Documentary

Downtown action: Sex shop Feelmore510 celebrates one year of community pleasure

Andrew Lam
-
2

The sex shop Feelmore510 is located on the corner of Oakland’s Telegraph and 17th streets, across from an Obama campaign office, in between a pawn shop and the oldest African-American owned shoe store in town. The neighborhood is in transition, a place with old roots and a lot of new blooms – most businesses on this stretch of Telegraph opened within the last five years. Feelmore510 will celebrate its one-year anniversary Sun/12 when owner Nenna Joiner helps host Town Love, a new party at Hibiscus’ Rock Steady.

But those businesses aren’t the shop’s only neighbors. This fall, Feelmore510 also lived alongside Occupy Oakland’s City Hall encampment. Though many local business owners have expressed anxiety about the effect that protests were having on their sales, Joiner is in full support of the movement. She sometimes walked over to visit friends who were “occupying,” and was happy to donate safe sex supplies to the camp. “Sex is a basic need for survival,” she said in a recent in-store interview with the Guardian. Joiner allows protestors to chill in the store and talk politics — as long as they aren’t running from the cops.

Joiner envisions her store as more than just a place to shop – it’s also a community center. On a recent afternoon, Joiner shook each customer’s hand and asked them their name. Her goal is that all comers can shop for augmentations to their love life in comfort. 

A cross-section of Oakland’s entire population converges in this particular area of downtown. Joiner sees everyone from rich vintage porn collectors — drawn to her extensive selection of old magazines and videos — to people who ask to pay with California welfare benefit cards. 

Her best-selling items, which are taken home by customers who are male, female, straight, bi, and trans, are the queer porn films that Joiner herself directed, edited, and produced. 2010’s Tight Places features diverse actors and she made Hella Brown with a cast of all African American women. Hella Brown is made in a semi-documentary style – Joiner shot interviews with over 50 queer and trans subjects about their sexual proclivities while making the movie. 

Artfully-displayed contraptions at downtown Oakland’s favorite sex shop. 

Joiner’s films are unique in the way that they showcase different sexual practices and different body types from mainstream porn, which is often geared towards a heterosexual male audience. Her films show women of all shapes, having queer sex — fellating strap-ons and other acts you might not catch in other kinds of porn. While the films are not shot with the straight male audience in mind, that group does seem to enjoy them, often buying the first film and then returning for more. Joiner sees her films as educational tools, especially for what she calls the “brown community,” where things like transitioning from one gender to another are often socially stigmatized and restricted by financial limitations. 

“Queer women of color possess a whole different intelligence and mentality,” she says, adding that many women have a certain shyness about “packing,” (wearing a flaccid prosthetic penis underneath clothing) and getting cosmetic gender modification surgery. Joiner fully embraces her role as an educator in the Oakland queer community. 

Joiner refers to dildos as “prosthetics,” – she says that this language is less alienating to those unfamiliar with their usage. She keeps a packer on prominent display, in order to provoke people into asking questions, which can open up a dialogue about passing as a man, transitioning, or simply stuffing one’s jock with something more substantial than a tube sock. She says customer preference in prosthetics can vary. Many want a life-like phallus, while others request dildos that don’t look like penises, going for glass, sculptural, or abstract designs.

Joiner feels that she is at the intersection of several different communities in Oakland. Joiner goes to two church services every Sunday. She buys passing school kids lunch at Ms. Tina’s, the little sandwich shop next door. She’s active in the queer scene, and she’s also a small business owner who encourages other vendors to promote their own businesses by using her store as a launchpad. 

“Having a space allows other people to identify with a vision of opening their own space.” When she first opened her store, naysayers questioned her brick-and-mortar approach over the Internet. But she says a website cannot replace the tactile satisfaction of a place to gather, to talk, to share. She uses her store to hold classes on topics rarely discussed other places, like sex industry work.

Joiner wants the toys she sells to be safe and fun for anyone, and to open up a conversation about sex, gender, and pleasure with Feelmore510. It works – her space encourages one to think of sex in a different, more open way. Joiner’s toys are all just tools for lovers to transfer feeling, power, and energy between each other. There is no single way to have sex, just endless different first-time experiences. It’s a new kind of space in an old part of Oakland, open for all comers to explore their most innovative sexual selves.

 

Feelmore510 one-year anniversary party at Town Love

Sun/12 5-11 p.m., $5

Rocksteady at Hibiscus

1745 San Pablo, Oakl.

(888) 477-9288

Facebook: Feelmore510 anniversary party at Town Love

 

Sundance Diary, volume six: dramarama

Sue Vaughan
-
0
Sundance Diary, volume six: dramarama

In a series of posts, Midnites for Maniacs curator-host and Academy of Art film-history teacher Jesse Hawthorne Ficks reports on the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Check out his first, second, third, fourth, and fifth entries.

So Yong Kim’s character study For Ellen is only 93 minutes long, but the experience of watching it felt like it took an eternity. But — even though the film did not win awards at this year’s festival — it resonated; it was filled with many memorable, quiet moments. Paul Dano (never before so vulnerable) takes the reigns as a struggling musician who, while taking a break from touring to sign the papers for his long-overdue divorce, is forced to confront his own selfish tendencies when his custody rights start slipping through his fingers.

Writer-director Kim (2008’s Treeless Mountain) uses long, handheld takes that often prevent the viewer from seeing the actual feelings of our anti-hero. This subtle slice-of-life portrait never wavers from its sullen tone, which might explain why many critics seemed underwhelmed after its screening. For Ellen doesn’t give its flawed protagonist an easy way out, in a way that’s reminiscent of Darren Aranofsky’s The Wrestler (2008). 

Ira Sachs (2005’s Forty Shades of Blue) delivered his most personal film to date with Keep the Lights On; oddly enough, it might be a little too personal for its own good. Chronicling an extremely passionate and self-destructive relationship from the late 90s to the present, Sachs transparently exposes the very modern Chelsea neighborhood life of daily phone sex, random hook-ups, and casual usage of hard drugs — all wrapped up in a self-absorbed universe that I am sure more people in this generation can relate to than would actually like to admit. The indie auteur’s latest beautifully-shot effort goes overboard with its honesty (especially toward the end) and I was left in an emotional limbo, wanting to care but feeling like I had read too much of someone’s personal diary.

Barely recognized as mumblecore’s first female director, Ry Russo-Young seems to have graduated to full-fledged indie director with Nobody Walks, which won a Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Independent Film Producing. Most audience members were at the screening thanks to star John Krasinski (The Office), who delivers his usual charm. But truly stealing the show was Olivia Thirlby, whose irresponsible yet utterly motivated 23-year-old artist is so wonderfully performed that you forget about some of the major cues the film has taken from Lisa Cholodenko’s Laurel Canyon (2002) and Tom Kapinos’s Californication. Lena Dunham, who made 2011’s monumental Tiny Furniture, co-wrote the film, and her unromanticized take on strong female voices shines quite brightly here.      

But nothing in this year’s Dramatic Competition could compare to Ben Lewin’s The Surrogate, which won both the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting. Truly delivering hands-down next year’s best actor performance, John Hawkes (2010’s Winter’s Bone) portrays Berkeley, Calif. journalist Mark O’Brien, whose poetry, autobiographical writings, and physical limitations gave writer/director Ben Lewin more than you could ever ask for. O’Brien’s real-life story was already told in Jessica Yu’s 1995 Academy Award-winning documentary Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien, which hauntingly showcased O’Brien’s inspired and difficult life. For his narrative take, Lewin has pinpointed a very specific part of the story, creating a timeless romance and life-altering drama that ranks alongside Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun (1938) and David Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnUuVxL0UJ4

But it’s the acting that makes this film so unforgettable. Hawkes conveys complicated emotions and captures O’Brien’s soft-spoken syntax without ever slipping into pretension. William H. Macy throws in some very needed humor as an understanding, catch-22’d priest, and Helen Hunt gives the film that certain extra sense of surprise and understanding. It’s a cliché to say so, but it’s true: the film left nary a dry eye in the house. The Surrogate will be “the little film that could” for 2012 and for years after.

Up next: night owl Jesse Hawthorne Ficks tackles more Park City at Midnight movies.

On the township

Andrew Lam
-
0
On the township

FILM Opposition to apartheid didn’t really pick up steam as a popular cause in the U.S. until the early 1980s. Which makes it all the more remarkable that New York City-based documentarian Lionel Rogosin made Come Back, Africa about a quarter-century earlier — though less surprisingly, the film itself was barely seen here at the time. Now finally playing American theaters outside his home town in a restored print, it’s a time capsule whose background is as intriguing as the history it captures onscreen.

The horrors of World War II and some subsequent global travel had stirred a profound awareness of social injustices in Rogosin, who began planning a feature about South Africa while still working at his father’s textile business. He had very little filmmaking experience, however, so he took $30,000 of his earnings and as “practice” made On the Bowery (1956), a semi staged portrait of Manhattan’s skid row area that won considerable praise, if also some shocked and appalled responses from Eisenhower-era keepers of America’s wholesome, prosperous self-image. (It was, as 1959’s Come Back, Africa would also be, much more widely appreciated in Europe.)

Armed with the confidence bestowed by that successful effort and several international awards, Bogosin traveled to South Africa — not for the first time, but now with the earnest intent of making his expose. In the mid- to late ’50s, however, that was hardly a simple task. He and wife Elinor Hart had to do everything clandestinely, from making contacts in the activist underground to recruiting actors and crew. (The latter eventually had to be brought in mostly from Europe and Israel.) To get permits he fed the government authorities a series of lines: first he pretended to be making an airline travelogue to encourage tourism; then a music documentary to show local blacks “were basically a happy people;” then another doc, about the Boer War. Amazingly, despite the myriad likelihoods of being informed on, he shot the entire film without being shut down or deported. It remained, however, a stressful and dangerous endeavor for all concerned.

Like On the Bowery, Come Back, Africa qualified as a documentary by the looser standards of the time (Rogosin preferred the term “poetic realism”), but mixed a loose, acted narrative with completely nonfiction elements. Like the prior film, it also followed the luckless wanderings of an agreeable protagonist played by a first-time actor actually found on the street — here Zacharia Mgabi, a 30-ish bearded worker “discovered” on a bus queue.

His character, Zachariah, is caught in one catch-22 of apartheid life: he can’t get a job without the appropriate permits, and can’t get the permits without a job. First he tries finding employment in the misery of a mining encampment, then travels to Johannesburg — where it’s illegal for him to be without further permits — where he’s bounced from one position to another. Working as “house boy” to a middle-class white couple, he’s fired when the racist, shrewish wife (a memorable performance by Myrtle Berman) catches him sneaking a drink from her own secret booze stash. An auto-shop stint is lost due to a friend’s incessant goofing off, while service as porter in a hotel is terminated when a hysterical white lady guest cries “Rape!” simply because he surprises her in a hallway.

Meanwhile Zachariah’s wife arrives from their native KwaZulu, and they tentatively set up house in a Sophiatown shack. (Come Back, Africa is of particular interest for its scenes there — within a few years the government had forcibly emptied this poor black township, having made its population mix of races illegal, and the area was razed to become an unrecognizable whites only suburb.) But even this small foothold on stability is doomed. Just as alcoholism dragged On the Bowery‘s hero back into a downward spiral at the end (both on- and offscreen), so Zachariah and his family are helpless to save themselves from the violence, police harassment, and self-destruction apartheid breeds and maintains itself with.

All show and almost no “tell,” Come Back, Africa pauses around the two-thirds point to let several men pass around a bottle, discussing the nature of and solutions to their oppression. They’re happily interrupted by the incongruity of a young woman in an elegant cocktail dress — no less than a then-unknown Miriam Makeba, who sings a couple of songs in her inimitable voice. When the film was finished, Rogosin bribed officials to get her out of the country, bankrolling his contracted “discovery’s” launch at the Venice Festival, and in the U.S. and England. But to his great disappointment, she was quickly taken under Harry Belafonte’s wing, dismissing her first benefactor as “not very nice” and “an amateur.” Thus a legend was born, with Rogosin pretty much cut out of the resume.

Come Back, Africa, too, would disappoint its maker in some respects. With a furious South African government swiftly condemning this portrait as “distorted,” his original plans for a trilogy became impossible. The film won a number of prizes — although unlike On the Bowery, it was pointedly not nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar — and would eventually be widely seen on European television. But it has still never been broadcast in the U.S., and despite Rogosin’s efforts — he went so far as to open NYC’s still-extant Bleeker Street Cinemas in 1960 to show it and other important new works — it collided with a thud against the overwhelming indifference of middle-class white audiences. They were barely starting to confront such thorny racial issues in their own backyard, much less in far-flung nations. Not shown in South Africa until the late 1980s, Come Back nonetheless proved a great influence on development of the whole continent’s indigenous cinematic voices.

A liberal shit-kicker to the end, Rogosin made other documentaries, was integral to the New American Cinema movement (alongside Jonas Mekas, Robert Downey Sr., Shirley Clark, and other experimental luminaries), founded distribution company Impact Films, and moved to England for a spell before dying in Los Angeles at the century’s turn. It’s a pity he didn’t live to see his two first features restored and rediscovered — though interviews late in life suggest he never let limited exposure dampen his activist zeal one whit.

COME BACK, AFRICA opens Fri/3 at the Roxie.

Hello, Carol!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1
Hello, Carol!

FILM It is close to impossible not to love Carol Channing; those who would protest otherwise are simply heartless. The only adequate response to her is unconditional surrender, as if standing before an oncoming cyclone filled with puppies.

With her saucer eyes topped with false lashes that could give Bette Davis’ a run for her money and a mouth that seems as if it could swallow the world, Channing is a living incarnation of a Muppet (to watch her duet with Miss Piggy just seems natural, somehow). And yet, despite her cartoonish physicality and exaggerated appearance, there is nothing false or put-on about Channing.

When I hear that voice — dripping with whiskey, smoke, and honey, begging to be imitated — the effect is instant happiness. Everything just feels right. As Roland Barthes writes in his essay “The Grain of the Voice,” I then must face the task of articulating “the impossible account of an individual thrill I constantly experience in listening to singing.”

Dori Bernstein’s sweet if worshipful documentary Carol Channing: Larger Than Life necessarily fails at that task, even as it proves the now 91-year-old Broadway legend more than lives up to the second half of the film’s title.

Now slightly stooped, her hair in a choppy gray bob, which she occasionally pulls into a Peggy Moffitt-esque topknot, and her lips a smear of Malibu pink, Channing is still ever the professional, hilariously impersonating a Russian theater troupe one moment and chatting with young dancers in Times Square the next.

The life Channing recounts is an abbreviated and selective version of the one detailed in her 2002 memoir Just Lucky I Guess: her childhood in San Francisco spent being the class clown and worshiping Ethel Waters; her first big Broadway break playing Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; and her career-cementing role as Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! And many of the memoir’s same supporting characters, such as frequent TV variety show co-star Loni Anderson and Dolly composer Jerry Herman, also make appearances here.

What Bernstein’s documentary offers is the rare chance to witness the palpable impact Channing has made on others. In personal interactions, she gives her attention equally and wholly to anyone who seeks it (including the camera). Those who have worked with her — particularly the many gay chorus members interviewed here — speak of her as a mother rather than a diva.

The film’s most touching footage is of Channing with her late husband Harry Kullijian, who passed away last year. The two were childhood sweethearts who some 70 years later tied the knot (in Channing’s fourth go at marriage), and seeing them joke together and read aloud poetry passages they shared as love-struck teens is the very definition of adorable.

Curiously, Kullijian’s passing is not mentioned in the film, even as a postscript. You get the sense more generally that Bernstein tried to stay clear of reopening any old wounds with her subject. The awful tempestuousness of Channing’s second marriage to her publicist and manager Charles Lowe is referenced by others but not Channing, who speaks only in passing of the toll life on the road took on her relationship with her son from her first marriage.

Additionally, despite her fame, Channing has always had to share the larger cultural spotlight with Marilyn Monroe and Barbra Streisand, powerhouses in their own right who became associated with the roles she originally made famous on stage (Channing would have her Hollywood comeuppance in 1967 when she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1967’s Thoroughly Modern Millie). Larger Than Life attempts to provide a corrective to this, but its motivations for doing so are as transparent as they are understandable. This film is a mash note to Channing as much as it is a gift to her fans, who, rest assured, didn’t need any more reason to love her. *

 

CAROL CHANNING: LARGER THAN LIFE opens Fri/3 in Bay Area theaters.

Sundance Diary, volume four: more docs!

Sue Vaughan
-
0
Sundance Diary, volume four: more docs!

In a series of posts, Midnites for Maniacs curator-host and Academy of Art film-history teacher Jesse Hawthorne Ficks reports on the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Check out his first, second, and third entries.

Winner of both the World Documentary Audience Award and the Special Jury Prize for its celebration of the artistic spirit is every musicologist’s dream film: Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man. This larger-than-life tale is about obscure Detroit singer-songwriter Rodriguez, who created two brilliant albums, Cold Fact (1969) and Coming from Reality (1971), which some have compared to Bob Dylan’s greatest works. Yet virtually no one bought either of the records … except South Africans. The film reveals a fan base of millions, comprised of multiple generations who have viewed Rodriguez’s songs as political anthems for 40 years. And that’s just the first 15 minutes of the film!

Rodriguez’s lyrics and lifestyle celebrated a working-class hero mentality that seems to be as precious as the songs themselves, and Benjelloul’s film about his impact on a seemingly far-removed audience is a standout. But here’s a warning: be careful while reading any reviews of this film before you see it! Every single critic I’ve read has spoiled major dramatic points in the film, so try your best to catch it before you come into contact with any spoilers.

A few more for your doc queue:

The makers of 2006’s Jesus Camp, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, picked up the U.S. Documentary Editing Award for their latest, Detropia. It poetically unearths a hopeless, dying city using beautifully dramatic storytelling, though the film itself feels a bit unfinished towards the final act. Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush’s Finding North takes on hunger in America; many left the film wondering how they could take action to help ease the epidemic. David France’s superb How to Survive a Plague, about AIDS activists in the late 80s, left me and quite a few other critics totally devastated. France’s film is truly an emotional equivalent to last year’s U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Award winner about assisted suicide, How to Die in Oregon. This year’s World Cinema Documentary Editing Award went to Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky’s Indie Game: The Movie, which follows a group of independent video game designers pouring a psychotic amount of hard work into their creation, Super Meat Boy.

But the most memorable among this year’s crop of socially-aware docs was Lauren Greenfield’s Queen of Versailles, which won the U.S. Directing Award for Best Documentary. The film follows an uber-rich U.S. family whose lavish lifestyle is slowly being toppled by the current recession. The inverted journey invites audiences to begin by scapegoating the couple (as it happens, the paterfamilias, David Siegel, is suing Sundance and the filmmakers for defamation). But as things onscreen turn sour, director Greenfield masterfully brings things back around, holding up a culture-of-entitlement mirror to the audience. This film stuck with me for days after the screening.  

Coming up next: Jesse Hawthorne Ficks on Sundance’s midnight movies (duh), and more!

Hot sexy events: February 1-7

Andrew Lam
-
0

(Insert “saddle friction” joke here.) At the risk of sounding like an episode of Portlandia, we are stoked for the Bike Smut Film Festival, which rides in for its second SF showing in two weeks – the first took place at Bayview’s Cyclecide Swearhouse last weekend – on Fri/3. 

Bike smut: people having sex on bikes, sex with bikes, sex with bikes watching – surely there will be bike couplings in there somewhere (a handlebar penetrating a spoke, well greased). This incarnation of the fresh-from-touring-Europe show has an Oregon Trail theme. Yes, we know you loved that game in elementary school. You know who else did? Everyone.

Anyways, the whole shebang rolls into the art collective OffCenter on Divisadero Street this Friday, led by one-time Lusty Lady dancer and full-time bike slut Poppy Cox and that saint (as ordained by the Church of Bicycle Genius) Reverend Phil. It sounds like it’s gonna be a good time. 

Bike Smut Film Festival

Fri/3 7-10 p.m., $7

TheOffCenter

848 Divisadero, SF

www.bikesmut.com


“From the Collection of Larry Townsend” ongoing art exhibit

I was recently at the premiere of Priscilla Bertucci’s [SSEX BBOX] global sexuality documentary at the Center for Sex and Culture, but I kept looking at the walls. Not because the film wasn’t rad (it was!), but because of all the amazing comic-style drawings of Roman orgies, space orgies, and orgy-orgies currently occupying the sex-positive community center’s walls. I have Larry Townsend to thank for this, and you can too if you head down to the comfy library space of the Center for Sex and Culture, which is adding Townsend’s treasures for a spell to its perma-exhibits of antique vibrators and shelves of queer and sex-positive literature.

Through March 30

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org


Hard French Winter Ball

Few nights of our lives can match the high-pitched hormonal rush that was high school prom. Outfit agony, whose-your-date torture, the shoes, the corsage – foreplay from hell, really. How could you have known that years later you’d be trying to recreate that same special freak-out with a slutty queer soul party on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk? El Rio’s favorite afternoon dance party takes to the road for the second year in a row this weekend, with Juanita More and the House of Salad drag beauties in tow (check the candidates for the ball’s king and queen, adorable). Will the town of Santa Cruz be the same after tulle-and-tux-encased queers occupy the beachfront? Reserve your hotel room now and pack protection because: no.

Sat/4 7 p.m., $20-$25

Cocoanut Grove

400 Beach, Santa Cruz

hardfrenchwinterball.eventbrite.com


“Bros Before Hos: Masculinity and Its Discontents” film festival

C’mon men, look at yourselves. No really – though masculinity studies is often the subject of yucks and early 1990s primal scream mock-ups, men really don’t get the magnifying glass treatment when it comes to their sexuality. Not so at this film series orchestrated by YBCA – from the story of truck-lifting strong man Stanley “Stanless Steel” Pleskun to a collection of ’20s-’70s stag films, the meat of menfolk (c’mon, not just that part) will be offered up as prime conversation-starters. Today, a look at boundary-pushing filmmaker Bob Mizer of the Athletic Model Guild.

Festival runs through Feb. 26, $8/screening

Sat/4, 7:30 p.m.: The Golden Age of the American Male: Films From Bob Mizer’s Legendary Athletic Model Guild 

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Good Vibes’ “Ask Our Docs: Intro to Anal Play”

It’s okay not to know about anal sex, Good Vibrations says. So okay, in fact, that the sex toy company is offering this completely free primer on how to get primed, taught by Charles Glickman, that man-about-sex-education-classes-in-town.

Tue/7 7-8 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

3219 Lakeshore, Oakl.

(510) 788-2389

www.goodvibes.com

 

Sundance Diary, volume three: docs!

Sue Vaughan
-
0
Sundance Diary, volume three: docs!

In a series of posts, Midnites for Maniacs curator-host and Academy of Art film-history teacher Jesse Hawthorne Ficks reports on the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Check out his first and second entries.

Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Ice, which won this year’s Excellence in Cinematography Award for a U.S. Documentary, manages to sidestep the frivolous argument between liberals and conservatives as to whether or not the polar ice caps are melting. In fact, this beautiful documentary is so jaw-droppingly visual, you end up interacting with and understanding the planet’s ice structures as if they were your own grandparents. Trekking out to the furthest spots in the Northern Hemisphere, National Geographic photographer James Balog, his hard working-crew, and director Jeff Orlowski have created a document that will force the world to actually see what is happening as opposed to arguing assumptions. What I found even more unnerving is how beautiful I found crumbling ice caps to be. Am I part of the problem?
 
Doc fans will recognize the name Kirby Dick; his previous works include This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006), which exposed the MPAA (the highly-secretive, surprisingly small group which has been censoring cinema since 1968), and his controversial 2009 film Outrage, which aggressively outed closeted gay politicians who have and continue to vote against gay rights.

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

At this year’s fest, Dick picked up the U.S. Documentary Audience Award for his latest disturbing documentary, The Invisible War. The film launches a massive exploration into the epidemic of rape in the US military, and the unbelievable actions taken within the system’s hierarchy to cover it up. It is utterly awful to realize that there are thousands of women and men who have been violated, humiliated, and robbed of justice, all while serving their country. You will leave this film a changed person.

Movies about artists always have the possibility of turning into an extended commercial — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s just important to not lose sight of that. Two documentaries from last year’s festival, Richard Press’s Bill Cunningham New York and Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, highlighted not just the artist but managed to achieve something much deeper and more profound. This year, Matthew Akers’s Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present was similarly able to uncover something extremely haunting and even beguiling about its subject.

Abramović, one of the godmothers of performance art, is brilliantly shown to be audacious, committed, and finally successful, yet totally alone. This beautifully-constructed piece knows that what we are really dealing with is a person who wants to connect with every single other person on the planet. Abramović’s art is her life, and Akers’ film practices what its subject preaches by exporting her message to moviegoers, enabling her to touch even the people that she doesn’t come into direct contact with. Easily the best documentary of the Sundance Film Festival, it’s also an early contender for best doc of 2012. 

Up next: Jesse Hawthorne Ficks reports on even more docs!

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/8-Tues/14 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. Dirty Looks presents: City of Lost Souls, Fri, 8. “Mindscapes,” short films, Sat, 8.

CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS 1118 Eighth St, SF; www.dirtylooksnyc.org. Free. Dirty Looks presents: “Queer Conversations on Culture in the Arts,” with selections from the “Female Trouble” experimental shorts program and a conversation with Margaret Tedesco, Thurs, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •Pickpocket (Bresson, 1959), Wed, 3:30, 7:15, and American Gigolo (Schrader, 1979), Wed, 4:55, 8:45. •Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau, 1946), Thurs, 3:05, 7, and No Such Thing (Hartley, 2001), Thurs, 4:55, 8:50. “Midnites for Maniacs: I’m Black and I’m Proud:” •I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (Wayans, 1988), Fri, 7:30; Pootie Tang (Louis CK, 2001), Fri, 9:30; CB4 (Davis, 1993), Fri, 11:30. French American International School presents: “I-Speak: Celebrating 50 Years of International Education,” Sat, 6:30. This event, $5-10; tickets at www.internationalsf.org. •Do The Right Thing (Lee, 1989), Sun, 2, 8, and Malcolm X (Lee, 1992), Sun, 4:15. “Love: Ali MacGraw:” Love Story (Hiller, 1970), Tues, 8. With pre-show gala performance and MacGraw in person; for tickets ($25-45), visit www.ticketfly.com.

ELMWOOD 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. Free. “Community Cinema:” More Than a Month: One Man’s Journey to End Black History Month (Tilghman, 2012), Wed, 7.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. “Rafael Film Club:” “Jan Wahl,” Thurs, 1. Pina (Wenders, 2011), call for dates and times. “Mostly British Film Festival:” Route Irish (Loach, 2010), Wed, 7; Albatross (MacCormick, 2011), Thurs, 7. “2012 Oscar Nominated Short Films,” narrative and documentary (separate admission), Feb 3-9, call for times.

LAMORINDA THEATRES Four Orinda Theatre Square, Orinda; www.caiff.org. $12-15. “California Independent Film Festival,” 11 features, plus docs, shorts, and educational seminars, Feb 10-16.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Hollywood Dames: Beauty and Brains:” Intermezzo (Ratoff, 1939), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Documentary Voices:” The Green Wave (Ahadi, 2010), Wed, 7. “Seconds of Eternity: The Films of Gregory J. Markopoulos:” “Markopoulos: The Early Films (1940-49)” Thurs, 7; “Eros and Myth (1950-63),” Sat, 6:30. “Austere Perfectionism: The Films of Robert Bresson:” The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962), Fri, 7; Les dames du Bois du Boulogne (1945), Fri, 8:25; Lancelot of the Lake (1974), Sat, 8:30. “Screenagers: 14th Annual Bay Area High School Film and Video Festival,” Sat, 3. “Howard Hawks: The Measure of Man:” The Criminal Code (1931), Sun, 4:30; Bringing Up Baby (1938), Tues, 7. “African Film Festival 2012:” Viva Riva! (Munga, 2010), Sun, 6:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Come Back, Africa (Rogosin, 1959/2012), Wed-Thurs, 6:45, 8:30. Drive (Winding Refn, 2011), Wed, 8:45. Into the Abyss (Herzog, 2011), Wed, 6:45. SF IndieFest, Feb 9-23. Visit www.sfindie.com for complete schedule.

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $10-11. Domain (Chiha, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Ceylan, 2011), Feb 10-16, 2, 5:30, 8:30.

VOGUE 3290 Sacramento, SF; www.mostlybritish.org. $12.50. “Mostly British Film Festival:” Black Butterflies (van der Oest, 2011), Wed, 5; London Boulevard (Monahan, 2010), Wed, 7:15; The Great White Silence (Ponting, 1924), Wed, 9:30; A Passionate Woman (2010), Thurs, 5; Route Irish (Loach, 2010), Thurs, 7:30.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $7 donation. “The Second Coming of the Vortex Room:” The Second Coming of Suzanne (Barry, 1974), and Marjoe (Kernochan and Smith, 1972), Thurs, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Bros Before Hos:” The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Cassavetes, 1976), Thurs, 7:30; “Female Trouble,” experimental shorts program presented by Dirty Looks curator Bradford Nordeen, Sun, 2.

Our Weekly Picks: February 1-7

Andrew Lam
-
0

WEDNESDAY 1

Kapowski

Oakland-based indie pop quartet Kapowski is celebrating the release of its debut album, Boy Detective, with a party at Rickshaw Stop. With influences including George Gershwin, the Velvet Underground, and David Bowie, it’s no wonder Kapowski’s sound seems very much its own unique creation — sort of a dreamy, eerie, dissonant electric piano-driven march. While Thursday marks the release of the band’s debut album, Kapowski’s vibe has been slow cooking since front man and group visionary Jesse Rimler began collaborating with bassist Jon Gondo during middle school. (Mia Sullivan)

With Mwahaha and Bells

8 p.m., $10

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


THURSDAY 2

Mostly British Film Festival

February is traditionally an uber-boring month for cinemaniacs — but fret not, local film fans: you need not resort to queuing up at the megaplex to weep at Channing Tatum’s romantic troubles. Not only is IndieFest looming (opening night is Feb. 9), but the Mostly British Film Festival — co-presented by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation and the California Film Institute — kicks off tonight, with 28 new and vintage films from the U.K. (duh), Ireland, Australia, and South Africa. Highlights include Ken Loach’s latest, political thriller Route Irish; a complete screening of Michael Apted’s “Up” documentary series; and swinging London time capsule Performance (1970). (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Feb. 9, $12.50

Vogue Theatre

3290 Sacramento, SF

Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center

1118 Fourth St., San Rafael

www.mostlybritish.org

 

moe.

There’s nothing quite like seeing a jam show. They tend to involve hours of emphatic lyric shouting, sensual hip swinging, and persistent head nodding. The air smells more like pot than oxygen, lulling you into a stupor that causes you to forget you’ve been expressively swaying to the same song for thirty minutes. While lesser known than Phish and its omnipotent predecessor, the Grateful Dead, moe. has developed a similarly fanatical fan base by producing fun, danceable jams, perfecting the art of improvisation, and consistently engaging audiences at live venues. moe.’s been at it since 1989 and shows no signs of subsiding into irrelevance. Not to be missed. (Sullivan)

Thurs/2-Fri/3, 9 p.m., $30

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

“Elegy”

A beatific child, arms outstretched, rides a polar bear through a snowy landscape. A baby rhinoceros ascends through a pink cloudscape, glowing halo floating above its wrinkly gray ears. A brown-robed Saint Francis gazes upon a bleeding fawn — but, wait a second, what’s that falling space junk in the background? And how’d that toy robot get in there? Menlo Park native David Michael Smith’s drawings and paintings “hearken back in style to elegant Renaissance Madonnas and saints, while simultaneously borrowing images from contemporary pop culture,” according to Dana DeKalb’s essay in the catalogue for “Elegy,” his new solo exhibition. The drawings and paintings, many situated in elaborate frames constructed by the artist, have an effect that’s as calming as it is unsettling. (Eddy)

Through March 17

Reception tonight, 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m., free

Scott Richards Contemporary Art

251 Post, Ste. 425, SF

(415) 788-5588

www.srcart.com

 

Dengue Fever

During a trip to Cambodia in the 1990s, Zac Holtzman became enamored with ’60s Cambodian pop and set out to create a sound that integrated the genre’s powerful female vocals with the psychedelic surf sound of the American ’60s. Enter Dengue Fever — a six-piece rock band whose Cambodian female vocalist, Chhom Nimol, sings in Khmer and English (sometimes in the same song, often wearing something sparkly), while Holtzman puts down a dazed, surf riff reminiscent of “Wipe Out” with his double-necked guitar chapei. Dengue Fever is set to shake the Great American Music Hall on Thursday and Slim’s Friday, to the delight of Bay Area indie pop fusion enthusiasts. (Sullivan)

With Secret Chiefs 3

8:30 p.m., $20–<\d>$44.95

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com


FRIDAY 3

“WTF with Marc Maron”

Part comedy discussion and part no holds barred interview program, Marc Maron’s WTF podcast has emerged as can’t miss listening for anyone curious about the thought processes of modern comedians and performers. The stripped-down feel and anything goes attitude of the show has led to some incredibly personal moments — Todd Glass coming out on a recent episode immediately comes to mind — that are respectfully ushered along by Maron’s neurotic but attentive and no bullshit personality. In a special live taping of the show, he’ll be chatting with a handful of eclectic guests that includes political satirist Will Durst, Arden Myrin (Chelsea Lately), and original Saturday Night Live cast member, Laraine Newman. (Landon Moblad)

10:30 p.m., $25

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com


SATURDAY 4

“Between Me and the Other World”

Dissecting wounds in under-reported aspects of American history has allowed Joanna Haigood to create some of the Bay Area’s most remarkable dance theater works. So there is every reason to look forward to her newest endeavor, “Between Me and the Other World,” which examines W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of “double-consciousness,” as analyzed in his The Souls of Black Folk. Using the “veil” as a metaphor, Du Bois eloquently explained the fractured state of being imposed on people who are not allowed to be themselves. Written in 1903, his observations have stood the test of time. For “Between” Haigood, in addition to her own dancers, has enlisted first-rate collaborators in Antony Brown for the music and David Slzasa for the design. This is a work in progress showing and includes a post-performance discussion. (Rita Felciano)

2 p.m., free

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

(415) 822-6744

www.zaccho.org

 

Bob Odenkirk with The Birthday Boys in “Seven-Man Sweater”

Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show) joins up-and-coming Upright Citizens Brigade troupe The Birthday Boys for two Saturday night performances of “Seven-Man Sweater.” Gaining steam over the past couple years with videos for Funny or Die and writing jobs for the MTV Movie Awards, The Birthday Boys create comedy that successfully blends smart satire and pop culture send-ups. The Los Angeles-based troupe’s style should mesh well with Odenkirk — a legend of the sketch form — in this sure to be hilarious mix of live performance and video shorts. (Moblad)

8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., $20

Eureka Theatre

215 Jackson, SF

(415) 788-7469

www.sfsketchfest.com

 

Exodus

In the 1980s, thrash reaffirmed the faster-is-better trajectory of heavy metal that was already developing in the mechanistic speed and rhythm of acts like Judas Priest, replacing the big, rounded tones and psychedelic aftertaste of the ’70s with piston-like riffs and angular dual-guitar leads. Thrash, the supremely-aggro next step in this sequence, exists today as something of a brief and punctual link in the great, forbidding chain of heavy metal, but one whose dogged endurance (see: Slayer) guarantees it a permanent appeal. The show brings together fellow Bay Area thrash legends Possessed, Heathen and Forbidden in a memorial for Paul Baloff, the late vocalist of Exodus, who died 10 years ago. (Tony Papnikolas)

With Mad at Sam, Angerhead, Mudface, Hysteria, Hell Fire, and the Venting Machine

6 p.m., $30

Oakland Metro

630 Third St., Oakl.

(510) 763-1146

www.oaklandmetro.org


SUNDAY 5

“Apocalypse Cakes Reading + Eating”

The world is ending soon. Why not eat as much dessert as possible before the inevitable? And why not get into the end-times spirit by whipping up one of Shannon O’Malley’s concoctions from Apocalypse Cakes: Recipes for the End? O’Malley’s book (an offshoot of her tasty and notorious blog) has all the recipes you’ll need to celebrate doomsday, as long as you have a sense of humor: Black Deforestation Cake, Impending Meteorite Rock Candy Cake, Whore of Babylon Fruit Tart, Shifting Poles Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, and, yes, 2012 Mayan Chocolate Cupcakes. Swing by Omnivore Books for a reading and tasting — the countdown is on, so calories totally don’t count. Right? (Eddy)

3 p.m., free

Omnivore Books

3885a Cesar Chavez, SF

www.apocalypsecakes.com


MONDAY 6

Thee Silver Mt Zion

You know how the creation of epic classical music appears to be on the edge of madness, at least, the way it’s depicted in Amadeus (1984)? All ferocious scribblings, and sore hands from tearing furiously into instruments with the passion of a particular set of notes pumping through the veins for hours, days, months. Bloody hands arise, ‘I’ve got it!’ This is how I picture Thee Silver Mt. Zion working. A modern, Canadian, post-punk version of that. Perhaps it’s because of the frequent title reworkings that suggests hyper attention to detail: A Silver Mt. Zion, The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band with Choir and Thee Silver Mountain Reveries. As part of the Godspeed You! Black Emperor collective, the Montreal-based band gained notoriety for its likewise stunning arrangements, droning movements, improvisational jazz style, and punk ethos. With name changes, lineup shifts, and sound tweaks over the past decade, it’s a wonder they’ve yet to collapse. (Emily Savage)

With Matina Roberts

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com


TUESDAY 7

Leni Stern and the Masters of African Percussion

When German-born guitarist Leni Stern traveled to Mali in 2005, she met master musician Bassekou Kouyate, and became entranced with the local percussion instruments and style — later releasing albums such as 2007’s Africa and 2010’s Sa Belle Belle Ba, incorporating the West African sound. A lifelong musician (she won Gibson’s Female Jazz Guitarist of the Year award for five consecutive years) and traveler, she was inspired, to the say the least. At Yoshi’s, she’ll play guitar, n’goni ba, and jeli n’goni, alongside Kofo on talking drum, Alioune Faye on djembe, and Mamadou on bass and additional percussion. (Savage)

8pm, $16.

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com


The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

OPENING

Big Miracle Three gray whales trapped beneath the Beaufort Sea ice near the tiny town of Barrow, Alaska become an international cause célèbre through the uneasily combined efforts of an Anchorage reporter (John Krasinski), a Greenpeace activist (Drew Barrymore), a group of chainsaw-toting Inupiaq fishermen, a Greenpeace-hating oilman (Ted Danson), a Reagan-administration aide (Vinessa Shaw), a U.S. Army colonel (Dermot Mulroney), a pair of Minnesotan entrepreneurs (James LeGros and Rob Riggle) with a homemade deicing machine, and the crew of a Soviet icebreaking ship. The magical pixie dust of Hollywood has been sprinkled liberally over events that did indeed take place in 1988, but the media frenzy that blossoms out of one little local newscast is entirely believable. Everyone loves a good whale story, and this one is a tearjerker — though the kind that parents can bring their kids to without worrying overly much about subsequent weeks of deep-sea-set nightmares and having to explain terms like “critically endangered Western North Pacific gray whale” if they don’t want to. The film makes clear that the weak-on-the-environment Reagan administration and Danson’s oilman stand to gain some powerfully good PR from this feat, with potentially devastating ecological results down the line, and Barrymore’s character gets to recite a quick litany of impending oceanic catastrophes. But this kind of talk is characterized as less useful than a nice, quick, visceral pull on the heartstrings, and while offering us the pleasurable sight of whales breaching in open water, the film avoids panning out too much farther, which may be why the miracle looks so big. (2:03) (Rapoport)

*Carol Channing: Larger Than Life See “Hello, Carol!” (1:27) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Chronicle A group of teens develop superpowers — fun times, until one of them turns to the dark side — in this sci-fi film shot in the ever-popular “found footage” style. (1:23)

*Come Back, Africa See “On the Township.” (1:24) Roxie.

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

Domain This moody French drama about the co-dependent relationship between a middle-aged-yet-still-glamorous alcoholic (Béatrice Dalle) and her just-coming-out teenage nephew, Pierre (Isaïe Sultan), had the distinction of topping John Waters’ list of favorite movies in 2010 (Enter the Void was number two; Jackass 3D was number six). It’s unclear if the Bordeaux-set Domain (released in 2009) would be hitting theaters now without Waters as its champion, but first-time feature director Patric Chiha — who wrote the screenplay especially for Dalle, a cult favorite for her role as a mentally disturbed beauty in 1986’s Betty Blue — keeps the melodrama to a minimum, instead relying on subtle hints that cool, sophisticated Aunt Nadia’s life is slowly disappearing into a bottle of white wine. Sultan is a little one-note, but Dalle proves heartbreaking as a good-time gal who doesn’t quite have the strength to face her illness. (1:48) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

*The Innkeepers Horror fans who haven’t yet discovered writer-director Ti West (2009’s The House of the Devil) best get on it — this is a guy with an offbeat sense of humor who recognizes that formulaic stories and crappy CG are not necessary scary-movie ingredients. His latest concerns a rambling, Victorian-relic hotel about to shut its doors after one last weekend in business. Staffers Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are soon to be jobless, but they’re more concerned with compiling evidence that the inn is haunted — as suggested by local legend and Luke’s paranormal-themed website. Though there are some familiar tropes here (why is there always a creepy basement, and why won’t scary-movie characters stay the hell out of it?), The Innkeepers does deliver a handful of genuine frights. Its main pleasure, though, is its tone, which is neither too jokey nor trying to take itself too seriously. Alongside the slacker duo played by Paxton and Healy are Kelly McGillis (last seen fighting zombies in 2010’s Stake Land), who lends gravitas as a cranky psychic; and indie darling Lena Dunham (2010’s Tiny Furniture), who has a brief but funny cameo as a neurotic barista. (1:42) Lumiere. (Eddy)

The New Metropolis Andrea Torrice’s pair of half-hour docs explore an important yet oft-overlooked topic: America’s “first suburbs,” communities that sprang up just outside large cities in response to the post-war baby boom. Now that these towns are aging, and in need of infrastructure repair, they’re finding that states would rather fund brand-new “inner rim suburbs” — where homebuyers reap the tax benefits of government-subsidized roads, for example, while enjoying their pre-fab McMansions. Both parts of the made-for-PBS doc offer hopeful solutions, particularly part two, The New Neighbors, which studies a multi-racial New Jersey community that is working together to insure “stable integration” in its neighborhoods. The results are remarkable, and inspiring. Both docs screen as part of a free event, “The New Metropolis: Building a Sustainable and Healthy Bay Area in the Age of Global Warming,” featuring a post-film dialogue that frames issues raised by the films in a local context. Panelists include filmmaker Torrice; El Cerrito Councilmember Janet Aelson, a transit policy expert; regional design specialist Carl Anthony; and other community leaders. For more info and to register, visit el-cerrito.org/eqc/newmetropolis. (:54) Cerrito. (Eddy)

Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami’s global best-seller — a melancholic, late-1960s love story — hits the big screen thanks to Tran Anh Hung (1993’s The Scent of the Green Papaya). Kenichi Matsuyama (2011’s Gantz, 2005’s Linda Linda Linda) and Rinko Kikuchi (2006’s Babel) play Watanabe and Naoko, a young couple who reconnect in Tokyo after the suicide of his best friend, who was also her childhood sweetheart. There’s love between them, but Naoko is mentally fragile; she flees town suddenly after they sleep together for the first time. Meanwhile, Watanabe meets the vivacious Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) — who is also already involved, though not quite so deeply as he — and they spark, though he’s devoted to Naoko, and visits her at the rural hospital where she’s (sort of) working through her emotional issues. Tran is an elegant filmmaker, and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood contributes an appropriately moody score. But amid all the breathless encounters, the uber-emo Norwegian Wood drags a bit at over two hours, and the film never quite crystallizes what it was about Murakami’s book that inspired such international rapture. (2:13) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Right to Love: An American Family This earnest doc springboards off the YouTube fame of the adorable, Star Wars-obsessed Leffew family, who started beaming videos from their Santa Rosa home (channel name: “Gay Family Values”) as a response to attacks on marriage equality. Director Cassie Jaye wisely uses quite a bit of Bryan and Jay’s own footage, which depicts a loving family going about their business under normal (family dinners) and special-occasion (excitedly plotting to leave tooth fairy loot under their young daughter’s pillow) circumstances. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, with the ugly reality of Prop 8 and, most troublingly, Bryan’s own family members, staunchly set in their disapproval of same-sex marriage despite the highly functional example in their midst. This world-premiere Castro screening features in-person appearances by The Right to Love‘s director and subjects; visit www.R2Lmovie.com for additional information on the event. (1:30) Castro. (Eddy)

The Woman in Black Daniel Radcliffe plays a lawyer turned ghost buster in this Hammer Films thriller, adapted from Susan Hill’s best-selling (and previously-adapted for stage and screen) novel. (1:36) Shattuck.

ONGOING

Albert Nobbs The titular character in Rodrigo Garcia’s film is a butler of ideal bone-stiff propriety and subservience in a Dublin hotel whose well-to-do clients expect no less from the hired help. Even his fellow workers know almost nothing about middle aged Albert, and he’s so dully harmless they don’t even notice that lack. Yet Albert has a big secret: he is a she, played by Glenn Close, having decided this cross dressing disguise was the only way out of a Victorian pauper’s life many years ago. Chance crosses Albert’s path with housepainter Hubert (Janet McTeer), who turns out to be harboring precisely the same secret, albeit more merrily — “he” has even found happy domesticity with an understanding wife. Albert dreams of finding the same with a comely young housemaid (Mia Wasikowska), though she’s already lost her silly head over a loutish but handsome handyman (Aaron Johnson) much closer to her age. This period piece is more interesting in concept rather than in execution, as the characters stay all too true to mostly one-dimensional types, and the story of minor intrigues and muffled tragedies springs very few surprises. It’s an honorable but not especially rewarding affair that clearly exists mostly as a setting for Close’s impeccable performance — and she knows it, having written the screenplay and produced; she’s also played this part on stage before. Yet even that accomplishment has an airless feel; you never forget you’re watching an actor “transform,” and for all his luckless pathos, Albert is actually a pretty tedious fellow. (1:53) Shattuck. (Harvey)

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

Beauty and the Beast 3D (1:24) 1000 Van Ness..

Carnage Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan (Christoph Waltz) have arrived in the apartment of Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael (John C. Reilly) to discuss proper follow-up to a playground incident in which one of their children went ballistic on another. But this grownup discussion about conduct between children quickly degenerates into a four-way living room sandbox melee, as the couples reveal snobbish disdain toward one another’s presumed values and the cracks in each marriage are duly bared. Roman Polanski’s unnecessary screen translation of Yasmina Reza’s play remains awkwardly rooted to the stage, where its contrivances would have seemed less obvious, or at least apt for the medium. There’s some fun to be had watching these actors play variously self-involved, accusatory Manhattanites who enact a very lite Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? amid way too much single-malt Scotch ingestion. But the text gets crudely farcical after a while, and its critiques of the characters’ shallow materialism, bad parenting, knee-jerk liberal empathy, privileged class indifference, etc. would resonate more if those faults weren’t so cartoonishly drawn. In the end, Carnage‘s high-profile talent obliterates rather than illuminates the material — it’s like aiming a bazooka at a napkin. (1:20) Shattuck. (Harvey)

Contraband A relative gem among the dross of January film releases, Contraband works best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and flounders when it does. Directed by Baltasar Kormákur, the man behind much of Iceland’s popular filmography (2006’s Jar City, 2002’s The Sea, 2000’s 101 Reykjavik), this no-frills genre picture stars Mark Wahlberg as Chris Farraday, an ex-smuggler-turned-family-man who must give the life of crime another go-round when his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones) find themselves in thrall to a nasty, drug-addicted criminal (an especially methy-looking Giovanni Ribisi). If you’ve seen any of these One Last Heist movies, you won’t be surprised that Chris’ operation goes completely awry — in Panama, on a cargo captained by J.K. Simmons, no less. Ribisi is as simpering and gleefully evil a caricature as they come, and as Chris’ best friend, brooding Ben Foster’s unexpected about-face in the film’s last third is pretty watchable. I’m not exactly saying you should go and see it, but I’m not stopping you, either. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Ryan Lattanzio)

A Dangerous Method Cool and chatty (unsurprisingly, given its subject matter and the fact that it’s based on a play and a novel), David Cronenberg’s latest begins in 1904 Zurich as a shrieking patient (Keira Knightley) is escorted into the care of psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Dr. Jung, an admirer of Sigmund Freud, tests the “talking cure” on the woman, who turns out to be the fiercely intelligent and conveniently beautiful Sabina Spielrein. An attraction, both intellectual and sexual, soon develops, no matter that Jung is Sabina’s doctor, or that he happens to be married to a prim wife whose family wealth keeps him in boats and lake houses. Meanwhile, Jung and Freud (an excellent Viggo Mortensen) begin corresponding, eventually meeting and forming a friendship that’s tested first when Sabina comes between them, and later when Jung expresses a growing interest in fringe pursuits like parapsychology. The scenes between Freud and Jung are A Dangerous Method‘s most intriguing — save those brief few involving Vincent Cassel as a doctor-turned-patient who advises Jung to “never repress anything” — but the film is mostly concerned with Jung’s various Sabina-related dramas. Pity that this is a tightly-wound Fassbender’s least dynamic performance of the year, and that Knightley, way over the top in Sabina’s hysterical scenes, telegraphs “casting mistake” from the get-go. (1:39) Albany, Shattuck. (Eddy)

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

*Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone This doc offers a lively, revealing look at SoCal ska-punk rockers Fishbone, a band that formed circa 1979 in a San Fernando Valley junior high newly filled with bussed-in South Central kids. In its heyday, Fishbone enjoyed cult success with hits like “Party at Ground Zero” and the tune that gives the film its title; Everyday Sunshine speaks to Fishbone’s broad appeal, as famous faces chime in to reminisce (and longtime fan Laurence Fishburne narrates), but it also illuminates some of the reasons its members never became megastars. Codirectors Chris Metzler (a San Francisco resident best-known for 2004’s Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea) and Lev Anderson spent months on the road with the band, capturing the infectious energy of its live shows in addition to behind-the-scenes tension. Past members add their voices, but the main protagonists are bassist-vocalist Norwood Fisher and lead vocalist-saxophone player Angelo Moore. Their intertwining stories offer a poignant portrait of creative soulmates who’ve weathered many storms (personality conflicts, legal and money troubles, an industry that didn’t know how to categorize them) without once giving up on their music. In addition to its compelling story, the film’s quirkier stylistic choices, including animation, lift Everyday Sunshine above the crowded field of traditional music docs. (1:47) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Director Stephen Daldry is no stranger to guiding actors to Oscars; his previous two films, 2008’s The Reader and 2002’s The Hours, both earned Best Actress statuettes for their stars. So it’s no surprise that Sandra Bullock’s performance is the best thing about this big-screen take on Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel, which is otherwise hamstrung by twee, melodramatic elements that (presumably) translated poorly from page to screen. One year after 9/11, a Manhattan mother (Bullock) and her nine-year-old son Oskar (newcomer Thomas Horn, a youth Jeopardy! champ) are, unsurprisingly, still mourning their beloved husband and father (Tom Hanks), who was killed on “the worst day.” But therapy be damned — Oskar takes to the streets, knocking on the doors of strangers, searching for the lock that will fit a mysterious key his dad left behind. Carrying a tambourine. Later befriending an elderly man (Max von Sydow) whose true identity is immediately obvious, despite the fact that he writes pithy notes instead of speaking. In its attempts to explore grief through the eyes of a borderline-autistic kid (“tests were inconclusive,” according to Oskar), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is so forced-quirky it makes the works of Wes Anderson look like minimalist manifestos; that it bounces its maudlin, cliché-baiting plot off the biggest tragedy in recent American history is borderline offensive. Actually offensive, however, is the fact that Daldry — who also knows from young thespians, having helmed 2000’s Billy Elliot — positions the green Horn (ahem) in such a complex role. The character of Oskar is, as written, nauseatingly precocious; adding shrill and stridently unsympathetic to the mix renders the entire shebang nigh-unwatchable, despite the best efforts of supporting players like Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright. (2:09) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Flowers of War Based on the novel The 13 Women of Nanjing by Geling Yan (Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl), Flowers of War sees director Zhang Yimou probing the still-painful wounds of the Nanjing Massacre. Here, he gets to pull out his customary sensuous fascinations — jewel-tone colors that pop unexpectedly amid gray wartime rubble, reams of floating textiles, and girls, girls, girls — to intriguing if patchy effect. The touch-and-go quality of the production is understandable considering the clash of acting styles generated by our players: crass good-old-boy American-in-China mortician John (Method-ically played by Christian Bale), and the clutch of look-alike Catholic school girls and cadre of call girls, the latter headed up by slyly Veronica Lake-ish vamp Yu Mo (Ni Ni). John has been called to bury a priest at the Nanjing cathedral, smack in the middle of the Japanese invasion, and despite the corpses littering the street, all he seems to care about is getting paid and running off. Somehow the sweet little helpless schoolgirls convert him into a believer, enough to make him don the priest’s garb and try to protect them from crazed Japanese soldiers intent on literally carrying out the Rape of Nanjing. Meanwhile the ladies of the evening, hiding out in the basement against everyone’s wishes, work their wiles to get him to help them escape. Armed with a budget that makes this the most expensive film in Chinese history, Zhang embraces this collision of soldiers, cultures, contemporary Western war movies, and popular Chinese entertainments in the stylized mode of a archetypal Chinese melodrama. Though it’s far from his best work, Flowers still draws you in while imparting the horrors of an ugly war that pulled the most innocent — and beautifully decadent — civilians into its wake. (2:21) Four Star. (Chun)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo The meeting of Stieg Larsson’s first “Millennium” book and David Fincher promised fireworks, as he’s a director who can be equally vivid and exacting with just the elements key to the series: procedural detail, obsession, violence, tweaked genre conventions, mind games, haunted protagonists, and expansive story arcs. But perhaps because this possible franchise launch had to be rushed into production to ride the Larsson wave, what should have been a terrific matchup turns out to be just a good one — superior in some stylistic departments (notably Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ pulsing score), but overall neither an improvement nor a disappointment in comparison to the uninspired but effective 2009 Swedish film version. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, the muckraking Stockholm journalist whose public disgrace after a failed expose of a suspect corporate tycoon makes him the perfect candidate for an unexpected assignment: staying sequestered in the wealthy, warring Vanger clan’s island home to secretly investigate a teenage girl’s disappearance and presumed murder 40 years ago. His testy helpmate is the singular Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), antisocial hacker, researcher, and ex-mental patient par excellence. Nearly three hours long, the compressed, slightly altered (get over it) storyline nonetheless feels rushed at times; Fincher manages the rare feat of making mostly internet research exciting in filmic terms, yet oddly the book’s more shocking episodes of sex and/or mayhem don’t have the memorable impact one might expect from him. The leads are fine, as is the big support cast of recognizable faces (Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, etc.) But the knockout suspense, atmosphere, and urgency one hoped for isn’t present in this intelligent, not entirely satisfying treatment. On the other hand, maybe those who’ve already read the books and seen the prior films have already had so much exposure to this material that a revelatory experience is no longer possible. (2:38) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

The Grey Suicidally depressed after losing his spouse, Ottway (Liam Neeson) has to get pro-active about living in a hurry when his plane crashes en route to a oil company site in remotest Alaska. One of a handful of survivors, Ottway is the only one with an idea of the survival skills needed to survive in this subzero wilderness, including knowledge of wolf behavior — which is fortunate, given that the (rapidly dwindling) group of eight men has landed smack in the middle of a pack’s den. Less fortunate is that these hairy, humongous predators are pretty fearless about attacking perceived intruders on their chosen terrain. Director and co-writer Joe Carnahan (2010’s The A-Team, 2006’s Smokin’ Aces) labors to give this thriller some depth via quiet character-based scenes for Neeson and the other actors (including Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts and Dermot Mulroney) in addition to the expected bloodshed. The intended gravitas doesn’t quite take, leaving The Grey and its imposing widescreen scenery (actually British Columbia) in a competent but unmemorable middle ground between serious, primal, life-or-death drama and a monster movie in wolf’s clothing. (1:57) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*Haywire Female empowerment gets its kung-fu-grip thighs around the beet-red throat of all the old action-heroes. Despite a deflated second half — and director Steven Soderbergh’s determinedly cool-headed yet ultimately exciting-quelling approach to Bourne-free action scenes — Haywire is fully capable of seizing and demanding everyone’s attention, particularly that of the feminists in the darkened theater who have given up looking for an action star that might best Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft. Former pro mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano, who plays it as studiedly intense and charismatic as crossover grapplers Lee, Norris, and Seagal before her, is that woman, with convincingly formidable neck and shoulder muscles to distract from her curves. Her Mallory Kane is one of the few women in Haywire‘s pared-down, stylized mise-en-scene — the lone female in a world of men out to get her, starting with the opening diner scene of a watchful Mallory confronted by a man (Channing Tatum) playing at being her boyfriend, fed up with her shit, and preparing to pack her into the car — a scenario that doubtless many rebel girls can relate to until it explodes into an ultraviolent, floor-thrashing fight scene. Turns out Mallory is an ex-Marine and Blackwater-style mercenary, ready to get out of the firm and out of a relationship with her boss, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), when she learns, the bruising way, that she’s been set up. The diner scene sets the tone for rest of Haywire, an otherwise straightforward (albeit flashback-loaded) feminist whodunit of sorts, limned with subtextual currents of sexualized violence and unfolding over a series of encounters with men who could be suitors — or killers. (1:45) California, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

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

The Iron Lady Curiously like Clint Eastwood’s 2011 J. Edgar, this biopic from director Phyllida Lloyd and scenarist Abi Morgan takes on a political life of length, breadth and controversy — yet it mostly skims over the politics in favor of a generally admiring take on a famous narrow-minded megalomaniac’s “gumption” as an underdog who drove herself to the top. Looking back on her career from a senile old age spent in the illusory company of dead spouse Denis (Jim Broadbent), Meryl Streep’s ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher steamrolls past hurdles of class and gender while ironically re-enforcing the fustiest Tory values. She’s essentially a spluttering Lord in skirts, absolutist in her belief that money and power rule because they ought to, and any protesting rabble don’t represent the “real England.” That’s a mindset that might well have been explored more fruitfully via less flatly literal-minded portraiture, though Lloyd does make a few late, lame efforts at sub-Ken Russell hallucinatory style. Likely to satisfy no one — anywhere on the ideological scale — seriously interested in the motivations and consequences of a major political life, this skin-deep Lady will mostly appeal to those who just want to see another bravura impersonation added to La Streep’s gallery. Yes, it’s a technically impressive performance, but unlikely to be remembered as one of her more depthed ones, let alone among her better vehicles. (1:45) Albany, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Man on a Ledge Sam Worthington plays escaped convict Nick Cassidy, a former cop wrongly accused of stealing a very big diamond from a ruthless real estate mogul (Ed Harris) against the backdrop of 2008’s financial disasters. Having cleared the penitentiary walls, many a man might have headed for the nearest border, but Nick’s fervent desire to prove his innocence leads him to climb out the window of a 21st-floor Manhattan hotel room and spend most of the rest of the movie pacing a tiny strip of concrete and chatting with hung over NYPD crisis negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), who’s also nursing some PTSD after a suicide negotiation gone bad. After a while, the establishing shots panning up 21 floors or across the city grid to Nick’s exterior perch begin to feel extraneous — we know there’s a man on a ledge; it says so on our ticket stub. More involving is the balancing act Nick performs while he’s up there — keeping the eyes of the city glued on him while guiding the suspensefully amateur efforts of his brother (Jamie Bell) and his brother’s girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) to pull off an unidentified caper in a nearby high-rise. Ed Burns, Anthony Mackie, and Kyra Sedgwick costar. (1:42) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Miss Bala You want to look away, but aided and abetted by director-cowriter Gerardo Naranjo’s sober, elegant perspective on the ugly way that innocents get pulled into the Mexican drug wars, you must see it through. That’s the case with Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman), a naive Tijuana beauty contestant who signs up for the Miss Baja pageant with a friend, who almost immediately decides to game the system by partying with the police and DEA agents who could possibly help their chances of winning. Laura instantly falls into the hands of Lino (Noe Hernandez), a mafia boss in the process of crashing the party, and with his gang, killing all assembled. Desperately trying to find her friend, Laura takes a wrong turn that lands her back in the arms of Lino, who vows to help the would-be beauty queen and entangles her in his increasingly closed-in criminal world. Naranjo’s cool-headed, almost stately compositions come as almost blessed relief as he pans slowly from the shadows, where you really don’t want to know what’s going on, to a girl, almost completely out of the frame, desperately wedging herself out a second floor window. His detachment undercuts the horror, while angel-faced, perpetually anguished-looking lead actress Sigman simultaneously compels and frustrates with her fatal errors in judgement as she grows more complicit and is literally caught in the crossfire between the rough gangsters who terrorize her and the government soldiers unafraid mete out punishment. The toughest part is watching Sigman’s infuriatingly passive protagonist be used like a sexual puppet, but this raw and refined film — loosely based on the story of 2008’s Miss Sinaloa, Laura Zuniga — doesn’t pull many punches in indicting the pageant machine and the corrupt system that supports it. (1:53) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol No world landmark (the Kremlin, the Burj Khalifia) is too iconic and/or freaking tall for uber-adrenalized Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon “Comic Relief” Pegg) to infiltrate, climb, assume false identities in, use as a home base for unleashing futuristic spy technology that seems almost plausible (with the help of lots of iPads), race a BMW through, etc. One kind of gets the sense that Cruise and company sat down with a piece of paper and were like, “What stunts haven’t we done before, and how many of them can I do with my shirt off?” Celebrated animation director Brad Bird (2004’s The Incredibles) is right at home with Ghost Protocol as his first live-action effort — the film’s plot (set in the present day, it involves a positively vintage blend of Russians and nukes) and even its unmemorable villain take a back seat to Cruise’s secret-agent shenanigans, most of which take the form of a crazy plan that must be altered at the last minute, resulting in an even crazier plan, which must be implemented despite the sudden appearance of yet another ludicrously daunting obstacle, like, say, a howling sandstorm. For maximum big dumb fun, make sure you catch the IMAX version. A warning, though: any time the movie screeches to a halt to explore emotions or attempt characterization … zzz. (2:13) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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

One for the Money (1:46) 1000 Van Ness.

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

Red Tails History (and the highly-acclaimed 1995 TV film, The Tuskeegee Airmen) tells us that during World War II, African American fighter pilots skillfully dispatched Nazi foes — while battling discrimination within the U.S. military every step of the way. From this inspiring true tale springs Red Tails, an overly earnest and awkwardly broad film which matches lavish special effects (thank you, producer George Lucas) with a flawed script stuffed with trite dialogue (thank you, “story by” George Lucas?), an overabundance of characters, and too many subplots (including a romance and a detour into Hogan’s Heroes). The movie would’ve been much stronger had it streamlined to focus on the friendship between the brash Lightning (David Oyelowo) and the not-as-perfect-as-he-seems Easy (Nate Parker); the head-butting between these two supplies the film’s only genuine moments of tension. Otherwise, there’s not much depth, just surface-to-air heroics. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Maybe Guy Ritchie should’ve quit while he was ahead. Thanks to strong performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, the British director’s first Holmes flick proved surprisingly fun. Two years later, it’s clear that Ritchie’s well of creatitivity has run dry. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is cliched and overlong, burying a few good ideas under an avalanche of tired action movie stalwarts gone steampunk. To be fair, the set design and art direction are still sumptuous, creating a hyperbolic, detailed vision of Victorian Europe. New cast additions Jared Harris (as Moriarty, maliciously polite) and Stephen Fry (as Mycroft, eccentric and nude) do well with limited material. Noomi Rapace, playing a helpful gypsy, is superfluous. Downey Jr. and Law are still game for some amusing PG-13 homoeroticism, but it’s the former’s disinterested performance that ensures the movie’s downfall. Forced to make do without witty quips or interesting deductions, the Holmes of A Game of Shadows is part bruiser, part buffoon. The game’s a flop, Watson. (2:09) SF Center. (Ben Richardson)

Sing Your Song It’s easy to be cynical about do-gooding celebrities. Like, does superstar X really care about that charity or cause, or is he or she merely doing a public-image polish? This is not a concern with Harry Belafonte, who — when not charming audiences with tunes like “The Banana Boat Song” — has spent most of his 84 years personally battling injustice. If he wasn’t such an American treasure (World War II veteran, courageous challenger of Hollywood racism, vocally pro-labor union amid anti-Commie hysteria, etc.), Sing Your Song might feel as if it were progressing in an almost comedically heroic manner: Harry befriends Martin Luther King, Jr; Harry teaches JFK and RFK about civil rights; Harry champions Nelson Mandela; Harry protests the Vietnam War; Harry devotes himself to Africa (cue “We Are the World”). But it all really happened (with historical footage and photographs to prove it), and most of it at a time when his views were seen as radical by mainstream America. Belafonte’s accomplishments are undeniable, and Sing Your Song is, perhaps unavoidably, a textbook hagiography — even as his children from multiple marriages, one of whom co-produced the film, make vague yet forgiving references to Belafonte’s frequent absentee-dad status. Otherwise, Sing Your Song is solely concerned with singing Belafonte’s praises — admirable, but kinda one-note. (1:44) Roxie. (Eddy)

Sleeping Beauty Australian novelist turned director Julia Leigh’s first feature arrives affixed with a stamp of approval from no less than Jane Campion; though Sleeping Beauty treads in Campion-style edgy feminism, its ideas are not quite fully formed, rendering a film that’s not entirely satisfying. It is gorgeously shot, however, with long (occasionally overly so) shots that coolly observe the life of Lucy (pillow-lipped Emily Browning, star of 2011’s Sucker Punch), a college student struggling to make ends meet with an array of minimum-wage gigs. Her housemates hate her; the only friend she has is a shut-in drug addict. She gets her kicks picking up random men at yuppie bars — until she’s offered a gig working for an exclusive purveyor of kink to elderly clients, first as a lingerie-clad serving girl, and later as a “sleeping beauty:” she’s given knockout drugs and handed over to customers (“no penetration” is the only rule, but yes, it’s still creepy). Sleeping Beauty is too chilly to be titillating, and while Browning is lovely, Lucy is affectless to the point of being, well, pretty boring, even with her clothes off. I read one review that suggested watching the film as if it were intended to be a comedy; lines like “Match your lipstick to the color of your labia” certainly support this thesis. (1:44) SF Film Society Cinema. (Eddy)

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

Underworld Awakening (1:30) 1000 Van Ness.

*War Horse If the idea of watching heroic horses getting slaughtered amid the brutal trench warfare of World War I fills your heart with disgust, then you might want to applaud Steven Spielberg and his relatively sensitive touch with that material in the heartrending War Horse. The PG-13 rating also gives you some idea that the director will be hewing to the movie’s origins as a children’s book. Spielberg paints this tale about loss of innocence, be it in the fields of the farm or the battle, in broad strokes, but here, you might feel a bit less manipulated by his prowess as a crowd-pleasing storyteller, less conscious about the legacy he draws on, and more immersed in a story that stays as close as it can to its animal protagonist’s point of view, short of pulling a Mr. Ed. War Horse opens with Joey’s birth and follows him as he’s sold to a struggling English farm run by traumatized war veteran Ted (Peter Mullan), his spunky wife Rose (Emily Watson), and his animal-loving son Albert (Jeremy Irvine). Circumstance — and an unyielding landlord (David Thewlis) — sends Joey off to the so-called Great War, first into the care of an honorable captain (Tom Hiddleston), later a French girl (Celine Buckens), and worst, into the arms of the German enemy, where he toils as a disposable beast of burden charged with hauling the literal machines of war uphill. Spielberg shields viewers both young and old from the more explicit horrors, though gracefully imparts war’s terrors, sending fresh chills through a viewer when, for instance, a child riding a horse disappears over a ridge and fails to return. No one’s immune from tears, and you have to wonder how much healing is actually possible at War Horse‘s conclusion, despite its stylized, symbolism-laden beauty. Nonetheless cinephiles will glean a certain pleasure from images that clearly nod to the blood-red skies of Gone With the Wind (1939), the ominous deep focus of Orson Wells, and the too-bright Technicolor clarity-slash-artifice of National Velvet (1944). (2:26) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

 

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 1

“Singing the Golden State” early Californian music exhibition Society of California Pioneers, 300 Fourth St., SF. (415) 957-1849, www.californiapioneers.org. Through Dec. 7. Gallery hours Wed.-Fri., 10-4 p.m.; $2.50 for seniors and students; $5 general admission. The Frederick Sherman Collection and the private collection of James M. Keller join musical forces to bring to you two floors of sheet music and recording samples of songs composed in California from1849 through the 1930s. This is equivalent to striking gold for any music lover, especially those who are nostalgic for the sounds of California pre-Katy Perry.

“Acknowledged: Portraits of Project Homeless Connect” exhibition opening San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin, SF. (415) 557-4400, www.sfpl.org. Through March 25. Library hours Mon., 10-6 p.m.; Tue.-Thurs., 9-8 p.m.; Fri., noon-6 p.m.; Sat., 10-6 p.m.; Sun., noon-5 p.m.; free. A picture is worth a thousand words — and you need would need even more than that to describe what it’s like to be homeless in San Francisco. Photographer Joe Ramos has partnered up with Project Homeless Connect to feature 55 program participants in this powerful look at our society’s unhoused.

THURSDAY 2

“Bourbon and Bull” NightLife at the Academy California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org/nightlife. 6-10 p.m., $12. Mix a shot of George Dickel Whisky and a sample of Bulleit Bourbon with the acoustic tunes of Jeanie and Chuck’s Country Roundup. Now add an electric bull to the mix. Sounds like our dream cocktail.

After Dark: Heartworks Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, SF. (415) 563-7337, www.exploratorium.edu. 6-10 p.m., free with museum admission. With Valentine’s Day looming annoyingly close, many are already weary at any mention of the word “heart.” But before writing off love as an esoteric fib, join the Exploratorium for a hands-on experiment with a man-made metal heart — and maybe leave with a more tangible understanding of what makes your ticker skip a beat.

Bicycle Bingo fundraising event and launch party Actual Cafe, 6334 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 653-8386, www.actualcafe.com. 7-9 p.m., free. Make Thursday night a bingo night and win an assortment of prizes while giving back to the Bay Area community at the debut of this weekly charity funtacular. All bingo card proceeds, along with 10 percent of cafe revenues, will go directly to the nonprofit of the week. Tonight, play for the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. Next week: Rebuilding Together Oakland.

FRIDAY 3

Secession from the Broadcast: The Challenge to Create on the Same Scale as We Can Destroy film screening and director presentation YBCA, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. 7:30pm., $6–$10. Gene Youngblood has been talking about alternative cinema and media democracy since the 1970s. He used to write about things like the Beatles and George Lucas — tonight you can join him as he talks about the new shriek-inducing fad, the Internet.

UrbanYenta launch party Roe Nightclub, 651 Howard, SF. (415) 227-0288, www.roe-sf.com. 6-8 p.m., free. Did your last online date just completely freak you out? Now when dates goes wrong, you have an actual human matchmaker to go cry to, instead of frantically checking off comment boxes home alone on a Saturday night. UrbanYenta hopes to match you not just with a pixilated image, but a partner who will do you right.

SATURDAY 4

“The Uncomfortable Zones of Fun” experimental performance workshop Temescal Art Center, 511 48th St., Oakl. (510) 526-7858, www.temescalartcenter.org. 8 p.m., free. “Uncomfortable” and “fun” are often hard to use in the same sentence. But leave it Frank Moore, world-known performance artist, to pair the two in his improv dance, acting, and music class. Bring your instruments and sense of humor.

Little Song sonnet writing workshop Pro Arts Gallery, 150 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakl. (510) 763-4361, www.proartsgallery.org. 1-3 p.m., free. Poetry is said to be a way of taking life by the throat — take hold and express your soul’s desires in this sonnet workshop. There will be a limit of 30 people and seating will be first-come, first-served.

Upcycle Ball San Francisco Yellow Bike Project fundraiser and dance party Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com. 8 p.m., $10 presale; $12-25 at door. A bike-enthusiast’s version of what prom never was. Raise funds for the volunteer-powered community shop while you dance your wheels off to live performances by maus haus, Hottub, DJ Deep, and Mr. Pillz.

Bernal Yoga Literary Series author readings The Bernal Yoga Studio, 461 Cortland, SF. (415) 643-9007, www.bernalyogaseries.wordpress.com. 8 p.m., $5 suggested donation. A literary event packed with breathtaking readings from local authors. The evening will feature writers Jeff Hoffman, Li Miao Lovett, and Peter Orner, plus local authors Tom Comitta, Lara Durback, and Marisela Treviño Orta.

SUNDAY 5

Year of the Dragon celebration Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin, SF. (415) 581-3500, www.asianart.org. 11 a.m.-4 p.m., free. Celebrate the Year of the Dragon with lion dancers, a chance to listen to dragon tales, arts and crafts, and even a yoga flow session at the end of the day. This event is perfect for people who already gave up on their New Year’s resolution and want a re-do.

MONDAY 6

The Right to Love: An American Family film premiere Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. 4 p.m., $10; free for students. Bay Area filmmaker Cassie Jaye follows Jay and Bryan Leffew, a legally married gay couple living in Santa Rosa, and their two adopted kids, Daniel and Selena. The family became a YouTube sensation after posting their home videos on a channel called “Gay Family Values.” Meet with the awesome Leffews at the first public screening of their documentary.

TUESDAY 7

Exit Strategies Granta & Zyzzyva literary event and launch party City Lights Books, 261 Columbus, SF. (415) 362-8193, www.citylights.com. 6:30 p.m., free. Do you find yourself repeatedly scratching your way out of the hole you dug with your own hands? Daniel Alarcon zooms in on this conundrum in his latest novel rightly titled, Exit Strategies. He will be followed up by ZYZZYVA, who will present their latest winter issue, which includes 200 pages of poetry, prose, and visual art made by West Coast writers and artists.

The sex heard ‘round the world: [SSEX BBOX] documentary premieres

Andrew Lam
-
1

Scenes from [SSEX BBOX], the global sexuality documentary project whose long-awaited first episode will premiere at the Center of Sex and Culture on Mon/30:

One. A protest in Berlin, where a presentation is being made on the 16th century physical punishments that religious institutions imposed on sexually “immoral” people. 

Two. A conversation between two transgendered men living in Brazil.

Filmed in the form of interviews and group discussions, [SSEX BBOX] is a social justice film project that takes viewers on tour through the different understandings of gender and sexuality from around the globe. The documentary engages the ongoing conversation regarding the cultural, social, and even linguistic implications that are intertwined within sexuality. It will air 15 10-minute episodes bi-weekly from January to August 2012 — but the Mon/30 screening will offer the chance to talk face-to-face with the team behind the project. 

[SSEX BBOX] sexuality out of the box! from SSEX BBOX on Vimeo.

Priscilla Bertucci, the executive producer and director of [SSEX BBOX], holds that in an environment where something so primary as a noun is categorized as male or female, sexism and strict gendering become strongly embedded in cultural perceptions of sexuality. Looking back at the project, she commented to the Guardian in a recent phone interview:

SF and Berlin are pioneering cities in that there is a lot of sexual education and many years of work have been [put into those places towards] bringing about awareness. [Exploring sexuality] is definitely more difficult in Barcelona and Brazil where there are still a lot judgments.  People perceive gender as male or female, straight or gay, and don’t really think of what may be outside of this divided box. 

On location with [SSEX BBOX]. Photo by Danila Bustamante

When shooting in Sao Paulo, Bertucci encountered numerous individuals who had never been exposed to the idea of alternative sexual orientations. That lack of experience wasn’t a surprise to her — she was raised there:

I grew up in Brazil and I experienced a gap in information first hand. In places like Sao Paulo, there is a huge lack of sex education in schools and sex educators in general. When I was very young, I was aware of the gay and lesbian community. But at some point, I started not fitting in the box because I would sometimes be attracted to men and I didn’t really identity as bisexual. But later, I became aware that I could identify as queer or gender queer. But it took me a long time and I had to go out and learn a lot of things on my own. A project like [SSEX BBOX] helps people understand that they don’t have to choose [from] a binary.

Bertucci’s film features interviews with sex activists, educators, psychotherapists, and average citizens from all over the spectrum of sexuality. The documentary was mostly edited here in San Francisco, but its crew was comprised of a globetrotting crew of directors and cinematographers traveling through Sao Paulo, Berlin, and Barcelona. 

The international affair was made possible through efficient Skype meetings and Dropbox, and [SSEX BBOX] will continue to embrace the web as a way to distribute their films. The team also launched a pocket-size zine in fall of 2011 that included photography, personal narratives, cartoons, paintings, and writings on gender expression which you can order online in digital or paper form.

 

[SSEX BBOX] documentary premiere 

Mon/30 7:30-11 p.m., free. 

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 902-2071

www.sexandculture.org

Hot sexy events: January 18-24

Andrew Lam
-
0

Thankful. I am thankful for San Francisco sex. Just got back from the AVN awards in Vegas this weekend and couldn’t get over the fake boobs (literally — mountainous cleavage), rubber ducky-esque lips, and rote couplings that took over the Hard Rock Hotel for the better part of the week. Don’t get me wrong, the weekend was all kinds of wonderful and there were buffets and penthouse hot tubs filled with Tina Horn, Princess Donna, and Akira Raine — salacious tweeting and rumors of Robin Leach and deep red carpet conversations about being forced to wear condoms. But for me, SF.

Also, the trailer for James Franco’s new movie based on the life of Kink.com actress-writer Lorelei is out: 

Why am I so stoked on this city? Read on about what San Francisco does best: weird, original, affirming sex events in the City By the Bay. Here’s four reasons that’ll make you glad you’re here (pervert).

 

Good Vibrations’ Lakeshore store opening

Once an employee-owned store in the Mission, Good Vibes has expanded into a nationwide business, powered by an Ohio sex toy corporation, and teaching everyone from Florida to Washington about the power of gadgets in the bedroom through an award-winning sales and education website. (Read our interview with the company’s C.O.O. and staff sexologist Carol Queen here.)The empire gets one bigger today, with the opening of Good Vibes’ first Oakland brick and mortar location. Kandi Burress of Real Housewives of Atlanta will be on hand to promote her superlative line of vibrators, Bedroom Kandi. 

Sat/28 6-9 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

3219 Lakeshore, Oakl.

(510) 788-2389

www.goodvibes.com

 

Perverts Put Out: Midwinter Edition

Accepting his honor at this year’s Guardian Goldies art awards, performance provacateur Philip Huang utilized a neti pot in ways surely frowned up by the Health Department. The man is inappropriateness, embodied — just ask those “God Hates Fags” people, he’s crashed their protests with a colander head, carrying a sign that says “No Fags on the Moon.” So what does a Huang do at a reading made for and by pervy weirdos? You’ll just have to attend the latest edition of Perverts Put Out, to find out. Tonight’s event also features sexy solliquies by horehound stillpoint, Sherilyn Connelly, and Jen Cross. 

Sat/28 7:30 p.m., $10-15

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

 

John Leslie one-year memorial

Harken back to your best memories of golden age porn star John Leslie, who passed away in 2010. Center for Sex and Culture will be hosting this memory circle for friends of his work — which includes Talk Dirty To Me (1980), Nothing To Hide (1981), and Talk Dirty To Me, Part II (1982). One of the first actor-cum-director hyphenates in adult film, the man was big back in the days of well-budgeted productions. Perhaps this will also be a look back on the long, strange road the porn industry has traveled over the past few decades (after all, Leslie did finish out his career directing gonzo releases). 

Sun/29 5:30 p.m., free

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 902-2071

www.sexandculture.org

 

[SSEX BBOX] premiere 

Name the sexiest cities in the world. Did Sao Paolo, Berlin, and San Francisco make it on there? They’re the obvious choices, of course — and fertile territory for this global documentary project. The team behind [SSEX BBOX] chased tail around the globe, chatting with all orientations and genders about what makes them tingle below (above) the equator.

Mon/30 8:30 p.m., free

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 902-2071

www.ssexbbox.com

 

Sorrow, tears, blood — and dance

-
0
Sorrow, tears, blood — and dance

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Musical genius, human rights activist, cultural legend, African icon — late Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti encompassed multitudes, but to his 1980s-era guitarist Soji Odukogbe, he provided not only inspiration but a way into his music.

“The music was written by Fela, so if you were good enough, you could add to it, and he wouldn’t say anything. But if you were not good enough, he’d say, ‘This is the line,'” explains Odukogbe, 49, by phone from Berkeley where he now lives. “Afrobeat is a written music — you can’t add to it. You can add if you know your instrument, and it’s sweet enough, then you can go there.”

Fortunately the Lagos, Nigeria, native — who as a child was inspired enough by Fela’s hits to take a wood plank, hammer a nail into it, and pretend it was a guitar — was good enough to take his liberties on guitar on legendary Fela albums like Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense, Beasts of No Nation, and Underground System (all Barclay; 1986, 1989, and 1992). “[Fela] was anxious to meet me [after he got out of prison], and when he saw me, he was so happy — he said, ‘I have a guitar player that’s really good!,'” recalls Odukogbe, who joined Fela’s band in ’85. “One day I said, ‘Fela, I want to take a guitar solo. He only allowed horn and keyboard solos, and he said, ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ and I blew his mind. He was so proud of me.” Odukogbe appears with kindred Fela player Baba Ken Okulolo at a “Fela Kuti Extravaganza” dance party at Cafe Du Nord Jan. 28.

The guitarist played with Fela for five years before deciding to take his chances in the U.S. where a so-called world music movement was catching fire with the success of Nigerian juju master King Sunny Adé, Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares (Nonesuch, 1987), and Brazil Classics 1: Beleza Tropical (Luaka Bop, 1990). Now, with publications such as The New York Times trumpeting an “African invasion” in indie rock and a fascination with African music takes hold once more — morphed and bent to new ends by performers ranging from Vampire Weekend to Dirty Projectors to this year’s Pazz and Jop poll-topping tUnE-yArDs — the time seems right to revisit Fela’s legacy.

Long before African outfits like Tinariwen and Blk Jks threaded rock ‘n’ roll guitar into indigenous rhythms, and hipster-cred comps such as the Ethiopiques and Congotronics series touched down stateside, Fela was hybridizing jazz and highlife with a potent dose of James Brown-style funk, a black power sensibility (not for nothing did he dub himself the Black President), and a driving thirst for justice, even after being jailed some 200 times, suffering at the hands of soldiers (the wounds Fela revealed when he dropped his trousers in the 1982 documentary Music Is the Weapon are heartbreaking), and undergoing a level of government harassment and abuse that would break most mortals. It all appeared to climax in 1977 after the release of his military-mocking 1977 LP Zombie (Barclay) and the subsequent invasion of his Kalakuta Republic commune by soldiers, which led to the death of his mother and the beating and brutalization of the performer, his family, wives, and friends.

Though mainstream superstars Will Smith and Jay-Z threw their producing weight behind the recent Tony Award-winning musical production of Fela!, it’s tough to imagine an artist quite like Fela in today’s music scene, fighting back from the top of the pop charts, occupying the public imagination with his radical politics and spiritual beliefs, and speaking his mind, loudly and outrageously. Still, Fela’s story and music speak louder than ever, especially in the context of indie’s less-than-political appropriation of African sounds, the recent SF run of Fela!, the 2011 rerelease of Fela’s Universal-controlled albums in North America by Knitting Factory Records, the upcoming film directed by artist-filmmaker Steve McQueen, and continuing tide of injustice in Nigeria, where weeks of protests continue over fuel prices and the country has undergone its worst oil spill in a decade.

“The thing that’s most interesting about Fela’s music is how traveling and seeing other cultures, going to the United States, and getting familiar with American music and James Brown and American politics inspired him to fulfill his own roots and look back on himself and to really see these international forces as part of his background and his own culture,” observes Will Magid, 26, who organized the Fela dance party and has played with Odukogbe and Okulolo. Magid’s own forthcoming debut album promises to mix Kuti’s influence with Balkan, pop, and funk sounds. “We need more people who are like that and who are speaking up.”

El Cerrito-by-way-of-Nigeria bassist Okulolo played with Fela as well as King Sunny Ade and has performed with Odukogbe in the Kotoja, the Western African Highlife Band, and the Nigerian Brothers. Magid’s friend and mentor since the two met through Okulolo’s son at UCLA, the musician sees “Fela Kuti Extravaganza” as a teaching opportunity.

“Fela was a great musician, and his music will never die,” says Okulolo. “I think it would be a good idea to continue educating people about his music and how beautiful it is. I worked with [Fela] briefly, and I know the man well, and so many bands are playing Afrobeat now — generally the music needs to be out there.”

“It has funk; it has jazz; it has an African beat; it has everything,” he continues. “It’s our opportunity to showcase it to as many people as we can and make it valuable, to put it in a category that someday will be what reggae is today.”

And during hard times, we can all learn something from Fela, his still-vibrant music, and his way of moving, fluidly and artfully, through oppression, through pain. “There’s this element of social consciousness, of people dancing and then hearing about these oil spills,” muses Magid of the upcoming dance party. “It’s a different kind of dancing when you’re dancing through suffering.” *

 

WILL MAGID’S WORLD WIDE DANCE PARTY: FELA EXTRAVAGANZA

With Baba Ken Okulolo and Soji Odukogbe, Will Magid Trio with Fely Tchaco, MSK.FM, and izzy*wise

Sat/28, 9:30 p.m., $15

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

www.cafedunord.com

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/25-Tues/31 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ART DECO MOVIE THEATER 2700 Saratoga, Alameda; www.baicff.com. $10-20. "Bay Area International Children’s Film Festival," family films from around the world, Sat-Sun, 10am-5:30pm.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. "Opera and Ballet at the Balboa Theatre:" Caligula, from the Paris Opera Ballet, Wed, 7:30; Cendrillon, from the Royal Opera House, Sat-Sun, 10am. "Jazz and Film:" A Great Day in Harlem (Bach, 1994), with live performance by Jimmy Ryan’s Balboa Be Bop Band, Sun, 5:30.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. Hypothesis (Smith), followed by a discussion about 9/11 truth, Thurs, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. "Noir City X:" •House of Bamboo (Fuller, 1955), Wed, 7:30, and Underworld USA (Fuller, 1961), Wed, 9:20; •Naked Alibi (Hopper, 1954), Thurs, 7:30, and Pickup (Haas, 1951), Thurs, 9:20; •Thieves’ Highway (Dassin, 1949), Fri, 7:30, and The Breaking Point (Curtiz, 1950), Fri, 9:30; •Three Strangers (Negulesco, 1946), Sat, 1, 5, 9, and The Great Gatsby (Nugent, 1949), Sat, 3, 7; Roadhouse Nights (Henley, 1930), Sun, noon; The Maltese Falcon (Del Ruth, 1931), Sun, 1:20; City Streets (Mamoulian, 1932), Sun, 3; Mr. Dynamite (Crosland, 1935), Sun, 4:45; The Glass Key (Heisler, 1942), Sun, 7; The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941), Sun, 9. Advance tickets (double features, $10-15) and more info at www.noircity.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. "Rafael Film Club:" Complicated Women (Munro Neely, 2003), Thurs, 1. With author and film critic Mick LaSalle. Pina (Wenders, 2011), Jan 27-Feb 2, call for times. Joffrey: Mavericks of Dance (Hercules, 2011), Sat, 10:30am.

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF THE EAST BAY 1414 Walnut, Berk; (510) 848-0237, www.brownpapertickets.com. $6-8. "San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Presents:" 77 Steps (Mara’ana, 2010), Thurs, 7:30.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Film 50: History of Film, Cinema, and the Other Arts:" "Back to the Beginning: From the Cinema of Attractions to Narrative Illusionism," with lecture by Marilyn Fabe, Wed, 3:10. This event, $5.50-11.50. "Documentary Voices:" David Holzman’s Diary (McBride, 1968), Wed, 7. "African Film Festival 2012:" Medicine for Melancholy (Jenkins, 2007), with director Barry Jenkins in person, Thurs, 7; A Screaming Man (Haroun, 2010), Sun, 4:30. "Howard Hawks: The Measure of Man:" Paid to Love (1927), Fri, 7; Scarface (1932), Tues, 7. "Henri-Georges Clouzot: The Cinema of Disenchantment:" Diabolique (1955), Fri, 8:40; The Spies (1958), Sun, 6:30. "Austere Perfectionism: The Films of Robert Bresson:" Pickpocket (1959), Sat, 6:30; Diary of a Country Priest (1950), Sat, 8:10.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts (Meaney, 2011), Wed, 7:15, 9. The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee "Scratch" Perry (Higbee and Bhala Lough, 2011), Thurs, 7:30, 9:30. Sing Your Song (Rostock, 2011), Jan 27-Feb 2, 6:45, 8:45 (also Sat-Sun, 2:45, 4:45).

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $10-11. Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos (Murata, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:15. Sleeping Beauty (Leigh, 2011), Jan 27-Feb 2, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:15 (no 7pm show Mon/30).

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. "British Arrow Awards: Best British Television Commercials of 2011," Thurs-Sun, 2, 4, 6, 8. The House by the Cemetery (Fulci, 1981), Fri-Sat, 10.

ZINC DETAILS 1905 Fillmore, SF; rsvp@zincdetails.com. Free. Eames: The Architect and the Painter (Cohn and Jersey, 2011), Wed, 6. With a discussion about the Eames with former Dwell editor Sam Grawe.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

OPENING

Albert Nobbs The titular character in Rodrigo Garcia’s film is a butler of ideal bone-stiff propriety and subservience in a Dublin hotel whose well-to-do clients expect no less from the hired help. Even his fellow workers know almost nothing about middle aged Albert, and he’s so dully harmless they don’t even notice that lack. Yet Albert has a big secret: he is a she, played by Glenn Close, having decided this cross dressing disguise was the only way out of a Victorian pauper’s life many years ago. Chance crosses Albert’s path with housepainter Hubert (Janet McTeer), who turns out to be harboring precisely the same secret, albeit more merrily — “he” has even found happy domesticity with an understanding wife. Albert dreams of finding the same with a comely young housemaid (Mia Wasikowska), though she’s already lost her silly head over a loutish but handsome handyman (Aaron Johnson) much closer to her age. This period piece is more interesting in concept rather than in execution, as the characters stay all too true to mostly one-dimensional types, and the story of minor intrigues and muffled tragedies springs very few surprises. It’s an honorable but not especially rewarding affair that clearly exists mostly as a setting for Close’s impeccable performance — and she knows it, having written the screenplay and produced; she’s also played this part on stage before. Yet even that accomplishment has an airless feel; you never forget you’re watching an actor “transform,” and for all his luckless pathos, Albert is actually a pretty tedious fellow. (1:53) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Declaration of War See “The Best Medicine.” (1:40) Lumiere, Shattuck.

The Flowers of War Based on the novel The 13 Women of Nanjing by Geling Yan (Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl), Flowers of War sees director Zhang Yimou probing the still-painful wounds of the Nanjing Massacre. Here, he gets to pull out his customary sensuous fascinations — jewel-tone colors that pop unexpectedly amid gray wartime rubble, reams of floating textiles, and girls, girls, girls — to intriguing if patchy effect. The touch-and-go quality of the production is understandable considering the clash of acting styles generated by our players: crass good-old-boy American-in-China mortician John (Method-ically played by Christian Bale), and the clutch of look-alike Catholic school girls and cadre of call girls, the latter headed up by slyly Veronica Lake-ish vamp Yu Mo (Ni Ni). John has been called to bury a priest at the Nanjing cathedral, smack in the middle of the Japanese invasion, and despite the corpses littering the street, all he seems to care about is getting paid and running off. Somehow the sweet little helpless schoolgirls convert him into a believer, enough to make him don the priest’s garb and try to protect them from crazed Japanese soldiers intent on literally carrying out the Rape of Nanjing. Meanwhile the ladies of the evening, hiding out in the basement against everyone’s wishes, work their wiles to get him to help them escape. Armed with a budget that makes this the most expensive film in Chinese history, Zhang embraces this collision of soldiers, cultures, contemporary Western war movies, and popular Chinese entertainments in the stylized mode of a archetypal Chinese melodrama. Though it’s far from his best work, Flowers still draws you in while imparting the horrors of an ugly war that pulled the most innocent — and beautifully decadent — civilians into its wake. (2:21) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Grey Suicidally depressed after losing his spouse, Ottway (Liam Neeson) has to get pro-active about living in a hurry when his plane crashes en route to a oil company site in remotest Alaska. One of a handful of survivors, Ottway is the only one with an idea of the survival skills needed to survive in this subzero wilderness, including knowledge of wolf behavior — which is fortunate, given that the (rapidly dwindling) group of eight men has landed smack in the middle of a pack’s den. Less fortunate is that these hairy, humongous predators are pretty fearless about attacking perceived intruders on their chosen terrain. Director and co-writer Joe Carnahan (2010’s The A-Team, 2006’s Smokin’ Aces) labors to give this thriller some depth via quiet character-based scenes for Neeson and the other actors (including Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts and Dermot Mulroney) in addition to the expected bloodshed. The intended gravitas doesn’t quite take, leaving The Grey and its imposing widescreen scenery (actually British Columbia) in a competent but unmemorable middle ground between serious, primal, life-or-death drama and a monster movie in wolf’s clothing. (1:57) (Harvey)

Man on a Ledge Sam Worthington plays escaped convict Nick Cassidy, a former cop wrongly accused of stealing a very big diamond from a ruthless real estate mogul (Ed Harris) against the backdrop of 2008’s financial disasters. Having cleared the penitentiary walls, many a man might have headed for the nearest border, but Nick’s fervent desire to prove his innocence leads him to climb out the window of a 21st-floor Manhattan hotel room and spend most of the rest of the movie pacing a tiny strip of concrete and chatting with hung over NYPD crisis negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), who’s also nursing some PTSD after a suicide negotiation gone bad. After a while, the establishing shots panning up 21 floors or across the city grid to Nick’s exterior perch begin to feel extraneous — we know there’s a man on a ledge; it says so on our ticket stub. More involving is the balancing act Nick performs while he’s up there — keeping the eyes of the city glued on him while guiding the suspensefully amateur efforts of his brother (Jamie Bell) and his brother’s girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) to pull off an unidentified caper in a nearby high-rise. Ed Burns, Anthony Mackie, and Kyra Sedgwick costar. (1:42) (Rapoport)

*Miss Bala You want to look away, but aided and abetted by director-cowriter Gerardo Naranjo’s sober, elegant perspective on the ugly way that innocents get pulled into the Mexican drug wars, you must see it through. That’s the case with Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman), a naive Tijuana beauty contestant who signs up for the Miss Baja pageant with a friend, who almost immediately decides to game the system by partying with the police and DEA agents who could possibly help their chances of winning. Laura instantly falls into the hands of Lino (Noe Hernandez), a mafia boss in the process of crashing the party, and with his gang, killing all assembled. Desperately trying to find her friend, Laura takes a wrong turn that lands her back in the arms of Lino, who vows to help the would-be beauty queen and entangles her in his increasingly closed-in criminal world. Naranjo’s cool-headed, almost stately compositions come as almost blessed relief as he pans slowly from the shadows, where you really don’t want to know what’s going on, to a girl, almost completely out of the frame, desperately wedging herself out a second floor window. His detachment undercuts the horror, while angel-faced, perpetually anguished-looking lead actress Sigman simultaneously compels and frustrates with her fatal errors in judgement as she grows more complicit and is literally caught in the crossfire between the rough gangsters who terrorize her and the government soldiers unafraid mete out punishment. The toughest part is watching Sigman’s infuriatingly passive protagonist be used like a sexual puppet, but this raw and yet refined film — loosely based on the story of 2008’s Miss Sinaloa, Laura Zuniga — doesn’t pull many punches in indicting the pageant machine and the corrupt system that supports it. (1:53) (Chun)

One for the Money Katherine Heigl stars as bounty hunter Stephanie Plum in this adaptation of Janet Evanovich’s best-selling mystery novel. (1:46)

Sing Your Song It’s easy to be cynical about do-gooding celebrities. Like, does superstar X really care about that charity or cause, or is he or she merely doing a public-image polish? This is not a concern with Harry Belafonte, who — when not charming audiences with tunes like “The Banana Boat Song” — has spent most of his 84 years personally battling injustice. If he wasn’t such an American treasure (World War II veteran, courageous challenger of Hollywood racism, vocally pro-labor union amid anti-Commie hysteria, etc.), Sing Your Song might feel as if it were progressing in an almost comedically heroic manner: Harry befriends Martin Luther King, Jr; Harry teaches JFK and RFK about civil rights; Harry champions Nelson Mandela; Harry protests the Vietnam War; Harry devotes himself to Africa (cue “We Are the World”). But it all really happened (with historical footage and photographs to prove it), and most of it at a time when his views were seen as radical by mainstream America. Belafonte’s accomplishments are undeniable, and Sing Your Song is, perhaps unavoidably, a textbook hagiography — even as his children from multiple marriages, one of whom co-produced the film, make vague yet forgiving references to Belafonte’s frequent absentee-dad status. Otherwise, Sing Your Song is solely concerned with singing Belafonte’s praises — admirable, but kinda one-note. (1:44) Roxie. (Eddy)

Sleeping Beauty Australian novelist turned director Julia Leigh’s first feature arrives affixed with a stamp of approval from no less than Jane Campion; though Sleeping Beauty treads in Campion-style edgy feminism, its ideas are not quite fully formed, rendering a film that’s not entirely satisfying. It is gorgeously shot, however, with long (occasionally overly so) shots that coolly observe the life of Lucy (pillow-lipped Emily Browning, star of 2011’s Sucker Punch), a college student struggling to make ends meet with an array of minimum-wage gigs. Her housemates hate her; the only friend she has is a shut-in drug addict. She gets her kicks picking up random men at yuppie bars — until she’s offered a gig working for an exclusive purveyor of kink to elderly clients, first as a lingerie-clad serving girl, and later as a “sleeping beauty:” she’s given knockout drugs and handed over to customers (“no penetration” is the only rule, but yes, it’s still creepy). Sleeping Beauty is too chilly to be titillating, and while Browning is lovely, Lucy is affectless to the point of being, well, pretty boring, even with her clothes off. I read one review that suggested watching the film as if it were intended to be a comedy; lines like “Match your lipstick to the color of your labia” certainly support this thesis. (1:44) SFFS New People Cinema. (Eddy)

Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts The Roxie screens Patrick Meaney’s latest loving portrait of a comics innovator, following in the footsteps of his 2010 effort, Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods. The film captures Warren Ellis’ career as a writer of tenacious and idiosyncratic futurist sci-fi, but it also tries to get a grasp on his outsized internet persona. Other comics professionals, bloggers, and assorted celebrity friends reflect on his effect on their lives in genial if typically worshipful interviews. Ellis, a self-styled curmudgeon, is painted as the “sweetest person in the world” — the love his friends and followers have for him is genuine. Perhaps not a fitting starting point for anyone completely unfamiliar with his writing (you’d be better off picking up a collection of Planetary or Transmetropolitan), but Captured Ghosts makes a solid case for the Brit’s creative legacy, and looks to his future with optimism, tempered by Ellis’ self-critical humility. (1:30) Roxie. (Sam Stander)

ONGOING

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

Beauty and the Beast 3D (1:24) 1000 Van Ness..

Carnage Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan (Christoph Waltz) have arrived in the apartment of Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael (John C. Reilly) to discuss proper follow-up to a playground incident in which one of their children went ballistic on another. But this grownup discussion about conduct between children quickly degenerates into a four-way living room sandbox melee, as the couples reveal snobbish disdain toward one another’s presumed values and the cracks in each marriage are duly bared. Roman Polanski’s unnecessary screen translation of Yasmina Reza’s play remains awkwardly rooted to the stage, where its contrivances would have seemed less obvious, or at least apt for the medium. There’s some fun to be had watching these actors play variously self-involved, accusatory Manhattanites who enact a very lite Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? amid way too much single-malt Scotch ingestion. But the text gets crudely farcical after a while, and its critiques of the characters’ shallow materialism, bad parenting, knee-jerk liberal empathy, privileged class indifference, etc. would resonate more if those faults weren’t so cartoonishly drawn. In the end, Carnage‘s high-profile talent obliterates rather than illuminates the material — it’s like aiming a bazooka at a napkin. (1:20) Bridge, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Contraband A relative gem among the dross of January film releases, Contraband works best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and flounders when it does. Directed by Baltasar Kormákur, the man behind much of Iceland’s popular filmography (2006’s Jar City, 2002’s The Sea, 2000’s 101 Reykjavik), this no-frills genre picture stars Mark Wahlberg as Chris Farraday, an ex-smuggler-turned-family-man who must give the life of crime another go-round when his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones) find themselves in thrall to a nasty, drug-addicted criminal (an especially methy-looking Giovanni Ribisi). If you’ve seen any of these One Last Heist movies, you won’t be surprised that Chris’ operation goes completely awry — in Panama, on a cargo captained by J.K. Simmons, no less. Ribisi is as simpering and gleefully evil a caricature as they come, and as Chris’ best friend, brooding Ben Foster’s unexpected about-face in the film’s last third is pretty watchable. I’m not exactly saying you should go and see it, but I’m not stopping you, either. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Ryan Lattanzio)

A Dangerous Method Cool and chatty (unsurprisingly, given its subject matter and the fact that it’s based on a play and a novel), David Cronenberg’s latest begins in 1904 Zurich as a shrieking patient (Keira Knightley) is escorted into the care of psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Dr. Jung, an admirer of Sigmund Freud, tests the “talking cure” on the woman, who turns out to be the fiercely intelligent and conveniently beautiful Sabina Spielrein. An attraction, both intellectual and sexual, soon develops, no matter that Jung is Sabina’s doctor, or that he happens to be married to a prim wife whose family wealth keeps him in boats and lake houses. Meanwhile, Jung and Freud (an excellent Viggo Mortensen) begin corresponding, eventually meeting and forming a friendship that’s tested first when Sabina comes between them, and later when Jung expresses a growing interest in fringe pursuits like parapsychology. The scenes between Freud and Jung are A Dangerous Method‘s most intriguing — save those brief few involving Vincent Cassel as a doctor-turned-patient who advises Jung to “never repress anything” — but the film is mostly concerned with Jung’s various Sabina-related dramas. Pity that this is a tightly-wound Fassbender’s least dynamic performance of the year, and that Knightley, way over the top in Sabina’s hysterical scenes, telegraphs “casting mistake” from the get-go. (1:39) Albany, Lumiere. (Eddy)

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

*Drive Such a lovely way to Drive, drunk on the sensual depths of a lush, saturated jewel tone palette and a dreamlike, almost luxurious pacing that gives off the steamy hothouse pop romanticism of ’80s-era Michael Mann and David Lynch — with the bracing, impactful flecks of threat and ultraviolence that might accompany a car chase, a moody noir, or both, as filtered through a first-wave music video. Drive comes dressed in the klassic komforts — from the Steve McQueen-esque stances and perfectly cut jackets of Ryan Gosling as the Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless to the foreboding lingering in the shadows and the wittily static, statuesque strippers that decorate the background. Gosling’s Driver is in line with Mann’s other upstanding working men who hew to an old-school moral code and are excellent at what they do, regardless of what side of the law they’re working: he likes to keep it clear and simple — his services as a wheelman boil down to five minutes, in and out — but matters get messy when he falls for sweet-faced neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall with her small son, and her ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is dragged back into the game. Populated by pungent side players like Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks, and scattered with readily embeddable moments like a life-changing elevator kiss that goes bloodily wrong-right, Drive turns into a real coming-out affair for both Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (2008’s Bronson), who rises above any crisis of influence or confluence of genre to pick up the po-mo baton that Lynch left behind, and 2011’s MVP Ryan Gosling, who gets to flex his leading-man muscles in a truly cinematic role, an anti-hero and under-the-hood psychopath looking for the real hero within. (1:40) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Director Stephen Daldry is no stranger to guiding actors to Oscars; his previous two films, 2008’s The Reader and 2002’s The Hours, both earned Best Actress statuettes for their stars. So it’s no surprise that Sandra Bullock’s performance is the best thing about this big-screen take on Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel, which is otherwise hamstrung by twee, melodramatic elements that (presumably) translated poorly from page to screen. One year after 9/11, a Manhattan mother (Bullock) and her nine-year-old son Oskar (newcomer Thomas Horn, a youth Jeopardy! champ) are, unsurprisingly, still mourning their beloved husband and father (Tom Hanks), who was killed on “the worst day.” But therapy be damned — Oskar takes to the streets, knocking on the doors of strangers, searching for the lock that will fit a mysterious key his dad left behind. Carrying a tambourine. Later befriending an elderly man (Max von Sydow) whose true identity is immediately obvious, despite the fact that he writes pithy notes instead of speaking. In its attempts to explore grief through the eyes of a borderline-autistic kid (“tests were inconclusive,” according to Oskar), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is so forced-quirky it makes the works of Wes Anderson look like minimalist manifestos; that it bounces its maudlin, cliché-baiting plot off the biggest tragedy in recent American history is borderline offensive. Actually offensive, however, is the fact that Daldry — who also knows from young thespians, having helmed 2000’s Billy Elliot — positions the green Horn (ahem) in such a complex role. The character of Oskar is, as written, nauseatingly precocious; adding shrill and stridently unsympathetic to the mix renders the entire shebang nigh-unwatchable, despite the best efforts of supporting players like Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright. Congrats, Kodi Smit-McPhee, child actor who single-handedly dismantled 2009’s The Road — you now have some company at the kid’s table in the literary-adaptation hall of shame. (2:09) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos There’s probably no reason to venture out to see Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos unless you’re already a fan of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga (and/or its many offshoots, including an anime series that’s aired stateside on the Cartoon Network). That’s not to say Milos is a crappy movie; it just depends an awful lot on foreknowledge about its mythical world and main characters, a pair of young brothers named Ed and Al. Their mastery of “alchemy” (a.k.a. Harry Potter-style zapping skills) has earned them government status but also cost them various body parts — Al, whose voice suggests he’s a pre-teen, exists only as a robot-like metal suit attached to the boy’s human soul. Their adventures in steampunk mischief lead them to a country called Milos that’s been repressed by the world’s superpowers; there, they meet a young girl who’s determined to restore her homeland to grandeur using what’s alternately called “the star of fresh blood,” “the stone of immortality,” or “the philosopher’s stone” to either “open the doorway of truth” or “use the alchemy of the holy land.” Or something. Mumbo-jumbo-y plot points aside, Milos is more or less a fast-paced triumph-of-the-underdog story, with pants-wearing giant wolves and other magic-with-a-k flourishes. Fun if you’re into that kind of thing. (1:50) SFFS New People Cinema. (Eddy)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo The meeting of Stieg Larsson’s first “Millennium” book and David Fincher promised fireworks, as he’s a director who can be equally vivid and exacting with just the elements key to the series: procedural detail, obsession, violence, tweaked genre conventions, mind games, haunted protagonists, and expansive story arcs. But perhaps because this possible franchise launch had to be rushed into production to ride the Larsson wave, what should have been a terrific matchup turns out to be just a good one — superior in some stylistic departments (notably Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ pulsing score), but overall neither an improvement nor a disappointment in comparison to the uninspired but effective 2009 Swedish film version. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, the muckraking Stockholm journalist whose public disgrace after a failed expose of a suspect corporate tycoon makes him the perfect candidate for an unexpected assignment: staying sequestered in the wealthy, warring Vanger clan’s island home to secretly investigate a teenage girl’s disappearance and presumed murder 40 years ago. His testy helpmate is the singular Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), antisocial hacker, researcher, and ex-mental patient par excellence. Nearly three hours long, the compressed, slightly altered (get over it) storyline nonetheless feels rushed at times; Fincher manages the rare feat of making mostly internet research exciting in filmic terms, yet oddly the book’s more shocking episodes of sex and/or mayhem don’t have the memorable impact one might expect from him. The leads are fine, as is the big support cast of recognizable faces (Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, etc.) But the knockout suspense, atmosphere, and urgency one hoped for isn’t present in this intelligent, not entirely satisfying treatment. On the other hand, maybe those who’ve already read the books and seen the prior films have already had so much exposure to this material that a revelatory experience is no longer possible. (2:38) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Le Havre Aki Kaurismäki’s second French-language film (following 1992’s La Vie de Boheme) offers commentary on modern immigration issues wrapped in the gauze of a feel good fairy tale and cozy French provincialism a la Marcel Pagnol. Worried about the health of his hospitalized wife (Kaurismäki regular Kati Outinen), veteran layabout and sometime shoe shiner Marcel (Andre Wilms) gets some welcome distraction in coming to the aid of Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), a young African illegally trying to make way to his mother in London while eluding the gendarmes. Marcel’s whole neighborhood of port-town busybodies and industrious émigrés eventually join in the cause, turning Le Havre into a sort of old-folks caper comedy with an incongruously sunny take on a rising European multiculturalism in which there are no real racist xenophobes, just grumps deserving comeuppance. Incongruous because Kaurismäki is, of course, the king of sardonically funny Finnish miserabilism — and while it’s charmed many on the festival circuit, this combination of his usual poker-faced style and feel-good storytelling formula may strike others as an oil-and-water mismatch. (1:43) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Haywire Female empowerment gets its kung-fu-grip thighs around the beet-red throat of all the old action-heroes. Despite a deflated second half — and director Steven Soderbergh’s determinedly cool-headed yet ultimately exciting-quelling approach to Bourne-free action scenes — Haywire is fully capable of seizing and demanding everyone’s attention, particularly that of the feminists in the darkened theater who have given up looking for an action star that might best Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft. Former pro mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano, who plays it as studiedly intense and charismatic as crossover grapplers Lee, Norris, and Seagal before her, is that woman, with convincingly formidable neck and shoulder muscles to distract from her curves. Her Mallory Kane is one of the few women in Haywire‘s pared-down, stylized mise-en-scene — the lone female in a world of men out to get her, starting with the opening diner scene of a watchful Mallory confronted by a man (Channing Tatum) playing at being her boyfriend, fed up with her shit, and preparing to pack her into the car — a scenario that doubtless many rebel girls can relate to until it explodes into an ultraviolent, floor-thrashing fight scene. Turns out Mallory is an ex-Marine and Blackwater-style mercenary, ready to get out of the firm and out of a relationship with her boss, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), when she learns, the bruising way, that she’s been set up. The diner scene sets the tone for rest of Haywire, an otherwise straightforward (albeit flashback-loaded) feminist whodunit of sorts, limned with subtextual currents of sexualized violence and unfolding over a series of encounters with men who could be suitors — or killers. (1:45) California, Four Star, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Iron Lady Curiously like Clint Eastwood’s 2011 J. Edgar, this biopic from director Phyllida Lloyd and scenarist Abi Morgan takes on a political life of length, breadth and controversy — yet it mostly skims over the politics in favor of a generally admiring take on a famous narrow-minded megalomaniac’s “gumption” as an underdog who drove herself to the top. Looking back on her career from a senile old age spent in the illusory company of dead spouse Denis (Jim Broadbent), Meryl Streep’s ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher steamrolls past hurdles of class and gender while ironically re-enforcing the fustiest Tory values. She’s essentially a spluttering Lord in skirts, absolutist in her belief that money and power rule because they ought to, and any protesting rabble don’t represent the “real England.” That’s a mindset that might well have been explored more fruitfully via less flatly literal-minded portraiture, though Lloyd does make a few late, lame efforts at sub-Ken Russell hallucinatory style. Likely to satisfy no one — anywhere on the ideological scale — seriously interested in the motivations and consequences of a major political life, this skin-deep Lady will mostly appeal to those who just want to see another bravura impersonation added to La Streep’s gallery. Yes, it’s a technically impressive performance, but unlikely to be remembered as one of her more depthed ones, let alone among her better vehicles. (1:45) Albany, Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Hugo Hugo turns on an obviously genius conceit: Martin Scorsese, working with 3D, CGI, and a host of other gimmicky effects, creates a children’s fable that ultimately concerns one of early film’s pioneering special-effects fantasists. That enthusiasm for moviemaking magic, transferred across more than a century of film history, was catching, judging from Scorsese’s fizzy, exhilarating, almost-nauseating vault through an oh-so-faux Parisian train station and his carefully layered vortex of picture planes as Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), an intrepid engineering genius of an urchin, scrambles across catwalk above a buzzing station and a hotheaded station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen). Despite the special effects fireworks going off all around him, Hugo has it rough: after the passing of his beloved father (Jude Law), he has been stuck with an nasty drunk of a caretaker uncle (Ray Winstone), who leaves his duties of clock upkeep at a Paris train station to his charge. Hugo must steal croissants to survive and mechanical toy parts to work on the elaborate, enigmatic automaton he was repairing with his father, until he’s caught by the fierce toy seller (Ben Kingsley) with a mysterious lousy mood and a cute, bright ward, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz). Although the surprisingly dark-ish Hugo gives Scorsese a chance to dabble a new technological toolbox — and the chance to wax pedantically, if passionately, about the importance of film archival studies — the effort never quite despite transcends its self-conscious dazzle, lagging pacing, diffuse narrative, and simplistic screenplay by John Logan, based on Brian Selznick’s book. Even the actorly heavy lifting provided by assets like Kingsley and Moretz and the backloaded love for the fantastic proponents at the dawn of filmmaking fail to help matters. Scorsese attempts to steal a little of the latters’ zeal, but one can only imagine what those wizards would do with motion-capture animation or a blockbuster-sized server farm. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

Joyful Noise As heartfelt and anodyne as the singing underdogs at its center, Joyful Noise offers a spirited if ultimately hamstrung spin on a familiar set-up (anyone seen 1993’s Sister Act 2?). Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton (returning to the screen after a two decade hiatus) do most of the heavy lifting as working-class single mother Vi Rose Hill and flashy widow G.G. Sparrow, respectively, who find themselves locking horns as they strategize how to take the small-town Georgia church choir they both sing in to the big-time Gospel competition that gives the film its title. There’s also the matter of G.G.’s city-slicked grandson’s aggressive courting of Vi Rose’s precocious teenage daughter, who, it turns out, like many of the supporting players here, can out-belt most American Idol finalists. Writer-director Todd Graff’s script works in some genial digs at Parton’s fabulous artifice (“Who cares if I’ve had a few little nips and tucks? God didn’t make plastic surgeons so they could starve!” she proudly declares), but Parton’s singing often provides the emotional expressiveness that her face now has trouble conveying. Latifah’s performance is the biggest surprise in a movie that seems all but hatched from a Disney channel writers meeting: Vi Rose radiates both light and heat, tempering Joyful Noise’s steady stream of homespun treacle with some much-needed righteousness and fury. (1:58) 1000 Van Ness. (Sussman)

*Melancholia Lars von Trier is a filmmaker so fond of courting controversy it’s like he does it in spite of himself — his rambling comments about Hitler (“I’m a Nazi”) were enough to get him banned from the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where Melancholia had its debut (and star Kirsten Dunst won Best Actress). Oops. Maybe after the (here’s that word again) controversy that accompanied 2009’s Antichrist, von Trier felt like he needed a shocking context for his more mellow latest. Pity that, for Melancholia is one of his strongest, most thoughtful works to date. Split into two parts, the film follows first the opulent, disastrous, never-ending wedding reception of Justine (Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), held at a lavish estate owned by John (Kiefer Sutherland), the tweedy husband of Justine’s sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Amid the turmoil of arguments (John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling as Justine and Claire’s divorced parents), pushy guests (Stellan Skarsgard as Justine’s boss), livid wedding planner (Udo Kier, amazing), and hurt feelings (Michael is the least-wanted groom since Kris Humphries), it’s clear that something is wrong with Justine beyond just marital jitters. The film’s second half begins an unspecified amount of time later, as Claire talks her severely depressed, near-catatonic sister into moving into John’s mansion. As Justine mopes, it’s revealed that a small planet, Melancholia — glimpsed in Melancholia‘s Wagner-scored opening overture — is set to pass perilously close to Earth. John, an amateur astronomer, is thrilled; Claire, fearful for her young son’s future and goaded into high anxiety by internet doomsayers, is convinced the planets will collide, no matter what John says. Since Justine (apparently von Trier’s stand-in for himself) is convinced that the world’s an irredeemably evil place, she takes the news with a shrug. Von Trier’s vision of the apocalypse is somber and surprisingly poetic; Dunst and Gainsbourg do outstanding work as polar-opposite sisters whose very different reactions to impending disaster are equally extreme. (2:15) Lumiere. (Eddy)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol No world landmark (the Kremlin, the Burj Khalifia) is too iconic and/or freaking tall for uber-adrenalized Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon “Comic Relief” Pegg) to infiltrate, climb, assume false identities in, use as a home base for unleashing futuristic spy technology that seems almost plausible (with the help of lots of iPads), race a BMW through, etc. One kind of gets the sense that Cruise and company sat down with a piece of paper and were like, “What stunts haven’t we done before, and how many of them can I do with my shirt off?” Celebrated animation director Brad Bird (2004’s The Incredibles) is right at home with Ghost Protocol as his first live-action effort — the film’s plot (set in the present day, it involves a positively vintage blend of Russians and nukes) and even its unmemorable villain take a back seat to Cruise’s secret-agent shenanigans, most of which take the form of a crazy plan that must be altered at the last minute, resulting in an even crazier plan, which must be implemented despite the sudden appearance of yet another ludicrously daunting obstacle, like, say, a howling sandstorm. For maximum big dumb fun, make sure you catch the IMAX version. A warning, though: any time the movie screeches to a halt to explore emotions or attempt characterization … zzz. (2:13) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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

*Pariah A teenage girl stands stock-still in a dark nightclub, gazing with desire and fear at the half-naked female dancers on the stage. Later, riding home on the bus, she slowly removes the layers of butch that held her together in the club, stripping down to some version of the person her parents need to see when she walks in the door. Nearly wordlessly, the opening scenes of Dee Rees’s Pariah poignantly depict the embattled internal life of Alike (Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old African American girl living in Brooklyn with her family and struggling both to be seen as she is and to determine what that might look like. The battles are being waged externally, too, between Alike’s adoring father (Charles Parnell), living in willful ignorance, and angry, rigid mother (Kim Wayans), desperately enforcing a feminine dress code and steering Alike away from openly butch friend Laura (Pernell Walker). Rees’ script beautifully conveys a household of landmines and chasms, which widen as husband and wife and daughter struggle and fail to communicate, asking the wrong questions, fearfully skirting the truth about Alike’s sexuality and her parents’ crumbling marriage. And the world outside proves full of romantic pitfalls and the tensions of longtime friendship and peer pressure. The poems in which the talented Alike takes solace and makes her way toward a more truthful existence are beautiful, but at a certain point the lyricism overtakes the film, forcing an ending that is tidy but less than satisfying. (1:26) Embarcadero. (Rapoport)

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

Red Tails History (and the highly-acclaimed 1995 TV film, The Tuskeegee Airmen) tells us that during World War II, African American fighter pilots skillfully dispatched Nazi foes — while battling discrimination within the U.S. military every step of the way. From this inspiring true tale springs Red Tails, an overly earnest and awkwardly broad film which matches lavish special effects (thank you, producer George Lucas) with a flawed script stuffed with trite dialogue (thank you, “story by” George Lucas?), an overabundance of characters, and too many subplots (including a romance and a detour into Hogan’s Heroes). The movie would’ve been much stronger had it streamlined to focus on the friendship between the brash Lightning (David Oyelowo) and the not-as-perfect-as-he-seems Easy (Nate Parker); the head-butting between these two supplies the film’s only genuine moments of tension. Otherwise, there’s not much depth, just surface-to-air heroics. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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

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

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Maybe Guy Ritchie should’ve quit while he was ahead. Thanks to strong performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, the British director’s first Holmes flick proved surprisingly fun. Two years later, it’s clear that Ritchie’s well of creatitivity has run dry. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is cliched and overlong, burying a few good ideas under an avalanche of tired action movie stalwarts gone steampunk. To be fair, the set design and art direction are still sumptuous, creating a hyperbolic, detailed vision of Victorian Europe. New cast additions Jared Harris (as Moriarty, maliciously polite) and Stephen Fry (as Mycroft, eccentric and nude) do well with limited material. Noomi Rapace, playing a helpful gypsy, is superfluous. Downey Jr. and Law are still game for some amusing PG-13 homoeroticism, but it’s the former’s disinterested performance that ensures the movie’s downfall. Forced to make do without witty quips or interesting deductions, the Holmes of A Game of Shadows is part bruiser, part buffoon. The game’s a flop, Watson. (2:09) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Ben Richardson)

The Skin I Live In I’d like to think that Pedro Almodóvar is too far along in his frequently-celebrated career to be having a midlife crisis, but all the classic signs are on display in his flashy, disjointed new thriller. Still mourning the death of his burn victim wife and removed from his psychologically disturbed daughter, brilliant-but-ethically compromised plastic surgeon Robert (played with smoldering creepiness by former Almodóvar heartthrob Antonio Banderas) throws himself into developing a new injury-resistant form of prosthetic skin, testing it on his mysterious live-in guinea pig, Vera (the gorgeous Elena Anaya, whose every curve is on view thanks to an après-ski-ready body suit). Eventually, all hell breaks loose, as does Vera, whose back story, as we find out, owes equally to 1960’s Eyes Without a Face and perhaps one of the Saw films. And that’s not even the half of it — to fully recount every sharp turn, digression, and MacGuffin thrown at us would take the entirety of this review. That’s not news for Almodóvar, though. Much like Rainer Werner Fassbinder before him, Almodóvar’s métier is melodrama, as refracted through a gay cinephile’s recuperative affections. His strength as a filmmaker is to keep us emotionally tethered to the story he’s telling, amidst all the allusions, sex changes and plot twists torn straight from a telenovela. The real shame of The Skin I Live In is that so much happens that you don’t actually have time to care much about any of it. Although its many surfaces are beautiful to behold (thanks largely to cinematographer José Luis Alcaine), The Skin I Live In ultimately lacks a key muscle: a heart. (1:57) Opera Plaza. (Sussman)

*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Tomas Alfredson (2008’s Let the Right One In) directs from Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan’s sterling adaptation of John le Carré’s classic spy vs. spy tale, with Gary Oldman making the role of George Smiley (famously embodied by Alec Guinness in the 1979 miniseries) completely his own. Your complete attention is demanded, and deserved, by this tale of a Cold War-era, recently retired MI6 agent (Oldman) pressed back into service at “the Circus” to ferret out a Soviet mole. Building off Oldman’s masterful, understated performance, Alfredson layers intrigue and an attention to weird details (a fly buzzing around a car, the sound of toast being scraped with butter) that heighten the film’s deceptively beige 1970s palette. With espionage-movie trappings galore (safe houses, code machines), a returned-to flashback to a surreal office Christmas party, and bang-on supporting performances by John Hurt, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, and the suddenly ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, Tinker Tailor epitomizes rule one of filmmaking: show me, don’t tell me. A movie that assumes its audience isn’t completely brain-dead is cause for celebration and multiple viewings — not to mention a place among the year’s best. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Underworld Awakening (1:30) 1000 Van Ness.

*War Horse If the idea of watching heroic horses getting slaughtered amid the brutal trench warfare of World War I fills your heart with disgust, then you might want to applaud Steven Spielberg and his relatively sensitive touch with that material in the heartrending War Horse. The PG-13 rating also gives you some idea that the director will be hewing to the movie’s origins as a children’s book. Spielberg paints this tale about loss of innocence, be it in the fields of the farm or the battle, in broad strokes, but here, you might feel a bit less manipulated by his prowess as a crowd-pleasing storyteller, less conscious about the legacy he draws on, and more immersed in a story that stays as close as it can to its animal protagonist’s point of view, short of pulling a Mr. Ed. War Horse opens with Joey’s birth and follows him as he’s sold to a struggling English farm run by traumatized war veteran Ted (Peter Mullan), his spunky wife Rose (Emily Watson), and his animal-loving son Albert (Jeremy Irvine). Circumstance — and an unyielding landlord (David Thewlis) — sends Joey off to the so-called Great War, first into the care of an honorable captain (Tom Hiddleston), later a French girl (Celine Buckens), and worst, into the arms of the German enemy, where he toils as a disposable beast of burden charged with hauling the literal machines of war uphill. Spielberg shields viewers both young and old from the more explicit horrors, though gracefully imparts war’s terrors, sending fresh chills through a viewer when, for instance, a child riding a horse disappears over a ridge and fails to return. No one’s immune from tears, and you have to wonder how much healing is actually possible at War Horse‘s conclusion, despite its stylized, symbolism-laden beauty. Nonetheless cinephiles will glean a certain pleasure from images that clearly nod to the blood-red skies of Gone With the Wind (1939), the ominous deep focus of Orson Wells, and the too-bright Technicolor clarity-slash-artifice of National Velvet (1944). (2:26) Shattuck. (Chun)

*Young Adult We first meet Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) passed out next to last night’s bar pickup, whose name she won’t remember upon waking. You get the feeling this scenario happens a lot to Mavis — she’s the aging Manhattan model who seems like a trophy until the guy realizes she’s an even bigger asshole than he is. Plus, she’s in Minneapolis, on a house-grade scotch budget, where the denizens of the Midwestern home town she’s long abandoned assume she’s living a relatively glittering existence as swinging single and published author (albeit ghost author, of a petering-out tween fiction franchise). But no, her life is empty. Save your sympathy, however — Mavis might feel she’s missing something, but her consumerist values and incredible selfishness aren’t going to be sacrificed in finding it. After getting a courtesy baby announcement from old boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson), she makes a determination as arbitrary as it is adamant: they were always meant to be together, and she needs to reclaim him so they can re-live their glory as King Jock and Queen Bitch of high school. Never mind that Buddy is quite happy where he is — let alone that new baby, and a wife (Elizabeth Reaser) less glam but cooler than Mavis will ever be. Acting as her confidant on this kamikaze mission is ex-classmate Matt (Patton Oswalt), who wants to reverse time about two decades for very different reasons. This reunion for the Juno (2007) duo of director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody puts the latter’s facile wit to more complex, mature, organic use — though this ruthless yet quiet black character comedy is no uptempo crowd-pleaser. Rather, it’s an insidious, incisive commentary on such entertainments, as well as on juvie fiction like Sweet Valley High, whose adaptation is what Cody was developing before this tangent trumped it. It’s a surprisingly nervy movie, more like a 20-years-later sequel to Heathers (1988) than to Juno. (1:34) Shattuck. (Harvey)

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 25

Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Facade of American Empire author presentation University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way, Berk. (510) 548-0585, www.universitypressbooks.com. 6-7:30 p.m., free. Author Aaron Belkin explores the hyper-masculine construction of our armed forces, and the glaring contradictions that lie therein.

Ryan Boudinot’s Blueprints of the Afterlife reading Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. (415) 863-8688, www.booksmith.com. 7:30 p.m., free. The apocalypse is undeniably white-like-fire hot these days, what with it being about to happen in 11 months and all. Author Ryan Boudinot is happy to get your cognitive juices flowing on the matter – his new book Blueprints of the Afterlife takes place during the days when glaciers are ravaging the United States’ landscape and human beings’ nervous systems can be hacked.

THURSDAY 26

Author reading: James Martel on Walter Benjamin’s anti-sovereignty theories University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way, Berk. (510) 548-0585, www.universitypressbooks.com. 6-7:30 p.m., free. SF State associate professor of political science Martel has written a pair of books that look to dismantle the false choice we are presented between anarchy and sovereignty. His solution to these limited options: the divine game-changing forces presented in the works of German-Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin.

“Picturing the Contemporary Arts in Ms. Magazine: A Chronological Journey” art exhibit Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2700, www.ybca.org. Through Sun/29. Thu-Sat, noon-8 p.m.; Sun, noon-6 p.m. Since founding editor Gloria Steinham’s talk at Stanford University today is sold out, get your 40 years of Ms. Magazine fix at this free art exhibit, for which YBCA has bedecked its lobby with iconic images from the last four decades of the seminal feminist publication.

“Sex Work and Consent” conversation Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $10 suggested, no one turned away for lack of funds. Sex workers and community leaders will gather round to discuss consent-rape culture in our society – and there will be a Good Vibrations swag raffle to boot.

Lily Renée, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer author presentation Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF. (415) CAR-TOON, www.cartoonart.org. 7-9 p.m., free. Trina Robbins wrote (and drew) the book on Renée, a 14-year-old Austrian Jewish girl who fled the Nazis, only to become a dynamic member of the 1960s underground comic scene.

SATURDAY 28

“The Wisdom of Compassion: Teachings with Patrick Gaffney” Rigpa San Francisco Center, 111 New Montgomery, SF. (866) 200-5876, www.rigpabayarea.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free-$50 sliding scale. Sogyal Rinpoche’s most senior student (co-editor of Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying) teaches on how to get meditation and compassion into your life in a meaningful way.

“All You Can Dance For $5” Alonzo King LINES dance marathon Alonzo King LINES Dance Center, 26 Seventh St., SF. (415) 863-3040 x221, www.linesballet.org. 1-5 p.m., $5. Never mind lapsed New Year’s resolutions: this afternoon-long event will get you sweating without all that silly gym-angst (or sign-up fees). The well-loved dance company is offering a sampling of its classes – from hip-hop and ballet, to modern and jazz.

Treasure Island Flea Market One Avenue of the Palms, Treasure Island. www.treasureislandflea.com. Also Sun/29. 10 a.m.- 5 p.m., free. Though it’s moved indoors until March, Treasure Island’s oasis of all things old and unique continues to be your go-to monthly spot for quirky home furnishings, bike, clothes, and all kinds of more.

Golden Gate Kennel Club Dog Show Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, Daly City. www.goldengatekc.com. Also Sun/29. 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., $12. A plethora of historic events fill the Cow Palace each year — the Grand National Rodeo, weed expos galore, Cirque Du Soliel – but few feature arenas full of fluffy yappers. This dog show is over 100 years old, but still has new tricks. Among the breeds that will be featured for the first time in 2012 are the Swedish valihund and the cane corso.

Good Vibrations Lakeshore Avenue opening party Good Vibrations, 3219 Lakeshore, Oakl. www.goodvibes.com. 6-9 p.m., free. If the born-in-SF sex toy brand’s continued world domination — and new Oakland store — isn’t enough cause for celebration, know that Kani Burress of Real Housewives of Atlanta will be in attendance today, hyping her toy line Bedroom Kandi.

SUNDAY 29

Oakland Museum of California’s Lunar New Year celebration Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl. (510) 238-2200, www.museumca.org. Noon-4:30 p.m., free with $12 museum admission. Learn to pound mochi, take in Korean drumming and storytelling performances, and get educated on the meaning of Fred Korematsu Day through a presentation by the daughter of the civil rights activist who fled when the US government ordered all Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps during WWII. It’s all here at this event to celebrate the entering of (the year of) the dragon.

MONDAY 30

[SSEX BBOX] sexuality documentary premiere Center For Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 7:30-10 p.m., free. Witness the culmination of this international film project’s world travels, in which its team talked about living and loving outside the box with sex educators, writers, and just plain old hotties. You’ll have the opportunity to meet the director and crew after the film’s screening.

In the realms of the unreal

-
3
In the realms of the unreal

FILM/DANCE Watching Pina Bausch’s choreography on film should not have been as absorbing and deeply affecting of an experience as it was. Dance on film tends to disappoint — the camera flattens the body and distorts perspective, and you either see too many or not enough details. Avatar (2009) certainly didn’t convince me that 3D was the answer.

However, improved technology gave Wim Wenders (1999’s Buena Vista Social Club; 1987’s Wings of Desire) the additional tools he needed to accomplish what he and fellow German Bausch had talked about for 20 years: collaborating on a documentary about her work. Instead of making a film about the rebel dance maker, Wenders made it for Bausch, who died in June 2009, two days before the start of filming.

Pina is an eloquent tribute to a tiny, soft-spoken, mousy-looking artist who turned the conventions of theatrical dance upside down. She was a great artist and true innovator whose thinking was crucially shaped by her work in the 1960s with Antony Tudor and the team of Donya Feuer and Paul Sanasardo.

Wenders’ great accomplishment in this beautifully paced and edited document is its ability to elucidate Bausch’s work in a way that words probably cannot. While it’s good to see dance’s physicality and its multi dimensionality on screen, it’s even better that the camera goes inside the dances to touch tiny details and essential qualities in the performers’ every gesture. No proscenium theater can offer that kind of intimacy.

Appropriately, intimacy (the eternal desire for it) and loneliness (an existential state of being) were the two contradictory forces that Bausch kept exploring over and over. There is something absurd about the way her dancers never tire of being curious, silly, cruel, childish, hysterical, loving, and angry. The nobility and desperation comes from not giving up.

By taking fragments of the dances into the environment — both natural and artificial — of Wuppertal, Germany, Wenders places them inside the emotional lives of ordinary people (subjects of all of Bausch’s work), where there is room for a man with rabbit ears to ride public transportation and couples make love at intersections.

In Bausch’s work, sets — deluges, walls that crumble, hippos, mountains, floors made from dirt, grass, and carnations — are the obstacles that challenge and dwarf the dancer. Wenders chose his outside “sets” brilliantly to similar effect. Many locations are huge: gyms, factories, convention halls, and quarries — and the performers are clearly strangers.

The 3D technology Wenders uses rarely jumps out at the viewer. Instead, his space has a sheen and glassy quality that is non-realistic; it seems to pervade the whole film even in its more conventionally-shot sequences. While it’s good to see dance’s physical multidimensionality, perhaps even more satisfying is Wenders’s juxtaposing of different senses of dimensionality into a coherent whole that I suspect Bausch would have approved of. It’s the artifice and not the realism that makes Pina the fine work it is.

Before her death, Bausch had chosen four choreographies as the film’s core material. They were excellent picks, though it’s curious that three of them are quite early while Vollmond is her last complete work, more in the genre of her later “travel-inspired” pieces. Perhaps she meant to tell us something. Café Mueller shows a young Bausch in a dreamy, nightmarish labyrinthine environment; The Rite of Spring starts her investigation of male-female struggles; and Kontakthof is a work about the eternal mating frenzy as danced by her own company, a group of seniors, and an ensemble of teenagers.

Not pre-planned, however, was Wenders’ brilliant decision to include “interviews” with the dancers. They silently look at the camera but their grief-stricken faces speak of loss, loneliness, and a sense of abandonment. They were thinking about Bausch’s death, but perhaps also about her work. *

PINA opens Fri/20 in San Francisco.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. Due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday, theater information was incomplete at presstime.

OPENING

Addiction Incorporated Charles Evans Jr.’s documentary revisits the history of the tobacco industry’s deceptions, machinations, and other nefarious feats of profit-shielding through the story of Victor DeNoble, an industry scientist turned whistle-blower who was hired by Philip Morris in 1980 to help create a “safer” cigarette — i.e., one that didn’t contain nicotine. The material upsides of developing a product not then known to cause 138,000 strokes and heart attacks a year were clear enough — as one scientist puts it, “dead people don’t buy cigarettes.” But when DeNoble and his colleagues, in the course of their research, developed definitive proof that nicotine has “reinforcing” — a.k.a. “addictive” — properties, the company’s executives and legal counsel recognized a risk to the bottom line that far outweighed the benefits. The lab was shut down, DeNoble lost his job, and the literature generated by the project was stifled. These and subsequent events are related by a long, winding parade of talking heads broken up by archival footage; reenactments; a series of animations featuring hybridized rat-human addicts floating on a river of dopamine; and — as we enter the mid-’90s and the tobacco companies become a target of the FDA, the media, Congress, and a mammoth alliance of 51 law firms — footage from press conferences and hearings before the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. The film’s narrative has some gaping holes, but given recent legal setbacks to the FDA’s attempts to regulate the industry, it’s a good reminder that the tobacco behemoth can only be corralled through the energetic efforts of a conscientious, vigilant media and political bodies courageous and committed enough to use and hone the regulating tools at their disposal. (1:42) (Rapoport)

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

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Director Stephen Daldry is no stranger to guiding actors to Oscars; his previous two films, 2008’s The Reader and 2002’s The Hours, both earned Best Actress statuettes for their stars. So it’s no surprise that Sandra Bullock’s performance is the best thing about this big-screen take on Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel, which is otherwise hamstrung by twee, melodramatic elements that (presumably) translated poorly from page to screen. One year after 9/11, a Manhattan mother (Bullock) and her nine-year-old son Oskar (newcomer Thomas Horn, a youth Jeopardy! champ) are, unsurprisingly, still mourning their beloved husband and father (Tom Hanks), who was killed on “the worst day.” But therapy be damned — Oskar takes to the streets, knocking on the doors of strangers, searching for the lock that will fit a mysterious key his dad left behind. Carrying a tambourine. Later befriending an elderly man (Max von Sydow) whose true identity is immediately obvious, despite the fact that he writes pithy notes instead of speaking. In its attempts to explore grief through the eyes of a borderline-autistic kid (“tests were inconclusive,” according to Oskar), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is so forced-quirky it makes the works of Wes Anderson look like minimalist manifestos; that it bounces its maudlin, cliché-baiting plot off the biggest tragedy in recent American history is borderline offensive. Actually offensive, however, is the fact that Daldry — who also knows from young thespians, having helmed 2000’s Billy Elliot — positions the green Horn (ahem) in such a complex role. The character of Oskar is, as written, nauseatingly precocious; adding shrill and stridently unsympathetic to the mix renders the entire shebang nigh-unwatchable, despite the best efforts of supporting players like Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright. Congrats, Kodi Smit-McPhee, child actor who single-handedly dismantled 2009’s The Road — you now have some company at the kid’s table in the literary-adaptation hall of shame. (2:09) (Eddy)

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos There’s probably no reason to venture out to see Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos unless you’re already a fan of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga (and/or its many offshoots, including an anime series that’s aired stateside on the Cartoon Network). That’s not to say Milos is a crappy movie; it just depends an awful lot on foreknowledge about its mythical world and main characters, a pair of young brothers named Ed and Al. Their mastery of “alchemy” (a.k.a. Harry Potter-style zapping skills) has earned them government status but also cost them various body parts — Al, whose voice suggests he’s a pre-teen, exists only as a robot-like metal suit attached to the boy’s human soul. Their adventures in steampunk mischief lead them to a country called Milos that’s been repressed by the world’s superpowers; there, they meet a young girl who’s determined to restore her homeland to grandeur using what’s alternately called “the star of fresh blood,” “the stone of immortality,” or “the philosopher’s stone” to either “open the doorway of truth” or “use the alchemy of the holy land.” Or something. Mumbo-jumbo-y plot points aside, Milos is more or less a fast-paced triumph-of-the-underdog story, with pants-wearing giant wolves and other magic-with-a-k flourishes. Fun if you’re into that kind of thing. (1:50) SFFS New People Cinema. (Eddy)

Haywire Mixed martial arts star Gina Carano ascends to action hero status in genre chameleon Steven Soderbergh’s latest. (1:45)

Pina See “In the Realms of the Unreal.” (1:43)

Red Tails History (and the highly-acclaimed 1995 TV film, The Tuskeegee Airmen) tells us that during World War II, African American fighter pilots skillfully dispatched Nazi foes — while battling discrimination within the U.S. military every step of the way. From this inspiring true tale springs Red Tails, an overly earnest and awkwardly broad film which matches lavish special effects (thank you, producer George Lucas) with a flawed script stuffed with trite dialogue (thank you, “story by” George Lucas?), an overabundance of characters, and too many subplots (including a romance and a detour into Hogan’s Heroes). The movie would’ve been much stronger had it streamlined to focus on the friendship between the brash Lightning (David Oyelowo) and the not-as-perfect-as-he-seems Easy (Nate Parker); the head-butting between these two supplies the film’s only genuine moments of tension. Otherwise, there’s not much depth, just surface-to-air heroics. (2:00) (Eddy)

A Separation See “Conflict Revolution.” (2:03)

Underworld Awakening Vampires and werewolves, still goin’ at it. (1:30)

*The Viral Factor Dreamy Taiwanese megastar Jay Chou — last seen playing second banana (as if) to Seth Rogen in 2011’s The Green Hornet — reclaims center stage in Hong Kong director Dante Lam’s latest blockbuster action flick. Chou plays Jon, a supercop tasked with protecting a scientist in possession of a new and deadly smallpox strain, highly sought-after by villains who lust after its possibilities as a chemical weapon. Unbeknownst to Jon, his long-lost older brother, Yeung (dreamy HK megastar Nicholas Tse) is up to his neck on the wrong side of the law; when clean-cut bro meets hipster-mullet-and-tattoo’d bro, screeching car chases and epic fist- and gunfights soon melt away in favor of begrudging family bonding. That doesn’t mean all of the other bad guys (corrupt cops, Jon’s evil ex-partner, an arms dealer, etc.) go soft, of course — The Viral Factor very seldom stops for a breath during its chockablock two hours, what with all the bullets, grenades, and rocket launchers busting up half the globe (Kuala Lumpur gets the worst of it). The fact that Jon has one of those only-in-the-movies ticking-clock head injuries (two weeks to live! Better make it count!) ups The Viral Factor‘s already sky-high stakes; big-name salaries aside, it’s pretty clear most of the film’s $200 million budget went into special effects of the go-boom variety. Can’t argue with that. (2:00) Metreon. (Eddy)

ONGOING

*The Adventures of Tintin Producer Peter Jackson and director Steven Spielberg join forces to adapt the work of Belgian comic creator Hergé, using performance-capture 3D animation (and featuring that new technology’s most prominent performer, Andy Serkis, in a key role). Hergé wrote over 20 volumes following the globe-trotting exploits of intrepid young reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) and his canine companion, Snowy; The Adventures of Tintin draws from a trio of books dating from the early 1940s, tweaking the tales a bit but retaining the series’ ebullient energy and sharp humor. After he impulsively buys a model ship, Tintin is sucked into a mystery involving a long-lost pirate treasure sought by the sinister Sakharine (Daniel Craig) and, eventually, newfound Tintin ally Captain Haddock (Serkis). Fan favorites Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost — frequent compadre Edgar Wright co-wrote the script) and a certain “Milanese Nightingale” make appearances in a story that careens between exotic locales and high-seas battles, and is packed with epic chase scenes that would leave Indiana Jones breathless. And in case you were worried, Tintin boasts the least creepy, least “uncanny valley” performance-capture animation I’ve seen to date. (1:47) (Eddy)

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

*Battle for Brooklyn Posed as neither a left nor a right issue (though George Will does drift into view at one improbable moment), Michael Galinsky’s powerful documentary does the exhaustive, long-haul work of charting the fight between residents and business owners in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights as they oppose the condemnation of their property — oh-so-inconveniently in the way of the proposed Atlantic Yards, a mammoth Frank Gehry-designed development involving a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets and more than a dozen skyscrapers. The scrappy residents and activists, led in part by graphic designer Daniel Goldstein, face seemingly unbeatable forces: developer Forest City Ratner, which looks to Eminent Domain to seize a community’s land, whether it likes it or not; a complicit and corrupt state and city government; and other members of a diverse, divided community who are clamoring for the jobs that Ratner’s PR machine promises. Galinsky imparts the impact of the project — and its devastating effects on the neighborhood, despite alternate proposals and the recent real estate bust — over the course of eight years, with hundreds of hours of footage, time-lapse images, and a fortunate focus on one every-guy hero: Goldstein, who loses a fiancé and finds love at the ramparts, while his home is shorn away, all around him. Along the way, the viewer gets an education on the infuriating ways that these sorts of boondoggles get pushed through all opposition — the corollaries between this struggle and, say, the building of the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara are there for the viewer to draw. (1:33) Roxie. (Chun)

Beauty and the Beast 3D (1:24)

Carnage Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan (Christoph Waltz) have arrived in the apartment of Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael (John C. Reilly) to discuss proper follow-up to a playground incident in which one of their children went ballistic on another. But this grownup discussion about conduct between children quickly degenerates into a four-way living room sandbox melee, as the couples reveal snobbish disdain toward one another’s presumed values and the cracks in each marriage are duly bared. Roman Polanski’s unnecessary screen translation of Yasmina Reza’s play remains awkwardly rooted to the stage, where its contrivances would have seemed less obvious, or at least apt for the medium. There’s some fun to be had watching these actors play variously self-involved, accusatory Manhattanites who enact a very lite Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? amid way too much single-malt Scotch ingestion. But the text gets crudely farcical after a while, and its critiques of the characters’ shallow materialism, bad parenting, knee-jerk liberal empathy, privileged class indifference, etc. would resonate more if those faults weren’t so cartoonishly drawn. In the end, Carnage‘s high-profile talent obliterates rather than illuminates the material — it’s like aiming a bazooka at a napkin. (1:20) (Harvey)

Contraband A relative gem among the dross of January film releases, Contraband works best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and flounders when it does. Directed by Baltasar Kormákur, the man behind much of Iceland’s popular filmography (2006’s Jar City, 2002’s The Sea, 2000’s 101 Reykjavik), this no-frills genre picture stars Mark Wahlberg as Chris Farraday, an ex-smuggler-turned-family-man who must give the life of crime another go-round when his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones) find themselves in thrall to a nasty, drug-addicted criminal (an especially methy-looking Giovanni Ribisi). If you’ve seen any of these One Last Heist movies, you won’t be surprised that Chris’ operation goes completely awry — in Panama, on a cargo captained by J.K. Simmons, no less. Ribisi is as simpering and gleefully evil a caricature as they come, and as Chris’ best friend, brooding Ben Foster’s unexpected about-face in the film’s last third is pretty watchable. I’m not exactly saying you should go and see it, but I’m not stopping you, either. (1:49) (Ryan Lattanzio)

A Dangerous Method Cool and chatty (unsurprisingly, given its subject matter and the fact that it’s based on a play and a novel), David Cronenberg’s latest begins in 1904 Zurich as a shrieking patient (Keira Knightley) is escorted into the care of psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Dr. Jung, an admirer of Sigmund Freud, tests the “talking cure” on the woman, who turns out to be the fiercely intelligent and conveniently beautiful Sabina Spielrein. An attraction, both intellectual and sexual, soon develops, no matter that Jung is Sabina’s doctor, or that he happens to be married to a prim wife whose family wealth keeps him in boats and lake houses. Meanwhile, Jung and Freud (an excellent Viggo Mortensen) begin corresponding, eventually meeting and forming a friendship that’s tested first when Sabina comes between them, and later when Jung expresses a growing interest in fringe pursuits like parapsychology. The scenes between Freud and Jung are A Dangerous Method‘s most intriguing — save those brief few involving Vincent Cassel as a doctor-turned-patient who advises Jung to “never repress anything” — but the film is mostly concerned with Jung’s various Sabina-related dramas. Pity that this is a tightly-wound Fassbender’s least dynamic performance of the year, and that Knightley, way over the top in Sabina’s hysterical scenes, telegraphs “casting mistake” from the get-go. (1:39) (Eddy)

The Darkest Hour (1:29)

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

The Devil Inside (1:27)

*Drive Such a lovely way to Drive, drunk on the sensual depths of a lush, saturated jewel tone palette and a dreamlike, almost luxurious pacing that gives off the steamy hothouse pop romanticism of ’80s-era Michael Mann and David Lynch — with the bracing, impactful flecks of threat and ultraviolence that might accompany a car chase, a moody noir, or both, as filtered through a first-wave music video. Drive comes dressed in the klassic komforts — from the Steve McQueen-esque stances and perfectly cut jackets of Ryan Gosling as the Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless to the foreboding lingering in the shadows and the wittily static, statuesque strippers that decorate the background. Gosling’s Driver is in line with Mann’s other upstanding working men who hew to an old-school moral code and are excellent at what they do, regardless of what side of the law they’re working: he likes to keep it clear and simple — his services as a wheelman boil down to five minutes, in and out — but matters get messy when he falls for sweet-faced neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall with her small son, and her ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is dragged back into the game. Populated by pungent side players like Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks, and scattered with readily embeddable moments like a life-changing elevator kiss that goes bloodily wrong-right, Drive turns into a real coming-out affair for both Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (2008’s Bronson), who rises above any crisis of influence or confluence of genre to pick up the po-mo baton that Lynch left behind, and 2011’s MVP Ryan Gosling, who gets to flex his leading-man muscles in a truly cinematic role, an anti-hero and under-the-hood psychopath looking for the real hero within. (1:40) Roxie. (Chun)

*Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone This doc offers a lively, revealing look at SoCal ska-punk rockers Fishbone, a band that formed circa 1979 in a San Fernando Valley junior high newly filled with bussed-in South Central kids. In its heyday, Fishbone enjoyed cult success with hits like “Party at Ground Zero” and the tune that gives the film its title; Everyday Sunshine speaks to Fishbone’s broad appeal, as famous faces chime in to reminisce (and longtime fan Laurence Fishburne narrates), but it also illuminates some of the reasons its members never became megastars. Codirectors Chris Metzler (a San Francisco resident best-known for 2004’s Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea) and Lev Anderson spent months on the road with the band, capturing the infectious energy of its live shows in addition to behind-the-scenes tension. Past members add their voices, but the main protagonists are bassist-vocalist Norwood Fisher and lead vocalist-saxophone player Angelo Moore. Their intertwining stories offer a poignant portrait of creative soulmates who’ve weathered many storms (personality conflicts, legal and money troubles, an industry that didn’t know how to categorize them) without once giving up on their music. In addition to its compelling story, the film’s quirkier stylistic choices, including animation, lift Everyday Sunshine above the crowded field of traditional music docs. (1:47) Roxie. (Eddy)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo The meeting of Stieg Larsson’s first “Millennium” book and David Fincher promised fireworks, as he’s a director who can be equally vivid and exacting with just the elements key to the series: procedural detail, obsession, violence, tweaked genre conventions, mind games, haunted protagonists, and expansive story arcs. But perhaps because this possible franchise launch had to be rushed into production to ride the Larsson wave, what should have been a terrific matchup turns out to be just a good one — superior in some stylistic departments (notably Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ pulsing score), but overall neither an improvement nor a disappointment in comparison to the uninspired but effective 2009 Swedish film version. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, the muckraking Stockholm journalist whose public disgrace after a failed expose of a suspect corporate tycoon makes him the perfect candidate for an unexpected assignment: staying sequestered in the wealthy, warring Vanger clan’s island home to secretly investigate a teenage girl’s disappearance and presumed murder 40 years ago. His testy helpmate is the singular Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), antisocial hacker, researcher, and ex-mental patient par excellence. Nearly three hours long, the compressed, slightly altered (get over it) storyline nonetheless feels rushed at times; Fincher manages the rare feat of making mostly internet research exciting in filmic terms, yet oddly the book’s more shocking episodes of sex and/or mayhem don’t have the memorable impact one might expect from him. The leads are fine, as is the big support cast of recognizable faces (Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, etc.) But the knockout suspense, atmosphere, and urgency one hoped for isn’t present in this intelligent, not entirely satisfying treatment. On the other hand, maybe those who’ve already read the books and seen the prior films have already had so much exposure to this material that a revelatory experience is no longer possible. (2:38) (Harvey)

Le Havre Aki Kaurismäki’s second French-language film (following 1992’s La Vie de Boheme) offers commentary on modern immigration issues wrapped in the gauze of a feel good fairy tale and cozy French provincialism a la Marcel Pagnol. Worried about the health of his hospitalized wife (Kaurismäki regular Kati Outinen), veteran layabout and sometime shoe shiner Marcel (Andre Wilms) gets some welcome distraction in coming to the aid of Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), a young African illegally trying to make way to his mother in London while eluding the gendarmes. Marcel’s whole neighborhood of port-town busybodies and industrious émigrés eventually join in the cause, turning Le Havre into a sort of old-folks caper comedy with an incongruously sunny take on a rising European multiculturalism in which there are no real racist xenophobes, just grumps deserving comeuppance. Incongruous because Kaurismäki is, of course, the king of sardonically funny Finnish miserabilism — and while it’s charmed many on the festival circuit, this combination of his usual poker-faced style and feel-good storytelling formula may strike others as an oil-and-water mismatch. (1:43) (Harvey)

*Hipsters Though it might misleadingly draw a horde of Hipster Bingo look-alikes, the title of this goofy, passionate, generous-hearted Russian musical is fully earned. Director Valery Todorovsky’s let’s-put-on-a-show gumption, twinkly earnestness, and clownish costumes are likely drive today’s too-cool-for-schoolies out the theater, but if they stick around, the razzle-dazzle charm and cinematic flair that the filmmaker applies to this adaptation of Yuri Korotkov’s book, Boogie Bones, should win them over. The dateline is Moscow, 1955, and the scene is a West Side Story-style showdown between the hard-partying, rebellious boogie-woogie stilyagi, or hipsters, in love with American jazz and culture, and the terribly serious, grayed-out Communist hardliners who equate flashy fashion with individualistic decadence. Yet one comrade, Mels (Anton Shagin), finds himself crossing party lines after an encounter with fetching “Good Time” Polly (Oksana Akinshina of 2002’s Lilya 4-Ever) and slowly begins to assemble the look, the moves, the music, and the bad reputation that come with life as a hipster. A few of the film’s plot turns may be a bit tough to swallow, and some details, such as the music, don’t adhere strictly to era, but the affection Todorovsky feels for his characters, their plight, and musicals (particularly Baz Luhrmann’s) gleams through, especially when the director tracks alongside his freedom-loving protagonists as they occupy the streets with their subcultural kin of yesterday and today. (2:05) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

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

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

In the Land of Blood and Honey The grudging, occasionally outright hostile tone some critics, culture vultures, and fan types have taken toward In the Land of Blood and Honey points toward a fundamental problem most of them have, though few admit it: the belief that Angelina Jolie is just too damn famous, too much a figure of public speculation and private fantasy, to be taken seriously — let alone to make a movie about rape and genocide during the Balkans Wars. But the fact is, her narrative debut as writer and director would probably be getting reviews in the respectable-to-rave range if created by anyone else. It’s certainly gotten some of those, but you’d be hard-pressed not to glimpse a certain “Who does she think she is?” resentment behind others who see the film as heavy-handed do-gooderism from a chick who should leave cinematic commentary about profoundly tragic historical events to people who are less … er, sexy. Not that Blood and Honey doesn’t have its genuine faults. There’s contrivance in the way that young Muslim painter Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) and Serb cop Danijel (Goran Kostic) have a first date just as the war reaches 1992 Sarajevo, then intersect again when she’s a POW and he’s an officer in the Serbian Army. This allows him to save her from the regular rapes other women prisoners suffer at the hands of guards, and eventually to set her up as his protected mistress, a breach of code that is unwelcome news to the ears of his powerful father General Nobosjsa (Rade Serbedzija), a fanatical “ethnic cleanser.” This premise is typical movie exceptionalism, even if it’s still a good step above the usual device of casting a Western character-star as our guide in unpleasant foreign affairs. While not a great movie, Blood and Honey is a very good one; an honorable achievement, not just a vehicle for honorable intentions. Of course the point is nothing more complicated than “War is hell,” but how often do movies actually punch that across, as opposed to pouting a bit while making war look exciting? (2:07) (Harvey)

J. Edgar The usual polished, sober understatement of Clint Eastwood’s directing style and the highlights-compiling CliffsNotes nature of Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay turn out to be interestingly wrong choices for this biopic about one of the last American century’s most divisive figures. Interesting in that they’re perhaps among the very few who would now dare viewing the late, longtime FBI chief with so much admiration tempered by awareness of his faults — rather than the other way around. After all, Hoover (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) strengthened his bureau in ways that, yes, often protected citizens and state, but at what cost? The D.C. native eventually took to frequently “bending” the law, witch-hunting dubious national enemies (he thought the Civil Rights movement our worst threat since the bomb-planting Bolshevik anarchists of half a century earlier), blackmailing personal ones, weakening individual rights against surveillance, hoarding power (he resented the White House’s superior authority), lying publicly, and doing just about anything to heighten his own fame. A movie that internalized and communicated his rising paranoid megalomania (ironically Hoover died during the presidency of Nixon, his equal in that regard) might have stood some chance of making us understand this contradiction-riddled cipher. But J. Edgar is doggedly neutral, almost colorless (literally so, in near-monochrome visual presentation), its weird appreciation of the subject’s perfectionism and stick-to-it-iveness shutting out almost any penetrating insight. (Plus there’s Eastwood’s own by-now-de rigueur soundtrack of quasi-jazz noodling to make what is vivid here seem more dull and polite.) The love that dare not speak its name — or, evidently, risk more than a rare peck on the cheek — between Hoover and right-hand-man/life companion Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, very good if poorly served by his old-age makeup) becomes both the most compelling and borderline-silly thing here, fueled by a nervous discretion that seems equal parts Black’s interest and Eastwood’s discomfort. While you might think the directors polar opposites in many ways, the movie J. Edgar ultimately recalls most is Oliver Stone’s 1995 Nixon: both ambitiously, rather sympathetically grapple with still-warm dead gorgons and lose, filmmaker and lead performance alike laboring admirably to intelligent yet curiously stilted effect. (2:17) (Harvey)

Joyful Noise As heartfelt and anodyne as the singing underdogs at its center, Joyful Noise offers a spirited if ultimately hamstrung spin on a familiar set-up (anyone seen 1993’s Sister Act 2?). Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton (returning to the screen after a two decade hiatus) do most of the heavy lifting as working-class single mother Vi Rose Hill and flashy widow G.G. Sparrow, respectively, who find themselves locking horns as they strategize how to take the small-town Georgia church choir they both sing in to the big-time Gospel competition that gives the film its title. There’s also the matter of G.G.’s city-slicked grandson’s aggressive courting of Vi Rose’s precocious teenage daughter, who, it turns out, like many of the supporting players here, can out-belt most American Idol finalists. Writer-director Todd Graff’s script works in some genial digs at Parton’s fabulous artifice (“Who cares if I’ve had a few little nips and tucks? God didn’t make plastic surgeons so they could starve!” she proudly declares), but Parton’s singing often provides the emotional expressiveness that her face now has trouble conveying. Latifah’s performance is the biggest surprise in a movie that seems all but hatched from a Disney channel writers meeting: Vi Rose radiates both light and heat, tempering Joyful Noise’s steady stream of homespun treacle with some much-needed righteousness and fury. (1:58) (Sussman)

*Melancholia Lars von Trier is a filmmaker so fond of courting controversy it’s like he does it in spite of himself — his rambling comments about Hitler (“I’m a Nazi”) were enough to get him banned from the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where Melancholia had its debut (and star Kirsten Dunst won Best Actress). Oops. Maybe after the (here’s that word again) controversy that accompanied 2009’s Antichrist, von Trier felt like he needed a shocking context for his more mellow latest. Pity that, for Melancholia is one of his strongest, most thoughtful works to date. Split into two parts, the film follows first the opulent, disastrous, never-ending wedding reception of Justine (Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), held at a lavish estate owned by John (Kiefer Sutherland), the tweedy husband of Justine’s sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Amid the turmoil of arguments (John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling as Justine and Claire’s divorced parents), pushy guests (Stellan Skarsgard as Justine’s boss), livid wedding planner (Udo Kier, amazing), and hurt feelings (Michael is the least-wanted groom since Kris Humphries), it’s clear that something is wrong with Justine beyond just marital jitters. The film’s second half begins an unspecified amount of time later, as Claire talks her severely depressed, near-catatonic sister into moving into John’s mansion. As Justine mopes, it’s revealed that a small planet, Melancholia — glimpsed in Melancholia‘s Wagner-scored opening overture — is set to pass perilously close to Earth. John, an amateur astronomer, is thrilled; Claire, fearful for her young son’s future and goaded into high anxiety by internet doomsayers, is convinced the planets will collide, no matter what John says. Since Justine (apparently von Trier’s stand-in for himself) is convinced that the world’s an irredeemably evil place, she takes the news with a shrug. Von Trier’s vision of the apocalypse is somber and surprisingly poetic; Dunst and Gainsbourg do outstanding work as polar-opposite sisters whose very different reactions to impending disaster are equally extreme. (2:15) (Eddy)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) (Harvey)

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol No world landmark (the Kremlin, the Burj Khalifia) is too iconic and/or freaking tall for uber-adrenalized Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon “Comic Relief” Pegg) to infiltrate, climb, assume false identities in, use as a home base for unleashing futuristic spy technology that seems almost plausible (with the help of lots of iPads), race a BMW through, etc. One kind of gets the sense that Cruise and company sat down with a piece of paper and were like, “What stunts haven’t we done before, and how many of them can I do with my shirt off?” Celebrated animation director Brad Bird (2004’s The Incredibles) is right at home with Ghost Protocol as his first live-action effort — the film’s plot (set in the present day, it involves a positively vintage blend of Russians and nukes) and even its unmemorable villain take a back seat to Cruise’s secret-agent shenanigans, most of which take the form of a crazy plan that must be altered at the last minute, resulting in an even crazier plan, which must be implemented despite the sudden appearance of yet another ludicrously daunting obstacle, like, say, a howling sandstorm. For maximum big dumb fun, make sure you catch the IMAX version. A warning, though: any time the movie screeches to a halt to explore emotions or attempt characterization … zzz. (2:13) (Eddy)

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

*Pariah A teenage girl stands stock-still in a dark nightclub, gazing with desire and fear at the half-naked female dancers on the stage. Later, riding home on the bus, she slowly removes the layers of butch that held her together in the club, stripping down to some version of the person her parents need to see when she walks in the door. Nearly wordlessly, the opening scenes of Dee Rees’s Pariah poignantly depict the embattled internal life of Alike (Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old African American girl living in Brooklyn with her family and struggling both to be seen as she is and to determine what that might look like. The battles are being waged externally, too, between Alike’s adoring father (Charles Parnell), living in willful ignorance, and angry, rigid mother (Kim Wayans), desperately enforcing a feminine dress code and steering Alike away from openly butch friend Laura (Pernell Walker). Rees’ script beautifully conveys a household of landmines and chasms, which widen as husband and wife and daughter struggle and fail to communicate, asking the wrong questions, fearfully skirting the truth about Alike’s sexuality and her parents’ crumbling marriage. And the world outside proves full of romantic pitfalls and the tensions of longtime friendship and peer pressure. The poems in which the talented Alike takes solace and makes her way toward a more truthful existence are beautiful, but at a certain point the lyricism overtakes the film, forcing an ending that is tidy but less than satisfying. (1:26) (Rapoport)

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

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Maybe Guy Ritchie should’ve quit while he was ahead. Thanks to strong performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, the British director’s first Holmes flick proved surprisingly fun. Two years later, it’s clear that Ritchie’s well of creatitivity has run dry. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is cliched and overlong, burying a few good ideas under an avalanche of tired action movie stalwarts gone steampunk. To be fair, the set design and art direction are still sumptuous, creating a hyperbolic, detailed vision of Victorian Europe. New cast additions Jared Harris (as Moriarty, maliciously polite) and Stephen Fry (as Mycroft, eccentric and nude) do well with limited material. Noomi Rapace, playing a helpful gypsy, is superfluous. Downey Jr. and Law are still game for some amusing PG-13 homoeroticism, but it’s the former’s disinterested performance that ensures the movie’s downfall. Forced to make do without witty quips or interesting deductions, the Holmes of A Game of Shadows is part bruiser, part buffoon. The game’s a flop, Watson. (2:09) (Ben Richardson)

The Skin I Live In I’d like to think that Pedro Almodóvar is too far along in his frequently-celebrated career to be having a midlife crisis, but all the classic signs are on display in his flashy, disjointed new thriller. Still mourning the death of his burn victim wife and removed from his psychologically disturbed daughter, brilliant-but-ethically compromised plastic surgeon Robert (played with smoldering creepiness by former Almodóvar heartthrob Antonio Banderas) throws himself into developing a new injury-resistant form of prosthetic skin, testing it on his mysterious live-in guinea pig, Vera (the gorgeous Elena Anaya, whose every curve is on view thanks to an après-ski-ready body suit). Eventually, all hell breaks loose, as does Vera, whose back story, as we find out, owes equally to 1960’s Eyes Without a Face and perhaps one of the Saw films. And that’s not even the half of it — to fully recount every sharp turn, digression, and MacGuffin thrown at us would take the entirety of this review. That’s not news for Almodóvar, though. Much like Rainer Werner Fassbinder before him, Almodóvar’s métier is melodrama, as refracted through a gay cinephile’s recuperative affections. His strength as a filmmaker is to keep us emotionally tethered to the story he’s telling, amidst all the allusions, sex changes and plot twists torn straight from a telenovela. The real shame of The Skin I Live In is that so much happens that you don’t actually have time to care much about any of it. Although its many surfaces are beautiful to behold (thanks largely to cinematographer José Luis Alcaine), The Skin I Live In ultimately lacks a key muscle: a heart. (1:57) (Sussman)

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

*War Horse If the idea of watching heroic horses getting slaughtered amid the brutal trench warfare of World War I fills your heart with disgust, then you might want to applaud Steven Spielberg and his relatively sensitive touch with that material in the heartrending War Horse. The PG-13 rating also gives you some idea that the director will be hewing to the movie’s origins as a children’s book. Spielberg paints this tale about loss of innocence, be it in the fields of the farm or the battle, in broad strokes, but here, you might feel a bit less manipulated by his prowess as a crowd-pleasing storyteller, less conscious about the legacy he draws on, and more immersed in a story that stays as close as it can to its animal protagonist’s point of view, short of pulling a Mr. Ed. War Horse opens with Joey’s birth and follows him as he’s sold to a struggling English farm run by traumatized war veteran Ted (Peter Mullan), his spunky wife Rose (Emily Watson), and his animal-loving son Albert (Jeremy Irvine). Circumstance — and an unyielding landlord (David Thewlis) — sends Joey off to the so-called Great War, first into the care of an honorable captain (Tom Hiddleston), later a French girl (Celine Buckens), and worst, into the arms of the German enemy, where he toils as a disposable beast of burden charged with hauling the literal machines of war uphill. Spielberg shields viewers both young and old from the more explicit horrors, though gracefully imparts war’s terrors, sending fresh chills through a viewer when, for instance, a child riding a horse disappears over a ridge and fails to return. No one’s immune from tears, and you have to wonder how much healing is actually possible at War Horse‘s conclusion, despite its stylized, symbolism-laden beauty. Nonetheless cinephiles will glean a certain pleasure from images that clearly nod to the blood-red skies of Gone With the Wind (1939), the ominous deep focus of Orson Wells, and the too-bright Technicolor clarity-slash-artifice of National Velvet (1944). (2:26) (Chun)

We Bought A Zoo “If you could choose between animals or humans or animals, which would you choose?” is a standard question among passionate critter lovers, and Cameron Crowe and company go out of their way to outline which side of the divide they stand on. The result won’t please animal-centric fans of, say, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Reporter Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) has just lost his beloved wife and is so overwhelmed by all the solo dad time he’s had with his two cute kids, Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), that he’s ready to do something rash. Despite the advice of his brother (Thomas Haden Church), he quits his newspaper job and throws his lot in with the ultimate child’s amusement: he buys a ramshackle zoo in the boonies and tries his darnedest to fix it. Coming with the property is the fetching if brusque zookeeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson, slightly bushier of eyebrow — read: homelier — than usual) and a mixed bag of kooky workers (including Elle Fanning and Crowe fave Patrick Fugit). The challenge for Ben is to get the zoo up to speed, with zero previous experience and limited lucre. Unfortunately Crowe takes the human vs. animal choice to heart and errs on the side of the humanoids: there’s way too few animals here and far too little about the zoo itself. Much like an overbearing zookeeper, the filmmaker protects us from this semi-tame kingdom, when really a viewer wants to know is, when are we going to get more stories about the animals? Can we have a real tour of the grounds? Even the comic efforts of Haden Church and J.B. Smoove as Ben’s realtor aren’t enough to whisk away one’s impatience (or the unsettling feeling that Ben’s affinity for a elderly ailing tiger will end with an SF Zoo-style arm removal) with all these damn people standing between us and the creatures, like a crowd of gawkers hogging the view of the lions. (2:03) (Chun)

*Young Adult We first meet Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) passed out next to last night’s bar pickup, whose name she won’t remember upon waking. You get the feeling this scenario happens a lot to Mavis — she’s the aging Manhattan model who seems like a trophy until the guy realizes she’s an even bigger asshole than he is. Plus, she’s in Minneapolis, on a house-grade scotch budget, where the denizens of the Midwestern home town she’s long abandoned assume she’s living a relatively glittering existence as swinging single and published author (albeit ghost author, of a petering-out tween fiction franchise). But no, her life is empty. Save your sympathy, however — Mavis might feel she’s missing something, but her consumerist values and incredible selfishness aren’t going to be sacrificed in finding it. After getting a courtesy baby announcement from old boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson), she makes a determination as arbitrary as it is adamant: they were always meant to be together, and she needs to reclaim him so they can re-live their glory as King Jock and Queen Bitch of high school. Never mind that Buddy is quite happy where he is — let alone that new baby, and a wife (Elizabeth Reaser) less glam but cooler than Mavis will ever be. Acting as her confidant on this kamikaze mission is ex-classmate Matt (Patton Oswalt), who wants to reverse time about two decades for very different reasons. This reunion for the Juno (2007) duo of director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody puts the latter’s facile wit to more complex, mature, organic use — though this ruthless yet quiet black character comedy is no uptempo crowd-pleaser. Rather, it’s an insidious, incisive commentary on such entertainments, as well as on juvie fiction like Sweet Valley High, whose adaptation is what Cody was developing before this tangent trumped it. It’s a surprisingly nervy movie, more like a 20-years-later sequel to Heathers (1988) than to Juno. (1:34) (Harvey)

How to celebrate MLK Jr. Day in the Bay

Andrew Lam
-
0

Use your national day of service wisely —  jump in one of of the day’s volunteering fairs, take in a black history flick, catch some awe-inspiring youth spoken word, learn about colleges 

“In the Name of Love” MLK musical tribute

Mavis Staples, the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Youth Speaks (that group’s going to be busy! See below), and Oakland’s Children’s Community Choir occupy the deco wonderland of the Paramount for this stirring tribute to the great man’s work. Hyped as the only non-denominational musical tribute to MLK Jr. in Oakland, the program also features the presentation of humanitarian awards. 

Sun/15 7 p.m., $18 

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

www.livingjazz.org


Freedom Trains

Planning on spending your MLK Day in the city? Every year, the Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Santa Clara sponsors the Freedom Trains so that everyone can afford to make it to the celebrations. Instead of paying $17.50 for a round-trip ticket on Caltrain, today it’s just $10 – and you’ll be treated to in-route presentations on the importance of the civil rights movement in our lives. 

Mon/16, $10

Departs San Jose 9:30 a.m., arrives in San Francisco 10:55 a.m. (see website for stops in-between)

Rod Diridon train station

65 Cahill, San Jose

www.scvmlk.org

 

“Renewing the Dream” MLK Jr. birthday celebration

A health fair, a civil rights film festival, children’s reading celebration, interfaith commemoration, special presentations, and free entry to the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Children’s Creativity Museum give you and yours plenty to do if you feel like spending your Monday in San Francisco’s (greener, sorry Union Square) living room. Down to attend? Check your local transportation agency for possible discounts to the event.

Mon/16 11 a.m.-5 p.m., free

Yerba Buena Gardens

Mission between Third and Fourth Sts., SF

www.norcalmlk.com

 

“What is Your Dream?” MLK Jr. day of service

Soak in the spirit of the day by spending it at MoAD. The regular museum offerings (currently featuring “Collected: Stories of Acquisition and Reclamation,” about the contributions of people of African descent to the American zeitgeist) will be free to the public, there will be screenings of MLK films and a documentary on a barber who turned into a civil rights leader during the 2008 elections, chalk drawings outside on the sidewalk, and vision boarding galore. But the day’s not just for remembering and dreaming – the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Fair will be providing concrete information on education for tomorrow’s march-leaders and soul-freers. 

Mon/16 11 a.m.-5 p.m., free

Museum of the African Diaspora

685 Mission, SF

(415) 358-7200

www.moadsf.org


Parks Conservancy’s MLK Jr. day of service

Let the Parks Conservancy plug you into a wildlife restoration project – you’re too late to sign up for restoring the gardens on Alcatraz, but there’s still time to help out at Crissy Field, Fort Baker, Muir Woods, Ocean Beach, and the Presidio. Contact volunteer@parksconservancy.org to reserve your spot. 

Mon/16 various times, free

Various locations, SF

(415) 561-3077

www.parksconservancy.org


MLK Jr. Day service fair

Spend your day off work (if you have it off work) with your family making a difference in the Bay Area. Organizers of this event have made it easy for you: choose from over 25 different projects from serving food at shelters, planting trees – even making toys and biscuits for homeless puppies and kitties. All ages welcome. 

Mon/16 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m., free

Oshman Family Jewish Community Center

3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto

www.paloaltojcc.org


Piedmont’s annual MLK Jr. Day celebration

First: eating. All comers are invited to bring a dish that reflects their own cultural heritage to this lunchtime potluck at the Piedmont Community Center. Once those pressing matters have been tended: music. Oaktown Jazz will provide some lilting melodies, and Piedmont students will make presentations on the significance of the day. Capping off the festivities, the 1993 movie At the River I Stand, which revolves around the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike and concurrent assasination of King. 

Mon/16 noon-3 p.m.

Piedmont Community Center

777 Highland, Piedmont

(510) 420-1534

loiscorrin@gmail.com


“Bringing the Noise for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” 

If you haven’t been to a Youth Speaks spoken word event, pack tissues and your future-seeing 3-D goggles – the young people that the organization gives an opportunity to perform are the truth. On no other day of the year should this be more evident, because these kids are all about having a dream. Today’s event brings performers to the stage who have worked up pieces on what they’d like the future to bring, imbued as ever with the fire of Youth Speaks performances. Could there be a more relevant forum to attend on today’s holiday?

Mon/16 7 p.m., $16

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 621-6600

www.youthspeaks.org

 

 

“Martin Luther King Jr. Day Double Feature”

“All of us have something to say, but some are never heard” — Richard Pryor, Wattstax (1973). MLK Jr. Day calls into question how we remember the past. The Wattstax concert is sometimes recalled derivatively as “the black Woodstock.” But while soul music may have been the response, the event was put on by Stax Records to commemorate and come to terms with the seventh anniversary of the Watts Riots in LA, which challenged the limits of MLK Jr.’s nonviolent philosophy. As a double feature the Wattstax documentary will be shown with The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011), a revelatory look at a movement’s era that sadly took the distance of continent and a few decades to make. 

Wattstax 3, 7p.m.; The Black Power Mixtape 4:55, 8:55 p.m., $7.50–$10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

 


Martin Luther

It’s the second coming! Not really, no relation actually. But this R&B-funk crooner spins out tunes appropriately uplifting for this day of rememberance and looking forward. Bliss out, eyes closed, mind on the change you want to make, at this smoothed-out groovefest. 

Mon/16 8-9:30 p.m., $15

Yoshi’s

510 Embarcadero, Oakl.

(510) 238-9200

www.yoshis.com

A weekend of new German Cinema

Maria Poblet
-
0
A weekend of new German Cinema

Ringing in the New Year, German Gems returns to the Castro, San Francisco’s citadel of cinema, for a final celebration of new German films. The jam-packed day will start with a documentary about nuclear power plants in Germany, followed by a panel discussion with international speakers.

Several of the films on the program are by young, promising filmmakers: No Way Home, about two lost souls in their sixties who find each other and a new beginning; Above Us Only Sky is probing deep into the heart and mind of a young woman who is desperately trying to hold on to a broken life; and Westwind, last summer’s best German love story. The festival will close on a provocative note with Taboo – The Soul is a Stranger in Earth, a film about the forbidden love between poet Georg Trakl and his sister.

For festival passes and happy hour tickets, as well as a complete schedule of screenings, visit this link.

Saturday, January 14th @ Castro Theater, 419 Castro, SF | Sunday, January 15 @ Arena Theater, 214 Main, Point Arena | $7-$50

So long, farewell

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
So long, farewell

arts@sfbg.com

FILM When Ingrid Eggers announced that 2012 would mark her last German Gems film festival, the news came as a bittersweet reminder that nothing lasts forever.

Perhaps not coincidentally, this theme is perfectly summed up by the quintet of films that comprise German Gems’ final line-up. From the scandal-inducing, incestuous love affair (and its slow-burning aftermath) between artistic siblings Georg and Margarethe Trackl in Christoph Stark’s Taboo: The Soul is a Stranger on Earth, to the rejection of childhood dreams portrayed in Robert Thalheim’s Westwind, this year’s festival deals overwhelmingly with the impacts and lingering reverberations of loss. Whether Eggers planned it this way — to help us work through our grief at losing her curatorial prowess — isn’t clear, but in any event, the selection does prepare the viewer emotionally to accept her graceful auf Wiedersehen.

An understated portrait of Germany’s relationship with nuclear power, Under Control is a quietly compelling observational documentary. Crafted simply from footage taken inside nuclear power plants across Germany and Austria, along with interviews with various plant operators and nuclear energy experts regarding each particular plant’s focus and future, Under Control offers an intriguing look at a side of nuclear power we’re not normally privy to: the somewhat banal day-to-day operations which go into its generation.

These glimpses include stark imagery of long, sterile white corridors; retro-futuristic control rooms filled with panels and flashing monitors; plant employees being scanned for radiation; steam curling above bucolic countryside from the giant mouths of cooling towers; a subterranean bunker where contaminated washrags go to be buried; and a tense emergency-preparedness training session during which a reactor shutdown is simulated.

By the film’s end an unexpected realization becomes apparent: the almost foregone conclusion that Germany’s nuclear age is drawing to an end. As filmmakers Volker Sattel and Stefan Stefanescu are given a tour of the remains of what was once the Kalkar nuclear facility, completed in 1985 but never taken "online," their guide mourns the loss of jobs, and more importantly, of the billions of Deutschmarks used to fund the construction of a doomed power plant.

"Chernobyl broke our backs," he asserts almost wistfully, while astonishing footage of a modern-day carnival ride built inside the shell of the old cooling tower spirals onscreen.

A film dealing more directly with loss of the utterly human variety, Jan Schomburg’s Above Us Only Sky follows Martha (Sandra Hüller), a soft-spoken schoolteacher married to PhD student Paul (Felix Schmidt-Knopp), with whom she plans to move to Marseilles after he accepts a job offer at a hospital there. Or so she thinks. In a series of brief, clipped scenes, she discovers that the man she has been living with for years has been leading a secret life she’s known nothing about.

Struggling to regain her bearings, she meets Alexander (Georg Friedrich), a charismatic, tattooed professor at Paul’s former university, and in a series of awkwardly-engineered moments, initiates a relationship with him. As their attachment grows, their pairing begins to resemble Martha’s previous relationship — right down to a discussion about moving to Marseilles. The main attraction of this film is Hüller’s nuanced performance, and her disarming veneer of almost girlish delicacy and neurotic sexuality concealing an iron will. Her previous tragedy informing her actions, she keeps her motivations to herself, revealing as little as possible for as long as possible, a stubborn survivalist strategy which finally unravels just enough for Alexander to be able to reveal his own hidden past.

A first feature for Schomburg, the deceptively simple Above Us Only Sky doesn’t waste a frame while tracing the subtle contours of a paradise lost, and one regained.


GERMAN GEMS

Sat/14, $8-$10

Castro Theatre

429 Market, SF

Sun/15, $8-$10

Arena Theatre

214 Main, Point Arena
www.germangems.com

Sanitized insanity

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Sanitized insanity

TRASH The term “Hollywood” has become a many-splendored pejorative, applicable to anything trite, vulgar, politically liberal, morally lax, and so on and so forth. Yet as much as they might like to think they’re so-not That, what red-corpuscled Americans with an electrical socket in their dwelling — or simply senses to absorb stray bits of popular culture when they venture outside — aren’t influenced by if not downright addicted to some facets of the entertainment industry?

It takes enormous effort to approach purity in this regard: a combination of home-schooling, mainstream-society-shunning, self-sustaining, off-grid living that pretty much requires the clock be turned back to pioneer days, before oughty-mobiles and other fancy products of modernity. Certain radical polygamist sects of recent notoriety might be the closest anyone in the Lower 48 gets these days to unhooking more than one stubborn individual or three off the infinitely tentacled monster of pop media.

Of course those people are weirdos whom mainstream Mormons prefer not to be associated with, especially when they’re running for President. To be a regular LDS Church member means having a looser, somewhat disapproving yet tolerant attitude toward Hollywood products. It means, for instance, deeming MTV too racy for basic cable. (Think of the children!) It means wanting your cake, but eating it with less decadent icing. However, many a chef chafes at a consumer scraping the offending spices, toppings, and toplessnesses from his or her labored-over creations just because said consumer is on some special diet. From the consumer’s POV, of course, the issue is different: they paid for the item; why shouldn’t they doctor it as stomach and conscience decrees?

That debate, acted out in the heart of Mormonlandia, is at the crux of Andrew James and Joshua Ligari’s documentary Cleanflix. Its eventually very twisty tale starts out with the simple arrival of a supply to meet a demand — in this case, “cleaned up” versions of Hollywood movies offered for rental or purchase in a handful of Utah stores starting around the turn of the millennium.

Handily removing “sex, nudity, profanity, and gory violence” — pretty much in precisely that descending order of importance — from commercial movies for home viewing, Ray Lines’ original CleanFlicks identified a community need and filled it. This success did not pass unnoticed. In fact even as CleanFlicks sold its stores and moved into online distribution, competitors were multiplying like plygs (children of polygamous families), each one howling as the next invaded their territory.

There are many things you can’t do, or at least are strongly discouraged from doing, in the Mormon-dominated state of Utah. But practicing cutthroat capitalism is not one of them — quite the opposite. Money corrupts just like power, however, and Cleanflix veers in unexpected directions as one of its principal characters, a seemingly affable and earnest man of faith, turns out to be a purported fornicating stoner pornmonger whose only spirituality was spelled with a $. The heat gets such that he has to flee the state, briefly landing in Gomorrah itself, Hollywood.

Even as it stumbles upon such lurid human interest, Cleanflix keeps an eye on the bigger picture, notably the question: who has the right to alter a copyrighted work? Some “clean” video shops clung to the notion that since they purchased and tweaked each and every DVD themselves, they were free to do what they wanted with them. Besides, don’t the big studios often create censored versions of their own films for airplane screenings and such?

The industry begged to differ, eventually winning court victories that shut down most (if not all) of the independent “content filtering” businesses. We hear from directors like Steven Soderbergh and Neil LaBute (the latter an ex Mormon), who bristle at the hubris behind “changing something that doesn’t belong to you,” saying that it’s naive at best to think in taking a few bricks out of an artistic house you won’t cause the whole structure to collapse. Then of course there’s the worry that such tampering “cultivates a tolerance for censorship” and uses legitimizes “a shamefulness toward sexuality,” no matter what the artist’s original intention might have been.

Ye olden American hypocrisy in matters of sex vs. violence — so opposite the attitudes flaunted by our socialistic European brethren — is glimpsed in “cleansed” movies like 1996’s Fargo that many patrons find permissible with all its extreme bloodletting intact (remember that wood chipper?), but one mention of the word “penis” tastefully excised. The mind reels at some successfully censored cinema noted here, like 1999’s The Matrix with all its umpteen non-graphic killings removed, or even sacrosanct Schindler’s List (1993) minus any concentration camp details unsuitable for the entire family.

Some movies, however, resist all taming. Ray Lines admits there was no point trying to scrub up 1990’s seemingly harmless Pretty Woman (whose Cinderella is a streetwalker). As for 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, well … “We didn’t do that one on principle,” a CleanFlicks editor says. Just as the monkey at the typewriter will sooner or later write Hamlet, so in the infinite diversity of human experience, once in a great while homophobia is going to be good news for homosexuals.

 

CLEANFLIX

Sun/15-Tues/17, 7 and 9 p.m. (also Sun/15, 2 p.m.)

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

1...252627...58Page 26 of 58

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org