Dogs Archives — Page 17 of 25 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Best of the Bay 2009: Classics

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January 4, 2010

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Guns ‘n’ rosés

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December 29, 2009

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If you like Beretta – and Beretta is very likable – you’ll likely like its younger sibling, Starbelly. I wonder who is thinking up the names in the Beretta folks’ briskly expanding universe of restaurants. “Beretta” makes me think of guns, while “Starbelly” sounds like a spoof of Spaceballs, Mel Brooks’ epic spoof of the Star Wars franchise.

The restaurant opened in the fall in a space (at 16th and Market streets) that once was Josie’s Juice Joint. Subsequent occupants include ZAO Noodle Bar and Asqew Grill, a pair of local chains that pitched affordable, high-quality, quick-turnaround food to younger people. Starbelly certainly attracts younger people and their traveling circus of noise but, as befits its status as a version of the California café, it has all kinds of people, including older ones and heterosexuals. The crowd is, to my eye, less hipstery and tech-moneyed than Beretta’s, although the glow of human energy is similar. Starbelly is too stimulating to be relaxing, but once you’re seated, your blood pressure does return to something like normal. Because the restaurant doesn’t take reservations for small parties, there can be a scrum near the host’s podium at the front. If you want a less hubbuby table, angle for one in the rear, past the bar, where the dining area opens out some.

In matters of food, Starbelly and Beretta are like fraternal twins: similar in certain respects but sharply different in others. The most conspicuous similarity is the prominence of pizza on both menus, along with the little wire stands to serve them on. But pizza is less dominant at Starbelly, where chef Adam Timney’s cooking rolls away in a number of sophisticated directions. Starbelly is probably the highest gastronomic peak in the Castro District at the moment, much as 2223 was 15 years ago. Of course, we should remember that the Castro has long been the Death Valley of restauranting and temper our enthusiasm accordingly. Still, Starbelly is good.

The dinner menu tilts toward smaller, shareable plates and divides among the categories “snacks” ($5 each), “small,” “salads,” and “vegetables.” Then come the pizzas and bigger plates. “Snacks” often means a dish of warm, spicy nuts, but here you can indulge in such witty treats as mini corn dogs, each riding its little toothpick and ready for dipping in spicy mustard (coarse, country-style) or house-made ketchup (fruity in a way the commercial product can never be and worth the price of the dish just for the experience).

The kitchen handles seafood skillfully. Grilled baby octopus ($9), recommended by our server, turned out to be nicely tender with a faint hint of smoke; the octopus was arranged on an arugula salad. Pan-roasted diver scallops ($14) also had been expertly cooked, but I thought the accompanying gingered yam purée, scattered with pepitas, was a little too sweet. Scallops, like pork, are naturally sweet and seem to invite sweet harmonies, but I (and here I state a personal preference) would rather have counterpoint, something sour, spicy, or salty.

Pizzas do not disappoint. The crusts are on the thin side, with a bit of puff on top and a hint of blister underneath but hooray no charring. Toppings range from the classic (tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil on a margherita) to New World (Mexican chorizo with eggs and cilantro) but on the whole are fairly simple. A good example is a pie topped with Starbelly bacon ($13) along with market peppers and tomatoes. All that red lends a certain Murder in the Cathedral look, but the tangy, aromatic combination of toppings catches the sense of summer shading into autumn.

Speaking of fall: brussels sprouts have been on just about every menu I’ve seen since Labor Day, and they’re on Starbelly’s, too ($6). Here they’re halved and pan-roasted with chunks of bacon until nicely caramelized at the edges. Bacon seems to be the consensus remedy for the palatability issue that haunts brussels sprouts, and a good roasting, whether in an oven or pan, has set right many a troublesome vegetable. A shot of lemon juice wouldn’t have hurt here, for a final bit of zing.

The big plates are reasonably priced, mostly in the low to mid-teens; only lamb chops breaking the $20 barrier. The kitchen does offer what might be sly homage to Zuni Café: a half-chicken ($15), roasted on a rotisserie until sensuously tender and juicy, then plated with a spinach panzanella basically swirls of braised greens in a warm, savory bread pudding under a roasted-onion vinaigrette. It’s not formally offered for two like the Zuni version, but it’s ample enough to be quite shareable, especially if you’ve previously stocked up on some of the smaller plates.

Which undoubtedly you will have done, since at Starbelly, the path to a full belly is a winding one, with many delightful turn-outs and outlooks along the way. *

STARBELLY

Mon.-Thurs., 11:30 a.m.11 p.m.; Fri., 11:30 a.m.midnight.

Brunch: Sat.Sun., 10:30 a.m.4 p.m.

Dinner: Sat., 4 p.m.midnight; Sun., 411 p.m.

3583 16th St., SF

(415) 252-7500

www.starbellysf.com

Beer and wine

AE/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Climate Change protests

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December 16, 2009

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Text by Sarah Phelan

“Human chain” protestors protect grassroots groups from all over the world from hundreds of riot police who turned out to keep climate justice activists from entering the Bella Center where the 15th Conference of Parties was being held.

Alicia Garza, co-executive director of the San Francisco-based People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) sent these photos from protests in Copenhagen. Media outlets are reporting that Danish police arrested about 250 protesters and used pepper spray and dogs to contain crowds in Copenhagen today, as a demonstration against the U.N. climate talks converged on the Bella Center ahead of crucial negotiations at the COP15 summit.

As thousands of activists held a People’s Assembly outside the Bella Center where indigenous activists and G77 representatives walked out of climate talks, activists hung a banner from the trees which said COP15: Business as U$ual. Many activists said that the wealthier nations, such as the EU, France and the United States were prioritizing business interests over the fate of millions of people around the world who are severely impacted by current and impending climate crises.

“Via campesina at COP 15” is an international grassroots organization of farmers and workers from around the world who led activists and civil society who were locked out of the COP. COP officials limited the amount of participation from civil society to 1000 people today, and intend to further limit participation to 90 people tomorrow.
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Film listings

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December 8, 2009

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

OPENING

Invictus Elected President of South Africa in 1995 just five years after his release from nearly three decades’ imprisonment Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) perceives a chance to forward his message of reconciliation and forgiveness by throwing support behind the low-ranked national rugby team. Trouble is, the Springboks are currently low-ranked, with the World Cup a very faint hope just one year away. Not to mention the fact that despite having one black member, they represent the all-too-recent Apartheid past for the country’s non-white majority. Based on John Carlin’s nonfiction tome, this latest Oscar bait by the indefatigable Clint Eastwood sports his usual plusses and minuses: An impressive scale, solid performances (Matt Damon co-stars as the team’s Afrikaaner captain), deft handling of subplots, and solid craftsmanship on the one hand. A certain dull literal-minded earnestness, lack of style and excitement on the other. Anthony Peckham’s screenplay hits the requisite inspirational notes (sometimes pretty bluntly), but even in the attenuated finals match, Eastwood’s direction is steady as she goes no peaks, no valleys, no faults but not much inspiration, either. It doesn’t help that Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens contribute a score that’s as rousing as a warm milk bath. This is an entertaining history lesson, but it should have been an exhilarating one. (2:14) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Me and Orson Welles See “Citizen Welles.” (1:54)

*The Princess and the Frog Expectations run high for The Princess and the Frog: it’s the first Disney film to feature an African American princess, the first 2D Disney cartoon since the regrettable Home on the Range (2004), and the latest entry from the writing-directing team responsible for The Little Mermaid (1989) and Aladdin (1992). Here’s the real surprise The Princess and the Frog not only meets those expectations, it exceeds them. After years of disappointment, many of us have given up hope on another classic entry into the Disney 2D animation canon. And yet, The Princess and the Frog is up there with the greats, full of catchy songs, gorgeous animation, and memorable characters. Set in New Orleans, the story is a take off on the Frog Prince fairy tale. Here, the voodoo-cursed Prince Naveen kisses waitress Tiana instead transferring his froggy plight to her as well. A fun twist, and a positive message: wishing is great, but it takes hard work to make your dreams come true. For those of us raised on classic Disney, The Princess and the Frog is almost too good to believe. (1:37) Shattuck. (Peitzman)

*The Private Lives of Pippa Lee See “Life Out of Balance.” (1:40) Albany, Bridge, Smith Rafael.

A Single Man Tom Ford directs Colin Firth and Julianne Moore in this 1960s-set tale of a man mourning the death of his longtime partner. (1:39) Sundance Kabuki.

Uncertainty A knocked-up girl (Lynn Collins) and a guy with a coin in his pocket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) stand on the Brooklyn Bridge, circle the issue, flip the coin, then bolt in opposite directions. The coin was clearly purchased in some dusty, mysterious Chinatown magic shop from a loopy-seeming octogenarian codger, because at each end of the bridge, the pair reunite for two 24-hour bouts of the title’s psychological state that unspool side by side in time but diverge in mood and pace and genre: on the Brooklyn side, we get a slow-paced family drama; in Manhattan, a pulse-raising action-thriller. In other words, a monument, a monumental decision, and a premise spun out of such pure and visible artifice that it seems unlikely to translate into absorbing filmmaking. It does, though, somehow, in the hands of writer-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (2005’s Bee Season, 2001’s The Deep End), who adroitly move Uncertainty’s central characters through familial scenes weighted down by quiet grief, strife, love, and worry and through the more heightened anxiety of chase and gunplay and ceaseless surveillance. While the framework remains a distracting fact, something constructed while we watched and then imposed on us, the film, heavily improvised, is carefully edited to guide us without tripping between the two threads of story. And in each in what is becoming a pleasurable habit we watch Gordon-Levitt bring texture and depth to the smallest moments in a conversation or scene. (1:45) Roxie. (Rapoport)

ONGOING

Armored (1:28) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

*Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Consider that ridiculous title. Though its poster and imdb entry eliminate the initial article, it appears onscreen as The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. That’s the bad lieutenant, not to be confused with Abel Ferrara’s 1992 Bad Lieutenant. The bad lieutenant has a name: Terence McDonagh, and he’s a police officer of similarly wobbly moral fiber. McDonagh’s tale inspired by Ferrara and scripted by William Finkelstein, but perhaps more important, filmed by Werner Herzog and interpreted by Nicolas Cage opens with a snake slithering through a post-Hurricane Katrina flood. A prisoner has been forgotten in a basement jail. McDonagh and fellow cop Stevie Pruit (Val Kilmer) taunt the man, taking bets on how long it’ll take him to drown in the rising waters. An act of cruelty seems all but certain until McDonagh, who’s quickly been established as a righteous asshole, suddenly dives in for the rescue. Unpredictability, and quite a bit of instability, reigns thereafter. Every scene holds the possibility of careening to heights both campy and terrifying, and Cage proves an inspired casting choice. At this point in his career, he has nothing to lose, and his take on Lt. McDonagh is as haywire as it gets. McDonagh snorts coke before reporting to a crime scene; he threatens the elderly; he hauls his star teenage witness along when he confronts a john who’s mistreated his prostitute girlfriend (Eva Mendes); he cackles like a maniac; he lurches around like a hunchback on crack. Not knowing what McDonagh will do next is as entertaining as knowing it’ll likely be completely insane. (2:01) Shattuck, 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) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Daniel Alvarez)

Brothers There’s nothing particularly original about Brothers first, because it’s based on a Danish film of the same name, and second, because sibling rivalry is one of the oldest stories in the book. The story is fairly straightforward: good brother (Tobey Maguire) goes AWOL in Afghanistan, bad brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) comforts his sister-in law (Natalie Portman), attraction develops, but then and here’s where things get awkward good brother comes home. Throughout much of Brothers, the script is surprisingly restrained, holding the film back from Movie of the Week territory. Those moments of subtlety are the movie’s strongest, but by the end they’ve given way to giant, maudlin explosions of angst, which aren’t nearly as impressive. Still, the acting is consistently strong. Maguire is especially good as Captain Sam Cahill in a performance that runs the gamut from doting father to terrifyingly unbalanced. It’s unfortunate that the quiet scenes, in which all the actors excel, are overshadowed by the big, plate-smashing ones. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Capitalism: A Love Story Gun control. The Bush administration. Healthcare. Over the past decade, Michael Moore has tackled some of the most contentious issues with his trademark blend of humor and liberal rage. In Capitalism: A Love Story, he sets his sights on an even grander subject. Where to begin when you’re talking about an economic system that has defined this nation? Predictably, Moore’s focus is on all those times capitalism has failed. By this point, his tactics are familiar, but he still has a few tricks up his sleeve. As with Sicko (2007), Moore proves he can restrain himself he gets plenty of screen time, but he spends more time than ever behind the camera. This isn’t about Moore; it’s about the United States. When he steps out of the limelight, he’s ultimately more effective, crafting a film that’s bipartisan in nature, not just in name. No, he’s not likely to please all, but for every Glenn Beck, there’s a sane moderate wondering where all the money has gone. (2:07) Roxie. (Peitzman)

Christmas with Walt Disney Specially made for the Presidio’s recently opened Walt Disney Family Museum, this nearly hour-long compilation of vintage Yuletide-themed moments from throughout the studio’s history (up to Walt’s 1966 death) is more interesting than you might expect. The engine is eldest daughter Diane Disney Miller’s narrating reminiscences, often accompanied by excerpts from an apparently voluminous library of high-quality home movies. Otherwise, the clips are drawn from a mix of short and full-length animations, live-action features (like 1960’s Swiss Family Robinson), TV shows Wonderful World of Disney and Mickey Mouse Club, plus public events like Disneyland’s annual Christmas Parade and Disney’s orchestration of the 1960 Winter Olympics’ pageantry. If anything, this documentary is a little too rushed - it certainly could have idled a little longer with some of the less familiar cartoon material. But especially for those who who grew up with Disney product only in its post-founder era, it will be striking to realize what a large figure Walt himself once cut in American culture, not just as a brand but as an on-screen personality. The film screens Nov 27-Jan 2; for additional information, visit http://disney.go.com/disneyatoz/familymuseum/index.html. (:59) Walt Disney Family Museum. (Harvey)

*Collapse Michael Ruppert is a onetime LAPD narcotics detective and Republican whose radicalization started with the discovery (and exposure) of CIA drug trafficking operations in the late 70s. More recently he’s been known as an author agitator focusing on political coverups of many types, his ideas getting him branded as a factually unreliable conspiracy theorist by some (including some left voices like Norman Solomon) and a prophet by others (particularly himself). This documentary by Chris Smith (American Movie) gives him 82 minutes to weave together various concepts about peak oil, bailouts, the stock market, archaic governmental systems, the end of local food-production sustainability, et al. toward a frightening vision of near-future apocalypse. It’s “the greatest preventable holocaust in the history of planet Earth, our own suicide,” as tapped-out resources and fragile national infrastructures trigger a collapse in global industrialized civilization. This will force “the greatest age in human evolution that’s ever taken place,” necessitating entirely new (or perhaps very old, pre-industrial) community models for our species’ survival. Ruppert is passionate, earnest and rather brilliant. He also comes off at times as sad, angry, and eccentric, bridling whenever Smith raises questions about his methodologies. Essentially a lecture with some clever illustrative materials inserted (notably vintage educational cartoons), Collapse is, as alarmist screeds go, pretty dang alarming. It’s certainly food for thought, and would make a great viewing addendum to concurrent post-apocalyptic fiction The Road. (1:22) Shattuck. (Harvey)

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (2:38) Smith Rafael.

Disney’s A Christmas Carol (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.

*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) Albany, Piedmont. (Chun)

The End of Poverty? (1:46) Four Star.

Everybody’s Fine Robert De Niro works somewhere between serious De Niro and funny De Niro in this portrait of a family in muffled crisis, a remake of the 1991 Italian film Stanno Tutti Bene. The American version tracks the comings and goings of Frank (De Niro), a recently widowed retiree who fills his solitary hours working in the garden and talking to strangers about his children, who’ve flung themselves across the country in pursuit of various dreams and now send home overpolished reports of their achievements. Disappointed by his offspring’s collective failure to show up for a family get-together, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey to connect with each in turn. Writer-director Kirk Jones (1998’s Waking Ned Devine) effectively underscores Frank’s loneliness with shots of him steering his cart through empty grocery stores, interacting only with the occasional stock clerk, and De Niro projects a sense of drifting disconnection with poignant restraint. But Jones also litters the film with a string of uninspired, autopilot comic moments, and manifold shots of telephone wires as Frank’s children (Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore, and Sam Rockwell) whisper across the miles behind their father’s back his former vocation, manufacturing the telephone wires’ plastic coating, funded his kids’ more-ambitious aims feel like glancing blows to the head. A vaguely miraculous third-act exposition of everything they’ve been withholding to protect both him and themselves is handled with equal subtlety and the help of gratingly precocious child actors. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

*Everything Strange and New In Frazer Bradshaw’s Everything Strange and New, Wayne (Jerry McDaniel), wears overalls too large and a look of pained, dazed acquiescence. It’s as if not just his clothes but his life were given to the wrong person and there’s a no-exchange policy. He loves wife Reneé (the writer Beth Lisick) and their kids. But those two unplanned pregnancies mean she’s got to stay home; daycare would cost more than she’d earn. So every day Wayne returns from his dead-end construction job to the home whose mortgage holds them hostage; and every time Reneé can be heard screaming at their not-yet-school-age boys, at the end of her tether. Sometimes he silently just turns around to commiserate over beer with buddies likewise married with children, but doing no better. Wayne’s voiceover narration endlessly ponders how things got this way more or less as they should be, yet subtly wrong. He might be willing (or at least able) to let go of the idea of happiness. But Reneé’s inarticulate fury at her stifling domestication keeps striking at any nearby punching bag, himself (especially) included. Something’s got to change. But can it? Veteran local experimentalist and cinematographer Bradshaw’s first feature, which he also wrote, never stoops to narrative cliché. Or to stylistic ones, either there’s a spectral poetry to the way he photographs the Oakland flats. (1:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

*Fantastic Mr. Fox A lot of people have been busting filmmaker Wes Anderson’s proverbial chops lately, lambasting him for recent cinematic self-indulgences hewing dangerously close to self-parody (and in the case of 2007’s Darjeeling Limited, I’m one of them). Maybe he’s been listening. Either way, his new animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, should keep the naysayer wolves at bay for a while it’s nothing short of a rollicking, deadpan-hilarious case study in artistic renewal. A kind of man-imal inversion of Anderson’s other heist movie, his debut feature Bottle Rocket (1996), his latest revels in ramshackle spontaneity and childlike charm without sacrificing his adult preoccupations. Based on Roald Dahl’s beloved 1970 book, Mr. Fox captures the essence of the source material but is still full of Anderson trademarks: meticulously staged mise en scène, bisected dollhouse-like sets, eccentric dysfunctional families coming to grips with their talent and success (or lack thereof).(1:27) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Devereaux)

The Maid In an upper-middle class subdivision of Santiago, 40-year-old maid Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), perpetually stony and indignant, operates a rigorous dawn-to-dusk routine for the Valdez family. Although Raquel rarely behaves as an intimate of her longtime hosts, she remains convinced that love, not labor, bonds them. (Whether the family shares Raquel’s feelings of devotion is highly dubious.) When a rotating cast of interlopers is hired to assist her, she stoops to machinations most vile to scare them away until the arrival of Lucy (Mariana Loyola), whose unpredictable influence over Raquel sets the narrative of The Maid on a very different psychological trajectory, from moody chamber piece to eccentric slice-of-life. If writer-director Sebastián Silva’s film taunts the viewer with the possibility of a horrific climax, either as a result of its titular counterpart Jean Genet’s 1946 stage drama The Maids, about two servants’ homicidal revenge or from the unnerving “mugshot” of Saavedra on the movie poster, it is neither self-destructive nor Grand Guignol. Rather, it it is much more prosaic in execution. Sergio Armstrong’s fidgety hand-held camera captures Raquel’s claustrophobic routine as it accentuates her Sisyphean conundrum: although she completely rules the inner workings of the house, she remains forever a guest. But her character’s motivations often evoke as much confusion as wonder. In the absence of some much needed exposition, The Maid’s heavy-handed silences, plaintive gazes, and inexplicable eruptions of laughter feel oddly sterile, and a contrived preciousness begins to creep over the film like an effluvial whitewash. Its abundance makes you aware there is a shabbiness hiding beneath the dramatic facade the various stains and holes of an unrealized third act. (1:35) Shattuck. (Erik Morse)

The Men Who Stare at Goats No! The Men Who Stare at Goats was such an awesome book (by British journalist Jon Ronson) and the movie boasts such a terrific cast (George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor). How in the hell did it turn out to be such a lame, unfunny movie? Clooney gives it his all as Lyn Cassady, a retired “supersolider” who peers through his third eye and realizes the naïve reporter (McGregor) he meets in Kuwait is destined to accompany him on a cross-Iraq journey of self-discovery; said journey is filled with flashbacks to the reporter’s failed marriage (irrelevant) and Cassady’s training with a hippie military leader (Bridges) hellbent on integrating New Age thinking into combat situations. Had I the psychic powers of a supersoldier, I’d use some kind of mind-control technique to convince everyone within my brain-wave radius to skip this movie at all costs. Since I’m merely human, I’ll just say this: seriously, read the book instead. (1:28) Shattuck. (Eddy)

*The Messenger Ben Foster cut his teeth playing unhinged villains in Alpha Dog (2006) and 3:10 to Yuma (2007), but he cements his reputation as a promising young actor with a moving, sympathetic performance in director Oren Moverman’s The Messenger. Moverman (who also co-authored the script) is a four-year veteran of the Israeli army, and he draws on his military experience to create an intermittently harrowing portrayal of two soldiers assigned to the U.S. Army’s Casualty Notification Service. Will Montgomery (Foster) is still recovering from the physical and psychological trauma of combat when he is paired with Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), a by-the-book Captain whose gruff demeanor and good-old-boy gallows humor belie the complicated soul inside. Gut-wrenching encounters with the families of dead soldiers combine with stark, honest scenes that capture two men trying to come to grips with the mundane horrors of their world, and Samantha Morton completes a trio of fine acting turns as a serene Army widow. (1:45) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Richardson)

Ninja Assassin Let’s face it: it’d be nigh impossible to live up to a title as awesome as Ninja Assassin - and this second flick from V for Vendetta (2005) director James McTeigue doesn’t quite do it. Anyone who’s seen a martial arts movie will find the tale of hero Raizo overly familiar: a student (played by the single-named Rain) breaks violently with his teacher; revenge on both sides ensues. That the art form in question is contemporary ninja-ing adds a certain amount of interest, though after a killer ninja vs. yakuza opening scene (by far the film’s best), and a flashback or two of ninja vs. political targets, the rest of the flick is concerned mostly with either ninja vs. ninja or ninja vs. military guys. (As ninjas come “from the shadows,” most of these battles are presented in action-masking darkness.) There’s also an American forensic researcher (Noemie Harris) who starts poking around the ninja underground, a subplot that further saps the fun out of a movie that already takes itself way too seriously. (1:33) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Old Dogs John Travolta and Robin Williams play lifelong friends, business partners, and happily child-free bachelors whose lives change when the latter is forced to care for the 7-year-old twins (Conner Rayburn, Ella Bleu Travolta) he didn’t know he’d sired. You know what this will be like going in, and that’s what you get: a predictable mix of the broadly comedic and maudlin, with a screenplay that feels half-baked by committee, and direction (by Walt Becker, who’s also responsible for 2007’s Wild Hogs) that tries to compensate via frantic over-editing of setpieces that end before they’ve gotten started. The coasting stars seem to be enjoying themselves, but the momentary cheering effect made by each subsidiary familiar face - including Seth Green, Bernie Mac, Matt Dillon, Ann-Margret, Amy Sedaris, Dax Shepard, Justin Long, and Luis Guzman, some in unbilled cameos - sours as you realize almost none of them will get anything worthwhile to do. (1:28) 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

Pirate Radio I wanted to like Pirate Radio, a.k.a., The Boat That Rocked - really, I did. The raging, stormy sounds of the British Invasion - sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and all that rot. Pirate radio outlaw sexiness, writ large, influential, and mind-blowingly popular. This shaggy-dog of a comedy about the boat-bound, rollicking Radio Rock is based loosely on the history of Radio Caroline, which blasted transgressive rock ‘n’ roll (back when it was still subversive) and got around stuffy BBC dominance by broadcasting from a ship off British waters. Alas, despite the music and the attempts by filmmaker Richard Curtis to inject life, laughs, and girls into the mix (by way of increasingly absurd scenes of imagined listeners creaming themselves over Radio Rock’s programming), Pirate Radio will be a major disappointment for smart music fans in search of period accuracy (are we in the mid- or late ’60s or early or mid-’70s - tough to tell judging from the time-traveling getups on the DJs, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rhys Darby, among others?) and lame writing that fails to rise above the paint-by-the-numbers narrative buttressing, irksome literalness (yes, a betrayal by a lass named Marianne is followed by “So Long, Marianne”), and easy sexist jabs at all those slutty birds. Still, there’s a reason why so many artists - from Leonard Cohen to the Stones - have lent their songs to this shaky project, and though it never quite gets its sea legs, Pirate Radio has its heart in the right place - it just lost its brains somewhere along the way down to its crotch. (2:00) Oaks, Piedmont, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Planet 51 (1:31) Oaks, 1000 Van Ness.

*Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire This gut-wrenching, little-engine-that-could of a film shows the struggles of Precious, an overweight, illiterate 16-year-old girl from Harlem. Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is so believably vigilant (she was only 15 at the time of filming) that her performance alone could bring together the art-house viewers as well as take the Oscars by storm. But people need to actually go and experience this film. While Precious did win Sundance’s Grand Jury and Audience Award awards this year, there is a sad possibility that filmgoers will follow the current trend of “discussing” films that they’ve actually never seen. The daring casting choices of comedian Mo’Nique (as Precious’ all-too-realistically abusive mother) and Mariah Carey (brilliantly understated as an undaunted and dedicated social counselor) are attempts to attract a wider audience, but cynics can hurdle just about anything these days. What’s most significant about this Dancer in the Dark-esque chronicle is how Damien Paul’s screenplay and director Lee Daniels have taken their time to confront the most difficult moments in Precious’ story - and if that sounds heavy-handed, so be it. Stop blahging for a moment and let this movie move you. (1:49) SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Jesse Hawthorne Ficks)

Red Cliff All Chinese directors must try their hands at a historical epic of the swords and (arrow) shafts variety, and who can blame them: the spectacle, the combat, the sheer scale of carnage. With Red Cliff, John Woo appears to top the more operatic Chen Kaige and a more camp Zhang Yimou in the especially latter department. The body count in this lavishly CGI-appointed (by the Bay Area’s Orphanage), good-looking war film is on the high end of the Commando/Rambo scale. The endless, intricately choreographed battle scenes are the primary allure of this slash-’em-up, whittled-down version of the Chinese blockbuster, which was released in Asia as a four-hour two-parter. Yet despite some notably handsome cinematography that rivals that of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in its painterliness, seething performances by players like Tony Leung and Fengyi Zhang, and recognizable Woo leitmotifs (a male bonding-attraction that’s particularly pronounced during Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro’s zither shred-fests, fluttering doves, a climactic Mexican standoff, the added jeopardy of a baby amid the battle), the labyrinthian complexity of the story and its multitude of characters threaten to lose the Western viewer - or anyone less than familiar with Chinese history - before strenuous pleasures of Woo’s action machine kick in. The completely OTT finale will either have you rolling your eyes its absurdity or laughing aloud at its contrived showmanship. Despite Woo’s lip service to the virtues of peace and harmony, is there really any other way, apart from the warrior’s, in his world? (2:28) Shattuck. (Chun)

The Road After an apocalypse of unspecified origin, the U.S. - and presumably the world - is depleted of wildlife and agriculture. Social structures have collapsed. All that’s left is a grim survivalism in which father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (whimpery Kodi Smit-McPhee) try to find food sources and avoid fellow humans, since most of the latter are now cannibals. Flashbacks reveal their past with the wife and mother (Charlize Theron) who couldn’t bear soldiering on in this ruined future. Scenarist Joe Penhall (a playwright) and director John Hillcoat (2005’s The Proposition) have adapted Cormac McCarthy’s novel with painstaking fidelity. Their Road is slow, bleak, grungy and occasionally brutal. All qualities in synch with the source material - but something is lacking. One can appreciate Hillcoat and company’s efforts without feeling the deep empathy, let alone terror, that should charge this story of extreme faith and sacrifice. The film just sits there - chastening yet flat, impact unamplified by familiar faces (Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker) road-grimed past recognition. (1:53) California, Piedmont. (Harvey)

*A Serious Man You don’t have to be Jewish to like A Serious Man or to identify with beleaguered physics professor Larry Gopnik (the grandly aggrieved Michael Stuhlbarg), the well-meaning nebbishly center unable to hold onto a world quickly falling apart and looking for spiritual answers. It’s a coming of age for father and son, spurred by the small loss of a radio and a 20-dollar bill. Larry’s about-to-be-bar-mitzvahed son is listening to Jefferson Airplane instead of his Hebrew school teachers and beginning to chafe against authority. His daughter has commandeered the family bathroom for epic hair-washing sessions. His wife is leaving him for a silkily presumptuous family friend and has exiled Larry to the Jolly Roger Motel. His failure-to-launch brother is a closeted mathematical genius and has set up housekeeping on his couch. Larry’s chances of tenure could be spoiled by either an anonymous poison-pen writer or a disgruntled student intent on bribing him into a passing grade. One gun-toting neighbor vaguely menaces the borders of his property; the other sultry nude sunbather tempts with “new freedoms” and high times. What’s a mild-mannered prof to do, except envy Schrodinger’s Cat and approach three rungs of rabbis in his quest for answers to life’s most befuddling proofs? Reaching for a heightened, touched-by-advertising style that recalls Mad Men in look and Barton Fink (1991) in narrative and stooping for the subtle jokes as well as the ones branded “wide load” the Coen Brothers seem to be turning over, examining, and flirting with personally meaningful, serious narrative, though their Looney Tunes sense of humor can’t help but throw a surrealistic wrench into the works. (1:45) California, Piedmont. (Chun)

2012 I don’t need to give you reasons to see this movie. You don’t care about the clumsy, hastily dished-out pseudo scientific hoo-ha that explains this whole mess. You don’t care about John Cusack or Woody Harrelson or whoever else signed on for this embarrassing notch in their IMDB entry. You don’t care about Mayan mysteries, how hard it is for single dads, and that Danny Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor jointly stand in for Obama (always so on the zeitgeist, that Roland Emmerich). You already know what you’re in store for: the most jaw-dropping depictions of humankind’s near-complete destruction that director Emmerich - who has a flair for such things - has ever come up with. All the time, creative energy, and money James Cameron has spent perfecting the CGI pores of his characters in Avatar is so much hokum compared to what Emmerich and his Spartan army of computer animators dish out: the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy emerging through a cloud of toxic dust like some Mary Celeste of the military-industrial complex, born aloft on a massive tidal wave that pulverizes the White House; the dome of St. Paul’s flattening the opium-doped masses like a steamroller; Hawaii returned to its original volcanic state; and oodles more scenes in which we are allowed to register terror, but not horror, at the gorgeous destruction that is unfurled before us as the world ends (again) but no one really dies. Get this man a bigger budget. (2:40) Empire, California, 1000 Van Ness. (Sussman)

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Oh my God, you guys, it’s that time of the year: another Twilight chapter hits theaters. New Moon reunites useless cipher Bella (Kristen Steward) and Edward (Robert Pattinson), everyone’s favorite sparkly creature of darkness. Because this is a teen wangstfest, the course of true love is kind of bumpy. This time around, there’s a heavy Romeo and Juliet subplot and some interference from perpetually shirtless werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Chances are you know this already, as you’ve either devoured Stephenie Meyer’s book series or you were one of the record-breaking numbers in attendance for the film’s opening weekend. And for those non-Twilight fanatics is there any reason to see New Moon? Yes and no. Like the 2008’s Twilight, New Moon is reasonably entertaining, with plenty of underage sexual tension, supernatural slugfests, and laughable line readings. But there’s something off this time around: New Moon is fun but flat. For diehard fans, it’s another excuse to shriek at the screen. For anyone else, it’s a soulless diversion. (2:10) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Up in the Air After all the soldiers’ stories and the cannibalism canards of late, Up in the Air’s focus on a corporate ax-man an everyday everyman sniper in full-throttle downsizing mode is more than timely; it’s downright eerie. But George Clooney does his best to inject likeable, if not quite soulful, humanity into Ryan Bingham, an all-pro mileage collector who prides himself in laying off employees en masse with as few tears, tantrums, and murder-suicide rages as possible. This terminator’s smooth ride from airport terminal to terminal is interrupted not only by a possible soul mate, fellow smoothie and corporate traveler Alex (Vera Farmiga), but a young tech-savvy upstart, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who threatens to take the process to new reductionist lows (layoff via Web cam) and downsize Ryan along the way. With Up in the Air, director Jason Reitman, who oversaw Thank You for Smoking (2005) as well as Juno (2007), is threatening to become the bard of office parks, Casual Fridays, khaki-clad happy hours, and fly-over zones. But Up in the Air is no Death of a Salesman, and despite some memorable moments that capture the pain of downsizing and the flatness of real life, instances of snappily screwball dialogue, and some more than solid performances by all (and in particular, Kendrick), he never manages to quite sell us on the existence of Ryan’s soul. (1:49) SF Center. (Chun)

*William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe A middle-class suburban lawyer radicalized by the Civil Rights era, Kunstler became a hero of the left for his fiery defenses of the draft-card-burning Catonsville Nine, the Black Panthers, the Chicago Twelve, and the Attica prisoners rioting for improved conditions, and Native American protestors at Wounded Knee in 1973. But after these “glory days,” Kunstler’s judgment seemed to cloud while his thirst for “judicial theatre” and the media spotlight. Later clients included terrorists, organized-crime figures, a cop-killing drug dealer, and a suspect in the notorious Central Park “wilding” gang rape of a female jogger - unpopular causes, to say the least. “Dad’s clients gave us nightmares. He told us that everyone deserves a lawyer, but sometimes we didn’t understand why that lawyer had to be our father” says Emily Kunstler, who along with sister Sarah directed this engrossing documentary about their late father. Growing up under the shadow of this larger-than-life “self-hating Jew” and “hypocrite” - as he was called by those frequently picketing their house - wasn’t easy. Confronting this sometimes bewildering behemoth in the family, Disturbing the Universe considers his legacy to be a brave crusader’s one overall - even if the superhero in question occasionally made all Gotham City and beyond cringe at his latest antics. (1:30) Roxie. (Harvey)

Film Listings

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December 1, 2009

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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, Matt Sussman, and Laura Swanbeck. The film intern is Fernando F. Croce. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide at www.sfbg.com. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

OPENING

Armored Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, and Jean Reno star in this action flick about a group of armored-truck workers who plot to steal $42 million. (1:28) Shattuck.
Brothers One’s a decorated Marine (Tobey Maguire) and one’s a fuckup (Jake Gyllenhaal) in this remake of a 2004 Danish film. (1:50) Embarcadero, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.
*Collapse Michael Ruppert is a onetime LAPD narcotics detective and Republican whose radicalization started with the discovery (and exposure) of CIA drug trafficking operations in the late 70s. More recently he’s been known as an author agitator focusing on political cover-ups of many types, his ideas getting him branded as a factually unreliable conspiracy theorist by some (including some left voices like Norman Solomon) and a prophet by others (particularly himself). This documentary by Chris Smith (American Movie) gives him 82 minutes to weave together various concepts — about peak oil, bailouts, the stock market, archaic governmental systems, the end of local food-production sustainability, et al. — toward a frightening vision of near-future apocalypse. It’s “the greatest preventable holocaust in the history of planet Earth, our own suicide,” as tapped-out resources and fragile national infrastructures trigger a collapse in global industrialized civilization. This will force “the greatest age in human evolution that’s ever taken place,” necessitating entirely new (or perhaps very old, pre-industrial) community models for our species’ survival. Ruppert is passionate, earnest and rather brilliant. He also comes off at times as sad, angry, and eccentric, bridling whenever Smith raises questions about his methodologies. Essentially a lecture with some clever illustrative materials inserted (notably vintage educational cartoons), Collapse is, as alarmist screeds go, pretty dang alarming. It’s certainly food for thought, and would make a great viewing addendum to concurrent post-apocalyptic fiction The Road. (1:22) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet Famed documentarian Frederick Wiseman turns his camera on the storied ballet company. (2:38) Elmwood, Smith Rafael.
The End of Poverty? Martin Sheen narrates this doc about the root causes of poverty. (1:46) Four Star.
Everybody’s Fine Robert De Niro works somewhere between serious De Niro and funny De Niro in this portrait of a family in muffled crisis, a remake of the 1991 Italian film Stanno Tutti Bene. The American version tracks the comings and goings of Frank (De Niro), a recently widowed retiree who fills his solitary hours working in the garden and talking to strangers about his children, who’ve flung themselves across the country in pursuit of various dreams and now send home overpolished reports of their achievements. Disappointed by his offspring’s collective failure to show up for a family get-together, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey to connect with each in turn. Writer-director Kirk Jones (1998’s Waking Ned Devine) effectively underscores Frank’s loneliness with shots of him steering his cart through empty grocery stores, interacting only with the occasional stock clerk, and De Niro projects a sense of drifting disconnection with poignant restraint. But Jones also litters the film with a string of uninspired, autopilot comic moments, and manifold shots of telephone wires as Frank’s children (Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore, and Sam Rockwell) whisper across the miles behind their father’s back — his former vocation, manufacturing the telephone wires’ plastic coating, funded his kids’ more-ambitious aims — feel like glancing blows to the head. A vaguely miraculous third-act exposition of everything they’ve been withholding to protect both him and themselves is handled with equal subtlety and the help of gratingly precocious child actors. (1:35) Presidio. (Rapoport)
*Everything Strange and New See “Triumph of the Underdog.” (1:24) Roxie.
Serious Moonlight From a screenplay by the late actor, writer, and director Adrienne Shelly, Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines constructs a few scenes from a marriage in various kinds of jeopardy. The caddish-seeming Ian (Timothy Hutton) is on the verge of leaving his powerhouse-lawyer wife of 13 years, Louise (Meg Ryan), for a considerably younger and somewhat dimmer woman (Kristen Bell) when Louise throws a wrench in his plans with the help of a well-aimed flower pot and a roll of duct tape (are there any household problems this miracle material can’t solve?) What follows, with the unpredictable assistance of a gardener (Justin Long) who wanders onto the scene, is a sort of marathon couple’s-counseling session under duress that largely takes place within the confines of their bathroom — a roomy space, but rather smaller than your average therapist’s office. It’s not always easy to be in such close quarters with the pair as they rehash their relationship — a lot of decibels bounce off the walls as Ian yells and Louise endeavors to force him to recall, and feel, what he once felt. And while the circumstances, and the camera, give Ryan and Hutton the opportunity to leisurely express their characters’ conversational and interrelational habits, the larger issues are too much to work through all at once. The faint overlying tone of darker comedy and a scattering of physical gags restrain us from much emotional involvement, the backstory of the marriage gets pieced together in large, unlikely sections, and the film feels like an exercise or a sketch, rather than a deeply considered undertaking. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)
Transylmania Holy Vlad, another vampire movie? At least this one’s a spoof. (1:32).
Up in the Air After all the soldiers’ stories and the cannibalism canards of late, Up in the Air’s focus on a corporate ax-man — an everyday everyman sniper in full-throttle downsizing mode — is more than timely; it’s downright eerie. But George Clooney does his best to inject likeable, if not quite soulful, humanity into Ryan Bingham, an all-pro mileage collector who prides himself in laying off employees en masse with as few tears, tantrums, and murder-suicide rages as possible. This terminator’s smooth ride from airport terminal to terminal is interrupted not only by a possible soul mate, fellow smoothie and corporate traveler Alex (Vera Farmiga), but a young tech-savvy upstart, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who threatens to take the process to new reductionist lows (layoff via Web cam) and downsize Ryan along the way. With Up in the Air, director Jason Reitman, who oversaw Thank You for Smoking (2005) as well as Juno (2007), is threatening to become the bard of office parks, Casual Fridays, khaki-clad happy hours, and fly-over zones. But Up in the Air is no Death of a Salesman, and despite some memorable moments that capture the pain of downsizing and the flatness of real life, instances of snappily screwball dialogue, and some more than solid performances by all (and in particular, Kendrick), he never manages to quite sell us on the existence of Ryan’s soul. (1:49) (Chun)

ONGOING

Art and Copy (1:30) Roxie.
*Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2:01) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki.
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) Cerrito, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Daniel Alvarez)
*Capitalism: A Love Story (2:07) Red Vic, Roxie.
Christmas with Walt Disney (:59) Walt Disney Family Museum.
Coco Before Chanel (1:50) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.
Defamation (1:33) Roxie.
Disney’s A Christmas Carol (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.
*An Education (1:35) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont.
*Fantastic Mr. Fox A lot of people have been busting filmmaker Wes Anderson’s proverbial chops lately, lambasting him for recent cinematic self-indulgences hewing dangerously close to self-parody (and in the case of 2007’s Darjeeling Limited, I’m one of them). Maybe he’s been listening. Either way, his new animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, should keep the naysayer wolves at bay for a while — it’s nothing short of a rollicking, deadpan-hilarious case study in artistic renewal. A kind of man-imal inversion of Anderson’s other heist movie, his debut feature Bottle Rocket(1996), his latest revels in ramshackle spontaneity and childlike charm without sacrificing his adult preoccupations. Based on Roald Dahl’s beloved 1970 book, Mr. Foxcaptures the essence of the source material but is still full of Anderson trademarks: meticulously staged mise en scène, bisected dollhouse-like sets, eccentric dysfunctional families coming to grips with their talent and success (or lack thereof).(1:27) Elmwood, Empire, Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Devereaux)
*Good Hair (1:35) Opera Plaza.
The Maid (1:35) Clay, Shattuck.
The Men Who Stare at Goats (1:28) 1000 Van Ness, Roxie, Shattuck.
*The Messenger (1:45) Albany, Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael.
*Michael Jackson’s This Is It (1:52) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.
New York, I Love You (1:43) Lumiere.
Ninja Assassin (1:33) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.
Old Dogs (1:28) Elmwood, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness.
Pirate Radio (2:00) Elmwood, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki.
Planet 51 (1:31) Oaks, 1000 Van Ness.
*Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire (1:49) SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.
Red Cliff (2:28) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.
The Road (1:53) Embarcadero, California, Piedmont.
*A Serious Man (1:45) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont.
2012 (2:40) California, Empire, 1000 Van Ness.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2:10) Cerrito, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.
(Untitled) (1:30) Bridge, Shattuck.
*William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (1:30) Shattuck.

REP PICKS

The Cardinal In 1963 Otto Preminger was an old-guard titan of prestige Hollywood projects as yet unaware he’d just passed his peak. That this three-hour epic of priestly life got six Oscar nominations –- winning none, including what was only Preminger’s second go at Best Director –- testifies more to its scale and expense than to any great enthusiasm from press or public. Soon the famously tyrannical director would be considered by many a dinosaur in need of extinction so that new, less lumbering species could invigorate the medium. He did go away, too, or at least became irrelevant, via a painful late-career stretch of movies. Still, as a next-to-last effort (preceding 1965 John Wayne war spectacular In Harm’s Way) from his “superproduction” period, the seldom-revived Cardinal is not without interest. Based on a 1950 novel by Henry Morton Robinson, it charts the steady rise of idealistic but occasionally self-doubting Boston priest Stephen Fermoyle (Tom Tryon). Taking him from humble beginnings to Vatican insiderdom, the episodic narrative features Carol Lynley as a sister who becomes (for forbidden love of a Jew) a fallen woman; John Huston, Burgess Meredith, Raf Vallone, and Josef Meinrad as mentoring fellow men of the cloth; Ossie Davis as a black Georgia priest whose agitation against racism attracts KKK violence; and Romy Schneider as the Viennese girl who nearly lures Stephen from his vocation, then encounters him years later as a married woman threatened by the Gestapo. There’s also a completely unnecessary musical sequence with “Bobby (Morse) and His Adora-Belles,” a Passion of the Christ-like whipping scene, and other sporadic incongruities. For the most part, however, The Cardinal is all too steady of pulse, its 175 minutes consistently interesting yet without cumulative power. That’s long been blamed on Tryon, a tall, handsome, placid actor who fails to communicate a difficult role’s inner turmoil. But it’s also the producer-director’s fault. He hews to the cinematic era’s disinterest in real period atmosphere, renders gritty episodes corny, and demonstrates no stage-management flair for big setpieces like a late Nazi riot. Nonetheless, the film’s seriousness about church politics –- especially conflicting personal ethics and institutional necessity –- remains potent. This Film on Film Foundation screening features a very rare surviving 35mm widescreen Technicolor print, and is shown as a sidebar to but not an official part of the PFA’s current Preminger retrospective. (2:55) Pacific Film Archive. (Harvey)

*“Four by Hungarian Master Miklós Janksó” See “They Were Expendable.”

Film listings

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November 24, 2009

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

OPENING

Christmas with Walt Disney Specially made for the Presidio’s recently opened Walt Disney Family Museum, this nearly hour-long compilation of vintage Yuletide-themed moments from throughout the studio’s history (up to Walt’s 1966 death) is more interesting than you might expect. The engine is eldest daughter Diane Disney Miller’s narrating reminiscences, often accompanied by excerpts from an apparently voluminous library of high-quality home movies. Otherwise, the clips are drawn from a mix of short and full-length animations, live-action features (like 1960’s Swiss Family Robinson), TV shows Wonderful World of Disney and Mickey Mouse Club, plus public events like Disneyland’s annual Christmas Parade and Disney’s orchestration of the 1960 Winter Olympics’ pageantry. If anything, this documentary is a little too rushed –- it certainly could have idled a little longer with some of the less familiar cartoon material. But especially for those who who grew up with Disney product only in its post-founder era, it will be striking to realize what a large figure Walt himself once cut in American culture, not just as a brand but as an on-screen personality. The film screens Nov 27-Jan 2; for additional information, visit http://disney.go.com/disneyatoz/familymuseum/index.html. (:59) Walt Disney Family Museum. (Harvey)

*Fantastic Mr. Fox "See 21st Century Fox." (1:27) Four Star, Marina.

Ninja Assassin Let’s face it: it’d be nigh impossible to live up to a title as awesome as Ninja Assassin –- and this second flick from V for Vendetta (2005) director James McTeigue doesn’t quite do it. Anyone who’s seen a martial arts movie will find the tale of hero Raizo overly familiar: a student (played by the single-named Rain) breaks violently with his teacher; revenge on both sides ensues. That the art form in question is contemporary ninja-ing adds a certain amount of interest, though after a killer ninja vs. yakuza opening scene (by far the film’s best), and a flashback or two of ninja vs. political targets, the rest of the flick is concerned mostly with either ninja vs. ninja or ninja vs. military guys. (As ninjas come "from the shadows," most of these battles are presented in action-masking darkness.) There’s also an American forensic researcher (Noemie Harris) who starts poking around the ninja underground, a subplot that further saps the fun out of a movie that already takes itself way too seriously. (1:33) (Eddy)

Oh My God? See "Pray Tell." (1:38) Lumiere.

Old Dogs John Travolta and Robin Williams play lifelong friends, business partners, and happily child-free bachelors whose lives change when the latter is forced to care for the 7-year-old twins (Conner Rayburn, Ella Bleu Travolta) he didn’t know he’d sired. You know what this will be like going in, and that’s what you get: a predictable mix of the broadly comedic and maudlin, with a screenplay that feels half-baked by committee, and direction (by Walt Becker, who’s also responsible for 2007’s Wild Hogs) that tries to compensate via frantic over-editing of setpieces that end before they’ve gotten started. The coasting stars seem to be enjoying themselves, but the momentary cheering effect made by each subsidiary familiar face –- including Seth Green, Bernie Mac, Matt Dillon, Ann-Margret, Amy Sedaris, Dax Shepard, Justin Long, and Luis Guzman, some in unbilled cameos –- sours as you realize almost none of them will get anything worthwhile to do. (1:28) Oaks. (Harvey)

Red Cliff All Chinese directors must try their hands at a historical epic of the swords and (arrow) shafts variety, and who can blame them: the spectacle, the combat, the sheer scale of carnage. With Red Cliff, John Woo appears to top the more operatic Chen Kaige and a more camp Zhang Yimou in the especially latter department. The body count in this lavishly CGI-appointed (by the Bay Area’s Orphanage), good-looking war film is on the high end of the Commando/Rambo scale. The endless, intricately choreographed battle scenes are the primary allure of this slash-’em-up, whittled-down version of the Chinese blockbuster, which was released in Asia as a four-hour two-parter. Yet despite some notably handsome cinematography that rivals that of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in its painterliness, seething performances by players like Tony Leung and Fengyi Zhang, and recognizable Woo leitmotifs (a male bonding-attraction that’s particularly pronounced during Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro’s zither shred-fests, fluttering doves, a climactic Mexican standoff, the added jeopardy of a baby amid the battle), the labyrinthian complexity of the story and its multitude of characters threaten to lose the Western viewer –- or anyone less than familiar with Chinese history –- before strenuous pleasures of Woo’s action machine kick in. The completely OTT finale will either have you rolling your eyes its absurdity or laughing aloud at its contrived showmanship. Despite Woo’s lip service to the virtues of peace and harmony, is there really any other way, apart from the warrior’s, in his world? (2:28) Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Road After an apocalypse of unspecified origin, the U.S. –- and presumably the world –- is depleted of wildlife and agriculture. Social structures have collapsed. All that’s left is a grim survivalism in which father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (whimpery Kodi Smit-McPhee) try to find food sources and avoid fellow humans, since most of the latter are now cannibals. Flashbacks reveal their past with the wife and mother (Charlize Theron) who couldn’t bear soldiering on in this ruined future. Scenarist Joe Penhall (a playwright) and director John Hillcoat (2005’s The Proposition) have adapted Cormac McCarthy’s novel with painstaking fidelity. Their Road is slow, bleak, grungy and occasionally brutal. All qualities in synch with the source material –- but something is lacking. One can appreciate Hillcoat and company’s efforts without feeling the deep empathy, let alone terror, that should charge this story of extreme faith and sacrifice. The film just sits there –- chastening yet flat, impact unamplified by familiar faces (Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker) road-grimed past recognition. (1:53) Embarcadero, California, Piedmont. (Harvey)

Sophie’s Revenge Zhang Ziyi stars as the titular woman who seeks you-know-what after her boyfriend dumps her. (1:47) Four Star.

ONGOING

Art and Copy Doc maker Doug Pray (1996’s Hype!, 2001’s Scratch, 2007’s Surfwise) uses the mid-twentieth century’s revolution in advertising to background an absorbing portrait of the industry’s leading edge, with historical commentary, philosophical observations, and pop-psych self-scrutiny by some of the rebel forces and their descendants (including locals Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein). We see the ads that made a permanent dent in our consciousness over the past five decades. We hear conference-room tales of famous campaigns, like "Got Milk?" and "I Want My MTV." And during quieter interludes, stats on advertising’s global cultural presence drift on-screen to astonish and unnerve. Lofty self-comparisons to cave painters and midwives may raise eyebrows, but Pray has gathered some of the industry’s brighter, more engaging lights, and his subjects discuss their métier thoughtfully, wittily, and quite earnestly. There are elisions in the moral line some of them draw in the process, and it would have been interesting to hear, amid the exalted talk of advertising that rises to the level of art, some philosophizing on where all this packaging and selling gets us, in a branding-congested age when it’s hard to deny that breakneck consumption is having a deleterious effect on the planet. Instead the film occasionally veers in the direction of becoming an advertisement for advertising. Still, Art and Copy complicates our impressions of a vilified profession, and what it reveals about these creatives’ perceptions of their vocation (one asserts that "you can manufacture any feeling that you want to manufacture") makes it worth watching, even if you usually fast-forward through the ads. (1:30) Roxie. (Rapoport)

*Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Consider that ridiculous title. Though its poster and imdb entry eliminate the initial article, it appears onscreen as The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. That’s the bad lieutenant, not to be confused with Abel Ferrara’s 1992 Bad Lieutenant. The bad lieutenant has a name: Terence McDonagh, and he’s a police officer of similarly wobbly moral fiber. McDonagh’s tale — inspired by Ferrara and scripted by William Finkelstein, but perhaps more important, filmed by Werner Herzog and interpreted by Nicolas Cage — opens with a snake slithering through a post-Hurricane Katrina flood. A prisoner has been forgotten in a basement jail. McDonagh and fellow cop Stevie Pruit (Val Kilmer) taunt the man, taking bets on how long it’ll take him to drown in the rising waters. An act of cruelty seems all but certain until McDonagh, who’s quickly been established as a righteous asshole, suddenly dives in for the rescue. Unpredictability, and quite a bit of instability, reigns thereafter. Every scene holds the possibility of careening to heights both campy and terrifying, and Cage proves an inspired casting choice. At this point in his career, he has nothing to lose, and his take on Lt. McDonagh is as haywire as it gets. McDonagh snorts coke before reporting to a crime scene; he threatens the elderly; he hauls his star teenage witness along when he confronts a john who’s mistreated his prostitute girlfriend (Eva Mendes); he cackles like a maniac; he lurches around like a hunchback on crack. Not knowing what McDonagh will do next is as entertaining as knowing it’ll likely be completely insane. (2:01) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (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) Cerrito, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Daniel Alvarez)

*Capitalism: A Love Story Gun control. The Bush administration. Healthcare. Over the past decade, Michael Moore has tackled some of the most contentious issues with his trademark blend of humor and liberal rage. In Capitalism: A Love Story, he sets his sights on an even grander subject. Where to begin when you’re talking about an economic system that has defined this nation? Predictably, Moore’s focus is on all those times capitalism has failed. By this point, his tactics are familiar, but he still has a few tricks up his sleeve. As with Sicko (2007), Moore proves he can restrain himself — he gets plenty of screen time, but he spends more time than ever behind the camera. This isn’t about Moore; it’s about the United States. When he steps out of the limelight, he’s ultimately more effective, crafting a film that’s bipartisan in nature, not just in name. No, he’s not likely to please all, but for every Glenn Beck, there’s a sane moderate wondering where all the money has gone. (2:07) Red Vic, Roxie. (Peitzman)

Coco Before Chanel Like her designs, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel was elegant, très chic, and utterly original. Director Anne Fontaine’s French biopic traces Coco (Audrey Tautou) from her childhood as a struggling orphan to one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. You’ll be disappointed if you expect a fashionista’s up close and personal look at the House of Chanel, as Fontaine keeps her story firmly rooted in Coco’s past, including her destructive relationship with French playboy Etienne Balsar (Benoît Poelvoorde) and her ill-fated love affair with dashing Englishman Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola). The film functions best in scenes that display Coco’s imagination and aesthetic magnetism, like when she dances with Capel in her now famous "little black dress" amidst a sea of stiff, white meringues. Tautou imparts a quiet courage and quick wit as the trailblazing designer, and Nivola is unmistakably charming and compassionate as Boy. Nevertheless, Fontaine rushes the ending and never truly seizes the opportunity to explore how Coco’s personal life seeped into her timeless designs that were, in the end, an extension of herself. (1:50) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Swanbeck)

Defamation When you begin to perceive all criticism as persecutorial, you might forget it’s possible to be wrong. That’s the worry driving Yoav Shamir’s Defamation, opening theatrically following a stormy reception at July’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. The documentarian (2003’s Checkpoint) says that as an Israeli Jew he’s never actually experienced anti-Semitism. So he sets out to explore that prejudice’s status quo — or so he claims, somewhat disingenuously. Because Defamation‘s real agenda is positing anti-Semitism as a distorted, exploited, propagandic bludgeon used to taint any critique of Israeli government policies or the foreign lobbies supporting them. This is a theory bound to inflame angry emotions, not least the "self-hating Jew" accusation. It must be said that Shamir lays himself at risk — à la Michael Moore — of selectively gathering only evidence that supports his agenda. Anti-Semitism certainly does exist today, in many different forms, around the world. And if Defamation‘s deliberate omissions and occasional snarky tone hamper its case, Shamir nonetheless makes legitimately troubling points. His most controversial interviewee is Norman Finklestein, whose book The Holocaust Industry got him pilloried as a Holocaust denier (untrue) and quite likely cost him his teaching position. The son of Shoah survivors, he thinks "the Nazi Holocaust is now the main ideological weapon for launching wars of aggression" and that "pathological narcissism" desensitizes many American Jews to other people’s sufferings. The author can be persuasively reasonable. To Defamation‘s credit, however, it doesn’t yell "Cut!" when Finklestein whips himself into a crank-case frenzy that masochistically self-destructs his credibility. Absolute righteousness ain’t pretty, anywhere on the political spectrum. (1:33) Roxie. (Harvey)

Disney’s A Christmas Carol (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.

*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) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Chun)

*Good Hair Spurred by his little daughter’s plaintive query ("Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?"), Chris Rock gets his Michael Moore freak on and sets out to uncover the racial and cultural implications of African-American hairstyling. Visiting beauty salons, talking to specialists, and interviewing celebrities ranging from Maya Angelou to Ice-T, the comic wisecracks his way into some pretty trenchant insights about how black women’s coiffures can often reflect Caucasian-set definitions of beauty. (Leave it to Rev. Al Sharpton to voice it ingeniously: "You comb your oppression every morning!") Rock makes an affable guide in Jeff Stilson’s breezy documentary, which posits the hair industry as a global affair where relaxers work as "nap-antidotes" and locks sacrificially shorn in India end up as pricey weaves in Beverly Hills. Maybe startled by his more disquieting discoveries, Rock shifts the focus to flamboyant, crowd-pleasing shenanigans at the Bronner Bros. International Hair Show. Despite such softball detours, it’s a genial and revealing tour. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Croce)

*The House of the Devil Ti West’s The House of the Devil is a retro thrillfest quite happy to sacrifice the babysitter to the Dark Lord. "Based on true unexplained events" (uh-huh), the buzzed-about indie horror has fanboy casting both old school (Dee Wallace, Mary Woronov, Tom Noonan — all performing seriously rather than campily) and new (AJ Bowen of 2007’s The Signal and mumblecore regular Greta Gerwig). Its heroine (Jocelin Donahue), a 1980 East Coast collegiate sophomore desperate for rent cash so she can escape her dorm roomie’s loud nightly promiscuity, signs on for a baby- (actually, grandma-) sitting gig advertised on telephone poles. For tonight. During a lunar eclipse. Bad move. Devil takes its time, springing nothing lethal until nearly halfway through. Its period setting allows for ultratight jeans, feathered hair, rotary dialing, a synth-New Wavey score, and other potentially campy elements the film manages to render respectfully appreciative rather than silly. Ultimately, it isn’t significantly better than various fine indie horrors of recent vintage and various nationality that went direct to DVD. (Quality, let alone originality, aren’t necessarily a commercial pluses in this genre.) But it is dang good, and that cuts it above most current theatrical horror releases. (1:33) Lumiere. (Harvey)

The Maid In an upper-middle class subdivision of Santiago, 40-year-old maid Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), perpetually stony and indignant, operates a rigorous dawn-to-dusk routine for the Valdez family. Although Raquel rarely behaves as an intimate of her longtime hosts, she remains convinced that love, not labor, bonds them. (Whether the family shares Raquel’s feelings of devotion is highly dubious.) When a rotating cast of interlopers is hired to assist her, she stoops to machinations most vile to scare them away — until the arrival of Lucy (Mariana Loyola), whose unpredictable influence over Raquel sets the narrative of The Maid on a very different psychological trajectory, from moody chamber piece to eccentric slice-of-life. If writer-director Sebastián Silva’s film taunts the viewer with the possibility of a horrific climax, either as a result of its titular counterpart — Jean Genet’s 1946 stage drama The Maids, about two servants’ homicidal revenge — or from the unnerving "mugshot" of Saavedra on the movie poster, it is neither self-destructive nor Grand Guignol. Rather, it it is much more prosaic in execution. Sergio Armstrong’s fidgety hand-held camera captures Raquel’s claustrophobic routine as it accentuates her Sisyphean conundrum: although she completely rules the inner workings of the house, she remains forever a guest. But her character’s motivations often evoke as much confusion as wonder. In the absence of some much needed exposition, The Maid’s heavy-handed silences, plaintive gazes, and inexplicable eruptions of laughter feel oddly sterile, and a contrived preciousness begins to creep over the film like an effluvial whitewash. Its abundance makes you aware there is a shabbiness hiding beneath the dramatic facade — the various stains and holes of an unrealized third act. (1:35) Clay, Shattuck. (Erik Morse)

The Men Who Stare at Goats No! The Men Who Stare at Goats was such an awesome book (by British journalist Jon Ronson) and the movie boasts such a terrific cast (George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor). How in the hell did it turn out to be such a lame, unfunny movie? Clooney gives it his all as Lyn Cassady, a retired "supersolider" who peers through his third eye and realizes the naïve reporter (McGregor) he meets in Kuwait is destined to accompany him on a cross-Iraq journey of self-discovery; said journey is filled with flashbacks to the reporter’s failed marriage (irrelevant) and Cassady’s training with a hippie military leader (Bridges) hellbent on integrating New Age thinking into combat situations. Had I the psychic powers of a supersoldier, I’d use some kind of mind-control technique to convince everyone within my brain-wave radius to skip this movie at all costs. Since I’m merely human, I’ll just say this: seriously, read the book instead. (1:28) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*The Messenger Ben Foster cut his teeth playing unhinged villains in Alpha Dog (2006) and 3:10 to Yuma (2007), but he cements his reputation as a promising young actor with a moving, sympathetic performance in director Oren Moverman’s The Messenger. Moverman (who also co-authored the script) is a four-year veteran of the Israeli army, and he draws on his military experience to create an intermittently harrowing portrayal of two soldiers assigned to the U.S. Army’s Casualty Notification Service. Will Montgomery (Foster) is still recovering from the physical and psychological trauma of combat when he is paired with Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), a by-the-book Captain whose gruff demeanor and good-old-boy gallows humor belie the complicated soul inside. Gut-wrenching encounters with the families of dead soldiers combine with stark, honest scenes that capture two men trying to come to grips with the mundane horrors of their world, and Samantha Morton completes a trio of fine acting turns as a serene Army widow. (1:45) Albany, Smith Rafael. (Richardson)

*Michael Jackson’s This Is It Time –- and a tragic early death –- has a way of coloring perception, so little surprise that these thought pops into one’s head throughout This Is It: when did Michael Jackson transform himself into such an elegant, haute-pop sylph? Such a pixie-nosed, lacy-haired petit four of music-making delicacy? And where can I get his to-die-for, pointy-shouldered, rhinestone-lapeled Alexander McQueen-ish jacket? Something a bit bewitching this way comes as Michael Jackson –- now that he’s gone, seemingly less freakish than an outright phenomenon –- gracefully flits across the screen in this final (really?) document of his last hurrah, the rehearsals for his sold-out shows at O2 Arena in London. This Is It is far from perfect: this grainy video scratchpad of a film obviously wasn’t designed by the perfectionist MJ to be his final testament to pop. Director Kenny Ortega does his best to cobble together what looks like several rehearsal performances with teary testimonials from dancers (instilled with the intriguing idea that they are extensions of the surgery-friendly Jackson’s body onstage), interviews with musicians, minimal archival footage, and glimpses of Jacko protesting about being encouraged to "sing through" certain songs when he’s trying to preserve his voice, urging the band to play it "like the record," and still moving, dancing, and gesticuutf8g with such grace that you’re left with more than a tinge of regret that "This Is It," the tour, never came to pass. It’s a pure, albeit adulterated, pleasure to watch the man do the do, even with the gaps in the flow, even with the footage filtered by a family intent on propping up the franchise. Amid the artistry and kitsch, critics, pop academics, and superfans will find plenty to chew over –- from Jackson’s curiously timed physical complaints as the Jackson 5 segment kicks in, to the surreally CGI-ed, golden-age-of-Hollywood mash-up sequence. (1:52) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck. (Chun)

New York, I Love You A dreamy mash note to the city that never sleeps, New York, I Love You is the latest installment in a series of omnibus odes to world metropolises and the denizens that live and love within the city limits. Less successful than the Paris, je t’aime (2006) anthology — which roped in such disparate international directors as Gus Van Sant and Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuaron and Olivier Assayas — New York welcomes a more minor-key host of directors to the project with enjoyable if light-weight results. Surely any bite of the Big Apple would be considerably sexier. Bradley Cooper and Drea de Matteo tease out a one-night stand with legs, and Ethan Hawke and Maggie Q generate a wee bit of verbal fire over street-side cigs, yet there’s surprisingly little heat in this take on a few of the 8 million stories in the archetypal naked city. Most memorable are the strangest couplings, such as that of Natalie Portman, a Hasidic bride who flirtatiously haggles with Irrfan Khan, a Jain diamond merchant, in a tale directed by Mira Nair. Despite the pleasure of witnessing Julie Christie, Eli Wallach, and Cloris Leachman in action, many of these pieces — written by the late Anthony Minghella, Israel Horovitz, and Portman, among others — feel a mite too slight to nail down the attention of all but the most desperate romantics. (1:43) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Chun)

*Paranormal Activity In this ostensible found-footage exercise, Katie (Katie Featherson) and Micah (Micah Sloat) are a young San Diego couple whose first home together has a problem: someone, or something, is making things go bump in the night. In fact, Katie has sporadically suffered these disturbances since childhood, when an amorphous, not-at-reassuring entity would appear at the foot of her bed. Skeptical technophile Micah’s solution is to record everything on his primo new video camera, including a setup to shoot their bedroom while they sleep — surveillance footage sequences that grow steadily more terrifying as incidents grow more and more invasive. Like 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, Oren Peli’s no-budget first feature may underwhelm mainstream genre fans who only like their horror slick and slasher-gory. But everybody else should appreciate how convincingly the film’s very ordinary, at times annoying protagonists (you’ll eventually want to throttle Micah, whose efforts are clearly making things worse) fall prey to a hostile presence that manifests itself in increments no less alarming for being (at first) very small. When this hits DVD, you’ll get to see the original, more low-key ending (the film has also been tightened up since its festival debut two years ago). But don’t wait — Paranormal‘s subtler effects will be lost on the small screen. Not to mention that it’s a great collective screaming-audience experience. (1:39) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

*Paris Cédric Klapisch’s latest offers a series of interconnected stories with Paris as the backdrop, designed — if you’ll pardon the cliché — as a love letter to the city. On the surface, the plot of Paris sounds an awful lot like Paris, je t’aime (2006). But while the latter was composed entirely of vignettes, Paris has an actual, overarching plot. Perhaps that’s why it’s so much more effective. Juliette Binoche stars as Élise, whose brother Pierre (Romain Duris) is in dire need of a heart transplant. A dancer by trade, Pierre is also a world-class people watcher, and it’s his fascination with those around him that serves as Paris‘ wraparound device. He sees snippets of these people’s lives, but we get the full picture — or at least, something close to it. The strength of Paris is in the depth of its characters: every one we meet is more complex than you’d guess at first glance. The more they play off one another, the more we understand. Of course, the siblings remain at the film’s heart: sympathetic but not pitiable, moving but not maudlin. Both Binoche and Duris turn in strong performances, aided by a supporting cast of French actors who impress in even the smallest of roles. (2:04) Opera Plaza. (Peitzman)

Pirate Radio I wanted to like Pirate Radio, a.k.a., The Boat That Rocked –- really, I did. The raging, stormy sounds of the British Invasion –- sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and all that rot. Pirate radio outlaw sexiness, writ large, influential, and mind-blowingly popular. This shaggy-dog of a comedy about the boat-bound, rollicking Radio Rock is based loosely on the history of Radio Caroline, which blasted transgressive rock ‘n’ roll (back when it was still subversive) and got around stuffy BBC dominance by broadcasting from a ship off British waters. Alas, despite the music and the attempts by filmmaker Richard Curtis to inject life, laughs, and girls into the mix (by way of increasingly absurd scenes of imagined listeners creaming themselves over Radio Rock’s programming), Pirate Radio will be a major disappointment for smart music fans in search of period accuracy (are we in the mid- or late ’60s or early or mid-’70s –- tough to tell judging from the time-traveling getups on the DJs, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rhys Darby, among others?) and lame writing that fails to rise above the paint-by-the-numbers narrative buttressing, irksome literalness (yes, a betrayal by a lass named Marianne is followed by "So Long, Marianne"), and easy sexist jabs at all those slutty birds. Still, there’s a reason why so many artists –- from Leonard Cohen to the Stones –- have lent their songs to this shaky project, and though it never quite gets its sea legs, Pirate Radio has its heart in the right place –- it just lost its brains somewhere along the way down to its crotch. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Planet 51 (1:31) Oaks, 1000 Van Ness.

*Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire This gut-wrenching, little-engine-that-could of a film shows the struggles of Precious, an overweight, illiterate 16-year-old girl from Harlem. Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is so believably vigilant (she was only 15 at the time of filming) that her performance alone could bring together the art-house viewers as well as take the Oscars by storm. But people need to actually go and experience this film. While Precious did win Sundance’s Grand Jury and Audience Award awards this year, there is a sad possibility that filmgoers will follow the current trend of "discussing" films that they’ve actually never seen. The daring casting choices of comedian Mo’Nique (as Precious’ all-too-realistically abusive mother) and Mariah Carey (brilliantly understated as an undaunted and dedicated social counselor) are attempts to attract a wider audience, but cynics can hurdle just about anything these days. What’s most significant about this Dancer in the Dark-esque chronicle is how Damien Paul’s screenplay and director Lee Daniels have taken their time to confront the most difficult moments in Precious’ story –- and if that sounds heavy-handed, so be it. Stop blahging for a moment and let this movie move you. (1:49) SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Jesse Hawthorne Ficks)

*The September Issue The Lioness D’Wintour, the Devil Who Wears Prada, or the High Priestess of Condé Nasty — it doesn’t matter what you choose to call Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. If you’re in the fashion industry, you will call her — or at least be amused by the power she wields as the overseer of style’s luxury bible, then 700-plus pages strong for its legendary September fall fashion issue back in the heady days of ’07, pre-Great Recession. But you don’t have to be a publishing insider to be fascinated by director R.J. Cutler’s frisky, sharp-eyed look at the making of fashion’s fave editorial doorstop. Wintour’s laser-gazed facade is humanized, as Cutler opens with footage of a sparkling-eyed editor breaking down fashion’s fluffy reputation. He then follows her as she assumes the warrior pose in, say, the studio of Yves St. Laurent, where she has designer Stefano Pilati fluttering over his morose color choices, and in the offices of the magazine, where she slices, dices, and kills photo shoots like a sartorial samurai. Many of the other characters at Vogue (like OTT columnist André Leon Talley) are given mere cameos, but Wintour finds a worthy adversary-compatriot in creative director Grace Coddington, another Englishwoman and ex-model — the red-tressed, pale-as-a-wraith Pre-Raphaelite dreamer to Wintour’s well-armored knight. The two keep each other honest and craftily ingenious, and both the magazine and this doc benefit. (1:28) Presidio. (Chun)

*A Serious Man You don’t have to be Jewish to like A Serious Man — or to identify with beleaguered physics professor Larry Gopnik (the grandly aggrieved Michael Stuhlbarg), the well-meaning nebbishly center unable to hold onto a world quickly falling apart and looking for spiritual answers. It’s a coming of age for father and son, spurred by the small loss of a radio and a 20-dollar bill. Larry’s about-to-be-bar-mitzvahed son is listening to Jefferson Airplane instead of his Hebrew school teachers and beginning to chafe against authority. His daughter has commandeered the family bathroom for epic hair-washing sessions. His wife is leaving him for a silkily presumptuous family friend and has exiled Larry to the Jolly Roger Motel. His failure-to-launch brother is a closeted mathematical genius and has set up housekeeping on his couch. Larry’s chances of tenure could be spoiled by either an anonymous poison-pen writer or a disgruntled student intent on bribing him into a passing grade. One gun-toting neighbor vaguely menaces the borders of his property; the other sultry nude sunbather tempts with "new freedoms" and high times. What’s a mild-mannered prof to do, except envy Schrodinger’s Cat and approach three rungs of rabbis in his quest for answers to life’s most befuddling proofs? Reaching for a heightened, touched-by-advertising style that recalls Mad Men in look and Barton Fink (1991) in narrative — and stooping for the subtle jokes as well as the ones branded "wide load" — the Coen Brothers seem to be turning over, examining, and flirting with personally meaningful, serious narrative, though their Looney Tunes sense of humor can’t help but throw a surrealistic wrench into the works. (1:45) California, Embarcadero, Empire, Piedmont. (Chun)

2012 I don’t need to give you reasons to see this movie. You don’t care about the clumsy, hastily dished-out pseudo scientific hoo-ha that explains this whole mess. You don’t care about John Cusack or Woody Harrelson or whoever else signed on for this embarrassing notch in their IMDB entry. You don’t care about Mayan mysteries, how hard it is for single dads, and that Danny Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor jointly stand in for Obama (always so on the zeitgeist, that Roland Emmerich). You already know what you’re in store for: the most jaw-dropping depictions of humankind’s near-complete destruction that director Emmerich –- who has a flair for such things –- has ever come up with. All the time, creative energy, and money James Cameron has spent perfecting the CGI pores of his characters in Avatar is so much hokum compared to what Emmerich and his Spartan army of computer animators dish out: the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy emerging through a cloud of toxic dust like some Mary Celeste of the military-industrial complex, born aloft on a massive tidal wave that pulverizes the White House; the dome of St. Paul’s flattening the opium-doped masses like a steamroller; Hawaii returned to its original volcanic state; and oodles more scenes in which we are allowed to register terror, but not horror, at the gorgeous destruction that is unfurled before us as the world ends (again) but no one really dies. Get this man a bigger budget. (2:40) California, Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness. (Sussman)

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Oh my God, you guys, it’s that time of the year: another Twilight chapter hits theaters. New Moon reunites useless cipher Bella (Kristen Steward) and Edward (Robert Pattinson), everyone’s favorite sparkly creature of darkness. Because this is a teen wangstfest, the course of true love is kind of bumpy. This time around, there’s a heavy Romeo and Juliet subplot and some interference from perpetually shirtless werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Chances are you know this already, as you’ve either devoured Stephenie Meyer’s book series or you were one of the record-breaking numbers in attendance for the film’s opening weekend. And for those non-Twilight fanatics — is there any reason to see New Moon? Yes and no. Like the 2008’s Twilight, New Moon is reasonably entertaining, with plenty of underage sexual tension, supernatural slugfests, and laughable line readings. But there’s something off this time around: New Moon is fun but flat. For diehard fans, it’s another excuse to shriek at the screen. For anyone else, it’s a soulless diversion. (2:10) Cerrito, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Peitzman)

(Untitled) The sometimes absurd pretensions of the modern art world have –- for many decades –- been so easily, condescendingly ridiculed that its intelligently knowing satire is hard to come by. (How much harder still would it be for a fictive film to convey the genius of, say Anselm Kiefer? Even Ed Harris’ 2000 Pollock less vividly captured the art or its creation –- better done by Francis Ford Coppola and Nick Nolte in their 1989 New York Stories segment –- than the usual tortured-artist histrionics.) Bay Arean Jonathan Parker attempts to correct that with this perhaps overly low-key witticism. Erstwhile Hebrew Hammer Adam Goldberg plays a composer of painfully retro, plink-plunk 1950s avant-gardism. (His favorite instrument is the tin bucket.) His lack of success is inevitable yet chafes nonetheless, because he’s a) humorlessly self-important, and b) sibling to a painter (Eion Bailey) whose pleasant, unchallenging abstracts are hot properties amongst corporate-art buyers. But not hot enough for his gorgeous agent (Marley Shelton), who puts off showing him at her Chelsea gallery in favor of cartoonishly "edgy" artists –- like soccer hooligan Vinnie Jones as a proponent of lurid taxidermy sculpture –- and takes a contrary (if unlikely) fancy to Goldberg. (How could her educated like not know his music is even less cutting-edge than the brother’s canvases?) (Untitled) holds interest, but it’s at once too glib and modest –- exaggerative sans panache. This is equivalently if differently problematic from Parker’s 2005 Henry James-goes-Marin County The Californians. It can’t compare to his 2001 feature debut, the excellent Crispin Glover-starring translation of Melville’s Bartleby to Rhinoceros-like modern office culture. (1:30) Bridge, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Where the Wild Things Are From the richly delineated illustrations and sparse text of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 children’s book, director Spike Jonze and cowriter (with Jones) Dave Eggers have constructed a full-length film about the passions, travails, and interior/exterior wanderings of Sendak’s energetic young antihero, Max. Equally prone to feats of world-building and fits of overpowering, destructive rage, Max (Max Records) stampedes off into the night during one of the latter and journeys to the island where the Wild Things (voiced by James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Dano, and Michael Berry Jr.) live — and bicker and tantrum and give in to existential despair and no longer all sleep together in a big pile. The place has possibilities, though, and Max, once crowned king, tries his best to realize them. What its inhabitants need, however, is not so much a visionary king as a good family therapist — these are some gripey, defensive, passive-aggressive Wild Things, and Max, aged somewhere around 10, can’t fix their interpersonal problems. Jonze and Eggers do well at depicting Max’s temporary kingdom, its forests and deserts, its creatures and their half-finished creations from a past golden era, as well as subtly reminding us now and again that all of this — the island, the arguments, the sadness — is streaming from the mind of a fierce, wildly imaginative young child with familial troubles of his own, equally beyond his power to resolve. They’ve also invested the film with a slow, grim depressive mood that can make for unsettling viewing, particularly when pondering the Maxes in the audience, digesting an oft-disheartening tale about family conflict and relationship repair. (1:48) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe A middle-class suburban lawyer radicalized by the Civil Rights era, Kunstler became a hero of the left for his fiery defenses of the draft-card-burning Catonsville Nine, the Black Panthers, the Chicago Twelve, and the Attica prisoners rioting for improved conditions, and Native American protestors at Wounded Knee in 1973. But after these "glory days," Kunstler’s judgment seemed to cloud while his thirst for "judicial theatre" and the media spotlight. Later clients included terrorists, organized-crime figures, a cop-killing drug dealer, and a suspect in the notorious Central Park "wilding" gang rape of a female jogger –- unpopular causes, to say the least. "Dad’s clients gave us nightmares. He told us that everyone deserves a lawyer, but sometimes we didn’t understand why that lawyer had to be our father" says Emily Kunstler, who along with sister Sarah directed this engrossing documentary about their late father. Growing up under the shadow of this larger-than-life "self-hating Jew" and "hypocrite" –- as he was called by those frequently picketing their house –- wasn’t easy. Confronting this sometimes bewildering behemoth in the family, Disturbing the Universe considers his legacy to be a brave crusader’s one overall –- even if the superhero in question occasionally made all Gotham City and beyond cringe at his latest antics. (1:30) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Gifts on a shoestring

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November 19, 2009

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culture@sfbg.com

There seems to be a golden ratio of expense-to-personalization when it comes to good gift-giving: the less expensive it is, the more thoughtful it must be. Problem is, many thoughtful gifts are also time consuming. And in this economic climate, it seems both time and money are scarce. If you find yourself in this situation, it doesn’t mean you have to give up on gift-giving, or maintaining your credit score. Instead, try one of our ideas for cheap gifts with a personal twist — none of which will cut too much into your valuable job-search (or funemployment) hours.

THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE

You’re an artist, you’re broke, and you need gifts for everyone in the family (and if you’ve got a huge Mexican familia like mine, that’s a lot of gifts). Don’t panic. Head down to Lucky Candle (3525 20th St., SF. 415-341-1960) in the Mission District, where you can buy glass candles in assorted colors for only $2.50. Then make copies of your favorite artwork or photos, glue them to the candles and let them dry overnight. You can even add glitter or sequins if you’re feeling extra festive. The project is easy, cheap, and personal.

GIFTS OF A FEATHER

Fashionistas and crafty vixens will appreciate this take on a classic 1950s look that won’t require a vintage-clothing budget. Buy a plain headband and a bunch of peacock feathers at Mendel’s (1556 Haight, SF. 415-621-1287, www.mendels.com), then superglue the plumage to the headband in creative ways. The accessory will add chic sophistication to any wardrobe, without taking much from your wallet.

LIFE IS LIKE …

Although most people can’t resist their annual sweets overload during the holidays, gifting a plain old box of chocolates is just so blah. Add a personalized twist — and support several small local businesses in the process — by assembling your own gift box from different stores’ offerings. You can buy several individual candies or boxes, and mix them all up in the best box of sweets ever. Try Poco Dulce (2419 Third St., SF. 415-255-1443, www.pocodulce.com) for luxurious flavors like burnt caramel tiles and hazelnut bitter toffees, XOX Truffles (754 Columbus, SF. 415-421-4814, www.xoxtruffles.com) for amaretto and honey vodka flavors, or Recchiuti (One Ferry Building, SF. 415-834-9494, www.recchiuti.com) for irresistible s’mores bites and key lime pears. For an extra thought that counts, group the candies according to color, shape, or your giftee’s tastes, then present them in cool cases like discarded cigar boxes. Grant’s Tobacconists (562 Market, SF. 415-981-1000, grantspipeshop.com) on Market and California Tobacco Center (1501 Polk, SF. 415-885-5479) sell the boxes for only $2 or $3 bucks a pop.

FORGET ME NOT

A simple photo of you and a loved one may not seem like a suitable gift unless you’re young enough to decorate the frame with macaroni. But a bit of thought and the time it takes to rummage through your keepsakes is all it takes to turn something that looks easy into something that evokes emotion. Start with your favorite photo of you and your friend, family member, or future life partner, then add verses from letters you’ve written each other, petals from saved bouquets, ticket stubs from a favorite concert, or other tokens of good memories. (If you’re making this for a lover, you get extra points for including something from your first date. Repeat after me: awww). Then place your collage in a frame from Cheap Pete’s (4249 Geary, SF. 415-221-4720, www.cheappetes.com), where sizes, styles, and colors vary but prices stay, well, cheap.

SEMI-CHARMED LIFE

Does someone in your life need a little hope, love, or luck? Show ’em you’ve noticed by getting a charm from Scarlet Sage (1173 Valencia, SF. 415-621-1287, scarletsageherb.com), an independent herb shop in the Mission. For less than $5, you can get a shiny quartz, lucky stone, or adorable heart-shaped rock. Find a pretty sash or detailed handkerchief from a second-hand store, wrap up your purchases and, for an extra personal touch, add a little note explaining what you hope these stones will bring their new owner.

SEEDS FOR GARDEN

The rule of green-thumb for giving plants is to choose your giftees wisely. Ideal candidates are newly nesting lovebirds with a backyard (first comes a plant, then comes a pet, then comes the lovers with a baby carriage). Start the honeymooners off with seeds to make their own miniature garden with choices like lavender, California poppies, sweet peas, and cosmos. Flora Grubb (1634 Jerrold, SF. 415-626-7256, www.floragrubb.com) and Cole Hardware (3312 Mission and other locations, SF. 415-647-8700, www.colehardware.com) are your go-to spots for a variety of different seeds, depending on the love-birds’ personalities. (If you’re shopping for a recent college grad or on-the-town bachelor, consider something that requires less commitment and attention, like impossible-to-kill succulents or easy-to-move-to-17-apartments hanging vines.)

THE MIGHTY PEN

You know the art of writing is nearly extinct when you text your parents to thank them for the care package they sent you. But that means a hand-written note is particularly special now, in this age of e-cards and Facebook messages. In lieu of gifts or store-bought greetings, try sending distant loved ones a heartfelt, personal letter written (in cursive?) on beautiful homemade stationery. Find the right choice for every recipient at Flax (1699 Market, SF. 415-552-2355, www.flaxart.com), where you’ll have more than 7,000 unique paper options. Then add some extra flair with creative stamps ($5–$15) that (bonus!) you can use again next year. Just don’t be upset when your friends and family show their gratitude with a simple "thx for yr letter" message sent from their iPhones.

PET PROJECT

You know those people with cats or dogs (or ferrets, or whatever) who say they’re not one of those people who’s obsessed with their pets? You can bet they’re the same people who, behind closed doors, will stay in an uncomfortable position on the couch for an hour so as not to disturb a purring kitten — or who’ll argue all night that their dog’s habit of licking the bottoms of their feet is cute, not gross. Yes, almost all pet owners are also pet lovers. Which means they’ll appreciate a gift for their furry friends as much as they’d appreciate one for themselves. Find such treats as catnip, dog bones, and all kinds of toys and grooming products at Pawtrero Bath House & Feed Co. (199 Mississippi, SF. 415-863-7297, www.pawtrero.com). At the very least, your friends will agree that their life is easier once you’ve pleased the beasts.

Music listings

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November 10, 2009

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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Shareef Ali, Tenderloins, Middle Initials, Scotch and Bones Rock-It Room. 8:30pm.

All Time Low, We The Kings, Hey Monday, Friday Night Boys Regency Ballroom. 7pm, $22.

Chris Barron Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café du Nord). 8pm, $15.

Burning the Masses, Enfold Darkness, Dismal Lapse, Fallujah, Witness the Horror Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Tia Carroll and the Hard Work Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Jesse DeNatale, Scott Nolan Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Jad Fair, Grass Widow Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $12.

Forget About Boston, Pills and Jackets, Frontwomyn Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Javelin, Lucky Dragons Knockout. 9pm, $8.

Lawrence Arms, Teenage Bottlerocket, Cobra Skulls, Druglords of the Avenues Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $14.

Magik*Magik Orchestra, Birds and Batteries, Eric Jakabson Quartet San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.sfcm.edu. 7pm, $40-100. Benefit for scholarship students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; line-up also features 49 Special, Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet, Pacific Guitar Ensemble, Venus Loops, and Bay Area DJs.

Pete and J, Blackstone Heist Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Supersuckers, Last Vegas, Cockpit Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Used, Almost, Drive A Warfield. 7:30pm, $29.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"B3 Wednesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Patrick Greene Organ Combo.

Blas River Trio Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $22.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Marcus Shelby Jazz Jam Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

"Meridian Music: Composers in Performance" Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 7:30pm, $10.

Leon Russell Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $35.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cook County Corrections, Sara Judge, Hyde West El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amneisa. 8pm, free.

Halau O Keikiali’l, Kumu Hula Kawika Alfiche Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 7:30pm; $10.

Julian Marley feat. Stephen Marley, Javaughn, Gully Bank Sound System Independent. 9pm, $25.

Orquesta Borinquen Jelly’s, Terry Francois Boulevard, SF; (415) 399-9554. 7pm, $15-150. A fundraiser for the San Francisco International Arts Festival featuring special guests John Calloway, John Santos, Wayne Wallace, and more.

Somerville and Keehan Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Open Mic Night 330 Ritch. 9pm, $7.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St.; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Anvil Chorus, Warning SF, Ghost Next Door Slim’s. 8pm, $14.

Ray Davies Warfield. 8pm, $42.50-59.50.

Distance from Shelter, Gnarboots, Tribe of Shadows, Noise Clinic Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $7.

Dorado, Resin 7 Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $7.

Electric Six, Gay Blades, Millions of Brazilians Independent. 8pm, $16.

Fine Frenzy, Landon Pigg, Among the Oak and Ash Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $18.

Headlights, Anni Rossi, Pomegranates Café du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Inflight Nymphs, Blair Hansen El Rio. 9pm, $8.

Lawrence Arms, Teenage Bottlerocket, Cobra Skulls, For.The.Win Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $14.

Loch Lomond, Dame Satan, Tether Horse Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Michael Musika, Quinn DeVeaux and the Blue Beat Review, Loyd Family Players, Indianna Hale Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $12.

New Maps of the West, Stella Royale, Catherine Anne Davis Bollyhood Café. 7pm, $5.

Off With Their Heads, Smalltown, Young Offenders, Detournement, Complaints Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Sex Type Thing Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Unauthorized Rolling Stones Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Worker Bee, Jet Age, Crazies Will Destroy You Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

BAY AREA

Widespread Panic Fox Theater. 8pm, $45.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Joe Bagale Amnesia. 9pm, $5. A tribute to Ray Charles.

Celia Malheiros Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

Michael Coleman Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Graham Connah Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Laurent Fourgo Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7:30pm, free.

Lloyd Gregory Shanghai 1930. 7pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

Wally Schnalle Coda. 9pm, $7.

"SF Jazz Presents Hotplate: Joe Bagale Plays Ray Charles" Amnesia. 8pm, $5.

Shayne Steele Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $14.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Banish the Dogs Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Jueves Flamencos Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8:15pm, 9:30pm; $10-12.

Shut-Ins Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Theresa Perez and guests Duboce Park Café, 2 Sanchez, SF; (415) 621-1108. 7:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, B Lee, and special guest DJ Tomas spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip hop.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St; 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Data Beez DNA Lounge. 8pm, $12. Chip music with Minusbaby, Trash80, Starpause, Crashfaster, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Gymnasium Matador, 10 6th St., SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Jorge Terez.

Kissing Booth Make Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80’s, and electro.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mercury Lounge 111 Minna. 5pm, $4. With DJ Masonic and MarsBassMan on the upright bass bringing you groovy downtempo mixed with classical.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St., SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and guest.

Solid Club Six. 9pm, $5. With resident DJ Daddy Rolo and rotating DJs Mpenzi, Shortkut, Polo Mo’qz and Fuze spinning roots, reggae, and dancehall.

FRIDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Cartel, This Providence, Summer Set, Dares Slim’s. 7:30pm, $18.

Chemystry Set, Love, Isabel, Luke Thomas Trio Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Cy Curnin, Love Seat Trio Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $12.

Dead To Me, Grant Hart, Started-Its Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Distant Relatives El Rincon. 9pm, $5.

Foma, Like Trains and Taxis, Blood and Sunshine Rock-It Room. 8pm, $8.

Fuck Buttons, Growing Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Glassjaw Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $25.

Mark Growden Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. 8pm, $25-55.

Insane Clown Posse, (hed) p.e., Dayton Family, Mars Warfield. 7pm, $30.

DJ Lebowitz Madrone Art Bar. 6-9pm, free.

Lover!, Splinters, Bass Drum of Death Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

My First Earthquake, Generationals, Attachments Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $14.

Orange Peels, Hollyhocks Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7.

Persephone’s Bees, Sonny and the Sunsets, Stilts, Thorny Brocky Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Pinback, Joe Jack Talcum Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $22.

Pomplamoose, Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Greet National Road Brainwash, 1122 Folsom, SF; (415) 861-3663. 8pm, free.

Psychology of Genocide, Farticus, Nerv Annie’s Social Club. 6-9pm, $5.

Raekwon Independent. 9pm, $30.

They Might Be Giants Fillmore. 9pm, $26.50.

BAY AREA

Buddy Guy, Elvin Bishop Marin Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.marincenter.org. 8pm, $25-75.

Widespread Panic Fox Theater. 8pm, $45.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Steve Gadd and friends Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25.

Lucid Lovers Rex Hotel, 562 Sutter, SF; (415) 433-4434. 6-8pm.

Mr. Lonesome and the Blue Bells Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Proteges of Hyler Jones Shanghai 1930. 7pm.

Hannah Rifkin Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm.

Lavay Smith and Her Red-Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Acoustic Grateful Dead Music Plough and Stars. 9pm. With David Gans and Dave Stein.

Boca Do Rio Coda. 10pm, $10.

Café Flamenco Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; (415) 861-9199. 8pm, $22.

Cuban Nights Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8:30pm; $19.95 with tapas.

Rapid Transit Acapella Duboce Park Café, 2 Sanchez, SF; (415) 621-1108. 7:30pm, free.

Rob Reich, Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Dawn Richardson and guests Dolores Park Café. 7:30pm, free.

Quijeremá Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-15. Latin American fusion jazz.

Sol’Jibe Mojito, 1337 Grant, SF; (415) 596-3986. 10pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $15. With DJs Jeffrey Paradise and Richie Panic spinning dance music.

Deviant Nation DNA Lounge. 10pm, $18. Rock and industrial with Kaura, Everything Goes Cold, Deconbrio, and more.

DJ T Mighty. 9pm, $8.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Fo’ Sho! Fridays Madrone. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris, Makossa, and Quickie Mart spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.

Future 003 103 Harriet, 103 Harriet, SF; (415) 431-3609. 10pm, $13. With DJs Daedelus, James Pants, and Free the Robots.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm. Gymnasium Stud. 10pm, $5. With DJs Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, disco, rap, and 90s dance and featuring performers, gymnastics, jump rope, drink specials, and more.

I can’t feel my face Amnesia. 10pm, $3. With DJs EUG and J Montag.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Lovebuzz Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $5. DJs Jawa and Melody Nelson spin 90s, punk, and classic rock.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

6 to 9 800 Larkin, 800 Larkin, SF; (415) 567-9326. 6pm, free. DJs David Justin and Dean Manning spinning downtempo, electro breaks, techno, and tech house. Free food by 800 Larkin.

Soulclap and Dance-off 111 Minna. 9pm, $5. With DJs ian Svenonius, Jonathan Toubin, Paul Paul, Jello Biafra, and Primo spinning some 45 rpm soul action.

Treat Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop and funk with DJs Vinnie Esparza, Josh B, and Doctor Delay.

Claude VonStroke Mezzanine. 10pm, $20. With DJ Solar.

SATURDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

AC/DShe, High Voltage, Powerage Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

*Cash’d Out, Bone Cootes, Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Crimson Ivy, Cynical Mass, Crash Faster Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $8.

Josh Damigo, Tan Sister Radio, Jordan Epcar Brainwash Café, 1122 Folsom, SF; (415) 861-3663. 8pm, free.

Dear and the Headlights, Kinch, Distraction Fit Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Destruments, Raw Deluxe Coda. 9pm, $7.

Zakiya Hooker Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Jackopierce, Creede Williams Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $25.

Victor Jones and Culture-Versy Boom Boom Room. 9:45pm, $12.

Mission of Burma, Erase Errata Independent. 9pm, $20.

Mountain Goats, Final Fantasy Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Or, The Whale, Hello Kavita, Brothers Comatose Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Ty Segall, Baths, Culture Kids Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Thunderheist, Winter Gloves 330 Ritch. 8pm.

Turks, Rats Eyes, La Guardia Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

White Flag Down, Aires and Graces Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, free.

BAY AREA

Widespread Panic Fox Theater. 8pm, $45.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Steve Gadd and friends Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25.

Janis Mercer San Francisco Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; http://sfcmc.org. 8pm, free.

Rob Modica and friends Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Jack Pollard Shanghai 1930. 7pm, free.

Regina Pontillo Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $15.

Valerie Troutt and Classical Revolution Red Poppy Art House. 8 and 9pm, $12-15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Black Crown Stringband, Water Tower Bucket Boys Swedish American Hall, 2170 Market, SF; (415) 861-5016. 7:30pm, $15. A benefit for a rare form of leukemia.

Buraka Som Sistema Mezzanine. 9:30pm, $16. With DJ Shane King.

Hamsa Lila with Airto Moriera Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $28.

Johnson Girls Ship Balclutha, Hyde Street Pier, Fisherman’s Wharf, SF; (415) 561-6662 x33. 8pm, $14.

Klezmer en Buenos Aires JCCSF, 3200 California, SF; (415) 292-1233. 8pm, $35. With the Lerner Moguilevsky Dúo.

Roy McNamara Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Mystical Arts of Tibet Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400. 8pm, $25-45. Featuring the multiphonic singers of Drepung Loseling monastery.

SF Hootenenny Night Café International, 508 Haight, SF; (415) 665-9915. 7pm, free. With Quake City Jug Band, Jugtown Pirates, and Blvd Park.

Yellow Dress, Maggie Morris Amnesia. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

BADNB Club Six. 9pm, $10. With DJs 2Cents, Method One, Mikebee, Push, and more spinning drum and bass.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $12. Mash-ups with DJ Tripp, Adrian and Mysterious D, and Dada.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Reggae Gold SF Endup. 10pm, $5. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’Quuz, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, and remixes all night.

Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

Strength in Flavor DNA Lounge. 3-8pm, $15. Hip-hop with DJ Kool Herc, two on two dance battles, and more.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Electro cumbia DJs L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok, plus Disco Shawn and Oro 11.

SUNDAY 15

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Black Heart Procession, Bellini Independent. 8pm, $15.

Blacklist Knockout. 8pm, $10.

*Christ on Parade, Lewd, Eskapo, Kim Phuc Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Dr. Mojo Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, free.

Lloyd Gregory Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Grant Hart, Blank Stares, Off Campus Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $7.

David Lindley, John Hammond Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $25.

*Russian Circles, Young Widows, Helms Alee Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $13.

Sippy Cups, Frances England Bimbo’s 365 Club. 1 and 4pm, $17.

20 Minute Loop, True Margrit, Griddle Bottom of the Hill. 1pm, $8.

White Tie Affair: The Traveling Talent Show, Every Avenue, Stereo Skyline, Runner Runner Slim’s. 7pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Steve Gadd and friends Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $25.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

David Choi Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Festa de São Martinho Horatius, 350 Kansas, SF; (415) 252-3500. 6pm, $35. With a performance by Ramana Vieira and featuring traditional Portuguese food.

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, Sour Mash Hug Band, Shovelman Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Los Boleros Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 7:30pm, 11:45pm; $10-12.

Makru Coda. 9pm, $7.

Playing for Change Band Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $45.

Reduced to Ruin, Hang Jones Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Seisiún Plough and Stars. 4pm.

DANCE CLUBS

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Ludichris, and guest Roommate.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Green Festival After Party 1015 Folsom. 8pm, $15. Featuring performances by Dead Prez, Speech of Arrested Development, and Hard Knock Radio’s Davey D and DJs Sake One, Wisdom with DJ Skwint and Seasunz, JBoogie, and more.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th; 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Play DNA Lounge. 5pm-midnight, $30. House with DJ Ted Eiel.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Big, Round, Rad Cloud, Pine Away El Rio. 8pm, $5.

DJ Spooky Independent. 9pm, $17.

Crystal Monee Hall Coda. 9pm, $7.

Lovvers, An Albatross, Fresh and Onlys, Religious Girls Elbo Room. 8:30pm, $10.

Terry Riley’s In C, Lickets, Julianna Barwich, DJ Stereo Steve and the World of Living Sound Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Clarinet Thing Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $14.

"Jazz at the Rrazz" Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; 1-866-468-3399. 8pm, $25. With the Mike Greensill Trio and Noel Jewkes.

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Homespun Rowdy, Bluegrass Jam Amnesia. 6:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blue Rabbit, Valerie Orth Band, Deborah Crooks, Tiffany Petrossi, Monica Pasqual Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Body or Brain, Finish Ticket Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

BrokeNCYDE, Breathe Electric, Watchout! There’s Ghosts, Blood on the Dance Floor DNA Lounge. 7:30pm, $14.

Julian Casablancas Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $33.

Flobots Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Flood, City of Ships, Kowloon Walled City Knockout. 10pm, free.

Foxtail Somersault, Threadspinner, Tomihira Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Little Claw, Talk Normal, Short Hair Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Ron Thompson Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $10.

Whigs, Features Independent. 8pm, $14.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"Booglaloo Tuesday" Madrone Art Bar. 9:30pm, $3. With Oscar Myers.

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

Euliptian Quartet Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm.

"Jazz Mafia Tuesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Shotgun Wedding Quintet.

MO Jazz Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Lea Grant, Andy Pratt El Rio. 8pm, free.

Slow Session Plough and Stars. 9pm. With Vince Keehan and friends.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs What’s His Fuck, Classic Bar Music, and Denim Yeti.

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, free. Rock ‘n’ roll for inebriated primates like you.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Shout at the Devil Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, free. Karaoke with a smoke machine and heavy metal tunes.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

10 latest, greatest openings

-

October 27, 2009

0

There’s been plenty of activity in the world of food in the last few years, especially in San Francisco. Street food madness reached an all-time high, spawning festivals and an array of carts, trucks, and stands from established and new chefs. Pop-up restaurants appeared in cafes, backrooms, and undisclosed locations. Overall, prices actually went down (while quality remained high) and deals proliferated. (See … economic news isn’t all bad.) There also have plenty of top-notch restaurant, café, and bar openings. Here are a few of our favorites.

KAPPOU GOMI

From beginning to end, dinner at this new Outer Richmond District eatery is a thrill. With most small plates from the novel-length menu (grouped by fish, meat, and veggie) hovering under $10, it’s easy to have a feast for as little or as much as you want to spend. Plus, the offerings aren’t the usual bento-or-sushi fare Americans have come to expect from Japanese cuisine. You’ll hardly recognize the tempura, covered here in various nuts and grains. Pork belly in aromatic broth is a revelation. And butter-grilled scallops are so good you’ll want two orders. Don’t bother asking too many questions unless you speak Japanese. Fortunately, you won’t need to: everything is fantastic.

5524 Geary, SF.(415) 221-5353

TONY’S PIZZA NAPOLETANA

Even before opening this North Beach café, owner and nine-time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani was famous for his world class pies. We can see why. We love the classic Margherita ($18), which won the 2007 World Pizza Cup in Naples, Italy. But what’s really stellar is the Cal Italia ($18), Gold Medal winner of Food Network’s Pizza Champions Challenge. Made from imported Italian ingredients, like all Gemignani’s pizzas, this one’s covered in four cheeses (asiago, mozzarella, Gorgonzola, and fresh Parmesan), then salted with proscuitto di Parma and sweetened with an aged balsamic drizzle and fig preserve. Not feeling the pizza pie vibe? Tony’s also offers pasta, a range of antipasti options, and a full bar — all in a sophisticated setting.

1570 Stockton, SF. (415) 835-9888, tonyspizzanapoletana.com

CONTIGO

A true taste of Spain isn’t easy to come by in these parts. Sure, there are tons of "tapas" joints serving small plates of Mediterranean-inspired fare, but finding the delicately-prepared, authentic dishes that go so well with Spanish and Portuguese wines is more of a challenge. Thanks to Brett Emerson, though, the search has gotten easier. Contigo’s chef and owner pays homage to his time in Catalonia with gorgeous sardine dishes (served a number of ways, including on toast with chickpea puree or alongside blood oranges and beet relish), crowd-pleasing croquetas de bacalao (salt cod fritters), and a range of imported jamons (aged anywhere from 12 to 36 months). Also delightful (and delightfully authentic) is the choice of coques — or Catalan flatbreads — available with rapini and carmelized onions, anchovies, Txistorra sausage, or a Marin Sun Farm egg. A cozy, heated back patio, vegetable garden, and modern but rustic space add to the culinary charm.

1320 Castro, SF. (415) 285-0250, www.contigosf.com

WEXLER’S

Spanking fresh minimalist interior meets urban BBQ and American food in this one-of-a-kind FiDi restaurant, which opened this June. Whether you’re enjoying a Scotch egg to start ($11), chicken sandwich ($12) with creamy coleslaw at lunch, a satisfying dinner of slow-roasted smoked sturgeon with lobster, cornbread cakes and parsnip mash ($21) or a dessert of inside-out root beer float with house-made vanilla soda and Humphry Slocombe ice cream ($6), you’re guaranteed a chic downtown meal that simultaneously manages to be feel down-home. Best of all? Wexler’s serves a mean mint julep.

568 Sacramento, SF. (415) 983-0102, www.wexlerssf.com

FARM : TABLE

One of my two favorite cafe openings of the year is this postcard-sized spot in the TenderNob. I was drawn in by the beautifully bitter espressos, strong cappuccinos, and other finely prepared coffees from Verve Coffee Roasters in Santa Cruz. But it’s the baked goods and organic lunch items that’ll keep me coming back. Unless you follow the friendly staff on Twitter, you never know what’ll be on the menu — offerings could be anything from apricot bread pudding to sloppy joes. But there’s never a question that it will be good. Plus the welcoming, relaxed atmosphere will encourage you to stay and lounge, whether it’s at a communal table inside, sidewalk seating, or near the picturesque (and usually open) window.

754 Post, SF. (415) 292-7089, www.farmtablesf.com

LITTLE SKILLET

You may have already heard about the chicken and waffles proffered from a window in an alley from the folks who brought us Farmer Brown. But it’s the Southern/New Orleans-influenced specials (all under $10) that get me going. In particular are the grits: usually the right mix of savory with a hint of sweet, with additions like cheese, andouille sausage, and a touch of maple syrup or bacon, brown sugar, and pecans. Worth noting too are the po’boy sandwiches, which come loaded with changing specials of shrimp, sausage, eggs, and more.

360 Ritch, SF. (415) 777-2777, www.littleskilletsf.com

HOLLOW

Is it a coincidence that my other favorite new café is also tiny? Maybe. Or maybe there’s something inherently charming about a lovely little spot that only a handful of people can enjoy at a time. Either way, I’m delighted by this Sunset District purveyor of coffee and garden/home décor items. The java (from Ritual Coffee) is prepared with finesse and delicious alongside delicate truffles and baked goods. The staff is friendly. And thanks to the owner’s interior design training, the low-ceilinged, narrow space is a visual wonderland worthy of Victorian poetry or J.R.R. Tolkein.

1435 Irving, SF. (415) 242-4119

SHOWDOGS

With sausage slingers making appearances all over the city, perhaps we should declare 2009 the "Year of the Dog." There’s the delightful Zog’s Dogs in FiDi. Among my favorite mobile offerings are Ryan Farr’s, which he serves some Sundays outside Elixir and Thursdays at the Ferry Plaza farmers market. True, Rosamunde Sausage Grill is a reliable classic, but my vote for best new dog restaurant is Showdogs. Brave the trek to the less-popular stretch of Market Street next to the Golden Gate Theater to be rewarded with fine beers on tap (available in 4-, 8-, and 16-ounce pours) and dogs showcasing the Bay Area’s best sausage and hot dog makers (including Farr’s 4505 Meats). There’s something for everyone — classic, lemon chicken, Louisiana hot link, a crispy (and huge) corn dog, duck sausage with kimchi, and even a boudin noir — and none cost more than $8.50. The only way to improve a Showdog meal is to include a side of buttermilk onion rings ($4).

1020 Market, SF. (415) 558-9560, www.showdogssf.com

SCHMIDT’S

There’s never quite enough German food around, especially now that we’re losing long-timer, Schnitzlhaus, leaving us with the fabulous but few: Suppenküche and Walzwerk. That is, until the gracious (and smart) owners of Walzwerk opened this new spot in the Mission District. A casual deli with German groceries for sale, German beers on tap, and a spare, beer-hall feel to the clean dining room, this spot provides everything you need for your own mini Oktoberfest (minus the lederhosen). Best of all, their spaetzle, sauerkraut, and house-made sausages are even better than Mom would make, with prices generally under $12. Specials like veal schnitzel also make their way onto the menu, along with baked goods from Esther’s German Bakery in Mountain View. Guten appetit!

2400 Folsom, SF. (415) 401-0200, www.schmidts-sf.com

RN74

No one can argue with RN74’s stunning 3,000-plus wine list, thanks to sommelier par excellence, Rajat Parr. Some argue with the food — or rather, the price for "wine bar" fare — but foodies know this as a metropolitan restaurant with a wine focus (highlighted by the French train station sign showcasing available bottles). I posit that the food completes the picture. Whether you keep it simple in the bar with a glass of wine and creamy, lemony smoked sturgeon rillettes on toast ($9), or you splurge for a bottle and a dinner of silky foie gras terrine ($22), or succulent grilled Maine sea scallops ($29), there’s no question you’ll feel indulgent.

301 Mission, SF. (415) 543-7474, www.michaelmina.net/rn74

10 latest, greatest openings

-

October 27, 2009

0

There’s been plenty of activity in the world of food in the last few years, especially in San Francisco. Street food madness reached an all-time high, spawning festivals and an array of carts, trucks, and stands from established and new chefs. Pop-up restaurants appeared in cafes, backrooms, and undisclosed locations. Overall, prices actually went down (while quality remained high) and deals proliferated. (See … economic news isn’t all bad.) There also have plenty of top-notch restaurant, café, and bar openings. Here are a few of our favorites.

KAPPOU GOMI

From beginning to end, dinner at this new Outer Richmond District eatery is a thrill. With most small plates from the novel-length menu (grouped by fish, meat, and veggie) hovering under $10, it’s easy to have a feast for as little or as much as you want to spend. Plus, the offerings aren’t the usual bento-or-sushi fare Americans have come to expect from Japanese cuisine. You’ll hardly recognize the tempura, covered here in various nuts and grains. Pork belly in aromatic broth is a revelation. And butter-grilled scallops are so good you’ll want two orders. Don’t bother asking too many questions unless you speak Japanese. Fortunately, you won’t need to: everything is fantastic.

5524 Geary, SF.(415) 221-5353

TONY’S PIZZA NAPOLETANA

Even before opening this North Beach café, owner and nine-time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani was famous for his world class pies. We can see why. We love the classic Margherita ($18), which won the 2007 World Pizza Cup in Naples, Italy. But what’s really stellar is the Cal Italia ($18), Gold Medal winner of Food Network’s Pizza Champions Challenge. Made from imported Italian ingredients, like all Gemignani’s pizzas, this one’s covered in four cheeses (asiago, mozzarella, Gorgonzola, and fresh Parmesan), then salted with proscuitto di Parma and sweetened with an aged balsamic drizzle and fig preserve. Not feeling the pizza pie vibe? Tony’s also offers pasta, a range of antipasti options, and a full bar — all in a sophisticated setting.

1570 Stockton, SF. (415) 835-9888, tonyspizzanapoletana.com

CONTIGO

A true taste of Spain isn’t easy to come by in these parts. Sure, there are tons of "tapas" joints serving small plates of Mediterranean-inspired fare, but finding the delicately-prepared, authentic dishes that go so well with Spanish and Portuguese wines is more of a challenge. Thanks to Brett Emerson, though, the search has gotten easier. Contigo’s chef and owner pays homage to his time in Catalonia with gorgeous sardine dishes (served a number of ways, including on toast with chickpea puree or alongside blood oranges and beet relish), crowd-pleasing croquetas de bacalao (salt cod fritters), and a range of imported jamons (aged anywhere from 12 to 36 months). Also delightful (and delightfully authentic) is the choice of coques — or Catalan flatbreads — available with rapini and carmelized onions, anchovies, Txistorra sausage, or a Marin Sun Farm egg. A cozy, heated back patio, vegetable garden, and modern but rustic space add to the culinary charm.

1320 Castro, SF. (415) 285-0250, www.contigosf.com

WEXLER’S

Spanking fresh minimalist interior meets urban BBQ and American food in this one-of-a-kind FiDi restaurant, which opened this June. Whether you’re enjoying a Scotch egg to start ($11), chicken sandwich ($12) with creamy coleslaw at lunch, a satisfying dinner of slow-roasted smoked sturgeon with lobster, cornbread cakes and parsnip mash ($21) or a dessert of inside-out root beer float with house-made vanilla soda and Humphry Slocombe ice cream ($6), you’re guaranteed a chic downtown meal that simultaneously manages to be feel down-home. Best of all? Wexler’s serves a mean mint julep.

568 Sacramento, SF. (415) 983-0102, www.wexlerssf.com

FARM : TABLE

One of my two favorite cafe openings of the year is this postcard-sized spot in the TenderNob. I was drawn in by the beautifully bitter espressos, strong cappuccinos, and other finely prepared coffees from Verve Coffee Roasters in Santa Cruz. But it’s the baked goods and organic lunch items that’ll keep me coming back. Unless you follow the friendly staff on Twitter, you never know what’ll be on the menu — offerings could be anything from apricot bread pudding to sloppy joes. But there’s never a question that it will be good. Plus the welcoming, relaxed atmosphere will encourage you to stay and lounge, whether it’s at a communal table inside, sidewalk seating, or near the picturesque (and usually open) window.

754 Post, SF. (415) 292-7089, www.farmtablesf.com

LITTLE SKILLET

You may have already heard about the chicken and waffles proffered from a window in an alley from the folks who brought us Farmer Brown. But it’s the Southern/New Orleans-influenced specials (all under $10) that get me going. In particular are the grits: usually the right mix of savory with a hint of sweet, with additions like cheese, andouille sausage, and a touch of maple syrup or bacon, brown sugar, and pecans. Worth noting too are the po’boy sandwiches, which come loaded with changing specials of shrimp, sausage, eggs, and more.

360 Ritch, SF. (415) 777-2777, www.littleskilletsf.com

HOLLOW

Is it a coincidence that my other favorite new café is also tiny? Maybe. Or maybe there’s something inherently charming about a lovely little spot that only a handful of people can enjoy at a time. Either way, I’m delighted by this Sunset District purveyor of coffee and garden/home décor items. The java (from Ritual Coffee) is prepared with finesse and delicious alongside delicate truffles and baked goods. The staff is friendly. And thanks to the owner’s interior design training, the low-ceilinged, narrow space is a visual wonderland worthy of Victorian poetry or J.R.R. Tolkein.

1435 Irving, SF. (415) 242-4119

SHOWDOGS

With sausage slingers making appearances all over the city, perhaps we should declare 2009 the "Year of the Dog." There’s the delightful Zog’s Dogs in FiDi. Among my favorite mobile offerings are Ryan Farr’s, which he serves some Sundays outside Elixir and Thursdays at the Ferry Plaza farmers market. True, Rosamunde Sausage Grill is a reliable classic, but my vote for best new dog restaurant is Showdogs. Brave the trek to the less-popular stretch of Market Street next to the Golden Gate Theater to be rewarded with fine beers on tap (available in 4-, 8-, and 16-ounce pours) and dogs showcasing the Bay Area’s best sausage and hot dog makers (including Farr’s 4505 Meats). There’s something for everyone — classic, lemon chicken, Louisiana hot link, a crispy (and huge) corn dog, duck sausage with kimchi, and even a boudin noir — and none cost more than $8.50. The only way to improve a Showdog meal is to include a side of buttermilk onion rings ($4).

1020 Market, SF. (415) 558-9560, www.showdogssf.com

SCHMIDT’S

There’s never quite enough German food around, especially now that we’re losing long-timer, Schnitzlhaus, leaving us with the fabulous but few: Suppenküche and Walzwerk. That is, until the gracious (and smart) owners of Walzwerk opened this new spot in the Mission District. A casual deli with German groceries for sale, German beers on tap, and a spare, beer-hall feel to the clean dining room, this spot provides everything you need for your own mini Oktoberfest (minus the lederhosen). Best of all, their spaetzle, sauerkraut, and house-made sausages are even better than Mom would make, with prices generally under $12. Specials like veal schnitzel also make their way onto the menu, along with baked goods from Esther’s German Bakery in Mountain View. Guten appetit!

2400 Folsom, SF. (415) 401-0200, www.schmidts-sf.com

RN74

No one can argue with RN74’s stunning 3,000-plus wine list, thanks to sommelier par excellence, Rajat Parr. Some argue with the food — or rather, the price for "wine bar" fare — but foodies know this as a metropolitan restaurant with a wine focus (highlighted by the French train station sign showcasing available bottles). I posit that the food completes the picture. Whether you keep it simple in the bar with a glass of wine and creamy, lemony smoked sturgeon rillettes on toast ($9), or you splurge for a bottle and a dinner of silky foie gras terrine ($22), or succulent grilled Maine sea scallops ($29), there’s no question you’ll feel indulgent.

301 Mission, SF. (415) 543-7474, www.michaelmina.net/rn74

Stayin’ alive

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October 20, 2009

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DANCE Oakland Ballet Company refuses to die. Its latest resurrection happened Oct. 16-17, after Ronn Guidi’s abrupt resignation in April had issued what used to be a thriving East Bay institution’s most recent death certificate. But some people can’t take no for an answer, and we all should be grateful to them. In this particular case, it’s the dancers — some veterans of the Oakland troupe, some freelancers but also members of Ballet San Jose and Smuin Ballet — who stepped into the breach. The choreographers donated their works. All but one of the pieces, Amy Seiwert’s Revealing the Bridge, had been performed by Oakland Ballet before. These works offered a glimpse of why the company has been such a vital part of Bay Area dance. It may have made a reputation for itself with the Diaghilev repertoire, but it was equally important in fostering contemporary ballet choreography, much of it locally grown.

The company, under the temporary leadership of Oakland veterans Michael Lowe and Jenna McClintock, has much going for itself: some money in the bank, a wealth of talent, and the good will of its audiences. Performing at Holy Names College — where the old company performed when money was really tight — brought in a crowd of young people, some of whom seemed new to ballet.

Book-ending three pas de deux with two ensemble pieces made for a varied, agreeably pleasing program that showcased ballet-speak in any number of dialects. Alonzo King’s 1990 Love Dogs showed him in much a less angular mood than his later works; Carlos Carvajal’s "Wedding Pas de Deux" from Crystal Slippers enlivened a grand tradition with young love; Seiwert’s Bridge smoothly stretched space. Val Caniparoli’s congenial and rhythmically smart Street Songs opened the evening; Lowe’s Double Happiness closed it with excellent duet work, but rather bumpy ensemble dancing.

Prison report: The New Yorker bungles the story

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October 19, 2009

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By Just A Guy

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His dispatches run twice a week.

Shame on Ian Frazier and the New Yorker.

Frazier is a writer for that bastion of liberal magazines, and he published an article (puff piece) about cell-phone sniffing dogs in the New Jersey correctional system.

No, it’s not really a puff piece — “puff pieces” generally don’t have a deleterious affect on people or segments of society, as Frazier’s piece does on inmates throughout the country.

The piece does a great job of allowing New Jersey corrections officials to laud their own efforts to overthrow that most evil beast, the cell phone in prison. The piece goes on to report about New Jersey corrections training its own dogs on how to sniff out cell phones, and the wonderful results of that training, which is the seizure of more than 130 cell phones from us dastardly, evil inmates.

New Jersey corrections ballyhoos itself quite well about how much the agency is saving over states like California, which has contracted cell phone sniffers to come in at exorbitant rates, depleting our already woefully depleted budget. At least the New Jersey corrections folks got something right.

The corrections agency goes on to say how dangerous and threatening all us inmates are with cell phones, how it’s pretty much only gang members and drug dealers who purchase the phones and call out hits on unsuspecting witnesses and victims.

Solar flair

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October 13, 2009

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arts@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER How to compare beat heads and pop pachyderms? Honestly, if I was given a buck for every time some discriminating music listener told me that this year’s Treasure Island Festival lineup looked much more exciting than Outside Lands’ bipolar program (Os Mutantes? M.I.A.? Was Dave Matthews’ mom-rock presence dampening your fiery fun?), I’d be buying a round of Tecate and bacon dogs for every Mission hoodie hovering near the 22nd Street cart.

Treasure Isle is still a bifurcated fest — but it’s a much more pleasing mixture than Outside Lands’ recent attempt to stir Deerhunter seriousity in with the breasts and boobies that casually tail Black Eyed Peas. Saturday remains devoted to dancier waters; Sunday, to rockier shores — a Coachella model harnessing the pleasures of the dancefloor as well as the ambition of art rock. This year’s slyest move is the way Treasure Isle has inextricably tangled up performers like Girl Talk and Dan Deacon — artists who tap the integrative energy of fans who wanna get in the act, climb onstage, and live the dream that once could only be gleaned at warehouse shows and small, sweaty underground spaces. MGMT is the only curious inclusion on Saturday’s bill: wouldn’t they feel more at home on Sunday, amid the twisted, folkier folk with a mangled psychedelic ‘n’ orchestral bent, à la Grizzly Bear, Vetiver, Beirut, and Yo La Tengo?

Not to take anything away from Flaming Lips, whose new double album, Embryonic (Warner Bros.) dovetails savagely yet sweetly with the noise-ier power-points of YLT’s Popular Songs (Matador). And by the way, the Lips have done it again. Namely they’ve found a way to get born once more, just as they have so many times before during their unexpectedly lengthy lifespan — one that vrooms from the indefinable psych-punk of Oh My Gawd!!! (Restless, 1987) and the Alternative Nation pop of Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (Warner Bros., 1993) to the sci-lab experiments of Zaireeka (Warner Bros., 1997) and the back-to-the-future head-space of Soft Parade (Warner Bros., 1999).

This time the Lips look to the planets, randomness, and ’60s utopian rock as their guides for a way to reformulate the old acid formulas, retexturize the beast, and rethink the punk, now finding its latest bright, blistering incarnation in raw blasts of in-the-red, zippered noise and bristling shit-fi grind ("Convinced of the Hex") and immaculate bachelor-pad space-rock decorated with Voyager-like transmissions of mathematician Thorsten Wormann holding forth on polynomial rings ("Gemini Syringes").

If At War With the Mystics (Warner Bros., 2006) went to battle against the forces of religious fundamentalism intent on waging a War on Terror without, Embryonic harnesses the struggle of the child within. Its rough, fragmented brilliance evokes the acid-laced forebears like 13th Floor Elevators, more polished proggists such as King Crimson, generational retro-futurist kin like Stereolab, and free-floating panic-rock innocents such as Deerhoof. Shh, don’t talk to me about the incoherence of Christmas on Mars, though Embryonic falls into the same continuum. It’s a dispatch from the outer edges of nightmares, where "Your Bats" wings its way into the jittery, shattered, shaky guitarism of "Powerless," before accelerating into the motor-psycho rev-ups and -downs of "The Ego’s Last Stand."

The combo continues to make a sonic spectacle of stumbling and falling with grace and gore, trailing bloody rags, hand puppets, balloons, star charts, and tinsel in its wake: "Aquarius Sabotage"’s fairy-dust power skronk and "See the Leaves" apocalypso crunch embody the perfectly incendiary collision between crap-fi with Pro Tool-y tweakery. Embryonic makes the rough endings and hard births embodied by ’09 more weirdly glorious, if not a little easier. *

TREASURE ISLAND MUSIC FESTIVAL

With Flaming Lips, MGMT, Girl Talk, Yo La Tengo, and others

Sat/17-Sun/18, noon–10:40 p.m., $65–$249.99

www.treasureislandfestival.com

————-

JESUS LIZARD

Back from a collapsed long and quality time with Qui, sometime-chef David Yow steps away from the frying pan and into the fire. Sat/17, 9 p.m., $25. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. www.livenation.com

MONSTERS OF FOLK

It sounds like a joke — but it’s so not, when M. Ward, Conor Oberst, Jim James, and Mike Mogus, the dudes who aren’t afraid to reveal their soft, pale folkie underbelly, get together. Sat/17, 8 p.m., $39.50–$45.50. Fox Theater, 1807 Telegraph, Oakl. www.apeconcerts.com

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS

The so-called "loudest band in New York" takes it up a notch with their tasty Exploding Head (Mute). With These Are Powers, All the Saints, and Geographer. Sat/17, 9 p.m., $12–$14. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

Billboards and blight

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October 13, 2009

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GREEN CITY David Addington presents a tempting vision for revitalizing the seedy mid-Market area, a kind of something-for-nothing deal that helps the children, property owners, and residents of the Tenderloin and relieves that burden from the cash-strapped city government.

All we, as San Francisco voters, have to do is accept a few new billboards, which voters banned in 2002 by passing Proposition G. Well, actually, more than a few. More like a cacophony of flashy and interconnected electronic signs and large billboards on top of the area’s 52 buildings. Proposition D, which Addington wrote and sponsors, would allow an unlimited number of business and general advertising signs along Market Street between Fifth and Seventh streets.

"I’m not afraid of signs," Addington says in his Southern drawl as we walk the neighborhood where he owns the Warfield Theater, the old Hollywood Billiards building, and the new Show Dogs gourmet hot dog joint next to the Golden Gate Theater, and where he seems to know everyone from scruffy street souls to his fellow business people.

As Addington points out, this is the most dilapidated stretch of Market Street, rife with vacant storefronts and cheap retail outlets, but bordered by U.N. Plaza on one side and the bustling Westfield Mall and Powell Street cable car stop on the other. It’s a two-block stretch that is neglected and ignored by much of the outside world.

"To change that, you’re going to have to make a dramatic visual presentation," Addington said, laying out a vision of a glitzy, twinkling theater district that lights up the neighborhood and beckons visitors. And the kicker is that by doing so, advertisers would pour millions of dollars of revenue into improving and promoting the neighborhood.

Property owners would get most of that money: 60 percent for most of them, but 80 percent those with street-level theaters, museums, or other interactive uses. "The idea is to create more ground-floor entertainment uses," he said, which, in turn, would liven up the neighborhood.

The rest of the money — and all the sign permits and approvals — would be controlled by the Central Market Community Benefits District (CBD). Some of the money would go to things like a ticket kiosk, some to creating a master plan for the neighborhood, some to beautification programs, and some to youth programs in the Tenderloin, which Addington has used as a major selling point for Prop. D.

"This measure will change the lives of the kids of the Tenderloin next year," said Addington, whose money and vision have garnered significant support from across the political spectrum, including a majority of the Board of Supervisors, much of it locked down before most people even saw the measure coming.

But opponents say problems with the measure go far beyond just accepting billboards as the answer to blight, which is a tough enough sell in sign-wary San Francisco. They note that the measure for the first time usurps city authority over permits and gives it to a CBD, which profits from the signs and has no incentive to put the brakes on. Further, the vaguely written measure has no guarantees for how the money will be spent, or if the kids will indeed get any of it.

"We definitely need to do something about Market Street, but Prop. D isn’t the thing," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and the measure’s chief critic. "It’s very disturbing for those of us who believe in public process."

The Planning Department also raises concerns. Planning Director John Rahaim wrote in a scathing July 24 memo that the measure creates vague structures and logistical difficulties and tries to regulate sign content and delegate city authority in ways that may be illegal.

"Such unprecedented delegation of power to a private entity may create the risk of legal liability for the city. Moreover, because of the new powers that would be assigned to the CBD, concern regarding the CBD’s membership, decision-making process, and accountability are apparent," he wrote.

Radulovich also takes issue with Addington’s contention that the measure is needed to restore the luster of the once-vibrant theater district. "There’s no legislative reason to do this if it’s theater marquees you want," Radulovich said. "Prop. D is really about big billboards on the tops of buildings."

Bay writes

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October 6, 2009

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culture@sfbg.com

WRITERS We asked Guardian readers to contribute stories or poems that reflected their Bay Area experiences. The catch? Each entry had to be exactly 123 words. So many excellent submissions poured in. Unfortunately, we could only pick 10 winners, which are printed below. The writers will receive a gift certificate to Books, Inc.

ECLIPSED

Her fantasy

revolved around how wonderful it would be to die in an

earthquake that killed her at the exact moment

she was looking up at the shelves in the Macy’s women’s department.

The handbags were being swept into the air and

were floating down towards her. A

set of Moschinos fell like giant colorful raindrops

and her hands were extended towards them, like a desiccated cave-woman about to

experience

the end of a drought. This moment

would be captured as her afterlife when a glass sliver

slipped between her eye and eyelid and gracefully penetrated her brain. She wanted the perfection

of the leather satchels, which she had no hope of ever owning, to eclipse all

the

other moments of her life.

— Hunter Stern

LESSON PLAN

i take the book you made out for coffee, walk along clay until it crests over hyde and i can smile again, weave past grace cathedral, 40s and shorts on the swing set and i fall in love with you at Front Porch drinking drinks with kumquats and rum, flicks of salt disappearing, lips pressed to mason jars, wrappers leftover from japanese candy, 111 minna, some girl’s gold necklace, lamp light reflecting, gray goose and art galleries, thick throated and insecure, while north beach vomits strip clubs and boutiques, scares away hipsters, and at 3am i make a home for you in the space between my breasts, mismatched fabrics hanging over head, cork board alley smiles and

what’s your name again?

— Gabrielle Toft

LABOR DAY 2009

I slip on my pants like a fireman, quick, with practiced determination. I careen my head toward the window. Watch daybreak bang the gray sky back. The closed Bay Bridge arches towards darkness, towards Frisco. I have never seen it without cars lights.

I shuck the sheets off you.

Up, I demand, a drill sergeant.

I snap my bra on, twist it around. I can smell myself, fecund, moist pits. Nervous like a mother. I hate myself.

I ball my shirt up; hurl it at you.

You look up.

What?

I’m going to be a mom, I spit. Taste the implication on my tongue.

You hoist yourself up.

Where you going?

To bike that bridge. What can they do? They can’t stop me

— Tomas Moniz

BEFORE LIGHT CHANGES

Pick a hill. Jump between vantage points. You can spring the entire city, like a kinged checker, or a queen. Morphing like Mad Magazine, folding corners B to A, bending time.

A pharmacy goes BBQ. Sushi boats drift through your unconscious. You got dragged aboard, then woke with a craving. Across, in that park: you’ve tasted heartbreak, and smelled funny dancing, and shot hoops with crumpled resumes, and been winded by a jog.

The city gasps for air just before rush hour, after running all day, breathing hard. Cue the fog. Now it’s dim: the ‘Sco does twister yoga, or the funky gargoyle, gone buck or cupcakin’. A sushi float parades the bay, always revolving, barely perceptible; you’re on board, and circling too.

— Joe Cervelin

TOOTH TALE

Mother wanted me to be the dentist to the stars. I wanted to be the next Hemingway. Mother insisted writers were alkies and wife abusers. I could write prescriptions. Graduated NYU Dental in 1959. Only mention that Al Pacino and John Travolta were patients because I’m a namedropper. For the next 20 years, I inhaled tons of toxic mercury vapors, was bombarded with enough stray radiation and nitrous oxide to turn my toenails and my mien black. After my second wife left me, I fled to San Francisco. Bought a restored Victorian at 164-166 Castro with my cousin, Hal Slate. Hal owned the Cauldron bathhouse and sang in the Gay Men’s Chorus. Hal lived upstairs and I was on the bottom.

— Dr. Stanley Finkelstein

THE SEAWALL

Just a cougar by the seawall. Summer, errr, autumn in the Sunset, she stole a boy from the surf shop. He literally lived in the surf shop.

Gawky girl, watched him get amateur tattoos. Watched him sell pot to Trouble. Bought him pizza. Bought a phone, learned to text.

Kisses and secrets pressed against the seawall. Realize: nothing is lost by getting older.

Ocean Beach is not made of fog, just ghost lovers and culture clashes. Wu Tang Clan and Elliott Smith. Office girls and Rastafarian skate rats. Wearing rings and gangsta players. Foodies and shysters.

She returns home with sand in her highlights and guilt on her sleeve. Then makes love with two men, one by the shore, one as a whore.

— Sadie Craft

NAILS

I always smell coffee when I cross the Bay Bridge.

Mom would point out the Hills Brothers building on the right. "Grandpa

used to work for them."

He kept nails in a red coffee tin. Every summer, my parents would send

me back to the city to live with my grandparents for a bit. He’d get me

to pull nails out of old planks and save the good ones.

Years later, my wife and I came to clear out their house. She rattled a

tin full of rusty nails.

"It’s a real mess. I guess people who lived through the Depression saved

everything."

The old factory is gone, but I still smell coffee on the Embarcadero.

And think of honest work.

— Dominic Dela Cruz

A PAINFUL CASE

Outside of a Shattuck Laundromat a form appeared and paused. I could see just above the pages of my book a squat mass.

— You like Joyce?

There waited a gray-haired wheelchairbound woman, her thin puppetlegs below a square, dense torso.

— Yes.

She spoke about Finnegan’s Wake, about her triptoirelandfathersdeathlovers53disabledlesbianconvertedjewsuicide

life —

conjuring Linnaeus to lift herself from the gelid human sea.

I politely cut her off.

There were three women alongside me folding laundry. A man watching clothes tumble behind a porthole. Two coeds umlike trying to use a machine. The TVfixed attendant stood folding underwear. Eight people in a small room and no one spoke to the other.

I turned my gaze toward the street vainly hoping to tell Shewhospoke

Iamalmostthirtyunemployeduneducatedconfused

my life.

— Carolyn Rae Allen

UNTITLED

Ice cream is my observation food.

I’m sitting on the curb by the Castro Station, watching a nighttime exodus of dapper gay couples and catching snatches of passerby dialogue between bites of an It’s-It.

I listen to them talk about things I know nothing of, though I still strain to hear. Each person walking by, I realize as I munch, is their own story, their own person, and I feel a strange urge to follow them around.

Instead, I look up at the city lights and semi-starry sky, both of which frame a giant flapping flag, whose wind-aided whipping is just audible above the sounds of cars and people.

My snack drips, I wolf it down, and then descend into the station’s glow. — — arim Quesada-Khoury

AN UPLIFT

There are people in this city whom even God does not love. I have spoken to many of them (phoning from the safety of my SOMA office) about diminished social services and life’s decline. The most wretched of San Francisco’s sick, discouraged, and deprived tell me they keep living for one reason alone: their pets. When every last lover’s tolerant embrace has turned cold, dogs and cats do not waiver in their devotion. I only remember to feed myself because Josie needs to be fed, too. She knows I’m sick and ugly, but she loves me nonetheless. Oh Lord, because your charitable light sometimes eludes man through the Bay’s perpetual fog, please lift up this city’s pets and help them do your work.

— Ryan Goldman

Music listings

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October 6, 2009

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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bad Girls Go to Hell, Street Score, Battery Powered Grandpa, High School Parties Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $5.

Tia Carroll and the Hardwork Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Highhorse, Famous, Eric Shea and the High Deserters El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Little Junior Davis and the Knucklehead Blues Hounds Rasselas Jazz. 8pm, free.

Lotus, Break Science Independent. 9pm, $1-20.

Kermit Lynch and His Band Great American Music Hall. 7pm, $125.

Mimicking Birds, Kathryn Anne Davis Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Mudbug Coda. 9pm, $7.

Mumlers, Emily Jane White, Osage Orange Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

No Use for a Name, Perfect Machines, Rockfight Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

People Under the Stairs, Kenan Bell Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Starfucker, Deelay Ceelay, Strength Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Andrew W.K. and Calder Quartet Café du Nord. 8pm, $25.

Witness the Horror, Hukaholix, Murderess Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5-10.

Katona Twins Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. 6:30pm, $20.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Realistic Orchestra Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $14.

Carlos Reyes Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass Country Jam Plough and Stars. 9pm, free. With Jeanie and Chuck.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amnesia. 8pm, free.

New Directions in Indian Classical Music Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St., SF; (415) 704-3260. 8pm, $7-15.

DANCE CLUBS

Afreaka! Attic, 3336 24th St; souljazz45@gmail.com. 10pm, free. Psychedelic beats from Brazil, Turkey, India, Africa, and across the globe with MAKossa.

Bizarre Love Triangle Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. Eighties dance party with DJs Anso and Choice.

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Dubstep vs. Disco Poleng Lounge. 10pm, $5. Featuring In Flagranti.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Hump Night Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. The week’s half over – bump it out at Hump Night!

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St.; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Atomic Bomb Audition, Diminished Men, Blanketship Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Bite, Black Dream, Capp Street Girls, MC Meat Hook and the Vital Organs Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $6.

Tim Bluhm, Neal Casal, and Fred Torphy Make-Out Room. 7pm, $12.

Boombox, Ana Sia Independent. 9pm, $15.

Brass Liberation Orchestra, Charming Hostess, Loco Bloco El Rio. 7pm, $5-20.

Death Valley High, Thrill of it All, King Loses Crown Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Foreigner Fillmore. 8pm, $45.

Great American Taxi, Kate Gaffney Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; (415) 552-4440. 9pm, $12.

Carey Head, Kirk Hamilton, Alex Kelly Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Jelly Bread Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $5.

"Manofest 2009" Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7. With Hellowar (Hellhunter), Barry Manowar (Fleshies), Womanowar (Dalton), Warriors of the World, and DJ Rob Metal.

Coco Montoya Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $18.

Sugar and Gold, Battlehooch, Vows Eagle Tavern. 9pm, $5.

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Burmese, TITS Slim’s. 8pm, $25.

TLXN, Birdmonster, Erin Brazill Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $8.

BAY AREA

Loggins and Messina Paramount Theatre. 8pm, $39.50-79.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Laurent Fourgo Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7:30pm, free.

John Kalleen Group Shanghai 1930. 7pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

"SF Jazz Presents Hotplate: Wil Blades plays Jimmy Smith" Amnesia. 8pm, $5.

Stanley Clarke Trio with Hiromi and Lenny White Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $32.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Will Blades Amnesia. 9pm, $5. Tribute to Jimmy Smith.

Manicato Coda. 9pm, $7.

Parno Graszt, Brass Menazeri Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $10.

Shannon Céilí Band Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Eric and Suzy Thompson Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Toubab Krewe Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $18.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, and B Lee spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.