contested that it was as clear-cut as Mirkarimi claimed. He later learned that the “attorney” Lopez was referring to was their neighbor, Ivory Madison, a writer who had attended law school and noted her “legal training” on the www.redroom.com website she ran with her husband, lawyer Abraham Mertens. But Madison hadn’t taken the bar exam and wasn’t licensed to practice law in California.

“This was a sucker punch, it really walloped me,” Mirkarimi said of the news that Lopez was speaking with an attorney, and it made him angry. “I was acting inappropriately, I swore at my wife and said ‘where is this coming from?’ So I could have handled it better.”

“I decided, because we were quarreling, to make the unilateral decision against Eliana’s wishes to turn the car around,” he said.

This, he contends, was the act that constituted false imprisonment, the misdemeanor charge that he pled guilty to last month in exchange for prosecutors dropping misdemeanor charges of domestic violence, dissuading a witness, and child endangerment. Mirkarimi contends this was the only point in their conflict in which he restrained his wife’s freedom. Other reports suggest that he didn’t let her leave the house shortly after the conflict, which he denies.

Mirkarimi’s criminal attorney, Lidia Stiglich, told us false imprisonment is a very broad term, and because it was such low-level charge, there wasn’t a specific action it covered. In other words there’s nothing factual in the legal record or anywhere supporting the notion that Mirkarimi actually held his wife against her will.

“You don’t need to agree to a factual basis to plead to a misdemeanor,” Stiglich said, noting that Mirkarimi’s interpretation is reasonable, but prosecutors might mean something different by it. “We can agree to disagree,” she said, although she acknowledges that vagueness has opened him up to a variety of interpretations in the political arena.

In other words, the notion that a sheriff, who oversees the jails, has pled guilty of false imprisonment looks just terrible, and has been been played up in the press. But it’s not clear that he actually imprisoned anyone, beyond refusing to take his wife and son to lunch. It’s an oddity of law, and the nuance doesn’t play well in a scandal-crazed media.  

But back to the day of the incident.

“I was loud, I was gruff, I was just pissed off, and I am ashamed of my behavior,” Mirkarimi said. By the time they got back home, the sheriff-elect had calmed down, but Lopez was getting increasingly angry at being mistreated.

He said she quickly got out of the car and was brusquely trying to remove Theo, who was crying and upset over his parents’ conflict, from his car seat. “I got scared because Theo was in danger a little bit,” he said, his voice choking up and eyes filled with tears, saying that he reached back and grabbed Lopez’s right arm, with three fingers under her arm, while he was still seatbelted into the front seat.

“Eliana reacted like, get away from me, and she tugged her arm,” he said. “The incident was minutes.”

Inside the house, tensions quickly de-escalated, he said, and they didn’t discuss the conflict again that day. They went grocery shopping together, brought home takeout for dinner, and Lopez went out briefly that night while Mirkarimi stayed home with their son.

But the next morning, she showed him the bruise that had formed on her right bicep where he grabbed her. “She said, ‘Look,’ and it just crushed me,” Mirkarimi said, adding that he apologized for hurting her and that he agreed to go to couples counseling.

Lopez had been asking her husband to seek counseling for some time, he acknowledged, and he’d been putting it off. “I take full blame that that didn’t happen earlier,” he said.

Then, mid-morning, Lopez told him that she was going to talk with their neighbors, Madison and Mertens, who Mirkarimi considered “nice people. They were supporters during my race, but I didn’t know them that well.” He said that he didn’t think much of it or worry that she might talk about the previous day’s incident, although he said he did make the connection after she left that perhaps this was the “lawyer” Lopez has referred to the day before – something she later confirmed.

From Mirkarimi’s perspective, the next few days were uneventful. The family left for a long-planned vacation to Monterey the next day, staying at the Intercontinental Hotel and taking Theo to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He said they talked “a little” about their New Year’s Eve conflict. “We were trying to gauge each other and our comfort level in talking about this,” he said. 

But Mirkarimi didn’t know about the storm that was brewing. He said he had no idea that Lopez had heeded Madison’s suggestion on Jan. 1 to make a video in which Lopez tearfully recounted the grabbing incident and displayed her bruise. Lopez, a former Venezuelan soap opera star, has consistently denied publicly that Mirkarimi ever abused her and has said, directly and through attorney Paula Canny, that the video was intended solely to be used in child custody proceedings if their marriage continued to devolve and that Lopez assumed she was getting legal advice and that the communications were private and subject to attorney-client privilege.

But Madison, who has not returned calls from the Guardian or other media outlets, wrestled with whether to go to the police and sought counsel on the question from several people, as information obtained by Mirkarimi’s team during discovery showed, including Phil Bronstein, the former editor for the Examiner and Chronicle who now chairs the board of the Center for Investigation and Bay Citizen.

Madison had two phone conversations with Bronstein, the veteran journalist told us. He said he knew Madison socially and “she gave me a brief narrative of the events.

“I said you should do whatever you think you should do to keep Eliana safe,” Bronstein told us.

Bronstein said he doesn’t know what happened between Mirkarimi and Lopez, but he understood from Madison that she was acting on behalf of Lopez, that the two women were communicating by text and e-mail, and that “I got the impression that Eliana was still trying to figure out what she wanted to do.”

“Eliana was continuing to e-mail with Ivory, saying he was being nicer now,” Bronstein said, but Madison was still concerned enough that she didn’t want to let the incident go, so Bronstein said she decided to call the San Francisco Police Department on Jan. 4 to get information on whether domestic violence incidents could be reported several days after they occurred, a decision he learned about after the fact.

“Ivory called the police hotline hypothetically to get information on when they can file,” Bronstein said, recounting a phone conversation they had on the afternoon of Jan. 4. But he said Madison was told by police that she could be charged with obstruction of justice for not reporting a crime – which isn’t exactly true under California law – and that SFPD had sent officers to her house to discuss the matter.

Shortly after that visit from police, Madison called Bronstein to tell him the story. “She was surprised that an inquiry had triggered a police investigation,” Bronstein said. Madison’s initial refusal to turn the videotape over to police, who needed a court order to seize it, is another indication that perhaps she didn’t want this case to explode the way it did.

In one version of events that Bronstein has discussed, Madison told him she wanted to help Lopez get in touch with three people who might be able to talk to Mirkarimi and convince him to seek counseling. Madison asked Bronstein if he had phone numbers for Aaron Peskin, Mike Hennessey and Art Agnos.

The odd thing about that is that Lopez already knew the three, and that their contact information was in the couple’s house.

But Mirkarimi had no idea any of this was going on, or even that his wife had discussed their conflict with Madison and made the videotape. “Everything happened on the 4th of January and literally I was the last one to know,” Mirkarimi told us.

Months later, Mertens wrote an op-ed for the Chronicle (“A neighbor’s side of Ross Mirkarimi case,” 3/20) in which he alleges Mirkarimi “paid a team of lawyers to relentlessly attempt to discredit, dissuade, and harm my wife,” although he didn’t return Guardian calls seeking comment or clarification of what he meant.

“The last time I spoke to Eliana was when she called me on Jan. 4. I recognized what I thought was Ross’ voice in the background as Eliana pressured me to destroy evidence and lie to the police. Then she repeatedly called Ivory, demanding that Ivory destroy the video, e-mail and texts from Eliana about the incident,” Mertens wrote. The allegation was parroted in the city’s official misconduct charges against Mirkarimi, which claim he “or his agents” sought to destroy evidence and obstruct the investigation.

But Mirkarimi and his lawyers say the charge is simply untrue. “The idea that he sought to get the videotape back or destroy it is nonsense,” Waggoner said, noting that Mirkarimi wasn’t even home as these events unfolded – on that fateful January day, he attended a ceremony marking the demolition of the old jail and then was in a long Budget Committee meeting, followed by a farewell celebration from the Local Agency Formation Commission. In other words, he couldn’t have been “in the background” during that call.

In fact, as far as we can tell, there is no evidence anywhere that Mirkarimi ever contacted Madison or Mertens. “I never talked to Ivory Madison and I never talked to her husband, Abraham Mertens, after any of this happened,” Mirkarimi said.

Mirkarimi said that Lopez first told him that she had told Madison about the grabbing incident by phone on the afternoon of Jan. 4, shortly after Madison told her in the street that she had called the police and they were on the way. Lopez didn’t know what to do and wanted to come meet her husband near City Hall. The officers that came tried to talk to Lopez, but she refused.

“She was panicked because she thought things were getting out of control with this neighbor and she asked for my recommendation,” Mirkarimi said, noting that Lopez literally ran from their home to City Hall and met Mirkarimi outside on Grove Street. It was then, he said, that Lopez first told Mirkarimi about making the videotape.

Mirkarimi said he greeted the news with stunned disbelief, and that his first instinct was to try to help his panic-stricken wife, but that he didn’t know what to do. “She was petrified about what was going on…She was frantic and I was getting frantic too,” he said. “I didn’t have a remedy, except oh my God, I think we need an attorney.”

They made a couple calls to find an attorney, and he said Lopez had the idea of having their friend, Linnette Peralta Haynes, a domestic violence advocate with the Our Family Coalition, reach out to Madison about why she had gone to police and what could be done at that point. “I had no idea what they were going to talk about,” Mirkarimi claims. Peralta Haynes didn’t return our calls and she is reportedly being sought as a witness by the City Attorney’s Office in the official misconduct proceedings.

Mirkarimi is adamant that he never did anything to gain possession of the videotape, dissuade his wife or any other witnesses from talking to police or prosecutors, or otherwise interfere with the investigation, even though Lopez was appealing to him to do something.

“She really wanted me to stop it, and I was like, dear, this bell has already rung and I don’t think we can unring it,” Mirkarimi said.

Lopez has said publicly that she felt betrayed by Madison, and Canny filed motions to suppress the video on the grounds of attorney-client privilege, conflicts that seem to have soured the relationship between the two women and fed feelings by Mertens that Madison was wronged for doing the right thing during the media circus that followed.

As a result, as part of Mirkarimi’s plea deal last month, the District Attorney’s Office insisted that Mirkarimi publicly apologize to Madison. It was an odd demand, since nobody (other than an op-ed writer in the Chron who gave no substantiation for his charges) had ever said that Mirkarimi had any contact at all with Madison.

DA’s spokesperson Stephanie Ong Stillman explained the insistence to us this way: “Ivory Madison’s actions were courageous. She found herself in a difficult situation trying to protect a friend who was in danger. In a surprising and disappointing turn, she was vilified for this act of courage. She suffered much unnecessary public scrutiny.”

Stillman wouldn’t deviate from that prepared statement when we asked specifically what Mirkarimi had done to Madison – or if there was any indication that the sheriff had ever done anything to “vilify” her – but she did said that the insistence on that direct apology was about encouraging witnesses of domestic violence, an underreported crime, to come forward. “We didn’t want other witnesses to be discouraged from reporting crimes after seeing what Ivory Madison went through,” she said.

Yet Stiglich said Canny’s motions and the divisions that developed between Lopez and Madison had nothing to do with Mirkarimi: “There were lot of actions taken by Eliana’s lawyers that caused a backlash that affected Ross.”

It’s not a minor issue: The allegation that Mirkarimi attempted to dissuade witnesses and used his official position to gain advantage is central to the mayor’s formal misconduct charges. But Mirkarimi and Stiglich maintain that there is nothing in the public record that supports the charge that he dissuaded witnesses or that he used his position as sheriff to gain advantage either before or after the incident.

“I was very surprised to see the allegation from the Mayor’s Office about dissuasion [of witnesses or interfering with the investigation] because there was no evidence of that,” Stiglich said. “He was the last person to know there was a video and that police were involved.”

It appears that Mirkarimi thought his guilty plea would end the case – and it was crafted not to give the mayor any grounds for removal. “I would not have entered a plea in a way that would inhibit my ability to be sheriff,” Mirkarimi said. “This was a very lucid conversation.”

In fact, he said, his instinct was to fight the charges all the way. “We were dying to go to trial,” Mirkarimi said.

But the cops and the DA’s Office did an excellent job of creating pre-trial publicity that made it almost impossible for Mirkarimi to get an impartial jury pool. Jury surveys showed that more than 70 percent of the potential jurors had already formed a negative opinion about Mirkarimi based on news coverage, he said.  

He has belatedly sought to address other oft-repeated misimpressions, disputing telling his wife that he would get custody because “I am a powerful man” (he says he told her the U.S. has powerful child custody laws) and saying journalists have distorted his comment that the conflict was “a private matter.”

In a charge that will be central to the upcoming legal battles, Mirkarimi and his attorneys say Mayor Lee wasn’t interested in hearing from Mirkarimi or discovering the truth about what happened before deciding to suspend Mirkarimi without pay and bring official misconduct charges against him. That, they say, denied the elected sheriff his due-process rights.

In his sworn affidavit in the case, Lee characterized his March 19 meeting with Mirkarimi – which he began by asking Mirkarimi to resign within 24 hours or be suspended – this way: “I explained to Sheriff Mirkarimi that I wanted to give him an opportunity to talk to me about this issue. It was a free flowing conversation with no time constraints. Sheriff Mirkarimi told me that he has not yet told his side of the story. I said, Okay, and waited for him to tell me his side of the story. He did not. Instead, after pausing, he asked me whether the suspension was based on his conduct as Sheriff. I responded that it was based on his conduct as a public official. I paused again and waited for Sheriff Mirkarimi to give me whatever information he thought important. He did not. Instead, Sheriff Mirkarimi asked me whether the suspension would be with or without pay. I told him it would be without pay. After giving him another chance to ask questions or give more information, I told Mr. Mirkarimi to consider my instruction to resign over the next 24 hours.”

But Mirkarimi said that narrative isn’t accurate or complete. He had sought to talk with Lee the previous week to explain what happened, but Lee refused. And when he showed up to talk to Lee on the March 19, he brought Sheriff’s Department legal counsel Freya Horne with him and asked that she be included in the conversation, but Lee refused, so there were no witnesses to the conversation.

“I went into that meeting with the express purpose to tell the mayor everything…As soon as I walk in the door, he gives me a little bit of preamble and then asks me to resign,”Mirkarimi said. “I said I’d really like you to talk to Eliana, can I give you her phone number? Nothing…I was asking questions and I wasn’t getting answers.”

Asked why he didn’t just start telling the full story, as Lee’s narrative indicates he was ready to hear, Mirkarimi insists that Lee simply informed him of the decision he had made and didn’t want to hear anything else. “He wanted the meeting to end after a minute, and I dragged it out by asking questions,” Mirkarimi said of the 15-minute meeting. Asked why he didn’t take a more forceful position, insisting on Horne being there or telling his full story, Mirkarimi said, “I’m the guy who’s trying to be contrite, not the one to walk in there with muscle.”

But now that those lines have been drawn, Mirkarimi says he intends to mount a vigorous defense, and he has some serious muscle on his legal team, including Waggoner and Shepard Kopp, who has worked on a variety of high profile cases.

Waggoner said the mayor’s affidavit, which he made under penalty of perjury, “is not truthful,” noting the inconsistency between telling Mirkarimi that he had made a decision to suspend him and saying he wanted to hear his side of story.

“That claim is undermined by his statements after when he describes how the meeting went down,” Waggoner said, saying he’s hopeful that the courts will agree that Lee acted inappropriately. “All that language undermines his initial claim that the purpose of the meeting was to gather information.”

That’s a central question: Did the mayor give the sheriff a chance to defend himself before making the highly unusual decision to suspend him? Or did Lee base that decision on evidence (like Mertens’ opinion piece) that lacked substantiation without giving Mirkarimi a chance to rebut it?

In other words, was Lee’s decision already made when he met with Mirkarimi? And if so, did the city’s chief executive deny another elected official the basic legal right to a fair hearing?

That’s what the courts will address.

Then if the case moves forward, the Ethics Commission will hold hearings –and again, Mirkarimi is at a disadvantage. The Mayor’s Office, through the city attorney, is already sending subpoenas to witnesses and preparing testimony. The defense can’t do that – because there are, at this point, no rules of evidence, no rights for the defense to compel testimony and, frankly, nothing for Mirkarimi’s lawyers to go on.

Four of the five members of the Ethics Commission are lawyers. At some point, they’re going to have to find a way to make this case comply to the rule of law.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 19-May 3; most shows $13. Venues: Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk.; SF Film Society Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; and Sundance Kabuki Cinema, 1881 Post, SF. For additional info, visit www.sffs.org.

OPENING

*Attenberg Isolated in a seaside Greek hamlet, naive about the ways of the world, and committed to watching her brilliant, terminally ill father slowly ebb away, Marina (Ariane Labed) might be living in a kind of hell from the viewpoint of many of her 20-something peers. But as imagined by writer-director Athina Rachel Tsangari, Marina’s circumscribed life instead teems with small, fascinating moments and weird, awkward instances of intimacy — the kind that add up to a compelling portrait of a coming of age and a kind of arrival of wisdom. About to face a lonely future with the imminent passing of architect dad Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis), Marina works as a driver, tooling around town to the chilled anguish of Suicide, attempting to learn about the facts of life from sexually experienced chum Bella (Evangelia Randou, a ringer for musician Eleanor Friedberger), and sparring playfully with her father. “We built an industrial colony on top of sheep pens and thought we were making a revolution,” he says in one scene, looking out at the water. “I like it. It’s soothing, all this uniformity,” Marina replies. “That’s because deep down you’re an optimistic bourgeois modernist.” “Bonjour, bourgeois.” A ripple is sent through Marina’s insular existence with the arrival of an engineer (Yorgos Lanthimos) — a real candidate for an intimate social experiment. Aligning herself firmly with her protagonist, Tsangari is gifted with a unique voice and has a remarkable eye for a resonant, poetic image. She channels both into a quiet film reminiscent of indies an age away à la Stranger Than Paradise (1984), finding a vein of humanistic hope during end times. (1:35) Presidio. (Chun)

Chimpanzee Just in time for Earth Day, Tim Allen narrates this kid-friendly, Jane Goodall-approved nature doc. (2:00) Shattuck.

4:44 Last Day on Earth Abel Ferrara’s latest imagines what the end of the world might be like for a volatile Lower East Side couple — he’s an ex-junkie (Ferrara favorite Willem Dafoe), she’s a young painter (Shanyn Leigh, Ferrara’s real-life companion). The film’s title refers to the predicted instant that an environmental catastrophe will completely dissolve the ozone layer, but 4:44 is mostly set indoors, specifically within the headspace of Dafoe’s character. It’s a gritty film that veers between self-indulgence and stuff that honestly seems pretty practical (sure, there’s a lot of Skyping, but if the world were ending, wouldn’t you?); as far as inward-looking disaster movies go, anyone planning an apocalypse film festival could double-bill 4:44 nicely with 2011’s Melancholia. (1:25) Balboa. (Eddy)

Letters From the Big Man Don’t fear the yeti. Filmmaker Christopher Munch (1991’s The Hours and Times) gets back to nature — and a more benevolent look at the sasquatch — with the engrossing Letters From the Big Man. Sarah (Lily Rabe, Jill Clayburgh’s daughter, perhaps best known for her ghostly American Horror Story flapper) is a naturalist and artist determined to get off trail, immerse herself in her postfire wilderness studies in southwestern Oregon, and leave the hassles and heartbreak of the human world behind. She’s far from alone, however, as she senses she’s being tailed — even after she confronts another solo hiker, Sean (Jason Butler Harner), who seems to share her deep love and knowledge of the wild. What emerges — as Sarah lives off the grid, sketches soulful-eyed Bigfoots, and powers her laptop with her bike — is a love story that might bear a remote resemblance to Beauty and the Beast if Munch weren’t so completely straight-faced in his belief in the big guys. The question, the mystery, isn’t whether or not sasquatch exist, according to the filmmaker, who paces his tale as if it were as big and encompassing as an ancient forest — rather, whether we can hold onto a belief in nature and its unknowables and coexist. (1:44) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Lucky One Iraq War veteran Logan (Zac Efron) beats PTSD by walking with his German shepherd from Colorado to the Louisiana bayou, in search of a golden-haired angel in cutoff blue jean short shorts (Taylor Schilling). His stated (in soporific voice-over) aim is to meet and thank the angel, who he believes repeatedly saved his life in the combat zone after he plucked her photograph from the rubble of a bombed-out building. The snapshot offers little in the way of biographical information, but luckily, there are only 300 million people in the United States, and he manages to find her after walking around for a bit. The angel, or Beth, as her friends call her, runs a dog kennel with her grandmother (Blythe Danner) while raising her noxiously Hollywood-precocious eight-year-old son (Riley Thomas Stewart) and fending off the regressive advances of her semi-villainous ex-husband (Jay R. Ferguson). Logan’s task seems simple enough, and he’s certainly walked a fair distance to complete it, but rather than expressing his gratitude, he becomes tongue-tied in the face of Beth’s backlit blondness and instead fills out a job application and proceeds to soulfully but manfully burrow his way into her affections and short shorts. Being an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, The Lucky One requires some forceful yanking on the heartstrings, but director Scott Hicks (1999’s Snow Falling on Cedars, 1996’s Shine) is hobbled in this task by, among other things, Efron’s wooden, uninvolved delivery of queasy speeches about traveling through darkness to find the light and how many times a day a given woman should be kissed. (1:41) Marina, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

*Marley Oscar-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald (1999’s One Day in September; he also directed Best Actor Forest Whitaker in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland) takes on the iconic Bob Marley, using extensive interviews — both contemporary (with Marley friends and family) and archival (with the musician himself) — and performance and off-the-cuff footage. The end result is a compelling (even if you’re not a fan) portrait of a man who became a global sensation despite being born into extreme poverty, and making music in a style that most people had never heard outside of Jamaica. The film dips into Marley’s Rastafari beliefs (no shocker this movie is being released on 4/20), his personal life (11 children from seven different mothers), his impact on Jamaica’s volatile politics, his struggles with racism, and, most importantly, his remarkable career — achieved via a combination of talent and boldness, and cut short by his untimely death at age 36. (2:25) California, Embarcadero. (Eddy)

*My Way South Korean director Kang Je-gyu (2004 Korean War epic Taegukgi) returns to the battlefield for another bombastic action flick with a very complicated bro-down at its center. This time, it’s World War II, and the head-butting protagonists are not actually brothers, but lifelong frenemies: Japanese Tatsuo (mega-idol Joe Odagiri) and South Korean Joon-sik (Taegukgi star Jang Dong-gun). They meet in occupied South Korea, where class and country lines amp up their frequent confrontations as competitive long-distance runners. When WW2 breaks out, Joon-sik is forced to join the Japanese army, with guess who ordering him around; during My Way‘s meaty war-is-hell section, the men’s relationship endures a Soviet labor camp, knife (and fist) fights, blizzards, gunshot wounds, deafness, countless explosions (including lots of exploding bodies), sprints on the beach, bellowing arguments, runaway tanks, grenades, Nazis, D-Day, and moments of heroism, cowardice, insanity, weepy emotion, and dumb luck. Somehow, Kang keeps the pace between “frenetic” and “superfly TNT” for a solid two hours — the man may not care much for subtlety, but My Way is nothing if not insanely entertaining. (1:59) SF Center. (Eddy)

*Surviving Progress The very definition of a movie that most needs to be seen by the people least likely to see it — i.e. most folk the right of the political dial — this excellent documentary manages to interweave virtually all the leading planet threatening woes of our era in a succinct and entertaining fashion. Its thesis is author Ronald Wright’s notion that “We’re at the end of a failed experiment.” It’s been around a while, so you’ve doubtless heard of it: the Industrial Revolution. That shift from small-scale, self-sustaining agrarian communities to much larger ones dependent on mass production and import-export created pockets of enormous First World wealth and comfort. But the populations that benefitted used up resources wildly out of proportion to their number; now countries like China and India want their share of the industrialized pie, just as we’ve realized those resources might actually run out. Cue summaries of the harm global warming, overpopulation, consumption, soil depletion, “market fundamentalism,” etc. have done and will do, as duly noted here by a roster of A-list experts including Stephen Hawking and Jane Goodall. (The latter vividly contextualizes just how out of whack humanity has gone by opining that ours is the only species capable of terminating its future by destroying its own habitat.) While this may sound like a bitter pill to swallow, not to mention one you’ve swallowed many times before, Surviving Progress colorfully weaves together a vast assortment of audiovisual materials as well as information, to highly watchable results. Do the earth a favor: see this movie, and drag a skeptic you know along. (1:26) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Think Like a Man Based on Steve Harvey’s best-seller Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, this ensemble rom-com stars Romany Malco, Gabrielle Union, Kevin Hart, and Wendy Williams. (2:02) Shattuck.

ONGOING

American Reunion Care for yet another helping of all-American horn dogs? The original American Pie (1999) was a sweet-tempered, albeit ante-upping tribute to ’80s teen sex comedies, so the latest in the franchise, the older, somewhat wiser American Reunion, is obliged to squeeze a dab more of the ole life force outta the class of ’99, in honor of their, em, 13th high school reunion. These days Jim (Jason Biggs) is attempting to fluff up a flagging postbaby sex life with wife Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) yearns to get in touch with his buried bad boy. Oz (Chris Klein) has become a sportscaster-reality competition star and is seemingly lost without old girlfriend Heather (Mena Suvari). Stifler (Seann William Scott) is as piggishly incorrigible as ever—even as a low-hanging investment flunky, while scarred, adventuring biker Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) seems to have become “the most interesting man in the world.” How much trouble can the gang get into? About as much of a mess as the Hangover guys, which one can’t stop thinking about when Jim wakes up on the kitchen floor with tile burns and zero pants. Half the cast—which includes Tara Reid, John “MILF!” Cho, Natasha Lyonne, and Shannon Elizabeth — seems to have stirred themselves from their own personal career hangovers, interludes of insanity, and plastic surgery disasters (with a few, like Cho and Thomas, firmly moving on), and others such as parental figures Eugene Levy and Jennifer Coolidge continuing to show the kids how it’s done. Still, the farcical American franchise’s essentially benign, healthy attitude toward good, dirty fun reads as slightly refreshing after chaste teen fare like the Twilight and High School Musical flicks. Even with the obligatory moment of full-frontal penis smooshing. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Bad Fever Dustin Guy Defa’s tiny, odd character study centers on one Eddie Cooperschmidt (Kentucker Audley, a director himself), who looks like Mr. February 1992 on a calendar of sensitive grunge band hunks, but acts more like Homer Simpson — the Nathanael West version, not Matt Groening’s. He still lives with mom (unsympathetically played by Annette Wright), doesn’t or can’t hold a job, has no friends, fumbles through an oddly formal vocabulary, and carries himself like a 13-year-old who’s just had all his growth spurts in one go. In other words, he’s the sort of character whose precise status — just socially inept, or developmentally disabled, or both? — is a mystery the film doesn’t bother clarifying. Nor do we find out what the story is behind Irene (Eleonore Hendricks), his hard-bitten antithesis, who seems to be staying in an empty school classroom as some sort of weird art experiment rather than because she’s “homeless,” and who manipulates the hapless Eddie into videotaped situations that are perverse but stop short of pornography. (Or rather he — almost certainly a virgin — stops short there.) As if more goofy pathos were needed here, Eddie’s dream is to be a stand-up comedian, a career he is about as well equipped for as brain surgeon. When Eddie plays his big first (and probably last) comedy gig, the onscreen audience appears to be wondering the same thing you might: is this just sad, or some kind of Andy Kaufman-type performance piece? Painstakingly low-key and realistic in execution, Bad Fever‘s success will depend on whether you can swallow it conceptually — these characters are surrounded by a real world, but they can seem unreal themselves. (1:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

*The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye Once dubbed “the wickedest man in the world”, shock artist and cofounder of seminal industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has softened somewhat with time. Her plunge into pandrogyny, an ongoing artistic and personal process embarked upon with the late Jacqueline “Lady Jaye” Breyer P-Orridge, is an attempt to create a perfectly balanced body, incorporating the characteristics of both. As artists, the two were committed to documenting their process, but as marriage partners, much of their footage is sweetly innocuous home video footage: Genesis cooking in the kitchen decked out in a little black dress, Lady Jaye setting out napkins at a backyard bar-b-que or helping to dig through Genesis’ archives of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle “ephemera,” the two wrapped in bandages after getting matching nose jobs. “I just want to be remembered as one of the great love affairs of all time,” Jaye tells Genesis. This whimsical documentary by Marie Losier will go a long way toward making that wish a reality. (1:12) Roxie. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Blue Like Jazz Tap or bottled water, rainy Portland, Ore. or dry Texas — how does a sincere, young Bible-thumping Baptist reconcile the two — a fish out of water nonetheless determined to swim upstream and make his way to adulthood. Based on the Donald Miller memoir-of-sorts, Blue Like Jazz may look like a Nicholas Sparks romantic opus from afar, but in the care of director-cowriter Steve Taylor, this tale of a young man coming to terms with the wider, wilder world apart from the strict confines of lock-in abstinence groups snatches a bit of the grace John Coltrane tapped in A Love Supreme. The earnest Donald (True Blood‘s Marshall Allman) is all set to go to his nearby Bible Belt Christian university until his bohemian jazz-loving dad pulls favors and enrolls him at free-form Reed College. Donald will have to closet his holy-roller background if, as his new lesbian pal (Tania Raymonde) cautions, he “plans on ever making friends or sharing a bowl or seeing human vagina without a credit card.” Donald finds his way back to meaning and spirit — and the fun is getting there, as he joins a civil-disobedience-club-for-credit (Malaysian cocktail tennis was canceled) and falls for passionate activist Penny (Claire Holt). Allman, who also co-executive produced, emerges as a thoughtful actor who can carry a potentially maudlin and ultimately lovable collegiate coming-of-age story on his own. (1:47) 1000 Van Ness, Opera Plaza. (Chun)

*Bully Anyone who’s ever been a kid on the wrong side of a bully — or was sensitive and observant enough not to avert his or her eyes — will be puzzling over the MPAA’s R rating of this doc, for profanity. It’s absurd when the gory violence on network and basic cable TV stops just short of cutting characters’ faces off, as one blurred-out bus bully threatens to do to the sweet, hapless Alex, dubbed “Fish Face” by the kids who ostracize him and make his life hell on the bus. It’s a jungle out there, as we all know — but it’s that real, visceral footage of the verbal (and physical) abuse bullied children deal with daily that brings it all home. Filmmaker Lee Hirsch goes above and beyond in trying to capture all dimensions of his subject: the terrorized bullied, the ineffectual school administrators, the desperate parents. There’s Kelby, the gay girl who was forced off her beloved basketball team after she came out, and Ja’Maya, who took drastic measures to fend off her tormenters — as well as the specters of those who turned to suicide as a way out. Hirsch is clearly more of an activist than a fly on the wall: he steps in at one point to help and obviously makes an uplifting effort to focus on what we can do to battle bullying. Nevertheless, at the risk of coming off like the Iowa assistant principal who’s catching criticism for telling one victim that he was just as bad as the bully that he refused to shake hands with, one feels compelled to note one prominent component that’s missing here: the bullies themselves, their stories, and the reasons why they’re so cruel — admittedly a daunting, possibly libelous task. (1:35) Metreon, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*The Cabin in the Woods If the name “Joss Whedon” doesn’t provide all the reason you need to bum-rush The Cabin in the Woods (Whedon produced and co-wrote, with director and frequent collaborator Drew Goddard), well, there’s not much more that can be revealed without ruining the entire movie. In a very, very small nutshell, it’s about a group of college kids (including Chris “Thor” Hemsworth) whose weekend jaunt to a rural cabin goes horribly awry, as such weekend jaunts tend to do in horror movies (the Texas Chainsaw and Evil Dead movies are heavily referenced). But this is no ordinary nightmare — its peculiarities are cleverly, carefully revealed, and the movie’s inside-out takedown of scary movies produces some very unexpected (and delightfully blood-gushing) twists and turns. Plus: the always-awesome Richard Jenkins, and in-jokes galore for genre fans. (1:35) California, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Eddy)

*Casa de mi Padre Will Ferrell’s latest challenge in a long line of actorly exercises and comic gestures — from his long list of comedies probing the last gasps of American masculinity to serious forays like Stranger Than Fiction (2006) and Everything Must Go (2010) — is almost entirely Spanish-language telenovela-burrito Western spoof Casa de mi Padre. Here Ferrell tackles an almost entirely Spanish script (with only meager, long-ago high school and college language courses under his belt) alongside Mexican natives Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna and telenovela veteran Genesis Rodriguez. This clever, intriguing, occasionally very funny, yet not altogether successful endeavor, directed by Matt Piedmont and written by Andrew Steele, sprang from Ferrell’s noggin. Ferrell is nice guy Armando, content to stay at home at the ranch, hang with his buddies, and be dismissed by his father (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.) as a dolt. The arrival of his sleazy bro Raul (Luna) and Raul’s fiancée Sonia (Rodriguez) change everything, bringing killer narco Onza (Bernal) into the family’s life and sparking some hilariously klutzy entanglements between Armando and Sonia. All of this leads to almost zero improvisation on Ferrell’s part and plenty of meta, Machete-like spoofs on low-budget fare, from Sergio Leone to Alejandro Jodorowsky. Casa punctures padre-informed transmissions of Latin machismo, but it equally ridicules the idea of a gringo actor riding in and superimposing himself, badly or otherwise, over another country’s culture. (1:25) Four Star. (Chun)

*Damsels in Distress Whit Stillman lives! The eternally preppy writer-director (1990’s Metropolitan; 1994’s Barcelona; 1998’s The Last Days of Disco), whose dialogue-laden scripts have earned him the not-inaccurate descriptor of “the WASP Woody Allen,” emerges with this popped-collar take on girl-clique movies like Mean Girls (2004), Clueless (1995), and even Heathers (1988). At East Coast liberal-arts college Seven Oaks (“the last of the Select Seven to go co-ed”), frat guys are so dumb they don’t know the names of all the colors; the school newspaper is called the Daily Complainer; and a group of girls, lead by know-it-all Violet (Greta Gerwig), are determined to lift student morale using unconventional methods (tap dancing is one of them). After she’s scooped into this strange orbit, transfer student (Analeigh Tipton) can’t quite believe Violet and her friends are for real. They’re not, of course — they’re carefully crafted Stillman creations, which renders this very funny take on college life a completely unique experience. Did I mention the musical numbers? (1:38) SF Center. (Eddy)

*The Deep Blue Sea Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, filmmaker Terence Davies, much like his heroine, chooses a mutable, fluid sensuality, turning his source material, Terence Rattigan’s acclaimed mid-century play, into a melodrama that catches you in its tide and refuses to let go. At the opening of this sumptuous portrait of a privileged English woman who gives up everything for love, Hester (Rachel Weisz) goes through the methodical motions of ending it all: she writes a suicide note, carefully stuffs towels beneath the door, takes a dozen pills, turns on the gas, and lies down to wait for death to overtake her. Via memories drifting through her fading consciousness, Davies lets us in on scattered, salient details in her back story: her severely damped-down, staid marriage to a high court judge, Sir William (Simon Russel Beale), her attraction and erotic awakening in the hands of charming former RF pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), her separation, and her ultimate discovery that her love can never be matched, as she hazards class inequities and ironclad gender roles. “This is a tragedy,” Sir William says, at one point. But, as Hester, a model of integrity, corrects him, “Tragedy is too big a word. Sad, perhaps.” Similarly, Sea is a beautiful downer, but Davies never loses sight of a larger post-war picture, even while he pauses for his archetypal interludes of song, near-still images, and luxuriously slow tracking shots. With cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, he does a remarkable job of washing post-war London with spots of golden light and creating claustrophobic interiors — creating an emotionally resonant space reminiscent of the work of Wong Kar-wai and Christopher Doyle. At the center, providing the necessary gravitas (much like Julianne Moore in 2002’s Far From Heaven), is Weisz, giving the viewer a reason to believe in this small but reverberant story, and offering yet another reason for attention during the next awards season. (1:38) Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Detention The latest from A-list music video director turned B-movie helmer Joseph Kahn (2004’s Torque) realllllly wants to be a cult classic. Not sure that’s a certainty, but midnight would definitely be the appropriate hour to view this teen-slasher parody that also enfolds body-swapping, time travel, out-of-control parties, stuffed bears, accidental YouTube porn, unrequited love, the dreaded Dane Cook, and cinema’s most sledgehammer-heavy 1990s nostalgia to date — despite the fact that Detention‘s central homage is to The Breakfast Club, which came out in 1985. Nominally grounding the film’s garish look, broad humor, and breakneck pace are the charms of young leads Shanley Caswell (as klutzy tomboy Riley) and Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson (as a Road House-worshiping skater), who displays questionable if admirable show biz aspirations by serving as one of Detention‘s executive producers. He was, after all, born in 1992, which in Detention‘s estimation was “like, the coolest year ever!” (1:30) Metreon. (Eddy)

Footnote (1:45) Albany, Clay.

*Friends With Kids Jennifer Westfeldt scans Hollywood’s romantic comedy landscape for signs of intelligent life and, finding it to be a barren place possibly recovering from a nuclear holocaust, writes, directs, and stars in this follow-up to 2001’s Kissing Jessica Stein, which she co-wrote and starred in. Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) are upper-thirtysomething New Yorkers with two decades of friendship behind them. He calls her “doll.” They have whispered phone conversations at four in the morning while their insignificant others lie slumbering beside them on the verge of getting dumped. And after a night spent witnessing the tragic toll that procreation has taken on the marriages of their four closest friends — Bridesmaids (2011) reunion party Leslie (Maya Rudolph), Alex (Chris O’Dowd), Missy (Kristen Wiig), and Ben (Jon Hamm), the latter two, surprisingly and less surprisingly, providing some of the film’s darkest moments — Jason proposes that they raise a child together platonically, thereby giving any external romantic relationships a fighting chance of survival. In no time, they’ve worked out the kinks to their satisfaction, insulted and horrified their friends, and awkwardly made a bouncing baby boy. The arrival of significant others (Edward Burns and Megan Fox) signals the second phase of the experiment. Some viewers will be invested in latent sparks of romance between the central pair, others in the success of an alternative family arrangement; one of these demographics is destined for disappointment. Until then, however, both groups and any viewers unwilling to submit to this reductive binary will be treated to a funny, witty, well crafted depiction of two people’s attempts to preserve life as they know it while redrawing the parameters of parenthood. (1:40) SF Center. (Rapoport)

*House of Pleasures Set in a fin de siècle French brothel, Bertrand Bonello’s lushly rendered drama is challenging and frequently unpleasant. Bonello sees the beauty and allure of his subjects, the many miserable women of this maison close, but rarely sinks to sympathy for their selfish and sometimes sadistic clients. Bound as they are by their debts to their Madame, the prostitutes are essentially slaves, held to strict and humiliating standards. All they have is each other, and the movie’s few emotional bright spots come from this connection. The filmmaking is wily and nouvelle vague-ish, featuring anachronistic music and inventive split-screen sequences. Additionally, there is a spidery complexity to the film’s chronology, wherein certain scenes repeat to reveal new contexts. This unstuck sense of newness is perhaps didactic — this could and does happen now as well as then — but it also serves to make an already compelling ensemble piece even richer and more engaging. (2:02) SF Film Society Cinema. (Sam Stander)

The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a teenager living in a totalitarian state whose 12 impoverished districts, as retribution for an earlier uprising, must pay tribute to the so-called Capitol every year, sacrificing one boy and one girl each to the Hunger Games. A battle royal set in a perilous arena and broadcast live to the Capitol as gripping diversion and to the districts as sadistic propaganda, the Hunger Games are, depending on your viewpoint, a “pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice” or a brutal, pointless bloodbath involving children as young as 12. When her little sister’s name comes up in the annual lottery, Katniss volunteers to take her place and is joined by a boy named Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares an old, unspoken bond. Tasked with translating to the screen the first installment of Suzanne Collins’s rabidly admired trilogy, writer-director Gary Ross (2003’s Seabiscuit, 1998’s Pleasantville) telescopes the book’s drawn-out, dread-filled tale into a manageable two-plus-hour entertainment, making great (and horrifying) use of the original work’s action, but losing a good deal of the narrative detail and emotional force. Elizabeth Banks is comic and unrecognizable as Effie Trinket, the two tributes’ chaperone; Lenny Kravitz gives a blank, flattened reading as their stylist, Cinna; and Donald Sutherland is sufficiently creepy and bloodless as the country’s leader, President Snow. More exceptionally cast are Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta’s surly, alcoholic mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, and Stanley Tucci as games emcee Caesar Flickerman, flashing a bank of gleaming teeth at each contestant as he probes their dire circumstances with the oily superficiality of a talk show host. (2:22) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*The Hunter Shot and set during Iran’s contentious 2009 Presidential campaign, The Hunter starts as a Kafka-esque portrait of quiet desperation in a cold, empty Tehran, then turns into a sort of existential thriller. The precise message may be ambiguous, but it’s no surprise this two-year-old feature has so far played nearly everywhere but Iran itself. Ali (filmmaker Rafi Pitts) is released from prison after some years, his precise crime never revealed. Told that with his record he can’t expect to get a day shift on his job as security guard at an automotive plant, he keeps hours at odds with his working wife Sara (Mitra Haijar) and six-year-old daughter Saba (Saba Yaghoobi). Still, they try to spend as much time together as possible, until one day Ali returns to find them uncharacteristically gone all day. After getting the bureaucratic runaround he’s finally informed by police that something tragic has occurred; one loved one is dead, the other missing. When his thin remaining hope is dashed, with police notably useless in preventing that grim additional news, Ali snaps — think Peter Bogdanovich’s 1968 Targets. He’s soon in custody, albeit in that of two bickering officers who get them all lost in the countryside. Pitts, a long-ago child performer cast here only when the actor originally hired had to be replaced, makes Ali seem pinched from the inside out, as if in permanent recoil from past and anticipated abuse. This thin, hunched frame, vulnerable big ears, and hooded eyes — the goofily oversized cap he wears at work seems a deliberate affront — seems so fixed an expression of unhappiness that when he flashes a great smile, for a moment you might think it must be someone else. He’s an everyman who only grows more shrunken once the film physically opens up into a natural world no less hostile for being beautiful. (1:32) Roxie. (Harvey)

*The Island President The titular figure is Mohamed Nasheed, recently ousted (by allies of the decades long dictator he’d replaced) chief executive of the Republic of Maldives — a nation of 26 small islands in the Indian Ocean. Jon Shenk’s engaging documentary chronicles his efforts up to and through the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit to gather greater international commitment to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. This is hardly do-gooderism, a bid for eco-tourism, or politics as usual: scarcely above sea level, with nary a hill, the Maldives will simply cease to exist soon if waters continue to rise at global warming’s current pace. (“It won’t be any good to have a democracy if we don’t have a country,” he half-jokes at one point.) Nasheed is tireless, unjaded, delightful, and willing to do anything, at one point hosting “the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting” (with oxygen tanks, natch) as a publicity stunt. A cash-strapped nation despite its surfeit of wealthy vacationers, it’s spending money that could go to education and health services on the pathetic stalling device of sandwalls instead. But do bigger powers — notably China, India and the U.S. — care enough about this bit-part player on the world stage to change their energy-use and economic habits accordingly? (A hint: If you’ve been mulling a Maldivian holiday, take it now.) Somewhat incongruous, but an additional sales point nonetheless: practically all the film’s incidental music consists of pre-existing tracks by Radiohead. (1:51) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Jeff, Who Lives at Home The failure-to-launch concept will always thrive whenever and wherever economies flail, kids crumble beneath family trauma, and the seduction of moving back home to live for free with the parental units overcomes the draw of adulthood and individuation. Nevertheless brotherly writing and directing team Jay and Mark Duplass infuse a fresh, generous-minded sweetness in this familiar narrative arc, mainly by empathetically following those surrounding, and maybe enabling, the stay-at-home. Spurred by a deep appreciation of Signs (2002) and plentiful bong hits, Jeff (Jason Segel) decides to go with the signals that the universe throws at him: a mysterious phone call for a Kevin leads him to stalk a kid wearing a jersey with that name and jump a candy delivery truck. This despite the frantic urging of his mother (Susan Sarandon), who has set the bar low and simply wants Jeff to repair a shutter for her birthday, and the bad influence of brother Pat (Ed Helms), a striving jerk who compensates for his insecurities by buying a Porsche and taking business meetings at Hooters. We never quite find out what triggered Jeff’s dormancy and Pat’s prickishness — two opposing responses to some unspecified psychic wound — yet by Jeff, Who Lives at Home‘s close, it doesn’t really matter. The Duplass brothers convince you to go along for the ride, much like Jeff’s blessed fool, and accept the ultimately feel-good, humanist message of this kind-hearted take on human failings. (1:22) SF Center. (Chun)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of “deliciousness” — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

*The Kid with a Bike Slippery as an eel, Cyril (Thomas Doret) is the bane of authorities as he tries to run away at any opportunity from school and a youth home — being convinced that the whole adult world is conspiring to keep his father away from him. During one such chase he literally runs into hair-salon proprietor Samantha (Cécile De France), who proves willing to host him on weekends away from his public facility, and is a patient, steadying influence despite his still somewhat exasperating behavior. It’s she who orchestrates a meeting with his dad (Jerémié Renier, who played the child in the Dardennes’ 1996 breakthrough La Promesse), so Cyril can confront the hard fact that his pa not only can’t take care of him, he doesn’t much want to. Still looking for some kind of older male approval, Cyril falls too easily under the sway of Wes (Egon Di Mateo), a teenage thug whom everyone in Samantha’s neighborhood knows is bad news. This latest neorealist-style drama from Belgium’s Dardenne Brothers treads on very familiar ground for them, both in themes and terse execution. It’s well-acted, potent stuff, if less resonant in sum impact than their best work. (1:27) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*The Lady Luc Besson directs Michelle Yeoh — but The Lady is about as far from flashy action heroics as humanly possible. Instead, it’s a reverent, emotion-packed biopic of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, a national hero in Burma (Myanmar) for her work against the country’s oppressive military regime. But don’t expect a year-by-year exploration of Suu’s every accomplishment; instead, the film focuses on the relationship between Suu and her British husband, Michael Aris (David Thewlis). When Michael discovers he’s dying of cancer, he’s repeatedly denied visas to visit his wife — a cruel knife-twist by a government that assures Suu that if she leaves Burma to visit him, they’ll never allow her to return. Heartbreaking stuff, elegantly channeled by Thewlis and especially Yeoh, who conveys Suu’s incredible strength despite her alarmingly frail appearance. The real Iron Lady, right here. (2:07) Bridge, Shattuck. (Eddy)

L!fe Happens Ah, another movie in the Juno-Knocked Up continuum of “Unplanned and totally ill-advised pregnancy? Welp, guess I’m having a baby!” We never know if a “shmishmortion” occurs to Kim (Krysten Ritter), because she has unprotected sex in the first scene and the next scene is “one year later,” with infant in tow. The wee babe’s dad, a surfer with neck tattoos, is out of the picture; Kim makes do with her job as a dog walker (Kristen Johnston plays her kid-hating, cheesy-diva boss) and the good graces of her roommates, sardonic budding self-help guru Deena (Kate Bosworth) and cheerful Laura (Rachel Bilson), whose only defining characteristic is that she’s a virgin (omg, the irony). As directed by Kat Coira (who co-wrote with Ritter), L!fe Happens lurches toward Hollywood conventionality by pairing Kim with a hunky guy (Geoff Stults) who doesn’t realize she’s a MILF. Fortunately, that storyline is frequently overshadowed — seriously, they might as well have named the baby “Plot Device” or “Conflict Generator” — by the remarkably realistic I-love-you-but-sometimes-I-want-to-kill-you relationship between BFFs Kim and Deena, which forms the film’s true emotional core. +100 for casting Weeds‘ Justin Kirk as an ascot-wearing weirdo who woos the icy Deena, with (not-so) surprising results. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Lockout Just when you thought Luc Besson was turning over a new, serious-minded leaf with Aung San Suu Kyi biopic The Lady, Lockout arrives to remind you that this is the dude whose earliest efforts (1990’s La Femme Nikita, 1997’s The Fifth Element) have since been subsumed beneath piles of dispose-o-flicks that resemble outtakes from the Transporter movies (which he produced, natch). That’s not to say there aren’t certain pleasures to be found in tossed-off action flicks; Lockout, which inexplicably needed two directors (James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, who co-wrote with Besson), is enjoyable enough in the moment, in addition to being completely, consistently ludicrous throughout. Guy Pearce plays the wisecracking Snow, a wrongfully-convicted government agent who’s about to suffer the Punishment of the Future: being sedated and then blasted to space prison for 30 years. That is, until the First Daughter (Maggie Grace) finds herself trapped aboard the facility when a riot breaks out. Naturally, reluctant rescuer Snow is chosen for prison-break-in-reverse duties. The rest goes like this: Boom! Quip! Boom! Quip! Lockout purports to be from an “original idea” by exec producer Besson, a bold claim considering the movie is more or less Con Air (1997) pasted over the Die Hard series and John Carpenter’s Escape movies. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Mirror Mirror In this glittery, moderately girl-powery adaptation of the Snow White tale (a comic foil of sorts to this summer’s gloomier-looking Snow White and the Huntsman), Julia Roberts takes her turn as stepmom, to an earnest little ingenue (Lily Collins) whose kingly father (Sean Bean) is presumed dead and whose rather-teeny-looking kingdom is collapsing under the weight of fiscal ruin and a thick stratum of snow. Into this sorry realm rides a chiseled beefcake named Prince Alcott (Arnie Hammer), who hails from prosperous Valencia, falls for Snow White, and draws the attentions of the Queen (Roberts) from both a strategic and a libidinal standpoint. Soon enough, Snow White (Snow to her friends) is narrowly avoiding execution at the hands of the Queen’s sycophantic courtier-henchman (Nathan Lane), rustling up breakfast for a thieving band of stilt-walking dwarves, and engaging in sylvan hijinks preparatory to deposing her stepmother and bringing light and warmth and birdsong and perennials back into fashion. Director Tarsem Singh (2000’s The Cell, 2011’s Immortals) stages the film’s royal pageantry with a bright artistry, and Roberts holds court with vicious, amoral relish as she senses her powers of persuasion slipping relentlessly from her grasp. Carefully catering to tween-and-under tastes as well as those of their chaperones, the comedy comes in various breadths, and there’s meta-humor in the sight of Roberts passing the pretty woman torch, though Collins seems blandly unprepared to wield her power wisely or interestingly. Consider vacating your seats before the extraneous Bollywood-style song-and-dance number that accompanies the closing credits. (1:46) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

*Monsieur Lazhar When their beloved but troubled teacher hangs herself in the classroom — not a thoughtful choice of location, but then we never really discover her motives — traumatized Montreal sixth-graders get Bachir Lazhar (Fellag), a middle-aged Algerian émigré whose contrastingly rather strict, old-fashioned methods prove surprisingly useful at helping them past their trauma. He quickly becomes the crush object of studious Alice (Sophie Nelisse), whose single mother is a pilot too often away, while troublemaker Simon (Emilien Neron) acts out his own domestic and other issues at school. Lazhar has his own secrets as well — for one thing, we see that he’s still petitioning for permanent asylum in Canada, contradicting what he told the principal upon being hired — and while his emotions are more tightly wrapped, circumstances will eventually force all truths out. This very likable drama about adults and children from Quebec writer-director Philippe Falardeau doesn’t quite have the heft and resonance to rate among the truly great narrative films about education (like Laurent Cantet’s recent French The Class). But it comes close enough, gracefully touching on numerous other issues while effectively keeping focus on how a good teacher can shape young lives in ways as incalculable as they are important. (1:34) Albany, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

People v. The State of Illusion Writer-producer-star Austin Vickers’ slice of self-help cinema is a motivational lecture illustrated by a lot of infomercial-type imagery, plus a narrative strand: when a stressed-out yuppie single dad’s carelessness results in a traffic death, he’s sent to prison. Naturally Aaron (played by J.B. Tuttle) hate, hate, hates it there, until the world’s most philosophically advanced janitor (Michael McCormick) gradually gets him to understand that the real “prison” is his mind — freedom requires only an “awareness shift.” The larger film, with Vickers addressing us directly and various experts chipping in, furthers that notion to suggest even cellular science supports the notion that reality is a matter of perception — and thus the roadblocks and limitations that gum us up on life’s paths (relationships, income, self-doubt, et al.) can be overcome if one believes so and acts accordingly. This elaborate pep talk isn’t really the sort of thing you can evaluate in art or entertainment terms, save to say it’s well-crafted for its type. As for value in other terms, well, odds are you’ve heard all this in one form or another before. But if you happen to be stuck in any kind of personal prison, who knows, People might be just the prod that gets you moving. (1:26) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*The Raid: Redemption As rip-roaring as they come, Indonesian import The Raid: Redemption (from, oddly, a Welsh writer-director, Gareth Huw Evans) arrives to reassure genre fans that action films are still being made without CG-embellished stunts, choppy editing, and gratuitous 3D. Fists, feet, and gnarly weapons do the heavy lifting in this otherwise simple tale of a taciturn special-forces cop (Iko Uwais) who’s part of a raid on a run-down, high-rise apartment building where all the tenants are crooks and the landlord is a penthouse-dwelling crime boss (Ray Sahetapy). Naturally, things go awry almost immediately, and floor-to-floor brawls (choreographed by Uwais and co-star Yayan Ruhian, whose character is aptly named “Mad Dog”) comprise nearly the entirety of the film; of particular interest is The Raid‘s focus on pencak silat, an indigenous Indonesian fighting style — though there are also plenty of thrilling gun battles, machete-thwackings, and other dangerous delights. Even better: Redemption is the first in a planned trilogy of films starring Uwais’ badass (yet morally rock-solid) character. Bring it! (1:40) Metreon. (Eddy)

*Salmon Fishing in the Yemen In Lasse Hallström’s latest film, a sheikh named Muhammed (Amr Waked) with a large castle in Scotland, an ardent love of fly-fishing, and unlimited funds envisions turning a dry riverbed in the Yemeni desert into an aquifer-fed salmon-run site and the surrounding lands into an agricultural cornucopia. Tasked with realizing this dream are London marketing consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) and government fisheries scientist Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a reluctant participant who refers to the project as “doolally” and signs on under professional duress. Despite numerous feasibility issues (habitat discrepancies, the necessity for a mass exodus of British salmon, two million irate British anglers), Muhammed’s vision is borne forward on a rising swell of cynicism generated within the office of the British prime minister’s press secretary (Kristin Scott Thomas), whose lackeys have been scouring the wires for a shred of U.K.-related good news out of the Middle East. Ecology-minded killjoys may question whether this qualifies. But putting aside, if one can, the possible inadvisability of relocating 10,000 nonnative salmon to a wadi in Yemen — which is to say, putting aside the basic premise — it’s easy and pleasant enough to go with the flow of the film, infected by Jones’s growing enthusiasm for both the project and Ms. Chetwode-Talbot. Adapted from Paul Torday’s novel by Simon Beaufoy (2009’s Slumdog Millionaire), Salmon Fishing is a sweet and funny movie, and while it suffers from the familiar flurried third-act knotting together of loose ends, its storytelling stratagems are entertaining and its characters compellingly textured, and the cast makes the most of the well-polished material. (1:52) California, Four Star, Opera Plaza, Piedmont. (Rapoport)

*The Salt of Life Gianni Di Gregorio is both a triumph over and cautionary illustration of the aging uomo, racking up decades of experience yet still infantilized by that most binding tie. He’s a late bloomer who’s long worked in theater and film in various capacities, notably as a scenarist for 2008’s organized crime drama Gomorrah. That same year he wrote and directed a first feature basically shot in his own Rome apartment. Mid-August Lunch was a surprise global success casting the director himself as a putz, also named Gianni, very like himself (by his own admission), peevishly trying to have some independence while catering to the whims of the ancient but demanding mother (Valeria De Franciscis) he still lives with. Lunch was charming in a sly, self-deprecating way, and The Salt of Life is more of the same minus the usual diminishing returns: the creator’s barely-alter ego Gianni is still busy doing nothing much, dissatisfied not by his indolence but by its quality. But his pint-sized, wig-rocking, nearly century-old matriarch has now moved to a plush separate address with full-time care — and Salt‘s main preoccupation is Gianni’s discovery that while he’s as available and interested in women as ever, at age 63 he is no longer visible to them. While Fellini confronted desirable, daunting womanhood with a permanent adolescent’s masturbatory fantasizing, Di Gregorio’s humbler self-knowledge finds comedy in the hangdog haplessness of an old dog who can’t learn new tricks and has forgotten the old ones. (1:30) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*A Separation Iran’s first movie to win Berlin’s Golden Bear (as well as all its acting awards), this domestic drama reflecting a larger socio-political backdrop is subtly well-crafted on all levels, but most of all demonstrates the unbeatable virtue of having an intricately balanced, reality-grounded screenplay — director Asghar Farhadi’s own — as bedrock. A sort of confrontational impartiality is introduced immediately, as our protagonists Nader (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) face the camera — or rather the court magistrate — to plead their separate cases in her filing for divorce, which he opposes. We gradually learn that their 14-year wedlock isn’t really irreparable, the feelings between them not entirely hostile. The roadblock is that Simin has finally gotten permission to move abroad, a chance she thinks she must seize for the sake of their daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). But Nader doesn’t want to leave the country, and is not about to let his only child go without him. Farhadi worked in theater before moving into films a decade ago. His close attention to character and performance (developed over several weeks’ pre-production rehearsal) has the acuity sported by contemporary playwrights like Kenneth Lonergan and Theresa Rebeck, fitted to a distinctly cinematic urgency of pace and image. There are moments that risk pushing plot mechanizations too far, by A Separation pulls off something very intricate with deceptive simplicity, offering a sort of integrated Rashomon (1950) in which every participant’s viewpoint as the wronged party is right — yet in conflict with every other. (2:03) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

A Simple Life When elderly Ah Tao (Deanie Ip), the housekeeper who’s served his family for decades, has a stroke, producer Roger (Andy Lau) pays for her to enter a nursing home. No longer tasked with caring for Roger, Ah Tao faces life in the cramped, often depressing facility with resigned calm, making friends with other residents (some of whom are played by nonprofessional actors) and enjoying Roger’s frequent visits. Based on Roger Lee’s story (inspired by his own life), Ann Hui’s film is well-served by its performances; Ip picked up multiple Best Actress awards for her role, Lau is reliably solid, and Anthony Wong pops up as the nursing home’s eye patch-wearing owner. Wong’s over-the-top cameo doesn’t quite fit in with the movie’s otherwise low-key vibe, but he’s a welcome distraction in a film that can be too quiet at times — a situation not helped by its washed-out palette of gray, beige, and more gray. (1:58) Metreon. (Eddy)

*They Call it Myanmar: Lifting the Curtain Recent elections signal that Myanmar’s status as “the second-most isolated country on the planet,” per Robert H. Lieberman’s doc, may soon be changing. With that hopeful context, this insightful study of Myanmar (or Burma, depending on who’s referring to it) is particularly well-timed. Shot using clandestine methods, and without identifying many of its fearful interviewees — with the exception of recently-released-from-house-arrest politician Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner — They Call it Myanmar offers a revealing look at a country largely untouched by corporate influences and pop culture. Myanmar’s military dictatorship is the opposite of a cult of personality; it’s scarier, one subject reflects, because “it’s a system, not an individual,” with faceless leaders who can be quietly be replaced. The country struggles with a huge disconnect between the very rich and the very poor; it has a dismal health care system overrun by “quacks,” and an equally dismal educational system that benefits very few children. Hunger, disease, child labor — all prevalent. Surprisingly, though the conditions that surround them are grim, Myanmar’s people are shown to be generally happy and deeply spiritual as they go about their daily lives. A highlight: Lieberman’s interactions with excited Buddhist pilgrims en route to Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, with an up-close look at the miraculously teetering “Golden Rock.” (1:23) Lumiere. (Eddy)

The Three Stooges: The Movie (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Titanic 3D (3:14) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

*The Turin Horse Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr’s final cinematic statement is extrapolated from a climactic episode in the life of Friedrich Nietzsche, wherein the philosopher tearfully intervened in the beating of a horse on the streets of Turin. Tarr, working with frequent collaborators Ágnes Hranitzky and László Krasznahorkai, conjures the lives of a horseman and his daughter as they barely subsist amid a windswept wasteland. This glacial Beckettian dirge of a film, shot in black and white and composed of Tarr’s trademark long takes, doesn’t so much develop these two characters as wear them down. Their stultifying daily routines — cleaning the stable, fetching water from the well, changing and cleaning their numerous layers of clothing — occupy much of the film, so it is all the more unsettling when this wretched lifestyle is torn asunder by the whims of nature. (2:26) SF Film Society Cinema. (Sam Stander)

*21 Jump Street One of the more pleasant surprises on the mainstream comedy landscape has to be this, ugh, “reboot” of the late-’80s TV franchise. I wasn’t a fan of the show — or its dark-eyed, bad-boy star, Johnny Depp — back in the day, but I am of this unexpectedly funny rework overseen by apparent enthusiast, star, co-writer, and co-executive producer Jonah Hill, with a screenplay by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) co-writer Michael Bacall. There’s more than a smidge of Bacall’s other high school fantasy, Project X, in the buddy comedy premise of nerd (Hill’s Schmidt) meets blowhard (Channing Tatum’s Jenko), but 21 Jump Street thankfully leapfrogs the former with its meta-savvy, irreverent script and har-dee-har cameo turns by actors like Ice Cube as Captain Dickson (as well as a few key uncredited players who shall remain under deep cover). High school continues to haunt former classmates Schmidt and Jenko, who have just graduated from the lowly police bike corps to a high school undercover operation — don’t get it twisted, though, Dickson hollers at them; they got this gig solely because they look young. Still, the whole drug-bust enchilada is put in jeopardy when the once-socially toxic Schmidt finds his brand of geekiness in favor with the cool kids and so-called dumb-jock Jenko discovers the pleasures of the mind with the chem lab set. Fortunately for everyone, this crew doesn’t take themselves, or the source material, too seriously. (1:49) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

We Have a Pope What if a new pope was chosen … but he didn’t want to serve? In this gentle comedy-drama from Italian writer-director Nanni Moretti (2001’s The Son’s Room), Cardinal Melville (veteran French actor Michel Piccoli) is tapped to be the next Holy Father — and promptly flips out. The Vatican goes into crisis mode, first calling in a shrink, Professor Brezzi (Moretti), to talk to the troubled man, then orchestrating a ruse that the Pope-elect is merely hiding out in his apartments as the crowds of faithful rumble impatiently outside. Meanwhile, Melville sneaks off on an unauthorized, anonymous field trip that turns into a soul-searching, existential journey; along the way he hooks up with a group of actors that remind him of his youthful dreams of the stage — and help him realize that being the next Pope will require a performance he’s not sure he can deliver. Back at the Vatican, all assembled are essentially trapped until the new Pope is publicly revealed; the bored Cardinals kill time by playing cards and, most amusingly, participating in a volleyball tournament organized by Brezzi. Irreverent enough, though I’m not sure what kind of audience this will draw. Papal humorists? (1:44) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Wrath of the Titans Playing fast and loose with Greek myths but not agile enough to kick out a black metal jam during a flaming underworld power-grab, Wrath of Titans is, as expected, a bit of a CGI-crammed mess. Still, the sword-and-sandals franchise has attracted scads of international actorly talent — the cast is enriched this time by Édgar Ramírez (2010’s Carlos), Bill Nighy, and Rosamund Pike — and you do get at least one cool monster and paltry explication (Cerberus, which bolts from earth for no discernible reason except that maybe all hell is breaking loose). Just because action flicks like Cloverfield (2008) have long dispensed with narrative handlebars doesn’t mean that age-old stories like the Greek myths should get completely random with their titanic tale-spinning. Wrath opens on the twilight of the gods: Zeus (Liam Neeson) is practically groveling before Perseus (Sam Worthington) — now determined to go small, raise his son, and work on his fishing skills — and trying to persuade him to step up and help the Olympians hold onto power. Fellow Zeus spawn Ares (Ramírez) is along for the ride, so demigod up, Perseus. In some weird, last-ditch attempt to ream his bro Zeus, the oily, mulleted Hades (Ralph Fiennes) has struck a deal with their entrapped, chaotic, castrating fireball of a dad Cronus to let them keep their immortality, on the condition that Zeus is sapped of his power. Picking up Queen Andromeda (Pike) along the way, Perseus gets the scoop on how to get to Hell from Hephaestus (Nighy playing the demented Vulcan like a ’60s acid casualty, given to chatting with mechanical owl Bubo, a wink to 1981 precursor Clash of the Titans, which set the bar low for the remake). Though there are some distracting action scenes (full of speedy, choppy edits that confuse disorientation for excitement) and a few intriguing monsters (just how did the Minotaur make it to this labyrinth?), there’s no money line like “Release the Kraken!” this time around, and there’s way too much nattering on about fatherly responsibility and forgiveness —making these feel-good divinities sound oddly, mawkishly Christian and softheaded rather than mythically pagan and brattily otherworldly. Wasn’t the appeal of the gods linked to the fact that they always acted more like outta-hand adolescents than holier-than-thou deities? I guess that’s why no one’s praying to them anymore. (1:39) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

In city workers’ shoes

Andrew Lam
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We both work under City Hall’s iconic dome as civil servants. While I often work late into the evening hours as a supervisor, Robert’s back-breaking work as a janitor is often done past the midnight hour, five nights a week.

I had the opportunity to meet Robert last week, as part of the “Walk A Day In Our Shoes” program of Service Employees International Union, Local 1021.

Robert is 52 years old. He’s worked for the city since 1999. Before that, he worked for San Francisco Unified School District. He sweeps and mops the floors and stairs of the famous rotunda and cleans 150 cubicles.

Last week, Robert had me take off my jacket and tie, roll up my sleeves and do his job for a while. I swept the marble floors, which are truly unending. I mopped the grand marble staircase behind happy couples exchanging wedding vows. He let me attempt to push a gigantic whirring machine that felt more like a Zamboni than a vacuum.

When I was younger, I had a summer job as a janitor at a public high school, so I know how truly strenuous Robert’s job is.

Robert injured his spine as a result of pushing that heavy vacuum for years. When he was in the hospital treating his spinal injury, the doctors discovered cancer. While in chemotherapy, he didn’t miss a day of work. He lives cancer-free today.

Robert is also a green pioneer at City Hall — he started a recycling program here before it was popular to do so. After that, the rest of the city caught on. He has photos of himself and the past four mayors in his home. He offers directions to visitors. He has a son, and they both live in his sister’s home. He speaks lovingly of his wife, who he lost to diabetes several years ago.

As our economy evolves, we can’t leave people like Robert — those who support our world-class city —behind. While we court businesses who create new jobs in our city, we also need to reinvest in the people who do the important work that often goes unnoticed.

Hospital workers are up at 4am, preparing meals for patients. Library technicians provide bilingual translation for our children. Others, like Robert, are up until 1am, making sure we have a clean and safe environment to work every day.

After years of concessions to balance deep budget deficits, city workers experienced ongoing cuts to their wages and benefits. In current contract negotiations, they are being asked to give hundreds more each month in healthcare costs to insure their children.

We appreciate all they have done to help our city in times of need. As our city recovers economically, it’s time to thank them, to ask others to help shoulder the costs for affordable housing, parks and recreation facilities and schools, and to reform our local business tax — which is paid by only 10% of our city’s companies.

Last week, I got to know a fellow civil servant whose work we need to remember to value. Which is why I will stand alongside Robert, labor unions, nonprofits, community members and neighbors on Wednesday, April 18, in front of City Hall from 4pm to 7pm. Please join us in supporting the workforce that supports us all, 24 hours a day. 

David Chiu is president of the Board of Supervisors.Thousands of community allies, elected officials, and SEIU 1021 members will rally on Wednesday, April 18 to close tax loopholes on mega banks and corporations from 4pm to 7pm at City Hall.

Free Muni for kids makes sense

Andrew Lam
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0

EDITORIAL San Francisco is a transit-first city that has spent millions of dollars over the years trying to convince people to ride Muni. And yet, one of the best and most effective ways to get people out of their cars is facing surprising opposition.

Sup. David Campos has been pushing for months to get Muni to allow young people to ride free. It makes immediate sense: The school district, perpetually short on funds, is cutting back bus service (which is preferable to cutting back classroom instruction). For low-income families, the disappearance of a yellow school bus, which offered transportation free of charge, is a financial obstacle — and the last thing anyone needs is another obstacle to keep kids out from coming to school.

Reduced-fare youth passes are already available — but they aren’t easy to get. Parents need to show up in person, during the day, with a birth certificate, passport or other government ID; that’s hard for a lot of working parents. The school district ought to be able to sell the passes, but right now nobody has the resources to make that happen.

It’s possible to create a system to identify and offer free service to low-income families, but again, unless it’s done through the schools, where that data is already kept (for reduced-price lunches), we’re talking about creating a complicated bureaucracy that isn’t remotely necessary.

According to Campos, the cost of providing free service for all youth is only $8 million a year — and he’s identified regional transit funds to pay for much of it. Muni has a deep budget deficit already, and anything that costs more money has to be carefully evaluated, but there are so many ways to cover the price tag. (Why is Muni still paying the Police Department tens of millions of dollars to get cops on the buses when that’s part of the department’s job already?)

And this goes beyond Ethe very clear needs of low-income families. Getting young people onto the buses is an excellent way to convince the next generation of San Franciscans that it’s not necessary to own and operate a motor vehicle in the city. The message is already getting out — according to an April 5, 2012 study by the Frontier Group, the number of car miles driven by people between 16 and 34 dropped 23 percent between 2001 and 2009. That trend crosses class lines — in fact, among young people who earned more than $70,000 a year, public transit use rose 100 percent over the decade and biking by 122 percent.

In other words, it’s proving to be a massive challenge to get older people out of their cars, but the kids are already moving in that direction. With a little help and push, San Francisco could make giant strides in the next few years.

And a significant reduction in car use would more than pay for the cost of free Muni for youth. Every car off the road means less road maintenance, less air pollution — and perhaps more important, less congestion to slow down the buses. Faster buses means more riders and more fares (and less money spent paying drivers to sit in traffic).

So it’s a great idea that pays for itself and helps the environment. And yet some city officials (led by Sup. Scott Wiener) still resist. They should back off; the city should move to approve this plan immediately.

Editorial: Free Muni tickets for kids makes sense

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San Francisco is a transit-first city that has spent millions of dollars over the years trying to convince people to ride Muni. And yet, one of the best and most effective ways to get people out of their cars is facing surprising opposition.

Sup. David Campos has been pushing for months to get Muni to allow young people to ride free. It makes immediate sense: The school district, perpetually short on funds, is cutting back bus service (which is preferable to cutting back classroom instruction). For low-income families, the disappearance of a yellow school bus, which offered transportation free of charge, is a financial obstacle — and the last thing anyone needs is another obstacle to keep kids out from coming to school.

Reduced-fare youth passes are already available — but they aren’t easy to get. Parents need to show up in person, during the day, with a birth certificate, passport or other government ID; that’s hard for a lot of working parents. The school district ought to be able to sell the passes, but right now nobody has the resources to make that happen.

It’s possible to create a system to identify and offer free service to low-income families, but again, unless it’s done through the schools, where that data is already kept (for reduced-price lunches), we’re talking about creating a complicated bureaucracy that isn’t remotely necessary.

According to Campos, the cost of providing free service for all youth is only $8 million a year — and he’s identified regional transit funds to pay for much of it. Muni has a deep budget deficit already, and anything that costs more money has to be carefully evaluated, but there are so many ways to cover the price tag. (Why is Muni still paying the Police Department tens of millions of dollars to get cops on the buses when that’s part of the department’s job already?)

And this goes beyond the very clear needs of low-income families. Getting young people onto the buses is an excellent way to convince the next generation of San Franciscans that it’s not necessary to own and operate a motor vehicle in the city. The message is already getting out — according to an April 5, 2012 study by the Frontier Group, the number of car miles driven by people between 16 and 34 dropped 23 percent between 2001 and 2009. That trend crosses class lines — in fact, among young people who earned more than $70,000 a year, public transit use rose 100 percent over the decade and biking by 122 percent.

In other words, it’s proving to be a massive challenge to get older people out of their cars, but the kids are already moving in that direction. With a little help and push, San Francisco could make giant strides in the next few years.

And a significant reduction in car use would more than pay for the cost of free Muni for youth. Every car off the road means less road maintenance, less air pollution — and perhaps more important, less congestion to slow down the buses. Faster buses means more riders and more fares (and less money spent paying drivers to sit in traffic).

So it’s a great idea that pays for itself and helps the environment. And yet some city officials (led by Sup. Scott Wiener) still resist. They should back off. The city should move to approve this plan immediately.

 

Why free Muni for youth makes sense

Zelda Bronstein
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Why free Muni for youth makes sense

Supervisor Scott Wiener has gone out of his way to dis the plan to let kids ride Muni for free. His oped in the Chron April 9 argued that the city just doesn’t have the money ($8 million):

We need to increase access to transportation for low-income youth, but a new and expensive obligation for Muni – at a time when Muni cannot pay for its basic operational needs and is expanding parking meters and increasing parking fines – is a bad idea.

But that misses the point — and People Organized to Win Employment Rights is mounting a petition campaign to get Wiener back on track.

The Municipal Transportation Agency, which oversees Muni, failed to approve the plan the first time around, but the vote was tied with Commission Chair Tom Nolan absent, so it’s still possible to move it forward. And on April 17, Sup. David Campos, who proposed the plan, and his allies will try again.

Yes, Muni is (perpetually) broke, and yes, deficits and cuts mean declines in service. But Campos has identified money to pay for the program without damaging operating and maintenance funds. Oh, and the parking meters get dragged in again:

The understandable public perception is that Muni is expanding parking meters to Sundays, adding new meters, and raising ticket prices not to pay for improvements to the system but rather to fund free Muni for all youth, even those who don’t need the subsidy.

And the problem with that is … what? People with cars ought to subsidize transit riders — young, old and everything in between. It’s really not that expensive to park at a meter in San Francisco, and now that most of them take credit cards, you don’t have to carry $5 in quarters around with you. I drive a car myself, to ferry my kids around. I have no sympathy for people who pay to have a large motor vehicle in a transit-first city and don’t want to pay for the impacts.

(Besides, what are all those religious people complaining about — nobody pays to park for Sunday church anyway. They just park in the middle of the street.)

But put all of that aside for a minute and think about this: San Francisco spends all kinds of money, directly and indirectly, trying to convince people to ride Muni instead of driving. And one of the best ways to get new riders is to get kids started as transit users as soon as their parents decide they’re old enough to get on the bus.

For us, that was sixth grade, when we bought my son a clipper card and told him we weren’t leaving work early to pick him up (in the car) after school any more. I showed him how to find the Muni map on the web, showed him how to connect to NextBus on his phone, gave him a pat on the head (not really) and sent him off to explore the wonders of San Francisco public transit. It’s worked like a charm: He takes the bus to his martial arts class, takes the bus to Cards and Comics to buy Magic Cards, takes the bus to the mall and to visit friends … and now he knows more about the system than I do. He can navigate on his own anywhere in town — and he loves it. It’s freedom. Suburban kids have to wait until they’re 16 and can get a driver’s license to even begin to get that sense that they don’t need parents in tow to go where they want to go.

Most of the teenagers I know in this city don’t bother to learn to drive any more. They bike and they take the bus. That’s a wonderful thing — and San Francisco should do everything possible to encourage it.

And a great way to start is to invest a modest amount of money — less than one percent of Muni’s budget — in training kids that the way to travel is by bus and train. Make it easy; make it free. Hell, half the middle-school kids who ride Muni never pay the fare anyway; they go in the back door and pocket the money that their parents gave them for bus fare so they can buy something they aren’t supposed to have. It’s the way of the world.

This isn’t just a subsidy for kids who can’t afford Muni, although that’s a great thing and I’m all in favor. It’s an investment in the future, a cheap step toward a future day when turning 16 isn’t all about going to the DMV, and travel doesn’t mean car travel — and the streets of San Francisco are cleaner, safer, less crowded and better for all of us. Isn’t that worth the money?

Come on, Tom Nolan; you’re the swing vote. Make this happen.

 

 

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

*Applause See “Diva in the Headlights.” (1:27) Lumiere, Shattuck.

Bad Fever Dustin Guy Defa’s tiny, odd character study centers on one Eddie Cooperschmidt (Kentucker Audley, a director himself), who looks like Mr. February 1992 on a calendar of sensitive grunge band hunks, but acts more like Homer Simpson — the Nathanael West version, not Matt Groening’s. He still lives with mom (unsympathetically played by Annette Wright), doesn’t or can’t hold a job, has no friends, fumbles through an oddly formal vocabulary, and carries himself like a 13-year-old who’s just had all his growth spurts in one go. In other words, he’s the sort of character whose precise status — just socially inept, or developmentally disabled, or both? — is a mystery the film doesn’t bother clarifying. Nor do we find out what the story is behind Irene (Eleonore Hendricks), his hard-bitten antithesis, who seems to be staying in an empty school classroom as some sort of weird art experiment rather than because she’s “homeless,” and who manipulates the hapless Eddie into videotaped situations that are perverse but stop short of pornography. (Or rather he — almost certainly a virgin — stops short there.) As if more goofy pathos were needed here, Eddie’s dream is to be a stand-up comedian, a career he is about as well equipped for as brain surgeon. When Eddie plays his big first (and probably last) comedy gig, the onscreen audience appears to be wondering the same thing you might: is this just sad, or some kind of Andy Kaufman-type performance piece? Painstakingly low-key and realistic in execution, Bad Fever‘s success will depend on whether you can swallow it conceptually — these characters are surrounded by a real world, but they can seem unreal themselves. (1:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

Blue Like Jazz Tap or bottled water, rainy Portland, Ore. or dry Texas — how does a sincere, young Bible-thumping Baptist reconcile the two — a fish out of water nonetheless determined to swim upstream and make his way to adulthood. Based on the Donald Miller memoir-of-sorts, Blue Like Jazz may look like a Nicholas Sparks romantic opus from afar, but in the care of director-cowriter Steve Taylor, this tale of a young man coming to terms with the wider, wilder world apart from the strict confines of lock-in abstinence groups snatches a bit of the grace John Coltrane tapped in A Love Supreme. The earnest Donald (True Blood’s Marshall Allman) is all set to go to his nearby Bible Belt Christian university until his bohemian jazz-loving dad pulls favors and enrolls him at free-form Reed College. Donald will have to closet his holy-roller background if, as his new lesbian pal (Tania Raymonde) cautions, he “plans on ever making friends or sharing a bowl or seeing human vagina without a credit card.” Donald finds his way back to meaning and spirit — and the fun is getting there, as he joins a civil-disobedience-club-for-credit (Malaysian cocktail tennis was canceled) and falls for passionate activist Penny (Claire Holt). Allman, who also co-executive produced, emerges as a thoughtful actor who can carry a potentially maudlin and ultimately lovable collegiate coming-of-age story on his own. (1:47) (Chun)

*Bully Anyone who’s ever been a kid on the wrong side of a bully — or was sensitive and observant enough not to avert his or her eyes — will be puzzling over the MPAA’s R rating of this doc, for profanity. It’s absurd when the gory violence on network and basic cable TV stops just short of cutting characters’ faces off, as one blurred-out bus bully threatens to do to the sweet, hapless Alex, dubbed “Fish Face” by the kids who ostracize him and make his life hell on the bus. It’s a jungle out there, as we all know — but it’s that real, visceral footage of the verbal (and physical) abuse bullied children deal with daily that brings it all home. Filmmaker Lee Hirsch goes above and beyond in trying to capture all dimensions of his subject: the terrorized bullied, the ineffectual school administrators, the desperate parents. There’s Kelby, the gay girl who was forced off her beloved basketball team after she came out, and Ja’Maya, who took drastic measures to fend off her tormenters — as well as the specters of those who turned to suicide as a way out. Hirsch is clearly more of an activist than a fly on the wall: he steps in at one point to help and obviously makes an uplifting effort to focus on what we can do to battle bullying. Nevertheless, at the risk of coming off like the Iowa assistant principal who’s catching criticism for telling one victim that he was just as bad as the bully that he refused to shake hands with, one feels compelled to note one prominent component that’s missing here: the bullies themselves, their stories, and the reasons why they’re so cruel — admittedly a daunting, possibly libelous task. (1:35) Piedmont, Shattuck. (Chun)

*The Cabin in the Woods If the name “Joss Whedon” doesn’t provide all the reason you need to bum-rush The Cabin in the Woods (Whedon produced and co-wrote,  with director and frequent collaborator Drew Goddard), well, there’s not much more that can be revealed without ruining the entire movie. In a very, very small nutshell, it’s about a group of college kids (including Chris “Thor” Hemsworth) whose weekend jaunt to a rural cabin goes horribly awry, as such weekend jaunts tend to do in horror movies (the Texas Chainsaw and Evil Dead movies are heavily referenced). But this is no ordinary nightmare — its peculiarities are cleverly, carefully revealed, and the movie’s inside-out takedown of scary movies produces some very unexpected (and delightfully blood-gushing) twists and turns. Plus: the always-awesome Richard Jenkins, and in-jokes galore for genre fans. (1:35) California, Presidio. (Eddy)

*Damsels in Distress Whit Stillman lives! The eternally preppy writer-director (1990’s Metropolitan; 1994’s Barcelona; 1998’s The Last Days of Disco), whose dialogue-laden scripts have earned him the not-inaccurate descriptor of “the WASP Woody Allen,” emerges with this popped-collar take on girl-clique movies like Mean Girls (2004), Clueless (1995), and even Heathers (1988). At East Coast liberal-arts college Seven Oaks (“the last of the Select Seven to go co-ed”), frat guys are so dumb they don’t know the names of all the colors; the school newspaper is called the Daily Complainer; and a group of girls, lead by know-it-all Violet (Greta Gerwig), are determined to lift student morale using unconventional methods (tap dancing is one of them). After she’s scooped into this strange orbit, transfer student (Analeigh Tipton) can’t quite believe Violet and her friends are for real. They’re not, of course — they’re carefully crafted Stillman creations, which renders this very funny take on college life a completely unique experience. Did I mention the musical numbers? (1:38) (Eddy)

Detention The latest from A-list music video director turned B-movie helmer Joseph Kahn (2004’s Torque) realllllly wants to be a cult classic. Not sure that’s a certainty, but midnight would definitely be the appropriate hour to view this teen-slasher parody that also enfolds body-swapping, time travel, out-of-control parties, stuffed bears, accidental YouTube porn, unrequited love, the dreaded Dane Cook, and cinema’s most sledgehammer-heavy 1990s nostalgia to date — despite the fact that Detention‘s central homage is to The Breakfast Club, which came out in 1985. Nominally grounding the film’s garish look, broad humor, and breakneck pace are the charms of young leads Shanley Caswell (as klutzy tomboy Riley) and Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson (as a Road House-worshiping skater), who displays questionable if admirable show biz aspirations by serving as one of Detention‘s executive producers. He was, after all, born in 1992, which in Detention‘s estimation was “like, the coolest year ever!” (1:30) (Eddy)

*The Lady Luc Besson directs Michelle Yeoh — but The Lady is about as far from flashy action heroics as humanly possible. Instead, it’s a reverent, emotion-packed biopic of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, a national hero in Burma (Myanmar) for her work against the country’s oppressive military regime. But don’t expect a year-by-year exploration of Suu’s every accomplishment; instead, the film focuses on the relationship between Suu and her British husband, Michael Aris (David Thewlis). When Michael discovers he’s dying of cancer, he’s repeatedly denied visas to visit his wife — a cruel knife-twist by a government that assures Suu that if she leaves Burma to visit him, they’ll never allow her to return. Heartbreaking stuff, elegantly channeled by Thewlis and especially Yeoh, who conveys Suu’s incredible strength despite her alarmingly frail appearance. The real Iron Lady, right here. (2:07) Bridge, Shattuck. (Eddy)

L!fe Happens Ah, another movie in the Juno-Knocked Up continuum of “Unplanned and totally ill-advised pregnancy? Welp, guess I’m having a baby!” We never know if a “shmishmortion” occurs to Kim (Krysten Ritter), because she has unprotected sex in the first scene and the next scene is “one year later,” with infant in tow. The wee babe’s dad, a surfer with neck tattoos, is out of the picture; Kim makes do with her job as a dog walker (Kristen Johnston plays her kid-hating, cheesy-diva boss) and the good graces of her roommates, sardonic budding self-help guru Deena (Kate Bosworth) and cheerful Laura (Rachel Bilson), whose only defining characteristic is that she’s a virgin (omg, the irony). As directed by Kat Coira (who co-wrote with Ritter), L!fe Happens lurches toward Hollywood conventionality by pairing Kim with a hunky guy (Geoff Stults) who doesn’t realize she’s a MILF. Fortunately, that storyline is frequently overshadowed — seriously, they might as well have named the baby “Plot Device” or “Conflict Generator” — by the remarkably realistic I-love-you-but-sometimes-I-want-to-kill-you relationship between BFFs Kim and Deena, which forms the film’s true emotional core. +100 for casting Weeds‘ Justin Kirk as an ascot-wearing weirdo who woos the icy Deena, with (not-so) surprising results. (1:40) (Eddy)

Lockout When the president’s daughter is trapped amid a prison uprising in outer space, the government has no choice but to call in Snake Plissken — er, Guy Pearce — to save the day. (1:35) Shattuck, Vogue.

*Monsieur Lazhar When their beloved but troubled teacher hangs herself in the classroom — not a thoughtful choice of location, but then we never really discover her motives — traumatized Montreal sixth-graders get Bachir Lazhar (Fellag), a middle-aged Algerian émigré whose contrastingly rather strict, old-fashioned methods prove surprisingly useful at helping them past their trauma. He quickly becomes the crush object of studious Alice (Sophie Nelisse), whose single mother is a pilot too often away, while troublemaker Simon (Emilien Neron) acts out his own domestic and other issues at school. Lazhar has his own secrets as well — for one thing, we see that he’s still petitioning for permanent asylum in Canada, contradicting what he told the principal upon being hired — and while his emotions are more tightly wrapped, circumstances will eventually force all truths out. This very likable drama about adults and children from Quebec writer-director Philippe Falardeau doesn’t quite have the heft and resonance to rate among the truly great narrative films about education (like Laurent Cantet’s recent French The Class). But it comes close enough, gracefully touching on numerous other issues while effectively keeping focus on how a good teacher can shape young lives in ways as incalculable as they are important. (1:34) Albany, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

People v. The State of Illusion Writer-producer-star Austin Vickers’ slice of self-help cinema is a motivational lecture illustrated by a lot of infomercial-type imagery, plus a narrative strand: when a stressed-out yuppie single dad’s carelessness results in a traffic death, he’s sent to prison. Naturally Aaron (played by J.B. Tuttle) hate, hate, hates it there, until the world’s most philosophically advanced janitor (Michael McCormick) gradually gets him to understand that the real “prison” is his mind — freedom requires only an “awareness shift.” The larger film, with Vickers addressing us directly and various experts chipping in, furthers that notion to suggest even cellular science supports the notion that reality is a matter of perception — and thus the roadblocks and limitations that gum us up on life’s paths (relationships, income, self-doubt, et al.) can be overcome if one believes so and acts accordingly. This elaborate pep talk isn’t really the sort of thing you can evaluate in art or entertainment terms, save to say it’s well-crafted for its type. As for value in other terms, well, odds are you’ve heard all this in one form or another before. But if you happen to be stuck in any kind of personal prison, who knows, People might be just the prod that gets you moving. (1:26) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

A Simple Life When elderly Ah Tao (Deanie Ip), the housekeeper who’s served his family for decades, has a stroke, producer Roger (Andy Lau) pays for her to enter a nursing home. No longer tasked with caring for Roger, Ah Tao faces life in the cramped, often depressing facility with resigned calm, making friends with other residents (some of whom are played by nonprofessional actors) and enjoying Roger’s frequent visits. Based on Roger Lee’s story (inspired by his own life), Ann Hui’s film is well-served by its performances; Ip picked up multiple Best Actress awards for her role, Lau is reliably solid, and Anthony Wong pops up as the nursing home’s eye patch-wearing owner. Wong’s over-the-top cameo doesn’t quite fit in with the movie’s otherwise low-key vibe, but he’s a welcome distraction in a film that can be too quiet at times — a situation not helped by its washed-out palette of gray, beige, and more gray. (1:58) Metreon. (Eddy)

The Three Stooges: The Movie Why? (1:32) Presidio.

*The Turin Horse Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr’s final cinematic statement is extrapolated from a climactic episode in the life of Friedrich Nietzsche, wherein the philosopher tearfully intervened in the beating of a horse on the streets of Turin. Tarr, working with frequent collaborators Ágnes Hranitzky and László Krasznahorkai, conjures the lives of a horseman and his daughter as they barely subsist amid a windswept wasteland. This glacial Beckettian dirge of a film, shot in black and white and composed of Tarr’s trademark long takes, doesn’t so much develop these two characters as wear them down. Their stultifying daily routines — cleaning the stable, fetching water from the well, changing and cleaning their numerous layers of clothing — occupy much of the film, so it is all the more unsettling when this wretched lifestyle is torn asunder by the whims of nature. (2:26) SF Film Society Cinema. (Sam Stander)

We Have a Pope What if a new pope was chosen … but he didn’t want to serve? In this gentle comedy-drama from Italian writer-director Nanni Moretti (2001’s The Son’s Room), Cardinal Melville (veteran French actor Michel Piccoli) is tapped to be the next Holy Father — and promptly flips out. The Vatican goes into crisis mode, first calling in a shrink, Professor Brezzi (Moretti), to talk to the troubled man, then orchestrating a ruse that the Pope-elect is merely hiding out in his apartments as the crowds of faithful rumble impatiently outside. Meanwhile, Melville sneaks off on an unauthorized, anonymous field trip that turns into a soul-searching, existential journey; along the way he hooks up with a group of actors that remind him of his youthful dreams of the stage — and help him realize that being the next Pope will require a performance he’s not sure he can deliver. Back at the Vatican, all assembled are essentially trapped until the new Pope is publicly revealed; the bored Cardinals kill time by playing cards and, most amusingly, participating in a volleyball tournament organized by Brezzi. Irreverent enough, though I’m not sure what kind of audience this will draw. Papal humorists? (1:44) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

ONGOING

American Reunion Care for yet another helping of all-American horn dogs? The original American Pie (1999) was a sweet-tempered, albeit ante-upping tribute to ‘80s teen sex comedies, so the latest in the franchise, the older, somewhat wiser American Reunion, is obliged to squeeze a dab more of the ole life force outta the class of ‘99, in honor of their, em, 13th high school reunion. These days Jim (Jason Biggs) is attempting to fluff up a flagging postbaby sex life with wife Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) yearns to get in touch with his buried bad boy. Oz (Chris Klein) has become a sportscaster-reality competition star and is seemingly lost without old girlfriend Heather (Mena Suvari). Stifler (Seann William Scott) is as piggishly incorrigible as ever—even as a low-hanging investment flunky, while scarred, adventuring biker Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) seems to have become “the most interesting man in the world.” How much trouble can the gang get into? About as much of a mess as the Hangover guys, which one can’t stop thinking about when Jim wakes up on the kitchen floor with tile burns and zero pants. Half the cast—which includes Tara Reid, John “MILF!” Cho, Natasha Lyonne, and Shannon Elizabeth — seems to have stirred themselves from their own personal career hangovers, interludes of insanity, and plastic surgery disasters (with a few, like Cho and Thomas, firmly moving on), and others such as parental figures Eugene Levy and Jennifer Coolidge continuing to show the kids how it’s done. Still, the farcical American franchise’s essentially benign, healthy attitude toward good, dirty fun reads as slightly refreshing after chaste teen fare like the Twilight and High School Musical flicks. Even with the obligatory moment of full-frontal penis smooshing. (1:53) California, Four Star, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Chun)

*The Artist With the charisma-oozing agility of Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckling his way past opponents and the supreme confidence of Rudolph Valentino leaning, mid-swoon, into a maiden, French director-writer Michel Hazanavicius hits a sweet spot, or beauty mark of sorts, with his radiant new film The Artist. In a feat worthy of Fairbanks or Errol Flynn, Hazanavicius juggles a marvelously layered love story between a man and a woman, tensions between the silents and the talkies, and a movie buff’s appreciation of the power of film — embodied in particular by early Hollywood’s union of European artistry and American commerce. Dashing silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin, who channels Fairbanks, Flynn, and William Powell — and won this year’s Cannes best actor prize) is at the height of his career, adorable Jack Russell by his side, until the talkies threaten to relegate him to yesterday’s news. The talent nurtured in the thick of the studio system yearns for real power, telling the newspapers, “I’m not a puppet anymore — I’m an artist,” and finances and directs his own melodrama, while his youthful protégé Peppy Miller (Bérénice Béjo) becomes a yakky flapper age’s new It Girl. Both a crowd-pleasing entertainment and a loving précis on early film history, The Artist never checks its brains at the door, remaining self-aware of its own conceit and its forebears, yet unashamed to touch the audience, without an ounce of cynicism. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye Once dubbed “the wickedest man in the world”, shock artist and cofounder of seminal industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has softened somewhat with time. Her plunge into pandrogyny, an ongoing artistic and personal process embarked upon with the late Jacqueline “Lady Jaye” Breyer P-Orridge, is an attempt to create a perfectly balanced body, incorporating the characteristics of both. As artists, the two were committed to documenting their process, but as marriage partners, much of their footage is sweetly innocuous home video footage: Genesis cooking in the kitchen decked out in a little black dress, Lady Jaye setting out napkins at a backyard bar-b-que or helping to dig through Genesis’ archives of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle “ephemera,” the two wrapped in bandages after getting matching nose jobs. “I just want to be remembered as one of the great love affairs of all time,” Jaye tells Genesis. This whimsical documentary by Marie Losier will go a long way toward making that wish a reality. (1:12) Roxie. (Nicole Gluckstern)

*Casa de mi Padre Will Ferrell’s latest challenge in a long line of actorly exercises and comic gestures — from his long list of comedies probing the last gasps of American masculinity to serious forays like Stranger Than Fiction (2006) and Everything Must Go (2010) — is almost entirely Spanish-language telenovela-burrito Western spoof Casa de mi Padre. Here Ferrell tackles an almost entirely Spanish script (with only meager, long-ago high school and college language courses under his belt) alongside Mexican natives Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna and telenovela veteran Genesis Rodriguez. This clever, intriguing, occasionally very funny, yet not altogether successful endeavor, directed by Matt Piedmont and written by Andrew Steele, sprang from Ferrell’s noggin. Ferrell is nice guy Armando, content to stay at home at the ranch, hang with his buddies, and be dismissed by his father (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.) as a dolt. The arrival of his sleazy bro Raul (Luna) and Raul’s fiancée Sonia (Rodriguez) change everything, bringing killer narco Onza (Bernal) into the family’s life and sparking some hilariously klutzy entanglements between Armando and Sonia. All of this leads to almost zero improvisation on Ferrell’s part and plenty of meta, Machete-like spoofs on low-budget fare, from Sergio Leone to Alejandro Jodorowsky. Casa punctures padre-informed transmissions of Latin machismo, but it equally ridicules the idea of a gringo actor riding in and superimposing himself, badly or otherwise, over another country’s culture. (1:25) Four Star, Metreon, Shattuck. (Chun)

*The Deep Blue Sea Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, filmmaker Terence Davies, much like his heroine, chooses a mutable, fluid sensuality, turning his source material, Terence Rattigan’s acclaimed mid-century play, into a melodrama that catches you in its tide and refuses to let go. At the opening of this sumptuous portrait of a privileged English woman who gives up everything for love, Hester (Rachel Weisz) goes through the methodical motions of ending it all: she writes a suicide note, carefully stuffs towels beneath the door, takes a dozen pills, turns on the gas, and lies down to wait for death to overtake her. Via memories drifting through her fading consciousness, Davies lets us in on scattered, salient details in her back story: her severely damped-down, staid marriage to a high court judge, Sir William (Simon Russel Beale), her attraction and erotic awakening in the hands of charming former RF pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), her separation, and her ultimate discovery that her love can never be matched, as she hazards class inequities and ironclad gender roles. “This is a tragedy,” Sir William says, at one point. But, as Hester, a model of integrity, corrects him, “Tragedy is too big a word. Sad, perhaps.” Similarly, Sea is a beautiful downer, but Davies never loses sight of a larger post-war picture, even while he pauses for his archetypal interludes of song, near-still images, and luxuriously slow tracking shots. With cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, he does a remarkable job of washing post-war London with spots of golden light and creating claustrophobic interiors — creating an emotionally resonant space reminiscent of the work of Wong Kar-wai and Christopher Doyle. At the center, providing the necessary gravitas (much like Julianne Moore in 2002’s Far From Heaven), is Weisz, giving the viewer a reason to believe in this small but reverberant story, and offering yet another reason for attention during the next awards season. (1:38) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (1:26) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Footnote (1:45) Albany, Clay.

*Friends With Kids Jennifer Westfeldt scans Hollywood’s romantic comedy landscape for signs of intelligent life and, finding it to be a barren place possibly recovering from a nuclear holocaust, writes, directs, and stars in this follow-up to 2001’s Kissing Jessica Stein, which she co-wrote and starred in. Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) are upper-thirtysomething New Yorkers with two decades of friendship behind them. He calls her “doll.” They have whispered phone conversations at four in the morning while their insignificant others lie slumbering beside them on the verge of getting dumped. And after a night spent witnessing the tragic toll that procreation has taken on the marriages of their four closest friends — Bridesmaids (2011) reunion party Leslie (Maya Rudolph), Alex (Chris O’Dowd), Missy (Kristen Wiig), and Ben (Jon Hamm), the latter two, surprisingly and less surprisingly, providing some of the film’s darkest moments — Jason proposes that they raise a child together platonically, thereby giving any external romantic relationships a fighting chance of survival. In no time, they’ve worked out the kinks to their satisfaction, insulted and horrified their friends, and awkwardly made a bouncing baby boy. The arrival of significant others (Edward Burns and Megan Fox) signals the second phase of the experiment. Some viewers will be invested in latent sparks of romance between the central pair, others in the success of an alternative family arrangement; one of these demographics is destined for disappointment. Until then, however, both groups and any viewers unwilling to submit to this reductive binary will be treated to a funny, witty, well crafted depiction of two people’s attempts to preserve life as they know it while redrawing the parameters of parenthood. (1:40) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*House of Pleasures Set in a fin de siècle French brothel, Bertrand Bonello’s lushly rendered drama is challenging and frequently unpleasant. Bonello sees the beauty and allure of his subjects, the many miserable women of this maison close, but rarely sinks to sympathy for their selfish and sometimes sadistic clients. Bound as they are by their debts to their Madame, the prostitutes are essentially slaves, held to strict and humiliating standards. All they have is each other, and the movie’s few emotional bright spots come from this connection. The filmmaking is wily and nouvelle vague-ish, featuring anachronistic music and inventive split-screen sequences. Additionally, there is a spidery complexity to the film’s chronology, wherein certain scenes repeat to reveal new contexts. This unstuck sense of newness is perhaps didactic — this could and does happen now as well as then — but it also serves to make an already compelling ensemble piece even richer and more engaging. (2:02) SF Film Society Cinema. (Sam Stander)

The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a teenager living in a totalitarian state whose 12 impoverished districts, as retribution for an earlier uprising, must pay tribute to the so-called Capitol every year, sacrificing one boy and one girl each to the Hunger Games. A battle royal set in a perilous arena and broadcast live to the Capitol as gripping diversion and to the districts as sadistic propaganda, the Hunger Games are, depending on your viewpoint, a “pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice” or a brutal, pointless bloodbath involving children as young as 12. When her little sister’s name comes up in the ann­ual lottery, Katniss volunteers to take her place and is joined by a boy named Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares an old, unspoken bond. Tasked with translating to the screen the first installment of Suzanne Collins’s rabidly admired trilogy, writer-director Gary Ross (2003’s Seabiscuit, 1998’s Pleasantville) telescopes the book’s drawn-out, dread-filled tale into a manageable two-plus-hour entertainment, making great (and horrifying) use of the original work’s action, but losing a good deal of the narrative detail and emotional force. Elizabeth Banks is comic and unrecognizable as Effie Trinket, the two tributes’ chaperone; Lenny Kravitz gives a blank, flattened reading as their stylist, Cinna; and Donald Sutherland is sufficiently creepy and bloodless as the country’s leader, President Snow. More exceptionally cast are Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta’s surly, alcoholic mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, and Stanley Tucci as games emcee Caesar Flickerman, flashing a bank of gleaming teeth at each contestant as he probes their dire circumstances with the oily superficiality of a talk show host. (2:22) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*The Hunter Shot and set during Iran’s contentious 2009 Presidential campaign, The Hunter starts as a Kafka-esque portrait of quiet desperation in a cold, empty Tehran, then turns into a sort of existential thriller. The precise message may be ambiguous, but it’s no surprise this two-year-old feature has so far played nearly everywhere but Iran itself. Ali (filmmaker Rafi Pitts) is released from prison after some years, his precise crime never revealed. Told that with his record he can’t expect to get a day shift on his job as security guard at an automotive plant, he keeps hours at odds with his working wife Sara (Mitra Haijar) and six-year-old daughter Saba (Saba Yaghoobi). Still, they try to spend as much time together as possible, until one day Ali returns to find them uncharacteristically gone all day. After getting the bureaucratic runaround he’s finally informed by police that something tragic has occurred; one loved one is dead, the other missing. When his thin remaining hope is dashed, with police notably useless in preventing that grim additional news, Ali snaps — think Peter Bogdanovich’s 1968 Targets. He’s soon in custody, albeit in that of two bickering officers who get them all lost in the countryside. Pitts, a long-ago child performer cast here only when the actor originally hired had to be replaced, makes Ali seem pinched from the inside out, as if in permanent recoil from past and anticipated abuse. This thin, hunched frame, vulnerable big ears, and hooded eyes — the goofily oversized cap he wears at work seems a deliberate affront — seems so fixed an expression of unhappiness that when he flashes a great smile, for a moment you might think it must be someone else. He’s an everyman who only grows more shrunken once the film physically opens up into a natural world no less hostile for being beautiful. (1:32) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Iron Lady Curiously like Clint Eastwood’s 2011 J. Edgar, this biopic from director Phyllida Lloyd and scenarist Abi Morgan takes on a political life of length, breadth and controversy — yet it mostly skims over the politics in favor of a generally admiring take on a famous narrow-minded megalomaniac’s “gumption” as an underdog who drove herself to the top. Looking back on her career from a senile old age spent in the illusory company of dead spouse Denis (Jim Broadbent), Meryl Streep’s ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher steamrolls past hurdles of class and gender while ironically re-enforcing the fustiest Tory values. She’s essentially a spluttering Lord in skirts, absolutist in her belief that money and power rule because they ought to, and any protesting rabble don’t represent the “real England.” That’s a mindset that might well have been explored more fruitfully via less flatly literal-minded portraiture, though Lloyd does make a few late, lame efforts at sub-Ken Russell hallucinatory style. Likely to satisfy no one — anywhere on the ideological scale — seriously interested in the motivations and consequences of a major political life, this skin-deep Lady will mostly appeal to those who just want to see another bravura impersonation added to La Streep’s gallery. Yes, it’s a technically impressive performance, but unlikely to be remembered as one of her more depthed ones, let alone among her better vehicles. (1:45) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*The Island President The titular figure is Mohamed Nasheed, recently ousted (by allies of the decades long dictator he’d replaced) chief executive of the Republic of Maldives — a nation of 26 small islands in the Indian Ocean. Jon Shenk’s engaging documentary chronicles his efforts up to and through the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit to gather greater international commitment to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. This is hardly do-gooderism, a bid for eco-tourism, or politics as usual: scarcely above sea level, with nary a hill, the Maldives will simply cease to exist soon if waters continue to rise at global warming’s current pace. (“It won’t be any good to have a democracy if we don’t have a country,” he half-jokes at one point.) Nasheed is tireless, unjaded, delightful, and willing to do anything, at one point hosting “the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting” (with oxygen tanks, natch) as a publicity stunt. A cash-strapped nation despite its surfeit of wealthy vacationers, it’s spending money that could go to education and health services on the pathetic stalling device of sandwalls instead. But do bigger powers — notably China, India and the U.S. — care enough about this bit-part player on the world stage to change their energy-use and economic habits accordingly? (A hint: If you’ve been mulling a Maldivian holiday, take it now.) Somewhat incongruous, but an additional sales point nonetheless: practically all the film’s incidental music consists of pre-existing tracks by Radiohead. (1:51) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Jeff, Who Lives at Home The failure-to-launch concept will always thrive whenever and wherever economies flail, kids crumble beneath family trauma, and the seduction of moving back home to live for free with the parental units overcomes the draw of adulthood and individuation. Nevertheless brotherly writing and directing team Jay and Mark Duplass infuse a fresh, generous-minded sweetness in this familiar narrative arc, mainly by empathetically following those surrounding, and maybe enabling, the stay-at-home. Spurred by a deep appreciation of Signs (2002) and plentiful bong hits, Jeff (Jason Segel) decides to go with the signals that the universe throws at him: a mysterious phone call for a Kevin leads him to stalk a kid wearing a jersey with that name and jump a candy delivery truck. This despite the frantic urging of his mother (Susan Sarandon), who has set the bar low and simply wants Jeff to repair a shutter for her birthday, and the bad influence of brother Pat (Ed Helms), a striving jerk who compensates for his insecurities by buying a Porsche and taking business meetings at Hooters. We never quite find out what triggered Jeff’s dormancy and Pat’s prickishness — two opposing responses to some unspecified psychic wound — yet by Jeff, Who Lives at Home’s close, it doesn’t really matter. The Duplass brothers convince you to go along for the ride, much like Jeff’s blessed fool, and accept the ultimately feel-good, humanist message of this kind-hearted take on human failings. (1:22) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of “deliciousness” — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

John Carter More or less an adaptation of Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1917 sci-fi classic A Princess of Mars, John Carter is yet another film that lavishes special effects (festooned with CG and 3D) on a rote story filled with characters the viewer couldn’t give two craps about. Angry Civil War veteran John Carter (Taylor Kitsch, more muscleman than thespian) mysteriously zips to Mars, a planet not only populated by multiple members of the cast of HBO’s Rome (Ciarán Hinds, James Purefoy, and the voice of Polly Walker), but also quite a bit of Red Planet unrest. Against his better judgment, and with the encouragement of a comely princess (tragic spray-tan victim Lynn Collins), Carter joins the fight, as red people battle blue people, green four-armed creatures pitch in when needed, and sinister silver people (led by Mark Strong) use zap-tastic powers to manipulate the action for their amusement. If you’re expecting John Carter to be a step up from Conan the Barbarian (2011), Prince of Persia (2010), etc., because it’s directed by Andrew Stanton (the Pixar superstar who helmed 2008’s Finding Nemo and 2010’s WALL*E), eh, think again. There’s nothing memorable or fun about this would-be adventure; despite its extravagant 3D, it’s flatter than a pancake. (2:17) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*The Kid with a Bike Slippery as an eel, Cyril (Thomas Doret) is the bane of authorities as he tries to run away at any opportunity from school and a youth home — being convinced that the whole adult world is conspiring to keep his father away from him. During one such chase he literally runs into hair-salon proprietor Samantha (Cécile De France), who proves willing to host him on weekends away from his public facility, and is a patient, steadying influence despite his still somewhat exasperating behavior. It’s she who orchestrates a meeting with his dad (Jerémié Renier, who played the child in the Dardennes’ 1996 breakthrough La Promesse), so Cyril can confront the hard fact that his pa not only can’t take care of him, he doesn’t much want to. Still looking for some kind of older male approval, Cyril falls too easily under the sway of Wes (Egon Di Mateo), a teenage thug whom everyone in Samantha’s neighborhood knows is bad news. This latest neorealist-style drama from Belgium’s Dardenne Brothers treads on very familiar ground for them, both in themes and terse execution. It’s well-acted, potent stuff, if less resonant in sum impact than their best work. (1:27) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Mirror Mirror In this glittery, moderately girl-powery adaptation of the Snow White tale (a comic foil of sorts to this summer’s gloomier-looking Snow White and the Huntsman), Julia Roberts takes her turn as stepmom, to an earnest little ingenue (Lily Collins) whose kingly father (Sean Bean) is presumed dead and whose rather-teeny-looking kingdom is collapsing under the weight of fiscal ruin and a thick stratum of snow. Into this sorry realm rides a chiseled beefcake named Prince Alcott (Arnie Hammer), who hails from prosperous Valencia, falls for Snow White, and draws the attentions of the Queen (Roberts) from both a strategic and a libidinal standpoint. Soon enough, Snow White (Snow to her friends) is narrowly avoiding execution at the hands of the Queen’s sycophantic courtier-henchman (Nathan Lane), rustling up breakfast for a thieving band of stilt-walking dwarves, and engaging in sylvan hijinks preparatory to deposing her stepmother and bringing light and warmth and birdsong and perennials back into fashion. Director Tarsem Singh (2000’s The Cell, 2011’s Immortals) stages the film’s royal pageantry with a bright artistry, and Roberts holds court with vicious, amoral relish as she senses her powers of persuasion slipping relentlessly from her grasp. Carefully catering to tween-and-under tastes as well as those of their chaperones, the comedy comes in various breadths, and there’s meta-humor in the sight of Roberts passing the pretty woman torch, though Collins seems blandly unprepared to wield her power wisely or interestingly. Consider vacating your seats before the extraneous Bollywood-style song-and-dance number that accompanies the closing credits. (1:46) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

*The Raid: Redemption As rip-roaring as they come, Indonesian import The Raid: Redemption (from, oddly, a Welsh writer-director, Gareth Huw Evans) arrives to reassure genre fans that action films are still being made without CG-embellished stunts, choppy editing, and gratuitous 3D. Fists, feet, and gnarly weapons do the heavy lifting in this otherwise simple tale of a taciturn special-forces cop (Iko Uwais) who’s part of a raid on a run-down, high-rise apartment building where all the tenants are crooks and the landlord is a penthouse-dwelling crime boss (Ray Sahetapy). Naturally, things go awry almost immediately, and floor-to-floor brawls (choreographed by Uwais and co-star Yayan Ruhian, whose character is aptly named “Mad Dog”) comprise nearly the entirety of the film; of particular interest is The Raid’s focus on pencak silat, an indigenous Indonesian fighting style — though there are also plenty of thrilling gun battles, machete-thwackings, and other dangerous delights. Even better: Redemption is the first in a planned trilogy of films starring Uwais’ badass (yet morally rock-solid) character. Bring it! (1:40) California, Metreon, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Safe House Frankly, Denzel Washington watchers are starved for another movie in which he’s playing the smartest guy in the room. Despite being hampered by a determinedly murky opening, Safe House should mostly satisfy. Washington’s Tobin Frost is well-used to dwelling into a grayed-out borderland of black ops and flipped alliances — a onetime CIA star, he now trades secrets while perpetually on the run. Fleeing from killers of indeterminate origin, Tobin collides headlong with eager young agent Matt (Ryan Reynolds), who’s stuck maintaining a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. Tasked with holding onto Tobin’s high-level player by his boss (Brendan Gleeson) and his boss’s boss (Sam Shepard), Matt is determined to prove himself, retain and by extension protect Tobin (even when the ex-superspy is throttling him from behind amid a full-speed car chase), and resist the magnetic pull of those many hazardous gray zones. Surrounded by an array of actorly heavies, including Vera Farmiga, who collectively ratchet up and invest this possibly not-very-interesting narrative — ”Bourne” there; done that — with heart-pumping intensity, Washington is magnetic and utterly convincing as the jaded mouse-then-cat-then-mouse toying with and playing off Reynolds go-getter innocent. Safe House’s narrative doesn’t quite fill in the gaps in Tobin Frost’s whys and wherefores, and the occasional ludicrous breakthroughs aren’t always convincing, but the film’s overall, familiar effect should fly, even when it’s playing it safe (or overly upstanding, especially when it comes to one crucial, climactic scrap of dialogue from “bad guy” Washington, which rings extremely politically incorrect and tone-deaf). (2:00) SF Center. (Chun)

*Salmon Fishing in the Yemen In Lasse Hallström’s latest film, a sheikh named Muhammed (Amr Waked) with a large castle in Scotland, an ardent love of fly-fishing, and unlimited funds envisions turning a dry riverbed in the Yemeni desert into an aquifer-fed salmon-run site and the surrounding lands into an agricultural cornucopia. Tasked with realizing this dream are London marketing consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) and government fisheries scientist Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a reluctant participant who refers to the project as “doolally” and signs on under professional duress. Despite numerous feasibility issues (habitat discrepancies, the necessity for a mass exodus of British salmon, two million irate British anglers), Muhammed’s vision is borne forward on a rising swell of cynicism generated within the office of the British prime minister’s press secretary (Kristin Scott Thomas), whose lackeys have been scouring the wires for a shred of U.K.-related good news out of the Middle East. Ecology-minded killjoys may question whether this qualifies. But putting aside, if one can, the possible inadvisability of relocating 10,000 nonnative salmon to a wadi in Yemen — which is to say, putting aside the basic premise — it’s easy and pleasant enough to go with the flow of the film, infected by Jones’s growing enthusiasm for both the project and Ms. Chetwode-Talbot. Adapted from Paul Torday’s novel by Simon Beaufoy (2009’s Slumdog Millionaire), Salmon Fishing is a sweet and funny movie, and while it suffers from the familiar flurried third-act knotting together of loose ends, its storytelling stratagems are entertaining and its characters compellingly textured, and the cast makes the most of the well-polished material. (1:52) Four Star, Opera Plaza, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*The Salt of Life Gianni Di Gregorio is both a triumph over and cautionary illustration of the aging uomo, racking up decades of experience yet still infantilized by that most binding tie. He’s a late bloomer who’s long worked in theater and film in various capacities, notably as a scenarist for 2008’s organized crime drama Gomorrah. That same year he wrote and directed a first feature basically shot in his own Rome apartment. Mid-August Lunch was a surprise global success casting the director himself as a putz, also named Gianni, very like himself (by his own admission), peevishly trying to have some independence while catering to the whims of the ancient but demanding mother (Valeria De Franciscis) he still lives with. Lunch was charming in a sly, self-deprecating way, and The Salt of Life is more of the same minus the usual diminishing returns: the creator’s barely-alter ego Gianni is still busy doing nothing much, dissatisfied not by his indolence but by its quality. But his pint-sized, wig-rocking, nearly century-old matriarch has now moved to a plush separate address with full-time care — and Salt’s main preoccupation is Gianni’s discovery that while he’s as available and interested in women as ever, at age 63 he is no longer visible to them. While Fellini confronted desirable, daunting womanhood with a permanent adolescent’s masturbatory fantasizing, Di Gregorio’s humbler self-knowledge finds comedy in the hangdog haplessness of an old dog who can’t learn new tricks and has forgotten the old ones. (1:30) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*A Separation Iran’s first movie to win Berlin’s Golden Bear (as well as all its acting awards), this domestic drama reflecting a larger socio-political backdrop is subtly well-crafted on all levels, but most of all demonstrates the unbeatable virtue of having an intricately balanced, reality-grounded screenplay — director Asghar Farhadi’s own — as bedrock. A sort of confrontational impartiality is introduced immediately, as our protagonists Nader (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) face the camera — or rather the court magistrate — to plead their separate cases in her filing for divorce, which he opposes. We gradually learn that their 14-year wedlock isn’t really irreparable, the feelings between them not entirely hostile. The roadblock is that Simin has finally gotten permission to move abroad, a chance she thinks she must seize for the sake of their daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). But Nader doesn’t want to leave the country, and is not about to let his only child go without him. Farhadi worked in theater before moving into films a decade ago. His close attention to character and performance (developed over several weeks’ pre-production rehearsal) has the acuity sported by contemporary playwrights like Kenneth Lonergan and Theresa Rebeck, fitted to a distinctly cinematic urgency of pace and image. There are moments that risk pushing plot mechanizations too far, by A Separation pulls off something very intricate with deceptive simplicity, offering a sort of integrated Rashomon (1950) in which every participant’s viewpoint as the wronged party is right — yet in conflict with every other. (2:03) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*They Call it Myanmar: Lifting the Curtain Recent elections signal that Myanmar’s status as “the second-most isolated country on the planet,” per Robert H. Lieberman’s doc, may soon be changing. With that hopeful context, this insightful study of Myanmar (or Burma, depending on who’s referring to it) is particularly well-timed. Shot using clandestine methods, and without identifying many of its fearful interviewees — with the exception of recently-released-from-house-arrest politician Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner — They Call it Myanmar offers a revealing look at a country largely untouched by corporate influences and pop culture. Myanmar’s military dictatorship is the opposite of a cult of personality; it’s scarier, one subject reflects, because “it’s a system, not an individual,” with faceless leaders who can be quietly be replaced. The country struggles with a huge disconnect between the very rich and the very poor; it has a dismal health care system overrun by “quacks,” and an equally dismal educational system that benefits very few children. Hunger, disease, child labor — all prevalent. Surprisingly, though the conditions that surround them are grim, Myanmar’s people are shown to be generally happy and deeply spiritual as they go about their daily lives. A highlight: Lieberman’s interactions with excited Buddhist pilgrims en route to Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, with an up-close look at the miraculously teetering “Golden Rock.” (1:23) Shattuck. (Eddy)

*This Is Not a Film Jafar Panahi is no longer allowed to make films in Iran. So, with the help of documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, he made This Is Not a Film. After arrests in 2009 and 2010, Panahi was sentenced to a 20-year ban from filmmaking and a six-year prison term for “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic,” as reported by the Green Voice of Freedom, a human rights website. He is also barred from leaving the country or giving interviews. This Is Not a Film, an “effort” credited to him and Mirtahmasb, seems simple at first: Panahi eats breakfast and gets dressed in long, self-shot takes. Then, after Mirtahmasb arrives to take over the camera, he talks to his lawyer, begins to narrate and reconstruct the last film he was working on, explores memories of filmmaking, and interacts with his neighbors. The editing becomes more complex, more cinematic, and more problematic as the day progresses.There’s a cliché in criticism that certain technically accomplished movies are “pure cinema,” and in a sense, if this is not a film, it’s pure filmmaking. It presents itself as a document, but its authenticity is questionable, and for a man who is banned from filmmaking, so is its legitimacy. But it is a process in action and in dialogue with itself. It is an act of defiance, and the product of an artist’s self-effacing need to express himself. Whether or not this is a film, it is a profound artistic howl. (1:15) SF Film Society Cinema. (Stander)

Titanic 3D (3:14) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

*21 Jump Street One of the more pleasant surprises on the mainstream comedy landscape has to be this, ugh, “reboot” of the late-‘80s TV franchise. I wasn’t a fan of the show — or its dark-eyed, bad-boy star, Johnny Depp — back in the day, but I am of this unexpectedly funny rework overseen by apparent enthusiast, star, co-writer, and co-executive producer Jonah Hill, with a screenplay by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) co-writer Michael Bacall. There’s more than a smidge of Bacall’s other high school fantasy, Project X, in the buddy comedy premise of nerd (Hill’s Schmidt) meets blowhard (Channing Tatum’s Jenko), but 21 Jump Street thankfully leapfrogs the former with its meta-savvy, irreverent script and har-dee-har cameo turns by actors like Ice Cube as Captain Dickson (as well as a few key uncredited players who shall remain under deep cover). High school continues to haunt former classmates Schmidt and Jenko, who have just graduated from the lowly police bike corps to a high school undercover operation — don’t get it twisted, though, Dickson hollers at them; they got this gig solely because they look young. Still, the whole drug-bust enchilada is put in jeopardy when the once-socially toxic Schmidt finds his brand of geekiness in favor with the cool kids and so-called dumb-jock Jenko discovers the pleasures of the mind with the chem lab set. Fortunately for everyone, this crew doesn’t take themselves, or the source material, too seriously. (1:49) Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Wrath of the Titans Playing fast and loose with Greek myths but not agile enough to kick out a black metal jam during a flaming underworld power-grab, Wrath of Titans is, as expected, a bit of a CGI-crammed mess. Still, the sword-and-sandals franchise has attracted scads of international actorly talent — the cast is enriched this time by Édgar Ramírez (2010’s Carlos), Bill Nighy, and Rosamund Pike — and you do get at least one cool monster and paltry explication (Cerberus, which bolts from earth for no discernible reason except that maybe all hell is breaking loose). Just because action flicks like Cloverfield (2008) have long dispensed with narrative handlebars doesn’t mean that age-old stories like the Greek myths should get completely random with their titanic tale-spinning. Wrath opens on the twilight of the gods: Zeus (Liam Neeson) is practically groveling before Perseus (Sam Worthington) — now determined to go small, raise his son, and work on his fishing skills — and trying to persuade him to step up and help the Olympians hold onto power. Fellow Zeus spawn Ares (Ramírez) is along for the ride, so demigod up, Perseus. In some weird, last-ditch attempt to ream his bro Zeus, the oily, mulleted Hades (Ralph Fiennes) has struck a deal with their entrapped, chaotic, castrating fireball of a dad Cronus to let them keep their immortality, on the condition that Zeus is sapped of his power. Picking up Queen Andromeda (Pike) along the way, Perseus gets the scoop on how to get to Hell from Hephaestus (Nighy playing the demented Vulcan like a ‘60s acid casualty, given to chatting with mechanical owl Bubo, a wink to 1981 precursor Clash of the Titans, which set the bar low for the remake). Though there are some distracting action scenes (full of speedy, choppy edits that confuse disorientation for excitement) and a few intriguing monsters (just how did the Minotaur make it to this labyrinth?), there’s no money line like “Release the Kraken!” this time around, and there’s way too much nattering on about fatherly responsibility and forgiveness —making these feel-good divinities sound oddly, mawkishly Christian and softheaded rather than mythically pagan and brattily otherworldly. Wasn’t the appeal of the gods linked to the fact that they always acted more like outta-hand adolescents than holier-than-thou deities? I guess that’s why no one’s praying to them anymore. (1:39) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

 

Cyclists gain an unlikely defender against the backlash

Sasha Cuttler
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After yesterday’s media pile-on – with the Examiner’s cover story and the Chronicle leading both its front page and Bay Area section with stories bashing bicyclists in the wake of a pedestrian death – it was refreshing to read today’s level-headed Examiner editorial “Rare pedestrian death exploited by bike foes.”

When I posted last week on the fatal cyclist-vs.-pedestrian collision (one of the first to report disturbing new details of the incident), I noted that the cycling community was braced for a backlash. And it came in the form of calls for police crackdowns, angry anti-cyclist diatribes, proposals for elaborate bike regulatory and re-education programs, and other opportunistic jabs.

The Examiner – which, under new ownership, has abandoned its nutty old right-wing stances – not only called out those critics as predictably lacking in perspective, but the editorial even took that next step of tying them to the pro-car reactionaries who get so lathered up about paying for street parking or losing any street turf they now control.

“There is an audience out there — mostly older, mostly cranky — that loves to marinate in the notion that drivers in The City are victimized by political correctness run amok,” the Examiner wrote. “This idea of two-wheeled liberalism is an attitude that is pandered to by the likes of curmudgeonly columnists at San Francisco newspapers.”

Yeah, git ’em, Ex 2.0! It’s amazing how the most privileged and entitled members of our society – such as rich white motorists – are so quick to play the victim card these days, a tactic popularized by Rush Limbaugh that has become the standard reaction to any perceived imposition on their comfort and convenience.

“Transportation policy and budget priorities are complex, especially in tough times. It is easy to sit back and paint in broad strokes about issues, but that does nothing to truly advance the conversations that need to be happening,” the Ex wrote (in sharp contrast to Chron’s reactionary, ridiculous editorial stance).

Mayor Ed Lee and SFMTA chief Ed Reiskin deserve credit for supporting the controversial proposal to put in new parking meters and begin charging on Sundays – an issue on which former Mayor Gavin Newsom pandered to the mob and showed a real lack of leadership – but that’s just the beginning of doing what needs to be done to create a 21st century transportation system.

The death of this pedestrian is a horrible accident that has reminded the cycling community of our responsibility to other road users, and it has prompted discussions and realizations that are probably overdue. We get it. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that cars create more pressing and widespread problems – in terms of being deadly, costly, bad for the environment, and dominating public space – than do bikes. That’s not judgment, just perspective.

Or as the Examiner says, “Bicyclists can be rude — they certainly ride through red lights or on the sidewalk and are rarely punished, in part because on the scale of criminality, this is fairly minor. But the one thing they almost never do is kill someone. We shouldn’t let this incident distort our approach to traffic laws or add fuel to the apparently endless battle of the bike and the car.”

If I could do it all over

Andrew Lam
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2
If I could do it all over

If had to re-start your academic career today, what would you study? In this era of budget cuts to education and general economic miasma, some Bay Area academics would be reconsidering their options, some would stay their course — and some have important advice for today’s budding scholars. 

MELINDA STONE, UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

FILM STUDIES

I would first take some time off from school, jump into the world, and try it out for a year or two. I would WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) around the country and around the world. Once I had some out of school experience, I would be ready and willing to pursue a higher education — not just because my parents or society said it was the thing to do, but because I was excited and eager to learn more. I would study urban agriculture — funnily enough, my colleagues and I just created an urban agriculture program at USF. We need to be thinking and engaging critically and creatively to shape our urban spheres into sustainable systems. Programs like urban agriculture are doing just that.

JAMES MARTEL, SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR

POLITICAL SCIENCE

I’d ideally do exactly what I am doing now: studying political theory. I really love my job and feel very grateful that I get paid to do this. However, I don’t think that I could have had the career I had if I was starting out today.

What I’d probably do is to bolster my study of political theory with more courses in continental philosophy and critical thinking, that way I could present myself to more kinds of jobs and broaden my reach. I also think it would help to focus on something concrete — an area study, a specific tradition, a specific thinker, because I think generalists don’t do so well these days. In graduate school I would concentrate more on publishing and going to conferences than I did when I was getting my own Ph.D.

When I was in grad school, the belief was that we lived in a meritocracy and good work would get good jobs; even then (the mid-’90s), the profession was changing, but I didn’t pay any attention and got lucky. Not that I had it that easy, I was a visiting professor at three universities before I got a tenure track job. Even so, I don’t think a newly minted Ph.D. can have the same luxury anymore. Today you can’t hide in your ivory tower. My younger peers are much less starry-eyed about academia than I was at their age. Maybe that is one small silver lining to the horrendous academic job market.

VINCENT BARLETTA, STANFORD UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN CULTURES

At the end of Don Quijote, the eponymous main character emerges from his book-induced delirium, renounces chivalry, and dies. I’m not ready to die, so I’m reluctant to imagine a career course other than the wholly quixotic, book-filled one that I chose over two decades ago. The Quijote teaches us that all imagining has consequences. If I begin to imagine another less difficult life, what will become of me? Will this life begin to crack and splinter? While I’m not simple enough to believe that flirtations and daydreams can hasten death, why tempt fate?

If imagination is a lethal pin, history is a cushion. When I was a kid growing up in the East Bay, an aluminum bat under my bed and a stack of bootlegged Elvis Costello cassettes in a shoebox, I dreamed of being lots of things: a private eye in Honolulu, a blade runner, the president. I dreamed of a playing guitar like Marc Ribot. Of being rich. Does Barack Obama play guitar? If so, he’s realized all of my adolescent dreams, and I hope they make him happy. As for my life, Don Quijote was born only for me, and I for him.

DINA IBRAHIM, SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

BROADCAST AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION ARTS

If I were starting my career all over again, I would still get a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in international relations. I would also get a master’s degree in Middle East studies, followed by a Ph.D. in journalism. The only thing I would change is making up my mind a little faster. I was undeclared during my freshman year, with no clue what I wanted to study. I met a bunch of cool kids who were working at the college newspaper and as I began hanging out in the newsroom, suddenly it all made sense. I was naturally nosy, I love writing, and get a huge kick out of talking to strangers and telling stories. Journalism was the perfect career for me. I always had a fascination with global politics so I looked forward to attending every IR class. I’m glad I didn’t get a master’s in journalism, because I don’t think that would have advanced my career at all. But the Middle East studies degree gave me an in-depth understanding of the region’s history, societies, economies and political systems. It was an excuse to read a lot about subjects I was passionately interested in, and being required to read and write papers kept me in line and gave me the discipline I needed. I got the Ph.D. because I wanted to teach at the university level, and I enjoyed learning to do research. 

I tell my students all the time that it is really important to study what you love, but I know it isn’t easy to figure out what that is, and whether they can actually make a decent living out of it. I often begin advising sessions by asking my student “what’s your dream job?” and if they give me a specific answer, it makes it much easier to help them pick the right classes that they are paying a lot of money for. I knew I wouldn’t necessarily get rich as a journalist, but I knew it would be fun and rewarding. My parents are both medical doctors and wanted me to be a physician as well. I have no regrets whatsoever, because I know I would have made a great doctor, and definitely made more money than I do now, but I would have been miserable. A college degree is increasingly expensive, and it is crucial that a lot of thought and consideration goes into choosing a field of study that is a good investment. A good degree of study should train you to acquire actual skills that you can use to market yourself in today’s competitive job market.

San Francisco’s loss

Andrew Lam
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116
San Francisco’s loss

news@sfbg.com

San Francisco is increasingly losing its working and creative classes to the East Bay and other jurisdictions — and with them, much of the city’s diversity — largely because of policy decisions that favor expensive, market-rate housing over the city’s own affordable housing goals.

“It’s definitely changing the character of the city,” said James Tracy, an activist with Community Housing Partnership. “It drains a big part of the creative energy of the city, which is why folks came here in the first place.”

>>Is Oakland cooler than San Francisco? Oaklanders respond.

Now, as San Francisco officials consider creating an affordable housing trust fund and other legislative changes, it’s fair to ask: Does City Hall have the political will to reverse the trend?

Census data tells a big part of the story. In 2000, the median owner-occupied home in San Francisco cost $369,400, and by 2010 it had more than doubled to $785,200. Census figures also show median rents have gone from $928 in 2000 up to $1,385 in 2010 — and even a cursory glance at apartment listings show that rents have been steadily rising since then.

Tracy and other affordable housing activists testified at an April 9 hearing before the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee on a new study by the Budget and Legislative Analyst, commissioned last July by Sup. David Campos, entitled “Performance Audit of San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Policies and Programs.”

“There’s a hearing right now at City Hall about our housing stock and how it’s been skewing upward toward those with higher incomes,” Board President David Chiu told us, noting that it is sounding an alarm that, “Creative individuals that make this place so special are being driven out of the city.”

Oakland City Council member Rebecca Kaplan said that San Francisco’s loss has been a gain for Oakland and other East Bay cities, which are enjoying a new cultural vibrancy that has so far been largely free of the gentrifying impacts that can hurt a city’s diversity.

“You can add more people without getting rid of anybody if you do it right. Most of development is looking at places that are now completely empty like the Lake Merritt BART station parking lot, empty land around the Coliseum, and the West Oakland BART station,” Kaplan told us. “We have to commit to revitalization without displacement.”

Yet the fear among some San Franciscans is that we’ll have just the opposite: displacement that actually hinders the city’s attempts at economic revitalization. “What’s at stake is the economic recovery of the city,” Tracy said. “You can’t have such a large portion of the workforce commuting into the city.”

TOO MANY CONDOS

A big part of the problem is that San Francisco is building plenty of market-rate (read: really expensive) housing, but not nearly enough affordable housing. The report Campos commissioned looked at how well the city did at meeting various housing construction goals it set for itself from 1999 to 2006 in its state-mandated Housing Element, which requires cities to plan for the housing needs of its population and absorb a fair share of the state’s affordable housing needs.

The plan called for 7,363 market-rate units, or 36 percent of the total housing construction, with the balance being housing for those with moderate, low, or very low incomes. Developers built 11,293 market rate units during that time, 154 percent of what was needed and 65 percent of the total housing construction. There were only 725 units built for those with moderate incomes (just 13 percent the goal) and just over half the number of low-income units needed and 83 percent of the very low-income goal met.

“We have to do a better job of monitoring and evaluating each project,” Chiu said. “Every incremental decision we make determines whether this will be a city for just the wealthy.”

The situation for renters is even worse. From 2001-2011, the report showed there were only 1,351 rental units built for people in the low to moderate income range, people who make 50-120 percent of the area median income, which includes a sizable chunk of the working class living in a city where about two-thirds of residents rent.

“The Planning Commission does not receive a sufficiently comprehensive evaluation of the City’s achievement of its housing goals,” the report concluded, calling for the planners and policymakers to evaluate new housing proposals by the benchmark of what kind of housing the city actually needs. Likewise, it concluded that the Board of Supervisors isn’t being regularly given information it needs to correct the imbalance or meet affordable housing needs.

Policy changes made under former Mayor Gavin Newsom also made this bad situation even worse. Developers used to build affordable housing required by the city’s inclusionary housing law rather than pay in-lieu fees to the city by a 3-1 ratio, but since the formulas in that law changed in 2010, 55 percent of developers have opted to pay the fee rather than building housing.

Also in 2010, Newsom instituted a policy that allowed developers to defer payment of about 85 percent of their affordable housing fees, resulting in an additional year-long delay in building affordable housing, from 48 months after the market rate project got permitted to 60 months now.

Tracy and the affordable housing activists say the city needs to reverse these trends if it is to remain diverse. “It’s not even debatable that the majority housing built in the city needs to be affordable,” Tracy said.

Mayor Ed Lee has called for an affordable housing trust fund, the details of which are still being worked out as he prepares to submit it for the November ballot. Chiu said that would help: “I will require a lot of different public policies, but a lot of it will be an affordable housing trust fund.”

GROWTH AND DIVERSITY

San Francisco’s problems have been a boon for Oakland.

“With much love and affection to my dear SF friends, I must say that Oakland is more fun,” Kaplan told us. “Also I think a lot of people are choosing to live in Oakland now for a variety of reasons that aren’t just about price. We have a huge resurgent art scene, an interconnected food, restaurant, and club scene, a place where multicultural community of grassroots artists is thriving, best known from Art Murmur.”

There is fear that Oakland could devolve into the same situation plaguing San Francisco, with rising housing prices that displace its diverse current population, but so far that isn’t happening much. Oakland remains much more racially and economically diverse than San Francisco, particularly as it attracts San Francisco’s ethnically diverse residents.

“We’re not looking at a situation where the people moving into town are necessarily predominantly white,” Kaplan said. “We’re having large growth in quite a range of communities, including growing Ethiopian and Eritrean and Vietnamese populations…If you don’t want to live in a multicultural community, maybe Oakland’s not your cup of tea.”

According to the 2010 census, a language other than English is spoken at home in 40.2 percent of Oakland households, compared to 25.4 percent in San Francisco. “Almost every language in the world spoken in Oakland,” Kaplan said.

African Americans make up 28 percent of Oakland’s population, compared to only 6.1 percent in San Francisco, and 6.2 percent of the population of California. In San Francisco, the number of black-owned businesses is dismal at 2.7 percent, compared to 4 percent statewide and 13.7 percent in Oakland. The census also finds that 25.4 percent Oaklanders are people of Latino origin, compared to San Francisco at 15.1 percent and 37.6 percent statewide. San Francisco is 33.3 percent Asian, compared to Oakland at 16.8 percent and all of California at 13 percent.

Both cities are less white than California as a whole; the state’s white population is 57.6 percent, compared to 34 percent in Oakland and 48.5 percent in San Francisco.

Gentrification shows its face differently depending on the neighborhood. Some say Rockridge, a trendy Oakland neighborhood where prices have recently increased, has gone too far down the path.

“Rockridge has been ‘in’ for a long time, but the prices are staggering and it isn’t as interesting any more,” Barbara Hendrickson, an East Bay real estate agent, told us.

The nationwide foreclosure crisis didn’t spare Oakland and may have sped up its gentrification process. “The neighborhoods are being gentrified by people who buy foreclosures and turn them into sweet remolded homes,” observed Hendrickson.

Yet Kaplan said many of these houses simply remain vacant, driving down values for surrounding properties and destabilizing the community. “I think we need a policy where the county doesn’t process a foreclosure until the bank has proven that they own the note,” said Kaplan, who mentioned that the city has had some success using blight ordinances to hold banks accountable for the empty buildings.

And as if San Francisco didn’t have enough challenges, Kaplan also noted another undeniable advantage: the weather. “The weather is really quite something,” she said. “I have days with a meeting in San Francisco and I always have to remember to bring completely different clothing. Part of why I wanted to live in California was to be able to spend more time outdoors, be healthy, bicycle, things like that. So that’s pretty easy to do over here in Oakland.”

Guest opinion: It’s not about Mirkarimi, it’s about us

Zelda Bronstein
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70
Guest opinion: It’s not about Mirkarimi, it’s about us

Virtually unmentioned in the torrent of words that have flowed over the Ross Mirkarimi false imprisonment, suspension and pending vote to determine his removal by the Board of Supervisors is any reference to what should now be the most important issue to be considered as the sad saga unfolds: the fact that Mirkarimi was, just four months before his removal, elected by a majority vote and his removal from office would simply set aside that vote, diminishing all of our cherished beliefs about “majority rule.”

Mirkarimi didn’t just win, he won big. He beat the second place candidate by nearly 19,000 votes, winning outright without the need for the magic of instant run-off. Mirkarimi got more first place votes than did Ed Lee (70,204 vs. 59,663). Moreover, Mirkarimi’s election was without controversy, complaint or charge of illegality, unlike Ed Lee’s, which resulted in a total of 25 misdemeanor convictions for illegal campaign contributions by a city contractor with a pending contact before a commission appointed by the mayor.

Since the 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court to give George Bush the election in 2000 after Al Gore won a majority of the popular vote, there has been a distressingly frequent willingness by the media to accept executive and judicial actions that set aside popular votes. The conservative governor of Michigan has simply taken over local governments that he deems financially “irresponsible” setting aside the votes of local residents. In California, a tiny minority of Republican legislators, elected by a comparative handful of voters, yearly stymie the overwhelmingly majority elected legislators, forcing deeply unpopular budget cuts — and the media simply goes along.

Majority rule, the very bedrock of representative democracy, seems unnervingly easy to set aside now days. Majority rule is our bedrock because it’s the only way in which our system has to define the political will of the people. Let’s be clear, the very City Charter that is being used to remove Mirkarimi from office rests on the power given by “the people of the City and County of San Francisco,” (Preamble to the Charter) and was itself adopted by a majority vote. Setting aside majority votes is a dangerous business for us all; it risks substituting the will of a few insiders for the will of the people.

The political riskiness of the move has been entirely incorrectly cast by the San Francisco Chronicle, the main voice to overturn the expressed will of the people. The Chronicle asserts the political risks as now falling on the supervisors who most vote to sustain the mayor’s action with nine votes. Indeed, the ace vote counter at the “Comical,” former Mayor Willie Brown, who went zero-for-ever in the last four years of his term in votes at the board, confidently predicts that the vote will be 11-zip to sustain the mayor because of the fear of voter retribution.

But facts indicate that “fear” will play the other way. Last November Mirkarimi won in six of the 11 supervisorial districts (D3, D5, D6, D8, D9 and D10) . In two of them (D8 and D10), he won more first-place votes than the current supervisor. In these same six districts he outpolled Ed Lee by some 18,000 votes. By what measure, other than the huffing and puffing of ex-Mayor Willie, C(onsistenly) W(rong) Nevius, and the two stooges, Matier and Ross, does any political risk fall on these supervisors to vote with their constituents?

Chances are nine votes will NOT be there and that Mirkarimi will remain sheriff, where the people put him.We will have gone through a divisive fight addressing none of our deep problems, Mayor Lee will squander the good will of the supervisors and voters for nothing and we will be exactly where we are now.

We have a way to remove Mirkarimi from office that is far better for our democracy. It’s one of the great inventions of the Progressive Era. It’s called recall, and it puts the matter where it should be: before the people. It’s really not about Mirkarimi anymore. Its about us, the meaning of our votes, and the responsibility of supervisors to understand in whose name they govern. All power to the people!

Calvin Welch lives, works and plays in San Francisco.

Film Listings

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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

American Reunion Care for yet another helping of all-American horn dogs? The original American Pie (1999) was a sweet-tempered, albeit ante-upping tribute to ‘80s teen sex comedies, so the latest in the franchise, the older, somewhat wiser American Reunion, is obliged to squeeze a dab more of the ole life force outta the class of ‘99, in honor of their, em, 13th high school reunion. These days Jim (Jason Biggs) is attempting to fluff up a flagging postbaby sex life with wife Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) yearns to get in touch with his buried bad boy. Oz (Chris Klein) has become a sportscaster-reality competition star and is seemingly lost without old girlfriend Heather (Mena Suvari). Stifler (Seann William Scott) is as piggishly incorrigible as ever—even as a low-hanging investment flunky, while scarred, adventuring biker Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) seems to have become “the most interesting man in the world.” How much trouble can the gang get into? About as much of a mess as the Hangover guys, which one can’t stop thinking about when Jim wakes up on the kitchen floor with tile burns and zero pants. Half the cast — which includes Tara Reid, John “MILF!” Cho, Natasha Lyonne, and Shannon Elizabeth — seems to have stirred themselves from their own personal career hangovers, interludes of insanity, and plastic surgery disasters (with a few, like Cho and Thomas, firmly moving on), and others such as parental figures Eugene Levy and Jennifer Coolidge continuing to show the kids how it’s done. Still, the farcical American franchise’s essentially benign, healthy attitude toward good, dirty fun reads as slightly refreshing after chaste teen fare like the Twilight and High School Musical flicks. Even with the obligatory moment of full-frontal penis smooshing. (1:53) California, Four Star, Piedmont. (Chun)

*Comic-Con IV: A Fan’s Hope When what is now known as the San Diego Comic-Con International launched in 1970, attendance consisted of a couple hundred comic-book fans. Now, it’s a huge event thronging with hundreds of thousands of geek-leaning movie, TV, video game, and — oh, yeah — comic-book fans; it’s also become an essential part of the hype-building machine for every major pop-culture property. Super Size Me (2004) director Morgan Spurlock’s lively doc examines the current state of Comic-Con with input from those who’ve ridden the nerd train to fame and fortune (Joss Whedon, Guillermo Del Toro, Stan Lee) — but the film’s most compelling sequences zero in on a handful of ordinary folks obsessed with the event for a variety of reasons. There’s the proprietor of a Denver comics shop, a 38-year Comic-Con veteran, faced with the chilling prospect of having to sell his most valuable (and most beloved) comic in order to keep his business afloat; the Carrie Brownstein look alike who spends the entire year crafting incredibly detailed costumes for Comic-Con’s annual masquerade contest; the soldier and family man who dreams of drawing comics for a living; and the sweetly dorky young man nervously planning to propose to his girlfriend … during a Kevin Smith panel. To its credit, Comic-Con IV never mocks its subjects, and it manages to infuse its many storylines with surprising emotional depth. Extra points for the clever, comics-inspired transitions, too. Director Spurlock appears in person for post-film Q&As Sun/8 at 5 and 7:30pm shows. (1:26) Vogue. (Eddy)

*Free Men Amid moderate hoopla for Casablanca’s 70th anniversary, it’s a good time for something that was a whole lot more common back then — a wartime drama not about battle or victimization, but espionage intrigue crossing the lines between military, diplomatic, and civilian sectors. Arrested for participating in the black market in the occupied Paris of 1942, North African émigré Younes (Tahar Rahim from 2009’s A Prophet) evades prison or deportation by agreeing to spy on a local mosque suspected by the Nazis of harboring and smuggling out Jews. His clumsy efforts are quickly found out by a visiting imam (Michael Lonsdale), with the result that Younes — whose brother (Farid Larbi) is already a committed fighter in the Resistance underground — winds up playing double-agent, pretending to serve the police and SS while actually working against them. En route he becomes entangled in the disparate agendas of others including Leila (Lubna Azabal), who’s secretly involved in the Algerian liberation movement, and Salim (Mahmud Shalaby), an apolitical, bisexual singer whose career ambitions blind him to the personal dangers he risks. Ismaël Ferroukhi’s handsome, twisty drama won’t have you white-knuckling the armrests, but it’s an intelligent, satisfying throwback to the colorful characters and narrative intricacies of another era’s cinematic melodramas — with the welcome update of making non-white players our protagonists rather than “exotic” support players. (1:39) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Goon An amiable Massachusetts bar bouncer who’s the odd one out within his highly-educated, high-achieving Jewish family (led by Eugene Levy), Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) can punch your lights out as easily — and with as little malice — as he’d flip a light switch. That skill looks useful to a local hockey team in need of an enforcer to disable relevant members of the opposing team when needed, then sit in the penalty box. Soon “Doug the Thug’s” burgeoning reputation brings him to the relative big leagues of Halifax, where his main job for the Highlanders is protecting a star (Marc-André Grondin) who’s been skittish since his serious bruising at the hands of “Ross the Boss” (Liev Schreiber), our hero’s veteran equivalent. Based very loosely on Doug “The Hammer” Smith’s memoir, this latest from director Michael Dowse (2004’s It’s All Gone Pete Tong) and co-scenarist Jay Baruchel (who also plays Doug’s incredibly crass best friend) is a cut above most Canadian hockey comedies — which, trust me, is not saying much. But it is indeed rather endearing eventually as an exercise in rude, pretty funny yet non-loutish humor about oafish behavior. A lot of its appeal has to do with Scott, who is arguably miscast and somewhat wasted as this “Hebrew Dolph Lundgren” — the actor’s forte being manic, impulsive, near-lunatic rather than slow-witted characters — yet who helps Goon maintain a no-foul friendliness in inverse proportion to its face-mashing action on ice. The writing could be sharper, but apparently there is only room for one smart hockey satire in our universe, and that spot was taken by Slap Shot 35 years ago. (1:30) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*They Call it Myanmar: Lifting the Curtain Recent elections signal that Myanmar’s status as “the second-most isolated country on the planet,” per Robert H. Lieberman’s doc, may soon be changing. With that hopeful context, this insightful study of Myanmar (or Burma, depending on who’s referring to it) is particularly well-timed. Shot using clandestine methods, and without identifying many of its fearful interviewees — with the exception of recently-released-from-house-arrest politician Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner — They Call it Myanmar offers a revealing look at a country largely untouched by corporate influences and pop culture. Myanmar’s military dictatorship is the opposite of a cult of personality; it’s scarier, one subject reflects, because “it’s a system, not an individual,” with faceless leaders who can be quietly be replaced. The country struggles with a huge disconnect between the very rich and the very poor; it has a dismal health care system overrun by “quacks,” and an equally dismal educational system that benefits very few children. Hunger, disease, child labor — all prevalent. Surprisingly, though the conditions that surround them are grim, Myanmar’s people are shown to be generally happy and deeply spiritual as they go about their daily lives. A highlight: Lieberman’s interactions with excited Buddhist pilgrims en route to Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, with an up-close look at the miraculously teetering “Golden Rock.” (1:23) Bridge. (Eddy)

*This Is Not a Film See “The Necessity of Images.” (1:15) SF Film Society Cinema.

Titanic 3D It’s baaack. (3:14) Metreon.

ONGOING

*The Artist With the charisma-oozing agility of Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckling his way past opponents and the supreme confidence of Rudolph Valentino leaning, mid-swoon, into a maiden, French director-writer Michel Hazanavicius hits a sweet spot, or beauty mark of sorts, with his radiant new film The Artist. In a feat worthy of Fairbanks or Errol Flynn, Hazanavicius juggles a marvelously layered love story between a man and a woman, tensions between the silents and the talkies, and a movie buff’s appreciation of the power of film — embodied in particular by early Hollywood’s union of European artistry and American commerce. Dashing silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin, who channels Fairbanks, Flynn, and William Powell — and won this year’s Cannes best actor prize) is at the height of his career, adorable Jack Russell by his side, until the talkies threaten to relegate him to yesterday’s news. The talent nurtured in the thick of the studio system yearns for real power, telling the newspapers, “I’m not a puppet anymore — I’m an artist,” and finances and directs his own melodrama, while his youthful protégé Peppy Miller (Bérénice Béjo) becomes a yakky flapper age’s new It Girl. Both a crowd-pleasing entertainment and a loving précis on early film history, The Artist never checks its brains at the door, remaining self-aware of its own conceit and its forebears, yet unashamed to touch the audience, without an ounce of cynicism. (1:40) California, Castro, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye Once dubbed “the wickedest man in the world”, shock artist and cofounder of seminal industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has softened somewhat with time. Her plunge into pandrogyny, an ongoing artistic and personal process embarked upon with the late Jacqueline “Lady Jaye” Breyer P-Orridge, is an attempt to create a perfectly balanced body, incorporating the characteristics of both. As artists, the two were committed to documenting their process, but as marriage partners, much of their footage is sweetly innocuous home video footage: Genesis cooking in the kitchen decked out in a little black dress, Lady Jaye setting out napkins at a backyard bar-b-que or helping to dig through Genesis’ archives of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle “ephemera,” the two wrapped in bandages after getting matching nose jobs. “I just want to be remembered as one of the great love affairs of all time,” Jaye tells Genesis. This whimsical documentary by Marie Losier will go a long way toward making that wish a reality. (1:12) Roxie. (Nicole Gluckstern)

*Boy Apparent in his 2007 film Eagle vs. Shark and his brief turns writing and directing The Flight of the Conchords, filmmaker Taika Waititi seems to embody a uniquely Polynesian sensibility, positioned at a crossroads that’s informed by his Te-Whanau-a-Apanui heritage and his background in the Raukokore area of New Zealand, as well as an affection of global pop culture and a kind of keeping-it-real, keeping-it-local, down-home indie sensibility. All of which has fed into Boy, which became the highest-grossing New Zealand film of all time when it was released in its homeland in 2010. Its popularity is completely understandable. From the lush green inlands and stunning beaches of Waihau Bay to its intimate, gritty and humorous sketch of its natives, this affectionate, big-hearted bildungsroman is a lot like its 11-year-old eponymous hero — eminently lovable and completely one of a kind. Despite the tragedies and confines of his small-town rural life, Boy has a handle on his world: it’s 1984, and his pals spend their time hanging out at the snack shop and harvesting weed for one deadbeat biker parent. Boy’s brother Rocky (Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu) believes he has superpowers and is scarred by the fact that his birth was responsible for their mother’s death, and Michael Jackson has just been crowned the king of pop. Then, while his grandma’s away, Boy’s own deadbeat dad, Alamein (Waititi) appears on the scene, turning an extended family of small children on its head — and inspiring many a Thriller dance-slash-dream sequence. Waititi finds his way inside Boy’s head with Crayola-colorful animated children’s drawings, flashbacks, and the kind of dreamy fluidity that comes so naturally during long, hot Polynesian days, all while wonderfully depicting a world that far too few people have glimpsed on screen. (1:30) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*Casa de mi Padre Will Ferrell’s latest challenge in a long line of actorly exercises and comic gestures — from his long list of comedies probing the last gasps of American masculinity to serious forays like Stranger Than Fiction (2006) and Everything Must Go (2010) — is almost entirely Spanish-language telenovela-burrito Western spoof Casa de mi Padre. Here Ferrell tackles an almost entirely Spanish script (with only meager, long-ago high school and college language courses under his belt) alongside Mexican natives Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna and telenovela veteran Genesis Rodriguez. This clever, intriguing, occasionally very funny, yet not altogether successful endeavor, directed by Matt Piedmont and written by Andrew Steele, sprang from Ferrell’s noggin. Ferrell is nice guy Armando, content to stay at home at the ranch, hang with his buddies, and be dismissed by his father (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.) as a dolt. The arrival of his sleazy bro Raul (Luna) and Raul’s fiancée Sonia (Rodriguez) change everything, bringing killer narco Onza (Bernal) into the family’s life and sparking some hilariously klutzy entanglements between Armando and Sonia. All of this leads to almost zero improvisation on Ferrell’s part and plenty of meta, Machete-like spoofs on low-budget fare, from Sergio Leone to Alejandro Jodorowsky. Casa punctures padre-informed transmissions of Latin machismo, but it equally ridicules the idea of a gringo actor riding in and superimposing himself, badly or otherwise, over another country’s culture. (1:25) Metreon, Shattuck. (Chun)

*The Deep Blue Sea Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, filmmaker Terence Davies, much like his heroine, chooses a mutable, fluid sensuality, turning his source material, Terence Rattigan’s acclaimed mid-century play, into a melodrama that catches you in its tide and refuses to let go. At the opening of this sumptuous portrait of a privileged English woman who gives up everything for love, Hester (Rachel Weisz) goes through the methodical motions of ending it all: she writes a suicide note, carefully stuffs towels beneath the door, takes a dozen pills, turns on the gas, and lies down to wait for death to overtake her. Via memories drifting through her fading consciousness, Davies lets us in on scattered, salient details in her back story: her severely damped-down, staid marriage to a high court judge, Sir William (Simon Russel Beale), her attraction and erotic awakening in the hands of charming former RF pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), her separation, and her ultimate discovery that her love can never be matched, as she hazards class inequities and ironclad gender roles. “This is a tragedy,” Sir William says, at one point. But, as Hester, a model of integrity, corrects him, “Tragedy is too big a word. Sad, perhaps.” Similarly, Sea is a beautiful downer, but Davies never loses sight of a larger post-war picture, even while he pauses for his archetypal interludes of song, near-still images, and luxuriously slow tracking shots. With cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, he does a remarkable job of washing post-war London with spots of golden light and creating claustrophobic interiors — creating an emotionally resonant space reminiscent of the work of Wong Kar-wai and Christopher Doyle. At the center, providing the necessary gravitas (much like Julianne Moore in 2002’s Far From Heaven), is Weisz, giving the viewer a reason to believe in this small but reverberant story, and offering yet another reason for attention during the next awards season. (1:38) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (1:26) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Footnote (1:45) Clay.

*Friends With Kids Jennifer Westfeldt scans Hollywood’s romantic comedy landscape for signs of intelligent life and, finding it to be a barren place possibly recovering from a nuclear holocaust, writes, directs, and stars in this follow-up to 2001’s Kissing Jessica Stein, which she co-wrote and starred in. Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) are upper-thirtysomething New Yorkers with two decades of friendship behind them. He calls her “doll.” They have whispered phone conversations at four in the morning while their insignificant others lie slumbering beside them on the verge of getting dumped. And after a night spent witnessing the tragic toll that procreation has taken on the marriages of their four closest friends — Bridesmaids (2011) reunion party Leslie (Maya Rudolph), Alex (Chris O’Dowd), Missy (Kristen Wiig), and Ben (Jon Hamm), the latter two, surprisingly and less surprisingly, providing some of the film’s darkest moments — Jason proposes that they raise a child together platonically, thereby giving any external romantic relationships a fighting chance of survival. In no time, they’ve worked out the kinks to their satisfaction, insulted and horrified their friends, and awkwardly made a bouncing baby boy. The arrival of significant others (Edward Burns and Megan Fox) signals the second phase of the experiment. Some viewers will be invested in latent sparks of romance between the central pair, others in the success of an alternative family arrangement; one of these demographics is destined for disappointment. Until then, however, both groups and any viewers unwilling to submit to this reductive binary will be treated to a funny, witty, well crafted depiction of two people’s attempts to preserve life as they know it while redrawing the parameters of parenthood. (1:40) Four Star, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*House of Pleasures Set in a fin de siècle French brothel, Bertrand Bonello’s lushly rendered drama is challenging and frequently unpleasant. Bonello sees the beauty and allure of his subjects, the many miserable women of this maison close, but rarely sinks to sympathy for their selfish and sometimes sadistic clients. Bound as they are by their debts to their Madame, the prostitutes are essentially slaves, held to strict and humiliating standards. All they have is each other, and the movie’s few emotional bright spots come from this connection. The filmmaking is wily and nouvelle vague-ish, featuring anachronistic music and inventive split-screen sequences. Additionally, there is a spidery complexity to the film’s chronology, wherein certain scenes repeat to reveal new contexts. This unstuck sense of newness is perhaps didactic — this could and does happen now as well as then — but it also serves to make an already compelling ensemble piece even richer and more engaging. (2:02) SF Film Society Cinema. (Sam Stander)

Hugo Hugo turns on an obviously genius conceit: Martin Scorsese, working with 3D, CGI, and a host of other gimmicky effects, creates a children’s fable that ultimately concerns one of early film’s pioneering special-effects fantasists. That enthusiasm for moviemaking magic, transferred across more than a century of film history, was catching, judging from Scorsese’s fizzy, exhilarating, almost-nauseating vault through an oh-so-faux Parisian train station and his carefully layered vortex of picture planes as Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), an intrepid engineering genius of an urchin, scrambles across catwalk above a buzzing station and a hotheaded station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen). Despite the special effects fireworks going off all around him, Hugo has it rough: after the passing of his beloved father (Jude Law), he has been stuck with an nasty drunk of a caretaker uncle (Ray Winstone), who leaves his duties of clock upkeep at a Paris train station to his charge. Hugo must steal croissants to survive and mechanical toy parts to work on the elaborate, enigmatic automaton he was repairing with his father, until he’s caught by the fierce toy seller (Ben Kingsley) with a mysterious lousy mood and a cute, bright ward, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz). Although the surprisingly dark-ish Hugo gives Scorsese a chance to dabble a new technological toolbox — and the chance to wax pedantically, if passionately, about the importance of film archival studies — the effort never quite despite transcends its self-conscious dazzle, lagging pacing, diffuse narrative, and simplistic screenplay by John Logan, based on Brian Selznick’s book. Even the actorly heavy lifting provided by assets like Kingsley and Moretz and the backloaded love for the fantastic proponents at the dawn of filmmaking fail to help matters. Scorsese attempts to steal a little of the latters’ zeal, but one can only imagine what those wizards would do with motion-capture animation or a blockbuster-sized server farm. (2:07) Metreon. (Chun)

The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a teenager living in a totalitarian state whose 12 impoverished districts, as retribution for an earlier uprising, must pay tribute to the so-called Capitol every year, sacrificing one boy and one girl each to the Hunger Games. A battle royal set in a perilous arena and broadcast live to the Capitol as gripping diversion and to the districts as sadistic propaganda, the Hunger Games are, depending on your viewpoint, a “pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice” or a brutal, pointless bloodbath involving children as young as 12. When her little sister’s name comes up in the annual lottery, Katniss volunteers to take her place and is joined by a boy named Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares an old, unspoken bond. Tasked with translating to the screen the first installment of Suzanne Collins’s rabidly admired trilogy, writer-director Gary Ross (2003’s Seabiscuit, 1998’s Pleasantville) telescopes the book’s drawn-out, dread-filled tale into a manageable two-plus-hour entertainment, making great (and horrifying) use of the original work’s action, but losing a good deal of the narrative detail and emotional force. Elizabeth Banks is comic and unrecognizable as Effie Trinket, the two tributes’ chaperone; Lenny Kravitz gives a blank, flattened reading as their stylist, Cinna; and Donald Sutherland is sufficiently creepy and bloodless as the country’s leader, President Snow. More exceptionally cast are Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta’s surly, alcoholic mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, and Stanley Tucci as games emcee Caesar Flickerman, flashing a bank of gleaming teeth at each contestant as he probes their dire circumstances with the oily superficiality of a talk show host. (2:22) Balboa, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*The Hunter Shot and set during Iran’s contentious 2009 Presidential campaign, The Hunter starts as a Kafka-esque portrait of quiet desperation in a cold, empty Tehran, then turns into a sort of existential thriller. The precise message may be ambiguous, but it’s no surprise this two-year-old feature has so far played nearly everywhere but Iran itself. Ali (filmmaker Rafi Pitts) is released from prison after some years, his precise crime never revealed. Told that with his record he can’t expect to get a day shift on his job as security guard at an automotive plant, he keeps hours at odds with his working wife Sara (Mitra Haijar) and six-year-old daughter Saba (Saba Yaghoobi). Still, they try to spend as much time together as possible, until one day Ali returns to find them uncharacteristically gone all day. After getting the bureaucratic runaround he’s finally informed by police that something tragic has occurred; one loved one is dead, the other missing. When his thin remaining hope is dashed, with police notably useless in preventing that grim additional news, Ali snaps — think Peter Bogdanovich’s 1968 Targets. He’s soon in custody, albeit in that of two bickering officers who get them all lost in the countryside. Pitts, a long-ago child performer cast here only when the actor originally hired had to be replaced, makes Ali seem pinched from the inside out, as if in permanent recoil from past and anticipated abuse. This thin, hunched frame, vulnerable big ears, and hooded eyes — the goofily oversized cap he wears at work seems a deliberate affront — seems so fixed an expression of unhappiness that when he flashes a great smile, for a moment you might think it must be someone else. He’s an everyman who only grows more shrunken once the film physically opens up into a natural world no less hostile for being beautiful. (1:32) Roxie. (Harvey)

Intruders Despite his aptitude for filling a tux nicely with a loaded, Don Draper-esque suaveness, Clive Owen has a way of dominating the screen with his rage — a mad man more likely to brawl than deliver biting ad lines — so it’s hard for Intruders to escape the specter of his role in 2010’s Trust, as a dad futilely attempting to protect his daughter from an online predator. Consider Intruders the dark-fantasy offspring of that film and 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth. A nightmare appears to be materializing for two children in Spain and England: Juan (Izan Corchero) is being tormented by a shadowy figure who creeps into his room at night, and his mother (Pilar López de Ayala) and priest (Daniel Brühl) seem unable to stop the visitations or exorcise the demon that resembles a grand inquisitor in a hoodie. Meanwhile, Mia (Ella Purnell) discovers that the terrifying faceless figure she’s been writing about for her school fiction class is becoming a reality for both her and her protective papa (Owen). Is it a figment of their imagination — a case of folie à deux (and along with Apart, the second hitting the theaters in the last month) — or something potentially more terrifying, like the imaginative power of a child’s mind? 28 Weeks Later (2007) director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo attempts to sustain the mystery throughout, but that calculated juggling act only succeeds in making the final “gotcha” ending — involving, yes, wronged angry dad Owen — seem like a bit of a cheat. (1:40) Metreon. (Chun)

The Iron Lady Curiously like Clint Eastwood’s 2011 J. Edgar, this biopic from director Phyllida Lloyd and scenarist Abi Morgan takes on a political life of length, breadth and controversy — yet it mostly skims over the politics in favor of a generally admiring take on a famous narrow-minded megalomaniac’s “gumption” as an underdog who drove herself to the top. Looking back on her career from a senile old age spent in the illusory company of dead spouse Denis (Jim Broadbent), Meryl Streep’s ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher steamrolls past hurdles of class and gender while ironically re-enforcing the fustiest Tory values. She’s essentially a spluttering Lord in skirts, absolutist in her belief that money and power rule because they ought to, and any protesting rabble don’t represent the “real England.” That’s a mindset that might well have been explored more fruitfully via less flatly literal-minded portraiture, though Lloyd does make a few late, lame efforts at sub-Ken Russell hallucinatory style. Likely to satisfy no one — anywhere on the ideological scale — seriously interested in the motivations and consequences of a major political life, this skin-deep Lady will mostly appeal to those who just want to see another bravura impersonation added to La Streep’s gallery. Yes, it’s a technically impressive performance, but unlikely to be remembered as one of her more depthed ones, let alone among her better vehicles. (1:45) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*The Island President The titular figure is Mohamed Nasheed, recently ousted (by allies of the decades long dictator he’d replaced) chief executive of the Republic of Maldives — a nation of 26 small islands in the Indian Ocean. Jon Shenk’s engaging documentary chronicles his efforts up to and through the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit to gather greater international commitment to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. This is hardly do-gooderism, a bid for eco-tourism, or politics as usual: scarcely above sea level, with nary a hill, the Maldives will simply cease to exist soon if waters continue to rise at global warming’s current pace. (“It won’t be any good to have a democracy if we don’t have a country,” he half-jokes at one point.) Nasheed is tireless, unjaded, delightful, and willing to do anything, at one point hosting “the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting” (with oxygen tanks, natch) as a publicity stunt. A cash-strapped nation despite its surfeit of wealthy vacationers, it’s spending money that could go to education and health services on the pathetic stalling device of sandwalls instead. But do bigger powers — notably China, India and the U.S. — care enough about this bit-part player on the world stage to change their energy-use and economic habits accordingly? (A hint: If you’ve been mulling a Maldivian holiday, take it now.) Somewhat incongruous, but an additional sales point nonetheless: practically all the film’s incidental music consists of pre-existing tracks by Radiohead. (1:51) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Jeff, Who Lives at Home The failure-to-launch concept will always thrive whenever and wherever economies flail, kids crumble beneath family trauma, and the seduction of moving back home to live for free with the parental units overcomes the draw of adulthood and individuation. Nevertheless brotherly writing and directing team Jay and Mark Duplass infuse a fresh, generous-minded sweetness in this familiar narrative arc, mainly by empathetically following those surrounding, and maybe enabling, the stay-at-home. Spurred by a deep appreciation of Signs (2002) and plentiful bong hits, Jeff (Jason Segel) decides to go with the signals that the universe throws at him: a mysterious phone call for a Kevin leads him to stalk a kid wearing a jersey with that name and jump a candy delivery truck. This despite the frantic urging of his mother (Susan Sarandon), who has set the bar low and simply wants Jeff to repair a shutter for her birthday, and the bad influence of brother Pat (Ed Helms), a striving jerk who compensates for his insecurities by buying a Porsche and taking business meetings at Hooters. We never quite find out what triggered Jeff’s dormancy and Pat’s prickishness — two opposing responses to some unspecified psychic wound — yet by Jeff, Who Lives at Home‘s close, it doesn’t really matter. The Duplass brothers convince you to go along for the ride, much like Jeff’s blessed fool, and accept the ultimately feel-good, humanist message of this kind-hearted take on human failings. (1:22) California, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of “deliciousness” — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

John Carter More or less an adaptation of Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1917 sci-fi classic A Princess of Mars, John Carter is yet another film that lavishes special effects (festooned with CG and 3D) on a rote story filled with characters the viewer couldn’t give two craps about. Angry Civil War veteran John Carter (Taylor Kitsch, more muscleman than thespian) mysteriously zips to Mars, a planet not only populated by multiple members of the cast of HBO’s Rome (Ciarán Hinds, James Purefoy, and the voice of Polly Walker), but also quite a bit of Red Planet unrest. Against his better judgment, and with the encouragement of a comely princess (tragic spray-tan victim Lynn Collins), Carter joins the fight, as red people battle blue people, green four-armed creatures pitch in when needed, and sinister silver people (led by Mark Strong) use zap-tastic powers to manipulate the action for their amusement. If you’re expecting John Carter to be a step up from Conan the Barbarian (2011), Prince of Persia (2010), etc., because it’s directed by Andrew Stanton (the Pixar superstar who helmed 2008’s Finding Nemo and 2010’s WALL*E), eh, think again. There’s nothing memorable or fun about this would-be adventure; despite its extravagant 3D, it’s flatter than a pancake. (2:17) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*The Kid with a Bike Slippery as an eel, Cyril (Thomas Doret) is the bane of authorities as he tries to run away at any opportunity from school and a youth home — being convinced that the whole adult world is conspiring to keep his father away from him. During one such chase he literally runs into hair-salon proprietor Samantha (Cécile De France), who proves willing to host him on weekends away from his public facility, and is a patient, steadying influence despite his still somewhat exasperating behavior. It’s she who orchestrates a meeting with his dad (Jerémié Renier, who played the child in the Dardennes’ 1996 breakthrough La Promesse), so Cyril can confront the hard fact that his pa not only can’t take care of him, he doesn’t much want to. Still looking for some kind of older male approval, Cyril falls too easily under the sway of Wes (Egon Di Mateo), a teenage thug whom everyone in Samantha’s neighborhood knows is bad news. This latest neorealist-style drama from Belgium’s Dardenne Brothers treads on very familiar ground for them, both in themes and terse execution. It’s well-acted, potent stuff, if less resonant in sum impact than their best work. (1:27) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Mirror Mirror In this glittery, moderately girl-powery adaptation of the Snow White tale (a comic foil of sorts to this summer’s gloomier-looking Snow White and the Huntsman), Julia Roberts takes her turn as stepmom, to an earnest little ingenue (Lily Collins) whose kingly father (Sean Bean) is presumed dead and whose rather-teeny-looking kingdom is collapsing under the weight of fiscal ruin and a thick stratum of snow. Into this sorry realm rides a chiseled beefcake named Prince Alcott (Arnie Hammer), who hails from prosperous Valencia, falls for Snow White, and draws the attentions of the Queen (Roberts) from both a strategic and a libidinal standpoint. Soon enough, Snow White (Snow to her friends) is narrowly avoiding execution at the hands of the Queen’s sycophantic courtier-henchman (Nathan Lane), rustling up breakfast for a thieving band of stilt-walking dwarves, and engaging in sylvan hijinks preparatory to deposing her stepmother and bringing light and warmth and birdsong and perennials back into fashion. Director Tarsem Singh (2000’s The Cell, 2011’s Immortals) stages the film’s royal pageantry with a bright artistry, and Roberts holds court with vicious, amoral relish as she senses her powers of persuasion slipping relentlessly from her grasp. Carefully catering to tween-and-under tastes as well as those of their chaperones, the comedy comes in various breadths, and there’s meta-humor in the sight of Roberts passing the pretty woman torch, though Collins seems blandly unprepared to wield her power wisely or interestingly. Consider vacating your seats before the extraneous Bollywood-style song-and-dance number that accompanies the closing credits. (1:46) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*Pina Watching Pina Bausch’s choreography on film should not have been as absorbing and deeply affecting of an experience as it was. Dance on film tends to disappoint — the camera flattens the body and distorts perspective, and you either see too many or not enough details. However, improved 3D technology gave Wim Wenders (1999’s Buena Vista Social Club; 1987’s Wings of Desire) the additional tools he needed to accomplish what he and fellow German Bausch had talked about for 20 years: collaborating on a documentary about her work. Instead of making a film about the rebel dance maker, Wenders made it for Bausch, who died in June 2009, two days before the start of filming. Pina is an eloquent tribute to a tiny, soft-spoken, mousy-looking artist who turned the conventions of theatrical dance upside down. She was a great artist and true innovator. Wenders’ biggest accomplishment in this beautifully paced and edited document is its ability to elucidate Bausch’s work in a way that words probably cannot. While it’s good to see dance’s physicality and its multi dimensionality on screen, it’s even better that the camera goes inside the dances to touch tiny details and essential qualities in the performers’ every gesture. No proscenium theater can offer that kind of intimacy. Appropriately, intimacy (the eternal desire for it) and loneliness (an existential state of being) were the two contradictory forces that Bausch kept exploring over and over. And by taking fragments of the dances into the environment — both natural and artificial — of Wuppertal, Germany, Wenders places them inside the emotional lives of ordinary people, subjects of all of Bausch’s work. (1:43) Four Star, Shattuck. (Rita Felciano)

*The Raid: Redemption As rip-roaring as they come, Indonesian import The Raid: Redemption (from, oddly, a Welsh writer-director, Gareth Huw Evans) arrives to reassure genre fans that action films are still being made without CG-embellished stunts, choppy editing, and gratuitous 3D. Fists, feet, and gnarly weapons do the heavy lifting in this otherwise simple tale of a taciturn special-forces cop (Iko Uwais) who’s part of a raid on a run-down, high-rise apartment building where all the tenants are crooks and the landlord is a penthouse-dwelling crime boss (Ray Sahetapy). Naturally, things go awry almost immediately, and floor-to-floor brawls (choreographed by Uwais and co-star Yayan Ruhian, whose character is aptly named “Mad Dog”) comprise nearly the entirety of the film; of particular interest is The Raid‘s focus on pencak silat, an indigenous Indonesian fighting style — though there are also plenty of thrilling gun battles, machete-thwackings, and other dangerous delights. Even better: Redemption is the first in a planned trilogy of films starring Uwais’ badass (yet morally rock-solid) character. Bring it! (1:40) California, Metreon, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Safe House Frankly, Denzel Washington watchers are starved for another movie in which he’s playing the smartest guy in the room. Despite being hampered by a determinedly murky opening, Safe House should mostly satisfy. Washington’s Tobin Frost is well-used to dwelling into a grayed-out borderland of black ops and flipped alliances — a onetime CIA star, he now trades secrets while perpetually on the run. Fleeing from killers of indeterminate origin, Tobin collides headlong with eager young agent Matt (Ryan Reynolds), who’s stuck maintaining a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. Tasked with holding onto Tobin’s high-level player by his boss (Brendan Gleeson) and his boss’s boss (Sam Shepard), Matt is determined to prove himself, retain and by extension protect Tobin (even when the ex-superspy is throttling him from behind amid a full-speed car chase), and resist the magnetic pull of those many hazardous gray zones. Surrounded by an array of actorly heavies, including Vera Farmiga, who collectively ratchet up and invest this possibly not-very-interesting narrative — “Bourne” there; done that — with heart-pumping intensity, Washington is magnetic and utterly convincing as the jaded mouse-then-cat-then-mouse toying with and playing off Reynolds go-getter innocent. Safe House‘s narrative doesn’t quite fill in the gaps in Tobin Frost’s whys and wherefores, and the occasional ludicrous breakthroughs aren’t always convincing, but the film’s overall, familiar effect should fly, even when it’s playing it safe (or overly upstanding, especially when it comes to one crucial, climactic scrap of dialogue from “bad guy” Washington, which rings extremely politically incorrect and tone-deaf). (2:00) SF Center. (Chun)

*Salmon Fishing in the Yemen In Lasse Hallström’s latest film, a sheikh named Muhammed (Amr Waked) with a large castle in Scotland, an ardent love of fly-fishing, and unlimited funds envisions turning a dry riverbed in the Yemeni desert into an aquifer-fed salmon-run site and the surrounding lands into an agricultural cornucopia. Tasked with realizing this dream are London marketing consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) and government fisheries scientist Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a reluctant participant who refers to the project as “doolally” and signs on under professional duress. Despite numerous feasibility issues (habitat discrepancies, the necessity for a mass exodus of British salmon, two million irate British anglers), Muhammed’s vision is borne forward on a rising swell of cynicism generated within the office of the British prime minister’s press secretary (Kristin Scott Thomas), whose lackeys have been scouring the wires for a shred of U.K.-related good news out of the Middle East. Ecology-minded killjoys may question whether this qualifies. But putting aside, if one can, the possible inadvisability of relocating 10,000 nonnative salmon to a wadi in Yemen — which is to say, putting aside the basic premise — it’s easy and pleasant enough to go with the flow of the film, infected by Jones’s growing enthusiasm for both the project and Ms. Chetwode-Talbot. Adapted from Paul Torday’s novel by Simon Beaufoy (2009’s Slumdog Millionaire), Salmon Fishing is a sweet and funny movie, and while it suffers from the familiar flurried third-act knotting together of loose ends, its storytelling stratagems are entertaining and its characters compellingly textured, and the cast makes the most of the well-polished material. (1:52) Albany, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*The Salt of Life Gianni Di Gregorio is both a triumph over and cautionary illustration of the aging uomo, racking up decades of experience yet still infantilized by that most binding tie. He’s a late bloomer who’s long worked in theater and film in various capacities, notably as a scenarist for 2008’s organized crime drama Gomorrah. That same year he wrote and directed a first feature basically shot in his own Rome apartment. Mid-August Lunch was a surprise global success casting the director himself as a putz, also named Gianni, very like himself (by his own admission), peevishly trying to have some independence while catering to the whims of the ancient but demanding mother (Valeria De Franciscis) he still lives with. Lunch was charming in a sly, self-deprecating way, and The Salt of Life is more of the same minus the usual diminishing returns: the creator’s barely-alter ego Gianni is still busy doing nothing much, dissatisfied not by his indolence but by its quality. But his pint-sized, wig-rocking, nearly century-old matriarch has now moved to a plush separate address with full-time care — and Salt‘s main preoccupation is Gianni’s discovery that while he’s as available and interested in women as ever, at age 63 he is no longer visible to them. While Fellini confronted desirable, daunting womanhood with a permanent adolescent’s masturbatory fantasizing, Di Gregorio’s humbler self-knowledge finds comedy in the hangdog haplessness of an old dog who can’t learn new tricks and has forgotten the old ones. (1:30) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*A Separation Iran’s first movie to win Berlin’s Golden Bear (as well as all its acting awards), this domestic drama reflecting a larger socio-political backdrop is subtly well-crafted on all levels, but most of all demonstrates the unbeatable virtue of having an intricately balanced, reality-grounded screenplay — director Asghar Farhadi’s own — as bedrock. A sort of confrontational impartiality is introduced immediately, as our protagonists Nader (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) face the camera — or rather the court magistrate — to plead their separate cases in her filing for divorce, which he opposes. We gradually learn that their 14-year wedlock isn’t really irreparable, the feelings between them not entirely hostile. The roadblock is that Simin has finally gotten permission to move abroad, a chance she thinks she must seize for the sake of their daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). But Nader doesn’t want to leave the country, and is not about to let his only child go without him. Farhadi worked in theater before moving into films a decade ago. His close attention to character and performance (developed over several weeks’ pre-production rehearsal) has the acuity sported by contemporary playwrights like Kenneth Lonergan and Theresa Rebeck, fitted to a distinctly cinematic urgency of pace and image. There are moments that risk pushing plot mechanizations too far, by A Separation pulls off something very intricate with deceptive simplicity, offering a sort of integrated Rashomon (1950) in which every participant’s viewpoint as the wronged party is right — yet in conflict with every other. (2:03) Albany, Lumiere. (Harvey)

*The Secret World of Arrietty It’s been far too long between 2008’s Ponyo, the last offering from Studio Ghibli, and this feature-length adaptation of Mary Norton’s children’s classic, The Borrowers, but the sheer beauty of the studio’s hand-drawn animation and the effortless wonder of its tale more than make up for the wait. This U.S. release, under the very apropos auspices of Walt Disney Pictures, comes with an American voice cast (in contrast with the U.K. version), and the transition appears to be seamless — though, of course, the background is subtly emblazoned with kanji, there are details like the dinnertime chopsticks, and the characters’ speech rhythms, down to the “sou ka” affirmative that peppers all Japanese dialogue. Here in this down-low, hybridized realm, the fearless, four-inches-tall Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler) has grown up imaginative yet lonely, believing her petite family is the last of their kind: they’re Borrowers, a race of tiny people who live beneath the floorboards of full-sized human’s dwellings and take what they need to survive. Despite the worries of her mother Homily (Amy Poehler), Arrietty begins to embark on borrowing expeditions with her father Pod (Will Arnett) — there are crimps in her plans, however: their house’s new resident, a sickly boy named Shawn (David Henrie), catches a glimpse of Arrietty in the garden, and caretaker Hara (Carol Burnett) has a bit of an ulterior motive when it comes to rooting out the wee folk. Arrietty might not be for everyone — some kids might churn in their seats with ADD-style impatience at this graceful, gentle throwback to a pre-digital animation age — but in the care of first-time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Ghibli mastermind Hayao Miyazaki, who wrote co-wrote the screenplay, Arrietty will transfix other youngsters (and animation fans of all ages) with the glorious detail of its natural world, all beautifully amplified and suffused with everyday magic when viewed through the eyes of a pocket-sized adventurer. (1:35) Metreon, Shattuck. (Chun)

*Shame It’s been a big 2011 for Michael Fassbender, with Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, Shame, and A Dangerous Method raising his profile from art-house standout to legit movie star (of the “movie stars who can also act” variety). Shame may only reach one-zillionth of X-Men‘s audience due to its NC-17 rating, but this re-teaming with Hunger (2008) director Steve McQueen is Fassbender’s highest achievement to date. He plays Brandon, a New Yorker whose life is tightly calibrated to enable a raging sex addiction within an otherwise sterile existence, including an undefined corporate job and a spartan (yet expensive-looking) apartment. When brash, needy, messy younger sister Cissy (Carey Mulligan, speaking of actors having banner years) shows up, yakking her life all over his, chaos results. Shame is a movie that unfolds in subtle details and oversized actions, with artful direction despite its oft-salacious content. If scattered moments seem forced (loopy Cissy’s sudden transformation, for one scene, into a classy jazz singer), the emotions — particularly the titular one — never feel less than real and raw. (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

*Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie It’s almost impossible to describe Adult Swim hit Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, but “cable access on acid” comes pretty close. It’s awkward, gross, repetitive, and quotable; it features unsettling characters portrayed by famous comedians and unknowns who may not actually be actors. It all springs from the twisted brains of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, now on the big screen with Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie. The premise: Tim and Eric (amplified-to-the-extreme versions of Heidecker and Wareheim) get a billion to make a movie, and the end result is a very short film involving a lot of diamonds and a Johnny Depp impersonator. On the run from their angry investors (including a hilariously spitting-mad Robert Loggia), the pair decides to earn back the money managing a run-down mall filled with deserted stores (and weird ones that sell things like used toilet paper) and haunted by a man-eating wolf. Or something. Anyway, the plot is just an excuse to unfurl the Tim and Eric brand of bizarre across the length of a feature film; if you’re already in the cult, you’ve probably already seen the film (it’s been On Demand for weeks). Adventurous newcomers, take note: Tim and Eric’s comedy is the ultimate love-it-or-hate-it experience. There is no middle ground. There are, however, some righteously juicy poop jokes. (1:32) Roxie. (Eddy)

*21 Jump Street One of the more pleasant surprises on the mainstream comedy landscape has to be this, ugh, “reboot” of the late-’80s TV franchise. I wasn’t a fan of the show — or its dark-eyed, bad-boy star, Johnny Depp — back in the day, but I am of this unexpectedly funny rework overseen by apparent enthusiast, star, co-writer, and co-executive producer Jonah Hill, with a screenplay by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) co-writer Michael Bacall. There’s more than a smidge of Bacall’s other high school fantasy, Project X, in the buddy comedy premise of nerd (Hill’s Schmidt) meets blowhard (Channing Tatum’s Jenko), but 21 Jump Street thankfully leapfrogs the former with its meta-savvy, irreverent script and har-dee-har cameo turns by actors like Ice Cube as Captain Dickson (as well as a few key uncredited players who shall remain under deep cover). High school continues to haunt former classmates Schmidt and Jenko, who have just graduated from the lowly police bike corps to a high school undercover operation — don’t get it twisted, though, Dickson hollers at them; they got this gig solely because they look young. Still, the whole drug-bust enchilada is put in jeopardy when the once-socially toxic Schmidt finds his brand of geekiness in favor with the cool kids and so-called dumb-jock Jenko discovers the pleasures of the mind with the chem lab set. Fortunately for everyone, this crew doesn’t take themselves, or the source material, too seriously. (1:49) Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Wrath of the Titans Playing fast and loose with Greek myths but not agile enough to kick out a black metal jam during a flaming underworld power-grab, Wrath of Titans is, as expected, a bit of a CGI-crammed mess. Still, the sword-and-sandals franchise has attracted scads of international actorly talent — the cast is enriched this time by Édgar Ramírez (2010’s Carlos), Bill Nighy, and Rosamund Pike — and you do get at least one cool monster and paltry explication (Cerberus, which bolts from earth for no discernible reason except that maybe all hell is breaking loose). Just because action flicks like Cloverfield (2008) have long dispensed with narrative handlebars doesn’t mean that age-old stories like the Greek myths should get completely random with their titanic tale-spinning. Wrath opens on the twilight of the gods: Zeus (Liam Neeson) is practically groveling before Perseus (Sam Worthington) — now determined to go small, raise his son, and work on his fishing skills — and trying to persuade him to step up and help the Olympians hold onto power. Fellow Zeus spawn Ares (Ramírez) is along for the ride, so demigod up, Perseus. In some weird, last-ditch attempt to ream his bro Zeus, the oily, mulleted Hades (Ralph Fiennes) has struck a deal with their entrapped, chaotic, castrating fireball of a dad Cronus to let them keep their immortality, on the condition that Zeus is sapped of his power. Picking up Queen Andromeda (Pike) along the way, Perseus gets the scoop on how to get to Hell from Hephaestus (Nighy playing the demented Vulcan like a ’60s acid casualty, given to chatting with mechanical owl Bubo, a wink to 1981 precursor Clash of the Titans, which set the bar low for the remake). Though there are some distracting action scenes (full of speedy, choppy edits that confuse disorientation for excitement) and a few intriguing monsters (just how did the Minotaur make it to this labyrinth?), there’s no money line like “Release the Kraken!” this time around, and there’s way too much nattering on about fatherly responsibility and forgiveness —making these feel-good divinities sound oddly, mawkishly Christian and softheaded rather than mythically pagan and brattily otherworldly. Wasn’t the appeal of the gods linked to the fact that they always acted more like outta-hand adolescents than holier-than-thou deities? I guess that’s why no one’s praying to them anymore. (1:39) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun) *

 

Outer outer space

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Outer outer space

FILM Nothing dates faster than yesterday’s futurism. Yet particularly at a moment when half the country seems bent on ordering us back to the past — a past that might variably be identified as the Victorian era, the Inquisition, and the Dark Ages — there is something comforting in revisiting old visions of the future. For the next seven Thursdays the Vortex Room boldly goes a few places you’ve probably been before, several that earn brownie points for foreknowledge, and others that separate the sci-fi nerd from the sci-fi mega scholar.

The familiar titles are still on the cultish side, like the intentional-camp nirvana created by a double bill of 1980’s Flash Gordon and 1968’s Barbarella. Likewise on the spoofy side is John Carpenter’s 1974 feature debut, Dark Star. Also fairly famous is horror specialist Mario Bava’s 1965 Planet of the Vampires, a gorgeous color nightmare.

But the rest of the “Starship Vortex” series dwells in forgotten netherworlds of cosmic fantasy from the advanced minds of Italian and Danish exploitationists, as well as Communist bloc filmmakers with higher budgets and less strictly-commercial aims. The sole all-Yank effort here is also the earliest, 1961’s endearing The Phantom Planet, whose brave new universe of 1980 finds an ever-belligerent Ugly American astronaut stranded among Lilliputians (who shrink him down to their size — the nerve!), whose females fight over this rugged lunk. The assertively bad acting, quaint FX, heavy (and heavy-handed) religious-philosophical overtones, dorky monster, and credit for “Electronic Space Equipment by Space Age Rentals” make this a classic of black and white sci-fi silliness.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain, however, people were taking space exploration very seriously — and no wonder, since the films were state funded, and the U.S.S.R.’s space program was one indisputable success in which (for a while) it even outpaced the West. Typically earnest was 1963’s Czech Voyage to the End of the Universe. Satellite “town” Ikaria XB-1 and its 40 inhabitants are liberated from Earth orbit and sent to the closest star outside our solar system. There’s much attention to interpersonal relationships (as well as scantily clad gymnastics in the exercise lounge — hey, fitness is important), and despite desultory suspense around radiation exposure, our interplanetary future ultimately looks bright.

Interestingly, an assumption shared by nearly all the features here is that any future enemies we faced would be from “out there.” The inevitable sprinkling of jerks aside, humanity would have long since been joined in peace and prosperity by a one-government body à la the United Nations. Try floating that concept now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQjCyMfFi8

In the Me Decade and after even Socialist sci-fi lightened up, discounting the thesis statements made by Tarkovsky and his ilk. The East German-Romanian In the Dust of the Stars (1976) is a fair riot of silliness as Earth voyagers sample the high life on Tem 4 — interpretive dancing, flavored inhalers, snakes slithering around party smorgasbords — until our heroes discover the planet’s secret slave underbelly, prompting revolutionary class struggle. Just a bit more sober is 1981’s Soviet To the Stars by Hard Ways, in which an ethereal sole survivor is found on an alien spaceship and brought to Earth, then taken back to save her home planet from death by industrial pollution. It’s a rare post-1977 sci-fi film not influenced by Star Wars, which was imitated more shamelessly the further you went down the exploitation-cinema tunnel — at least by anyone not using 1979’s Alien as their model. Italy, second only to the U.S. as the drive-in era’s international trash exporter, ground out countless grade-C space operas like 1979’s Star Odyssey (featuring such spectacular budget-sparing action as two people using their minds to open a door); even Star Pilot, originally shot in 1966, was retitled, re-edited with footage “borrowed” from other movies, and re-released in the U.S. 11 years later to cash in on George Lucas’ bonanza.

Nothing, however, will ever equal the plagiaristic zeal of 1982’s The Man Who Saved the World, a.k.a. Turkish Star Wars, which took full advantage of Turkey’s disinterest in copyright law to slap together an unforgettable contraption combining acres of actual Star Wars footage, other stolen elements, and new scenes putting a distinctive bargain-basement regional spin on the whole affair. Gauze too expensive for your zombie-mummies? Use toilet paper!

If you haven’t overdosed on “futuristic” pastel track suits or annoying comedy robots yet, elsewhere in the Vortex series there’s the relatively big budget 1969 British Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, a “parallel planet” tale at its best when flaunting the obvious influence of the prior year’s psychedelic “trip” sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Way down the production-values scale, 1967 European co-production Mission Stardust features then-hot Swedish sexpot Essy Persson, who utters the line “Those robot creatures are great tailors, but they haven’t a clue how to put buttons on.” Denmark’s 1961 English-language Journey to the Seventh Planet adheres to the lava-lamp school of color design in portraying astronauts under mind control that materializes their thoughts — all of which seem to run toward pin-up girls (including a former Miss Denmark!) in lingerie. 

“STARSHIP VORTEX”

Through May 17

Thu, 9pm, $7

Vortex Room

1082 Howard, SF

www.myspace.com/thevortexroom

SFMTA seeks more parking meter revenue to balance its budget

Sasha Cuttler
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SFMTA seeks more parking meter revenue to balance its budget

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency staff and Director Ed Reiskin today unveiled a two-year budget proposal that avoids Muni fare increases or service cuts and directs more money to address the transit system’s deferred maintenance needs, but it relies on substantially increasing parking meter revenues in ways that have been tough sells before.

In addition, the budget proposal – which will be considered by the SFMTA Board of Directors on Tuesday – is seeking labor concessions to lop off another $7 million, which will still need to be negotiated with the militant Transport Workers Union Local 250A. That won’t be easy, but Reiskin made a good first move by recently canning 10 of the agency’s top-paid executives en route to saving $2 million per year just in management salaries.

But the parking meter proposals are likely to stir a hornet’s nest of angry motorists who have come to expect free street parking. Reiskin is proposing to eliminate the free parking on Sundays, making drivers pay for parking between noon and 6 pm. And he wants to add another 500 parking meters.

Both are good ideas for an agency that desperately needs the money, and it has done studies showing that businesses and motorists would benefit from the charges making parking spots more readily available. But each time the SFMTA has tried to implement these proposals – trying to do Sunday meter hours in 2009 and trying to add hundreds of new meters in the Mission and Potrero Hill earlier this year – the torches and pitchforks came out and agency officials sulked off to lick it wounds.

But Reiskin says this is what the city needs to do. An SFMTA press release labels the proposals “modernizing antiquated parking policies, and Reiskin says, “While we’ve made tough decisions in order to develop a responsible, balanced budget, we are doing everything we can to avoid fare increases and service cuts. These proposals reflect our commitment to the city’s Transit First policy and allows for improvement in all modes of transportation.”

The Performant: Pixel visions

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Performant: Pixel visions

The Disposable Film Festival turns five.

If you were the kind of kid who, when introduced to the concept of abstract art, would grab the fingerpaints and try to top Jackson Pollock’s “No. 11,” then chances are at some point you’ve harbored a desire to take on the movie industry with your own resources. After all, the tools are out there, within grasp of anyone with access to equipment as modest as a camera-phone or a web-cam. And just as the advent of the analog camcorder was hailed as a democratization of the cinematic art-form, so too can the current craze for digital gear be read not just as consumerist one-upmanship, but an earnest bid for creative parity.

Well, if it’s artistic inspiration you crave, and fingerpaints aren’t cutting it anymore, you need look no further than the Disposable Film Festival, which took place this past weekend, dedicated to screening the best of the no-budget brigade, for motivation. Lest the term “disposable” put you off, festival co-founder Carlton Evans is quick to amend: the technology is what’s considered disposable here, not the creative output. 

Just five years old, the Disposable Film Festival emerged at just the right time to catch a wave of enthusiasm for ephemeral cinema that just keeps gaining momentum. Gone from selling out ATA to selling out the Castro Theatre, the festival attracts films and makers from all over the world, whose works span a wide range of genres and aesthetics. This year’s shorts program, gleaned from approximately 2000 submissions, included entries from seven countries, recorded on a variety of non-pro equipment: iphones, web-cams, DSLR’s. A seven-minute long French horror film. An animated short of Hunter S. Thompson. A cautionary tale about web-cam hacking. A love letter hitched to the trajectory of the Voyager spacecrafts. Another love story in the form of a mesmerizing short filmed with a split screen technique.

My favorites mostly turn out to be the one’s created with screen capture technology. There’s Elise The’s “Synchronize,” an expressionistic mash-up of clips from action films and rough animation comprising the colorful fantasy-world of a late night video clerk, and Fabrice Mathieu’s “Dans l’ombre,” a noir pastiche about a self-liberated shadow using images sampled from a long list of classic films including The City of Lost Children, Casablanca, Shadow of a Doubt, The Black Dahlia, and Ed Wood.

Also making use of screen captures, Andre Chocron’s music video “Time is of the Essence,” featuring Norwegian shoegazers Cold Mailman, unreels through a cityscape of apartment towers and after-hours office buildings. Darkened windows light up in time to the music in synchronized patterns of chord progressions, a pulsating graphic of a heartbeat, and giant “text messages” of the lyrics, as rushed timelapse footage of billowing night clouds, hovering UFO’s, and the setting moon keep the mood mysterious. This four-minute video took about four months to edit, and Chocron’s meticulous attention to detail shows. And on one hand, it does pose the question of what Chocron could do with a bigger budget and better equipment, but on the other hand, offers the answer that Chocron and his like-minded cohorts may never need to find out.

Many of the films in the festival have been collected here.

 

 

Lost at sea

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Lost at sea

cheryl@sfbg.com

AMERICA’S CUP Clear your mind, if you can, of brawls over San Francisco piers and other obscenely expensive parcels of waterfront real estate. Focus solely on the inevitability of the 34th annual America’s Cup.

Summer 2013, it’ll rip into town, offering self-described “adrenaline sailing at its best” to jet-setting yachting enthusiasts. In 2010, the 33rd contest was won in Spanish waters by Oracle Racing, headed up by billionaire Larry Ellison. In 2013, Ellison plans to defend his trophy as the competition (ironically, dealing with its own financial struggles; the San Francisco Business Times reported March 23 that America’s Cup officials laid off half their staff) makes its San Francisco Bay debut.

Of course, average San Franciscans — often found ransacking their couch cushions to scare up burrito funds — couldn’t give a rat’s ass about an event blatantly catering to the one percent. But they should, and here’s why: unless we want to see all those Top-Siders stride directly to wine country after each day of racing concludes, we need to give the visitors (estimates vary on the numbers: 10,000? 200,000?) a reason to hang out in SF, visit its neighborhoods, and spend money locally.

One idea: organize an arts festival with programming complementary to the America’s Cup races. Such an event would potentially offer a huge boost to the local arts scene.

The most passionate supporter of an America’s Cup arts festival has got to be Andrew Wood, executive director of the San Francisco International Arts Festival. Last fall, he announced the 2013 SFIAF would shift its dates from May, when it usually takes place, to July through September. That way, SFIAF could coincide with the race — and be a component in what he envisions as a much larger, citywide event.

“We first contacted the America’s Cup about including an arts component before they even confirmed San Francisco as the venue,” Wood remembers. “They’ve never really had a strong arts component to the America’s Cup before, but they’ve never tried to do anything like they’re trying to do here.”

He’s referring to this particular race’s unique appeal for “a land-based audience.” Geographically speaking, some America’s Cup races are viewable only to television audiences and anyone who happens to have a boat hanging out within sight of the course; the San Francisco Bay obviously offers far more viewing opportunities for landlubbers.

“If you do either of the two largest sporting events in the world — the Olympics and the World Cup — an arts festival is mandatory. You can’t even bid on the Olympics unless you have a festival that’s going to run alongside it,” Wood explains. “[The event will then] appeal to more people. People will stay in the locale longer and spend more money — [especially important for] the America’s Cup, where there’s only racing for an hour a day.”

Money is always a factor when planning for an arts festival of any size, particularly something large enough to entertain 200,000-ish people.

“We can raise a lot of our own money, but what we need is some type of agreement that says we can go out and raise it as the name ‘America’s Cup’,” Wood says, noting that he’s already broached the subject of fundraising with some of the consulates representing countries with boats entered in the race. He’d like to bring artists from all of the participating countries (so far: Italy, Spain, France, South Korea, New Zealand, China, and Sweden) to San Francisco to perform alongside Bay Area arts groups. His grand vision includes theme weeks for each country revolving around the various holidays that happen to fall within the race dates — for example, France’s Bastille Day, July 14.

 

AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM?

Wood was optimistic after his first meeting with Mark Bullingham, then the America’s Cup director of marketing, in April 2011.

“Then I jumped into SFIAF in May,” Wood remembers. “When I came back in June or July, he’d resigned. We were never able to get traction with the America’s Cup after that.”

As time for fundraising grows short — and the America’s Cup deal shrinks and evolves as development plans are tinkered with; the latest incarnation was presented to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors March 27 — Wood holds out hope that an arts festival will be included in the deal. A little bit of hope.

“If they let the deal be signed without including an arts component — or even just mentioning ‘Well, we’ll have a future conversation around this’ — then Larry Ellison can do what he wants. Oracle can have some entertainment if they wish, or they can cut the entertainment if they wish,” he says. “The way the actual America’s Cup legislation is written at the moment, the city is going to let the America’s Cup Event Authority escape without having to commit to any type of arts program whatsoever.”

From the city’s point of view, that’s not entirely true. San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development acknowledged the importance of having an arts component in a memo titled “America’s Cup Neighborhood Engagement Strategy” presented to the Board of Supervisors February 22, 2012 — though so far, that’s been the only official word on the subject.

“We’re still trying to get our approvals here so we haven’t really moved much beyond [what’s in the memo],” says the OEWD’s Jane Sullivan, Communications Director for the America’s Cup project. “I think what we in the mayor’s office are concentrating on is trying to make sure the economic benefits spread across the city, and probably using the neighborhoods as a focus of how to do that. But certainly that would include the arts component in the neighborhoods and maybe beyond.”

One promising idea outlined in the memo is to use a smart phone app to help alert visitors to neighborhood activities, including arts events.

“There’s an app that exists right now called Sfarts.org that is a project between the [San Francisco] Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts,” Sullivan explains, noting that working with the San Francisco Travel Association would be a way to market the app to visitors.

Though discussions are “ongoing,” Sullivan says the city is focused on “coordination and promotion, and then helping to develop or further develop a robust technology platform to support that.”

When asked if she thinks an official, large-scale arts festival would make its way into the America’s Cup deal, she’s straightforward: “I do not think that’s going to happen.”

 

X GAMES 2.0

Tony Kelly — facilities manager at Bindlestiff Studio, and a longtime participant in San Francisco’s arts and political scenes — believes that arts events are “the only way to save the America’s Cup” in terms of reaping any of the event’s promised neighborhood economic impact.

“It’s not just having arts events, it’s putting them in places to draw people to the neighborhoods,” he says. “If people go to the races in the afternoon, then you draw them out into the neighborhoods for arts events in the evening, then they actually stay in the city longer. They go to restaurants, bars, hotels, and merchants.”

However, he cautions, “If you think this many people are showing up, you better have things for them to do. If you don’t think this many people are showing up, you better create things so that people do show up. Either way.”

He’s concerned about the city’s strategy of promoting existing arts events without offering additional support to arts groups.

“If the city pretends that we have this ongoing international arts festival any weekend of the year, and therefore we’ll just promote what we already have, and that’ll be our festival during the America’s Cup, that essentially works as a budget cut,” Kelly says. “There’s a certain amount of funding that dribbles down to the arts right now. It is what it is. And then they’re like, ‘We’re gonna add this whole other thing, and we hope you guys can add capacity to handle this stuff, because here come all these people. But no, we’re not going to support it at all.’ That’s a classic unfunded mandate. ‘Oh, you can take this on too.'”

Kelly, Wood, and other members of the arts community have brainstormed a hypothetical list of festival events: an America’s Cup-themed parade, allowing Sunday Streets on Market Street throughout the weeks of racing, outdoor musical performances, an art walk along the Embarcadero, and more, tapping into publicly-owned venues around the city. A sample budget was also drafted.

“It is definitely an example of what could be done fairly quickly and efficiently in this year’s budget, if anyone at City Hall chose to do so,” Kelly says.

Unsurprisingly, Wood shares Kelly’s frustration with the city’s let’s-promote-what’s-in-place plan. “San Francisco has this enormous arts infrastructure that it isn’t using properly,” he says. “Why not hotwire the system to create a program of events that would also complement [arts events which are] already going on? There’s been no real effort to try and corral what’s going on and figure out how it fits together, so that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”

Kelly remains skeptical that the America’s Cup will even draw the promised crowds; he suspects its actual impact on the city will more resemble the X Games — which San Francisco hosted in 1999 and 2000 — than an event “as big as multiple Super Bowls.”

He also views the city’s reluctance to support an arts festival as part of a larger, long-standing problem.

“San Francisco is this great, hip, fun, creative city — why is that? It’s because of the artists. But housing prices keep going up, so more artists have to leave,” he says. “However, when there’s an event that’s counting on us to actually deliver this stuff to the neighborhoods, there’s no support for it. Push is coming to shove and has for a number of years now, and this is just one more obvious, obvious example of it.”

The America’s Cup meltdown

Zelda Bronstein
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The America’s Cup meltdown

The America’s Cup Event Authority — the operation that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison set up to run the business side of his personal yacht race — is melting down, laying off half its staff and scrambling around for new leadership as projected revenues continue to slide and the ultimate size and impact of the event remains in question.

The once-glorious event that was going to be almost as big as the Super Bowl and the World Cup is now shrinking, and the billions of dollars that were going to come in are looking more and more dubious. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen; the races will go on, because Ellison’s pride is involved, but attendance may be lower than expected.

And the net gain to the city could be limited. A new report by Budget Analyst Harvey Rose (pdf) notes that if the America’s Cup Organizing Committee doesn’t raise the $32 million that it’s supposed to dredge up, then the city could wind up losing $11 million on the deal.

Here’s the problem with that scenario: Mark Buell, the head fundraiser for the ACOC, has to go to rich people and ask them for money. But the really rich person behind this event, Mr. Ellison, hasn’t chipped in a penny to that fund — and now it appears that money raised by sponsorships will go to pay Ellison back for the money’s he’s spent on his racing team.

Poor Mark. He has to ask people for money to subsidize the sixth richest person on the planet. And if he can’t pull it off, the city ends up with the tab.

Good luck with that.

Meister: It’s not true, what they say about pensions

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By Dick Meister

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

So, what are we going to do about those big fat pensions collected by public employees? You know, those retirement benefits that supposedly are threatening to bankrupt state and local governments everywhere.

What to do? That’s easy. We can make that problem disappear quickly – just like that! We need only realize that the problem simply does not exist, despite the claims by rabid anti-union forces and the many people who they’ve duped.

Here’s the basic situation: Anti-union forces are attempting to weaken the public employee defined pension plans that provide employees a specific monthly payment on retirement. The plans cover about five million older Americans, providing money that many drawing benefits very much need to escape poverty and stay off government assistance.

Those receiving the benefits, many at rates granted originally in lieu of pay raises, in turn create more than $358 billion in economic output nationwide and create more than 2.5 million jobs.

State spending on pensions amounts to no more than 4 percent of the state budget, on average. In most states, employees must contribute up to 8 percent of their wages to their pension fund, a bit more than private employees contribute toward their pensions.

You should also know that, despite what you may have heard, government pension funds are not going broke. They in fact have been growing as Wall Street has been doing better.

Those basic facts and others that are often lost amid the anti-pension clamor from those on the political right who would just as soon do away entirely with pensions, But they were laid out clearly by panelists in a forum earlier this year sponsored by the National Public Pension Coalition.

Panelist Dean Baker, an economist who is  co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, noted the concern that pensions are endangering government services stems from “a crisis that has been invented” by employer groups.

Baker said the make-believe crisis stems largely from the 2008-09 market crash. That caused an estimated $800 billion of the $1 trillion shortfall in pension plans, but he said the plans should be able to recoup their losses.

But what of the public employees supposedly drawing pensions of $100,000 a year, or even more? As panelists pointed out, they’re pretty much make-believe, too.

Then how much do they make? In New York, as another panelist, New York State Controller Thomas DiNapoli reported, the average pension, including those of police and firefighters, is just a little over $19,000 a year. Three-quarters of New York’s pensioners overall get less than $30,000 a year, and less than one-half of 1 percent get more than $100,000.

Panel member Janet Cowell, North Carolina’s state treasurer, said the average pension in her state is a mere $22,000 a year. She said fewer than 300 retirees get $100,000-plus pensions – “and some of those are basketball coaches.”

Rhode Island retiree Dolores Bresette, a voice from the trenches, as it were, told her unfortunately not uncommon story to the panel.

She said “I worked for the State of Rhode Island for 37 years and contributed 9 percent of my salary to my pension fund. Now, after years of saving and preparing for my retirement, so much of what I and thousands of other public workers were promised is being taken away.” That’s because of last November’s enactment of a “Retirement Security Act” which, among other things, suspended cost-of-living adjustments for Rhode Island retirees indefinitely.

“There are real human implications of the current efforts to dismantle public workers’ pension funds”, Bresette declared, “and people in Washington and the country need to see that.”

She and other panelists warned that “in addition to the human implications there are serious social and economic consequences that will develop over the long term if the shift away from defined-benefit pensions continues. Instead of dismantling public employee retirement systems, policymakers should be working to improve retirement security for the private sector workforce.”

Policymakers will soon face another major crisis related to retirement benefits, noted panel member Hank Kim, an expert on public employee retirement systems. He said that overall, pension funds covering privately employed workers now contain more than $8 trillion less than they’ll soon owe retirees.

If pension benefits are denied or reduced as a result, that could very well cause a significant segment of the 75 million baby boomers to delay retirement. Which would put them in competition for jobs with 80 million younger workers, the so-called millennials, over the next 10 to 15 years.

That could also cost taxpayers. For, as panelist DiNapoli said, if needy retirees couldn’t find jobs that would provide them enough to live on, the government would ultimately have to provide them welfare grants.

The pension opponents wouldn’t be left with much of a choice. They’d have to abandon their anti-pension position or agree to tax increases which, as you might imagine, they don’t much care for.

Either way, we’d be winners.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

 

 

I

 

You have the right to remain weird

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You have the right to remain weird

arts@sfbg.com

FILM It’s not easy being a repertory cinema these days, even when you’re the coolest (or only, or both) one in town. Hoping that this town is big enough for more than just one, at least for a few days, the Roxie this weekend is hosting a kind of cult cinema smackdown between itself and two more of the nation’s finest such emporiums. Under the blanket title “Cinemadness!,” the three-day marathon of rarities, oddities, and unbilled surprises challenges you to look away, or stay away — either way, your sanity will surely be shakier come Monday.

Cinefamily kicks things off, road-tripping up from L.A.’s Silent Movie House. More than just film programmers, the collective also contrives relevant ring tones (intrigue your fellow Muni riders with the “Death Wish II-O-Rama”!), multimedia shows, curated archival wonders online, and live events like the “Jean Harlow Pajama Party.”

The party may be in your pants as well as onscreen Friday, March 23, as Cinefamily brings “100 Most Outrageous Fucks,” a clip compilation of the most tasteless, ridiculous, over-acted, and anatomically unlikely sex scenes yet found by people with an inordinate interest in such things. Expect mainstream Hollywood, exploitation cinema, and le porn to be fully representing.

This will be followed by a real obscurity. Dirkie a.k.a. Lost in the Desert was a 1970 endeavor by the late South African writer-director-producer-actor Jamie Uys, who would later have a fluke international smash with 1980’s The Gods Must Be Crazy. (And end his career 16 years later with barely-noticed The Gods Must Be Crazy V.) The Apartheid-era racial attitudes that drew criticism to some of his other works are absent from Dirkie, a film nonetheless distinguished as one of the most traumatizing and sadistic “family movies” ever made.

The titular eight-year-old (Uys’ own offspring Wynand) is sent for his “weak chest” to the country. Unfortunately a plane crash strands Dirkie and terrier Lolly (played by “Lady Frolic of Belvedale,” whose performance is indeed splendid) alone in the Kalahari Desert. As Dad (Uys) frantically oversees search efforts from Johannesburg, our wee asthmatic hero is attacked by a viciously persistent hyena; scorpion-stung; blinded by snake venom; fed Lolly’s cooked remains (or so he thinks); etc. Preceding by one year Nicolas Roeg’s better-known Walkabout, Dirkie is an equally spectacular survival adventure saga that’s less arty but even less suitable for young viewers.

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

The Alamo Drafthouse — jewel of Austin, that oasis of civilization in Texas — takes up Roxie residence Saturday, March 24, with two of 1987’s finest sci-fi-horror-action black comedies. A sleeper hit then that’s underappreciated now, The Hidden has pre-Twin Peaks Kyle MacLachlan as a mysterious “FBI agent” (OK, he’s from outer space) tracking an interplanetary homicidal maniac who quite enjoys Earth — especially its loud crap pop music, Ferraris, and automatic weapons. This mayhem-spreading tourist fears no physical peril because it can always abandon one human (or canine) host body for another. Typical of the script’s over-the-top glee is a stretch when said thingie “possesses” a stripper, taking rather more pleasure in her bodacious form than any slimy, tentacled whatsit ought to.

It’s followed by Street Trash, to date the only feature film directed by J. Michael Munro (still a busy cameraman), who incredibly was just 20 when he made it. This last word in low-budget Escape From New York-Road Warrior knockoffs finds a depressed city’s ginormous Skid Row population winnowed by (among other things) cheap Mad Dog-type wine with a flesh-melting-acid bouquet. Incredibly crass (typical banter: “You fuckworm!”), gross (see: severed-penis-as-Frisbee set piece) and energetic, it’s the guiltiest, most pleasurable of guilty pleasures.

The Roxie wrestles its own back Sunday, March 25 with three big attractions. First up is George Kuchar: Comedy of the Underground, an ultra-rare 1982 documentary about San Francisco’s beloved, recently deceased DIY auteur that was unavailable for preview. Then there’s Robert Altman’s 1984 Secret Honor, with Philip Baker Hall as the craziest faux Richard Nixon on record.

That is nothing, however, compared to the brain-warping experience that is Elvis Found Alive. An alleged two-hour-plus interview with the King himself (shot in silhouette), whom filmmaker Joel Gilbert located with stunning ease thanks to poorly-redacted paperwork obtained via Freedom of Information Act, this … documentary? re-enactment? mock-doc fantasia? … bares many a shocking revelation.

To wit: secret FBI agent Presley faked his own death because the Weathermen, Black Panthers, and Mafia had joined forces to assassinate him. Believe me, that is just the tip of the ice cube in this video cocktail. It all makes more sense if you know Gilbert is himself a professional impersonator of Bob Dylan (whom Elvis confides “dumped that awful Joan Baez when she tried to push him into leftist politics”) and has also made such direct-to-your fallout-shelter opuses as Paul Is Really Dead and Atomic Jihad. Does “Elvis” have an opinion about President Obama? Ohhh yeah, and that “socialist thug” best not mess with Memphis. America forever! *

“CINEMADNESS!”

Fri/23-Sun/25, $6.50-$10

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For complete

OPENING

*Centaur Is our scarily intense, morally slippery narrator a man or a beast? J.P. Allen not only wrote and directed Centaur, but also stars in the claustrophobic, beautifully lensed SF-based noir with a contemporary update: Allen’s unnamed, driven protagonist lets you into his mind with a video journal, a document of his revenge on the drunk driver (Chris Pflueger) who caused the death of his true love, Jennifer (Amy Mordecai). Repeated images of the Golden Gate Bridge, and of Jennifer reading love poetry and caressing herself, parallel the obsession of the narrator, who methodically lays out his love, loss, and murderous plan, while the refined look and sensual feel of the images — and the soundtrack by Bad Seeds-like, cacophonous Michael Slattery and Shoulders — make this independent rise above the ordinary. Allen wisely pares his character’s struggle and story down to the bare essentials, in the process crafting a film that draws you in and continues to haunt you after the credits roll. (1:27) Lumiere. (Chun)

Footnote Oscar-nominated Israeli film about the fierce academic competition between a father and son at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (1:45) Clay.

The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a teenager living in a totalitarian state whose 12 impoverished districts, as retribution for an earlier uprising, must pay tribute to the so-called Capitol every year, sacrificing one boy and one girl each to the Hunger Games. A battle royal set in a perilous arena and broadcast live to the Capitol as gripping diversion and to the districts as sadistic propaganda, the Hunger Games are, depending on your viewpoint, a “pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice” or a brutal, pointless bloodbath involving children as young as 12. When her little sister’s name comes up in the annual lottery, Katniss volunteers to take her place and is joined by a boy named Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares an old, unspoken bond. Tasked with translating to the screen the first installment of Suzanne Collins’s rabidly admired trilogy, writer-director Gary Ross (2003’s Seabiscuit, 1998’s Pleasantville) telescopes the book’s drawn-out, dread-filled tale into a manageable two-plus-hour entertainment, making great (and horrifying) use of the original work’s action, but losing a good deal of the narrative detail and emotional force. Elizabeth Banks is comic and unrecognizable as Effie Trinket, the two tributes’ chaperone; Lenny Kravitz gives a blank, flattened reading as their stylist, Cinna; and Donald Sutherland is sufficiently creepy and bloodless as the country’s leader, President Snow. More exceptionally cast are Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta’s surly, alcoholic mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, and Stanley Tucci as games emcee Caesar Flickerman, flashing a bank of gleaming teeth at each contestant as he probes their dire circumstances with the oily superficiality of a talk show host. (2:22) Marina, Presidio. (Rapoport)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of “deliciousness” — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

*The Kid with a Bike Slippery as an eel, Cyril (Thomas Doret) is the bane of authorities as he tries to run away at any opportunity from school and a youth home — being convinced that the whole adult world is conspiring to keep his father away from him. During one such chase he literally runs into hair-salon proprietor Samantha (Cécile De France), who proves willing to host him on weekends away from his public facility, and is a patient, steadying influence despite his still somewhat exasperating behavior. It’s she who orchestrates a meeting with his dad (Jerémié Renier, who played the child in the Dardennes’ 1996 breakthrough La Promesse), so Cyril can confront the hard fact that his pa not only can’t take care of him, he doesn’t much want to. Still looking for some kind of older male approval, Cyril falls too easily under the sway of Wes (Egon Di Mateo), a teenage thug whom everyone in Samantha’s neighborhood knows is bad news. This latest neorealist-style drama from Belgium’s Dardenne Brothers treads on very familiar ground for them, both in themes and terse execution. It’s well-acted, potent stuff, if less resonant in sum impact than their best work. (1:27) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*The Raid: Redemption As rip-roaring as they come, Indonesian import The Raid: Redemption (from, oddly, a Welsh writer-director, Gareth Huw Evans) arrives to reassure genre fans that action films are still being made without CG-embellished stunts, choppy editing, and gratuitous 3D. Fists, feet, and gnarly weapons do the heavy lifting in this otherwise simple tale of a taciturn special-forces cop (Iko Uwais) who’s part of a raid on a run-down, high-rise apartment building where all the tenants are crooks and the landlord is a penthouse-dwelling crime boss (Ray Sahetapy). Naturally, things go awry almost immediately, and floor-to-floor brawls (choreographed by Uwais and co-star Yayan Ruhian, whose character is aptly named “Mad Dog”) comprise nearly the entirety of the film; of particular interest is The Raid‘s focus on pencak silat, an indigenous Indonesian fighting style — though there are also plenty of thrilling gun battles, machete-thwackings, and other dangerous delights. Even better: Redemption is the first in a planned trilogy of films starring Uwais’ badass (yet morally rock-solid) character. Bring it! (1:40) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Sound of Noise The ingenious 2001 short Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers expands to feature length — and blankets an entire (unnamed) Scandinavian city in anarchic soundscapes — in Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson’s eccentric, engaging comedy. A cop (Bengt Nilsson) on the anti-terrorism squad also happens to be the only tone-deaf member of his musical-genius family; the fact that his name is Amadeus only makes his hatred of music all the more potent. When a mysterious band of percussionists begin holding disruptive performance-art “concerts” in odd places (a hospital, a bank), Amadeus becomes obsessed with the case — though, in a nifty bit of fantasy, once an object has been played on by the group, he can no longer hear the sound it makes. Sound of Noise is worth seeing just for the toe-tapping musical interludes, played on objects both commonplace and ridiculous, but Nilsson and the musicians (especially ringleader and lone female Sanna Persson Halapi) are also deadpan delights. (1:38) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

ONGOING

Act of Valor (1:45) 1000 Van Ness.

*The Artist With the charisma-oozing agility of Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckling his way past opponents and the supreme confidence of Rudolph Valentino leaning, mid-swoon, into a maiden, French director-writer Michel Hazanavicius hits a sweet spot, or beauty mark of sorts, with his radiant new film The Artist. In a feat worthy of Fairbanks or Errol Flynn, Hazanavicius juggles a marvelously layered love story between a man and a woman, tensions between the silents and the talkies, and a movie buff’s appreciation of the power of film — embodied in particular by early Hollywood’s union of European artistry and American commerce. Dashing silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin, who channels Fairbanks, Flynn, and William Powell — and won this year’s Cannes best actor prize) is at the height of his career, adorable Jack Russell by his side, until the talkies threaten to relegate him to yesterday’s news. The talent nurtured in the thick of the studio system yearns for real power, telling the newspapers, “I’m not a puppet anymore — I’m an artist,” and finances and directs his own melodrama, while his youthful protégé Peppy Miller (Bérénice Béjo) becomes a yakky flapper age’s new It Girl. Both a crowd-pleasing entertainment and a loving précis on early film history, The Artist never checks its brains at the door, remaining self-aware of its own conceit and its forebears, yet unashamed to touch the audience, without an ounce of cynicism. (1:40) California, Four Star, Lumiere, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Boy Apparent in his 2007 film Eagle vs. Shark and his brief turns writing and directing The Flight of the Conchords, filmmaker Taika Waititi seems to embody a uniquely Polynesian sensibility, positioned at a crossroads that’s informed by his Te-Whanau-a-Apanui heritage and his background in the Raukokore area of New Zealand, as well as an affection of global pop culture and a kind of keeping-it-real, keeping-it-local, down-home indie sensibility. All of which has fed into Boy, which became the highest-grossing New Zealand film of all time when it was released in its homeland in 2010. Its popularity is completely understandable. From the lush green inlands and stunning beaches of Waihau Bay to its intimate, gritty and humorous sketch of its natives, this affectionate, big-hearted bildungsroman is a lot like its 11-year-old eponymous hero — eminently lovable and completely one of a kind. Despite the tragedies and confines of his small-town rural life, Boy has a handle on his world: it’s 1984, and his pals spend their time hanging out at the snack shop and harvesting weed for one deadbeat biker parent. Boy’s brother Rocky (Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu) believes he has superpowers and is scarred by the fact that his birth was responsible for their mother’s death, and Michael Jackson has just been crowned the king of pop. Then, while his grandma’s away, Boy’s own deadbeat dad, Alamein (Waititi) appears on the scene, turning an extended family of small children on its head — and inspiring many a Thriller dance-slash-dream sequence. Waititi finds his way inside Boy’s head with Crayola-colorful animated children’s drawings, flashbacks, and the kind of dreamy fluidity that comes so naturally during long, hot Polynesian days, all while wonderfully depicting a world that far too few people have glimpsed on screen. (1:30) Bridge, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*Casa de mi Padre Will Ferrell’s latest challenge in a long line of actorly exercises and comic gestures — from his long list of comedies probing the last gasps of American masculinity to serious forays like Stranger Than Fiction (2006) and Everything Must Go (2010) — is almost entirely Spanish-language telenovela-burrito Western spoof Casa de mi Padre. Here Ferrell tackles an almost entirely Spanish script (with only meager, long-ago high school and college language courses under his belt) alongside Mexican natives Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna and telenovela veteran Genesis Rodriguez. This clever, intriguing, occasionally very funny, yet not altogether successful endeavor, directed by Matt Piedmont and written by Andrew Steele, sprang from Ferrell’s noggin. Ferrell is nice guy Armando, content to stay at home at the ranch, hang with his buddies, and be dismissed by his father (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.) as a dolt. The arrival of his sleazy bro Raul (Luna) and Raul’s fiancée Sonia (Rodriguez) change everything, bringing killer narco Onza (Bernal) into the family’s life and sparking some hilariously klutzy entanglements between Armando and Sonia. All of this leads to almost zero improvisation on Ferrell’s part and plenty of meta, Machete-like spoofs on low-budget fare, from Sergio Leone to Alejandro Jodorowsky. Casa punctures padre-informed transmissions of Latin machismo, but it equally ridicules the idea of a gringo actor riding in and superimposing himself, badly or otherwise, over another country’s culture. (1:25) Shattuck. (Chun)

*Coriolanus For his film directing debut, Ralph Fiennes has chosen some pretty strong material: a military drama that is among Shakespeare’s least popular works, not that adapting the Bard to the screen has ever been easy. (Look how many times Kenneth Branagh, an even more fabled Shakespearean Brit on stage than Ralph, has managed to fumble that task.) The titular war hero, raised to glory in battle and little else, is undone by political backstabbers and his own contempt for the “common people” when appointed to a governmental role requiring some diplomatic finesse. This turn of events puts him right back in the role he was born for: that of ruthless, furious avenger, no matter that now he aims to conquer the Rome he’d hitherto pledged to defend. The setting of a modern city in crisis (threadbare protesting masses vs. oppressive police state) works just fine, Elizabethan language and all, as does Fiennes’ choice of a gritty contemporary action feel (using cinematographer Barry Ackroyd of 2006’s United 93 and 2008’s The Hurt Locker). He’s got a strong supporting cast — particularly Vanessa Redgrave as Coriolanus’ hawkish mother Volumnia — and an excellent lead in one Ralph Fiennes, who here becomes so warped by bloodthirst he seems to mutate into Lord Voldemort before our eyes, without need of any prosthetics. His crazy eyes under a razored bald pate are a special effect quite alarmingly inhuman enough. (2:03) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Crazy Horse Does the documentary genre need an injection of sex appeal? Leave it to ground-breaking documentarian Frederick Wiseman to do just that, with this hilarious, keenly-observed look into Paris’s rightfully legendary Crazy Horse Paris cabaret. For 10 weeks, the filmmaker immersed himself in all aspects of preparation going into a new show, Désirs, by choreographer Philippe Decouflé, and uncovers the guts, discipline, organizational entanglements, and genuine artistry that ensues backstage to produce the at-times laugh-out-loud OTT (e.g., the many routines in which the perky, planet-like posterior is highlighted), at-times truly remarkable numbers (the girl-on-girl spaceship fantasia; the subtle, surreal number that bounces peek-a-boo body parts off a mirrored surface) onstage — moments that should inspire burlesque performers and dance aficionados alike with the sheer imaginative possibilities of dancing in the buff, with a side of brain-teasing titillation, of course. Always silently commenting on the action, Wiseman pokes quiet fun (at the dancer vigorously brushing the horse-hair tail attached to her rear, the obsessed art director, and the sound guy who’s a ringer for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Boogie Nights nebbish) while patiently paying respect to the mechanics behind the magic (Decouflé, among others, arguing with management for more time to improve the show, despite the beyond-rigorous seven-days-a-week, twice- to thrice-daily schedule). Crazy Horse provides marvelous proof that the battle of seduction begins with the brain. (2:08) Roxie. (Chun)

Delicacy Without visible effort, Nathalie (Audrey Tautou) charms the hearts of the susceptible males in her vicinity, including François (Pio Marmaï), a young man in a café who is soon proposing marriage, and Charles (Bruno Todeschini), a company director who hires her on the spot, transfixed by her very photograph on a résumé. When François, now her husband, is killed in a car accident, grief overwhelms her and she pours her energies into her professional life — until the day she finds herself unexpectedly making advances toward a frumpy, socially awkward colleague, a Swedish expat named Markus (Belgian comedian François Damiens). Her choice confounds the expectations of coworkers (Charles calls him an “ugly, insignificant guy”) and friends (one tells Nathalie, upon meeting Markus, that she could do better), but while the pairing is rather precipitous, it’s no more difficult to swallow than anything else in a film that feels like a pencil sketch on tracing paper. Events in Delicacy are lightly threaded together, so that a relationship turns into marriage and a three-year emotional tailspin goes by without our sensing the passage of time. We hear Nathalie described as “one of those women who cancels out all others,” but — while Tautou is as lovely as ever — we don’t see this in her. We hear people tell Markus how funny he is, but — though comedy is Damiens’s stock-in-trade — he doesn’t make us laugh. The problem lies largely in the script, even clumsier than Markus; it tells us we’re watching two unlikely people fall in love but doesn’t give us much reason to care. (1:48) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

*The Descendants Like all of Alexander Payne’s films save 1996 debut Citizen Ruth, The Descendants is an adaptation, this time from Kaui Hart Hemmings’ excellent 2007 novel. Matt King (George Clooney) is a Honolulu lawyer burdened by various things, mostly a) being a haole (i.e. white) person nonetheless descended from Hawaiian royalty, rich in real estate most natives figure his kind stole from them; and b) being father to two children by a wife who’s been in a coma since a boating accident three weeks ago. Already having a hard time transitioning from workaholic to hands-on dad, Matt soon finds out this new role is permanent, like it or not — spouse Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie, just briefly seen animate) will not wake up. The Descendants covers the few days in which Matt has to share this news with Elizabeth’s loved ones, mostly notably Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller as disparately rebellious teen and 10-year-old daughters. Plus there’s the unpleasant discovery that the glam, sporty, demanding wife he’d increasingly seemed “not enough” for had indeed been looking elsewhere. When has George Clooney suggested insecurity enough to play a man afraid he’s too small in character for a larger-than-life spouse? But dressed here in oversized shorts and Hawaiian shirts, the usually suave performer looks shrunken and paunchy; his hooded eyes convey the stung joke’s-on-me viewpoint of someone who figures acknowledging depression would be an undeserved indulgence. Payne’s film can’t translate all the book’s rueful hilarity, fit in much marital backstory, or quite get across the evolving weirdness of Miller’s Scottie — though the young actors are all fine — but the film’s reined-in observations of odd yet relatable adult and family lives are all the more satisfying for lack of grandiose ambition. (1:55) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (1:26) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck.

*Fake It So Real It would have been very easy for someone to make a film about an uber-low-budget posse of indie wrestlers and make fun of the entire enterprise. Robert Greene, whose cousin is among Fake It So Real‘s subjects, chooses a different path: his film is almost earnest in its appraisal of these Lincolnton, North Carolina good ol’ boys, who live for their Saturday-night matches under the fluorescent lights of the local Vietnam Veteran’s Center. For these men, wrestling offers an escape from otherwise glamourless lives (filled with boring jobs, heartbreak, health problems, and the like), and they take it very seriously, plotting out character arcs and sweating through training sessions. Comparisons to Mickey Rourke’s turn in The Wrestler (2008) are inevitable, but remember, Rourke’s character had once been famous. These guys’ definition of success is being approached by a group of kids in Wal-Mart for an autograph. Note for the easily offended: Fake It So Real‘s fly-on-the-wall filming style doesn’t filter out its subjects’ affection for gay jokes, clearly a deeply-enmeshed part of the small-town culture depicted here. (1:31) Roxie. (Eddy)

*The FP The town is real: east-of-Santa-Barbara, south-of-Bakersfield mountain burg Frazier Park, Calif. But this is no bucolic village; nay, the world portrayed in The FP is a dark one, a place without jobs or fashion sense that evolved beyond the 1980s. It’s a world where disputes between warring gangs are settled via Beat Beat Revelation, a video game that bears absolute resemblance to Dance Dance Revolution. A family affair (brothers Jason and Brandon Trost co-directed; Jason wrote and stars; Brandon was the cinematographer; sister Sarah — from Project Runway, season eight! — designed the costumes; and dad Ron did the special effects) and an obvious labor of love, The FP pays adoring homage to John Carpenter and Walter Hill’s classics of the dystopian-future B-movie genre. Angry loner Jtro (Jason Trost), rocking a Snake Plissken-esque eye patch, leaves the FP after the Beat Beat-related death of his older brother; with the help of friend KC/DC (Art Hsu) and mystical guru BLT (Nick Principe), he trains (via ’80s-style montages, natch) for a match with town bully L Dubba E (Lee Valmassy), all the while wooing troubled girl next door Stacey (Caitlyn Folley). Of particular note is The FP‘s riotous dialogue; this is maybe the first (and let’s hope last) film to be written entirely in what sounds like the language of the juggalos. (1:23) Roxie. (Eddy)

*Friends With Kids Jennifer Westfeldt scans Hollywood’s romantic comedy landscape for signs of intelligent life and, finding it to be a barren place possibly recovering from a nuclear holocaust, writes, directs, and stars in this follow-up to 2001’s Kissing Jessica Stein, which she co-wrote and starred in. Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) are upper-thirtysomething New Yorkers with two decades of friendship behind them. He calls her “doll.” They have whispered phone conversations at four in the morning while their insignificant others lie slumbering beside them on the verge of getting dumped. And after a night spent witnessing the tragic toll that procreation has taken on the marriages of their four closest friends — Bridesmaids (2011) reunion party Leslie (Maya Rudolph), Alex (Chris O’Dowd), Missy (Kristen Wiig), and Ben (Jon Hamm), the latter two, surprisingly and less surprisingly, providing some of the film’s darkest moments — Jason proposes that they raise a child together platonically, thereby giving any external romantic relationships a fighting chance of survival. In no time, they’ve worked out the kinks to their satisfaction, insulted and horrified their friends, and awkwardly made a bouncing baby boy. The arrival of significant others (Edward Burns and Megan Fox) signals the second phase of the experiment. Some viewers will be invested in latent sparks of romance between the central pair, others in the success of an alternative family arrangement; one of these demographics is destined for disappointment. Until then, however, both groups and any viewers unwilling to submit to this reductive binary will be treated to a funny, witty, well crafted depiction of two people’s attempts to preserve life as they know it while redrawing the parameters of parenthood. (1:40) California, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (1:36) SF Center.

Hugo Hugo turns on an obviously genius conceit: Martin Scorsese, working with 3D, CGI, and a host of other gimmicky effects, creates a children’s fable that ultimately concerns one of early film’s pioneering special-effects fantasists. That enthusiasm for moviemaking magic, transferred across more than a century of film history, was catching, judging from Scorsese’s fizzy, exhilarating, almost-nauseating vault through an oh-so-faux Parisian train station and his carefully layered vortex of picture planes as Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), an intrepid engineering genius of an urchin, scrambles across catwalk above a buzzing station and a hotheaded station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen). Despite the special effects fireworks going off all around him, Hugo has it rough: after the passing of his beloved father (Jude Law), he has been stuck with an nasty drunk of a caretaker uncle (Ray Winstone), who leaves his duties of clock upkeep at a Paris train station to his charge. Hugo must steal croissants to survive and mechanical toy parts to work on the elaborate, enigmatic automaton he was repairing with his father, until he’s caught by the fierce toy seller (Ben Kingsley) with a mysterious lousy mood and a cute, bright ward, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz). Although the surprisingly dark-ish Hugo gives Scorsese a chance to dabble a new technological toolbox — and the chance to wax pedantically, if passionately, about the importance of film archival studies — the effort never quite despite transcends its self-conscious dazzle, lagging pacing, diffuse narrative, and simplistic screenplay by John Logan, based on Brian Selznick’s book. Even the actorly heavy lifting provided by assets like Kingsley and Moretz and the backloaded love for the fantastic proponents at the dawn of filmmaking fail to help matters. Scorsese attempts to steal a little of the latters’ zeal, but one can only imagine what those wizards would do with motion-capture animation or a blockbuster-sized server farm. (2:07) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*In Darkness Agnieszka Holland is that kind of filmmaker who can become a well known, respectable veteran without anyone being quite sure what those decades have added up to. Her mentor was Andrzej Wadja, the last half-century’s leading Polish director (among those who never left). He helped shape a penchant for heavy historical drama and a sometimes clunky style not far from his own. She commenced her international career with 1985’s Angry Harvest, about the amorous relationship between a Polish man and the Austrian, a Jewish woman, he hides during Nazi occupation. Her one indispensable feature is 1990’s Europa, Europa, an ideal vehicle for her favored mix of the grotesque, sober, and factual — following a Jewish boy who passed as Aryan German. The new In Darkness is her best since then, and it can’t be chance that this too dramatizes a notably bizarre case of real-life peril and survival under the Nazis. Its protagonist is Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz), an ordinary family man in Lvov (Poland then, Ukraine now) who’s not above exploiting the disarray of occupation and war to make ends meet. A sewer inspector, he uses his knowledge of underground tunnels to hide Jews who can pay enough when even the fenced-off ghetto is no longer safe. For such a long, oppressive, and literally dark film, this one passes quickly, maintaining tension as well as a palpable physical discomfort that doubtlessly suggests just a fraction what the refugees actually suffered. In Darkness isn’t quite a great movie, but it’s a powerful experience. At the end it’s impossible to be unmoved, not least because the director’s resistance toward Spielbergian exaltation insists on the banal and everyday, even in human triumph. (2:25) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

The Iron Lady Curiously like Clint Eastwood’s 2011 J. Edgar, this biopic from director Phyllida Lloyd and scenarist Abi Morgan takes on a political life of length, breadth and controversy — yet it mostly skims over the politics in favor of a generally admiring take on a famous narrow-minded megalomaniac’s “gumption” as an underdog who drove herself to the top. Looking back on her career from a senile old age spent in the illusory company of dead spouse Denis (Jim Broadbent), Meryl Streep’s ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher steamrolls past hurdles of class and gender while ironically re-enforcing the fustiest Tory values. She’s essentially a spluttering Lord in skirts, absolutist in her belief that money and power rule because they ought to, and any protesting rabble don’t represent the “real England.” That’s a mindset that might well have been explored more fruitfully via less flatly literal-minded portraiture, though Lloyd does make a few late, lame efforts at sub-Ken Russell hallucinatory style. Likely to satisfy no one — anywhere on the ideological scale — seriously interested in the motivations and consequences of a major political life, this skin-deep Lady will mostly appeal to those who just want to see another bravura impersonation added to La Streep’s gallery. Yes, it’s a technically impressive performance, but unlikely to be remembered as one of her more depthed ones, let alone among her better vehicles. (1:45) Four Star, Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Jeff, Who Lives at Home The failure-to-launch concept will always thrive whenever and wherever economies flail, kids crumble beneath family trauma, and the seduction of moving back home to live for free with the parental units overcomes the draw of adulthood and individuation. Nevertheless brotherly writing and directing team Jay and Mark Duplass infuse a fresh, generous-minded sweetness in this familiar narrative arc, mainly by empathetically following those surrounding, and maybe enabling, the stay-at-home. Spurred by a deep appreciation of Signs (2002) and plentiful bong hits, Jeff (Jason Segel) decides to go with the signals that the universe throws at him: a mysterious phone call for a Kevin leads him to stalk a kid wearing a jersey with that name and jump a candy delivery truck. This despite the frantic urging of his mother (Susan Sarandon), who has set the bar low and simply wants Jeff to repair a shutter for her birthday, and the bad influence of brother Pat (Ed Helms), a striving jerk who compensates for his insecurities by buying a Porsche and taking business meetings at Hooters. We never quite find out what triggered Jeff’s dormancy and Pat’s prickishness — two opposing responses to some unspecified psychic wound — yet by Jeff, Who Lives at Home‘s close, it doesn’t really matter. The Duplass brothers convince you to go along for the ride, much like Jeff’s blessed fool, and accept the ultimately feel-good, humanist message of this kind-hearted take on human failings. (1:22) California, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

John Carter More or less an adaptation of Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1917 sci-fi classic A Princess of Mars, John Carter is yet another film that lavishes special effects (festooned with CG and 3D) on a rote story filled with characters the viewer couldn’t give two craps about. Angry Civil War veteran John Carter (Taylor Kitsch, more muscleman than thespian) mysteriously zips to Mars, a planet not only populated by multiple members of the cast of HBO’s Rome (Ciarán Hinds, James Purefoy, and the voice of Polly Walker), but also quite a bit of Red Planet unrest. Against his better judgment, and with the encouragement of a comely princess (tragic spray-tan victim Lynn Collins), Carter joins the fight, as red people battle blue people, green four-armed creatures pitch in when needed, and sinister silver people (led by Mark Strong) use zap-tastic powers to manipulate the action for their amusement. If you’re expecting John Carter to be a step up from Conan the Barbarian (2011), Prince of Persia (2010), etc., because it’s directed by Andrew Stanton (the Pixar superstar who helmed 2008’s Finding Nemo and 2010’s WALL*E), eh, think again. There’s nothing memorable or fun about this would-be adventure; despite its extravagant 3D, it’s flatter than a pancake. (2:17) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*Kill List “Oh jeebus,” you say. “Another movie about a hit man lured out of retirement for one last score?” Well, yes — and no. British director and co-writer Ben Wheatley (2009’s Down Terrace) manages to reinvent one of cinema’s most tired clichés by injecting a healthy amount of what-the-fuck-just-happened?-ness, as well as a palpable sense of absolute dread. Without spoiling anything, here’s how the story begins: married with a young son, surly Jay (Neil Maskell) and shrill Shel (MyAnna Buring) are struggling to maintain their wine-drinking, middle-class, Jacuzzi-in-the-backyard lifestyle. Their financial troubles are due to the fact that Jay hasn’t worked in eight months, which is to say he hasn’t offed anyone since his last job, a mysterious assignment in Kiev, went awry. When best friend and partner Gal (Michael Smiley) hears about a new, well-paying gig that involves a “kill list” of U.K.-based victims, Jay figures he might as well sign on, if only to get Shel off his back. But as the pill-popping Jay soon learns, his sinister new employer is no ordinary client, and the murders have a special significance — revealed in a twist I guarantee even seen-it-all horror buffs will neither anticipate nor fully comprehend on first viewing. Ergo: what the fuck just happened? (1:36) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

My Week With Marilyn Statuette-clutching odds are high for Michelle Williams, as her impersonation of a famous dead celebrity is “well-rounded” in the sense that we get to see her drunk, disorderly, depressed, and so forth. Her Marilyn Monroe is a conscientious performance. But when the movie isn’t rolling in the expected pathos, it’s having other characters point out how instinctive and “magical” Monroe is onscreen — and Williams doesn’t have that in her. Who could? Williams is remarkable playing figures so ordinary you might look right through them on the street, in Wendy and Lucy (2008), Blue Valentine (2010), etc. But as Monroe, all she can do is play the little-lost girl behind the sizzle. Without the sizzle. Which is, admittedly, exactly what My Week — based on a dubious true story — asks of her. It is true that in 1956 the Hollywood icon traveled to England to co-star with director Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) in a fluff romance, The Prince and the Showgirl; and that she drove him crazy with her tardiness, mood swings, and crises. It’s debatable whether she really got so chummy with young production gofer Colin Clark, our wistful guide down memory lane. He’s played with simpering wide-eyed adoration by Eddie Redmayne, and his suitably same-aged secondary romantic interest (Emma Watson) is even duller. This conceit could have made for a sly semi-factual comedy of egos, neurosis, and miscommunication. But in a rare big-screen foray, U.K. TV staples director Simon Curtis and scenarist Adrian Hodges play it all with formulaic earnestness — Marilyn is the wounded angel who turns a starstruck boy into a brokenhearted but wiser man as the inevitable atrocious score orders our eyes to mist over. (1:36) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*Pina Watching Pina Bausch’s choreography on film should not have been as absorbing and deeply affecting of an experience as it was. Dance on film tends to disappoint — the camera flattens the body and distorts perspective, and you either see too many or not enough details. However, improved 3D technology gave Wim Wenders (1999’s Buena Vista Social Club; 1987’s Wings of Desire) the additional tools he needed to accomplish what he and fellow German Bausch had talked about for 20 years: collaborating on a documentary about her work. Instead of making a film about the rebel dance maker, Wenders made it for Bausch, who died in June 2009, two days before the start of filming. Pina is an eloquent tribute to a tiny, soft-spoken, mousy-looking artist who turned the conventions of theatrical dance upside down. She was a great artist and true innovator. Wenders’ biggest accomplishment in this beautifully paced and edited document is its ability to elucidate Bausch’s work in a way that words probably cannot. While it’s good to see dance’s physicality and its multi dimensionality on screen, it’s even better that the camera goes inside the dances to touch tiny details and essential qualities in the performers’ every gesture. No proscenium theater can offer that kind of intimacy. Appropriately, intimacy (the eternal desire for it) and loneliness (an existential state of being) were the two contradictory forces that Bausch kept exploring over and over. And by taking fragments of the dances into the environment — both natural and artificial — of Wuppertal, Germany, Wenders places them inside the emotional lives of ordinary people, subjects of all of Bausch’s work. (1:43) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rita Felciano)

Project X Frat boys nostalgic for Girls Gone Wild — and those who continue to have the sneaking suspicion that much better parties are going on wherever they’re not —appear to be the target audiences for Project X (not be confused with the 1987 film starring Matthew Broderick, star of this movie’s tamer ’80s variant, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). It’s tough to figure out who else would enjoy this otherwise-standard teen party-movie exercise, given a small shot of energy from its handheld/DIY video conceit. Here, mild-mannered teen Thomas (Thomas Mann) is celebrating his 17th birthday: his parents have left town, and his obnoxious pal Costa (Oliver Cooper) is itching to throw a memorable rager for him and even-geekier chum J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown). Multiple text and email blasts, a Craigslist ad, and one viral gossip scene reminiscent of Easy A (2010) later, several thousand party animals are at Thomas’s Pasadena house going nuts, getting nekkid in the pool, gobbling E, doing ollies off the roof, swinging from chandeliers, ad nauseam. The problem is — who cares? The lack of smart writing or even the marginal efforts toward character development makes Ferris Bueller look like outright genius — and this movie about as compelling as your standard-issue party jam clip. Unfortunately it also goes on about 85 minutes longer than the average music video. The blowback the kids experience when they go too far almost inspires you to root for the cops — not the effect first-time feature filmmaker Nima Nourizadeh was going for, I suspect. (1:28) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

Rampart Fans of Dexter and a certain dark knight will empathize with this final holdout for rogue law enforcement, LAPD-style, in the waning days of the last century. And Woody Harrelson makes it easy for everyone else to summon a little sympathy for this devil in a blue uniform: he slips so completely behind the sun- and booze-burnt face of David “Date Rape” Brown, an LAPD cop who ridicules young female cops with the same scary, bullying certainty that he applies to interrogations with bad guys. The picture is complicated, however, by the constellation of women that Date Rape has sheltered himself with. Always cruising for other lonely hearts like lawyer Linda (Robin Wright), he still lives with the two sisters he once married (Cynthia Nixon, Anne Heche) and their daughters, including the rebellious Helen (Brie Larson), who seems to see her father for who he is — a flawed, flailing anti-hero suffering from severe testosterone poisoning and given to acting out. Harrelson does an Oscar-worthy job of humanizing that everyday monster, as director Oren Moverman (2009’s The Messenger), who cowrote the screenplay with James Ellroy, takes his time to blur out any residual judgement with bokeh-ish points of light while Brown — a flip, legit side of Travis Bickle — just keeps driving, unable to see his way out of the darkness. (1:48) Lumiere. (Chun)

Safe House Frankly, Denzel Washington watchers are starved for another movie in which he’s playing the smartest guy in the room. Despite being hampered by a determinedly murky opening, Safe House should mostly satisfy. Washington’s Tobin Frost is well-used to dwelling into a grayed-out borderland of black ops and flipped alliances — a onetime CIA star, he now trades secrets while perpetually on the run. Fleeing from killers of indeterminate origin, Tobin collides headlong with eager young agent Matt (Ryan Reynolds), who’s stuck maintaining a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. Tasked with holding onto Tobin’s high-level player by his boss (Brendan Gleeson) and his boss’s boss (Sam Shepard), Matt is determined to prove himself, retain and by extension protect Tobin (even when the ex-superspy is throttling him from behind amid a full-speed car chase), and resist the magnetic pull of those many hazardous gray zones. Surrounded by an array of actorly heavies, including Vera Farmiga, who collectively ratchet up and invest this possibly not-very-interesting narrative — “Bourne” there; done that — with heart-pumping intensity, Washington is magnetic and utterly convincing as the jaded mouse-then-cat-then-mouse toying with and playing off Reynolds go-getter innocent. Safe House‘s narrative doesn’t quite fill in the gaps in Tobin Frost’s whys and wherefores, and the occasional ludicrous breakthroughs aren’t always convincing, but the film’s overall, familiar effect should fly, even when it’s playing it safe (or overly upstanding, especially when it comes to one crucial, climactic scrap of dialogue from “bad guy” Washington, which rings extremely politically incorrect and tone-deaf). (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

*Salmon Fishing in the Yemen In Lasse Hallström’s latest film, a sheikh named Muhammed (Amr Waked) with a large castle in Scotland, an ardent love of fly-fishing, and unlimited funds envisions turning a dry riverbed in the Yemeni desert into an aquifer-fed salmon-run site and the surrounding lands into an agricultural cornucopia. Tasked with realizing this dream are London marketing consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) and government fisheries scientist Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a reluctant participant who refers to the project as “doolally” and signs on under professional duress. Despite numerous feasibility issues (habitat discrepancies, the necessity for a mass exodus of British salmon, two million irate British anglers), Muhammed’s vision is borne forward on a rising swell of cynicism generated within the office of the British prime minister’s press secretary (Kristin Scott Thomas), whose lackeys have been scouring the wires for a shred of U.K.-related good news out of the Middle East. Ecology-minded killjoys may question whether this qualifies. But putting aside, if one can, the possible inadvisability of relocating 10,000 nonnative salmon to a wadi in Yemen — which is to say, putting aside the basic premise — it’s easy and pleasant enough to go with the flow of the film, infected by Jones’s growing enthusiasm for both the project and Ms. Chetwode-Talbot. Adapted from Paul Torday’s novel by Simon Beaufoy (2009’s Slumdog Millionaire), Salmon Fishing is a sweet and funny movie, and while it suffers from the familiar flurried third-act knotting together of loose ends, its storytelling stratagems are entertaining and its characters compellingly textured, and the cast makes the most of the well-polished material. (1:52) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*A Separation Iran’s first movie to win Berlin’s Golden Bear (as well as all its acting awards), this domestic drama reflecting a larger socio-political backdrop is subtly well-crafted on all levels, but most of all demonstrates the unbeatable virtue of having an intricately balanced, reality-grounded screenplay — director Asghar Farhadi’s own — as bedrock. A sort of confrontational impartiality is introduced immediately, as our protagonists Nader (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) face the camera — or rather the court magistrate — to plead their separate cases in her filing for divorce, which he opposes. We gradually learn that their 14-year wedlock isn’t really irreparable, the feelings between them not entirely hostile. The roadblock is that Simin has finally gotten permission to move abroad, a chance she thinks she must seize for the sake of their daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). But Nader doesn’t want to leave the country, and is not about to let his only child go without him. Farhadi worked in theater before moving into films a decade ago. His close attention to character and performance (developed over several weeks’ pre-production rehearsal) has the acuity sported by contemporary playwrights like Kenneth Lonergan and Theresa Rebeck, fitted to a distinctly cinematic urgency of pace and image. There are moments that risk pushing plot mechanizations too far, by A Separation pulls off something very intricate with deceptive simplicity, offering a sort of integrated Rashomon (1950) in which every participant’s viewpoint as the wronged party is right — yet in conflict with every other. (2:03) Albany, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

*The Secret World of Arrietty It’s been far too long between 2008’s Ponyo, the last offering from Studio Ghibli, and this feature-length adaptation of Mary Norton’s children’s classic, The Borrowers, but the sheer beauty of the studio’s hand-drawn animation and the effortless wonder of its tale more than make up for the wait. This U.S. release, under the very apropos auspices of Walt Disney Pictures, comes with an American voice cast (in contrast with the U.K. version), and the transition appears to be seamless — though, of course, the background is subtly emblazoned with kanji, there are details like the dinnertime chopsticks, and the characters’ speech rhythms, down to the “sou ka” affirmative that peppers all Japanese dialogue. Here in this down-low, hybridized realm, the fearless, four-inches-tall Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler) has grown up imaginative yet lonely, believing her petite family is the last of their kind: they’re Borrowers, a race of tiny people who live beneath the floorboards of full-sized human’s dwellings and take what they need to survive. Despite the worries of her mother Homily (Amy Poehler), Arrietty begins to embark on borrowing expeditions with her father Pod (Will Arnett) — there are crimps in her plans, however: their house’s new resident, a sickly boy named Shawn (David Henrie), catches a glimpse of Arrietty in the garden, and caretaker Hara (Carol Burnett) has a bit of an ulterior motive when it comes to rooting out the wee folk. Arrietty might not be for everyone — some kids might churn in their seats with ADD-style impatience at this graceful, gentle throwback to a pre-digital animation age — but in the care of first-time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Ghibli mastermind Hayao Miyazaki, who wrote co-wrote the screenplay, Arrietty will transfix other youngsters (and animation fans of all ages) with the glorious detail of its natural world, all beautifully amplified and suffused with everyday magic when viewed through the eyes of a pocket-sized adventurer. (1:35) Shattuck. (Chun)

*Shame It’s been a big 2011 for Michael Fassbender, with Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, Shame, and A Dangerous Method raising his profile from art-house standout to legit movie star (of the “movie stars who can also act” variety). Shame may only reach one-zillionth of X-Men‘s audience due to its NC-17 rating, but this re-teaming with Hunger (2008) director Steve McQueen is Fassbender’s highest achievement to date. He plays Brandon, a New Yorker whose life is tightly calibrated to enable a raging sex addiction within an otherwise sterile existence, including an undefined corporate job and a spartan (yet expensive-looking) apartment. When brash, needy, messy younger sister Cissy (Carey Mulligan, speaking of actors having banner years) shows up, yakking her life all over his, chaos results. Shame is a movie that unfolds in subtle details and oversized actions, with artful direction despite its oft-salacious content. If scattered moments seem forced (loopy Cissy’s sudden transformation, for one scene, into a classy jazz singer), the emotions — particularly the titular one — never feel less than real and raw. (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

*Silent House Yep, it’s another remake of a foreign horror movie — but Uruguay’s La casa muda is obscure enough that Silent House, which recycles its plot and filming style, feels like a brand-new experience. Co-directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, last seen bobbing in shark-infested waves for 2003’s similarly bare-bones Open Water, apply another technical gimmick here: Silent House appears to be shot in one continuous take. Though it’s not actually made this way, each shot is extraordinarily long — way longer than you’d expect in a horror film, since the genre often relies on quick edits to build tension. Instead, the film’s aim is “real fear captured in real time” (per its tag line), and there’s no denying this is one shriek-filled experience. The dwelling in question is an isolated, rambling lake house being fixed up to sell by Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), her father (Adam Trese), and uncle (Eric Sheffer Stevens). The lights don’t work, the windows are boarded up, most doors are padlocked shut, and there are strange noises coming from rooms that should be empty. Much of the film follows Sarah as she descends into deeper and deeper terror, scrabbling from floor to floor trying to hide from whoever (or whatever) is lurking, while at the same time trying to bust her way out. Though the last-act exposition explosion is a little hard to take, the film’s slow-burn beginning and frantic middle section offer bona fide chills. For an interview with Silent House co-director and writer Lau, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:28) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

A Thousand Words (1:31) 1000 Van Ness.

*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Tomas Alfredson (2008’s Let the Right One In) directs from Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan’s sterling adaptation of John le Carré’s classic spy vs. spy tale, with Gary Oldman making the role of George Smiley (famously embodied by Alec Guinness in the 1979 miniseries) completely his own. Your complete attention is demanded, and deserved, by this tale of a Cold War-era, recently retired MI6 agent (Oldman) pressed back into service at “the Circus” to ferret out a Soviet mole. Building off Oldman’s masterful, understated performance, Alfredson layers intrigue and an attention to weird details (a fly buzzing around a car, the sound of toast being scraped with butter) that heighten the film’s deceptively beige 1970s palette. With espionage-movie trappings galore (safe houses, code machines), a returned-to flashback to a surreal office Christmas party, and bang-on supporting performances by John Hurt, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, and the suddenly ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, Tinker Tailor epitomizes rule one of filmmaking: show me, don’t tell me. A movie that assumes its audience isn’t completely brain-dead is cause for celebration and multiple viewings — not to mention a place among the year’s best. (2:07) Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*21 Jump Street One of the more pleasant surprises on the mainstream comedy landscape has to be this, ugh, “reboot” of the late-’80s TV franchise. I wasn’t a fan of the show — or its dark-eyed, bad-boy star, Johnny Depp — back in the day, but I am of this unexpectedly funny rework overseen by apparent enthusiast, star, co-writer, and co-executive producer Jonah Hill, with a screenplay by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) co-writer Michael Bacall. There’s more than a smidge of Bacall’s other high school fantasy, Project X, in the buddy comedy premise of nerd (Hill’s Schmidt) meets blowhard (Channing Tatum’s Jenko), but 21 Jump Street thankfully leapfrogs the former with its meta-savvy, irreverent script and har-dee-har cameo turns by actors like Ice Cube as Captain Dickson (as well as a few key uncredited players who shall remain under deep cover). High school continues to haunt former classmates Schmidt and Jenko, who have just graduated from the lowly police bike corps to a high school undercover operation — don’t get it twisted, though, Dickson hollers at them; they got this gig solely because they look young. Still, the whole drug-bust enchilada is put in jeopardy when the once-socially toxic Schmidt finds his brand of geekiness in favor with the cool kids and so-called dumb-jock Jenko discovers the pleasures of the mind with the chem lab set. Fortunately for everyone, this crew doesn’t take themselves, or the source material, too seriously. (1:49) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Undefeated Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin, who previously teamed up on a 2008 doc about beer pong, have a more serious subject for their latest tale: the unlikely heroics of an inner-city Memphis, Tenn. high school football team. The title refers more to the collective spirit rather than the (still pretty damn good) record of the Manassas Tigers, a team comprised of youths challenged by less-than-ideal home lives and anti-authority attitude problems that stem from troubles running deeper than typical teenage rebellion. Into an environment seemingly tailored to assure the kids’ failure steps coach Bill Courtney. He’s white, they’re all African American; he’s fairly well-off, while most of them live below the poverty line. Still, he’s able to instill confidence in them, both on and off the field, with focus on three players in particular: the athletically-gifted, academically-challenged O.C., who gets a Blind Side-style boost from one of Courtney’s assistant coaches; sensitive brain Money, sidelined by a devastating injury; and hot-tempered wild card Chavis, who eventually learns the importance of teamwork. With the heavy-hitting endorsement of celebrity exec producer Sean Combs, Undefeated is a high-quality entry into the “inspiring sports doc” genre: it offers an undeniably uplifting story and sleek production values. But it’s a little too familiar to be called the best documentary of the year, despite its recent anointing at the Oscars. If it was gonna be a sports flick, why not the superior, far more complex (yet not even nominated) Senna? (1:53) SF Center. (Eddy)

The Vow A rear-ender on a snowy Chicago night tests the nuptial declarations of a recently and blissfully married couple, recording studio owner Leo (Channing Tatum) and accomplished sculptor Paige (Rachel McAdams). When the latter wakes up from a medically induced coma, she has no memory of her husband, their friends, their life together, or anything else from the important developmental stage in which she dropped out of law school, became estranged from her regressively WASP-y family, stopped frosting her hair and wearing sweater sets, and broke off her engagement to preppy power-douchebag Jeremy (Scott Speedman). Watching Paige malign her own wardrobe and “weird” hair and rediscover the healing powers of a high-end shopping spree is disturbing; she reenters her old life nearly seamlessly, and the warm spark of her attraction to Leo, which we witness in a series of gooey flashbacks, feels utterly extinguished. And, despite the slurry monotone of Tatum’s line delivery, one can empathize with a sense of loss that’s not mortal but feels like a kind of death — as when Paige gazes at Leo with an expression blending perplexity, anxiety, irritation, and noninvestment. But The Vow wants to pluck on our heartstrings and inspire a glowing, love-story-for-the-ages sort of mood, and the film struggles to make good on the latter promise. Its vague evocations of romantic destiny mostly spark a sense of inevitability, and Leo’s endeavors to walk his wife through retakes of scenes from their courtship are a little more creepy and a little less Notebook-y than you might imagine. (1:44) SF Center. (Rapoport)

*Wanderlust When committed Manhattanites George (Paul Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston) find themselves in over their heads after George loses his job, the two set off to regroup in Atlanta, with the reluctantly accepted help of George’s repellent brother Rick (Ken Marino). Along the way, they stumble upon Elysium, a patchouli-clouded commune out in the Georgia backcountry whose members include original communard Carvin (Alan Alda), a nudist novelist-winemaker named Wayne (Joe Lo Truglio), a glowingly pregnant hippie chick named Almond (Lauren Ambrose), and smarmy, sanctimonious, charismatic leader Seth (Justin Theroux). After a short, violent struggle to adapt to life under Rick’s roof, the couple find themselves returning to Elysium to give life in an intentional community a shot, a decision that George starts rethinking when Seth makes a play for his wife. Blissed-out alfresco yoga practice, revelatory ayahuasca tea-induced hallucinations, and lectures about the liberating effects of polyamory notwithstanding, the road to enlightenment proves to be paved with sexual jealousy, alienation, placenta-soup-eating rituals, and group bowel movements. Writer-director David Wain (2001’s Wet Hot American Summer, 2008’s Role Models) — who shares writing credits with Marino — embraces the hybrid genre of horror comedy in which audience laughter is laced with agonized embarrassment, and his cast gamely partake in the group hug, particularly Theroux and Rudd, who tackles a terrifyingly lengthy scene of personal debasement with admirable gusto. (1:38) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Rapoport)

*We Need to Talk About Kevin It’s inevitable — whenever a seemingly preventable tragedy occurs, there’s public outcry to the tune of “How could this happen?” But after the school shooting in We Need to Talk About Kevin, the more apt question is “How could this not happen?” Lynne Ramsay (2002’s Morvern Callar) — directing from the script she co-adapted from Lionel Shriver’s novel — uses near-subliminal techniques to stir up atmospheric unease from the very start, with layered sound design and a significant, symbolic use of the color red. While other Columbine-inspired films, including Elephant and Zero Day (both 2003), have focused on their adolescent characters, Kevin revolves almost entirely around Eva Khatchadourian (a potent Tilda Swinton) — grief-stricken, guilt-riddled mother of a very bad seed. The film slides back and forth in time, allowing the tension to build even though we know how the story will end, since it’s where the movie starts: with Eva, alone in a crappy little house, working a crappy little job, moving through life with the knowledge that just about everyone in the world hates her guts. Kevin is very nearly a full-blown horror movie, and the demon-seed stuff does get a bit excessive. But it’s hard to determine if those scenes are “real life” or simply the way Eva remembers them, since Kevin is so tightly aligned with Eva’s point of view. Though she’s miserable in the flashbacks, the post-tragedy scenes are even thicker with terror; the film’s most unsettling sequence unfolds on Halloween, horror’s favorite holiday; Eva drives past a mob of costumed trick-or-treaters as Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” (one of several inspired music choices) chimes on the soundtrack. Masked faces are turn to stare — accusingly? Coincidentally? Do they even know she’s Kevin’s mother? — with nightmarish intensity heightened by slow motion. And indeed, “Everyday” Eva deals with accepting her fate; the film is sympathetic to her even while suggesting that she may actually be responsible. For a longer review of this film, and an interview with director Ramsay, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:52) SF Center. (Eddy)

Teacher’s Union unhappy with SF school chief process

Zelda Bronstein
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Teacher’s Union unhappy with SF school chief process

Key Tray from the United Educators of San Francisco called me to comment on my description of the outgoing and incoming school superintendent, which he found a little too flattering:

I haven’t agreed with him on everything, but overall, he’s done a good job — the schools are better than when he arrived, enrollment is increasing, and there’s no more of the imperious attitude and gag orders of the old Ackerman days. The district is on the right track — although Garcia would be the first to admit that there’s a lot more work to be done. And I have nothing bad to say about his annointed successor, Deputy Superintendent Richard Carranza. He’ll probably do a fine job.

Tray’s point: Yes, on a lot of levels Garcia did well, but in the past few weeks he’s created a labor mess. “It’s a big disappointment,” Tray told me. “He’s poisoned the well and now he’s leaving the farm.”

The problem: Garcia decided this year to exempt 14 low-performing schools from the annual round of layoffs. The layoff process is annoying anyway — by state law, teachers have to be warned of layoffs in the spring although the state budget isn’t done until the summer so the schools don’t really know how much money they’ll have. In most cases, the layoffs are later rescinded. Out of the 500-plus layoff notices this year, “most won’t come to fruition,” Tray notes.

But the bigger problem for the union is that Garcia tossed out the seniority process when he made the decision to protect schools in the “Superintendent’s Zone.” And while some people think that’s just dandy, the teacher’s union calls it a disaster: Seniority is one of the most sacred elements of a union contract.

“Now he’s at war with the teacher’s union,” Tray said.

That, he said, won’t be pleasant for the new superintendent, who has been one of Garcia’s top aides: “Carranza’s walking into a toxic mess.”

Garcia, not too surprisingly, sees it very differently. “I’m the most pro-union guy you’ll ever find,” he told me. The 14 schools have a history of high turnover — and in an effort to keep a team of teachers, some of whom don’t have the highest seniority, in place, he exempted them from the layoffs. “We’re talking about 70 people,” he said. “And our figures suggest that this would have an impact on only three tenured teachers” who might face pink slips that they otherwise would have avoided.

As for the toxic labor environment? “It’s too bad they see it that way. We’ve worked together on every issue for five years, and I hope this one area where we disagree doesn’t ruin the entire relationship. This isn’t the only issue that matters in the world; I just wish they wouldn’t be this extreme.”

Good luck, Mr. Carranza — you’ve got some fence-mending to do.

 

 

 

 

The Performant: The mourning after

Andrew Lam
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Explorations in the language of the living at SFAI and NOHspace

Long before I moved to San Francisco, there were already certain things I’d learned to associate as being quintessentially San Franciscan via some kind of cross-cultural osmosis: the Castro, the cable-cars, Critical Mass, and George Kuchar.

True, the prolific filmmaker was himself a transplant, but his influence was indelibly stamped on San Francisco’s filmic underground. And unlike some heroes, who live impossibly removed from their admirers, George was accessible to his as a teacher, a neighbor, a legend, and a friend. Six months after his passing, a thoughtfully-curated tribute to his legacy opened at the San Francisco Art Institute — where he  taught absurdly-monikered classes in filmmaking such as “Electro-graphic Sinema” for 40 years. 

Since the hallmark of a successful memorial is to celebrate in the company of the living, a string of heartfelt eulogies and screenings of clips took place in the SFAI lecture hall, presented by friends and family, elders and youth. United thusly in our pleasant memories of the man, we entered the Walter and McBean Galleries, which had been transformed into a monument to the myth — a gleeful hodgepodge of photographs, set dressing, racks of cheap costume pieces, sketchbooks, choose-your-own screenings of the over 200 films in George’s oeuvre, and playful, personal ephemera.

Down the hall, an interactive studio installation encouraged visitors to get dressed up in a costume and “star” in their own straight-to-video blockbuster. A veritable Rosetta Stone on the language and legacy of Kuchar’s no-budget filmmaking, the exhibit runs through April 21, and is free to the public: adoring fans and the unconverted alike.

Part memorial for the dead, and part fundraiser for the living, the nationwide, one-night only performance series Shinsai found San Francisco stage time at both NOHspace and ACT. Directed by Theatre of Yugen apprentice Nick Ishimaru, the NOHspace edition opened with a trilogy of monologues penned by Suzan-Lori Parks that begged the question “where were you on 3/11”? Similarly themed play-lettes followed, including an introspective monologue on grieving by Phillip Kan Gotanda. Mixing dance, classic noh, and a quixotic bit of performance art (Jose Navarrete’s “Found and Lost”) into the evening put a distinctive stamp on the event. 

What most tied the disparate disciplines together were the expressive nuances of the hands, mimicking in certain ways the purported intricacies of the language of fans, secretive yet overt. In the dances of Las Japonesas Flamencas, each finger held its own position, extending the arch of an elbow or the turn of a wrist, a gestural eloquence. In contrast, the extremities of Nick Ishimaru and Meg Theil in a comical excerpt from kabuki drama Vengeful Sword, remained actively poised yet perfectly still as they each portrayed Manno, a wily Madame. The event ended with Heather Law’s graceful Hula ’Auana, hands fluttering like startled birds and 1960’s Go-Go girls, hearkening to an era of popular dance “moves” like the hand jive with the subtle grace of her more refined art: an expressive, whole-body sign language which spoke of life. 

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