Documentary

Murder, he filmed

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Murder, he filmed

arts@sfbg.com

Get your shit peeled/ Check the murder rate, the shit’s real. —Eddi Projex, "Straight from Oakland"

MUSIC/FILM I first met Pretty Black, a member of Yukmouth’s Regime crew, in 2005 at the Mekanix’ studio in Oakland. He arrived with Husalah of the Mob Figaz to record. Goofing off, Hus urged me to get on the song, so I recorded an intro in mangled French, dubbing the pair "les hommes mobs." Black loved the pronunciation (moeb) and thus began one of my least likely rap-world friendships.

For even by rap standards, Black was a live wire. The 25-year-old always had a pistol on him, was always ready to fight, and, with his Range Rover and Lamborghini, clearly made his money off the street, though I didn’t inquire how. He was an angry young man, not someone to piss off. Yet according to Husalah, he had another side.

"Outside the circle, he seemed like the coldest dude on earth," Hus says. "But inside, you knew he was real compassionate. He provided for his niggas. And if you needed something, he was very resourceful."

"Plus," he adds, "if someone tried to fuck with you, he already knocked ’em out before you could even react."

Born in Chicago, Black was christened Ayoola Matthew Odumuyiwa by his Nigerian immigrant parents. When he first came to the Bay, he was known as Verstyle, but soon adopted the more in your face Pretty Black, a pun on the pimp sense of "pretty" (a "gorgeous" man) and his very dark skin. Like albino Jamaican rapper Yellowman, Black transformed a perceived negative — his color placing him on the lowest rung of our country’s caste system — into a defiant positive.

In 2008, on my birthday, May 25 (not, as sometimes reported, on May 30), Black was shot to death at an apartment complex where his relatives lived, a planned assassination. In other words, not random violence or robbery. Except for the killers, no one knows why. I was shocked because, while I could imagine someone wanting to kill him, I’d never known a murder victim. It’s like a candle flame being blown out: one second, fully here; the next, gone. I recalled, too, the last time I’d seen him, at a show featuring the Jacka. As we were catching up, he said, apropos of nothing, "Remember when we met and recorded that song? That was cool. Le moeb!" While ordinary at the time, this circling back to the night we met took on a retrospective uncanniness, as did one of his last songs, also recorded with the Mekanix, on which Black, playing both parts of a phone call, tells himself, "Don’t go outside, nigga. They’re trying to kill you."

BACK TO BLACK


I’ve been thinking about Black lately, in large part due to Land of the Homicide: The Murders in Oakland, CA (HookerBoyFilmz/HBO), a documentary DVD by Oakland filmmaker Dame Hooker. Brought into the game by veteran director Kevin Epps and multimedia journalist JR, Hooker has manned the cameras since 2001, releasing his first DVD, an overview of the local rap scene called The Bay Got Game (HookerBoy), in 2006. He’s also notched artist-oriented flicks like Mistah FAB’s Prince of the Bay (HookerBoy/InYoFace, 2007), among numerous other projects. Camera on shoulder, he’s a ubiquitous presence at any significant function, constantly accumulating footage of anything from a performance to a sideshow to an ass-whupping in high definition.

"I had a camera, but I was just shooting around the hood," Hooker recalls. "I didn’t know how to edit or anything. But FAB, Stalin, Shady Nate — I watched those dudes grow up. I started going to all their shows and they wanted the footage, so I learned how to edit just by watching TV or watching somebody else. Current TV on HBO showed me a lot about how to put it in a format."

Indeed, he nailed the format so well that Current TV licensed some of his footage and hired him and Epps to make content for the program’s Web site, which proved to be the genesis of the Land of the Homicide project.

"We did a pod, a little five-minute segment for Current TV," Hooker says. "It was called Popped in Oakland. I went around to my friends and was like, tell me how you got shot, and they was showing their wounds. HBO wanted me to extend it, and I was doing that already."

Some of the wounds are pretty grisly. One man pulls up a sleeve to display an arm that got sprayed with an AK. The arm is functional but it looks like a tree root, all twisted and gnarled, a permanent symbol of the gun problem in Oakland — which frequently leads the nation in homicides — not to say the entire country. Hooker himself hasn’t been immune to the violence. He shows me some of his own wounds.

"You got to know how to maneuver around here," he says grimly. "You can get shot just by looking at someone wrong. I got shot five times. Somebody thought I looked at them funny. I didn’t have no money on me or nothing."

RANDOM TARGETS


As Hooker’s own story suggests, Oakland’s gun violence often has a random quality to it. People get shot, sometimes killed, by mistake, in addition to intended victims like Pretty Black. One of the more notorious accidental murders was Jesse "Plan Bee" Hall, founder of the classic 1990s crew Hobo Junction, who was shot in 1992 while sitting next to the intended target. Among the interviewees are Plan Bee’s parents, his sister, and his younger brother, Bobby "Blu-Nose" Hall, as Hooker provides an unflinching look at the family’s devastation and grief. Before the end of the film, however, he winds up returning to the Hall residence as Blu-Nose himself is murdered, seemingly, like his brother, a random target.

"I got a large family. None of my family members have passed away like that," Hooker says. "Except my first cousin — we was real close — and my uncle, [and] two uncles, on my mother’s side. All the rest have been friends, but my friends be like my family."

Ordinarily, Blu-Nose’s death would raise a question like what are the odds of someone speaking on camera about gun violence being killed by gun violence shortly afterward? But this being Oakland, the question is: what are the odds of this occurring three times in quick succession? Because this is exactly what happens with Land of the Homicide, separating it from similarly-themed hood documentaries. Another of the main interviewees, a rapper from the East Oakland’s 70s named Hennessey who had many previous wounds to display, is also murdered. Though I hadn’t heard his music, I’d already begun to hear Hennessey’s name here and there; he’d just signed to Thizz for his first major project shortly before his death, and the contrast between his on-camera gregariousness and the extremely dapper corpse we see at his funeral makes a more emphatic argument against the legality of guns than any commentary could.

Pretty Black is the third victim. Although he didn’t have prior wounds himself, Black bumped into Hooker during the filming and agreed to lend his perspective as someone who knew the street life all too well.

"I was going around getting their opinion about the stuff," Hooker recalls. "Most of them was trying to help people, trying to get their hood right. I don’t know if it was a curse doing the DVD or what, but they all died back to back. It was supposed to be about the lives taken in Oakland, but it turned out to be the people that was interviewed."

I don’t think there’s a word for Hooker’s experience here. Obviously the tragic series of murders gives his DVD an authority and authenticity most documentaries couldn’t buy. But the price is not something he would have willingly paid.

"Land of the Homicide, that’s based on really good friends," he said. "DVDs, those don’t matter when it’s someone you know."

PBS’s Frontline edits out single payer

-
1

Documentary misrepresented advocates as supporters of a public option
4/23/10

Silencing supporters of single-payer, or Medicare for All, is a media staple, but PBS’s Frontline found a new way to do that on the April 13 special Obama’s Deal–by selectively editing an interview with a single-payer advocate and footage of single-payer protesters to make them appear to be activists for a public option instead.

The public option proposal would have offered a government-run health insurance program to some individuals as an alternative to mandatory private health insurance. Not only is this not the same thing as Medicare for All, it’s an idea many single-payer advocates actually opposed, arguing that it would leave the insurance industry intact as dominant players in the healthcare business (PNHP.org, 7/20/09).

In the report, Frontline explained that insurance industry lobbyists pushed a bill in the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D.-Montana) “that would include the mandate to buy insurance and kill the public option.” That “didn’t sit well with the president’s liberal supporters,” the Frontline narrator told viewers. After a clip from public-option supporter Howard Dean, a full minute and a half focused on protests: “The left counterattacked in May…. Liberal outrage arrived in Baucus’ own hearing room as healthcare activists, one after another, shouted him down.” Several of these protesters are seen in action, with a clip of an interview with Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) saying that these were members of her group shut out of the hearings.

Now, Flowers and PNHP are leading single-payer advocates–but you’d never learn that from watching the Frontline program, which never mentions the single-payer concept. Instead, viewers were left to assume that Flowers and the protesters were public-option proponents, since that was the only progressive proposal that had been discussed. As Flowers explained (Consortium News, 4/15/10):

When the host, Mr. [Michael] Kirk, interviewed me for Obama’s Deal, we spoke extensively of the single-payer movement and my arrest with other single-payer advocates in the Senate Finance Committee last May. However, our action in Senate Finance was then misidentified as “those on the left” who led a “counterattack” because of “liberal outrage” at being excluded.

Viewers saw more footage of protesters being handcuffed and led away, with an unidentified voiceover from Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! describing the arrests, and finally a voice was heard saying: “This option cannot be part of the discussion at a Senate hearing? Now, I think that’s wrong.”

The audience could only conclude that “this option” referred to the public option, but this conclusion would be incorrect; this voice was actually MSNBC host Ed Schultz, a single-payer supporter, and a fuller version of his quote (5/7/09) would have made it clear that he was complaining about single-payer being excluded from the hearing:

Now, let me explain single-payer for just a minute. The money comes from one source, the government. Now, you and I pay taxes, OK. The government pays the bill. It’s that simple. Patients are not caught in the middle between doctors and insurance companies, no game-playing here. There’s no middleman. You know? There’s no decision-makers between you and your doctor. It’s a clean deal.

So what Chairman Baucus has decided, this option cannot be part of the discussion at a Senate hearing? Now, I think that’s wrong. I don’t think it’s fair.

Frontline’s editors responded to Flowers’ complaints, saying that they “understand the frustration of Dr. Flowers and others in what she calls the ‘single-payer movement,'” but that “it’s the work of journalism to report widely on a topic, then find the sharpest focus for the reporting, unfortunately leaving out much strong material along the way to shaping the clearest communication possible in the time or space allowed.”

The statement also argued that

the section that included Dr. Flowers was focused on the power of the insurance lobby and showed how activists like Dr. Flowers were excluded from the debate over the bill. The protesters themselves said they were protesting the fact that they had been excluded from the debate, so we believe we presented the protests in the proper context.

But in Frontline’s presentation, “activists like Dr. Flowers”–that is, single-payer advocates–didn’t even exist. Having itself excluded their perspective from the debate–and even misrepresented them as supporters of a position that many of them actually oppose–there’s some irony in Frontline claiming to have put this exclusion in the “proper context.”

This is not the first time that Frontline has decided that a conversation about healthcare reform should exclude single-payer (FAIR Action Alert, 4/7/09). The March 31, 2009, Frontline special Sick Around America avoided discussions of national healthcare plans. This omission led Frontline correspondent T.R. Reid–who had hosted a previous Frontline special (4/15/08) that examined various public healthcare models–to withdraw from the project.
When Frontline pushed single-payer out of the debate last year, PBS ombud Michael Getler (4/10/09) weighed in on the side of critics, calling it a “missed opportunity.” Getler today (4/23/10) published a column about the latest Frontline omissions, once again finding that ignoring a popular policy like single-payer is problematic:

It seems to me that to ignore something that was out there and popular with millions of people and thousands of healthcare professionals, but not really on the table, was a mistake. Although obviously tight on time, the producers should have found 30 seconds to take this into account, because many Americans support it, yet the deal makers never mention it, nor is the politics of discarding it addressed.

We’re thankful that Getler has once again taken this view and encouraged a more inclusive discussion of healthcare on PBS. However, his criticism misses the critical journalistic fact that single-payer advocates were not only marginalized by Frontline–they were misrepresented.

ACTION:
Tell Frontline that their recent program Obama’s Deal should have accurately explained the views of single-payer advocates.

CONTACT:
Frontline
frontline@pbs.org

You may also want to write to PBS ombud Michael Getler (ombudsman@pbs.org).

    
TAKE ACTION!

ACTION:

Tell Frontline that their recent program Obama’s Deal should have accurately explained the views of single-payer advocates.

CONTACT:
Frontline
frontline@pbs.org

The Daily Blurgh: Is that an Archie in your pants, Banksy?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
The Daily Blurgh: Is that an Archie in your pants, Banksy?

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

Gay! Archie gets a gay (as opposed to “Archie is a gay,” a fantasy you can live out through this NSFW-ish Choose-Your-Own Adventure wiki). Lesbian lawyers defend “not gay enough” softball players. Texas doesn’t want to let gays divorce. And Jet Blue goes pink.

******

He’s not here: Banksy tags SF.

*****

“People are terrified of drugs. Drugs are linked to inner cities and crime – not mystical states. But with diligent and serious science, we can learn about all the wonderful ways that these compounds can help a stressed and troubled species.” Dropping therapeutic acid in San Jose.

******

Have you parked your keester in one of the city’s “parklets” yet? It’s lovely outside right now. Go! Editor’s recommendation: Totally hot biker parklet action at Mojo.

*****

If that constant hacking cough wasn’t enough of a warning about air pollution, you can always rely on your phone to tell you.

*****

“It refers to the sex act conducted in front of the Eucharist involving myself, as the role of Adam, and a female follower, who plays the role of Eve by her own free will. The Lord does not wish for anybody else to engage in this ritual. I was inspired to perform this ritual because I believed that there was no other way to prove Mr. Little Pebble’s innocence and the wrongful convictions of sexual assault made against him. Just a few days ago, God sent me a message saying that the woman who sued Mr. Little Pebble will confess that it was all a lie.” And there’s a whole lot more WTF where that came from.

*******

SFFD disaster drill mannequins: now more “P.C.” thanks to pants.

*****

Heads up: Remembering Playland, the full length documentary that tells the history of San Francisco’s famous 10-acre seaside amusement park, Playland at the Beach, starts a week-long run at the Balboa Theater tomorrow night.

Big kids appreciating little movies — “Celestial Navigations” explores the work of Al Jarnow

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Big kids appreciating little movies — “Celestial Navigations” explores the work of Al Jarnow

It was science disguised by fun, flashy animation, and people everywhere ate that stuff up like it was a bowl of chocolate-covered bran. Filmmaker Al Jarnow is a dude who managed to make learning fun on Sesame Street and far more intersting than the overbearing bird and crabby monster in a can. Most people had no idea who was creating the incredible shorts that appeared on that show, but if you were a kid or parented one in the past 50 years, you’re bound to recognize his work. And now with an escavation of over 45 films, Celestial Navigations — playing Thurs/22 at Red Vic Movie House — brings Jarnow’s magic back for some instant reminiscing.

Colors flashed, stop motion and time-lapse techniques mystified, and simple, beautiful cartoons turned every day objects and topics into a beautiful experiment gone right. Jarnow’s films played for years and expanded minds in the wee morning hours prior to the school bell’s ring and the punch of the time card. Jarnow educated through psychadelic hypnosis, the eyes of eager audiences glazed over while the fast-paced, brightly-colored animations whizzed across the television screen. I was an ’80s tyke who rolled out of bed excited to watch Sesame Street’s “cool” movies (and Kermit, of course) and when I found them years later on You Tube, the situation is nearly identical: bowl of cereal, blanket, couch and eyes glued to the flashing screen.

Celestial Navigations is the Numero Group‘s first foray into the world of cinema and they’ve collected, color corrected and remastered a flashy bunch of classic Jarnow. The film also includes a 30-minute documentary on Jarnow’s creative process, which I’m hoping boils down his steps in a 3-2-1 Contact Style.

 

Celestial Navigations: The Short Films of Al Jarnow

Thurs/22, 7:15pm, 9:30pm, $6-9

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

 

Live on screen

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Live on screen

johnny@sfbg.com

SFIFF All those with curious minds, step right up, we have live cinema waiting for you in this dark room. The idea of “live” or performance-generated movies has taken on a new vitality recently via the light-projecting likes of Bruce McClure, whose ear-splitting and eye-blasting appearances in San Francisco usually sell out. On a smaller local level, Konrad Steiner’s neo-benshi programs have united local writers and a wide variety of filmic subject matter in creative and sometimes entertaining ways. At the San Francisco Film Festival, live music by bands for silent works has become a reliable main attraction. But Sam Green’s and Dave Cerf’s new meta-documentary Utopia in Four Movements adds a new facet to the phenomenon: instead of utilizing an over-familiar voice-over, it unites live narration by Green with a musical performance overseen by Cerf, allowing for degrees of spontaneity and change.

Utopian, isn’t it? At the Mission bar the Phone Booth on an early Monday evening, Green can’t help but tease out his thoughts on the very word. “To me, utopia is almost a metaphor for hope, or hope in the imagination,” he says, shortly after we’ve been flirted with (and flashed) by one fierce female patron. “It’s about trying to be hopeful these days, which is hard. Utopia is almost a way to make up hope. In some ways it’s so preposterous. The word even has negative connotations these days — people are told not to be utopian.” Half an hour later, he returns for another analogy or two: “Utopia is a thing that never really exists. It’s like a flower — it always wilts. Even if there’s a moment of great utopian energy, it can’t last.”

Utopia may not exist in fully realized forms, but the quartet of mutations in Utopia in Four Movements (five if you count the movie) fascinate as real-life fables. The first segment explores Esperanto, which was invented in the late 19th century with the aim of its becoming a universal, international language. As Green puts it, Esperanto is “a wonderful idea that can’t be,” an idea that he illustrates with short direct portraits of contemporary Esperanto speakers that, uncannily, takes on a colors-of-Benneton feel.

Esperanto has also yielded some memorable black-and-white cinema, namely a 1965 Esperanto horror film shot in Big Sur by Conrad Hall, which stars a pre-Star Trek William Shatner. San Francisco movie maniacs may recognize Incubus through the efforts of Will The Thrill and Other Cinema’s Craig Baldwin. “William Shatner wrote a memoir in which he talks about it,” Green says, before adding some information that reflects Utopia‘s ever-changing nature –and utopia’s pitfalls. “I’m trying to do an interview with him because he’s practically the most famous person to have spoken Esperanto. But the world’s most famous Esperanto person is probably [financier] George Soros.”

The idea of utopia isn’t new to Green, whose best-known feature The Weather Underground (2002) digs deep into the multi-faceted realm of ’60s radicalism, riding out its actions and repercussions. The second part of Utopia, set in Cuba, adds a new chapter to Green’s explorations of thorny political contradiction. Like Assata Shakur, the segment’s subject lives in Cuba as a fugitive. In the present, she’s engaged with Cuban hip-hop, but she remains tied to her past as a radical in America. “It’s about the last embers of revolution,” says Green.

One of Utopia‘s movements examines the potential of forensice science in a manner quite different from pro-law enforcement US true crime television, showing how the smallest reinforcement can be regained from sites of mass tragedy. But the movie’s sojourn in China is in some ways its most vivid. There, Green takes an extended trip to the world’s largest shopping mall, in China. The subject matter is akin to dramas such as Jem Cohen’s Chain and Jia Zhangke’s The World (both from 2004), but this is a case of reality trumping fiction. “Almost every article I read about China and capitalism talked about how the world’s largest mall was there now,” says Green. “But nobody described it as a total failure. We were at the mall for ten days, and it was soul-killing. There’s something about a gigantic failed mall that is profoundly depressing.” Luckily, an encounter with a Teletubby who eventually removed its mask added some life to the experience.

The world’s largest shopping mall — at least for now: Green says it is slated to be bulldozed — may be grim, but it’s also richly symbolic when history is integrated to the picture. “Victor Gruen who essentially invented the [shopping] mall in the US in the 1950s was a socialist who came to America,” Green says, as “This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven” gives way to “I Feel Love” on the Phone Booth jukebox. “In turn the mall has gone to China, and the grounds of cultural revolution became the site of a government-funded bust of a mall. In a way, it’s the trajectory of the 20th century.“

Today, we tiptoe into the 21st century, with a new president and old-new ways of seeing and making movies. “A year ago, when I was looking at [Utopia], people were saying ‘Aren’t you going to change everything because of Obama?’,” Green remarks. “It felt like cotton candy hope. When [U.S. presidents] are the limits of your possibility, it’s pretty lame.” Truth: Green may have used utopia in his title, but perhaps it’s time to come up with some fresh formulations of hope as well. *

UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS

Sun/25, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki

Not fade away

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Not fade away

arts@sfbg.com

SFIFF Returns are dangerous. The story of Lot’s wife tells us that looking back is enough to be compromised. In cinema, the figure of return can stretch the basic spatiotemporal properties like so much silly putty. Take the two San Francisco International Film Festival speculative nonfictions that allow archival footage to overflow its conventional containers: 14-18: The Noise and the Fury, an epic reexamination of World War I narrated by a fictional French soldier, and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno, Serge Bromberg’s dogged excavation of the eponymous French director’s famously unrealized film. Then there’s Claire Denis’ return to Africa (White Material), a Chinese documentary portrait of a family’s fraught journey home (Last Train Home), and American filmmaker Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us, a double return (the story of a Black Panther’s homecoming to his troubled neighborhood and a reconstruction of 1970s Philadelphia).

The cliché that “you can never go home again” is made freshly acute in Kamal Aljafari’s Port of Memory, a melancholic study of the Palestinian community of Jaffa where Aljafari is from. The film reminds me of The Exiles (1961) in its urban-fragmentary scenario, well-portioned running time, and lovingly quotidian portrait of a marginalized group. Port of Memory doesn’t announce that the fretful middle-aged woman who goes through the motions of housekeeping and caretaking is Aljafari’s mother and the man who wanders Jaffa’s crumbling streets his uncle — we’re left to piece together these intimate views on our own. As a narrator, Aljafari is discreet but hardly complacent: he intercuts establishing shots of his uncle’s promenades with footage from old Israeli and American films (for example, the 1986 Chuck Norris vehicle, Delta Force) that use the same streets for dubious spectacles of violence and nationalism. Doubling back on these inadvertent documents of occupation, Port of Memory‘s thin line of fiction has the now off-screen Israelis acting as a gentrifying force.

Like Aljafari’s film, Pedro González-Rubio’s gorgeous Alamar (“to the sea”) is set between landscapes (land and sea) and ways of telling (fiction and documentary). The bare frame of a plot places a young boy with his father and grandfather, Mayan fishermen working the Mexican Caribbean. The sweetness of this idyll is tempered by its provisional bounds: the boy will return to his mother in Rome at the end of his compressed experience of a father’s love. Every shot is earned: there are several in which the camera bucks with the boat, physically linked to the actors’ experience. The child is at an age of discovery, and González-Rubio channels this openness by fixing on the details of the fisher’s elegant way of life and the environmental contingencies of their home at sea.

The same well of patrimony and nature has been poisoned in Vimukthi Jayasundara’s surreal fable of destruction, Between Two Worlds. In this mythopoetic work, Sri Lanka’s 30-year civil war ravages on in screaming city streets and darkened forest visions. We first see the film’s central figure — a nameless wanderer resembling many other “chosen ones” — in a death pose, splayed on the beach with crabs crawling over him. Two fishermen trade variations of the story of a prince destined to survive great bloodshed to kill his powerful uncles, and several forest dwellers seem to think our protagonist is the man. The slipperiness of Between Two Worlds‘ reality, in which visions are liable to be doubled or outright contradicted, evokes both the shifting ground of trauma and different rules of oral storytelling. In its best moments, the film put me in the mood of Jeff Wall and Raúl Ruiz; in its least, a slow-motion Lost. But Between Two Worlds amply demonstrates that returning is not always a matter of volition: such is fate and endless war.

Top pic picks

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Top pic picks

The White Meadows (Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran, 2009) This latest by the recently jailed Iranian director of Iron Island (2005) is a stark, visually striking allegory whose natural settings (the salt formations of Lake Urmia) could hardly be more surreal. Aging Rahmat (Hasan Pourshirazi) rows his little boat from one tiny island community to another, collecting tears from variably aggrieved locals so they can be absolved of their sins — just how, neither they or we know. During his latest travels he gains a teenaged stowaway, then a blind-struck painter as passengers; witnesses a couple of village rituals that prove fatal for their main participants; and experiences other curious events that scarcely prompt a raised eyebrow from him. As with so much modern Iranian cinema, Mohammad Rasoulof’s film carefully renders its political symbolism so abstract you can dig endlessly for hidden meanings, or simply lose yourself in the hypnotic black-and-white-in-color imagery of black-clad people on bleached landscapes. Fri/23, 6:30 p.m., Kabuki; Sat/24, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki; Sun/25, 8 p.m., PFA. (Dennis Harvey)

Nymph (Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Thailand, 2009) Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Girl cheats on boy with boss. Boy falls in love with tree. So are the broad strokes of Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s jungle-horror, Nymph, a city-to-country romance that deftly weaves strands of urban anomie, sexual dysfunction, and rural mythos into a dreamy, arboreal fantasia. One might be tempted to reference Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009) and fellow Thai helmer Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2004 breakout, Tropical Malady, as obvious points of reference, but that would derogate the potency and intensity of Ratanaruang’s singular, artistic design. The director of Last Life in the Universe (2003) and Ploy (2007) creates a tropical mise-en-scène that is less cinematic than immersive, developed largely by his use of tight, suspenseful close-ups, fluid camera work (including a 10-minute opening sequence that is practically gymnastic), and a transfixing ambient score. But unlike Tropical Malady, which leveraged much of its second-half’s novelty from overwrought, homoerotic tropes and a condescending nativism, Nymph‘s descent into the jungle is only the beginning of this powerful love story. Fri/23, 9 p.m., Kabuki; Sat/24, 4:30 p.m., Kabuki; April 28, 4:45 p.m., Kabuki. (Erik Morse)

Around a Small Mountain (Jacques Rivette, France/Italy, 2009) Around a Small Mountain (or 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup) is New Wave doyen Jacques Rivette’s return to the whimsy of 1984’s Love on the Ground, another exploration of theater staring eternal demoiselle Jane Birkin. In Mountain, Birkin plays Kate, a prodigal daughter who has returned to her deceased father’s circus after an unspecified trauma forced her into a 15 year absence. En route she encounters Vittorio (Sergio Castellitto), a peripatetic who instantly discovers in Kate a fellow improviser for his acrobatic feats of conversation. In hopes of learning her secret past, Vittorio follows Kate and her shabby troupe from performance to performance through the tiny towns of the Cevennes. Along the way, Rivette treats his audience to a mish-mash of sideshow sketches, enchanting dialogues and haunting soliloquies, all beneath the magical totem of the big top. The film is spellbinding ode to the theatre of everyday life and the actors who prance in and out of its cirque. Fri/23, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki; Sat/24, 4:15 p.m., Kabuki; April 28, 6:30 p.m., PFA. (Morse)

Way of Nature (Nina Hedenius, Sweden, 2008) Save for when Werner Herzog is doing the talking, documentaries about the natural world often benefit from a lack of voiceover narration. Nature’s seasons, cycles, and rhythms provide their own narrative structure, and simply, silently observing what happens can make for fascinating viewing. Nina Hedenius understands this. Her engrossing year-in-the-life portrait of Lisselbäcka Farm in northern Sweden is cut around creatures great and small — horses, cows, goats, chickens, dogs — and their routines. Although humans are part of the bucolic scene Hedenius so meticulously orchestrates (the sound editing is such that the film would be no less immersive if you watched it blindfolded), they are merely supporting actors. After watching, for the fourth time, another gangly offspring leap to its feet, minutes after being born, you start to realize the ways in which our species is quite helpless. If their keepers suddenly passed away, the animals of Lisselbäcka — domesticated though they may be — would probably manage to carry on. The way of nature is instinct, not mastery. Sat/24, 2 p.m., PFA; Sun/25, 3:45 p.m., Kabuki; Mon/26, 1 p.m., Kabuki; April 28, 6:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Matt Sussman)

Between Two Worlds (Vimukthi Jayasundara, Sri Lanka, 2009) Part vision quest, part historical allegory, Vimukthi Jayasundara’s lush and beguiling head-scratcher unfolds like the mutable folktale told between two fishermen in one of the film’s asides. A synopsis would go something like this: an unnamed South Asian man falls from the sky into an unspecified South Asian country (although the Sinhala the actors speak places us in Sri Lanka) under siege by revolutionaries intent on destroying all means of communication and killing any remaining young men. Fleeing a riot-ravaged city he winds up in the countryside where he reconnects with his sister-in-law, and undergoes several mysterious and mystical experiences at a nearby lake. “It’s possible that one can see today what has happened in the past,” cautions an old man to our protagonist, and Jayasundara — with an eye for arresting mise-en-scene, gorgeously photographed by Channa Deshapriya — attempts to offer a way to re-see the traumas of the civil war that ravaged Sri Lanka for over three decades. Like a freshly remembered dream, Between Two Worlds is as stubbornly oblique as it is hard to shake. Sat/24, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki; Sun/25, 9 p.m., Kabuki; Mon/26, 9:15, Kabuki. (Sussman)

Transcending Lynch (Marcos Andrade, Brazil, 2010) Picture it: everyone’s favorite psycho-thriller filmmaker and coffee retailer waxing beatific about peace, love, and “infinite bliss,” his American Spirit–stained teeth frozen in a perma-grin as he extols the virtues of the “unified field” of consciousness. At certain moments in Transcending Lynch, an exploration of infamous auteur David Lynch and his 35-year devotion to transcendental meditation, the director comes across as flakier than the celebrated piecrust at Twin Peaks‘ Double R diner. (At one point he even utters the phrase “Holy jumping George!”) For the irony-soaked, all the TM talk may be a little TMI, but for Lynch the practice is nothing short of the very source of his creative wellspring. Marcos Andrade’s documentary, which follows Lynch on a 2008 Brazilian book tour, won’t offer the mad-genius Eagle Scout’s more rabid followers much new insight. While the movie strives to be meditative, it’s more of an amalgam of trippy travelogue and pitch meeting. Even more frustrating, we get only teasing glimpses of how TM has directly informed and impacted the artist’s work. Lynch may be on the path to universal enlightenment, but when it comes to the man himself, the rest of us ignoramuses are still mostly in the dark. Sat/24, 6:30pm, Kabuki; Mon/26, 9pm, Kabuki; Tues/27, 12:30pm, Kabuki. (Michelle Devereaux)

14-18: The Noise and the Fury (Jean-Françoise Delassus, France/Belgium, 2009) Made for French TV, Jean-Françoise Delassus’ unclassifiable film would be arresting simply for cobbling together seldom-seen archival footage reflecting all aspects of the First World War, from its leaders to its trenches. But he and co-scenarist Isabelle Rabineau have shaped that footage into a narrative driven by the writings of a (fictional) French everyman soldier who somehow manages to survive and serve in most of its major conflicts. The result melds exquisite color tinting, first-person narration, clips from commercial films about the war (by D.W. Griffith and Chaplin as well as European directors), and ambient sound to create a brilliant kind of living history lesson that makes the events of nearly a century ago seem as immediate as yesterday’s. Mon/26, 4:30 p.m., Kabuki; May 1, 2 p.m., Kabuki; May 3, 9 p.m., Kabuki. (Harvey)

The Peddler (Eduardo de la Serna, Lucas Marcheggiano, and Adriana Yurkovich, Argentina, 2009) Daniel Burmeister is a traveling filmmaker. He drives his infirm jalopy from one small Argentine town to the next, hoping to set up camp for a month and make a movie with the locals. He’ll need food, a place to stay, and a camera. Whatever camera they can find. Usually the mayors are easy to convince, because Burmeister is essentially a regional attraction, a one-man circus they know about from the neighboring towns. It’s this strange repurposing of the filmmaking experience that makes the documentary so distinctive and special. And just watching the old man hustle from shot to shot with his bashful actors, working efficiently from one of the handful of scripts he’s been cycling through for years, is an absolute pleasure. Directors Eduardo de la Serna, Lucas Marcheggiano, and Adriana Yurcovich capture the jury-rigged process with unobtrusive admiration and an absence of condescension. As I watched it I kept thinking it was like the soul that was missing from Michel Gondry’s 2008 warmed-over DIY manifesto Be Kind Rewind. Mon/26, 6:30 p.m., PFA; May 1, 12:30 p.m., Kabuki; May 4, 6:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Jason Shamai)

Russian Lessons (Olga Konskaya and Andrei Nekrasov, Russia/Norway/Georgia, 2010) I remember watching the news two summers ago and feeling confused by the details of the Russia-Georgia War, the culmination of a dispute over the territory of South Ossetia. There seemed to be a haziness about who started what. Russian Lessons offers Olga Konskaya and Andrei Nekrasov’s version of what happened that summer and indicts Russian and mainstream international news organizations for exactly that failure to present a satisfactory chronology. Konskaya, a theater director and documentary producer, filmed events as they unfolded on the Northern end of the conflict while Nekrasov, a veteran documentarian, filmed in the South. The result is a collection of interviews with residents of recently bombed Georgian towns, confrontations with Russian soldiers, and investigations of still-smoldering battle sites. The filmmakers spend an equal amount of time scrutinizing source footage from the war and its antecedents, exposing how it was used to mislead the international community. It’s a disturbing and persuasive rebuttal to the Putin administration’s official side of the story. April 28, 3:15 p.m., Kabuki; April 29, 12:30 p.m., Kabuki; May 1, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki. (Shamai)

Restrepo (Tim Hetherington and Sabastian Junger, USA, 2010) Starting mid-’07, journalists-filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger spent some 15 months off and on embedded with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, a Taliban stronghold with steep, mountainous terrain that could hardly be more advantageous for snipers. Particularly once a second, even more isolated outpost is built, the soldiers’ days are fraught with tension, whether they’re ordered out into the open on a mission or staying put under frequent fire. Strictly vérité, with no political commentary overt or otherwise, the documentary could be (and has been) faulted for not having enough of a “narrative arc” — as if life often does, particularly under such extreme circumstances. But it’s harrowingly immediate (the filmmakers themselves often have to dive for cover) and revelatory as a glimpse not just of active warfare, but of the near-impossible challenges particular to foreign armed forces trying to make any kind of “progress” in Afghanistan. April 30, 3:45 p.m., Kabuki; May 2, 4:15 p.m., PFA; May 4, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Harvey)

Animal Heart (Séverine Cornamusaz, France/Switzerland, 2009) This first feature by Séverine Cornamusaz has a story that would have fit just as well into the cinema of 1920 — or the literature of Thomas Hardy or George Eliot 50 years earlier. Paul (Olivier Rabourdin) is the gruff owner of family lands in the Swiss Alps, raising livestock whom he treats better than wife Rosine (Camille Japy). When he’s forced to hire a seasonal hired hand in the form of Eusebio (Antonio Bull), the easygoing Spaniard’s concern for ailing Rosine incites not Paul’s compassion but his brute jealousy. This elemental triangle set amid the severe elements of its spectacularly shot setting has a suitably blunt (but not crude) power; it leads not where you might expect but to a hard-won fadeout of audacious intimacy. April 30, 4 p.m., Clay; May 2, 9:15 p.m., Clay; May 3, 6 p.m., Kabuki. (Harvey)

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea, France, 2009) A painstaking craftsman who left nothing to chance, French suspense master Clouzot (1955’s Diabolique, 1953’s The Wages of Fear) decided to push his own envelope a little in 1964. He cast Serge Reggiani as a resort innkeeper who becomes pathologically, paranoically possessive of his gorgeous wife (Romy Schneider). Convincing himself she’s having an affair, he gradually snaps tether — and the film itself would reflect that downward spiral by increasingly illustrating his mental stage in distortive image and sound. Unfortunately, the project also drove Clouzot mad in a way, as his grapplings at a new filmic language ran counter to the kind of creative discipline that normally storyboarded everything within an inch of its life. Shooting endless footage, spending endless money, he finally admitted defeat and abandoned ship. Never completed, the film’s surviving pieces were restored for this absorbing unmaking-of documentary — even if the original clips, daring then but now looking like psychedelic kitsch, suggest Inferno would likely have been no masterpiece but a fascinating, instantly-dated failure. May 2, 1:45 p.m., Kabuki; May 5, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki. (Harvey)

Presumed Guilty (Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith, Mexico, 2009) A fan of true crime TV programming, I all but take for granted that little coda at the end of each episode reminding viewers that the suspects shown are innocent until proven guilty. I sometimes forget that such rights are not the case in all countries, such as in Mexico where the criminal justice system employs a reverse practice requiring the accused to prove themselves innocent. In Presumed Guilty, filmmakers, lawyers, and UC Berkeley students Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete use rarely-seen, up-close footage of the Mexican trial process in their effort to exonerate a young Mexico City street vendor who is falsely accused of murder in 2005. The proceedings, which require the defendant to stand for hours on end and are performed sans jury, is riveting stuff for fans of those A&E true crime shows and is sure to ruffle the feathers of a few sympathetic humanitarians. May 2, 3:30 p.m., Kabuki; May 3, 6:30 p.m., PFA; May 6, 3:15 p.m., Kabuki. (Peter Galvin)

Lebanon (Samuel Maoz, Israel, 2009) “Das Boot in a tank” has been the thumbnail summary of writer-director Samuel Maoz’s film in its festival travels to date, during which it’s picked up various prizes including a Venice Golden Lion. On the first day of Israel’s 1982 invasion (which Maoz fought in), an Israeli army tank with a crew of three fairly green 20-somethings — soon joined by a fourth with even less battle experience — crosses the border, enters a city already halfway reduced to rubble, and promptly gets its inhabitants in the worst possible fix, stranded without backup. Highly visceral and, needless to say, claustrophobic (there are almost no exterior shots), Lebanon may for some echo The Hurt Locker (2009) in its intense focus on physical peril. It also echoes that film’s lack of equally gripping character development. But taken on its own willfully narrow terms, this is a potent exercise in squirmy combat you-are-thereness. May 2, 9 p.m., Kabuki; May 5, 9:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Harvey)

The Day God Walked Away (Philippe van Leeuw, France/Belgium, 2009) Director Philippe Van Leeuw states in the press materials that he made The Day God Walked Away in an attempt to understand how the assassins of the 1994 Rwandan genocide could do what they did and how others could stand by and watch. I walked away from Day with a better understanding of what might draw a person to choose defeatism over an unlikely survival. The film opens as a Tutsi housekeeper (Ruth Nirere) finds herself trapped in her Belgian employers’ house, fearing for her children and surrounded by gun-toting murderers. Light on scripted dialogue and featuring local actors, van Leeuw’s nonintrusive filming lends the film an authentic atmosphere that can be slow but is never boring. In lensing the film’s horrific scenes in a simple and matter-of-fact fashion, he eerily replicates the emotional separation that survivors of the massacre were forced to adopt in order to live. May 3, 6:45 p.m., Clay; May 4, 4 p.m., Kabuki; May 5, 4:15 p.m., Kabuki. (Galvin)

The Practice of the Wild (John J. Healey, USA, 2009) “The way I want to use ‘nature’ is to refer to the whole of the physical universe,” explains the poet Gary Snyder in John J. Healy’s succinct but penetrating documentary on the octogenarian poet, essayist, and environmental activist. Snyder’s expansive definition conjoins the two areas to which he has devoted his life and creative practice to better being at peace with: the terrestrial and the existential. Healey provides the back story — covering Snyder’s farmstead childhood, his discovery of his love for the outdoors, his association with the Beats and later immersion in Zen Buddhism, and his two marriages — told in part through the obligatory scan-and-pan photography and contextual talking heads. The film’s highpoints, however, are the many lively conversations Snyder engages in with his friend and fellow writer Jim Harrison, whose grizzled countenance and chirpy demeanor make him a character in his own right. May 3, 6:45 p.m., Kabuki; May 5, 1:30 p.m., Kabuki. (Sussman)

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, USA, 2010) Whether you’re a fan of its subject or not, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s documentary is an absorbing look at the business of entertainment, a demanding treadmill that fame doesn’t really make any easier. At 75, comedian Rivers has four decades in the spotlight behind her. Yet despite a high Q rating she finds it difficult to get the top-ranked gigs, no matter that as a workaholic who’ll take anything she could scarcely be more available. Funny onstage (and a lot ruder than on TV), she’s very, very focused off-, dismissive of being called a “trailblazer” when she’s still actively competing with those whose women comics trail she blazed for today’s hot TV guest spot or whatever. Anyone seeking a thorough career overview will have to look elsewhere; this vérité year-in-the-life portrait is, like the lady herself, entertainingly and quite fiercely focused on the here-and-now. May 6, 7 p.m., Castro. (Harvey)

THE 53RD SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL runs April 22–May 6 at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post, SF; Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore, SF; Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; and the Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, SF. Tickets (most shows $12.50) are available by calling (925) 866-9559 or by visiting www.sffs.org>.

 

The O word

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
The O word

johnny@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART There is no doubt that “James Castle: A Retrospective” is a treasure trove. On view at the Berkeley Art Museum, this comprehensive gathering of the self-taught artist’s many and varied works would be utterly overwhelming if its many miniature pieces and slight changes of form and approach didn’t encourage a certain freedom on the viewer’s part. In this regard it’s quite different from the recent traveling Joseph Cornell retrospective that had a stay at SFMOMA, where in a single viewing Cornell’s box constructions quickly became exhausting to engage with due to the sheer relentless volume and repetition of the presentation.

Cornell’s name is a charged one to evoke in relation to Castle, because just as one could — though perhaps few writers do — draw comparisons between the artistic themes and tactics of Cornell’s art and the art of Henry Darger, Castle also shares some traits with Cornell (and, in turn, with Darger). In the realm of Castle, it is helpful to flip the script so to speak, and see that whereas Cornell is renowned for his boxes, Castle frequently turned box material — cardboard — into imaginative open space. Of course, a certain invisible wall separates, or separated, the eccentric but successful Cornell from Darger, who toiled in near-absolute obscurity and isolation, and from Castle, a deaf man who created at home in a familial farm environment with little public recognition until late in his life.

Which brings us to the word outsider, ever-present in art-speak during Darger’s 1990s rise to posthumous cult stardom, yet curiously absent from the majority of writing about Castle. To be sure, notions of outsider art far predate Darger, even if he has become its best-known recent representative. Roger Cardinal’s book Outsider Art, first published in the U.S. in 1972, catalogs its definition of the term, with an emphasis on outré words such as madness and primitive, and a focus on violent creative forces such as Adolf Wölfli. With the coronation (however rightful) of Darger, it’s as if outsider art became cuter, with even Darger’s romantic and gender-bent view of little girls discussed in relative terms of endearment. Kid gloves, as it were — since Darger was so thorough an outsider, locked in imagination instead of literal action, he was safe.

No such illegal undercurrent runs through Castle’s work, even if, like Cornell and Darger (and a plethora of artists and other human beings today) he recreates pop images of childhood and innocence. But the measured focus of the meticulous and valuable discourse around Castle’s work — traits shared by Tom Trusky’s biography James Castle: His Life & Art; Jeffrey Wolf’s documentary of the same year, James Castle: Portrait of an Artist; and editor-writer Ann Percy’s monograph for the Castle retrospective — risks the creation of an overtly (perhaps the t should be subtracted from that last word) self-aware viewpoint. The evidence is in the flatness of the titles. If Castle is to claim a rightful place among great American 20th-century artists, here’s to future dialogue about him that allows for the same irreverence and uncensored opinion afforded those who were wined and dined and made megabucks. In addition, he could be spoken of in the same breath as talents as disparate as Darger and Wölfli in a manner that rescues outsider art from shame-based erasure.

The aforementioned o word doesn’t appear until the halfway point of James Castle: A Retrospective, which also rejects the idea of Castle as folk artist. (Interesting, since Darger’s commercial apex has occurred with New York folk museum realms.) Even then, it’s placed within conversational quote marks by the painter Terry Winters. Encouragingly, Winters later flips the notion and mentions “insider” art, a notion that probably is intended in commercial terms, but could just as easily signify those artists whose creative life has an inbuilt insularity. For now, the atmospheric and perhaps emotional darkness of so many of Castle’s soot-and-spit works is in the light, and it would be an honest mistake to view those works as cute. His books, assemblages, and drawings are as complicated as the people they render, and possess as many open doors as the houses or homes they depict. 

JAMES CASTLE: A RETROSPECTIVE

Through Sun/25, $5-$8 (members and children under 12 free)

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft, Berk.

(510)642-0808

Sabar dances for Bay Area art form

Andrew Lam
-
0

When Delina Patrice Brooks got the call to audition for the new movie about the Bay area African dance community, she didn’t have to think twice. “Anything that helps to promote, preserve and expose the beauty of African dance gets an easy “yes” from me,” says the local dancer and artist. She wound up in a supporting role in Sabar, a film which screens at the Museum of the African Diaspora Fri/23, and which highlights an important cultural movement in the Bay. “The film was very reflective of our community,” says Brooks, whose been an advocate of, and participant in, the traditional artistic form for over a decade.
Sabar’s creator and director, Nigerian filmmaker Chike Nwoffiah, initially set out to make a documentary on the local dance scene that captivated him with it’s vibrant sights and sounds. Flush with dance classes and performances, the Bay’s African dance — a form which has a subgenre known as “sabar” — culture is unprecedented in the US.

“African dance is huge in the Bay area,” says Eboni Hawkins, director of see.think.dance, which promotes connections between urban communities, artists and dance productions. “Out of all dance communities in the US, we [in the Bay] are really known for traditional dance.”

After hearing of the social connotations and intense spiritual communion that many African dancers take from their art, Nwoffiah, who at one point commented “my heart was bleeding sabar,” decided that his story could be best told in a dramatic arc.

Check out Sabar‘s trailer

The film he brought forth follows Aisha (played by the talented Bunmi DeRosario, a real life regular in the Bay’s traditional dance scene), a hip hop dancer who comes to sabar, a dance that originally comes from Senegal, more or less by accident. She’s surprised to find that the rhythms of the drums awaken within her some kind of rememberance — or is it destiny? — or excitement lacking in her modern world. She’s swept into the orbit of the dance, and the pattern of her daily life is forever changed.

For advocates of African dance, its not an unbelievable awakening. “There are people that come to dancing late in life, and they find that they become a part of something larger than themselves,” says Hawkins. “This is a really tight community, and it can be very welcoming.”

Watching Sabar, which has been screening across the world since its premiere at the 2009 Pan-African Film & Television Festival in Burkina Faso, you begin to understand the draw of traditional African dance; the bright fabrics, the clacking of cowries mixing with the bottomless reverberations of the djembe drums, the communal nature of multi dancer performances. The movie Sabar was honored with the best feature film and audience choice awards at the Urban Mediamakers Film Festival in Atlanta.

Hawkins calls Sabar a great “introductory point” for those unacquainted with the dance — and Brooks is quick to make the connection for those that like what they see. When asked what she would share with people about the making of the movie, she had an invitation to extend. “For anyone who enjoys moving their body, come dance with us! It’s intimidating at first — absolutely — but it’s invigorating.” She cited the workout potential of the art form, and finished up with an affirmation. “Just like in the film, the drums are captivating and the moves just — they just feel good.”

Fri/23 5 & 7:30 p.m., free with $10 museum admission
Museum of the African Diaspora
685 Mission, SF
(415) 358-7200
www.moadsf.org

The art of play

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
The art of play

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Through the rear window of a nondescript vehicle, three lines of dotted lights stream by in the darkness. The perspective shifts, and you realize you are at the seat of a car, driving through a tortuous tunnel, about to emerge into a skylit, open highway. You’re unsure of your location, or even your destination, but slowly, like a detective story, clues help you piece together some semblance of meaning and purpose. You peer into the rear-view mirror, dive into the road flickering behind you, and let your mind wander beyond that concrete past.

From there, animated filmmaker and multimedia artist Al Jarnow guides you on a hypnotic trip through the interconnected pathways of nature, art, and machinery in Autosong (1976). The dark tunnel returns anew, and the car disappears, unhinging your viewpoint in a disembodied drift. Oceanic tides wash away the whirling road and grids of cubes emerge, twisting in harmony as Jarnow deconstructs the geometrical notions that give form to subjectivity, motion, and space. “In my experimental films I leaned more toward music than a traditional narrative structure,” Jarnow says, calling from his home and studio in Long Island. “Themes build up and then repeat, come back slightly changed and repeat again… like a jazz variation on a theme.”

Brooklyn-born Jarnow found a supportive and inspired community for animated films in New York during the 1970s and ’80s. Trained originally as a painter, he fell into the medium by chance, coaxed by a friend into animating humorist Edward Lear’s offshoot love story The Owl and the Pussycat (1968) with his wife Jill Jarnow’s vibrant paintings. “As we were in the process of making that film, I started doing experiments. And the thrill of seeing something move, and come alive, just woke up a whole new world for me,” Jarnow says. Fascinated with “sculpting in time” more than conventional cartoon plots, Jarnow populated his mesmerizing worlds with an atypical cast of characters and ideas.

Jarnow’s experimental shorts — handcrafted from cell-animation, stop-motion, painting, drawing, and photography — revel in the unending process of exploration and discovery. In left field films like Cubits (1978), Jarnow wields an unlikely power, bringing abstract concepts and formal procedures to life. Ink-drawn geometric shapes dance in rhythm on flashcards like robotic pop-lockers, revealing both operations of motion and a methodical creative process. Yet the logical rigor underpinning Jarnow’s stories feels human and impassioned, saturated with a visceral aura of wonder that is far removed from a scientist’s sterile research lab. Call Jarnow the Carl Sagan of animators (well, a bit more fun than that). “I think art is a form of play,” he says. “It’s a tactile experience of experimenting with the world around you, pushing it this way or that way, and seeing what happens. It’s as much for children as grownups.”

So it’s fitting that Jarnow also brought that playful spirit to bear on educational shorts for PBS’s Sesame Street and 3-2-1 Contact. In his first commercial piece, Yak (1970), the talking beast drops knowledge about the letter y, before running headfirst into the screen and terrifying many an imaginative youngin’ under the sheets (just check the YouTube comments). In Facial Recognition (1978), humans reproduce the computational functions of a dot-matrix printer, thanks to stop-motion magic. And billions of years are reduced to two minutes in the time-lapse of Cosmic Clock (1979), where the lifetime of a boy, a city, and nature all pass through their respective cycles (the last civilization even blasts off into space in a moment’s flash).

Even though Jarnow’s multilayered vision made a lasting impression on a whole generation in heyday of the Children’s Television Workshop, no one knew the author behind the box — and very few had the opportunity to penetrate NYC’s avant-garde animators scene. But earlier this year Jarnow finally got his due. Chicago’s archival imprint Numero Group digitally transferred 45 of Jarnow’s 16mm shorts and compiled them in a handsomely packaged DVD. Celestial Navigations: The Short Films of Al Jarnow includes a 30-minute documentary and 60 pages of liner notes. The title piece, Jarnow’s most explicit scientific voyage, traces the window-light defining his studio walls from equinox to equinox, montaged with heliocentric frames of Stonehenge. It’s stunning — and difficult — but with some patience, you can travel the cosmos with the druids and back again.

The retrospective is hardly exhaustive. “Making art is a way of learning about the world,” Jarnow says. “It’s a way of processing the information coming in through you.” Jarnow hasn’t stopped experimenting with new artistic forays, ceaselessly searching for engaging mediums to provoke and compel. From installing exhibits at San Francisco’s Exploratorium (which set the framework for cofounding the Long Island Children’s Museum) and developing interactive computer software to making ephemeral sculpture on the beach, Jarnow continues to make a playful game, and invoke an animated wonder, of the world.

AL JARNOW: CELESTIAL NAVIGATIONS

Screening and Q&A with Al Jarnow

April 22, 7:15 and 9:30 p.m., $6–$9

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

www.protozone.net/AJ/Jarnow 

 

Way out Middle East

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Way out Middle East

arts@sfbg.com

FILM One frontier in which Israel remains politically left-forward is that of gay rights. Civil marriage, military service, foreign-partner naturalization, and job discrimination issues are all much more progressively legislated than in the U.S. — let alone the rest of the Middle East, where flogging, prison, or even execution punish homosexual "crimes." Nonetheless, as in much of the world today, fundamentalist religious currents endanger progress already made and still being worked toward.

Three out of five films in the "Out in Israel" series at the Roxie deal with strife between gay and Orthodox religious communities. Copresented by San Francisco’s Jewish Film Festival, they’re all part of a larger lineup of April events assembled by the Israeli Consulate in honor of Israel’s Gay Pride Month.

The oldest feature here is from 1992, though it feels like 1972 — Amos Guttman’s 16mm-shot Amazing Grace has the technical simplicity and variably professional acting of early gay-themed movies from just about any nation, whatever their era. And like most such, it’s a downer in which everyone is depressed, isolated, and broke. Young Jonathan (Gal Hoyberger) is fed up, especially with his quarrelsome family and slutty ex-boyfriend, when he meets handsome new neighbor Thomas (Sharon Alexander). Unfortunately the New York City-returned older musician is more interested in using drugs than love to drown his HIV-positive self-pity.

Israel’s gay cinema pioneer, Guttman died of AIDS the following year at age 38 without achieving anything like the popular success that greeted Eytan Fox a decade later. Fox’s 2002 international breakthrough Yossi and Jagger, originally made for local TV, stars Ohad Knoller and Yehuda Levi as IDF officers stationed in a mountain bunker on the Lebanon border. They’re carrying on a giddy affair almost no one knows about till tragedy intervenes. But Avner Bernheimer’s astute screenplay is still only half done: the rest of Fox’s finest effort to date finds closeted grief exacerbated by psychological theft and stinging injustice.

Moving from secular to religious conflict, the remaining "Out in Israel" features focus on clashes with those who view homosexuality’s mere existence as an affront to God. Nitzan Giladi’s documentary Jerusalem Is Proud to Present (2007) opens with Jewish, Muslim, and Christian clerics — united at last — condemning the city’s planned hosting of the 2006 International World Pride Parade as "nothing less than the attempted spiritual rape of this holy city." Violent rioting by Orthodox sects, death threats to gay leaders, and more attempts to shut down the event before it happens, succeeding somewhat yet also prompting righteous obstinacy from the LGBT community. One can laugh queasily at the grandmotherly type who claims HIV infection will jump 300 percent because those gays "just grab people" for their "orgies." But you’ll want to sucker-punch the loudmouthed Brooklyn rabbi who flies in just to spew his smirking homophobia.

Two recent features illustrate the impasse between homosexuality and ultra-Orthodox values in intimate dramatic terms. Haim Tabakman’s debut feature, 2009’s Eyes Wide Open (the only series program with a ticket charge; all others are free), watches trouble brew when a kosher butcher (Zohar Shtrauss) grows dangerously fond of the alluring new assistant Ezri (Ran Danker), whose reputation as a "curse to righteous men" precedes him. While borderline mannered in its minimalist dialogue and direction, the film packs a potent
punch.

Contrastingly not at all interested in restraint is Avi Nesher’s The Secrets (2007), about two girls (Ania Bukstein, Michal Shtamler) discovering Sapphic love at a women’s seminary. They also embark on a secret program of ritual cleansings for a prison-released French murderess (Fanny Ardant, atypically hammy) dying of both cancer and heart disease. It’s too bad the series’ sole lesbian feature is so melodramatically over the top. Then again, it’s probably pretty tasteful by the standards of a director previously associated with schlock like 2000’s Raw Nerve (Mario Van Peebles meets Nicollette Sheridan!) and 2001’s Tales from the Crypt Presents: Voodoo.

OUT IN ISRAEL

April 8–29, free–$8

Roxie

3117 16th St, SF

Film listings

David Talbot
-
0

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

OPENING

After.Life Christina Ricci plays a girl who may or may not have died in a car accident; Liam Neeson plays a creepy funeral director who may or may not know the truth. (runtime not available)

Date Night Don’t you kinda wish Steve Carell and Tina Fey were married IRL? (1:27) Presidio.

The Greatest Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon play a couple dealing with the death of their oldest son — and the sudden appearance of a girl (Carey Mulligan) claiming to be pregnant with their grandson. (1:36) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

2012: Time for Change Author and outspoken advocate of using psychedelics to commune with spirits, Daniel Pinchbeck hosts this flimsy documentary about his search for a means to end contemporary culture’s addiction to consumerism and apathy. It has little to do with the prophetic year of the title. Instead, Pinchbeck’s thesis is that the year should represent a turning point in a society that is shirking its responsibility for its abuse of the earth and its people. I think we can all agree that contemporary culture is a tad self-indulgent, but Pinchbeck devalues his argument by spending an enormous amount of film time hyping psychedelic experiences and yoga as the answer to these issues. Lacking on-screen charisma himself, Pinchbeck turns to celebrity star power to punch things up. Notable are a sit-down with Sting who recounts an ayahuasca experience, David Lynch explaining transcendental meditation, and a talk with Ellen Page on the value of "shoveling goat shit." The film is so rambling and unfocused that by its end I wasn’t sold on any of its points. I knew 2012 just wouldn’t be the same without John Cusack. (1:25) Lumiere. (Galvin)

The Warlords No doubt following the lead of John Woo’s Red Cliff (2008), this three-year-old Chinese epic is not quite as epic, but definitely worth a watch. It’s set during the Taiping Rebellion of the 1860s; Jet Li is joined by Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro as he leads a force of Qing rebels. The intricacies of Chinese history are initially daunting, but thankfully the film’s true themes of brotherhood and betrayal are pretty universal. Though director Peter Chan is not known for his action films, The Warlords‘ battlefield sequences are plenty fun. Unfortunately, the non-combat stuff — i.e., anytime Chan appears interested in playing up the emotional drama between his three leads — are the least developed aspects of the film. It’s possible that certain sequences were more fleshed out in the film’s original cut (the "international" version is shortened by 15 minutes) but by skimping on important character moments, The Warlords feels incredibly lopsided. (1:50) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Galvin)

When You’re Strange Johnny Depp narrates Tom DiCillo’s Doors documentary. (1:30)

ONGOING

Ajami You may recognize the title of Yaron Shoni and Scandar Copti’s debut collaboration as one of five films nominated for a 2010 Academy Award in the Foreign Category. Though it didn’t bring home the grand prize, Ajami remains a complex and affecting story about desperation and its consequences in a religiously-mixed town in Israel. As we follow the lives of four of Ajami’s residents the narrative shifts perspective almost maddeningly, switching characters seemingly at the height of each story’s action. But once all of the stories fully intersect, the final product has the distinction of feeling both meticulously calculated and completely natural. I was most impressed to learn that Shani and Copti prepared their actors with improvised role-playing rather than scripts. By withholding what was going to happen in a scene before shooting, we are treated to looks of surprise and emotion on actor’s faces that never feel unnatural. Attaining such a level of realism may be Ajami‘s crowning achievement; it can’t have been easy to make a foreign world feel so familiar. (2:00) Elmwood. (Galvin)

Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton’s take on the classic children’s tale met my mediocre expectations exactly, given its months of pre-release hype (in the film world, fashion magazines, and even Sephora, for the love of brightly-colored eyeshadows). Most folks over a certain age will already know the story, and much of the dialogue, before the lights go down and the 3-D glasses go on; it’s up to Burton and his all-star cast (including numerous big-name actors providing voices for animated characters) to make the tale seem newly enthralling. The visuals are nearly as striking as the CG, with Helena Bonham Carter’s big-headed Red Queen a particularly marvelous human-computer creation. But Wonderland suffers from the style-over-substance dilemma that’s plagued Burton before; all that spooky-pretty whimsy can’t disguise the film’s fairly tepid script. Teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska) displaying girl-power tendencies is a nice, if not surprising, touch, but Johnny Depp’s grating take on the Mad Hatter will please only those who were able to stomach his interpretation of Willy Wonka. (1:48) Cerrito, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Breath Made Visible Ruedi Gerber’s documentary throws a sympathetic and fascinating light on the work of dance pioneer Anna Halprin. Weaving on-camera interviews with former collaborators, family members, and Halprin herself into excerpts from current and past work suggests decades and decades thoughtfully lived by an artist who had the guts to be herself. Again and again the camera returns to the now legendary The Deck, which husband and landscape architect Lawrence Halprin built so she could do her work while their children were growing. One of this film’s loveliest aspects is to see the deck changing just as Halprin does. Wisconsin-raised and East Coast-oriented, her moving to the California of the 1940s had isolated her from mainstream dance influences. But it also had opened vistas — to nature and through nature into herself — that she might not have able to achieve otherwise. The film may be conventionally structured but what emerges is a portrait of an anything but conventional woman, artist and thinker. (1:20) Elmwood, Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Rita Felciano)

The Bounty Hunter There’s a real feeling of impotence in reviewing a movie whose ad was pasted on the side of the bus you took to the screening. This thing is determined to be seen, and that’s a true shame. Those who heed the call of the ubiquitous marketing campaign will have to sit through a dull parade of contrivances concerning a bounty hunter (Gerard Butler) whose latest catch is his court-skipping ex-wife (Jennifer Aniston). She’s a hotshot city journalist who’s forced to continue her investigation of a police cover-up while handcuffed to a car door and bickering with her old flame. The trajectory of the plot is obvious enough, but there’s so little chemistry between the two actors that the inevitable reconciliation practically constitutes a twist ending. Aniston saw fit not to whine her way through this role, which is something, but nothing nearly as complimentary can be said about Butler. He emotes in lurches, with the presence of a guy who’s not sure acting is the right direction for his life but still really wants to give it a go. If "This. Is. Sparta!" weren’t burned into my brain I would swear the man had never been in front of a camera before. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Jason Shamai)

Chloe The theme of undependable narrative surfaces in Atom Egoyan’s newest film, Chloe (a remake of French director Anne Fontaine’s 2003 Nathalie), but here the artifice — of the premise itself — is so hard to move past as to feel at times like a barrier, rather than a passageway into the interior of a handful of lives. We do see interiors, in the beautiful, chilly household of Catherine (Julianne Moore), a Toronto doctor who suspects that her professor husband, David (Liam Neeson), may be cheating on her. And one of the more haunting images in the film is the painful sight of Catherine drifting through their home at night, barred from the rooms where her husband and teenage son (Max Thieriot) carry on their private, unknowable lives.

Why this unbearable situation would lead her to contact Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), a beautiful young call girl she just met, and hire her to engineer an interaction with David to test his fidelity, is not quite clear. Nonetheless, one masochistic transaction leads to another, and in a series of lavish and exquisite settings, we, along with Catherine, are treated to the erotic details of Chloe’s encounters with David, which begin to charge the connection between the two women as well. Moore’s work is as fine as ever, but Egoyan has settled for something here: trying to beguile and seduce us. And in the end, this is more disturbing, and surprising, than the rather sharp turn Chloe makes into the landscape of the erotic thriller, where it takes the shape of an unbelievable story we’ve been told many times before. (1:36) Elmwood, Four Star, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

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

Clash of the Titans The minds behind Clash of the Titans decided their movie should be 3D at the last possible moment before release. Consequently, the 3D is pretty janky. I don’t know what the rest of the film’s excuse is. Clash of the Titans retreads the 1981 cult classic with reasonable faithfulness, though Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects have been (of course) replaced with CG renderings of all the expected monsters, magic, gods, etc. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes — as other reviews have pointed out: Schindler’s List (1993) reunion! — glow and glower as Zeus and Hades, while Sam Worthington (2009’s Avatar) once again fills the role of bland hero, this time as a snooze-worthy Perseus. You might have fun in the moment with Clash of the Titans, but it’s hardly memorable, and certainly nowhere near epic. (1:58) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Crazy Heart "Oh, I love Jeff Bridges!" is the usual response when his name comes up every few years for Best Actor consideration, usually via some underdog movie no one saw, and the realization occurs that he’s never won an Oscar. The oversight is painful because it could be argued that no leading American actor has been more versatile, consistently good, and true to that elusive concept "artistic integrity" than Bridges over the last 40 years. It’s rumored Crazy Heart was slotted for cable or DVD premiere, then thrust into late-year theater release in hopes of attracting Best Actor momentum within a crowded field. Lucky for us, this performance shouldn’t be overlooked. Bridges plays "Bad" Blake, a veteran country star reduced to playing bars with local pickup bands. His slide from grace hasn’t been helped by lingering tastes for smoke and drink, let alone five defunct marriages. He meets Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), freelance journalist, fan, and single mother. They spark; though burnt by prior relationships, she’s reluctant to take seriously a famous drunk twice her age. Can Bad handle even this much responsibility? Meanwhile, he gets his "comeback" break in the semi-humiliating form of opening for Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) — a contemporary country superstar who was once Bad’s backup boy. Tommy offers a belated shot at commercial redemption; Jean offers redemption of the strictly personal kind. There’s nothing too surprising about the ways in which Crazy Heart both follows and finesses formula. You’ve seen this preordained road from wreckage to redemption before. But actor turned first-time director Scott Cooper’s screenplay honors the flies in the windshield inherited from Thomas Cobb’s novel — as does Bridges, needless to say. (1:51) Opera Plaza, Red Vic, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Spoiler alert: nothing happens in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That was OK when it was just a book—author Jeff Kinney’s illustrated novel works due in large part to his whimsical drawings and tongue-in-cheek humor. It’s a kids’ book, but it’s fun for adults, too. The same can’t be said for the film adaptation: Diary of a Wimpy Kid sticks close to its source material without the creativity necessary to make it work on the big screen. As in the book, Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) navigates the treacherous terrain of middle school, struggling to cope with an awkward best friend, a brutal older brother, and parents who just don’t understand. All the actors turn in solid performances — Gordon is a particularly good find. But there’s so little here to work with. The best that can be said about Diary of a Wimpy Kid is that it’s cute and mostly harmless: a pleasant diversion for young’uns, and a tolerable bore for the parents they drag along. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

*The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s never-ending legal woes have inspired endless debates on the interwebs and elsewhere; they also can’t help but add subtext to the 76-year-old’s new film, which is chock full o’ anti-American vibes anyway. It’s also a pretty nifty political thriller about a disgraced former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) who’s hanging out in his Martha’s Vineyard mansion with his whip-smart, bitter wife (Olivia Williams) and Joan Holloway-as-ice-queen assistant (Kim Cattrall), plus an eager young biographer (Ewan McGregor) recently hired to ghost-write his memoirs. But as the writer quickly discovers, the politician’s past contains the kinds of secrets that cause strange cars with tinted windows to appear in one’s rearview mirror when driving along deserted country roads. Polanski’s long been an expert when it comes to escalating tension onscreen; he’s also so good at adding offbeat moments that only seem tossed-off (as when the PM’s groundskeeper attempts to rake leaves amid relentless sea breezes) and making the utmost of his top-notch actors (Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach have small, memorable roles). Though I found The Ghost Writer‘s ZOMG! third-act revelation to be a bit corny, I still didn’t think it detracted from the finely crafted film that led up to it. (1:49) California, Cerrito, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Girl on the Train André Téchiné’s beautifully photographed, ripped-from-the-headlines film explores the events that led a young Parisian girl to lie about being the victim of an anti-semitic attack. Téchiné’s dramatization fails as an account of the incident, but the film manages to evoke a powerfully mysterious tone due largely to two stellar performances, by Émilie Dequenne as the 20-something Jeanne and Catherine Deneuve as her persistent mother. Much of the running time follows Jeanne’s experiences before the fabrication, as she falls for (and moves in with) a young wrestler named Franck, before a tragic event causes Jeanne to invent the famous lie. An arty exploration into the psychology of victimization that happens to be anchored by a real-life event, The Girl on the Train may disappoint those looking for easy answers but is undeniable as a showcase for some outstanding acting. (1:42) Elmwood, Four Star. (Galvin)

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

Green Zone Titled for the heavily-guarded headquarters of international occupation in Baghdad, Green Zone reunites director Paul "Shaky-Cam" Greengrass with star Matt Damon, the two having previously collaborated on the last two Bourne films. Instead of a super-soldier, this time around Damon just plays a supremely insubordinate one as he attempts to uncover the reason why his military unit can’t find any of Saddam’s WMDs. With the aid of the CIA, a Wall Street Journal reporter and a friendly Iraqi, Damon goes rogue in order to suss out the source of the misinformation. The Iraq War action is decent if scarce, but an overindulgence in (you guessed it) shaky-cam and political jargon cannot hide the fact that Green Zone‘s plot is simplistic and probably light on actual facts. Damon makes a fine cowboy-cum-hero, but the effectiveness of the mix of patriotism and Pentagon paranoia will vary based on your penchant for such things. Still, Green Zone moves fast enough that it remains worth a matinee for conspiracy thriller aficionados. (1:55) 1000 Van Ness. (Galvin)

Greenberg Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is 40, and you might think he’s going through a midlife crisis — if he hadn’t been in pretty much this same crisis for 15 years or more. Still very edgy and fragile after a nervous breakdown-sparked institutional stay, he’s holing up at the comfortable Hollywood home of a big-deal brother while the latter and family are on vacation in Vietnam. (The implication being that Roger is most welcome here when no one else actually has to endure his prickly, high maintenance company.) While in residence he reconnects with old friends including the ex-girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) he dumped yet never quite got over — though clearly she did — and the ex-bandmate (Rhys Ifans) he burned by wrecking their one shot at a major-label deal. He also gets involved, kinda-sorta, with big bro’s personal assistant Florence (mumblecore regular Greta Gerwig), whose passivity and low self-esteem make her the rare person who might consider a relationship with someone this impossible. Like all Noah Baumbach films, especially the slightly overrated Squid and the Whale (2005) and vastly underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007), his latest pivots around a pathologically self-absorbed and insensitive protagonist who exasperates anyone unlucky or blind enough to fall into his or her orbit. Working from a story co-conceived by spouse Leigh, Baumbach’s script sports his usual sharp dialogue, penetrating individual scenes, and narrative surprises. But it also gets stuck in dislikable Roger’s rut, finding conflict easily but stubbornly resisting even the smallest useful change. For all its amusing and uncomfortable moments, Greenberg emerges a dual character slice with no real point. Neither Roger or Beth reward long scrutiny (least of all as a hapless potential couple), while the few screen minutes Ifans and Leigh get make you wish their roles had hijacked the focus instead. (1:40) Empire, Piedmont, Shattuck, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*Hot Tub Time Machine How can you hate a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine? Even those who pooh-pooh poop jokes have to admire a movie so unapologetically upfront about its ludicrous storyline. A group of friends who’ve drifted apart (Rob Corddry plays the maybe-suicidal asshole; Craig Robinson, the emasculated never-did-nothing; John Cusack, the recently-dumped workaholic) reunite for a ski weekend at the resort that hosted the most debaucherous party of their youth. Along for the ride, which soon includes a trip back to 1986 courtesy of you-know-which device, is Cusack’s character’s internet-obsessed nephew (Clark Duke), whose terror over leaving the plugged-in 21st century is soon superceded by his realization that any disruption of the past will likely erase his very existence. Hot Tub Time Machine‘s 80s nostalgia (Chevy Chase cameo!) enfolds an homage to the Back to the Future films (Crispin Glover cameo!), as well as Cusack’s early career (see: immortal 1985 ski-slope classic Better Off Dead), but it’s very much a movie of our times. See it now while the Twitter and Tiger jokes are still timely, and before the next R-rated comedy comes along to up the ante on dick jokes. (1:55) California, Marina, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

How to Train Your Dragon (1:38) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness.

The Hurt Locker When the leader of a close-knit U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad is killed in action, his subordinates have barely recovered from the shock when they’re introduced to his replacement. In contrast to his predecessor, Sgt. James (Jeremy Renner) is no standard-procedure-following team player, but a cocky adrenaline junkie who puts himself and others at risk making gonzo gut-instinct decisions in the face of live bombs and insurgent gunfire. This is particularly galling to next-in-command Sanborn (Anthony Mackie). An apolitical war-in-Iraq movie that’s won considerable praise for accuracy so far from vets (scenarist Mark Boal was "embedded" with an EOD unit there for several 2004 weeks), Kathryn Bigelow’s film is arguably you-are-there purist to a fault. While we eventually get to know in the principals, The Hurt Locker is so dominated by its seven lengthy squad-mission setpieces that there’s almost no time or attention left for building character development or a narrative arc. The result is often viscerally intense, yet less impactful than it would have been if we were more emotionally invested. Assured as her technique remains, don’t expect familiar stylistic dazzle from action cult figure Bigelow (1987’s Near Dark, 1989’s Blue Steel, 1991’s Point Break) — this vidcam-era war movie very much hews to the favored current genre approach of pseudo-documentary grainy handheld shaky-cam imagery. (2:11) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

The Last Song Had a hunch that Miley Cyrus’ poor posture at the Oscars couldn’t be chalked up to a too-tight strapless — or worry about a red-carpet wardrobe malfunction? Who knew Cyrus was nursing a method hangover from The Last Song, in which she plays Ronnie Miller, a rebellious piano prodigy acting out against her parents and in particular her music teacher father Steve (Greg Kinnear). Cyrus’ physical contribution to the role is to slouch, sneer, and pout like a pug dog with scoliosis, making her the weakest link, performance-wise, in this latest weeper by America’s favorite sentimentalist, novelist Nicholas Sparks (Dear John, 2004’s The Notebook). Everything here depends on Ronnie’s transformation from sullen teen stuck in a small Southern coastal town for the summer with pops and an adorable younger brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman) — she’s determined to undermine her own talents (though the George Winston-like compositions don’t make you fearful for the loss to music at large) — to a happy and responsible young adult primed to do the right thing (too-good-to-be-true suitor Will, played by Liam Hemsworth, helps her learn to trust). All of which isn’t to say that Cyrus isn’t pretty to look at or without charm (although Coleman steals scenes from her left and right) nor is it her fault that director Julie Anne Robinson succumbs to a Touched by an Angel moment as CGI-generated sun beams pour through a stained-glass window, a mawkish moment that actually elicited giggles from the otherwise smitten crowd of true believers all around me. (1:47) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*The Last Station Most of the buzz around The Last Station has focused on Helen Mirren, who takes the lead as the Countess Sofya, wife of Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer). Mirren is indeed impressive — when is she not? — but there’s more to the film than Sofya’s Oscar-worthy outbursts. The Last Station follows Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), hired as Tolstoy’s personal secretary at the end of the writer’s life. Valentin struggles to reconcile his faith in the anarchist Christian Tolstoyan movement with his sympathy for Sofya and his budding feelings for fellow Tolstoyan Masha (Kerry Condon). For the first hour, The Last Station is charming and very funny. Once Tolstoy and Sofya’s relationship reaches its most volatile, however, the tone shifts toward the serious — a trend that continues as Tolstoy falls ill. After all the lighthearted levity, it’s a bit jarring, but the solid script and accomplished cast pull The Last Station together. Paul Giamatti is especially good as Vladimir Chertkov, who battles against Sofya for control of Tolstoy’s will. You’ll never feel guiltier for putting off War and Peace. (1:52) Shattuck. (Peitzman)

*The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers For many, Daniel Ellsberg is a hero — a savior of American First Amendment rights and one of the most outspoken opponents of the Vietnam war. But as this documentary (recently nominated for an Academy Award) shows, it’s never an an easy decision to take on the U.S. government. Ellsberg himself narrates the film and details his sleepless nights leading up to the leak of the Pentagon Papers — the top secret government study on the Vietnam war — to the public. Though there are few new developments in understanding the particulars of the war or the impact the release of the Papers had on ending the conflict, the film allows audiences to experience the famous case from Ellsberg’s point of view, adding a fresh and poignantly human element to the events; it’s a political documentary that plays more like a character drama. Whether you were there when it happened or new to the story, there is something to be appreciated from this tale of a man who fell out of love with his country and decided to do something about it. (1:34) Red Vic, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

*Mother You can guarantee that a movie titled Mother is not gonna be a love fest, ever. And through the lens of The Host (2006) director-writer Bong Joon-ho, motherly love becomes downright monstrous — though altogether human. Much credit goes to the wonderful lead actress Kim Hye-ja as the titular materfamilias, who’s frantically self-sacrificing, insanely tenacious, quaintly charming, wolfishly fearsome, and wildly guilt-ridden, by turns. On the surface, she’s a sweetly innocuous herbalist and closet acupuncturist — happily, and a wee bit too tightly, tethered to her beloved son Yoon Do-joon (Won Bin). He’s a slow-witted, forgetful, and easily confused mop-top who flies into deadly rages when taunted or called a "’tard." When Do-joon is quickly arrested and charged with the murder of schoolgirl Moon Ah-jung (Mun-hee Na), Mom snaps into action with a panic-stricken, primal ferocity and goes in search of the killer to free her boy. But there’s more to Do-joon, his studly pal Jin-tae (Ku Jin), and Moon Ah-jung than meets the eye, and Mother discovers just how much she’s defined, and twisted, herself in relation to her son. Bong gives this potentially flat and cliched noirish material genuine lyricism, embedding his anti-heroine in a rural South Korean landscape like a penitent wandering in an existential desert, gently echoing filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman and Abbas Kiarostami and beautifully transcending genre. (2:09) Bridge, Shattuck. (Chun)

Our Family Wedding America Ferrera and Lance Gross play a couple of lovebirds who must jump through some serious family hoops before they get married in the mostly serviceable Our Family Wedding. What begins as a dual Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, with the differences in each family’s traditions forcing complications and compromises, soon loses sight of its matrimonial plot as the focus steers towards a childish rivalry between the fathers. While it’s being marketed as a goofy comedy, the final product seeks a relatively sentimental tone, which makes the few slapstick moments — like a goat trying to rape Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker — seem pretty inappropriate. Still, for some audiences the well-tread plot will act as comfort food: they fight, they make up, and it all ends in a big wedding where we watch the characters dance for damn near ten minutes. (1:41) Four Star. (Galvin)

*A Prophet Filmmaker Jacques Audiard has described his new film, A Prophet, as "the anti-Scarface." Yet much like Scarface (1983), A Prophet bottles the heady euphoria that chases the empowerment of the powerless and the rise of the long-shot loner on the margins. In its almost-Dickensian attention to detail, devotion to its own narrative complexity, and passion for cinematic poetry, A Prophet rises above the ordinary and, through the prism of genre, finds its own power. The supremely opportunistic, pragmatically Machiavellian intellectual and spiritual education of a felon is the chief concern of here. Played by Tahar Rahim with guileless, open-faced charisma, Malik is half-Arab and half-Corsican — and distrusted or despised by both camps in the pen. When he lands in jail for his six-year sentence, he’s 19, illiterate, friendless, and vulnerable. His deal with the devil — and means of survival — arrives with Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), temporarily locked up before his testifies against the mob. Corsican boss Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup) wants him dead, and Malik is tagged to penetrate Reyeb’s cell with a blade hidden in mouth. After Malik’s gory rebirth, it turns out that the teenager’s a seer in more ways than one. From his low-dog position, he can eyeball the connections linking the drugs entering the prison to those circulating outside, as well as the machinations intertwining the Arab and Corsican syndicates. It’s no shock that when Cesar finds his power eroding and arranges prison leaves for his multilingual crossover star that Malik serves not only his Corsican master, but also his own interests, and begins to build a drug empire rivaling his teacher’s. Throughout his pupil’s progress, Audiard demonstrates a way with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment, and when Malik finally breaks with his Falstaffian patriarch, it makes your heart skip a beat in a move akin to the title of the director’s last film. This Eurozone/Obama-age prophet is all about the profit — but he’s imbued with grace, even while gaming for ill-gotten gain. (2:29) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Runaways In Floria Sigismondi’s tale of the rise and fall of a 1970s all-girl band, LA producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) proclaims that the Runaways are going to save rock and roll. It’s hard to gauge the sincerity of this pronouncement, but you can certainly hear, in songs like "Cherry Bomb" and "Queens of Noise," how the band must have brightened a landscape overrun by kings of prog rock. Unfortunately, a handful of teenagers micromanaged by a sleazy, abusive nutcase proved not quite up to the task, though the band did launch the careers of metal guitarist Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) and, more famously, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart). Sigismondi’s film entertainingly sketches the Runaways’ beginnings in glam rock fandom and gradual attainment of their own rabid fan base. We get Currie lip-synching Bowie to catcalls at the high school assembly, Jett composing "Cherry Bomb" with Fowley, glamtastic hair-and-wardrobe eye candy, pills-and-Stooges-fueled intra-band fooling around, and five teenage girls sent off sans chaperone on an international tour with substantial quantities of hard drugs in their carry-on luggage. What follows is less pretty: a capsule version of the band’s disintegration after the departure of bottoming-out 16-year-old lead singer Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). In a film darkened by Currie’s trajectory, Jett’s subsequent success is a feel-good coda, but it’s awkwardly attached and emblematizes one of The Runaways‘ main problems. When the band begins to fall apart, the film doesn’t know which way to turn and ends up telling no one’s story well. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Rapoport)

Sakuran Oh the pretty colors! Elaborate headpieces, brightly colored floors and walls, and the silky smoke of the opium pipe steal every scene of this Japanese film about a rebellious girl sold into courtesanship. Anna Tsuchiya brings that same punk-rock attitude that made her such a treat to watch in Kamikaze Girls (2004) to the role of Kiyoha, a young courtesan whose defiant attitude diverts the spotlight from the head orian and sets her whole Edo-era pleasure-house abuzz. Based on a manga series, the story itself feels a little light and cliché if you’ve seen any films set in this period, but Tsuchiya has created a distinct character in Kiyoha who happily feels out of place in 1700s Japan. As captivating as she is, there’s no denying that the costume and set-design are the true stars of Sakuran. (1:41) Viz Cinema (www.newpeopleworld.com). (Galvin)

Secret of Kells The preceding year was such great one for feature animation that the 2010 Oscar category could have been credibly filled twice over. Four nominees were predictable major U.S. studio productions — but the fifth was neither another such, nor one of several terrific if slightly off-the-beaten-path titles like Ponyo, A Town Called Panic, or Sita Sings the Blues. Instead, it was this hitherto barely-seen European co-production vaguely inspired by Irish history and mythology. Orphaned Brendan, raised by stern uncle Cellach (voice of Brendan Gleeson) in a medieval monastery, is intrigued by the vast forest outside its walls (where he’s forbidden to roam) and by a visiting master illuminator’s work on a "magical" book. Though overall this first feature by co-directors Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey might look best on the small screen — its line-drawing character designs are as simple as those in a 60s "Fractured Fairy Tale" — it’s been justifiably praised for some bold color and minimalist design elements. However, Kells is so preoccupied with those abstract backgrounds (which will likely confuse children by bearing little resemblance to the intended locations) that there’s no attention paid toward basic story clarity and involvement. Villains supernatural ("The Dark One") and mortal (Viking invaders) are virtually interchangeable; after 75 minutes you might realize you still have no idea just what the book is, or why it’s so important. Though clearly targeted as an audience, kids are likely to grow bored fast, and so might you. (1:15) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

She’s Out of My League From the co-writers of the abysmal Sex Drive (2008), She’s Out of My League could be another 90-minute assemblage of gross-out humor, dick jokes, and unabashed homophobia. As it turns out, the latest offering from Sean Anders and John Morris is legitimately funny — far better than the trailer (and that half-assed title) would have you believe. The adorkable Jay Baruchel stars as Kirk, a hapless loser who finds himself dating bonafide hottie Molly (Alice Eve). Once you get past the film’s silly conceit — Kirk’s only "movie ugly," and personality goes a long way — you’re left with a surprisingly charming comedy. The characters are amusing and the wit is sharp. Not to mention the fact that She’s Out of My League offers a downright heartfelt message. There’s a sincerity here that feels genuine instead of just tacked-on: yeah, yeah, it’s about what’s inside that counts, but there’s more to it than that. Ignore the dreadful "jizz in my pants" scene, and the movie’s almost an old-fashioned romcom. (1:44) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

Shutter Island Director Martin Scorsese and muse du jour Leonardo DiCaprio draw from oft-filmed novelist Dennis Lehane (2003’s Mystic River, 2007’s Gone Baby Gone) for this B-movie thriller that, sadly, offers few thrills. DiCaprio’s a 1950s U.S. marshal summoned to a misty island that houses a hospital for the criminally insane, overseen by a doctor (Ben Kingsley) who believes in humane, if experimental, therapy techniques. From the get-go we suspect something’s not right with the G-man’s own mind; as he investigates the case of a missing patient, he experiences frequent flashbacks to his World War II service (during which he helped liberate a concentration camp), and has recurring visions of his spooky dead wife (Michelle Williams). Whether or not you fall for Shutter Island‘s twisty game depends on the gullibility of your own mind. Despite high-quality performances and an effective, if overwrought, tone of certain doom, Shutter Island stumbles into a third act that exposes its inherently flawed and frustrating storytelling structure. If only David Lynch had directed Shutter Island — it could’ve been a classic of mindfuckery run amok. Instead, Scorsese’s psychological drama is sapped of any mystery whatsoever by its stubbornly literal conclusion. (2:18) California, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

A Single Man In this adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel, Colin Firth plays George, a middle-aged gay expat Brit and college professor in 1962 Los Angeles. Months after the accidental death of Jim (Matthew Goode), his lover for 16 years, George still feels worse than bereft; simply waking each morning is agony. So on this particular day he has decided to end it all, first going through a series of meticulous preparations and discreet leave-takings that include teaching one last class and having supper with the onetime paramour (Julianne Moore) turned best friend who’s still stuck on him. The main problem with fashion designer turned film director Tom Ford’s first feature is that he directs it like a fashion designer, fussing over surface style and irrelevant detail in a story whose tight focus on one hard, real-world thing — grief — cries for simplicity. Not pretentious overpackaging, which encompasses the way his camera slavers over the excessively pretty likes of Nicholas Hoult as a student and Jon Kortajarena as a hustler, as if they were models selling product rather than characters, or even actors. (In fact Kortajarena is a male supermodel; the shocker is that Hoult is not, though Hugh Grant’s erstwhile About a Boy co-star is so preening here you’d never guess.) Eventually Ford stops showing off so much, and A Single Man is effective to the precise degree it lets good work by Goode, Moore and especially the reliably excellent Firth unfold without too much of his terribly artistic interference. (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*The Sun It may have taken five years for Alexander Sokurov’s The Sun (2005) to reach local theaters, but then the Russian master’s contemplation of Emperor Hirohito’s last days as Godhead is decidedly out of time. Painterly and slow like all Sokurov’s work, the film specifically follows his estranged reconstructions of Hitler’s retreat with Eva Braun (1999’s Moloch) and Lenin’s demise (2000’s Taurus). In August 1945, Hirohito broke with tradition by making a direct appeal to the Japanese people to end military operations; soon thereafter he renounced his divine rights. The Sun‘s elliptical narration intuits the emperor’s paled existence, and Issey Ogata’s lead performance, centering on a fish-out-of-water puckering of the lips, amply conveys the shuttered hours of a man who, in experience if not in fact, is not quite human. The muted use of available light and a disquieting sound design (faraway air-raid sirens yield to the barest brush of a finger) eschew historiography’s harsh glare, instead returning primal scenes of power to a dreamlike state of unknowing. Sokurov’s most hallucinatory effects are reserved for ashen views of firebombed Tokyo which float free from perspective or clear boundary; a brief fantasy in which fish-like warplanes spew apocalyptic destruction suggests the emperor’s childlike imagination and set the stage for his historical date with General MacArthur, realized by Sokurov less as a diplomatic breakthrough than a leaden twilight. (1:50) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Goldberg)

Vincere Given the talent involved, Vincere should be a better film that it is. Director Marco Bellocchio has a lengthy track record of successes, and star Giovanna Mezzogiorno is one of the biggest names in contemporary Italian cinema. The based-on-a-true-story plot is certainly worthy of being filmed: Mezzogiorno plays Ida Dalser, secret wife of Mussolini and mother of the dictator’s first-born son. When Ida begins to make trouble for Il Duce by publicly proclaiming their marriage, she is locked away in a mental hospital. But while Vincere‘s subject is compelling, the film as a whole falls flat. Moments of greatness are few and far between, and the rest of the movie gets by on mediocrity. It’s likely the fault lies with the script, which is too scattered and unfocused to maintain an audience’s focus. Why after almost two hours of watching Ida’s struggle are we suddenly left with her son’s descent into madness? How depressing that a film about a woman forgotten by history is, itself, mostly forgettable. (2:02) Albany, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Waking Sleeping Beauty Hollywood history is full of epic rivalries, juicy scandals, multi-million-dollar mistakes, and triumphant comebacks. Sometimes, all of the above and more can be contained within a single studio, or even a single studio division, or even a single studio division during a finite number of years, as illustrated by this insidery peek at Disney’s animation division. The doc gives a bit of background, but focuses its attentions on 1984-1994, a ten-year span that saw the floundering department struggle through post-Walt, identity-crisis blues before blossoming into a rejuvenated powerhouse. Waking Sleeping Beauty director Don Hahn was a producer on the Oscar-nominated Beauty and the Beast (1991), so he’s uniquely positioned to tell the story as it unfolded, using home movies and countless interviews. High points include a glimpse of late composer Howard Ashman introducing his demo for the iconic Little Mermaid (1989) tune "Under the Sea" (it was Ashman’s idea to give the crab character a Jamaican accent), and plenty of dish on the legendary Jeffrey Katzenberg-Michael Eisner feud. (1:26) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

*The White Ribbon In Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, his first German-language film in ten years, violence descends on a small northern German village mired in an atmosphere of feudalism and protestant repression. When, over the course of a year, a spate of unaccountable tragedies strikes almost every prominent figure as well as a powerless family of tenant farmers, the village becomes a crucible for aspersion and unease. Meanwhile, a gang of preternaturally calm village children, led by the eerily intense daughter of the authoritarian pastor, keep appearing coincidentally near the sites of the mysterious crimes, lending this Teutonic morality play an unsettling Children of the Corn undertone. Only the schoolteacher, perhaps by virtue of his outsider status, seems capable of discerning the truth, but his low rank on the social pecking order prevent his suspicions from being made public. A protracted examination on the nature of evil — and the troubling moral absolutism from which it stems. (2:24) Four Star. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Why Did I Get Married Too? (2:01) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

REP PICKS

*"Out in Israel Film Series" See "Way Out Middle East." Roxie.

Events listings

David Talbot
-
0

Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 7

California Nights California Historical Society Museum, 678 Mission, SF; (415) 357-1848. 6pm, free. Connect, learn, and discuss the future of the Golden State at this open house in conjunction with the current exhibition, Think California, a collection of artwork, artifacts, and ephemera that represent different parts of California’s history.

Castro Farmers’ Market Noe between Market and Beaver, SF; for a list of farmers’ markets in the area, visit pcfma.com. 4-8pm, free. Attend the seasonal opening of the Castro Farmers’ Market and enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables, live music, a blessing by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and more.

Women’s International Film Festival Various Bay Area locations, visit http://www.sfwff.com/ for more information. Wed. – Sun., ticket prices vary. Choose from a diverse selection of films made by female filmmakers from around the world, featuring work by local and international women in all areas of film, in short and feature productions.

THURSDAY 8

1369 Lights Blue Six Acoustic Room, 3043 24th St., SF; www.moholyground.org. 7pm, $5. Be among the first to get a copy of the new Moholy Ground Magazine, the New Photography Journal. Meet Moholy Ground staff and featured artists and enjoy cocktails and music from DJ BoomBostic spinning soul, motown, and funk. The Moholy Ground Project publishes nonprofit art journals and books and provides low cost promotions and marketing to art organizations and individuals involved in the art community.

BAY AREA

Freedom Dreams @ 17th, 510, 17th St., Oak.; (415) 777-5500. 7pm, $5-$20 sliding scale. Attend the launch party for Community United Against Violence’s (CUAV) Safetyfest, a festival celebration safe ways for queer and trans people in the Bay Area to strut their stuff. Proceeds to benefit CUAV’s programs supporting LGBTQQ survivors of hate and domestic violence.

Three Ring Bingo RhythMix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding, Alameda; (510) 865-5060. 7:30pm; $20, including one drink. Play ten knockout rounds of Bingo while enjoying performance art spectacles complete with live entertainment, tumbling numbers, cash prizes, the Yay Girls, Lucky Lucy, and emcee Mr. Entertainment.

FRIDAY 9

BAY AREA

"What I Learned at Straight Camp" UC Berkeley Campus, room 2050 VLSB, Dwinelle Hall, off Bancroft and Telegraph, Berk.; atheists.meetup.com. 7pm, free. Hear about Ted Cox’s undercover stint in gay-to-straight therapy programs at this presentation including music, videos, and a live demonstration. Cox is a godless writer from Sacramento.

SATURDAY 10

Cesar E. Chavez Parade and Festival Parade starts at 19th St. and Guerrero; 24th Street Fair, 24th St. between Treat and Bryant, SF; (415) 621-2665. Noon parade, 1pm street fair; free. People of all races and creeds are encouraged to participate in honoring the life and work of civil rights and labor leader Cesar E. Chavez at this parade and festival featuring live music, ethnic dance, entertainment, food vendors, and more.

BAY AREA

Yuri’s Night Bay Area NASA Ames Research Center, Hangar 211, Moffett Field, Mountain View; ybna.org. Noon – Midnight, $49.50. Join other space enthusiasts to interact with exhibits from a wide range of groups including Google Earth, Zero Gravity Arts Consortium, Loco Bloco, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and more and catch the huge line up of musical acts to be performing on two stages including N.E.R.D., the Black Keys, Les Claypool, Common, and more.

SUNDAY 11

Reinventing Porcelain San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, Departures Level, International Terminal, San Francisco International Airport, SF; (650) 821-6700. 1:30pm, free. Attend this lecture with Malcolm D. Gutter, professor at Foothill College and UC Berkeley Extension, about the development of Meissen, Europe’s oldest porcelain, during the Golden Age. This lecture is in conjunction with the exhibit, "Evolution of a Royal Vision: The Birth of Meissen Porcelain," through Sept. 13.

Phillip Schultz Space Gallery, 1141 Polk, SF; (415) 377-3325. 3pm, free. Hear Pulitzer Prize winning poet Philip Schultz read and discuss selections from his recent book of poetry, The God of Loneliness, at this celebration of the third anniversary of Writers Studio Workshops in San Francisco.

Wildflower Ramble Mt. Livermore, Angel Island Park; (415) 435-3522. From Tiburon take 10am ferry, meet at Gift Shop at 10:30am. From San Francisco take 10:35am Blue and Gold Fleet ferry from Pier 41, meet at Visitor’s Center at 11am; $5. Learn about the wildflowers that grow on Mt. Livermore on this docent led, 4 1/2 mile hike. Wear comfortable, layered clothing. Bring lunch and liquids.

MONDAY 12

No Rich, No Poor! Modern Times Bookstore, 888 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-9246. 7pm, free. Join Charles Andrews in this discussion based on his new book about whether capitalism can be repaired or if it needs to be replaced and what a potential new "program of common prosperity" could look like.

Post-Punk Extravaganza Needles and Pens, 3253 16th St., SF; (415) 255-1534. 7pm, free. Join Microcosm Publishing for their West Coast author tour featuring zine author Joe Biel showing his latest documentary, If It Ain’t Cheap It Ain’t Punk, followed by a Q&A about DIY Publishing, Mia Partlow and Michael Hoerger presenting the secret history of food and espionage in conjunction with their new book, Edible Secrets, and more.

Let’s hear it for the Boy Boy

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
4
Let’s hear it for the Boy Boy

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC One morning, I woke up to a call from a woman named Tasha. “Messy Marv wants to speak to you,” she says. Uh-oh, I think, what’d I do? Mess isn’t the kind of guy who calls just to chop it up. “He wants you to write an article,” she says. This isn’t my usual method, but given the difficulty of touching down with the Fillmore District native, I’ll tape first and ask questions later. Mess has largely been out of state since getting out of jail (for a weapons charge) in late 2007, and his absence has inspired controversy in the Moe, so I’m wondering if he wants to address it.

But Mess has other things on his mind when he phones from Miami.

“Let’s talk about 400,000 units independently,” he begins, an impressive tally of cumulative sales in the Bay. Mess’s fanbase extends well beyond the region; he’s been featured on discs by the likes of Killer Mike and Tech9ine, Snoop Dogg shouts him out on Malice in Wonderland (Doggystyle/Priority, 2009), and he provided a 20-year-old Keyshia Cole her first real exposure on his third album, Still Explosive (M Ent., 2001). Cole’s returning the favor by recording a single with Mess, “Luv Somebody,” for his album, The Cooking Channel, slated for July 7.

But even this isn’t what he wants to talk about. Right now Mess is all about his corporation, Scalen, LLC, whose name derives from one of Mess’ aliases, Messcalen. Scalen began as Mess’s record label, which he recently rebranded Click Clack Records to signify its integration into the new company whose other divisions include Scalen Films and Scalen Clothing.

“The beginning of my career was all music,” Mess says. “But now I’m a CEO.” In the era of Jay-Z and P. Diddy, most rappers have aspired to their own corporations. Yet in the perpetually underfunded Bay, such dreams tend to remain unrealized. But Mess, who’s been moving units since age 15, appears to be realizing the goal. Scalen Films already has two DVDs in the can for release later this year: Gigantic, a documentary on Mess’ life, and All Gas No Breaks, his dramatic debut. He’s shopping his reality show, Mr. Ghetto Celebrity, whose trailer can be seen on his Web site, scalenllc.com. He’s got dudes like Big Boi wearing Scalen t-shirts and plans to launch two lines in the fall: Cupcakes (for women) and Slick Talk (for men). But the most immediate project is a 12-disc, limited edition set of Mess’s back catalog, Project Suppastarr, due April 1. Priced at $50 and including a Scalen shirt and autographed posters, the project is designed “to give the consumers something for their money.” (“It’s a $340 value,” he claims on his Web site infomercial.)

As we wrap up, I ask Mess about the Fillmore controversy. Two Fillmore rappers formerly on Click Clack Records, Young Boo and M-Kada, have released a harsh diss video, “Last of Us,” challenging Mess’ hood credentials. It’s included on Where’s Messy Marv? (Homewrecka Ent., 2010), an entire DVD devoted to Mess bashing. All this is on top of a major beef last year with his childhood friend and collaborator, San Quinn, which, despite being quashed, has left lingering ill-will in Fillmore. Mess, however, just laughs at the turmoil.

“You grow out of situations,” he says. “This is based on me growing up, and a lot of people don’t understand that. I just look at it like promotion — they my street team. I’m not paying for once.”

Nonetheless, Mess wants to leave the drama behind, going so far as to rebrand himself as the Boy Boy Young Mess for this new stage of his career. “I’ve transformed into another person. I’m a whole new entertainer, man, father. I’ll still always be ‘Messy Marv.’ But a lot came with that name, so I’m going to leave it where it is.”

Stupid fantastic

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Stupid fantastic

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Does the dream ever die? Especially when you’re talking ’bout the Stooges, running on fumes of the glorious yet star-crossed Raw Power (Columbia, 1973), in 1974? For that still-influential combo it all came down to what Stooges guitarist James Williamson calls “a very prolonged death march across the United States,” culminating with two February 1974 shows. At the first, the typically provocative Pop got cold-cocked in a Michigan biker bar. Then a few nights later, in a performance documented on Metallic K.O. (Skydog, 1977), the band caught a hail of bottles, cameras, and such hurled from the crowd.

“People really throwing bottles at your head really gets your attention,” Williamson marvels from Silicon Valley, where he now lives and worked, until retirement, as an electronics engineer and Sony VP. “We were a little bit … I don’t know what you could say about us — stupid probably captures it! We just stood up there defiantly, egging these guys on.”

Today you can’t help but feel a little vindicated for Williamson, Pop, and drummer Scott Asheton (R.I.P., late guitarist and Raw Power bassist Ron Asheton). When we spoke, the affable, down-to-earth Williamson was looking forward to playing with the Stooges at the group’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction March 15, and to the April 13 release of the two-CD Legacy Edition and four-CD-DVD Deluxe Edition of the legendary proto-punk album he wrote with Pop. The deluxe treatment of Raw Power (available at www.iggyandthestoogesmusic.com) includes the newly remastered original David Bowie mix of the LP (various Stooges have expressed their hatred of the first stylized mix, which finds new clarity post-remastering); Georgia Peaches, a live performance at Atlanta’s Richards club in October 1973; a disc of rarities, outtakes, and alternate mixes; a making-of documentary; a book; five prints; and a Japanese picture-sleeve reproduction of a “Raw Power”/”Search and Destroy” 7-inch.

The whole thing is a treasure trove to rival 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions (Rhino Handmade, 1999), considering the quantity of the previously unreleased tracks, in addition to the notoriety of the partially bootlegged Georgia Peaches show (Ron Asheton owned a cassette of the show and after clueing in Stooges archivist Robert Matheu, the untouched original board tapes were unearthed). You have to love the bluesy prominence of Scott Thurston’s roadhouse piano and Pop’s crazily inspired intro to, say, “I Need Somebody”: “I’ll see every Georgia chick get down and — suck my ass. Ten Georgia Peaches up my ass; 10 Georgia Peaches stoned on grass; 10 Georgia Peaches next is coke; 10 Georgia Peaches ain’t no joke …”

Williamson remembers the Hotlantans as fun-loving: “Richards was a dinner-date kind of place with tablecloths and a dinner-slash-bar kind of thing. We’d do two sets a night for a week, and these guys [were] bringing their dates to dinner, and here come the Stooges, and the singer is up in their faces, messing with their girlfriends.” He chuckles. “You know, you can’t make this stuff up!” At another set, Stooges fan Elton John, who happened to be in Altanta, decided to surprise the combo by materializing onstage in a gorilla costume. “He was lucky he took his head off because I was getting really pissed at him,” says Williamson. “And I was about to do something not good to him!”

High times for the band that had known each other since tenth grade — Ron Asheton played bass in James Williamson’s first group, and Williamson hung out at the initial Stooges basement rehearsals. If there were any hard feelings when Pop shed the original Stooges with the exception of second guitarist Williamson, they seem to have faded. Asked by Pop to fly to London to write material for Raw Power, Williamson vividly recalls the making of his first album as productive. “I wrote almost all the songs on Raw Power up in my room in London on an acoustic guitar,” he remembers. “In fact, that acoustic guitar is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. It’s easier for me to hear the true sound of the chords, the combination of chord changes.” Pop was also easy to work with — “a very nice person and very intelligent and sincere.”

“I made some mistakes on that album in the solos and stuff, but who cares?” Williamson says now. “What matters is how it comes across.” In the studio, the guitarist simply played, pulling out the caterwauling, proto-thrash solos for “Search and Destroy” and “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell” until he saw the rest of the band nodding in the control room. “The music was all mine,” he explains. “So I didn’t know if it was any good or not — or anything about it. But I was having a great time and I was making money. I mean, what was not to like about it?”

Now, after working in high tech for more than 30 years, Williamson’s writing new songs with Pop (“It’s just as easy now as it was then”) and anticipating the rerelease of the remastered Pop- and Williamson-penned Kill City (Bomp, 1977). He’s found what might be the choicest retirement job ever, as a member of the Stooges. “It was a big stretch going from the Stooges to calculus and differential equations, but I did it!” he says, “and I’ve never really regretted it.” Only Williamson can claim the next trajectory — “from a Stooge to a suit to Stooge!” he chortles.

Our Weekly Picks

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0

THURSDAY 1

FILM

Gumby Dharma

When he created the characters Gumby and Pokey in the 1950s, Art Clokey indelibly imbedded himself into modern pop culture, making a lasting and loving impression on generations of fans. That magical connection is chronicled in the Emmy-winning 2005 documentary Gumby Dharma, which delves into the beloved animator’s long life, canvassing the more well-known side of Clokey and his artistic triumphs, as well as several personal tragedies and his search for a spiritual path. Clokey, who passed away in January, had a studio in Sausalito for many years, and his life and creations will be celebrated tonight at a screening of the wonderful documentary, with its producers and several special guests in attendance. (Sean McCourt)

7 p.m., $6.50–$9

Balboa Theater

3630 Balboa, SF

(415) 221-8184

www.balboamovies.com

www.gumbydharma.com

 

EVENT

Craft Bar

Oh, the infamous Bill Cosby sweater — that oversized knit with a plethora of shapes and colors that makes you cringe at the sight of it. Yeah, that one. Well, now you can air that old thing out and put it to some use at Craft Bar. Enjoy a night of dexterity and drinks as DIY virtuoso Katy Kristin demonstrates how to chop up that old throw and create plush stuffed animals and snuggly beer cozies. Before you know it, you’ll be downing tall cans at Zeitgeist with your new cozy. (Elise-Marie Brown)

6 p.m., $5 (free with student ID)

Museum of Craft and Folk Art

51 Yerba Buena Lane, SF

(415) 227-4888

www.mocfa.org

 

DANCE/PERFORMANCE

Reggie Wilson and Andréya A Ouamba: The Good Dance—Dakar/Brooklyn

Reggie Wilson’s San Francisco debut in 2007 disappointed because it only presented a few short pieces he had created in the 1990s. But at least it whetted the appetite for more substantial work similar to what he had presented in other Bay Area venues. Now all is forgiven. The Good Dance—Dakar/Brooklyn, co-commissioned by YBCA, is a full-evening dance theater piece by Wilson and Senegalese choreographer Andréya Ouamba that explores a mutual preoccupation: the continued presence of the past in our lives. The Mississippi and the Congo serve as the central metaphors for this cross-cultural collaboration of dance, text, and vocals by Wilson’s Fist & Heel Performance Group and Ouamba’s Compagnie 1er Temps. (Rita Felciano)

8 p.m. (through Sat/3), $25–$30

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

 

VISUAL ART

“A Dog’s Life (with a Special Appearance by Cats)”

A collection of funny cartoons focusing on man’s best friend — along with some pals in the feline world — the new exhibit “A Dog’s Life (with a Special Appearance by Cats)” draws from the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor at the San Francisco Public Library. Among the selections on display are works from artists such as James Thurber, George Booth, and Charles Schulz. Snoopy is in the house. (McCourt)

9 a.m.–8 p.m. (through May 31), free

San Francisco Public Library

Skylight Gallery, sixth floor

100 Larkin, SF

(415) 557-4277

www.sfpl.org

 

COMEDY

Marga’s Laugh Party: April Fools Edition!

Marga Gomez threw an uproarious laugh party in February. Now she’s back to host another night of laughter, dancing, and, of course, boozin’. Special guest W. Kamau Bell is celebrating the release of his new comedy CD, Face Full of Flour (Rooftop Comedy Productions). Other comedians on the bill include Gomez, Yayne Abeba, Tessie Chua, Loren Kraut, and Bucky Sinister, while DJ Sammy Franco brings the music. (Brown)

8 p.m., $10

Cafe du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

FRIDAY 2

EVENT/VISUAL ART

“A Benefit for Ed Hannigan: WonderCon Weekend Party”

As an artist for DC and Marvel comics back in the 1970s and ’80s, Ed Hannigan helped bring to life titles such as Batman, Green Arrow, Spider Man, and more. Now suffering from multiple sclerosis, Hannigan is getting help from some superheroes. The nonprofit Hero Initiative takes care of ailing artists, many of whom have spent their careers as contractors and have no pensions or retirement funds. Tonight the organization is sponsoring a benefit party to raise money for Hannigan’s care, with several artists, such as Sergio Aragones (MAD, Groo), in attendance. The festivities include an auction of rare items. (McCourt)

8 p.m., $10–$35 sliding scale

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) 227-8666

www.cartoonart.org

 

EVENT/VISUAL ART

Lower Haight Art Walk

Art openings and events are notorious for their intimidating nature. The art might be hard to “get,” and the elitists might challenge you on the difference between modern and postmodern perspectives when the reason you went in the first place was to snack on the free-range chicken tacos and sip homemade kombucha. The Lower Haight Art Walk, on the other hand, won’t give you a headache. Expect an evening of bar-hopping, live music, dancing, and — of course — art shows sprinkled throughout a four-block stretch in the Haight. Who knows, you might even like what you see and buy a piece or two. (Brown)

7 p.m., free

400–700 Haight, SF

www.lowerhaight.org

SATURDAY 3

 

COMEDY

Mo’nique

In Anthony Hamilton’s “Sister Big Bones” video, the R&B singer makes an ass of himself for Mo’nique’s curves, donning disguises and crashing his cruiser bike just to get closer to the bodacious lady’s heat. He’s not the only one with a crush. The stand-up comedian has made some of the bravest career choices in the business, augmenting her BET talk show with TV specials in which she talked with women in federal prison and, most famously, her role in last year’s Precious as the most horrific mother of all time — which made her a lock for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. It’s easy to forget that on top of everything, she’s real funny too. Check her stand-up act this weekend — just be prepared to walk away with some more unrequited love in your life. (Caitlin Donohue)

8 p.m., $39.50–$59.50

Paramount Theater

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

(800) 745-3000

www.paramounttheatre.com

 

MUSIC/CLUB

Hard French

Look, hot queers into anything but ancient circuit techno and contemporary plasticene ladybots: I adore your Sunday beer busts, your Friday happy hours, your Monday-night free-for-alls (and all-for-mes). But when it comes to a jam-packed Saturday-afternoon dance party rocking girl groups, boogaloo, and garage stompers, it’s finally oui the hard way — Hard French, that is, a raucous party filling the weekend void with BBQ animals on the grill, marinated animals on the patio and dance floor, and DJ Carnitas and Brown Amy on the tables. DJ Bus Station John joins them this time around for some meaty amuse-bouches. My only quibble? It’s only once a month. Hélas! (Marke B.)

3–8 p.m., $5

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

www.elriosf.com

 

EVENT

Vinyl Addiction Launch Party

Vinyl toys — they’re surprisingly intriguing, aren’t they? Cute little round-headed rabbits and bears, baby dolls and yetis, usually with some subversive detail. That baby doll cranks its mouth open in a scream, and on closer inspection, the rabbit appears to be a necro-bunny, back from the grave. Maybe your little yeti’s sheer smoothness freaks you out after a while. What do they get up to on their shelves, late at night? Jesse Hernandez is on a mission to figure it out. The artist’s new online show, Vinyl Addiction, focuses on the creators of these little monsters, which are popping up all over as offshoots of the manga and graffiti scenes. Watch the premiere in New People’s trippy theater and celebrate the birth of something different in the art world. (Donohue)

7–10 p.m., free

New People

1746 Post, SF

(415) 525-8630

www.vinyladdiction.tv

 

SUNDAY 4

MUSIC/EVENT

Nobunny’s 9th Annual Easter Egg Bash

Can you imagine performing in a stinky, sweaty bunny mask for nine-plus years? Well, I guess you still wouldn’t have it as bad as Buckethead. Nobunny is garage-punker Justin Champlin, and this bunny shows no sign of giving up his floppy-eared head anytime soon, going so far as to stand in for the Easter Bunny himself at today’s Easter Egg Bash. Known for singing pants-less and drunk — often into a microphone shaped like a carrot — Nobunny puts on a show for those of us who like a little spectacle with our music. Go ahead and give a Muppet a hug — just don’t get any yolk in your hair. (Peter Galvin)

With the Bananas, Mayyors, Rantouls, Splinters, and Sir Lord Von Raven

8 p.m., $10

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com

 

MUSIC

Hot Air Music Festival

Easter in San Francisco may mean hunky Jesi and egg-rolling nunnery, but we contemporary music lovers will be squealing “Good Lord” all day (polymodally chromatically, of course) at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Hot Air marathon. Three wide-eared conservatory graduates — Matthew Cmiel, Andrew Meyerson, and Carolyn Smith — have put together eight straight hours’ worth of rare live aural pyrotechnics, including works by lionized off-beaters Steve Reich, Gyorgy Ligeti, and Lou Harrison, as well as wonderful newbies Mason Bates, Missy Mazzoli, and Luciano Chessa. Add in puppets, the Picasso Quartet, and local bass clarinet duo SQWONK, and that bunny is cooked. We’re stayin’ indoors. (Marke B.)

2–10 p.m., free

SF Conservatory of Music

50 Oak, SF

(415) 864-7326

www.hotairmusic.org

 

MONDAY 5

EVENT/FILM

“SFFS Film Arts Forum: Tales from Terror Town”

The premiere of Peaches Christ’s feature-length directorial debut, All About Evil, is just around the corner, and to whet everyone’s appetite for the nail-polish-hued blood, Christ herself — a.k.a. Joshua Grannell — is on hand tonight to discuss the perils and pleasures of making a movie with more talent (including Mink Stole, Natasha Lyonne, and teen idol Thomas Dekker) than money. Christ will be joined by the Butcher Brothers, whose new movie, The Violent Kind, is a biker bloodbath. (Johnny Ray Huston)

7 p.m., $8 ($5 for members)

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(925) 866-9559

www.sffs.org

 

TUESDAY 6

EVENT/VISUAL ART

“The Roadmap to Extinction: Are Humans Disappearing?”

Every once in a while, a wise man I know will tire of the endless discussion about the impending death of Earth. “It’s not going to be the end of the planet; it’s just going to be the end of us!” he is wont to exclaim. Truly, our global importance wanes as our carbon emissions wax. This self-extermination is the subject of a photo exhibit at this info night–reception for the Global Justice Ecology Project, an organization that works on the topics of climate justice and forest protection. In a uniquely San Franciscan convergence, the night’s learning is going down at Good Vibrations — a store whose arsenal of procreation-inspiring implements might huskily whisper “no” to the photo exhibition’s pressing query. (Donohue)

5:30–7:30 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0400 www.globaljusticeecology.com www.goodvibes.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. We cannot guarantee the return of photos, but enclosing an SASE helps. 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.

Events listings

David Talbot
-
0

Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THURSDAY 1

Last Gasp Anniversary Show 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; (415) 974-1719. 6pm, free. Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Last Gasp, publisher of underground books and comics, at this party and art show featuring art by Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Glenn Barr, Robert Crumb, and many more, and readings by local writers, including San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima.

St. Stupid’s Day Begins at Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero at Market, SF; www.saintstupid.com. Noon, free. Help bring color, music, and satire to the financial district’s "temples of the Free Market" at this parade featuring a "dead lottery ticket" offering at the Federal Reserve Bank headquarters, a penny toss at the "banker’s heart," a "sock exchange" at the old Pacific Stock Exchange building, and more. Brought to you by the First Church of the Last Laugh.

BAY AREA

"Book Smart" Oakland Public Library, Temescal Branch, 5205 Telegraph, Oak.; (510) 597-5049. Through April 30, free. Peruse the library while taking in a unique art exhibit of mixed-media paintings by Nancy Mizuno Elliott that will be scattered throughout the library to surprise people as they browse the stacks, exploring the interconnectedness of solitude and stimulation.

FRIDAY 2

Al-Mutanabbi Street San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page, SF; (415) 255-6524. 7:30pm, free. Attend the first U.S. exhibition of the al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project, a collection of poetry and art commemorating the 2007 car bombing of Baghdad’s historic book-selling al-Mutanabbi Street, featuring a poetry reading by contributing authors. Donations will be accepted for Doctors Without Borders.

La Mesa Red Poppy Art House, 2698 Folsom, SF; (415) 826-2402. 8pm, free. Take part in this peer-to-peer salon featuring traditional musicians, dancers, and artists from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) Roundtable Series, which aims to strengthen Bay Area intercultural traditional arts networks and leadership.

SATURDAY 3

Big Idea Night Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787. 9pm, free. RSVP recommended: www.ybcafree.org. Celebrate the role we all play in the underground arts community at this event put together by the Oakland based art collective The People featuring DJs, dance demonstrations, live painting, participatory art, live dance videography, a local Caribbean food vendor, extended hours for current exhibits, and more.

"Consumed" Femina Potens Art Gallery, 2199 Market, SF; (415) 864-1558. 7:30pm, free. Sate your artistic hunger at the opening of a month long exhibit titled, "Consumed – Affairs with the edible," featuring artwork by Maria Kretschmann, Malia Schlaefer, Liz Maher, and Francesca Berrini that address women’s complex relationship with food. Meet the artists, rub elbows with fellow foodies, and enjoy refreshments and snacks.

Exploratorium Film Collection Exploratorium, McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon, SF; (415) 561-0360. 2pm; included in the price of admission, $15. Watch contemporary film works alongside classic experimental, documentary, and science films from the Exploratorium’s 16 mm collection as part if their 40th anniversary Cinema Arts Program.

Healthy Saturdays Golden Gate Park, JFK Drive between Tea Garden and Transverse, SF; www.sfbike.org/?ggp. All day every Saturday from April thru September, free. Enjoy the kick off of the season of car-free Saturdays in Golden Gate park weather you’re a skater, bicyclist, pedestrian, or onlooker.

Skate this Art Gallery 28, 1228 Grant, SF; (415) 563-6965. 6pm, free. Learn more about the art of skateboarding at the opening of this annual exhibit while helping to raise money for the North Beach Citizens (NBC) center, an outreach program for the disabled and homeless of North Beach. Reception to feature skateboard art auction, raffles, film screenings, poetry readings, and more.

Starchild on Sit Lie Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF; (415) 581-1600. 7pm, free. Hear Starchild, a bisexual, libertarian, activist, sex worker, and supervisorial candidate, discuss the proposed Sit/Lie law with Jon Sugar. The law proposes to ban sitting and lying on sidewalks in SF and will soon be voted on by the Board of Supervisors. Live music to follow.

West Coast Live San Francisco Ferry Building, Port Commission Room, second floor, 101 Embarcadero, SF; (415) 433-9500. 10am, $18. Attend a live broadcast of West Coast Live hosted by Sedge Thomson with special guests Anchee Min, Walter Mosley, and Olympia Dukakis, and featuring music by Dana Cooper and the Exceptional Mike Greensill. West Coast Live broadcasts from locations that convey the culture and sounds of the West to listeners.

SUNDAY 4

Spring Celebration and Easter Parade Union Street, Gough to Fillmore, SF; www.unionstreetsf.com. 10am-5pm, free. Catch the 2pm Easter parade, enjoy outdoor dining at temporary sidewalk bistros, listen to live music, compete in the Easter bonnet contest, and take part in some of the family oriented activities being offered at this local celebration of Spring.

MONDAY 5

Film Arts Forum Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF; (415) 625-8880. 7pm, $8. Join the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) for an arts forum titled, "Tales from Terror," an appreciation, dissection, and dismantling of the misunderstood horror genre and its ties to the Bay Area.

Japanese avant-garde, Tropicalismo, and North Korean ideology — onscreen at SxSW

John Elberling
-
0

Just as Downtown 81 is worth watching for its live DNA footage, the Japanese avant-garde music documentary We don’t care about music anyway… is worth a look for the five minutes of two-piece noise rock band Umi No Yeah!. The boy/girl duo jams on a trash-filled beach in Tokyo- — he bent over an old Casio and drum machine and her flailing in a silver body suit while thrashing on a blown-out guitar. The song begins in a swell of noise and ends with an intoxicating dance groove and the girl shed to a polka-dot bikini bottom. The rest of Cédric Dupire’s and Gaspard Kuentz’s documentary intersperses the John Cage-like practice of various male musicians with Koyaanisqatsi-like clips of Tokyo’s industrialized megapolis. Interesting reinterpretations of instruments are revealed — a human heart gets used as a signal and the cello is reclaimed from the bourgeois — but it’s the bikini that distorts the dryness usually associated with avant-garde music.

Beyond Impanema will be fun for anyone who’s still naive to Tropicalia music. Guto Barra’s film has a rich blend of live footage and interviews with the originators from the late-1960’s movement, but for those already convinced and obsessed, it provides little more than a Wikipedia-type history gloss with cool YouTube-like clips. Your enjoyment depends on how difficult it is to find those clips — the ones of Carmen Miranda and Os Mutantes being some of the best — and how much you’re interested in hearing about the import of Tropicalia to America via David Byrne and Arto Lindsay. I could have done with a little more rigor and a little less CSS, Bonde Do Role, and MIA, but because of the great Tom Zé interview three-quarters through, I can’t complain.

North Korea is disturbing. Everyone from CNN to Vice Magazine has revealed this fact with video coverage from inside the Hermit Kingdom. In Red Chapel, Danish journalist and film director Mads Brüger takes this realization a step further by exposing the ideological insides through comedy. Accompanied by two Danish-Koreans — one disabled, the other sumo-wrestler fat — Brüger convinces the DPRK to not only let them into their country but also welcome and embrace them with an open, breast-filled hug that only a desperate, lonely mother could provide. The result is both terrifying and beautiful: blinding naïveté and endearing sincerity get exposed via irony and socio-political concern. Red Chapel goes beyond the pointed-finger approach of “OMG, look at those N. Korean crazies and their anti-US terrorist campaign” and into a genuine, individualized concern that offers a priveleged glimpse into the contradictions of both Cold War-retained communism and post-modern democratic capitalism.

Film listings

David Talbot
-
0

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

OPENING

Chloe See "Moore and Less." (1:36) Elmwood, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Greenberg Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is 40, and you might think he’s going through a midlife crisis — if he hadn’t been in pretty much this same crisis for 15 years or more. Still very edgy and fragile after a nervous breakdown-sparked institutional stay, he’s holing up at the comfortable Hollywood home of a big-deal brother while the latter and family are on vacation in Vietnam. (The implication being that Roger is most welcome here when no one else actually has to endure his prickly, high maintenance company.) While in residence he reconnects with old friends including the ex-girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) he dumped yet never quite got over — though clearly she did — and the ex-bandmate (Rhys Ifans) he burned by wrecking their one shot at a major-label deal. He also gets involved, kinda-sorta, with big bro’s personal assistant Florence (mumblecore regular Greta Gerwig), whose passivity and low self-esteem make her the rare person who might consider a relationship with someone this impossible. Like all Noah Baumbach films, especially the slightly overrated Squid and the Whale (2005) and vastly underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007), his latest pivots around a pathologically self-absorbed and insensitive protagonist who exasperates anyone unlucky or blind enough to fall into his or her orbit. Working from a story co-conceived by spouse Leigh, Baumbach’s script sports his usual sharp dialogue, penetrating individual scenes, and narrative surprises. But it also gets stuck in dislikable Roger’s rut, finding conflict easily but stubbornly resisting even the smallest useful change. For all its amusing and uncomfortable moments, Greenberg emerges a dual character slice with no real point. Neither Roger or Beth reward long scrutiny (least of all as a hapless potential couple), while the few screen minutes Ifans and Leigh get make you wish their roles had hijacked the focus instead. (1:40) Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Hot Tub Time Machine At last, Crispin Glover returns to his time-travel movie roots! (1:55) California.

How to Train Your Dragon Yet another 3D cartoon for the kiddies. At least this one is about Vikings. (1:38)

*The Sun It may have taken five years for Alexander Sokurov’s The Sun (2005) to reach local theaters, but then the Russian master’s contemplation of Emperor Hirohito’s last days as Godhead is decidedly out of time. Painterly and slow like all Sokurov’s work, the film specifically follows his estranged reconstructions of Hitler’s retreat with Eva Braun (1999’s Moloch) and Lenin’s demise (2000’s Taurus). In August 1945, Hirohito broke with tradition by making a direct appeal to the Japanese people to end military operations; soon thereafter he renounced his divine rights. The Sun‘s elliptical narration intuits the emperor’s paled existence, and Issey Ogata’s lead performance, centering on a fish-out-of-water puckering of the lips, amply conveys the shuttered hours of a man who, in experience if not in fact, is not quite human. The muted use of available light and a disquieting sound design (faraway air-raid sirens yield to the barest brush of a finger) eschew historiography’s harsh glare, instead returning primal scenes of power to a dreamlike state of unknowing. Sokurov’s most hallucinatory effects are reserved for ashen views of firebombed Tokyo which float free from perspective or clear boundary; a brief fantasy in which fish-like warplanes spew apocalyptic destruction suggests the emperor’s childlike imagination and set the stage for his historical date with General MacArthur, realized by Sokurov less as a diplomatic breakthrough than a leaden twilight. (1:50) Shattuck. (Goldberg)

Waking Sleeping Beauty Hollywood history is full of epic rivalries, juicy scandals, multi-million-dollar mistakes, and triumphant comebacks. Sometimes, all of the above and more can be contained within a single studio, or even a single studio division, or even a single studio division during a finite number of years, as illustrated by this insidery peek at Disney’s animation division. The doc gives a bit of background, but focuses its attentions on 1984-1994, a ten-year span that saw the floundering department struggle through post-Walt, identity-crisis blues before blossoming into a rejuvenated powerhouse. Waking Sleeping Beauty director Don Hahn was a producer on the Oscar-nominated Beauty and the Beast (1991), so he’s uniquely positioned to tell the story as it unfolded, using home movies and countless interviews. High points include a glimpse of late composer Howard Ashman introducing his demo for the iconic Little Mermaid (1989) tune "Under the Sea" (it was Ashman’s idea to give the crab character a Jamaican accent), and plenty of dish on the legendary Jeffrey Katzenberg-Michael Eisner feud. (1:26) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

ONGOING

Ajami You may recognize the title of Yaron Shoni and Scandar Copti’s debut collaboration as one of five films nominated for a 2010 Academy Award in the Foreign Category. Though it didn’t bring home the grand prize, Ajami remains a complex and affecting story about desperation and its consequences in a religiously-mixed town in Israel. As we follow the lives of four of Ajami’s residents the narrative shifts perspective almost maddeningly, switching characters seemingly at the height of each story’s action. But once all of the stories fully intersect, the final product has the distinction of feeling both meticulously calculated and completely natural. I was most impressed to learn that Shani and Copti prepared their actors with improvised role-playing rather than scripts. By withholding what was going to happen in a scene before shooting, we are treated to looks of surprise and emotion on actor’s faces that never feel unnatural. Attaining such a level of realism may be Ajami‘s crowning achievement; it can’t have been easy to make a foreign world feel so familiar. (2:00) Shattuck. (Galvin)

Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton’s take on the classic children’s tale met my mediocre expectations exactly, given its months of pre-release hype (in the film world, fashion magazines, and even Sephora, for the love of brightly-colored eyeshadows). Most folks over a certain age will already know the story, and much of the dialogue, before the lights go down and the 3-D glasses go on; it’s up to Burton and his all-star cast (including numerous big-name actors providing voices for animated characters) to make the tale seem newly enthralling. The visuals are nearly as striking as the CG, with Helena Bonham Carter’s big-headed Red Queen a particularly marvelous human-computer creation. But Wonderland suffers from the style-over-substance dilemma that’s plagued Burton before; all that spooky-pretty whimsy can’t disguise the film’s fairly tepid script. Teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska) displaying girl-power tendencies is a nice, if not surprising, touch, but Johnny Depp’s grating take on the Mad Hatter will please only those who were able to stomach his interpretation of Willy Wonka. (1:48) Castro, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*The Art of the Steal How do you put a price on something that’s literally priceless? The Art of the Steal takes an absorbing look at the Barnes Collection, a privately-amassed array of Post-Impressionist paintings (including 181 Renoirs) worth billions — and the many people and corporate interests who schemed to control it. Founder Albert C. Barnes was an singular character who took pride in his outsider status; he housed his art in a specially-constructed gallery far from downtown Philadelphia’s museum scene, and he emphasized education and art appreciation first and foremost. But he had no heirs, and after his death in 1951, opportunists began circling his massive collection; the slippery political and legal dealings that have unfolded since then are nearly as jaw-dropping as Barnes’ prize paintings. Philly documentarian Don Argott has a doozy of a subject here, and his skillful, even suspenseful film does it justice. (1:41) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Blind Side When the New York Times Magazine published Michael Lewis’ article "The Ballad of Big Mike" — which he expanded into the 2006 book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game — nobody could have predicated the cultural windfall it would spawn. Lewis told the incredible story of Michael Oher — a 6’4, 350-pound 16-year-old, who grew up functionally parentless, splitting time between friends’ couches and the streets of one of Memphis’ poorest neighborhoods. As a sophomore with a 0.4 GPA, Oher serendipitously hitched a ride with a friend’s father to a ritzy private school across town and embarked on an unbelievable journey that led him into a upper-class, white family; the Dean’s List at Ole Miss; and, finally, the NFL. The film itself effectively focuses on Oher’s indomitable spirit and big heart, and the fearless devotion of Leigh Anne Tuohy, the matriarch of the family who adopted him (masterfully played by Sandra Bullock). While the movie will delight and touch moviegoers, its greatest success is that it will likely spur its viewers on to read Lewis’ brilliant book. (2:06) Oaks. (Daniel Alvarez)

Brooklyn’s Finest "Really? I mean, really?" asked the moviegoer beside me as the final freeze-frame of Brooklyn’s Finest slapped our eyeballs. Yes, that’s the sound of letdown, despite the fact that Brooklyn’s Finest initially resembled a promisingly gritty juggling act in the mode of The Wire and Cop Land (1997), Taxi Driver (1976) and Training Day (2001). Bitter irony flows from the title — and from the lives, loves, bad habits, pressure-cooker stress, and unavoidable moral dilemmas of three would-be everyday cops, all occupying several different rungs on a food chain where right and wrong have an unpleasant way of switching sides. Eddie (Richard Gere) is the veteran officer just biding his time till he gets his pension, all while comforting himself with the meager sensuous attentions of hooker Chantel (Shannon Kane). Sal (Ethan Hawke) is the bad detective, stealing from the dealers to fund a dream home for his growing family with Angela (Lili Taylor). Tango (Don Cheadle) is the undercover detective who has cultivated friendships with dealers like Caz (Wesley Snipes) and sacrificed his marriage for a long-promised promotion from his lieutenant (Will Patton) and his superior (Ellen Barkin, in likely the most misogynist portrayal of a lady with a badge to date). You spend most of Brooklyn’s Finest waiting for these cops to collide in the most unfortunate, messiest way possible, but instead the denouement leaves will leave one wondering about unresolved threads and feeling vaguely unsatisfied. In any case, director Antoine Fuqua and company seem to pride themselves on their tough-minded if at times cartoonish take on law enforcement, with Hawke in particular turning in a memorably OTT and anguished performance. (2:13) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Bounty Hunter There’s a real feeling of impotence in reviewing a movie whose ad was pasted on the side of the bus you took to the screening. This thing is determined to be seen, and that’s a true shame. Those who heed the call of the ubiquitous marketing campaign will have to sit through a dull parade of contrivances concerning a bounty hunter (Gerard Butler) whose latest catch is his court-skipping ex-wife (Jennifer Aniston). She’s a hotshot city journalist who’s forced to continue her investigation of a police cover-up while handcuffed to a car door and bickering with her old flame. The trajectory of the plot is obvious enough, but there’s so little chemistry between the two actors that the inevitable reconciliation practically constitutes a twist ending. Aniston saw fit not to whine her way through this role, which is something, but nothing nearly as complimentary can be said about Butler. He emotes in lurches, with the presence of a guy who’s not sure acting is the right direction for his life but still really wants to give it a go. If "This. Is. Sparta!" weren’t burned into my brain I would swear the man had never been in front of a camera before. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Jason Shamai)

The Crazies Disease and anti-government paranoia dovetail in this competent yet overwhelmingly non-essential remake of one of George A. Romero’s second-tier spook shows. In a small Iowa hamlet overseen by a benevolent sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) and his pregnant wife (Radha Mitchell), who’s also the town doctor, a few odd incidents snowball into all-out chaos when a mysterious, unmarked plane crashes into the local water supply. Before long, the few residents who aren’t acting like homicidal maniacs are rounded up by an uber-aggressive military invasion. Though our heroes convey frantic panic as they try to figure out what the hell is going on, The Crazies never achieves full terror mode. It’s certainly watchable, and even enjoyable at times. But memorable? Not in the slightest. (1:41) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Crazy Heart "Oh, I love Jeff Bridges!" is the usual response when his name comes up every few years for Best Actor consideration, usually via some underdog movie no one saw, and the realization occurs that he’s never won an Oscar. The oversight is painful because it could be argued that no leading American actor has been more versatile, consistently good, and true to that elusive concept "artistic integrity" than Bridges over the last 40 years. It’s rumored Crazy Heart was slotted for cable or DVD premiere, then thrust into late-year theater release in hopes of attracting Best Actor momentum within a crowded field. Lucky for us, this performance shouldn’t be overlooked. Bridges plays "Bad" Blake, a veteran country star reduced to playing bars with local pickup bands. His slide from grace hasn’t been helped by lingering tastes for smoke and drink, let alone five defunct marriages. He meets Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), freelance journalist, fan, and single mother. They spark; though burnt by prior relationships, she’s reluctant to take seriously a famous drunk twice her age. Can Bad handle even this much responsibility? Meanwhile, he gets his "comeback" break in the semi-humiliating form of opening for Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) — a contemporary country superstar who was once Bad’s backup boy. Tommy offers a belated shot at commercial redemption; Jean offers redemption of the strictly personal kind. There’s nothing too surprising about the ways in which Crazy Heart both follows and finesses formula. You’ve seen this preordained road from wreckage to redemption before. But actor turned first-time director Scott Cooper’s screenplay honors the flies in the windshield inherited from Thomas Cobb’s novel — as does Bridges, needless to say. (1:51) Piedmont, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Spoiler alert: nothing happens in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That was OK when it was just a book—author Jeff Kinney’s illustrated novel works due in large part to his whimsical drawings and tongue-in-cheek humor. It’s a kids’ book, but it’s fun for adults, too. The same can’t be said for the film adaptation: Diary of a Wimpy Kid sticks close to its source material without the creativity necessary to make it work on the big screen. As in the book, Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) navigates the treacherous terrain of middle school, struggling to cope with an awkward best friend, a brutal older brother, and parents who just don’t understand. All the actors turn in solid performances — Gordon is a particularly good find. But there’s so little here to work with. The best that can be said about Diary of a Wimpy Kid is that it’s cute and mostly harmless: a pleasant diversion for young’uns, and a tolerable bore for the parents they drag along. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

*An Education The pursuit of knowledge — both carnal and cultural — are at the tender core of this end-of-innocence valentine by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig (who first made her well-tempered voice heard with her 2000 Dogme entry, Italian for Beginners), based on journalist Lynn Barber’s memoir. Screenwriter Nick Hornby breaks further with his Peter Pan protagonists with this adaptation: no man-boy mopers or misfits here. Rather, 16-year-old schoolgirl Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a good girl and ace student. It’s 1961, and England is only starting to stir from its somber, all-too-sober post-war slumber. The carefully cloistered Jenny is on track for Oxford, though swinging London and its high-style freedoms beckon just around the corner. Ushering in those freedoms — a new, more class-free world disorder — is the charming David (Peter Sarsgaard), stopping to give Jenny and her cello a ride in the rain and soon proffering concerts and late-night suppers in the city. He’s a sweet-faced, feline outsider: cultured, Jewish, and given to playing fast and loose in the margins of society. David can see Jenny for the gem she is and appreciate her innocence with the knowing pleasure of a decadent playing all the angles. The stakes are believably high, thanks to An Education‘s careful attention to time and place and its gently glamored performances. Scherfig revels in the smart, easy-on-eye curb appeal of David and his friends while giving a nod to the college-educated empowerment Jenny risks by skipping class to jet to Paris. And Mulligan lends it all credence by letting all those seduced, abandoned, conflicted, rebellious feelings flicker unbridled across her face. (1:35) Oaks, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s never-ending legal woes have inspired endless debates on the interwebs and elsewhere; they also can’t help but add subtext to the 76-year-old’s new film, which is chock full o’ anti-American vibes anyway. It’s also a pretty nifty political thriller about a disgraced former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) who’s hanging out in his Martha’s Vineyard mansion with his whip-smart, bitter wife (Olivia Williams) and Joan Holloway-as-ice-queen assistant (Kim Cattrall), plus an eager young biographer (Ewan McGregor) recently hired to ghost-write his memoirs. But as the writer quickly discovers, the politician’s past contains the kinds of secrets that cause strange cars with tinted windows to appear in one’s rearview mirror when driving along deserted country roads. Polanski’s long been an expert when it comes to escalating tension onscreen; he’s also so good at adding offbeat moments that only seem tossed-off (as when the PM’s groundskeeper attempts to rake leaves amid relentless sea breezes) and making the utmost of his top-notch actors (Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach have small, memorable roles). Though I found The Ghost Writer‘s ZOMG! third-act revelation to be a bit corny, I still didn’t think it detracted from the finely crafted film that led up to it. (1:49) California, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

Green Zone Titled for the heavily-guarded headquarters of international occupation in Baghdad, Green Zone reunites director Paul "Shaky-Cam" Greengrass with star Matt Damon, the two having previously collaborated on the last two Bourne films. Instead of a super-soldier, this time around Damon just plays a supremely insubordinate one as he attempts to uncover the reason why his military unit can’t find any of Saddam’s WMDs. With the aid of the CIA, a Wall Street Journal reporter and a friendly Iraqi, Damon goes rogue in order to suss out the source of the misinformation. The Iraq War action is decent if scarce, but an overindulgence in (you guessed it) shaky-cam and political jargon cannot hide the fact that Green Zone‘s plot is simplistic and probably light on actual facts. Damon makes a fine cowboy-cum-hero, but the effectiveness of the mix of patriotism and Pentagon paranoia will vary based on your penchant for such things. Still, Green Zone moves fast enough that it remains worth a matinee for conspiracy thriller aficionados. (1:55) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

The Hurt Locker When the leader of a close-knit U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad is killed in action, his subordinates have barely recovered from the shock when they’re introduced to his replacement. In contrast to his predecessor, Sgt. James (Jeremy Renner) is no standard-procedure-following team player, but a cocky adrenaline junkie who puts himself and others at risk making gonzo gut-instinct decisions in the face of live bombs and insurgent gunfire. This is particularly galling to next-in-command Sanborn (Anthony Mackie). An apolitical war-in-Iraq movie that’s won considerable praise for accuracy so far from vets (scenarist Mark Boal was "embedded" with an EOD unit there for several 2004 weeks), Kathryn Bigelow’s film is arguably you-are-there purist to a fault. While we eventually get to know in the principals, The Hurt Locker is so dominated by its seven lengthy squad-mission setpieces that there’s almost no time or attention left for building character development or a narrative arc. The result is often viscerally intense, yet less impactful than it would have been if we were more emotionally invested. Assured as her technique remains, don’t expect familiar stylistic dazzle from action cult figure Bigelow (1987’s Near Dark, 1989’s Blue Steel, 1991’s Point Break) — this vidcam-era war movie very much hews to the favored current genre approach of pseudo-documentary grainy handheld shaky-cam imagery. (2:11) Shattuck. (Harvey)

*The Last Station Most of the buzz around The Last Station has focused on Helen Mirren, who takes the lead as the Countess Sofya, wife of Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer). Mirren is indeed impressive — when is she not? — but there’s more to the film than Sofya’s Oscar-worthy outbursts. The Last Station follows Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), hired as Tolstoy’s personal secretary at the end of the writer’s life. Valentin struggles to reconcile his faith in the anarchist Christian Tolstoyan movement with his sympathy for Sofya and his budding feelings for fellow Tolstoyan Masha (Kerry Condon). For the first hour, The Last Station is charming and very funny. Once Tolstoy and Sofya’s relationship reaches its most volatile, however, the tone shifts toward the serious — a trend that continues as Tolstoy falls ill. After all the lighthearted levity, it’s a bit jarring, but the solid script and accomplished cast pull The Last Station together. Paul Giamatti is especially good as Vladimir Chertkov, who battles against Sofya for control of Tolstoy’s will. You’ll never feel guiltier for putting off War and Peace. (1:52) Albany. (Peitzman)

*The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers For many, Daniel Ellsberg is a hero — a savior of American First Amendment rights and one of the most outspoken opponents of the Vietnam war. But as this documentary (recently nominated for an Academy Award) shows, it’s never an an easy decision to take on the U.S. government. Ellsberg himself narrates the film and details his sleepless nights leading up to the leak of the Pentagon Papers — the top secret government study on the Vietnam war — to the public. Though there are few new developments in understanding the particulars of the war or the impact the release of the Papers had on ending the conflict, the film allows audiences to experience the famous case from Ellsberg’s point of view, adding a fresh and poignantly human element to the events; it’s a political documentary that plays more like a character drama. Whether you were there when it happened or new to the story, there is something to be appreciated from this tale of a man who fell out of love with his country and decided to do something about it. (1:34) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

*Mother You can guarantee that a movie titled Mother is not gonna be a love fest, ever. And through the lens of The Host (2006) director-writer Bong Joon-ho, motherly love becomes downright monstrous — though altogether human. Much credit goes to the wonderful lead actress Kim Hye-ja as the titular materfamilias, who’s frantically self-sacrificing, insanely tenacious, quaintly charming, wolfishly fearsome, and wildly guilt-ridden, by turns. On the surface, she’s a sweetly innocuous herbalist and closet acupuncturist — happily, and a wee bit too tightly, tethered to her beloved son Yoon Do-joon (Won Bin). He’s a slow-witted, forgetful, and easily confused mop-top who flies into deadly rages when taunted or called a "’tard." When Do-joon is quickly arrested and charged with the murder of schoolgirl Moon Ah-jung (Mun-hee Na), Mom snaps into action with a panic-stricken, primal ferocity and goes in search of the killer to free her boy. But there’s more to Do-joon, his studly pal Jin-tae (Ku Jin), and Moon Ah-jung than meets the eye, and Mother discovers just how much she’s defined, and twisted, herself in relation to her son. Bong gives this potentially flat and cliched noirish material genuine lyricism, embedding his anti-heroine in a rural South Korean landscape like a penitent wandering in an existential desert, gently echoing filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman and Abbas Kiarostami and beautifully transcending genre. (2:09) Shattuck. (Chun)

Our Family Wedding America Ferrera and Lance Gross play a couple of lovebirds who must jump through some serious family hoops before they get married in the mostly serviceable Our Family Wedding. What begins as a dual Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, with the differences in each family’s traditions forcing complications and compromises, soon loses sight of its matrimonial plot as the focus steers towards a childish rivalry between the fathers. While it’s being marketed as a goofy comedy, the final product seeks a relatively sentimental tone, which makes the few slapstick moments — like a goat trying to rape Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker — seem pretty inappropriate. Still, for some audiences the well-tread plot will act as comfort food: they fight, they make up, and it all ends in a big wedding where we watch the characters dance for damn near ten minutes. (1:41) 1000 Van Ness. (Galvin)

*A Prophet Filmmaker Jacques Audiard has described his new film, A Prophet, as "the anti-Scarface." Yet much like Scarface (1983), A Prophet bottles the heady euphoria that chases the empowerment of the powerless and the rise of the long-shot loner on the margins. In its almost-Dickensian attention to detail, devotion to its own narrative complexity, and passion for cinematic poetry, A Prophet rises above the ordinary and, through the prism of genre, finds its own power. The supremely opportunistic, pragmatically Machiavellian intellectual and spiritual education of a felon is the chief concern of here. Played by Tahar Rahim with guileless, open-faced charisma, Malik is half-Arab and half-Corsican — and distrusted or despised by both camps in the pen. When he lands in jail for his six-year sentence, he’s 19, illiterate, friendless, and vulnerable. His deal with the devil — and means of survival — arrives with Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), temporarily locked up before his testifies against the mob. Corsican boss Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup) wants him dead, and Malik is tagged to penetrate Reyeb’s cell with a blade hidden in mouth. After Malik’s gory rebirth, it turns out that the teenager’s a seer in more ways than one. From his low-dog position, he can eyeball the connections linking the drugs entering the prison to those circulating outside, as well as the machinations intertwining the Arab and Corsican syndicates. It’s no shock that when Cesar finds his power eroding and arranges prison leaves for his multilingual crossover star that Malik serves not only his Corsican master, but also his own interests, and begins to build a drug empire rivaling his teacher’s. Throughout his pupil’s progress, Audiard demonstrates a way with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment, and when Malik finally breaks with his Falstaffian patriarch, it makes your heart skip a beat in a move akin to the title of the director’s last film. This Eurozone/Obama-age prophet is all about the profit — but he’s imbued with grace, even while gaming for ill-gotten gain. (2:29) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Remember Me Ominously set in New York City during the summer of 2001, Remember Me, starring Robert Pattinson (of the Twilight series) and Emilie de Ravin (of TV’s Lost), pretty much answers the question of whether it’s still too soon to make the events of September 11 the subject of a date movie. Or rather, not the subject so much as the specter waiting just off-camera for its walk-on while brooding 21-year-old Tyler Hawkins (Pattinson) quotes Gandhi, gets into brawls, gets drunk, writes letters to his dead brother, and otherwise channels despondency and rage into various salubrious outlets. One of these is romancing (under circumstances severely testing the viewer’s credulity) de Ravin’s Ally Craig, grappling somewhat more constructively with her own familial tragedy. Ally is the sort of self-possessed, strong-willed young woman whose instincts, shortly after she’s been backhanded by her drunk father (Chris Cooper), tell her to placate and have sex with her drunk boyfriend when he comes home enraged after battling his own father (Pierce Brosnan). She is there to teach Tyler, through quirky habits like eating dessert first, what director Allen Coulter (2006’s Hollywoodland) wishes to teach us: that time is short and one must fill one’s life with meaningful actions — like throwing a fire extinguisher through a window to convince a classroom of tweens to stop bullying one’s little sister. The film is seeded with allusions to an impending catastrophe that feels less integrated than exploited. And it’s uncomfortable seeing the fall of the towers used to make the ground shake under a sweet, fairly depthless depiction of love and grief. (2:08) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Repo Men If you are considering going to see Repo Men you’ll need to go ahead and turn off your brain first — the guy who wrote it sure did. The script is jam-packed with contrivances and tonal inconsistencies, which is a shame because the plot had potential. In a near future when mechanical replacement organs are a reality, Jude Law plays Remy, an ex-soldier hired by the Union to find recipients that cannot afford their bills and repossess their artificial organs to return to the manufacturer. After a freak accident, Remy needs a replacement organ himself and when he can’t pay, the Union sends his childhood friend and ex-partner Jake (Forest Whitaker) to retrieve it. Repo Men is at its best when it embraces its cartoonishness, when the film is so stupid that it transcends the hodge-podge story and glows with goofy grotesque action. If you can, stick around ’til the climax that includes an Old Boy (2003) homage (rip-off) and one of the more laugh-out-loud ridiculous endings I’ve seen in a long time. But high-art, this ain’t. (1:53) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

The Runaways In Floria Sigismondi’s tale of the rise and fall of a 1970s all-girl band, LA producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) proclaims that the Runaways are going to save rock and roll. It’s hard to gauge the sincerity of this pronouncement, but you can certainly hear, in songs like "Cherry Bomb" and "Queens of Noise," how the band must have brightened a landscape overrun by kings of prog rock. Unfortunately, a handful of teenagers micromanaged by a sleazy, abusive nutcase proved not quite up to the task, though the band did launch the careers of metal guitarist Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) and, more famously, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart). Sigismondi’s film entertainingly sketches the Runaways’ beginnings in glam rock fandom and gradual attainment of their own rabid fan base. We get Currie lip-synching Bowie to catcalls at the high school assembly, Jett composing "Cherry Bomb" with Fowley, glamtastic hair-and-wardrobe eye candy, pills-and-Stooges-fueled intra-band fooling around, and five teenage girls sent off sans chaperone on an international tour with substantial quantities of hard drugs in their carry-on luggage. What follows is less pretty: a capsule version of the band’s disintegration after the departure of bottoming-out 16-year-old lead singer Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). In a film darkened by Currie’s trajectory, Jett’s subsequent success is a feel-good coda, but it’s awkwardly attached and emblematizes one of The Runaways‘ main problems. When the band begins to fall apart, the film doesn’t know which way to turn and ends up telling no one’s story well. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Rapoport)

She’s Out of My League From the co-writers of the abysmal Sex Drive (2008), She’s Out of My League could be another 90-minute assemblage of gross-out humor, dick jokes, and unabashed homophobia. As it turns out, the latest offering from Sean Anders and John Morris is legitimately funny — far better than the trailer (and that half-assed title) would have you believe. The adorkable Jay Baruchel stars as Kirk, a hapless loser who finds himself dating bonafide hottie Molly (Alice Eve). Once you get past the film’s silly conceit — Kirk’s only "movie ugly," and personality goes a long way — you’re left with a surprisingly charming comedy. The characters are amusing and the wit is sharp. Not to mention the fact that She’s Out of My League offers a downright heartfelt message. There’s a sincerity here that feels genuine instead of just tacked-on: yeah, yeah, it’s about what’s inside that counts, but there’s more to it than that. Ignore the dreadful "jizz in my pants" scene, and the movie’s almost an old-fashioned romcom. (1:44) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Peitzman)

Shutter Island Director Martin Scorsese and muse du jour Leonardo DiCaprio draw from oft-filmed novelist Dennis Lehane (2003’s Mystic River, 2007’s Gone Baby Gone) for this B-movie thriller that, sadly, offers few thrills. DiCaprio’s a 1950s U.S. marshal summoned to a misty island that houses a hospital for the criminally insane, overseen by a doctor (Ben Kingsley) who believes in humane, if experimental, therapy techniques. From the get-go we suspect something’s not right with the G-man’s own mind; as he investigates the case of a missing patient, he experiences frequent flashbacks to his World War II service (during which he helped liberate a concentration camp), and has recurring visions of his spooky dead wife (Michelle Williams). Whether or not you fall for Shutter Island‘s twisty game depends on the gullibility of your own mind. Despite high-quality performances and an effective, if overwrought, tone of certain doom, Shutter Island stumbles into a third act that exposes its inherently flawed and frustrating storytelling structure. If only David Lynch had directed Shutter Island — it could’ve been a classic of mindfuckery run amok. Instead, Scorsese’s psychological drama is sapped of any mystery whatsoever by its stubbornly literal conclusion. (2:18) California, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

1...394041...58Page 40 of 58

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