Energy

Is there such a thing as “green” fracking?

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Michael Klein is an unlikely oil industry executive. He’s also an unlikely environmental activist. For many years, the affluent San Franciscan was a major donor and chair of the board of the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental organization famous for its aggressive agitation targeting timber giants, coal companies, air polluters, and the dirty energy financiers of Wall Street.

But he’s stepped down from that role, and has since helped form a company called Hydrozonix, which might be called a “green” fracking enterprise.

Hydrozonix provides water treatment systems for the oil and gas exploration industry, and seeks to eliminate the use of two particularly nasty fracking-fluid chemicals known as biocides and scale inhibitors. It also gives companies a way to treat and recycle wastewater fluid. The company just completed its first year of operations, Klein told us, with 12 systems reportedly up and running in Texas oil fields.

Does this mean a die-hard environmentalist has crossed over to the dark side? “It was never an easy decision,” Klein told us. “I never thought I would tell anybody that I’m in the oil business.”

He hasn’t exactly turned into a climate change denier.

“I believe we have to stop using carbon based fuels as soon as possible,” Klein says without hesitation, “and find the political will to put a price on carbon.” He also supports a temporary moratorium on fracking. But he claims he’s only trying to make fracking “dramatically safer” in the interim, because “until we stop subsidizing [fossil fuels], the alternatives are at a severe disadvantage.”

Since entering the biz, however, Klein’s no longer convinced by arguments made by proponents of a permanent ban on fracking in California, which revolve around health and safety concerns. “I’ve come to the conclusion that if best practices are used, it’s … considerably safer than deepwater drilling,” he told the Guardian. “I do believe it can be done without concerns about contaminating aquifers or poisoning everyone.”

For a more on fracking in California, pick up a copy of this week’s Green Issue or read it here.

Follow @byRebeccaBowe

Class act

Andrew Lam
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Class act

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER The screaming, childish fight that suddenly erupts between married professionals Carol (Michele Leavy) and Michael (Lawrence Radecker) comes on with such excess it’s like the release of a geyser. A moment later it just as quickly submerges, disappearing under a layer of domestic bliss, or anyway routine, as adjunct prof Michael and attorney Carol share some cocaine and a glass of hard liquor to celebrate her legal firm’s recent victory in court. They then go on to calmly discuss Carol’s suspicion that their teenage son, Teddy (Josh Schell), is masturbating at school — a theory based on laundry-room evidence pointing to yet another surplus of nervous tension.

Carol and Michael’s comical burst of hysteria is our first hint of the quicksand underneath the floorboards of this seemingly solid family home. Then again, maybe it’s the casual drug use; or the immodest concern with their son’s sex life; or those loose bricks stashed pell-mell beneath the foundation in scenic designer Maya Linke’s set, otherwise subdivided with Ikea-showroom purity into sleek, discrete living compartments.

Either way, it doesn’t take long before a full-blown crisis emerges: Carol finds herself in critical condition after emergency bypass surgery, and the family finds itself without life insurance in the face of the main breadwinner’s demise. It’s Carol who proposes a solution from her hospital bed: Michael will marry Carol’s best friend, Katy (Denmo Ibrahim), to maintain the household financially and emotionally. “This is totally fucked up,” balks Michael. “It is totally fucked up,” agrees Carol, “but that’s reality.”

You could say the same for the comedy at the core of Thomas Bradshaw’s The Bereaved, now enjoying a slick Bay Area premiere courtesy of Crowded Fire and artistic director Marissa Wolf. Even with all its excess, it boils down to a portrait of middle-class sobriety: just a family doing the best it can under the circumstances — it’s the circumstances, in other words, that are key to Bradshaw’s gleefully outrageous send-up of American mores.

In the heroic attempt to maintain its debt-fueled lifestyle, the revamped nuclear family soon launches its own illicit business enterprise — in which 15-years-olds Teddy and pregnant girlfriend Melissa (Olivia Rosaldo) both participate, with the help of their Harlem drug dealer, Jamal (Reggie D. White). Throughout, moral confusion is inextricably and messily bound up with economic disorder — and the specific calamity attending the protagonists with a more general crisis that runs deep and wide. If the play presents in the most casual terms a lightly shocking catalog of sexism, racism, and drug use — all of it played with deadpan precision by an enjoyable cast — it’s ultimately because the play is not about sex or drugs or racism per se, but rather about power and status in a world where the middle-class is being destroyed by forces larger than itself, even as its own moral and material contradictions work to destroy it from within. Moreover, The Bereaved suggests the disintegration of that middle-class may be a necessary extinction — and what a relief it is.

Crowded Fire’s production embraces the material with a ready energy and focus that was contagious with opening night’s packed house, though the comic tone struck here can sometimes overwhelm the play’s quieter, grittier, intentionally realistic dimensions. But this is hardly a reason to avoid seeing the production, especially since The Bereaved is the first of Bradshaw’s dozen or so plays to be produced in the Bay Area. Plainly staging hypocrisy, violence, and the flouted taboo in plays such as Dawn, Strom Thurman Is Not a Racist, or The Bereaved is central to Bradshaw’s satire, a bluntness that suspends moral judgment to look squarely at underlying complexities. Along the way, he’s been honing a distinct theatrical voice that has been widely enjoyed (or not) for years. Crowded Fire’s production is a welcome and long overdue arrival.

THE BEREAVED

Through April 27

Wed-Sat, 8pm, $10-$35

Thick House

1695 18th St, SF

www.crowdedfire.org

 

Psychic Dream Astrology: April 17-23

Andrew Lam
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ARIES

March 21-April 19

Creating a narrative that helps you to make sense of your emotions does not help you to be true to them, Aries. Too much story telling can lead to distancing yourself from what you’re actually experiencing. Be brave enough to drop into your feelings and to deal with whatever your find this week.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

Instead of figuring out the "right" thing to say concentrate on how to speak in a direct and honest way. Don’t get your point across, Taurus, communicate the things that you need the other person to hear. Express yourself in ways that allow for your true meaning to get heard this week.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

This is an excellent week for beginnings, Gemini. Whether you focus your energies on cultivating new attitudes, learning a new skill or concept or opening the door to a new person or thing entering your life, you are likely to grow from it. Take responsibility for what you start and enjoy the ride.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Sometimes the path to becoming free is through the very brambles that bind you. You may be feeling sad and stuck, but evading those feelings will only make them worse. You are going through a loss or a major fear of impending loss this week, but don’t let those feelings define you. Find and release what you need to let go of, Cancer.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Being a boss and taking accountability for the direction and content of your life is awesome. You are capable and driven. The only danger is that you heap things on top of each other and end up overwhelmed and unable to come through on all of your commitments. Pace yourself, no matter how confident you’re feeling this week, Leo.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You can be in the greatest relationships with the all-time best people and still have problems. It’s important to be honest with yourself about how you’re participating with others this week. Do they know what’s going on with you or are you expecting them to guess? Are you over-talking things and obscuring the point? Pursue clarity, Virgo.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Follow through on your plans and trust your instincts, Libra. This is not the time to kick back and navel gaze. You are running high energy that will help you get things done this week, and get ’em done successfully. Don’t be scared that action will disrupt the peace you have in your life. This week it’s nothing ventured, nothing gained.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

You have responsibility to yourself, Scorpio. This week you must have enough vision and self-love to be willing to delay gratification. Your goals need to be executed over the long haul, but don’t loose faith! With patience and perseverance you can get exactly where you need to go. Invest in your future.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Don’t give up, Sagittarius. Even if things aren’t going as you want them to and obstacles seem insurmountable, you need to stay in the game. Learn from your mistakes and pay attention to the evidence that is being presented to you about the people and situations around you. Accept where you’re at; it’s the first step towards change.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You’ve got all these ideas about the right way to do things that are outdated if they ever worked at all. Strive to create more flexibility and fluidity in your thinking as you come up with new ideas and revamp others. Reject your old, rigid attitudes in favor of a kindler, gentler, and more compassionate way of living.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Center your life on the things that make you thrive, Water Bearer. You’ve been around the block before and you know that you’re not very good at compromising your happiness for long. You need to make some choices this week and the best way to do it is by prioritizing things that you can sustain with a whole heart.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Putting a good face on things is nice but it won’t get the job done, Pisces. This week you must cope with stressful situations even if they bring up alarmist reactions in you. If you’re willing to let go of your old worn out ways all will be for the best.


Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Film listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

OPENING

The Angels’ Share The latest from British filmmaker Ken Loach (2006’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley) and frequent screenwriter collaborator Paul Leverty contains a fair amount of humor — though it’s still got plenty of their trademark grit and realism. Offered “one last opportunity” by both a legal system he’s frequently disregarded and his exasperated and heavily pregnant girlfriend, ne’er-do-well Glaswegian Robbie (Paul Brannigan) resolves to straighten out his life. But his troubled past proves a formidable roadblock to a brighter future — until he visits a whiskey distillery with the other misfits he’s been performing his court-ordered community service with, and the group hatches an elaborate heist that could bring hope for Robbie and his growing family … if his gang of “scruffs” can pull it off. Granted, there are some familiar elements here, but this 2012 Cannes jury prize winner (the fest’s de facto third-place award) is more enjoyable than predictable — thanks to some whiskey-tasting nerd-out scenes, likable performances by its cast of mostly newcomers, and lines like “Nobody ever bothers anybody wearing a kilt!” (not necessarily true, as it turns out). Thankfully, English subtitles help with the thick Scottish accents. (1:41) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Blancanieves See “Able Fables.” (1:44) Embarcadero.

Let My People Go! See “Able Fables.” (1:28) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

The Lords of Salem Rob Zombie’s latest gorefest takes on Salem’s OG witches. (1:41)

Oblivion Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman star in this dystopian sci-fi tale set on a ravaged planet Earth, circa 2077. (2:05) Balboa, Marina.

Room 237 See “Looking Over the Overlook.” (1:42) Roxie.

ONGOING

The Call (1:34) Metreon.

The Company You Keep Robert Redford directs and stars as a fugitive former member of the Weather Underground, who goes on the run when another member (Susan Sarandon) is arrested and a newspaper reporter (Shia LaBeouf) connects him to a murder 30 years earlier during a Michigan bank robbery. Both the incident and the individuals in The Company You Keep are fictive, but a montage of archival footage at the start of the film is used to place them in the company of real-life radicals and events from the latter days of the 1960s-’70s antiwar movement. (The film’s timeline is a little hard to figure, as the action seems to be present day.) Living under an assumed name, Redford’s Nick Sloan is now a recently widowed public interest lawyer with a nine-year-old daughter, still fighting the good fight from the suburbs of Albany, NY — though some of his movement cohorts would probably argue that point. And as Nick heads cross-country on a hunt for one of them who’s still deep underground, and LaBeouf’s pesky reporter tussles with FBI agents (Terrance Howard and Anna Kendrick) and his besieged editor (Stanley Tucci) — mostly there to pass comment on print journalism’s precipitous decline — there’s plenty of contentious talk, none of it particularly trenchant or involving. Redford packs his earnest, well-intentioned film with stars delineating a constellation of attitudes about revolution, justice, and violent radical action — Julie Christie as an unrepentant radical and Nick’s former lover, Nick Nolte and Richard Jenkins as former movement members, Brendan Gleeson as a Michigan police detective involved in the original investigation, Chris Cooper as Nick’s estranged and disapproving younger brother. But their scrutiny, and the film’s, feels blurry and rote, while the plot’s one major twist seems random and is clumsily exposed. (2:05) Albany, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Croods (1:38) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Disconnect (1:55) SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

Evil Dead “Sacrilege!” you surely thought when hearing that Sam Raimi’s immortal 1983 classic was being remade. But as far as remakes go, this one from Uruguayan writer-director Fede Alvarez (who’d previously only made some acclaimed genre shorts) is pretty decent. Four youths gather at a former family cabin destination because a fifth (Jane Levy) has staged her own intervention — after a near-fatal OD, she needs her friends to help her go cold turkey. But as a prologue has already informed us, there is a history of witchcraft and demonic possession in this place. The discovery of something very nasty (and smelly) in the cellar, along with a book of demonic incantations that Lou Taylor Pucci is stupid enough to read aloud from, leads to … well, you know. The all-hell that breaks loose here is more sadistically squirm-inducing than the humorously over-the-top gore in Raimi’s original duo (elements of the sublime ’87 Evil Dead II are also deployed here), and the characters are taken much more seriously — without, however, becoming more interesting. Despite a number of déjà vu kamikaze tracking shots through the Michigan forest (though most of the film was actually shot in New Zealand), Raimi’s giddy high energy and black comedy are replaced here by a more earnest if admittedly mostly effective approach, with plenty of decent shocks. No one could replace Bruce Campbell, and perhaps it was wise not to even try. So: pretty good, gory, expertly crafted, very R-rated horror fun, even with too many “It’s not over yet!” false endings. But no one will be playing this version over and over and over again as they (and I) still do the ’80s films. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

42 Broad and morally cautious, 42 is nonetheless an honorable addition to the small cannon of films about the late, great baseball player Jackie Robinson. When Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) declares that he wants a black player in the white major leagues because “The only real color is green!”, it’s a cynical explanation that most people buy, and hate him for. It also starts the ball curving for a PR shitstorm. But money is an equal-opportunity leveling device: when Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) tries to use the bathroom at a small-town gas station, he’s denied and tells his manager they should “buy their 99 gallons of gas another place.” Naturally the gas attendant concedes, and as 42 progresses, even those who reject Robinson at first turn into men who find out how good they are when they’re tested. Ford, swashbuckling well past his sell-by date, is a fantastic old coot here; his “been there, lived that” prowess makes you proud he once fled the path of a rolling bolder. His power moves here are even greater, but it’s ultimately Robinson’s show, and 42 finds a lot of ways to deliver on facts and still print the legend. (2:08) Four Star, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Vizcarrondo)

From Up on Poppy Hill Hayao (dad, who co-wrote) and Goro (son, who directed) Miyazaki collaborate on this tale of two high-school kids — Umi, who does all the cooking at her grandmother’s boarding house, and Shun, a rabble-rouser who runs the school newspaper — in idyllic seaside Yokohama. Plans for the 1964 Olympics earmark a beloved historic clubhouse for demolition, and the budding couple unites behind the cause. The building offers a symbolic nod to Japanese history, while rehabbing it speaks to hopes for a brighter post-war future. But the past keeps interfering: conflict arises when Shun’s memories are triggered by a photo of Umi’s father, presumed lost at sea in the Korean War. There are no whimsical talking animals in this Studio Ghibli release, which investigates some darker-than-usual themes, though the animation is vivid and sparkling per usual. Hollywood types lending their voices to the English-language version include Jamie Lee Curtis, Christina Hendricks, Ron Howard, and Gilllian Anderson. (1:31) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

GI Joe: Retaliation The plot exists to justify the action, but any fan of badass-ness will forgive the skimpy storyline for the outlandish badassery in GI Joe: Retaliation. Inspired by action figures and tying loosely to the first flick, Retaliation starts with a game of “secure the defector,” followed by “raise the flag,” but as soon as the stakes aren’t real, the Joes outright suck. They don’t have “neutral,” which is maybe why a mission to rescue and revive the Joes as a force is the most ferocious fight that ever pit metal against plastic. The set pieces are stunning: a mostly silent sequence with Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Jinx (Elodie Yung) on a mountainside will leave the audience gaping in its high speed wake, and a prison break featuring covert explosives is nonstop amazing. You’ll notice an emphasis on chain link fences and puddles (terra nostra for action figures) and set pieces conceived as if by kids who don’t have a concept of basic irrefutable truths like gravity. It’s just that kind of imagination and ardor and limitlessness that makes this Joe incredible, memorable, and a reason to crack out your toys again. (1:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

Ginger and Rosa It’s the 1960s, nuclear war is a real possibility, and nuclear-family war is an absolute certainty, at least in the London house occupied by Ginger (Elle Fanning), her emotionally wounded mother (Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks), and her narcissistic-intellectual father (Alessandro Nivola). In this downbeat coming-of-age tale from Sally Potter (1992’s Orlando), Ginger’s teenage rebellion quickly morphs into angst when her BFF Rosa (Beautiful Creatures‘ Alice Englert) wedges her sexed-up neediness between Ginger’s parents. Hendricks (playing the accordion — just like Joan!) and Annette Bening (as an American activist who encourages Ginger’s political-protest leanings) are strong, but Fanning’s powerhouse performance is the main focus — though even she’s occasionally overshadowed by her artificially scarlet hair. For an interview with writer-director Potter, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:30) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Host (2:01) Metreon.

Jack the Giant Slayer (1:55) Metreon.

Jurassic Park 3D “Life finds a way,” Jeff Goldblum’s leather-clad mathematician remarks, crystallizing the theme of this 1993 Spielberg classic, which at its core is more about human relationships than genetically manufactured terrors. Of course, it’s got plenty of those, and Jurassic Park doesn’t really need its (admittedly spiffy) 3D upgrade to remain a thoroughly entertaining thriller. The dinosaur effects — particularly the creepy Velociraptors and fan-fave T. rex — still dazzle. Only some early-90s computer references and Laura Dern’s mom jeans mark the film as dated. But a big-screen viewing of what’s become a cable TV staple allows for fresh appreciation of its less-iconic (but no less enjoyable) moments and performances: a pre-megafame Samuel L. Jackson as a weary systems tech; Bob Peck as the park’s skeptical, prodigiously thigh-muscled game warden. Try and forget the tepid sequels — including, dear gawd, 2014’s in-the-works fourth installment. This is all the Jurassic you will ever need. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

My Brother the Devil Though its script hits some unsurprising beats, Sally El Hosaini’s drama is buoyed by authentic performances and a strong command of its setting: diverse London ‘hood Hackney, where sons of Egyptian immigrants Rashid (James Floyd) and Mo (Fady Elsayed) stumble toward maturity. After his best friend is killed in a gang fight, older “bruv” Rashid turns away from a life of crime, but dropping his tough-guy façade forces him to explore feelings he’s been desperately trying to deny, especially after he meets photographer Sayyid (Saïd Taghmaoui). The only thing he knows for certain is that he doesn’t want his little brother to start running with the drug-dealing crew he’s lately abandoned. The less-worldly Mo, already dealing with a tidal wave of typical teenage emotions, idolizes his brother — until he finds out Rashid’s secret, and reacts … badly, and the various conflicts careen toward a suspenseful, dread-filled, life-lessons-learned conclusion. Added bonus to this well-crafted film: sleek, vibrant lensing, which earned My Brother the Devil a cinematography prize at Sundance 2012. (1:51) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

No Long before the Arab Spring, a people’s revolution went down in Chile when a 1988 referendum toppled the country’s dictator, Augusto Pinochet, thanks in part to an ad exec who dared to sell the dream to his countrymen and women — using the relentlessly upbeat, cheesy language of a Pepsi Generation. In No‘s dramatization of this true story, ad man Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal) is approached by the opposition to Pinochet’s regime to help them on their campaign to encourage Chile’s people to vote “no” to eight more years under the brutal strongman. Rene’s well-aware of the horrors of the dictatorship; not only are the disappeared common knowledge, his activist ex (Antonia Zegers) has been beaten and jailed with seeming regularity. Going up against his boss (Alfredo Castro), who’s overseeing the Pinochet campaign, Rene takes the brilliant tact in the opposition’s TV programs of selling hope — sound familiar? — promising “Chile, happiness is coming!” amid corny mimes, dancers, and the like. Director-producer Pablo Larrain turns out to be just as genius, shooting with a grainy U-matic ’80s video camera to match his footage with 1988 archival imagery, including the original TV spots, in this invigorating spiritual kin of both 2012’s Argo and 1997’s Wag the Dog. (1:50) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

No Place on Earth “Every cave I enter has a secret,” muses caver Chris Nicola in his clipped New York accent at the start of No Place on Earth. An interest in his family’s Eastern Orthodox roots brought him to the Ukraine soon after the Soviet Union dissolved; while exploring one of the country’s lengthy gypsum caves, he literally stumbled over what he calls “living history:” artifacts (shoes, buttons) that suggested people had been living in the caves in the not-too-distant past. Naturally curious, Nicola investigated further, eventually learning that two families of Ukrainian Jews (including young children) hid in the caves for 18 months during World War II. Using tasteful re-enactments and interviews with surviving members of the families, as well as narration taken from memoirs, director Janet Tobias reconstructs an incredible tale of human resilience and persistence; there are moments of terror, literally hiding behind rocks to escape roaming German soldiers, and moments of joy, as when a holiday snowfall enables precious outdoor playtime. Incredibly, the film ends with now-elderly survivors — one of whom lived just seven miles from Nicola in NYC — returning to “say thank-you to the cave,” as one woman puts it, with awed and grateful grandchildren in tow. (1:24) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

Olympus Has Fallen Overstuffed with slo-mo shots of the flag rippling (in breezes likely caused by all the hot air puffing up from the script), this gleefully ham-fisted tribute to America Fuck Yeah estimates the intelligence of its target audience thusly: an establishing shot clearly depicting both the Washington Monument and the US Capitol is tagged “Washington, DC.” Wait, how can you tell? This wannabe Die Hard: The White House follows the one-man-army crusade of secret service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the last friendly left standing when the President (Aaron Eckhart) and assorted cabinet members are taken hostage by North Korean terrorists. The plot is to ridiculous to recap beyond that, though I will note that Morgan Freeman (as the Speaker of the House) gets to deliver the line “They’ve just opened the gates of hell!” — the high point in a performance that otherwise requires him to sit at a table and look concerned for two hours. With a few more over-the-top scenes or slightly more adventurous casting, Olympus Has Fallen could’ve ascended to action-camp heights. Alas, it’s mostly just mildly amusing, though all that caked-on patriotism is good for a smattering of heartier guffaws. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

On the Road Walter Salles (2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries) engages Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera to adapt Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic; it’s translated to the screen in a streamlined version, albeit one rife with parties, drugs, jazz, danger, reckless driving, sex, philosophical conversations, soul-searching, and “kicks” galore. Brit Sam Riley (2007’s Control) plays Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise, observing (and scribbling down) his gritty adventures as they unfold. Most of those adventures come courtesy of charismatic, freewheeling Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund of 2010’s Tron: Legacy), who blows in and out of Sal’s life (and a lot of other people’s lives, too, including wives played by Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). Beautifully shot, with careful attention to period detail and reverential treatment of the Beat ethos, the film is an admirable effort but a little too shapeless, maybe simply due to the peripatetic nature of its iconic source material, to be completely satisfying. Among the performances, erstwhile teen dream Stewart is an uninhibited standout. (2:03) Four Star, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Oz: The Great and Powerful Providing a backstory for the man behind the curtain, director Sam Raimi gives us a prequel of sorts to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Herein we follow the adventures of a Depression-era Kansas circus magician named Oscar (James Franco) — Oz to his friends — as he cons, philanders, bickers with his behind-the-scenes assistant Frank (Zach Braff), and eventually sails away in a twister, bound for a Technicolor land of massively proportioned flora, talking fauna, and witches ranging from dazzlingly good to treacherously wicked. From one of them, Theodora (Mila Kunis), he learns that his arrival — in Oz, just to clarify — has set in motion the fulfillment of a prophecy: that a great wizard, also named Oz, will bring about the downfall of a malevolent witch (Rachel Weisz), saving the kingdom and its cheery, goodhearted inhabitants. Unfortunately for this deserving populace, Oz spent his last pre-twister moments with the Baum Bros. Circus (the name a tribute to L. Frank Baum, writer of the Oz children’s books) demonstrating a banged-up moral compass and an undependable streak and proclaiming that he would rather be a great man than a good man. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this theme is revisited ad nauseam as Oz and the oppressively beneficent witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) — whose magic appears to consist mainly of nice soft things like bubbles and fog — stand around debating whether he’s the right man for the task. When the fog clears, though, the view is undeniably pretty. While en route to and from the Emerald City, Oz and his companions — among them a non-evil flying monkey (voiced by Braff) and a rather adorable china doll (Joey King) — wander through a deliriously arresting, Fantasia-esque landscape whose intricate, inventive construction helps distract from the plodding, saccharine rhetoric and unappealing story line. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Place Beyond the Pines Powerful indie drama Blue Valentine (2010) marked director Derek Cianfrance as one worthy of attention, so it’s with no small amount of fanfare that this follow-up arrives. The Place Beyond the Pines‘ high profile is further enhanced by the presence of Bradley Cooper (currently enjoying a career ascension from Sexiest Man Alive to Oscar-nominated Serious Actor), cast opposite Valentine star Ryan Gosling, though they share just one scene. An overlong, occasionally contrived tale of three generations of fathers, father figures, and sons, Pines‘ initial focus is Gosling’s stunt-motorcycle rider, a character that would feel more exciting if it wasn’t so reminiscent of Gosling’s turn in Drive (2011), albeit with a blonde dye job and tattoos that look like they were applied by the same guy who inked James Franco in Spring Breakers. Robbing banks seems a reasonable way to raise cash for his infant son, as well as a way for Pines to draw in another whole set of characters, in the form of a cop (Cooper) who’s also a new father, and who — as the story shifts ahead 15 years — builds a political career off the case. Of course, fate and the convenience of movie scripts dictate that the mens’ sons will meet, the past will haunt the present and fuck up the future, etc. etc. Ultimately, Pines is an ambitious film that suffers from both its sprawl and some predictable choices (did Ray Liotta really need to play yet another dirty cop?) Halfway through the movie I couldn’t help thinking what might’ve happened if Cianfrance had dared to swap the casting of the main roles; Gosling could’ve been a great ambitious cop-turned-powerful prick, and Cooper could’ve done interesting things with the Evel Knievel-goes-Point Break part. Just sayin’. (2:20) California, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

Renoir The gorgeous, sun-dappled French Riviera setting is the high point of this otherwise low-key drama about the temperamental women (Christa Theret) who was the final muse to elderly painter Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), and who encouraged the filmmaking urges in his son, future cinema great Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee (who’s worked with Hou Hsiao-hsein and Wong Kar Wai) lenses Renoir’s leafy, ramshackle estate to maximize its resemblance to the paintings it helped inspire; though her character, Dédée, could kindly be described as “conniving,” Theret could not have been better physically cast, with tumbling red curls and pale skin she’s none too shy about showing off. Though the specter of World War I looms in the background, the biggest conflicts in Gilles Bourdos’ film are contained within the household, as Jean frets about his future, Dédée faces the reality of her precarious position in the household (which is staffed by aging models-turned-maids), and Auguste battles ill health by continuing to paint, though he’s in a wheelchair and must have his brushes taped to his hands. Though not much really happens, Renoir is a pleasant, easy-on-the-eyes experience. (1:51) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Sapphires The civil rights injustices suffered by these dream girls may be unique to Aboriginal Australians, but they’ll strike a chord with viewers throughout the world — at right about the same spot stoked by the sweet soul music of Motown. Co-written by Tony Briggs, the son of a singer in a real-life Aboriginal girl group, this unrepentant feel-gooder aims to make the lessons of history go down with the good humor and up-from-the-underdog triumph of films like The Full Monty (1997) — the crucial difference in this fun if flawed comedy-romance is that it tells the story of women of color, finding their voices and discovering, yes, their groove. It’s all in the family for these would-be soul sisters, or rather country cousins, bred on Merle Haggard and folk tunes: there’s the charmless and tough Gail (Deborah Mailman), the soulful single mom Julie (Jessica Mauboy, an Australian Idol runner-up), the flirty Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), and the pale-skinned Kay (Shari Sebbens), the latter passing as white after being forcibly “assimilated” by the government. Their dream is to get off the farm, even if that means entertaining the troops in Vietnam, and the person to help them realize that checkered goal is dissolute piano player Dave (Chris O’Dowd). And O’Dowd is the breakout star to watch here — he adds an loose, erratic energy to an otherwise heavily worked story arc. So when romance sparks for all Sapphires — and the racial tension simmering beneath the sequins rumbles to the surface — the easy pleasures generated by O’Dowd and the music (despite head-scratching inclusions like 1970’s “Run Through the Jungle” in this 1968-set yarn), along with the gently handled lessons in identity politics learned, obliterate any lingering questions left sucking Saigon dust as the narrative plunges forward. They keep you hanging on. (1:38) Albany, Piedmont, SF Center. (Chun)

Scary Movie 5 (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Silence Maybe “fun” is a tasteless way to describe The Silence, which hinges on pederasty and child murder — though in the end this is more an intelligent pulp thriller than serious address of those issues, uneasily as it straddles both at times. In 1986 two men abduct an 11-year-old girl — one the initially excited, then horrified observer to the second’s murderous sexual assault. Twenty-three years later, another young girl disappears in the same place under disturbingly identical circumstances. This event gradually pulls together a large cast of characters, many initial strangers — including the original victim’s mother (Katrin Sass) and the just-retired detective (Burghart Klaubner) who failed to solve that crime; parents (Karoline Eichhorn, Roeland Wiesnekker) of the newly disappeared teen, who experience full-on mental meltdown; a solidly bourgeoise husband and father of two girls (Wotan Wilke Möhring), inordinately distressed by this repeat of history; and the erstwhile friend he hasn’t contacted in decades, an apartment-complex handyman with a secret life (Ulrich Thomsen). Part procedural, part psychological thriller, part small-town-community portrait, director-scenarist (from Jan Costin Wagner’s novel) Baran bo Odar’s The Silence is just juicy and artful enough to get away with occasional stylistic hyperbole. It’s a conflicted movie, albeit handled with such engrossing confidence that you might not notice the credibility gaps. At least until thinking it over later. Which, don’t. (1:59) Four Star. (Harvey)

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

Spring Breakers The idea of enfant terrible emeritus Harmony Korine — 1997’s Gummo, 2007’s Mister Lonely, 2009’s Trash Humpers — directing something so utterly common as a spring break movie is head-scratching enough, even moreso compounded by the casting of teen dreams Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson as bikini-clad girls gone wild. James Franco co-stars as drug dealer Alien, all platinum teeth and cornrows and shitty tattoos, who befriends the lasses after they’re busted by the fun police. “Are you being serious?” Gomez’s character asks Alien, soon after meeting him. “What do you think?” he grins back. Unschooled filmgoers who stumble into the theater to see their favorite starlets might be shocked by Breakers‘ hard-R hijinks. But Korine fans will understand that this neon-lit, Skrillex-scored tale of debauchery and dirty menace is not to be taken at face value. The subject matter, the cast, the Britney Spears songs, the deliberately lurid camerawork — all carefully-constructed elements in a film that takes not-taking-itself-seriously, very seriously indeed. Korine has said he prefers his films to make “perfect nonsense” instead of perfect sense. The sublime Spring Breakers makes perfect nonsense, and it also makes nonsense perfect. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

To the Wonder It should be a source of joy that Terrence Malick keeps getting to make large, personal, indulgent, un-commercial movies when almost no one else does. And he is indeed a poet, a visionary — but has he ever had more than passages of brilliance? Are the actors and producers who treat him with awe enabling art, or mostly high-flown pretensions toward the same? To the Wonder does provide some answers to those thorny questions. But they’re not the answers you’ll probably want to hear if you thought 2011’s The Tree of Life was a masterpiece. If, on the other hand, you found it a largely exasperating movie with great sequences, you may be happy to be warned that Wonder is an entirely excruciating movie with pretty photography, in which Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko (or sometimes Affleck and Rachel McAdams) wander around picturesque settings either beaming beatifically at each other or looking “troubled” because “something is missing,” as one character puts it in a rare moment of actual dialogue. (Generally we get the usual Malick wall-to-wall whispered voiceover musings like “What is this love that loves us?” delivered by all lead actors in different languages for maximum annoyance.) Just what is missing? Who the hell knows. Apparently it is too vulgar to spell out or even hint at what’s actually going on in these figures’ heads, not when you can instead show them endlessly mooning about as the camera follows them in a lyrical daze. No doubt some will find all this profound; the film certainly acts as though it is. But at some point you have to ask: if the artist can’t express his deep thoughts, just indicate that he’s having them, how do we know he’s a deep thinker at all? (1:53) California, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Trance Where did Danny Boyle drop his noir? Somewhere along the way from Shallow Grave (1994) to Slumdog Millionaire (2008)? Finding the thread he misplaced among the obfuscating reflections of London’s corporate-contempo architecture, Boyle strives to put his own character-centered spin on the genre in this collaboration with Grave and Trainspotting (1996) screenwriter John Hodge, though the final product feels distinctly off, despite its Hitchcockian aspirations toward a sort of modern-day Spellbound (1945). Untrustworthy narrator Simon (James McAvoy) is an auctioneer for a Sotheby’s-like house, tasked with protecting the multimillion-dollar artworks on the block, within reason. Then the splashily elaborate theft of Goya’s Witches’ Flight painting goes down on Simon’s watch, and for his trouble, the complicit staffer is concussed by heist leader Franck (Vincent Cassel). Where did those slippery witches fly to? Simon, mixed up with the thieves due to his gambling debts, cries amnesia — the truth appears to be locked in the opaque layers of his jostled brain, and it’s up to hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) to uncover the Goya’s resting place. Is she trying to help Simon extricate himself from his impossible situation, seduce Franck, or simply help herself? Boyle tries to transmit the mutable mind games on screen, via the lighting, glass, and watery reflections that are supposed to translate as sleek sophistication. But devices like speedy, back-and-forth edits and off-and-on fourth-wall-battering instances as when Simon locks eyes with the audience, read as dated and cheesy as a banking commercial. The seriously miscast actors also fail to sell Trance on various levels — believability, likeability, etc. — as the very unmesmerized viewer falls into a light coma and the movie twirls, flaming, into the ludicrous. (1:44) Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Tyler Perry’s Temptation (2:06) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Upstream Color A woman, a man, a pig, a worm, Walden — what? If you enter into Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color expecting things like a linear plot, exposition, and character development, you will exit baffled and distressed. Best to understand in advance that these elements are not part of Carruth’s master plan. In fact, based on my own experiences watching the film twice, I’m fairly certain that not really understanding what’s going on in Upstream Color is part of its loopy allure. Remember Carruth’s 2004 Primer? Did you try to puzzle out that film’s array of overlapping and jigsawed timelines, only to give up and concede that the mystery (and sheer bravado) of that film was part of its, uh, loopy allure? Yeah. Same idea, except writ a few dimensions larger, with more locations, zero tech-speak dialogue, and — yes! — a compelling female lead, played by Amy Seimetz, an indie producer and director in her own right. Enjoying (or even making it all the way through) Upstream Color requires patience and a willingness to forgive some of Carruth’s more pretentious noodlings; in the tradition of experimental filmmaking, it’s a work that’s more concerned with evoking emotions than hitting some kind of three-act structure. Most importantly, it manages to be both maddening and moving at the same time. (1:35) Roxie. (Eddy)

Is there a “green” way to frack?

Andrew Lam
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5

Michael Klein is an unlikely oil industry executive. He’s also an unlikely environmental activist. For many years, the wealthy San Franciscan was a major donor and chair of the board of the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental organization famous for agitating aggressively against timber giants, coal companies, air polluters, and the dirty energy financiers of Wall Street.

But Klein stepped down from that role, and has since helped form a company called Hydrozonix, which might be called a “green” fracking enterprise.

Klein’s company seeks to eliminate the use of two particularly nasty fracking-fluid chemicals, known as biocides and scale inhibitors, while giving companies a way to treat and recycle wastewater fluid. Hydrozonix just completed its first year of operations, with 12 systems up and running in Texas oil fields. Does this mean Klein has crossed over to the dark side? “It was never an easy decision,” Klein told us. “I never thought I would tell anybody that I’m in the oil business.” He hasn’t exactly turned into a climate change denier. “I believe we have to stop using carbon-based fuels as soon as possible,” Klein says without hesitation, “and find the political will to put a price on carbon.” He also supports a temporary moratorium on fracking. But he claims he’s only trying to make fracking “dramatically safer” in the interim, because “until we stop subsidizing [fossil fuels], the alternatives are at a severe disadvantage.” But since entering the biz, he’s no longer convinced by the arguments made by proponents of fracking bans who cite health and safety concerns. “I’ve come to the conclusion that if best practices are used, it’s … considerably safer than deepwater drilling,” he told the Guardian. “I do believe it can be done without concerns about contaminating aquifers or poisoning everyone.”

Indicator city

Andrew Lam
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74
Indicator city

steve@sfbg.com

When biologists talk about the health of a fragile ecosystem, they often speak of an “indicator species.” That’s a critter — a fish, say, or a frog — whose health, or lack thereof, is a signal of the overall health of the system. These days, when environmentalists who think about politics as well as science look at San Francisco, they see an indicator city.

This progressive-minded place of great wealth, knowledge, and technological innovation — surrounded on three sides by steadily rising tides — could signal whether cities in the post-industrial world will meet the challenge of climate change and related problems, from loss of biodiversity to the need for sustainable energy sources.

A decade ago, San Francisco pioneered innovative waste reduction programs and set aggressive goals for reducing its planet-cooking carbon emissions. At that point, the city seemed prepared to make sacrifices and provide leadership in pursuit of sustainability.

Things changed dramatically when the recession hit and Mayor Ed Lee took office with the promise to focus almost exclusively on economic development and job creation. Today, even with the technology and office development sectors booming and employment rates among the lowest in California, the city hasn’t returned its focus to the environment.

In fact, with ambitious new efforts to intensify development along the waterfront and only lackluster support for the city’s plan to build renewable energy projects through the CleanPowerSF program, the Lee administration seems to be exacerbating the environmental challenge rather than addressing it.

According to conservative projections by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the Bay is expected to rise at least 16 inches by 2050 and 55 inches by the end of the century. BCDC maps show San Francisco International Airport and Mission Bay inundated, Treasure Island mostly underwater, and serious flooding the Financial District, the Marina, and Hunters Point.

Lee’s administration has commissioned a report showing a path to carbon reduction that involves promoting city-owned renewable energy facilities and radically reducing car trips — while the mayor seems content do the opposite.

It’s not an encouraging sign for Earth Day 2013.

 

HOW WE’RE DOING

Last year, the Department of the Environment hired McKinsey and Company to prepare a report titled “San Francisco’s Path to a Low-Carbon Economy.” It’s mostly finished — but you haven’t heard much about it. The department has been sitting on it for months.

Why? Some say it’s because most of the recommendations clash with the Lee administration’s priorities, although city officials say they’re just waiting while they get other reports out first. But the report notes the city is falling far short of its carbon reduction goals and “will therefore need to complement existing carbon abatement measures with a range of new and innovative approaches.”

Data presented in the report, a copy of which we’ve obtained from a confidential source, shows that building renewable energy projects through CleanPowerSF, making buildings more energy-efficient, and discouraging private automobile use through congestion pricing, variable-price parking, and building more bike lanes are the most effective tools for reducing carbon output.

But those are things that the mayor either opposes and has a poor record of supporting or putting into action. The easy, corporate-friendly things that Lee endorses, such as supporting more electric, biofuel, and hybrid vehicles, are among the least effective ways to reach the city’s goals, the report says.

“Private passenger vehicles account for two-fifths of San Francisco’s emissions. In the short term, demand-based pricing initiatives appear to be the biggest opportunity,” the report notes, adding a few lines later, “Providing alternate methods of transport, such as protected cycle lanes, can encourage them to consider alternatives to cars.”

Melanie Nutter, who heads the city’s Department of the Environment, admits that the transportation sector and expanding the city’s renewable energy portfolio through CleanPowerSF or some other program — both of which are crucial to reducing the city’s carbon footprint — are two important areas where the city needs to do a better job if it’s going to meet its environmental goals, including the target of cutting carbon emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2025.

But Nutter said that solid waste reduction programs, green building standards, and the rise of the “shareable economy” — with Internet-based companies facilitating the sharing of cars, housing, and other products and services — help San Francisco show how environmentalism can co-exist with economic development.

“San Francisco is really focused on economic development and growth, but we’ve gone beyond the old edict that you can either be sustainable or have a thriving economy,” Nutter said.

Yet there’s sparse evidence to support that statement. There’s a two-year time lag in reporting the city’s carbon emissions, meaning we don’t have good indicators since Mayor Lee pumped up economic development with tax breaks and other city policies. For example, Nutter touted how there’s more green buildings, but she didn’t have data about whether that comes close to offsetting the sheer number of new energy-consuming buildings — not to mention the increase in automobile trips and other byproducts of a booming economy.

Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and president of the BART board, told us that San Francisco seems to have been derailed by the last economic crisis, with economic insecurity and fear trumping environmental concerns.

“All our other values got tossed aside and it was all jobs, jobs, jobs. And then the crisis passed and the mantra of this [mayoral] administration is still jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said. “They put sustainability on hold until the economic crisis passed, and they still haven’t returned to sustainability.”

Radulovich reviewed the McKinsey report, which he considers well-done and worth heeding. He’s been asking the Department of the Environment for weeks why it hasn’t been released. Nutter told us her office just decided to hold the report until after its annual climate action strategy report is released during Earth Day event on April 24. And mayoral Press Secretary Christine Falvey told us, “There’s no hold up from the Mayor’s Office.”

Radulovich said the study highlights how much more the city should be doing. “It’s a good study, it asks all the right questions,” Radulovich said. “We’re paying lip service to these ideas, but we’re not getting any closer to sustainability.”

In fact, he said the promise that the city showed 10 years ago is gone. “Gavin [Newsom] wanted to be thought of as an environmentalist and a leader in sustainability, but I don’t think that’s important to Ed Lee,” Radulovich said.

Joshua Arce, who chairs the city’s Environmental Commission, agreed that there is a notable difference between Newsom, who regularly rolled out new environmental initiatives and goals, and Lee, who is still developing ways to promote environmentalism within his economic development push.

“Ed Lee doesn’t have traditional environmental background,” Arce said. “What is Mayor Lee’s definition of environmentalism? It’s something that creates jobs and is more embracing of economic development.”

Falvey cites the mayor’s recent move of $2 million into the GoSolar program, new electric vehicle charging stations in city garages, and his support for industries working on environmental solutions: “Mayor Lee’s CleantechSF initiative supports the growth of the already vibrant cleantech industry and cleantech jobs in San Francisco, and he has been proactive in reaching out to the City’s 211 companies that make up one of the largest and most concentrated cleantech clusters in the world.”

Yet many environmentalists say that simply waiting for corporations to save the planet won’t work, particularly given their history, profit motives, and the short term thinking of global capitalism.

“To put it bluntly, the Lee administration is bought and paid for by PG&E,” said Eric Brooks with Our City, which has worked for years to launch CleanPowerSF and ensure that it builds local renewable power capacity.

The opening of the McKinsey report makes it clear why the environmental policies of San Francisco and other big cities matter: “Around the globe, urban areas are becoming more crowded and consuming more resources per capita,” it states. “Cities are already responsible for roughly seventy percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and as economic growth becomes more concentrated in urban centers, their total greenhouse gas emissions may double by 2050. As a result, tackling the problem of climate change will in large part depend on how we reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of cities.”

And San Francisco, it argues, is the perfect place to start: “The city now has the opportunity to crystallize and execute a bold, thoughtful strategy to attain new targets, continue to lead by example, and further national and global debates on climate change.”

The unwritten message: If we can’t do it here, maybe we can’t do it anywhere.

 

ON THE EDGE

San Francisco’s waterfront is where economic pressures meet environmental challenges. As the city seeks to continue with aggressive growth and developments efforts on one side of the line — embodied recently by the proposed Warriors Arena at Piers 30-32, 8 Washington and other waterfront condo complexes, and other projects that intensify building along the water — that puts more pressure on the city to compensate with stronger sustainability initiatives.

“The natural thing to do with most of our waterfront would be to open it up to the public,” said Jon Golinger, who is leading this year’s referendum campaign to overturn the approval of 8 Washington. “But if the lens you’re looking through is just the balance sheet and quarterly profits, the most valuable land maybe in the world is San Francisco’s waterfront.”

He and others — including SF Waterfront Alliance, a new group formed to oppose the Warriors Arena — say the city is long overdue in updating its development plan for the waterfront, as Prop. H in 1990 called for every five years. They criticize the city and Port for letting developers push projects without a larger vision.

“We are extremely concerned with what’s happening on our shorelines,” said Michelle Myers, director of the Sierra Club’s Bay Chapter, arguing that the city should be embracing waterfront open space that can handle storm surge instead of hardening the waterfront with new developments. “Why aren’t we thinking about those kinds of projects on our shoreline?”

David Lewis, director of Save the Bay, told us cities need to think less about the value of waterfront real estate and do what it can to facilitate the rising bay. “There are waterfront projects that are not appropriate,” Lewis said. Projects he puts in that category range from a scuttled proposal to build around 10,000 homes on the Cargill Salt Flats in Redwood City to the Warriors Arena on Piers 30-32.

“We told the mayor before it was even announced that it is not a legal use of the pier,” Lewis said, arguing it violated state law preserving the waterfront for maritime and public uses. “There’s no reason that an arena has to be out on the water on a crumbling pier.”

But Brad Benson and Diana Oshima, who work on waterfront planning issue for the Port of San Francisco, say that most of San Francisco’s shoreline was hardened almost a century ago, and that most of the planning for how to use it has already been done.

“You have a few seawall lots and a few piers that could be development sites, but not many. Do we need a whole plan for that?” Benson said, while Oshima praises the proactive transportation planning work now underway: “There has never been this level of land use and transportation planning at such an early stage.”

The Bay Conservation and Development Commission was founded almost 50 years ago to regulate development in and around the Bay, when the concern was mostly about the bay shrinking as San Francisco and other cities dumped fill along the shoreline to build San Francisco International Airport, much of the Financial District, and other expansive real estate plans.

Now, the mission of the agency has flipped.

“Instead of the bay getting smaller, the bay is getting larger with this thing called sea level rise,” BCDC Executive Director Larry Goldspan said as we took in the commanding view of the water from his office at 50 California Street.

A few years ago, as the climate change predictions kept worsening, the mission of BCDC began to focus on that new reality. “How do we create a resilient shoreline and protect assets?” was how Goldspan put it, noting that few simply accept the inundation that BCDC’s sea level rise maps predict. “Nobody is talking about retreating from SFO, or Oakland Airport, or BART.”

That means Bay Area cities will have to accept softening parts of the shoreline — allowing for more tidal marshes and open space that can accept flooding in order to harden, or protect, other critical areas. The rising water has to go somewhere.

“Is there a way to use natural infrastructure to soften the effect of sea level rises?” Goldspan asked. “I don’t know that there are, but you have to use every tool in the smartest way to deal with this challenge.”

And San Francisco seems to be holding firm on increased development — in an area that isn’t adequately protected. “The seawall is part of the historic district that the Port established, but now we’re learning the seawall is too short,” Goldspan said.

BCDC requires San Francisco to remove a pier or other old landfill every time it reinforces or rebuilds a pier, on a one-to-one basis. So Oshima said the district is now studying what it can remove to make up for the work that was done to shore up Piers 23-27, which will become a new cruise ship terminal once the America’s Cup finishes using it a staging ground this summer.

Yet essentially giving up valuable waterfront real estate isn’t easy for any city, and cities have both autonomy and a motivation to thrive under existing economic realities. “California has a history of local control. Cities are strong,” Goldspan said, noting that sustainability may require sacrifice. “It will be a policy discussion at the city level. It’s a new discussion, and we’re just in the early stages.”

 

NEW WORLD

Global capitalism either grows or dies. Some modern economists argue otherwise — that a sustainable future with a mature, stable economy is possible. But that takes a huge leap of faith — and it may be the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change.

“In the world we grew up in, our most ingrained economic and political habit was growth; it’s the reflex we’re going to have to temper, and it’s going to be tough.” Bill McKibben writes in Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. “Across partisan lines, for the two hundred years since Adam Smith, we’ve assumed that more is better, and that the answer to any problem is another burst of expansion.”

In a telephone interview with the Guardian, McKibben discussed the role that San Francisco could and should be playing as part of that awakening.

“No one knows exactly what economy the world is moving toward, but we can sense some of its dimensions: more localized, less material-based, more innovative; these are things that San Francisco is good at,” he told us, noting the shift in priorities that entails. “We need to do conservation, but it’s true that we also need to build more renewable power capacity.”

Right now, CleanPowerSF is the only mechanism the city has for doing renewable energy projects, and it’s under attack on several fronts before it even launches. Most of the arguments against it are economic — after all, renewable power costs more than coal — and McKibben concedes that cities are often constrained by economic realities.

Some city officials argue that it’s more sustainable for San Francisco to grow and develop than suburban areas — thus negating some criticism that too much economic development is bad for the environment — and Radulovich concedes there’s a certain truth to that argument.

“But is it as green as it ought to be? Is it green enough to be sustainable and avert the disaster? And the answer is no,” Radulovich said.

For example, he questioned, “Why are we building 600,000 square feet of automobile-oriented big box development on Hunters Point?” Similarly, if San Francisco were really taking rising seas seriously, should the city be pouring billions of dollars into housing on disappearing Treasure Island?

“I think it’s a really interesting macro-question,” Jennifer Matz, who runs the Mayors Office of Economic Development, said when we asked whether the aggressive promotion of economic development and growth can ever be sustainable, or whether slowing that rate needs to be part of the solution. “I don’t know that’s feasible. Dynamic cities will want to continue to grow.”

Yet that means accepting the altered climate of new world, including greatly reduced fresh water supplies for Northern California, which is part of the current discussions.

“A lot of the focus on climate change has moved to adaptation, but even that is something we aren’t really addressing,” Radulovich said.

Nutter agreed that adapting to the changing world is conversation that is important: “All of the development and planning we’re doing today needs to incorporate these adaptation strategies, which we’re just initiating.”

But environmentalists and a growing number of political officials say that San Francisco and other big cities are going to need to conceive of growth in new ways if they want to move toward sustainability. “The previous ethos was progress at any cost — develop, develop, develop,” Myers said, with the role of environmentalists being to mitigate damage to the surrounding ecosystem. But now, the economic system itself is causing irreversible damage on a global level. “At this point, it’s about more than conservation and protecting habitat. It’s about self-preservation.”

Fracking changes everything

Andrew Lam
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31
Fracking changes everything

In December 2012, the federal Bureau of Land Management held an annual auction for oil and gas development rights on federal territory in California, offering up wild lands in Fresno, Monterey, and San Benito counties. It sold off leases to 15 parcels, totaling nearly 18,000 acres. One bidder was a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, an oil company that drilled 675 new wells in California in 2011 alone.

The BLM affair works like any other auction: Bids are made verbally, and leasing rights are awarded to the highest bidder. Every last acre was snapped up, locking companies in for 10-year leases.

The average bid per acre? $4.21. The highest bid per acre? Ten bucks. The total federal government revenue? Just over $100,000.

The fact that oil companies can buy up mining rights to such a vast area of public land, for the price equivalent of about a tenth of a house in San Francisco, is nothing new. But this land auction was significant because BLM turned a blind eye to fracking, an oil and gas extraction technique that’s fueled widespread opposition. BLM green-lighted the leases based on an official assessment projecting that no more than a single acre of land would be disturbed by the anticipated oil drilling, the same argument used to justify the previous year’s auction.

Such a scenario may have been realistic in 2006, when the governmental agency drafted the document it relied on to make such a rosy prediction. But technological advancement has transformed the fossil-fuel sector over the past six years, and the oil industry is buzzing about vast untapped potential contained within the Monterey Shale, a leviathan geologic formation that extends across a major stretch of California, including beneath the federal lands in question.

“The Monterey area has become a focal point,” says Brendan Cummings, “because, but for fracking, these areas would never get tapped for oil.” An attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, Cummings splits his work between offices in Joshua Tree and San Francisco. He led the Center in a lawsuit against BLM over its 2011 oil-and-gas lease auction, which affected 2,500 acres, arguing that the government should have realistically assessed the environmental threats posed by fracking before it started handing out drilling rights.

“Fracking changes the economics of oil,” Cummings says. “Fracking changes everything.”

And it’s happening all over California, and growing at a rapid rate.

 

 

DRILLING ON STEROIDS

Sounding more like an approximate substitute to circumvent a television ban on profanity, “fracking” is short for hydraulic fracturing. It consists of pumping high-pressure fluids up to 15,000 feet underground and into “horizontal wells” that can fan outward for a mile or more, with the aim of smashing up the shale formations. While a form of fracking has been in use for decades to “rework” oil wells, the kind of high-pressure, high-temperature operations now being employed represent a departure from traditional methods.

The exact contents of the proprietary fracking fluids are mostly secret, but they’re known to contain high volumes of water, sand, and a patented blend of toxic chemicals, sometimes incorporating acid to make the rock brittle enough to fracture.

“Once they’ve fracked up the shale,” explains Adam Scow, California campaigns director at San Francisco-based Food and Water Watch, “they can pump indefinitely.” It’s a short-term, expensive operation, Scow says, amounting to “drilling on steroids.”

On April 8, a federal judge ruled that the Obama Administration had violated federal law in the 2011 BLM auction by failing to first conduct an environmental impact study on fracking. It’s too soon to say how this will affect the 18,000 acres auctioned off in December, but Cummings says he expects to be back in court before long.

Yet the ruling has no effect on the oil wells already dotting the landscape in places like Kern County, an area already marked by poor air quality that supports the highest concentration of fracking operations in California. And for every acre of federal land now tied up in court, there are thousands more private parcels susceptible to being radically altered by fracking.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the Monterey shale formation, which extends from the northern San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles County and westward to the coast, holds more than 15 billion barrels of oil.

It’s an astounding quantity that dwarfs that of the Bakken Formation, which has helped light up North Dakota’s economy with a fracking boom, or the Eagle Ford Shale in West Texas, each of which are estimated to contain between 3 and 4 billion barrels.

 

 

NO SPECIAL PERMIT REQUIRED

Once a company has obtained a permit to extract oil and gas, “the state doesn’t require companies to get a permit to frack,” explains Scow, so it’s unknown just how much it’s currently happening. Voluntarily reported industry data shows that at least 91 wells were fracked in California between January 2011 and April 2012. Yet in 2011 alone, state records show, 2,294 new wells were drilled, while 3,376 notices were filed to “rework” existing wells.

In California, oil and gas drilling is regulated by the Division of Oil and Gas Resources. Speaking at a forum at the Commonwealth Club hosted by Climate One on April 2, Mark Nechodom, director of the California Department of Conservation, said DOGR never required reporting on fracking because it’s “one short blip” in oil production.

“In our historical use of fracturing in California, we have had no evidence that there is any environmental damage or hazard to human health—no evidence, I am saying—and therefore we have not required reporting,” said Nechodom, whose agency presides over DOGR. “Now we are requiring reporting and we are in the middle of developing a regulation for that.”

Nevertheless, the prospect of a pending California fracking boom on top of the loosely regulated activity already underway has galvanized Bay Area environmentalists. A host of environmental organizations are planning to form a coalition in the next several weeks to push for a permanent ban on fracking, targeting Gov. Jerry Brown.

Unchecked fracking could unleash a host of problems, says Scow, including a high risk of tainted groundwater, harmful air emissions, a spike in atmospheric carbon from the release of underground methane, and possibly even more frequent earthquakes due to wastewater disposal deep below the earth’s surface, which can destabilize faults.

“The process is just too dangerous,” he says. “There’s no safe way to frack. In the long term, we want fracking banned.”

 

 

OIL AND WATER

Policy discussions about fracking often arrive at the “Halliburton loophole.” In 2005, the story goes, when the federal Energy Bill was being drafted under the Bush Administration, then-Vice President Dick Cheney orchestrated the inclusion of a perplexing provision exempting “hydraulic fracturing” from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Cheney famously presided over Halliburton, a company that invented a precursor to modern-day fracking in the 1940s. Few understood what it meant at the time, but the ascendance of fracking has made it clear that the loophole amounted to a munificent gift to the oil industry, clearing the way for rigs to bore downward and outward with toxic underground fluid injections unencumbered by regulatory slowdowns — all to the detriment of safe drinking water.

“The Safe Drinking Water Act loophole has really created a problem for us,” Steve Craig, an olive rancher from Monterey County, noted while speaking at the Commonwealth Club panel.

Craig described the frustrating process of trying to get agencies to intervene in a fracking operation nearby his ranch, right along the Salinas River. “At this point, we don’t know what’s in the fracking fluids. How can you know if it’s a problem if you don’t know the content of the chemistry? It’s not fair to the public to hide behind that trade secret veil and expect us to live with it.”

The risk of groundwater contamination tops Scow’s list of nightmarish scenarios. Fracking fluids can contain benzene and other carcinogens, as well as compounds linked with kidney or nervous system problems. “Once fracking fluid is injected underground, much of it stays underground indefinitely,” a Food and Water Watch issue briefing notes. “There is a network of different pathways through which contaminants … could flow into and contaminate groundwater.”

And since groundwater is drinking water in some places, Scow says this possibility is a major concern. “Prevention is really the key here,” he says. “We’re talking about some nasty stuff that could be irreversible.”

 

TOUGH FIGHT AHEAD

On April 29, the Assembly Resources Committee is scheduled to take up two nearly identical pieces of legislation that would impose indefinite moratoriums on fracking. The practice has already been subject to moratoriums in New York and New Jersey, and was permanently banned in Vermont and nationwide in France and Bulgaria.

But there’s likely to be stiff resistance, because for oil companies, fracking may as well be California’s modern-day gold mine.

“We’ve been a major petroleum state for a number of years, and the governor has indicated strongly that we want to continue to do that,” Dave Quast, head of an industry association called Energy in Depth, noted at the Climate One panel. “It’s been done safely, and it will continue to be done safely, and we should all be excited about that,” because it’s preferable to importing oil from the Middle East or places with weaker environmental regulations, Quast said.

But there’s a larger question: Do we really want to be burning more oil? If every last barrel of oil were extracted from the Monterey shale, says Scow, it could indeed meet the nation’s total oil needs — but based on current consumption rates, it would be entirely burned up in less than three years.

“Burning the 15 billion barrels of oil — even if that were some kind of achievement,” Scow says with a wry laugh, “is still going to make our climate crisis worse.”

Checks from mayor’s mysterious breakfast companions mysteriously absent

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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52

In less than three months, custom made super yachts will zip around the San Francisco Bay in the ultimate competition for the prized America’s Cup. But San Francisco could wind up spending millions more than originally expected to host this prestigious sailing regatta.

At a March 13 committee hearing at the Board of Supervisors, America’s Cup Organizing Committee CEO Kyri McClellan reported that Mayor Ed Lee was investing an “incredible amount of energy” into helping ACOC with fundraising efforts to avert a city funding shortfall. He was even said to be hosting “breakfasts with CEOs” to solicit funding, McClellan said.

Who are the CEOs? Nobody will say.

How much has each of them pledged to give? Nobody will say.

When the Guardian submitted these questions to Lee, McClellan, and Stefanie Roumeliotes – whose SGR Consulting firm was wheeled in at the last minute to organize fundraising events – none answered directly.

McClellan responded on April 9 with a copy of a letter she sent to Mayor Lee and Board President David Chiu on the day of the hearing, which she indicated was “the most recent update on fundraising.” Roumeliotes, for her part, told the Guardian flat out to stop calling, because her firm was not going to answer any questions.

So far, it appears that none of the mayor’s fundraising meetings, which took place from January 25 to March 4, resulted in his unnamed breakfast companions writing out actual donation checks.

Had they contributed funding, the donation amounts would have been reflected in “behested payment” forms filed with the San Francisco Ethics Commission, required under state law to be submitted 30 days after a contribution is made.

Elected officials are “supposed to file behested payment [forms] for … legislative, governmental or charitable purposes,” Ethics Commission chief John St. Croix told the Guardian, so donations relating to the America’s Cup would fall squarely into this category. Those forms are supposed to filed internally by department, then sent onto Ethics. So far, none have been recorded.

“If there are such forms that the mayor filled out,” St. Croix told the Guardian, “they’re not getting forwarded.”

Meanwhile, McClellan’s March 13 letter suggests that recent fundraising efforts have yielded only $1.4 million – which won’t actually be in hand till next year. That’s a far cry from the estimated $15.6 million funding gap race organizers say is needed to cover San Francisco’s estimated $22.5 million billionaires’ boat race tab. As the fundraising arm of the race organizing committee, ACOC promised in an initial agreement that it would “endeavor to raise” the amount needed to defray city costs. Thus far, it’s paid $6.8 million.

In her letter to Lee and Chiu, McClellan suggested that roughly $13 million of that $15.6 million shortfall would be accounted for in “forecast General Fund revenues.” That translates to additional money harvested from visitors’ pockets via sales and hotel taxes, with some payroll taxes and parking fees sprinkled in, all associated with the America’s Cup events. Little-guy money.

And thanks to the little guys, ACOC’s new fundraising goal is much more attainable. “The SFACOC continues to endeavor to raise the funds,” McClellan wrote. “At a minimum that is $2,670,851 of which we already have $1,400,000 in existing pledges that are to be received by January 2014.”

 

San Francisco has a lot of money tied up in fossil fuels

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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31

The San Francisco Employees Retirement System has more than $113 million in holdings in Exxon Mobil. It’s a lucrative investment in a dirty business. On March 29, Exxon’s Pegasus Pipeline ruptured, spilling as much as 7,000 barrels of oil in a toxic slick that coated a residential Arkansas neighborhood and prompted the evacuation of 21 homes.

SFERS also has $60 million invested in Chevron, which has its own checkered history. Environmentalists have long shamed the oil giant for its “toxic legacy” in Ecuador, but closer to home it was recently fined nearly $1 million for workplace violations arising from last year’s Richmond Refinery blaze. That incident sent a column of toxic smoke skyward, and resulted in about 200 hospital visits for respiratory problems from the fumes.

Further down the list of SFERS’ public equities holdings in fossil fuels is $28 million in Royal Dutch Shell, a company whose name, in some circles, is synonymous with human rights abuses in Nigeria. (Shell was also tapped to administer San Francisco’s CleanPower SF program, but that’s another story.)

The retirement system also has about $18 million tied up in Occidental Petroleum, a major player in the fracking industry that was responsible for drilling 675 new oil wells in California in 2011 alone, according to industry data. The retirement system portfolio includes about $5.4 million in BP, the company responsible for the infamous Deepwater Horizon explosion and epic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico three years ago.

And the city’s retirement portfolio includes more than $1.2 million in Arch Coal, one of the largest coal suppliers in the U.S., which has faced millions in fines for Clean Water Act violations and was sued for firing a miner who complained about unsafe working conditions.

SFERS provided the Guardian with details of its energy company holdings in response to a public records request.

Earlier today, the Budget and Finance Subcommittee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took up a resolution, introduced by Sup. John Avalos, to urge SFERS to divest from fossil fuel companies.

The resolution is nonbinding; even if it unanimously passes at the full Board in a couple weeks, SFERS is under no legal obligation to tweak its investment portfolio. But support for such a strategy is gaining momentum as major environmental organizations seek to bring the issue of climate change to the forefront.

Avalos’ resolution was inspired in part by 350.org, an organization that has sowed the seeds for divestment campaigns at 260 colleges and universities nationwide. Celebrated 350.org founder and environmental writer Bill McKibben is betting that the kids are going to win. His campaign hinges on the idea that the planet can only sustain combustion of another 565 gigatons of carbon before things really go off the rails climate-wise; the industry has five times as much in reserve.

Despite San Francisco’s green reputation, change is likely to happen slowly, if at all. According to numbers shared by Retirement Board executive director Jay Huish at the April 10 hearing, SFERS has a total of some $500 million tied up in companies that deal in dirty energy. That’s substantial, and there could be more on the private asset side. “We gave them a list of 200 fossil fuel companies” targeted by environmentalists because they hold underground carbon reserves, noted Avalos aide Jeremy Pollock. “They had stock in 81.”

Avalos’ divestment resolution cleared the way to proceed to the full board, but only after Sup. Mark Farrell requested a couple amendments.

Farrell asked to add language making it clear that the retirement board could receive a lower return on investment if went through with divestment, and inserted another clause to underscore the point that the Board resolution shouldn’t infringe upon SFERS’ “fiduciary responsibility.”

The resolution is expected to go to the full Board on April 23.

Psychic Dream Astrology: April 10-16, 2013

Andrew Lam
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0

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Positive thinking is a practice in investing in positive outcomes. If you don’t know what you think or which way to turn that’s okay. If things are undeveloped and unclear, why not expect the best? The energy you put in to things is what you are likely to get out of them this week. When in doubt, assume the best.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

Martyrdom only invites persecution, and self-punishment only leads to misery. Find constructive ways of support yourself when you feel over it all, Taurus. You need to define your limits and call them out! Things do not need to be perfect this week but you do need to practice setting yourself up for success.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

You have got to get in touch with yourself, ’cause repressing your feelings won’t work, Gem. Better understand what you’re mad about — whether you’re pissed at yourself or someone else. You don’t have a right to act any way you want but you do have the right to feel whatever is real for you. Make space for that this week.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

With effort and determination you are capable of seeing things as they really are. In order to create the kind of lasting happiness you desire you need to put in the work now. Create foundations that joyfulness can spring forth from, Moonchild. Be yourself even when you fear that it’s inconvenient this week.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

You have great ideas and inspiration, but do you have enough staying power to manage the pace you are traveling at? Instead of running around, try to make a plan that reflects not only where you wanna be but also the reality of where you’re at. You’re likely to burn yourself out if you don’t get more intentional, Leo.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

When things feel insurmountable it’s easy to ride waves of panic into a sea of hopelessness. Don’t loose yourself in worry and needless struggle. This week challenge yourself to think of at least one creative solution to whatever problems arise. Stay at the drawing board until you think of something, pal.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

If you let disappointments get you down you’ll be missing the point, Libra. This week you should strive to see how your own emotional tides affect you. Instead of getting defensive, get motivated. Work hard to bring things around to where you need them. Don’t minimize or dramatize your point of view.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Be careful what you ask for, Scorpio, because you just might get it. Now is the time to learn about wish fulfillment. If you get what you’re going for are you happy with the results or do you end up feeling burdened? Balance of your desires against your needs and get clear about the difference between your fantasies and your goals.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Don’t meddle, Sagittarius! The best way to take perfectly good things and make them messy is to get entangled in the affairs of others. Move things forward in a positive direction without trying to change or coerce others. Just do you! It will give you more agency over how and where things go, pal.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Something’s gotta go, but you might not know what to let go of. Instead of indulging in "either/or" thinking, work on getting in touch with your feelings. Support your process with emotional presence this week. You don’t need to know all the answers but you do need to be nice to yourself as you search them out.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

You are capable of creating more stability and growth than you’ve done in a while. The trick is to be willing to do it at your own pace. Work towards the long haul of your dreams. Work hard, Aquarius, and then slow your self down and see what comes. As matters develop so will your creativity this week.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

So much can change in an instant. One minute you can feel on top of the world, and the next totally shut down and crappy. What you need most this week is patience and perseverance, Pisces. Trust that all things pass and don’t hang your identity and self esteem on what you feel in a given moment.


Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Natural woofin’

Andrew Lam
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2
Natural woofin’

culture@sfbg.com

PETS If you shop at the farmers market, drive a Prius, have a compost bin, and read this newspaper, chances are you care about the environment. Doesn’t that mean that your dog does too, by extension? Diminish your canine’s carbon paw print with these eco-friendly pet products and services. Not only will they alleviate that non-existent doggie guilt, but used correctly, li’l buddy will be looking fly for this weekend’s amazing McKinley Elementary School fundraiser DogFest (Sat/13, 11am-4pm, free. Duboce Park, Duboce and Noe, SF. www.mckinleyschool.org/dogfest).

JEFFREY’S NATURAL PET FOODS

Prepared fresh five days a week, everything at local pet food store chain Jeffrey’s is fresh and locally sourced. This food contains high-quality raw, free-range meats, organic vegetables, vitamins, and minerals. Why go raw? Uncooked meats and vegetables contain a host of essential fatty acids, beneficial bacteria, and antioxidants in their natural state. This type of diet can result in better weight control for your baby, healthier skin and coat, and energy and stamina for endless rolls in the grass.

284 Noe, SF. (415) 864-1414; 1841 Powell, SF. (415) 402-0342, www.jeffreysnaturalpetfood.com

EO DOG SHAMPOO

After a play in the park, rinse Fido off with this gentle wash that combines essential oils with other natural botanicals for freshly scented canines. EO’s natural shampoo is made in Marin and consists primarily of herbal, organic ingredients like French lavender oil, aloe vera, chamomile, and white tea. The biodegradable shampoo is made without irritating sodium laureth or lauryl sulfates, and is perfectly safe for hands-on doggie scrubbing.

Available at various Bay Area stores. www.eoproducts.com

GREEN PAWZ DELIVERY PACK

If prefer receiving your puppy supplies in a manner similar to Chinese-food delivery, here’s a trick for you. Cole Valley’s Green Pawz Pet Boutique specializes in providing customers with environmentally friendly supplies and services. Become a Green Priority customer and receive scheduled ongoing deliveries of regular supplies like its in-house line of shampoos and natural pet foods. Priority customers are also sent information on store specials, coupons, free goodies, and invitations to Green Pawz events.

772 Stanyan, SF. (415) 221-7387, www.greenpawzsf.com

PRIMAL PET FOODS RECREATIONAL BONES

San Mateo-based Primal Pet Foods’ products abide by the “BARF” (bones and raw food) diet, so think raw, meaty bones, muscle meat, organs, fresh fruits, and veggies. We recommend Primal’s raw recreational bones, which are 100 percent human-grade (er, suitable for human consumption, as in stocks and such) and procured from ranches across the US. Choose from buffalo marrow, beef marrow, venison marrow, or lamb femur.

Available at various Bay Area stores. www.primalpetfoods.com

HOLISTIC HOUNDS ANESTHESIA-FREE TEETH CLEANING

You and your pup may love to snuggle, but when her breath is less-than-pleasant, tough love may be required. Walk your dog over to Berkeley’s Holistic Hounds for an annual anesthesia-free teeth cleaning. All cleanings are done on-site at Holistic Hound by Dawn Leiske and her staff at Waggin Smiles and are supervised and checked by veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Luna-Repose. Check Holistic Hound’s website to see when Dawn Leiske is next available to make your pup’s teeth sparkle, sans drugs.

1510 Walnut, Berk. (510) 843-2133, www.holistichound.com

Film listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

OPENING

The Company You Keep In this political thriller, a young journalist (Shia LaBeouf) pursues a scoop that uncovers the secret identity of a Weather Underground activist (Robert Redford, who also directs). (2:05) Albany.

Disconnect Ensemble drama about the darker effects of technology starring Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, Andrea Riseborough, and Alexander Skarsgard. (1:55)

42 Biopic about baseball great and civil rights hero Jackie Robinson (played by TV actor Chadwick Boseman); also stars Harrison Ford and John C. McGinley. (2:08) Marina, Vogue.

The Mafu Cage and The Witch Who Came from the Sea Don’t miss this Roxie double-bill of two neglected but fascinating 1970s psychological horrors about craaaaaazy women. Karen Arthur’s 1978 The Mafu Cage has Lee Grant and Carol Kane are sisters who were raised by an eccentric anthropologist father in Africa. Grant, the older, "normal" one, is now a professional astronomer who resists romantic overtures from her nice coworker (James Olson) because she has a "secret" life — care taking the wildly unstable Kane, who never leaves their house and appears to have been warped beyond salvage by their bizarre childhood. She keeps pet apes, acts like them, and in occasional rages kills them. When Grant goes away for a few days, all hell breaks loose as Kane goes "savage" — and unfortunately, she finds a human quarry to put in the ape cage. The performances are terrific (Kane is electrifying here), the situation farfetched yet very credibly drawn, and the whole atmosphere both suspenseful and strangely poignant. Italian director Matt Cimber’s 1976 Witch — a bizarre, disorienting psycho chiller-cum-suspense-drama — was little-seen when it first came out, and has been very hard to find since. Millie Perkins (of 1959’s The Diary of Anne Frank and Monte Hellman’s cult classics) plays Molly, a cocktail waitress in a Santa Monica dive bar who lives with her two young nephews and sad-sack welfare-mother sister. No one seems to be paying attention, but Molly is going quite insane, apparently the result of childhood molestation by the father she claims was "lost at sea" (the truth, we discover, is a lot more sordid). Prone to irrational rages, blackouts, drinking binges, and indiscriminate pill-popping, plus the occasional homicide, Molly has increasing trouble separating fantasy from reality … and so do we, since the movie deploys distortive sound/visuals and unclear time progression to convey her slippery sanity. With its very thorny protagonist and depressing view of LA’s "fringe" life, Witch is moody, creepy, and unique. Roxie. (Harvey)

My Brother the Devil Though its script hits some unsurprising beats, Sally El Hosaini’s drama is buoyed by authentic performances and a strong command of its setting: diverse London ‘hood Hackney, where sons of Egyptian immigrants Rashid (James Floyd) and Mo (Fady Elsayed) stumble toward maturity. After his best friend is killed in a gang fight, older "bruv" Rashid turns away from a life of crime, but dropping his tough-guy façade forces him to explore feelings he’s been desperately trying to deny, especially after he meets photographer Sayyid (Saïd Taghmaoui). The only thing he knows for certain is that he doesn’t want his little brother to start running with the drug-dealing crew he’s lately abandoned. The less-worldly Mo, already dealing with a tidal wave of typical teenage emotions, idolizes his brother — until he finds out Rashid’s secret, and reacts … badly, and the various conflicts careen toward a suspenseful, dread-filled, life-lessons-learned conclusion. Added bonus to this well-crafted film: sleek, vibrant lensing, which earned My Brother the Devil a cinematography prize at Sundance 2012. (1:51) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

No Place on Earth "Every cave I enter has a secret," muses caver Chris Nicola in his clipped New York accent at the start of No Place on Earth. An interest in his family’s Eastern Orthodox roots brought him to the Ukraine soon after the Soviet Union dissolved; while exploring one of the country’s lengthy gypsum caves, he literally stumbled over what he calls "living history:" artifacts (shoes, buttons) that suggested people had been living in the caves in the not-too-distant past. Naturally curious, Nicola investigated further, eventually learning that two families of Ukrainian Jews (including young children) hid in the caves for 18 months during World War II. Using tasteful re-enactments and interviews with surviving members of the families, as well as narration taken from memoirs, director Janet Tobias reconstructs an incredible tale of human resilience and persistence; there are moments of terror, literally hiding behind rocks to escape roaming German soldiers, and moments of joy, as when a holiday snowfall enables precious outdoor playtime. Incredibly, the film ends with now-elderly survivors — one of whom lived just seven miles from Nicola in NYC — returning to "say thank-you to the cave," as one woman puts it, with awed and grateful grandchildren in tow. (1:24) Elmwood, Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Scary Movie 5 Not to be confused with A Haunted House, which came out earlier this year and also spoofed the Paranormal Activity series — but did not feature cameos by Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan. (1:35)

To the Wonder See "Rambling Man." (1:53) California, Embarcadero.

Trance Where did Danny Boyle drop his noir? Somewhere along the way from Shallow Grave (1994) to Slumdog Millionaire (2008)? Finding the thread he misplaced among the obfuscating reflections of London’s corporate-contempo architecture, Boyle strives to put his own character-centered spin on the genre in this collaboration with Grave and Trainspotting (1996) screenwriter John Hodge, though the final product feels distinctly off, despite its Hitchcockian aspirations toward a sort of modern-day Spellbound (1945). Untrustworthy narrator Simon (James McAvoy) is an auctioneer for a Sotheby’s-like house, tasked with protecting the multimillion-dollar artworks on the block, within reason. Then the splashily elaborate theft of Goya’s Witches’ Flight painting goes down on Simon’s watch, and for his trouble, the complicit staffer is concussed by heist leader Franck (Vincent Cassel). Where did those slippery witches fly to? Simon, mixed up with the thieves due to his gambling debts, cries amnesia — the truth appears to be locked in the opaque layers of his jostled brain, and it’s up to hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) to uncover the Goya’s resting place. Is she trying to help Simon extricate himself from his impossible situation, seduce Franck, or simply help herself? Boyle tries to transmit the mutable mind games on screen, via the lighting, glass, and watery reflections that are supposed to translate as sleek sophistication. But devices like speedy, back-and-forth edits and off-and-on fourth-wall-battering instances as when Simon locks eyes with the audience, read as dated and cheesy as a banking commercial. The seriously miscast actors also fail to sell Trance on various levels — believability, likeability, etc. — as the very unmesmerized viewer falls into a light coma and the movie twirls, flaming, into the ludicrous. (1:44) Piedmont, Shattuck. (Chun)

Upstream Color See "Stop Making Sense." (1:35) Elmwood, Roxie.

ONGOING

Admission Tina Fey exposes the irritating underbelly of the Ivy League application process as Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan. When her school falls to number two in U.S. News and World Report‘s annual ranking, Portia and her colleagues are tasked by their boss (Wallace Shawn) with boosting application numbers to bring the university back into the lead. Alterna-school headmaster John Pressman (Paul Rudd) has one more applicant to add to the pile: a charmingly gawky autodidact named Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), who John is convinced is the child Portia gave up for adoption back when they were both students at Dartmouth. Stuck in a dreary 10-year relationship with an English professor (Michael Sheen) whose bedtime endearments consist of absentmindedly patting her on the head while reading aloud from The Canterbury Tales, and seeming less than thrilled with the prospect of another season of sifting through the files of legacies and overachievers, Portia is clearly ripe for some sort of purgative crisis. When it arrives, the results are fairly innocuous, if ethically questionable. Directed by Paul Weitz, the man responsible for bringing Little Fockers (2010) into the world, but About a Boy (2002) as well, Admission is sweet and sometimes funny but unmemorable, even with Lily Tomlin playing Portia’s surly, iconoclast mother. (1:50) Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Call (1:34) SF Center.

The Croods (1:38) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Evil Dead "Sacrilege!" you surely thought when hearing that Sam Raimi’s immortal 1983 classic was being remade. But as far as remakes go, this one from Uruguayan writer-director Fede Alvarez (who’d previously only made some acclaimed genre shorts) is pretty decent. Four youths gather at a former family cabin destination because a fifth (Jane Levy) has staged her own intervention — after a near-fatal OD, she needs her friends to help her go cold turkey. But as a prologue has already informed us, there is a history of witchcraft and demonic possession in this place. The discovery of something very nasty (and smelly) in the cellar, along with a book of demonic incantations that Lou Taylor Pucci is stupid enough to read aloud from, leads to … well, you know. The all-hell that breaks loose here is more sadistically squirm-inducing than the humorously over-the-top gore in Raimi’s original duo (elements of the sublime ’87 Evil Dead II are also deployed here), and the characters are taken much more seriously — without, however, becoming more interesting. Despite a number of déjà vu kamikaze tracking shots through the Michigan forest (though most of the film was actually shot in New Zealand), Raimi’s giddy high energy and black comedy are replaced here by a more earnest if admittedly mostly effective approach, with plenty of decent shocks. No one could replace Bruce Campbell, and perhaps it was wise not to even try. So: pretty good, gory, expertly crafted, very R-rated horror fun, even with too many "It’s not over yet!" false endings. But no one will be playing this version over and over and over again as they (and I) still do the ’80s films. (1:31) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

From Up on Poppy Hill Hayao (dad, who co-wrote) and Goro (son, who directed) Miyazaki collaborate on this tale of two high-school kids — Umi, who does all the cooking at her grandmother’s boarding house, and Shun, a rabble-rouser who runs the school newspaper — in idyllic seaside Yokohama. Plans for the 1964 Olympics earmark a beloved historic clubhouse for demolition, and the budding couple unites behind the cause. The building offers a symbolic nod to Japanese history, while rehabbing it speaks to hopes for a brighter post-war future. But the past keeps interfering: conflict arises when Shun’s memories are triggered by a photo of Umi’s father, presumed lost at sea in the Korean War. There are no whimsical talking animals in this Studio Ghibli release, which investigates some darker-than-usual themes, though the animation is vivid and sparkling per usual. Hollywood types lending their voices to the English-language version include Jamie Lee Curtis, Christina Hendricks, Ron Howard, and Gilllian Anderson. (1:31) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

GI Joe: Retaliation The plot exists to justify the action, but any fan of badass-ness will forgive the skimpy storyline for the outlandish badassery in GI Joe: Retaliation. Inspired by action figures and tying loosely to the first flick, Retaliation starts with a game of "secure the defector," followed by "raise the flag," but as soon as the stakes aren’t real, the Joes outright suck. They don’t have "neutral," which is maybe why a mission to rescue and revive the Joes as a force is the most ferocious fight that ever pit metal against plastic. The set pieces are stunning: a mostly silent sequence with Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Jinx (Elodie Yung) on a mountainside will leave the audience gaping in its high speed wake, and a prison break featuring covert explosives is nonstop amazing. You’ll notice an emphasis on chain link fences and puddles (terra nostra for action figures) and set pieces conceived as if by kids who don’t have a concept of basic irrefutable truths like gravity. It’s just that kind of imagination and ardor and limitlessness that makes this Joe incredible, memorable, and a reason to crack out your toys again. (1:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

Ginger and Rosa It’s the 1960s, nuclear war is a real possibility, and nuclear-family war is an absolute certainty, at least in the London house occupied by Ginger (Elle Fanning), her emotionally wounded mother (Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks), and her narcissistic-intellectual father (Alessandro Nivola). In this downbeat coming-of-age tale from Sally Potter (1992’s Orlando), Ginger’s teenage rebellion quickly morphs into angst when her BFF Rosa (Beautiful Creatures‘ Alice Englert) wedges her sexed-up neediness between Ginger’s parents. Hendricks (playing the accordion — just like Joan!) and Annette Bening (as an American activist who encourages Ginger’s political-protest leanings) are strong, but Fanning’s powerhouse performance is the main focus — though even she’s occasionally overshadowed by her artificially scarlet hair. For an interview with writer-director Potter, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:30) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Host (2:01) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone Steve Carell dips into the men-at-work comic genre so associated with Will Ferrell: he’s Burt Wonderstone, who starts out as a picked-on kid discovering his powers via a kit by Las Vegas magician Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin). The ensuing years have not been kind to Burt, a relatively decent guy struggling to shed the douchey buildup of ego, corn, and dated moves à la David Copperfield (ta-da, who magically appears), while working for benevolently threatening casino boss Doug Munny (James Gandolfini) with his childhood best friend Anton (Steve Buscemi, reviving the naifitude of The Big Lebowski‘s Donny) and side fox Jane (Olivia Wilde). The shot of adrenalin to the moribund heart of Burt and Anton’s act: Jim Carrey’s "Brain Rapist," who aims to ream his colleagues by cutting playing cards from his flesh and going to bed on fiery coals. How can the old-schoolers remain relevant? Hard work is key for Carell, who rolls out the straight-man sweetness that seem to make him a fit for romantic comedies — though his earnestness and need to be liked, as usual, err on the side of convention, while taking for granted the not-quite-there chemistry with, in this instance, Wilde. Fortunately whatever edge is lacking materializes whenever Carrey’s ridiculously ombré-tressed daredevil is on screen. Using his now-battered, still-malleable features to full effect, he’s a whole different ball of cheese, lampooning those who will go to any lengths — gouging, searing, and maiming — to entertain. (1:40) Metreon. (Chun)

Jack the Giant Slayer (1:55) Metreon.

Jurassic Park 3D "Life finds a way," Jeff Goldblum’s leather-clad mathematician remarks, crystallizing the theme of this 1993 Spielberg classic, which at its core is more about human relationships than genetically manufactured terrors. Of course, it’s got plenty of those, and Jurassic Park doesn’t really need its (admittedly spiffy) 3D upgrade to remain a thoroughly entertaining thriller. The dinosaur effects — particularly the creepy Velociraptors and fan-fave T. rex — still dazzle. Only some early-90s computer references and Laura Dern’s mom jeans mark the film as dated. But a big-screen viewing of what’s become a cable TV staple allows for fresh appreciation of its less-iconic (but no less enjoyable) moments and performances: a pre-megafame Samuel L. Jackson as a weary systems tech; Bob Peck as the park’s skeptical, prodigiously thigh-muscled game warden. Try and forget the tepid sequels — including, dear gawd, 2014’s in-the-works fourth installment. This is all the Jurassic you will ever need. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

No Long before the Arab Spring, a people’s revolution went down in Chile when a 1988 referendum toppled the country’s dictator, Augusto Pinochet, thanks in part to an ad exec who dared to sell the dream to his countrymen and women — using the relentlessly upbeat, cheesy language of a Pepsi Generation. In No‘s dramatization of this true story, ad man Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal) is approached by the opposition to Pinochet’s regime to help them on their campaign to encourage Chile’s people to vote "no" to eight more years under the brutal strongman. Rene’s well-aware of the horrors of the dictatorship; not only are the disappeared common knowledge, his activist ex (Antonia Zegers) has been beaten and jailed with seeming regularity. Going up against his boss (Alfredo Castro), who’s overseeing the Pinochet campaign, Rene takes the brilliant tact in the opposition’s TV programs of selling hope — sound familiar? — promising "Chile, happiness is coming!" amid corny mimes, dancers, and the like. Director-producer Pablo Larrain turns out to be just as genius, shooting with a grainy U-matic ’80s video camera to match his footage with 1988 archival imagery, including the original TV spots, in this invigorating spiritual kin of both 2012’s Argo and 1997’s Wag the Dog. (1:50) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

Olympus Has Fallen Overstuffed with slo-mo shots of the flag rippling (in breezes likely caused by all the hot air puffing up from the script), this gleefully ham-fisted tribute to America Fuck Yeah estimates the intelligence of its target audience thusly: an establishing shot clearly depicting both the Washington Monument and the US Capitol is tagged "Washington, DC." Wait, how can you tell? This wannabe Die Hard: The White House follows the one-man-army crusade of secret service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the last friendly left standing when the President (Aaron Eckhart) and assorted cabinet members are taken hostage by North Korean terrorists. The plot is to ridiculous to recap beyond that, though I will note that Morgan Freeman (as the Speaker of the House) gets to deliver the line "They’ve just opened the gates of hell!" — the high point in a performance that otherwise requires him to sit at a table and look concerned for two hours. With a few more over-the-top scenes or slightly more adventurous casting, Olympus Has Fallen could’ve ascended to action-camp heights. Alas, it’s mostly just mildly amusing, though all that caked-on patriotism is good for a smattering of heartier guffaws. (2:00) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

On the Road Walter Salles (2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries) engages Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera to adapt Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic; it’s translated to the screen in a streamlined version, albeit one rife with parties, drugs, jazz, danger, reckless driving, sex, philosophical conversations, soul-searching, and "kicks" galore. Brit Sam Riley (2007’s Control) plays Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise, observing (and scribbling down) his gritty adventures as they unfold. Most of those adventures come courtesy of charismatic, freewheeling Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund of 2010’s Tron: Legacy), who blows in and out of Sal’s life (and a lot of other people’s lives, too, including wives played by Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). Beautifully shot, with careful attention to period detail and reverential treatment of the Beat ethos, the film is an admirable effort but a little too shapeless, maybe simply due to the peripatetic nature of its iconic source material, to be completely satisfying. Among the performances, erstwhile teen dream Stewart is an uninhibited standout. (2:03) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Oz: The Great and Powerful Providing a backstory for the man behind the curtain, director Sam Raimi gives us a prequel of sorts to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Herein we follow the adventures of a Depression-era Kansas circus magician named Oscar (James Franco) — Oz to his friends — as he cons, philanders, bickers with his behind-the-scenes assistant Frank (Zach Braff), and eventually sails away in a twister, bound for a Technicolor land of massively proportioned flora, talking fauna, and witches ranging from dazzlingly good to treacherously wicked. From one of them, Theodora (Mila Kunis), he learns that his arrival — in Oz, just to clarify — has set in motion the fulfillment of a prophecy: that a great wizard, also named Oz, will bring about the downfall of a malevolent witch (Rachel Weisz), saving the kingdom and its cheery, goodhearted inhabitants. Unfortunately for this deserving populace, Oz spent his last pre-twister moments with the Baum Bros. Circus (the name a tribute to L. Frank Baum, writer of the Oz children’s books) demonstrating a banged-up moral compass and an undependable streak and proclaiming that he would rather be a great man than a good man. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this theme is revisited ad nauseam as Oz and the oppressively beneficent witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) — whose magic appears to consist mainly of nice soft things like bubbles and fog — stand around debating whether he’s the right man for the task. When the fog clears, though, the view is undeniably pretty. While en route to and from the Emerald City, Oz and his companions — among them a non-evil flying monkey (voiced by Braff) and a rather adorable china doll (Joey King) — wander through a deliriously arresting, Fantasia-esque landscape whose intricate, inventive construction helps distract from the plodding, saccharine rhetoric and unappealing story line. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Place Beyond the Pines Powerful indie drama Blue Valentine (2010) marked director Derek Cianfrance as one worthy of attention, so it’s with no small amount of fanfare that this follow-up arrives. The Place Beyond the Pines‘ high profile is further enhanced by the presence of Bradley Cooper (currently enjoying a career ascension from Sexiest Man Alive to Oscar-nominated Serious Actor), cast opposite Valentine star Ryan Gosling, though they share just one scene. An overlong, occasionally contrived tale of three generations of fathers, father figures, and sons, Pines‘ initial focus is Gosling’s stunt-motorcycle rider, a character that would feel more exciting if it wasn’t so reminiscent of Gosling’s turn in Drive (2011), albeit with a blonde dye job and tattoos that look like they were applied by the same guy who inked James Franco in Spring Breakers. Robbing banks seems a reasonable way to raise cash for his infant son, as well as a way for Pines to draw in another whole set of characters, in the form of a cop (Cooper) who’s also a new father, and who — as the story shifts ahead 15 years — builds a political career off the case. Of course, fate and the convenience of movie scripts dictate that the mens’ sons will meet, the past will haunt the present and fuck up the future, etc. etc. Ultimately, Pines is an ambitious film that suffers from both its sprawl and some predictable choices (did Ray Liotta really need to play yet another dirty cop?) Halfway through the movie I couldn’t help thinking what might’ve happened if Cianfrance had dared to swap the casting of the main roles; Gosling could’ve been a great ambitious cop-turned-powerful prick, and Cooper could’ve done interesting things with the Evel Knievel-goes-Point Break part. Just sayin’. (2:20) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

Reality Director Matteo Garrone’s Cannes Grand Prix winner couldn’t be more different from his 2008 Gomorrah, save one similarity: that film was about organized crime, and dark comedy Reality stars Aniello Arena, a former gangster who was allowed out of prison to shoot his scenes. All things considered, he’s rather winning as Neapolitan everyman Luciano, whose daily life slinging fish can’t compete with his big dreams of appearing on the Italian version of Big Brother. He makes it through the second round of auditions — and soon starts believing he’s being watched by casting agents considering whether to put him on the show. His level-headed wife (Loredane Simioli) suspects he’s being paranoid (as does the audience, before long), though he’s told "never give up!" by cheesy-sleazy Big Brother vet Enzo (Raffaele Ferrante), a character clearly designed to comment on reality TV’s own peculiar brand of insta-fame. Nobody who’s ever watched reality TV will be surprised at the film’s ultimate messages about the hollow rewards of that fame, but Arena’s powerful performance makes the journey worthwhile. (1:55) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Renoir The gorgeous, sun-dappled French Riviera setting is the high point of this otherwise low-key drama about the temperamental women (Christa Theret) who was the final muse to elderly painter Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), and who encouraged the filmmaking urges in his son, future cinema great Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee (who’s worked with Hou Hsiao-hsein and Wong Kar Wai) lenses Renoir’s leafy, ramshackle estate to maximize its resemblance to the paintings it helped inspire; though her character, Dédée, could kindly be described as "conniving," Theret could not have been better physically cast, with tumbling red curls and pale skin she’s none too shy about showing off. Though the specter of World War I looms in the background, the biggest conflicts in Gilles Bourdos’ film are contained within the household, as Jean frets about his future, Dédée faces the reality of her precarious position in the household (which is staffed by aging models-turned-maids), and Auguste battles ill health by continuing to paint, though he’s in a wheelchair and must have his brushes taped to his hands. Though not much really happens, Renoir is a pleasant, easy-on-the-eyes experience. (1:51) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Revolutionary Optimists If the children, as someone once sang, are our future, the inspiring work done by youth activists living in the slums of Kolkata, India hints that there might be brighter days ahead for some of the poorest communities in the world. Under the guidance of Amlan Ganguly and his non-profit, Prayasam, kids whose daily struggles include lacking easy access to drinking water, having to work backbreaking long hours at the local brick field, and worrying that their parents will marry them off as soon as they turn 13, find hope via education and artistic expression. Sensitively directed over the span of several years by Nicole Newnham (who made the excellent 2006 doc The Rape of Europa) and Maren Grainger-Monsen, The Revolutionary Optimists shows stories of both success (12-year-old sparkplug Salim speaks before Parliament about bringing water to his neighborhood) and failure (16-year-old Priyanka is forced into an abusive marriage, ending her dreams of becoming a dance teacher). With harsh reality keeping its stories firmly grounded, the film — which is, of course, ultimately optimistic — offers a look at how the youngest members of a community can help effect real change. (1:23) Marina. (Eddy)

The Sapphires The civil rights injustices suffered by these dream girls may be unique to Aboriginal Australians, but they’ll strike a chord with viewers throughout the world — at right about the same spot stoked by the sweet soul music of Motown. Co-written by Tony Briggs, the son of a singer in a real-life Aboriginal girl group, this unrepentant feel-gooder aims to make the lessons of history go down with the good humor and up-from-the-underdog triumph of films like The Full Monty (1997) — the crucial difference in this fun if flawed comedy-romance is that it tells the story of women of color, finding their voices and discovering, yes, their groove. It’s all in the family for these would-be soul sisters, or rather country cousins, bred on Merle Haggard and folk tunes: there’s the charmless and tough Gail (Deborah Mailman), the soulful single mom Julie (Jessica Mauboy, an Australian Idol runner-up), the flirty Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), and the pale-skinned Kay (Shari Sebbens), the latter passing as white after being forcibly "assimilated" by the government. Their dream is to get off the farm, even if that means entertaining the troops in Vietnam, and the person to help them realize that checkered goal is dissolute piano player Dave (Chris O’Dowd). And O’Dowd is the breakout star to watch here — he adds an loose, erratic energy to an otherwise heavily worked story arc. So when romance sparks for all Sapphires — and the racial tension simmering beneath the sequins rumbles to the surface — the easy pleasures generated by O’Dowd and the music (despite head-scratching inclusions like 1970’s "Run Through the Jungle" in this 1968-set yarn), along with the gently handled lessons in identity politics learned, obliterate any lingering questions left sucking Saigon dust as the narrative plunges forward. They keep you hanging on. (1:38) Albany, Piedmont, SF Center. (Chun)

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

The Silence Maybe "fun" is a tasteless way to describe The Silence, which hinges on pederasty and child murder — though in the end this is more an intelligent pulp thriller than serious address of those issues, uneasily as it straddles both at times. In 1986 two men abduct an 11-year-old girl — one the initially excited, then horrified observer to the second’s murderous sexual assault. Twenty-three years later, another young girl disappears in the same place under disturbingly identical circumstances. This event gradually pulls together a large cast of characters, many initial strangers — including the original victim’s mother (Katrin Sass) and the just-retired detective (Burghart Klaubner) who failed to solve that crime; parents (Karoline Eichhorn, Roeland Wiesnekker) of the newly disappeared teen, who experience full-on mental meltdown; a solidly bourgeoise husband and father of two girls (Wotan Wilke Möhring), inordinately distressed by this repeat of history; and the erstwhile friend he hasn’t contacted in decades, an apartment-complex handyman with a secret life (Ulrich Thomsen). Part procedural, part psychological thriller, part small-town-community portrait, director-scenarist (from Jan Costin Wagner’s novel) Baran bo Odar’s The Silence is just juicy and artful enough to get away with occasional stylistic hyperbole. It’s a conflicted movie, albeit handled with such engrossing confidence that you might not notice the credibility gaps. At least until thinking it over later. Which, don’t. (1:59) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

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

Spring Breakers The idea of enfant terrible emeritus Harmony Korine — 1997’s Gummo, 2007’s Mister Lonely, 2009’s Trash Humpers — directing something so utterly common as a spring break movie is head-scratching enough, even moreso compounded by the casting of teen dreams Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson as bikini-clad girls gone wild. James Franco co-stars as drug dealer Alien, all platinum teeth and cornrows and shitty tattoos, who befriends the lasses after they’re busted by the fun police. "Are you being serious?" Gomez’s character asks Alien, soon after meeting him. "What do you think?" he grins back. Unschooled filmgoers who stumble into the theater to see their favorite starlets might be shocked by Breakers‘ hard-R hijinks. But Korine fans will understand that this neon-lit, Skrillex-scored tale of debauchery and dirty menace is not to be taken at face value. The subject matter, the cast, the Britney Spears songs, the deliberately lurid camerawork — all carefully-constructed elements in a film that takes not-taking-itself-seriously, very seriously indeed. Korine has said he prefers his films to make "perfect nonsense" instead of perfect sense. The sublime Spring Breakers makes perfect nonsense, and it also makes nonsense perfect. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Starbuck Starbuck has a great (if not entirely original) comedic concept it chooses to play seriocomedically — i.e., less for the laughs it seldom earns than for the heart-tugging it eventually pretty much does. An ingratiatingly rumpled Patrick Huard (a major Quebec star best known for the mega-hit Les Boys series and 2006’s Good Cop, Bad Cop) plays David, erstwhile stellar contributor to a Montreal sperm bank in his salad days. Now older but no wiser, he finds himself confronted by the reality of 533 biologically fathered, now-grown offspring who’ve filed a class action lawsuit to discover his identity even as he deals with mob debt and an exasperated, pregnant semi-ex-girlfriend (Julie LeBreton). This is one of those "loser manboy must semi-grow up fast amid crisis, finding family values en route" scenarios tailor-fit for Adam Sandler. That said, the overlong, stubbornly endearing Starbuck is so much less insufferable than anything Sandler has made since … um, ever? Halfway through, this agreeable movie gets clever — as David stumbles into a meeting of his prodigious anonymous progeny — and remains reasonably so to the satisfyingly hard-won happy ending. It’s still got moments of contrivance, editorial fat (too many montages, for one thing), and more climactic hugs than any self-respecting dramedy needs to get the redemptive point across. Yet it’s also got something few comedies of any national origin have today: a lovely, distinctive, bright yet non-cartoonish widescreen look. (1:48) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2:06) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

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

All killer, no filler: new movies!

Sue Vaughan
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0

Deadites, dino-junkies, indie supporters, doc watchers, foreign-film fans, “Hey Girl” lovers … there’s a little something for all y’all this week. (If you’d prefer to avoid the multiplex, check out the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Pen-ek Ratanaruang series and/or the San Francisco Cinematheque’s Crossroads fest.)

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

Evil Dead “Sacrilege!” you surely thought when hearing that Sam Raimi’s immortal 1983 classic was being remade. But as far as remakes go, this one from Uruguayan writer-director Fede Alvarez (who’d previously only made some acclaimed genre shorts) is pretty decent. Four youths gather at a former family cabin destination because a fifth (Jane Levy) has staged her own intervention — after a near-fatal OD, she needs her friends to help her go cold turkey. But as a prologue has already informed us, there is a history of witchcraft and demonic possession in this place. The discovery of something very nasty (and smelly) in the cellar, along with a book of demonic incantations that Lou Taylor Pucci is stupid enough to read aloud from, leads to … well, you know. The all-hell that breaks loose here is more sadistically squirm-inducing than the humorously over-the-top gore in Raimi’s original duo (elements of the sublime ’87 Evil Dead II are also deployed here), and the characters are taken much more seriously — without, however, becoming more interesting. Despite a number of déjà vu kamikaze tracking shots through the Michigan forest (though most of the film was actually shot in New Zealand), Raimi’s giddy high energy and black comedy are replaced here by a more earnest if admittedly mostly effective approach, with plenty of decent shocks. No one could replace Bruce Campbell, and perhaps it was wise not to even try. So: pretty good, gory, expertly crafted, very R-rated horror fun, even with too many “It’s not over yet!” false endings. But no one will be playing this version over and over and over again as they (and I) still do the ’80s films. (1:31) (Dennis Harvey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5RhdCBvwic

Gimme the Loot Biggie Smalls’ track is just a smart starting point for this streetwise, hilarious debut feature by Adam Leon. Young graf artists Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington) are hustling hard to get paid and fund a valiant effort to tag the Mets’ Home Run Apple to show up rival gang-bangers. The problem lies in raising the exorbitant fee their source demands, either by hook (selling pot to seductive, rich white girls) or crook (offloading cell phone contraband). The absurdity of the pair’s situation isn’t lost on anyone, especially Leon. But their passion to rise above (sorta) and yearning for expression gives the tale an emotional heft, and Gimme the Loot stays with you long after the taggers have moved onto fresh walls. (1:21) (Kimberly Chun)

Jurassic Park 3D “Life finds a way,” Jeff Goldblum’s leather-clad mathematician remarks, crystallizing the theme of this 1993 Spielberg classic, which at its core is more about human relationships than genetically manufactured terrors. Of course, it’s got plenty of those, and Jurassic Park doesn’t really need its (admittedly spiffy) 3D upgrade to remain a thoroughly entertaining thriller. The dinosaur effects — particularly the creepy Velociraptors and fan-fave T. rex — still dazzle. Only some early-90s computer references and Laura Dern’s mom jeans mark the film as dated. But a big-screen viewing of what’s become a cable TV staple allows for fresh appreciation of its less-iconic (but no less enjoyable) moments and performances: a pre-megafame Samuel L. Jackson as a weary systems tech; Bob Peck as the park’s skeptical, prodigiously thigh-muscled game warden. Try and forget the tepid sequels — including, dear gawd, 2014’s in-the-works fourth installment. This is all the Jurassic you will ever need. (2:07) (Cheryl Eddy)

The Place Beyond the Pines Powerful indie drama Blue Valentine (2010) marked director Derek Cianfrance as one worthy of attention, so it’s with no small amount of fanfare that this follow-up arrives. The Place Beyond the Pines‘ high profile is further enhanced by the presence of Bradley Cooper (currently enjoying a career ascension from Sexiest Man Alive to Oscar-nominated Serious Actor), cast opposite Valentine star Ryan Gosling, though they share just one scene. An overlong, occasionally contrived tale of three generations of fathers, father figures, and sons, Pines’ initial focus is Gosling’s stunt-motorcycle rider, a character that would feel more exciting if it wasn’t so reminiscent of Gosling’s turn in Drive (2011), albeit with a blonde dye job and tattoos that look like they were applied by the same guy who inked James Franco in Spring Breakers. Robbing banks seems a reasonable way to raise cash for his infant son, as well as a way for Pines to draw in another whole set of characters, in the form of a cop (Cooper) who’s also a new father, and who — as the story shifts ahead 15 years — builds a political career off the case. Of course, fate and the convenience of movie scripts dictate that the mens’ sons will meet, the past will haunt the present and fuck up the future, etc. etc. Ultimately, Pines is an ambitious film that suffers from both its sprawl and some predictable choices (did Ray Liotta really need to play yet another dirty cop?) Halfway through the movie I couldn’t help thinking what might’ve happened if Cianfrance had dared to swap the casting of the main roles; Gosling could’ve been a great ambitious cop-turned-powerful prick, and Cooper could’ve done interesting things with the Evel Knievel-goes-Point Break part. Just sayin’. (2:20) (Cheryl Eddy)

Reality Director Matteo Garrone’s Cannes Grand Prix winner couldn’t be more different from his 2008 Gomorrah, save one similarity: that film was about organized crime, and dark comedy Reality stars Aniello Arena, a former gangster who was allowed out of prison to shoot his scenes. All things considered, he’s rather winning as Neapolitan everyman Luciano, whose daily life slinging fish can’t compete with his big dreams of appearing on the Italian version of Big Brother. He makes it through the second round of auditions — and soon starts believing he’s being watched by casting agents considering whether to put him on the show. His level-headed wife (Loredane Simioli) suspects he’s being paranoid (as does the audience, before long), though he’s told “never give up!” by cheesy-sleazy Big Brother vet Enzo (Raffaele Ferrante), a character clearly designed to comment on reality TV’s own peculiar brand of insta-fame. Nobody who’s ever watched reality TV will be surprised at the film’s ultimate messages about the hollow rewards of that fame, but Arena’s powerful performance makes the journey worthwhile. (1:55) (Cheryl Eddy)

Renoir The gorgeous, sun-dappled French Riviera setting is the high point of this otherwise low-key drama about the temperamental women (Christa Theret) who was the final muse to elderly painter Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), and who encouraged the filmmaking urges in his son, future cinema great Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee (who’s worked with Hou Hsiao-hsein and Wong Kar Wai) lenses Renoir‘s leafy, ramshackle estate to maximize its resemblance to the paintings it helped inspire; though her character, Dédée, could kindly be described as “conniving,” Theret could not have been better physically cast, with tumbling red curls and pale skin she’s none too shy about showing off. Though the specter of World War I looms in the background, the biggest conflicts in Gilles Bourdos’ film are contained within the household, as Jean frets about his future, Dédée faces the reality of her precarious position in the household (which is staffed by aging models-turned-maids), and Auguste battles ill health by continuing to paint, though he’s in a wheelchair and must have his brushes taped to his hands. Though not much really happens, Renoir is a pleasant, easy-on-the-eyes experience. (1:51) (Cheryl Eddy)

The Revolutionary Optimists If the children, as someone once sang, are our future, the inspiring work done by youth activists living in the slums of Kolkata, India hints that there might be brighter days ahead for some of the poorest communities in the world. Under the guidance of Amlan Ganguly and his non-profit, Prayasam, kids whose daily struggles include lacking easy access to drinking water, having to work backbreaking long hours at the local brick field, and worrying that their parents will marry them off as soon as they turn 13, find hope via education and artistic expression. Sensitively directed over the span of several years by Nicole Newnham (who made the excellent 2006 doc The Rape of Europa) and Maren Grainger-Monsen, The Revolutionary Optimists shows stories of both success (12-year-old sparkplug Salim speaks before Parliament about bringing water to his neighborhood) and failure (16-year-old Priyanka is forced into an abusive marriage, ending her dreams of becoming a dance teacher). With harsh reality keeping its stories firmly grounded, the film — which is, of course, ultimately optimistic — offers a look at how the youngest members of a community can help effect real change. (1:23) (Cheryl Eddy)

Psychic Dream Astrology: April 3-9, 2013

Andrew Lam
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0

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Things can’t always go your way, and when they don’t you may feel overwhelmed and like you need to fight. What you really need is a time-out, Aries. Take a step back from your entanglements and calm yourself down so you can assess what and how much you are willing to change.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

If you listen to your instincts things will go well for you, Taurus. You’re capable of affecting both short and long-term consequences, so work towards your best interests by being extra mindful this week. Your relationships and big picture goals are pointed in the right direction; trust your self.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

You can handle whatever is put in front of you, Gemini, but at what cost? This week you are trying to sift through too many things at once and you risk overwhelming yourself and screwing things up in an act of subconscious self-sabotage. Don’t do it! Slow down, cut things up into bite sized pieces to deal wisely with your life.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Life is so weird; you work hard and figure some things out and then just as you get comfortable with yourself things have to go and change on you. It’s the right time to sit back and reacquaint yourself with your most current incarnation of self, Moonchild. Leave the past behind you and be here now.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

This week, be careful to not rock the boat too much because you may create a ripple of consequences that you don’t want to deal with. Cultivate patience while you work on getting your vision for your future clarified and develop the courage to carry it out. What you do matters, Leo, so do it right.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

If all you think about is what can go wrong you’ll never see the good stuff even if it’s staring you straight in the face. Ask for help if you feel down this week, Virgo. Write a list of six things that you are grateful for every day this week; it won’t do anything about your fears, but it will at least help you have a bit more balance.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Don’t get caught up in drama this week, Libra. You are being challenged to stay true to yourself and the people that you are invested in. You may be around a lot of other peoples emotional whirlwinds, but don’t take them on. Protect your relationships by setting healthy limits and staying on track.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Emotions suck. They’re also awesome, and this week they are your teacher. Watch out for doing too much too quickly and loosing track of what matters, Scorpio. You need to get in touch with the integrity of your emotions and not get lost in reactionary cycles. Only by reconnecting with yourself will you get much needed peace.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Instead of forging impulsively ahead, try sitting back and enjoying the riches of what you’ve collected. You do not need to add anything new, just deal with what you’ve got this week. Reflect on what you’ve done to get where you are and don’t engage in any unnecessary dramas, Sag. Focus your energies inward.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Stop worrying so much about what others do or don’t think of you, Capricorn. Anxiety is likely to come when you are uncertain not only of what’s happening, but of how to gauge what you think or feel about it. The best you can do for yourself this week is to slow things down and treat yourself to some serious TLC.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

You can let things be okay and there’ll be no problems, but also there’ll be no fireworks! Take some risks, Aquarius. It’s a great time to start something new or to reach out to someone or thing that you’ve been intimidated to deal with. There’s plenty of time to conserve your energy, but now’s the time to run it around the block.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Peace and acceptance are active states that require balance and flexibility. Keep your center, and stay present as you find your way through life’s mazes. By accepting the truth of where you’re at and who the people around you are, you will be able to make choices that support your reality this week.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Film listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

OPENING

Evil Dead Yep, they remade it. But before you grab your chainsaw in anger, know this: early buzz is actually pretty positive. (1:31)

Gimme the Loot Biggie Smalls’ track is just a smart starting point for this streetwise, hilarious debut feature by Adam Leon. Young graf artists Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington) are hustling hard to get paid and fund a valiant effort to tag the Mets’ Home Run Apple to show up rival gang-bangers. The problem lies in raising the exorbitant fee their source demands, either by hook (selling pot to seductive, rich white girls) or crook (offloading cell phone contraband). The absurdity of the pair’s situation isn’t lost on anyone, especially Leon. But their passion to rise above (sorta) and yearning for expression gives the tale an emotional heft, and Gimme the Loot stays with you long after the taggers have moved onto fresh walls. (1:21) (Chun)

Jurassic Park 3D Because Velociraptors and Jeff Goldblum are even more awesome in 3D. (2:07)

The Place Beyond the Pines Powerful indie drama Blue Valentine (2010) marked director Derek Cianfrance as one worthy of attention, so it’s with no small amount of fanfare that this follow-up arrives. The Place Beyond the Pines‘ high profile is further enhanced by the presence of Bradley Cooper (currently enjoying a career ascension from Sexiest Man Alive to Oscar-nominated Serious Actor), cast opposite Valentine star Ryan Gosling, though they share just one scene. An overlong, occasionally contrived tale of three generations of fathers, father figures, and sons, Pines‘ initial focus is Gosling’s stunt-motorcycle rider, a character that would feel more exciting if it wasn’t so reminiscent of Gosling’s turn in Drive (2011), albeit with a blonde dye job and tattoos that look like they were applied by the same guy who inked James Franco in Spring Breakers. Robbing banks seems a reasonable way to raise cash for his infant son, as well as a way for Pines to draw in another whole set of characters, in the form of a cop (Cooper) who’s also a new father, and who — as the story shifts ahead 15 years — builds a political career off the case. Of course, fate and the convenience of movie scripts dictate that the mens’ sons will meet, the past will haunt the present and fuck up the future, etc. etc. Ultimately, Pines is an ambitious film that suffers from both its sprawl and some predictable choices (did Ray Liotta really need to play yet another dirty cop?) Halfway through the movie I couldn’t help thinking what might’ve happened if Cianfrance had dared to swap the casting of the main roles; Gosling could’ve been a great ambitious cop-turned-powerful prick, and Cooper could’ve done interesting things with the Evel Knievel-goes-Point Break part. Just sayin’. (2:20) (Eddy)

Reality Director Matteo Garrone’s Cannes Grand Prix winner couldn’t be more different from his 2008 Gomorrah, save one similarity: that film was about organized crime, and dark comedy Reality stars Aniello Arena, a former gangster who was allowed out of prison to shoot his scenes. All things considered, he’s rather winning as Neapolitan everyman Luciano, whose daily life slinging fish can’t compete with his big dreams of appearing on the Italian version of Big Brother. He makes it through the second round of auditions — and soon starts believing he’s being watched by casting agents considering whether to put him on the show. His level-headed wife (Loredane Simioli) suspects he’s being paranoid (as does the audience, before long), though he’s told "never give up!" by cheesy-sleazy Big Brother vet Enzo (Raffaele Ferrante), a character clearly designed to comment on reality TV’s own peculiar brand of insta-fame. Nobody who’s ever watched reality TV will be surprised at the film’s ultimate messages about the hollow rewards of that fame, but Arena’s powerful performance makes the journey worthwhile. (1:55) (Eddy)

Renoir The gorgeous, sun-dappled French Riviera setting is the high point of this otherwise low-key drama about the temperamental women (Christa Theret) who was the final muse to elderly painter Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), and who encouraged the filmmaking urges in his son, future cinema great Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee (who’s worked with Hou Hsiao-hsein and Wong Kar Wai) lenses Renoir’s leafy, ramshackle estate to maximize its resemblance to the paintings it helped inspire; though her character, Dédée, could kindly be described as "conniving," Theret could not have been better physically cast, with tumbling red curls and pale skin she’s none too shy about showing off. Though the specter of World War I looms in the background, the biggest conflicts in Gilles Bourdos’ film are contained within the household, as Jean frets about his future, Dédée faces the reality of her precarious position in the household (which is staffed by aging models-turned-maids), and Auguste battles ill health by continuing to paint, though he’s in a wheelchair and must have his brushes taped to his hands. Though not much really happens, Renoir is a pleasant, easy-on-the-eyes experience. (1:51) Clay. (Eddy)

The Revolutionary Optimists If the children, as someone once sang, are our future, the inspiring work done by youth activists living in the slums of Kolkata, India hints that there might be brighter days ahead for some of the poorest communities in the world. Under the guidance of Amlan Ganguly and his non-profit, Prayasam, kids whose daily struggles include lacking easy access to drinking water, having to work backbreaking long hours at the local brick field, and worrying that their parents will marry them off as soon as they turn 13, find hope via education and artistic expression. Sensitively directed over the span of several years by Nicole Newnham (who made the excellent 2006 doc The Rape of Europa) and Maren Grainger-Monsen, The Revolutionary Optimists shows stories of both success (12-year-old sparkplug Salim speaks before Parliament about bringing water to his neighborhood) and failure (16-year-old Priyanka is forced into an abusive marriage, ending her dreams of becoming a dance teacher). With harsh reality keeping its stories firmly grounded, the film — which is, of course, ultimately optimistic — offers a look at how the youngest members of a community can help effect real change. (1:23) (Eddy)

ONGOING

Admission Tina Fey exposes the irritating underbelly of the Ivy League application process as Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan. When her school falls to number two in U.S. News and World Report‘s annual ranking, Portia and her colleagues are tasked by their boss (Wallace Shawn) with boosting application numbers to bring the university back into the lead. Alterna-school headmaster John Pressman (Paul Rudd) has one more applicant to add to the pile: a charmingly gawky autodidact named Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), who John is convinced is the child Portia gave up for adoption back when they were both students at Dartmouth. Stuck in a dreary 10-year relationship with an English professor (Michael Sheen) whose bedtime endearments consist of absentmindedly patting her on the head while reading aloud from The Canterbury Tales, and seeming less than thrilled with the prospect of another season of sifting through the files of legacies and overachievers, Portia is clearly ripe for some sort of purgative crisis. When it arrives, the results are fairly innocuous, if ethically questionable. Directed by Paul Weitz, the man responsible for bringing Little Fockers (2010) into the world, but About a Boy (2002) as well, Admission is sweet and sometimes funny but unmemorable, even with Lily Tomlin playing Portia’s surly, iconoclast mother. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

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

The Call (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, SF Center.

The Croods (1:38) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Emperor This ponderously old-fashioned historical drama focuses on the negotiations around Japan’s surrender after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While many on the Allied side want the nation’s "Supreme Commander" Emperor Hirohito to pay for war crimes with his life, experts like bilingual Gen. Bonners Fellers (Matthew Fox) argue that the transition to peace can be achieved not by punishing but using this "living god" to wean the population off its ideological fanaticism. Fellers must ultimately sway gruff General MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) to the wisdom of this approach, while personally preoccupied with finding the onetime exchange-student love (Kaori Momoi) denied him by cultural divisions and escalating war rhetoric. Covering (albeit from the U.S. side) more or less the same events as Aleksandr Sokurov’s 2005 The Sun, Peter Webber’s movie is very different from that flawed effort, but also a lot worse. The corny Romeo and Juliet romance, the simplistic approach to explaining Japan’s "ancient warrior tradition" and anything else (via dialogue routinely as flat as "Things in Japan are not black and white!"), plus Alex Heffes’ bombastic old-school orchestral score, are all as banal as can be. Even the reliable Jones offers little more than conventional crustiness — as opposed to the inspired kind he does in Lincoln. (1:46) Vogue. (Harvey)

From Up on Poppy Hill Hayao (dad, who co-wrote) and Goro (son, who directed) Miyazaki collaborate on this tale of two high-school kids — Umi, who does all the cooking at her grandmother’s boarding house, and Shun, a rabble-rouser who runs the school newspaper — in idyllic seaside Yokohama. Plans for the 1964 Olympics earmark a beloved historic clubhouse for demolition, and the budding couple unites behind the cause. The building offers a symbolic nod to Japanese history, while rehabbing it speaks to hopes for a brighter post-war future. But the past keeps interfering: conflict arises when Shun’s memories are triggered by a photo of Umi’s father, presumed lost at sea in the Korean War. There are no whimsical talking animals in this Studio Ghibli release, which investigates some darker-than-usual themes, though the animation is vivid and sparkling per usual. Hollywood types lending their voices to the English-language version include Jamie Lee Curtis, Christina Hendricks, Ron Howard, and Gilllian Anderson. (1:31) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

GI Joe: Retaliation The plot exists to justify the action, but any fan of badass-ness will forgive the skimpy storyline for the outlandish badassery in GI Joe: Retaliation. Inspired by action figures and tying loosely to the first flick, Retaliation starts with a game of "secure the defector," followed by "raise the flag," but as soon as the stakes aren’t real, the Joes outright suck. They don’t have "neutral," which is maybe why a mission to rescue and revive the Joes as a force is the most ferocious fight that ever pit metal against plastic. The set pieces are stunning: a mostly silent sequence with Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Jinx (Elodie Yung) on a mountainside will leave the audience gaping in its high speed wake, and a prison break featuring covert explosives is nonstop amazing. You’ll notice an emphasis on chain link fences and puddles (terra nostra for action figures) and set pieces conceived as if by kids who don’t have a concept of basic irrefutable truths like gravity. It’s just that kind of imagination and ardor and limitlessness that makes this Joe incredible, memorable, and a reason to crack out your toys again. (1:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

Ginger and Rosa It’s the 1960s, nuclear war is a real possibility, and nuclear-family war is an absolute certainty, at least in the London house occupied by Ginger (Elle Fanning), her emotionally wounded mother (Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks), and her narcissistic-intellectual father (Alessandro Nivola). In this downbeat coming-of-age tale from Sally Potter (1992’s Orlando), Ginger’s teenage rebellion quickly morphs into angst when her BFF Rosa (Beautiful Creatures‘ Alice Englert) wedges her sexed-up neediness between Ginger’s parents. Hendricks (playing the accordion — just like Joan!) and Annette Bening (as an American activist who encourages Ginger’s political-protest leanings) are strong, but Fanning’s powerhouse performance is the main focus — though even she’s occasionally overshadowed by her artificially scarlet hair. For an interview with writer-director Potter, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:30) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Host (2:01) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

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

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone Steve Carell dips into the men-at-work comic genre so associated with Will Ferrell: he’s Burt Wonderstone, who starts out as a picked-on kid discovering his powers via a kit by Las Vegas magician Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin). The ensuing years have not been kind to Burt, a relatively decent guy struggling to shed the douchey buildup of ego, corn, and dated moves à la David Copperfield (ta-da, who magically appears), while working for benevolently threatening casino boss Doug Munny (James Gandolfini) with his childhood best friend Anton (Steve Buscemi, reviving the naifitude of The Big Lebowski‘s Donny) and side fox Jane (Olivia Wilde). The shot of adrenalin to the moribund heart of Burt and Anton’s act: Jim Carrey’s "Brain Rapist," who aims to ream his colleagues by cutting playing cards from his flesh and going to bed on fiery coals. How can the old-schoolers remain relevant? Hard work is key for Carell, who rolls out the straight-man sweetness that seem to make him a fit for romantic comedies — though his earnestness and need to be liked, as usual, err on the side of convention, while taking for granted the not-quite-there chemistry with, in this instance, Wilde. Fortunately whatever edge is lacking materializes whenever Carrey’s ridiculously ombré-tressed daredevil is on screen. Using his now-battered, still-malleable features to full effect, he’s a whole different ball of cheese, lampooning those who will go to any lengths — gouging, searing, and maiming — to entertain. (1:40) Metreon, Vogue. (Chun)

Jack the Giant Slayer (1:55) Metreon.

Mental Toni Collette is a batshit Mary Poppins in this side-splitting comedy about one family and Australia’s identity as the world’s Island of Misfit Toys. According to Shaz (Collette), she and her pit bull Ripper (pronounced "Reippah") came to the town of Dolphin Head to fulfill their destiny. It’s there philandering Mayor Moochmore (a brilliant Anthony LaPaglia) employs her informally as a "babysitter" (the film’s biggest plot hole). Moochmore’s a pathetic excuse for a dad but he needs someone to take care of his five daughters, since he’s finally pushed his wife into nervous-breakdown mode. Everything in Dolphin Head exists on a fulcrum: when Shaz takes the girls to climb a mountain one asks, "What’s the point of climbing to the top?", and Shaz answers, "Not being at the bottom." Mental is not a far cry from the director’s last big import, Muriel’s Wedding, the 1994 film that made Collette a star. Everyone’s nuts here, the message goes, but if we’re confident enough in ourselves, we can sway the rest into seeing how our insanity is better than theirs — or at least strong enough to withstand sharks, knife fights, and pit bulls. Good times, mate, good times. (1:56) Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Olympus Has Fallen Overstuffed with slo-mo shots of the flag rippling (in breezes likely caused by all the hot air puffing up from the script), this gleefully ham-fisted tribute to America Fuck Yeah estimates the intelligence of its target audience thusly: an establishing shot clearly depicting both the Washington Monument and the US Capitol is tagged "Washington, DC." Wait, how can you tell? This wannabe Die Hard: The White House follows the one-man-army crusade of secret service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the last friendly left standing when the President (Aaron Eckhart) and assorted cabinet members are taken hostage by North Korean terrorists. The plot is to ridiculous to recap beyond that, though I will note that Morgan Freeman (as the Speaker of the House) gets to deliver the line "They’ve just opened the gates of hell!" — the high point in a performance that otherwise requires him to sit at a table and look concerned for two hours. With a few more over-the-top scenes or slightly more adventurous casting, Olympus Has Fallen could’ve ascended to action-camp heights. Alas, it’s mostly just mildly amusing, though all that caked-on patriotism is good for a smattering of heartier guffaws. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

On the Road Walter Salles (2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries) engages Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera to adapt Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic; it’s translated to the screen in a streamlined version, albeit one rife with parties, drugs, jazz, danger, reckless driving, sex, philosophical conversations, soul-searching, and "kicks" galore. Brit Sam Riley (2007’s Control) plays Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise, observing (and scribbling down) his gritty adventures as they unfold. Most of those adventures come courtesy of charismatic, freewheeling Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund of 2010’s Tron: Legacy), who blows in and out of Sal’s life (and a lot of other people’s lives, too, including wives played by Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). Beautifully shot, with careful attention to period detail and reverential treatment of the Beat ethos, the film is an admirable effort but a little too shapeless, maybe simply due to the peripatetic nature of its iconic source material, to be completely satisfying. Among the performances, erstwhile teen dream Stewart is an uninhibited standout. (2:03) Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Oz: The Great and Powerful Providing a backstory for the man behind the curtain, director Sam Raimi gives us a prequel of sorts to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Herein we follow the adventures of a Depression-era Kansas circus magician named Oscar (James Franco) — Oz to his friends — as he cons, philanders, bickers with his behind-the-scenes assistant Frank (Zach Braff), and eventually sails away in a twister, bound for a Technicolor land of massively proportioned flora, talking fauna, and witches ranging from dazzlingly good to treacherously wicked. From one of them, Theodora (Mila Kunis), he learns that his arrival — in Oz, just to clarify — has set in motion the fulfillment of a prophecy: that a great wizard, also named Oz, will bring about the downfall of a malevolent witch (Rachel Weisz), saving the kingdom and its cheery, goodhearted inhabitants. Unfortunately for this deserving populace, Oz spent his last pre-twister moments with the Baum Bros. Circus (the name a tribute to L. Frank Baum, writer of the Oz children’s books) demonstrating a banged-up moral compass and an undependable streak and proclaiming that he would rather be a great man than a good man. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this theme is revisited ad nauseam as Oz and the oppressively beneficent witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) — whose magic appears to consist mainly of nice soft things like bubbles and fog — stand around debating whether he’s the right man for the task. When the fog clears, though, the view is undeniably pretty. While en route to and from the Emerald City, Oz and his companions — among them a non-evil flying monkey (voiced by Braff) and a rather adorable china doll (Joey King) — wander through a deliriously arresting, Fantasia-esque landscape whose intricate, inventive construction helps distract from the plodding, saccharine rhetoric and unappealing story line. (2:07) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

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

The Sapphires The civil rights injustices suffered by these dream girls may be unique to Aboriginal Australians, but they’ll strike a chord with viewers throughout the world — at right about the same spot stoked by the sweet soul music of Motown. Co-written by Tony Briggs, the son of a singer in a real-life Aboriginal girl group, this unrepentant feel-gooder aims to make the lessons of history go down with the good humor and up-from-the-underdog triumph of films like The Full Monty (1997) — the crucial difference in this fun if flawed comedy-romance is that it tells the story of women of color, finding their voices and discovering, yes, their groove. It’s all in the family for these would-be soul sisters, or rather country cousins, bred on Merle Haggard and folk tunes: there’s the charmless and tough Gail (Deborah Mailman), the soulful single mom Julie (Jessica Mauboy, an Australian Idol runner-up), the flirty Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), and the pale-skinned Kay (Shari Sebbens), the latter passing as white after being forcibly "assimilated" by the government. Their dream is to get off the farm, even if that means entertaining the troops in Vietnam, and the person to help them realize that checkered goal is dissolute piano player Dave (Chris O’Dowd). And O’Dowd is the breakout star to watch here — he adds an loose, erratic energy to an otherwise heavily worked story arc. So when romance sparks for all Sapphires — and the racial tension simmering beneath the sequins rumbles to the surface — the easy pleasures generated by O’Dowd and the music (despite head-scratching inclusions like 1970’s "Run Through the Jungle" in this 1968-set yarn), along with the gently handled lessons in identity politics learned, obliterate any lingering questions left sucking Saigon dust as the narrative plunges forward. They keep you hanging on. (1:38) SF Center. (Chun)

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

The Silence Maybe "fun" is a tasteless way to describe The Silence, which hinges on pederasty and child murder — though in the end this is more an intelligent pulp thriller than serious address of those issues, uneasily as it straddles both at times. In 1986 two men abduct an 11-year-old girl — one the initially excited, then horrified observer to the second’s murderous sexual assault. Twenty-three years later, another young girl disappears in the same place under disturbingly identical circumstances. This event gradually pulls together a large cast of characters, many initial strangers — including the original victim’s mother (Katrin Sass) and the just-retired detective (Burghart Klaubner) who failed to solve that crime; parents (Karoline Eichhorn, Roeland Wiesnekker) of the newly disappeared teen, who experience full-on mental meltdown; a solidly bourgeoise husband and father of two girls (Wotan Wilke Möhring), inordinately distressed by this repeat of history; and the erstwhile friend he hasn’t contacted in decades, an apartment-complex handyman with a secret life (Ulrich Thomsen). Part procedural, part psychological thriller, part small-town-community portrait, director-scenarist (from Jan Costin Wagner’s novel) Baran bo Odar’s The Silence is just juicy and artful enough to get away with occasional stylistic hyperbole. It’s a conflicted movie, albeit handled with such engrossing confidence that you might not notice the credibility gaps. At least until thinking it over later. Which, don’t. (1:59) (Harvey)

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

Somebody Up There Likes Me A textbook illustration of what’s so frequently right and wrong with Amerindie comedies today, Bob Byington’s feature starts out near-brilliantly in a familiar, heightened Napoleon Dynamite-type milieu of ostensibly normal people as self-absorbed, socially hapless satellites revolving around an existential hole at the center in the universe. The three main ones meet working at a suburban steakhouse: Emotionally nerve-deadened youth Max (Keith Poulson), the even more crassly insensitive Sal (Nick Offerman), and contrastly nice but still weird Lyla (Teeth‘s estimable Jess Weixler). All is well until the film starts skipping ahead five years at a time, growing more smugly misanthropic and pointless as time and some drastic shifts in fortune do nothing to change (or deepen) the characters. Still, the performers are intermittently hilarious throughout. (1:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

Spring Breakers The idea of enfant terrible emeritus Harmony Korine — 1997’s Gummo, 2007’s Mister Lonely, 2009’s Trash Humpers — directing something so utterly common as a spring break movie is head-scratching enough, even moreso compounded by the casting of teen dreams Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson as bikini-clad girls gone wild. James Franco co-stars as drug dealer Alien, all platinum teeth and cornrows and shitty tattoos, who befriends the lasses after they’re busted by the fun police. "Are you being serious?" Gomez’s character asks Alien, soon after meeting him. "What do you think?" he grins back. Unschooled filmgoers who stumble into the theater to see their favorite starlets might be shocked by Breakers‘ hard-R hijinks. But Korine fans will understand that this neon-lit, Skrillex-scored tale of debauchery and dirty menace is not to be taken at face value. The subject matter, the cast, the Britney Spears songs, the deliberately lurid camerawork — all carefully-constructed elements in a film that takes not-taking-itself-seriously, very seriously indeed. Korine has said he prefers his films to make "perfect nonsense" instead of perfect sense. The sublime Spring Breakers makes perfect nonsense, and it also makes nonsense perfect. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Starbuck Starbuck has a great (if not entirely original) comedic concept it chooses to play seriocomedically — i.e., less for the laughs it seldom earns than for the heart-tugging it eventually pretty much does. An ingratiatingly rumpled Patrick Huard (a major Quebec star best known for the mega-hit Les Boys series and 2006’s Good Cop, Bad Cop) plays David, erstwhile stellar contributor to a Montreal sperm bank in his salad days. Now older but no wiser, he finds himself confronted by the reality of 533 biologically fathered, now-grown offspring who’ve filed a class action lawsuit to discover his identity even as he deals with mob debt and an exasperated, pregnant semi-ex-girlfriend (Julie LeBreton). This is one of those "loser manboy must semi-grow up fast amid crisis, finding family values en route" scenarios tailor-fit for Adam Sandler. That said, the overlong, stubbornly endearing Starbuck is so much less insufferable than anything Sandler has made since … um, ever? Halfway through, this agreeable movie gets clever — as David stumbles into a meeting of his prodigious anonymous progeny — and remains reasonably so to the satisfyingly hard-won happy ending. It’s still got moments of contrivance, editorial fat (too many montages, for one thing), and more climactic hugs than any self-respecting dramedy needs to get the redemptive point across. Yet it’s also got something few comedies of any national origin have today: a lovely, distinctive, bright yet non-cartoonish widescreen look. (1:48) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2:06) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

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

Wrong Poor Dolph Springer. His life’s already oozing downhill — he’s been unemployed for months and yet continues to show up at his old job, to the white-hot annoyance of his former co-workers — when his beloved dog, Paul, goes missing. His favorite backyard palm tree is suddenly a pine tree. His alarm clock flips from 7:59 to 7:60 every morning. Pretty much everyone he meets, from a pretty pizza-restaurant cashier to a traffic cop to the "top-level detective" who gets drawn into the search for Paul, behaves precisely the opposite of whatever normal would seem to be. What’s a lonely man living in a permanent state of mindfuck to do? Wrong is the latest surreal-absurdist-subversive comedy from writer-director-cinematographer-editor Quentin Dupieux, who rightly earned a cult following for 2010’s wickedly funny Rubber (about a tire that goes rogue after summoning Carrie-like powers of destruction). The French filmmaker — also known by his musical pseudonym, Mr. Oizo — attempts a slightly more conventional tale with Wrong; Rubber‘s Jack Plotnick stars as the hapless Dolph. Unfortunately, for all its deadpan weirdness, Wrong contains nothing so genius as that diabolical tire. (1:34) Roxie. (Eddy)

CAREERS AND ED: Learn to eat

Andrew Lam
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0
CAREERS AND ED: Learn to eat

caitlin@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED Don’t tell me you’ve been eating your whole life and you don’t need any lessons on food. Hardy har har, how’s your waist line? Energy level? Food budget? You can always learn more about how to make your diet healthier, cheaper, and above all, more sustainable. The Bay Area has to be one of the best places in the world to learn about how to eat well, and the institutions that put on each of these course offerings are phenomenal places to start dabbling in the area. No more plastic-wrapped sandwiches, ill-informed beer purchases, or factory farm chicken for you, boo boo.

“GROW YOUR OWN FOOD”

No excuses: you can garden in San Francisco year-round, and that doesn’t matter anyway because we’re in the rosy pink of spring, when even your uncle up in Minneapolis is turning his thoughts to sprouts and soil. Garden for the Environment has a host of classes dedicated to greening that fat lil’ digit of yours, but today’s offering is particularly salient for snackers. Organic gardening instructor Carey Craddock will take charge among the rows today, teaching you what plants are perfect for April, and how to get your space ready to raise edible flora.

April 13, 10am-2pm, $25. Garden for the Environment, Lawton and Seventh Ave., SF. www.gardenfortheenvironment.org

“BUILD A CHICKEN COOP”

At the end of the day in this urban chickenry class, you’ll have not only witnessed but aided in the construction of a “Garden Ark” portable chicken coop. Carpenter Joan Weir has designed this one-off course to be of maximum service to the community — you’ll learn coop-building skills, and Rosa Parks Elementary School will score a brand-new home for its feathered flock.

April 14, 10am-5pm, $50. Rosa Parks Elementary School, 920 Allston, Berk. www.biofueloasis.com

“DEBUNKING THE MYTHS OF VEGANISM”

The talk is actually part of Oakland Veg Week (April 22-28), which includes tons of free veg and vegan cooking classes, lectures on sustainable eating, a screening of the plant-based diet booster Forks Over Knives (April 25), bus trip to a Grass Valley animal sanctuary (April 27), and grand finale buffet at the Lake Merritt Sailboat House (April 28). But start here, with Colleen “The Compassionate Cook” Patrick-Goudreau’s presentation that addresses all the excuses that fly about for not going veg. No time to be meat-free? Not enough protein in greens? She’ll set you straight.

April 23, 6:30pm, free. Oakland Library, Temescal branch, 5205 Telegraph, Oakl. www.oaklandveg.com

“BREW LAB: HOMEBREW AND BEYOND”

Brew and bottle two batches of your very own suds in this three-class seminar, billed as the most comprehensive homebrew 101 in town that doesn’t require any investment in equipment, for all you newbies to the brew scene. Mission Gastroclub (www.missiongastroclub.org) founder Eric Denman is the instructor, which means you can expect delicious bites at each session, happily crucial in your quest to understand the flavors of your beer.

April 23, 30, and May 14, 7-9pm, $160. 18 Reasons, 1874 18th St., SF. www.18reasons.org

“COTTAGE LAW 101”

Huzzah for the California Homemade Food Act! Recently signed into law, it allows small producers to make low-risk foods like candy, empanadas, baked goods, and dried teas in their home, without renting a spendy commercial kitchen space. If the news has you itching to start a homemade chocolate stand, stop off at ForageSF’s class first. It’s a primer on the law’s ins and outs, perfect for those looking to join the ranks of Forage’s lauded Underground Market artisans. Bring a plate to share with 20 people and get a discount on your tuition.

April 27, $30 if you bring a dish to share, $50 without. SomArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF. www.somarts.org

Dirty war over clean power

Andrew Lam
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10
Dirty war over clean power

tredmond@sfbg.com

It was supposed to be part of Ed Harrington’s legacy, and the chief of the city’s Public Utilities Commission delayed his retirement to make sure it happened.

But six months after the Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 to move forward with CleanPowerSF, the plan is under attack from all sides. Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s house union is spending big chunks of money to shoot it down. The press is loaded with accounts of how expensive it’s going to be for customers. Advocates on the left are blasting it as too limited.

Critics say Harrington’s replacement, Harlan Kelly, is far less interested in making a program work that clearly lacks the support of a PG&E-friendly mayor.

That’s left Sup. David Campos, City Hall’s chief proponent for CleanPowerSF, trying to move forward with a program that, for all its flaws, is the city’s best chance to put a crack in PG&E’s monopoly.

CleanPowerSF will offer San Franciscans a greener alternative to PG&E power, most of which comes from nonrenewable sources. The city will buy renewable power in bulk, through Shell Energy, and distribute it to customers along PG&E’s lines.

A similar system is working well in Marin County, and communities all over the state are looking to see if a city the size of San Francisco — where PG&E has kept out any hint of competition for a century — can pull it off.

Clean power is more expensive right now, and that’s one sticking point: City officials recognize that not all San Franciscans will be willing to pay a premium (of perhaps $10 to $20 a month) for the option. An SFPUC survey released March 25 showed that about 45 percent of the city’s customers would pay extra for clean power and stick with the new program. Earlier studies suggested that 90,000 customers will remain with CleanPowerSF — enough to make the system financially viable.

(Interestingly, the areas most likely to pay extra to avoid fossil fuels are not the wealthiest parts of town. Most of the customers would be on the Eastside, in communities like the Mission, Potrero Hill, the Haight, and Noe Valley.)

The bigger problem with the current debate is that advocates and city officials can’t agree how much money the city ought to spend, on what schedule, to build its own renewable generation system, which would eventually replace much of the power purchased by Shell.

“In the past we would have figures and claims from all sides, and Ed Harrington would look at the numbers and figure it all out, and everybody trusted him,” Campos said. “But we don’t have Ed any more, and Kelly doesn’t seem to be as strongly behind this.”

Building a green-power infrastructure was always a critical part of the CleanPowerSF plan. And once the city has a system up and running, it can use the revenue stream to float bonds to pay for building solar, wind, and cogeneration facilities.

Over time, the locally generated power would be far cheaper than what anyone can offer today, meaning rates would come down.

“We agreed to move the sales agreement forward to get the system started, then keep working on the build-out,” Campos explained.

But a campaign by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, which represents PG&E employees and is historically allied with the company’s political goals, is trying to scare customers away with claims of high rates. And in fact, the first rate proposals were above what Campos and others were hoping for.

So the Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees CleanPowerSF for the supervisors, and the SFPUC, have send staff back to try to find ways to cut rates.

Meanwhile, Kelly wants to de-couple the public build-out from the Shell agreement, in essence launching the program with the most expensive elements in place — and potentially undermining the future of a publicly owned energy infrastructure.

That has some clean-energy advocates furious — and they’ve threatened to withdraw their support for the program.

“Ever since Harlan Kelly took over, the PUC staff has been less supportive of a robust build-out,” Eric Brooks, who works with Our City has been a longtime supporter of CleanPowerSF, told us. “We’re not saying the city should stop moving forward with the Shell deal, but the city has to continue the planning work for the build-out. It can’t be a piecemeal thing.”

The SFPUC hired a Marin-based outfit called Local Power, led by longtime clean-energy advocate Paul Fenn, to do some preliminary work on how a build-out could proceed. Fenn’s conclusion: The city could create 1,500 to 3,000 jobs and build enough renewable energy to power much of the city, over a seven-year period — at a cost of about $1 billion.

That’s a huge tab — and almost certainly more ambitious than this SFPUC and Board of Supervisors could accept.

Fenn told us that his economic analysis, presented to the SFPUC’s Rate Fairness Board Feb. 18, indicates that the city’s cash flow from CleanPowerSF with a renewable build-out would more than cover the payments on the bonds. But he also agreed that he’s suggesting the best possible alternative — and he expects the city would go for a much smaller piece.

“The Board of Supervisors hasn’t made the decision to spend that kind of money,” he said.

Fenn’s contract expired April 1, and the SFPUC hasn’t renewed it. Instead, another consultant will review Local Power’s work, Campos said.

Part of the political challenge is that Local Power has proposed that much of the build-out include what’s known as “distributed generation” — small-scale solar, wind, and cogen projects on private houses and buildings.

Those installations would be “behind the meter” — that is, they would allow households and businesses to generate their own power without buying it through PG&E’s distribution system.

The build-out proposals that the SFPUC staff have discussed are primarily larger solar arrays, some on land the city owns in the East Bay.

“That’s the most expensive way to do this, and it allows PG&E to still control the transmission and distribution,” Brooks said.

[TK-SFPUC comment Monday.]

Meanwhile, PG&E is preparing to roll out its own competing “green energy” plan — while IBEW ramps up it assault on CleanPowerSF.

The IBEW campaign includes robo-calls, mailers, and advertising, all aimed at convincing customers to opt out of the city program.

And now, with advocates from the Sierra Club to Our City criticizing the program on the left, and IBEW trying to undermine it before it gets going, there’s a real chance that a plan more than 10 years in the making could be in trouble.

That concerns Campos. “All I’m hearing from the advocates is negative,” he said. “I want more build-out, too, but unless we move forward with the program, we won’t be able to do that.”

In fact, he said, “you could wind up killing it and have nothing to show for it at all.”

That, of course, would be PG&E’s preferred alternative.

Live Shots: Flume at the Rickshaw Stop

Tony Robles
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Every time I’ve been to Popscene in the last few years, and I mean every time, I see the same guy. Deep 30s, clean cut, and so meticulously well-dressed that it’s conspicuous. Particularly conspicuous when he’s gravitating around a pair of black lingerie wearing girls dancing like they can’t drink. But I guess that mix is fairly typical of Thursdays at the Rickshaw Stop, for the weekly event that always brings in a new crowd by being an 18+ dance party, while maintaining a certain following with the promise of seeing an emerging music act that “could be the next big thing.”

Or, as the case was with Australian electronic producer Flume on Thursday night, the next Porter Robinson. As in “OMG, can you believe he’s only 20?” and the additional hype that goes with it. The crowd was sold out and eager to hear him DJ, many in the audience probably choosing the show over more established popular EDM acts playing that night like Major Lazer at the Independent or the Skrillex/Diplo (he’s everywhere) event going on for the video game convention.

“Is everyone excited to see Flume?” Dexter Tortoriello of opener Houses asked, in the cliched end of set mic break, before making the astute observation, “If we were in Australia right now, we’d be seeing him in a stadium, but instead we’re at Rickshaw Stop.”  Flume – real name Harley Streten – had a sudden rise that included knocking One Direction off the top chart spot with his self-titled debut.

Sorry to say, despite Tortoriello’s excitement, Houses performance was strangely out of place. I caught what was at the time just a duo of Tortoriello and musical-romantic partner Megan Messina at Public Works in November and, while it had been pretty awkward in a shoegazing sort of way, they showed promise and an underlying energy waiting to get out, particularly with tracks like “Reds.”

Thursday they had the addition of a drummer and a guitarist, and Messina had a lot more to do and seemed less contained by nervousness, but strangely played new, more sonorous, thoughtful, and ultimately indistinct music. It was particularly noticeable as they made a consciously slow start coming off of a pop hip-hop track DJ Aaron Axelson played, causing someone to yell out “Drums!” at the end of their first song. “It feels cold up here,” a guy in a hoodie told his friends, which usually isn’t the case at the event.

Flume came on to the sounds of chopped vocals and faux-Afropop “More Than You Thought” from his album, and I made the conscious choice to not try to get back up front to try and get a picture. The real reason is I wimped out. The aesthetic reason is there are no satisfying photos of anyone in front of Macbooks. But the jealous reason is he’s young* and handsome, as the girls in front of me who have been in love with him for soooooooo long will point out, and doesn’t really need it.

On record, Flume is entirely listenable, a palatable mix of dub grooves, steady hip-hop beats, and jazzy, spacy tweaks that occasionally recall Flying Lotus, perfectly paired with pop vocals from a range of singers. His live show aims to be just as pleasing mixing in recognizable hits like Mos Def’s “Mathmatics” and Biggie’s “Juicy.” A little easy and a little bit too much cultural appropriation for my tastes, but it worked on the crowd.

 At one point – the climax of the set really – Flume followed a version of Major Lazer’s “Get Free” (complete with a trance build and dubstep breakdown) with two of his best songs, “Insane” and “On Top.” Featuring lovely, pitch shifted vocals by Moon Holiday and the line “the only risk is that you go insane,” “Insane” is the kind of euphoric  track  you can get lost in, and the best hints at the depths Flume could delve into in the future.

But the electro hip-hop of “On Top” is the current album’s best statement of where the 20 year old is now. “All that I want in my life is the chance to do my thing,” the chorus says, and it’s entirely aspirational, before the triumphant verses kick in. “The nights forever young, it’s us that gets old,” is basically saying YOLO, but comes off a little closer to “Carpe Diem.” Or whatever is Latin for “night.”

*As his suburban origin story goes, he learned to make music from software he found in a cereal box at an age when people like me were trying to figure out masturbation.

Foreign imports and American heroics: new movies!

Sue Vaughan
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1
Foreign imports and American heroics: new movies!

Hollywood unfurls the latest adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s ever-popular YA fiction (the mercifully vampire-less The Host), as well as Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, the multi-hyphenate mogul’s 5628th film. (One statement in the previous sentence is false.)

Plus: check out Dennis Harvey’s dual review of a pair of refreshingly low-key foreign imports, The Silence (from Germany) and Starbuck (from Canada, set in Quebec). There’s also an American-set movie from singular French director Quentin Dupieux, Wrong, opening at the Roxie; check out my review here.

More reviews, including a surprisingly positive take on toys-gone-wild sequel GI Joe: Retaliation, after the jump.

From Up on Poppy Hill Hayao (dad, who co-wrote) and Goro (son, who directed) Miyazaki collaborate on this tale of two high-school kids — Umi, who does all the cooking at her grandmother’s boarding house, and Shun, a rabble-rouser who runs the school newspaper — in idyllic seaside Yokohama. Plans for the 1964 Olympics earmark a beloved historic clubhouse for demolition, and the budding couple unites behind the cause. The building offers a symbolic nod to Japanese history, while rehabbing it speaks to hopes for a brighter post-war future. But the past keeps interfering: conflict arises when Shun’s memories are triggered by a photo of Umi’s father, presumed lost at sea in the Korean War. There are no whimsical talking animals in this Studio Ghibli release, which investigates some darker-than-usual themes, though the animation is vivid and sparkling per usual. Hollywood types lending their voices to the English-language version include Jamie Lee Curtis, Christina Hendricks, Ron Howard, and Gilllian Anderson. (1:31) (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bedn8NjyirY

GI Joe: Retaliation The plot exists to justify the action, but any fan of badass-ness will forgive the skimpy storyline for the outlandish badassery in GI Joe: Retaliation. Inspired by action figures and tying loosely to the first flick, Retaliation starts with a game of “secure the defector,” followed by “raise the flag,” but as soon as the stakes aren’t real, the Joes outright suck. They don’t have “neutral,” which is maybe why a mission to rescue and revive the Joes as a force is the most ferocious fight that ever pit metal against plastic. The set pieces are stunning: a mostly silent sequence with Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Jinx (Elodie Yung) on a mountainside will leave the audience gaping in its high speed wake, and a prison break featuring covert explosives is nonstop amazing. You’ll notice an emphasis on chain link fences and puddles (terra nostra for action figures) and set pieces conceived as if by kids who don’t have a concept of basic irrefutable truths like gravity. It’s just that kind of imagination and ardor and limitlessness that makes this Joe incredible, memorable, and a reason to crack out your toys again. (1:50) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnQPnXbj-RY

Mental Toni Collette is a batshit Mary Poppins in this side-splitting comedy about one family and Australia’s identity as the world’s Island of Misfit Toys. According to Shaz (Collette), she and her pit bull Ripper (pronounced “Reippah”) came to the town of Dolphin Head to fulfill their destiny. It’s there philandering Mayor Moochmore (a brilliant Anthony LaPaglia) employs her informally as a “babysitter” (the film’s biggest plot hole). Moochmore’s a pathetic excuse for a dad but he needs someone to take care of his five daughters, since he’s finally pushed his wife into nervous-breakdown mode. Everything in Dolphin Head exists on a fulcrum: when Shaz takes the girls to climb a mountain one asks, “What’s the point of climbing to the top?”, and Shaz answers, “Not being at the bottom.” Mental is not a far cry from the director’s last big import, Muriel’s Wedding, the 1994 film that made Collette a star. Everyone’s nuts here, the message goes, but if we’re confident enough in ourselves, we can sway the rest into seeing how our insanity is better than theirs — or at least strong enough to withstand sharks, knife fights, and pit bulls. Good times, mate, good times. (1:56) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)

The Sapphires The civil rights injustices suffered by these dream girls may be unique to Aboriginal Australians, but they’ll strike a chord with viewers throughout the world — at right about the same spot stoked by the sweet soul music of Motown. Co-written by Tony Briggs, the son of a singer in a real-life Aboriginal girl group, this unrepentant feel-gooder aims to make the lessons of history go down with the good humor and up-from-the-underdog triumph of films like The Full Monty (1997) — the crucial difference in this fun if flawed comedy-romance is that it tells the story of women of color, finding their voices and discovering, yes, their groove. It’s all in the family for these would-be soul sisters, or rather country cousins, bred on Merle Haggard and folk tunes: there’s the charmless and tough Gail (Deborah Mailman), the soulful single mom Julie (Jessica Mauboy, an Australian Idol runner-up), the flirty Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), and the pale-skinned Kay (Shari Sebbens), the latter passing as white after being forcibly “assimilated” by the government. Their dream is to get off the farm, even if that means entertaining the troops in Vietnam, and the person to help them realize that checkered goal is dissolute piano player Dave (Chris O’Dowd). And O’Dowd is the breakout star to watch here — he adds an loose, erratic energy to an otherwise heavily worked story arc. So when romance sparks for all Sapphires — and the racial tension simmering beneath the sequins rumbles to the surface — the easy pleasures generated by O’Dowd and the music (despite head-scratching inclusions like 1970’s “Run Through the Jungle” in this 1968-set yarn), along with the gently handled lessons in identity politics learned, obliterate any lingering questions left sucking Saigon dust as the narrative plunges forward. They keep you hanging on. (1:38) (Kimberly Chun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1l-88FcUVU

The Spanish Mirth: The Comedic Films of Luis Garcia Berlanga Noted for his dexterity in outwitting the vigilant censors of Franco’s regime while getting away with subversive themes, Berlanga’s long career outlasted the despot’s by several decades. His social satires are showcased in this Pacific Film Archive retrospective of seven features that run a gamut from parodies of Spanish cultural stereotypes (as when villagers hungry for postwar economic-incentive dough try to look like the essence of tourist-friendly quaintness in 1953’s Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall!) to literal gallows humor (1964’s The Executioner) and kinky black comedy (Michel Piccoli as a mild-mannered dentist carrying on an “affair” with a realistic sex doll in Tamano Natural, a.k.a. Life Size). Once Franco finally kicked the bucket, the frequently prize-winning filmmaker let loose with 1978’s anarchic La Escopeta Nacional, a.k.a. The National Shotgun, leaving no formerly sacred cow unmilked. He remained active until a few years before his 2010 death at age 89. The PFA series (running March 29-April 17) offers archival 35mm prints of these movies that remain esteemed at home but are relatively little-known today abroad. Pacific Film Archive. (Dennis Harvey)

Mayor Lee’s mysterious breakfast companions [UPDATED]

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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45

See an update to this story below. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has been having breakfast with CEOs to seek millions in funding for the America’s Cup, but the identities of those CEOs remain a mystery.

At a City Hall hearing two weeks ago, America’s Cup Organizing Committee chief Kyri McClellan told supervisors that Lee has been “putting an incredible amount of energy” into fundraising to cover city costs for the America’s Cup. As the yacht race draws closer, pressure is building around an anticipated funding shortfall that could deal a blow to city coffers.

McClellan told supervisors that Lee was “holding breakfasts with CEOs” to raise money. Encouragingly, she added, “people are responding.”

So, who are the CEOs? And how much have they agreed to contribute? So far, nobody has disclosed that information.

Shortly after the hearing, the Guardian submitted a public records request to Lee’s office seeking documentation on the fundraising breakfasts and records showing the names and affiliations of the CEOs.

In response, we received several pages from the mayor’s calendar. Entries show that Lee held half a dozen meetings concerning “economic development,” with no mention of the America’s Cup. The mayor had a meeting at Waterbar, a restaurant on the Embarcadero overlooking the Bay Bridge, on the morning of Jan. 25; he had another meeting there Feb. 1; he met at the Hotel Vitale on Feb. 22; met at City Hall on Feb. 28; had breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel on March 1, and had lunch with someone at Original Joe’s on March 4. But there was no information disclosing whom he met with.

After receiving the documents, the Guardian left multiple voicemails with the mayor’s press office asking for the identities of the CEOs. So far, nobody has responded.

The request also yielded a fundraising form that asks prospective donors to “join the 2013 America’s Cup San Francisco Host Committee.”

Donors could opt to become a “Legacy Benefactor” for committing to give or raise $5 million; a “Legacy Partner” for $2.5 million; a “Strategic Partner” for $1 million, a “Civic Champion” for $500,000, or a mere “Member” for $250,000. Donors with questions or who wished “to connect with Mayor Lee” could call Stephanie Roumeliotes, the form noted. 

Roumeliotes is a prominent fundraiser and political strategist who provided financial consulting for the re-election campaigns of Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. She was appointed to serve on the Golden Gate Concourse Authority, a part of the Recreation and Parks Department, by former Mayor Gavin Newsom.

A call to the number listed went to SGR Consulting, Roumeliotes’ firm. The receptionist declined to comment or to connect the Guardian with Roumeliotes, saying, “All press inquiries should be directed to the Mayor’s Office.”

UPDATE: We just received a voicemail from Christine Falvey, Mayor Lee’s press secretary, who told us “I don’t have a list of the attendees for those breakfasts. They were hosted by the America’s Cup Organizing Committee.” Which raises more questions, but in any case we placed a call to race organizers and will update again when we know more.

Psychic Dream Astrology: March 27-April 2, 2013

Andrew Lam
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ARIES

March 21-April 19

Don’t overreach yourself this week, Aries. No matter how capable and enthusiastic you are feeling, it’s important to only make metered promises that you are certain you can keep. You’re on the verge of being over-committed, so enjoy your surplus of energy and share the good vibes, pal.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

Your emotional presence and availability don’t guarantee that other folks can meet you where you’re at. This week you are being challenged to accept the parts you may not like and want to change of the people you care about. It is only by accepting others that you can work toward relationships that truly work, Taurus.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Sometimes there’s a huge difference between being threatened and feeling threatened. This week you should make sure that you don’t engage in fights that could be avoided just because you’re feeling defensive and can too easily be baited. Stand up for what you need and feel when you have to, but try to let the little stuff go, Twin Star.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

This week you should take some risks. Don’t be a wallflower in your own life, Cancer. Assert yourself. Strive forward and be willing to take up space in your relationships. If you want things to be different, then you need to create those changes; or if you need things to stabilize, then be pro-actively protective.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Building a home takes care, patience and vision. This week you should be thinking about how to build solid family relationships and a sanctuary you can recuperate in. There are a great many decisions in front of you, Leo, and the best investments you can make are fortifying your personal life and enriching the ground beneath you.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

Love and connection are super important, and this week it will be wise for you to pour your heart into people and things that foster them. Put yourself out there but don’t push yourself; part of sustaining intimacy is knowing when to pull yourself back. Know when you’ve reached your limits before you get shut down and weird, Virgo.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Your relationships are vital, but they should never come at the expense of your autonomy or independence, Libra. This week you are being challenged to change how you participate. Instead of worrying so much about how your actions will be received, focus on how they will feel to you and make decisions based on that.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Too much of a good thing is still too much. Pace yourself and even try to enjoy the beginning and middle of things, Scorpio. You are on the precipice of what can be real and lasting change and the best approach is to be curious about the way things are unfolding. Don’t push for conclusions this week.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

When you feel uncertain of yourself, the last thing you want to do is lean into those feelings; but that’s exactly what you should do. Instead of manically disassociating yourself from your biggest stressors and creating more chaos than you correct, sit with your worries and support your emotional meltdowns this week.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

This is a great week for deep reflection and introspection, Capricorn, but not quite the time for heavy self-analysis. Don’t get out your magnifying glass to intensely look at the details, pal; investigate themes and explore the undercurrents instead. This is not the time to be conclusive and make major decisions, so show yourself a little care until it is.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Your independence is top priority, Aquarius. This week you should strive to become free of your compulsions and the habits that have been holding you back. Don’t worry too much about what other people are expecting from you; it’ll be more helpful to understand the expectations you’re holding your own self to.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Sometimes the best way to invest in your intimate relationships is to take a step back from them. You may find yourself feeling overwhelmed by the demands of being present for someone when all you need is to sit in a room all alone and be. Don’t make things complicated! Time alone is a cure-all this week.


Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Our Weekly Picks: March 27-April 2, 2013

Andrew Lam
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0

THURSDAY 28

“The Secret History of Love”

It’s only four guys, but the quartet manages to call up a whole period in the cultural history of the LGBT community which, until Sean Dorsey put his considerable intellectual and artistic resources into this project, was little known even to its members, not to speak of the community at large. Dorsey, who found his way in a round about manner to dance through theater, has developed a personal language in which words and movement are irrevocably fused, each drawing its energy and expressive power from the other. These performances are a send-off for “The Secret History of Love” which is about to embark on its second national tour. Good to see what these very different dancers bring to this project. They are Dorsey, Juan De La Rosa, Brian Fisher, and Nol Simonse. (Rita Felciano)

Through March 31

8pm, Sat/Sun, 4pm; $15–$25

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St., S.F.

SecretHistory.brownpapertickets.com

 

Anthrax

Fresh off celebrating its 30th anniversary, iconic metal titan Anthrax is back with a new covers EP, Anthems (released last week), paying tribute to some of the songs that influenced it when the band was first starting out. Searing versions of tunes by artists such as AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, and Rush help shed light on the formative recipe that would eventually lead Anthrax to being considered one of “The Big 4” of thrash metal. Scott Ian and company will perform their classic 1987 album Among The Living in its entirety during their headlining slot tonight on the brutal “Metal Alliance Tour,” which also features Exodus, High On Fire, Municipal Waste, and Holy Grail. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $29.99–$32

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com


FRIDAY 29

“Overturning the Artifice” closing reception

What do shoe shining and art have in common? Very much, according to Jack Leamy, curator of SOMArts’ show, “Overturning the Artifice,” which closes in style Friday evening with free shoe-shining by artist Rachel Leamy. When one shines another person’s shoes, the act is reflective and forms an intimate human connection that uplifts the soul. Art, the curator says, has the same uplifting effect; it raises consciousness “out of the doldrums.” That is an upbeat way to speak about a show that deals with the struggles of being human, but then again, art can act as a powerfully positive force. Come to the show while you still can, to be uplifted — or just to get shinier shoes. (Laura Kerry)

6pm, free

SOMArts Main Gallery

934 Brannan, SF

(415) 863-1414

www.somarts.org

 

“KUSF-In-Exile’s Blown-Out, Blowout Benefit II”

Benefit is an often overused term, but this one applies for the sake of preserving San Francisco Community Radio (SFCR). As the group Save KUSF transitions into SFCR (its nonprofit identity) the costly legal quest continues with an FCC-level appeal of 90.3 FM’s sale still waiting to be ruled on. So what’s a group of rogue DJs to do when their sojourn on the web waves appears as if it’s becoming permanent? They throw another springtime blowout of mind-melting music to raise cash for their cause. Carlton Melton delivers the psychedelic, stoner-drone, Disappearing People emerges out of Oakland with experimental punk, and from the same neck of the woods, the one and only Yogurt Brain rides in with some catchy jangle and an occasional monster riff thrown in. (Andre Torrez)

With Carlton Melton, Disappearing People, Yogurt Brain, and KUSF-in-Exile DJs

8pm, $5–$10

Lab

2948 16th St., SF

415-864-8855

www.thelab.org

 

Texas is the Reason

In 1994 Texas is the Reason released a three-song EP that would initially be heard by very few and go on to influence a great many. The band’s only full-length Do You Know Who You Are? remains a touchstone album in the post-hardcore canon and is considered to be one of the primary kick-starters of the ’90s emo movement. Just as the band was about to burst from underground notoriety to a mainstream record label, however, it collapsed due to internal tensions. After just three years of existence and one beloved album, Texas is the Reason was done. Other than a two-show reunion in 2006, this year marks the band’s first and only tour since its disintegration a decade and a half back. This spring, the band unveiled two new songs and a brief tour — its last ever. While it may be cruel to give us hope and a taste of what could have been before disappearing again, I’m not complaining. After nearly 15 years of waiting, I’ll take what I can get. (Haley Zaremba)

With the Jealous Sound

9pm, $20

Bimbo’s 365

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

 

Mano Le Tough

Having proved himself a more than capable in long form (popping up on this year’s Resident Advisor Top 100 poll and a recent Boiler Room set) and short (contributing remixes for Midnight Magic, Roisin Murphy, and Aloe Blacc) Ireland’s Mano Le Tough needed only to release a solid album to complete the producer trifecta. With Changing Days, he’s done just that, and it’s an assured, spaced out collection of deep house and future disco, organic, airy sounds alternating at times with ray-gun zaps. Throughout, Mano expands on the calmly emotive vocal style earlier heard on “In My Arms” and the glistening Stories EP. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Bells and Whistles, Joey Alaniz

9pm, $8–$15

Monarch

101 Sixth St., SF

(415) 284-9774

www.monarchsf.com


SATURDAY 30

Lynne Hershman Leeson’s “The Agent Ruby Files”

The story of the humanoid and the human goes way back — Pinocchio, that relationship between Skywalker and his robot companions. Now, we can add Lyne Hershman Leeson’s Agent Ruby, an online platform in the shape of Ruby, a character based on the artist’s 2002 film, Teknolust, that invites its visitors to converse with it. Over the past 12 years, Ruby has learned, improving her responses as the database has expanded. In a show on view from March 30 to June 2, SFMOMA will present a look at the growth of Ruby. Exhibiting collections of user conversations on topics such as dreams and sexuality, we can expect to see something very human reflected in the non-human. (Kerry)

Through June 2

$18

SFMOMA

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4170

www.sfmoma.org

 

Jonny Fritz

Nashville’s Jonny Fritz has been writing, recording, and touring for the better part of a decade, and looks to be breaking into his own this year after recent stints opening for the likes of Alabama Shakes, Shooter Jennings, and Wanda Jackson. Recently dropping his long-time moniker of “Jonny Corndawg” in favor of his real name, Fritz (who opens for Heartless Bastards tonight) is releasing his new album, Dad Country on ATO Records in April, a collection of slice-of-life tales, sweet vocals, and great lyrics that blend the sounds of his native city with California country and a wide swath of points in between. (McCourt)

9pm, $23

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

 

Colette and DJ Heather

Around 16 years ago, four young female DJs united to form the formidable quartet known as the SuperJane Collective. Feeding off Chicago’s potent house music scene, DJ Heather, Colette, Lady D, and Dayhota laid claim to being the first all-female electronic DJ group. The groundbreaking foursome have since separated, both musically and geographically, but they are scheduled for a Sweet Sixteen reunion in Chicago in June. In the meantime, Colette and DJ Heather are coming in hot off their appearance at Austin’s SXSW. Expect deep grooves, funkiness, and improvisational live vocals from Colette. (Kevin Lee)

With Pink Mammoth

10pm, $15–$20

Mighty

119 Utah, SF

(415) 762-0151

www.mighty119.com


SUNDAY 31

Dolores Park Easter Celebration with Hunky Jesus Contest

Once you’re done sleeping through the church hours, the best thing to wake up to would be the annual Easter celebration in Dolores Park. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are hosting their 34th birthday party once again at the park, and the “Under the Big Top” theme this year will be sure to charm the inner bunny out of you. The day will start out with family-friendly children’s Easter happenings at 11am, but just after noon the party really gets started. There will be circus tricks, an Easter Bonnet Contest, performances by the likes of our own Honey Mahogany (recently seen on RuPaul’s Drag Race), Sparkle Ponies, and Jane Wiedlin, along with the beloved Hunky Jesus Contest. The Sisters suggest you “bring a picnic blanket, some nosh and, of course, a little libation.” (Taylor Hynes)

11am-4pm, free

Dolores Park

18th and Dolores, SF

www.thesisters.org

 

Widowspeak

Eudora Welty once said, “Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else.” It is no surprise then that Widowspeak recorded its second album, Almanac, in a 100-year-old barn in the Hudson River Valley. Setting creeps in, the soft singing of frontperson Molly Hamilton ringing like a ghostly whisper from a rural past, which sits in beautiful tension with the sometimes jangly rock instrumentals that seem reflective of the band’s Brooklyn base. At the Chapel show, though, it might be more apt to say that the atmospheric folk-pop of the band creates a setting of its own. (Kerry)

With SISU

9pm, $12

Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

 

Daedelus

“The Willy Wonka of music.” That’s how one clever Internet commentator labeled LA beats producer Alfred Darlington, a.k.a Daedelus. It’s a fitting moniker — the dapper Darlington (often sporting colorful, wide-lapel suit jackets) ushers unsuspecting listeners into his music factory, laden with delicious and dangerous drums. Lick a sample here, taste a vocal there, and suddenly you’re swimming in a bass-filled reimagining of a video game villain’s theme music or hip-hop hacked to pieces and sped up to 130 BPM. All the while, Darlington goes all mad scientist, mashing away at a 256-button device known as a monome from which he can summon all sorts of sweet and sinister sounds. Overindulge at your own peril. (Lee)

With Two Fresh, Ryan Hemsworth, Samo Sound

8pm, $18

Independent

628 Divisadero

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

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