Crime

Fix the BART police force – or disband it

David Talbot
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Fix the BART police force – or disband it

EDITORIAL Who murdered Oscar Grant? Part of the equation is the years of neglect of the BART Police. — Assembly Member Tom Ammiano

We’re angry, too.

Angry that a police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man could wind up with little or no prison time. Angry that the news media whipped up such a fervor over the potential for a riot in Oakland that it almost guaranteed someone would show up and break a few windows. Angry that the jury who decided this case was 400 miles away and included no African Americans.

But mostly we’re angry that 18 months after a BART cop shot Oscar Grant, the transit agency still doesn’t have effective police oversight. And until the BART board recognizes that it still has 200 poorly trained, poorly supervised,* armed officers on the streets — and that this shooting wasn’t an anomaly, it was simply the latest in a series of criminal acts by BART police officers that led to the deaths of innocent people — and until the BART Board starts treating this like the emergency that it is, the problems are going to continue.

There are elements of this case that are historic — and very positive. This is the first time we can remember that a police officer in California has faced murder charges for an on-duty shooting. That alone sends a powerful message — and the Alameda County District Attorney deserves immense credit for taking the case to trial. And let’s not forget: Johannes Mehserle was, in fact, convicted. With the additional penalties for using a handgun, he could wind up with a sentence of more than 10 years.

Much of that is now in the hands of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry, who will sentence Mehserle later this summer. The judge in an involuntary manslaughter case has considerable discretion; he could, conceivably, sentence Mehserle to probation, and the killer of an unarmed man could walk away with no jail time at all. Perry could sentence him to five years (of which the former officer would probably serve no more than three). He could also go as high as 14 years, which seems more reasonable.

Most of the protesters in Oakland were peaceful; most recognized that the verdict was mixed, that at least Mehserle was convicted, and that there’s still a chance justice will be done. It’s hard to imagine that the patience of the community will last long in the wake of an unacceptably short sentence.

But even if Perry issues a sentence that reflects the crime, there’s still the problem of the BART Police. This isn’t the first time a BART cop has killed an unarmed person; twice before, the subway system’s finest have committed crimes just as heinous as the one that put Johannes Mehserle in the dock. The difference is that the previous shootings — which we covered in depth and the mainstream media ignored — were never caught on video. BART never took either killing seriously, never changed police oversight procedures — and shouldn’t be surprised that nothing changed.

Now the agency, with much reluctance and gnashing of teeth, has created a modest civilian oversight program. But it’s not enough — and the reason is simple: The BART directors don’t want to spend the time it takes to monitor and control an armed police force. They’ve always happily delegated that job to someone else — a general manager, an assistant general manager, a police chief — and never done the job they were elected to do.

Now time’s up. The BART directors need to take direct control of the police, including holding hearings on disciplinary action and quickly acting on complaints against problem officers. Or they need to recognize that they can’t run a police force, disband the BART police, and let a professional law enforcement agency from one or more of the BART counties take over.

Oakland considers limiting and licensing marijuana growers

Sasha Cuttler
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Oakland considers limiting and licensing marijuana growers

Updated info below

The medical marijuana community – everyone from small growers to Harborside Health Center, the biggest dispensary in Oakland – are reacting strongly against an ordinance proposed by Oakland City Council members Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid to limit and license marijuana cultivation, a proposal that will be heard tonight (7/13) at 6 p.m. by the council’s Public Safety Committee.

They say the measure is an affront to medical marijuana patients and the small growing operations that have been at the forefront of the long struggle to legalize pot for medical uses. While the measure stems from concern about growing weed in residential areas – it would allow only a few large growing operations exclusively in industrial areas – critics characterize it as an attack on patients that violates Prop. 215, the 1996 measure that legalized medical marijuana and explicitly allows patients to grow their own medicine.

“It’s a disturbing turn of events for the usually forward thinking Oakland City Council,” medical marijuana consultant Gaynell Rogers, who works with Harborside, the city’s premier dispensary, wrote in a press release. It went on to quote Harborisde executive director Steve DeAngelo as saying, “This ordinance would deprive hundreds of patient-farmers of their livelihood. It seems a very unfair way to repay them for the years during which they courageously stood up to the federal government, and faithfully supplied patients with the medicine they could not get anywhere else…I’d rather see Harborside’s own opportunity to produce on a centralized efficient-scale basis reduced, than to see the small patient-farmers who are the backbone of this movement driven to extinction.”

Kaplan did not immediately return a Guardian call seeking comment, and neither did Oakland City Attorney John Russo, who is one of the few active law enforcement officers and elected officials to come out in support of Prop. 19, the fall ballot measure that would legalize marijuana for even recreational use by adults.

In addition to regulating growers for the first time, the proposed legislation would also increase the number of licensed dispensaries from four to six. San Francisco, a trailblazer in regulating medical marijuana, currently has more than 22 licensed dispensaries and no licensing program for growers, although Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has said there is a need to better protect growers from prosecution and even to explore having the city grow medical marijuana.

While medical marijuana advocates welcome regulations as a necessary step toward legitimizing the industry, they generally oppose anything limits a patient’s rights to grow their own weed. “We support local regulation but not when it’s at the expense of patients,” Mike Meno, a spokesperson for the DC-based Marijuana Policy Project, told the Guardian.

The hearing will be held in council chambers, with this item last on the agenda for a meeting that begins at 6 p.m.

Update: Kaplan has been in a closed session on Oakland Police Department issues all day, but her staffers just got back to me and clarified that the measure allows small grows of up to 96 square feet or 72 plants (Oakland’s standard for the needs of three patients) to continue unlicensed, although they say the intention is to eventually set standards and a legal framework for all medical marijuana growers.

Policy analyst Ada Chan said Kaplan is concerned about commercial grows in residential areas and its related crime and fire risks and “she feels we need to move it out of residential areas.” She said Harborside and other medical marijuana players were consulted in drafting the legislation, which she said would likely be subject to more staff work before being approved: “This is just the first step.”

But Harborside attorney James Anthony told us that he had not seen language or specifics on the legislation until it was publicly released last week, he’s still concerned that small growing operations will be hurt by the measure because of ambiguity in the legislation, and he fears the council intends to move quickly on an unworkable policy: “This thing is on track to go to the full City Council next week and pass.”

Gore … and bores: more Another Hole in the Head reviews

Sue Vaughan
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Gore … and bores: more Another Hole in the Head reviews

More bloodthirsty coverage of the San Francisco IndieFest’s horror-fest offshoot, Another Hole in the Head, in this week’s Guardian.

Grotesque (Koji Shiraishi, Japan, 2009) When did gorno stop being sick and start becoming sad? In Koji Shiraishi’s Gurotesuku, or Grotesque – banned in the UK – a chainsaw is brought to chests, arms, legs, and fingers when really it should be brought down on this celluloid garbage. Shiraishi presents a film that is sloppy, badly written, badly acted, and is above all things, deeply unentertaining. The plot is as thin and drawn-out as one of the protagonist’s intestines: While on a date, two dumbfucks get picked up by a craaaaaazy doctor (at least I think he’s a doctor – and I think he’s lost his board certification) who proceeds to do sick but unoriginal things to them (sawing off a girl’s fingers and stringing them on a necklace for her BF? C’MON!). There are some brief moments of respite, albeit painfully acted and ridiculous respite, but the torture tries not to let up its chokehold on the audience. Unfortunately, it just ends up being a chokehold on our time. Fri/16, 5 p.m. and Sun/18, 7 p.m., Roxie.

Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives (Israel Luna, USA, 2010) Trannies should get ticked-off more often. In a mock-exploitation fest like this one – which has the candid crudeness of a John Waters film – the tranny is the ultimate hero because she embodies the street smarts and agility of a woman, and the muscles and thirst for vengeance of a man. After an aggressive brush-up with some nasty bros (and what’s worse than a weapon-wielding homophobe?) the titular trannies in Ticked-Off set out to put the ol’ Hammurabi’s Code to the test – and with results both hilarious and flat-out gross. The cheeseball aesthetics and maudlin acting are surprisingly funny and self-conscious rather than self-effacing – yet in dealing with something like a hate crime, how else can you approach the material? July 22, 5 p.m., Roxie and July 23, 9 p.m., Viz.

Doctor S Battles the Sex Crazed Reefer Zombies (Bryan Ortiz, USA, 2008) Apparently, Reefer Madness (1936) and the public health warnings like it were right: weed does turn you into a monster. But in this underachieving student film, the message arrives a little too late. Doctor S has a promising start: some hilarious faux-film reel ads, and many a nod to cult horror films. In stark black-and-white, it’s as if Candace Hilligoss were running from stoners in Carnival of Souls (1962). But once the PhD of the title teams up with a cheerleader, saved from her post-puff zombified boyfriend at Make Out Hill, the film quickly devolves into amateurism. The thrills are cheap – too cheap – and the laughs are forced. Not to mention the title is way cooler than the movie itself. July 23, 7 p.m and July 26, 9 p.m., Viz.

ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL
July 8–29, $11
Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF
Viz Cinema, New People, 1746 Post, SF
www.sfindie.com

Naked fun in the sun!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Naked fun in the sun!

Entertainer Wavy Gravy and Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg like Red Rock Beach; Marin Superior Court Commissioner Roy Chernus favors Bass Lake, and Marin County Sup. Steve Kinsey says he’s been naked at Red Rock, Bolinas, Hagmier Pond, and Mount Vision Pond.

“I’ve probably hit every nude beach in Marin,” says Kinsey, who has described his visits as “exhilarating and normal.” “My last dip was at Bass Lake last fall. It has beautiful, fresh water, and the swimming environment is wonderful. I look forward to the next opportunity.”

But on their next trips to the nude section of beautiful Muir Beach, visitors may notice something new: a warning sign is being erected by the county this summer to urge users to be “respectful” of each other and to notify authorities if there’s trouble.

The sign is the result of a compromise worked out by nudists, law enforcers, county officials, and local homeowners, some of whom wanted nudity stopped. Under the agreement, cops are making a few more visits than before. But through July 1, 2010, only four complaints about nudity and one citation for improper sexual conduct have occurred since January 1, 2009, and none since August 13, 2009, according to marin county sheriff’s office crime analyst Susan Medina. “We keep responding to complaints, but I can’t recall any recent citations,” says Lt. Cheryl Fisher, commander of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office’s West Marin Station. Fisher says the subjects are usually suited up by the time deputies arrive. “A deputy showed up on a very hot Sunday,” says regular visitor Michael Velkoff of Scotts Valley. “As soon as he left, everybody was naked again.”

“Of course, guys in spiked penis rings not parading themselves around also have helped,” says Sup. Kinsey, who, for now, has spiked his previous threat to fight back by starting an effort to make Muir and other beaches clothing-optional under a 1975 law giving Marin County the power to exempt areas from its anti-nudity provisions. “Sometimes the best thing we can do in government is to stay out of the way.”

Homeowners remain wary. One, who wants to remain anonymous, tells the Guardian: “We are optimistic” about being able to “coexist” with the naturists, “but we also remain very clear about what is legal and what will and won’t be tolerated.” And a former advocate of the ban told me that instead of not going to Muir Beach “a person wanting to use the beach nude might do it in a manner that doesn’t draw a lot of attention.”

As if the Marin mashup wasn’t enough, nervous naturists also got ready to do battle with state authorities, who they feared would eventually ban nudity at Devil’s Slide in San Mateo County and at Bonny Doon Beach near Santa Cruz, both of which are state beaches.

The jitters came in the wake of an October 2009 California high court ruling allowing a crackdown on nude sunbathing on state beaches, even in areas traditionally used for such activity. “All it takes now is an individual ranger with the desire to issue a citation,” warns R. Allen Baylis, a Huntington Beach attorney representing the Naturist Action Committee, the country’s biggest nudist lobbying group. “It could have a chilling effect [on nudity] on any state beach.”

“Our thin line of security has been overturned,” says Rich Pasco, head of the Bay Area Naturists, based in San Jose. “So let’s hope that in today’s economy, the thin level of state park staff has better things to do with their time than dealing with naturists.”

At press time, the NAC, along with BAN and 14 other nudist groups, were preparing, for the first time, to officially petition California to “designate clothing-optional areas” on one or more state beaches. Other efforts have, says Baylis, been “less formal.” “Do they really expect us to pack up and leave?” Baylis asks. “We’re going to fight back. This is our freedom they’re messing with!”

What’s the good news? Just like at Muir Beach, it doesn’t look like naturists have anything to worry about for now in Northern California. “In the short term, things at Bonny Doon are destined to continue the way they are,” says Kirk Lingenfelter, sector superintendent for Bonny Doon. He wants a better trail, stairs, and parking, but says the cash-starved state doesn’t have the budget to make even a preliminary plan or increase ranger visits. He said his staff have not issued any citations or warnings at the nude cove, which he calls one of the spots that “really give you the feeling of rugged, untouched majesty. It’s a very important feeling. Going to places like Bonny Doon helps you get recharged.”

And the Devil’s Slide police source, who wants to remain anonymous, told us: “Rangers aren’t going to be pursuing enforcement against nudity per se. Nothing’s changed.” Rangers will continue responding to complaints, he explained, but it usually means they arrive too late to do anything about them because cell phones don’t work on the beach. “We hear about it after the fact,” says another Devil’s Slide enforcer, Supervising State Park Ranger Michael Grant.

Want to contribute to the glad tidings? There’s still time for plenty of fun in the sun. You can donate your body to the record books, at least temporarily, by showing up Saturday, July 10 at the Sequoians Clothes Free Club (www.sequoians.com) in Castro Valley, when its annual attempt at setting a world skinny-dipping record, with 138 other nude locations, will be held. And if you’ve ever been dying to do a little light cleaning in the nude (no window-washing needed), here’s your chance: Your butt can be bare if you stop by Bonny Doon Sept. 18 to help fans pick up cigarette butts and other litter on the beach.

Speaking of good things, would you like to help improve our report? Please send brainstorms, your new beach “finds,” improved directions (especially road milepost numbers), and trip reports to garhan@aol.com or by snail mail to Gary Hanauer, c/o San Francisco Guardian, 135 Mississippi St., San Francisco CA 94107. Please include your phone number so we can verify that you’re not just another mirage in the nude beach sand.

>>BELOW ARE CAPSULE GUIDES TO POPULAR NUDE BEACHES. CLICK HERE FOR OUR COMPLETE GUIDE, INCLUDING MANY MORE

NORTH BAKER BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO

Things are really cooking at San Francisco’s long, narrow North Baker, which is in good shape this year, with plenty of sand and an influx of young people and more women than five years ago, even though the beach is still heavily male. “If you want to see naked chicks and guys, it’s the place to go,” says aficionado Paul Jung. Although beach regulars like himself welcome all the new nude volleyball players, “some of them seem to make up rules as they go along,” he laughs. Fun activities: Look for dolphins that occasionally surface in the water off shore. And in low tide only, walk around the big rocks at the north end of the beach to check out Baker’s “secret” tide pools.

Directions: Take the 29 Sunset bus or go north on 25th Avenue to Lincoln Boulevard. Turn right and take the second left onto Bowley Street. Follow Bowley to Gibson Road, turn right, and follow Gibson to the east parking lot. Head right on the beach to the nude area, which starts at the brown and yellow “Hazardous surf, undertow, swim at your own risk” sign. Some motorcycles in the lot have been vandalized, possibly by car owners angered by bikers parking in car spaces; to avoid trouble, motorcyclists should park in the motorcycle area near the cyclone fence.

 

LAND’S END BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO

Land’s End is just the beginning: it’s not just the ground that seems to “disappear” into the sunset at this little slice of paradise off Geary Boulevard. So do your clothes, if you want to be magically transported to another dimension, away from the cares of everyday constraints. Shorts, swimsuit, even work clothes during a quick lunch break — they all can be removed at this delightful cove, which features a mix of sand and rocks plus some of San Francisco’s best views. Better still, only a handful of people are usually present. Bring a windbreak for protection in case the weather changes.

Directions: Follow Geary Boulevard to the end, then park in the dirt lot up the road from the Cliff House. Take the trail at the far end of the lot. About 100 yards past a bench and some trash cans, the path narrows and bends, then rises and falls, eventually becoming the width of a road. Don’t take the road to the right, which leads to a golf course. Just past another bench, as the trail turns right, go left toward a group of dead trees where you will see a stairway and a “Dogs must be leashed” sign. Descend and head left to another stairway, which leads to a 100-foot walk to the cove. Or, instead, take the service road below the El Camino del Mar parking lot 1/4 mile until you reach a bench, then follow the trail there.

GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO

Don’t come to Golden Gate Bridge Beach, also called Nasty Boy Beach, if you want privacy: dozens to hundreds of visitors show up on the hottest days at the site that some have likened to a “gay meat market.” Along with the guys, a smattering of women, straight couples, children and fishermen are spread out on the three adjoining rocky coves that make up the beach, whose stunning views of the Bridge will make you feel like you’re the star of your own postcard. “It’s really nice to walk in the water,” says a woman. “In low tide, you can sometimes go out 150 feet.”

Directions: Directions: from the toll booth area of Highway 101/1, take Lincoln Boulevard west about a half mile to Langdon Court. Turn right (west) on Langdon and look for space in the parking lots, across Lincoln from Fort Winfield Scott. Park and then take the new, improved beach trail, starting just west of the end of Langdon, down its more than 200 steps to Golden Gate Bridge Beach, also known as Marshall’s Beach.

 

FORT FUNSTON BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO

If you try to be naked here on weekends, you’ll be barking up the wrong tree. The main creatures who go nude at Fort Funston, south of Ocean Beach, are dogs, but that hasn’t stopped a small band of stark naked sunbathers from hiding away in some sand dunes when rangers aren’t in the area. Authorities usually issue several citations a year here. But if you don’t make a fuss and visit on a weekday, you probably won’t be busted. If anyone complains, put on your beach gear right away. Two more fun activities at “Fort Fun”: watching hang-gliders take off from the cliffs and checking out a seemingly endless passing parade of people and their pets.

Directions: From San Francisco, head west to Ocean Beach, then go south on the Great Highway. After Sloat Boulevard, the road goes uphill. From there, curve right onto Skyline Boulevard, go past one stoplight, and look for signs for Funston on the right. Turn into the public lot and find a space near the west side. At the southwest end, take the sandy steps to the beach, turn right, and walk to the dunes. Find a spot as far as possible from the parking lot. Do not go nude here on the weekends. And if you don’t like dogs, go elsewhere.

 

LAS TRAMPAS REGIONAL WILDERNESS, CASTRO VALLEY

Nudity’s banned in the East Bay Regional Park District, but if you tell that to the nude hikers who will be once again walking across park land July 23 and Aug. 22 — at night — they may moon you en masse. On America’s only naked “Full Moon Hikes,” participants leave the grounds of the Sequoians Naturist Club in Castro Valley fully clothed at dusk and walk through meadows and up hills until the moon rises, before heading back down the slopes with their clothes folded neatly into their backpacks. Says Dave Smith, of San Leandro: “It’s truly wonderful. Except for deer, we’re usually the only ones on the path.” Agrees James, of Fremont: “It’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. You’re walking in this silvery light. The moonlight is flooding everything. You feel like you’re in the middle of a beautiful dream.”

Directions: Contact the Sequoians Naturist Club (www.sequoians.com) or the Bay Area Naturists (www.bayareanaturists.org) for details on how to join a walk. Participants usually meet at and return to the Sequoians Club. To get there, take Highway 580 east to the Crow Canyon Road exit. Or follow 580 west to the first Castro Valley off-ramp. Take Crow Canyon Road toward San Ramon 0.75 mile to Cull Canyon Road. Then follow Cull Canyon Road around 6.5 miles to the end of the paved road. Take the dirt road on the right until the “Y” in the road and keep left. Shortly after, you’ll see the Sequoians sign. Proceed ahead for about another 0.75 mile to the Sequoians front gate.

 

DEVIL’S SLIDE, MONTARA

Will they be having a devil of a time in paradise? For the first time, rangers say they’ll begin enforcing state anti-nudity regulations if offended beachgoers complain about the nudists who visit Gray Whale Cove, which is commonly called Devil’s Slide. The good news: It’s a nonissue because cell phones (used to summon rangers) don’t work on the beach, so by the time cops arrive, the offenders have long since suited up or left. And the beach’s top enforcer told us he won’t be telling rangers to bust nudists they see. Most visitors love the long sandy shore, where nudies, about 20 percent of visitors, hang out on the north end.

Directions: Driving from San Francisco, take Highway 1 south through Pacifica. Three miles south of the Denny’s restaurant in Linda Mar, turn left (inland or east) on an unmarked road, which takes you to the beach’s parking lot and to a 146-step staircase leads to the sand. “The steps are in good shape,” Ron says. Coming from the south on Highway 1, look for a road on the right (east), 1.2 miles north of the Chart House restaurant in Montara.

 

SAN GREGORIO NUDE BEACH, SAN GREGORIO

America’s oldest nude beach, near Half Moon Bay, offers two miles of soft sand and tide pools to explore, as well as a lagoon, lava tube, and, if you look closely enough on the cliffs, the remains of an old railroad line. Pets are allowed on weekdays. Up to 200 visitors may be present, but they’re usually so spread out, you may not even notice them. Gay men tend to hang out on the north side and in “sex condos” made of driftwood by visitors — a major annoyance to those who are easily offended. On the south end of the beach, there are sometimes dozens of straight couples and families, naked and clothed. For weather information, call (415) 765-7697.

Directions: Head south on Highway 1 past Half Moon Bay. Between mileposts 18 and 19, look on the right side of the road for telephone call box number SM 001 0195, at the intersection of Highway 1 and Stage Road and near an iron gate with trees on either side. From there, expect a drive of 1.1 miles to the entrance. At the Junction 84 highway sign, the beach’s driveway is just 0.1 mile away. Turn into a gravel driveway, passing through the iron gate mentioned above, which says 119429 on the gatepost. Drive past a grassy field to the parking lot, where you’ll be asked to pay an entrance fee. Take the long path from the lot to the sand; everything north of the trail’s end is clothing-optional.

 

BONNY DOON NUDE BEACH, BONNY DOON

Bonny Doon isn’t doomed. To the contrary, because the state has no plans to develop it or send rangers out to make anti-nudity patrols, it looks like it will remain Santa Cruz County’s prettiest nude beach, which should please the nudists who were on the edge of their towels wondering what would happen. Says Kirk Lingenfelter, sector superintendent for Bonny Doon and nearby state beaches: “Going to places like Bonny Doon helps you get recharged.” Naturists usually use the cove on the north end of the beach, which attracts more women and couples than most clothing-optional enclaves.

Directions: Head south on Highway 1 to the Bonny Doon parking lot at milepost 27.6 on the west side of the road, 2.4 miles north of Red, White, and Blue Beach, and some 11 miles north of Santa Cruz. From Santa Cruz, head north on Highway 1 until you see Bonny Doon Road, which veers sharply to the right just south of Davenport. The beach is right off the intersection. Park in the paved lot to the west of Highway 1; don’t park on Bonny Doon Road or the shoulder of Highway 1. If the lot is full, drive north on Highway 1, park at the next beach lot and walk back to the first lot. To get to the beach, climb the berm next to the railroad tracks adjacent to the Bonny Doon lot, cross the tracks, descend, and take the trail to the sand. Walk north past most of the beach to the cove on the north end.

 

2222, SANTA CRUZ

Size matters at 2222, which is the smallest nude beach in the U.S. — and probably smaller than your backyard. Not many people can fit into it and not many have heard about it, so not many are there, which is just fine with its mostly young crowd of local college students. Located across from 2222 West Cliff Drive, it’s a great place to sunbathe, read, relax, or even watch Neal the Juggler practice tossing balls, pins, and beanbags on the sand. But don’t attempt the very steep climb up and down the cliff unless you’re in good shape.

Directions: The beach is a few blocks west of Natural Bridges State Beach and about 2.5 miles north of the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. From either north or south of Santa Cruz, take Highway 1 to Swift Street. Drive 0.8 miles to the sea, then turn right on West Cliff Drive. 2222 is five blocks away. Past Auburn Avenue, look for 2222 West Cliff on the inland side of the street. Park in the nine-car lot next to the cliff. If it’s full, continue straight and park along Chico Avenue. Bay Area Naturists leader Rich Pasco suggests visitors use care and then follow the path on the side of the beach closest to downtown Santa Cruz and the Municipal Wharf.

 

PRIVATES BEACH, SANTA CRUZ

Privates Beach, at 4524 Opal Cliff Drive, north of the Capitola Pier, is so private that it has a locked gate, security guards, and, unless you’re too cheap to pay and want to try another option, a $100 per year fee (cash only). The two coves are exceptionally clean and you’re likely to see families, kids, and dogs on the shore.

Directions: 1) Some visitors walk north from Capitola Pier in low tide (not a good idea since at least four people have needed to be rescued after being trapped by rising water). 2) Others reach it in low tide via the stairs at the end of 41st Avenue, which lead to a surf spot called the Hook at the south end of a rocky shoreline known as Pleasure Point. 3) Surfers paddle on boards for a few minutes to Privates from Capitola or the Hook. 4) Most visitors buy a key to the beach gate at Freeline Design Surfboards (821 41st Ave., Santa Cruz, 831-476-2950) 1.5 blocks west of the beach. Others go with someone with a key or wait outside the gate until someone with a key goes in. “Most people will gladly hold the gate open for someone behind them whose hands are full,” says Bay Area Naturists leader Rich Pasco. The nude area is to the left of the bottom of the stairs.

 

MUIR NUDE BEACH, MUIR BEACH

The mellowness of marvelous Muir Beach was marred last year when some homeowners verbally clashed with nudists over use of the sand. After a few meetings, it was decided that while bare buns on the beach wouldn’t be banned, a warning sign stressing “respect” for everyone and listing a phone number for complaints will be erected, most likely in July, near the border of the nude and clothed sections of the shore. The nude spot is pretty and curved and usually has excellent swimming conditions and access. Instead of a trail, you just walk along the water from the public beach and go around and over some easy-to-cross rocks.

Directions: From San Francisco, take Highway 1 north to Muir Beach, to milepost 5.7. Turn left on Pacific Way and park in the Muir lot (to avoid tickets, don’t park on Pacific). Or park on the long street off Highway 1 across from Pacific and about 100 yards north. From the Muir lot, follow a path and boardwalk to the sand, and then walk north to a pile of rocks between the cliffs and the sea. You’ll need good hiking or walking shoes to cross; in very low tide, try to cross closer to the water. The nude area starts north of it.

 

RED ROCK BEACH, STINSON BEACH

Bay Area fan favorite Red Rock is still rocking with an improved trail, more sand than last summer, Ultimate Frisbee games that last as long as three hours, a shower where you can cool down on a hot day, and up to 75 people a day. “More rock climbers than ever are coming to the beach,” says the Rock’s “ambassador,” Fred Jaggi. “You can get more privacy there.” Three nude women who were perched on a terrace overlooking the cove in June were recently anointed as the Cheerleaders by members of the fun, highly social crowd below.

Directions: The easiest way to find the beach is to go north on Highway 1 from Mill Valley, following the signs to Stinson Beach. At the long line of mailboxes next to the Muir Beach cutoff point, start checking your odometer. Look for a dirt lot full of cars to the left (west) of the highway exactly 5.6 miles north of Muir and a smaller one on the right (east) side of the road. The lots are at milepost 11.3, one mile south of Stinson Beach. Limited parking is also available 150 yards to the south on the west side of Highway 1. Take the path to the beach that starts near the Dumpster next to the main parking lot. The trail’s doable but moderately long, steep, and slippery, so don’t wear flip-flops.

 

BASS LAKE, BOLINAS

If you’re sleepless in San Anselmo, a cure might be to bare your bottom at Bass in Bolinas. “If you want to visit an enchanted lake, Bass is it,” says Ryan, of the East Bay. “Tree branches reach over the water, forming a magical canopy, and huge bunches of calla lilies bloom on the shore.” Even walking to Bass, 45-60 minutes from the lot over 2.8 relatively easy miles, can be an adventure like none other. You may see people with backpacks but no pants on the trail. Rangers once stopped and cited a clad man who had an unleashed dog but let the nudists continue. Says Dave Smith, of San Leandro, who unusually walks naked: “I came around a corner and there was a mountain lion sitting like Egypt’s Great Sphinx of Giza 50 yards down the path.” Bring a heavy towel or tarp for sitting on a somewhat prickly meadow near the water.

Directions: From Stinson Beach, go north on Highway 1. Just north of Bolinas Lagoon, turn left on the often-unmarked exit to Bolinas. Follow the road as it curves along the lagoon and eventually ends at Olema-Bolinas Road; continue along Olema-Bolinas Road to the stop sign at Mesa Road. Turn right on Mesa and drive four miles until it becomes a dirt road and ends at a parking lot. On hot days the lot fills quickly. A sign at the trailhead next to the lot will guide you down scenic Palomarin Trail to the lake.

 

RCA BEACH, BOLINAS

Couples love RCA Beach near Bolinas, and so do singles who long for a ruggedly isolated shoreline that doesn’t take long to reach. This summer, there’s even more to enjoy: the beach is reported to be about four to six feet wider than last year. But it has more gravel this season. “A downside is that it’s very exposed to the wind,” says regular visitor Michael Velkoff. “There’s so much driftwood on the sand that many people build windbreaks or even whole forts. The last time I went, somebody built a 30-foot-tall dragon.” The breathtakingly beautiful beach seems even bigger than its one mile length because, Velkoff says, “you might only see eight people spread out on the sand. Everybody’s like 100 feet apart. It’s great.”

Directions: From Stinson Beach, take Highway 1 (Shoreline Highway) north toward Calle Del Mar for 4.5 miles. Turn left onto Olema Bolinas Road and follow it 1.8 miles to Mesa Road in Bolinas. Turn right and stay on Mesa until you see cars parked past some old transmission towers. Park and walk a 0.25 to the end of the pavement. Go left through the gap in the fence. The trail leads to a gravel road. Follow it until you see a path on your right, leading through a gate. Take it along the cliff top until it veers down to the beach. Or continue along Mesa until you come to a grove of eucalyptus trees. Enter through the gate here, then hike a 0.5 mile through a cow pasture on a path that will also bring you through thick brush. The second route is slippery and eroding, but less steep.

 

LIMANTOUR BEACH, OLEMA

You can tour long, lovely Limantour in Point Reyes National Seashore while wearing only your smile and some suntan lotion. Few visitors realize the narrow spit of sand is clothing-optional. But unless there are complaints or if you beach your bare body too close to a parking lot or the main entrance, you shouldn’t be hassled. The site is so big — about 2.5 miles long — you can wander for hours, checking out ducks and other waterfowl, shorebirds such as endangered snowy plovers, gray whales in the spring, and playful harbor seals (offshore and on the north side). Dogs are allowed on six-foot leashes on the south end. Directions: Follow Highway 101 north to the Sir Francis Drake Boulevard exit, then follow Sir Francis through San Anselmo and Lagunitas to Olema. At the intersection with Highway 1, turn right onto the highway. Just north of Olema, go left on Bear Valley Road. A mile after the turnoff for the Bear Valley Visitor Center, turn left (at the Limantour Beach sign) on Limantour Road and follow it 11 miles to the parking lot at the end. Walk north a 0.5 mile until you see some dunes about 50 yards east of the shore. Nudists usually prefer the valleys between the dunes for sunbathing. “One Sunday we had 200 yards to ourselves,” says a nudist. But lately, the dunes have been more crowded.

Oakland and SF brace for reaction to Mehserle verdict

Sasha Cuttler
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Oakland and SF brace for reaction to Mehserle verdict

Oakland and San Francisco police and city officials are nervously awaiting the verdict in the murder trial of Johannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant on a train platform last year, although the latest word is that verdict won’t come today (July 6), and probably not tomorrow, because of the absences of two jurors.

After demonstrations against Mehserle in Oakland last year turned into destructive riots, officials fear another outbreak of violence, particularly given the racial undertones to the crime, but they are urging calm and saying they will facilitate peaceful demonstrations in reaction to however the Los Angeles jury rules.

“We anticipate that regardless of the verdict reached by the jury, demonstrations will occur in downtown Oakland, and possibly throughout the city. The City of Oakland is committed to facilitating peaceful expression and demonstrations. The City of Oakland is also prepared to deal with the situation if it turns violent. Our goal is to protect public safety and property by minimizing the vandalism and violence,” reads a memo the Mayor’s Office distributed to Oakland city employees.

Of particular concern to Oakland officials is the area around Oakland City Hall, which they want evacuated before the demonstrations begin. As the memo said, “We learned from the January 2009 BART demonstrations that 14th & Broadway and the City Hall Complex are target areas and there is some indication that history may repeat itself. City management is concerned about the safety of our employees and it may be necessary to release some city staff earlier than normal. Similar planning efforts are being considered by the State and Federal buildings as well as private employers in the surrounding area.”

In fact, witnesses say that many Oakland business owners in the area have already started to board up their storefronts in anticipation of civil unrest. Police in both Oakland and San Francisco have been placed on alert and SFPD Officer Samson Chan said all officers, even plainclothed investigators, will be in uniform from now until the verdict.

SFPD Chief George Gascon held a press conference with African-American church leaders this afternoon urging calm and announcing that community centers throughout the city will be opened to give people peaceful opportunities to express their frustrations. “They all urged people to react to the verdict in a peaceful way,” Chan said.

In a public statement accompanying the internal memo, Mayor Ron Dellums expressed sympathy with the frustrations that people may feel if Mehserle is seen as getting a lenient verdict – “We understand that the community is grieving, and we are in this together. We will get through this together.” – but he ended the message by saying, “We are asking for the community to come together, look out for one another, and stay safe. We will not tolerate destruction or violence. We live here, and we love Oakland.”

Quick Lit: July 7-July 13

David Talbot
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Quick Lit: July 7-July 13

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

“RADAR Reading Series”, “Why there are words,” naked ladies, the poetics of resistance,  Alison Arngrim, “Monthly Rumpus”, and more.

Wednesday, July 7 

A Poetics of Resistance
Author Jeff Conant will read and discuss his new book, A Poetics of Resistance: The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Insurgency, an engaging study for organizers to understand how to develop their messages of bottom-up revolution.
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

Breast Strokes
Authors Cathy Edgett  and Jane Flint present their inspiring story about two friends who help each other through the diagnosis of breast cancer.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Intergenerational Writers Lab
A unique literary workshop for emerging writers featuring readings and performances by Lorna Dee Cervantes, Ben Fong-Torres, Leticia Hernandez, Genny Lim, and the 2010 IWL participants: C. Adán Cabrera, Emilie Coulson, Lyndsey Ellis, Marisa Gedney, Bill Gong, Meldy Hernandez, Nancy Larson, Page McBee, Ruby Rain and Natalia Vigil.
7 p.m., $5-$20 sliding scale
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia, SF
www.theintersection.org

“RADAR Reading Series”
Attend this showcase of underground and emerging artists and writers featuring Ryka Aoki de la Cruz, Diane di Prima, Mica Sigourney, and Tony Tulathimutte. Hosted by Michelle Tea.
6 p.m., free
San Francisco Pubic Library
Main Branch
100 Larkin, SF
www.radarproductions.org

Thursday, July 8

California Rocks
Join Katherine Baylor for a reading and discussion of her new book, California Rocks: A Guide to Geologic Sites in the Golden State.
6 p.m., free
University Press Books
2430 Bancroft, Berk.
(510) 548-0585

Flood Earth
Species extinction expert Peter Ward describes what the world will look like in 2050 and beyond.
Books Inc. Marina
2251 Chestnut, SF
(415) 931-3633

Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines
Attend this reading and release party for Ryka Aoki’s new book, with readings by Ali Liebegott, Jusin Chin, and Ryka Aoki.
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

To Have Not
Author Frances Lefkowitz shares and reflects on her own life of poverty.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Unlikely Allies
Author Joel Richard Paul weaves together a fascinating account of three people who, each for his own reasons, connived, betrayed, and spied to help win the revolution for the Americas.
6 p.m., $12
Mechanics’ Institute
57 Post, SF
(415) 393-0100

“Why There Are Words”
This installment of the “Why There Are Words” literary series asks authors to weigh in on what the word “accident” means to them. Featuring Elissa Bassist, editor and essayist from The Rumpus, Glen David Gold, author of the bestselling novel Carter Beats the Devil, Joshua Mohr, author of the novel Some Things that Meant the World to Me, Anne Raeff, author of Two Serious Ladies and Clara Mondschein’s Melancholia, Jason Roberts, author of A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler, and Tatjana Soli, author of The Lotus Eaters.
7 p.m., $5
Studio 333
333 Caledonia, Sausalito
(415) 331-8272

Friday, July 9

“Poets and Writers on the Depression Era”
Part of LaborFest 2010, hear poets and writers speak on the struggle of working people to survive in this desperate world.
7 p.m., free
Kaleidoscope Gallery
3104 24th St., SF
www.laborfest.net

Saturday, July 10

The Butterfly Mosque
Hear the first American Muslim woman to become a professional comic book writer, G. Willow Wilson, discuss her new book, The Butterfly Mosque: A Young Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam.
6 p.m., $7
ICCNC
1433 Madison, Oakl.
(510) 219-2431

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch
Star of the hit TV show Little House on the Prairie, author Alison Arngrim presents her comic memoir of growing up as one of television’s most memorable characters.
3 p.m., free
Borders
400 Post, SF
(415) 399-1633

Sunday, July 11

Last Dog on the Hill
At this benefit for Hopalong rescue, author Steve Duno presents his new book.
6 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

“Naked Girls Reading”
Get tips, advice and how-to’s from a naked girl at this latest installment of the “Naked Girls Reading” series featuring Carol Queen, Dottie Lux, Lady Monster, Isis Starr, Kimberlee Cline and Hollie Stevens providing their favorite words of advice.
7 p.m., $15-$20
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.nakedgirlsreading.net

Monday, July 12

Awaken Your Strongest Self
Author Neil Fiore talks about his four-step program for breaking self-destructive habits, increasing productivity, and performing at your best.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

“Monthly Rumpus”
Enjoy this reading with authors Justine Sharrock, Matt Stewart, Eli Horowitz, Mac Barnett, Lauren Wheeler, and Matthew L. Mosely featuring a performance by Richard Porter, music by Ember Shrag, and comedy by Janine Brito. There will also be food, raffles, and more.
7 p.m., $10
Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
www.therumpus.net

Presumed Dead
Crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and author Henry Lee discussed his new book titled, Presumed Dead: A True Life Murder Mystery.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688

Tuesday, July 13

An Intimate Ecology
Author Julia Whitty talks about her new book filled with gripping adventure, cutting-edge science, and an intimate understanding of our deep blue home.
7 p.m., free
Books Inc. Berkeley
1760 4th St., Berk.
(510) 525-7777

Golden Gate
Librarian, professor and author Kevin Starr discusses his new book titled, Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America’s Greatest Bridge.
7 p.m., free
BookShop West Portal
80 West Portal, SF
(415) 564-8080

Film listings

David Talbot
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide. Due to the July 4 holiday, theater information was incomplete at presstime.

ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD

The seventh Another Hole in the Head Film Festival runs July 8-29 at the Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; and Viz Cinema, New People, 1746 Post, SF. For tickets (most shows $11), visit www.sfindie.com. For commentary, see Trash and http://www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision

THURS/8

Roxie Death Kappa 5. Mutant Girls Squad 7. A Serbian Film 9.

FRI/9

Roxie Samurai Princess 5. Symbol 7. RoboGeisha 9. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil 11.

SAT/10

Roxie Satan Hates You 5. A Serbian Film 7. Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl 9. The Exterminator 11.

SUN/11

Roxie Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue 5. The Violent Kind 7. Yatterman 9.

MON/12

Roxie Sexy Time Trip Ninjas 5. Samurai Princess 7. Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue 9.

TUES/13

Roxie Satan Hates You 5. Silent Night, Zombie Night 7. Yatterman 9.

OPENING

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo Opening with the humid buzz of crickets and the probings of bug aficionados in the thick of a forest, first-time documentarian Jessica Oreck puts Japan’s fascination with insects under the microscope. Preferring to let the images and interview subjects speak for themselves, she turns a lens to young children who clamor to buy sleek, shiny, obsidian beetles, as well as the giant big city gatherings of insect collectors — events that likely are less than familiar to western audiences. Oreck’s intent is to get at the ineffable attraction behind such astonishing sales as that of a single beetle for $90,000 not so long ago, and to that end, she weaves in looks at insect literature and art, visits to Buddhist temples, and historical factoids about, for instance, the first cricket-selling business in the early 1800s. (1:30) Elmwood, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Daddy Longlegs Purportedly based on their own growing-up experiences, Ben and Joshua Safdie’s feature does for the terminally immature Manhattan reluctant father what Roger Dodger (2002) did for the terminally predatory heterosexual Manhattan bachelor: provide gruesome shaky-cam dissection of a dad dreadful by any common moral standard, yet who is more pathetic and oddly ingratiating than loathsome. The two weeks Lenny (Ronald Bronstein) is charged with caring for his two unruly young sons (Sage Ranaldo, Frey Ranaldo) by a pointedly estranged, vacationing ex-spouse provide enough evidence for a hundred angry divorce proceedings. While a friend is behaving inappropriately with the kids, Lenny goes into the bathroom to smoke a doob; when he’s got a babysitting work conflict, he sedates them into a near-coma. Yet at the same time he’s also a really fun, loving dad — just one lacking all conventional instincts for appropriate behavior. On the one hand this is a parental horror film, on the other a touching and delicate portrait of someone who would very much like to be a good dad but is congenitally doomed as fuckup. Both hands say: this is rather wonderful, ultimately very poignant movie. (1:40) Roxie. (Harvey)

Despicable Me The ad campaign for this film is completely impenetrable, is it not? Apparently it’s a 3-D animated comedy about a guy plotting to steal the moon, with some sentimental stuff thrown as a bonus. (1:35)

*The Girl Who Played With Fire Lisbeth Salander is cooler than you are. The heroine of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling book series is fierce, mysterious, and utterly captivating: in the movie adaptations, she’s perfectly realized by Noomi Rapace, who has the power to transform Lisbeth from literary hero to film icon. Rapace first impressed audiences in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009), a faithful adaptation of Larsson’s premiere novel, and she returns as Lisbeth in The Girl Who Played With Fire. The sequel, as is often the case, isn’t quite on par with the original, but it’s still a page-to-screen success. And while the first film spent equal time on journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), The Girl Who Played With Fire is almost entirely Lisbeth’s story. Sure, there’s more to the movie than the hacker-turned-sleuth — and the actor who plays her — but she carries the film. Rapace is Lisbeth; Lisbeth is Rapace. I’d watch both in anything. (2:09) Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Grease Sing-A-Long Snore. Where’s the sing-a-long love for Grease 2 (1982)? “Cool Rider” forever! (1:50)

John Rabe John Rabe (Ulrich Tukur) was the Oskar Schindler of Nanking: A man who, under discreetly opportunist pretenses, attempted to keep the Chinese in a safety zone from the Japanese in the late 30s. Steve Buscemi plays Robert Wilson, a surly American doctor. He’s to Tukur as Ben Kingsley was to Liam Neeson in 1993’s Schindler’s List, but without the nuance or iconic chemistry. Tukur is understated, bordering on uninteresting, and Buscemi is just over-the-top. Unlike Spielberg’s film, John Rabe grants us little access to the stories of civilians. The film is so preoccupied with people of power and those like Rabe, couched in a world of privilege, that the film lacks an emotional, human center. It’s impossible to feel much of anything because we’re never asked to feel, nor are we ever asked to endure any especially difficult scenes. Even the occasional rain of hellfire isn’t as wallop-packing as it ought to be. (2:14) Elmwood, Presidio. (Ryan Lattanzio)

*The Kids Are All Right See “We Are Family.” (1:47) SF Center.

Predators The hunt-happy creatures take a break from fighting the Aliens to terrorize a surprisingly highbrow cast, including Adrien Brody and Laurence Fishburne (but not, alas, Chris Hansen). (runtime not available)

*Stonewall Uprising See “Riot Awakening.” (1:22)

*Wild Grass The premise of Wild Grass, Alain Resnais’ loopy new film, could have come straight from Nancy Meyers: an older married man finds a single, middle-aged woman’s wallet. He returns it but can’t stop thinking about her. She, in turn, is intrigued by his attentions. Both are surprised by the connection they feel growing between them, one which they nevertheless have difficulty articulating. When they finally meet, sparks fly. That purloined wallet, along with the romcom set-up, aren’t the only MacGuffins in Resnais’ Wild ride, which uses Christian Gailly’s novel L’ Incindent as a rough guide for its careening tour of the irrational courses that desire can lead us down. The man and woman in question are Georges, an embittered writer with a possibly dark past, and flame-haired Marguerite, a dentist and part-time aviatrix, both played to neurotic perfection by longtime Resnais regulars André Dussollier and Sabine Azéma. Resnais’ attempt to translate what he has called the “musicality” of Gailly’s prose has resulted in a frenetic everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach that tries to visually approximate Georges and Marguerites’ every internal monologue, fantasy, and increasingly risky instance of impulsive behavior, throwing in some knowing winks to classic Hollywood cinema for good measure. It’s a mess, to be sure (there are even two endings!). But like Mr. Magoo, the 87-year-old Resnais, as if by some unseen hand, steers clear of complete disaster. There hasn’t been a Gallic car crash this delightful to watch since Godard’s famous pile-up in 1967’s Week End. (1:44) Clay, Shattuck. (Sussman)

ONGOING

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

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

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

Cyrus It’s tempting to label Mark and Jay Duplass’ Cyrus as “mumblecore goes mainstream.” Yes, the mumblecore elements are all there: plentiful moments of awkward humiliation, characters fumbling verbally and sometimes physically in desperate attempts to establish emotional connections, and a meandering, character-driven plot, in the sense that the characters themselves possess precious little drive. The addition of bona fide indie movie stars John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, and Marisa Tomei — not to mention Hollywood’s chubby-funny guy du jour, Jonah Hill — could lead some to believe that the DIY-loving Duplass brothers (2005’s The Puffy Chair, 2008’s Baghead) have gone from slacker disciples of John Cassavetes (informally known as “Slackavetes”) to worshippers at the slickly profane (with a heart) altar of Judd Apatow. But despite the presence of Apatow protégé Hill (2007’s Superbad) in the title role, Cyrus steers clear of crowd-pleasing bombast, instead favoring small, relatively naturalistic moments. That is to say, not much actually happens. Mumblecore? More or less. Mainstream? Not exactly. Despite playing a character with some serious psychological issues, Hill comes off as likeable. Unfortunately the movie is neither as broadly comic nor as emotionally poignant as it needs to be — the two opposing forces seem to cancel each other out like acids and bases. (1:32) (Devereaux)

8: The Mormon Proposition (1:30)

*Everyone Else Maren Ade’s Everyone Else is a distinctly modernist romantic comedy — one without air. Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr) and Chris (Lars Eidinger) are on vacation, and failing miserably at basic communication. Everyone Else figures holiday as a stage, in which the principles grasp for their roles in relationship to the other. They are a young, bourgeoisie German couple staying at his parents’ villa in Sardinia. He is a disappointed architect, she a music publicist. Already, though, this capsule betrays the film’s methodical mode of exposition, whereby facts like “his parents’ villa” and “in Sardinia” are realized in conversation, later than we expect. Before then, we’re privy to inner jokes, private nonsense, and gestural rapport. Rather than using such minutiae to ingratiate us into Chris and Gitti’s quirks, Ade is embedding us in the relationship’s interior. We realize how deeply during the course of two dinners with an architect acquaintance and his wife, the first at the new couple’s house and the second at the villa. The other pair stands in for the “everybody else” of the title, and, in their outsized performance as a couple, acts as a convenient cipher for Chris and Gitti’s bottomless insecurities. Chris and Gitti are not cold fish — their passion is intense, if swollen by doubt — but the fact that their relationship’s obstacles are self-imposed leads to a certain captive mentality, in which staying together means being marooned from the outside world. (1:59) (Goldberg)

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

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

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

Grown Ups In order of star power, Grown Ups casts Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade as five fortysomething friends who reunite to attend the funeral of their high school basketball coach, and play catch-up over a long weekend together at a cabin by the lake. If you’re expecting five of America’s biggest comedy stars to form like Voltron and make the most hilarious movie of the year, you’ve got a sad day coming. Grown Ups is never the sum of its parts, it’s about on par with Sandler’s other producing/starring affairs, and probably features a lot of the same jokes. People fall in poop and little kids say cute things designed to make audiences awww, but history has shown that’s exactly what a popcorn viewer is looking for. By these standards, Grown Ups is a perfectly summer-y movie. (1:42) (Galvin)

*I Am Love I Am Love opens in a chilly, Christmastime Milan and deliberately warms in tandem with its characters. Members of the blue-blood Recchi family are content hosting lavish parties and gossiping about one another, none more than the matriarch Emma (Tilda Swinton). But when prodigal son Edoardo befriends a local chef, Emma finds herself taken by both the chef’s food and his everyman personality, and is reminded of her poor Soviet upbringing. The courtship that follows is familiar on paper, but director Luca Guadagnino lenses with a strong style and small scenes acquire a distinct energy through careful editing and John Adams’ unpredictable score. Swinton portrays Emma’s unraveling with the same gritty gusto she brought to Julia (2008), and her commitment to the role recognizes few boundaries. You’ve probably seen this story before, but it has rarely been this powerful. (2:00) (Galvin)

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

Jonah Hex Based on DC’s dark western comics, Jonah Hex is a jumbled mess of mishandled superhero tropes and obligatory attempts at badass-ery. The title character, a grizzled gunfighter with a distinctive facial scar, could be an engaging outsider antihero, but as portrayed by Josh Brolin, he feels neither as cool nor as tortured as we’re clearly expected to believe. The film has a decidedly ’90s feel to it — think overbudgeted, underthought masterpieces like Wild Wild West (1999) — with its farcically fantastical take on post-Civil War supervillainy. Its ridiculous cast of character actors is almost completely squandered, including archvillain John Malkovich, Aidan Quinn as Ulysses S. Grant, and Will Arnett in an inexplicably serious role. Megan Fox is trying the hardest out of the whole cast, but in a rather sleazy move, her character always seems to appear in soft focus. Oh, and there are a few explosions. (1:81) (Sam Stander)

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

*The Killer Inside Me This January a Sundance controversy broke. The movie in question was eclectic English director Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me, the latest screen version of a beloved and spectacularly nasty noir tale by literary pulp hero Jim Thompson. The protest was that the onscreen violence against women was viciously excessive. The accusation is true: in Winterbottom’s film, violence is horribly immediate, sadistic yet matter-of-fact, almost unendurable — everything movie violence almost never is. There’s nothing remotely comfortable about the highly personal, unnecessary cruelty our antihero wreaks. Sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck), a good ol’ boy in his dusty, back-slappy west Texas hometown of the late 1950s, is a world-class sociopath who depends on lazy small-town gullibility and rote suspicion toward outsiders to literally get away with murder. Lou is shagging local Amy (Kate Hudson) — but gets distracted by Joyce (Jessica Alba), a probable prostitute he’s asked to bum rush outta town. Leading ladies Alba and Hudson are widely perceived as spoiled hotties of little talent — hence perfect battering-rams for pulp-machismo movie violence. What’s cool about Winterbottom’s Killer is that it refuses to let you enjoy the abuse they endure, which is viscerally unpleasant as a fist to the gut. It’s abrupt, grueling, and horrific. At once folksy-nostalgic and vicious, The Killer Inside Me is unabashedly about men who hate women. It successfully translates Thompson’s gambit of insinuating us into the seemingly pleasant, reasonable viewpoint of a protagonist we are then surprised to discover is psychotic and without a conscience. Offended Sundance attendees should’ve gotten a clue: deliberately misleading in its pulp-nostalgia trappings, this is one movie that upsets not gratuitously, but exactly as it should. (1:48) (Harvey)

Killers (1:40)

*Knight and Day A Bourne-again Vanilla Sky (2001)? Considerably better than that embarrassingly silly stateside remake, though not quite as fulfilling as director James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma (2007) rework, this action caper played for yuks still isn’t the most original article in the cineplex. But coasting on the dazzling Cheshire grins of its stars, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, reunited for the first time since Sky, you can just make out the birth of a beautiful new franchise. Everygirl June Havens (Diaz) is on her way to her sister’s wedding when she collides-cute at the airport with Roy Miller (Cruise). After killing the passengers and pilots on their plane, he literally sweeps her off her feet — thanks to some potent drugs. Picture a would-be Bond girl dragged against a spy-vs.-spy thriller semi-against-her-will — grappling with the subtextual anxiety rushing beneath all brief romantic encounters as well as some very justifiable survival fears. Can June overcome her trust issues? Is Roy the man of her dreams — or nightmares? Mangold and company miss a few opportunities to have more fun with those barely teased out ideas, and the polished, adult-yet-far-from-knowing charisma of the leads doesn’t quite live up to sophisticated interplay of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, or even the down-home fun of Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, but it’s substantial enough for Knight and Day to coast on, for about 90 minutes tops. (2:10) (Chun)

The Last Airbender There must be some M. Night Shyamalan fans out there. How else does one explain the fact that he keeps making movies? And yet, most of his post-Sixth Sense (1999) work has ranged from forgettable to downright reviled. His latest disaster is sure to fall into the latter category: in The Last Airbender, he takes a much-loved Nickelodeon cartoon and transforms it into an awkwardly paced, poorly acted mess. Woefully miscast Noah Ringer stars as Aang, the avatar with the power to end the Fire Nation’s dominion. Along with his friends, siblings Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz), Aang must — oh, just watch the damn show. For newcomers, the film is as confusing as Shyamalan’s equally self-indulgent Lady in the Water (2006). For fans of the TV show, The Last Airbender is nearly unbearable, condensing the entire first season into one film by removing the humor, the heart, and the complexity of the characters. There’s no twist here — we expect Shyamalan to disappoint, and he does. (1:34) (Peitzman)

Love Ranch “Who do you think you are, the queen of fucking England?” That’s Joe Pesci to Helen Mirren in Love Ranch, a film that takes Mirren about as far as possible from her titular role in 2006’s The Queen. She stars as Grace Botempo, co-owner of Nevada’s first legal brothel alongside her husband, Pesci’s Charlie. The fact that the regal British dame is entirely convincing as an American madam speaks to her impressive versatility. While the movie as a whole is engaging — insofar as it’s a 1970s period piece about legalized prostitution — the plot is mostly predictable. Grace finds herself drawn to the Argentinean prize fighter her husband forces her to manage. In Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), she gets the attention and appreciation Charlie can no longer offer. In Grace, Bruza gets a woman who looks damn good at 64. Above all else, it’s enjoyable watching Mirren in this context; she gets ravaged by a much younger man, breaks up girl-on-girl fights, and says things like “I’ve got 25 psychotic whores to manage. That’s a full dance card.” Though it has its charmingly trashy moments, it’s doubtful Love Ranch would be worthwhile without her performance. (1:57) (Peitzman)

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

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

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

*Restrepo Starting mid-’07, journalists-filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger spent some 15 months off and on embedded with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, a Taliban stronghold with steep, mountainous terrain that could hardly be more advantageous for snipers. Particularly once a second, even more isolated outpost is built, the soldiers’ days are fraught with tension, whether they’re ordered out into the open on a mission or staying put under frequent fire. Strictly vérité, with no political commentary overt or otherwise, the documentary could be (and has been) faulted for not having enough of a “narrative arc” — as if life often does, particularly under such extreme circumstances. But it’s harrowingly immediate (the filmmakers themselves often have to dive for cover) and revelatory as a glimpse not just of active warfare, but of the near-impossible challenges particular to foreign armed forces trying to make any kind of “progress” in Afghanistan. (1:33) (Harvey)

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07)

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

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

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

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

*Toy Story 3 You’ve got a friend in Pixar. We all do. The animation studio just can’t seem to make a bad movie — even at its relative worst, a Pixar film is still worlds better than most of what Hollywood churns out. Luckily, Toy Story 3 is far from the worst: it’s actually one of Pixar’s most enjoyable and poignant films yet. Waiting 11 years after the release of Toy Story 2 was, in fact, a stroke of genius, in that it amplifies the nostalgia that runs through so many of the studio’s releases. The kids who were raised on Toy Story and its first sequel have now grown up, gone to college, and, presumably, abandoned their toys. For these twentysomethings, myself included, Toy Story 3 is a uniquely satisfying and heartbreaking experience. While the film itself may not be the instant classic that WALL-E (2008) was, it’s near flawless regardless of a viewer’s age. Warm, funny, and emotionally devastating—it’s Pixar as it should be. (1:49) (Peitzman)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse The only person more bored by the Twilight franchise than I am is Kristen Stewart. In Eclipse, the third installment of the film series, she mopes her way through further adventures with creepily obsessive vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson). Look, you’re either sold on this star-crossed love story or you’re not, and it’s clear which camp I fall into. Besides, Eclipse is at least better than New Moon, the dreadful Twilight film that preceded it last year. But the story is still ponderous and predictable — Eclipse sets up a conflict and then quickly resolves it, just so it can spend more time on the Bella-Edward-Jacob love triangle. (As if we don’t know how that ends.) Then there’s the unfortunate anti-sex subtext: carnal relations are cast as dirty, wrong, and soul-destroying. I’m not saying we should be encouraging all teenagers to have sex, but that doesn’t mean we should make them feel ashamed of their desires. And what parent would approve of Eclipse‘s conclusion? Marrying your first boyfriend at 18—not always the best move. (2:04) (Peitzman)

*Winter’s Bone Winter’s Bone has already won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, but it’s the kind of downbeat, low-key, quiet film that may elude larger audiences (and, as these things go, Oscar voters). Like Andrea Arnold’s recent Fish Tank, it tells the story of a teenage girl who draws on unlikely reserves of toughness to navigate an unstable family life amid less-than-ideal economic circumstances. And it’s also directed by a woman: Debra Granik, whose previous feature, 2004’s Down to the Bone, starred Vera Farmiga (2009’s Up in the Air) as a checkout clerk trying to balance two kids and a secret coke habit.

Drugs also figure into the plot of the harrowing Winter’s Bone, though its protagonist, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), is faced with a different set of circumstances: her meth head father has jumped bail, leaving the family’s humble mountain home as collateral; the two kids at stake are her younger siblings. With no resources other than her own tenacity, Ree strikes out into her rural Missouri community, seeking information from relatives who clearly know where her father is — but ain’t sayin’ a word. It’s a journey fraught with menace, shot with an eye for near-documentary realism and an appreciation for slow-burn suspense; Lawrence anchors a solid cast with her own powerful performance. Who says American independent film is dead? (1:40) (Eddy)

 

Demon amulets and building codes: a sound installation that’ll “bowl” you over

Andrew Lam
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At a recent sunny day preview of The Bowls Project at YBCA, I was very confused. I had spoken with Jewlia Eisenberg of the group Charming Hostess a few days earlier on the phone, and she had given me the impression her new sound installation at the gallery was about ancient Babylonian incantation bowls used to summon demons for help in the domestic arena. “I refer to it as apocalyptic intimate,” she told me, “they’re things from the home, but they have angels and demons, things you have to deal with.” She read to me from wild inscriptions she’s found through research on these bowls, which serve as some of our only records of female voices from the era. They include curses against gossips that their “tongue should cling to the roof of their mouths,” calls for Anwar next door to become “inflamed, heated” for the commissioner of the bowl – even an ode to the overthrow of the heavens. It was rad. But there I was, at the YBCA, listening to the description of — a sustainable architecture project?

Michael Ramage is a muscular, clean cut man in an orange Cambridge University sweatshirt. He looks roughly approximate to his profession, which is teacher of architecture and structural engineering at aforementioned school. How he and Jewlia Eisenberg, who is the theatric, charismatic creator of an experimental music ensemble, came together is perhaps testament to the mesmerizing pull of the past.

The two met at MIT, where Ramage was studying the construction of  masonry domes using traditional methods and non traditional materials. Eisenberg was taking part in an artist residency program at the university, and had just discovered the bowls’ existence in a “fusty dissertation from 1972.” She wanted to recreate the bowls’ magic for a modern day audience – how amazing would it be to stage the exhibit in a bowl-like space on which actual inscriptions could be etched? She says she “told [Ramage] about the project, and four years later we’re doing it.”

Many art installations involve some sort of structure to stage the work within, but none I’ve ever seen can match the forethought, and fortitude of The Bowl Projects’ domes. Ramage specializes in a style of building called Catalan vaulting, a school of building perfected thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, and used well into the approximate modern day by architects like Rafael Guastavino and Gaudi. It requires little by way of materials; the bricks in Catalan vaulting are held up largely by the pressure they exert on each other.

Charming Hostess (Jewlia Eisenberg second from right) is laying down the welcome mat at the Bowls Project. Photo by Robin Hultgren Esprite Photographie

Of course, that was a bit difficult to describe to the Department of Building Inspection, who allowed the structure to be built on two conditions; it be reinforced, somehow, and it be earthquake ready. These seem to have been but piddling roadblocks for Ramage – the architect hit upon a light, sustainably produced mesh to reinforce the air bubble filled concrete bricks, and set the structure atop a remarkable system of bowls (natch) and ball bearings so that, should the big one hit, the whole thing will just roll around and surf the tremors out. The two connected domes form an elegant mix of low-tech, lightweight, and environmentally sound; nearly all the energy expended on the project was powered by human muscle. Prince Charles, Eisenberg told me, wants Ramage to build one like it in the Prince of Wales’ own garden.

Which is all really cool. But what exactly will be happening inside this fabulously produced space (which is for sale after The Bowl Project is packed up in August for what one of the project’s engineers pinned at “a low, low price of we’ll talk about it.” Incidentally, he thought it’d make a great winery tasting room – any takers?) once it opens to the public? Bring it back to the demon bowls. Much as women back in the day would endow the amulets with their domestic secrets, Eisenberg is currently collecting hidden truths from the public on her website and hotline. These will be projected as a 360 degree sound experience within the domes.

But that’s not all. The bowls represent “that ecstatic exploration of sex and magic,” says Eisenberg, and to that end, she hopes they’ll be used for self-reflection and celebration by the community. She’s planned a full slate of musical performances, art workshops, meditation days, and public rituals by such local holy people as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for the space. 

So, all kinds of cool stuff. But the truly amazing thing about the Bowl Project may just be that it was made at all. Architects, engineers, union masonry workers who have been contributing their labor pro bono, museum folk; a new band of partners-in-crime for this concept musician. “The collaboration has been intense, and amazing, and I’ve learned a ton,” says Eisenberg. A sentiment which begs for a bowl inscription of its own.

 

The Bowls Project

Opening night ceremony: 

Tues/6 6-8 p.m., free

(through Aug 22, $7 YBCA gallery admission)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Sculpture Court

700-701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Our Weekly Picks: June 31-July 6

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 30

FILM

The Hidden Fortress

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

7 p.m., $5.50–$9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk

(510) 642-5249

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

EVENT

God’s Lunatics

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

7 p.m., free

Modern Times Bookstore

888 Valencia, SF

(415) 282-9246

www.mtbs.com

 

THEATER

Young Frankenstein

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

Through July 25

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

Sun, 2 p.m., $30–$99

Golden Gate Theatre

One Taylor, SF

(415) 551-2000

www.shnsf.com

 

THURSDAY 1

VISUAL ART

“Renaissance”

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

Through Aug. 28

Opening 5:30–7:30 p.m., free

Dolby Chadwick Gallery

210 Post, SF

(415) 956-3560

www.dolbychadwickgallery.com

 

FRIDAY 2

FILM

San Francisco Frozen Film Festival

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

Through Sat/3, $10

Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF

www.frozenfilmfestival.com

 

THEATER

Left of Oz

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

Through July 18

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

Ashby Stage

1901 Ashby, Berk.

(510) 841-6500

www.leftofoz.com

 

MUSIC

Carte Blanche

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

9 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

EVENT

“Mission Muralismo Celebrates the Graff Convention”

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

5–8:45 p.m., free

de Young Museum

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., SF

(415) 750-3600

www.famsf.org

 

SATURDAY 3

MUSIC

Fillmore Jazz Festival

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

Through Sun/4

10 a.m.–6 p.m., free

Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF

www.fillmorejazzfestival.com

 

SUNDAY 4

EVENT

“Pooches on Parade”

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

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

Main Street

Half Moon Bay

www.poochesonparade.org

 

EVENT/DANCE

“Tango in the Square”

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

2 p.m., free

Union Square

Powell and Geary, SF

www.unionsquarepark.us/JewelsJuly

 

EVENT

Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration

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

3–9:30 p.m., free

Pier 39, SF

www.pier39.com/Events

 

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Film listings

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

OPENING

*Everyone Else See "Nobody But You." (1:59) Lumiere, Shattuck.

The Last Airbender Millions of people out of work, and M. Night Shyamalan is still making movies. (1:34) Presidio.

Love Ranch See "Madam Majesty." (1:57) Embarcadero.

*Restrepo Starting mid-’07, journalists-filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger spent some 15 months off and on embedded with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, a Taliban stronghold with steep, mountainous terrain that could hardly be more advantageous for snipers. Particularly once a second, even more isolated outpost is built, the soldiers’ days are fraught with tension, whether they’re ordered out into the open on a mission or staying put under frequent fire. Strictly vérité, with no political commentary overt or otherwise, the documentary could be (and has been) faulted for not having enough of a "narrative arc" — as if life often does, particularly under such extreme circumstances. But it’s harrowingly immediate (the filmmakers themselves often have to dive for cover) and revelatory as a glimpse not just of active warfare, but of the near-impossible challenges particular to foreign armed forces trying to make any kind of "progress" in Afghanistan. (1:33) Bridge. (Harvey)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Another one already? Jeez. (2:04) California, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

ONGOING

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

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

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

Cyrus It’s tempting to label Mark and Jay Duplass’ Cyrus as "mumblecore goes mainstream." Yes, the mumblecore elements are all there: plentiful moments of awkward humiliation, characters fumbling verbally and sometimes physically in desperate attempts to establish emotional connections, and a meandering, character-driven plot, in the sense that the characters themselves possess precious little drive. The addition of bona fide indie movie stars John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, and Marisa Tomei — not to mention Hollywood’s chubby-funny guy du jour, Jonah Hill — could lead some to believe that the DIY-loving Duplass brothers (2005’s The Puffy Chair, 2008’s Baghead) have gone from slacker disciples of John Cassavetes (informally known as "Slackavetes") to worshippers at the slickly profane (with a heart) altar of Judd Apatow. But despite the presence of Apatow protégé Hill (2007’s Superbad) in the title role, Cyrus steers clear of crowd-pleasing bombast, instead favoring small, relatively naturalistic moments. That is to say, not much actually happens. Mumblecore? More or less. Mainstream? Not exactly. Despite playing a character with some serious psychological issues, Hill comes off as likeable. Unfortunately the movie is neither as broadly comic nor as emotionally poignant as it needs to be — the two opposing forces seem to cancel each other out like acids and bases. (1:32) California, Metreon. (Devereaux)

8: The Mormon Proposition (1:30) Elmwood, Sundance Kabuki.

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

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

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

Grown Ups In order of star power, Grown Ups casts Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade as five fortysomething friends who reunite to attend the funeral of their high school basketball coach, and play catch-up over a long weekend together at a cabin by the lake. If you’re expecting five of America’s biggest comedy stars to form like Voltron and make the most hilarious movie of the year, you’ve got a sad day coming. Grown Ups is never the sum of its parts, it’s about on par with Sandler’s other producing/starring affairs, and probably features a lot of the same jokes. People fall in poop and little kids say cute things designed to make audiences awww, but history has shown that’s exactly what a popcorn viewer is looking for. By these standards, Grown Ups is a perfectly summer-y movie. (1:42) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Peter Galvin)

Have You Heard from Johannesburg? The best word to describe Connie Field’s Have You Heard From Johannesburg? is "impressive." At eight-and-a-half hours, the seven-part documentary series spans nearly five decades of the South African anti-apartheid movement. The individual films are well-researched and thought-provoking. The stories are compelling — that is, until you put them all together. The complete series is just too long for those without a strong, vested interest in South African history. It’s simply not approachable for the mainstream, and the approximately three-hour chunks it’s meant to be consumed in are daunting. These films are better suited to a televised series, where viewers could appreciate hearing about anti-apartheid pioneers like Oliver Tambo and Desmond Tutu in smaller, digestible bites. As it stands, Field’s documentary is not likely to find a wide audience — a real pity, given the 10 years of effort she put into it, and the importance of sharing the South African struggle for equality with the rest of the world. (8:30) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

*I Am Love I Am Love opens in a chilly, Christmastime Milan and deliberately warms in tandem with its characters. Members of the blue-blood Recchi family are content hosting lavish parties and gossiping about one another, none more than the matriarch Emma (Tilda Swinton). But when prodigal son Edoardo befriends a local chef, Emma finds herself taken by both the chef’s food and his everyman personality, and is reminded of her poor Soviet upbringing. The courtship that follows is familiar on paper, but director Luca Guadagnino lenses with a strong style and small scenes acquire a distinct energy through careful editing and John Adams’ unpredictable score. Swinton portrays Emma’s unraveling with the same gritty gusto she brought to Julia (2008), and her commitment to the role recognizes few boundaries. You’ve probably seen this story before, but it has rarely been this powerful. (2:00) Albany, Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

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

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

Jonah Hex Based on DC’s dark western comics, Jonah Hex is a jumbled mess of mishandled superhero tropes and obligatory attempts at badass-ery. The title character, a grizzled gunfighter with a distinctive facial scar, could be an engaging outsider antihero, but as portrayed by Josh Brolin, he feels neither as cool nor as tortured as we’re clearly expected to believe. The film has a decidedly ’90s feel to it — think overbudgeted, underthought masterpieces like Wild Wild West (1999) — with its farcically fantastical take on post-Civil War supervillainy. Its ridiculous cast of character actors is almost completely squandered, including archvillain John Malkovich, Aidan Quinn as Ulysses S. Grant, and Will Arnett in an inexplicably serious role. Megan Fox is trying the hardest out of the whole cast, but in a rather sleazy move, her character always seems to appear in soft focus. Oh, and there are a few explosions. (1:81) 1000 Van Ness. (Sam Stander)

The Karate Kid The most baffling thing about The Karate Kid is its title: little Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) never actually learns karate. He practices kung-fu, an entirely different form of martial arts — you know, from a different country. There’s something obnoxious and absurd about the misnomer: the film seems to suggest that if you’ve seen one Asian culture, you’ve seen them all. That aside, it’s not a bad movie. Smith is mostly pretty likeable, and there’s a definite satisfaction to seeing him grow from bullied weakling to kung-fu star. And Jackie Chan gets to exercise his dramatic chops — he even gets a crying scene! But Karate Kid is a "reboot," the preferred term for the endless stream of unnecessary remakes Hollywood keeps churning out. You can’t help but think about the superior 1984 version. Jaden Smith is no Ralph Macchio, Jackie Chan is no Pat Morita, and kung-fu is no karate. Don’t even get me started on the "jacket on, jacket off" crap. Which, if you say it quickly, sounds a little adult for a PG movie. (2:20) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Peitzman)

*The Killer Inside Me This January a Sundance controversy broke. The movie in question was eclectic English director Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me, the latest screen version of a beloved and spectacularly nasty noir tale by literary pulp hero Jim Thompson. The protest was that the onscreen violence against women was viciously excessive. The accusation is true: in Winterbottom’s film, violence is horribly immediate, sadistic yet matter-of-fact, almost unendurable — everything movie violence almost never is. There’s nothing remotely comfortable about the highly personal, unnecessary cruelty our antihero wreaks. Sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck), a good ol’ boy in his dusty, back-slappy west Texas hometown of the late 1950s, is a world-class sociopath who depends on lazy small-town gullibility and rote suspicion toward outsiders to literally get away with murder. Lou is shagging local Amy (Kate Hudson) — but gets distracted by Joyce (Jessica Alba), a probable prostitute he’s asked to bum rush outta town. Leading ladies Alba and Hudson are widely perceived as spoiled hotties of little talent — hence perfect battering-rams for pulp-machismo movie violence. What’s cool about Winterbottom’s Killer is that it refuses to let you enjoy the abuse they endure, which is viscerally unpleasant as a fist to the gut. It’s abrupt, grueling, and horrific. At once folksy-nostalgic and vicious, The Killer Inside Me is unabashedly about men who hate women. It successfully translates Thompson’s gambit of insinuating us into the seemingly pleasant, reasonable viewpoint of a protagonist we are then surprised to discover is psychotic and without a conscience. Offended Sundance attendees should’ve gotten a clue: deliberately misleading in its pulp-nostalgia trappings, this is one movie that upsets not gratuitously, but exactly as it should. (1:48) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Killers (1:40) 1000 Van Ness.

*Knight and Day A Bourne-again Vanilla Sky (2001)? Considerably better than that embarrassingly silly stateside remake, though not quite as fulfilling as director James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma (2007) rework, this action caper played for yuks still isn’t the most original article in the cineplex. But coasting on the dazzling Cheshire grins of its stars, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, reunited for the first time since Sky, you can just make out the birth of a beautiful new franchise. Everygirl June Havens (Diaz) is on her way to her sister’s wedding when she collides-cute at the airport with Roy Miller (Cruise). After killing the passengers and pilots on their plane, he literally sweeps her off her feet — thanks to some potent drugs. Picture a would-be Bond girl dragged against a spy-vs.-spy thriller semi-against-her-will — grappling with the subtextual anxiety rushing beneath all brief romantic encounters as well as some very justifiable survival fears. Can June overcome her trust issues? Is Roy the man of her dreams — or nightmares? Mangold and company miss a few opportunities to have more fun with those barely teased out ideas, and the polished, adult-yet-far-from-knowing charisma of the leads doesn’t quite live up to sophisticated interplay of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, or even the down-home fun of Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, but it’s substantial enough for Knight and Day to coast on, for about 90 minutes tops. (2:10) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Chun)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Toy Story 3 You’ve got a friend in Pixar. We all do. The animation studio just can’t seem to make a bad movie — even at its relative worst, a Pixar film is still worlds better than most of what Hollywood churns out. Luckily, Toy Story 3 is far from the worst: it’s actually one of Pixar’s most enjoyable and poignant films yet. Waiting 11 years after the release of Toy Story 2 was, in fact, a stroke of genius, in that it amplifies the nostalgia that runs through so many of the studio’s releases. The kids who were raised on Toy Story and its first sequel have now grown up, gone to college, and, presumably, abandoned their toys. For these twentysomethings, myself included, Toy Story 3 is a uniquely satisfying and heartbreaking experience. While the film itself may not be the instant classic that WALL-E (2008) was, it’s near flawless regardless of a viewer’s age. Warm, funny, and emotionally devastating—it’s Pixar as it should be. (1:49) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Winter’s Bone Winter’s Bone has already won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, but it’s the kind of downbeat, low-key, quiet film that may elude larger audiences (and, as these things go, Oscar voters). Like Andrea Arnold’s recent Fish Tank, it tells the story of a teenage girl who draws on unlikely reserves of toughness to navigate an unstable family life amid less-than-ideal economic circumstances. And it’s also directed by a woman: Debra Granik, whose previous feature, 2004’s Down to the Bone, starred Vera Farmiga (2009’s Up in the Air) as a checkout clerk trying to balance two kids and a secret coke habit.

Drugs also figure into the plot of the harrowing Winter’s Bone, though its protagonist, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), is faced with a different set of circumstances: her meth head father has jumped bail, leaving the family’s humble mountain home as collateral; the two kids at stake are her younger siblings. With no resources other than her own tenacity, Ree strikes out into her rural Missouri community, seeking information from relatives who clearly know where her father is — but ain’t sayin’ a word. It’s a journey fraught with menace, shot with an eye for near-documentary realism and an appreciation for slow-burn suspense; Lawrence anchors a solid cast with her own powerful performance. Who says American independent film is dead? (1:40) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Fiscal solidarity

David Talbot
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Fiscal solidarity

OPINION As Mayor Gavin Newsom prepares to skip town for the bleak limelight of Sacramento, he has left a resounding parting shot with massive budget cuts to those San Franciscans most in need of public aid: seniors, youth, homeless people, folks with mental illnesses, health clinic patients … the list goes on.

Newsom has balanced his final budget (and his campaign for lieutenant governor) largely on the backs of the poor, working-class, multiracial, and immigrant San Franciscans, as well as the nonprofits and city workers who deliver vital services.

The Newsom budget actually adds costs: by cutting services for the treatment and prevention of substance abuse and for youth crime prevention and supportive housing, for instance, it destabilizes lives and forces people right back into the treatment systems that are being cut — adding new human and fiscal costs.

"Every cut has a constituency," Newsom’s PR people say repeatedly. And that’s precisely what the mayor is counting on — that each "constituency" will fight on its own, for its own fiscal scraps. He’s wrong.

As members of a broad coalition of community and neighborhood-based organizations, labor unions, and civic leaders and residents across the city, we stand together in opposition to Newsom’s cuts-only budget and his attempts to divide "constituencies."

Fiscal solidarity means we recognize that an injury to one is an injury to all. "Constituencies" are in fact people whose lives cut across multiple budget line items. Cutting city parks is also a senior issue, as well as a youth issue. Closing mental health programs for the poor is not only an unnecessary moral outrage — it’s a public health and safety issue.

As members and supporters of unions and nonprofits, which are sometimes pit against each other in budget cut wars, we declare mutual support. The mayor’s cuts will mean drastically reduced services for those who need them most and deep staff cuts for city employees and nonprofit workers. We may work for different institutions under different budget line-items, but we’re fighting together as one community — one big "constituency."

Budget wars artificially divide communities that overlap and intermingle. Expressions of unity are put to the test by the budget "add-back" process that forces community groups to scuffle for scraps of cash — groups serving populations in critical need are set against each other, and whole communities are reduced to line-items.

We’re standing against fiscal wedge politics and demanding a real alternative. The budget must protect those most in need and be balanced by cutting first from the top instead of the bottom.

We are united for solutions — progressive tax measures on key wealth sectors that can and must pay their fair share to keep San Francisco the beautiful, thriving, diverse, and culturally rich city it is. We’re standing up for the city Newsom’s leaving, for the communities he’s cutting, and for progressive revenue — a tax to make downtown hotels pay their fair share, and a gross receipts tax on large businesses for starters.

Mayor Newsom: if you cut one of us, you cut us all.

This statement was signed by Christopher Cook, Budget Justice Coalition; Gabriel Haaland, SEIU 1021*; Gordon Mar, Jobs with Justice*; Eric Quezada, Dolores Street Community Services*; N’Tanya Lee, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth*; Jennifer Friedenbach, Coalition on Homelessness; Guiliana Milanese, Jobs with Justice*; Christina Olague, Senior Action Network*; Sheila Tully, California Faculty Association, SF State*; Chelsea Boilard, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth*; Joseph Smooke, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center*; Carl Finamore, delegate, SF Labor Council*

* names for ID purposes only

SUV rampage victim speaks about the night he was hit

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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A line of television news cameras swiveled toward Rolando Casajeros, known to his friends and coworkers as “Allan,” and followed him as he moved gingerly into the conference room at a downtown San Francisco law office. The press conference was held on June 24 at the office of Choulos, Choulos & Wyle, the law firm tapped to represent him in a civil suit against the driver of the blue Nissan Rogue SUV that rammed into him June 2.

Casajeros was the first of four victims to be intentionally hit by the SUV driver on a rampage, only a few doors down from his home, near the intersection of 24th and Harrison streets in San Francisco’s Mission district. Since surviving the hit-and-run, his life has been turned upside down.

As he took a seat before three microphones, it became obvious that he had sustained very serious injuries. A scar zigzagged across the top of his shaved head, and a second scar crossed vertically down his forehead, marks from intensive surgery he’d endured to alleviate bleeding in his brain. His front teeth were missing and his lips were swollen. While his attorney, Claude Wyle, explained that he had sustained 12 facial fractures, jaw fractures that left him with a wired jaw, and mouth injuries in addition to the complications that necessitated brain surgery, Casajeros kept his eyes closed. “He’s very brave to come here today,” Wyle said gently.

When asked what he remembered from that night, Casajeros opened his eyes and looked up. Speaking in a low tone, he replied that he’d gone out to buy something from Safeway, and had a few grocery items with him as he biked home. The next thing he remembers is blacking out. “Bam, that’s it,” he said. “I just remember I flew in the air. That’s it.” Two nights later, he woke up in the hospital.

Casajeros underwent 19 hours of intensive surgery. He said he “almost fainted” when the doctor conveyed to him the extent of the damage. Since being released from the hospital last week, he’s been staying with the family of his best friend, Ronnie Guinto, who is a care provider by trade. Casajeros, who is originally from the Philippines, is the godfather of Guinto’s children.

The children’s mother, Kellie Arechiga, also spoke at the press conference, saying she wanted to get the word out about this weekend’s fundraiser at the Old Clam House to help cover expenses while he recovers from the traumatic experience. Casajeros has worked as a waiter at the Old Clam House for 12 years. He does not have health insurance, but there is a chance that the city’s Healthy San Francisco program will step in to assist with medical payments. State funds earmarked to aid victims of violent crime may also be available to him, according to his attorney.

Earlier on the day he was struck by the SUV, Casajeros and Guinto had gone out for a long recreational bike ride. “I love bikes,” Casajeros told the reporters. “I love to go biking. I go running. I’m an active person. But after this, I don’t know.” Casajeros cannot imagine why he was targeted, or why the man accused of going on the rampage, 39-year-old David Mark Clark of Albany, would have plowed into him and three others seemingly out of nowhere.

“To all the bike enthusiasts – be careful,” Casajeros said.

Wyle said it sometimes takes an outrageous event to highlight a broader trend of motorists behaving aggressively toward bicyclists in traffic. “There are many, many instances … where motorists are intentionally or recklessly endangering the lives of bicyclists,” said Wyle, who has taken many cases involving bike accidents.

Casajeros — who lives paycheck to paycheck working as a server in San Francisco — is not expected to be able to return to work for at least three months, according to the most optimistic estimate. In the meantime, he is in need of assistance to cover monthly expenses like rent, car payments, and transportation to and from his physical therapy appointments. Information on how to make a donation to a charitable trust fund set up by his attorney can be found here. Meanwhile, his friends and coworkers are still in need of items or services for a raffle at Sunday’s fundraiser at the Old Clam House.

The fundraiser will be held on Sunday, June 27, from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Old Clam House, 299 Bayshore Blvd, near Oakdale Avenue. $20 gets you a plate of food, one free drink, and two raffle tickets. There will also be live music and a DJ. Anyone wishing to make a donation for the raffle should e-mail Kelliearechiga2000@gmail.com.

Sonny dearest

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Sonny dearest

FILM It’s tempting to label Mark and Jay Duplass’ Cyrus as “mumblecore goes mainstream.” Yes, the mumblecore elements are all there: plentiful moments of awkward humiliation, characters fumbling verbally and sometimes physically in desperate attempts to establish emotional connections, and a meandering, character-driven plot, in the sense that the characters themselves possess precious little drive.

The addition of bona fide indie movie stars John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, and Marisa Tomei — not to mention Hollywood’s chubby-funny guy du jour, Jonah Hill — could lead some to believe that the DIY-loving Duplass brothers (2005’s The Puffy Chair, 2008’s Baghead) have gone from slacker disciples of John Cassavetes (informally known as “Slackavetes”) to worshippers at the slickly profane (with a heart) altar of Judd Apatow.

But despite the presence of Apatow protégé Hill (2007’s Superbad) in the title role, Cyrus steers clear of crowd-pleasing bombast, instead favoring small, relatively naturalistic moments. That is to say, not much actually happens. Mumblecore? More or less. Mainstream? Not exactly.

On the surface, Hill’s character in particular has the ring of an outrageous Hollywood comedic foil, the kind of outsized and broadly drawn (in every sense) clown who ratchets up the action by assaulting the movie’s loser hero, John (Reilly, in lost puppy dog mode) with endless, over-the-top Machiavellian schemes.

Cyrus — a disingenuous 21-year-old schlub who still lives with his mother (Tomei) and engages in creepy, inappropriate activities with her, like wrestling in the park — is actually more sad mouse than psychotic lion. The most heinous crime he ever perpetrates on fellow schlub John — this one painfully sincere, competing for his mother’s affections — is stealing his shoes.

“Molly and I are really best friends,” he tells John, before giving him a steely-eyed stare-down while serenading him on the synthesizer, in one the few moments between Cyrus and John that’s both funny and tension-filled.

Despite playing a character with some serious psychological issues, Hill comes off as likeable. Unfortunately the movie is neither as broadly comic nor as emotionally poignant as it needs to be — the two opposing forces seem to cancel each other out like acids and bases.

Strongly evocative of 1970s new American filmmaking, Cyrus‘ naturalism mixed with absurdity brings to mind great ’70s auteurs like Hal Ashby or even Robert Altman. Even the set and wardrobe (particularly the winsome Tomei’s poodle curls, heavy mascara, and hippie caftans) nostalgically evoke the era. But the Duplass brothers have neither the chops nor the strong point of view of world-class filmmakers. Those great earlier films were shambling and disjointed, yes, but they did ultimately have a destination. Cyrus is content to just spend the day in the park, engaging in some Oedipal wrestling.

CYRUS opens Fri/25 in San Francisco theaters.

CompStat vs. community policing

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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CompStat vs. community policing

By Alex Emslie


news@sfbg.com


Two competing visions for the San Francisco Police Department are central to a looming debate involving the mayor and his police chief, who favor the high-tech yet impersonal CompStat model, and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors who are pushing for a community-based, cops-walking-beats blueprint for SFPD.


District 5 Sup. Ross Mirkarimi introduced a proposed ballot measure on June 7 that would require the police chief to institute foot patrols in all districts and ask the Police Commission to establish a written community policing policy. SFPD Chief George Gascón opposes the initiative, instead favoring a reliance on the new CompStat system to determine how best to use police resources.


The terms “CompStat” and “community policing” have become trendy buzz words, UC Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring told the Guardian, so they mean different things to the police departments that employ them, muddying the waters of the current debate.


“When labels get popular, they get pasted into lots of different things,” said Zimring, who wrote The Great American Crime Decline (Oxford University Press, 2006) and is working on a second book about the crime rate drop in the 1990s in New York City, where CompStat orginated. Yet the two models point to differing law enforcement philosophies.


At its most basic, CompStat uses computerized crime mapping software to drive police deployment decisions. It emphasizes lowering a city’s crime rate by centralizing authority, spotting statistical trends, and targeting crime hot spots. Community policing, a model embraced by many U.S. police departments in the 1980s and ’90s before CompStat swept the nation, grounds police officers in the neighborhoods they serve, decentralizing authority. The model seeks to prevent crime with regular patrols that develop relationships on their beats and lets the community help set law enforcement priorities.


“There is not community policing in San Francisco,” Mirkarimi — the only member of the board to go through the police academy — told the Guardian. “I don’t care what anybody says. If they say there is, then it is isolated. It’s unique to that particular experience or location.”


Proponents of CompStat insist the new model is really just a part of community policing. Gascón wrote a letter to the Board of Supervisors in February saying the proposed legislation “oversteps the jurisdiction of the legislative branch,” “attempts to give district station captains authority and discretion that rightfully belong to the chief of police,” and “will deprive the department of the flexibility it needs to address public safety throughout the city.”


Mirkarimi doesn’t oppose CompStat and said he sees merit in the program’s statistical collection, which has long been a shortcoming in the SFPD. “But I caution against any over-reliance on CompStat as a method that dictates how policing and public safety should be applied,” Mirkarimi told us. “Because the casualty of this over-reliance will be a compromising of any hopes of having true community policing.”


The SFPD website portrays CompStat as starting with data collection and then, similar to community policing, encouraging officers to find creative solutions to ongoing problems, anything from singular incidents of burglary to repeated graffiti or even a spike in murders. The crime triangle, a lasting symbol of community policing, illustrates that victims, suspects, and locations are all necessary for crime to thrive, and successfully policing even one of those factors can prevent crime. But CompStat programs often lack sustained commitment to building relationships with neighborhoods.


“Compstat seemed to engender a pattern of organizational response to crime spikes in hot spots that was analogous to the Whack-a-Mole game found at fairs and carnivals,” argued a 2003 study commissioned by the national Police Foundation titled “CompStat in Practice: An in-depth Analysis of Three Cities.”


The study found immediate contradictions in Lowell, Mass.; Minneapolis, and Newark, N.J. between beat officers’ new responsibility to “simply follow their superiors’ orders” and the community policing model that cast them as individual, authoritative protectors of their neighborhoods. CompStat centralizes authority with the higher echelons of SFPD. It includes bimonthly meetings in which station captains are grilled by SFPD brass and are expected to answer for the statistics in their district.


“Given the gap between the two models of policing, CompStat naturally tends to encounter the greatest resistance in departments that are most committed to community policing,” the study found.


Understaffed and poorly trained crime analysis units tasked with deciphering data patterns into useful correlations (for example, between drug crimes and murder) was another barrier to the success of CompStat outlined in the study. SFPD’s crime analysis unit consists of three civilians housed at the Hall of Justice, SFPD spokesperson Lt. Lyn Tomioka told us. They are not deployed to district stations and are supervised by a lieutenant who also has other responsibilities.


“There are a lot of rough edges. There’s a lot of non-fit there,” Zimring told the Guardian. “Who sets the priorities? CompStat priorities are always crime prevention, and they are set, and tactics are provided, by the chief of police. He is, in the immortal words of George W. Bush, ‘the decider.’ Community policing is supposed to be more cooperative and organic.”


Gascón initiated CompStat in San Francisco in October 2009, although Mayor Gavin Newsom has been touting the CompStat model since he first ran for mayor in 2003, when a campaign policy brief gushed about its “accurate and timely intelligence, rapid deployment, effective tactics, and relentless follow-up and assessment.” Initially, however, SFPD only took baby steps, using a confusing plot system to map crimes. That changed when Gascón took over as police chief last August, bringing experience in the program with him from the Los Angeles Police Department.


SFPD officials say vendor contract costs to start the system’s electronic crime mapping were less than $1 million, and an additional $1 million has been proposed for next year’s budget for technology upgrades in the CompStat unit. But the numbers so far haven’t backed up the boldest claims. SFPD reports 24 homicides this year as of June 12, up 20 percent from last year’s rate for early June. Homicide arrests are down from 12 last year to eight this year. Occurrences of rape are also up by 12 percent, but overall violent crime is down 2 percent compared to this time last year.


Gascón wrote that foot patrols are a valuable tool for community policing in San Francisco, but he doesn’t want to be forced to maintain them with limited staffing. Newsom’s proposed budget maintains current SFPD staffing, 2,317 sworn officers, while many other city departments received deep staffing cuts. Progressive supervisors have pledged to closely scrutinize SFPD’S budget.


Community policing was law enforcement’s response to civil unrest in the 1960s and ’70s, when police were seen as the enforcers of institutional power. Previous beat patrol methods largely ended when the 911 system came along, and the emphasis was placed on calls for service, statistics, and response times, leaving officers with little time to patrol and prevent crime.


The change to community policing emphasized neighborhood input and officers becoming an organic part of the community they served. Citizen contributions, generally through community meetings, began to drive decision-making. Foot patrols were revived and officers were once again expected to have a physical presence and a connection to the community they served.


That change was seen as particularly important in poor neighborhoods and communities of color, where police can sometimes be seen as an occupying army and residents were reluctant to cooperate with investigations. Officials hoped to prevent crimes by showing a presence in neighborhoods rather than simply reacting to them when someone called.


Mirkarimi says a CompStat-driven police force would be a return to that reactive model, potentially sacrificing the long-term commitment required to build trust between a neighborhood and its police department, which is central to community policing. “[CompStat] undermines the principles and practices of community policing because true community policing requires a discipline and a protocol that is sustained,” he said.


While either approach can theoretically result in the same practices, such as a foot beat patrol in a given neighborhood, Zimring said the reasoning behind it depends on the model. “CompStat to begin with is completely crime-driven,” Zimring said. “The reason you have it is to reduce crimes. It involves computerized mapping of crimes. It involves allocating resources to so-called hot spots, and it involves the police department imposing its own priorities as opposed to implementing community priorities.”


The Board of Supervisors will consider Mirkarimi’s measure and SFPD budget in July, airing a debate that could continue on to the November ballot, when voters would decide whether to maintain their faith in CompStat and the SFPD or ask for more community policing and foot patrols.

Danger zone

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Danger zone

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Rita Connolly, a registered nurse who has worked with inmates in San Francisco jails since 1985, says she’ll never forget the time she had to act fast to save a prisoner’s life.

The man had just arrived from a different jail and was waiting to go through intake. He was slumped over and looking ill, too weak to voice a complaint. Several worried inmates beckoned Connolly over, and once she examined him, she realized he was in the midst of a heart attack. He was rushed to the emergency room. He lived — but sustained irreversible heart damage.

“He could have been someone who didn’t live,” Connolly told the Guardian, but he also could have had a better outcome. The inmate had alerted someone that he was having chest pains earlier in the day, she later learned, as he was boarding a bus from an Alameda County Jail. A medical services worker examined him just before the bus left, but allowed him to proceed. By the time he arrived in San Francisco, the warning signals had progressed to a full-blown heart attack.

The story highlights an extreme example of a trend Connolly said she observes regularly — inmates from counties that use privatized jail health services aren’t receiving the same standard of care that San Francisco provides. Sometimes, there are obvious signs that the care is inadequate, placing inmates’ health at risk.

Alameda’s jail health services contractor, Tennessee-based Prison Health Services Inc. (PHS), has made headlines before for a track record marred by inmate deaths and lawsuits alleging negligence. PHS has expressed interest in contracting with San Francisco if the city opened the door to privatization, which Mayor Gavin Newsom has once again proposed in his latest budget.

That budget also calls for cuts to community-based health and human service programs that threaten to erode the safety net for those battling mental health issues, drug addiction, and chronic health problems, all proposals now being weighed by the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee.

But it is the debate over whether to make a $11 million cut to jail health services that raises the most thorny and telling questions about what sacrifices are considered acceptable — and what populations can be the most easily targeted — in the quest to balance a budget without the tax increases that Newsom opposes.

 

OPEN WOUNDS

In San Francisco, the city’s Department of Public Health contracts with the Sheriff’s Department to address inmates’ medical needs. Privatized jail health care would be cheaper, though by how much is a moving target. But nobody is arguing that the care would be better.

Newsom’s budget proposes switching to a private firm as early as January 2011 to help solve a daunting budget deficit. The proposal originated with the Mayor’s Office, and Sheriff Mike Hennessey — whose department would realize the potential savings — went along by including the item in his departmental budget.

In years past, the Board of Supervisors has repeatedly resisted the proposal and is likely to do so again — but rejecting it would mean finding up to $11 million in savings elsewhere.

“The fear is that when you bring privatization into the picture, there is a financial pressure to cut corners. And even though that may end up saving some money … the price that comes with it is too high,” Sup. David Campos said at a recent budget hearing. Referencing stories about inmates who died needlessly in jail under the care of for-profit firms, Campos said he isn’t willing to risk a similar tragedy occurring in San Francisco.

The proposal has been floated repeatedly since as far back as the early 1990s, according to healthcare workers whose jobs have been jeopardized by privatization before. Newsom proposed the cut last year, and the year before.

“In absence of the budget problem, [Hennessey] probably would not have proposed this, nor would we have proposed this,” Newsom’s budget director, Greg Wagner, told members of the Budget and Finance Committee at a May 26 hearing, adding that the mayor shares concerns about prisoner safety. Newsom’s office did not return multiple calls requesting comment for this story.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to a hear an appeal by the state of California to the federal court ruling that substandard medical care in California prisons constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and necessitates the early release of about 40,000 prisoners. At the May 26 hearing, healthcare workers familiar with the interiors of county jails and state penitentiaries came forward with horror stories.

“Every week I receive at least one inmate who has an open gunshot wound. They have not seen medical care in the county jails,” Dr. Elena Tootell, chief medical officer at San Quentin state prison, told committee members. “It’s quite surprising to me that they send inmates with gunshot wounds to prison. They just walk off the bus. They often have paper towels stuck to their bodies, seeping the blood. And then we are obligated to take care of them. This does not happen from San Francisco County, I’m going to tell you that right now.”

Tootell said she’d observed a significant difference between those counties using private firms and those using public health care. “They will have a fracture — they’ve never been splinted, they’ve never seen a doctor. They’re on anticoagulation [medication], but haven’t had their blood checked in weeks and have bruises all over their body.”

Connolly echoed similar concerns. For example, she told the Guardian, she’s found herself asking questions like, “You were on AIDS medication before you got arrested and now you’re not?”

Susanne Paradis, a healthcare research contractor with SEIU Local 1021, rejects the premise that the same services could be provided at a lower price. Under a private model, she says, the priority is to keep costs low — and that means doing less.

A key issue, Paradis said, is that private firms tend to rely more heavily on licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) — lower-paid medical staffers who aren’t trained to assess patient’s medical needs and cannot administer the same care that registered nurses (RNs) can. Using PHS data, Paradis found that in Alameda, there is one RN for every 92 inmates, compared with one RN per 32 inmates in San Francisco.

“An RN has the ability to assess, observe, and determine if there’s emergency care needed,” Paradis explained. “An LVN does not have the ability to do that.”

John Poh, a nurse practitioner stationed at a jail in San Francisco’s Hall of Justice, explained the difference this way: “The more RNs you have working for you, the fewer deaths you have.”

PHS, an obvious point of comparison with San Francisco since it serves Alameda, declined to answer questions about its services. Instead, media spokesperson Pat Nolan e-mailed a brief statement. “We are excited to hear that San Francisco is considering the contracting of correctional health care,” he wrote. “Should the city choose to go through an RFP process, we would look forward to participating. We think it is the right thing to do for the city and its taxpayers.”

 

LINES OF DEFENSE

While those incarcerated in San Francisco jails can be thought of by some as criminals, nuisances, or miscreants, those requiring medical attention are patients in the eyes of the jail healthcare workers.

Inmates routinely enter the system with diabetes, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, heart problems, liver disease, and substance abuse issues, Connolly said. On occasion, a woman will arrive in jail only to learn that she is pregnant. Mental health problems are common, and some battle psychiatric issues in combination with physical ailments.

“Overall, our patient population has had little access to health care. For many people, we’re the only show in town,” Connolly noted.

Poh said some problems could spiral out of control if jail health staff didn’t nip them in the bud. If an inmate is exhibiting signs of tuberculosis, for instance, they’ll immediately get a mask and be sent to the hospital for screening. Sexually transmitted diseases are also a priority for treatment. “You don’t want that person going out infected,” Poh explained.

The city takes a proactive stance when it comes to treating inmates, Poh said, because at the end of the day, county jail is a revolving door. “Everybody leaves county jail. They’re either going home, to a program, or to prison.” If people are released back into the community with contagious, untreated health problems, the risk of exposure can spread beyond jailhouse walls.

San Francisco’s current system is considered a first line of defense, in which inmates are “seen as members of the community who happen to be in jail right now,” Paradis said.

Privatizing jail-health services would constitute a blow to a wider public health safety net in San Francisco that is already weathering painful cuts. At a June 15 Beilenson Hearing, a state-mandated opportunity for community members to explain the impacts of proposed health and human services cuts to the Board of Supervisors, people came out in droves to protest cuts to programs serving vulnerable residents.

Kristie Miller, executive assistant of the Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE) Project, told the Guardian that her organization serves 350 clients a year who are victims of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. The organization stands to lose its mental health funding, so Miller had come out to speak against the cut. “It provides trauma-focused psychotherapy for survivors who’ve experienced a lot of abuse, violence, and exploitation,” she said.

Jeff Schindler, chief development officer for the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, said he was there protesting a 79 percent funding cut to his organization’s 108-bed residential program on Treasure Island. “We won’t have a place for people to actually go into residential treatment for their mental health and substance abuse issues,” he said. “These are individuals who are going to get their needs met somehow, somewhere, and generally that’s going to be at San Francisco General Hospital.”

It’s in this context that the proposal to contract out for jail health services is being proposed. “It’s easy to dismiss prisoners as probably the least valued sector of our society,” Deirdre Wilson, of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, noted at a May 26 hearing. “But the right to health care is a human right.”

 

FOR THE RECORD

According to an estimate prepared by the Sheriff’s Department, the city could save anywhere from $11 million to $14 million by contracting out for jail health services, and Newsom’s budget assumes a savings of “over $11 million per year.”

However, the Controller’s Office continues to revise that figure as the debate shifts and concerns are raised about the skill mix that a private firm would use. “We don’t really know what it would cost to contract out, unless there was an RFP and a response to the proposal and some discussion about what the staffing requirements would be,” Deputy City Controller Monique Zmuda explained at a June 17 hearing. She added that the potential range of savings spanned from $3 million to $11 million annually, depending on decisions that would have to be made about acceptable staffing levels.

San Francisco’s inmate population has shrunk in the wake of the crime lab scandal, and a city-owned facility in San Bruno has been temporarily shuttered. Sheriff Hennessey told the Guardian he believed medical care in the jails could be provided either by city workers or a private firm, but added that he’s “quite happy” with the status quo. Noting that 25 of the 58 counties in California already use private firms, he added, “It’s not an unusual or unique thing.” Hennessey also said the decision was linked to a broader philosophical and political question, and that he doubted there was support on the board for the proposal to go forward.

Mitch Katz, director of the city’s Department of Public Health, did not directly say whether he supported Newsom’s proposal. “I think our Jail Health Services does a great job, but I do understand that the city is facing an extremely difficult budget year and that ultimately the budget must be balanced,” Katz wrote in an e-mail.

Gabriel Haaland, who represents SEIU Local 1021 union members whose jobs would be affected by the proposal, voiced strong opposition at a June 17 Budget and Finance Committee meeting. “‘We don’t care about these people because they’re poor and they’re in jail.’ That’s the message” in the decision to contract out, Haaland charged. The item was continued and will be revisited as budget deliberations unfold.

The Daily Blurgh: Grifter raccoons, literary subway stations, the Streep!!!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Daily Blurgh: Grifter raccoons, literary subway stations, the Streep!!!

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

Beware of teary raccoon eyes when in Davis.

*****

It’s no battleship Potemkin but the cruiser Varyag, which recently docked in our waters, is no slouch. Neither is its “relaxation cabin.”

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Speaking of Russia, a Moscow metro station was recently made-over in honor of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the morbid results sound both hideous and captivating:

“The station, called Dostoyevskaya, is decorated with brooding grey and black mosaics that depict violent scenes from the 19th-century writer’s best-known novels. One mural re-enacts the moment when the main character in Crime and Punishment murders an elderly pawnbroker and her sister with an axe.”

Maybe BART or MUNI could follow suit? They could have so much fun with Hammett, Norris, or Maupin.

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“Let’s don’t burlesque this,” to become the new, “don’t get it twisted?”

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Ladies and gentleman, unsung gay icon and artist James Bidgood: “I guess people expect me to be lounging around in a silk caftan, face powdered and roughed with twenty yards of orchid chiffon draped around my neck with my bong and a few boys by my pool! Very often guests like yourself think I only work in this slum dwelling, but I live here! There is so little room, I sleep on a twin mattress twice as old as you are, half of which is occupied by a six-foot plaster male store mannequin. I use it to build paper mache forms on and for draping costumes because a regular dressmaker form doesn’t work for the kind of costumes I make, if ya get my meanin’! There’s nowhere else left to put the damn thing, so I got a man in bed with me every night – where he’s of no use at all, like sleepin’ with a cold corpse!”

*****
The end of the rainbow? SF Pride “bans” openly gay DJs due to sponsorship with Clear Channel.

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Mid-century architectural madness revealed in Presidio Heights.

*****

Happy birthday, Meryl. May you remain forever young:

Ammiano wants to clean up crime labs

Zelda Bronstein
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Ammiano wants to clean up crime labs

Why could the San Francisco crime lab operate with so many problems for such a long time? One reason: There’s little or no effective state oversight or regulation of local crime labs in California.


That seems like a glaring problem — crime labs can mean the difference between guilt and innocent, the difference between a long prison term and a free life, between an innocent party getting wrongly convicted and a guilty party getting away with murder.


Assemblymember Tom Ammiano told me he’s worried that problems in cities and counties are going to continue unless somebody’s paying attention — so he’s introducing a bill that would create some form of state oversight body to monitor crime labs and make sure they maintain credible standards.


“I think it’s like the BART Police, they aren’t going to reform unless the state tells them they have to,” Ammiano said. He’s going to have legislation drafted shortly.

Love stories, politics, yodeling, and more: Frameline 34 short takes

Sue Vaughan
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Love stories, politics, yodeling, and more: Frameline 34 short takes

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (James Kent, UK, 2010) A BBC production set in the northern English countryside of the early 19th century, James Kent’s The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister depicts the amatory adventures of a gentlewoman landowner (Maxine Peake) in search of a “female companion” with whom to live out her days. The narrative is somewhat breathless, the seductions equally so and yet a bit anemic, and our strong-willed, fearless heroine is admirable without being entirely engaging. Still, besides tapping into the Jane Austen slash fiction demographic, this tale of pre-Victorian bodice ripping and skirt lifting among the female gentry offers the considerable thrill of being adapted from the actual secret diaries of the titular Miss Lister, decoded by a biographer 150 years after her death. A documentary in the festival, Matthew Hill’s The Real Anne Lister, offers a complementary version of her story. Thurs/17, 7 p.m., Castro. (Lynn Rapoport)

I Killed My Mother (Xavier Dolan, Canada, 2009) The title I Killed My Mother suggests a different kind of movie from what it actually is. But that’s OK: though not a crime thriller, the film is still a tightly wound, high stakes drama. Writer-director Xavier Dolan stars as Hubert, the angsty son of the titular mother. When you consider that Dolan’s script is autobiographical — and that he was only 20 when the film was made — his performance becomes all the more impressive. As the mother, Chantale, Anne Dorval is also a force to be reckoned with. Despite its presence as part of a queer film festival, I Killed My Mother is not all that “gay” in the traditional “gay movie” sense. Hubert’s relationship with Antonin (François Arnaud) is secondary — what’s important is how his refusal to share it with his mother affects her. That helps make the movie a refreshing alternative to many more mainstream offerings. Sat/19, 6:45 p.m., Castro. (Louis Peitzman)

The Owls (Cheryl Dunye, USA, 2010) Expectations are high for The Owls: writer-director Cheryl Dunye again collaborates with Guinevere Turner, V.S. Brodie, and other notable queer performers — you can’t not think of classics like Go Fish (1994) and The Watermelon Woman (1996). The Owls isn’t quite at that level, but it’s a fairly thought-provoking piece. Four middle-aged lesbians — played by Dunye, Turner, Brodie, and Lisa Gornick — accidentally kill a younger lesbian and try to cover up the murder. Their ages are central: the fear of getting older is a major thematic concern. So, too, ideas of gender identity, with the introduction of androgynous Skye (Skyler Cooper). But Dunye breaks the fourth wall, staging her film as a pseudo-mockumentary with both the characters and the actors offering commentary. At just over an hour, The Owls can’t sustain all the back-and-forth, and too many intriguing ideas are left unfinished. Fri/18, 7 p.m., Castro. (Peitzman)

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (Leanne Pooley, New Zealand, 2009) It’s hard to name an American equivalent of New Zealand’s Topp Twins — a folk-singing, comedy-slinging, cross-dressing duo who’re the biggest Kiwi stars you’ve never heard of (but may be just as beloved as, say, Peter Jackson in their homeland). Recent inductees in the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame, the fiftysomething Jools and Lynda, both lesbians, sing country-tinged tunes that slide easily from broad and goofy (with an array of costumed personas) to extremely political, sounding off on LGBT and Maori rights, among other topics. Even if you’re not a fan of their musical style, it’s undeniable that their identical voices make for some stirring harmonies, and their optimism, even when a serious illness strikes, is inspiring. This doc — which combines interviews, home movies, and performance footage — will surely earn them scores of new stateside fans. Sun/20, 3:45 p.m., Castro. (Cheryl Eddy)

Out of the Blue (Alain Tasma, France, 2007) Wearily preparing for a dinner party on a day they’ve both forgotten is their anniversary, Marion (Mireille Perrier) suddenly realizes her 22-year-marriage to Paul (Robin Renucci) is dead. Her decision to end it, however, comes as an infuriating surprise to him and a destabilizing one to their teenage daughter Justine (Chloé Coulloud). They all get quite a surprise when Marion’s new friendship with younger, flamenco-dancing female antiques dealer Claude (Rachida Brakni) turns into something more. This latest in a long line of very good French made-for-TV dramas at Frameline typically handles its complex load of familial and sexual issues with grace and intelligence, if with an occasional excess of high dramatics. Sun/20, 9:30 p.m., Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)

The Consul of Sodom (Sigfrid Monleón, Spain, 2009) Late Spanish poet Jaime Gil de Biedma was many things: an intellectual, aesthete, hedonist, bohemian, discotheque owner, Communist sympathizer (though the Party wouldn’t have him), publisher, more-or-less out gay man, and an occasional lover of flamboyant women like Bel (played by pop singer Bimba Bose). Sheltered by wealth and privilege — to the extent possible in Franco’s Spain — he dabbled in ghetto flesh, sometimes on trips abroad for his family’s tobacco family. As portrayed by actor Jordi Mollá and director Sigfrid Monleon, he’s a mixture of arrogance,
compassion, self-destruction, and shark-like perpetual motion. Seldom missing a chance to drop some full-frontal nudity or a kitschy period song (from 1950s to 80s), this biographical drama — which has been decried as overly sensationalized by some Spanish cultural watchdogs, including a few of the subject’s surviving cronies — is a shamelessly flamboyant and entertaining portrait of a life lived large. Sun/20, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Dzi Croquettes (Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez, Brazil, 2009) Whatever magic fairy dust fuelled the Cockettes’ glitter-covered hippy drag must’ve drifted down south to Brazil to inspire the similarly named Dzi Croquettes. Of course, that’s not the real origin of the equally colorful cabaret troupe, whose fantastic story is told in Raphael Alvarez and Tatiana Issa’s riveting and rollicking documentary. Blending Ziegfeld Follies-style glamour with agitprop, Dzi Croquettes were more polished and more overtly political than their North American sisters; something which frequently landed the group in hot water with José Sarney’s dictatorship. Finding an unlikely and unexpected advocate in Liza Minnelli, Dzi Croquettes fled their homeland in the mid 70s, becoming the unexpected toast of Europe until AIDS began to take its toll. Filled with delightful archival footage and insightful interviews with alumni, Dzi Croquettes is a joyful affirmation of the power of art (and a feathered boa or two) to effect positive change. Mon/21, 11 a.m., Castro. (Matt Sussman)

Brotherhood (Nicolo Donato, Denmark, 2009) It’s hard to feel much sympathy for neo-Nazis. Perhaps that goes without saying, but Danish film Brotherhood asks us to do just that: Lars (Thure Lindhardt) and Jimmy (David Dencik) meet in the service of Hitler’s ideals, then find themselves drawn to each other. As they struggle to come to terms with their attraction, we’re supposed to care. Fat chance. Although Lars initially disproves of the neo-Nazis, he becomes quickly (read: unrealistically) interested in their cause. Soon, he’s writing his own anti-Pakistani propaganda. And Jimmy is devoted to the movement from the get-go, even condemning “faggots” despite his own same-sex attraction. Maybe I’d feel differently if either Lars showed any sign of internal conflict. Neither displays a sense of regret over being a racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic asshole. They’re down with the gay but only in relation to each other. Who gives a crap if these two make it work? Mon/21, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Peitzman)

Plan B (Marco Berger, Argentina, 2009) It’s the oldest story in the book: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy seduces girl’s new boyfriend. OK, maybe not, but the set-up isn’t entirely unheard of either. It’s a credit to Plan B’s sharp aesthetic and strong performances that it still feels fresh. The Argentinean export stars Manuel Vignau as Bruno. When his girlfriend Laura (Mercedes Quinteros) breaks up with him, he decides to get revenge by making his move on Laura’s supposedly bisexual boyfriend Pablo (Lucas Ferraro). If you’ve seen any romantic comedy ever, you know that what begins as a game for Bruno becomes true love. But Plan B doesn’t go the comedy route, and instead offers a compelling, somewhat subtle drama. The love affair is slow but well-paced, so that the inevitable conclusion feels earned and completely satisfying. Mon/21, 9:30 p.m., Elmwood; June 24, 6:30 p.m., Victoria. (Peitzman)

Undertow (Javier Fuentes-León, Peru, 2009) This sexy and delicate drama is a bisexual triangle that continues beyond the grave. In a Peruvian coastal hamlet, fisherman Miguel (Cristian Mercado) loves his pregnant wife and fellow church leader Mariela (Tatiana Astengo). But he’s also having a secret, passionate affair with Santiago (Manolo Cardona), an urbanite who moved there to paint the land- and seascapes, and who chafes at the restrictions Miguel places on their relationship. At a certain point one character dies, and writer-director Javier Fuentes-León seamlessly handles Undertow’s transition to magical realism. The leisurely story doesn’t go where one expects, ending on a perfect grace note of bittersweet acceptance. Tues/22, 7 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Children of God (Kareem J. Mortimer, Bahamas, 2009) Likely the first gay-themed film not just shot in but produced by the Bahamas, Kareem J. Mortimer’s first feature is an occasionally heavy-handed but consistently engrossing mix of romance, religion, and homophobia. Johnny (Johnny Ferro) is a withdrawn Nassau art student who’s a target of gay taunts and bashers. A teacher who says his paintings lack emotion gives him keys to her cottage on the “ultimate landscape” of isle Eleuthera, where he promptly meets the aggressively friendly and inquisitive Romeo (Stephen Tyrone Williams). Also headed here is Lena (Margaret Laurena Kemp), righteous wife of pastor Ralph (Ralph Ford), with whom she shares a strong penchant to publicly denounce the moral threat of “the gays.” She has, however, just left her husband after he furiously denied giving her VD — to confess might reveal that he is, in fact, playing around on the downlow. That’s just the starting point for a complicated, perhaps over-ambitious but sometimes powerfully sensual and poignant film that is definitely amongst this year’s Frameline highlights. June 23, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Spring Fever (Lou Ye, China, 2009) Shot surreptitiously and chock full of gay sex, Chinese director Lou Ye’s latest film isn’t likely to earn him any additional slack from Chinese government censors (his 2006 film, Summer Palace, got him banned from filmmaking for five years after he failed to preview it before it screened at Cannes). Using hand-held cameras, public settings, and natural lighting, Lou follows Wang Ping (Wu Wei), who’s been having a passionate, messy affair with travel agent Jiang Cheng (Qin Hao). Things get more complicated when the snoop Wang’s wife hires to follow her closeted husband winds up pursuing the two men in ways he never imagined. What Spring Fever lacks in continuity and psychological depth, it makes up for with sexual candor and a genuine frisson of risk, given the secretive conditions under which it was made. That thrill doesn’t quite last through the film’s duration, but as a document of defiance Spring Fever is commendable. June 24, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Sussman)

The String (Medhi Ben Attia, France/Belgium, 2010) The cross-cultural coming out drama is a perennial at LGBT film festivals, but Medhi Ben Attia’s assured debut feature presents a familiar tale in new surroundings with flashes of charm. Handsome architect Malik (Antonin Stahly) returns to his posh, Tunisian homestead from France to lay his father to rest, fully intent on coming out to his overly doting, oblivious mother (former Fellini muse Claudia Cardinale). But when he falls for hunky house-boy Bilal (Salim Kechiouche), he finds that the truth has a way of outing itself. Although Attia unspools his film’s titular metaphor rather quickly (having hid his true feelings for so long, Malik feels continuously “tied-up” by a piece of imaginary string), he deserves credit for his nuanced portrayal of gay life in the Maghreb and his inspired casting of Cardinale, who can’t help but radiate an Auntie Mame-ish joie de vivre even when the script calls for “disappointed” over “daffy.” June 25, 7 p.m., Victoria. (Sussman)

Hideaway (Francois Ozon, France, 2009) The very French insouciance with which Francois Ozon usually treats his characters and narratives sometimes makes a film seem perilously slight — yet more often than not he manages to pull off a surprising climactic resonance. Which is the case with this latest. When they both overdose on heroin, Mousse (Isabelle Carré) wakes up pregnant in the hospital — but her boyfriend doesn’t wake at all. Declining his mother’s offer to pay for an abortion, she retreats to a friend’s empty seaside chateau. There she gets an unexpected visitor in Raul (Louis-Ronan Choisy), her late lover’s surviving sibling. Their prickly interplay (and his affair with a local handyman) sometimes seems to be drifting pleasantly nowhere in particular — yet it does end up somewhere, rather poignantly. June 25, 9:30 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

From Beginning to End (Aluízio Abranches, Brazil/Argentina/Spain, 2009) Just about the definition of upscale gay male softcore, this “big brother” fantasy has nothing to do with George Orwell. Its protagonists are inseparable Brazilian half-brothers (played as adults by Joao Gabriel Vasconcellos and Rafael Cardoso) whose bond caves in to the physical once parental boundaries are removed by mom’s death. This over-the-top kinship is tested when the younger bro is invited to train as a swimmer in the Olympics … in Russia. Near-plotless and borderline senseless, this shamelessly sexy tale from The Three Marias (2002) director Aluízio Abranches succeeds as a guilty pleasure on the sheer, convincing ardor he and his actors bring to their “taboo” love story. June 26, 6 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

Howl (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, USA, 2010) Beatniks get the Mad Men treatment — with a cast that includes that AMC hit’s Jon Hamm, playing the lawyer who defended the publisher of Allen Ginsberg’s quintessential rebel yell, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, against obscenity charges in San Francisco’s most celebrated trial of the 1950s. It’s fun to see that anally nostalgic aesthetic translated to ramshackle North Beach apartments and sophomoric, filthy-mouthed literary heroes. Not so much fun: the overly literal animation chosen by the directors (famed documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman). Yes, parts of “Howl,” the poem, are animated — unfortunately in a style that calls to mind bad 1980s French Canadian pseudo-spiritual arthouse schlock. Still, this brief slice of beats is juicy, confined to the trial and the tale of Ginsberg’s poetic and sexual awakening. James Franco is wonderful as the young, self-obsessed, epically needy yet still irresistible crank. It was the first time I found myself wishing to see more of Ginsberg naked. June 27, 7:30 p.m., Castro. (Marke B.)

Frameline34: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival
June 17-27, most shows $8-15
Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; Victoria, 2961 16th St, SF; Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk
www.frameline.org

Star on the rise

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Star on the rise

FRAMELINE I’ve had a bit of a crush on the young Argentine actress Inés Efron since Frameline31, when she played one corner of the teen love triangle in Alexis Dos Santos’ Glue (2006). There was something in the way Efron used her gangly build and heavy-lidded eyes to telegraph her character’s mix of trembling desire and adolescent ungainliness that brought to mind Kids-era Chloë Sevigny.

Efron’s ability to allow her physicality to articulate what her characters can’t would be even more fiercely on display when she returned to Frameline the following year, front and center, as the conflicted, intersexed youth Alex in another equally strong Argentine debut, Lucía Puenzo’s XXY (2007). Efron is back at Frameline this year, as is Puenzo, in the director’s sophomore effort, The Fish Child. The film actually made its festival debut last year, in one of the last-minute TBA slots, but fans of the duo’s previous collaboration would do well to catch its proper run this time around.

Part cross-class lesbian love story, part crime telenovella (with a touch of magical realism), The Fish Child is a flashy departure from XXY‘s brooding coming-of-age character study. Puenzo displays a tight grasp of the film’s various narrative strands as it jumps back and forth across time and geographic borders (she did adapt the script from her own novel, after all), but much of the film’s emotional impact comes from the performances of its leads.

Looking ever more the gamine, Efron plays Lala, the teen daughter of a wealthy Buenos Aires judge (Pep Munné), who is as in love with the household’s 20-year-old Paraguayan maid Ailin (Mariela Vitale) as her father is. Lala and Ailin’s dream of escaping to Lake Ypoa in Paraguay, Ailin’s childhood home, becomes complicated when Ailin winds up in jail and Lala flees to Ypoa alone, where she discovers more about her lover’s damaged past. Efron’s Lala lets us be sympathetic to her love for Ailin even as we see the ways in which her star-eyed optimism about their future life is as enabled by the privilege she refuses to acknowledge as it is by raw passion. She’s a rebel with a cause, but she just can’t ‘fess up to it yet.

As Efron grows older, it’s going to become harder for her to keep convincingly playing the hormonally-charged and dissolute (see also her supporting role in another recent Argie art house hit, Lucrecia Martel’s 2008 The Headless Woman). Clearly, though, she has a good agent and even better instincts. I’m excited to see what she does next.

THE FISH CHILD

Thurs/22, 9:30 p.m., Elmwood

Fri/25, 9:30 p.m., Roxie

Voters are pissed

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Voters are pissed

By Guardian News Staff

news@sfbg.com

After spending more than $70 million, two big corporations failed to convince Californians to vote their way. After spending nearly $70 million, the former head of a big corporation easily convinced Californians to vote her way. And that outcome is not as schizophrenic as it sounds.

On one level, the outcome of the June 8 election was a sign of the anti-corporate anger seething through the California electorate. “BP, Goldman Sachs, PG&E — anything that seems connected to a big corporation is in serious trouble right now,” one political insider, who asked not to be named, told us.

Yet two candidates who were very much corporate icons — Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina — won handily in the Republican primaries and now have a real chance to become the state’s next governor and junior senator. What’s happening? It’s fascinating. The voters in the nation’s most populous state are pissed off — at big business, at government, at the oil spill, at 10 percent unemployment, at Washington, at Sacramento, at Wall Street. It’s an unsettled electorate, uncertain about its future and looking for something new, and definitely despising power.

There’s a populist fervor out there, and it’s going to define this fall’s expensive, dirty, and high-stakes battle for California’s future.

 

THE MAYOR GOES STATEWIDE

Addressing a crowd of supporters gathered at Yoshi’s San Francisco on election night, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom — who easily beat opponent Janice Hahn to claim the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor — said he was excited to be part of a crucial political year for the Golden State.

“We’re very proud to be in a position to be the Democratic nominee and to work with the other Democratic nominees,” Newsom told supporters. He lavished praise on the Democratic nominee for governor, Jerry Brown — the man who just last year he was trying to beat in a primary — telling stories about his father’s long relationship with the former governor and expressing his admiration. “I couldn’t be more proud to quasi- be on a ticket with Jerry Brown,” he said.

The race for lieutenant governor may prove one of the most interesting this election season — and not just because a victory for Newsom would transform San Francisco politics. Newsom’s opponent is Abel Maldonado, a moderate Republican who enjoys popularity among the growing, influential Latino community, and who Newsom’s team said will be a formidable challenge.

The campaign could revolve around an intriguing question. At a time when the Republican Party has been taken over by virulent anti-immigrant politicians — Whitman and Fiorina have both made harsh statements about illegal immigrants and vowed never to support “amnesty” (that is, immigration reform) — will Latino voters go for a white Democrat over a Latino Republican?

“You talk to them about all the same issues you talk to all voters about: jobs, education, and health care,” Newsom political strategist Dan Newman said when asked whether Newsom could win over Latino voters. “Latinos, like all voters, will appreciate someone with a proven record of success.”

Pollster Ben Tulchin also downplayed the trouble Newsom could encounter in winning the Latino vote. “With what’s going on in Arizona, they are very wary of Republicans,” Tulchin said, but then added: “We don’t want to underestimate the challenge we have. There’s never been a moderate Latino on the statewide ballot.”

Newsom sounded another alarm. If Whitman decides to help Maldonado, the race will get even tougher. “We’re running against Meg Whitman’s checkbook,” the mayor said.

“Expect to see Meg and Abel together a whole lot in the next few months,” one consultant predicted.

If Newsom wins, San Francisco will get a new mayor a year early — and the district-elected Board of Supervisors will choose the person to fill out the last year of Newsom’s term. Technically, the current board will still be in office then, but the task may well fall to the next board — which makes the local November elections even more important.

“Everyone is gaming this out and trying to figure out what happens,” political consultant Alex Clemens said during a post-election wrap-up at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association office. “There will be a lot of dominoes to fall and deals to be cut.”

Meanwhile, Newsom’s nomination for lieutenant governor places many San Franciscans in an uncomfortable position, one that was illustrated well by Newsom’s victory speech, in which he proudly rejected taxes. Although most San Francisco progressives are disenchanted with their fiscally conservative mayor, few would rather vote for Maldonado.

Tim Paulson, the SF Labor Council president, was at the Newsom event gritting his teeth as he talked about the opportunity progressives now have to work with “a mayor of San Francisco we have issues with.” Now, he noted, “There is going to be a real campaign around this man. It could establish a narrative for what California is about.”

 

POWERFUL WOMEN

At Delancey Street on election night, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris talked about getting “tough and smart on crime,” addressing gang-related criminal activity but also focusing on corporate criminals. She talked about cracking down on predatory lenders, supporting health care reform, and protecting California’s environment. And she made a point of dragging in BP.

“It must be the work of the next attorney general to ensure that the disaster and tragedy that happened in the Gulf of Mexico never happens in California,” she said, warning of attacks on AB 32, which set California’s 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal into law in 2006.

Of course, Harris now has to take on her southern counterpart, Los Angeles DA Steve Cooley, who is a moderate but comes in with much stronger law enforcement support. If Harris wins, it will go a long way to prove that opposition to the death penalty isn’t fatal in California politics, and that voters are finally ready for a women of color as the top law enforcement official — a first in state history.

But she and Newsom will both have to overcome likely attacks for the San Francisco’s crime lab scandal, one of many hits to be magnified by the size of Whitman’s war chest.

Whitman, who trounced opponent Steve Poizner in the primary, is riding the crest of a new wave of Republican-style “feminism,” starring her, Fiorina, and Fox news pundit Sarah Palin as female champions of the right-wing agenda. A few short months ago, it looked as if Brown was in serious trouble. But that was before Whitman and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner got into an $85 million bloodbath that left the winner of the GOP primary badly wounded. Whitman wants to play off the populist uprising by portraying herself as an outsider running against a career politician; Poizner gave her a huge scare by hammering her ties to Goldman Sachs.

That Wall Street narrative is one Democrats will push against Whitman and Fiorina. “I think it is stunningly politically tone deaf to nominate two Wall Street CEOs to the top of the ticket,” Newman said. Voters will decide whether they are fresh voices with new ideas or corporate hacks who laid off Californians and made fortunes with dubious stock market deals.

Brown leads in the polls — narrowly — but he’s vulnerable. He’s taken so many stands over so many years and Whitman’s fortune will hammer any openings they see. Brown is only slowly getting into campaign mode, but it’s no secret what he has to do. If the campaign is about Jerry Brown, unconventional politician, against Meg Whitman, Wall Street darling, then he wins.

But to take advantage of that, Brown has to offer some concrete solutions to the state’s problems — and he has to start acting like the progressive he once was. “If I were him, I’d run hard to the left,” a consultant who isn’t involved in any of the gubernatorial campaigns said.

The conventional wisdom had Barbara Boxer in trouble, too — but she’s a savvy campaigner who has beaten the odds before. And while the senator appears ripe for attack — almost 30 years in Washington, a voting record perhaps a bit more liberal than the state as a whole — her opponent, Fiorina, has baggage too.

For starters, Fiorina’s entire pitch is that she — like Whitman — would bring business-world savvy to politics. But as CEO of HP, “she was about perks and pink slips,” Newman said. “She laid off Californians and shipped those jobs overseas while enriching herself.”

Her own primary pushed her far to the right (at one point, in an embarrassing sop to the National Rifle Association, she actually argued that suspected terrorists on the federal no-fly list should be able to buy handguns). And speaking of feminist values, her anti-abortion positions won’t help her in a decidedly pro-choice state.

 

PROP. 16 GOES DOWN

The defeat of Proposition 16 will go down in history as one of the most remarkable campaigns ever. It was, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi noted, “a righteous win:” The No on 16 campaign spent less than $100,000 and still captured 52 percent of the vote. Another narrow corporate-interest measure, Mercury Insurance’s Prop. 17, faced a similar fate.

One reason: PG&E’s $50 million campaign backfired, making voters suspicious of the company’s propaganda. Another: it lost overwhelmingly in its own service area, the company rejected by those who know it best.

Now PG&E CEO Peter Darbee, who pushed to mount the expensive campaign, must return to his shareholders empty-handed — and that’s going to cause problems. “I assume the leadership of PG&E will be called to task,” Clemens said. “They truly rolled the dice.”

The day after the election, PG&E shares dropped 2.2 percent, a possible sign of shaken investor confidence. Mindy Spatt of the Utility Reform Network (TURN), a nonprofit that worked on the No on 16 effort, described the situation succinctly. “Peter Darbee’s got egg on his face,” she said. “Big-time.”

Mirkarimi has witnessed other battles with PG&E, and said this probably wouldn’t be the last. “PG&E, every time we want to have a seat at the table, tries to take us out, like assassins,” he said. “If they were smart, they would take us up on what we asked many years ago, and that is to abide by peaceful coexistence.”

On the statewide level, the bold and expensive deceptions pushed by PG&E and Mercury Insurance were countered by only a handful of super-committed activists and a broad cross-section of newspaper editorials, a reminder that newspapers — battered by the economy and technological changes — are neither dead nor irrelevant.

One of the wild cards of the election was Prop. 14, which will eliminate party primaries for state offices — and potentially shake up the state’s entire political structure. “This is a big deal even if we don’t know how it’s going to play out,” consultant David Latterman said at the SPUR event.

Interestingly, the only two counties that voted No on 14 were the most progressive — San Francisco — and the most conservative, Orange.

Progressives did well in San Francisco, expanding their majority on the Democratic County Central Committee. “In an environment where it was about hundreds of millions of dollars from PG&E and Meg Whitman and Chris Kelly outspending us, we showed that San Francisco is San Francisco and we support San Francisco values,” DCCC chair Aaron Peskin told us.

Money used to define the debates in San Francisco, but the dominant narratives are now being written by the coalition of tenants, environmentalists, workers, social justice advocates, and others who backed a progressive slate of DCCC candidates, which took 18 of the 24 seats on a body that makes policy and funding decisions for the local Democratic Party.

“This time it was the coalition that really made the difference,” DCCC winner Michael Bornstein said on election night. “Frankly, our people worked harder.”

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu agreed, telling us, “For the Central Committee, the message is people power wins.”

The lesson from this election is that people are starting to get wise to corporate deceptions. And they’re realizing that with hard work and smart coalition-building, the people can still prevail.

Steven T. Jones, Rebecca Bowe, Sarah Phelan, and Tim Redmond contributed to this report.

 

Festival front lines: Harmony 2010

Andrew Lam
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5

Aerial photo by DJ Guacamole

Santa Rosa got a little more groovy this weekend for the estimated 30,000 to 35,000 that attended the 32nd annual Harmony Festival, three days that were so epic my ability to narrate them cohesively has been called into question. Assembled here are some bits and pieces from the scene.

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Best year ever?

The longest running West Coast music and lifestyle festival seems to have resolved many of the problems it’s had with turning a profit in years past. “We tightened our ship, we did less with more, and we sold more tickets,” says festival CEO, Bo Sapper. Sapper cited the Eco Rally skate contest as a particular success – Harmony teamed up with eight local skate shops, and a passel of pros to put on an amateur mini ramp competition. They had 1,000 skaters sign up to ride, mainly from the local area. The festival also sold out it’s Saturday night shows, a rare occurrence for past years of Harmony.

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Vendor madness

Call me monetarily minded (you’d be the first), but I said it before, and I’ll say it again; the stuff that’s selling can encapsulate the event itself. So what kind of hawkers of wares greeted you upon arrival a the front gates? Amongst the psychics and Mayan chocolate was a woman selling personal sized, portable saunas (she said she was having trouble getting people to experiment with it, temperatures topping out in the nineties and all), some berries from Ghana whose claim to fame were that they could effectively mess your sense of taste up (suggested to buyers as possible cocktail garnishes), and my favorite; Asturias, the sonic didgeridoo man who charms lions and tigers (and for $200/two hours, you too!) with his big, hollow, vibrating stick. 

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Swami sanity

Don’t mourn last night’s loss of those fairy wings! “Everything is set, but the people are upset,” said Swami Chidanandji from his comfy pillow at the Wisdom Speakers Stage. Take it from a man who spent ages nine to 17 practicing solitude and yoga in the Himalaya; no matter how much festival flair you’ve stuffed into your backpack, happiness lies within. 

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Seeding the future

The basket of striped fava beans were what brought me to the West County Community Seed Bank‘s booth, but hearing about their mission to provide Sonoma County with GMO-free seeds for sproutin’ kept me fingering favas for awhile. At the moment, they’re meeting at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Sebastopol every last Saturday of the month, and the seeds are stored in their founder’s basement. Harmony Fest gave them their vendor booth for free; the same price they charge their seed buyers.

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Yoga for the party kids

“Well, I got two hours of sleep last night. I’m not sure how, but we’ll make it through this,” said Yogaworks instructor Eric Monkhouse. Monkhouse took us through a few moderately paced asanas at the Eco-Wellness Sanctuary at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday morning — part of a full slate of yoga classes I thought I’d make it to, but obviously didn’t.

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Goddess Grove

One of the festival’s most rockingest scenes was this shady little side stage, where crowd pleasers Delhi to Dublin and Diego’s Umbrella rolled about gleefully onstage and off (Diego’s guitarist at one point plunged into the crowd to squirm about in the grass). At night, laser lights tickled the tree leaves above the concerts, setting an entirely different stage for the late night lovin’ that any good festie inspires.

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Festival babies: cooler than I am

Where do these little rascals come from? Big ups to the munchkin who was walking around performing courtesy sprays with his bubble gun, but my favorites were the pretty little girl and her buddies perched on the back of a truck that was making its slow way past the Goddess Stage. Next to her were two boys on skateboards, holding onto the fender for dear life. I attempted to make contact with the little thing,  but she shushed me through her ice cream cone, and pointed urgently, soundlessly to the truck’s cab. Festivating stowaways. Love it.

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Crime! 

Of course, it wasn’t all ice cream cones and good vibrations. There’s the matter of the Saturday night theft of a borrowed moped, which Sapper cited as the weekend’s sole unpleasant incident (if you don’t count beer prices).

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Lauryn Hill: ragingly good

So what if she spent a large portion of her first US concert in three years harassing the sound guys – the woman’s a legend, and if she wants to get a little surly, she’s entitled. “We’re all big fans of Lauryn Hill,” Sapper says. “We were aware she was quite reclusive, but she’s ready to come out of that now. Her agency was looking for a safe place for her [to restart her US performing career], and they thought Harmony Festival would be that place –and they were right.” Sapper recalls waiting with his wife and daughter backstage for Ms. Hill to emerge as one of the festival’s more magical moments.

Hill’s heavily remixed versions of such classics as “Turn Your Lights Down Low,” and “Ready or Not” struck a fine balance between crowd pleasing and innovative — and her red, white, and blue jumpsuit she wore struck an equally fine balance between Southern belle and Soul Train. Well worthy of a headliner. Thanks for coming out to play, Miss Hill. Now that she’s played a California hippie fest, can we finally quit with those stupid racism rumors?

 

Film listings

David Talbot
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0

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

FRAMELINE34

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

THURS/17

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

FRI/18

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

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

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

SAT/19

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

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

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

SUN/20

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

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

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

MON/21

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

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

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

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

TUES/22

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

Roxie Gayby 7. One Night 9:30.

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

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

OPENING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Killers (1:40) 1000 Van Ness.

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

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

Marmaduke (1:27) 1000 Van Ness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bread and Circuses: Mexico and the World Cup

Zelda Bronstein
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Bread and Circuses: Mexico and the World Cup

MEXICO CITY (June 11th) — The Caliente Sports Book down the street is buzzing with betters studying dog and horse races, Major League Baseball, even golf, on the multiple screens. Of particular interest are those channels running wrap-ups of the afternoon match between Mexico and 2006 World Cup champion Italy, from which the national team emerged victorious in a final prelim before this year’s edition of the Copa del Mundo gets underway later this week.


Italy, it may be remembered, won the much-coveted cup four years ago on penalty kicks after France was reduced to playing with ten men on the field when super-star Zenedine Zidane was disqualified for ferociously head-butting a rival who purportedly called his mother and sister “whores.” Beating Italy was a decided plus for Mexico’s downtrodden spirits as the Mundiales approach.


One group of aficionados was not much interested in Mexico’s fortunes in the upcoming fandango in South Africa. Instead, they gathered around a big screen in one corner of the betting parlor cheering on the Los Angeles Lakers in a National Basketball Association Finals match-up with the Boston Celtics. “Forget about football,” sneered “El Guerro” Gonzalez, a regular, “this is where the real money gets made.” Because pro basketball games routinely rack up hundred-point scores, betters have multiple opportunities to wager on winners and losers, over and under point spreads, total points in a quarter, and whether Kobe Bryant will hit the next three-pointer.


But the basketball euphoria will dissipate post haste as the World Cup takes center stage. Although the NBA’s despotic commissioner David Stern promotes his product as the world game, basketball hardly holds a candle to what the U.S. provincially terms “soccer” and the rest of the Planet Earth calls football.


Indeed, the “Copa del Mundo” (“Cup of the World”) will soon sweep every other sporting event from the screens — let alone political scandal, of which there is plenty in this distant neighbor nation, including the upcoming Super Sunday gubernatorial elections July 4th, and even droughts, floods, and other natural disasters. The interminable drug war that has taken 23,000 lives in the past three years will move to the backburner. Ditto an economy that is tailspinning out of control — a million workers lost their jobs in the first three months of this year alone despite President Felipe Calderon’s rosy claims of “recovery.”


Speculation about the disappearance of one of the nation’s most powerful politicians will fade from the primetime news, and the first year anniversary of the incineration of 49 babies in a government-run day care center owned in part by the first lady’s cousin will not even be noticed. The military takeover of the great Cananea copper mine and the dissolution of the miners union, is not news. New revolutions — this is, after all, the hundredth year anniversary of our landmark revolution — could rock the land, but for the next month, Mexico will live and die on what happens to the national team in South Africa.
“In football, we find our revenge against the adversaries of our lives,” philosophizes sociologist Jose Maria Candia in a recent Contralinea magazine interview, “if it goes badly at work, in the economy, politics, the project of the nation, when 11 boys put on the green jersey and do well in an international tournament, we feel vindicated by life.”
With 32 national teams from all five continents in the competition for the World Cup, the fate of the “seleccion” will have palpable impact on domestic tranquility. The political outfall of the Mundiales is unpredictable. Pumped up on toxic nationalism and xenophobia, football is a blood sport in southern climes. Honduras and El Salvador once fought a full-fledged war over soccer.


If the national team wins or acquits itself well, success will strengthen the government in charge no matter how poorly it has served the country. Likewise, a shoddy performance can topple rulers. In Mexico, increasingly unpopular president Felipe Calderon, who won high office in fraud-marred elections three years ago, is banking on the national selection’s triumphs in the opening round to invigorate his deteriorating image. Calderon’s bet is hardly a sure thing.


Mexico, Number 17 on the Federation of World Football Federation’s rankings (now the Coca Cola FIFA rankings), plays host South Africa in the inaugural match of the tournament, and “His Excellency” Felipe Calderon (dixit South African president Jacob Zuma) will be a guest of honor. The “Bafana Bafana” (“Boys Boys”) as the locals are worshipped, have won their last four prelim matches and in the 2009 Confederation Cup took Spain, which some football gurus fix as the best team in the world, into overtime. Their fanatics’ incessantly droning “vuvazelas” or plastic trumpets are said to drive opponents mad.


On the other hand, should Mexico beat sentimental favorite South Africa, it will make Calderon few friends on the African continent — five other African teams are in the draw, with war-torn Cote d’Ivoire the cream of the crop.


Aside from the Bafana Bafana, France and Uruguay are the real class of Mexico’s four-team group — while the French have appeared lackadaisical of late, whipping the South Americans is improbable. Anything less than reaching the quarterfinals will not rehabilitate Calderon’s popularity.


Mexico has a young team that fluctuates between indifference and playing out of control. It is anchored by seven Mexican players from the European and Turkish leagues, and the wily but slow-footed veteran Cuauhtemoc Blanco. Burned repeatedly by the national team’s poor performances in the Mundiales, many fans such as Manuel Garcia, a waiter at the old quarter Mexico City eatery Café La Blanca, consider that only divine intervention can save Mexico — and Calderon — from ignominious elimination.


When and if Mexico wins its matches though, wild celebrations are guaranteed to erupt around the gilded Angel of Independence on the bustling Paseo de Reforma — drunkenness, fisticuffs, and hooliganism are de rigor. Flag-draped caravans of honking cars will jam the boulevards of this conflictive megalopolis. On game days, half the population of Mexico, led by its president, will don green jerseys and play hooky from work and school. Saloons will fill to the brim with fans spilling out into the streets, jostling for a peek at the plasma screens. Masses to insure that God is on Mexico’s side will be pronounced from the altars and saints dressed up in the national colors.


Although football is tantamount to religion in this country where 70% of the population lives in and around the poverty line, only the super rich will have the wherewithal to jet off to Africa. Instead, the underclass will monitor the Mundiales at the “FIFA Fan Fest” on giant screens erected in the great Zocalo plaza from which nearly a hundred hunger-striking members of the Mexican Electricity Workers Union (SME), near death after a month of voluntary starvation, will no doubt be evicted so as not to dampen the fiesta.


Televisa and TV Azteca, Mexico’s two-headed television monopoly, which will transmit the games (the premium package includes 3-D) will have the nation eating out of its hands (and guzzling Corona beer.)  The TV monoliths have leased rights to broadcast the Mundiales from the Swiss-based FIFA, the absolute dictator of the sport for the past 106 years that counts 204 out of 208 football federations worldwide on its roster. FIFA TV revenues are expected to top $167,000,000 for the 2010 World Cup.


This year’s Copa del Mundo is awash with drama. Will the Argentine selection, a perennial favorite, graced by the world’s best player, Leonel “the Flea” Messi, blow up under their sometimes psychotic coach Diego Maradona, himself a Mundiales’ immortal? Will the first round match between England and the U.S. (14th on the FIFA listings with a world-class star, Landon Donovan, to prove it) invoke the star-crossed Yanqui upset of the Brits 60 years ago in 1950 in Brazil, the only time these two teams have ever met in the World Cup?


If the U.S. gets by England, a match between Mexico and its hated gringo rival would up the drama quotient here considerably. A face-off between South Korea and North Korea, both of which are in the draw albeit in separate groups, could lead to nuclear confrontation.


How will tiny, bruised Honduras, which played through a coup d’etat to qualify, fare against the big guns? What kind of karmic reward is in store for France, which slimed its way into the World Cup with mega-star Thierry Henry’s illegal hand-slap goal against the Irish? Will Germany be dispirited by the suicide of its troubled veteran goalie (is this a Wim Wenders’ film)? Will five-time champ Brazil, which is hosting both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, be so overloaded with hubris that the selection will forget to play football?


But unquestionably the drama of dramas is focused on host South Africa, the land of blood and gold, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Joe Slovo, and the last great struggle for liberation from colonialism.


South Africa, an unlikely site for the World Cup, was promised the games by Swiss football impresario Joseph Batter during his 1998 campaign to become the czar of the FIFA. Blatter, who was said to have been backed by Middle East oil money, needed African votes to put him over the top. Although Nigeria and Morocco were also proposed to host the 2010 Cup, South Africa, the continent’s fastest-growing economy, was chosen both as a tribute to African football and to Nelson Mandela. Blatter even flew the frail, aging apostle of African liberation, to London to ballyhoo the designation.
Whether the beloved Mandiba will be well enough to attend the inauguration is the drama within the drama.


In his youth, Nelson Mandela was a keen amateur boxer and enthusiasm for sports has colored his life. Football is indeed the national sport of black South Africans, 75% of the population. During Mandela’s 28 years of imprisonment on Robbin Island for the crime of defying apartheid, his fellow prisoners and comrades in the African National Congress (ANC), played football incessantly, taping up rags into balls, and booting them up and down the narrow prison corridors. But Madiba was held in isolation and could never participate.


Nelson Mandela’s vision for the new South Africa encompassed sports as a path to racial reconciliation. If football was a black sport in South Africa, rugby is an Afrikaner obsession — the Springboks were the maximum icon of the apartheid regime. As president, Mandela brought the 1995 World Rugby Cup to Johannesburg, a story fictionalized in the film “Invictus,” and won the hearts and minds of his former persecutors. Now the World Cup 2010 is slated to project South Africa before the world as a dynamic, multi-racial powerhouse.


The truth is always more diffuse. Jacob Zuma, the country’s very corruptible third president, and his predecessors have sunk between $3.7 and $6 billion USD in infrastructure to burnish their images in a nation where 43% of South Africa’s 45.000.000 peoples live on $2 or less a day. The gleaming $300,000,000 Soccer City Stadium where the July 11th finals will be staged, abuts Soweto, the festering high-crime enclave of 3,000,000 mostly threadbare citizens, 30% of whom suffer from AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Gangs of orphaned children rule the street.


Similarly, the stadium at Port Elizabeth on Nelson Mandela Bay, which came in at $287,000,000, was built over a slum from which hundreds were evicted. A school complex was demolished to make way for the Neusprot venue (only $140,000,000) — 13 such stadiums have risen from the dust amidst a storm of charges of kickbacks, bribery, and favoritism.
If recent history is any hint, the new stadiums will quickly become certifiable white elephants. Even Beijing’s much-praised “Birds’ Nest” coliseum designed for the 2008 Olympics is reportedly tenantless, and the Greek economy just collapsed in part thanks to  the burden of debt incurred for infrastructure for its Olympic Games. 


With a population scuffling just to feed itself, filling all this dazzling stadia with paying customers is problematic. Even the $18 cheap seats — a week’s wages in the cities and a month’s income in some rural areas — are mostly out of reach in a country where 50% of the work force is out of work. To deflect a grave social crisis in the making, the FIFA is offering 120,000 free admissions, about 2,200 seats for each of the World Cup’s 62 contests. Riots have already occurred at “friendly” preliminary games.


Ever since the bad old days of ancient Rome, bread and circuses have been a powerful formula for social control. In South Africa, as in Mexico, the World Cup is designed to make the discontented forget their discontent. For the next month, the violence, corruption, and class and race hatreds that dominate daily life in Mexico, South Africa, and the rest of what used to be called the third world will disappear beneath the social surface.


Although conflict is my bread and butter, I’m not going to miss the 2010 Mundiales for the world. 


John Ross is at home in the maw of the Monstruo watching the World Cup. You can complain to him at johnross@igc.org


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The Daily Blurgh: Satanic real estate, erotic math, breast milk

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Daily Blurgh: Satanic real estate, erotic math, breast milk

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

Education/Sex/Film/Art: UC Berkeley math prof produces and stars in Matthew Barney-like cinematic tribute to Yukio Mishima, has sex on screen to Wagner.

*****

LGBT/Crime: SF Appeal investigates “hook-up violence” against LGBT folks. Part two is here. Peeps, be safe out there this Pride season!

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Brains/Jobs: SF ranked “smartest” city in the US. Maybe the critical mass of advance degree holders is why it’s still hard to get a job.

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TV/Econ: “The fictional high school chorus at the center of Fox’s Glee has a huge problem — nearly a million dollars in potential legal liability. For a show that regularly tackles thorny issues like teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse, it’s surprising that a million dollars worth of lawbreaking would go unmentioned. But it does, and week after week, those zany Glee kids rack up the potential to pay higher and higher fines.”

*****

Local Media: The Bay Area can expect to welcome another local media start-up, The Berkeley Times, come this fall.

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Art/Food/Sex: “We had this idea – someone wanted to take our portrait – and I thought it would be funny if we did Riccardo drinking milk from my breasts. Because that’s really what it is, we feed each other. We’re family.”

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Satan/Real Estate: The Richmond District’s Satanic past!

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Transit/Life: Take a ride in the front seat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ0gBsR9w74&feature=player_embedded

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