Classical

Black Choreographers Festival takes flight

Andrew Lam
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This weekend, go watch some dance. Sam Love and I stopped by Dance Mission this week to check out a final rehearsal of a piece choreographed by Gregory Dawson and left feeling elated. Dawson has gathered a group of ridiculously limber and supremely talented dancers for refined, minimalist, yet achingly beautiful pieces that pulse with a strong, affirming spirit. His company is just one of several featured at the Black Choreographers Festival, a celebration of African American dance, art and culture. The piece we saw clearly stemmed from classical ballet roots, but also found inspiration in contemporary dance, creating a performance that displayed awe-inspiring athleticism (those extensions!) as well as thought-provoking drama, tension, and story. Go get your tickets already. It will be fabulous!

Black Choreographers Festival

Fri/15-Sun/17 and Feb. 22-24, various times, $15

Dance Mission Theater 

3316 24th St., SF 

www.bcfhereandnow.com

Beyond Frank Ocean: La Peña takes a deeper look at hip-hop inclusivity

Andrew Lam
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Beyond Frank Ocean: La Peña takes a deeper look at hip-hop inclusivity

If I hear another journalist ask anyone involved in hip-hop incredulously, reverently, portentously about Frank Ocean and that Tumblr post someone may lose their digital recorder. Frank I love you, I love your ambiguous Internet warblings, your endearingly awful Grammy performances — and kudos on Willy Carter, damn — but obvs you’re not the first queer person to be involved with your musical genre.

The Bay Area knows this — in 2007 the PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival, already six years old at that point, took over deFremery Park with Oakland’s Deep Dickollective and co. And like, Cazwell? Hey.

This list goes on — but this post is more about future, specifically the Hip-Hop: Beyond Gender event series that kicks off at La Peña Cultural Center on Fri/15 with “Here Me Roar”, a lineup of queer and feminist spoken word MCs set to wrecking speed. I caught up with a couple of the artists to talk about how hip-hop came to them, and where they want it to go.

Hopefully, their events in the La Peña series — which include concerts, panel discussions, and breakdance battles — will advance the conversation about hip-hop and gender-sexuality inclusivity that Le1f, Freedia, Nicky, Mykki, Double Duchess, Syd, YES Frank Ocean, and a bajillion other awesome artists are helping to create. 

CHINAKA HODGE

Photo by Bethanie Hines

A child of Oakland, this playwright, poet, and author of Girls With Hips will perform at “Hear Me Roar” at La Peña on Fri/15.

First hip-hop album: The Roots, Illadelph Halflife. Up until that point, I’d just stolen hip-hop music from my parents. The first album of any genre that I learned all of the words to was Arrested Development’s debut, 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of… 

First hip hop concert/party: Tough. Hmmm. There’s an MC out of Oakland, originally from Queens, named Rico Pabon. When I was in high school, Rico was probably my favorite act. He used to headline a series of all-ages shows at La Peña called “Collective Soul”, alongside Company of Prophets, Lunar Heights, a bunch of the indie staples in hip-hop at the time. I think those were probably my first parties. Glad to see we’re coming full circle, and I’ll get to rock the stage at La Peña this Friday — I used to beg mom to let me attend back in the day.

First time I thought about what gender meant in hip-hop: Listening to Digable Planets. Everyone used to refer to Ladybug Mecca as “the girl” in the group. I saw that trope carry over as I listened to Blunted on Reality, the Fugees’ first album. To me, sonically, I just identified Ladybug and Lauryn as the best of the three. It wasn’t until older male relatives and friends pointed out gender that I first started to note and notice differences.

One question I’d like to see addressed “Hip-Hop: Beyond Gender”: I’d like to see us address the issue of why female-identified emcees are consistently asked to talk about gender and sex — both onstage and off — when our male identified counterparts are not.

INVINCIBLE 

Photo by B Fresh

In addition to having their own music label — Emergence Media — this Michigan MC is active with Detroit Summer, an intergenational inner-city group that links up community members in projects to change the future of their neighborhood. Invincible’s organizing the “Event Horizon” night on March 15, which promises “transcending the gender binary and entering parallel multiverses of holistic complex identities.” Ooo.

First hip-hop album: First vinyl, Paid In Full (Eric B and Rakim). First tape, Check The Rhime (maxi single!) followed by Low End Theory (A Tribe Called Quest). First CD (in the tall cardboard package): Sleeping With The Enemy (Paris).

First hip hop concert/party: When I was 15 I had a secret knock at the back door of a few local clubs where bouncers got me in to watch shows and get on the open mic. I got caught one too many times so that led to the first show I threw, which was at an abandoned hotel that me and my first DJ transformed into an all-ages venue, ’til the cops broke it up at our second event. I think the first time I actually bought a ticket was for Xzibit and Big Pun but that show sadly got shot up and shut down too soon. 

First time I thought about what gender meant in hip-hop: I remember when “Ladies First” by [Queen] Latifah came out. It made an impression on me, but I was too young to understand the power of it. I first fully saw the role gender justice plays in reviving hip-hop when I met and joined the anti-misogyny all-elements hip hop collective ANOMOLIES. They made me reflect on all the hardships i had witnessed and experienced, and realize how important it is to support each other as people whose voices are marginalized in this culture.

One question I’d like to see addressed “Hip-Hop: Beyond Gender”: How do we create space for more transgender and gender non-conforming hip-hop artists to develop skills, bring new perspectives, and be heard? How can gender justice in this music and culture benefit all marginalized voices in hip-hop?

TRU BLOO

Photo by Ruby Battacharya, logo by Maya el Helou

Tru Bloo started performing hip-hop when they were 11, played Angela Davis’ induction into the La Peña hall of fame in 2011, and has dabbled in classical guitar and piano among a million other projects. They’re curating the May 10 “Wo(MB) Manifest” night of breakdancing, graffiti, and performance at La Peña.

First hip-hop album: I found a 2 Live Crew rap tape on my school bus in fourth grade and memorized the entire album. Also danced a lot to Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock.

First hip hop concert/party: MC Hammer

First time I thought about what gender meant in hip-hop: When groups like TLC, Salt ‘N Pepa and Queen Latifah’s U.N.I.T.Y. anthem came out in late ’80s/early ’90s, I realized women had a different story to tell via hip-hop.

One question I’d like to see addressed “Hip-Hop: Beyond Gender”: Do female, trans, and gender non-conforming hip-hop artists have the power to change the social discourse around patriarchy, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia within our communities and mainstream pop culture, if given a voice?

Film Listings

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

OPENING

Beautiful Creatures In the tiny South Carolina town of Gatlin, a teenage boy named Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) finds himself dreaming about a girl he’s never met (Alice Englert), until she shows up at school one day with an oddly behaving tattoo on her wrist and the power to disrupt local weather patterns when she loses her temper. Thus begins Richard LaGravenese’s adaptation of the first installment in Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s four-book YA series the Caster Chronicles. The girl of Ethan’s dreams, Lena Duchannes, is the youngest member of a reclusive local family long suspected by the town’s inhabitants of performing witchcraft and otherwise being in league with Satan. They’re at least half right, though Lena and her relatives (among them Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, and Emmy Rossum) prefer the term caster to witch, a slur inflicted on them by mortals. As for the diabolical part, casters are, it seems, slaves to essentialism: their coming-of-age rite at age 16 entails learning whether their true nature will turn them toward the forces of darkness or light. Lena’s special birthday, as it happens, is coming up, a circumstance complicating the romance that sparks between her and Ethan. Though the altitude is lower, and the sweeping pans of coniferous forests have been replaced by claustrophobic shots of swampland and live oaks draped with Spanish moss, comparisons to the Twilight franchise are inevitable. But while we’re not unfamiliar with the arc of a human teenage protagonist who is drawn into the orbit of an alluring supernatural and finds life forever changed, Beautiful Creatures‘ young lovers are more relatable, less annoying and creepy, and smaller targets for an SNL spoof. (2:04) Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Escape from Planet Earth Kid-friendly animated tale about adventurous blue aliens, starring the voices of Brendan Fraser, Jessica Alba, and William Shatner. (1:35) Shattuck.

56 Up The world may be going to shit, but some things can be relied upon, like Michael Apted’s beloved series that’s traced the lives of 14 disparate Brits every seven years since original BBC documentary 7 Up in 1964. More happily still, this latest installment finds nearly all the participants shuffling toward the end of middle-age in more settled and contented form than ever before. There are exceptions: Jackie is surrounded by health and financial woes; special-needs librarian Lynn has been hit hard by the economic downturn; everybody’s favorite undiagnosed mental case, the formerly homeless Neil, is never going to fully comfortable in his own skin or in too close proximity to others. But for the most part, life is good. Back after 28 years is Peter, who’d quit being filmed when his anti-Thatcher comments provoked “malicious” responses, even if he’s returned mostly to promote his successful folk trio the Good Intentions. Particularly admirable and evidently fulfilling is the path that’s been taken by Symon, the only person of color here. Raised in government care, he and his wife have by now fostered 65 children — with near-infinite love and generosity, from all appearances. If you’re new to the Up series, you’ll be best off doing a Netflix retrospective as preparation for this chapter, starting with 28 Up. (2:24) California, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III Roman Coppola’s comedy stars Charlie Sheen as a 1970s ladies man trying to get his life together. (1:25)

A Good Day to Die Hard Jai Courtney (TV’s Spartacus) joins the long-running action series as the CIA agent son of Jack McClane (Bruce Willis). (1:37) Presidio.

Safe Haven Over a decade and a half, as one Nicholas Sparks novel after another has hit the shelves and inexorably been adapted for the big screen, we’ve come to expect a certain kind of end product: a romantic drama that manages, in its treacly messaging and relentless arc toward emotional resonance, to give us second thoughts about the redemptive power of love. The latest, Safe Haven, directed by Lasse Hallström (2011’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, 1993’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), follows the formula fairly dutifully. Julianne Hough (2012’s Rock of Ages) plays Katie, a Boston woman on the run from the kind of terrifying event that causes a person to dye their hair platinum blond and board a Greyhound in the middle of the night, a trauma whose details are doled out to us in a series of flashbacks. Winding up in a small coastal town in North Carolina, she meets handsome widower and father of two Alex (Josh Duhamel), who runs the local general store and takes a shine to the unfriendly new girl. Viewers of last year’s Sparks adaptation The Lucky One will find some familiar elements (the healing balm of a good man’s love, cloying usage of the paranormal), as will viewers of 1991’s Sleeping with the Enemy, another film that presents the fantasy of a fresh start in Smalltown, U.S.A. (1:55) Presidio. (Rapoport)

“Silent Winter” The San Francisco Silent Film Festival programs a day of vintage delights, including films starring Mary Pickford and Buster Keaton, with live musical accompaniment. See story at www.sfbg.com. Castro.

Yossi A decade after Yossi (Ohad Knoller) lost his secret lover Jagger in a night raid during their Israeli Army service, the former is no longer a strapping, macho figure but a prematurely middle-aged sad sack. He works to the point of exhaustion as a Tel Aviv cardiologist, and his home life is pathetically lonely — an attempt to step out of the closet with an internet hookup turns out so humiliatingly that it seems he might as well shut the door on love for keeps. But forced to take a vacation, he finds some measure of hope in a chance encounter with four young soldiers who remind him of himself and still-mourned Jagger back when — except times have changed, and the gay identity he still hides even from closest colleagues doesn’t phase them in the least. Eytan Fox’s 2002 breakthrough Yossi & Jagger (originally made for Israeli TV) was sexy, then tragic, then stinging — consistently surprising and nuanced, with a memorably bitter resolution of social injustice. A sequel was theoretically a good idea, but the choices Fox has made for it (and for Yossi) are at once depressing and pat. It’s one thing that our hero has turned into such a piteous loser — these things happen, though the original edition didn’t seem like he’d give up so easily — quite another that his salvation comes in an all-too-convenient, movie wish-fulfillment form. As a stand-alone, melancholic character-study drama, Fox’s latest has its points. As a follow-up to what’s still his best film, however, it’s a bit more deflating and deflated than necessary. (1:24) California, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Identity Thief America is made up of asshole winners and nice guy losers — or at least that’s the thesis of Identity Thief, a comedy about a crying-clown credit card bandit (Melissa McCarthy) and the sweet sucker (Jason Bateman) she lures into her web of chaos. Bateman plays Sandy, a typical middle-class dude with a wife, two kids, and a third on the way. He’s always struggling to break even and just when it seems like his ship’s come in, Diana (McCarthy) jacks his identity — a crime that requires just five minutes in a dark room with Sandy’s social security number. Suddenly, his good name is contaminated with her prior arrests, drug-dealer entanglements, and mounting debt; it’s like the capitalist version of VD. But as the “kind of person who has no friends,” Diana is as tragic as she is comic, providing McCarthy an acting opportunity no one saw coming when she was dispensing romantic advice on The Gilmore Girls. Director Seth Gordon (2011’s Horrible Bosses) treats this comedy like an action movie — as breakneck as slapstick gets — and he relies so heavily on discomfort humor that the film doesn’t just prompt laughs, it pokes you in the ribs until you laugh, man, LAUGH! While Identity Thief has a few complex moments about how defeating “sticking it to the man” can be (mostly because only middle men get hurt), it’s mostly as subtle as a pratfall and just as (un-)rewarding. (1:25) Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

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

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

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

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

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

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

Movie 43 (1:37) Metreon.

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

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

“Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Live Action” (1:54) Embarcadero.

Parker (1:58) Metreon.

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

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

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

Side Effects Though on the surface Channing Tatum appears to be his current muse, Steven Soderbergh seems to have gotten his smart, topical groove back, the one that spurred him to kick off his feature filmmaking career with the on-point Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) and went missing with the fun, featherweight Ocean’s franchise. (Alas, he’s been making claims that Side Effects will be his last feature film.) Here, trendy designer antidepressants are the draw — mixed with the heady intoxicants of a murder mystery with a nice hard twist that would have intrigued either Hitchcock or Chabrol. As Side Effects opens, the waifish Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara), whose inside-trading hubby (Tatum) has just been released from prison, looks like a big-eyed little basket of nerves ready to combust — internally, it seems, when she drives her car into a wall. Therapist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who begins to treat her after her hospital stay, seems to care about her, but nevertheless reflexively prescribes the latest anti-anxiety med of the day, on the advice of her former doctor (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Where does his responsibility for Emily’s subsequent actions begin and end? Soderbergh and his very able cast fill out the issues admirably, with the urgency that was missing from the more clinical Contagion (2011) and the, ahem, meaty intelligence that was lacking in all but the more ingenious strip scenes of last year’s Magic Mike. (1:30) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

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

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

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

Top Gun 3D (1:50) 1000 Van Ness.

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

West of Memphis At this point, it’s hard to imagine a present-day murder trial more painstakingly documented than that of the so-called West Memphis Three. West of Memphis can be considered a crash course for those who somehow missed the Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger-directed Paradise Lost trilogy; it’s an evenly-paced montage of talking heads, archival trial footage, and interviews with investigators and legal experts, with additional focus on the relationship between former death row inmate Damien Echols and his wife Lorri Davis. (The other two accused men do appear in the film, but Echols is the focal point.) The doc traces the entire case, from the initial news reports of the disappearance of eight-year-olds Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Steve Branch, to the supporter-funded, post-conviction investigation and appeals process still unfolding today. Over the years, Echols’ defense team had gradually amassed testimony from a slew of high-powered experts, which not only pointed away from the West Memphis Three, but also suggested new suspects. Despite this seemingly compelling material, Echols’ appeal hit a wall in 2008, when then-Circuit Court judge David Burnett, who had presided over the original trials, denied a new hearing, citing “inconclusive” evidence. At that point, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who had privately bankrolled much of the investigation leading to the DNA appeal, decided produce a doc; Amy Berg (2006’s Deliver Us from Evil) was tapped to direct. Whether or not this film advances the legal process any further remains to be seen, but it does offer a telling portrait of a deeply-flawed criminal justice system at work. (2:26) Shattuck. (Nicole Gluckstern)

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

Film Listings

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

INDIEFEST

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

OPENING

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

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

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

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

Top Gun 3D MAVERICK! (1:50)

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon.

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

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

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On a street where no buses burn: Where to hide from the Super Bowl

Andrew Lam
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On a street where no buses burn: Where to hide from the Super Bowl

It was my fault for working on my laptop behind the plate glass window of a 24th Street cafe when the Niners won… whatever game that was, last Sunday. But it is entirely your fault for spitting at my face through the plate glass window, you sad little hag of a Mission District twenty-something (sup George, remember when I interviewed you about your art a few years ago?) after screaming “DIE YUPPIES” or whatever in the door of said cafe. 

So yeah, I’m not so stoked on Super Bowl (or as my friend Kelly Lovemonster put it, “the football game during the Beyonce concert.”) The amount of aggression generated by even a victory for our home team is mind-blowing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pumped for the Niners and for adorable, positive football fans — like novelty rapper and six-year old Sarah Redden — but I’m not trying to catch a burning bus about it. If you’re not either, come hide with me here: 

Smell the magnolias at the SF Botanical Garden

Bury yourself in these in-season pink-and-white blooms, sure solace for the streets of shoulder-checking outside the park. Check out the Garden’s daily, free 1:30pm docent-led tour, or just wander about the gorgeous vegetation, liberated from half-time hullabaloo and lines at the bar. Check out the Garden’s full line up of magnolia-themed entertainment for other things that will make you happy. 

Open 9am-5pm (last entry 4pm), free. Ninth Ave. and Lincoln, SF. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org

Swell with pride for your city in a non-sports-related way with our new poet laureate

We love San Francisco’s sixth poet laureate Alejandro Murguia more than many things — we even gave him a Guardian column! — so we’re stoked for his inaugural address this week. He plans to address the state of the Latino community in San Francisco, lyrically no doubt. 

Sun/27, 1-3pm, free. Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF. www.sfpl.org

Drift away with young East Bay classical musicians

As far as you can get, perhaps from the Tracy Morgan Kraft ad (or the teaser of said ad, that’s a thing now) — the 75 young players of the Oakland Youth Orchestra will take you away on the wings of their percussion, wind, and brass steeds. Get your Dimitri Shostakovich, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Sergei Rachmaninov fix here, at the group’s winter concert.

Sun/27, 3pm, free. Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain, Oakl. www.oyo.org

Cry, laugh, drink with the queens

In the middle of it all — the red and gold beach towels, the cops pouring out champagne into the gutters on 16th Street — you will feel sad. Luckily, doorperson-like-you-wouldn’t-believe Dee Dean Leitner has assembled a passel of drag divas to belt out the shittiest odes to amore tonight at the Stud for a show lovingly dubbed “Worst. Song. Ever.” It starts early for drag, so you will be able to go more or less directly from whatever hole you’ve been hiding from, long before the last rowdies have hopped home on CalTrain.

Sun/27, 7-10pm, $5. The Stud, 399 Ninth St., SF. www.studsf.com

Stay in bed with cats

Win or lose, fireworks, and the pussies may be scared. You can help.

Every day, all the time, your rent. thekittencovers.tumblr.com

 

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

OPENING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon.

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

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

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

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Film Listings

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

OPENING

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parental Guidance (1:36) Metreon.

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

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

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

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

Texas Chainsaw 3D (1:32) Metreon.

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

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

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

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

OPENING

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smith happens

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Smith happens

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Every year there’s at least one: the adorable-old-coot fest, usually British, that proves harmless and reassuring and lightly tear/laughter producing enough to convince a certain demographic that it’s safe to go to the movies again, just this once. The last months have seen two, both starring Maggie Smith (who’s also queen of that audience’s home viewing via Downton Abbey), and in this case more is probably less.

Last year’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which Smith played a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself in India (hip replacement operations being cheaper there), has already filled the slot. It was formulaic, cute, and sentimental, yes, but it also practiced more restraint than one expected, delivering a certain amount of emotional payoff you didn’t have to cringe over the next day. (Particularly if you forgot how one-dimensional the Indian characters were — and they certainly were forgettable.)

Now here’s Quartet, which is basically the same flower arrangement with quite a bit more dust on it. Smith plays a bitchy old spinster — complete with hip problems — appalled to find herself forced into spending her twilight years at a home for the elderly. It’s not just any such home, however, but Beecham House (actually Hedsor House, a much-filmed estate in Buckinghamshire), whose residents are retired professional musicians.

Gingerly peeking out from her room after a few days’ retreat from public gaze, Smith’s Jean Horton — a famed English soprano — spies a roomful of codgers rolling their hips to Afropop in a dance class. “This is not a retirement home — this is a madhouse!” she pronounces. Oh, the shitty lines that lazy writers have long depended on Smith to make sparkle. Well, even she’s not that much of a magician.

Quartet is full of such bunk, adapted with loving fidelity, no doubt, from his own 1999 play by Ronald Harwood, who as a scenarist has done some good adaptations of other people’s work (2002’s The Pianist, 2007’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). But as a generator of original material for about a half-century, he’s mostly proven that it is possible to prosper that long while being in entirely the wrong half-century. The highlight was The Dresser, a play (later filmed, in 1983) of that type which throws bouquets at theater itself while handing an enormous slice of ready-cooked ham to the actors playing theatrical archetypes. The lowlight has been 2008’s Australia — for which Baz Luhrmann shoulders the primary blame, but anyone associated with that script should have had their Writers Guild membership suspended at least until the screams of unprepared ticket buyers stopped.

This play, too, seems to have inspired enthusiasm only for its performers in its original West End run. (Oddly, however, it’s been a long-running hit in a Finnish adaptation.) It seems doubtful anyone was chomping at the bit to make a movie version. But then in one of those periodic reminders that the ways of show biz (when not strictly commercial) can be unfathomable, it has found new life as the directorial debut of … 75-year-old American actor Dustin Hoffman.

Which ought to be more interesting than it turns out — with its workmanlike gloss and head-on take on the script’s very predictable beats, Quartet could as well have been directed by any BBC veteran of no particular distinction. The English countryside can be counted on to look pretty; this cast and its hundreds of years of experience (including those members identified at the end as former classical musicians) need hardly break a sweat realizing such soft material.

So, Maggie Smith arrives at Beecham House to the varying delight of former operatic colleagues Pauline Collins (comic ditherer), Billy Connelly (randy old goat), and Michael Gambon (nasty old queen), as well as the initial dismay of Tom Courtenay as the ex-husband whose heart she carelessly broke. Naturally, the joint is in danger of closure and can only be saved by the starry new arrival’s participation in an annual charity performance. Yes, it’s just like the plot of Roller Boogie (1979), and every other hoary “Let’s put on a show to save the [blank]” exercise. You know just what’s going to happen — “How dare you!” turns to “Oh, all right then” turns to triumph, although the film (like the play) cheats by declining to actually show us that triumph — and it does, on cue, for 98 digestion-easing minutes.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with providing vehicles for beloved older actors — but why does it always have to be this kind of vehicle, bland as toast and no more nutritious? Even Dame Maggie Smith doesn’t seem particularly interested; no doubt she’d like to play someone to whom the adjective “bitchy” doesn’t apply once in a while. The classical canon is full of great roles for fully mature actors. But for the movies, it seems, after a certain point you only get to play silly old dears or bitter crones. There’s got to be room for something between condescending trifles like Quartet and the bleak staring-death-in-the-face of Amour. 

 

QUARTET opens Fri/25 in Bay Area theaters.

Film Listings

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

OPENING

Broken City It’s a tough guy-off when an ex-cop (Mark Wahlberg) dares to take on New York’s corrupt mayor (Russell Crowe). (1:49)

Hellbound? See "Damnation Investigation." (1:25) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

The Last Stand In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first leading role since that whole Governator business, he plays a small-town sheriff doing battle with an escaped drug kingpin. (1:47) Shattuck.

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

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

LUV Baltimore native Sheldon Candis drew from his own childhood for this coming-of-age tale, which takes place in a single day as 11-year-old "little man" Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) tags along with his uncle, Vincent (Common), recently out of jail and rapidly heading back down the criminal path. With both parents out of the picture, Woody’s been raised by his grandmother (Lonette McKee), so he idolizes Vincent even though it’s soon clear the short-tempered man is no hero. Of course, things go horribly awry, bloody lessons are learned, tears are shed, etc. Despite the story’s autobiographical origins, the passable LUV suffers greatly by inviting comparisons to The Wire — the definitive docudrama examining drug crime in Baltimore. Most blatantly, sprinkled into an all-star cast (Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton) are supporting characters played by Wire icons Michael K. "Omar" Williams (as a cop) and Anwan "Slim Charles" Glover (as a meaner Slim Charles, basically). Perhaps if you’ve never seen the show this wouldn’t be distracting — but if that’s the case, you should really be watching The Wire instead of LUV anyway. (1:34) (Eddy)
Mama Two long-lost children bring something supernatural home with them in this horror flick starring Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj "Jaime Lannister" Coster-Waldau. (1:40) California.

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

ONGOING

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

Anna Karenina Joe Wright broke out of British TV with the 9,000th filmed Pride and Prejudice (2005), unnecessary but quite good. Too bad it immediately went to his head. His increasing showiness as director enlivened the silly teenage-superspy avenger fantasy Hanna (2011), but it started to get in the way of Atonement (2007), a fine book didn’t need camera gymnastics to make a great movie. Now it’s completely sunk a certified literary masterpiece still waiting for a worthy film adaptation. Keira Knightley plays the titular 19th century St. Petersburg aristocrat whose staid, happy-enough existence as a doting mother and dutiful wife (to deglammed Jude Law’s honorable but neglectful Karenin) is upended when she enters a mutually passionate affair with dashing military officer Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, miscast). Scandal and tragedy ensue. There’s nothing wrong with the screenplay, by Tom Stoppard no less. What’s wrong is Wright’s bright idea of staging the whole shebang as if it were indeed staged — a theatrical production in which nearly everything (even a crucial horse race) takes place on a proscenium stage, in the auditorium, or "backstage" among riggings. Whenever we move into a "real" location, the director makes sure that transition draws attention to its own cleverness as possible. What, you might ask, is the point? That the public social mores and society Anna lives in are a sort of "acting"? Like wow. Add to that another brittle, mannered performance by Wright’s muse Knightley, and there’s no hope of involvement here, let alone empathy — in love with its empty (but very prettily designed) layers of artifice, this movie ends up suffocating all emotion in gilded horseshit. The reversed-fortune romance between Levin (Domhall Gleeson) and Kitty (Alicia Vikander) does work quite well — though since Tolstoy called his novel Anna Karenina, it’s a pretty bad sign when the subsidiary storyline ends up vastly more engaging than hers. (2:10) Embarcadero, Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

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

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

Cloud Atlas Cramming the six busy storylines of David Mitchell’s wildly ambitious novel into just three hours — the average reader might have thought at least 12 would be required — this impressive adaptation directed (in separate parts) by Tom Twyker (1998’s Run Lola Run) and Matrix siblings Lana and Andy Wachowski has a whole lot of narrative to get through, stretching around the globe and over centuries. In the mid 19th century, Jim Sturgess’ sickly American notory endures a long sea voyage as reluctant protector of a runaway-slave stowaway from the Chatham Islands (David Gyasi). In 1931 Belgium, a talented but criminally minded British musician (Ben Whishaw) wheedles his way into the household of a famous but long-inactive composer (Jim Broadbent). A chance encounter sets 1970s San Francisco journalist Luisa (Halle Berry) on the path of a massive cover-up conspiracy, swiftly putting her life in danger. Circa now, a reprobate London publisher’s (Broadbent) huge windfall turns into bad luck that gets even worse when he seeks help from his brother (Hugh Grant). In the not-so-distant future, a disposable "fabricant" server to the "consumer" classes (Doona Bae) finds herself plucked from her cog-like life for a rebellious higher purpose. Finally, in an indeterminately distant future after "the Fall," an island tribesman (Tom Hanks) forms a highly ambivalent relationship toward a visitor (Berry) from a more advanced but dying civilization. Mitchell’s book was divided into huge novella-sized blocks, with each thread split in two; the film wastes very little time establishing its individual stories before beginning to rapidly intercut between them. That may result in a sense of information (and eventually action) overload, particularly for non-readers, even as it clarifies the connective tissues running throughout. Compression robs some episodes of the cumulative impact they had on the page; the starry multicasting (which in addition to the above mentioned finds many uses for Hugo Weaving, Keith David, James D’Arcy, and Susan Sarandon) can be a distraction; and there’s too much uplift forced on the six tales’ summation. Simply put, not everything here works; like the very different Watchmen, this is a rather brilliant "impossible adaptation" screenplay (by the directors) than nonetheless can’t help but be a bit too much. But so much does work — in alternating currents of satire, melodrama, pulp thriller, dystopian sci-fi, adventure, and so on — that Cloud Atlas must be forgiven for being imperfect. If it were perfect, it couldn’t possibly sprawl as imaginatively and challengingly as it does, and as mainstream movies very seldom do. (2:52) Castro. (Harvey)

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

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

The Guilt Trip (1:35) Metreon.

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

Hitchcock On the heels of last year’s My Week With Marilyn comes another biopic about an instantly recognizable celebrity viewed through the lens of a specific film shoot. Here, we have Anthony Hopkins (padded and prosthetic’d) playing the Master of Suspense, mulling over which project to pursue after the success of 1959’s North by Northwest. Even if you’re not a Hitch buff, it’s clear from the first scene that Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s true crime-inspired pulpy thriller, is looming. We open on "Ed Gein’s Farmhouse, 1944;" Gein (Michael Wincott) is seen in his yard, his various heinous crimes — murder, grave-robbing, body-part hoarding, human-skin-mask crafting, etc. — as yet undiscovered. Hitchcock, portrayed by the guy who also played the Gein-inspired Hannibal Lecter, steps into the frame with that familiar droll greeting: "Guhhd eevvveeeening." And we’re off, following the veteran director as he muses "What if somebody really good made a horror picture?" Though his wife and collaborator, Alma (Helen Mirren), cautions him against doing something simply because everyone tells him not to, he plows ahead; the filmmaking scenes are peppered with behind-the-scenes moments detailed in Stephen Rebello’s Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, the source material for John J. McLaughlin’s script. But as the film’s tagline — "Behind every Psycho is a great woman" — suggests, the relationship between Alma and Hitch is, stubbornly, Hitchcock‘s main focus. While Mirren is effective (and I’m all for seeing a lady who works hard behind the scenes get recognition), the Hitch-at-home subplot exists only to shoehorn more conflict into a tale that’s got plenty already. Elsewhere, however, Hitchcock director Sacha Gervasi — making his narrative debut after hit 2008 doc Anvil: The Story of Anvil — shows stylistic flair, working Hitchcock references into the mise-en-scène. (1:32) Embarcadero, New Parkway. (Eddy)

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

Hyde Park on Hudson Weeks after the release of Lincoln, Hyde Park on Hudson arrives with a lighthearted (-ish) take on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1939 meeting with King George VI (of stuttering fame) and Queen Elizabeth at FDR’s rural New York estate. Casting Bill Murray as FDR is Hyde Park‘s main attraction, though Olivia Williams makes for a surprisingly effective Eleanor. But the thrust of the film concerns FDR’s relationship with his cousin, Daisy — played by Laura Linney, who’s relegated to a series of dowdy outfits, pouting reaction shots, and far too many voice-overs. The affair has zero heat, and the film is disappointingly shallow — how many times can one be urged to giggle at someone saying "Hot dogs!" in an English accent? — not to mention a waste of a perfectly fine Bill Murray performance. As that sideburned Democrat bellows in Lincoln, "Howwww dare you!" (1:35) Albany, Embarcadero. (Eddy)

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

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

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

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

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

Monsters, Inc. 3D (1:35) Metreon.

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

Not Fade Away How to explain why the Beatles have been tossed so many cinematic bon mots and not the Stones? The group’s relatively short lifespan — and even the tragic, unexpectedly dramatic passing of John Lennon — seem to have all played into the band’s nostalgia-marinated legend, while the Stones’ profitable tour rotation and shocking physical resilience have lessened their romantic charge. So it reads as a counterintuitive, and a bit random, that Sopranos creator David Chase would open his first feature film with a black and white re-creation of the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meet-up, before switching to the ’60s coming-of-age of New Jersey teen geek Douglas (John Magaro), trapped in an oppressively whiny nuclear family headed up by his Pep Boy grouch of a dad (James Gandolfini) — at least until rock ‘n’ roll saves his soul and he starts beating the skins. Graduating to better-than-average singer after his band’s frontman Eugene (Boardwalk Empire‘s Jack Huston) inhales a joint, Douglas not only finds his voice, but also wins over dream girl Grace (Bella Heathcote). Sure, Not Fade Away is about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll — and much attention is dutifully squandered on basement shows, band practice, and politics, and posturing with wacky new haircuts and funny cigarettes, thanks to Chase’s own background in garage bands and executive producer, music supervisor, and true believer Steve Van Zandt’s considerable passion. Yet despite the amount screen time devoted to rock’s rites, those familiar gestures never rise above the clichéd, and Not Fade Away only finds its authentic emotional footing when Gandolfini’s imposing yet trapped patriarch and the rest of Douglas’s beaten-down yet still kicking family enters the picture — they’re the force that refuses to fade away, even after they disappear in the rear view. (1:52) Shattuck. (Chun)

Only the Young First seen locally at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival, this documentary from Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet is styled like a narrative and often shot like a fine art photograph (or at least a particularly bitchin’ Instagram), with an unexpectedly groovy soundtrack. It follows a pair of high schoolers with ever-changing hairstyles in dried-up Santa Clarita, Calif. — a burg of abandoned mini-golf courses and squatter’s houses, and a place where the owner of the local skate shop seems equally obsessed with tacos and Jesus. It’s never clear where Garrison and Kevin fall on the religious spectrum — though "the church" has a looming importance, influencing relationships if not wardrobe choices — but one gets the feeling all they really care about is skateboarding, with their own friendship a close second. Less certain are Garrison’s feelings about punky, tough-yet-sweet gal pal Skye — especially when they begin spending time with new flames. Only the Young‘s seemingly random choice of subjects works to its advantage, capturing the kids’ unaffected, surprisingly honest point of view on subjects as varied as cars, dating, college, the economy, and Gandalf Halloween costumes. (1:10) Roxie. (Eddy)

Parental Guidance (1:36) Metreon.

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

Promised Land Gus Van Sant’s fracking fable — co-written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, from a story by Dave Eggers — offers a didactic lesson in environmental politics, capped off by the earth-shattering revelation that billion-dollar corporations are sleazy and evil. You don’t say! Formulated like a Capra movie, Promised Land follows company man Steve Butler (Matt Damon) as he and sales partner Sue (Frances McDormand) travel to a small Pennsylvania town to convince its (they hope) gullible residents to allow drilling on their land. But things don’t go as smoothly as hoped, when the pair faces opposition from a science teacher with a brainiac past (Hal Holbrook), and an irritatingly upbeat green activist (Krasinski) breezes into town to further monkey-wrench their scheme. That Damon is such a likeable actor actually works against him here; his character arc from soulless salesman to emotional-creature-with-a-conscience couldn’t be more predictable or obvious. McDormand’s wonderfully biting supporting performance is the best (and only) reason to see this ponderous, faux-folksy tale, which targets an audience that likely already shares its point of view. (1:46) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Eddy)

Rise of the Guardians There’s nothing so camp as "Heat Miser" from The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) in Rise of the Guardians,, but there’s plenty here to charm all ages. The mystery at its center: we open on Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine) being born, pulled from the depths of a frozen pond by the Man on the Moon and destined to spread ice and cold everywhere he goes, invisible to all living creatures. It’s an individualistic yet lonely lot for Jack, who’s styled as an impish snowboarder in a hoodie and armed with an icy scepter, until the Guardians — spirits like North/Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) — call on him to join them. Pitch the Boogeyman (Jude Law) is threatening to snuff out all children’s hopes and dreams with fears and nightmares, and it’s up to the Guardians must keep belief in magic alive. But what’s in it for Jack, except the most important thing: namely who is he and what is his origin story? Director Peter Ramsey keeps those fragile dreams aloft with scenes awash with motion and animation that evokes the chubby figures and cozy warm tones of ’70s European storybooks. And though Pine verges on blandness with his vocal performance, Baldwin, Jackman, and Fisher winningly deliver the jokes. (1:38) Metreon. (Chun)

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

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

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

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

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

Texas Chainsaw 3D (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

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

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

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

Gangsters, death, and spaghetti westerns: must be another week of movies!

Sue Vaughan
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Gangsters, death, and spaghetti westerns: must be another week of movies!

Well, they announced the Oscar nominations yesterday, and much-lauded import Amour is opening today (review below the jump), so if you’re curious about the hype and don’t mind having a downer of a Friday night … you’re set. Other films opening this week include the Robert Carlyle drama California Solo (Dennis Harvey’s review here), Marlon Wayans horror spoof A Haunted House, Ryan Gosling-in-a-fedora cop flick Gangster Squad, and (at the Roxie), teen-skater doc Only the Young.

Also! The Pacific Film Archive’s “The Hills Run Red: Italian Westerns, Leone, and Beyond” series starts this week. Plenty of good spaghetti western action to be had; check out my round-up here. Read on for more short takes on this week’s releases.

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

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

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

Only the Young First seen locally at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival, this documentary from Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet is styled like a narrative and often shot like a fine art photograph (or at least a particularly bitchin’ Instagram), with an unexpectedly groovy soundtrack. It follows a pair of high schoolers with ever-changing hairstyles in dried-up Santa Clarita, Calif. — a burg of abandoned mini-golf courses and squatter’s houses, and a place where the owner of the local skate shop seems equally obsessed with tacos and Jesus. It’s never clear where Garrison and Kevin fall on the religious spectrum — though “the church” has a looming importance, influencing relationships if not wardrobe choices — but one gets the feeling all they really care about is skateboarding, with their own friendship a close second. Less certain are Garrison’s feelings about punky, tough-yet-sweet gal pal Skye — especially when they begin spending time with new flames. Only the Young‘s seemingly random choice of subjects works to its advantage, capturing the kids’ unaffected, surprisingly honest point of view on subjects as varied as cars, dating, college, the economy, and Gandalf Halloween costumes. (1:10) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)

The Performant: Music men

Andrew Lam
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Mark Growden’s solo show and variations on a theme with Hand to Mouth 

There’s something so charmingly unassuming about the Red Poppy Art House — a by-now venerable institution on the Mission District’s quirk-centric music scene — it makes you want to invite it home for a Hangtown Fry and mimosas. From the mismatched chairs to the frayed curtains, the whitewashed walls to the cramped toilet, the Red Poppy’s overall ambiance is that of a sort of ramshackle country parlor, right down to the upright piano.

Though you’d never mistake him for a church lady, Bay Area bard Mark Growden does exude a touch of the rustic — a down-home demeanor rooted in his rural Northern California upbringing. From the moment he opened his set on Friday night at the Red Poppy with a haunting, desert lament played ingeniously on his signature set of bicycle handlebars, it was as if he were unfolding a map of the hidden pockets of America and inviting us on an introspective journey through them.

Assisted ably by trumpeter Chris Grady, who employed a number of mutes throughout the show, probably to keep him from blowing the heads off the front row seated literally at his feet, Growden worked his way through a repertoire of old songs and new which hearkened to the barroom backrooms of the South, the windswept plains of the American West, and the lonesome riverbanks of the Truckee, and the Mississippi.

Though much of Growden’s music is tinged with a fragile darkness, the mood of the evening was light, jovial, the banter flying thick and fast between stage and oddience, and slyly humorous counterpoint provided by Grady. By the time it came around to the group sing-a-long, we were all good friends, a chummy crew, no doubt assisted in part by the closeness of our quarters, the conviviality of claustrophilia.

Music was also the theme at monthly comedy event Hand to Mouth at the Dark Room Theatre. Since 2011, Hand to Mouth has been hosting eclectic lineups of funny-persons who are encouraged to perform sets that relate to a pre-announced topic, and much of the fun comes from discovering how each comic will interpret the theme.

Sure, there were a few comics who merely riffed on the topic by dissing bands they didn’t like or making fun of raves, easy targets all, but co-host James Fluty broke the trend by coming out onstage with a guitar and playing a lewd ballad about Mormons (take that Trey Parker and Matt Stone) and Jesse Elias shattered what was left of it by giving a totally hilarious power-point presentation he called “A Lecture of Music History.” Ostensibly a comparison of the evolution of classical to contemporary music, Elias spent time comparing music from “Der Gloeckner von Notre Dame” and “Wicked,” introducing us to the “orchestra hit” sample, and comparing the “two distinct sounds referred to as ‘electric piano’” which involved a straight-faced comparison of various video games soundtracks versus Disney credits music.

Keeping it weird, DJ Real (a.k.a. Nick Stargu) contributed a retiree version of a NIN tune (“I Want to Play Some Canasta”), the Unwatchables sold their souls to the devil in order to be able to play the blues for Bruce Willis, and Drennon Davis ended the show on a literal high note by turning himself into a radio with the help of a loop station and station-appropriate DJ patter that ranged from the growling bro-down of hard rock station “Radio K-O-C-K” to the passive-aggressive mellow of “Free Jazz Radio” (“just want to clarify something about our name, we are not ‘free’. We are listener-supported.”)

It would appear allowing comedians to stretch their creativity to encompass yet redefine a specific theme is as good for them as it was for us—and makes it easy to look forward to their February installment at Lost Weekend Video, when the theme will be “Jobs”. Hell, I’ve got a few jokes about that myself….

Film Listings

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

OPENING

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

California Solo Whatever happened to &ldots;? In a sense, Robert Carlyle — lost too long to US movie audiences while marooned on SGU Stargate Universe — might have found the ideal role in this soulful indie turn as a Scottish rock star on the decline. Lachlan (Carlyle) was once the guitarist in a Britpop-band-on-the-verge called the Cranks —now he’s grounding himself by working at a farm outside LA and doing his humble part in the music world with a podcast on spectacular rock ‘n’ roll deaths. But Lachlan’s attempts to hold steady are dashed when he’s slapped with a DUI and his immigration status is threatened. With few bucks saved and a life that has gone strictly solo for far too long, the free spirit is forced to reckon with his past — an old manager (Michael Des Barres), the ex-wife (Kathleen Wilhoite) and daughter (Savannah Lathem) he never sees — in an attempt to avoid getting deported. Echoes of both Dennis Wilson’s and Noel Gallagher’s rock histories reverberate through California Solo, as do 1983’s Tender Mercies, 2009’s Crazy Heart, and other music films about charismatic old reprobates coming to terms with their misdeeds. The intense, sexy Carlyle, however, makes it clear through the specifics of his performance that this story, and these sins, is his extremely flawed, charmingly self-absorbed character’s own. Will he or won’t he fabulously flame out rather than fade away, asks writer-director Marshall Lewy (2007s Blue State)? The more heroic path, according to California Solo, might be waking up to face yet another day. For a longer review of this film, see "The Damage Done." (1:34) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Gangster Squad Ryan Gosling leads a fedora-wearing cast in this cops ‘n’ mobsters tale set in 1949 Los Angeles. (1:53)

A Haunted House Marlon Wayans stars in this spoof of the Paranormal Activity series and other "found footage" films. Mocking the trend means it’s on its way out, right? (1:25)

Only the Young First seen locally at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival, this documentary from Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet is styled like a narrative and often shot like a fine art photograph (or at least a particularly bitchin’ Instagram), with an unexpectedly groovy soundtrack. It follows a pair of high schoolers with ever-changing hairstyles in dried-up Santa Clarita, Calif. — a burg of abandoned mini-golf courses and squatter’s houses, and a place where the owner of the local skate shop seems equally obsessed with tacos and Jesus. It’s never clear where Garrison and Kevin fall on the religious spectrum — though "the church" has a looming importance, influencing relationships if not wardrobe choices — but one gets the feeling all they really care about is skateboarding, with their own friendship a close second. Less certain are Garrison’s feelings about punky, tough-yet-sweet gal pal Skye — especially when they begin spending time with new flames. Only the Young‘s seemingly random choice of subjects works to its advantage, capturing the kids’ unaffected, surprisingly honest point of view on subjects as varied as cars, dating, college, the economy, and Gandalf Halloween costumes. (1:10) Roxie. (Eddy)

ONGOING

Anna Karenina Joe Wright broke out of British TV with the 9,000th filmed Pride and Prejudice (2005), unnecessary but quite good. Too bad it immediately went to his head. His increasing showiness as director enlivened the silly teenage-superspy avenger fantasy Hanna (2011), but it started to get in the way of Atonement (2007), a fine book didn’t need camera gymnastics to make a great movie. Now it’s completely sunk a certified literary masterpiece still waiting for a worthy film adaptation. Keira Knightley plays the titular 19th century St. Petersburg aristocrat whose staid, happy-enough existence as a doting mother and dutiful wife (to deglammed Jude Law’s honorable but neglectful Karenin) is upended when she enters a mutually passionate affair with dashing military officer Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, miscast). Scandal and tragedy ensue. There’s nothing wrong with the screenplay, by Tom Stoppard no less. What’s wrong is Wright’s bright idea of staging the whole shebang as if it were indeed staged — a theatrical production in which nearly everything (even a crucial horse race) takes place on a proscenium stage, in the auditorium, or "backstage" among riggings. Whenever we move into a "real" location, the director makes sure that transition draws attention to its own cleverness as possible. What, you might ask, is the point? That the public social mores and society Anna lives in are a sort of "acting"? Like wow. Add to that another brittle, mannered performance by Wright’s muse Knightley, and there’s no hope of involvement here, let alone empathy — in love with its empty (but very prettily designed) layers of artifice, this movie ends up suffocating all emotion in gilded horseshit. The reversed-fortune romance between Levin (Domhall Gleeson) and Kitty (Alicia Vikander) does work quite well — though since Tolstoy called his novel Anna Karenina, it’s a pretty bad sign when the subsidiary storyline ends up vastly more engaging than hers. (2:10) Albany, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

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

The Central Park Five Acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns takes on the 1989 rape case that shocked and divided a New York City already overwhelmed by racially-charged violence. The initial crime was horrible enough — a female jogger was brutally assaulted in Central Park — but what happened after was also awful: cops and prosecutors, none of whom agreed to appear in the film, swooped in on a group of African American and Latino teenagers who had been making mischief in the vicinity (NYC’s hysterical media dubbed the acts "wilding," a term that became forever associated with the event). Just 14 to 16 years old, the boys were questioned for hours and intimidated into giving false, damning confessions. Already guilty in the court of public opinion, the accused were convicted in trials — only to see their convictions vacated years after they’d served their time, when the real assailant was finally identified. Using archival news footage (in one clip, Gov. Mario Cuomo calls the crime "the ultimate shriek of alarm that says none of us are safe") and contemporary, emotional interviews with the Five, Burns crafts a fascinating study of a crime that ran away with itself, in an environment that encouraged it, leaving lives beyond just the jogger’s devastated in the process. (1:59) Roxie. (Eddy)

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Cloud Atlas Cramming the six busy storylines of David Mitchell’s wildly ambitious novel into just three hours — the average reader might have thought at least 12 would be required — this impressive adaptation directed (in separate parts) by Tom Twyker (1998’s Run Lola Run) and Matrix siblings Lana and Andy Wachowski has a whole lot of narrative to get through, stretching around the globe and over centuries. In the mid 19th century, Jim Sturgess’ sickly American notory endures a long sea voyage as reluctant protector of a runaway-slave stowaway from the Chatham Islands (David Gyasi). In 1931 Belgium, a talented but criminally minded British musician (Ben Whishaw) wheedles his way into the household of a famous but long-inactive composer (Jim Broadbent). A chance encounter sets 1970s San Francisco journalist Luisa (Halle Berry) on the path of a massive cover-up conspiracy, swiftly putting her life in danger. Circa now, a reprobate London publisher’s (Broadbent) huge windfall turns into bad luck that gets even worse when he seeks help from his brother (Hugh Grant). In the not-so-distant future, a disposable "fabricant" server to the "consumer" classes (Doona Bae) finds herself plucked from her cog-like life for a rebellious higher purpose. Finally, in an indeterminately distant future after "the Fall," an island tribesman (Tom Hanks) forms a highly ambivalent relationship toward a visitor (Berry) from a more advanced but dying civilization. Mitchell’s book was divided into huge novella-sized blocks, with each thread split in two; the film wastes very little time establishing its individual stories before beginning to rapidly intercut between them. That may result in a sense of information (and eventually action) overload, particularly for non-readers, even as it clarifies the connective tissues running throughout. Compression robs some episodes of the cumulative impact they had on the page; the starry multicasting (which in addition to the above mentioned finds many uses for Hugo Weaving, Keith David, James D’Arcy, and Susan Sarandon) can be a distraction; and there’s too much uplift forced on the six tales’ summation. Simply put, not everything here works; like the very different Watchmen, this is a rather brilliant "impossible adaptation" screenplay (by the directors) than nonetheless can’t help but be a bit too much. But so much does work — in alternating currents of satire, melodrama, pulp thriller, dystopian sci-fi, adventure, and so on — that Cloud Atlas must be forgiven for being imperfect. If it were perfect, it couldn’t possibly sprawl as imaginatively and challengingly as it does, and as mainstream movies very seldom do. (2:52) Castro. (Harvey)

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

The Guilt Trip (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Hitchcock On the heels of last year’s My Week With Marilyn comes another biopic about an instantly recognizable celebrity viewed through the lens of a specific film shoot. Here, we have Anthony Hopkins (padded and prosthetic’d) playing the Master of Suspense, mulling over which project to pursue after the success of 1959’s North by Northwest. Even if you’re not a Hitch buff, it’s clear from the first scene that Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s true crime-inspired pulpy thriller, is looming. We open on "Ed Gein’s Farmhouse, 1944;" Gein (Michael Wincott) is seen in his yard, his various heinous crimes — murder, grave-robbing, body-part hoarding, human-skin-mask crafting, etc. — as yet undiscovered. Hitchcock, portrayed by the guy who also played the Gein-inspired Hannibal Lecter, steps into the frame with that familiar droll greeting: "Guhhd eevvveeeening." And we’re off, following the veteran director as he muses "What if somebody really good made a horror picture?" Though his wife and collaborator, Alma (Helen Mirren), cautions him against doing something simply because everyone tells him not to, he plows ahead; the filmmaking scenes are peppered with behind-the-scenes moments detailed in Stephen Rebello’s Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, the source material for John J. McLaughlin’s script. But as the film’s tagline — "Behind every Psycho is a great woman" — suggests, the relationship between Alma and Hitch is, stubbornly, Hitchcock‘s main focus. While Mirren is effective (and I’m all for seeing a lady who works hard behind the scenes get recognition), the Hitch-at-home subplot exists only to shoehorn more conflict into a tale that’s got plenty already. Elsewhere, however, Hitchcock director Sacha Gervasi — making his narrative debut after hit 2008 doc Anvil: The Story of Anvil — shows stylistic flair, working Hitchcock references into the mise-en-scène. (1:32) Embarcadero, Four Star. (Eddy)

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

Holy Motors Holy moly. Offbeat auteur Leos Carax (1999’s Pola X) and frequent star Denis Lavant (1991’s Lovers on the Bridge) collaborate on one of the most bizarrely wonderful films of the year, or any year. Oscar (Lavant) spends every day riding around Paris in a white limo driven by Céline (Edith Scob, whose eerie role in 1960’s Eyes Without a Face is freely referenced here). After making use of the car’s full complement of wigs, theatrical make-up, and costumes, he emerges for "appointments" with unseen "clients," who apparently observe each vignette as it happens. And don’t even try to predict what’s coming next, or decipher what it all means, beyond an investigation of identity so original you won’t believe your eyes. This wickedly humorous trip through motion-capture suits, graveyard photo shoots, teen angst, back-alley gangsters, old age, and more (yep, that’s the theme from 1954’s Godzilla you hear; oh, and yep, that’s pop star Kylie Minogue) is equal parts disturbing and delightful. Movies don’t get more original or memorable than this. (1:56) Roxie. (Eddy)

Hyde Park on Hudson Weeks after the release of Lincoln, Hyde Park on Hudson arrives with a lighthearted (-ish) take on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1939 meeting with King George VI (of stuttering fame) and Queen Elizabeth at FDR’s rural New York estate. Casting Bill Murray as FDR is Hyde Park‘s main attraction, though Olivia Williams makes for a surprisingly effective Eleanor. But the thrust of the film concerns FDR’s relationship with his cousin, Daisy — played by Laura Linney, who’s relegated to a series of dowdy outfits, pouting reaction shots, and far too many voice-overs. The affair has zero heat, and the film is disappointingly shallow — how many times can one be urged to giggle at someone saying "Hot dogs!" in an English accent? — not to mention a waste of a perfectly fine Bill Murray performance. As that sideburned Democrat bellows in Lincoln, "Howwww dare you!" (1:35) Albany, Embarcadero. (Eddy)

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

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Killing Them Softly Lowest-level criminal fuckwits Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) are hired to rob a mob gambling den, a task which miraculously they fail to blow. Nevertheless, the repercussions are swift and harsh, as a middleman suit (Richard Jenkins) to the unseen bosses brings in one hitman (Brad Pitt), who brings in another (James Gandolfini) to figure out who the thieves are and administer extreme justice. Based on a 1970s novel by George V. Higgins, this latest collaboration by Pitt and director-scenarist Andrew Dominik would appear superficially to be a surer commercial bet after the box-office failure of their last, 2007’s The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford — one of the great films of the last decade. But if you’re looking for action thrills or even Guy Ritchie-style swaggering mantalk (though there is some of that), you’ll be disappointed to find Killing more in the abstracted crime drama arena of Drive (2011) or The American (2010), landing somewhere between the riveting former and the arid latter. This meticulously crafted tale is never less than compelling in imaginative direction and expert performance, but it still carries a certain unshakable air of so-what. Some may be turned off by just how vividly unpleasant Mendelsohn’s junkie and Gandolfini’s alchie are. Others will shrug at the wisdom of re-setting this story in the fall of 2008, with financial-infrastructure collapse and the hollow promise of President-elect Obama’s "Change" providing ironical background noise. It’s all a little too little, too soon. (1:37) New Parkway. (Harvey)

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

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

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

Monsters, Inc. 3D (1:35) Metreon.

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

Not Fade Away How to explain why the Beatles have been tossed so many cinematic bon mots and not the Stones? The group’s relatively short lifespan — and even the tragic, unexpectedly dramatic passing of John Lennon — seem to have all played into the band’s nostalgia-marinated legend, while the Stones’ profitable tour rotation and shocking physical resilience have lessened their romantic charge. So it reads as a counterintuitive, and a bit random, that Sopranos creator David Chase would open his first feature film with a black and white re-creation of the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meet-up, before switching to the ’60s coming-of-age of New Jersey teen geek Douglas (John Magaro), trapped in an oppressively whiny nuclear family headed up by his Pep Boy grouch of a dad (James Gandolfini) — at least until rock ‘n’ roll saves his soul and he starts beating the skins. Graduating to better-than-average singer after his band’s frontman Eugene (Boardwalk Empire‘s Jack Huston) inhales a joint, Douglas not only finds his voice, but also wins over dream girl Grace (Bella Heathcote). Sure, Not Fade Away is about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll — and much attention is dutifully squandered on basement shows, band practice, and politics, and posturing with wacky new haircuts and funny cigarettes, thanks to Chase’s own background in garage bands and executive producer, music supervisor, and true believer Steve Van Zandt’s considerable passion. Yet despite the amount screen time devoted to rock’s rites, those familiar gestures never rise above the clichéd, and Not Fade Away only finds its authentic emotional footing when Gandolfini’s imposing yet trapped patriarch and the rest of Douglas’s beaten-down yet still kicking family enters the picture — they’re the force that refuses to fade away, even after they disappear in the rear view. (1:52) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

Parental Guidance (1:36) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

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

Promised Land Gus Van Sant’s fracking fable — co-written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, from a story by Dave Eggers — offers a didactic lesson in environmental politics, capped off by the earth-shattering revelation that billion-dollar corporations are sleazy and evil. You don’t say! Formulated like a Capra movie, Promised Land follows company man Steve Butler (Matt Damon) as he and sales partner Sue (Frances McDormand) travel to a small Pennsylvania town to convince its (they hope) gullible residents to allow drilling on their land. But things don’t go as smoothly as hoped, when the pair faces opposition from a science teacher with a brainiac past (Hal Holbrook), and an irritatingly upbeat green activist (Krasinski) breezes into town to further monkey-wrench their scheme. That Damon is such a likeable actor actually works against him here; his character arc from soulless salesman to emotional-creature-with-a-conscience couldn’t be more predictable or obvious. McDormand’s wonderfully biting supporting performance is the best (and only) reason to see this ponderous, faux-folksy tale, which targets an audience that likely already shares its point of view. (1:46) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Eddy)

Rise of the Guardians There’s nothing so camp as "Heat Miser" from The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) in Rise of the Guardians,, but there’s plenty here to charm all ages. The mystery at its center: we open on Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine) being born, pulled from the depths of a frozen pond by the Man on the Moon and destined to spread ice and cold everywhere he goes, invisible to all living creatures. It’s an individualistic yet lonely lot for Jack, who’s styled as an impish snowboarder in a hoodie and armed with an icy scepter, until the Guardians — spirits like North/Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) — call on him to join them. Pitch the Boogeyman (Jude Law) is threatening to snuff out all children’s hopes and dreams with fears and nightmares, and it’s up to the Guardians must keep belief in magic alive. But what’s in it for Jack, except the most important thing: namely who is he and what is his origin story? Director Peter Ramsey keeps those fragile dreams aloft with scenes awash with motion and animation that evokes the chubby figures and cozy warm tones of ’70s European storybooks. And though Pine verges on blandness with his vocal performance, Baldwin, Jackman, and Fisher winningly deliver the jokes. (1:38) Metreon. (Chun)

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

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

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

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Ben Richardson)

Texas Chainsaw 3D (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Tchopitoulas Three adolescent brothers enjoy a dusk-to-dawn night in the Big Easy — New Orleans, baby — in this impressionistic documentary that blurs the line between staged and sampled lyricism. Bill and Turner Ross’ film sets the trio loose in the French Quarter and beyond, where they sample the company of various drunks, buskers, oyster shuckers, painted ladies, and so forth. No laws are conspicuously broken, though a few get bent — it’s safe to say these kids probably won’t be visiting several environs again until they’re of legal drinking age. The long night is an inebriate dream of color and sound, strange but seldom menacing. Like the "city symphony" movies of the 1920s and 30s, this is less nonfiction cinema in a strict vérité vein than a poetically contrived ode to life — a life that’s sturdier than it looks, since Tchoupitoulas finds NO back to the business of partying like Katrina never happened. If you’re looking for a harder-edged portrait of the burg’s status quo, there are plenty of other documentaries to choose from; the Ross’ provide a woozy mash note rather than a sober pulse-taking. You’ll definitely want to go bar-hopping afterward. (1:20) Roxie. (Harvey)

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

Tristana The morality tale rarely gets as twisted as it does in Luis Buñuel’s 1970 late-in-the-day beauty Tristana. Working with Benito Perez Galdos’s novel, the filmmaker gleefully picked up a thread entwining erotic politics and S&M — explored to exquisite effect in 1967’s Belle de Jour and again offset by the immaculate bone structure of anti-heroine Catherine Deneuve — while bringing a corrosive intimacy to his black-humored disembowelment of a self-serving aristocracy, hypocritical church, and Franco-era fascism. Today it feels like one of Buñuel’s most personal and Spanish films, with the director-cowriter basing the impressionable Tristana on his sister Conchita. The starting point is an archetypal innocent "strange flower" clad in black, Tristana (Deneuve). She has been placed in the care of the aristocratic Don Lope (Buñuel regular Fernando Rey), a dissolute "senorito" (akin to Buñuel’s own father) who lives off his inheritance and espouses a kind of anti-clerical, antiauthoritarian, albeit elitist, libertine lifestyle. The patriarch can hardly deny himself anything, let alone his gorgeous ward, who is confined to the house like a prisoner and learns at Don Lope’s feet to despise the man who admits he’s her father or her husband, depending on when it suits him. Enter a dashing young artist Horacio (Franco Nero, the original Django) to spirit the increasingly embittered Tristana away from the battered, mazelike streets of Toledo, Spain. But that feat is far from easy when the "fallen" woman’s daydreams of teaching piano pale in comparison to a recurring nightmare of Don Lope’s head at the end of a rather phallic church bell clapper. What follows — photographed with disciplined, earthy beauty by cinematographer Jose Aguayo and now restored to its dusky, lustrous good looks—is a de-evolution of sorts, as both an innocent and corruptor are defiled, though Tristana‘s psychosexual reverberations, which would have given both Freud and the Marquis de Sade palpitations, echo out beyond the closing montage, its tolling bell, and the repeated heavy thud of a prosthetic slamming into the floor. (1:38) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

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

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

Balkan brass blowup

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Balkan brass blowup

emilysavage@sfbg.com

Tofu and Whiskey If you’re going to book a Balkan-influenced band, don’t expect the crowd to stay put. The Bay Area’s Inspector Gadje, an offshoot of the Brass Liberation Orchestra, usually packs in around 15 players, including 12 on horns and three percussionists. When the raucous group came marching through the wilderness (read: Golden Gate Park) during Outside Lands, it filled in crevices between trees, and created an instant party atmosphere between the main stages. Those fast-walking through the thoroughfare of Choco Lands stopped in their tracks, surrounded the group, and started dancing, against everyone’s better judgment. It all happened in the blink of a dirt-lodged eye.

“A lot of Balkan music has a great ‘party’ feel to it…even when the music includes moments or textures that might have a darker feel, the music is played with an undeniable exuberance,” says Oakland’s David Murray. “The rhythms of the Balkans; Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, etc., include many unusual time signatures that are compelling and especially attractive to musicians.”

Murray, a graphic designer by trade, is one of those musicians — he’s been playing bouzouki in Greek Rebetika band Disciples of Markos since 2004, and also plays fiddle in the Squirrelly Stringband, which is the house band for the North Oakland square dance (a “monthly underground hillbilly dance party,” as he describes it). As a combination of his art and music backgrounds, he also produces and designs albums for the Dust-to-Digital record label, which specializes in reissuing obscure folk and world music.

His newest project, however, is all about the music of the Balkans. He began the Berkeley Balkan Bacchanal (berkeleybalkanbacchanal.com) music series at Berkeley’s Starry Plough in October 2011. He got the idea after meeting like-minded acts in the Bay Area, with affinities for Southeastern European styles of music. In the past year or so, the monthly Balkan showcase has seen performances by Murray’s band, along with Inspector Gadje, Zoyres, Veretski Pass, Janam, Gadjitos, and a dozen or so more.

The last Berkeley Balkan Bacchanal of 2012 takes place this week, with Fanfare Zambaleta, “Middle Eastern marching band” MWE, and Helm, a group that specializes in Turkish classical and pop music (Thu/20, 8pm. Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck, Berk. www.starryploughpub.com). Murray says MWE, which includes three or four horns and the wailing Turkish reed (zurna), is known to play in the middle of the dancefloor with the crowd dancing around them. See? Instant party music.

I asked Murray if it’s been challenging to track down acts for this series, as it has such specific influences but he shut that down quick: “No, it hasn’t been difficult at all. There are a lot of great bands around here that fit into the theme of our series. At one point there were no less than three Balkan brass bands in town…And because we don’t mind pushing the boundaries of the Balkans to include neighboring influences, we’ve been able to feature bands that play Algerian music, Persian, and more.”

He added in some historical links, for good measure: “The Bay Area has a very vibrant Balkan music scene, which has some interesting origins in the 1960s, with bands like Kaleidoscope. The early California Renaissance Fairs provided an early outlet for many Balkan musicians, and music camps, such as Lark Camp in Mendocino, have been inspiring and teaching musicians for generations.”

As a novice listener, I’ve (admittedly) grown interested in Balkan sounds via more mainstream bands that have remote influences from the regions, acts like Balkan Beat Box and early Beirut, which typically blend sounds and instruments from a variety of places with pop and folk influences; but also thanks to Gogol Bordello and, more recently, Inspector Gadje, which is more purely influenced by the Balkan style.

“I tend to avoid bands that are actively ‘fusion,’ it doesn’t interest me much, especially bands that combine many styles,” Murray says. “It seems, to me, to usually dilute the very thing that makes the music interesting to begin with. But I’m sure there’s a wide range of opinions on this subject among the various bands and audience members.”

He says he’s more interested in bands that dig deep into the music they play, understanding the history and playing it in an authentic style. He brings up local bands such as Veretski Pass, which plays klezmer with accordion, fiddle, and bass, but also has studied the Jewish music of the Carpathian mountains, noting that the band will be back to the Starry Plough Jan. 17 for an all-klezmer night with the Gonifs.

But Murray points out that this doesn’t mean the acts of the Berkeley Balkan Bacchanal are rigid. “…that’s not to say that these bands are stuffy academics or that they don’t play with styles to some degree. On the contrary, most of the players are young and bring the music to life in a vibrant way that gets heads bobbing and feet dancing.”

“A great example is the Mano Cherga band, which played in September, and sounds like a Serbian party band you’d hear at a drunken wedding bash.”

Bring on the brass and vodka.

 

A VERY CASTLE FACE CHRISTMAS

There are a number of reasons why A Very Castle Face Christmas is an obvious choice. There’s performances by Thee Oh Sees, Blasted Canyons, Warm Soda, and recent GOLDIES winner the Mallard. Plus, it’s a benefit for the Coalition on Homelessness in SF, a very worthy cause. There’s also the added bonus of the venue itself. I just this week finally made it to a show at newish Mission venue the Chapel, and it was, frankly, charming — from the dark-wood high beam arched ceiling, to the multiple bars (three), to the band-watching angles (you can see from the main room, the balcony, and the soon-to-be-restaurant, plus there are flatscreens linked to cameras fixed on the stage). Win-win-win. Thu/20, 8:30pm, $15. Chapel, 777 Valencia, SF; www.thechapelsf.com.

 

HIGH ON FIRE

Following front person Matt Pike’s treatment for alcohol addiction, Oakland’s beloved stoner metal act High on Fire is back. Well, technically, the band has been back for about a month, touring the country on most recent release De Vermis Mysteriis. But this will be it’s first big show back in the Bay, where it belongs. With Goatwhore, Lo-Pan. Sat/22, 9pm, $21. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slimspresents.com.

CHURCHES

Remember this summer, when distortion-loving East Bay act CHURCHES was Kickstarting a record written for the pro-marriage equality cause? The band — led by Caleb Nichols of Port O’Brien and Grand Lake, Pat Spurgeon of Rogue Wave, and Dominic East — exceeded its goal, and that seven-inch (LOVELIFE) will see release at Bottom of the Hill this week. The trio also released a music video in conjunction with the record: interspersed with the band playing is a classic family portrait set-up with scenes of smiling families, and CHURCHES with their friends and loved ones, including Nichol’s fiance, Grand Lake drummer John Pomeroy. With Tijuana Panthers, Toshio Hirano. Sat/22, 9pm, $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF; www.bottomofthehill.com

YEAR IN MUSIC 2012: Top 10s Galore

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YEAR IN MUSIC 2012: Top 10s Galore

YEAR IN MUSIC Local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers sound off on the year’s best songs, album releases, shows, personal triumphs, and local acts.

 

 

HANNAH LEW, GRASS WIDOW

 

TOP 10 OF 2012

1. Starting our own label HLR and releasing our own record (Internal Logic)

2. Total Control’s LP

3. Touring with the Raincoats and singing “Lola” with them every night

4. Getting obsessed with Silver Apples

5. Hollywood Nails

6. Wymond Miles LP

7. Scrapers (band)

8. Sacred Paws (band)

9. Making eight music videos and losing my mind

10. Wet Hair’s LP

 

ANTWON, RAPPER

 

TOP 10 2012 RAP JAMZ

1. DJ Nate, “Gucci Gogglez” 2. Chief Keef, “Ballin” 3. French Montana, “Shot Coller” 4. Chippy Nonstop, “Money Dance” DJ Two Stacks remix 5. Cash Out, “Cashin’ Out” 6. Future, “Turn on the Lights” 7. Gucci Mane, “Bussin Juggs” 8. Juicy J, “Drugged Out” 9. Lil Mouse, “Don’t Get Smoked” 10. Lil Reese, “Traffic” feat. Chief Keef

 

MICHAEL KRIMPER, GUARDIAN

 

THE ENDLESS DESIRE LIST

 

(IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, OR, OUT OF ORDER)

1. Les Sins/”Fetch”/12″ (Jiaolong)

Run, fall, catch your desire.

2. The Soft Moon/”Want”/Zeros (Captured Tracks)

Infinite want, can’t have it. O, ye of bad faith.

3. Frank Ocean/”Pyramids”/channel ORANGE (Def Jam)

Pimping Cleopatra, whoring the pyramids.

4. Daphni aka Caribou/”Ye ye”/Jiaolong (Jiaolong)

Affirmation on repeat.

5. Grimes/”Genesis”/Visions (4AD)

Whatever, you know you like it.

6. Todd Terje/”Inspector Norse”/It’s the Arps (Olsen/Smalltown Supersound)

Inspecting never felt so good.

7. Burial/”Kindred”/Kindred (Hyperdub)

Kindred outcasts, jealously desiring their solitude.

8.John Talabot/”Estiu”/Fin (Permanent Vacation)

If a permanent vacation wasn’t hell, this might be its soundtrack.

9. Purity Ring/”Obedear”/Shrines (4AD)

Nothing pure in this abject need.

10. Kendrick Lamar/”A.D.H.D.”/good kid m.A.A.d city (Interscope)

Crack babies: she says, distracted, endless desire.

 

TYCHO, AKA SCOTT HANSEN

 

FAVORITE BAY AREA AND BAY AREA-AFFILIATED MUSIC ACTS

1. Toro Y Moi 2. Christopher Willits 3. Blackbird Blackbird 4. Jessica Pratt 5. Sam Flax 6. Ty Segall 7. Yalls 8. Doombird 9. Little Foxes 10. Dusty Brown

 

BEN RICHARDSON, GUARDIAN

 

BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2012

1. Dawnbringer, Into the Lair of the Sun God (Profound Lore)

2. Asphyx, Deathhammer (Century Media)

3. Woods of Ypres, V: Grey Skies & Electric Light (Earache)

4. Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats, Blood Lust (Metal Blade)

5. Pallbearer, Sorrow And Extinction (Profound Lore)

6. Windhand, Windhand (Forcefield Records)

7. Omens EP

8. Hour of 13, 333 (Earache)

9. Gojira, L’enfant Sauvage (Roadrunner)

10. Lord Dying, Demo

 

CALEB NICHOLS, CHURCHES

 

TOP 10 VINYL PURCHASED IN 2012, AND WHERE I PURCHASED THEM

1. The Shins, Port Of Morrow (Amazon — forgive me, I had a gift card.)

2. The Walkmen, Heaven (Urban Outfitters clearance — yeah, I know, but you can’t beat brand-new vinyl for $10.)

3. Various Artists, Death Might Be Your Santa Claus (Boo Boo Records, San Luis Obispo. My hometown record store.)

4. Ella Fitzgerald, Live at Montreaux (Boo Boo Records, San Luis Obispo)

5. Mahalia Jackson, Christmas With Mahalia (Abbot’s Thrift, Felton, CA — Great thrift store in the Santa Cruz Mountains.)

6. Benjamin Britten/Copenhagen Boys Choir, A Ceremony Of Carols (Abbot’s Thrift, Felton, Calif.)

7. Thurston Moore, Demolished Thoughts (Urban Outfitters clearance)

8. The Hunches, Exit Dreams (1234Go! Records, Oakland)

9. Various Artists/Angelo Badalamenti, Wild At Heart OST (Streetlight Records, Santa Cruz)

10. Tijuana Panthers, “Crew Cut” seven-inch (Picked up at show — Brick and Mortar Music Hall, San Francisco)

 

KACEY JOHANSING, SINGER-SONGERWRITER

 

TOP 10 FAVORITE SONGWRITERS IN THE BAY AREA

1. Sleepy Todd

2. Tommy McDonald of The Range of Light Wilderness

3. Emily Ritz of Yesway and DRMS (biased opinion, I know)

4. Kyle Field of Little Wings

5. Alexi Glickman of Sandy’s

6. Michael Musika

7. Bart Davenport

8. Indianna Hale

9. Jeffrey Manson

10. Sonya Cotton

 

HALEY ZAREMBA, GUARDIAN

 

TOP TEN CONCERTS OF 2012

1. El Ten Eleven at the New Parish

2. Good Old War at Slim’s

3. Girls at Bimbo’s

4. St Vincent and Tune-Yards at The Fox

5. Bomb the Music Industry! at Bottom of the Hill

6. Fucked Up at Slim’s

7. Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra at the Fillmore

8. Ariel Pink at Bimbo’s

9. Conor Oberst at the Fillmore

10. Titus Andronicus at the Great American Music Hall

 

CARLETTA SUE KAY, SINGER-SONGWRITER

 

BEST OF 2012

1. “See All Knows All,” A Thing By Sonny Smith at The Lost Church.

2. “Silent Music” music ephemera show at Vacation (651 Larkin) curated by Lee Reymore, opening party set by the Fresh and Onlys, after -party pot cookie monsters invade the Gangway.

3. Dusty Stax & The Bold Italic Present: “Summer Soul Friday Night”.

4. Wax Idol’s Hether Fortune fronting the Birthday Party cover band at Vacation.

5. Jessica Pratt’s debut LP (Birth Records).

6. Bambi Lake at the Museum of Living Art.

7. Pruno Truman, aka Heidi Alexander from the Sandwitches “Sleeping with the TV on” b/w Carletta Sue Kay “No, no” (Weird World).

8. Opening for Baby Dee at Brick & Mortar Music Hall.

9. Kelley Stoltz’s cover of “Sunday Morning” on Velvet Underground and Nico by Castle Face & Friends (Castle Face).

10. Christopher Owens premiers Lysandre live at the Lodge.

11. Mark Eitzel’s Don’t Be A Stranger (Merge) and its accompanying promo video series. Featuring Grace Zabriskie, Neil Hamburger, Parker Gibbs et al.

 

EMILY JANE WHITE, MUSICIAN

 

TOP 10 SONGS OF 2012 BY FEMALE ARTISTS

1. “Spinning Centers” Chelsea Wolfe: Unknown Rooms

2. “Who Needs Who” Dark Dark Dark: Who Needs Who

3. “Oblivion,” Grimes: Visions

4. “Old Magic” Mariee Sioux: Gift for the End

5. “Apostle” Marissa Nadler: The Sister

6. “In Your Nature” Zola Jesus: seven-inch (w/ David Lynch Re-Mix)

7. “Silent Machine” Cat Power: Sun

8. “Moon in My Mind,” Frankie Rose: Interstellar

9. “Serpents,” Sharon Van Etten: Tramp

10. “Video Games,” Lana Del Rey: Born to Die

 

MORNIN’ OLD SPORT

 

FAVORITE ARTISTS/ALBUMS

1.Moons, Bloody Mouth

2.Patti Smith, Banga

3.Mykki Blanco, Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss Mixtape

4.ABADABAD, The Wild EP

5.Kendrick Lamar, Good Kid m.A.A.d city

6.Shady Hawkins, Dead to Me

7.Howth, Newkirk

8. Bikini Kill EP (reissue)

9. Sharky Coast, Pizza Dreamz demo

10. FIDLAR, No Waves/No Ass seven-inch

 

ROSS PEACOCK AND NATHAN TILTON, MWAHAHA

 

ALMOST TOP 10 ALBUMS (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

1. Air, Le voyage dans la lune

2. Naytronix, Dirty Glow

3. I Come To Shanghai, Eternal Life Vol. 2

4. Beak, >>

5. Steve Moore and Majeure, Brainstorm

6. Clipd Beaks, Wake

7. Brian Eno, LUX

8. Neurosis, Honor Found in Decay

ALMOST TOP 10 SHOW (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

1. Pulp at the Warfield: Think that was this year. Cocker sings sexy

2. Red Red Red: just saw this guy play at a warehouse in Oakland…live house music made with actual hardware!

3. Flying Lotus at the Fox was pretty epic….. insane visuals.

5. Lumerians at the Uptown

6. Neurosis at the Fox: Fuck!

7. Deerhoof at SXSW ….. maybe the best live band in the universe

8. Indian Jewelry at the Terminal …. strobe light universe

 

EMILY SAVAGE, GUARDIAN

 

LIVE SHOWS THAT CREATED THE MOST POSI MEMORIES IN 2012

1. Feb. 14: Black Cobra, Walken, Yob at New Parish

2. Feb. 23: Budos Band and Allah-Lahs at the Independent

3. March 30: Hot Snakes at Bottom of the Hill

4. April 10: Jeff Mangum at the Fox Theater,

5. July 21: Fresh and Onlys and La Sera at Phono Del Sol Music Fest

6. July 28: Total Trash BBQ Weekend at the Continental Club

7. Aug. 11: Metallica at Outside Lands

8. Aug. 31: Eyehategod at Oakland Metro

9. Oct. 9: Saint Vitus at the Independent

10. Oct. 27: Coachwhips and Traditional Fools at Verdi Club

 

NEW ALBUMS I LISTENED TO ENDLESSLY IN 2012

1. Grass Widow, Internal Logic (HLR)

2. Cloud Nothings, Attack on Memory (Carpark)

3. Ty Segall, Slaughterhouse (In the Red)

4. Dum Dum Girls, End of Daze EP (Sub Pop)

5. Frankie Rose, Interstellar (Slumberland)

6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Alleluja! Don’t Bend! Ascend! (Constellation)

7. The Fresh and Onlys, Long Slow Dance (Mexican Summer)

8. THEESatisfaction, awE naturalE (Sub Pop)

9. Terry Malts, Killing Time (Slumberland)

10. Guantanamo Baywatch, Chest Crawl (Dirtnap Records)

 

TAYLOR KAPLAN, GUARDIAN

 

TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2012

1. Hiatus Kaiyote: Tawk Tomahawk (self-released) I could tell you that a bunch of white Australians somehow merged the sound-worlds of Erykah Badu, J Dilla, and Thundercat into a 30-minute, self-released debut LP that rivals the best work of any of those musicians, but you just might have to hear for yourself: hiatuskaiyote.bandcamp.com.

2. Lone: Galaxy Garden (R&S) This is the Lone album we’ve been waiting for. The British laptop producer’s past efforts, while exquisitely lush, were inhibited by a sense of hollow simplicity; Galaxy Garden, his danciest effort yet, shows improvement on nearly every front, from generously layered percussion, to a nuanced, bittersweet take on melody and harmony. A gorgeous fulfillment of Lone’s hedonistic vision.

3. Scott Walker: Bish Bosch (4AD) Difficult as it is to proclaim Bish Bosch 2012’s best album, (its hulking weight and unyielding grimness renders casual listening a difficult proposition) no LP this year has matched its gutsiness and sonic adventurousness, or consolidated so many ideas into a singular space. An array of musical possibilities as dense, thorny, and encyclopedic as a Pynchon novel, with Walker’s quivering, operatic baritone as its sole, anchoring force.

4. Zammuto: s/t (Temporary Residence) Former Books member Nick Zammuto’s solo debut impresses with its vitality and strength of purpose. Despite the heightened emphasis on conventional songwriting this time around, Zammuto strikes that divine balance between bewildering sound-collage and pop approachability that made the Books such an endearing project in the first place.

5. Tame Impala: Lonerism (Modular) Kevin Parker’s first LP as a lone, multitracking solo artist under the Tame Impala moniker, is a bubbly, golden pop album, despite its pervasive theme of existential dread. Its hooks achieve a weird form of transcendence, befitting the Beatles and Britney Spears in equal measure.

6. Laurel Halo: Quarantine (Hyperdub) Much like Oneohtrix Point Never’s Replica (2011), Quarantine is ideal soundtrack material for those late-night, marathon web-surfing sessions that seem to transcend time and space. Halo’s cold, glassy electronics are anchored by dry, straightforward vocals on an album that occupies a mysterious void between vocal pop and ambient electronica.

7. Field Music: Plumb (Memphis Industries) Less a song-cycle than a series of hooks, Field Music’s latest is the work of a band with a hundred wonderful ideas up its sleeve, and only 35 minutes to communicate them. Channeling the impulsive energy of Abbey Road‘s second half with proggy dexterity, Plumb cements this vastly underrated British outfit as one of the most visionary songwriting duos around.

8. THEESatisfaction: awE naturalE (Sub Pop) Splitting the difference between progressive hip-hop and neo-soul, this Seattle duo’s breakthrough record zips through its 30-minute run-time with remarkable tenacity and economy. Bearing the exhilarating energy of J Dilla’s rip-roaring beat-tapes, and shrewd lyricism that effortlessly balances the political, the personal, and the cosmic, awE naturalE feels urgently, confrontationally NOW.

9. Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin: Live (ECM) Not quite nu-jazz, math-rock, or classical minimalism, Swiss ensemble Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin is as compelling, and innovative, as any live band around, tackling Reichian time signatures with the borderline robotic technical ability of Juilliard grads, and the undeniable groove of an airtight funk band.

10. d’Eon: LP (Hippos In Tanks) Approaching the tongue-in-cheek meta-pop of James Ferraro’s Far Side Virtual with a twisted mythology of Christianity and Islam vs. iPhones and the Internet, and a bizarrely heavy dose of Phil Collins’ influence, d’Eon’s LP‘s totally dubious backstory is redeemed by solid songwriting, lush synths, killer keyboard solos, and a ’70s big-time art-rock sensibility. The most convoluted release to date from the prankish Hippos In Tanks imprint.

Honorable mention: Farrah Abraham: My Teenage Dream Ended (self-released) You can’t make this shit up: the year’s weirdest, most haunted and terrifying album wasn’t brought to us by Swans or Scott Walker, but the star of MTV’s Teen Mom. Trapped between the real world, and a web-based alter-reality, it’s the sound of an All American girl, brought up on The Notebook and Titanic, finding herself imprisoned in a Lynchian nightmare.

 

Our Weekly Picks: December 12-18

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 12/12

"The Lion and the Lamb"

Sam Flores, a graffiti-inspired artist whose work often deals with religious themes, now turns his attention to the conflicting symbols of violence and innocence. His recent paintings, which show a more classical style than previous works, depict the lion and the lamb amongst other figures in chaotic, urban settings. These bold and deeply hued paintings convey the convoluted relationship between good and evil. As a prominent artist in the crossover between urban and fine arts, you may have found his work alongside painter-designer, Jeremy Fish or tagger-tattoo artist, Mike Giant. Like many others, Flores got his start designing for skateboard and clothing companies, but with more and more solo exhibits, his painting has begun to flourish. This show should be a great example of the strong voice he has found. (Molly Champlin)

Through Feb. 12

Opening reception tonight, 6:30pm, free

Fifty24SF

218 Fillmore, SF

(415) 861-1960

www.fifty24sf.com

WEDNESDAY 12/12

Charles Phoenix Holiday Show


Oddball Americana guru Charles Phoenix has explored and celebrated the best in kitschy, cool, and kooky artifacts and history for many years now, having written several books on mid-20th century, deep-fried pop culture, fashion, lifestyle and more. The author of tomes such as Southern California In The 50s, and Americana The Beautiful brings his hilarious holiday show and talk to the city, set to roast not just Christmas, but all of the holidays with his ever-growing collection of slides and tales of his off-beat and always colorful road trip adventures. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $25

Empress of China Ballroom

838 Grant, SF

www.charlesphoenix.com

WEDNESDAY 12/12

"How The Grouch Stole Christmas"


The Grouch is continuing his annual holiday hip-hop tour through 18 cities across the West Coast. This year the merry night in San Francisco will include performances by Bay Area native Mistah F.A.B., Minneapolis-based artist Prof, DJ Fresh, and of course, the Grouch and Eligh. Apart from the live show, Mistah F.A.B. will host a Battle of the Bands/MCs Showcase where participants will have the platform to show their own talent. The freestyle champion will win a Grouch Merchandise pack and a pair of Able Planet studio headphones. (Soojin Chang)

8pm, $20

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

THURSDAY 12/13

Subterranean Arthouse’s Third Annual Chanukah Party


Yiddish supergroups, klezmer dance parties, and tzedakah, all wrapped into one shiny gold coin of an evening. The Subterranean Arthouse’s Chanukah Party is part of Heather Klein’s "Hungry for Yiddish: A Mitzvah Project" concert series, which donates proceeds from events to the Berkeley Food Pantry and similar organizations; and the event is co-presented by KlezCalifornia and the Jewish Music Festival. Acts include Klein’s Inextinguishable Trio, Anthony Mordechai-Tzvi Russell, noted Yiddish dance instructor Bruce Bierman, and Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band. With instructions from Bierman, the lovely Yiddish songs of both Klein and Russell, and Goodman’s brassy klezmer, this should make for a fun, frenzied mid-point party during the festival of lights — and yes, they’ll light the menorah. Chag Sameach, Berkeley. (Emily Savage)

9pm, $10–$20 donation

Subterranean Arthouse

2169 Bancroft, Berk.

Klezmer.brownpapertickets.com

FRIDAY 12/14

Dylan Moran


Perhaps best known to American audiences for his appearances in Shaun of the Dead and Run, Fatboy, Run, Irish comedian Dylan Moran is a huge hit in his native UK, notably for his brilliant role as a cantankerous and drunk, yet lovable book shop owner in the tragically short-lived BBC series "Black Books." His live stand-up is where he’s really making his name now though; his current "Yeah, Yeah" tour is only stopping in New York, Los Angele, and here in San Francisco — consider yourself lucky and don’t miss your chance to see one of funniest comics on either side of the pond. (McCourt)

Also Sat/15, 8pm, $35

Marines Memorial Theatre

609 Sutter, SF

(415) 771-6900

www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com

FRIDAY 12/14

The Mountain Goats


I’d like to sit on some front porch (any porch, really) with John Darnielle and just listen to him tell stories — maybe over a glass of whiskey and several puffs of something. Sometimes telling the truth, but mostly relying on a wild imagination, the Mountain Goat’s dynamic leader has been writing songs about addiction, infidelity, and more sensitive subjects for the last 20 years. The group’s new album, Transcendental Youth, has been an excuse for Darnielle to branch out, inviting avant-symphonic rocker, Matthew E. White, to write horns for the album and working with Owen Pallett to arrange the songs for a collaboration with the a cappella quartet, Anonymous 4. This should be a well-worn show — mixing old and new in a chaotic journey through the picaresque scenes of Darnielle’s mind. (Champlin)

With Matthew E. White

9pm, $28

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

FRIDAY 12/14

"Diez Por Arriba"


The glorious annual flamenco season is in full swing — so much emotion, so much drama, so much invigorating live sound and movement, olé! It’s all a perfect rehearsal for your upcoming family holiday gatherings. Next up, fantastic choreographer Yaelisa and her Caminos Flamencos company, an enthralling troupe that stomps, whirls, hypnotizes, and enraptures like a force of nature, all under the expert musical direction of Jason McGuire "El Rubio." I would say the distinguishing feature of Yaelisa’s work is its generous spirit and breadth of technique. As evidenced by Caminos’ show last year, she favors longer solos and duos, giving each featured performer enough time to weave a spell of exquisite technique and subtle variations. Gorgeous costumes (hello, tight-pantsed toreadors!) and music from an international ensemble helps turn up the magic past 10. (Marke B.)

Also Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 3pm, $20–$40

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

www.caminosflamenco.com

SATURDAY 12/15

"In One Hand A Ghost, The Other An Atom"


As urban art has become more popular, many taggers are making a profit from their work in the gallery world. New2, who has been writing in Australia since the movement began in the early ’80s, is one of these. He’s worked in a variety of spray paint alternatives when bringing his work indoors, including paint, sculpture, and paper. His most recent project, "In One Hand A Ghost, The Other an Atom," uses intricate, paper cut-outs to merge his long tradition of writing (the ghost) with his futuristic take on letters (the atom). In the show, care and thoughtfulness form the same bright colors, geometric currents, and space themes that he has developed in years of experimentation on trains and empty walls. (Champlin)

Through Jan. 5

7pm, free

White Walls Gallery

835 Larkin, SF

(415) 931-1500

www.whitewallssf.com

SATURDAY 12/15

Pilot 61


Making dances — we all know — is a lonely and precarious enterprise. You can’t just sit down on your keyboard and write your poems. You need bodies and a bigger area than your kitchen. That’s why ODC’s Pilot program is such a gift to young choreographers. They get 11 weeks, a studio, a tiny budget, and a lot of feedback. In return, they have to commit to two public performances — of which we are the beneficiary. Seeing what gifted but not-yet-established choreographers come up with is a thrill like few others. In its 61st incarnation, Pilot will introduce Jenni Bregman, David Schleiffers, Katharine Hawthorne, Erin Malley, and Phoebe Osborne. They are calling the program Nightcap. (Rita Felciano)

Also Sun/16, 8pm, $12

ODC Dance Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9833

www.odctheater.org

SATURDAY 12/15

Found Footage Festival


You’ve seen ’em: those piles of mysterious VHS tapes, often unmarked, gathering dust at Community Thrift. Found Footage Festival curator-hosts Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett live for the thrill that comes from finding bizarre, hilarious cast-off videos — and they’re on the road, sharing their fascination with audiences across the country. The 2012 program of repurposed entertainment looks to be stuffed with gems, gut-busters, and things that make you go "WTF?": ferret-care tips, freaky craft-sponging, and something called "The Sexy Treadmill Workout." Head to the FFF website to whet your appetite with the "VHS Find of the Day" feature. Two words: cat massage. (Cheryl Eddy)

Also Sun/16, 8pm, $13

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.foundfootagefest.com

MONDAY 12/17

Dee Dee and Brandon


Dee Dee from the Dum Dum Girls and Brandon from the Crocodiles are in love — married, in fact, and make a rather swoon-worthy couple. She with her thick-lined lids and vertical striped tights, he with his dark sunglasses. Listen to Dee Dee’s crooning on "Bedroom Eyes" off 2011’s Only In Dreams, in which she repeats "fear I’ll never sleep again" and you start to get a sense of their connection, and the pain they feel apart on separate tours. To view said connection live, in all its gushy splendor, be the voyeur at their joint Rickshaw Stop show tonight; a very special showcase, indeed, where both will perform songs from their respective catalogs and — as I can only imagine — harmonize like old lovers do. Like Johnny and June, Exene and John Doe, all those passionate, oft-heartsick music mates that have come before them, the duo is sugar and spice with a splash of whiskey. (Savage)

With Gio and Stef (Young Prisms)

8pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF (415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

TUESDAY 12/18

Kinky Friedman


Although he has garnered a considerable amount of national mainstream success in the last 25 years as the author of a series of popular mystery novels and non-fiction books touching on politics, writer and all-around raconteur Kinky Friedman first made a name for himself as a singer and songwriter. In the early 1970s, along with his band the Texas Jewboys (he was raised by Jewish parents in the Lone Star State), he penned a slew of country and twang-tinged tunes such as the rollicking and humorous "They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore." He hits the city tonight as part of his "Bipolar" tour. This is your chance to meet the man, as he promises to "sign anything but bad legislation!" (McCourt)

With Brian Molnar

8pm, $25

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

www.cafedunord.com


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Snap Sounds: Scott Walker

Tony Robles
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1

SCOTT WALKER
BISH BOSCH
(4AD)

When pop crooner Scott Walker plunged into the abyss on 1995’s Tilt, he initiated one of the most radical transformations in the history of recorded music, rejecting the tuneful chamber pop of his ’60s-’70s output for a pitch-black sludge of musique concrète, avant-classical, and industrial art-rock. Walker hasn’t looked back since, doubling down with 2005’s The Drift, and now Bish Bosch: an album as erratic, scary, unhinged, darkly hilarious, and wildly imaginative as any in recent memory.

Replacing The Drift’s murky, viscous slog with rapid-fire sequences of tension and release, Bish Bosch is defined by its jarring contrasts between musical extremes. Ominous electronic and orchestral drones barely establish themselves, before giving way to noisy, abrasive blocks of punishing drums and brawny guitar stabs.

Exotic instrumentation (harpsichords, Samba percussion, zithers, ukuleles), textural shifts, and lyrical themes (Julius Caesar, fart noises, Polynesia, Yo Mama jokes) pop up and recede impulsively, building an array of musical possibilities as dense, thorny, and encyclopedic as a Pynchon novel, with Walker’s quivering, operatic baritone as its sole, anchoring force.

Difficult as it is to proclaim Bish Bosch 2012’s best album, (its hulking weight and unyielding grimness renders casual listening a near impossibility) no LP this year has matched its gutsiness and sonic adventurousness, or consolidated so many ideas into a single musical statement.

With everyone from from McCartney to Rod Stewart sacrificing their integrity to fill arenas and Christmas stockings, Walker remains an anomaly among 70-year-olds in the music biz. May he continue on his long, strange trip down the rabbit hole.

Creating our own traditions

Andrew Lam
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0
Creating our own traditions

culture@sfbg.com

HOLIDAY GUIDE Hold onto your butts, sweethearts, ’tis the season. Your kids are about to be out of school, your extended family is about to fly in, and your alone time is about to dwindle down to a nub.

Don’t fear, we’ve got you covered.

This holiday guide is designed specifically for LGBTQ families, sex-positive families, and other parents who don’t fit into the monogamous, heteronormative mold. Why? Most holiday advice directed at families comes with a heaping dose of heterosexism. Plus, feeling isolated from larger community networks — a common experience for parents — is especially prevalent among parents with sexual identities that reside outside the norm. That feeling of not being connected can result in stress on alt-families during the holiday season.

But not this season! This year we’ve got tips, a recipe, and events to keep you loving your queer, kinky, radical-parenting self.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

The easiest way to stay sane during the holidays is to maximize the friends and family you’ve already got. If you’re not careful, a house full of holiday guests can seriously cut down on the already limited amount of sexytime parents are allotted.

So don’t think that you have to be the one to take your children to the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band’s Dance-Along Nutcracker. Try to get your in-laws to do it, while you squeeze in a quickie with your partner or have a grown-up play date with your friend with benefits. Sure, you still have to wrap the kids’ presents — but you should really have someone unwrap your clothing first.

In this truly unique SF version of the Nutcracker, the audience dances along while the Freedom Band plays Tchaikovsky’s classical suite. Tutus are available for rent on site.

Dec. 8, 2:30 p.m. and Dec. 9, 1pm, $25 for adults, $16 for children and seniors. sflgfb.townalive.com

HOLIDAY HEALING

The best part about being a non-traditional parent is that we create the rituals. Here’s two family-focused events that each seek to empower parents.

At Rad Dad Zine’s 23rd issue release party — celebrating an end-of-the-year issue appropriately titled “Making Family” — parents will do short readings from the zine, followed by a discussion on radical parenting at this kid-friendly community gathering. Parenting norms? Hmph, let’s go poke at stick at them.

Dec. 15, 5-7pm, free. The Holdout, 2313 San Pablo, Oakl. raddadzine.blogspot.com

You’re encouraged to “bring the foods and holiday traditions that make this season meaningful to your family” to the annual Our Family Winter Solstice Party. This year, the LGBTQ group is partnering with San Francisco Recreation and Parks to hold the celebration at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center, where the party will feature a magician, the group’s legendary multi-table gingerbread-making station, and other arts and crafts.

Dec. 16, noon-2:30pm, free. Eureka Valley Recreation Center, 100 Collingwood, SF. www.ourfamily.org

POTLUCK LIKE A MOFO

I encourage potluck-style casual dinners with other families during the holiday season. It doesn’t have to be a big production, and if it’s other parents who are coming over, your house doesn’t even have to be super-clean. (They get it.) Just offering a space to gather is an important contribution, and if it goes well, next time around a different family can host.

At the best family holiday potluck I ever went to, the kids made all the food. My sons were six and seven at the time, and weren’t allowed to use sharp knives or the stove, as was the case for most of the other children in our little after school collective. We found easy, no-cook recipes that they could make with very little assistance from their grown-ups.

The variety of dishes we wound up with was hilarious and festive — probably not the most balanced meal ever cooked, but nutritional concerns took a back seat to the pride the kids felt in sharing food they had made themselves. The hands-down favorite dish of the evening was this little number:

NO-BAKE HOLIDAY ÉCLAIR CAKE

Ingredients:

1 package instant vanilla pudding mix

1 container frozen whipped topping, thawed

3 cups milk

1 package graham cracker squares

1 package prepared chocolate frosting

1 package holiday M&M’s

Directions:

Whisk together the pudding mix, whipped topping, and milk. Arrange as you would a lasagna, with a single layer of graham cracker squares in the bottom of a 13×9 inch baking pan. Drop spoonfuls of the pudding mixture over the crackers, leaving about half in the bowl. Then add another layer of crackers and the remaining mixture. Top with the last of crackers. Spread the frosting over the whole cake, up to the edges of the pan. Place M&M’s on the frosting. Cover, and chill at least four hours before serving.

GIVE THIS GIFT

No holiday guide would be complete without the perfect gift recommendation. I’m bestowing this honor on Santa Rosa-based Calliope Designs’s personalized holiday ornaments. The company has been making them for over 30 years, and its website specifically states how happy it is to make ornaments for LGBTQ families: “We know that families come in all shapes and sizes and are happy to present ornaments to the gay and lesbian partners and families all over the world.” How can you not adore that?

www.calliopedesigns.com

KEEP IT CLASSY

Regardless of if you’re having sex alone or with a partner, your sexuality matters. That can mean prioritizing some grown-up time at one of the great sex-ed classes offered by Good Vibrations. I’ve heard that sometimes attendees leave with a free gift! The only challenge is that classes are during prime “must be at home with the kids” time. How to resolve? Do a childcare swap that includes dinner. One day a week, you host the brood, then later in the week your parent-ally can host. Maybe you can even attend a Good Vibes “Humpday Happy Hour” workshop. Every Wednesday you can find a free sexuality workshop at one of the store’s Bay Area locations. Here are two upcoming classes that I highly recommend:

“The Art of Clitoral Stimulation” Dec. 6, 6:30-7:30pm, free. Good Vibrations, 1620 Polk, SF;”50 Shades of Play” Dec. 12, 6:30-7:30pm, free. Good Vibrations, 603 Valencia, SF. (415) 522-5460, www.goodvibes.com

Airial Clark is the Sex-Positive Parent, an East Bay sex educator who teaches workshops on raising kids outside heteronormative models of family. Read more about her work at www.thesexpositiveparent.com

 

Run over by a reindeer

Andrew Lam
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Run over by a reindeer

culture@sfbg.com

EVENTS

Union Square ice-skating rink Union Square, SF. www.unionsquareicerink.com. Through Jan. 16, 10 a.m.-11:30 p.m. except for when closed for private parties, $10 for 90-minute session. Sweetheart, the rink is open, grab my hand and try not to twist an ankle as we glide in circles around downtown’s living room.

Westin St. Francis sugar castle Westin St. Francis, Landmark Lobby, 335 Powell, SF. www.westinstfrancis.com. Through Jan. 24, on view 24 hours/day. Don’t lick it. For although this ever-growing sweet behemoth which each holiday season occupies the lobby of downtown’s classic luxury digs with its 1,300 pounds, 20 towers, 30 rooms, and sugar replicas of 2012’s movers and shakers has a hold on our heart, its original dimensions were sugar-spun back in 2005. Incredibly made, undeniably festive, but altogether inappropriate for dietary purposes.

Jack London Square holiday tree lighting Jack London Square, Oakl. www.jacklondonsquare.com. Nov. 30, 4:30-7pm, free. Performances by Disney-approved pop stars! Reindeer petting zoo! Miss California 2012 and a kids dress-up station with costumes from the Oakland Ballet! You’ll be hard-pressed not to find some holiday cheer at this annual lighting of Jack London’s fir tree for the masses.

Oakland-Alameda Estuary Lighted Yacht Parade Visible from Jack London Square, Oakl. www.lightedyachtparade.com. Dec. 1, 5:30pm, free. Let those cheeks get rosy, it’s boat-watching time. This yearly tradition sees the yacht owners of the East Bay putting their aquatic rides on display, stringing bulbs galore across decks and sails.

Festival of lights Union between Van Ness and Steiner, Fillmore between Union and Lombard, SF. www.sresproductions.com. Dec. 1, 3-7pm, free. Wiggle your nose at Santa at this explosion of twinkly tinsel and Cow Hollow reindeer — today Union Street puts on the holiday glitz and lays out the welcome mat. Cudworth Mansion (2040 Union) will be hosting a cupcake-decorating session from 3:30-5:30pm, at which Old St. Nick himself will make an appearance out front.

Golden Gate Park holiday tree lighting McLaren Lodge, 501 Stanyan, SF. www.sfrecpark.org. Dec. 6, 5pm, free. A tradition started by Golden Gate Park grandfather and San Francisco’s first park superintendent John McLaren in 1929, the lighting of the tree returns to Fell Street for the 83rd year in a row. Accompanying fanfare includes live performances, carnival rides, and a visit from Saint Nick.

Great Dickens Christmas Fair Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, SF. www.dickensfair.com. Fri/23 and Sat.-Sun. Sat/24-Dec. 23, 10am-7pm, $21-25. For an ace weekend drunk this holiday season, toodle over to the Cow Palace. Once ensconced in the warm period embrace of the Dickens Fair, you will have the run of five bars (absinthe!), a multitude of meat pie shoppes, hilarious accents, near-constant stage shows, and the company of “famous Victorians,” including Charles Dickens and Her Majesty, the queen herself.

Family holiday crafts day Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, SF. (415) 554-9600, www.randallmuseum.org. Dec. 1, 10am-3pm, free admission, activities fees vary. Bring the kiddos to the always-free-admission Randall Museum so they can spend the morning making holiday decorations and gifts. Cap off the morning with a performance by Asian American performance troupe Eth-Noh-Tec and its fusion of ancient and contemporary movement.

Community Hanukkah candle lighting Jewish Community Center, 3200 California, SF. (415) 292-1200, www.jccsf.org. Dec. 8-14, 4:30pm, free. Join up with your neighbors for the Jewish Community Center’s daily lighting of the menorah in the building’s atrium. Attend the Shabbat celebration on Dec. 14 for a family storytelling session, grape juice, hallah, and Hanukkah gelt.

Bill Graham Menorah Day Union Square, SF. www.chabadsf.org. Dec. 9, festivities start at 3pm, menorah lighting at 5pm, free. Each day from December 8-15, a candle will be ceremoniously lit on the Bill Graham mahogany menorah, a gift from the famous San Francisco promoter to his city. But on the 9th, Bill Graham Menorah Day festivities will occupy Union Square, a beautiful beginning to the Festival of Lights in the city.

Public library winter celebration Bernal Heights Library, 500 Cortland, SF. www.sfpl.org. Dec. 12, 6:30-8:30pm, free. The library’s got all kinds of free holiday programming this year, from cupcake-decorating and card-making to a magic show with a winter wonderland theme. Today’s no exception: join the Bernal Heights community for a kid-friendly celebration featuring the Bernal Jazz Quintet, refreshments, and children’s movies.

Frosting the Conservatory Conservatory of Flowers, 100 John F. Kennedy, SF. (415) 831-2090, www.conservatoryofflowers.org. Dec. 15, 11am-3pm, $10. Make your own ginger-greenhouse at this event amid the hothouse blooms of the Conservatory of Flowers. This events gets our thumbs-up for guaranteed toastiness, because being warm and cozy is a pre-req for Christmas cheer.

Jewish Christmas with Broke Ass Stuart The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., SF. www.makeoutroom.com. Dec. 25, 5-11pm, $10. Strip dreidel set to the tune of streaming Woody Allen, Larry David, and Sascha Baron Cohen footage sounds like our kind of Christmas. Such was the vision of DJ Matt Haze and host Broke Ass Stuart, who designed this kitschy extravaganza for all of you (Chosen and Left Behind alike) who can’t stomach staying in on a perfectly good day off. Did we mention there will be a Chinese food buffet?

Kwanzaa celebration Bay Area Discovery Museum, 557 McReynolds, Sausalito. www.baykidsmuseum.org. Dec. 26, 9am-5pm, free. A traditional Kwanzaa altar will greet you upon arriving at the kids museum’s celebration of African-American culture, featuring two performance (at 11am and 1pm) by African Roots of Jazz.

PERFORMANCE

The Christmas Ballet Various times and Bay Area locations. www.smuinballet.org. Nov. 23 — Dec. 23, $25-65. Back by popular demand, the Smuin Ballet Company returns with this annual production, split this year into two acts: “Classical Christmas” and “Cool Christmas.” Both promise eye-opening, energetic entertainment set to eclectic tunes from Elvis to klezmer.

A Christmas Carol American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary, SF. (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. Nov. 30-Dec. 24, various times, $20–$160. Stressful election year and rumors of apocalypse tightened those purse strings? Exorcise your inner Scrooge at this classic stage production of Charles Dickens’ terrifying ode to generosity and kindness towards diminutive children.

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St., SF. www.victoriatheatre.org. Dec. 6-30, Thu.-Sat. 8pm, Sun. 7pm, $30. Our cover girl Cookie Dough co-stars as Sophia Petrillo in this now-traditional SF holiday stage production of the classic sitcom that employs more shoulder pads, even, than the original TV show. You’ll never know a catty elderly network television star until you’ve seen her re-enacted by a drag queen. Buy tickets pronto, the shows usually sell out.

California Revels Oakland Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside, Oakl. (510) 452-8800, www.californiarevels.org. Dec. 7-9, 13-15. Fridays 8pm, Saturdays and Sundays 1 and 5pm, $20-55. Feast and family are cornerstones of this annual interactive period piece performance celebrating the winter solstice. Hoist your mead and turkey leg and sway to the music, friends, good times will be upon ye here.

The Nutcracker Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF. www.cityballetschool.org. Dec. 8, 2pm & 7pm; Dec. 9, 2pm, $20. Yes, everyone does The Nutcracker. At this point, it’s like the Rocky Horror Picture Show of ballet. (Would that ballet patrons donned Rat King costumes to attend!) Embrace the tradition, and check out the City Ballet School’s production of a classic.

Charles Phoenix Retro Holiday Show Empress of China Ballroom, 838 Grant, SF. www.charlesphoenix.com. Dec. 12, 8pm, $25. The creator of the Cherpumple, a pie-stuffed cake concoction that rises to the dizzying heights of kitsch, humorist Charles Phoenix celebrates the retro in every occasion. Tonight, he regales the crowd with tales of his favorite SF landmarks, road trips, and yes, feats of food fantasy.

Holiday youth mariachi concert Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF. www.missionculturalcenter.org. Dec. 14, 7:30-9pm, $15. Three mariachi troupes made of young people join forces for this exciting holiday program. The hat-dropping, guitar plucking action will be highlighted by Zenon Barron’s Mexican youth folk dance class.

The Snowman Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF. (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. Dec. 22, 11am, $13.50-57. Even the smallest budding season ticket holder will find this film-symphony presentation of Joe Nesbø’s classic children’s book a welcome boost to their holiday cheer. The animated version of this story of a youg’n’ whose bud is a Frosty-like chap will soar when paired with the world-class musicians of the SF Symphony.

Kung Pao Kosher Comedy New Asia Restaurant, 772 Pacific, SF. www.koshercomedy.com. Dec. 22-25, various times, $44-64. There’s nothing like having dinner on Christmas to up your alterna (or simply, not pan-Christian) cred. Add stand up comedy and you have a winning formula, which is obvious from the longevity of Lisa Gedulig’s annual show. This year features yucks from Judy Gold, Mike Capozzola, and Adrianne Tolsch.

Clairdee’s Christmas Yoshi’s San Francisco, 1330 Fillmore, SF. (415) 655-5600, www.yoshis.com. Dec. 24, 8pm, $20. Everything could use a little soul in lives and the holidays are no exception. Come hear the sounds of soul-jazz vocalist Clairdee, and soak in her ensemble’s rhythmic takes on Christmas standards.

“Holiday Memories” double feature A rare 16mm showing of Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales will be accompanied by a screening of The Sweater, a tale of a young hockey player’s passion for the sport, and the dangers that come of wearing the wrong jumper. Dec. 22, 2pm, Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, SF. (415) 563-7337, www.exploratorium.edu

PEACE ON EARTH

Darkness and Light: A Hanukkah Meditation Retreat Jewish Community Center, 3200 California, SF. (415) 292-1200, www.jccsf.org. Dec. 9, 10am-5pm, $50-60. No prior experience is needed for this day-long workshop on finding the light within during the Hanukkah season. Sitting and walking meditation will be covered — the perfect primer for a month that can try the patience of even the most festive reveler.

Winter solstice ceremony San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page, SF. (415) 863-3136, www.sfzc.org. Dec. 21, 6:15pm, free. Recharge on the longest night of the year in the peaceful confines of the SF Zen Center. The crowd here promises to be made of meditation newbies, Zen Center students, and all those in-between. It will also be your best bet to avoid jingles and tinsel, if that’s what your body is craving at this point.

Reclaiming’s Sing Up The Sun ritual Inspiration Point parking lot, Tilden Park, Berk. www.reclaiming.org. Dec. 21, 6:30am, free. Wake up before the sun does to greet it on this, the day of the year when it spends the least time out of its bed. A pagan celebration, you’re welcome to bring musical instruments and a warm Thermos of liquid to the community gathering.

GIFTS

Celebration of Craftswomen Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, SF. (650) 615-6838, www.celebrationofcraftswomen.org. Nov. 24-25, Dec. 1-2, 10am-5pm, $9 or $12 two-day pass. The first edition of this alternative holiday fair took place 34 years ago at the now-defunct Old Wives’ Tales Bookstore on Valencia Street with 22 female makers-of-things. Today, the event fills the Herbst Pavilion, features 150 juried artists and a mini-film festival. It’s still the best place for feminist shopping, some things don’t change.

Holiday Design Bazaar Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, No. 109, SF. www.artsedmatters.org. Nov. 30, 5-8pm; Dec. 1, noon-6pm, free. An arts fair with 25 local creators, plus live music and refreshments that may well make a difference in our kids’ art education. The event is a benefit for Arts Ed Matters, a group that is looking to build community support for art in schools.

Creativity Explored holiday art sale Creativity Explored, 3245 16th St., SF. www.creativityexplored.org. Dec. 1-2, noon-5pm, free. Shop at this studio for developmentally-disabled artists and half of your bill will go straight into their pocket — standard practice for Creativity Explored, which has been the real-deal spot for outsider art in San Francisco since 1983.

Paxton Gate holiday party Dec. 1, 3-6pm at Paxton Gate’s Curiosities for Kids, 766 Valencia; 8-10pm at Paxton Gate, 824 Valencia, SF. (415) 824-1872, www.paxtongate.com. One of the city’s most beloved families of taxidermy/kid’s toys/nursery shops, Paxton Gate is turning two decades of age this weekend. What better time to shop there? And what better to get your face painted “Victorian-style” (?!), check out stilt walkers and an accordionist-ballerina duo, and eat snacks during the day at its kids location — then walk two doors down later that night for more circus freakery, door prizes and a Hendrick’s gin open bar at 826 Valencia’s pirate shop?

Palestinian Craft Fair Middle East Children’s Alliance office, 1101 Eighth St., Berk. www.mecaforpeace.org. Dec. 1-2, 10am-5pm, free. Sip Arabic coffee while you paw through painted ceramics from Gaza, children’s book, scarves, West Bank olive oil, and more at this chance to support a nonprofit benefiting craftspeople living in Palestine — a particularly salient cause in this year of war and turmoil.

Bazaar Bizarre Concourse Exhibition Center, East Hall, 620 Seventh St., SF. www.bazaarbizarre.org. Dec. 1-2, 11am-6pm, free. This traveling indie craft fair stocks all the twee and yippee you need to get your gift recipients in your pocket. New in 2012: a mini-version of Forage SF’s Underground market, for all your small biz-sourced holiday edible needs.

Muir Beach Quilters Holiday Arts Fair Muir Beach Community Center, 19 Seascape, Muir Beach. www.muirbeach.com/quiltersfair. Dec. 1, 10am-5pm, Dec. 2 10am-4pm, free. Make a blustery beach journey that has time to spare for handicraft browsing. This annual gift fair stocks locally-made knickknacks by local groups (Muir Beach Garden Club included), and has more than retail opportunities. Hands-on crafts bars will stoke the creative fire of kids and big person shoppers alike.

La Cocina Gift Bazaar Crocker Galleria, 50 Post, SF. www.giftbazaarsf.com. Dec. 7, 1-7pm, free. You’re not going to have problems finding foodie-friendly presents at this fair — but getting them safely to their intended destination sans bite marks might be a problem. La Cocina business incubator program graduates Clairesquares, Onigilly, Love & Hummus Co., Chiefo’s Kitchen, and more will all have their wares for sale.

East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest Berkeley City College, 2050 Center, Berk. Dec. 8, 10am-5pm, donations suggested. www.eastbayalternativebookandzinefest.com. For the indie comic nerds on your list, you’ll want to check out this expo of all things zine. Talks by New Yorker illustrator Erik Drooker and Go the Fuck to Sleep author Adam Mansbach spice up the fair’s schedule and there’s rumor of a dance party to take place at day’s end.

KPFA Crafts Fair Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St., SF. www.kpfa.org/craftsfair. Dec. 8-9, 10am-6pm, $10. Our public radio station hosts 220 artists and their wares for this no-brainer shopping weekend. Pick up unique wrapables from leather fashion to gourmet snacks to lotions and creams to pamper your loved ones.

Mercado de Cambio/The Po’ Sto’ market and knowledge exchange 2940 16th St., SF. www.poormagazine.org. Dec. 15, 3-7pm, donations suggested. We can pretty much guarantee you that there is no other gift fair that will have better hip-hop music. The Mercado de Cambio organized by POOR Magazine aims to counterbalance the corporatization of our holiday season. Go here for aforementioned live beats, indigenous crafts, Occupy gear, and POOR-published literature.

Renegade Craft Fair holiday market Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St., SF. www.renegadecraft.com. Dec. 15-16, 11am-6pm, free. A DIY gift wrap station is one of the attractions at this one stop for cute gift shopping, which makes one of its two yearly appearances in the Bay Area for the holiday season. The Oakland Museum of California will truck out its mobile “we/customize” exhibit, and of course, there will be crafters: over 250 will have booths hawking clothes, accessories, home stuff, kid stuff — most handmade, and most awesome.

 

Our Weekly Picks: November 14-20

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 14

outLOUD Radio 10th anniversary gala

It’s Saturday afternoon at the LGBT Community Center, and outLOUD Radio’s youth producers are interviewing queer elders about their fashion sense. The recording session was but one of many that the nonprofit has conducted, an amazing opportunity for baby gays and their elders to connect and preserve their stories for the future. Tonight, outLOUD is celebrating a decade of work with radio greats — NPR’s Ari Shapiro will take the stage for a Q&A with outLOUD youth leaders and KQED’s Scott Schafer. Come out to support the group’s efforts — because even with the nationwide advances made in last week’s elections, more LGBT stories must be told. (Caitlin Donohue)

7pm, $10–$100

Brava Theater Center

2781 24th St., SF

(415) 658-6010

gala.outloudradio.org


THURSDAY 15

“Everyday as History: Selections from Lost Landscapes of San Francisco by Rick Prelinger”

Prelinger Archives founder Rick Prelinger has a collection of over 60,000 so-called “ephemeral films” — including home movies and industrial clips (see: 1935’s “About Bananas,” an 11-minute, black-and-white bit of United Fruit Company propaganda hailing “one of America’s most important foods.”) Prelinger visits the Contemporary Jewish Museum in conjunction with the current exhibit “The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League 1936-51,” where he’ll be presenting highlights from his popular “Lost Landscapes” series of San Francisco history caught on film. No bananas, probably — but Playland, a youthful Golden Gate Bridge, and post-1906 earthquake scenes will likely make appearances. (Cheryl Eddy)

6:30-8pm, $10 (includes museum admission)

Contemporary Jewish Museum

736 Mission, SF

www.thecjm.org

 

Crushed Out

Brooklyn-based band Crushed Out (formerly Boom Chick) mixes swirling, bluesy slide guitar riffs with reverb-laden surf fills, stomping honky tonk rhythms and a host of other early rock’n’roll influences into a truly tasty batch of infectious tunes. When listening to Crushed Out’s new album, Want To Give, it may be hard to believe that it’s just a duo making all that noise — but singer-guitarist Frank Hoier and drummer Moselle Spiller have no problem recreating the full sound when playing live. They’ve opened for fans such as Jon Spencer, and are playing with Social Distortion in the new year—catch them up close tonight while you still can. (Sean McCourt)

With the Lower 48, Halsted

9pm, $8

Hotel Utah

500 Fourth St., SF

(415) 546-6300

www.hotelutah.com

 

Tame Impala

Recording an LP alone, in Perth, Australia, the world’s most remote city, practically guarantees a finished product permeated by angsty solitude. Psych-rock, though? Not exactly the most common vehicle for the expression of existential dread. Still, Kevin Parker pulls it off brilliantly on Lonerism, the sophomore full-length from Tame Impala, and his first as a lone, multi-tracking solo artist under the moniker. The result is a golden pop album, stuck in limbo between Britney-esque bubblegum vapidity, and Lennon/McCartney’s wholesome pop transcendence. It should be fascinating to watch a full band reinterpret the bittersweet hooks floating around in Parker’s head. (Taylor Kaplan)

8pm, $22.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

FRIDAY 16

SF International Hip Hop DanceFest

The SF International Hip Hop DanceFest is an extraordinary event. Always the same, it’s always new. The formula works. Over the years, curator Micaya has honed her sense of what is hot and what is even hotter without neglecting the vibrant local scene that give this love fest of urban dance its backbone. New this year is Blue Boy from London with two different shows; the Academy of Villains will be back with its competition style fierceness; so is Ill-Abilities whose members travel the world conquering physical challenges. Female crews Decadancetheatre (NY) and Mix’d Ingrdnts (Oakland) will be there. That’s just five of the 16 companies that will make a cheerful noise and shake up the Palace of Fine Arts. (Rita Felciano)

Also Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2 and 7pm, $39.99

Palace of the Fine Arts Theatre

3301 Lyon , SF

www.sfhiphopdancefest.com

 

Vladimir in Butterfly Country

Vladimir Nabokov’s love of butterflies is another example of the often deeply entwined relationship between art and science. His most famous work, Lolita, was composed on several butterfly-collecting trips and he even theorized a migration pattern for the Polyommatus blue butterfly that was later confirmed by scientists. Vladimir in Butterfly Country, hosted by the Old First Church, will begin with readings from the author’s writings about butterflies. These will be followed by an original, one act opera, written by Ann Callaway and Jaime Robles, which brings to life Nobokov’s love affair with the beautiful insect. And if that’s not enough, the group boasts some of the finest chamber musicians in the Bay; Soprano Erino Newkirk will lead, accompanied by flute, bass, piano, bassoon, and percussion. (Molly Champlin)

8pm, $14–$17

Old First Church

1751 Sacramento, SF

(415) 474-1608

www.oldfirstconcerts.org

 

“Twin Peaks: The Beginning”

When it hit the airwaves in 1990, Twin Peaks caused a sensation — and despite the copycats that sprang up in its wake, remains a singular example of what can happen when a pair of crazily creative minds (David Lynch and Mark Frost) come together and test the boundaries of television. Watching it today, it’s no surprise it became a cult hit after its mainstream popularity waned. The characters! The settings! The bizarro plot twists and quotable lines! Brooklyn’s Silent Drape Runners (+100 for the name) visit the Vortex Room for a special “live re-sound-tracking” of episode one, adding a new score of both original and familiar songs to the adventures of Agent Cooper and company. Let’s rock! (Eddy)

10pm, $10

Vortex Room

1082 Howard, SF

Facebook: The Vortex Room

 

Anna and the Annadroids present “Clone Zone”

Acrobatics, dance, aerial silks, video game metaphors, and animation compromise Anna and the Annadroid’s latest wacky, philosophical performance, “Clone Zone.” Anna Sullivan started the San Francisco based performance group in 2004, inspired by dark horror films, pop culture, technology, and a love of dolls (though a slightly atypical one that had her building Barbie colonies on her front porch as a child.) This performance will see the Annadroids battling their way through Carl Jung’s model of the human psyche in a video game format. Come for a night that promises a give-and-take exploration of the human condition through rule-breaking and genre-fusing dance. (Champlin)

Through Sat/17, 8pm; also Sun/18, 7pm, $20

Dance Mission Theater 3316 24th St., SF

(415) 826-4441

www.amerifluff.com

 

SATURDAY 17

BluePrint: “Danzas Breves”

“Tonight I can write the saddest lines,” begins Pablo Neruda’s famous, post-love “Poema XX.” That mainstay of brokenhearted lotharios has been set to music by local composer Chris Pratorius — and debuts alongside a number of other short, contemporary and traditional classical works in the Latin American tradition as part of the wonderful, forward-looking BluePrint series at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In the Conservatory’s gorgeous concert hall, you’ll also hear Gabriela Lena Fran’s “Manchay Tiempo,” Armando Luna’s “Graffiti,” Darius Milhaud’s “Saudades do Brasil, Op. 67,” and more. Conservatory artistic director Nicole Paiement conducts the New Music Ensemble, soprano Julia Metzler provides the vocals, and David Tanenbaum will shine on the essential guitar parts. (Marke B.)

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

8pm, $15-$20

50 Oak, SF

(415) 864-7326

www.sfcm.edu

 

The Faint

Has it really been a decade since the release of seminal dark wave album Danse Macabre? Released on Saddle Creek Records, the Faint’s crisp and flashy third studio full-length was a standout during the early electro-pop buzz of the Aughts, sounding like it was crafted by a dance-punk band with a heavy metal guitarist, which it pretty much was. Or, Duran Duran tweaked out and covered in blood. Do you remember “Agenda Suicide” pumping out of boomboxes at every party in 2001, and swallowing up goth club and new wave dancefloors? I do. The record got the so-so remix treatment in 2003 by Paul Oakenfold, Junior Sanchez, and more. This October, Saddle Creek released a deluxe edition of Danse Macabre, replete with unreleased tracks and a DVD of live footage from early shows. In conjunction with that news, the recently quiet Faint announced its return with a tour in which the five-piece will play the album in its entirety. (Emily Savage)

With Trust, Casket Girls

8pm, $25–$27

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF (415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

Philistines

Energetic local growler-howler Colin Daly, formerly of Ex-Boyfriends (which won best local band in our 2008 Best of the Bay) and the super-diverse Lucky Jesus, is fronting a new band, the Philistines — and he’s got our indie-loving panties in a twist once again. Self-released debut album Therewolves! rips a page from the Replacements playbook, folds it into a power-pop origami swan, and sails it down a stream of catchy hooks and bouncy riffs. Let’s face it though, I’ve admired hottie Daly’s rad songwriting skills and charismatic onstage energy for years. The real news here that he has a twin brother from Chicago who is in the band with him. Twin brother! Swoon.They’ll be performing with expansive rock soundscapists MINOT, which includes Matthew Solberg from storied Bay Area band From Monument to Masses, who killed me with their live shows in the 2000s. (Marke B.)

9pm, $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

www.hemlocktavern.com


SUNDAY 18

Patchwork Indie Art and Craft Fair

With the holidays approaching, it’s about time to start thinking about gifts for loved ones. If you want something crafty, cute, or just made in California, check out the Patchwork Indie Art and Craft Fair. The fair was started by Los Angeles based painter, Nicole Stevenson, and Delilah Snell, owner of the environmentally friendly store, The Road Less Traveled. The basic concept was to help local artists, designers, and crafters sell their work in an inclusive environment. The biannual event brings vendors, musicians, food, and hands-on craft activities to four different cities in the state. In addition to beautiful ceramics, jewelry and on-the-spot, screen-printed clothing, you’ll likely find some quirkier items like knitted headphone covers (which can double as earmuffs) or whiskey flavored candles. (Champlin)

11am, free

Jack London Square Pavilion

98 Broadway, Oakl.

(510) 645-9292

www.patchworkshow.com

That special Christopher Owens show at the Lodge

Tony Robles
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The show was being filmed for a music video, and the crew told people in the front row that they might get photographed for reaction shots. When I mentioned to the couple next to me that a sure fire way to get on camera was to cry, the apparent director turned around from where he was kneeling near the stage and said, “I’ll pay $500 dollars if you do it,” before adding, “but I think you might cry anyway.” In his first performance since breaking up his former band, Girls, Christopher Owens was set to debut an entire album of new material, and it sounded like a tear-jerker.

Having never been to the room before – the “Lodge” at the Regency Ballroom – I arrived early, expecting a dark basement packed with 300 sweaty bodies jockeying for a spot up near the stage. Instead, what I found on the third floor was an experience similar to the Swedish American: a clean, well-lit room in which to listen to live music.

Seats were set out for the show, and on each one was a dated program for the evening, complete with a setlist and band credits, a special theatrical touch that invoked high-art rather than pop rock. Clearly, along with the taping, Owens meant for it to be a special – or at least different – occasion, and had special requirements of the crowd, which some people did not appreciate.

The stage was set with a large backdrop of a dusty road leading out between a forest. Lysandre is a concept album (which Owens has already explained) based around the first Girls tour in 2008. The backdrop signaled the travelogue aspect, as well as a classical element. It could have been a leftover from a community Shakespeare troupe, and when the show began with a theme that would repeat throughout, complete with Jethro Tull-esque flute from Vince Meghroni, there was a definite old world feel.

This theme alternated with roots rock Americana for the first half of the show, a rising energy that then mellowed out. On one track, Owens detailed the rush of arriving in NYC with the band, singing a chorus of “Here we are in New York City, everybody’s listened to me / Rock and roll in NYC” with a Banana Splits meet “New York, New York” upbeat simplicity.

As it switched over to one of the obviously sad songs, “A Broken Heart,” there was a definite comedown. On the first listen, Lysandre is beset with conflicting emotions, the highs of being on the road and meeting sudden popularity, compete with falling in love, and subsequent breakups occur with both. At times, it seems like personal issue ruined what should have been a great time.

On “Here We Go Again,” the album’s fight song, Owens warns, “Don’t try to get me down, don’t try to harsh my mellow” as the guitar player kicks the theme into its highest pitch, angrily stretching the notes out. But elsewhere, it’s the exact opposite: in closing the album, there are a succession of goodbyes, with the lament that there were always “a couple hundred people in the way.”

In the show’s encore, Owens resisted falling to his back catalogue, and instead played what seemed to be obvious influences on the sound and themes of Lysandre: into the great wide open of Cat Steven’s “Wild World,” the triumphant loneliness of NYC in Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” pining for love with “Let It Be Me,” and breaking up on Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”

Against these songs, Lysandre at times risked seeming overly saccharine. (“Kissing and hugging is the air that I breathe/ I’ll always make time for love,” was pushing it in this regard.) But the sunken-eyed Owens – who spoke with an endearing twinge of nervousness between songs – seemed well aware of the risk.

“What if everyone thinks I’m a phony? What if no one gets it? What if everyone gets sick of love songs?” he asks midway through Lysandre. But with a shrug he continues on to the chorus, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, love is in the ear of the listener.”

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