Events

Time out by the Bay

Andrew Lam
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5

OPINION Pretend that you and your best friends are entrusted — temporarily — with responsibility to run a big city. The energy of its people, the diversity of its residential neighborhoods, and its natural beauty have made this a successful city. The centerpiece of its natural beauty is its front yard, a body of sparking water called “The Bay.” You are entrusted with keeping the Bay accessible and visible to the people — all of whom own it.

One day developers come along and say that they want to build an entertainment complex on public property, right on this Bay. It will be a big, 14-story structure. It will bring in some 2 million patrons for more than 200 entertainment events each year. And, the developers go on, it will be in the middle of a residential community, mess up traffic and block physical and visual access to the Bay. Furthermore they tell you, we will need you to violate all the controls you have painfully placed on building heights and uses on the waterfront. And, by the way, they will need a subsidy of $120 million in public money.

Lastly they tell you, they will play 41 professional basketball games in the building. This will double or triple the value of their franchise — but unfortunately requires that they significantly increase the ticket price for their fans.

As a good manager you might ask what the landlord, the Port — which holds the land as a public trust — will get in return for its $120 million subsidy and for the use of public property. You are astonished to learn that, for the next many decades, the Port receives not a penny. Knowing the environmental damages, the impact on transportation in your city and being concerned about maintaining livable neighborhoods, you might then say: “Hold on — this is a bad deal. Is there not a better, less costly, less destructive, less divisive location in our city?”

You might say that — but SF’s city management has not. There has been no effort whatsoever to find a more appropriate location, one less destructive to San Francisco’s environmental values, that would require less than a $120 million subsidy.

And time has virtually run out to ask the basic question of whether the proposed site on Pier 30/32 is an appropriate site for this entertainment complex. The city is rushing headlong into making this deal. The Board of Supervisors does have final authority, but when it gets there, so much time and effort will have been spent that the likelihood of it being stopped is virtually zero.

You, the pretend manager, would surely call a time out. You would put together city officials and representatives of the city’s neighborhoods with the developer and require that they, together, come up with a site that all could gladly support. That might be what you’d do -– but it is not what is happening in the real world of City Hall.

It’s time for people like you, and others like you, to demand that the real city officials call a temporary halt to their juggernaut and provide a process that would first answer the basic question of whether Pier 30/32 is an appropriate site for this entertainment complex or whether alternative sites would not better serve the city and its Bay.

Rudy Nothenberg has held senior positions in the administrations of six San Francisco mayors.

Beer Week rolls out the barrel

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Beer Week rolls out the barrel

With much fanfare, the San Francisco Brewers Guild annual SF Beer Week popped its cork at the Concourse last Friday night, and the Bay Area has been awash in a tsunami of beer ever since.

Unable to attend the grand gala opening celebration, I got the lowdown from beer-tasting buddy Cee Jay, who took a few for the team in his quest for the perfect snifter of suds and got him to wax eloquent on Sierra Nevada’s new line of barrel-aged beers (“The barrel-aged Bigfoot is the tastiest brew I’ve had in a long time,” he gushed) and weigh in on the collaboratively-brewed Brewers Guild malt liquor Green Death — a brew apparently inspired by one of my secret nostalgic faves Rainer ale, a dubious beverage I have fond albeit very fuzzy memories of. One this subject Cee Jay vacillated between calling it “well-balanced” yet possessed of a “split personality,” code words for “he don’t like it” (decide for yourself at the “Meet the Brewers” event at Speakeasy on February 13).

As I peruse the schedule for the week ahead, all I can say is “thank goodness beer week lasts 10 days”. Because otherwise I don’t know how I’d fit in all the beers that sound too good to pass up.

With over 400 events to choose from all over the Bay, you’d be hard pressed to avoid Beer Week altogether, which makes my strategy of sticking to bars I’d probably be going to anyway but coinciding it with a tap takeover of a brewery I’m keen to further my familiarity with, either sheer genius or maybe just laziness. San Diego night at the Sycamore on Monday was a perfect example of this welcome synchronicity of will to explore and comfortable location. Breweries represented included Ballast Point (whose Sculpin IPA is a big favorite) and Green Flash (whose Black Saison “Friendship Ale” was particularly tempting), and since the Sycamore is within literal stumbling distance of my home, the fact that it was a “school night” did not matter much. Incidentally Sycamore is also hosting a promising-sounding Dogfish Head night on the 12th, which will be a great opportunity to taste some special rarities.

Toronado, naturally, will host two of my real must-do’s, the Russian River ‘Tion night (Tues/12), where some 20 Russian River beers (though ironically NOT the highly-anticipated seasonal release, Pliny the Younger) will be served from 6pm onward, and the not-technically-Beer-Week-but-still-imperative 20th annual Barleywine Festival from the 16th-18th during which over 50 Barleywines will be available on draft. Incidentally, Toronado is also your best bet for scoring the aforementioned Pliny the Younger — just show up on your lunch break through the 25th, they’ll be serving limited supplies of the scarce stuff until they won’t.

Other Tap Takeovers that look promising to me are a couple at Kennedy’s Irish Pub and Curry House in North Beach (Heretic on Wed/13, and Ommegang on Fri/15), Triple Voodoo and Ninkasi at Rosamunde Sausage Grill also on Wed/13 and Fri/15 respectively, Danish Mikkeller at Oakland’s The Trappist on Thurs/14, and the “Band of Gypsies” takeover of Rosamunde’s Oakland outpost on Wed/13. The “gypsies” — eight nomadic local brewers including Lucky Hand and Bison Organic — have collaborated on a Belgian-style Quad (“Belgian Tramp”) brewed with candy sugar, Mission Figs, raisins, and dates which clocks in at a respectable 10.5% abv and sounds like dinner, dessert, and drinks all in one tasty combination.

And speaking of dinner with drinks, I haven’t even touched on all the foodie-worthy events lined up on the Beer Week calendar, but buzzed-about bets include beer-infused Dynamo Donut and Humphrey Slocombe confections, Butchers and Beers on Fri/15 featuring meats from 4505 paired with tasty brews from local “farm-to-bottle” darlings, Almanac Beer Company, Almanac’s special beer-pairing dinner at Central Kitchen on Wed/13, the already sold-out Sau and Brau fest at Drake’s Barrel House in San Leandro, and a Valentine’s Day, four-course, prix fixe dinner and beer pairing at La Trappe Café. Oh la la! In short, life’s short, and beer week is passing by more quickly than you might think. Catch it now while you still can, your liver will forgive you eventually. I promise.

SF Beer Week

Through February 17

Various locations

www.sfbeerweek.org

 

 

 

For $999, you can watch sailing, on public land

Zelda Bronstein
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14
For $999, you can watch sailing, on public land

Here’s the deal of a lifetime: For $999, you can get a ticket to watch the America’s Cup races. From beachers built on public land. Where the non-wealthy public won’t be allowed.

The America’s Cup Event Authority, run by Larry Ellison, who is the third-richest person in the world, has sent out an email soliciting buyers for this special early deal: Buy now, and you will be guaranteed a “reserved section in a preferred area of the bleachers,” as well as exclusive access to parties and events, and a chance to get your picture taken with the Cup.

Which, by the way, is having trouble raising money — and could leave the city on the hook for as much as $20 million. Which loudmouth critics like Aaron Peskin and Chris Daly warned about from the start. So we’ve gone from the races being a huge economic boon, worth billions to the city, to poor Mark Buell, who has to ask people to give money to underwrite Larry Ellison’s yacht party, saying that even if the city loses money, it will still all be worth it.

Those poor San Francisco plebians who don’t have $1,000 will be able to see the races, but Ellison’s team recommends spending the cash, now: “There will be a section of free-view bleachers,” the Event Authority’s Ryan Carroll told me. “But those seats will be limited, and we expect them to fill up quickly.”

And there may still be some cheaper seats coming; tickets for individual races will go on sale later, and seats at the prelims in June might not cost as much, Carroll said.

Other areas for public waterfront viewing “will be congested,” he said.

Jane Sullivan, marketing director for the America’s Cup Organizing Committee (which is the city’s operation, separate and distinct from Ellison’s), said it’s not neccessary to give Ellison a thousand bucks to see the sailboats whip by at 50 miles an hour: “The entire waterfront will not be filled up and congested,” she said. “There will be ample and lovely free viewing of all the races.”

So let me sum this up: The taxpayers spend $20 million underwriting Ellison’s race. Then Ellison’s team wants us to pay him $999 for the right to sit on a bench on public land and watch. Who does this gentleman think he is? (Oh right: He’s Larry Fucking Ellison.)

 

Celebrate Black History Month with four days of sf|noir food and drink

Andrew Lam
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Celebrate Black History Month with four days of sf|noir food and drink

This month, you can observe Black History Month by attending a filmmaking discussion, a childrens dance class, by going to a lecture at USF — check out this and this event rundown for inspiration. And given how food-oriented we are as a region, it was only natural that eventually you’d be able to eat and drink while celebrating African American heritage, not to mention the black culinary geniuses that add to it here in the Bay. 

 

Sample wines poured by the Sterlings of Esterlina Vineyards (top) and bites made by Michele Wilson of Gussie’s Chicken & Waffles at sf|noir’s Feb. 23 gala

The organization that is sponsoring the four-day extravaganza was born one afternoon at North Beach Jazz Festival, the nine-day affair that Herve Ernest organized for eight years. He realized that the crowd in attendance was really, really white.

“There was an African American band on stage, but I could count on two hands the amount of black faces I saw,” he tells me in a phone interview. He realized that if African American culture was going to remain a presence in a city where black people were being rapidly displaced, concerted efforts would have to be made.

“That’s when the conceptual idea for what became sf|noir started happening,” Ernest continues. He started the organization, which sponsors read-ins, dance, and concerts, not only to get superlative cultural programming to black audiences, but also to “ensure the presentation of black arts and culture in San Francisco” — a city whose black population has dropped from 12 to less than three percent in the 19 years since Ernest first settled here. 

This year, his group is offering days of events that highlight some of the area’s most successful black food entrepreneurs. “It’s something that is very relevant here,” says Ernest. “It’s a foodie town, food events happen all the time. We thought it was high time to create a food and wine event that looks at African American cuisine.” 

So, belly up. Go here for more info: 

Remixology

Three mixologists — including Otis bartenders Phil Shell and Damon White — present cocktails found throughout the African diaspora. Entry is free, you have to pay for your own drinks though. 

Feb. 21, 6-9pm, free. Otis, 25 Maiden Lane, SF

Wine tasting with Omar White

After 15 years at Chez Panisse, believe that wine consultant White has some knowledge about local vinos. He’s lent his expertise to Pizzaolo and the East Bay’s Hibiscus and is here today to teach about the in’s and out’s of the wine tasting process. Register in advance for this one — participation is limited to 25 thirsty souls. 

Feb. 22, 6-9pm, $20. 18 Reasons, 3674 18th St., SF

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U1eW77Pw4PQ

Wine and Food Gala

Food from nine restaurants well-versed in African American cuisine (Farmerbrown, Cedar Hill, and tomorrow’s brunch host Miss Ollie’s for starters), 20 local and international winemakers, and two dessert specialists — The Brown Sugar Lady and PieTisserie — are all serving up at this four-hour dinner party. 

Feb. 23, 7-11pm, $60. The Atrium, 101 Mission, SF

Oakland Jazz Brunch 

Hibiscus’ chef Sarah Minton has a new project in this Old Oakland corner restaurant. She’ll be offering up the place’s Carribean-toned menu for brunch today, while the Marcus Shelby Trio helps you finish the sf|noir series strong.

Feb. 24, 11am-3pm, free entrance, a la carte menu. Miss Ollie’s, 901 Washington, Oakl. 

The Cal GOP thinks the ACLU is “communist.”

Zelda Bronstein
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50
The Cal GOP thinks the ACLU is “communist.”

It’s not a surprise that the California Republican Party is, ahem, a bit out of step with the mainstream of the state (you see a lot of Repubs holding statewide office right now? I don’t.) And of course a San Francisco woman of color who isn’t a complete right-wing loon is going to have trouble running for a state party office. But what made the Chron’s story on Harmeet Dhillon so amazing was this:

“This is not a personal attack against Harmeet,” Celeste Greig, president of the California Republican Assembly, said Tuesday. “The ACLU is a communist organization. Do we want somebody who is a member of a communist organization that has sued religious organizations numerous times because they don’t like the cross and the Menorah” displayed on public property, Greig said, in explaining why she considers the ACLU – which has no official political affiliation – to be communist.

Gawd, we don’t get to see that kind of red-baiting much any more. I used to get called a commie all the time; back in the 1980s, there really were some communists around, too. You’d see the RCP at rallies and events, and the CPUSA was still marginally functional, and there were Trots and Maoists and it was all very interesting, sorting them all out.

But outside of Cuba, there really aren’t a lot of old-fashioned commies left. I miss them; nobody could give a four-hour stemwinder of a rhetorical speech like a commie leader. In the old days of the RCP, if you got accused of violating party discipline, you were sentenced to re-read “Combatting Liberalism,” which was kind of like having a Catholic priest sentence you to saying ten Hail Marys for masturbating.

There aren’t any communists at the ALCU; maybe once upon a time, but the left in America has moved way beyond that (oh, and the real commies never liked the ACLU — they were never big on freedom of speech or the press.) Now we’ve got ten brands of anarchists, and a wide range of socialist types, and Greens, and progressives, and a whole lot of others with various ranges of economic critiques and analyses and social platforms, many of which I heartily endorse. But the commies have largely faded away. You’d think the GOP folks would know their enemies a little better.

The happiest city — for some

Zelda Bronstein
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169
The happiest city — for some

Not to go all gloomy on a day when it’s finally not cold and the sun is out and San Francisco was just named the happiest city in America, (based on things like the number of shopping centers and cultural events), but really: Let’s not all jump up and down and celebrate. This is a very happy city for people who have money; it’s becoming a very anxiety-filled city for everyone else.

I’ve gotten quite a few comments and emails from friends on our cover story this week, and most of them go something like this:

“Great story. Really scary. I hope they don’t Ellis Act my building or I won’t be able to stay here, either.”

If you’re a renter in San Francisco, and you’ve been here a while, and you’re under rent control, chances are you’re nervous about your future. Because if you get evicted, you’re almost certainly leaving town. Maybe you can find a place in Oakland that’s smaller than what you currently have at twice the price, or maybe you can’t. 

This is a city under immense pressure, and while the economically secure can happily go to shopping centers and see the Opera, I would say a majority of the current residents of San Francisco are more stressed about their future than they have been in years. And that doesn’t seem to be addressed in the happiness calculus.

On the Om Front: In the name of love

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On the Om Front: In the name of love

It’s February—feeling a little love in your heart? Srutih Asher Colbert’s been feeling the love all year long. She’s a Bay Area yoga teacher (and hairdresser) who raised $24,000 in one year through grassroots fundraising to fight sex trafficking in India, where she’ll be going next week to volunteer her time to the cause.

Om Front talked to her about how, and why, she undertook the challenge.

SFBG Wow. You raised $24,000 in one year. Tell us about the organization you raised the money for.

COLBERT Off The Mat and Into the World is a yoga-based organization [founded by internationally-acclaimed yoga teacher/activist Seane Corn]. It initiates different projects around the world to create sustainable change. The idea is that people take their yoga practice “off the mat and into the world” to become leaders in their community and use that leadership to make a difference. Every year, Off the Mat conducts something called the Seva Challenge, in which people everywhere are challenged to raise at least $20,000 for a particular cause. If you can raise the money, you are invited to go on a trip with Off the Mat to volunteer your time to that cause.

SFBG  What inspired you to do the 2012 Seva Challenge?

COLBERT  The cause this year is to stop sex trafficking in India. Sex trafficking is happening all over the world, but there are over 3 million girls in India alone that are being held prisoner and being raped on a daily basis. Some of them have been tricked by being promised a job in the factory and then they end up in a brothel. Some of them have been sold by their own parents. There are so many ways they can be coerced. I have two daughters and it hit close to home to think that my eight year old daughter could be trafficked for sex. I wanted to see if I could help stop that kind of action. I didn’t think I’d be able to raise $20,000 but I thought I would try!

SFBG  So, how did you do it?

COLBERT I reached out to everyone in my yoga community, students and teachers, and planned all of these events. I don’t know how I did it, but it all added up in the end. Some of the events I held were a benefit Kirtan [chanting event] with Ananda Rasa and Prajna Vieira at the Sivananda Yoga Center; a yoga-DJ-dance party at Equinox in Palo Alto, where I teach; and a Thanksgiving benefit class at Namaste Yoga in Oakland with Vickie Russell Bell. I sold Stop Slavery Now tee-shirts, and held a cocktail party and a silent auction. Also, [legendary kirtan singer] Krishna Das did an amazing fundraiser in NYC on the Bhajan Boat and he donated his whole portion to me for the cause. It was incredible.


Thanksgiving benefit class at Namaste Yoga in Oakland with Vickie Russell Bell

SFBG  What was the biggest fundraiser?

COLBERT  It was actually at my hair salon, Monica Foster Salon, in Palo Alto. I got everyone to work on a Monday when we’re usually closed, and they all donated their proceeds, over $4000 altogether, to Off the Mat.

SFBG  So you’re going to India then?

COLBERT Yes! I’ve never been to India and I am so thrilled that I get this opportunity. We leave on February 17 for 10 days in Kolkata. We’ll be working every day with the local charities that are partnered with Off the Mat to help rescue girls, and teach them trades like jewelry-making. We’ll also be helping to build a new room onto a dance-and-yoga therapy center that helps these girls transition back into society.

It’s an interesting time to be going to India to do this work. After the recent gang rape in India, there’s been an uprising of women banding together saying we’re not going to stand for this anymore. It feels really good that we can be part of that timing and affect some social change.

SFBG  Is your fundraising effort over?

COLBERT  Technically, yes, but people are still giving me cash and writing me checks! We’re asked to bring a donation bag over with us filled with first aid supplies, art supplies, and things to draw with, that we can give to the different charities—so I’ve been using the additional funds for that. Once that bag is full, I’ll give the remaining money to Off the Mat.


Colbert with yoga teacher Vickie Russell Bell (left) at Namaste Yoga

SFBG  What has this year of fundraising taught you?

COLBERT That I am not in control of anything. Every fundraiser, I would think it would go this way or that way—and it was never like that. I would think there would be 75 people there and in walked 12. Or I thought a person was going to give me $5 and he gave me $500. I had to learn to not try to control things, and to just be in the present moment with what is.

SFBG  You’re leaving on February 17. Nice timing for Valentine’s Day, eh?

COLBERT Yes, but every day should be Valentine’s Day! Every day we should all be giving each other as much love as we can, helping each other and holding each other up.

If you want to donate to Off the Mat or learn about the 2013 Seva Challenge, visit www.offthematintotheworld.org.

Karen Macklin is a writer and yoga teacher in San Francisco — her On the Om Front column appears biweekly here on SFBG.com.

It’s All About Love
Yoga and Spirituality Listings by Joanne Greenstein

Seven Month Chakra Awakening Intensive with Anodea Judith
Open your heart through the chakras. Award winning author and internationally renowned teacher Anodea Judith is coming to the Bay Area to lead a series of seven workshops on the seven chakras over seven months.  Each month will focus on one of the chakras, offering asana practice, bioenergetic exercises, breathing techniques, guided trance journeys, chanting, art, music and more to clear blockages and active chakra energy.  Workshops will be supplemented by weekly emails.
Sat 2/9 – Sat 2/13, 1:00 – 5:45 PM, Yoga Kula SF, 3030A 16th, SF with 2 sessions at Yoga Kula Berkeley, 1700 Shattuck, Berkeley, $90/workshop or $560 for all 7.  Livestream also available at $45/sessionor $285 for all sessions. yogakula.com/chakra-awakening

Valentine’s Day Contact Yoga Class with Alok Rocheleau and Anjuli Mahendra
Open your heart through touch.  Connect physically, emotionally and spiritually through partner yoga, contact improvisation and Thai massage.
Thurs/14, 7:30 – 10:00 PM, Mindful Body, 2876 California, SF, $70 per couple in advance/$80 at the door. www.themindfulbody.com/main/workshopsevents.htm

Celebration of Heart with Deborah Lee
Open your heart through movement.  Flow through a series of poses designed to help you release tension, improve your posture and connect to your heart. 
Sun/10, 2:00 – 4:15 PM, Yogaworks, 1823 Divisadero, SF, $20 in advance/$30 at the door. More info here.

Kirtan with David Newman (Durga Das)
Open your heart through song.  David and his wife Mira will lead a fun, joyous evening of call-and-response chanting letting you access your heart space. 
Fri/15, 8:00 – 10:00 PM, Urban Flow, 1543 Mission, SF, $20 in advance/$25 at the door. www.urbanflowyoga.com/workshop.html
 
Tantra & Massage Valentine’s Workshop with Dee Dussault
Open your heart through connection.  Explore and deepen your relationship through these workshops for couples. On day one, learn tantric practices to enhance the intimacy, energy, communication and sensuality in your relationship.  On day two, improve your love-making through tantric massage, breathing and visualization.  Day two is clothing optional, with a non-genital focus.
Tantra Workshop: Expanding Erotic Energy
Sat/16, 1:30 – 4:30 PM, 548 Fillmore, SF, $45
Sensual Massage: Conscious Intimate Touch
Sun/17, 2:00 – 5:00 PM, 548 Fillmore, SF, $45
More info here.

Muppets, manholes, and mayhem

Andrew Lam
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0
Muppets, manholes, and mayhem

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Vincent Gargiulo is originally from Stockton and lives in San Francisco, but I spoke with him over the phone from Duluth, Minn., where he’s about to start filming his latest project, Duluth is Horrible. “So far, it’s actually lovely,” he admits. “But Duluth is Lovely, nobody wants to watch that movie.”

The title came to him in a dream — he’d never been to Duluth before — but he decided to take the inspiration and run with it. “I came up with a bunch of little stories, semi-based on my life, and decided to set it in Duluth and use that title, and here I am,” he says, noting that he’s casting locals to act in the project. “A lot of people have been supportive, and a lot have not been. But I’m just hanging out with the supportive ones.”

Before his Great Lakes odyssey, Gargiulo was best-known for a pair of videos that brought him a certain amount of notoriety: “David’s Pizza Commercial” (which has over half a million views on YouTube) and “Taste the Biscuit,” which caught comedian George Lopez’s eye and became a running joke on Lopez Tonight. Both clips are excerpts from longer Gargiulo projects; the pizza ad was part of a 1980s TV parody, KNFR From 7:00-7:30.

“I needed some local commercials, and I came up with this pizza song. I thought, ‘I should just give it to a random pizza place,’ so I gave it to David’s Pizza in Stockton — they got a commercial without them knowing about it,” he says. “I thought if anything from that film would have viral potential, it would be that, because the song’s pretty catchy. So I just put it out there, and sure enough, it did. I mean, I like all attention I can get, but I don’t necessarily seek it out. It was funny because a lot of people were interviewing David — he was on talk shows and stuff, and it was fun to watch. And they don’t even mention me at all.”

The San Francisco Independent Film Festival’s local-shorts focus, “Cults, Manholes, and Slide Rail Riders,” contains seven entries, but only one that features humans playing puppets. That’d be Gargiulo’s The Muppetless Movie, a fake movie trailer that pays earnest homage to the Muppets as only a true fan with a crazy idea can. The casting is impeccable: the director busts out a killer Kermit impression, and there’s dead-on Statler and Waldorf banter and an uncannily perfect Gonzo.

“I am a huge Muppets fan,” Gargiulo admits. “The new Muppet movie was coming out at that time, and I was afraid it was gonna suck. So I thought, ‘I’ll make my own Muppet movie, just to be on the safe side.’ Originally I was going to use puppets, but there’s probably more legal issues there. So I decided to have humans do it instead.”

Just about the only thing Manhole 452 has in common with Muppetless is that it’s another standout in “Cults, Manholes, and Slide Rail Riders.” Jeanne C. Finley and John Muse’s eerie short is narrated by an unseen commuter as he nervously rides the 38 Geary downtown from the Richmond. His paranoia: exploding manholes. As the film progresses, his fears are backed up by found footage depicting actual manhole explosions. His unease become ours, as we start to realize he’s onto something real and terrifying.

Muse and Finley have been working together since 1988; for the past several years, it’s been a cross-country collaboration, since Muse teaches at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and Finley teaches at California College of the Arts in SF. Manhole 452 originally appeared as part of a 2011 installation at Patricia Sweetow Gallery, whose Geary Street location provided early inspiration.

“My antenna was up, as was John’s, around the question of manhole covers,” Finley recalls. “We did a lot of research, and it became really evident that they blow all the time. For example, three days before our show opened, a manhole blew right in front of the gallery. So we were aware of this phenomenon — and then San Bruno happened. A horrible, horrible tragedy.”

Finley decided to count all of Geary Street’s manhole covers. “A lot of weird things have happened on Geary Street,” Finley says. (Manhole 452 specifically points out the former location of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple.) “It’s a really interesting San Francisco street, and a pretty ugly street, too.”

Soon after, the pair wrote a script based on actual stories that they’d dug up, interwoven with a character they imagined as their narrator: a man who’d had a manhole blow under his car while he was driving down Geary, forcing him to take the bus — and to question the stability of his surroundings.

“A lot of our work deals with inexplicable, unpredictable random events and the relationship of personal will to those random events: how do you confront an event of that nature, and move through it? And as you move on, how do you take it with you?” Finley explains.

Adds Muse, “We tend to try and make free-floating anxieties explicit and real, and give them shape. In this case, it’s the street: the street is a surface, it’s a membrane, it’s porous and delicate. At any moment that membrane could be torn away, and the fragility of everything is suddenly exposed. We thought about that metaphor a lot — the surface of the street as barely protecting us from what’s underneath.” *

“CULTS, MANHOLES, AND SLIDE RAIL RIDERS”

Feb. 17, 2:45pm; Feb. 19, 7:15pm, $12

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St, SF

www.sfindie.com

Buy me love

Andrew Lam
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0
Buy me love

caitlin@sfbg.com

STREET SEEN You are welcome to spend Valentine’s Day as I will this year: corralled onto a dark dancefloor with 200 similar atheists in the face of the love goddess. But as many of you will be happily celebrating with partners (hiss!), I’ve assembled this four-pack of completely locally-made Valentine’s Day gifts. You’re welcome (pfft.)

TOURANCE FAKE FUR RABBIT ROBE, $178

You can’t get more luxe than this without killing something, and unless it’s vintage, I find artifacts of animal death incredibly unsexy. Tourance makes all its faux fur right here in the city, so if your Valentine isn’t much for Hef wear, check out the line’s vests in faux fox and mink, and its throw blankets modeled on chinchilla fuzz or inspired by mane of lion. Highly recommended for those of us too embarrassed by the word “snuggle” to ever ask to be embraced — nuzzling comes naturally when you just unwrapped the softest garment known to personkind.

www.tourance.com

 

RECCHIUTI’S CREATIVITY EXPLORED DOG ART CHOCOLATES, $21

 

Guardian photo by Caitlin Donohue

I am not a fan of gifting chocolates on V-Day to anyone but the most perfunctory recipient (the sweet woman who lives above you, the office manager, one’s priest.) That being said, it is possible to make a case for the originality of this four-pack of burnt caramel bites. The foursome is only available at Recchiuti’s Dogpatch shop, which is tucked into the flank of the factory where the chocolates are made (next to the company’s super-fly Chocolate Lab café, which is doing two dinner seatings for a special Feb. 14 menu.) The doggie designs were born as art made by developmentally-disabled adults at community gallery Creativity Explored, an echo of the for-sale exhibition you’ll find behind Recchiuti’s cash register. And in addition to all these things: doggies. People love those guys.

807 22nd St., SF. (415) 826-2868, www.recchiuti.com

VARIANCE OBJECTS HARNESS, PRICES START AT $240/SET

Why does BDSM fashion have to be so damn obvious? Everybody knows you’re there to be roughed up, do we really need to drop hundreds of dollars on the same industrially-accessorized black patent leather that everyone’s wearing? I love Variance Object’s founder Nicole Rimedio for making beaded bondage gear for your kinky-yet-discreet angel. “I love the idea that I may be wearing a rope to bind my lover’s body, but that most everyone else thinks is just an onyx necklace,” Rimedio told me in an email. The line includes pieces strung with super-strong cord that can be worn around the calves, looped underneath the crotch, or tied around wrists. Most everything is modular, for versatility/variety’s sake.

www.varianceobjects.com

SF BEER WEEK, PRICES VARY

 

Photo via Yelp

Although you will get side-eyed by many Valentines if you suggest that a bottle of Miller High Life is an adequate way to celebrate Cupid’s aim, warm fuzzies while boozing are still totally possible. Per usual, V-Day falls in the thick of the Bay Area’s marquee week for gourmet brew events, SF Beer Week. So take your low-key, suds-loving babe to Thirsty Bear’s $20-25 “Chocolate, Beer, and Cupid” night to sip coco-vanilla cask ale while making your own chocolates (feel free to bring your boo’s favorite aphrodisiac throw-in for xxxtra points.) Also happening on Feb. 14: sweet and sour beer pairings at The Monk’s Kettle, four limited release brews on tap, with sweet bites from Socola Chocolatier at Speakeasy Brewery’s newly-opened, Kelly Malone-designed tap room. Elixir, Noc Noc, the Sycamore, Rosamunde’s Mission location, La Trappe, and Blackbird are all doing V-Day Beer Week specials as well.

Various Bay Area locations, www.sfbeerweek.org

 

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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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.

INDIEFEST

The 15th San Francisco Independent Film Festival runs Feb 7-21 at the Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; the Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; and the Vortex Room, 1082 Howard, SF. For complete schedule and tickets (most shows $12), visit www.sfindie.com. For commentary, see "Muppets, Manholes, and Mayhem" and "Short Takes."

OPENING

Identity Thief When Melissa McCarthy steals Jason Bateman’s identity, this movie happens. (1:25) Four Star, Marina.

John Dies at the End See "Weird Tales." (1:40) California, Embarcadero.

Shanghai Calling Hotshot lawyer Sam Chao (Daniel Henney) is his NYC firm’s top choice to be their man in Shanghai — much to his chagrin, since he puts the American in Chinese American. But off to the bustling, rapidly-expanding city he goes, knowing exactly only one word of Chinese ("fart"), and a classic fish-out-of-water comedy follows. His first day on the job, he bungles a billion-dollar deal, and spends the rest of the movie trying to set things right for his prickly client (Alan Ruck) — with the help of his ambitious assistant (Zhu Zhu), a perky relocation expert (Eliza Coupe), a fried-chicken mogul who runs an American-style bar (Bill Paxton), and a reporter who goes by the improbable moniker of "Awesome Wang" (Geng Le). Along the way, of course, he does some personal soul-searching, realizing there’s more to life than fancy-restaurant reservations and a high-stakes career. Writer-director Daniel Hsia’s Shanghai Calling doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s an undeniably entertaining tale of culture clash, backed up by an appealing cast to boot. (1:40) Presidio. (Eddy)

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 Magic Mike. (1:30) California, Presidio. (Chun)

Top Gun 3D MAVERICK! (1:50)

West of Memphis See "West Memphis Blues." (2:26) Embarcadero.

ONGOING

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) Albany, Embarcadero, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Argo If you didn’t know the particulars of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, you won’t be an expert after Argo, but the film does a good job of capturing America’s fearful reaction to the events that followed it — particularly the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran. Argo zeroes in on the fate of six embassy staffers who managed to escape the building and flee to the home of the sympathetic Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Back in Washington, short-tempered CIA agents (including a top-notch Bryan Cranston) cast about for ways to rescue them. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs), exfil specialist and father to a youngster wrapped up in the era’s sci-fi craze. While watching 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with what Cranston’s character calls "the best bad idea we have:" the CIA will fund a phony Canadian movie production (corny, intergalactic, and titled Argo) and pretend the six are part of the crew, visiting Iran for a few days on a location shoot. Tony will sneak in, deliver the necessary fake-ID documents, and escort them out. Neither his superiors, nor the six in hiding, have much faith in the idea. ("Is this the part where we say, ‘It’s so crazy it just might work?’" someone asks, beating the cliché to the punch.) Argo never lets you forget that lives are at stake; every painstakingly forged form, every bluff past a checkpoint official increases the anxiety (to the point of being laid on a bit thick by the end). But though Affleck builds the needed suspense with gusto, Argo comes alive in its Hollywood scenes. As the show-biz veterans who mull over Tony’s plan with a mix of Tinseltown cynicism and patiotic duty, John Goodman and Alan Arkin practically burst with in-joke brio. I could have watched an entire movie just about those two. (2:00) Balboa, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Beasts of the Southern Wild A year after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting. Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. But not all is well: when "the storm" floods the land, the holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate. With its elements of magic, mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology, Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. (1:31) New Parkway, Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Beware of Mr. Baker This mesmerizing bio-doc about volatile, wildly talented drummer Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith) begins with the 70-something musician clocking director Jay Bulger in the face. After this opening, Bulger — who also wrote a deeply compelling article about Baker for Rolling Stone last year — wisely pulls himself out of the narrative, instead turning to a wealth of new interviews (with Baker, his trademark red locks faded to gray, and many of his musical and personal partners, including Eric Clapton and multiple ex-Mrs. Bakers), vintage performance footage, and artful animation to weave his tale. Baker’s colorfully-lived, improbably long life has been literally all over the map; he overcame a hardscrabble British childhood to find jazz and rock stardom, and along the way jammed with Fela Kuti in Nigeria (where he picked up his fierce love of polo), broke many hearts (his own kids’ among them) and lost multiple fortunes, spent a stint in the US, and eventually landed at his current farm in South Africa. Two constants: his musical genius, and his frustratingly jerky behavior — the consequence of a naturally prickly personality exacerbated by copious drug use and bitterness. A must-see for musicians and those who love them. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Bullet to the Head Not to be mistaken for the John Woo passion play, this head wound of a revenge flick instead pits a hired assassin (Sylvester Stallone) against an outsider cop (Sung Kang), the corroded action star who emerged from the thicket of ’70s Italian American iconic actors against a smooth-faced Asian American indie actor associated with the Fast and Furious franchise. Sly’s James Bonomo and his partner have been set up by a set of tepid bad guys (Oz fave Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, here sleep-raging his way through Bullet; a very unpumped Christian Slater; and Jason Momoa, who glowers like he’s still playing a warlord on Game of Thrones). So Bonomo and Kang’s Taylor Kwon — the former’s got the brawn, the latter’s got the smartphone with access to criminal databases — must reluctantly team up to mete out some kind of justice. Yawn. The uninspired oh-so-gritty camera effects don’t help matters when it comes to staving off the sleepies induced by this tired enterprise — director Walter Hill certainly seems to have succumbed to the big snooze. The only real fun to be gleaned here is in watching your random, uh, ax fight and studying the Stallone’s weirdly crumbling yet inert rubble of face, which almost seems to scream to us about — yo, not Adrian, but the ravages of age, surgery, and excess. (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western homage features a cameo by the original Django (Franco Nero, star of the 1966 film), and solid performances by a meticulously assembled cast, including Jamie Foxx as the titular former slave who becomes a badass bounty hunter under the tutelage of Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing the evil yet befuddlingly delightful Nazi Hans Landa in Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds, is just as memorable (and here, you can feel good about liking him) as a quick-witted, quick-drawing wayward German dentist. There are no Nazis in Django, of course, but Tarantino’s taboo du jour (slavery) more than supplies motivation for the filmmaker’s favorite theme (revenge). Once Django joins forces with Schultz, the natural-born partners hatch a scheme to rescue Django’s still-enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), whose German-language skills are as unlikely as they are convenient. Along the way (and it’s a long way; the movie runs 165 minutes), they encounter a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose main passion is the offensive, shocking "sport" of "Mandingo fighting," and his right-hand man, played by Tarantino muse Samuel L. Jackson in a transcendently scandalous performance. And amid all the violence and racist language and Foxx vengeance-making, there are many moments of screaming hilarity, as when a character with the Old South 101 name of Big Daddy (Don Johnson) argues with the posse he’s rounded up over the proper construction of vigilante hoods. It’s a classic Tarantino moment: pausing the action so characters can blather on about something trivial before an epic scene of violence. Mr. Pink would approve. (2:45) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Gangster Squad It’s 1949, and somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a man has been tied hand and foot to a pair of automobiles with the engines running. Coyotes pace in the background like patrons queuing up for a table at Flour + Water, and when dinner is served, the presentation isn’t very pretty. We’re barely five minutes into Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and fair warning has been given of the bloodletting to come. None of it’s quite as visceral as the opening scene, but Fleischer (2009’s Zombieland) packs his tale of urban warfare with plenty of stylized slaughter to go along with the glamour shots of mob-run nightclubs, leggy pin-curled dames, and Ryan Gosling lounging at the bar cracking wise. At the center of all the gunplay and firebombing is what’s framed as a battle for the soul of Los Angeles, waged between transplanted Chicago mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — who wields terms like "progress" and "manifest destiny" as a rationale for a continental turf war — and a police sergeant named John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), tasked with bringing down Cohen’s empire. The assignment requires working under cover so deep that only the police chief (Nick Nolte) and the handpicked members of O’Mara’s "gangster squad" — ncluding Gosling, a half-jaded charmer who poaches Cohen’s arm candy (Emma Stone) — know of its existence. This leaves plenty of room for improvisation, and the film pauses now and again to wonder about what happens when you pit brutal amorality against brutal morality, but it’s a rhetorical question, and no one shows much interest in it. Dragged down by talking points that someone clearly wanted wedged in (as well as by O’Mara’s ponderous voice-overs), the film does better when it abandons gravitas and refocuses on spinning its mythic tale of wilder times in the Golden State. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters So here’s something you may not have been wondering: what exactly happened to Hansel and Gretel after they killed the gingerbread-house witch and made their way to freedom? Did they really live happily ever after? Did they land in the foster care system? Did they enter adulthood bearing the deep psychic wounds a person might well suffer after shoving a living creature into an oven and listening to her agonized howls as she burned alive? Or did they realize they’d discovered their life’s vocation without even having to complete the Myers-Briggs test? Shutting his eyes and pointing at random, director and screenplay cowriter Tommy Wirkola (2009’s Dead Snow) chooses the latter scenario, keeping his eyes closed to stab out some weak dialogue and half a plot for a script that leans heavily on the power of 3D technology to send eviscerated-witch guts and other biological shrapnel flying toward the eyeballs of audience members. Hansel (why, Jeremy Renner?) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) have grown up to share the intense sibling bond and wandering ways you might expect from a brother and sister abandoned at a tender age to starve and be rent limb from limb by wild animals. They’ve also taken full advantage of a niche witch-slaying market in and around the gloomy forest where they made their first kill. When they’re hired to track down a particularly loathsome practitioner of the dark arts (Famke Janssen) who’s been snatching up local children, multidimensional mayhem ensues. Arterton’s Gretel is pretty much a badass and the brains of the operation, while Renner’s Hansel is more of a strong, silent, and occasionally shit-faced type. Neither makes for a particularly memorable protagonist, but that flat look on their faces could just be disappointment or boredom with the material. (1:41) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Make no mistake: the Lord of the Rings trilogy represented an incredible filmmaking achievement, with well-deserved Oscars handed down after the third installment in 2003. If director Peter Jackson wanted to go one more round with J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved characters for a Hobbit movie, who was gonna stop him? Not so fast. This return to Middle-earth (in 3D this time) represents not one but three films — which would be self-indulgent enough even if part one didn’t unspool at just under three hours, and even if Jackson hadn’t decided to shoot at 48 frames per second. (I can’t even begin to explain what that means from a technical standpoint, but suffice to say there’s a certain amount of cinematic lushness lost when everything is rendered in insanely crystal-clear hi-def.) Journey begins as Bilbo Baggins (a game, funny Martin Freeman) reluctantly joins Gandalf (a weary-seeming Ian McKellan) and a gang of dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen homeland and treasure, batting Orcs, goblins, Gollum (Andy Serkis), and other beasties along the way. Fan-pandering happens (with characters like Cate Blanchett’s icy Galadriel popping in to remind you how much you loved LOTR), and the story moves at a brisk enough pace, but Journey never transcends what came before — or in the chronology of the story, what comes after. I’m not quite ready to declare this Jackson’s Phantom Menace (1999), but it’s not an unfair comparison to make, either. (2:50) Metreon, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Impossible Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (2007’s The Orphanage) directs The Impossible, a relatively modestly-budgeted take on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on the real story of a Spanish family who experienced the disaster. Here, the family (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, three young sons) is British, on a Christmas vacation from dad’s high-stress job in Japan. Beachy bliss is soon ruined by that terrible series of waves; they hit early in the film, and Bayona offers a devastatingly realistic depiction of what being caught in a tsunami must feel like: roaring, debris-filled water threatening death by drowning, impalement, or skull-crushing. And then, the anguish of surfacing, alive but injured, stranded, and miles from the nearest doctor, not knowing if your family members have perished. Without giving anything away (no more than the film’s suggestive title, anyway), once the survivors are established (and the film’s strongest performer, Watts, is relegated to hospital-bed scenes) The Impossible finds its way inevitably to melodrama, and triumph-of-the-human-spirit theatrics. As the family’s oldest son, 16-year-old Tom Holland is effective as a kid who reacts exactly right to crisis, morphing from sulky teen to thoughtful hero — but the film is too narrowly focused on its tourist characters, with native Thais mostly relegated to background action. It’s a disconnect that’s not quite offensive, but is still off-putting. (1:54) Metreon, Presidio, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

The Last Stand With gun control issues dominating the news, what better time to release a movie that lovingly glorifies the wonders of excessive firepower? Fortunately for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his return to leading-man status after that little fling with politics, The Last Stand is stupidly enjoyable enough to make any such PC-minded realizations relatively fleeing ones. When a Mexican drug lord (who also happens to be an expert race-car driver) escapes from federal custody and begins speeding home in a super-Corvette, the lead FBI agent (Forest Whitaker, slumming big-time) realizes his only hope is a teeny Arizona border town that happens to be overseen by Sheriff Schwarzenegger. (Other residents include a couple of hapless deputies; an Iraq war vet; and a gun nut played by a cartoonishly obnoxious Johnny Knoxville.) Can this ragtag crew hold off first the drug lord’s advance team (led by a swaggering Peter Stormare), and then the head baddie himself? Duh. The biggest surprise The Last Stand offers is that it’s actually pretty fun — no doubt thanks to the combo of Korean director Kim Jee-woon (2008’s eccentric The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; 2003’s spooky A Tale of Two Sisters) and the heft of Schwarzenegger’s still-potent charisma. (1:47) Metreon. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s "unfilmable" novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, New Parkway, SF Center. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

LUV Baltimore native Sheldon Candis drew from his own childhood for this coming-of-age tale, which takes place in a single day as 11-year-old "little man" Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) tags along with his uncle, Vincent (Common), recently out of jail and rapidly heading back down the criminal path. With both parents out of the picture, Woody’s been raised by his grandmother (Lonette McKee), so he idolizes Vincent even though it’s soon clear the short-tempered man is no hero. Of course, things go horribly awry, bloody lessons are learned, tears are shed, etc. Despite the story’s autobiographical origins, the passable LUV suffers greatly by inviting comparisons to The Wire — the definitive docudrama examining drug crime in Baltimore. Most blatantly, sprinkled into an all-star cast (Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton) are supporting characters played by Wire icons Michael K. "Omar" Williams (as a cop) and Anwan "Slim Charles" Glover (as a meaner Slim Charles, basically). Perhaps if you’ve never seen the show this wouldn’t be distracting — but if that’s the case, you should really be watching The Wire instead of LUV anyway. (1:34) New Parkway. (Eddy)

Mama From bin Laden to wild babes in woods, Jessica Chastain can’t seem to grab a break. Equipped with just the bare outlines of a character, however, she’s one of the few pleasures in this missed-opportunity of a grim, ghostly fairy tale. Expanding his short of the same name, director Andres Muschietti kicks off his yarn on a sadly familiar note in these days of seemingly escalating gun violence: little sisters Victoria and Lily have disappeared from their home, shortly after their desperate father (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has gone on a shooting spree. They repair to an abandoned cabin scattered with mid-century modern furniture. Five years on, the girls’ scruffy artist uncle Lucas (also Coster-Waldau) is still searching for them, supported by his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The little girls lost are finally found by trackers — and they appear to be hopelessly feral, with the angelic-looking Victoria (Megan Charpentier), acting as the ringleader and the younger, bedraggled Lily (Maya Dawe) given to sleeping under beds and eating on all fours next to the dog bowl. The arty couple take them in and move into a "test house" provided by the sisters’ enthralled therapist (Daniel Kash), obviously psyched to study not one but two Kaspar Hausers. The traumatized kids are clearly haunted by their experience — in more ways than one — as inexplicable bumps go off, night and day, and Misfits t-shirt-clad Annabel discovers the real meaning of goth while getting in touch with her seemingly deeply buried maternal urges. Unfortunately, despite possessing the raw material for a truly scary outing that plunges to the core of our primal instincts (what’s scarier than an unsocialized kid that’s capable of anything?) and showing off Muschietti’s occasional instances of cinematic flair (as when multiple rooms are shown using split-screens), Mama ends up running away from the filmmaker and is finally simply spoiled by its mawkishly sentimental finale. It doesn’t help that the inadequate script sports logic holes that a mama could drive a truck though. (1:40) California, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Les Misérables There is a not-insignificant portion of the population who already knows all the words to all the songs of this musical-theater warhorse, around since the 1980s and honored here with a lavish production by Tom Hooper (2010’s The King’s Speech). As other reviews have pointed out, this version only tangentially concerns Victor Hugo’s French Revolution tale; its true raison d’être is swooning over the sight of its big-name cast crooning those famous tunes. Vocals were recorded live on-set, with microphones digitally removed in post-production — but despite this technical achievement, there’s a certain inorganic quality to the proceedings. Like The King’s Speech, the whole affair feels spliced together in the Oscar-creation lab. The hardworking Hugh Jackman deserves the nomination he’ll inevitably get; jury’s still out on Anne Hathaway’s blubbery, "I cut my hair for real, I am so brave!" performance. (2:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Movie 43 (1:37) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Searching for Sugar Man The tale of the lost, and increasingly found, artist known as Rodriguez seems to have it all: the mystery and drama of myth, beginning with the singer-songwriter’s stunning 1970 debut, Cold Fact, a neglected folk rock-psychedelic masterwork. (The record never sold in the states, but somehow became a beloved, canonical LP in South Africa.) The story goes on to parse the cold, hard facts of vanished hopes and unpaid royalties, all too familiar in pop tragedies. In Searching for Sugar Man, Swedish documentarian Malik Bendjelloul lays out the ballad of Rodriguez as a rock’n’roll detective story, with two South African music lovers in hot pursuit of the elusive musician — long-rumored to have died onstage by either self-immolation or gunshot, and whose music spoke to a generation of white activists struggling to overturn apartheid. By the time Rodriguez himself enters the narrative, the film has taken on a fairy-tale trajectory; the end result speaks volumes about the power and longevity of great songwriting. (1:25) New Parkway. (Chun)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated" If you caught Wreck-It Ralph, nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, you’ve already seen John Kahrs’ Paperman, about a junior Mad Men type who bumbles through his pursuit of a lovely fellow office drone he spots on his commute. Or, if you saw Ice Age: Continental Drift, you’ve seen Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, starring Homer and Marge’s wee one as she grapples with the social order at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Among the stand-alones, Minkyu Lee’s Adam and Dog features a quick appearance by Eve, too, but the star is really the scrappy canine who gallops through prehistory playing the world’s first game of fetch with his hairy master. Two minutes is all PES (nom de screen of Adam Pesapane) needs to make Fresh Guacamole — which depicts grenades, dice, and other random objects as most unusual ingredients. The only non-US entry, UK director Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels, is about an elderly married couple whose relationship has deteriorated to the point where they (literally) no longer see eye to eye on anything. The program is rounded out by three more non-Oscar-nominated animated shorts: Britain’s The Gruffalo’s Child, featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane; French art-thief caper Dripped; and New Zealand’s sci-fi tale Abiogenesis. (1:28) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentary" (3:29) Opera Plaza.

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Live Action" (1:54) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

Parker (1:58) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

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) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Rabbi’s Cat A rabbi, a Muslim musician, two Russians (a Jew and a boozy Christian), and two talking animals hop into an antique Citroën for a road trip across Africa. No, it’s not the set-up for a joke; it’s the premise for this charming animated film, adapted from Joann Sfar’s graphic novel (the author co-directs with Antoine Delesvaux). In 1930s Algiers, a rabbi’s pet cat suddenly develops the ability to talk — and read and write, by the way — and wastes no time in sharing opinions, particularly when it comes to religion ("God is just a comforting invention!") When a crate full of Russian prayer books — and one handsome artist — arrives at the rabbi’s house, man and cat are drawn into the refugee’s search for an Ethiopian city populated by African Jews. Though it’s not suitable for younger kids (there’s kitty mating, and a few bursts of surprising violence) or diehard Tintin fans (thanks to a randomly cranky spoof of the character), The Rabbi’s Cat is a lushly illustrated, witty tale of cross-cultural clashes and connections. Rockin’ soundtrack, too. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Rust and Bone Unlike her Dark Knight Rises co-star Anne Hathaway, Rust and Bone star Marion Cotillard never seems like she’s trying too hard to be sexy, or edgy, or whatever (plus, she already has an Oscar, so the pressure’s off). Here, she’s a whale trainer at a SeaWorld-type park who loses her legs in an accident, which complicates (but ultimately strengthens) her relationship with Ali (Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, so tremendous in 2011’s Bullhead), a single dad trying to make a name for himself as a boxer. Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to 2009’s A Prophet gets a bit overwrought by its last act, but there’s an emotional authenticity in the performances that makes even a ridiculous twist (like, the kind that’ll make you exclaim "Are you fucking kidding me?") feel almost well-earned. (2:00) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Sessions Polio has long since paralyzed the body of Berkeley poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) from the neck down. Of course his mind is free to roam — but it often roams south of the personal equator, where he hasn’t had the same opportunities as able-bodied people. Thus he enlists the services of Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a professional sex surrogate, to lose his virginity at last. Based on the real-life figures’ experiences, this drama by Australian polio survivor Ben Lewin was a big hit at Sundance this year (then titled The Surrogate), and it’s not hard to see why: this is one of those rare inspirational feel-good stories that doesn’t pander and earns its tears with honest emotional toil. Hawkes is always arresting, but Hunt hasn’t been this good in a long time, and William H. Macy is pure pleasure as a sympathetic priest put in numerous awkward positions with the Lord by Mark’s very down-to-earth questions and confessions. (1:35) 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) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon. (Ben Richardson)

Sound City Dave Grohl adds "documentary director" to his ever-lengthening resume with this tribute to the SoCal recording studio, where the grimy, funky décor was offset by a row of platinum records lining its hallway, marking in-house triumphs by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Neil Young, and others (even, yep, Rick Springfield). Top acts and producers (many of whom appear in the doc to dish and reminisce) were lured in by a unique recording console, installed in the early 1970s, whose legend grew with every new hit it helped engineer. Despite its reputation as a hit factory — and the attraction of its laid-back vibe and staff — old-school Sound City began to struggle once the highly-polished sound of digital technology overtook the music industry. That is, until Grohl and Nirvana recorded Nevermind there, keeping the studio alive until the unstoppable march of Pro Tools hammered the final nails in. Or did it? Sound City‘s final third follows Grohl’s purchase of the studio’s iconic console ("A piece of rock ‘n’ roll history," he proclaims, though he installs it in a swanky refurbished space) and the recording of an album featuring luminaries from the studio’s past … plus Paul McCartney. The resulting doc is nostalgic, sure, but insider-y enough to entertain fans of classic rock, or at least anyone who’s ever sneered at a drum machine. (1:46) Roxie. (Eddy)

Stand Up Guys Call it oldster pop, call it geriatricore, just don’t call it late for its meds. With the oncoming boomer elder explosion, we can Depends — har-dee-har-har — on the fact that action-crime thrillers-slash-comedies like 2010’s Red, 2012’s Robot and Frank, and now Stand Up Guys are just the vanguard of an imminent barrage of grumpy old pros locking and loading, grousing about their angina, and delivering wisdom with a dose of hard-won levity. As handled by onetime teen-comedy character actor Fisher Stevens, Stand Up Guys is a warm, worthy addition to that soon-to-be-well-populated pantheon. It grows on you as you spend time with it — much like the two aging reprobates at its core, Val (Al Pacino) and Doc (Christopher Walken). Val, the proverbial stand-up guy who took the fall for the rest of his gang, has just completed a 25-year-plus stint in the pen. There to meet him is his only pal, and former partner in crime, Doc, who has been leading a humble life but has one last hit to commit for their old boss Claphands (Mark Margolis), who’s inexplicably named after a Tom Waits song. Sex, drugs, and some Viagra commercial-esque bluesy guitars are in order, but first Val and Doc must find their drive, in the form of their old driver buddy Hirsch (Alan Arkin), who they break out of a rest home, and, perhaps, their moral compass, which arrives with the discovery of a victim (Vanessa Ferlito) of baddies much less couth than themselves. The pleasure comes with following these stand-up guys as they make that leap from craven self-preservation to heroism, which might seem implausible to some. But to the cast’s, and Stevens’s, credit, they make it work — and even give the sentiment-washed finale a swashbuckling buddy-movie romanticism, the kind that a young Tarantino might dislike and an older Tarantino would be loathe to begrudge his lovable louses. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

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) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of "realness" that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that "America does not torture." (The "any more" goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or "CIA black sites" in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations ("KSM" for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon ("tradecraft") without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. "Washington says she’s a killer," a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Out of place

Andrew Lam
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414

news@sfbg.com 

In his State of the City address last week, Mayor Ed Lee cheerfully characterized San Francisco as “the new gravitational center of Silicon Valley.” He touted tech-sector job creation. “We have truly become the innovation capital of the world,” Lee said, “home to 1,800 tech companies with more than 42,000 employees — and growing every day.”

From a purely economic standpoint, San Francisco is on a steady climb. But not all residents share the mayor’s rosy outlook. Shortly after Lee’s speech, renowned local author Rebecca Solnit published her own view of San Francisco’s condition in the London Review of Books. Zeroing in on the Google Bus as a symbol of the city’s housing affordability crisis, she linked the influx of high-salaried tech workers to soaring housing costs. With rents trending skyward, she pointed out, the dearth of affordable housing is escalating a shift in the city’s cultural fabric.

“All this is changing the character of what was once a great city of refuge for dissidents, queers, pacifists and experimentalists,” Solnit wrote. “It has become increasingly unaffordable over the past quarter-century, but still has a host of writers, artists, activists, environmentalists, eccentrics and others who don’t work sixty-hour weeks for corporations — though we may be a relic population.”

LIMITED OPTIONS

The issue of housing in San Francisco is highly emotional, and there is perhaps no greater flashpoint in the charged debate than Ellis Act evictions.

When the housing market bounces upward, Ellis Act evictions tend to hit long-term tenants whose monthly payments, protected by rent control, are a comparative bargain. Even if they’ve submitted every payment on time and upheld every lease obligation for 20 years, these renters can find themselves in the bind of being forced out.

And they don’t just lose their homes; often they lose their community. San Francisco has become so expensive that many Ellis Act victims are tossed out of this city for good.

Enacted in 1986, the state law allows a landlord to stop renting units, evict all tenants, and sell the building for another purpose. Originally construed as a way for landlords to “go out of business” and move into their properties, the Ellis Act instead gained notoriety as a driving force behind a wave of evictions that slammed San Francisco during the tech boom of the late 90s. Between 1986 and 1995, just 29 Ellis evictions were filed with the San Francisco Rent Board; in the 1999-2000 fiscal year alone, that number ballooned to a staggering 440.

Under the current tech heyday, there are indications that Ellis Act evictions are gaining fresh momentum. The San Francisco Rent Board recorded 81 this past fiscal year, more than double that of the previous year, and there appears to be an upward trend.

TIC CONTROVERSY

Buildings cleared via the Ellis Act are typically repackaged as tenancies-in-common (TIC), where several buyers jointly purchase a multi-unit residence and each occupy one unit. Realtors often market TICs as a path to homeownership for moderate-income individuals, creating an incentive for buyers to enter into risky, high-interest shared mortgages in hopes of later converting to condos with more attractive financing.

The divide between TIC owners and renters came into sharp focus at a contentious Jan. 28 hearing, when a Board of Supervisors committee met to consider legislation that would allow some 2,000 TIC units to immediately convert to condos without having to wait their turn in a requisite lottery system.

One TIC owner said he was financially burdened, but had only entered into the arrangement because “I wanted to stay here and raise my family, but we couldn’t afford a single family home.” Yet tenants brought their own set of concerns to the table, saying the temptation to create TICs was putting a major dent in the city’s finite stock of rent-controlled units — the single greatest source of affordable housing in San Francisco.

“My feeling is, let’s stop doing TICs,” Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a tenants right activist with the Housing Rights Committee, told the Guardian following the hearing. “The city has to just start making sure that the condos that are built are the kind of thing [TIC buyers] can afford. Instead, we cannibalize our rental stock? That’s a reasonable way? You evict one group of people to house another: How does that make sense?”

The grueling five-hour hearing illustrated the sad fact that San Franciscans in a slightly better economic position were being pitted against economically disadvantaged renters. The two groups were bitterly divided, and all seemed weary, furious, and frustrated by their housing situations.

The condo-conversion legislation, co-sponsored by Sups. Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell, did not move forward that day. Instead, Board President David Chiu made a motion to table the discussion until Feb. 25, to provide time for “an intensive negotiation process.” Chiu, who rents his home, added: “While I myself would like to become a homeowner someday … I do not support the legislation in its current form.”

Sup. Jane Kim sought to appeal to the tenants as well as the TIC owners. “It’s very tragic that we have set up a situation where [TICs and renters] are pitted against one another,” she said. She hinted at what a possible alternative to might look like. “We should be looking at a ban of scale,” she said. “If we allow 1,800 potential units to go thru this year, are we willing to do a freeze for the next 8 to 10 years?”

It’s unclear what will happen in the next few weeks, but if this legislation makes it back to the full board in some form, the swing votes are expected to be Sups. London Breed, Malia Cohen and Norman Yee.

CASH OR EVICTION?

New protections were enacted following the late-90s frenzy to discourage real-estate speculators from using the Ellis Act to turn a profit on the backs of vulnerable seniors or disabled tenants. Yet a new wave of investors has discovered they can persuade tenants to leave voluntarily, simply by offering buyouts while simultaneously wielding the threat of an Ellis Act eviction. “The process got more sophisticated,” explains San Francisco Rent Board Deputy Director Robert Collins.

Once a tenant has accepted a check in lieu of eviction, rent-controlled units can be converted to market rate, or refurbished and sold as pricey condos, without the legal hindrances of an eviction blemish. Buyouts aren’t recorded with the Rent Board, and the agency has no real guidance for residents faced with this particular dilemma. “We don’t have the true number on buyouts,” says Mecca. “We don’t know how many people have left due to intimidation.”

Identity-wise, renters impacted by the Ellis Act defy categorization. A contingent of monolingual Chinese residents rallied outside City Hall recently to oppose legislation they believed would give rise to evictions; in the Mission, many targeted tenants are Latinos who primarily speak Spanish. From working immigrants, to aging queer activists, to disabled seniors, to idealists banding together in collective houses, the affected tenants do have one thing in common. When landlords or real-estate speculators perceive that their homes are more valuable unoccupied, their lives are susceptible to being upended by forces beyond their control.

The upshot of San Francisco’s affordability crisis is a cultural blow for a city traditionally regarded as tolerant, forward thinking, and progressive. In the words of Rose Eger, a musician who faces an Ellis Act eviction from her apartment of 19 years, “it changes the face of who San Francisco is.

Out of the Castro

By Tim Redmond

You can’t get much more Castro than Jeremy Mykaels. The 62-year old moved to the neighborhood in the early 1970s, fleeing raids at gay bars in Denver. He played in a rock band, worked at the old Jaguar Books, watched the rise of Harvey Milk, saw the neighborhood transform and made it his home.

He’s lived in a modest apartment on Noe Street for 17 years, and for the past 11 has been living with AIDS. Rent control has made it possible for Mykaels, who survives on disability payments, to remain in this city, in his community, close to the doctors at Davis Hospital who, he believes, have saved his life.

And now he’s going to have to leave.

In the spring of 2011, his longtime landlords sold the building to a real-estate investment group based in Union City — and the new owners immediately sought to get rid of all the tenants. Two renters fled, knowing what was coming; Mykaels stuck around. In September of 2012, he was served with an eviction notice, filed under the state’s Ellis Act.

He’s a senior, he’s disabled, his friends are mostly dead and his life is in his community — but none of that matters. The Ellis Act has no exceptions.

Mykaels spent a fair amount of his life savings fixing up his place. The walls are beige, decorated with nice art. Dickens the cat, who is chocolate brown but looks black, wanders in and out of the small bedroom. Mykaels has been happy there and never wanted to leave; “this,” he told me, “is where I thought I would live the rest of my life.”

There’s no place in the Castro, or even the rest of the city, where he can afford to move. Small studios start at $2,500 a month, which would eat up all of his income. There is, quite literally, nowhere left for him to go.

“A lot of my friends have died, or moved to Palm Springs,” he said. “But this is where my doctors are and where I’m comfortable. I’m not going to find a support system like this anywhere else in the world.”

Mykaels is the face of San Francisco, 2013, a resident who is not part of the mayor’s grand vision for bringing development and high-paying jobs into the city. As far as City Hall is concerned, he’s collateral damage, someone whose life will have to be upended in the name of progress.

But Mykaels isn’t going easily. The former web designer has created a site — ellishurtsseniors.org — that lists not only his address (460 Noe) and the names of the new owners (Cuong Mai, William H. Young and John H. Du) but the addresses of dozens of other properties that are facing Ellis Act evictions. His message to potential buyers: Boycott.

“Do not buy properties where seniors or the disabled have been evicted for profit by real estate speculators using the Ellis Act,” the website states.

Mykaels is a demon researcher — his site is a guide to 31 properties with 94 units where seniors or disabled people are being evicted under the Ellis Act. In some cases, individuals or couples are filing the eviction papers, but at least 14 properties are owned by corporations or trusts.

Mai told me that he knew a disabled senior was living in the building when he and his two partners bought it, but he said his plan all along was to evict all the tenants and turn the three-unit place into a single-family house. He said he hasn’t decided yet whether to sell building; “I might decide to live there myself.” (Of course, if he wanted to live there himself, he wouldn’t need the Ellis Act.)

Mai said he “felt bad about the whole situation,” and he had offered to buy Mykaels out. The offer, however, wouldn’t have covered more than a few months of market rent anyplace else in the Castro.

By law, Mykaels can stay in his apartment until September. If he can’t stave off the eviction by then, San Francisco will lose another longtime member of the city community.

 

Dark days in the Inner Sunset

By Rebecca Bowe

The living room in Rose and Willie Eger’s Inner Sunset apartment is where Rose composes her songs and Willie unwinds after playing baseball in Golden Gate Park. Faded Beatles memorabilia and 45 records adorn the walls, and a prominently displayed poster of Jimi Hendrix looms above a row of guitar cases and an expansive record collection.

It’s a little worn and drafty, but the couple has called this 10th Ave. apartment home for 19 years. Now their lives are about to change. On Jan. 5, all the tenants in their eight-unit building received notice that an Ellis Act eviction proceeding had been filed against them.

“The music that I do is about social and political things,” explains Rose, dressed from head-to-toe in hot pink with a gray braid swinging down her back. Determined to derive inspiration from this whole eviction nightmare, she’s composing a song that plays with the phrase “tenants-in-common.”

Cindy Huff, the Egers’ upstairs neighbor, says she began worrying about the prospect of eviction when the property changed hands last summer. Realtor Elba Borgen, described as a “serial evictor” in online news stories because she’s used the Ellis Act to clear several other properties, purchased the apartment building last August, through a limited liability corporation. The notice of eviction landed in the mailbox less than six months later. (Borgen did not return Guardian calls seeking comment.)

“With the [average] rent being three times what most of us pay, there’s no way we can stay in the city,” Huff says. “The only option we would have is to move out of San Francisco.” She retired last year following a 33-year stint with UCSF’s human resources department. Now, facing the prospect of moving when she and her partner are on fixed incomes, she’s scouring job listings for part-time work.

The initial notice stated that every tenant had to vacate within 120 days, but several residents are working with advocates from the Housing Rights Committee in hopes of qualifying for extensions. Huff and the Egers are all in their fifties, but some tenants are seniors—including a 90-year-old Cuban woman who lives with her daughter, and has Alzheimer’s disease.

Willie works two days a week, and Rose is doing her best to get by with earnings from musical gigs. Both originally from New York City, they’ve lived in the city 35 years. When they first moved to the Sunset, it resembled something more like a working-class neighborhood, where families could raise kids. The recent tech boom has ushered in a transformation, one that Rose believes “changes the face of who San Francisco is.” Willie doesn’t mince words about the mess this eviction has landed them in. “I call it ‘Scam-Francisco,'” he says.

The trio recently joined tenant advocates in visiting Sup. Norman Yee, their district supervisor, to tell their stories. Yee, who is expected to be one of the swing votes on an upcoming debate about condo-conversion legislation vehemently opposed by tenant activists, reportedly listened politely but didn’t say much.

As for what the next few months have in store for the Egers? “I can’t really visualize the outcome,” Rose says. “I can only visualize the day-to-day fight. And that’s scary.”

 

Fighting for a home in the Mission

By Tim Redmond

Eleven years ago, Olga Pizarro fell in love with Ocean Beach. A native of Peru who was living in Canada, she visited the Bay Area, saw the water and decided she would never leave.

Fast forward to today and she’s built a home in the Mission, renting a small room in a basement flat on Folsom Street. The 55-year-old has lived in the building for eight years; polio has left her wearing a leg brace and she can’t climb stairs very well, but she still rides her bike to work at the Golden Gate Regional Center. She’s a sociologist by training; the walls in her room are lined with bookshelves, with hundreds of books in Spanish and English.

The place isn’t fancy, and it needs work, but it’s hard to find a ground-floor apartment in the Mission that’s affordable on a nonprofit worker’s salary. Since 2011, when she moved in, she and her three housemates have been protected by rent control. And Pizarro’s been happy; “I love the neighborhood,” she told me.

The letter warning of a pending eviction arrived Jan. 16. A new owner of the building wants to turn the place into tenancies in common and is prepared to throw everyone out under the Ellis Act. There’s no place else in town for Pizarro to go.

“I’ve looked and looked,” she said. “The cheapest places are $2,500 a month or more. Maybe I’ll have to move out of the city.”

Pizarro’s building is owned by Wai Ahead, LLC, a San Francisco partnership registered to Carol Wai and Sean Lundy. I couldn’t reach Wai or Lundy, but their attorney, Robert Sheppard, had plenty to say. “San Francisco is going the way of New York,” he told me. “Manhattan is full of co-ops that used to be rentals, and lower-income people are moving to Brooklyn and Queens. That’s happening here with Oakland and further out.” He argued that TICs, like co-ops, provide home-ownership opportunities for former renters.

Sheppard, who for years represented tenants in eviction cases, said the Ellis Act is law, and America is a capitalist country, and “as long as there is a private housing market, there will be shifts of people as the housing market shifts.” He agreed that it’s not good for lower-income people to lose their homes, but “the poor will always be hurt by a changing economy. It’s called evolution.”

Pizarro told me she’s shocked at how expensive housing has become in the Mission. “It’s gotten so gentrified,” she said. “People show up in their BMWs. It’s starting to feel very isolated.”

She’s fighting the eviction. “I didn’t intend it to be this way,” she explained. “I just want to live here.” Lacking any family in the area, the Mission has become her community — “and I’m frustrated by the violence of how expensive it is.”

 

Affordability goes out of style

By Rebecca Bowe

Hester Michael is a fashion designer, and her home doubles as a project space for creating patterns, sewing custom clothing, weaving cloth, and painting. She’s lived in her Outer Sunset two-bedroom unit for almost two decades, but now she faces an Ellis Act eviction. Michael says she initially received notice last June. The timing was awful -– that same month, her husband passed away after a long battle with terminal illness.

“I’ve been here 25 years. My friends are here, and my business. I don’t know where else to go, or what else to do,” she says. “I just couldn’t picture myself anywhere else.”

Michael rents the upstairs unit of a split single-family home, a kind of residence that normally isn’t protected by rent control. Yet she leased the property in 1994, getting in under the wire before that exemption took effect. Since she pays below-market-rate rent in a home that could be sold vacant for top dollar, a target was essentially inscribed on her back when the property changed hands in 2004. That’s about when her long battle with the landlords began, she says.

From the get-go, her landlords indicated that she should look for a new place, Michael says, yet she chose to remain. The years that followed brought things falling into disrepair, she says, and a string of events that caused her feel intimidated and to fear eviction. Finally, she consulted with tenant advocates and hired an attorney. A complaint filed in superior court alleges that the property owners “harassed and retaliated [Michael] when she complained about the defective and dangerous conditions …telling [her] to move out of the property if she did not like the dangerous conditions thereat … repeatedly making improper entries into [the] property, and wrongfully accusing [her] of causing problems.”

Records show that Angela Ng serves as attorney in fact for the property owner, Ringo Chung Wai Lee. Steven Adair MacDonald, an attorney who represents both landlords and tenants in San Francisco housing disputes, represents the owners. “An owner of a single family home where the rent is controlled and a fraction of market has virtually no other choice but to terminate the tenancy,” MacDonald said when the Guardian reached him by phone. “They’ve got to empty it, and the only way to empty it is the Ellis Act.”

While Michael received an extension that allows her to remain until June 5, she fears her custom sewing business, Hester’s Designs, will suffer if she has to move. There’s the issue of space. “I have so much stuff in this house,” she says. And most of her clients are currently located close by, so she doesn’t know where her business would come from if she had to relocate. “A lot of my clients don’t have cars,” she says, “so if I live in some suburb in the East Bay, forget it. I’ll lose my business.”

The prospect of eviction has created a major dilemma for Michael, who first moved to San Francisco in 1987. While moving to the East Bay seems untenable, she says renting in San Francisco feels out of reach. “People are renting out small, tiny bedrooms for the same price as I pay here,” she says. With a wry laugh, she adds: “I don’t think there’s any vacant apartments in San Francisco -– unless you’re a tech dude and make seven grand a month.”

Exploratorium Explainers educate while the city waits for new Pier 15 location

Andrew Lam
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The Exploratorium is in the middle of an epic move to its new home at Pier 15 — its new location is set to open April 17th at 330,000 square feet, five times the size of its former digs at the Palace of Fine Arts. But while staff is busy nesting the Explainers, the museum’s science-savvy youth docents, have been hard at work. The volunteers have been hosting pop-up exhibits around the city. Needing a science fix, I stopped by their event last week at the Tenderloin National Forest.

There are two kinds of Explainers: the diverse group of high school Explainers, the museum’s youngest paid employees who engage visitors at exhibits, lead demonstrations, and help run various museum operations. Field trip Explainers perform the same tasks, but as experienced young educators, take more leadership roles.

Both were present on the afternoon of Jan. 31, when I enter the Tenderloin National Forest. I’m greeted to the slice of urban wilderness by the familiar Exploratorium logo printed on black flags, and by lots of friendly folks in orange vests — the Explainers themselves, who had transformed this pocket of urban wilderness into a wonderland of interactive science exhibits. 

The first thing that catches my eye was a fruit and flower dissection demonstration, meant to teach about the various parts of a plant. Senior field trip explainer Kat Stiff asks the students, “does anyone know what a flower is made out of?” One boy in the back proudly shouts, “Cauliflower?” 

Most of the students seem more interested in the giant magnifying glasses on the table than the lesson. As I watch Stiff’s demonstration, a girl with a magnifying glass comes up to me and starts to sift through my hair with her newfound tool. I ask her if she spots anything and to which she responds, “yes. Hair.”

Across from the plant dissection workshop is the outdoor cart – which has gone with the Explainers to most of their recent events. The cart bears a poster illustrating different clouds, and a plastic soda bottle that helps you create your own cumulus formations. Before I can get started on my own personal sky, high school Explainers Zakiya Percy and Terrance Gee quiz me on my cloud knowledge.

What is a cloud made of? I should definitely know this… I know that water is involved… After I fail to pick up on their hints for the other two ingredients, they reveal that a change in pressure and the inclusion of dust particles is also necessary.

Gee does a demonstration for me. With about a half-cup of water at the bottom of the plastic liter soda bottle, he lights a match, blows it out, and places it upside-down over the opening of the bottle. He does this, he says, to add dust particles to the water. Gee caps the bottle, and I help by pumping air into it until it’s about to pop. He takes the cap off, and dollhouse-sized clouds float out. I am then quizzed again on what type of cloud we just made. The answer: fog, because of our low elevation.

As I head towards the back of the forest, Phanna Phay, a high school Explainer supervisor, is sitting down doing card tricks. Smack dab in the middle of the space is a brick oven where Explainers are helping kids heat up pizza donated by Inner Sunset favorite Arizmendi Bakery. All the way in the back, kids paint wooden veggie cut-outs, which will to be used to decorate the nearby Hotel Senator’s rooftop garden.

These pop-up Explainer exhibits have appeared at the Ferry Building and Civic Center farmer’s markets, and even aboard a ferry bound for Jack London Square.

Senior field trip explainer Lia Frantti tells me about these previous events. “We were doing our fruit and flower dissection [at the farmer’s market], so that people who are shopping for those fruits and vegetables can stop and think about where they are coming from and how they are growing. We were on the ferry boat talking about navigation and finding north.” 

When I ask Frantti about the benefits these pop-up exhibits have brought to the Exploratorium she explains, “it’s been really nice because people often put us in this hole of a children’s museum – which we’re not. Adults and children can definitely have an equally amazing experience at the Exploratorium. At some of the other spots we’ve been at, we have had more adults stopping by. So that has been a little bit different to have less youth and more adults spending time with us.”

Looking forward to the museum’s new digs? When it re-opens, the Exploratorium will have triple the exhibition space, and double the number of classrooms. Acclaimed San Francisco chef Loretta Keller of Bon Appétit will head a sidewalk café on the west side of the pier, and there will be a waterfront café on the east side. The event in the Tenderloin was the last full scale Explainer exhibit until the Exploratorium settles into its new space. But the group will be holding outdoor events featuring the plant dissection table, mainly along the Embarcadero.

Framing devices

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Framing devices

VISUAL ART Several recent, notable group exhibitions have me thinking a bit more actively about the roles curators play as artists in the shows they assemble. As much as DJs or editors, curators are present in their shows as artists, sometimes demurely, sometimes not.

As curator of the “Disrupt” two-person show at Highlight Gallery, Kelly Huang has shrewdly assembled a pair of artists whose work reinforces each other. Seen together, the paper-based works of London’s Marine Hugonnier and Cairo’s Taha Belal, create a kind of duet of interrelated working styles. Both artists use silkscreen to recast newspaper and magazine pages with intricate designs and blocks of color. Hugonnier tends to work in series, appropriating several consecutive days worth of front pages from the same newspaper during the course of pivotal political events, then blocking out images with bright primary colors in a way that recalls both Ellsworth Kelly and Piet Mondrian. Belal prefers delicate tiled pattern work overlaid on full color ads, applied in a way that confuses, heightens, and twists the intended message on the page. Through Sat/2, Highlight Gallery, 17 Kearny, SF; www.highlightgallery.com.

When a gallery with considerable reach decides to mount a thematic exhibition, it can be both impressive and almost unruly, as with Fraenkel Gallery’s sprawling “The Unphotographable” show, featuring images by Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, Richard Misrach, Glenn Ligon, Wolfgang Tillmans, Diane Arbus, and many others. Truthfully, there’s probably too much here, but there are several gems in the gallery, lightly organized to highlight attempted photographic captures of the sublime, the disembodied, the transcendent, and the elusive. The most potent works in the show — among them Gerhard Richter’s September, an image of his 2005 painting, itself a conceptual model for abstract representation — counteract their own assertions of verisimilitude in favor of something more circumspect and self-aware. Through March 23, Fraenkel Gallery, 49 Geary, SF; www.fraenkelgallery.com.

For logistical and practical reasons, it’s fairly uncommon to hear of curators commissioning works for a gallery show, but the results can be intoxicating, as with “Remembering is Everything” at Alter Space. Bean Gilsdorf and A. Will Brown got six artists to contribute a work based on his or her own remembering of the same original video, which was destroyed after viewing. Befitting the premise, the works in the show contribute to a general field of reverberating feedback, each one in this context providing you incomplete points of view on an unknown experience.

Themes of recursion, repetition, and fugue recur, as in Stephen Slappe and Kate Nartker’s looped video works that both posit unresolved narrative chords, and Nancy Nowacek’s performance Circuit (As I Caught), in which mysterious packages filled with objects recalled from the video appear at the gallery each day of the exhibition. The effect is like an enacted Haruki Murakami dream sequence, and you’re immediately drawn into the activity of fabricating and assembling the show’s affects and objects into a kind of tenuous, vague, and poignant gestalt. Through Feb. 23, Alter Space, 1158 Howard, SF; www.alterspace.co.

Sometimes, the curatorial conceit is basically an excuse, as with “While We Were Away” at 941 Geary, which the press release says is “composed entirely of artists [curator Tova] Lobatz has become aware of while traveling.” Despite the throwaway premise, some of the work — especially by Sten Lex — is impressive. Sten Lex, the Italian stencil duo, makes arresting op-art flavored stencil portraits usually on grand scale on the sides of buildings; here on panels. What differs from the street-art norm in their work, aside from the precise Ben-Day rendering, is the not-really-offhand way they leave the painted stencil affixed to the substrate to let it peel or erode over time, a swerve that makes the painting’s correlation to the original photo more precise as it ages. Their four untitled works in the gallery demonstrate various points in that progression. Through March 2, 941 Geary, SF; www.941geary.com.

LOOKING AHEAD:

For “Silence,” curators Toby Kamps (Menil Collection) and Steve Seid (BAM/PFA) dig deep to assemble almost everybody you can think of — Beuys, Duchamp, Klein, Magritte, Warhol, Broodthaers, Manders, Marclay, Roden, Salcedo, others — to address the representation of silence using John Cage’s 4’33” as a point of departure. Jan. 30-April 28, UC Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; bampfa.berkeley.edu.

A new series of muralist group shows launches with work by Apex, Casey Gray, René Garcia Jr., and others. Erotic, anaglyphic 3D glitter wallpaper? Sign me up. Feb. 7-July 1, Project One, 251 Rhode Island, SF; www.p1sf.com.

Kehinde Wiley’s flashy, uber-hip portraits have made him the international go-to darling of both the upmarket and Juxtapoz crowds. Expect high craftsmanship and an eye for drama. “The World Stage: Israel,” Feb. 14-May 27, Jewish Contemporary Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org.

The word “visionary” is perhaps overused in the world of architecture, but the jarring, psychologically charged work of Lebbeus Woods warrants the use. The recently deceased architect’s work will be represented by 175 drawings, renderings, and models in this career survey. Feb.16-June 2, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF; www.sfmoma.org.

Nina Hartley mash notes, PETA gets naked, crafty vibes: Your week in sex events

Andrew Lam
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Nina Hartley mash notes, PETA gets naked, crafty vibes: Your week in sex events

Everyone survive the bused-in loads of pro-lifers prancing down Market Street last Saturday? Good. FYI, the Pope’s real happy with San Francisco right about now, so if you need to ask him for anything (to borrow clothes?) do it.

Real Talk forum: “Open Relationships”

Real talk: being happy in a polyamorous relationship doesn’t mean you don’t ever get jealous. Real Talk: a series of panel discussions organized by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation that explores the issues related to gay men having happy and healthy sexual lives. The last discussion focused on serosorting — this one’s for those interested in strengthening their open relationship by examining what makes us jealous, and how to work through the emotion. 

Wed/30, 6-8pm, free. LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market, SF. www.sfaf.org

American Apparel casting call/”Shop It Like It’s Hot”

Look pretty, sullen, and emaciated at this mega discount shopping event — in addition to slashed sales prices on lewks from Crossroads Trading Co., RoyalMint, Covet Boutique, Meggie, Violet Boutique, Thrifted and Modern, Alyssa Nicole, and Acrimony, American Apparel will be hawking their solid color essentials and looking for models. Enter IMCHICSF in when you buy your online ticket and you’ll get $10 off. Also: there will be a food cart.

Wed/30, 6-9pm, $20. 111 Minna, SF. www.111minnagallery.com

PETA jumps on Nude-In train

Really, the cwazy vegans over at PETA need little excuse to get naked, but we are glad that they chose this one: the cwazy nudiest are protesting cwazy Scott Weiner’s impending nudity ban (again), and they’re doing it on the steps of City Hall again, and PETA will be there drawing the correlation to the fur trade by hoisting protest signs in the buff. Of course! Insert some tounge-clicky, chuckling “only in San Francisco” condescension — then take your clothes off and join fray.  

Thu/31, noon, free. Outside City Hall, SF. www.peta.org

“Letters to a Porn Star: Nina Hartley Fan Mail”

First off, the Center for Sex and Culture has a Nina Hartley collection and that’s really exciting. Secondly, selections from said collection will be on display, in all their fawning/questioning/pervy glory, at the Center until mid-March. Tonight, take in the letters, gifts, and trinkets sent to the classically amazing pioneer feminist porn star — and check out a talk by Ingrid Olsen, a CSC fellow who has been elbow-deep in Nina land. 

Through March 18. Opening reception and talk: Fri/1, 7-10pm, free. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org

Feelmore Fresh Fridays

Every last Friday, downtown Oakland adult store and sex culture hub Feelmore510 hosts an evening of naughty film at the recently-opened New Parkway. We guess tonight’s showing could be sexy, but in a deeply disturbing way: the film is 2010’s Venus Noire, a bio-pic of Saartjes Baartman, a woman from Southern Africa who was trotted about imperialist Britain billed as a Hottentot. Scientists examined her anatomy and proclaimed her the missing link between humans and apes, and she wound up dying from STDs and pnuemonia at 27. A valuble lesson about psuedo-science and sex, but you’ll probably be using that tissue to wipe away tears rather than any other bodily fluid.

Fri/25, 11:30pm, $10. New Parkway Theater, 474 24th St., Oakl. www.thenewparkway.com

Good Vibes vibrator bling contest

You’ve gotta buy a Good Vibes vibe to play the game (not end of world), but then with a little peacock feather, ornamental zipper, and g-l-i-t-t-e-r you can enter this Good Vibes sex toy crafting contest. The fancified vibrators will be on display at the Polk Street sex shop location during March, and winners of the competition will win gift certificates for the store. Deadline to enter your little friend (we assume they want them to be unused, but don’t let us impose our Puritanical values on your creativity)

Deadline to enter Feb. 28. Deliver by hand or mail to Good Vibrations, 1620 Polk, SF. www.goodvibes.com

On a street where no buses burn: Where to hide from the Super Bowl

Andrew Lam
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On a street where no buses burn: Where to hide from the Super Bowl

It was my fault for working on my laptop behind the plate glass window of a 24th Street cafe when the Niners won… whatever game that was, last Sunday. But it is entirely your fault for spitting at my face through the plate glass window, you sad little hag of a Mission District twenty-something (sup George, remember when I interviewed you about your art a few years ago?) after screaming “DIE YUPPIES” or whatever in the door of said cafe. 

So yeah, I’m not so stoked on Super Bowl (or as my friend Kelly Lovemonster put it, “the football game during the Beyonce concert.”) The amount of aggression generated by even a victory for our home team is mind-blowing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pumped for the Niners and for adorable, positive football fans — like novelty rapper and six-year old Sarah Redden — but I’m not trying to catch a burning bus about it. If you’re not either, come hide with me here: 

Smell the magnolias at the SF Botanical Garden

Bury yourself in these in-season pink-and-white blooms, sure solace for the streets of shoulder-checking outside the park. Check out the Garden’s daily, free 1:30pm docent-led tour, or just wander about the gorgeous vegetation, liberated from half-time hullabaloo and lines at the bar. Check out the Garden’s full line up of magnolia-themed entertainment for other things that will make you happy. 

Open 9am-5pm (last entry 4pm), free. Ninth Ave. and Lincoln, SF. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org

Swell with pride for your city in a non-sports-related way with our new poet laureate

We love San Francisco’s sixth poet laureate Alejandro Murguia more than many things — we even gave him a Guardian column! — so we’re stoked for his inaugural address this week. He plans to address the state of the Latino community in San Francisco, lyrically no doubt. 

Sun/27, 1-3pm, free. Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF. www.sfpl.org

Drift away with young East Bay classical musicians

As far as you can get, perhaps from the Tracy Morgan Kraft ad (or the teaser of said ad, that’s a thing now) — the 75 young players of the Oakland Youth Orchestra will take you away on the wings of their percussion, wind, and brass steeds. Get your Dimitri Shostakovich, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Sergei Rachmaninov fix here, at the group’s winter concert.

Sun/27, 3pm, free. Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain, Oakl. www.oyo.org

Cry, laugh, drink with the queens

In the middle of it all — the red and gold beach towels, the cops pouring out champagne into the gutters on 16th Street — you will feel sad. Luckily, doorperson-like-you-wouldn’t-believe Dee Dean Leitner has assembled a passel of drag divas to belt out the shittiest odes to amore tonight at the Stud for a show lovingly dubbed “Worst. Song. Ever.” It starts early for drag, so you will be able to go more or less directly from whatever hole you’ve been hiding from, long before the last rowdies have hopped home on CalTrain.

Sun/27, 7-10pm, $5. The Stud, 399 Ninth St., SF. www.studsf.com

Stay in bed with cats

Win or lose, fireworks, and the pussies may be scared. You can help.

Every day, all the time, your rent. thekittencovers.tumblr.com

 

Noir Faze

Andrew Lam
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Noir Faze

caitlin@sfbg.com

STREET SEEN While larger clothing companies are free to define their brand through glossy print campaigns and billboards staring out impassively over downtown shoppers, the little guys look elsewhere to establish identity.

Last week I went to visit a silver grill, affixed to the grin of a one Edwin Haynes, the unapologetically pierced founder of graphically subversive clothing line Sav Noir. Think T-shirts covered in upside-down crosses, hot nuns making out, and a priest hoisting a Bible, gun, and shotglass — that would be the brand’s first collection, now available. Think a tough black-and-white color palette setting off designs by local artist Henry Lewis. Also think about a back room of an unmarked studio space, which is where I was last week checking out his works of the devil, artfully arranged on an L-section sofa.

Haynes talks mess about Catholic school while members of his team — event promoter Traci P of female hip-hop crew Sisterz of the Underground and Bogl, bass-and-beat DJ and event producer — look on.

“These figures and these idols who you were forced to worship were the people doing the most dirty shit,” the ex-chef, promotor, and “fashion guy” explains as we look at his sartorial takedowns of religion splayed out before us on the couch cushions. It’s all there: slutty sisters, gangster priest, schoolgirl swilling beer. Sav Noir is adamantly for the alternative nightclub set — the people, Haynes tells me, who don’t have to wait for the end of office hours to become who really are.

That makes sense, it’s hard to picture a real estate agent rocking the white tee with the photo print of the sexily open mouth cradling pills on its tongue. (If you are a real estate agent who wears things like that, get in touch with me.)

You can cop Sav Noir’s hats and tees at Infinite (www.infinitesf.com), True (www.trueclothing.net), and Santa Cruz’s So Fresh (www.sofreshclothing.com). But you may as well make a night of it. The brand also hosts The Gift, a first Sunday dub-trap party at Vessel starring DJs Ruby Red Eye and Atlanta’s DJ Holiday. Bogl spins Tuesday nights at Monarch. The events look like they crack — the Jan. 26 launch at 1AM Gallery for the new line attracted a crowd that spilled out into the SoMa streets.

“At the end of the day, we’re all we have,” says FAZE Apparel (3236 21st St., SF. www.fazeapparel.com) co-owner Johnny Travis as he tours me around his sunny Mission space, past the racks of his own line’s SF-made button-downs with printed cuffs, peculiar pockets — just intricate enough to catch the eye, but not so crazy that they can’t be basics.

FAZE also hawks ace $21 beanies, made in LA with leather tags affixed here in the city. The line’s hoodies are lined with nursery school zoo prints, part of the “Animal City” collection that also includes a tee with snarling pumas and the words “Easy Pussy” in heavy metal slant letters. It’s streetwear, but with details that make it pop.

The shop also has one of the mores interesting arrays of hyper-local brands I’ve seen: there’s All Out Foul, a San Mateo line that supplies tees to the quickly-growing legions of Niners fans. Those tees sit alongside nautical-inspired ones designed by Charlie Noble, an Alameda Coast Guard vet. The different brands are great for the store, Travis tells me. The days of single-brand customers, he says, are over.

And FAZE (an acronym for “Fearless and Zealous Everyday”) is nothing is not group-oriented. “We don’t want to be an intruder to the community,” the SF native Travis tells me, wary of the fact that he just moved a business into a part of the Mission where rents are skyrocketing and many residents feel displaced. “We want to be a part of it.”

To that end, the regular art parties. At January’s FAZE event, the paintings created by the line’s artists on-site, made in front of the eyes of party attendees right there in the shop, were sold to benefit the Boys and Girls Club down the street. At the next event (at the shop Feb. 8, 6-10pm, free), proceeds will round another corner to another neighbor of FAZE, going to low income student support service Scholar Match. Of course, you’re welcome to buy clothes at the party.

“I know a lot of people try to get their stuff in the hands of celebrities,” says Travis. “But that’s not what we’re about. It’s people like you and I who carry brands.”

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/30-Tue/5 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

BAY MODEL 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito; www.tiburonfilmfestival.com. Free. "Tiburon Film Society:" Banganà (Sincich, 2012), Tue, 6.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. Noir City: The 11th Annual San Francisco Film Noir Festival: •The Sniper (Dmytryk, 1952), Wed, 1:30, 7, and Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962), Wed, 3:30, 9; •The Other Woman (Haas, 1954), Thu, 7:30, and The Come-On (Birdwell, 1956), Thu, 9:15; •Man in the Dark (Landers, 1953), Fri, 7:30, and Inferno (Ward Baker, 1953), Fri, 9; •Street of Chance (Hively, 1942), Sat, 1, 6; The Chase (Ripley, 1946), Sat, 2:35, 7:30; and The Window (Tetzlaff, 1949), Sat, 4:20, 9:15; •Smooth as Silk (Barton, 1946), Sun, 12:30; Mary Ryan, Detective (Berlin, 1949), Sun, 1:50; Strange Impersonation (Mann, 1946), Sun, 3:20; and Fly By Night (Siodmak, 1942), Sun, 4:45; •Night Editor (Levin, 1946), Sun, 7:30, and High Tide (Reinhardt, 1947), Sun, 9. More info at www.noircity.com; advance tickets ($10-15) at www.brownpapertickets.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Amour (Haneke, 2012), call for dates and times. Quartet (Hoffman, 2012), call for dates and times. The Rabbi’s Cat (Sfar and Delesvaux, 2011), call for dates and times. Sparrows (Beaudine, 1926), Thu, 7. With live piano accompaniment and introduction by Mary Pickford expert Christel Schmidt. This event, $12. "World Ballet on the Big Screen:" "An Evening With Sol León and Paul Lightfoot from the Netherlands Dance Theater," Sun and Tue, 6:30. This event, $15.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $9-10. "Midnight Movies:" Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968), Sat, midnight. With host Miss Misery.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). "CinemaLit Film Series: Hollywood Dames: In the Name of Love:" Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophüls, 1948), Fri, 6.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. Free. "Documentary Film Series:" The Loving Story (Buirski, 2011), Tue, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Film 50: History of Cinema: The Cinematic City:" Metropolis (Lang, 1926), Wed, 3:10. With lecture by Marilyn Fabe; advance tickets (special pricing: $5.50-$11.50) recommended as programs often sell out. "Alfred Hitchcock: The Shape of Suspense:" North by Northwest (1959), Wed, 7; Suspicion (1941), Fri, 9. "Campus Connections: Playwright-Director Stan Lai:" The Peach Blossom Land (1992), Thu, 7. "The Sounds of Silence:" Silence (Collins, 2012), Fri, 7; "A Kind of Hush: Experimental Works," Sun, 5. "Screenagers: 15th Annual Bay Area High School Film and Video Festival," Sat, 3. "On Location in Silent Cinema:" Études sur Paris (Sauvage, 1928), Sat, 6. "African Film Festival 2013:" How to Steal 2 Million (Vundla, 2011), Sat, 8:20; Our Beloved Sudan (Elsanhouri, 2011), Sun, 2:30; Broken Stones (Felin, 2012), Tue, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Beware of Mr. Baker (Bulger, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. Yes, We’re Open (Wong, 2012), Wed, 7:15. First Generation (Fenderson and Fenderson, 2011), Thu, 7. Presented by ScholarMatch with a post-screening discussion moderated by Dave Eggers. Sound City (Grohl, 2012), Jan 31-Feb 6, call for times. Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (Neilan, 1924), Fri, 7:15. With introduction by Mary Pickford expert Christel Schmidt. "SF Sketchfest:" The Bitter Buddha (Feinartz, 2012), Sat, 1, with subject Eddie Pepitone in person, Sat, 1; "The Benson Movie Interruption:" The Notebook (Cassavetes, 2004), Sat, 4:20; "On Cinema with Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington:" Beyond the Doors (Buchanan, 1984), Sat, 7; "Olde English: The Exquisite Corpse Project with Colin Mahan in ‘Preview: The Movie!’," Sat, 10; American Splendor (Springer Berman and Pulcini, 2003), Tue, 9. More info and advance tickets (these events, $15-20) at www.sfsketchfest.com. "Superbowl XLVII: Men in Tights," Sun, 3. Superbowl viewing party; $10 donation to benefit SF IndieFest and the Roxie. "A Tribute to Arch Hall, Jr:" The Choppers (Jason, 1961), Mon, 6:30; The Sadist (Landis, 1963), Mon, 8; Wild Guitar (Steckler, 1962), Mon, 9:45. Hosted by Johnny Legend.

SUNDANCE KABUKI 1881 Post, SF; www.sundancecinemas.com. $15. "Sundance Film Festival USA:" In a World… (Bell, 2012), Thu, 7:15. With director Lake Bell in person.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. "The Wooster Group On Screen:" Rumstick Road (1977), Sun, 2.

Psychic Dream Astrology: January 30-February 5, 2013

Andrew Lam
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Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2013

ARIES

March 21-April 19

You may feel caught up in petty power struggles this week, even if it’s against your better judgment. Instead of tallying who owes what to whom, stay focused on your responsibilities. Be true to yourself, follow through on your word, and allow yourself be vulnerable with others when it feels right.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

If you’re plagued with doubt things will feel wrong, no matter how right-on your choices are. Do what you have to in order to cultivate as much calm and peace within your self as you can this week, Taurus. Eat well and sleep enough. You needn’t be perfect, but you do need to stop berating yourself.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Devote your time and attention to the things that are giving you the greatest returns, Gemini. Don’t scatter your energy by looking to the past or obsessing on what’s not working for you. Invest in your successes in the efforts to multiply them and express gratitude whenever you feel it this week.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Things cannot stay the same. Change is for the best, no matter how scary that prospect may be. Tie up loose ends, do your spring-cleaning early, and generally clear the decks, Moonchild. Something new is entering your life and the more open you are to it, the better.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Acting gradually can feel vulnerable. Moving fast creates a distracting momentum while slowing your pace down forces you to experience all of your feelings as they come up. This week’s progress will happen little by little; take note of what’s uncomfortable and let it help you to better understand yourself.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

The particulars in your life that are out of your control may tug at your brains and stress you out this week. Keep your attention focused on the big picture, Virgo, and let the minutia work themselves out in their own time. Don’t try to dam the flow of your life, even if you don’t understand where it’s taking you.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

It’s hard to get what you want if you don’t know what that is, Libra. Concentrate on figuring out what is true for you for reals, so that you’ll be ready to receive it when it comes your way. The best recipe for self-determination this week is equal parts working with what you’ve got and innovating your path, pal.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

It’s a really important time for you, Scorpio. The way you do what you do will have consequences for a long time coming. Compulsive behaviors create blind spots on the roadway of life that easily lead to trouble, so watch out for yours. Take responsibility for how you choose to participate this week.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Nothing is forever, and it’s important to not be too invested in the things that aren’t working. Practice the fine art of "live and let live" or "nonattachment" or "this too shall pass," Sagittarius. Things are changing of their own accord. Don’t take the events of your life so personally that you forget to be interested in what they’re trying tell to you.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You may be tempted to run over the details of your life with a fine-toothed comb this week, but that will not help you at all. You’re likely to think the worst if you overanalyze things! Your life is shifting so much that you will do best by riding the waves of change instead of strategizing the best time to jump in the water.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Rejection, failure and disappointments are part of life. On some level, you must decide to take on the challenges that are being presenting to you instead of sinking under the weight of them. While you may not be able to be optimistic this week, you should strive to make opportunities out of your hardships, Aquarius.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

If you push yourself too far ahead of what you can emotionally handle, things will backfire, no matter how inspired you are, Pisces. You’ve got to trust that there is time enough for everything that you are meant to do. Pace yourself steadily enough to stay in the game but slow enough that you play it to the best of your abilities.

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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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

Bullet to the Head Walter Hill directs this tale of a hired gun (Sylvester Stallone) and a cop (Sung Kang) who become unlikely partners in vengeance. (1:32)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated" If you caught Wreck-It Ralph, nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, you’ve already seen John Kahrs’ Paperman, about a junior Mad Men type who bumbles through his pursuit of a lovely fellow office drone he spots on his commute. Or, if you saw Ice Age: Continental Drift, you’ve seen Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, starring Homer and Marge’s wee one as she grapples with the social order at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Among the stand-alones, Minkyu Lee’s Adam and Dog features a quick appearance by Eve, too, but the star is really the scrappy canine who gallops through prehistory playing the world’s first game of fetch with his hairy master. Two minutes is all PES (nom de screen of Adam Pesapane) needs to make Fresh Guacamole — which depicts grenades, dice, and other random objects as most unusual ingredients. The only non-US entry, UK director Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels, is about an elderly married couple whose relationship has deteriorated to the point where they (literally) no longer see eye to eye on anything. The program is rounded out by three more non-Oscar-nominated animated shorts: Britain’s The Gruffalo’s Child, featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane; French art-thief caper Dripped; and New Zealand’s sci-fi tale Abiogenesis. (1:28) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentary" Selections include San Francisco filmmaker Sari Gilman’s poignant study of a Florida retirement community, Kings Point; Cynthia Wade’s Mondays at Racine, about a beauty salon that provides free services for women who have lost their hair to cancer treatments; Sean Fine and Andrea Nix’s Inocente, a profile of a young, homeless, aspiring artist; Redemption, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill’s take on New York dumpster divers; and Open Heart, Keif Davidson’s look at Rwandan children who travel to Sudan for high-risk surgery. (3:29) Embarcadero.

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Live Action" Selections include Bryan Buckley’s Asad, about a Somali boy who must choose between fishing and piracy; Sam French’s Buzkashi Boys, about two young friends coming of age in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan; Shawn Christensen’s babysitting yarn Curfew; Tom Van Avermaet’s supernatural love story Death of a Shadow; and another (sort-of) love story, Canadian Yan England’s Henry. (1:54) Embarcadero.

Sound City Dave Grohl adds "documentary director" to his ever-lengthening resume with this tribute to the SoCal recording studio, where the grimy, funky décor was offset by a row of platinum records lining its hallway, marking in-house triumphs by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Neil Young, and others (even, yep, Rick Springfield). Top acts and producers (many of whom appear in the doc to dish and reminisce) were lured in by a unique recording console, installed in the early 1970s, whose legend grew with every new hit it helped engineer. Despite its reputation as a hit factory — and the attraction of its laid-back vibe and staff — old-school Sound City began to struggle once the highly-polished sound of digital technology overtook the music industry. That is, until Grohl and Nirvana recorded Nevermind there, keeping the studio alive until the unstoppable march of Pro Tools hammered the final nails in. Or did it? Sound City‘s final third follows Grohl’s purchase of the studio’s iconic console ("A piece of rock ‘n’ roll history," he proclaims, though he installs it in a swanky refurbished space) and the recording of an album featuring luminaries from the studio’s past … plus Paul McCartney. The resulting doc is nostalgic, sure, but insider-y enough to entertain fans of classic rock, or at least anyone who’s ever sneered at a drum machine. (1:46) Roxie. (Eddy)

Stand Up Guys Call it oldster pop, call it geriatricore, just don’t call it late for its meds. With the oncoming boomer elder explosion, we can Depends — har-dee-har-har — on the fact that action-crime thrillers-slash-comedies like 2010’s Red, 2012’s Robot and Frank, and now Stand Up Guys are just the vanguard of an imminent barrage of grumpy old pros locking and loading, grousing about their angina, and delivering wisdom with a dose of hard-won levity. As handled by onetime teen-comedy character actor Fisher Stevens, Stand Up Guys is a warm, worthy addition to that soon-to-be-well-populated pantheon. It grows on you as you spend time with it — much like the two aging reprobates at its core, Val (Al Pacino) and Doc (Christopher Walken). Val, the proverbial stand-up guy who took the fall for the rest of his gang, has just completed a 25-year-plus stint in the pen. There to meet him is his only pal, and former partner in crime, Doc, who has been leading a humble life but has one last hit to commit for their old boss Claphands (Mark Margolis), who’s inexplicably named after a Tom Waits song. Sex, drugs, and some Viagra commercial-esque bluesy guitars are in order, but first Val and Doc must find their drive, in the form of their old driver buddy Hirsch (Alan Arkin), who they break out of a rest home, and, perhaps, their moral compass, which arrives with the discovery of a victim (Vanessa Ferlito) of baddies much less couth than themselves. The pleasure comes with following these stand-up guys as they make that leap from craven self-preservation to heroism, which might seem implausible to some. But to the cast’s, and Stevens’s, credit, they make it work — and even give the sentiment-washed finale a swashbuckling buddy-movie romanticism, the kind that a young Tarantino might dislike and an older Tarantino would be loathe to begrudge his lovable louses. (1:34) (Chun)

Warm Bodies Zombies need love too! (1:37)

ONGOING

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) Clay, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Argo If you didn’t know the particulars of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, you won’t be an expert after Argo, but the film does a good job of capturing America’s fearful reaction to the events that followed it — particularly the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran. Argo zeroes in on the fate of six embassy staffers who managed to escape the building and flee to the home of the sympathetic Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Back in Washington, short-tempered CIA agents (including a top-notch Bryan Cranston) cast about for ways to rescue them. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs), exfil specialist and father to a youngster wrapped up in the era’s sci-fi craze. While watching 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with what Cranston’s character calls "the best bad idea we have:" the CIA will fund a phony Canadian movie production (corny, intergalactic, and titled Argo) and pretend the six are part of the crew, visiting Iran for a few days on a location shoot. Tony will sneak in, deliver the necessary fake-ID documents, and escort them out. Neither his superiors, nor the six in hiding, have much faith in the idea. ("Is this the part where we say, ‘It’s so crazy it just might work?’" someone asks, beating the cliché to the punch.) Argo never lets you forget that lives are at stake; every painstakingly forged form, every bluff past a checkpoint official increases the anxiety (to the point of being laid on a bit thick by the end). But though Affleck builds the needed suspense with gusto, Argo comes alive in its Hollywood scenes. As the show-biz veterans who mull over Tony’s plan with a mix of Tinseltown cynicism and patiotic duty, John Goodman and Alan Arkin practically burst with in-joke brio. I could have watched an entire movie just about those two. (2:00) Balboa, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Beasts of the Southern Wild A year after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting. Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. But not all is well: when "the storm" floods the land, the holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate. With its elements of magic, mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology, Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. (1:31) Four Star. (Harvey)

Beware of Mr. Baker This mesmerizing bio-doc about volatile, wildly talented drummer Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith) begins with the 70-something musician clocking director Jay Bulger in the face. After this opening, Bulger — who also wrote a deeply compelling article about Baker for Rolling Stone last year — wisely pulls himself out of the narrative, instead turning to a wealth of new interviews (with Baker, his trademark red locks faded to gray, and many of his musical and personal partners, including Eric Clapton and multiple ex-Mrs. Bakers), vintage performance footage, and artful animation to weave his tale. Baker’s colorfully-lived, improbably long life has been literally all over the map; he overcame a hardscrabble British childhood to find jazz and rock stardom, and along the way jammed with Fela Kuti in Nigeria (where he picked up his fierce love of polo), broke many hearts (his own kids’ among them) and lost multiple fortunes, spent a stint in the US, and eventually landed at his current farm in South Africa. Two constants: his musical genius, and his frustratingly jerky behavior — the consequence of a naturally prickly personality exacerbated by copious drug use and bitterness. A must-see for musicians and those who love them. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Broken City Catherine Zeta-Jones’ measured performance and killer wardrobe run away with this uneven political thriller about a made-up Manhattan with real(-ish) problems. Russell Crowe is only slightly improving his record post-Les Mis, as he plays another harried and morally confused agent "for the people." Here, he’s Mayor Hostetler, a swaggering politico with fingers in New York’s real estate cookie jar and the sort of "get shit done" directive that results in bodies lying in NYC’s overfilled gutters. Good thing he has Mark Wahlberg in his back pocket, a cop who slipped a murder wrap and now scrapes the bottom for gigs as a private detective. Seven years ago Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) was seeking vigilante justice for the victim of a rape-murder in the city’s biggest ghetto. The victim became a household name but the killer was let off, leading to cries about the validity of NY’s justice system and to allusions to the Central Park Five. Broken City is less about a broken City and more about broken Men, and there are certain elements that seem too subtle for a story built on such bald-faced and predictable strategy. Between a script that’s struggling to demonstrate moral compromise and integrity, and direction (by Allen Hughes) that’s as sensitive to nuance as a border collie, it’s hard to find much beyond Zeta-Jones’ shoe stylings to admire. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western homage features a cameo by the original Django (Franco Nero, star of the 1966 film), and solid performances by a meticulously assembled cast, including Jamie Foxx as the titular former slave who becomes a badass bounty hunter under the tutelage of Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing the evil yet befuddlingly delightful Nazi Hans Landa in Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds, is just as memorable (and here, you can feel good about liking him) as a quick-witted, quick-drawing wayward German dentist. There are no Nazis in Django, of course, but Tarantino’s taboo du jour (slavery) more than supplies motivation for the filmmaker’s favorite theme (revenge). Once Django joins forces with Schultz, the natural-born partners hatch a scheme to rescue Django’s still-enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), whose German-language skills are as unlikely as they are convenient. Along the way (and it’s a long way; the movie runs 165 minutes), they encounter a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose main passion is the offensive, shocking "sport" of "Mandingo fighting," and his right-hand man, played by Tarantino muse Samuel L. Jackson in a transcendently scandalous performance. And amid all the violence and racist language and Foxx vengeance-making, there are many moments of screaming hilarity, as when a character with the Old South 101 name of Big Daddy (Don Johnson) argues with the posse he’s rounded up over the proper construction of vigilante hoods. It’s a classic Tarantino moment: pausing the action so characters can blather on about something trivial before an epic scene of violence. Mr. Pink would approve. (2:45) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Gangster Squad It’s 1949, and somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a man has been tied hand and foot to a pair of automobiles with the engines running. Coyotes pace in the background like patrons queuing up for a table at Flour + Water, and when dinner is served, the presentation isn’t very pretty. We’re barely five minutes into Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and fair warning has been given of the bloodletting to come. None of it’s quite as visceral as the opening scene, but Fleischer (2009’s Zombieland) packs his tale of urban warfare with plenty of stylized slaughter to go along with the glamour shots of mob-run nightclubs, leggy pin-curled dames, and Ryan Gosling lounging at the bar cracking wise. At the center of all the gunplay and firebombing is what’s framed as a battle for the soul of Los Angeles, waged between transplanted Chicago mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — who wields terms like "progress" and "manifest destiny" as a rationale for a continental turf war — and a police sergeant named John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), tasked with bringing down Cohen’s empire. The assignment requires working under cover so deep that only the police chief (Nick Nolte) and the handpicked members of O’Mara’s "gangster squad" — ncluding Gosling, a half-jaded charmer who poaches Cohen’s arm candy (Emma Stone) — know of its existence. This leaves plenty of room for improvisation, and the film pauses now and again to wonder about what happens when you pit brutal amorality against brutal morality, but it’s a rhetorical question, and no one shows much interest in it. Dragged down by talking points that someone clearly wanted wedged in (as well as by O’Mara’s ponderous voice-overs), the film does better when it abandons gravitas and refocuses on spinning its mythic tale of wilder times in the Golden State. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters So here’s something you may not have been wondering: what exactly happened to Hansel and Gretel after they killed the gingerbread-house witch and made their way to freedom? Did they really live happily ever after? Did they land in the foster care system? Did they enter adulthood bearing the deep psychic wounds a person might well suffer after shoving a living creature into an oven and listening to her agonized howls as she burned alive? Or did they realize they’d discovered their life’s vocation without even having to complete the Myers-Briggs test? Shutting his eyes and pointing at random, director and screenplay cowriter Tommy Wirkola (2009’s Dead Snow) chooses the latter scenario, keeping his eyes closed to stab out some weak dialogue and half a plot for a script that leans heavily on the power of 3D technology to send eviscerated-witch guts and other biological shrapnel flying toward the eyeballs of audience members. Hansel (why, Jeremy Renner?) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) have grown up to share the intense sibling bond and wandering ways you might expect from a brother and sister abandoned at a tender age to starve and be rent limb from limb by wild animals. They’ve also taken full advantage of a niche witch-slaying market in and around the gloomy forest where they made their first kill. When they’re hired to track down a particularly loathsome practitioner of the dark arts (Famke Janssen) who’s been snatching up local children, multidimensional mayhem ensues. Arterton’s Gretel is pretty much a badass and the brains of the operation, while Renner’s Hansel is more of a strong, silent, and occasionally shit-faced type. Neither makes for a particularly memorable protagonist, but that flat look on their faces could just be disappointment or boredom with the material. (1:41) California, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Make no mistake: the Lord of the Rings trilogy represented an incredible filmmaking achievement, with well-deserved Oscars handed down after the third installment in 2003. If director Peter Jackson wanted to go one more round with J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved characters for a Hobbit movie, who was gonna stop him? Not so fast. This return to Middle-earth (in 3D this time) represents not one but three films — which would be self-indulgent enough even if part one didn’t unspool at just under three hours, and even if Jackson hadn’t decided to shoot at 48 frames per second. (I can’t even begin to explain what that means from a technical standpoint, but suffice to say there’s a certain amount of cinematic lushness lost when everything is rendered in insanely crystal-clear hi-def.) Journey begins as Bilbo Baggins (a game, funny Martin Freeman) reluctantly joins Gandalf (a weary-seeming Ian McKellan) and a gang of dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen homeland and treasure, batting Orcs, goblins, Gollum (Andy Serkis), and other beasties along the way. Fan-pandering happens (with characters like Cate Blanchett’s icy Galadriel popping in to remind you how much you loved LOTR), and the story moves at a brisk enough pace, but Journey never transcends what came before — or in the chronology of the story, what comes after. I’m not quite ready to declare this Jackson’s Phantom Menace (1999), but it’s not an unfair comparison to make, either. (2:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Impossible Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (2007’s The Orphanage) directs The Impossible, a relatively modestly-budgeted take on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on the real story of a Spanish family who experienced the disaster. Here, the family (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, three young sons) is British, on a Christmas vacation from dad’s high-stress job in Japan. Beachy bliss is soon ruined by that terrible series of waves; they hit early in the film, and Bayona offers a devastatingly realistic depiction of what being caught in a tsunami must feel like: roaring, debris-filled water threatening death by drowning, impalement, or skull-crushing. And then, the anguish of surfacing, alive but injured, stranded, and miles from the nearest doctor, not knowing if your family members have perished. Without giving anything away (no more than the film’s suggestive title, anyway), once the survivors are established (and the film’s strongest performer, Watts, is relegated to hospital-bed scenes) The Impossible finds its way inevitably to melodrama, and triumph-of-the-human-spirit theatrics. As the family’s oldest son, 16-year-old Tom Holland is effective as a kid who reacts exactly right to crisis, morphing from sulky teen to thoughtful hero — but the film is too narrowly focused on its tourist characters, with native Thais mostly relegated to background action. It’s a disconnect that’s not quite offensive, but is still off-putting. (1:54) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

In Another Country This latest bit of gamesmanship from South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo (2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors) has Isabelle Huppert playing three Frenchwomen named Anne visiting the same Korean beachside community under different circumstances in three separate but wryly overlapping stories. In the first, she’s a film director whose presence induces inapt overtures from both her married colleague-host and a strapping young lifeguard. In the more farcical second, she’s a horny spouse herself, married to an absent Korean man; in the third, a woman whose husband has run away with a Korean woman. The same actors as well as variations on the same characters and situations appear in each section, their rejiggered intersections poking fun at Koreans’ attitudes toward foreigners, among other topics. Airy and amusing, In Another Country is a playful divertissement that’s shiny as a bubble, and leaves about as much of a permanent impression. (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

The Last Stand With gun control issues dominating the news, what better time to release a movie that lovingly glorifies the wonders of excessive firepower? Fortunately for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his return to leading-man status after that little fling with politics, The Last Stand is stupidly enjoyable enough to make any such PC-minded realizations relatively fleeing ones. When a Mexican drug lord (who also happens to be an expert race-car driver) escapes from federal custody and begins speeding home in a super-Corvette, the lead FBI agent (Forest Whitaker, slumming big-time) realizes his only hope is a teeny Arizona border town that happens to be overseen by Sheriff Schwarzenegger. (Other residents include a couple of hapless deputies; an Iraq war vet; and a gun nut played by a cartoonishly obnoxious Johnny Knoxville.) Can this ragtag crew hold off first the drug lord’s advance team (led by a swaggering Peter Stormare), and then the head baddie himself? Duh. The biggest surprise The Last Stand offers is that it’s actually pretty fun — no doubt thanks to the combo of Korean director Kim Jee-woon (2008’s eccentric The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; 2003’s spooky A Tale of Two Sisters) and the heft of Schwarzenegger’s still-potent charisma. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s "unfilmable" novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Mama From bin Laden to wild babes in woods, Jessica Chastain can’t seem to grab a break. Equipped with just the bare outlines of a character, however, she’s one of the few pleasures in this missed-opportunity of a grim, ghostly fairy tale. Expanding his short of the same name, director Andres Muschietti kicks off his yarn on a sadly familiar note in these days of seemingly escalating gun violence: little sisters Victoria and Lily have disappeared from their home, shortly after their desperate father (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has gone on a shooting spree. They repair to an abandoned cabin scattered with mid-century modern furniture. Five years on, the girls’ scruffy artist uncle Lucas (also Coster-Waldau) is still searching for them, supported by his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The little girls lost are finally found by trackers — and they appear to be hopelessly feral, with the angelic-looking Victoria (Megan Charpentier), acting as the ringleader and the younger, bedraggled Lily (Maya Dawe) given to sleeping under beds and eating on all fours next to the dog bowl. The arty couple take them in and move into a "test house" provided by the sisters’ enthralled therapist (Daniel Kash), obviously psyched to study not one but two Kaspar Hausers. The traumatized kids are clearly haunted by their experience — in more ways than one — as inexplicable bumps go off, night and day, and Misfits t-shirt-clad Annabel discovers the real meaning of goth while getting in touch with her seemingly deeply buried maternal urges. Unfortunately, despite possessing the raw material for a truly scary outing that plunges to the core of our primal instincts (what’s scarier than an unsocialized kid that’s capable of anything?) and showing off Muschietti’s occasional instances of cinematic flair (as when multiple rooms are shown using split-screens), Mama ends up running away from the filmmaker and is finally simply spoiled by its mawkishly sentimental finale. It doesn’t help that the inadequate script sports logic holes that a mama could drive a truck though. (1:40) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Master Paul Thomas Anderson’s much-hyped likely Best Picture contender lives up: it’s easily the best film of 2012 so far. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Lancaster Dodd, the L. Ron Hubbard-ish head of a Scientology-esque movement. "The Cause" attracts Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, in a welcome return from the faux-deep end), less for its pseudo-religious psychobabble and bizarre personal-growth exercises, and more because it supplies the aimless, alcoholic veteran — a drifter in every sense of the word — with a sense of community he yearns for, yet resists submitting to. As with There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson focuses on the tension between the two main characters: an older, established figure and his upstart challenger. But there’s less cut-and-dried antagonism here; while their relationship is complex, and it does lead to dark, troubled places, there are also moments of levity and weird hilarity — which might have something to do with Freddie’s paint-thinner moonshine. (2:17) Albany, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Les Misérables There is a not-insignificant portion of the population who already knows all the words to all the songs of this musical-theater warhorse, around since the 1980s and honored here with a lavish production by Tom Hooper (2010’s The King’s Speech). As other reviews have pointed out, this version only tangentially concerns Victor Hugo’s French Revolution tale; its true raison d’être is swooning over the sight of its big-name cast crooning those famous tunes. Vocals were recorded live on-set, with microphones digitally removed in post-production — but despite this technical achievement, there’s a certain inorganic quality to the proceedings. Like The King’s Speech, the whole affair feels spliced together in the Oscar-creation lab. The hardworking Hugh Jackman deserves the nomination he’ll inevitably get; jury’s still out on Anne Hathaway’s blubbery, "I cut my hair for real, I am so brave!" performance. (2:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Movie 43 (1:37) Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Parker (1:58) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Move over, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series — there’s a new shrinking-violet social outcast in town. These days, life might not suck quite so hard for 90-pound weaklings in every age category, what with so many films and TV shows exposing, and sometimes even celebrating, the many miseries of childhood and adolescence for all to see. In this case, Perks author Stephen Chbosky takes on the directorial duties — both a good and bad thing, much like the teen years. Smart, shy Charlie is starting high school with a host of issues: he’s painfully awkward and very alone in the brutal throng, his only friend just committed suicide, and his only simpatico family member was killed in a car accident. Charlie’s English teacher Mr. Andersen (Paul Rudd) appears to be his only connection, until the freshman strikes up a conversation with feline, charismatic, shop-class jester Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his magnetic, music- and fun-loving stepsister Sam (Emma Watson). Who needs the popular kids? The witty duo head up their gang of coolly uncool outcasts their own, the Wallflowers (not to be confused with the deeply uncool Jakob Dylan combo), and with them, Charlie appears to have found his tribe. Only a few small secrets put a damper on matters: Patrick happens to be gay and involved with football player Brad (Johnny Simmons), who’s saddled with a violently conservative father, and Charlie is in love with the already-hooked-up Sam and is frightened that his fragile equilibrium will be destroyed when his new besties graduate and slip out of his life. Displaying empathy and a devotion to emotional truth, Chbosky takes good care of his characters, preserving the complexity and ungainly quirks of their not-so-cartoonish suburbia, though his limitations as a director come to the fore in the murkiness and choppily handled climax that reveals how damaged Charlie truly is. (1:43) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

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) Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Rabbi’s Cat A rabbi, a Muslim musician, two Russians (a Jew and a boozy Christian), and two talking animals hop into an antique Citroën for a road trip across Africa. No, it’s not the set-up for a joke; it’s the premise for this charming animated film, adapted from Joann Sfar’s graphic novel (the author co-directs with Antoine Delesvaux). In 1930s Algiers, a rabbi’s pet cat suddenly develops the ability to talk — and read and write, by the way — and wastes no time in sharing opinions, particularly when it comes to religion ("God is just a comforting invention!") When a crate full of Russian prayer books — and one handsome artist — arrives at the rabbi’s house, man and cat are drawn into the refugee’s search for an Ethiopian city populated by African Jews. Though it’s not suitable for younger kids (there’s kitty mating, and a few bursts of surprising violence) or diehard Tintin fans (thanks to a randomly cranky spoof of the character), The Rabbi’s Cat is a lushly illustrated, witty tale of cross-cultural clashes and connections. Rockin’ soundtrack, too. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Rust and Bone Unlike her Dark Knight Rises co-star Anne Hathaway, Rust and Bone star Marion Cotillard never seems like she’s trying too hard to be sexy, or edgy, or whatever (plus, she already has an Oscar, so the pressure’s off). Here, she’s a whale trainer at a SeaWorld-type park who loses her legs in an accident, which complicates (but ultimately strengthens) her relationship with Ali (Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, so tremendous in 2011’s Bullhead), a single dad trying to make a name for himself as a boxer. Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to 2009’s A Prophet gets a bit overwrought by its last act, but there’s an emotional authenticity in the performances that makes even a ridiculous twist (like, the kind that’ll make you exclaim "Are you fucking kidding me?") feel almost well-earned. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

The Sessions Polio has long since paralyzed the body of Berkeley poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) from the neck down. Of course his mind is free to roam — but it often roams south of the personal equator, where he hasn’t had the same opportunities as able-bodied people. Thus he enlists the services of Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a professional sex surrogate, to lose his virginity at last. Based on the real-life figures’ experiences, this drama by Australian polio survivor Ben Lewin was a big hit at Sundance this year (then titled The Surrogate), and it’s not hard to see why: this is one of those rare inspirational feel-good stories that doesn’t pander and earns its tears with honest emotional toil. Hawkes is always arresting, but Hunt hasn’t been this good in a long time, and William H. Macy is pure pleasure as a sympathetic priest put in numerous awkward positions with the Lord by Mark’s very down-to-earth questions and confessions. (1:35) 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) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon, Sundance Kabuki. (Ben Richardson)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of "realness" that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that "America does not torture." (The "any more" goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or "CIA black sites" in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations ("KSM" for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon ("tradecraft") without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. "Washington says she’s a killer," a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) Balboa, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy

Nudity ban upheld, found to be stupid

Zelda Bronstein
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27
Nudity ban upheld, found to be stupid

The City Attorney’s Office just announced that a federal court has upheld San Francisco’s ban on public nudity. From the press release:

The court found that the nudism advocates’ challenge to the ordinance based on the First Amendment lacked merit because “public nudity alone is not expression protected by the First Amendment,” and because the ordinance was “not substantially overbroad.”  Judge [Edward] Chen additionally rejected plaintiffs’ arguments that exemptions for such permitted events such as Bay to Breakers and the Folsom Street Fair violated constitutional Equal Protection guarantees, holding that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the exceptions lacked a rational basis.  Though the nudism advocates’ facial challenge to the ordinance was dismissed without leave to amend, the court left the door open for nudism advocates to amend their pleading with subsequent “as-applied” claims, provided they were able to do so.

So maybe this isn’t over yet.

The news comes just as the Atlantic chimed in on the city’s nudity ban, calling it pretty dumb:

In San Francisco next week, it will remain perfectly legal for a 50-year-old man to seduce an 18-year-old, impregnate her, ridicule her physical appearance until she is brought to tears, walk out on her, seek out her mother, seduce that mother for no other reason than to further hurt the jilted daughter, draw a graphic novel of the whole sordid chain of events, and publish in on the Internet. But it’ll be illegal for him to be naked outside. Does anyone think the resulting moral signal is desirable?

There’s a long discussion of Judeo-Christian values, the Bible, Adam and Eve, etc. But the conclusion really makes the point:

Americans are bombarded with images of semi-clothed people all the time. It just happens that they’re all beautiful actors and actresses, magazine cover girls, television underwear models, and porn stars. The average person sees lots of naked bodies, but very little real variety. While that may be more aesthetically pleasant, it skewers our notion of what a normal human body looks like. In an age of Victoria’s Secret in the mall, substantial nudity on primetime television, and ubiquitous YouPorn, a ban on nonsexual street nudity begins to seem absurd. Society needs some relatively unattractive people to be naked in public now more than ever before.

So there you have it. Legal, stupid.

 

Sandra Fluke’s in town! As are the pro-life crazies! Your week in sexy events

Andrew Lam
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63

40 years ago, a historic ruling gave us control over our own reproductive health. This week, a female state representative in New Mexico proposed banning abortions after rape to preserve police evidence. Shiver. Feel like a protest?

You’re in luck because this weekend, various groups all claiming to represent the best in women’s interests will be marking Roe vs. Wade’s historic judgement. But wait, will you attend the pro-choice carnival, the pro-choice flash mob, the anti-choice rally and march, or the pro-choice, anti-porn counter-demonstration? They are all happening this Saturday morning and early afternoon in Justin Herman Plaza. (Rebecca Bowe broke this story on our site over at the Politics blog, BTW.) We suggest being there, at least to watch the drama unfold. Happily, at least for the moment, choice is alive and well when it comes to weekend activism! 

Here’s the breakdown: 

Women, Life, and Liberty rally and celebration

Cuteness personified. This family-friendly gathering organized by 25 Bay Area women’s and reproductive rights groups will feature balloon artists, face-painting — and an address by Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University grad student who stared woman-hating Republican assholes in their beady eyes and emerged victorious, with the President on her side and a nation of newly-galvanized feminists sharpening their talons on her behalf. Rose Aguilar of KALW Radio will emcee. Come out, show up for your rights.  

Sat/26, 10am-noon, free. Justin Herman Plaza, SF. www.oursilverribbon.org

Her Rising Flash Mob

Of course there’s a flash mob — Magalie Bonneau-Marcil, director of Oakland’s Dancing Without Borders told Bowe that she expects 400-500 dancers for the event, part of a worldwide call for women to speak out against violence against them on this particular day. Practices are already over, but the mass of bodies in motion should be a gorgeous sight, one that will steel you for the next item on our list… 

Sat/26, 11:30am, free. Justin Herman Plaza, SF. www.herrising.org

Walk For Life rally and march/Stop Patriarchy counter protest

Shiver. For the ninth year, San Francisco pro-lifers are organizing so that busloads of social conservatives from all over the West Coast and Mid-West will be converging on San Francisco. This from the Walk For Life website: “We are thrilled and honored to be able to announce that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States will be attending the Walk for Life West Coast on January 26 and reading a message from Pope Benedict XVI!”

Bay area group Stop Patriarchy is organizing a counter-protest, but big-ass asterisk on that one because that group, which does fight against attacks on abortion rights, includes the existence of pornography in its definition of the war on women and we are obvs not down with that characterization. Porn and reproductive agency for all! 

Sat/26, rally 12:30-1:30pm, walk 1:30pm, free. Justin Herman Plaza, SF. www.walkforlifewc.com 

And yes! There are other, sexier sex events happening this week too! 

Kinky Speed Dating 

Sponsored by the all-knowledgable BDSM education group Society of Janus, this session still has space for female bottoms who are looking to pair up with a male top (it’s part of an SOJ series that focuses on different genders and orientations during different sessions.) You’ll have the opportunity to meet 15 potential playmates, and receive the FetLife handle of those who are interested in you at the end of the speed rounds of sexy chit-chat. Conversation starters will be provided for those not well-versed in pervy small talk. 

Sat/26, 3-5pm, $10-15. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org

“Pleasure Yoga For Women” workshop/Naked Yoga at Eros

It’s all about the breathe — during yoga, obviously, but perhaps proper respiration is the key to healthy sensuality as well? The concept is explored at this one-off seminar for women, meant to promote sexual confidence and the ability to recognize what turns you on and fulfills you for real. Men folk, we don’t mean to leave you all tense and unflexible on this one: males of all sexual orientations are invited every Tuesday to Castro sex club Eros for naked yoga class — the class isn’t supposed to be a place to cruise, but rather a place for the menfolk to connect on another level of sexual health. 

Workshop: Sun/27, 2-6pm, $65. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. Naked Yoga For Men: every Tuesday, 6pm, suggested donation. Eros, 2051 Castro, SF. www.erossf.com

Dirty Talk and Roleplay with Chloe Camilla

I just went to see the drag production of Sex and the City currently playing at Rebel. In it, the voluptous Lady Bear presents a Miranda that is momentarily bewildered by a lover who demands she talk dirty in bed. After chatting it over with the girls she gives it a go. Lo and behold! Miranda finds that sensual verbosity is a huge turn-on, and that she’s really good at it. You just have to take the plunge, which is exactly what the pervy-adorable Chloe Camilla will be aiding and abetting at her Kink.com workshop next week. Look, discuss with Carrie over lunch and give it a go. 

Jan. 31, 7:30pm, $35. SF Armory, 1800 Mission, SF. tickets.armorystudios.com

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