History

City College board takes first step toward scaling back its mission

Sasha Cuttler
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[CORRECTED BELOW] The first step was taken in changing City College of San Francisco’s educational mission at last night’s Board of Trustees meeting, a decision that would drastically alter what programs the college funds and who it serves.

The college’s mission statement is an overarching funding guideline, according to Gohar Momjian, the college’s accreditation liaison officer. She presented the mission statement workgroup’s findings to the college’s board and a packed room of faculty and students last night.

Momjian oversees the 15 workgroups responsible for addressing the major areas the Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges told the school it has to rectify. A failure to do so by March 2013 could result in the revocation of the school’s accreditation, which is necessary for the college’s degrees to be recognized and for the school to receive federal funding.

Simply put, City College was tasked by the ACCJC to gets its mission in line with current fiscal realities. The workgroups, tasked with brainstorming ways to reshape the college and meet the criteria of the accreditation team’s findings, will use the new mission statement as a guide for what programs are viable, said Momjian.

So what was cut out of the new mission statement? Completion of adult high school diplomas, GED’s (which help students test out of high school), active engagement in the social fabric of the community, lifelong learning, life skills, and enrichment courses were all dropped from the revised mission statement. [[8/27 CORRECTION: Transitional Studies, which includes GEDs and basic adult education, ended up being in included in the primary mission]].

In their place was a statement making these things “conditional” on available resources. “In addition, the college offers other programs and services consistent with our primary mission, only as resources allow and whenever possible in collaboration with partnering agencies and community-based organizations,” reads the new draft statement of the college’s mission.

Essentially, the college promises to enrich the community only if the resources are available to do so. Students and faculty from classes geared towards older adults and also disabled students came out to oppose changes to the mission statement, and a loss of their funding.

“We have students that will wait 40 minutes in the rain in a wheelchair for a bus to get to class,” Disabled Students Programs and Services faculty Katherine Brown said to the board.

Shelly Glazer, faculty in the older adults program, left the board with a warning. “Here are the almost 2,000 letters written to the Student Success Task Force when they tried to cut our dollars,” Glazer said, dropping the huge stack of paper on the top of the podium. “They need your support, and you need theirs.”

Importantly, English as Second Language classes and basic skills classes were preserved in the primary mission guideline. “There are compromises made in the mission statement. There are things we can do under [better] conditions,” said Momjian in her report to the board. “That was our compromise.”

The board made a motion to approve the new draft mission statement, and voted unanimously in favor. The board will look at a second revised mission statement on Sept. 11, and take a final vote to amend the mission statement on Sept. 27. The draft mission statement can be read at the City College website here.

Forty-five problem areas were found in City College’s financial structures by a financial consulting group at the same college board meeting last night. The findings left the college board nearly speechless once the report was complete.

The Financial Crisis Management Team, known as FCMAT, was paid for by the state community college chancellor’s office and assigned to City College to help it review its finances. This was good timing with the recent accreditation troubles, but officially has no connection to the recent accreditation team visit or with any direction from the state chancellor’s office, FCMAT Chief Analyst Michelle Plumbtree told the college board.

Plumbtree and her associate Mike Hill made the presentation to the board on behalf of the four members of the “financial SWAT team,” as they’ve been dubbed by the board in the past. The report it gave to the board that night was only the tip of the iceberg.

“The report itself is going to be in the realm of 65 pages. There are about 45 specific recommendations,” said analyst Mike Hill. “But we do want to give you a sense of some of our observations first, and some of our recommendations grouped together.”

The hit list was read in a bullet point fashion, and as he rattled off each of the findings, the silence in the room deepened:

  • The district has made a cost structure over time that can’t be sustained in this economy.
  • The district opted for short term solutions.
  • Employee contracts have been made without long-term analysis.
  • Decision making has been made by power and political whim rather than logic and fairness.
  • The conduct of key leaders and the culture within the district have greatly diminished the role and the effectiveness of the management team.
  • The district lacks data to assess sites.
  • The district supports much more faculty than its closest peers.
  • There’s a history of maintaining a small fund balance, with 90-92 percent of the budget being committed to salary and benefits, the college needs to make adjustments.
  • The department chair structure is not cost effective nor administratively sound.
  • We’re recommending a reduction in full time faculty through attrition.
  • We’re recommending the district not subsidize categorical programs, and that current subsidies be reassessed (the state cut funding for some categorical programs, like the second chance program, and City College has been eating that cost to the tune of around $20 million a year, according to AFT 2121 president Alisa Messer).
  • Consider either elimination of department chairs or diminish them while empowering deans and giving them the ability to act.”

“There’s a lot there, it covers a lot of territory, and you need to see the context and data and analysis in order to have informed questions, or else you’ll be spinning our wheels,” Hill said to the stunned board.

Chief Analyst Michelle Plumbtree concluded by cautioning the board against inaction. “The circumstances the district found itself did not happen overnight, decisions made over many years brought you here,” she said. “You’re going to have to move quicker than you want to, but that’s what’s needed.”

“Some of these things are new to me, but some of these things have come up in work groups. Some of these things are things we’ve known for years,” board President John Rizzo said after the report concluded. Financial administrators at City College declined to comment before the release of the full report. The 65-page final report will be made public on Sept. 18, and given to the college board a few days before that, Plumbtree said.

The City College Board of Trustees motioned to delay one of their most controversial votes at last night’s board meeting.

The board hopes to bring in a “special trustee,” who would be provided by the state, to help guide them through their recent accreditation woes. A special trustee is not simply a guide. A special trustee has veto power over the college board, giving the trustee unilateral decision making powers, according to college officials that night.

Most of the board welcomed the notion of outside help. The board has asked for $1.5 million dollars in cuts that never got made, Rizzo said, arguing for the need for the special trustee.

“It’s an enormous wealth of expertise that we do not have…We need someone from the outside to tell us where that mistake was made,” Rizzo said.

Trustee Chris Jackson wasn’t sure that the board had full knowledge of what it was asking. “I support a special trustee, but I have questions…How long would a trustee be here? What’s the process of asking them to leave?” Jackson asked, to the applause of the audience.

It was student Trustee William Walker who clarified the students’ position. He had a meeting with students the previous day, and they strongly disagreed with bringing in a special trustee to help run the school.

Given the history of special trustees in college districts, it’s not surprising why. A report by the LA Sentinel shows the discord brought by one special trustee to the Compton community college district, also facing accreditation woes. To read a report of Compton College’s and how it mirrors City College, check out the Guardian report “Saving City College.”

Special trustee Dr. Genethis Hudley-Hayes, was removed from her position as special trustee by State Community College Chancellor Jack Scott last September, according to the Sentinel article. The article cites multitudes of complaints against her by the community, who wrote a six page letter to Gov. Jerry Brown and Scott asking for Hayes’ removal.

“Who do you serve and why are you here?” Associated Students President Shanell Williams said to the board during its public comment session. “It’s shameful… If you can’t make decisions without a special trustee, then we need a new board.”

Student Kitty Lui said that the board’s decision to bring in a special trustee would undercut the democratic will of the community.
“If you don’t know how to move forward, I don’t know why you’re still here,” she said.

Despite students’ objections, if the board does not choose a special trustee, the likelihood is that one will be imposed on them, Jackson said. The board ultimately decided to shelve the decision until a special meeting on Sept. 11.

Interestingly, the “financial SWAT team,” FCMAT, thinks that a special trustee is a good idea. “To have an outside expert is always good,” FCMAT Chief Analyst Michelle Plumbtree told The Guardian. “Sometimes, you’re just too close.”

Talking with ‘Compliance’ director Craig Zobel: a spoiler-free interview!

Sue Vaughan
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Talking with ‘Compliance’ director Craig Zobel: a spoiler-free interview!

No film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival festival encountered as much controversy as Craig Zobel‘s Compliance. At the first public screening, an all-out shouting match erupted, with an audience member yelling “Sundance can do better!” You can’t buy that kind of publicity. Every screening that followed was jam-packed with people hoping to experience the most shocking film at Sundance, and the film does not disappoint. (Beware: every review I have happened upon has unnecessarily spoiled major plots in the film, which is based on true events.)

Compliance aims to confront a society filled with people who are trained to follow rules without questioning them. Magnolia Pictures, which previously collaborated with Zobel on his debut film Great World of Sound (which premiered at Sundance in 2007), picked up the film for theatrical release (it comes out Fri/24 in Bay Area theaters); if you dare to check it out, prepare to be traumatized as well as intellectualized. You’ll be screaming all the way home about one of the most audacious movies of 2012 — and that’s exactly why the film is so brilliant.

San Francisco Bay Guardian I have attended Sundance since I was 11 years old, and there have been a handful of particularly volatile screenings in which audience members passed out, threw up, stormed out of the theater, or berated the filmmakers during the Q&A: Bryan Singer’s Public Access and Rémy Belvaux and André Bonzel’s Man Bites Dog in 1993; Mary Harron’s American Psycho and Kim Ki-Duk’s The Isle in 2000; Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible in 2002; and Johan Renck’s Downloading Nancy in 2008. Now, you’ve joined the ranks of the infamous Sundance elite. Were you prepared for how vulnerable your film Compliance was going to make audience members?

Craig Zobel Absolutely not. It really caught me off guard.

SFBG People became quite angry at you at the first screening’s Q&A, correct? How did you adapt in the subsequent screenings and are you prepared for people’s reactions once the film gets released?

Zobel I did not try to make a movie just to piss people off. I’m picking movies to make that are like, “I’ve never seen anyone doing that as a movie.” If I saw this movie I’d say, “Whoa, I want to have a conversation about what that director was trying to do.”

When I was writing Compliance, I had been attached to make a studio comedy and some other things, and for one reason or another all of the other projects weren’t happening. And I wanted to make a film right [then]. Which, if you look at the landscape of independent movies that get [made] these days, they seem to have the kind of money and star caliber as a studio film. There are all these 20-something relationship films that are basically just romantic comedies. I would rather watch a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock, who will at least give me what I want from the genre, while these other ones aren’t really satisfying to me.

So I wanted to make something that [didn’t] just feel like light entertainment.

SFBG The film seems to be taking its toll on audiences due to how relentless the experience is, though it’s not a long film at all.

Zobel I originally wanted to make the film 85 minutes. That’s what I hung on the wall. The script is 80 pages long. It ended up 90 minutes, but it has a lot of momentum that helps make the film not feel boring. I was trying to make sure that every 10 minutes a major thing would happen. We would do something once and that would be enough. We broke it down into a five-act story instead of a bigger three act structure.

SFBG The film exposes so much about each audience member that experiences it. When I saw it at Sundance, the woman sitting behind me was nervously texting every few seconds and so we all could hear her iPhone confirmation dinging over and over and over until ultimately she stromed out in a huff. The guy next to me was laughing yet fidgeting so much that the person in front of him had to tell him to stop.

You force us the audience to be stuck in the same predicament as the characters we are watching which leads me to kind of an odd question: what kind of student were you?

Zobel In high school? A good one! [Laughs.] I wasn’t the guy yelling at the teacher all the time. Maybe a little bit when I was in college but recently I was able to teach as an adjunct for a directing class at Columbia. It was really interesting and fun and I now have so much more respect and admiration for teaching. But I wasn’t that student who constantly had questions for the teacher.

SFBG I don’t think your film is trying to push people’s buttons just for the hell of it. And this is why I compared it to Psycho, not only because of the film’s intelligent yet deeply disturbing exploration of our society, but how each character is given some seriously mind-melting dilemmas. Without spoiling anything from the film, how did you pull out such haunting performances?

Zobel A lot of it was casting. And in some ways it was even easy to cast because the people who came in to the casting room were as curious about it as I was. It just made sense very quickly. All of the actors were running into situations during the shoot where they would go, “I can’t understand how this character could do this but it sounds hard and I am curious to try and think about it more.”

I think they all gave amazing performances by virtue of the fact that they were in it for the exploration. They were all fascinated with the type of story we were trying to tell and made sure to not make anything just black and white. Also, we shot more takes of a scene than I thought we ever would, not because anything was wrong, [but because after] a few takes we would say, “Well, what are the other ways or what other attitudes or possibilities can we try?” So in the editing room, we had the opportunities to dip into that one for a line here and maybe go back to the initial take.

SFBG I have read online how a few audience members are proud of walking out of the film, and it seems pretty damn ironic for people to leave before the conclusion. They literally do not want to confront or even try and figure out what it is you are attempting to explore. You’ve got philosophy behind this picture, and I feel like you’ve got an exciting future ahead.

Zobel I really appreciate that. I do know what I am trying to do next, which is a screenplay that I previously wrote; it’s very close to happening and I’m very excited about it. It’s also based on a true story —  it’s about this Swedish mafia member who becomes a technology executive. I get to explore money and why people decide to devote their lives to seek that stuff.

COMPLIANCE opens Fri/24 in Bay Area theaters.

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks teaches full-time as the Film History Coordinator at the Academy of Art University, curates/hosts MiDNiTES FOR MANiACS, a film series that showcases underrated, overlooked and dismissed cinema in a neo-sincere way and can be contacted at: midnites4maniacs@gmail.com 

Howdy, strangers

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Howdy, strangers

arts@sfbg.com

FALL ARTS Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse were obsessed with Americana long before the two Bristol-based performance makers (known collectively as Action Hero) ever set their cowboy boots in the United States. In fact, they’d performed their site-specific first piece, a barroom exploration of the Western (called simply A Western) for years before lobbing it into the belly of the beast, where it appeared as part of Austin, Texas’ Fusebox Festival in 2010.

“We were shitting it,” remembers Paintin, in a British phrase meaning mighty fretful. But the crowd loved it; Paintin calls it their best audience ever. She and Stenhouse have worked together since 2005 on pieces that engage the audience as co-conspirators as well as subjects in their own right. A good example is their piece, Watch Me Fall, which had the audience cheering on a series of ridiculous, slightly risky stunts from either side of a long runway, a work that Paintin explains was inspired by the duo’s interest in motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel.

>>VIEW OUR FULL FALL ART 2012 PREVIEW

A diminutive woman with bright blond bangs, Paintin spoke last week at a sidewalk table outside BrainWash Café, fresh from a rehearsal at CounterPULSE, where she and James were in the fifth day of leading a collaborative performance workshop with a selected group of Bay Area–based American artists (Laura Arrington, Andrea Hart, Xandra Ibarra, Richie Israel, Elizabeth McSurdy, Mica Sigourney, and Ernesto Sopprani).

Stenhouse was not able to join the conversation — rehearsal had run long and he was following its willy-nilly course to a local karaoke bar, where he and the rest of the group were planning to take turns singing Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man.” A couple of days earlier, the group had gone tailgating at a pre-season NFL game in Oakland. Such are the trails, happy or otherwise, down which the adventurer in Americana must travel. (You can follow some of the research results thus far — in a process McSurdy calls “aesthetically polyamorous” — in the group’s blog posts at www.counterpulse.org.)

The workshop sets out to investigate American cultural mythologies using the concept of the stranger or outsider as starting point. Hosted by CounterPULSE with leadership from program director Julie Phelps, the program is part of a major cultural exchange project by CounterPULSE’s collaborator on Stranger in a Strange land, the arts-based University of Chichester in the South of England.

“All the work of the Department of Performing Arts is about making radical new work, and we have a reputation for working with exciting and challenging artists, hence our connection to Action Hero,” explained Ben Francombe, head of the department, by email. “The University of Chichester has instigated this overall project as a way to explore different interdisciplinary working methods,” he continues, “which involve the idea of exchange.” Francombe adds that the University is keen to continue having a presence in the Bay Area.

“It’s been really fun actually,” enthuses Paintin, clearly pleased with how experienced and open-minded her American counterparts have proven with collaboration. “We’re trying to just be about the process.”

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

Mon/27, 8 p.m., $10-$20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.counterpulse.org

 

TAKE ANOTHER BOW, LAZARUS

The fall theater season includes several worthy returns (in addition to shiny new premieres) worth keeping in déjà view:

Chinglish The new comedy about East-West miscommunication from David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) has already been to Hong Kong but rebounds to the West Coast courtesy of Berkeley Rep. Aug. 24–Oct. 7; www.berkeleyrep.org

San Francisco Fringe Festival It’s a phoenix, really, rising each September like a sassy, gangling, 41–headed bird of play. Sept. 5–16; www.sffringe.org

Invasion! Crowded Fire delivers its own politically pointed comedy of miscommunication and cultural misconceptions in its West Coast premiere of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s 2011 Obie-winner. Sept. 6–29; crowdedfire.dreamhosters.com

Geezer and The Real Americans The Hoyle boys — veteran clown and physical actor Geoff Hoyle and bounding son Dan, a theater sensation in his own right — return to the Marsh for re-runs of their respective, wildly popular solo shows. The Real Americans: Sept. 7–29; Geezer: Oct. 6–Nov. 18; www.themarsh.org

The Normal Heart Larry Kramer’s 1985 play returns (in the new Broadway revival directed by George C. Wolfe) at a time when the history of the AIDS crisis has become endangered by a vague “normalizing” narrative of American progress, or what Sara Schulman aptly calls “the gentrification of the mind.” Here’s an opportunity to remember lots of things, not least those who died and fought, a great play, a vital movement, a continuing health emergency, and the importance of mass resistance. Sept. 13–Oct. 7, www.act-sf.org

Roughin’ It 2: Theater. Oysters. Campfire. Booze. Again. Fresh from sold-out success with Duck Lake, PianoFight heads back up to Point Reyes for a second season of woozy waddling, shucking and jiving along the shore of Tamales Bay, featuring everything in the subtitle including brand new short plays harvested from a bed of delicious local playwrights. Sept. 15 and 22; www.pianofight.com

Assassins Shotgun Players mount the Sondheim musical about presidential recalls made and attempted from John Wilkes Booth onward, an election-year favorite directed by Susannah Martin. Sept. 26–Oct. 28; www.shotgunplayers.org

Rhinoceros Paris-based Theatre de la Ville’s production of the Ionesco play — a modernist classic on individual resistance to tyrannical conformity — is a remounting of the company’s acclaimed 2004 production, making its first US tour. Sept. 27–28, www.calperformances.org

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass “Be Here Now” all over again in Lynne Kaufman’s new play — not so much a theatrical return as a serious flashback — starring the exceptional Warren David Keith as the titular giant of 1960s counterculture, a Harvard prof turned LSD advocate and spiritual teacher. Oct. 4–Nov. 24, www.themarsh.org  

Einstein on the Beach Composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson reinvented the opera in 1976 as an enthrallingly weird-ass piece of avant-garde spectacle and the world has not been the same since. This remounting —overseen by the original team of Glass, Wilson, and choreographer Lucinda Childs — marks the first performances of the five-hour formalist extravaganza in 20 years. The international tour takes its highly anticipated Bay Area bow courtesy of co-commissioner Cal Performances. Oct. 26–28, www.calperformances.org

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Daughter of the Red Tzar Thick House Theatre, 1695 18th St, SF; www.thickhouse.org. $30. Opens Fri/24, 8pm. Runs Sat-Sun and Aug 31, 8pm. Through Sept 2. ScolaVox and First Look Sonoma present the world premiere of Lisa Scola-Prosek’s chamber opera about a meeting between Churchill, Stalin, and Stalin’s teenage daughter.

BAY AREA

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Previews Fri/24-Sat/23 and Aug 29, 8pm; Sun/26, 2pm; Tue/28, 7pm. Opens Aug 30, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 30. Aurora Theatre Company opens its 21st season with Kristoffer Diaz’s comedy about pro wrestlers.

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Previews Thu/23-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Impact Theatre performs Steve Yockey’s tentacle-porn-inspired sex farce.

Time Stands Still TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, SF; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Previews Wed/22-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 16. TheatreWorks performs Donald Marguelis’ drama about a couple — one a photojournalist, one a war correspondent — struggling with their recent experiences covering a war.

ONGOING

Believers Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $20-25. Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm. As a couple of research scientists and a former couple to boot, Rocky Wise (Casey Fern) and Grace Wright (Maria Giere Marquis) are simply mad about love in Wily West’s world premiere of local playwright Patricia Milton’s exuberant but patchy comedy. Employed by a small, less than scrupulous pharmaceutical firm reeling from a product recall and attendant lawsuits, reclusive Rocky toils away after a formula for a drug that will inoculate the user against love — a secret agenda of his own inspired by the broken heart Grace left him with several years earlier. His boss (a comically brassy Jon Fast) thinks he’s working on a commissioned "love activator," and to that end woos back former employee Grace to keep the fires burning in the lab. The strained reunion does the trick, if not exactly in the way intended. Meanwhile, a wacky born-again receptionist (Kate Jones) —"only recently come to the Lord" (and her Texan drawl by the sound of it) — fields calls from desperate people in a world despoiled by corporate greed and seemingly already in the throes of the end times. There are some moments worthy of a titter or two, but director Sara Staley’s cast is less than precise or compelling with dialogue that is already hit-and-miss. Despite a promising scenario, Believers remains too uneven and muddled to generate much love beyond the stage. (Avila)

Dog Sees God Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $16. Wed/22-Sat/25, 8pm. There was always a lightly subversive if not latently radical bent to Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts strip, with its implicit championing of nonconformity, its restless and half-confused longing, and its convincing blend of gentleness and cruelty. Playwright Bert V. Royal mines it all with inspired confidence and fighting spirit in his portrait of the Peanuts gang as a fractured set of contemporary fucked-up if formidable teens. First among them is a sullen but resilient CB (Andrew Humann), blockhead of the title, reeling from the death of his dog and his awakened love for broodingly gifted, deeply estranged pal Beethoven (Bobby Conte-Thornton). In Boxcar’s winning production, the boisterous, often hilarious and poignant story — which includes real-life issues of grief, abuse, abortion, homophobia, and suicide — comes animated by a talented and thoroughly persuasive young cast under beautifully calibrated direction by artistic director Nick A. Olivero. (Avila)

Les Misérables Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.bestofbroadway-sf.com. $83-155. Wed/22-Sat/25, 8pm (also Wed/22 and Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2pm. SHN’s Best of Broadway series brings to town the new 25th anniversary production of Cameron Mackintosh’s musical giant, based on the novel by Victor Hugo. The revival at the Orpheum does without the famous rotating stage but nevertheless spares no expense or artistry in rendering the show’s barrage of colorful Romantic scenes (with Matt Kinley’s scenic design drawing painterly inspiration from Hugo’s own oils) or its larger-than-life characters — first and foremost Jean Valjean (a slim but passionate Peter Lockyer), nemesis Javert (Andrew Varela), and rescued orphan beauty Cosette (Lauren Wiley). Chris Jahnke contributes new orchestrations to the rollicking original score by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music) and Herbert Kretzmer (lyrics) in this flagrantly sentimental, somewhat problematic but still-stirring meld of music and melodrama in dutiful overlapping service of box office treasure and powerful humanist aspirations. (Avila)

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 29. SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a "lady" and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the "tragedy" of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs ("Wouldn’t It Be Loverly," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

The Princess Bride: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; foulplaysf.com/princessbride. $20. Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm. Dark Room Productions presents a live tribute to the cult fairy-tale movie.

Rights of Passage New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Wed/22-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of Ed Decker and Robert Leone’s multimedia play, inspired by global human rights laws in relation to sexual orientation.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat/25, 8:30pm. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm (starting Sept 6: also Thu, 8pm); Sat, 5pm. Extended through Sept 29. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

War Horse Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-300. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 9. The juggernaut from the National Theatre of Great Britain, via Broadway and the Tony Awards, has pulled into the Curran for its Bay Area bow. The life-sized puppets are indeed all they’re cracked up to be; and the story of a 16-year-old English farm boy (Andrew Veenstra) who searches for his beloved horse through the trenches of the Somme Valley during World War I, while peppered with much elementary humor too, is a good cry for those so inclined. The claim to being an antiwar play is only true to the extent that any war-is-hell backdrop and a plea for tolerance count a melodrama as "antiwar," but this is not Mother Courage and no serious attempt is made to investigate the subject. Closer to say it’s Lassie Come Home where Lassie is a horse — very ably brought to life by Handspring Puppet Company’s ingenious puppeteers and designers, and amid a transporting and generally riveting mise-en-scène (complete with pointedly stirring live and recorded music). But the simplistic storyline and its obvious, somewhat ham-fisted resolution (adapted by Nick Stafford from Michael Morpurgo’s novel) are too formulaic to be taken that seriously. And at two-and-a-half-hours, it’s a long time coming. A shorter war, the Falklands say, would have done just as well and gotten people out before the ride began to chafe. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Circle Mirror Transformation Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $20-57. Wed/22, 7:30pm; Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm (also Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2 and 7pm. Annie Baker has enjoyed a wave of Bay Area premieres this year, beginning with Aurora’s sharp staging of Body Awareness, followed by SF Playhouse’s triumph with The Aliens. Now Marin Theatre Company and co-producers Encore Theatre Company offer Baker’s other "Vermont play," set in a community center drama therapy class run by baby-boomer groovy lady Marty (Julia Brothers). She’s joined in a series of drama exercises (and ill-masked personal convolutions) by her husband James (L. Peter Callender), fretting over his estrangement from his daughter by his first marriage; Schultz (Robert Parsons), a middle-aged recent divorcé smitten with the cute girl in the class; Theresa (Arwen Anderson), said cute girl, a nubile 30-something and recent New York transplant; and Lauren (Marissa Keltie), a reluctant, cloudy teen perpetually absent her mother’s check for the class. If Boxcar Theatre’s current production, Dog Sees God, builds flesh and bone from a comic strip, Baker’s amusing, bite-sized scenes (separated by blackouts) tend to lean in the other direction. Despite elaboration of a certain dramatic metaphor flagged in the title, the play’s thematic possibilities are restrained by an easy if highly palatable humor that flirts knowingly with caricature but to only middling affect. There’s a move in the final scene that nicely expands the reach of the action, but that limited if affecting turn is two hours in the making. That said, this fine production insures it’s no great burden getting there. The cast under director Kip Fagan is uniformly enjoyable. Brothers is terrific in giving Marty a bounding personality and just enough ambiguity to make her positive vibes suspect, and Callender finds wonderful opportunities for fleshing out the character of a charming but frustrated man who has not realized his potential. Parsons’ at first foolishly giddy then bitterly imploded Schultz is wholly convincing opposite Anderson’s zany but compelling Theresa. And Keltie’s sly and sullen teen is rightly the smartest tool in the shed. (Avila)

For the Greater Good, Or The Last Election This week: Montclair Ball Field, Montclair; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Thu/23, 7pm. Willard Park, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/25-Sun/26, 2pm. Various venues through Sept. 8. "Don’t they understand that without us they don’t have anything?" asks Gideon Bloodgood (Ed Holmes), investment banker at the top of the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s vivisection of the "real" American Dream, For the Greater Good, Or the Last Election. But surely the hero of a Mime Troupe show cannot possibly be a billionaire? Well, sort of. Though Bloodgood enriches himself dishonestly with precarious investments and outright theft in this Occupy-era melodrama, he actually does occasionally spare a sentiment for Mom and apple pie, or anyway his daughter Alida (Lisa Hori-Garcia) and cookies baked by the unsuspecting victim of his ill-gotten gains, the Widow Fairweather (Keiko Shimosato Carreiro) — now living at the last Occupy encampment standing in the city. Alida, however, displays no compunction in throwing aside his affection and her prospective seat in Congress, running off to join the occupiers for reasons that truthfully appear about as politically motivated as her father’s parasitic avarice, leaving him to join forces instead with the most unlikely of allies — the impeccable, ingenuous Lucy Fairweather (Velina Brown), heiress to a stolen legacy, and staunch patriot. Based loosely on 19th century play The Poor of New York, The Last Election attempts to turn a presumptive ode to the free market into its swan song with good-humored, if predictable, results. (Gluckstern)

Happy Hour with Kim Jong Il Cabaret at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750,l www.themarsh.org. Free. Fri/24, 6pm. Comedy work-in-progress by Kenny Yun, with live music by cabaret singer Candace Roberts.

Henry V Sequoia High School, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Sat/25, 7:30pm; Sun/26, 2pm. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival presents the Bard’s history play as part of its "Free Shakespeare in the Park" series.

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sept 13, 20, and 27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Check website for schedule. Through Sept 30. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

Our Country’s Good Redwood Amphiteatre, Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Thu-Sun, 7:30pm. Through Sept 8. Porchlight Theatre Company presents an outdoor performance of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play about Royal Marines and prisoners in an 18th century New South Wales prison colony.

Precious Little Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-25. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sept 1 and 8, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 16. Shotgun Players presents Madeleine George’s new play about an expectant mother who studies near-dead languages and befriends a "talking" gorilla.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Along the Way" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.caitlinelliotdance.com, www.detourdance.com. Fri/24-Sun/26, 8pm. $15-30. Caitlin Elliott Dance Collective and Detour Dance present this evening of world premieres, including performances Fancy and Imitations of Intimacy, and the dance film Pedestrian Crossing.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 8. $10-25. This week: "Original Broadway Cast and Moments of Transition" (Thu/23); "Double Feature" (Fri/24); "The Naked Stage" (Sat/25).

Circus Finelli 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.circusfinelli.com. Thu/23, 7-10pm. $6. Clowns, cocktails, comedy, and klezmer rule in this performance of "Big Time and Little Something’s Big Adventure."

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race "so you don’t have to." No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

"Jump Into Dance! ODC School Family Day Open House" ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odcdance.org. Sun/26, 8:45am-3:30pm. Free. Children, teens, and their families are invited to check out the ODC School Youth and Teen Program, with sample dance classes and faculty on hand to answer questions.

Rome Kanda Main Pagoda Stage, Japantown’s Peace Plaza, Geary and Buchanan, SF; www.j-pop.com. Sat/25, 2:30pm; Sun/26, 1pm. Free. The Japanese comedian stops by the J-Pop Summit Festival for a stage appearance and signing of his new digital manga series, Samurai Spirit: The Story of Rome Kanda.

Maurya Kerr/tinypistol Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/27, 8pm. $18-23. WestWave Dance presents this evening of works, including world premiere FreakShow.

"Measure for Measure" Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; sftheaterpub.wordpress.com. Mon/27, 8pm. Free ($5 suggested donation). SF Theater Pub performs the Shakespeare play.

"San Francisco Drag King Contest" DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.sfdragkingcontest.com. Thu/23, 9pm. $20-35. The popular, raucous contest returns for its 17th annual incarnation.

"San Francisco Improv Festival" Eureka Theater, 215 Jackson, SF; www.sfimprovfestival.com. Wed/22-Sat/25. $5-35. With local improv talent including BATS Improv, Un-Scripted Theater Company, San Jose ComedySportz, and more.

"Sea Music Festival" San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, SF; nps.gov/safr. Sat/25, 9:30am-5pm. $5 (15 and under, free). Singers, intrumentalists, and dance troupes perform in celebration of maritime heritage to coincide with the America’s Cup races.

"Soundwave 5: Revelation Zen" San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Sat/25, 6-9pm. $12-25. Performances by En, Sean McCann, and Marielle V. Jakobsons.

"Work More!" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu/24-Sat/26, 8pm. $15-20. Theater performance meets nightlife experience in this drag installation with Mica Sigourney/VivvyAnne ForeverMORE and Ox.

Film Listings

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

OPENING

Alps Yorgos Lanthimos is well on his way to a reputation for sick yet oddly charming high-concept spectacles. Here, a group calling themselves Alps offers substitution services for the recently bereaved — that’s right, they’ll play your dead loved one to fill that hole in your life. Pitch-black comic moments abound, and the sensibility that made 2009’s Dogtooth so thrilling is distinctly present here, if not quite as fresh. Beyond the absurd logline, the plot is rather more conventional: things get out of hand when Alps member Anna (Aggeliki Papoulia, the eldest daughter from Dogtooth) gets too invested in one of her assignments, and the power structure of Alps turns on her. If Alps is not exactly a revelation, it’s still a promising entry in a quickly blossoming auteur’s body of work. (1:33) Roxie. (Sam Stander)

The Apparition A couple with a ghost problem (Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan) hire Slytherin’s own Tom Felton to help clean house. (1:22)

Compliance No film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival encountered as much controversy as Craig Zobel’s Compliance. At the first public screening, an all-out shouting match erupted, with an audience member yelling "Sundance can do better!" You can’t buy that kind of publicity. Every screening (public and press) that followed was jam-packed with people hoping to experience the most shocking film at Sundance, and the film does not disappoint. (Beware: every review I have happened upon has unnecessarily spoiled major plots in the film, which is based on true events.) What is so impressive about Zobel’s film is how it builds up a sense of ever-impending terror. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the film steps into Psycho (1960) terrain, specifically in the final act of the film. Compliance aims to confront a society filled with people who are trained to follow rules without questioning them. Magnolia Pictures, which previously collaborated with Zobel on his debut film Great World of Sound (which premiered at Sundance in 2007), picked up the film for theatrical release; if you dare to check it out, prepare to be traumatized. You’ll be screaming about one of the most audacious movies of 2012 — and that’s exactly why the film is so brilliant. For an interview with Zobel, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:30) Bridge, Shattuck. (Jesse Hawthorne Ficks)

Cosmopolis David Cronenberg directs Robert Pattinson in this Don DeLillo adaptation. (1:49) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

"Global Threats Film Series" The San Francisco Film Society’s "Global Threats" series continues with a double dose of stuff that’ll kill ya. Though separated by six decades, both features are remarkably similar for their matter-of-fact, location-shot, non-pulp treatment of a prime (if infrequently used) thriller topic: the desperate attempts by health officials to contain a deadly virus before it spreads to the whole population. While in some quarters it was criticized for being too docu-drama-esque and not "thriller" enough, Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion last year was admirably cool-headed in its depiction of various global, national, and local authorities (played by an all-star cast) frantically coping with an outbreak of something that yuppie slut Gwyneth Paltrow brought home from a business trip. A year before A Streetcar Named Desire (which was, contrastingly, almost entirely shot on studio soundstages), Elia Kazan ventured to the real New Orleans for Panic in the Streets (1950), in which another traveler imports an actual plague to the Big Easy. US Public Health Service physician Richard Widmark is tasked with tracking down the rapidly growing number of the infected, which is complicated by the fact that several of them (including Jack Palance and Zero Mostel) are criminal-underground types naturally averse to cooperating with the cops or any other governmental representative. If Contagion irked some for being a little too nuts-and-bolts procedural, the brilliantly black-and-white-shot Panic excited audiences and critics at the time for its unusual realism. That extends to the warmly credible marital relationship between workaholic Widmark (very appealing in one of his few nice-guy leads) and neglected but understanding spouse Barbara Bel Geddes. SF Film Society Cinema. (Harvey)
Hermano As a child, Julio (Eliu Armas) discovered foundling Daniel (Fernando Moreno) abandoned in a dumpster; taken in by the former’s mom (Marcela Giron), the two boys are raised as brothers. They’re close as can be, even if Julio is physically slight, shy, and straight-arrow, while strapping Daniel is a born leader and survivor quite willing to cross the legal line when it serves his purposes. One area in which they’re of the same mind is the soccer field, where both (especially Daniel) are talented players with hopes of going pro. But that seems a remote dream in their violence-ridden slum. Marcel Rasquin’s Venezuelan sports-crime drama is built on some hoary clichés — the "good" brother/"bad" brother dynamic, the tragedy that sparks revenge that sparks more tragedy, etc. — but is so unpretentious, energetic, sincere. and well-cast that skeptical resistance is futile. It’s a modest movie, but a true, satisfying pleasure. (1:37) Metreon. (Harvey)

Hit and Run Annie (Kristen Bell) has a Stanford doctorate but is treading in the academic backwaters until the prospect is raised of an ideal department-heading position at UCLA. She’s thrilled, but also conflicted, because live-in beau Charlie (Dax Shepard) is in the Federal Witness Protection program, and can’t leave the nowhere burg he lives in incognito — particularly for Los Angeles — without risking serious personal harm. However, for love he decides he’ll risk everything so she can take the job. Unfortunately, this fast attracts the attention of various people very much interested in halting this exodus, for various reasons: notably Charlie’s inept U.S. Marshall "protector" (Tom Arnold), Annie’s psycho ex (Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum), and a guy with an even more serious grudge against Charlie (Bradley Cooper in a dreadlock wig). A whole lot of wacky chases and stunt driving ensues. The second feature Shepard’s co-directed (with David Palmer) and written, this aims for a cross between 1970s drive-in demolition derbies (1977’s Smokey and the Bandit, 1974’s Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, etc.) and envelope-pushing comedy thrillers like 1993’s True Romance. There’s a lot of comic talent here, including some notable cameos, yet Hit and Run is one of those cases where the material is almost there, but not quite. It moves breezily enough but some of the characters are more annoying than funny; the dialogue is an awkward mix of bad taste and PC debates about bad taste; and some ideas that aim to be hilarious and subversive (naked old people, a long discussion about jailhouse rape) just sit there, painfully. Which makes this only the second-best Dax Shepard movie with incarceration rape jokes, after 2006’s Let’s Go to Prison. (1:38) (Harvey)

Premium Rush Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a New York City bike messenger who accidently runs (cycles?) afoul of some dirty cops. (1:31)

Robot and Frank Imagine the all-too-placid deadpan of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) coming out of a home-healthcare worker, and you get just part of the appeal of this very likable comedy debut with a nonrobotic pulse directed by Jake Schreier. Sometime in the indeterminate near future, former jewel thief and second-story man Frank (Frank Langella) can be found quietly deteriorating in his isolated home, increasingly forgettable and unable to care for himself and assemble a decent bowl of Cap’n Crunch (though he can still steal fancy soaps from the village boutique). In an effort to cover his own busy rear, Frank’s distracted son (James Marsden) buys him a highly efficient robotic stand-in (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard), much to his father’s grim resistance ("That thing is going to murder me in my sleep") and the dismay of crunchy sibling Madison (Liv Tyler). The robot, however, is smarter than it looks, as it bargains with Frank to eat better, get healthier, and generally reanimate: it’s willing to learn to pick locks, participate in a robbery, and even plan a jewel heist, provided, say, Frank agrees to a low-sodium diet. Frank flourishes, like the garden the robot nurtures in a vain attempt to interest his human charge, and even goes on a date with his librarian crush (Susan Sarandon), though can the self-indulgent idyll last forever? A tale about aging as much as it is about rediscovery, Robot tells an old story, but one that’s wise beyond its years and willing to dress itself up in some of the smooth, sleek surfaces of an iGeneration. (1:30) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Chun)

Sinister A true-crime writer (Ethan Hawke) encounters a demon who looks an awful lot like a refugee from Norway’s 1990 black metal scene. (1:50)

$upercapitalist Greed is good … fodder for cinematic drama these days as all assembled struggle to get out from under the Great Recession and look to immerse themselves in the boardroom battlefields of films like 2011’s Margin Call. Spinning off his time working for CNN in Hong Kong in the halcyon mid-’00s, lead actor, writer, and producer Derek Ting stars as a bright, eager-to-please hedge fund trader from New York, transplanted in the wild, wild East, and forced to learn a lesson about unchecked, profit-driven gamesmanship. In Hong Kong, Conner (Ting) only looks as Chinese as the rest — otherwise he’s American through and through. Unlike, say, the old-fashioned family-run corporation he’s assigned to take down, Conner is estranged from his family and has few loyalties, apart from Quentin (Darren E. Scott), the fellow trader who shows him the ropes and gets him hooked on hand-tailored suits, flash cars, and attractive arm candy, and Natalie (Kathy Uyen), a publicist who’s as brainy as she is beautiful. Unfortunately the game Conner’s playing has real costs for the people around him — and he finds himself questioning his loyalties. Ting and director Simon Yin have the makings of a compelling thriller — nothing is more tempting than a peep behind the curtain of a closed world like Chinese big business — and though the overall narrative pulls you in, they get tripped up on the details, namely easy clichés like $upercapitalist‘s pampered, playboy son of a business dynasty, or the rote devices like the middle-class family rigged to reveal that Conner does indeed have a soul. Much like their hero, Ting and company take a bit for granted, from the viewer’s patience with tired Hollywood conventions to the very system — capitalist, supercapitalist, or socialist market economy — that supports them. (1:36) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

ONGOING

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry Unstoppable force meets immovable object — and indeed gets stopped — in Alison Klayman’s documentary about China’s most famous contemporary artist. A larger than life figure, Ai Weiwei’s bohemian rebel persona was honed during a long (1981-93) stint in the U.S., where he fit right into Manhattan’s avant-garde and gallery scenes. Returning to China when his father’s health went south, he continued to push the envelope with projects in various media, including architecture — he’s best known today for the 2008 Beijing Olympics’ "Bird’s Nest" stadium design. But despite the official approval implicit in such high-profile gigs, his incessant, obdurate criticism of China’s political repressive politics and censorship — a massive installation exposing the government-suppressed names of children killed by collapsing, poorly-built schools during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake being one prominent example — has tread dangerous ground. This scattershot but nonetheless absorbing portrait stretches its view to encompass the point at which the subject’s luck ran out: when the film was already in post-production, he was arrested, then held for two months without official charge before he was accused of alleged tax evasion. (He is now free, albeit barred from leaving China, and "suspected" of additional crimes including pornography and bigamy.) (1:31) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Amazing Spider-Man A mere five years after Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man 3 — forgettable on its own, sure, but 2002’s Spider-Man and especially 2004’s Spider-Man 2 still hold up — Marvel’s angsty web-slinger returns to the big screen, hoping to make its box-office mark before The Dark Knight Rises opens in a few weeks. Director Marc Webb (2009’s 500 Days of Summer) and likable stars Andrew Garfield (as the skateboard-toting hero) and Emma Stone (as his high-school squeeze) offer a competent reboot, but there’s no shaking the feeling that we’ve seen this movie before, with its familiar origin story and with-great-power themes. A little creativity, and I don’t mean in the special effects department, might’ve gone a long way to make moviegoers forget this Spidey do-over is, essentially, little more than a soulless cash grab. Not helping matters: the villain (Rhys Ifans as the Lizard) is a snooze. (2:18) Metreon. (Eddy)

The Awakening In 1921 England Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a best-selling author who specializes in exposing the legions of phony spiritualists exploiting a nation still grieving for its World War I dead. She’s rather rudely summoned to a country boys’ boarding school by gruff instructor Robert (Dominic West), who would be delighted if she could disprove the presence of a ghost there — preferably before it frightens more of his young charges to death. Borrowing tropes from the playbooks of recent Spanish and Japanese horror flicks, Nick Murphy’s period thriller is handsome and atmospheric, but disappointing in a familiar way — the buildup is effective enough, but it all unravels in pat logic and rote "Boo!" scares when the anticlimactic payoff finally arrives. The one interesting fillip is Florence’s elaborate, antiquated, meticulously detailed arsenal of equipment and ruses designed to measure (or debunk) possibly supernatural phenomena. (1:47) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Beasts of the Southern Wild Six months 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) California, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Beloved There is a touch of Busby Berkeley to the first five or so minutes of Christophe Honoré’s Beloved — a fetishy, mid-’60s-set montage in which a series of enviably dressed Parisian women stride purposefully in and out of a shoe shop, trying on an endless array of covetable pumps. As for the rest, it’s a less delightful tale of two women, a mother and a daughter, and the unfathomable yet oft-repeated choices they make in their affairs of the heart. It helps very little that the mother is played by Ludivine Sagnier and then Catherine Deneuve — whose handsome Czech lover (Rasha Bukvic) is somewhat unkindly but perhaps deservedly transformed by the years into Milos Forman — or that the daughter, as an adult, is played by Deneuve’s real-life daughter, Chiara Mastroianni. And it helps even less that the film is a musical, wherein one character or another occasionally takes the opportunity, during a moment of inexplicable emotional duress, to burst into song and let poorly written pop lyrics muddy the waters even further. The men are sexist cads, or children, or both, and if they’re none of those, they’re gay. The women find these attributes to be charming and irresistible. None of it feels like a romance for the ages, but nonetheless the movie arcs through four interminable decades. When tragedy strikes, it’s almost a relief, until we realize that life goes on and so will the film. (2:15) Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

Bernie Jack Black plays the titular new assistant funeral director liked by everybody in small-town Carthage, Tex. He works especially hard to ingratiate himself with shrewish local widow Marjorie (Shirley MacLaine), but there are benefits — estranged from her own family, she not only accepts him as a friend (then companion, then servant, then as virtual "property"), but makes him her sole heir. Richard Linklater’s latest is based on a true-crime story, although in execution it’s as much a cheerful social satire as I Love You Philip Morris and The Informant! (both 2009), two other recent fact-based movies about likable felons. Black gets to sing (his character being a musical theater queen, among other things), while Linklater gets to affectionately mock a very different stratum of Lone Star State culture from the one he started out with in 1991’s Slacker. There’s a rich gallery of supporting characters, most played by little-known local actors or actual townspeople, with Matthew McConaughey’s vainglorious county prosecutor one delectable exception. Bernie is its director’s best in some time, not to mention a whole lot of fun. (1:39) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Bourne Legacy Settle down, Matt Damon fans — the original Bourne appears in The Bourne Legacy only in dialogue ("Jason Bourne is in New York!") and photograph form. Stepping in as lead badass is Jeremy Renner, whose twin powers of strength and intelligence come courtesy of an experimental-drug program overseen by sinister government types (including Edward Norton in an utterly generic role) and administered by lab workers doing it "for the science!," according to Dr. Rachel Weisz. Legacy‘s timeline roughly matches up with the last Damon film, The Bourne Ultimatum, which came out five years ago and is referenced here like we’re supposed to be on a first-name basis with its long-forgotten plot twists. Anyway, thanks to ol’ Jason and a few other factors involving Albert Finney and YouTube, the drug program is shut down, and all guinea-pig agents and high-security-clearance doctors are offed. Except guess which two, who manage to flee across the globe to get more WMDs for Renner’s DNA. Essentially one long chase scene, The Bourne Legacy spends way too much of its time either in Norton’s "crisis suite," watching characters bark orders and stare at computer screens, or trying to explain the genetic tinkering that’s made Renner a super-duper-superspy. Remember when Damon killed that guy with a rolled-up magazine in 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy? Absolutely nothing so rad in this imagination-free enterprise. (2:15) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Brave Pixar’s latest is a surprisingly familiar fairy tale. Scottish princess Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) would rather ride her horse and shoot arrows than become engaged, but it’s Aladdin-style law that she must marry the eldest son of one of three local clans. (Each boy is so exaggeratedly unappealing that her reluctance seems less tomboy rebellion than common sense.) Her mother (Emma Thompson) is displeased; when they quarrel, Merida decides to change her fate (Little Mermaid-style) by visiting the local spell-caster (a gentle, absent-minded soul that Ursula the Sea Witch would eat for brunch). Naturally, the spell goes awry, but only the youngest of movie viewers will fear that Merida and her mother won’t be able to make things right by the end. Girl power is great, but so are suspense and originality. How, exactly, is Brave different than a zillion other Disney movies about spunky princesses? Well, Merida’s fiery explosion of red curls, so detailed it must have had its own full-time team of animators working on it, is pretty fantastic. (1:33) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Campaign (1:25) California, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Vogue.

Celeste and Jesse Forever Married your best friend, realized you love but can’t be in love with each other, and don’t want to let all those great in-jokes wither away? Such is the premise of Celeste and Jesse Forever, the latest in what a recent wave of meaty, girl-centric comedies penned by actresses — here Rashida Jones working with real-life ex Will McCormack; there, Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks), Zoe Lister Jones (Lola Versus), and Lena Dunham (Girls) — who have gone the DIY route and whipped up their own juicy roles. There’s no mistaking theirs for your average big-screen rom-com: they dare to wallow harder, skew smarter, and in the case of Celeste, tackle the thorny, tough-to-resolve relationship dilemma that stubbornly refuses to conform to your copy-and-paste story arc. Nor do their female protagonists come off as uniformly likable: in this case, Celeste (Jones) is a bit of an aspiring LA powerbitch. Her Achilles heel is artist Jesse (Andy Samberg), the slacker high school sweetheart she wed and separated from because he doesn’t share her goals (e.g., he doesn’t have a car or a job). Yet the two continue to spend all their waking hours together and share an undeniable rapport, extending from Jesse’s encampment in her backyard apartment to their jokey simulated coitus featuring phallic-shaped lip balm. Throwing a wrench in the works: the fact that they’re still kind of in love with each other, which all their pals, like Jesse’s pot-dealer bud Skillz (McCormack), can clearly see. It’s an shaggy, everyday breakup yarn, writ glamorous by its appealing leads, that we too rarely witness, and barring the at-times nausea-inducing shaky-cam under the direction of Lee Toland Krieger, it’s rendered compelling and at times very funny — there’s no neat and tidy way to say good-bye, and Jones and McCormack do their best to capture but not encapsulate the severance and inevitable healing process. It also helps that the chemistry practically vibrates between the boyish if somewhat one-note Samberg and the soulful Jones, who fully, intelligently rises to the occasion, bringing on the heartbreak. (1:31) Metreon, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

The Dark Knight Rises Early reviews that called out The Dark Knight Rises‘ flaws were greeted with the kind of vicious rage that only anonymous internet commentators can dish out. And maybe this is yet another critic-proof movie, albeit not one based on a best-selling YA book series. Of course, it is based on a comic book, though Christopher Nolan’s sophisticated filmmaking and Christian Bale’s tortured lead performance tend to make that easy to forget. In this third and "final" installment in Nolan’s trilogy, Bruce Wayne has gone into seclusion, skulking around his mansion and bemoaning his broken body and shattered reputation. He’s lured back into the Batcave after a series of unfortunate events, during which The Dark Knight Rises takes some jabs at contemporary class warfare (with problematic mixed results), introduces a villain with pecs of steel and an at-times distractingly muffled voice (Tom Hardy), and unveils a potentially dangerous device that produces sustainable energy (paging Tony Stark). Make no mistake: this is an exciting, appropriately moody conclusion to a superior superhero series, with some nice turns by supporting players Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But in trying to cram in so many characters and plot threads and themes (so many prisons in this thing, literal and figural), The Dark Knight Rises is ultimately done in by its sprawl. Without a focal point — like Heath Ledger’s menacing, iconic Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight — the stakes aren’t as high, and the end result feels more like a superior summer blockbuster than one for the ages. (2:44) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (1:34) Metreon.

The Expendables 2 (1:43) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Farewell, My Queen (Benoît Jacquot, France, 2012) Opening early on the morning of July 14, 1789, Farewell, My Queen depicts four days at the Palace of Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution, as witnessed by a young woman named Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux) who serves as reader to Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). Sidonie displays a singular and romantic devotion to the queen, while the latter’s loyalties are split between a heedless amour propre and her grand passion for the Duchess de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen). These domestic matters and other regal whims loom large in the tiny galaxy of the queen’s retinue, so that while elsewhere in the palace, in shadowy, candle-lit corridors, courtiers and their servants mingle to exchange news, rumor, panicky theories, and evacuation plans, in the queen’s quarters the task of embroidering a dahlia for a projected gown at times overshadows the storming of the Bastille and the much larger catastrophe on the horizon. (1:39) Albany, Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

Hope Springs Heading into her 32nd year of matrimony with aggressively oblivious Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones), desperate housewife Kay (Meryl Streep) sets aside her entrenched passivity in a last-ditch effort to put flesh back on the skeleton of a marriage. Stumbling upon the guidance of one Dr. Bernard Feld (Steve Carell) in the self-help section of a bookstore, Kay (barely) convinces Arnold to accompany her to a weeklong session at Feld’s Center for Intensive Couples Counseling, in Hope Springs, Maine. The scenes from a marriage leading up to their departure, as well as the incremental advances and crippling setbacks of their therapeutic sojourn, are poignant and distressing and possibly familiar. Some slow drift, long ago set in motion, though we don’t know by what, has settled them in concrete in their separate routines — and bedrooms. It’s the kind of thing that, if it were happening in real life — say, to you — might make you weep. But somehow, through the magic of cinema and the uncomfortable power of witnessing frankly depicted failures of intimacy, we laugh. This is by no means a wackiness-ensues sort of sexual comedy, though. Director David Frankel (2006’s The Devil Wears Prada and, unfortunately, 2008’s Marley & Me) and Jones and Streep, through the finely detailed particularities of their performances, won’t let it be, while Carell resists playing the therapeutic scenes for more than the gentlest pulses of humor. More often, his empathetic silences and carefully timed queries provide a place for these two unhappy, inarticulate, isolated people to fall and fumble and eventually make contact. (1:40) Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Ice Age: Continental Drift (1:27) Metreon.

The Imposter A family tragedy, an international thriller, a Southern-fried mystery, and a true story: The Imposter is all of these things. This unique documentary reveals the tale of Frédéric Bourdin, dubbed "the Chameleon" for his epic false-identity habit. His ballsiest accomplishment was also his most heinous con: in 1997, he claimed to be Nicholas Barclay, a San Antonio teen missing since 1994. Amazingly, the impersonation worked for a time, though Bourdin (early 20s, brown-eyed, speaks English with a French accent) hardly resembled Nicholas (who would have been 16, and had blue eyes). Using interviews — with Nicholas’ shell-shocked family, government types who unwittingly aided the charade, and Bourdin himself — and ingenious re-enactments that borrow more from crime dramas than America’s Most Wanted, director Bart Layton weaves a multi-layered chronicle of one man’s unbelievable deception. (1:39) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Intouchables Cries of "racism" seem a bit out of hand when it comes to this likable albeit far-from-challenging French comedy loosely based on a real-life relationship between a wealthy white quadriplegic and his caretaker of color. The term "cliché" is more accurate. And where were these critics when 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy and 2011’s The Help — movies that seem designed to make nostalgic honkies feel good about those fraught relationships skewed to their advantage—were coming down the pike? (It also might be more interesting to look at how these films about race always hinge on economies in which whites must pay blacks to interact with/educate/enlighten them.) In any case, Omar Sy, portraying Senegalese immigrant Driss, threatens to upset all those pundits’ apple carts with his sheer life force, even when he’s shaking solo on the dance floor to sounds as effortlessly unprovocative, and old-school, as Earth, Wind, and Fire. In fact, everything about The Intouchables is as old school as 1982’s 48 Hrs., spinning off the still laugh-grabbing humor that comes with juxtaposing a hipper, more streetwise black guy with a hapless, moneyed chalky. The wheelchair-bound Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is more vulnerable than most, and he has a hard time getting along with any of his nurses, until he meets Driss, who only wants his signature for his social services papers. It’s not long before the cultured, classical music-loving Philippe’s defenses are broken down by Driss’ flip, somewhat honest take on the follies and pretensions of high culture — a bigger deal in France than in the new world, no doubt. Director-writer Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano aren’t trying to innovate —they seem more set on crafting an effervescent blockbuster that out-blockbusters Hollywood — and the biggest compliment might be that the stateside remake is already rumored to be in the works. (1:52) Clay. (Chun)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of "deliciousness" — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) Four Star. (Eddy)

Killer Joe William Friedkin made two enormously popular movies that have defined his career (1971’s The French Connection and 1973’s The Exorcist), but his resumé also contains an array of lesser films that are both hit-and-miss in critical and popular appeal. Most have their defenders. After a couple biggish action movies, it seemed a step down for him to be doing Bug in 2006; though it had its limits as a psychological quasi-horror, you could feel the cracking recognition of like minds between cast, director, and playwright Tracy Letts. Letts and Friedkin are back in Killer Joe, which was a significant off-Broadway success in 1998. In the short, violent, and bracing film version, Friedkin gets the ghoulish jet-black-comedic tone just right, and his actors let themselves get pushed way out on a limb to their great benefit — including Matthew McConaughey, playing the title character, who’s hired by the Smith clan of Texas to bump off a troublesome family member. Needless to say, almost nothing goes as planned, escalating mayhem to new heights of trailer-trash Grand Guignol. Things get fugly to the point where Killer Joe becomes one of those movies whose various abuses are shocking enough to court charges of gratuitous violence and misogyny; unlike the 2010 Killer Inside Me, for instance, it can’t really be justified as a commentary upon those very entertainment staples. (Letts is highly skilled, but those looking for a message here will have to think one up for themselves.) Still, Friedkin and his cast do such good work that Killer Joe‘s grimly humorous satisfaction in its worst possible scenarios seems quite enough. (1:43) Lumiere, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Love in the City By 1953 Italian cinema had begun to export bombshells (Silvana Mangano from 1949’s Bitter Rice, then Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida); soon would come the sword and sandal epics and international coproductions that would make Rome a crazy hive of commercial filmmaking. Neorealism was on its way out, but as a brand it still had familiarity and a certain market appeal. Ergo a "second generation" of directors were introduced via Love in the City (1953), a recently restored six-part omnibus feature opening for a week at the San Francisco Film Society Cinema. It isn’t a great film so much as a great curio, and a crystal ball forecasting where the local industry would be head for the next 20 years or more. Little of that was immediately apparent, but just months later Federico Fellini (the sole director here who’d already made several well-received features) would cause a sensation with La Strada (1954). The others, including Michelangelo Antonioni, would eventually follow with breakthroughs of their own. The two surviving today are still active — in fact Francesco Maselli and Carlo Lizzani just contriburted to a new omnibus feature last year. (1:45) SF Film Society Cinema. (Harvey)

Moonrise Kingdom Does Wes Anderson’s new film mark a live-action return to form after 2007’s disappointingly wan Darjeeling Limited? More or less. Does it tick all the Andersonian style and content boxes? Indubitably. In the most obvious deviation Anderson has taken with Moonrise, he gives us his first period piece, a romance set in 1965 on a fictional island off the New England coast. After a chance encounter at a church play, pre-teen Khaki Scout Sam (newcomer Jared Gilman) instantly falls for the raven-suited, sable-haired Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward, ditto). The two become pen pals, and quickly bond over the shared misery of being misunderstood by both authority figures and fellow kids. The bespectacled Sam is an orphan, ostracized by his foster parents and scout troop (much to the dismay of its straight-arrow leader Edward Norton). Suzy despises her clueless attorney parents, played with gusto by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand in some of the film’s funniest and best scenes. When the two kids run off together, the whole thing begins to resemble a kind of tween version of Godard’s 1965 lovers-on the-lam fantasia Pierrot le Fou. But like most of Anderson’s stuff, it has a gauzy sentimentality more akin to Truffaut than Godard. Imagine if the sequence in 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums where Margot and Richie run away to the Museum of Natural History had been given the feature treatment: it’s a simple yet inspired idea, and it becomes a charming little tale of the perils of growing up and selling out the fantasy. But it doesn’t feel remotely risky. It’s simply too damn tame. (1:37) Four Star, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Michelle Devereaux)

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2:05) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center.

Painted Skin: The Resurrection A sort-of sequel to 2008’s Painted Skin (which one need not have seen to enjoy Resurrection), this lavish fantasy stars two of China’s most glamorous leading ladies and follows the adventures of fox demon Xiaowei (Xun Zhou), who can become human only if someone voluntarily offers up his or her heart (as in, the actual blood-pumping muscle). Though she’s been rampaging cross-country trying to find a suitable man-donor, she spots a likelier candidate in Princess Jing (Vicki Zhao), who wears a delicate gold mask to conceal her scarred face. Jing has fled her royal duties to confront her true love, General Huo (Chen Kun), who is a generally nice guy and most excellent archer, but not a huge fan of the messed-up face. But wait! Supernaturally pretty Xiaowei has just the solution, and it definitely involves swapping bodies (and all-important internal organs). But Huo is secondary here. Less a love story than the tale of a toxic friendship, Resurrection adds levity with a subplot about a demon hunter (William Feng) who falls for Xiaowei’s bird-demon sidekick (Mini Yang), and has plenty of over-the-top flair, with abundantly obvious CG and Kris Phillips’ campy performance as an evil wizard. It was a huge hit in China but will probably only reach a small audience here, so don’t miss your chance. (2:11) Metreon. (Eddy)

ParaNorman (1:32) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

The Queen of Versailles Lauren Greenfield’s obscenely entertaining The Queen of Versailles takes a long, turbulent look at the lifestyles lived by David and Jackie Siegel. He is the 70-something undisputed king of timeshares; she is his 40-something (third) wife, a former beauty queen with the requisite blonde locks and major rack, both probably not entirely Mother Nature-made. He’s so compulsive that he’s never saved, instead plowing every buck back into the business. When the recession hits, that means this billionaire is — in ready-cash as opposed to paper terms — suddenly sorta kinda broke, just as an enormous Las Vegas project is opening and the family’s stupefyingly large new "home" (yep, modeled after Versailles) is mid-construction. Plugs must be pulled, corners cut. Never having had to, the Siegels discover (once most of the servants have been let go) they have no idea how to run a household. Worse, they discover that in adversity they have a very hard time pulling together — in particular, David is revealed as a remote, cold, obsessively all-business person who has no use for getting or giving "emotional support;" not even for being a husband or father, much. What ultimately makes Queen poignantly more than a reality-TV style peek at the garishly wealthy is that Jackie, despite her incredibly vulgar veneer (she’s like a Jennifer Coolidge character, forever squeezed into loud animal prints), is at heart just a nice girl from hicksville who really, really wants to make this family work. (1:40) Lumiere, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Ruby Sparks Meta has rarely skewed as appealingly as with this indie rom-com spinning off a writerly version of the Pygmalion and Galatea tale, as penned by the object-of-desire herself: Zoe Kazan. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris helm this heady fantasy about a crumpled, geeky novelist, Calvin (Paul Dano), who’s suffering from the sophomore slump — he can’t seem to break his rock-solid writers block and pen a follow-up to his hit debut. He’s a victim of his own success, especially when he finally begins to write, about a dream girl, a fun-loving, redheaded artist named Ruby (scriptwriter Kazan), who one day actually materializes. When he types that she speaks nothing but French, out comes a stream of the so-called language of diplomacy. Calvin soon discovers the limits and dangers of creation — say, the hazards of tweaking a manifestation when she doesn’t do what you desire, and the question of what to do when one’s baby Frankenstein grows bored and restless in the narrow circle of her creator’s imagination. Kazan — and Dayton and Faris — go to the absurd, even frightening, limits of the age-old Pygmalion conceit, giving it a feminist charge, while helped along by a cornucopia of colorful cameos by actors like Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas as Calvin’s boho mom and her furniture-building boyfriend. Dano is as adorably befuddled as ever and adds the crucial texture of every-guy reality, though ultimately this is Kazan’s show, whether she’s testing the boundaries of a genuinely codependent relationship or tugging at the puppeteer’s strings. (1:44) California, Four Star, Piedmont. (Chun)

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) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Sparkle What started as a vehicle for American Idol‘s Jordin Sparks will now forever be known as Whitney Houston’s Last Movie, with the fallen superstar playing a mother of three embittered by her experiences in the music biz. Her voice is hoarse, her face is puffy, and her big singing moment ("His Eye Is on the Sparrow" in a church scene) is poorly lip-synced — but dammit, she’s Whitney Houston, and she has more soul than everything else in Sparkle combined and squared. The tale of an aspiring girl group in late-60s Detroit, Sparkle‘s other notable points include flawless period outfits, hair, and make-up (especially the eyeliner), but the rest of the film is a pretty blah mix of melodrama and clichés: the sexpot older sister (Carmen Ejogo) marries the abusive guy and immediately starts snorting coke; the squeaky-clean youngest (Sparks, sweet but boring) is one of those only-in-the-movie songwriters who crafts intricate pop masterpieces from her diary scribblings. As far as Idol success stories go, Dreamgirls (2006) this ain’t; Houston fans would do better to revisit The Bodyguard (1992) and remember the diva in her prime. (1:56) Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Ted Ah, boys and their toys — and the imaginary friends that mirror back a forever-after land of perpetual Peter Pans. That’s the crux of the surprisingly smart, hilarious Ted, aimed at an audience comprising a wide range of classes, races, and cultures with its mix of South Park go-there yuks and rom-commie coming-of-age sentiment. Look at Ted as a pop-culture-obsessed nerd tweak on dream critter-spirit animal buddy efforts from Harvey (1950) to Donnie Darko (2001) to TV’s Wilfred. Of course, we all know that the really untamable creature here wobbles around on two legs, laden with big-time baggage about growing up and moving on from childhood loves. Young John doesn’t have many friends but he is fortunate enough to have his Christmas wish come true: his beloved new teddy bear, Ted (voice by director-writer Seth MacFarlane), begins to talk back and comes to life. With that miracle, too, comes Ted’s marginal existence as a D-list celebrity curiosity — still, he’s the loyal "Thunder Buddy" that’s always there for the now-grown John (Mark Wahlberg), ready with a bong and a broheim-y breed of empathy that involves too much TV, an obsession with bad B-movies, and mock fisticuffs, just the thing when storms move in and mundane reality rolls through. With his tendency to spew whatever profanity-laced thought comes into his head and his talents are a ladies’ bear, Ted is the id of a best friend that enables all of John’s most memorable, un-PC, Hangover-style shenanigans. Alas, John’s cool girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) threatens that tidy fantasy setup with her perfectly reasonable relationship demands. Juggling scary emotions and material that seems so specific that it can’t help but charm — you’ve got to love a shot-by-shot re-creation of a key Flash Gordon scene — MacFarlane sails over any resistance you, Lori, or your superego might harbor about this scenario with the ease of a man fully in touch with his inner Ted. (1:46) Metreon. (Chun)

To Rome with Love Woody Allen’s film legacy is not like anybody else’s. At present, however, he suffers from a sense that he’s been too prolific for too long. It’s been nearly two decades since a new Woody Allen was any kind of "event," and the 19 features since Bullets Over Broadway (1994) have been hit and-miss. Still, there’s the hope that Allen is still capable of really surprising us — or that his audience might, as they did by somewhat inexplicably going nuts for 2011’s Midnight in Paris. It was Allen’s most popular film in eons, if not ever, probably helped by the fact that he wasn’t in it. Unfortunately, he’s up there again in the new To Rome With Love, familiar mannerisms not hiding the fact that Woody Allen the Nebbish has become just another Grumpy Old Man. There’s a doddering quality that isn’t intended, and is no longer within his control. But then To Rome With Love is a doddering picture — a postcard-pretty set of pictures with little more than "Have a nice day" scribbled on the back in script terms. Viewers expecting more of the travelogue pleasantness of Midnight in Paris may be forgiving, especially since it looks like a vacation, with Darius Khondji’s photography laying on the golden Italian light and making all the other colors confectionary as well. But if Paris at least had the kernel of a good idea, Rome has only several inexplicably bad ones; it’s a quartet of interwoven stories that have no substance, point, credibility, or even endearing wackiness. The shiny package can only distract so much from the fact that there’s absolutely nothing inside. (1:52) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Total Recall Already the source material for Paul Verhoeven’s campy, quotable 1990 film (starring the campy, quotable Arnold Schwarzenegger), Philip K. Dick’s short story gets a Hollywood do-over, with meh results. The story, anyway, is a fine nugget of sci-fi paranoia: to escape his unsatisfying life, Quaid (Colin Farrell) visits a company capable of implanting exciting memories into his brain. When he chooses the "secret agent" option, it’s soon revealed he actually does have secret agent-type memories, suppressed via brain-fuckery by sinister government forces (led by Bryan Cranston) keeping him in the dark about his true identity. Shit immediately gets crazy, with high-flying chases and secret codes and fight scenes all over the place. The woman Quaid thinks is his wife (Kate Beckinsale) is actually a slithery killer; the woman he’s been seeing in his dreams (Jessica Biel) turns out to be his comrade in a secret rebel movement. Len Wiseman (writer and sometimes director of the Underworld films) lenses futuristic urban grime with a certain sleek panache, and Farrell is appealing enough to make highly generic hero Quaid someone worth rooting for — until the movie ends, and the entire enterprise (save perhaps the tri-boobed hooker, a holdover from the original) becomes instantly forgettable, no amnesia trickery required. (1:58) California, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

2 Days in New York Messy, attention-hungry, random, sweet, pathetic, and even adorable — such is the latest dispatch from Julie Delpy, here with her follow-up to 2007’s 2 Days in Paris. It’s also further proof that the rom-com as a genre can yet be saved by women who start with the autobiographical and spin off from there. Now separated from 2 Days in Paris‘s Jake and raising their son, artist Marion is happily cohabiting with boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock), a radio host and sometime colleague at the Village Voice, and his daughter, while juggling her big, bouncing bundle of neuroses. Exacerbating her issues: a visit by her father Jeannot (Delpy’s real father Albert Delpy), who eschews baths and tries to smuggle an unseemly selection of sausages and cheeses into the country; her provocative sister Rose (Alexia Landeau), who’s given to nipple slips in yoga class and Marion and Mingus’ apartment; and Rose’s boyfriend Manu (Alexandre Nahon), who’s trouble all around. The gang’s in NYC for Marion’s one-woman show, in which she hopes to auction off her soul to the highest, and hopefully most benevolent, bidder. Rock, of course, brings the wisecracks to this charming, shambolic urban chamber comedy, as well as, surprisingly, a dose of gravitas, as Marion’s aggrieved squeeze — he’s uncertain whether these home invaders are intentionally racist, cultural clueless, or simply bonkers but he’s far too polite to blurt out those familiar Rock truths. The key, however, is Delpy — part Woody Allen, if the Woodman were a maturing, ever-metamorphosing French beauty — and part unique creature of her own making, given to questioning her identity, ideas of life and death, and the existence of the soul. 2 Days in New York is just a sliver of life, but buoyed by Delpy’s thoughtful, lightly madcap spirit. You’re drawn in, wanting to see what happens next after the days are done. (1:31) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

A week after police crack down, People’s Library still operating in East Oakland

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The building where activists, some from Occupy Oakland, created a free library and garden August 13 was raided by police that night. But that was Monday, this is Friday– and the Biblioteca Popular Victor Martinez, or People’s Library, is still in full form.

The books and garden have moved from the building, which was built in 1918 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, to the sidewalk. But it’s still a lively scene. Books are shelved the block in front of the old library’s entrace, and around the corner participants have built gadren beds. In the sidewalk library and garden, children browse books, play chess, dig holes for seeds, water plants, ride bikes and scooters, and casually work on the fence around the building with pliers. 

The building at 1449 Miller was donated to the city of Oakland as part of a grant from Andrew Carnegie, and functioned as a library until 1979. It was one of eight libraries closed by the City Librarian following the passage of Prop 13, according to Harry Hamilton, City of Oakland public information officer. It was subsequently used for the Emiliano Zapata Street Academy, an alternative high school that now operates on 29th street. It was owned by the Oakland Redevelopment Agency, whose members allocated money to it in their 2005 five-year plan, but no redevelopment of the building had begun when redevelopment agencies across California were dissolved last fall. It is now owned by the the Redevelopment Successor Agency housed within the City of Oakland’s Office of Neighborhood Investment, and, for all official purposes, remains vacant.

On Monday morning, activists entered the building, intent to revitalize it themselves. Empty wooden bookshelves covered the walls, and the floor was strewn with trash. A few mattresses indicated that the officially vacant building certainly hasn’t been.

Those building the People’s Library brought in brooms, sponges and trashbags. A few hours later, the place was cleaned up and hundreds of donated books lined the long-empty shelves. Neighbors came in through the open doors, helping to clean, checking out books, and reading to their kids. In the backyard, kids and adults built raised beds and started planting in them.

At 6:30, there was a potluck and a poetry reading. Most families had wandered off by 10pm. At 11:30, about a dozen people remained. That’s when 80 police arrived, blocked off the street for two blocks in all directions, and told them that they had 15 minutes to gather their books and exit the building, or risk arrest.

The creators of the Victor Martinez People’s Library did as they were told. But they didn’t go far. The next morning, they set up the library again, this time on the sidewalk outside the now-boarded up building. The kids and families came back. Police did, too, but they stayed in cars on corners around the building, watching.

Now, it’s been a week, and what organizer Jaime Yassin calls “the only 24-hour library in the US” is still here.

“That was on their agenda, at some point, to do this. What the people are doing now,” said Emji Spero, a poet who heard about the action from people invovled in Monday’s poetry reading. “But instead, they’re spending money on police to come shut it down. Someone said to me, I can see the dollar signs floating off the police cars as they run their engines.”

“This is the social reform that the city is supposed to be doing,” said Khalid Shakur, another Oakland resident who was involved in setting up the library.

On Wednesday Yassin, who had been researching the building’s history, sat down with me on a couch by the library. He explained that the clean sidewalk where the couch now sits was an unofficial garbage dump days earlier, covered in old clothes, drug paraphenalia, and other trash.

Yassin showed me a 2005 report from the Urban Ecology 23rd Avenue Working Group. the plan, a result of focus groups and surveys of people in the neighborhood of the People’s Library, includes a plan to “rehabilitate Miller Library” as a top priority for beneficial development in the neighborhood.

“Renovation, however, will be expensive and require the city’s help,” the report reads. “the city-owned library needs seismic reinforcement, repair to flood damage, asbestos removal and handicap accesibility improvements.”

As I spoke with Yassin, a 10-year-old who had been gardening and playing on the sidewalk scooted up. He handed some scissors, just retrieved from his home a block away, to one of the people making signs to organize the library.

“I never saw nobody use it using it since I got here,” he said when I asked him about the building.

“I liked it when you guys came,” he added to Yassin, smiling, before racing off on his scooter.

Juan Delgadillo, who owns Plaza Automotive, a business across the street from the library, said he plans to borrow some books from the People’s Library. “It’s a very good idea,” said Delgadillo. “I support it.”

The group has been holding nightly potlucks, and is planning to host a community barbecue tomorrow (August 18) at 2pm.

Appetite: Delicious new cuisine and cocktail reads

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Appetite: Delicious new cuisine and cocktail reads

Fermentation and distillation, hot plats and sugar cones, sweet creams and brokeasses … These eight books were released this spring, and are among the best of what has landed on my desk this year:

TRADITIONAL DISTILLATION: ART AND PASSION by Huber Germain-Robin

Anyone who knows US craft distilling knows Hubert Germain-Robin, one of the pioneers in the American craft distilling movement. He was making world class, French-style brandies (he is French, after all) since the early ’80s right here in Northern California at Germain-Robin, which he co-founded, an example to generations after him of what true, elegant brandies should be. As he states in the introduction, “When I came to California in 1981, I realized the unbelievable potential of the New World, with such diversity in grape varietals, microclimates, and less demanding restrictions than there are in France.”

He just released his first book, Traditional Distillation, and, as the inside cover states, it’s an ode to the “passion, art and poetry” behind distillation. I’ve seen a few (there’s really not many) technical distillation books that get into still types or cutting the “heads and tails” of a distillation batch. Germain-Robin’s book (the first in a series of books on brandy production) is a thoughtful essay, covering the technical but doing so in an artistic, poetic way. The book boasts an Old World, classic look, delving into the philosophy behind distillation as much as process. A romantic sensibility pervades this book and passion speaks from the pages – there is even poetry and classic art included, doing justice to the reason people like myself (one who rarely had a drink in younger years), fell in love with the artisan craft and history behind distillation. It’s a short, succinct book, but a unique one. Hubert captures the beauty of the craft, giving concrete advice for would-be distillers everywhere, ensuring that his incredible knowledge and legacy is shared with many more.

THE ART OF FERMENTATION by Sandor Ellix Katz

Just released June 12, The Art of Fermentation (with forward by none other than Michael Pollan) is sure to be the gold standard on fermentation. Katz published Wild Fermentation in 2003, at the time dubbed the “fermenting bible” by Newsweek. As the press release states for his new, elegantly understated book, he now has an additional decade of experimentation behind this one. The first book of its kind, it contains recipes, yes, but ultimately is a 400+ page textbook on all things fermentation, its history and processes, and DIY steps in a range of categories from meads, wines and ciders to meat, fish and eggs. There’s plenty of study material for food and drink folk alike, whether an extensive section on sour tonic beverages (from kombucha to kvass) or details on fermenting beans, seeds and nuts. Katz’ book makes me want to start fermenting my own potato beer immediately.

TAKE AWAY by Jean-Francois Mallet

Take Away is a lovely photo book. Released in the US in April (first released in France in 2009), this beauty of a book is a virtual escape around the world, immersing the reader in street foodscapes and dishes from Shanghai to the Ukraine. Be warned: perusing this book is difficult on an empty stomach. And for those of us who thrive on travel and exploring every nook and cranny of a city or region, Mallet’s approachable, street savvy photography also induces travel lust.

CINDY’S SUPPER CLUB: Meals from Around the World to Share with Family and Friends by Cindy Pawlcyn

Cindy Pawlcyn is one of California’s trailblazing chefs, aiding Napa in becoming a dining destination when opening Mustard’s Grill nearly 30 years ago along with subsequent restaurants, like Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. She’s written a few cookbooks, but I particularly enjoy her newest, out this May: Cindy’s Supper Club. A book based on favorite international recipes prepared in her supper clubs with friends, the recipes span the globe from Russia and Hungary to Lebanon, Peru, Korea. Cindy’s intros to each selected country and recipe feel comfortable, like a chef chatting about their travels and technique as you sit with them in their kitchen. Though recipes tend toward the heartwarming, soulful kind, many list more than ten ingredients and aren’t exactly simple. But for cooks ready to try something new yet not fussy, adventure lies within these pages, whether Flemish meatloaf in spicy tomato gravy or white gazpacho (made of white bread, milk, almonds, garlic, olive oil, sherry vinegar) with peeled white grapes.

PLATS DU JOUR: the girl and the fig’s Journey Through the Seasons in Wine Country by Sondra Bernstein

Just see if you don’t long to move to Sonoma after spending time with Plats du Jour, a large, photographic book capturing Sonoma’s vibrancy. With a range of recipes from Sondra Bernstein’s beloved girl and the fig duo and Italian restaurant, Estate, the book journeys well beyond recipes. Sectioned by seasons, there’s highlights on wine, cheese, and produce, pairing possibilities, origins of foods, cocktail hour menus, and seasonal menus to recreate at home. Interspersed throughout are drink recipes, such as the perennially popular lavender mojito from girl and the fig http://www.platsdujour.net/#!home/mainPage. Photos and stories of trailblazing Sonoma farmers keep the reader rooted to a sense of place. Though the variety of info might initially seem disparate, it weaves into an inspiring whole urging one to seek out ingredients from their own farmers markets and entertain or cook inspired by the invigorating spirit behind Bernstein’s book and the artisans of Sonoma.

SWEET CREAM AND SUGAR CONES by Kris Hoogerhyde, Anne Walker, and Dabney Gough

Bi-Rite’s ice cream essentially needs no introduction. For those in San Francisco, it’s already an institution. For foodies nationally, the beloved market’s ice cream has been written up in most national food magazines, among the best ice creameries in the country. Thankfully this spring, founders Anne Walker and Kris Hoogerhyde, along with writer Dabney Gough, have released a book, Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones, sharing many of Bi-Rite’s lauded recipes (yes, their legendary salted caramel ice cream, which spawned dozens of imitations around the nation, is included), and many more besides, including sweets far beyond ice cream, from cookies to pie. The book is grouped in ingredient-themed sections like chocolate, coffee, vanilla, citrus or nuts. I take to the herbs and spices section with recipes like basil or peach leaf ice cream, picante galia melon pops, and my favorite Bi-Rite flavor of recent years, Ricanelas (cinnamon and Snickerdoodles). Having already tried a couple of the recipes, they are easy to follow, and, of course, delicious.

SUNSET EDIBLE GARDEN COOKBOOK

Sunset has cornered DIY gardening and cooking for decades in their magazine and cookbooks, with recipes and step-by-step gardening instructions. Their latest book, Edible Garden Cookbook, just out this spring, is another winner with accessible recipes, growing-harvesting-storage-cooking tips and varietal lists on a wealth of vegetables (from peas to cucumbers), herbs (mint to thyme), and fruits (melons to stone fruit). Creative recipe twists enliven everyday dishes like an icebox salad layered in a casserole dish or kabocha squash filled with Arabic lamb stew.

THE BROKEASS GOURMET COOKBOOK by Gabi Moskowitz
(Review by Andi Berlin)

Chasing the elusive paycheck is a tiresome routine, but at least it’ll taste good with the new BrokeAss Gourmet cookbook from San Franciscan Gabi Moskowitz (not to be confused with Broke-Ass Stuart.) The former kindergarten teacher-turned-caterer-turned-Internet-celebrity founded the website BrokeAss Gourmet after seeing friends laid off from tech jobs and eating junk. Taking a conversational, gal-pal tone, Gabi guides us through the essentials of running an eclectic kitchen – from stocking a full pantry to boosting cheap proteins with flavorful sauces. Recipes like vegetable lasagna with wonton wrappers demonstrate her craftiness. The book is high on kitsch: rather than photographs, illustrations of animals stand beside cheeky anecdotes (“Because bacon really does make everything better.”) Moskowitz paints a vivid Bay Area landscape, adapting several recipes from ethnic joints and buzzy spots like Bakesale Betty. And if she relies too heavily on sriracha sauce, forgive her. When you’ve got to shove off to work early morning after morning, it’s often the call of the rooster that gets you going.

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

Squeeze This: accordion acts you should know

Tony Robles
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Was there anything more unexpected in season three of Mad Men than the scene in which Joan brought out her cherry-red squeezebox, and serenaded a dinner party with “C’est Magnifique?” Accordions were once a bastion of adult gatherings; there were bona fide accordion stars — Dick Contino, who played San Francisco’s Barbary Coast in the 1940s, made it on the pop charts — but in this century, they’ve left the mainstream, resurging underground in pockets of klezmer, pirate polka, Tejano music, and gypsy jazz.

In her new biography, Squeeze This, writer-musician Marion Jacobson delves deep into the history of the instrument and contemplates its place as a cultural technology. At an event this week, Jacobson will likely discuss some of her findings with the Accordion Apocalypse crew (and sign copies of her book), followed by squeezebox-filled performances by Luz Gaxiola, the Mad Maggies, and Sheri Mignano.

In anticipation of her appearance, I asked Jacobson to give us a list of her favorite accordion acts, young and old, traditionalists and rule-breakers. See her responses below:

Marion Jacobson’s Top Five Accordion Acts

Alex Meixner: my definition of an “accordion idol”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PIEyLNEdOE
 
Gogol Bordello: gypsy punk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPfeOAhDfbM
 
Five-time Grammy winner Flaco Jimenez, the soul of Chicano and Tejano music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK1OIuTNsI8
 
Dick Contino: 1950s accordion idol turned hip elder statesman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pbM9q3zbUo

Weird Al Yankovic: parody + accordion = sublime masterpieces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRJILK3NxSM
 
Two Accordionists to Watch Out For
 
Cory Pesaturo: no accordionist today has better improv chops
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfD3XNa1-6Y
 
Ginny Mac: she sings, too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQnvTHxD8Ig
 
In a Category of Their Own Making
 
Those Darn Accordions: Welcome to hell, here’s your accordion

Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion book event
With author Marion Jacobson, music by Luz Gaxiola, with the Mad Maggies, and Sheri Mignano
Thu/16, 7pm, free
Accordion Apocalypse
255 10th St., SF
(415) 596-5952
www.accordionapocalypse.com

Our Weekly Picks: August 15-21

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 15

Family of the Year

The most compelling aspect of Family of the Year’s live show is the transparency of the band members’ genuine affection for each other. The Los Angeles-based indie group weaves together folk influences and male/female vocal harmonies to create a fun, lighthearted brand of nostalgic rock. If this sounds familiar, look no further than West Hollywood, where Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes have been doing their own multi-gendered feel-good folk melodies for years. Apparently the Magnetic Zeroes also noticed these similarities, because they asked Family of the Year to tour with them in 2011, shortly after Ben Folds chose them out of 700 bands as his opener at Symphony Hall. (Haley Zaremba)

With the Colourist

9pm, $10

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com


THURSDAY 16

Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion

Was there anything more unexpected in season three of Mad Men than the scene in which Joan brought out her cherry-red squeezebox, and serenaded a dinner party with “C’est Magnifique?” And yet, accordions were once a bastion of adult gatherings; there were bona fide accordion stars — Dick Contino, who played San Francisco’s Barbary Coast in the 1940s, made it on the pop charts — but in this century, they’ve left the mainstream, resurging underground in pockets of klezmer, pirate polka, Tejano music, and gypsy jazz. In her new biography, Squeeze This, writer-musician Marion Jacobson delves deep into the history of the instrument and contemplates its place as a cultural technology. At an event this week, Jacobson will likely discuss some of her findings with the Accordion Apocalypse crew (and sign copies of her book), followed by squeezebox-filled performances by Luz Gaxiola, the Mad Maggies, and Sheri Mignano. (Emily Savage)

7pm, free

Accordion Apocalypse

255 10th St., SF

(415) 596-5952

www.accordionapocalypse.com

 

Whiskerman

The cover of Whiskerman’s self-titled 2011 album features a sharp dressed man in a a forest clearing, his untamed hair brimming out from behind an animal mask, while he holds up a violin. The intriguing cover art introduces us to a sound no less whimsical and complex: led by Graham Patzner, Whiskerman boasts an inventive alternative rock meets folk sound. The Bay Area band demands attention with softly building songs such as “Brother Jim”, while their rock’n’roll songs like “Blind Saint” are undeniably catchy hits. Patzner comes from a musical family — his brother Lewis (Judgment Day) plays cello in the band, and their eldest brother Anton Patzner plays violin in JD. The work of the Patnzer brothers can be characterized by their attention to musical craft, but also, a certain magical quality. Whiskerman takes each magic moment and stretches it out — until you, and everyone else privy, becomes immersed in the wild sounds that are their nature. (Shauna C. Keddy)

With Con Brio $10, 9pm

Ashkenaz

1317 San Pablo, Berk.

(510) 525- 5054

www.ashkenaz.com

 

Dr. John and the Lower 911

Locked Down — the latest from the inimitable Dr. John — opens with a Afro-strutting, funky rhythm that’s swamped with confidence. And it’s for good reason, because at this point in his career, the New Orleans based bayou blues rocker has little to prove. An influential session player and solo artist — without whom Beck’s “Loser”, Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, and that band from the Muppets would not be the same — Dr. John has laid his hands on so many genres and has a lengthy list of collaborators that it’s simply exhausting to think about. The Black Keys’s Dan Auerbach lends some playing and production to the new album, which will likely win Grammys in all the relevant categories. (Ryan Prendiville)

With John Cleary

hu/16-Fri/17 9pm, $39.50

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

Alejandro Escovedo and the Sensitive Boys

Alejandro Escovedo’s illustrious career spans four decades, beginning with his role as a founding member of San Francisco punk band the Nuns in the 1970s. From there, he moved to Austin, Tex. to play alternative country and roots rock, first with Rank and File, and later as True Believers with brother Javier. Escovedo released his first solo album in 1992, Gravity, a heartfelt record that explores themes of love and loss while showcasing a variety of his musical influences. Escovedo has performed with his band the Sensitive Boys as of late, and their most recent album, Big Station, sees Escovedo turn up the amps and embrace his heartier, rollicking rock’n’roll side. (Kevin Lee)

With Jesse Malin

8pm, $25

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com


FRIDAY 17

Blue Note Rendezvous Cabaret

One of the great things about America is that people are free to blend ideas and concepts to their hearts’ content. (Personal favorite example: Korean tacos.) In this grand tradition, the folks at 50 Mason mix and match Blue Note-flavored music with belly dancing at the quarterly Blue Note Rendezvous Cabaret. Professional gyrators shake and slither to live bands hammering out jazz, swing, and whatever happens to be the music of the night. This installment’s headliners, MWE, call themselves a Middle Eastern marching band, and bring festive sounds that also evoke the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey. Opening five-piece local ensemble Horns a Plenty ditched drums, strings, and piano, instead opting for an all-brass jazz approach. (Lee)

With MWE, Horns a Plenty

9pm, $10

50 Mason Social House, SF

(415) 433-5050

www.50masonsocialhouse.com

 

Nosaj Thing

Nosaj Thing (pronounced “no such thing”) cemented his position in the post-dubstep community in 2009, no small feat considering the number of already-established Los Angeles-based beatmakers. He gained an international following in 2009 with the release of his haunting, spacey debut LP Drift, along with well-received remixes of Flying Lotus, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Radiohead. Live performances at Spain’s Sonar festival, at California’s own Coachella — and seemingly everywhere in between — solidified Nosaj’s reputation for dreamy, woozy, electronic hip-hop. Fans are pining for a new full-length but will have to settle for bits and pieces Nosaj will likely drop during his set. Opener Mux Mool has just released Planet High School, a playful mix of ’80s-rooted beats and video game synths. (Lee)

With Mux Mool, Manitous ft. Swoonz, Drewmin

9:30pm, $15

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com


SATURDAY 18

Pedalfest

Babes, your bikes put up with a lot. Literally, think of how supportive they are of your behind, through denim and spandex, skirts and shorts. Why don’t you take it somewhere nice? This weekend provides the ultimate opportunity for two-wheeled QT: the East Bay Bike Coalition’s second annual Pedalfest, where bikey will encounter new and interesting peers like the WhymCycle art bike collection, BMX stunt rides, even a bike that, owner attached, swings on a rope through the air in looping aerial acrobatics. Ambition! One of the largest cycle events in the Bay, last year Pedalfest attracted 18,000 happy riders. Kids activities, snacks galore, relay races, and live tunes — JLS is going to be the place to show love for the bike that gets you to where you need to go. (Caitlin Donohue)

11am-8pm, free

Jack London Square

Broadway and 1st St., Oakl.

www.pedalfestjacklondon.com

 

Midnight Magic

It’s become apparent that the PR agents have discovered the trick to getting my attention: listing the name of a band next to the words “ex-mems of LCD Soundsystem,” thereby exploiting the hole left in one of my bodily organs by that now defunct group. The connection here is a bit tenuous, referring to former members of Hercules and Love Affair (quite a good name drop on its own) enlisted to play backup at LCD’s last shows. Moving beyond the past, the nine piece disco outfit’s releases so far — “Drop Me a Line” and “Beam Me Up” — have a promising, lively romanticism that’s doing all the influences justice. (Prendiville)

With Tron Jeremy, Brother Sister, hosted by Ava Berlin and Andy Vague

10pm, $10-$15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

Lee Fields & the Expressions

Lee Fields is a soul singer’s soul singer. Between innumerable session gigs, years of touring with bands like Kool and the Gang, and a string of early-’70s singles that have become legendary among crate-diggers, Fields has paid his dues since 1969. So, it seems deliciously redemptive that in 2012, Fields has found himself in the most prolific stage of his career, churning out records for the bona-fide Truth & Soul label as the bandleader of the Expressions. Faithful Man, released earlier this year, has drawn comparisons to soul heavyweights, from Stax/Volt to James Brown, and as far as throwbacks go, it’s the real deal. Which poses the question: can Fields channel the vitality of his recent recordings when he graces the Independent on Saturday night? One way to find out. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Hard French, Top Cat & Miles Ahead

9pm, $25

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

Mrs. Doubtfire

Dolores Park gets all the hipster love, but li’l sis Duboce Park is not to be overlooked — especially when it hosts an outdoor screening of San Francisco-set 1993 comedy Mrs. Doubtfire, a movie that’s earned a cult following despite its gentle, family-friendly content. A father (Robin Williams) goes undercover as an elderly nanny so he can spend more time with his kids, thus circumventing the court-ordered wishes of his estranged wife (Sally Field). Plus: Harvey Fierstein as the make-up whiz behind Doubtfire’s drag; immortal lines “Hellooo!” and “It was a run-by fruiting!”; and enough camp cachet to inspire at least one portrait tattoo (Google it). Just be sure you bring a low chair or a waterproof cloth to sit on at the screening; Duboce Park’s rep as a doggie paradise is irrefutable. (Cheryl Eddy)

8:15pm, free

Duboce Park

Duboce and Steiner, SF

www.friendsofdubocepark.org


SUNDAY 19

Calvin Johnson

Having founded Olympia, Wash.’s influential K Records and Dub Narcotic Studio, Calvin Johnson has signed, recorded, and collaborated with countless Northwest music icons, from Modest Mouse to the Microphones. Since 2002, he’s issued a handful of solo, (mostly) acoustic efforts, built around his unmistakably drawling baritone. Walk into a thrift store in Olympia, though, and odds are you’ll find a stack of mixtapes for sale, compiled by you-know-who; this Saturday, Johnson will headline the release party for the Believer’s music issue cassette along with a roster of tape-centric outsider-artists handpicked by the king of Oly, himself. (Kaplan)

With Katie & the Lichen, Laura Leif & A.P.B., the Shivas, the Memories, Tomorrow’s Tulips, Mom, Happy Noose

8:30pm, $8

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

Braid

The year 1993 saw the conception of what was soon to be one of the decade’s most influential and controversial genres: emo. Braid was one of the frontrunners of the scene, lamenting lost loves and expressing the melancholy nature of youth over minor chords years before My Chemical Romance would don its first guyliner. The group disbanded through most of the Aughts, but reunited in 2011, for the band’s 600th show. Now that emo has turned into a cabaret of red eyeshadow and comically impractical hairstyles, Braid bears little resemblance to the current wave of emotional rockers, but it can still get down with the sadness. (Zaremba)

With Owen, TS & the Past Haunts

9pm, $20

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

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Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Dog Sees God Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $16. Opens Wed/8, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 25. Boxcar Playhouse performs Bert V. Royal’s darkly comedic take on a moody, grown-up Charlie Brown and his Peanuts buddies.

Rights of Passage New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/17-Sat/19 and Aug 22-24, 8pm; Sun/20, 2pm. Opens Aug 25, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of Ed Decker and Robert Leone’s multimedia play, inspired by global human rights laws in relation to sexual orientation.

BAY AREA

Our Country’s Good Redwood Amphiteatre, Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Previews Thu/16, 7:30pm. Opens Fri/17, 7:30pm. Runs Thu-Sun, 7:30pm. Through Sept 8. Porchlight Theatre Company presents an outdoor performance of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play about Royal Marines and prisoners in an 18th century New South Wales prison colony.

Precious Little Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-25. Previews Sat/19, 8pm; Sun/19, 5pm. Opens Mon/20, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sept 1 and 8, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 16. Shotgun Players presents Madeleine George’s new play about an expectant mother who studies near-dead languages and befriends a “talking” gorilla.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm. A multi-character solo show about the unique residents of San Francisco.

Believers Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 25. As a couple of research scientists and a former couple to boot, Rocky Wise (Casey Fern) and Grace Wright (Maria Giere Marquis) are simply mad about love in Wily West’s world premiere of local playwright Patricia Milton’s exuberant but patchy comedy. Employed by a small, less than scrupulous pharmaceutical firm reeling from a product recall and attendant lawsuits, reclusive Rocky toils away after a formula for a drug that will inoculate the user against love — a secret agenda of his own inspired by the broken heart Grace left him with several years earlier. His boss (a comically brassy Jon Fast) thinks he’s working on a commissioned “love activator,” and to that end woos back former employee Grace to keep the fires burning in the lab. The strained reunion does the trick, if not exactly in the way intended. Meanwhile, a wacky born-again receptionist (Kate Jones) —”only recently come to the Lord” (and her Texan drawl by the sound of it) — fields calls from desperate people in a world despoiled by corporate greed and seemingly already in the throes of the end times. There are some moments worthy of a titter or two, but director Sara Staley’s cast is less than precise or compelling with dialogue that is already hit-and-miss. Despite a promising scenario, Believers remains too uneven and muddled to generate much love beyond the stage. (Avila)

Enron Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.enron2012.com. $25. Thu/16-Fri/17, 8pm. In OpenTab’s production of British playwright Lucy Prebble’s 2009 Enron, tragedy plus time equals comedy plus puppets (in imaginative designs by Miyaka Cochrane), as fast-paced satire delivers a timely reconsideration of yet another infamous financial scandal. Some fictional elements shape the plotline but simplifying strategies serve well to clarify the real-life actions and consequences of Ken Lay (GreyWolf) and Jeffry Skilling’s (Alex Plant) deceptive energy-trading juggernaut, the onetime darling of Wall Street and the financial pages. There’s also much verbatim information (echoing the book and documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) enlivening the quick dialogue and underscoring the reckless, hubristic malfeasance that famously preyed on California’s electricity grid and threw Enron’s own employees under the bus. Director Ben Euphrat gets spirited and engaging performances from his principals, with especially nice work from Plant as a cruelly superior Skilling, Laurie Burke as ambitious straight-shooter Claudia Roe (a fictionalized composite creation of the playwright), and Nathan Tucker as manic sycophant Andy Fastow, feeding poisonous Enron debt into three beloved “raptors” (the pet names for some animated shadow companies arising from Fastow’s fast work in “structured finance”). At the same time, the staging can prove rough between concept and execution, with scenic elements sometimes confusing as well as aesthetically ragged (a red fabric serving as a large profit graph, for instance, just looks like some droopy inexplicable drapery at first; and the first puppets to appear are too small to be very effective either). Despite this messiness in terms of mise-en-scène, however, the play is generally clear-eyed and good for more than easy laughs — since no single villain but rather a system and culture are the proper targets here. As Prebble notes, the strategies developed by Enron, far from remaining beyond the pale, are now standard practices throughout the financial and corporate world. That, in some circles, is known as progress. (Avila)

Humor Abuse American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Wed/15-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 2pm); Sun/19, 2pm. “This is a show about clowning,” advises Lorenzo Pisoni at the outset of his graceful solo performance, “and I’m the straight man.” It’s a funny line, actually — funny because it’s true, and not true. In the deft routines that follow, as well as in the snapshots cast on the atmospherically dingy curtain hung center stage, the career of this Pickle Family Circus brat (already alone in the spotlight by age two) never veers far from the shadow of his father. That fact remains central to the winning comedy and wistful reflection in Humor Abuse. Reared in the commotion and commitment of the famed San Francisco circus founded by his parents Larry Pisoni and Peggy Snider, Lorenzo had a childhood both enviable and unusually challenging. The fact that he shares his name with both a grandfather and his dad’s famous clown persona is instructive. His trials and his triumphs are further conflated — along with his father’s — in such elegant catastrophes as falling down a long flight of stairs. And in his good-humored and honest reflections, the existential poignancy at the heart of such artful buffoonery begins to rise to the surface. The spoken narrative feels a little pinched or abbreviated, in truth, but there are no shortcuts to the skill or wider perspective inculcated by the charming Pisoni and (under direction of co-creator Erica Schmidt) set enthrallingly in motion. (Avila)

The Merchant of Venice Gough Street Playhouse, 1622 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-32. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 7pm. Custom Made Theater presents director Stuart Bousel’s generally sharp staging of Shakespeare’s perennially controversial but often-misunderstood play. The lively if uneven production ensures the involved storyline cannot be reduced to the problematical nature of its notorious Jewish villain, Shylock (played with a compellingly burdened intensity by a quick Catz Forsman), but rather has to be seen in a wider landscape of desire in which money, status, sex, gender, political and ethnic affiliations, and human bodies all mix, collide, and negotiate. To this end, this Merchant is set amid a contemporary financial district coterie (given plenty of scope in Sarah Phykitt’s thoughtfully pared-down scenic design), where titular melancholic businessman Antonio (Ryan Hayes) sticks his neck out (or anyway a pound of flesh) for his beloved friend Bassanio (Dashiell Hillman) — no doubt the unspoken source of Antonio’s brooding heart as staged here — as the latter seeks a loan with which to court the lovely and brilliant Portia (a winning Megan Briggs). While the subplot concerning the wooing and flight of Shylock’s daughter, Jessica (Kim Saunders), is less adeptly rendered, fluid pacing and a confident sense of the priorities of the drama overall offer a satisfying encounter with this fascinatingly subtle play. (Avila)

Les Misérables Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.bestofbroadway-sf.com. $83-155. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 26. SHN’s Best of Broadway series brings to town the new 25th anniversary production of Cameron Mackintosh’s musical giant, based on the novel by Victor Hugo. The revival at the Orpheum does without the famous rotating stage but nevertheless spares no expense or artistry in rendering the show’s barrage of colorful Romantic scenes (with Matt Kinley’s scenic design drawing painterly inspiration from Hugo’s own oils) or its larger-than-life characters — first and foremost Jean Valjean (a slim but passionate Peter Lockyer), nemesis Javert (Andrew Varela), and rescued orphan beauty Cosette (Lauren Wiley). Chris Jahnke contributes new orchestrations to the rollicking original score by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music) and Herbert Kretzmer (lyrics) in this flagrantly sentimental, somewhat problematic but still-stirring meld of music and melodrama in dutiful overlapping service of box office treasure and powerful humanist aspirations. (Avila)

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 29. SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a “lady” and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the “tragedy” of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs (“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

The Princess Bride: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; foulplaysf.com/princessbride. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 25. Dark Room Productions presents a live tribute to the cult fairy-tale movie.

Project: Lohan Costume Shop, 1117 Market, SF; www.projectlohan.com. $25. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 7pm. D’Arcy Drollinger pays tribute to the paparazzi target with this performance constructed solely from tabloids, magazines, court documents, and other pre-existing sources.

“Un-Abridged: The Best of Ten Years of Un-Scripted” SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm. The veteran Bay Area company celebrates its tenth anniversary season with a four-week retrospective of its favorite long- and short-form improv shows. Check website for schedule.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 25. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Aug 25. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

War Horse Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-300. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 9. The juggernaut from the National Theatre of Great Britain, via Broadway and the Tony Awards, has pulled into the Curran for its Bay Area bow. The life-sized puppets are indeed all they’re cracked up to be; and the story of a 16-year-old English farm boy (Andrew Veenstra) who searches for his beloved horse through the trenches of the Somme Valley during World War I, while peppered with much elementary humor too, is a good cry for those so inclined. The claim to being an antiwar play is only true to the extent that any war-is-hell backdrop and a plea for tolerance count a melodrama as “antiwar,” but this is not Mother Courage and no serious attempt is made to investigate the subject. Closer to say it’s Lassie Come Home where Lassie is a horse — very ably brought to life by Handspring Puppet Company’s ingenious puppeteers and designers, and amid a transporting and generally riveting mise-en-scène (complete with pointedly stirring live and recorded music). But the simplistic storyline and its obvious, somewhat ham-fisted resolution (adapted by Nick Stafford from Michael Morpurgo’s novel) are too formulaic to be taken that seriously. And at two-and-a-half-hours, it’s a long time coming. A shorter war, the Falklands say, would have done just as well and gotten people out before the ride began to chafe. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Circle Mirror Transformation Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $20-57. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Thu/16 and Aug 25, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Though Aug 26. Marin Theatre Company and Encore Theatre Company co-present the regional premiere of Annie Baker’s comedy about a drama class.

A Doll’s House Willows Theatre, 1975 Diamond, Concord; www.willowstheatre.com. $20-29. Wed/15-Thu/16, 7:30pm (also Wed/15, 3:30pm); Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 2pm). The large stage at Willows Theatre is a sunken living room with walls the color of butterscotch pudding, a long rumpled powder-blue sofa, scattered seasonal decorations, and a single translucent panel that brings to mind a Bob Barker-era game show set. It’s like a cross between a showroom and homeroom without meaning to be either, but that less than winsome amalgam hits the right note for Irish playwright Frank McGuiness’s modern adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play. Here, the Helmers are just a couple of upstate New Yorkers with slightly funny-sounding names circa Christmas 1959: Nora (a captivatingly buoyant yet subtly shaded Lena Hart) is a bubbly young mother of three, and Torvald (a credibly oblivious Mark Farrell) is a smug but affable bank executive on the rise. A secret intervention in Torvald’s career by a devoted Nora, his up-to-now happily caged “little songbird,” once saved them from ruin (via a reckless loan borrowed on a forged signature), but now it invites a calamitous mixing of formerly separate spheres as the man who loaned Nora the money, once-disgraced Nils Krogstad (a fine, persuasively desperate yet smooth Aaron Murphy), blackmails her to insure his precarious position at her husband’s bank. A panicked Nora confides in old friend and reluctant single-lady Christine (an impressively stoic, subtly wounded Kendra Oberhauser). Meanwhile, terminally ill family friend Dr. Rank (an initially wooden, later warmer Dale Albright) watches Nora from a devoted but helpless vantage. If the plot feels at times like a mirthless episode of I Love Lucy, that again may speak to the aptness of McGuiness’s transposition as much as the sometimes forced way playwright Ibsen has of rearranging the dramatic furniture. But the generally strong cast under Eric Inman’s able direction offers enough vivid dramatic tension to keep us engaged, while suggesting the continuing relevance and limits of the play’s robust critique of marriage and patriarchy. (Avila)

Dolores: Out from the Void Subterranean Arthouse, 2179 Bancroft, Berk; www.subterraneanarthouse.org. $10-15. Thu/16, 8:30pm. On a bare floor at one end of Subterranean Art House’s Berkeley storefront, physical theater maker Carolina Duncan, as her Colombian grandmother, pops opens her cranium like a steamer trunk and retrieves the scrapbook of a boundless life. Here memory and imagination exist in equal measures, as Duncan traces key moments and fleeting images from an arc of days defined by family, romance, and at least one titanic battle between an Amazonian dinosaur and a new secret-agent boyfriend. Combining mime, scattered dialogue, physical comedy, and a live soundscape (a sinuous score courtesy of musician Carlos Kampff, stage left), this loving and whimsical homage, directed by Nikolas Strubbe, comes gracefully delivered and almost always vividly expressed. All the while, Duncan (a recent graduate of SF’s Clown Conservatory and James Donlon and Leonard Pitt’s Flying Actor Studio) exudes an infectious enthusiasm for her subject, who proves as alive in a passing but concrete image of first childhood steps as she does in her final outing, a prolonged spacewalk into the familiar and unknown. (Avila)

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd, Oakl; www.woodminster.com. $12-56. Thu/16-Sun/19, 8pm. Woodminster Summer Musicals presents the Sondheim comedy.

Happy Hour with Kim Jong Il Cabaret at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750,l www.themarsh.org. Free. Fri, 6pm. Through Aug 24. Comedy work-in-progress by Kenny Yun, with live music by cabaret singer Candace Roberts.

Henry V Sequoia High School, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 26. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival presents the Bard’s history play as part of its “Free Shakespeare in the Park” series.

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri/17, Sept 13, 20, and 27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Aug 26. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Check website for schedule. Through Sept 30. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

Noises Off Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $15. Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs Michael Frayn’s backstage comedy.

Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Thu/16 and Sat/18, 7pm (also Sat/18, 2pm); Sun/19, noon and 5pm. Berkeley Playhouse performs a musical based on the candy-filled book, with songs from the 1971 movie adaptation.

“TheatreWorks 2012 New Works Festival” TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-25 (fest pass, $65). Various times, through Sun/19. The 11th annual festival features a developmental production of The Trouble With Doug by Will Aronson and Daniel Maté and staged readings of Sleeping Rough by Kara Manning, The Loudest Man on Earth by Catherine Rush, Being Earnest by Paul Gordon and Jay Gruska, and Triangle by Curtis Moore and Thomas Mizer.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 8. $10-25. This week: “Five Deadly Improvisors and No Gnus is Good Gnus” (Thu/16); “Director’s Cut” (Fri/17); “Theatresports: Battle to Play LA” (Sat/18).

“Carmina Burana” Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.cityboxoffice.com. Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm. $28-34. The San Francisco Choral Society promises “no ordinary” rendition of the classic, presented as a semi-staged rendition featuring Perceptions Contemporary Dance Company, the Contra Costa Children’s Choir, and other guests.

“Comikaze Lounge” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.comikazelounge.com. Wed/15, 8pm. Free. Comedy showcase with headliner Natasha Muse.

“Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction” Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF; www.hemlocktavern.com. Wed/15, 6pm. $10. Ten comedians write and perform erotic fan fiction, with audience input.

Ian Edwards Punchline, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Wed/15-Fri/17, 8pm (also Fri/17, 10pm); Sat/18, 7:30 and 9:30pm. $15-21. The stand-up comedian performs.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race “so you don’t have to.” No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

“Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks for President” Rrazz Room, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. Wed/15-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 7pm. $35-40. The “dragapella beautyshop quartet” satirizes the upcoming election.

“House Special” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Sat/18, 8pm. $10-30. ODC Theater presents works-in-progress by David Schleiffers, Anna Sullivan, and Kim Yaged.

“Landscape of the Body” Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 3pm). $15. Bigger Than a Breadbox Theatre Co. presents John Guare’s play about a single mother in 1970s Greenwich Village.

“Live at Deluxe” Club Deluxe, 1511 Haight, SF; comedyatdeluxe.wordpress.com. Mon/20, 9pm. $5. Comedy showcase with headliner Sammy K. Obeid.

“Measure for Measure” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; sftheaterpub.wordpress.com. Aug 20-21 and 27, 8pm. Free ($5 suggested donation). SF Theater Pub performs the Shakespeare play.

“Merola Grand Finale” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. Sat/18, 7:30pm. $25-45. The operatic training program celebrates its final concert of the summer season.

“Richmond-Ermet AIDS Foundation presents a Special One-Night Only Benefit Concert” Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter, SF; www.helpisontheway.org. Mon/20, 7:30pm. $25-45. With Katya Smirnoff-Skye, SF Gay Men’s Chorus ensemble Vocal Minority, and cast members from Les Misérables.

“Ricky Star’s Planet: One-Man Comedy Show” Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; youtube.com/rickystar5. Mon/20, 8pm. The stand-up comedian performs.

“San Francisco Improv Festival” Eureka Theater, 215 Jackson, SF; www.sfimprovfestival.com. Aug 16-25. $5-35. With local improv talent including BATS Improv, Un-Scripted Theater Company, San Jose ComedySportz, and more.

“Stepology presents the 2012 Bay Area Rhythm Exchange” Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.cityboxoffice.com. Sat/18, 8pm. $17-25. This dance and live music performance is part of the Bay Area Tap Festival’s 10th anniversary celebration.

“Sunk in Sleep” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/17-Sun/19, 8pm. $20. Bianca Cabrera’s Blind Tiger Society presents a new evening-length dance work.

Film Listings

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

OPENING

The Awakening In 1921 England Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a best-selling author who specializes in exposing the legions of phony spiritualists exploiting a nation still grieving for its World War I dead. She’s rather rudely summoned to a country boys’ boarding school by gruff instructor Robert (Dominic West), who would be delighted if she could disprove the presence of a ghost there — preferably before it frightens more of his young charges to death. Borrowing tropes from the playbooks of recent Spanish and Japanese horror flicks, Nick Murphy’s period thriller is handsome and atmospheric, but disappointing in a familiar way — the buildup is effective enough, but it all unravels in pat logic and rote "Boo!" scares when the anticlimactic payoff finally arrives. The one interesting fillip is Florence’s elaborate, antiquated, meticulously detailed arsenal of equipment and ruses designed to measure (or debunk) possibly supernatural phenomena. (1:47) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Beloved There is a touch of Busby Berkeley to the first five or so minutes of Christophe Honoré’s Beloved — a fetishy, mid-’60s-set montage in which a series of enviably dressed Parisian women stride purposefully in and out of a shoe shop, trying on an endless array of covetable pumps. As for the rest, it’s a less delightful tale of two women, a mother and a daughter, and the unfathomable yet oft-repeated choices they make in their affairs of the heart. It helps very little that the mother is played by Ludivine Sagnier and then Catherine Deneuve — whose handsome Czech lover (Rasha Bukvic) is somewhat unkindly but perhaps deservedly transformed by the years into Milos Forman — or that the daughter, as an adult, is played by Deneuve’s real-life daughter, Chiara Mastroianni. And it helps even less that the film is a musical, wherein one character or another occasionally takes the opportunity, during a moment of inexplicable emotional duress, to burst into song and let poorly written pop lyrics muddy the waters even further. The men are sexist cads, or children, or both, and if they’re none of those, they’re gay. The women find these attributes to be charming and irresistible. None of it feels like a romance for the ages, but nonetheless the movie arcs through four interminable decades. When tragedy strikes, it’s almost a relief, until we realize that life goes on and so will the film. (2:15) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

The Expendables 2 Pretty much every aging action hero in the universe (except Steven Seagal) appears in this plot-lite but explosion-heavy sequel. (1:43)

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai See "The Trouble with Demons." (2:08) Four Star.

Love in the City See "Mid-Century Modern." (1:45) SF Film Society Cinema.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green A childless couple (Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton) adopt a boy after he mysteriously appears in their garden. (2:05) Presidio.

Painted Skin: The Resurrection See "The Trouble with Demons." (2:11) Metreon.

ParaNorman A boy who can speak to the dead saves his small town from a ghoul invasion in this spooky, 3D stop-motion animated film. (1:32) Balboa, Presidio.

Sparkle A 1960s Motown girl group faces the perils of stardom in this musical drama, featuring Whitney Houston in her last screen appearance. (1:56) Marina.

2 Days in New York Messy, attention-hungry, random, sweet, pathetic, and even adorable — such is the latest dispatch from Julie Delpy, here with her follow-up to 2007’s 2 Days in Paris. It’s also further proof that the rom-com as a genre can yet be saved by women who start with the autobiographical and spin off from there. Now separated from 2 Days in Paris‘s Jake and raising their son, artist Marion is happily cohabiting with boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock), a radio host and sometime colleague at the Village Voice, and his daughter, while juggling her big, bouncing bundle of neuroses. Exacerbating her issues: a visit by her father Jeannot (Delpy’s real father Albert Delpy), who eschews baths and tries to smuggle an unseemly selection of sausages and cheeses into the country; her provocative sister Rose (Alexia Landeau), who’s given to nipple slips in yoga class and Marion and Mingus’ apartment; and Rose’s boyfriend Manu (Alexandre Nahon), who’s trouble all around. The gang’s in NYC for Marion’s one-woman show, in which she hopes to auction off her soul to the highest, and hopefully most benevolent, bidder. Rock, of course, brings the wisecracks to this charming, shambolic urban chamber comedy, as well as, surprisingly, a dose of gravitas, as Marion’s aggrieved squeeze — he’s uncertain whether these home invaders are intentionally racist, cultural clueless, or simply bonkers but he’s far too polite to blurt out those familiar Rock truths. The key, however, is Delpy — part Woody Allen, if the Woodman were a maturing, ever-metamorphosing French beauty — and part unique creature of her own making, given to questioning her identity, ideas of life and death, and the existence of the soul. 2 Days in New York is just a sliver of life, but buoyed by Delpy’s thoughtful, lightly madcap spirit. You’re drawn in, wanting to see what happens next after the days are done. (1:31) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

ONGOING

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry Unstoppable force meets immovable object — and indeed gets stopped — in Alison Klayman’s documentary about China’s most famous contemporary artist. A larger than life figure, Ai Weiwei’s bohemian rebel persona was honed during a long (1981-93) stint in the U.S., where he fit right into Manhattan’s avant-garde and gallery scenes. Returning to China when his father’s health went south, he continued to push the envelope with projects in various media, including architecture — he’s best known today for the 2008 Beijing Olympics’ "Bird’s Nest" stadium design. But despite the official approval implicit in such high-profile gigs, his incessant, obdurate criticism of China’s political repressive politics and censorship — a massive installation exposing the government-suppressed names of children killed by collapsing, poorly-built schools during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake being one prominent example — has tread dangerous ground. This scattershot but nonetheless absorbing portrait stretches its view to encompass the point at which the subject’s luck ran out: when the film was already in post-production, he was arrested, then held for two months without official charge before he was accused of alleged tax evasion. (He is now free, albeit barred from leaving China, and "suspected" of additional crimes including pornography and bigamy.) (1:31) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Amazing Spider-Man A mere five years after Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man 3 — forgettable on its own, sure, but 2002’s Spider-Man and especially 2004’s Spider-Man 2 still hold up — Marvel’s angsty web-slinger returns to the big screen, hoping to make its box-office mark before The Dark Knight Rises opens in a few weeks. Director Marc Webb (2009’s 500 Days of Summer) and likable stars Andrew Garfield (as the skateboard-toting hero) and Emma Stone (as his high-school squeeze) offer a competent reboot, but there’s no shaking the feeling that we’ve seen this movie before, with its familiar origin story and with-great-power themes. A little creativity, and I don’t mean in the special effects department, might’ve gone a long way to make moviegoers forget this Spidey do-over is, essentially, little more than a soulless cash grab. Not helping matters: the villain (Rhys Ifans as the Lizard) is a snooze. (2:18) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Beasts of the Southern Wild Six months 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) Bridge, California, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Bernie Jack Black plays the titular new assistant funeral director liked by everybody in small-town Carthage, Tex. He works especially hard to ingratiate himself with shrewish local widow Marjorie (Shirley MacLaine), but there are benefits — estranged from her own family, she not only accepts him as a friend (then companion, then servant, then as virtual "property"), but makes him her sole heir. Richard Linklater’s latest is based on a true-crime story, although in execution it’s as much a cheerful social satire as I Love You Philip Morris and The Informant! (both 2009), two other recent fact-based movies about likable felons. Black gets to sing (his character being a musical theater queen, among other things), while Linklater gets to affectionately mock a very different stratum of Lone Star State culture from the one he started out with in 1991’s Slacker. There’s a rich gallery of supporting characters, most played by little-known local actors or actual townspeople, with Matthew McConaughey’s vainglorious county prosecutor one delectable exception. Bernie is its director’s best in some time, not to mention a whole lot of fun. (1:39) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Bill W. Even longtime AA members are unlikely to know half the organizational history revealed in this straightforward, chronological, fast-moving portrait of its late founder. Bill Wilson was a bright, personable aspiring businessman whose career was nonetheless perpetually upset by addiction to the alcohol that eased his social awkwardness but brought its own worse troubles. During one mid-1930s sanitarium visit, attempting to dry out, he experienced a spiritual awakening. From that moment slowly grew the idea of Alcoholics Anonymous, which he shaped with the help of several other recovering drunks, and saw become a national movement after a 1941 Saturday Evening Post article introduced it to the general public. Wilson had always hoped the "leaderless" organization would soon find its own feet and leave him to build a separate, sober new career. But gaining that distance was difficult; attempts to find other "cures" for his recurrent depression (including LSD therapy) laid him open to internal AA criticism; and he was never comfortable on the pedestal that grateful members insisted he stay on as the organization’s founder. Admittedly, he appointed himself its primary public spokesman, which rendered his own hopes for privacy somewhat self-canceling — though fortunately it also provides this documentary with plenty of extant lecture and interview material. He was a complicated man whose complicated life often butted against the role of savior, despite his endless dedication and generosity toward others in need. That thread of conflict makes for a movie that’s compelling beyond the light it sheds on an institution as impactful on individual lives and society as any other to emerge from 20th-century America. (1:43) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Bourne Legacy Settle down, Matt Damon fans — the original Bourne appears in The Bourne Legacy only in dialogue ("Jason Bourne is in New York!") and photograph form. Stepping in as lead badass is Jeremy Renner, whose twin powers of strength and intelligence come courtesy of an experimental-drug program overseen by sinister government types (including Edward Norton in an utterly generic role) and administered by lab workers doing it "for the science!," according to Dr. Rachel Weisz. Legacy‘s timeline roughly matches up with the last Damon film, The Bourne Ultimatum, which came out five years ago and is referenced here like we’re supposed to be on a first-name basis with its long-forgotten plot twists. Anyway, thanks to ol’ Jason and a few other factors involving Albert Finney and YouTube, the drug program is shut down, and all guinea-pig agents and high-security-clearance doctors are offed. Except guess which two, who manage to flee across the globe to get more WMDs for Renner’s DNA. Essentially one long chase scene, The Bourne Legacy spends way too much of its time either in Norton’s "crisis suite," watching characters bark orders and stare at computer screens, or trying to explain the genetic tinkering that’s made Renner a super-duper-superspy. Remember when Damon killed that guy with a rolled-up magazine in 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy? Absolutely nothing so rad in this imagination-free enterprise. (2:15) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Brave Pixar’s latest is a surprisingly familiar fairy tale. Scottish princess Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) would rather ride her horse and shoot arrows than become engaged, but it’s Aladdin-style law that she must marry the eldest son of one of three local clans. (Each boy is so exaggeratedly unappealing that her reluctance seems less tomboy rebellion than common sense.) Her mother (Emma Thompson) is displeased; when they quarrel, Merida decides to change her fate (Little Mermaid-style) by visiting the local spell-caster (a gentle, absent-minded soul that Ursula the Sea Witch would eat for brunch). Naturally, the spell goes awry, but only the youngest of movie viewers will fear that Merida and her mother won’t be able to make things right by the end. Girl power is great, but so are suspense and originality. How, exactly, is Brave different than a zillion other Disney movies about spunky princesses? Well, Merida’s fiery explosion of red curls, so detailed it must have had its own full-time team of animators working on it, is pretty fantastic. (1:33) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Campaign (1:25) California, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Vogue.

Celeste and Jesse Forever Married your best friend, realized you love but can’t be in love with each other, and don’t want to let all those great in-jokes wither away? Such is the premise of Celeste and Jesse Forever, the latest in what a recent wave of meaty, girl-centric comedies penned by actresses — here Rashida Jones working with real-life ex Will McCormack; there, Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks), Zoe Lister Jones (Lola Versus), and Lena Dunham (Girls) — who have gone the DIY route and whipped up their own juicy roles. There’s no mistaking theirs for your average big-screen rom-com: they dare to wallow harder, skew smarter, and in the case of Celeste, tackle the thorny, tough-to-resolve relationship dilemma that stubbornly refuses to conform to your copy-and-paste story arc. Nor do their female protagonists come off as uniformly likable: in this case, Celeste (Jones) is a bit of an aspiring LA powerbitch. Her Achilles heel is artist Jesse (Andy Samberg), the slacker high school sweetheart she wed and separated from because he doesn’t share her goals (e.g., he doesn’t have a car or a job). Yet the two continue to spend all their waking hours together and share an undeniable rapport, extending from Jesse’s encampment in her backyard apartment to their jokey simulated coitus featuring phallic-shaped lip balm. Throwing a wrench in the works: the fact that they’re still kind of in love with each other, which all their pals, like Jesse’s pot-dealer bud Skillz (McCormack), can clearly see. It’s an shaggy, everyday breakup yarn, writ glamorous by its appealing leads, that we too rarely witness, and barring the at-times nausea-inducing shaky-cam under the direction of Lee Toland Krieger, it’s rendered compelling and at times very funny — there’s no neat and tidy way to say good-bye, and Jones and McCormack do their best to capture but not encapsulate the severance and inevitable healing process. It also helps that the chemistry practically vibrates between the boyish if somewhat one-note Samberg and the soulful Jones, who fully, intelligently rises to the occasion, bringing on the heartbreak. (1:31) Metreon, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Dark Horse You can look at filmmaker Todd Solondz’s work and find it brilliant, savage, and challenging; or show-offy, contrived, and fraudulent. The circles of interpersonal (especially familial) hell he describes are simultaneously brutal, banal, and baroque. But what probably distresses people most is that they’re also funny — raising the issue of whether he trivializes trauma for the sake of cheap shock-value yuks, or if black comedy is just another valid way of facing the unbearable. Dark Horse is disturbing because it’s such a slight, inconsequential, even soft movie by his standards; this time, the sharp edges seem glibly cynical, and the sum ordinary enough to no longer seem unmistakably his. Abe (Jordan Gelber) is an obnoxious jerk of about 35 who still lives with his parents (Mia Farrow, Christopher Walken) and works at dad’s office, likely because no one else would employ him. But Abe doesn’t exactly see himself as a loser. He resents and blames others for being winners, which is different — he sees the inequality as their fault. Dark Horse is less of an ensemble piece than most of Solondz’s films, and in hinging on Abe, it diminishes his usual ambivalence toward flawed humanity. Abe has no redemptive qualities — he’s just an annoyance, one whose mental health issues aren’t clarified enough to induce sympathy. (1:25) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Dark Knight Rises Early reviews that called out The Dark Knight Rises‘ flaws were greeted with the kind of vicious rage that only anonymous internet commentators can dish out. And maybe this is yet another critic-proof movie, albeit not one based on a best-selling YA book series. Of course, it is based on a comic book, though Christopher Nolan’s sophisticated filmmaking and Christian Bale’s tortured lead performance tend to make that easy to forget. In this third and "final" installment in Nolan’s trilogy, Bruce Wayne has gone into seclusion, skulking around his mansion and bemoaning his broken body and shattered reputation. He’s lured back into the Batcave after a series of unfortunate events, during which The Dark Knight Rises takes some jabs at contemporary class warfare (with problematic mixed results), introduces a villain with pecs of steel and an at-times distractingly muffled voice (Tom Hardy), and unveils a potentially dangerous device that produces sustainable energy (paging Tony Stark). Make no mistake: this is an exciting, appropriately moody conclusion to a superior superhero series, with some nice turns by supporting players Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But in trying to cram in so many characters and plot threads and themes (so many prisons in this thing, literal and figural), The Dark Knight Rises is ultimately done in by its sprawl. Without a focal point — like Heath Ledger’s menacing, iconic Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight — the stakes aren’t as high, and the end result feels more like a superior summer blockbuster than one for the ages. (2:44) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (1:34) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Easy Money A title like that is bound to disprove itself, and it doesn’t take long to figure out that the only payday the lead characters are going to get in this hit 2010 Swedish thriller (from Jens Lapidus’ novel) is the kind measured in bloody catastrophe. Chilean Jorge (Matias Padin Varela), just escaped from prison, returns to Stockholm seeking one last big drug deal before he splits for good; JW (Joel Kinnaman from AMC series The Killing) is a economics student-slash-cabbie desperate for the serious cash needed to support his double life as a pseudo-swell running with the city’s rich young turks. At first reluctantly thrown together, they become friends working for JW’s taxi boss — or to be more specific, for that boss’ cocaine smuggling side business. Their competitors are a Serbian gang whose veteran enforcer Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic) is put in the awkward position of caring for his eight-year-old daughter (by a drug addicted ex-wife) just as "war" heats up between the two factions. But then everyone here has loved ones they want to protect from an escalating cycle of attacks and reprisals from which none are immune. Duly presented here by Martin Scorsese, Daniel Espinosa’s film has the hurtling pace, engrossing characters and complicated (sometimes confusing) plot mechanics of some good movies by that guy, like Casino (1995) or The Departed (2006). Wildly original it’s not, but this crackling good genre entertainment that make you cautiously look forward to its sequel — which is just about to open in Sweden. (1:59) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Farewell, My Queen (Benoît Jacquot, France, 2012) Opening early on the morning of July 14, 1789, Farewell, My Queen depicts four days at the Palace of Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution, as witnessed by a young woman named Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux) who serves as reader to Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). Sidonie displays a singular and romantic devotion to the queen, while the latter’s loyalties are split between a heedless amour propre and her grand passion for the Duchess de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen). These domestic matters and other regal whims loom large in the tiny galaxy of the queen’s retinue, so that while elsewhere in the palace, in shadowy, candle-lit corridors, courtiers and their servants mingle to exchange news, rumor, panicky theories, and evacuation plans, in the queen’s quarters the task of embroidering a dahlia for a projected gown at times overshadows the storming of the Bastille and the much larger catastrophe on the horizon. (1:39) Albany, Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

Girlfriend Boyfriend The onscreen title of this Taiwanese import is Gf*Bf, but don’t let the text-speak fool you: the bulk of the film is set in the 1980s and 90s, long before smart phones were around to complicate relationships. And the trio at the heart of Girlfriend Boyfriend is complicated enough as it is: sassy Mabel (Gwei Lun-Mei) openly pines for brooding Liam (Joseph Chang), who secretly pines for rebellious Aaron (Rhydian Vaughan), who chases Mabel until she gives in; as things often go in stories like this, nobody gets the happy ending they desire. Set against the backdrop of Taiwan’s student movement, this vibrant drama believably tracks its leads as they mature from impulsive youths to bitter adults who never let go of their deep bond — despite all the misery it causes, and a last-act turn into melodrama that’s hinted at by the film’s frame story featuring an older Liam and a pair of, um, sassy and rebellious twin girls he’s been raising as his own. (1:45) Metreon. (Eddy)

Hope Springs Heading into her 32nd year of matrimony with aggressively oblivious Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones), desperate housewife Kay (Meryl Streep) sets aside her entrenched passivity in a last-ditch effort to put flesh back on the skeleton of a marriage. Stumbling upon the guidance of one Dr. Bernard Feld (Steve Carell) in the self-help section of a bookstore, Kay (barely) convinces Arnold to accompany her to a weeklong session at Feld’s Center for Intensive Couples Counseling, in Hope Springs, Maine. The scenes from a marriage leading up to their departure, as well as the incremental advances and crippling setbacks of their therapeutic sojourn, are poignant and distressing and possibly familiar. Some slow drift, long ago set in motion, though we don’t know by what, has settled them in concrete in their separate routines — and bedrooms. It’s the kind of thing that, if it were happening in real life — say, to you — might make you weep. But somehow, through the magic of cinema and the uncomfortable power of witnessing frankly depicted failures of intimacy, we laugh. This is by no means a wackiness-ensues sort of sexual comedy, though. Director David Frankel (2006’s The Devil Wears Prada and, unfortunately, 2008’s Marley & Me) and Jones and Streep, through the finely detailed particularities of their performances, won’t let it be, while Carell resists playing the therapeutic scenes for more than the gentlest pulses of humor. More often, his empathetic silences and carefully timed queries provide a place for these two unhappy, inarticulate, isolated people to fall and fumble and eventually make contact. (1:40) Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Ice Age: Continental Drift (1:27) Metreon.

The Imposter A family tragedy, an international thriller, a Southern-fried mystery, and a true story: The Imposter is all of these things. This unique documentary reveals the tale of Frédéric Bourdin, dubbed "the Chameleon" for his epic false-identity habit. His ballsiest accomplishment was also his most heinous con: in 1997, he claimed to be Nicholas Barclay, a San Antonio teen missing since 1994. Amazingly, the impersonation worked for a time, though Bourdin (early 20s, brown-eyed, speaks English with a French accent) hardly resembled Nicholas (who would have been 16, and had blue eyes). Using interviews — with Nicholas’ shell-shocked family, government types who unwittingly aided the charade, and Bourdin himself — and ingenious re-enactments that borrow more from crime dramas than America’s Most Wanted, director Bart Layton weaves a multi-layered chronicle of one man’s unbelievable deception. (1:39) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Intouchables Cries of "racism" seem a bit out of hand when it comes to this likable albeit far-from-challenging French comedy loosely based on a real-life relationship between a wealthy white quadriplegic and his caretaker of color. The term "cliché" is more accurate. And where were these critics when 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy and 2011’s The Help — movies that seem designed to make nostalgic honkies feel good about those fraught relationships skewed to their advantage—were coming down the pike? (It also might be more interesting to look at how these films about race always hinge on economies in which whites must pay blacks to interact with/educate/enlighten them.) In any case, Omar Sy, portraying Senegalese immigrant Driss, threatens to upset all those pundits’ apple carts with his sheer life force, even when he’s shaking solo on the dance floor to sounds as effortlessly unprovocative, and old-school, as Earth, Wind, and Fire. In fact, everything about The Intouchables is as old school as 1982’s 48 Hrs., spinning off the still laugh-grabbing humor that comes with juxtaposing a hipper, more streetwise black guy with a hapless, moneyed chalky. The wheelchair-bound Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is more vulnerable than most, and he has a hard time getting along with any of his nurses, until he meets Driss, who only wants his signature for his social services papers. It’s not long before the cultured, classical music-loving Philippe’s defenses are broken down by Driss’ flip, somewhat honest take on the follies and pretensions of high culture — a bigger deal in France than in the new world, no doubt. Director-writer Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano aren’t trying to innovate —they seem more set on crafting an effervescent blockbuster that out-blockbusters Hollywood — and the biggest compliment might be that the stateside remake is already rumored to be in the works. (1:52) Clay. (Chun)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of "deliciousness" — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) Four Star. (Eddy)

Killer Joe William Friedkin made two enormously popular movies that have defined his career (1971’s The French Connection and 1973’s The Exorcist), but his resumé also contains an array of lesser films that are both hit-and-miss in critical and popular appeal. Most have their defenders. After a couple biggish action movies, it seemed a step down for him to be doing Bug in 2006; though it had its limits as a psychological quasi-horror, you could feel the cracking recognition of like minds between cast, director, and playwright Tracy Letts. Letts and Friedkin are back in Killer Joe, which was a significant off-Broadway success in 1998. In the short, violent, and bracing film version, Friedkin gets the ghoulish jet-black-comedic tone just right, and his actors let themselves get pushed way out on a limb to their great benefit — including Matthew McConaughey, playing the title character, who’s hired by the Smith clan of Texas to bump off a troublesome family member. Needless to say, almost nothing goes as planned, escalating mayhem to new heights of trailer-trash Grand Guignol. Things get fugly to the point where Killer Joe becomes one of those movies whose various abuses are shocking enough to court charges of gratuitous violence and misogyny; unlike the 2010 Killer Inside Me, for instance, it can’t really be justified as a commentary upon those very entertainment staples. (Letts is highly skilled, but those looking for a message here will have to think one up for themselves.) Still, Friedkin and his cast do such good work that Killer Joe‘s grimly humorous satisfaction in its worst possible scenarios seems quite enough. (1:43) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Klown A spinoff from a long-running Danish TV show, with the same director (Mikkel Nørgaard) and co-writer/stars, this bad-taste comedy might duly prove hard to beat as "the funniest movie of the year" (a claim its advertising already boasts). Socially hapless Frank (Frank Hvam) discovers his live-in girlfriend Mia (Mia Lyhne) is pregnant, but she quite reasonably worries "you don’t have enough potential as a father." To prove otherwise, he basically kidnaps 12-year-old nephew Bo (Marcuz Jess Petersen) and drags him along on a canoe trip with best friend Casper (Casper Christensen). Trouble is, Casper has already proclaimed this trip will be a "Tour de Pussy," in which they — or at least he — will seize any and every opportunity to cheat on their unknowing spouses. Ergo, there’s an almost immediate clash between awkward attempts at quasi-parental bonding and activities most unsuited for juvenile eyes. Accusations of rape and pedophilia, some bad advice involving "pearl necklaces," an upscale one-night-only bordello, reckless child endangerment, encouragement of teenage drinking, the consequences of tactical "man flirting," and much more ensue. Make no mistake, Klown one-ups the Judd Apatow school of raunch (at least for the moment), but it’s good-natured enough to avoid any aura of crass Adam Sandler-type bottom-feeding. It’s also frequently, blissfully, very, very funny. (1:28) Roxie. (Harvey)

Magic Mike Director Steven Soderbergh pays homage to the 1970s with the opening shot of his male stripper opus: the boxy old Warner Bros. logo, which evokes the gritty, sexualized days of Burt Reynolds and Joe Namath posing in pantyhose. Was that really the last time women, en masse, were welcome to ogle to their heart’s content? That might be the case considering the outburst of applause when a nude Channing Tatum rises after a hard night in a threesome in Magic Mike‘s first five minutes. Ever the savvy film historian, Soderbergh toys with the conventions of the era, from the grimy quasi-redneck realism of vintage Reynolds movies to the hidebound framework of the period’s gay porn, almost for his own amusement, though the viewer might be initially confused about exactly what year they’re in. Veteran star stripper Mike (Tatum) is working construction, stripping to the approval of many raucous ladies and their stuffable dollar bills. He decides to take college-dropout blank-slate hottie Adam (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing and ropes him into the strip club, owned by Dallas (Matthew McConaughey, whose formidable abs look waxily preserved) and show him the ropes of stripping and having a good time, much to the disapproval of Adam’s more straight-laced sister Brooke (Cody Horn). Really, though, all Mike wants to do is become a furniture designer. Boasting Foreigner’s "Feels like the First Time" as its theme of sorts and spot-on, hot choreography by Alison Faulk (who’s worked with Madonna and Britney Spears), Magic Mike takes off and can’t help but please the crowd when it turns to the stage. Unfortunately the chemistry-free budding romance between Mike and Brooke sucks the air out of the proceedings every time it comes into view, which is way too often. (1:50) Metreon. (Chun)

Moonrise Kingdom Does Wes Anderson’s new film mark a live-action return to form after 2007’s disappointingly wan Darjeeling Limited? More or less. Does it tick all the Andersonian style and content boxes? Indubitably. In the most obvious deviation Anderson has taken with Moonrise, he gives us his first period piece, a romance set in 1965 on a fictional island off the New England coast. After a chance encounter at a church play, pre-teen Khaki Scout Sam (newcomer Jared Gilman) instantly falls for the raven-suited, sable-haired Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward, ditto). The two become pen pals, and quickly bond over the shared misery of being misunderstood by both authority figures and fellow kids. The bespectacled Sam is an orphan, ostracized by his foster parents and scout troop (much to the dismay of its straight-arrow leader Edward Norton). Suzy despises her clueless attorney parents, played with gusto by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand in some of the film’s funniest and best scenes. When the two kids run off together, the whole thing begins to resemble a kind of tween version of Godard’s 1965 lovers-on the-lam fantasia Pierrot le Fou. But like most of Anderson’s stuff, it has a gauzy sentimentality more akin to Truffaut than Godard. Imagine if the sequence in 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums where Margot and Richie run away to the Museum of Natural History had been given the feature treatment: it’s a simple yet inspired idea, and it becomes a charming little tale of the perils of growing up and selling out the fantasy. But it doesn’t feel remotely risky. It’s simply too damn tame. (1:37) Four Star, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Michelle Devereaux)

Moth Diaries The Moth Diaries, Rachel Klein’s 2002 novel turned into Mary Harron’s film, is the director’s most mainstream-friendly effort, being less edgy and grown-up than American Psycho (2000), I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), or even The Notorious Bettie Page (2005). It’s the start of a new academic year at an upscale girls’ boarding school. Becca (Sarah Bolger from The Tudors) is particularly happy to be reunited with best friend Lucie (Sarah Gadon), as the former is still psychologically fragile in the wake of her well-known poet father’s suicide. But a wedge is driven between them by the arrival of Ernessa (Lily Cole), a tall, English-accented student with a face like a creepy porcelain doll. She "colonizes" Lucie, who at first guiltily hides her infatuation from Becca, then (along with everyone else) accuses her of simple jealousy. But Becca notices things others don’t, or dismiss: how Ernessa never seems to eat, how she can’t abide water, the sickly sweet smell emanating from her room and her odd disappearances into the luxury-hotel-turned-school’s off limits basement. Klein’s book, which had our heroine looking back on this episode from middle age, insisted on ambiguity: we’re never sure whether Ernessa really is a supernatural predator, or if all this is just a hysterical fantasy. Adapted by Harron as scenarist, the movie eliminates that frame and leaves little room for doubt that there be vampires here. The film’s weakness is that it still tries to play it both ways, as troubled coming-of-age portrait and Gothic horror, with the result that the two elements end up seeming equally half-realized. (1:22) SF Film Society Cinema. (Harvey)

Nitro Circus the Movie 3D (1:28) Metreon.

The Queen of Versailles Lauren Greenfield’s obscenely entertaining The Queen of Versailles takes a long, turbulent look at the lifestyles lived by David and Jackie Siegel. He is the 70-something undisputed king of timeshares; she is his 40-something (third) wife, a former beauty queen with the requisite blonde locks and major rack, both probably not entirely Mother Nature-made. He’s so compulsive that he’s never saved, instead plowing every buck back into the business. When the recession hits, that means this billionaire is — in ready-cash as opposed to paper terms — suddenly sorta kinda broke, just as an enormous Las Vegas project is opening and the family’s stupefyingly large new "home" (yep, modeled after Versailles) is mid-construction. Plugs must be pulled, corners cut. Never having had to, the Siegels discover (once most of the servants have been let go) they have no idea how to run a household. Worse, they discover that in adversity they have a very hard time pulling together — in particular, David is revealed as a remote, cold, obsessively all-business person who has no use for getting or giving "emotional support;" not even for being a husband or father, much. What ultimately makes Queen poignantly more than a reality-TV style peek at the garishly wealthy is that Jackie, despite her incredibly vulgar veneer (she’s like a Jennifer Coolidge character, forever squeezed into loud animal prints), is at heart just a nice girl from hicksville who really, really wants to make this family work. (1:40) Lumiere, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Ruby Sparks Meta has rarely skewed as appealingly as with this indie rom-com spinning off a writerly version of the Pygmalion and Galatea tale, as penned by the object-of-desire herself: Zoe Kazan. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris helm this heady fantasy about a crumpled, geeky novelist, Calvin (Paul Dano), who’s suffering from the sophomore slump — he can’t seem to break his rock-solid writers block and pen a follow-up to his hit debut. He’s a victim of his own success, especially when he finally begins to write, about a dream girl, a fun-loving, redheaded artist named Ruby (scriptwriter Kazan), who one day actually materializes. When he types that she speaks nothing but French, out comes a stream of the so-called language of diplomacy. Calvin soon discovers the limits and dangers of creation — say, the hazards of tweaking a manifestation when she doesn’t do what you desire, and the question of what to do when one’s baby Frankenstein grows bored and restless in the narrow circle of her creator’s imagination. Kazan — and Dayton and Faris — go to the absurd, even frightening, limits of the age-old Pygmalion conceit, giving it a feminist charge, while helped along by a cornucopia of colorful cameos by actors like Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas as Calvin’s boho mom and her furniture-building boyfriend. Dano is as adorably befuddled as ever and adds the crucial texture of every-guy reality, though ultimately this is Kazan’s show, whether she’s testing the boundaries of a genuinely codependent relationship or tugging at the puppeteer’s strings. (1:44) Metreon, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

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) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Step Up Revolution The Step Up franchise makes a play for the Occupy brand, setting up its fourth installment’s Miami street crew, the Mob, as the warrior dance champions of the 99 percent — here represented by a vibrant lower-income neighborhood slated for redevelopment. Embodying the one percent is a hotel-chain mogul named Bill Anderson (Peter Gallagher), armed with a wrecking ball and sowing the seeds of a soulless luxury monoculture. Our hero, Mob leader Sean (Ryan Guzman), and heroine, Anderson progeny and aspiring professional dancer Emily (Kathryn McCormick), meet beachside; engage in a sandy, awkward interlude of grinding possibly meant to showcase their dance skills; and proceed to spark a romance and a revolution that feel equally fake (brace yourself for the climactic corporate tie-in). The Mob’s periodic choreographed invasions of the city’s public and private spaces are the movie’s sole source of oxygen. The dialogue, variously mumbled and slurred and possibly read off cue cards, drifts aimlessly from tepid to trite as the protagonists attempt to demonstrate sexual chemistry by breathily trading off phrases like "What we do is dangerous!" and "Enough with performance art — it’s time to make protest art!" Occasionally you may remember that you have 3D glasses on your face and wonder why, but the larger philosophical question (if one may speak of philosophy in relation to the dance-movie genre) concerns the Step Up films’ embrace of postproduction sleights of hand that distance viewers from whatever astonishing feats of physicality are actually being achieved in front of the camera. (1:20) SF Center. (Rapoport)

Ted Ah, boys and their toys — and the imaginary friends that mirror back a forever-after land of perpetual Peter Pans. That’s the crux of the surprisingly smart, hilarious Ted, aimed at an audience comprising a wide range of classes, races, and cultures with its mix of South Park go-there yuks and rom-commie coming-of-age sentiment. Look at Ted as a pop-culture-obsessed nerd tweak on dream critter-spirit animal buddy efforts from Harvey (1950) to Donnie Darko (2001) to TV’s Wilfred. Of course, we all know that the really untamable creature here wobbles around on two legs, laden with big-time baggage about growing up and moving on from childhood loves. Young John doesn’t have many friends but he is fortunate enough to have his Christmas wish come true: his beloved new teddy bear, Ted (voice by director-writer Seth MacFarlane), begins to talk back and comes to life. With that miracle, too, comes Ted’s marginal existence as a D-list celebrity curiosity — still, he’s the loyal "Thunder Buddy" that’s always there for the now-grown John (Mark Wahlberg), ready with a bong and a broheim-y breed of empathy that involves too much TV, an obsession with bad B-movies, and mock fisticuffs, just the thing when storms move in and mundane reality rolls through. With his tendency to spew whatever profanity-laced thought comes into his head and his talents are a ladies’ bear, Ted is the id of a best friend that enables all of John’s most memorable, un-PC, Hangover-style shenanigans. Alas, John’s cool girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) threatens that tidy fantasy setup with her perfectly reasonable relationship demands. Juggling scary emotions and material that seems so specific that it can’t help but charm — you’ve got to love a shot-by-shot re-creation of a key Flash Gordon scene — MacFarlane sails over any resistance you, Lori, or your superego might harbor about this scenario with the ease of a man fully in touch with his inner Ted. (1:46) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

To Rome with Love Woody Allen’s film legacy is not like anybody else’s. At present, however, he suffers from a sense that he’s been too prolific for too long. It’s been nearly two decades since a new Woody Allen was any kind of "event," and the 19 features since Bullets Over Broadway (1994) have been hit and-miss. Still, there’s the hope that Allen is still capable of really surprising us — or that his audience might, as they did by somewhat inexplicably going nuts for 2011’s Midnight in Paris. It was Allen’s most popular film in eons, if not ever, probably helped by the fact that he wasn’t in it. Unfortunately, he’s up there again in the new To Rome With Love, familiar mannerisms not hiding the fact that Woody Allen the Nebbish has become just another Grumpy Old Man. There’s a doddering quality that isn’t intended, and is no longer within his control. But then To Rome With Love is a doddering picture — a postcard-pretty set of pictures with little more than "Have a nice day" scribbled on the back in script terms. Viewers expecting more of the travelogue pleasantness of Midnight in Paris may be forgiving, especially since it looks like a vacation, with Darius Khondji’s photography laying on the golden Italian light and making all the other colors confectionary as well. But if Paris at least had the kernel of a good idea, Rome has only several inexplicably bad ones; it’s a quartet of interwoven stories that have no substance, point, credibility, or even endearing wackiness. The shiny package can only distract so much from the fact that there’s absolutely nothing inside. (1:52) Albany, Opera Plaza, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Total Recall Already the source material for Paul Verhoeven’s campy, quotable 1990 film (starring the campy, quotable Arnold Schwarzenegger), Philip K. Dick’s short story gets a Hollywood do-over, with meh results. The story, anyway, is a fine nugget of sci-fi paranoia: to escape his unsatisfying life, Quaid (Colin Farrell) visits a company capable of implanting exciting memories into his brain. When he chooses the "secret agent" option, it’s soon revealed he actually does have secret agent-type memories, suppressed via brain-fuckery by sinister government forces (led by Bryan Cranston) keeping him in the dark about his true identity. Shit immediately gets crazy, with high-flying chases and secret codes and fight scenes all over the place. The woman Quaid thinks is his wife (Kate Beckinsale) is actually a slithery killer; the woman he’s been seeing in his dreams (Jessica Biel) turns out to be his comrade in a secret rebel movement. Len Wiseman (writer and sometimes director of the Underworld films) lenses futuristic urban grime with a certain sleek panache, and Farrell is appealing enough to make highly generic hero Quaid someone worth rooting for — until the movie ends, and the entire enterprise (save perhaps the tri-boobed hooker, a holdover from the original) becomes instantly forgettable, no amnesia trickery required. (1:58) California, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Unforgiveable The distinguishing characteristic of André Téchiné’s movies is the speed and force with which life changes people and their relationships with one another, even as the director’s presentation is so matter-of-fact that no single moment betrays the enormity of changes endured. Unforgiveable‘s Francis (the estimable André Dussollier) is the French author of best-selling crime novels who’s decided to recharge his batteries by living in Venice for a year. He’s struck by the brisk attractiveness of Judith (Carole Bouquet), the estate agent he consults to find a rental; 18 months later they’re contentedly married, and hosting two daughters of his by a prior marriage. When the eldest (Mélanie Thierry) disappears, Francis hires a private detective (Adriana Asti), who was once ex-model Judith’s paramour and, like Francis, has a problem child in the recently prison-sprung Jérémie (Mauro Conte). The paternal quest that’s become an obsession oddly fosters a bond between Francis and this mercurial delinquent, even as it erodes the happiness he’s won in autumnal life with Judith. Unforgivable is based on a novel by Philippe Djian, but feels very much of a piece with films whose stories Téchiné originated with or without collaborators. It hurtles forward with a casual intensity that’s uniquely his own, sometimes surprising or even shocking us, but never inflating incidents to the point of melodrama. It isn’t among the director’s most memorable creations, but it’s satisfying to spend two hours with someone who thinks like an adult, and treats the audience as one. (1:52) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

The Watch Directed by Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer (famed for Saturday Night Live‘s popular digital shorts, including "Dick in a Box"), The Watch is, appropriately enough, probably the most dick-focused alien-invasion movie of all time. When a security guard is mangled to death at Costco, store manager and uber-suburbanite Evan (Ben Stiller, doing a damn good Steve Carell impersonation) organizes a posse to keep an eye on the neighborhood — despite the fact that the other members (Vince Vaughn as the overprotective dad with the bitchin’ man cave; Jonah Hill as the creepy wannabe cop; and British comedian Richard Ayoade as the sweet pervert) would much rather drink beers and bro down. Much bumbling ensues, along with a thrown-together plot about unfriendly E.T.s. The Watch offers some laughs (yes, dick jokes are occasionally funny) but overall feels like a pretty minor effort considering its big-name cast. (1:38) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Eddy) *

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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Listings compiled by Caitlin Donohue. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 15

Smack Dab open mic Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF. www.magnetsf.org. 8pm, open mic sign-up starts at 7:30pm, free. Magnet, the Castro’s neighborhood health clinic hosts this open mic for all ages and genders. Lewis DeSimone, author of Chemistry and The Heart’s History, will be the night’s featured reader but everyone is welcome to bring in up to five minutes of shareable words.

Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com. 6-8pm, $10. The San Francisco debut of LA’s sexy comic showdown, this installation of CEFF brings 10 comics to the stage to share their fan fic-themed smut. Some even take audience suggestions in their creative process, so bring your dirty minds.

THURSDAY 16

Ruben Martinez The Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. (415) 863-8688, www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The Western plains of the United States that once were home to Native American tribes and later, roaming cowboys, are now the scene of an entirely different wild frontier. Post-colonial author Martinez reads from his time spent researching Marfa, Texas; the banks of the Rio Grande; and the Tohono O’odham reservation in his research for Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New “New West.”

“Discover the Birds of Honduras” Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, Berk. (510) 843-2222, www.northbrae.org. 7-9pm, free. The Golden Gate Audubon Society sponsors this talk by Robert Gallardo, who has opened butterfly farms and spent 12 years as a bird guide. Today, Gallardo presents some of the 750 bird species of Honduras, home to nearly 10 percent of the planet’s winged species.

Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion in America Accordion Apocalypse, 255 10th St., SF. www.accordionapocalypse.com. 7pm, free. Author Marion Jackson penned this look at our country’s relationship with the squeezebox. Should you be inspired to tickle the ivories yourself, you can buy an accordion of your own from the lecture’s gracious hosts.

San Jorocho Festival Brava Theater, 2781 24th St., SF. (415) 641-7657, www.brava.org. 8pm, $6-$35. Brava’s celebration of the Veracruz region of Mexico kicks off tonight with filmmaker Marcos Villalobos presenting his documentary on three Son Jorocho musicians. Son Siglos looks at the cross-border translation of culture – particularly pertinent to this Northern Cali look at Mexican tradition.

SATURDAY18

Street Food Festival Folsom between 20th and 26th Sts. and some other streets, SF. www.sfstreetfoodfest.com. 11am-7pm, free. Some of SF’s hautest eateries and best food entrepreneurs take to the Mission streets for this foodie heaven: hundreds of dishes for $8 and under from across the world, not to mention bars selling artisan cocktails and more.

Balboa Park grand re-opening San Jose and Sgt. Young Drive, SF. www.tpl.org. 11am-2pm, free. The Balboa Park playground has a fresh new look, and the whole neighborhood’s invited to come out and give it a swing. The Trust for Public Land and SF Rec and Parks will be hosting and providing snacks, music, and activities.

Haute Pool Show Chambers at Hotel Phoenix, 601 Eddy, SF. www.hautepoolshow.eventbrite.com. 1-8pm, $5-$15. Shop local fashion by the pool at the city’s rock ‘n’ roll pool while DJs like Omar from Popscene and Brandon Arnovick from Rondo Brothers spin. 30 independent clothesmakers will be participating – the perfect stop-off if you’re looking for weekend threads.

Tell Your Tattoo Story video shoot Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF. (415) 671-0507, www.sfiaf.org. 6:30pm, free. RSVP necessary. The new play Placas (part of the SF International Arts Festival this fall) centers around street gangs and the implications of tattoo removal – but that doesn’t mean that those involved in the production are anti-ink. Sign up to show off your tats and explain their provenance. Footage will be shown as a companion piece when the play debuts.

Alamo Square Flea Market South side of Alamo Square Park, SF. www.alamosquare.org. 9am-3pm, free. Sidestep the Full House-house-seeking tour buses and search for your own vision of superlative San Francisco – the 29th year of this neighborhood-sponsored flea market will feature clothes, housewares, dogs for adoption from Rocket Dog Rescue, and much more.

Pedalfest Jack London Square, Broadway and 1st St., Oakl. www.pedalfestjacklondon.com. 11am-8pm, free. Bikes for days! Art bikes, acrobatic bikes, stunt bikes, foldable bikes, kids bikes, food for bikes – okay, maybe just food for riders, who will also enjoy live music and cavorting with their two-wheeled community. The East Bay Bike Coalition also sponsored last year’s Pedalfest, which attracted over 18,000 attendees.

SUNDAY 19

SF Mime Troupe Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission and Fourth St., SF. www.sfmt.org. 2pm, free. Check out the Bay’s historic radical theater troupe in the rolling hills of downtown’s greenest field. This year’s production is called The Last Election. Shall we reflect on a world without political monkeying about? At least electoral shenanigans birthed a spectacular community theater troupe.

Indie Mart Wisconsin between 16th and 17th Sts., SF. www.indie-mart.com. Noon-7pm, free. Because you know somebody that deserves an August handmade gifty, this regularly-occurring craft fair is coming to Potrero Hill with 100 of the city’s finest makers. Thee Parkside is included in the festivities, so grab some tots and a Bloody before you shop – pricetags will go down way easier.

 

Friends, love, leftovers

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Georgie Bundle is my new favorite person. My ever-loving bassist and keeper of my records, he has at various times during our many years of friendship impressed me with his barbecued things and bass lines. His harmonies, his goosey Christmases… He once accepted custody of some hand-me-down chickens of mine and built a coop for them on his lunch break. It was next to the steps, under the avocado tree, as if my old ex-chickens’ existence wasn’t cartoonish enough.

Well, yesterday evening we stood on those steps in North Oakland, after work, and reminisced. We have such a rich and rhythmic history, but the subject of our nostalgic reverie was a fried chicken dinner he’d cooked up two nights before.

I was there! I love it when people make fried chicken, because it’s something I have never myself been able to do. In fact I only know, personally, a handful of people who have managed to fry the chickens in the comfort and coze of their own little kitchens: Kentucky Fried Woman (obviously), Ruberoy “Shortribs” Perrotta, Wayway…

And now this. Now Georgie Bundle. Dude bought $70 worth — in fact, “bought” might not suffice — dude fucking purchased $70 worth of healthy, grass-fed Sonoma County chickens, brined them overnight, dredged them through some kind of fancy-pants specialty gluten-free flour, bathed them in buttermilk, and then flour again before they hit the hot oil.

When we joined his Southern-themed dinner party, with our Hedgehog-made cornbread and my me-made okra and tomatoes, Bundle was three paper towels to the wind, pinballing between the counter, the stove, and the sink, high on peanut oil fumes. He had a thermometer in the oil, and did the breasts all together at one temperature, and then the wings, legs and thighs at an altogether different temperature.

I don’t know if I ever hugged a host or hostess harder.

Long story short, the chicken was the best chicken ever, but this weird anti-Jesus thing happened where, after everyone had cleaned their plates and licked their fingers and (if they were me) their wrists and forearms, there weren’t any seconds.

Hedgehog is a lot of wonderful things, but “the most gracious guest in the world” isn’t one of them. When she came back outside with a second helping of Everything But, her disappointment was palpable.

Sadness, she calls it now. “Mostly I was just sad. I went up there with hope in my heart,” she said, when I interviewed her for this story. Just now, in the kitchen.

Mr. Bundle and our very dear Yoyo were sad too, and confused.

“I don’t know what happened,” Bundle said. “It seemed like so much chicken while I was cooking it.”

“It was the best fried chicken ever in the history of the world,” I said. “That’s what happened. We disappeared it. Everybody got some.”

There were so many great sides, like roasted carrots and greens and mac and cheese, that nobody stayed sad for long and everyone went home happy.

Short story long: Next day I get an email from Georgie Bundle titled, “there was MORE chicken!” He had put a whole tray of it in the oven to keep warm, and then forgot about it. And here’s where the superhero comes out in him. He offered to deliver more chicken to anyone who wanted it. “Even if you don’t email me I might just show up with some chicken,” he said. “You’ve been warned.”

I did email him, of course. I’m not proud. And it really was awesome, awesome fried chicken. But we had been chicken-sitting in Alameda when the dinner happened, or we probably wouldn’t have been invited. In fact, I’m not sure we were, technically, invited. The point is, it was an East Bay thing. And by the next day we were back home in the Mission, so I was sure there was no chance of a Late Night Trans-Bay Leftover Fried Chicken Delivery.

I took a bath.

I fell asleep, as usual, in the bathtub. And when I came back upstairs to get into bed with Hedgehog, my phone was blinking. Georgie Bundle. Are you still up, can I bring chicken? I’m in SF.

So you see what I mean about superhero? Georgie Bundle is my new favorite person.

New favorite restaurant?

Curry Boyzz

Sun.-Thu. noon-11pm; Fri.-Sat. noon-2 am

4238 18th St., SF

(415) 255-6565

www.curryboyzz.com

AE,D,MC,V

Beer and wine

 

Skrillex vs Stevie Wonder at Outside Lands

Tony Robles
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Skrillex vs Stevie Wonder at Outside Lands

Surveying the rabid Skrillex crowd, I felt old for one of the first times in my life. Like, John McCain, “get off my lawn” old. Who the hell was this mall punk with a Miley Cyrus haircut, anyway? What, in God’s name, has he inflicted upon the music world? And why, oh why, did this hoard of tweens, bros, and “cool-dads” choose to undergo Skrillex’s sonic weedwacking, instead of running into the arms of living-legend Stevie Wonder?

Having committed the cardinal sin of leaving the main stage as Stevie ripped through “Signed Sealed Delivered,” I guess I was setting myself up for a repellant EDM experience. Seriously, how could a brostep-practitioner (let alone a DJ) compete with a 14-piece band, diving into one of the greatest back-catalogues in pop history? However, as I approached the Twin Peaks stage, and the barrage of twisted noise and splintered video-projections came into focus, I found myself not just underwhelmed, but vaguely, viscerally offended as well.

As Skrillex’s formulaic dynamics ran their course (laborious, heavy-handed tension, building up to the inevitable “beat drop”), and the rigidly brimmed bro-hats in the audience bobbed up and down with militaristic synchronization, it dawned on me: the guy’s music is doomed by a perfect storm of chaos and joylessness. Say what you will about Metallica’s brand of contrived assault: their set was fun; Skrillex’s audience was enraptured, alright, but in a much more fascistic sense. Let’s just say that the image of Apple’s famous 1984 superbowl ad was a difficult one to shake.

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

I’d try to describe the Skrillex aesthetic, but is there anything that hasn’t already been said? Yes, there were lots of “womp-womps,” crashy noises, and syncopated Michael Bay sound effects piled atop the simplistic chord progressions. Factor in the predictable buildups and payoffs, and the seizure-inducing visuals, and you have a concertgoing experience with all the warmth and charm of a monster truck rally. Which isn’t to say that noise and chaos can’t be used compellingly. Hype Williams, Death Grips, and Black Dice are all capable of wringing anarchic perversity from their shards of noise, without sacrificing any sense of joy or wonderment.

Okay: I’ll concede that Skrillex’s music possesses an experimental edge. Also, it’s somewhat refreshing to see Middle America being turned on to the possibilities of dissonance in music. But, whereas even a quasi-countercultural figure like Trent Reznor would look out of place in front of a Bud Light logo, Skrillex looks perfectly at home. Unlike true boundary-pushers like Throbbing Gristle, Skrillex’s product is the dream-material of hair-gelling Viacom executives: an endlessly commodifiable brand of pseudo-punk rebellion, perfectly calibrated to sell energy drinks, college football, and the military-industrial complex, all while the bro-hats nod away.

After 10 minutes of Skrillex’s sonic cheese-grating, I was more than ready to head back into Stevie’s sunny embrace. As I heard the clavinet riff from “Superstition” fade in gradually on the walk over, I knew I had made the right decision. Maneuvering through the main stage crowd to make my way towards the action, the mood reversed completely, as Stevie made up for Skrillex’s joy-deficit, and then some. With three drummers, a brass section, an army of keyboardists and guitarists, and a few beautiful backup singers in tow, the pop master sported the swagger of 100 Skrillexes, without any of the gnarled, meatheaded machismo.

Therein lies the genius of Stevie Wonder: his ability to radiate joy, groove relentlessly, and even get political, with stunning cohesiveness. Just because “Higher Ground” and “Living for the City” possess sober lyrical content doesn’t mean you can’t dance your ass off to them. Elsewhere, “Sir Duke,” “I Wish,” and “Happy Birthday,” had the diverse crowd in a frenzy, dancing and singing along to some of the most infectious choruses ever written.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n11ExBK-hCo

After initially taking the stage, armed with a Keytar to cover Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is,” Stevie jumped restlessly between a handful of instruments, displaying his virtuosity on the clavinet, piano, harmonica, and lap steel guitar. It was a welcome reminder (and a great introduction, for the uninitiated) of Stevie’s extraordinary musical talent; after all, he’s the visionary who recorded Talking Book (1972) completely on his own, drums and all.

Shuffling through a wide range of covers (Smokey Robinson’s “My Girl,” The Beatles’ “She Loves You,” and most memorably, Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel), as well as a hit parade of original material, Stevie’s set was an exuberant, poignant trip through a lifetime of pop brilliance. Young and old, black and white, no one could resist Stevie’s charm. Whereas Skrillex was signed on to appease a fixed set of demographics, Stevie came to play for everyone.

Newsom will vote on campaign donors’ projects

Zelda Bronstein
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On the front page of the Chronicle Aug. 12, California Watch reported that Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom has been promoting the interests of campaign donors in San Diego and San Bernardino. It’s nothing criminal, but it looks bad – and it’s just the start.

Newsom, who sits on the state Lands Commission (one of the few critical duties of the Lite Guv) has received thousands of dollars in donations from interested parties looking to exploit San Francisco’s waterfront, public records show. And he will be voting on the future of their projects.

Newsom received $2,000 for his 2014 campaign from two lawyers, Neil Sekhri and Mary Murphy. Both attorneys are at the law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, and are involved with the controversial 8 Washington project – which comes before the Lands Commission Aug. 14. Since part of the site of the most expensive condos in San Francisco history is state Tidelands Trust property, the state has to approve the deal. Newsom will be one of three members voting.

The future site for the Golden State Warriors arena is along the waterfront. The decision to turn over that land to private investors will come before Newsom’s panel, too – and Newsom has received more than $6,000 from interested parties.
The Strada Investment Group, which is representing the Warriors as a development consultant, gave Newsom $5,000, records on file with the Secretary of State show. Jesse Blout, real estate investor for the group contributed $750. Scott Stafford, principal, contributed $750. Marty Glide, chief executive officer of the Warriors, contributed $2,000 Newsom’s campaign.

Aaron Peskin, former supervisor and a foe of 8 Washington, issued a press release Aug. 13 calling on Newsom to recuse himself from voting on that project. Newsom’s office hasn’t responded to us, but it’s a safe bet that’s not going to happen. Newsom didn’t get where he is by stiffing campaign donors when they need him on a big vote.

There’s another  problem with the Lands Commission vote on 8 Washington. According to former City Attorney Louise Renne, the commission can’t vote on a project that doesn’t actually exist.

Her argument, laid out in an Aug. 7 letter to the commission, is simple: More than 31,000 San Francisco voters signed a petition demanding a vote on the project – and the Department of Elections has certified the referendum for a citywide vote. That can’t happen until November 2013. “Under these circumstances,” Renne wrote, “you do not have a currently valid 8 Washington Street/Seawall Lot 351 project before you for consideration. Approvals of the project are suspended by law.”

Does the commission even care if what it’s doing is legal? Anyone placing bets?

UPDATE: We just got a statement from Newsom’s chief of staff, Chris Garland, who told us that the Attorney General’s Office and the Lands Commission legal staff agreed that none of the panel members have a conflict of interest.  “The lieutenant governor has enjoyed the support of parties on both sides of this issue and is capable of looking at the item impartially and doing what is right for the state,” he said. “This isn’t a matter of contributions; it’s matter of calling balls and strikes on an important project.”

Okay then.

Creating activist scholars: extended interview with Andrej Grubacic

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Creating activist scholars: extended interview with Andrej Grubacic

For this week’s paper, we talked with with Andrej Grubacic, the new head of the anthropology department at the California Institute for Integral Studies. Here’s the extended interview with Grubacic, where he talks more about the new Anthropology and Social Change program, as well as the history of anarchist schools, how his grandmother influenced his politics growing up in Yugoslavia, and the state of the occupy movement.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: What’s the structure of the new program going to look like?

Andrej Grubacic: It’s going to be called Anthropology and Social Change, and we have two levels. One is MA, the other is PhD. Philosophically speaking and politically speaking, in the age of occupy and all of these movements, the great question for me was how to organize a department that’s actually going to be useful for all of these social struggles and that activism that’s happening outside of education. I’ve been in academia as a scholar-activist for a long time. And what I’ve discovered is the most painful thing in my experience is the separation. The fact of actual separation between the grassroots knowledges, produced outside of the academia, and academic knowledge produced within the universities. So the best things, the way that I was thinking about this was that what we should do on both levels, MA and PhD, is to construct a space of translation of different knowledge. So to put these two knowledges, one produced outside of academia and the other produced in the university, in dialogue.

So we have Boots Riley for example, he’s going to be teaching community organizing, or organizing for social justice. Then we’re going to have Sasha Lilley teaching an eminently practical course on how to create and produce radical radio. So you’re going to get activist media skills. Then we’re going to have a few other people teaching also different skills, and knowledge that’s inspired by art, bringing artists in, and knowledge that’s inspired by people who are thinking about social theory and social emancipation. We’re going to create something really exciting. 

SFBG: Do you think the students who attend are going to be the same kind of mix of academics, artists, activists, and people who want to organize within their own communities here in San Francisco?

AG: I think so. That’s the idea. The idea is to make this department work for the students, but also for the people in San Francisco Bay Area. And we can do that by bringing students who are interested in local work, and I think that’s going to be a pretty amazing. If we are of course able to do things right, but I think that we will be. So Chris Carlsson for example, he’s going to be teaching labor and ecological history of San Francisco, so a very local topic. We’re going to be teaching courses on activist ethnography, and activist ethnography is the center for the whole program, which is how can we relate to community– and this is where we’re also using the term integral– in an integral way? Meaning how do we integrate community into every step of the research process? And the traditional anthropology, as you probably know, is all about participant observation. We would like to have instead observant participants. People who are involved with the communities. People who are trying to dissolve the distinction between the researcher, between who’s on the outside, and who’s on the inside. And they’re creating something together. 

SFBG: I saw when you spoke at the University of the Commons launch. You were talking about how there’s a wave of radical activity going on at schools throughout the world.

AG: Oh yeah.

SFBG: This is obviously very different, because this is an institution putting out something radical, but do you think it fits into that trend right now?

AG: I think it does. Because if you know my biography, I’ve been travelling through all of these experiences in schools for many many years now. I had to leave Yugoslavia where I’m from because of my oppositional political activity and, you know, I finally arrived here to work at New College of California which was also a private institution, and I was very inspired by the department of Activism and Social Change, and I completely fell in love with the history of radical schools in San Francisco. Now I don’t know how much you know about them, but they’re, like, great stuff. There was a liberation school, there were Black Panther schools, of course. There is a great history of alternative schools and experiments. So New College was a private institution, but still, many of my activist friends, who became friends later, have actually been through New College and they got their MA s in activism and social change or media studies. So CIIS actually took many of these people, many of the professors from these programs, and invited them here. So in a certain sense, I think what was done in terms of Activism and Social Change, and orientation to social justice and emancipation, was that at New College we are still keeping that spirit alive. But, in communication- and I think this is the crucial thing for our department- we are doing this in communication with radical educational experiments, movement-based experiments from all over the world. Manolo Callahan, who is going to be teaching here next semester, he is one of the people involved in University of the Earth- Universidad de la Tierra in Oaxaca and in Chiapas, so we are creating relationships with them. Which you know are completely radical experiences outside of institutions, they call themselves deprofessionalized intellectuals. We have already relationships with the Activism and Social Change department in Leeds, in England, they have a great school there. With people in Brazil, the landless workers movements. We’re in touch with people from Ecuador and people form Bolivia. So it’s a whole network of educational, tendency of educational experiences that this department is now creating.

SFBG: Do you have economics courses here?

AG: Yeah.

SFBG: So are there classes that are non-capitalist economics?

AG: Yes, it’s called radical political economy. We are trying to understand political economy from a feminist perspective, from an anarchist perspective, from a post-colonialist- so in that sense we are engaging multiple emancipatory frameworks of understanding social reality. So I myself, I come from the anarchist experience in social science, in politics. We have people who are feminists- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz for example. She’s sort of a legend in San Francisco Bay Area and she’s teaching three courses. Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz is going to be teaching about Native American struggles. As it pains me to say, that kind of a focus is mostly missing not only in private but also in public universities now. 

SFBG: So could you tell me a little more about the anarchist background you come from?

AG: I became an anarchist fairly early on, I was 13 or something. Because I was living in Yugoslavia. At that time, Yugoslavia was a socialist state. And because it was a socialist state for me it was a very interesting place to grow up, because you see socialism, real existing socialism, and you see many things that are beautiful about socialism. But you also see many things that are not so beautiful. And I was thinking about the alternatives to it. And for me it was really, sounds cheesy, but a conversation with my grandmother that decided it. She was a communist; she was a Yugoslav revolutionary communist. And Yugoslavia was falling apart, Yugoslavia was in a series of really brutal ethnic wars back in the 90s, and my grandmother, this lifelong communist, told me– my question was, are you still a communist? Do you still believe in communism in the context of this country falling apart? And she said yes, I do, I think that we have chosen a path to communism that was wrong. But I think the responsibility of your generation is to find a different path. The ideal is OK, the ideal is good. It’s a different path that you’re generation needs to find, and you have a great responsibility to do so. And the alternative that I discovered that seemed to me, back when I was 13 years old, and it still does, rational– as an alternative to the Marxist-Leninst way of getting from here to there, right– is anarchism. So for me anarchism, or libertarian socialism is another name that people are using, is a way of organizing for social justice and creating an egalitarian system that takes democracy very seriously. It’s like democracy without a state. 

SFBG: What happened that made you leave Yugoslavia?

AG: I was raised a Yugoslav. So I was raised to be a citizen of a country that doesn’t exist anymore. And on one hand, you had people who were Serbian nationalists, and I couldn’t really get along with those. On the other hand you had people who were neoliberal capitalists, who thought that everything coming from Europe and the United States was great and I couldn’t really agree with those either. And being a young academic, I was a historian at the time and working within the university, there was a great deal of pressure to get me out of the university. So it became very unpleasant. So I already had a relationship with Noam Chomsky, and Chomsky was following everything that was happening to me in Yugoslavia. And he told me at some point OK, it’s time for you to go. So he got me out of Yugoslavia, moved me to the United States or helped me move to the United States, introduced me to a man whose name is Immanuel Wallerstein, a great, amazing sociologist, who helped me get to his program at the Center for the Study of Economics, Historical Systems, and Civilization at SUNY-Binghamton to finish my graduate studies. So that was a– it was a long journey. 

Let’s just say that it was an active disagreement with the political class active at that time in Yugoslav-Serbia. It was actually funnily enough still called Yugoslavia. We only had two countries of the former Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro. But the political cultures and political groups in power were either Serbian nationalists or these hyper-capitalists, right. And going after them, because I was publishing and I was doing a lot of things, was– let’s say, not smart career choice. But it made it possible for me to meet people like Chomsky and some other people. And they liked what I was doing and they were concerned that, for health reasons, United States might be a better environment.

SFBG: Even within these more welcoming academic environments, do you feel your activism or anarchism is stifled in some way?

AG: I had a bad experience here at one university, a local university here in San Francisco, and it wasn’t a good experience. That felt unpleasant and it felt very stifling. CIIS is very different. Actually this is the first place where I think that I was hired because I was an anarchist, or I am an anarchist. It’s kind of funny. But in other places, in Yugoslavia and there was another institution here, I had problems because of my politics. Here, that was exactly the reason I was hired. So it gives you an idea that the school is very different than most other universities. 

SFBG: Could there be such a thing as an anarchist school?

AG: I hope University of the Commons can become something like an anarchist school. Anarchist schools actually used to exist. And they still exist. But the really big one was Francisco Ferrer in Spain. It was called Modern School. It was created in 1904. It became so huge– especially after Francisco Ferrer was killed by the Spanish state in 1909- that there were 60 schools only in Spain and there were I don’t know how many schools in the United States but the last one closed only in 1958 in New Jersey. Modern Schools were amazing places. One could also argue that Yasnaya Polyana of Leo Tolstoy was also an anarchist school. It was in many ways. 

But anarchist schools were schools where you had a few elements. Integral education was number one. Education of the whole person. You don’t only educate somebody as an intellectual but you aim at education of the whole person. The other thing was something that anarchists called reality of the encounter. Which means that all the questions in pedagogical practice needs to come from real questions posed by life itself. So you need to do something that’s practical. Another thing was the complementary role of the teacher, which means the teacher needs to be a facilitator who listens and who offers something in return. But the first thing, the first kind of show of interest, comes from the student. So the role of the teacher is complementary. Another huge thing was something Proudhon called démoédie, or self-government of the school. So school becomes a place where you teach students arts of self-government and self-management. Schools are organized in the spirit of direct democracy. Another thing which was Paul Goodman, famous anarchist educator, his idea was to organize decentralized “teeny schools,” as he called them. So to have a small teaching environment. To have students go to the bank to be taught about mathematics, to go to a museum and then to teach them about geography, to do these things. And then the most important thing for anarchist schools on all levels is the idea of natural motivation and natural learning which was first formulated by Tolstoy. The idea is the students have this natural motivation to learn. And what you do is basically you create an environment where that kind of learning becomes possible. And another thing for anarchist schools was the idea of spontaneous order. So there is no imposed order by the teacher, but there is a spontaneous order that the students themselves discover. In other words, discipline is– I think this is Tolstoy’s, the word that he used– discipline is being discovered, not imposed. What would that mean for a university is a different question. I think the one obvious thing would be that everybody, students and professors, there needs to be a horizontal relationship between them. There needs to be an atmosphere of collective production of knowledge in the classroom. There cannot be a curriculum that’s linear. It needs to be dialogical, it needs to be participatory, you need to talk about this and co-create a syllabus. You need to be as horizontal and participatory as possible. You need to be as imaginative as possible in diminishing your own role as a teacher, which is a very tricky thing, without becoming a populist in the classroom, you know. Empowering students, and finding appropriate structure together with students. Again we are coming back to the idea of listening. We need to listen to the students and together with them, create an atmosphere in the classroom that’s going to be genuinely transformative. 

SFBG: I’d love to ask you more about how this will relate to anarchism and occupy.

AG: In terms of anarchism, we are gonna have- this is going to be one of the few places where anarchism is going to be studied. So anarchist social theory, anarchist education, anarchist ideas in general. We are going to study them, seriously, because they need to be recognized seriously. They’re part of- it’s a beautiful history, it’s a beautiful tradition. How important it is, I think, is revealed, by the recent rediscovery or reinvention of anarchism at occupy. So I think that it’s more relevant than ever to create a space where anarchism will be studied. 

In terms of occupy, occupy is going through the process of fragmentation right now, and they are looking for a new political space of conversation I think. So the way that we can relate to occupy, I think, is to have our students participate in whatever different movements occupy helped. Because you know that occupy now how occupy patriarchy, there is decolonize, there are many different groups. So I expect our students to be involved in occupy, and I expect us to be able to offer a space where many of the debates related to occupy can happen. So, and you know there is an actual affinity. When Silvio Federici comes, or John Holloway, or Michael Hardt, or any of these people, these are the people that occupy people read, and these are some of the bibles of the occupy movement. So what are we going to do is, we are going to make them available and accessible to these people who come here, and we are going to bring here,  and we are going to take them to the occupy movements and we are going to invite people from the occupy movements to come here. But we are also going to do more I think. What we can do, and this is now only a plan an idea, is to invite the movement itself, not only occupy but different movements, and say, OK, please come here and tell us what would you like us to do. And one person from our department had this idea and I think it is brilliant. So to have the movement, different movements– is it food, is it the environment, is it one of the occupy-related movements- come here. We provide the space. And they tell us- social theorist, social scientists, people in the academia, they tell us what do they need us to do. It comes back to this idea of listening. So give a movement or movements a real possibility and opportunity to speak. Because usually academics, we are people who speak. Well we would like to see academics become people who actually listen. 

SFBG: I agree that occupy is basically an anarchist movement and a lot of the tenants of anarchism are being used in it. And I think this is a time when, in the mainstream, people are talking about anarchism more. But for a lot of people it has the image of people who wear black and smash stuff. So I’m curious, how does black bloc, or property damage, relate to the anarchism that’s going to be studied in the department?

AG: It doesn’t relate at all. The anarchism that we are going to study is– in Katrina, the Common Ground collective. That for me is a great example. Common Ground collective is a relief group of activists who went there from all over the place, they went to New Orleans, they were all anarchists and they said OK, we don’t believe in charity, we believe in solidarity. And they built a common ground center and they did relief work with the community for a couple of years. And there is a new book about it by a person who actually came here and spoke, one of the New Orleans activists, Scott Crow. And this is the kind of anarchism I am myself inspired by, the constructive side, not the destructive side. So how to build alternatives in the present for people, what sometimes referred to as prefigurative politics. How to think about positive stuff, constructive stuff. Building alternatives that are going to be persuasive enough– not about breaking windows. I don’t see any particular point in breaking windows. And I think it’s an unfortunate thing that people would reduce anarchism to that. If you think about it, the most important public intellectuals in the United States, one of them recently died, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky thankfully is still alive, they’re both anarchists. So this is the kind of anarchism that I subscribe to, and both of them were my mentors. And I studied with Howard. I studied with Noam, he was the chair of my PhD committee. So these are the people whose anarchism I take very seriously, and this is the kind of anarchism that I like. 

SFBG: But it’s hard to ignore organizing tactics.

AG: But even orgnanizing tactics– black bloc as a tactic comes from the autonomen movement in Germany, which was not an anarchist movement. It comes from the 80s. People dressed in black in Germany, you know, doing property destruction thinking that property destruction is going to contribute to the tactical efficiency of a particular action. Then it went through the environmental movement in particular places, in the environmental movement here in the United States. And it’s being used not only by anarchists, it’s being used by people who would call themselves communists, left, anti-state communists, by different varieties, autonomous Marxists. So it’s not only a tactic that anarchists use. And, you know, it’s a tactic. Anarchism is far broader. 

SFBG: Than just tactics.

AG: Yes. If you would ask me what is the most distinguishing, for me, character of anarchism I would say prefigurative politics– creating the new within the shell of the old—the idea of direct democracy, and the idea of direct action. Direct action being producing alternatives within the present, and direct democracy, behaving in the way that general assemblies are being set up. So that is I think the greatest lesson that anarchism can teach, direct democracy and direct action. 

SFBG: Occupy Oakland, they only had their camp for less than two months, but so much happned.

AG: They did great things. I really feel bad when I read mainstream media completely dismissing that experience. I was there, and the amount of work that went into keeping the medical facilities there, to helping homeless, feeding homeless, helping people with medicine, with immediate healthcare, taking care of children, creating children-friendly spaces, I mean it was amazing. Sure there were problems, of course there are going to be problems. But the stuff that people did there was just incredible. And the general strike, and shutting the port, and all of that, these were great things.

SFBG: And part of the reason the city started cracking down on it was when police tried to enter the space, people wouldn’t let them in.

AG: And they shouldn’t let them in, because the way police behave in Oakland was just outrageous.

This interview has been edited for length.

Outer limits

Andrew Lam
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Outer limits

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Last year, we thought it couldn’t get better, and then it upped the ante. Outside Lands 2012 takes place this weekend, and the lineup is packed with legendary performers, reunited favorites, and flashy newcomers, pieced together (some overlapping) in a masterful Golden Gate frame, outlined by all that glorious flora and fog.

There’s little to debate; our inboxes have been unequivocally flooded with requests to cover the event from the moment the full list roared onto the web. Who’s to say what sparked the revved up offerings and subsequent queries?

The facts: 72 bands on stage, 15 DJs in the Dome, 25 comedy-variety acts in the Barbary, plus 10 night shows featuring 20 performers. Expected attendance is more than 65,000 people per day, according to the organizers.

It’s a lot to take in, even for the seasoned San Francisco festival-goer (keep hydrated, wear layers, duh). So we’ve whittled down the schedule to the must-sees — those with a certain unscientific combination of vitality and vigor, of historical significance and a very-modern presence.

Of course, if you’ve got a one or three-day pass, you’re likely planning on packing in as many acts as possible, with perfectly timed bathroom, wine, and gourmet food stand breaks. But if you’re of the looser sort, one to wander with feckless abandon among those throngs, keep the below in mind.

Here are your must-see Outside Lands performances:

THE BIG ONES

Headliners and icons

Watching an old friend dance with his bride to iconic folk ballad “Harvest Moon,” it dawned on us: despite his gruff persona, broadly influential singer-songwriter Neil Young & Crazy Horse (8:10-9:55pm Friday, Lands End) is for lovers. And his words — and strumming — are deeply personal for a handful of generations. They’ve left a yearning imprint on our collective pleasure center.

This is a grand return for ’90s indie rockers, Grandaddy (5:10-6:10pm Saturday, Sutro). The Modesto five-piece split in 2006, after a respected career that included touring with Elliott Smith (RIP) and a song, “AM 180,” used in a memorable zombie-less supermarket sweep scene in 28 Days Later.

Kill ‘Em All…And Justice For All…okay, and we guess St. Anger. The heavy metal — and then some other stuff — back catalogue of Metallica (7:55-9:55pm Saturday, Lands End) is forever drilled into our brains. In a press call leading up to the fest, drummer Lars Ulrich said, “we’re very proud of our…relation and our history with San Francisco,” (does that mean the band will do us a solid and play early tracks?), later adding, “it’s an amazing thing, 31 years into a career to be able to be as busy as we are and to [see] people give a shit and to be able to still tour.” We give a shit, Lars.

As one fan noted, Mr. Superstition, Steve Wonder (7:20-9:30pm Sunday, Lands End), is likely the most creative choice of a headliner in 2012. And it makes the night-map easy for some of us; in the scheduling contest between dub-monster Skrillex and Motown icon Stevie Wonder, there is no contest.

LOCALS ONLY

Best of the Bay represented

It’s been five years since Two Gallants (1:50-2:40pm Friday, Lands End) released an album, and this fest (along with the OL night show) are the first local shows for the folk-punk duo touring on the new record, The Bloom and the Blight. Seems they’ll have a lot of stowed away energy to release in the park.

Perhaps never has man and computer so beautifully collided than with San Francisco digi-rock act Geographer (2:10-2:55pm Saturday, Twin Peaks). Swelling vocal melodies blend so evenly with darting beeps and blurps and laser synths, sometimes deepened by floating violin. It’s hard-rocking orchestral pop, operatic robot love, and world travel in a machine. The band paid its dues playing Rock Make, Treasure Island, Live 105’s BFD, and now, Outside Lands.

These San Francisco pysch-surf-punks are notorious for their headspinningly prolific songwriting, unpredictable live shows, and spastic energy. Regardless of what happens during Thee Oh Sees (6:05-6:45pm Saturday, Panhandle) set, it’ll be an act people are talking about.

THE ANDY WARHOL FACTOR

Who everyone will be Tweeting about

Having just premiered barely pronounceable single “XP€N$IV $H1T” (“I rub my dick on XP€N$IV $H1T” being actual lyrics) it’s safe to assume that Southern African freak-rap trio Die Antwoord (5:25-6:15pm Friday, Twin Peaks) is going to continue down a path of what-the-fuck-did-I-just-witness trashy splendor. There will be rave wear and Ninja’s inexplicable junk-thrusting dance moves, DJ Hi-Tek records spinning, and Yo-Landi’s hyper-high chirp.

When Father John Misty (2:55-3:35pm Saturday, Panhandle), a.k.a. J. Tillman of Fleet Foxes, stopped by Bottom of the Hill earlier this year, folks didn’t know what hit them. FJM was a wild force on stage, engaging in an ongoing and increasingly odd conversation with the audience, with quips and asides a-plenty in between a hectic set of woozy pop and crunchy-hippie psychedelic jams.

Perhaps not since Janis Joplin, have we heard a lady blues vocalist with pipes this powerful. That wail is a show-stopper. And, four-piece Alabama Shakes (3:50-4:40pm Saturday, Sutro), led by Brittany Howard (she of the powerful pipes), is actually born and raised Alabama, as the band name would imply, meaning its a more authentic experience, it would seem.

After a prolonged break, Santigold (5:10-6pm Sunday, Twin Peaks) dropped long-awaited Master Of My Make-Believe this year, with reggae-flecked party jam single “Disparate Youth,” cut through with a machine-gun guitar riff. Clearly, Santigold is no less bold in her return. Both the sound and her avant-pop style will surely absorb those expansive outdoor stages.

WORLD TRAVEL

Globally relevant bands from far and wide

Sigur Ros is not the only Icelandic band at Outside Lands 2012. If ambient soundscapes aren’t your thing, check out the lesser-known folk sextet Of Monsters and Men (5:25-6:25pm Friday, Sutro), which balances catchy melodies with beautifully harmonized vocals. Amadou & Mariam (3:35-4:25pm Sunday, Twin Peaks) met at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind. What the African duo lacks in 20/20 vision they make up for in mesmerizing sound — irresistible hip-hop-and blues-inspired world music. We dare you not to dance. Globally recognized Columbian culture-masher band Bomba Estéreo (6-6:40pm Sunday, Panhandle) mixes in the sounds of Latin America, the Caribbean, reggae, dub, and beyond, with bouncy hip-hop beats. Live, lead vocalist Li Saumet (who this year also released a side-project in which she imagines killing her boyfriend) pumps up the energy tenfold.

SONIC BREAK

Explore beyond the music

Imbibe in yeasty concoctions at this year’s first ever Beer Lands (oui, Wine Lands will be there too). And the beer lineup is made up of local craft breweries: 21st Amendment, Anchor Brewing, Magnolia, Pac Brewing Labs, Speakeasy (all San Francisco); Bear Republic (Russian River area), Drakes, (San Leandro) and Linden Street (West Oakland). Oh, and Sierra Nevada is debuting the Outside Lands Saison at the fest, said to be inspired by OL itself. Reggie Watts, Neil Patrick Harris, David Cross, Kristen Schaal, Nerdist Chris Hardwick, the list goes on for The Barbary. The comedy and variety tent keeps getting bigger, and weirder. There are the big names of course (see above) but also some awesome homegrown talent — Jesse Elias, for one. We caught him in the Cinecave last month, and were blown away by his timing. Our cheeks ached from laughing. And he never once looked up at the audience, only moving to push his glasses back up his nose.

OUTSIDE LANDS MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL

Fri/10-Sun/12, noon, $95

Golden Gate Park, SF

www.sfoutsidelands.com

Fangs, but no fangs

Andrew Lam
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0
Fangs, but no fangs

arts@sfbg.com

FILM The whole “lesbian vampire” thing may seem a very 20th-century, pop entertainment trope, as it blends sex and violence in one neatly exploitative package offering voyeuristic maximum appeal to straight men, long perceived as the primary audience for both horror and erotica. (In recent years, however, that assumption has begun to seem outdated.) But in fact Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Gothic novella Carmilla was published in 1872, a quarter-century before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, thus placing lesbian vampires well ahead of heterosexual ones in literary history. If that order was reversed in movie history, well — you can’t expect much girl-on-girl action to have surfaced before censorship standards began crumbling in the 1960s.

That decade began and ended with two major Carmilla adaptations: French horndog Roger Vadim’s 1960 Blood and Roses (originally titled And To Die of Pleasure) and the English Hammer studio’s 1970 heaving-bodice marathon The Vampire Lovers. Since then, lesbian vampires on screen have become ubiquitous.

They’ve usually been distinctly designed with the “male gaze” in mind, however, appealing to that guy-spot which (to quote the inimitable Axl Rose) would “rather see two women together than just about anything else.” Inevitably, though, someone was going to reclaim the concept for the younger female audience that has made the Twilight books and movies huge.

Ergo we now have The Moth Diaries, Rachel Klein’s 2002 novel turned into Mary Harron’s film. Why it’s an Irish-Canadian production that’s landed on our local SF Film Society Cinema screen for a week rather than a Hollywood extravaganza playing a bazillion multiplexes is a matter for further study. It’s certainly the director’s most mainstream-friendly effort, being less edgy and grown-up than American Psycho (2000), I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), or even The Notorious Bettie Page (2005).

It’s the start of a new academic year at an upscale girls’ boarding school. Despite the strictness of their overseers, the girls manage to be ordinary, fun-loving teens. Becca (Sarah Bolger from The Tudors) is particularly happy to be reunited with best friend and roommate Lucie (Sarah Gadon), as the former is still psychologically fragile in the wake of her well-known poet father’s suicide. But a wedge is driven between them by the arrival of Ernessa (Lily Cole), a tall, English-accented student with a face like a creepy porcelain doll. She “colonizes” Lucie, who at first guiltily hides her infatuation from Becca, then (along with everyone else) accuses her of simple jealousy.

But Becca notices things others don’t, or dismiss: how Ernessa never seems to eat, how she can’t abide water, the sickly sweet smell emanating from her room and her odd disappearances into the luxury-hotel-turned-school’s off limits basement. One ally gets expelled; another, after witnessing Ernessa doing something logically inexplicable, meets a more brutal fate. Meanwhile, Lucie (the same name as Dracula’s preliminary victim in Bram Stoker’s novel) grows seriously ill. Turning to a sympathetic (as well as hot) new literature teacher for help, Becca instead gets inappropriate overtures from Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman).

Klein’s book, which had our heroine looking back on this episode from middle age, insisted on ambiguity: we’re never sure whether Ernessa really is a supernatural predator, or if all this is just a hysterical fantasy Becca devises to process (or evade) her profound grief over losing a parent. Adapted by Harron as scenarist, the movie eliminates that frame and leaves little room for doubt that there be vampires here.

But the film’s weakness is that it still tries to play it both ways, as troubled coming-of-age portrait and Gothic horror, with the result that the two elements end up seeming equally half-realized. Despite an inevitably somewhat glamorized surface, a certain attention is paid to real-world adolescent detail, like the presence of casual recreational drug use or the disappointment voiced by one student whose eagerly awaited deflowering turns out neither good or bad, but just an indifferent experience. There’s also a knowing wink at the usual adult dismissal of teenage ideas when Mr. Davies condescendingly shrugs off Becca’s fears: “Cooped up here you girls can get so close, all that emotion can turn toxic.” The movie is handsome enough, with a color palette that aptly grows darker and more untrustworthy as things progress.

Cole is well-cast for her eeriness, while Bolger gives an intelligent performance even if the film ought to be channeling her character’s growing instability more vividly — as Harron managed very well for Valerie Solanis and Patrick Bateman.

There’s little suspense here, however, and the fantastical elements are seldom staged with any inspiration. You get the feeling that this highly talented director ultimately couldn’t find anything all that interesting in her young-adult-fiction material, but still hoped for a Twilight-style hit that might make more personal future projects easier to fund. (Even after Kathryn Bigelow’s 2010 Hurt Locker Oscar, it still seems like the road is always uphill for women directors.) Instead she wound up with a polished but forgettable genre piece that’s probably the mildest entry in the annals of lesbian (or at least Sapphically-tinged) vampire cinema yet.

 

THE MOTH DIARIES opens Fri/10 at SF Film Society Cinema.

Cocktales

Andrew Lam
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0
Cocktales

virginia@sfbg.com

FOOD AND DRINK It was another humid, sweltering year at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. The world’s biggest cocktail event drew thousands of attendees July 25-29 for a week of nonstop tastings, seminars, and parties in the great queen of the South.

Any reason to be in Nola is a good one and with the city overrun with some of the world’s best bartenders, brand ambassadors, writers, and distillers, it was as usual, one long party. Here’s a few highlights — read the rest online at sfbg.com.

SF REPRESENTS

Though Tales’ Spirited Awards continue to be dominated by winners from Europe and New York , particularly London, this year San Francisco made a dent that still only hinted at our long-established cocktail culture. At Thursday night’s Bar Room Brawl, bars from six US cities fielded teams that served up special drink menus as brass bands blew. The winner of this showdown, and by extension, the tile of best cocktail bar in America? Our own Beretta. Ryan Fitzgerald, Jennifer Colliau, Enrique Sanchez, and a hard-working crew of SF bartenders ecstatically accepted a giant trophy.

Scott Baird, Josh Harris, Alex Straus of the Bon Vivants deservedly won the John Lermeyer award for good behavior at the Spirited Awards. It was a joy watching them be acknowledged for their humanitarian work. In addition to painting over 30 New Orleans charter school classrooms with a team of volunteers, the group threw its third annual Pig and Punch school fundraiser on Saturday in Washington Square Park. With delicious barbecue (whole hog, y’all), Don Julio and George Dickel punches, and a crowd of over 800 people, it raised over $21000, a shining example of how to have fun and give back at the same time.

With two of the four nominees for Spirited Awards’ best restaurant bar award being from SF (the other was the wonderful Bar Agricole), it was a delight to see the ever-talented Erik Adkins win for the Slanted Door. He’s done equally impressive work behind Heaven’s Dog. I wish more US bars would win awards at Tales — and that the list of those honored would be a little more up to date. Often, places are nominated that were great or established years ago. Though I adore the town and have been to all the bars that were nominated from London, I can’t help but notice that the US isn’t represented at its Cocktail Week. Why shouldn’t we reserve a platform to more specifically acknowledge the fantastic bars right here in the States?

JAPANESE WHISKEY HAVEN

Thank you to Suntory for what was my top highlight of Tales: an intimate, invite-only tasting room in a warehouse district loft. Down a candlelit hall stood a white room punctuated by glowing bar, decorative kimono on loan from a Paris museum, and mini-tables lined with vials of single barrel whiskies from the Suntory line for us to mix and pour over hand-cut ice.

Michael Mina corporate chefs Lincoln Carson and Gary Lamorte flew out to cook four exceptional bites. I’m still dreaming of the 76-degree sous vide egg strained through a siphon, so creamy served over vanilla brioche and bacon. Cool banana mochi on top of golden raisin puree elicited a long sigh of delight. The space’s zen-like peace and the camaraderie I found there with my fellow whiskey aficionados were spectacular, and the afternoon was made a landmark event by a bar stocked with Hakushu 25-year, Yamazaki 1984, Hibiki 30-year, and other extremely rare, unavailable in the US Japanese whiskies. While I would be hard pressed to chose a favorite, Yamazaki ’84 lingered on my palate long after I returned to the blinding heat outside.

FIRST TASTES OF UNRELEASED SPIRITS

Meeting with distillers and previewing unreleased spirits are key reasons I go to Tales, even if there wasn’t an overwhelming amount of new offerings in 2012. This year, I spent time with WhistlePig master distiller Dave Pickerell, who was also a Maker’s Mark master distiller for 14 years. Pickerell told me I was the very first to try his upcoming October Whistlepig release, TripleOne. This is a 111 proof rye versus the standard 100, aged 11 years in place of the typical 10. The bracing TripleOne doesn’t boast quite as long a finish as Whistlepig’s flagship rye, but it’s even more complex, surprisingly akin to applejack or Calvados at first sip, opening up into spicy rye body with citrus and chocolate notes. American whiskey fans, watch for this one.

AMARO/AMARI 

You say amaros, but I say amari (short grammar lesson about the plural for amaro). The bottom line is amaro (Italian for “bitter”), the wide range of herbal liqueurs commonly sipped as after-dinner digestifs in Italy, has been hot for the past few years and only continues to get hotter. Though there are still countless amari not yet imported from Europe, big names like Fernet and Cynar have ushered bitter liqueurs into the mainstream. Amari popped up all over Tales, most notably in the fortified and aromatized wines tasting room highlighting port, sherry, etc. Not to mention some of the US’ best vermouths like SF’s Sutton Cellars and Imbue in Portland. The highlight of the tasting was Neil Kopplin pouring Imbue’s debut of brand new Petal & Thorn, a gorgeously bitter gentian liqueur using homegrown beets for color, alongside cinnamon and menthol.

On the Italian front, The Spirit of Italy threw a two-morning brunch hosted by Francesco Lafranconi and featuring seven producers: Amaro Lucano, Luxardo, Moccia, Nardini, Pallini, Toschi and Varnelli. Lafranconi’s cocktails stole the show, there was an addictive Amaro Lucano-bourbon milk punch and Zabov NOLA coffee. Zabov is essentially zabaglione (the Italian dessert of whipped egg yolks, sugar, sweet wine) in a bottle. It was a little sweet on its own but fascinating in texture and in the coffee cocktail. On the other end of the spectrum, Varnelli’s expensive ($52), uber-bitter Amaro Sibilla is a complex delight, unfolding with chestnuts, coffee, honey, and intense bitter notes. This one is not for the novice amaro drinker.

INDIE SPIRITS ROCK

Kudos to Dave Schmier for Indie Spirits That Rock, a version of his Indy Spirits Expo here in San Francisco. Crowds thronged around small, independent spirits — methinks they need a bigger tasting room next year. I even discovered a few new spirits I had not tasted before, including West Virginia’s Smooth Ambler Spirits‘ (I’d had their Old Scout bourbon before) fascinating Barrel-Aged Gin, aromatic with orange marmalade, bitter subtleties, pine, cinnamon, and their Very Old Scout bourbon, earthy with oak, nuts, toast and butter. Few Spirits (from Evanston, IL) also offered an intriguing rye and bourbon, the former spicy, sweet, bracing, the latter smooth but not lacking in character. I look forward to revisiting each of these.

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’s NOLA HOME

Besides Suntory’s sacred den of Japanese whiskey, the other haven from Tales madness and New Orleans’ Summer heat was Francis Ford Coppola’s French Quarter home. By invite only, we were merely given an address, entering a candlelit walkway into a classic New Orleans courtyard and hundred years’ old home with exposed brick walls, fireplaces, grand piano and jazz duo serenading us as we sipped Krug and Inglenook wines. I stopped in more than once, grateful for a peaceful gathering on comfy couches where I ran into friends from New York to Ireland.

HOUSE SPIRITS’ MORNING COFFEE BAR

Thanks to Portland’s House Spirits for the brilliant idea of a coffee bar — with booze, of course —  every morning at an art gallery across the street from the Tales’ home base of the Hotel Monteleone. Iced Stumptown Coffee perked us up on those slugglishly hot, post-party mornings. And if one must add House Spirits’ coffee liqueur or aquavit to the coffee, so be it.

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com


 

2012 TALES of the COCKTAIL Spirited Award Winners

Winners in bold


The John Lermeyer Award for Good Behavior

The Bon Vivants 


American Bartender of the Year

Eric Alperin

Charles Joly

Jeffrey Morganthaler

Joaquin Simo

 

Best American Brand Ambassador

Erick Castro

Elayne Duke

Jamie Gordon

Jim Ryan

 

Best American Cocktail Bar

Anvil Bar & Refuge – Houston, Texas

Clover Club – Brooklyn, New York

Columbia Room – Washington, District of Columbia

The Varnish – Los Angeles, California

 

Best Bar Mentor

Bridget Albert

Wayne Collins

Francesco Lafranconi

Steve Olson

 

Best High Volume Cocktail Bar

Beretta – San Francisco, California

Clover Club – Brooklyn, New York

Eastern Standard – Boston, Massachusetts

La Descarga – Los Angeles, California

 

Best Cocktail Writing, Non-Book

BarLifeUK

Liquor.com

ShakeStir.com

Time Out NY

 

Best Cocktail Writing

Gary Regan

Robert Simonson

David Wondrich

Naren Young

 

Best International Brand Ambassador

Jacob Briars

Ian Burrell

Claire Smith

Angus Winchester

 

Best New Cocktail/Bartending Book

The American Cocktail by the Editors of Imbibe

Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-all

Gaz Regan’s Annual Manual for Bartenders 2011

PDT Cocktail Book

 

Best New Product

Chairman’s Reserve Spiced Rum

Cognac Pierre Ferrand 1840 Formula

Lillet Rose

Perlini System

 

Best Restaurant Bar

Bar Agricole – San Francisco, California

Rivera – Los Angeles, California

Saxon + Parole – New York, New York

Slanted Door – San Francisco, California

 

International Bartender of the Year

Zdenek Kastanek

Alex Kratena

Sam Ross

Dushan Zaric

 

World’s Best Cocktail Bar

69 Colebrooke Row – London, United Kingdom

Black Pearl – Melbourne, Australia

The Connaught Bar – London, United Kingdom

The Varnish – Los Angeles, California

 

World’s Best Cocktail Menu

Black Pearl – Melbourne, Australia

Callooh Callay – London, United Kingdom

Clover Club – Brooklyn, New York

Mayahuel – Manhattan, New York

 

World’s Best Drinks Selection

Artesian Bar at The Langham – London, United Kingdom

Death & Co. – Manhattan, New York

Eau de Vie – Sydney, Australia

Salvatore Calabrese at The Playboy – London, United Kingdom

 

World’s Best Hotel Bar

Artesian Bar at The Langham – London, United Kingdom

Clive’s Classic Lounge – Victoria, British Columbia

Clyde Common – Portland, Oregon

The Zetter Townhouse – London, United Kingdom

 

World’s Best New Cocktail Bar

Aviary – Chicago, Illinois

Candelaria – Paris, France

Canon – Seattle, Washington

The Zetter Townhouse – London, United Kingdom

 

Helen David Lifetime Achievement Award

Gaz Regan 

 

Psychic Dream Astrology: August 8-14

Andrew Lam
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0

Mercury is direct! Expect things to return to running as smoothly as they typically do (or don’t.)

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Don’t let your fears of upsetting experiences stymie you, or you may miss out on awesome opportunities. There’s a battle of the bands between the sweet sounds of openhearted fearlessness, and the tangled beat of your suspicions. You can get where you wanna be, but you’ve gotta be strong, Aries.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

If you cling to the relationships and situations that you’ve outgrown, you may find yourself unwittingly fighting the very forces of change you currently need. Instead of wishing things were another way, accept where they’re at; only then can you move forward and make much needed improvements.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

You cannot control the winds of fate, but you can adjust your sail. When fear loosens its grip on your mind, it’s amazing what you can all of a sudden accomplish. This week you may be able to see through situations that have seemed immoveable and perceive new pathways. Don’t be scared of acting differently.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Achieving happiness is the greatest goal you can set for yourself, moon child. This week you must stay on guard against settling into illusions that make you content, versus giving you real and lasting joy. Be yourself in all you do so that you can properly gauge what will work for you in the long term.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

The way to effectively deal with the mess in front of you is to take it apart, piece by piece. Throw away what doesn’t work and put things back together in a more functional way, Leo. Edit your world so that it grows more in the places you love, and not so much in the spots you’re just tolerating.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You need patience to carry you through this week. Now is the time to look inside yourself to see what you feel, think, and need. Your circumstances may be pressuring you to be decisive, just when you’ve hit a wall in the knowing department. Simplify your options and trust your gut, Virgo.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

This week, when you find yourself over thinking your options and painfully lamenting your situation, know that you are in no state to be making decisions. Clear up your insides before you start trying to handle your outsides, Libra. Create from a place of creativity, not panic, for best results.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

As counterintuitive as it may feel, this week you need to confront your fears head on. It takes way more energy to put mega-stressful things off then it does to deal with them. Even if you have to fake it, show valor in the face of the things that are freaking you out, Scorpio.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

It’s all about beginnings for you right now. How you start a thing has so much to do with how it goes. Make certain that you consider your emotional needs in your dealings, but do it without letting your feelings cloud your judgment. You should strive to put your all out there this week, Sag.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Your fears this week are informed by reality, but in that way that movies are made: with much drama. You’re a specialist in exaggerating your worst case scenarios, Cappy! Let history be your guide as you assess possible dangers, and try to put most of your focus on the good that is possible for you here and now.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

You need to believe enough in yourself to be able to stand up and speak out when the need is there, Aquarius. Instead of fighting this week, your needs will be best served by staying true to yourself. Only participate in what is right for you, don’t let others incite you to act in ways you’ll later regret.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Your circumstances are set to change, and the best thing you can do is to change right alongside them. Focus on your material needs this week so you can get the pragmatic stuff going in the direction you want them. For best results, take problems that arise as indicators of where you need to focus your attention.

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

Our Weekly Picks: August 8-14

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 8

Beats for Lunch

Tired of eating lunch at your cubicle, under harsh fluorescent lighting? Monarch feels your pain, and wants to do something about it. Launched last month as RECESS, Beats for Lunch is the second installment of the club’s rather experimental stab at an afternoon, workday dance party. Featuring several Motown DJs from MOM SF, the party crew that’s had our fair city shaking it on a weekly basis since 2009, this is exactly the kind of all-inclusive dance-a-thon we could use more of. With free cover (and free sandwiches!) to boot, checking out this month’s Beats for Lunch should be a no-brainer. It doesn’t matter what you wear, just as long as you are there. (Taylor Kaplan)

Noon-2pm, free

Monarch

101 Sixth St., SF

(415) 284-9774

www.monarchsf.com

 

Fox & Woman

A group of poets in the Mission District of San Francisco formed the band Fox & Woman over a year ago, with a goal to “stretch and tear at the shortcomings in pop music.” In turn, they offer a refreshing mix of the rambunctious and the beautiful. Along with riveting lyrical and vocal power, the band treats listeners to violin, mandolin, cello, and ukelele, creating lush orchestration. Check out “Break Into My Heart” off its six-song EP (streaming on the band’s website) and peep the rest of the album while you’re at it; nod your head to passionate anthems, stomp your feet to every tight rhythm. Let the slower ballads created by this five-piece woo you, and then be prepared to jump right back into the dance groove. (Shauna C. Keddy)

With the Thoughts, Split Screens

9pm, $10

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

Redd Kross

When brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald first formed the band that would become Redd Kross in the late 1970s, they were just 11 and 15 years old — and famously played their first gig opening for Black Flag. Returning with their first new album in 15 years, the excellent Researching The Blues, which dropped this week, the group continues to twist infectious melodies and pop sensibilities into short, stunning bursts of rock’n’roll. Some acts would struggle to regain that explosive chemistry after such a long break, but Redd Kross picked up right where it left off. (Sean McCourt)

With the Mantles, Warm Soda

8pm, $20

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com


THURSDAY 9

The Big Eat

Why Leo Beckerman and Evan Bloom would reveal the secrets to their divine pastrami is beyond me. The Wise Sons Delicatessen founders and local meat men-of-the-moment are among the mavens congregating at The Big Eat to discuss the nexus between cuisine and creativity. Each expert has a story to tell — distiller Arne Hillesland, a.k.a The Ginerator, created a kosher-for-Passover gin in 40 days. Artist Deborah Lozier fixed Norwegian wood to vintage silverware in a series of pieces that blend nature and civilization. SFMOMA pastry chef Leah Rosenberg uses ongoing exhibitions as inspirations for her stylized cakes, while Bryon Waibel harvests honey in the Mission, laying legitimate claim to being the world’s first urban beekeeper.

(Kevin Lee)

6:30-8:30pm; $10 general, free for museum members Contemporary Jewish Museum 736 Mission, SF (415) 655-7800 www.thecjm.org

 

Young Moon

Sure, Phil Spector and My Bloody Valentine are great, but we’ve officially reached a saturation point with this whole wall-of-sound thing. Too many imitators using viscous layers of reverb to conceal lazy songwriting, ill-conceived lyrics, and half-baked hooks. However, Young Moon stands out as an exception. Recalling Deerhunter’s balance between the robust and the ethereal, this project of local multitracker Trent Montgomery pays tribute to the goopy production of Pet Sounds, while churning out the bona-fide hooks to back it up. A release party for his debut album, Navigated Like the Swans, Montgomery’s set this Thursday might well be the beginning of something. (Kaplan)

With Danny Paul Grody, Vestals 9pm, $6 Hemlock 1131 Polk, SF (415) 923-0923 www.hemlocktavern.com

 

YG

Though his name stands for Young Gangsta, this Compton-based rapper abandoned his gang-affiliated lifestyle when he got signed to Def Jams at just 19 years old. Now 22, YG has produced some of the best guilty-pleasure tracks in recent hip-hop history, including 2010’s “Toot it and Boot it” and this year’s charmingly titled “Bitches Ain’t Shit,” both of which cracked Billboard’s Hot 100. 2012 has also seen YG’s acting debut alongside Snoop Dogg in the hip-hop teen flick We the Party. Though the rapper is yet to release his debut album, he’s been keeping himself busy with side projects and collaborations. YG’s hyper-sexual and hook-laden mix tapes have kept a hold on the industry’s attention. (Haley Zaremba)

8:30pm, $18

New Parish

579 18th, Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com


FRIDAY 10

 

Christeene

After six video singles — starting with attention-grabber “Fix My Dick” (all directed and produced by PJ Raval) — insatiable, downright nasty, slyly loveable CHRISTEENE is unleashing a full album. The release party for the Austin-based sensation and self-described “drag terrorist” (alter ego of actor Paul Soileau) headlines the first installment of Church, a new nightlife event by co-presenters Peaches Christ, Bearracuda, and DJ Carnita. Sure, the back-alley beauty looks like a thorough mess with stringy black hair framing a wild-eyed pan whose rubbed out lipstick makes a skanky halo around her gold-flecked smile, but her rhymes (delivered over salacious hip-hip, R&B, and techno beats) and balls-out floor show got more business than Mitt. (Robert Avila)

With Peaches Christ, Bearracuda, DJ Carnita

9pm, $20

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

www.peacheschrist.com


SATURDAY 11

James and the Giant Peach

Though 1993’s The Nightmare Before Christmas gets more cult love (and 2009’s Neil Gaiman-inspired Coraline snagged an Oscar nom; we won’t speak of 2001’s Monkeybone), James and the Giant Peach, director Henry Selick’s 1996 take on the beloved Roald Dahl tale, is well worth revisiting. Especially this week, when the Tim Burton-produced film — rendered in an exquisite mix of stop-motion animation and live action — screens at the SF Film Society Cinema alongside a presentation by artists who contributed to the San Francisco-made project. Puppets and props from the film will be in attendance (Miss Spider FTW!), and superfans take note: these artists are also working with Selick on his next film, another spooky Gaiman adaptation. (Cheryl Eddy)

11am, $8

SF Film Society Cinema

1746 Post, SF

sffs.org/cinema

 

Tornado Wallace

Melbourne-based producer Lewie Day lives a double life. By day, he produces house music for electronic labels like Murmur and 8bit. By night, he’s one of the biggest DJs in Australia’s electronic scene. As a teenager, he threw himself into the DJ scene as a favor to a friend who needed a spot filled. Today, Tornado Wallace is extremely prolific, churning out original disco-tinged tracks and remixes at lightning speed. His quantity plus quality approach has garnered the attention of many of the house scene’s major players, and Resident Advisor recently featured him on their highly esteemed podcast — and named him as an artist to watch out for. This summer marks Tornado Wallace’s first-ever US tour. (Zaremba)

With Bells & Whistles, Habitat SF

9:30pm, $12

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com


SUNDAY 12

Al Jarreau, George Duke Trio

One of the most versatile, expressive vocalists of the last 50 years, Al Jarreau jumps restlessly between soul, jazz, pop, and samba traditions, refusing to let any genre tags define him. George Duke is an undisputed keyboard champion, whose ’70s jazz-fusion recordings have permeated modern hip-hop and neo-soul to an astonishing degree. These two legends will share the beautiful Stern Grove stage, collaborating on a range of jazz tunes, in an afternoon of (free!) music, not to be missed. Bring a beach towel and a six-pack, and cross your fingers for some Keytar action from Mr. Duke, himself. (Kaplan)

With Mara Hruby 2pm, free

Stern Grove

19th Ave. and Sloat, SF

(415) 252-6252

www.sterngrove.org


MONDAY 13

“Incredibly Strange Television!”

Sure, your nightly channel-surf turns up some intense weirdness: Extreme Couponing, Cajun Pawn Stars, Bikini Barbershop. But make no mistake — TVs were beaming uber-bizarreness into living rooms long before reality programming took over. The one and only Johnny Legend invades the Roxie for three nights of brain-blowing transmissions, presented under the banner “Incredibly Strange Television!” First up is tonight’s two-part ode to comedy (featuring premiere eps, forgotten pilots, and more, with glimpses of greats like Jackie Gleason, George Burns, Don Knotts, and a young Betty White). Tomorrow, it’s the world premiere of “Johnny Legend’s TV in Acidland,” a live-TV extravaganza spanning decades; Wednesday’s “Shock and Noir!” promises “strange and demented” prime-time snippets from the 1950s and 60s. (Eddy)

Aug. 13-15, 6:15, 8, and 9:45pm, $11

Roxie Cinema

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com


TUESDAY 14

Red Hot Chili Peppers

“Let me tell you about the Chili Peppers,” intoned comedian Chris Rock in April. “If Brian Wilson and George Clinton had a kid, he’d be as ugly as fuck, but he would sound like the Chili Peppers.” Rock helped induct the Chilis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, three decades after four high school friends began jamming together in Los Angeles. Through the drugs and death of founding member Hillel Slovak, through eight Grammy Awards and 85 million records sold, the Chili Peppers have endured with their funk-punk sound. Even now, with lead singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea pushing 50, the Chili Peppers remain one of the most dynamic live shows in rock. Darling Swedish electronic group Little Dragon open. (Lee)

With Little Dragon

8pm, $39.50–$59.50

Oracle Arena

7000 Coliseum Way, Oakl.

(510) 569-2121

 www.coliseum.com

 

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Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd, Oakl; www.woodminster.com. $12-56. Previews Thu/9, 8pm. Opens Fri/10, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sun, 8pm. Through Aug 19. Woodminster Summer Musicals presents the Sondheim comedy.

Henry V Sequoia High School, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Opens Sat/11, 7:30pm. Runs Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 26. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival presents the Bard’s history play as part of its "Free Shakespeare in the Park" series.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 18. A multi-character solo show about the unique residents of San Francisco.

Enron Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.enron2012.com. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 17. In OpenTab’s production of British playwright Lucy Prebble’s 2009 Enron, tragedy plus time equals comedy plus puppets (in imaginative designs by Miyaka Cochrane), as fast-paced satire delivers a timely reconsideration of yet another infamous financial scandal. Some fictional elements shape the plotline but simplifying strategies serve well to clarify the real-life actions and consequences of Ken Lay (GreyWolf) and Jeffry Skilling’s (Alex Plant) deceptive energy-trading juggernaut, the onetime darling of Wall Street and the financial pages. There’s also much verbatim information (echoing the book and documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) enlivening the quick dialogue and underscoring the reckless, hubristic malfeasance that famously preyed on California’s electricity grid and threw Enron’s own employees under the bus. Director Ben Euphrat gets spirited and engaging performances from his principals, with especially nice work from Plant as a cruelly superior Skilling, Laurie Burke as ambitious straight-shooter Claudia Roe (a fictionalized composite creation of the playwright), and Nathan Tucker as manic sycophant Andy Fastow, feeding poisonous Enron debt into three beloved "raptors" (the pet names for some animated shadow companies arising from Fastow’s fast work in "structured finance"). At the same time, the staging can prove rough between concept and execution, with scenic elements sometimes confusing as well as aesthetically ragged (a red fabric serving as a large profit graph, for instance, just looks like some droopy inexplicable drapery at first; and the first puppets to appear are too small to be very effective either). Despite this messiness in terms of mise-en-scène, however, the play is generally clear-eyed and good for more than easy laughs — since no single villain but rather a system and culture are the proper targets here. As Prebble notes, the strategies developed by Enron, far from remaining beyond the pale, are now standard practices throughout the financial and corporate world. That, in some circles, is known as progress. (Avila)

Humor Abuse American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 19. "This is a show about clowning," advises Lorenzo Pisoni at the outset of his graceful solo performance, "and I’m the straight man." It’s a funny line, actually — funny because it’s true, and not true. In the deft routines that follow, as well as in the snapshots cast on the atmospherically dingy curtain hung center stage, the career of this Pickle Family Circus brat (already alone in the spotlight by age two) never veers far from the shadow of his father. That fact remains central to the winning comedy and wistful reflection in Humor Abuse. Reared in the commotion and commitment of the famed San Francisco circus founded by his parents Larry Pisoni and Peggy Snider, Lorenzo had a childhood both enviable and unusually challenging. The fact that he shares his name with both a grandfather and his dad’s famous clown persona is instructive. His trials and his triumphs are further conflated — along with his father’s — in such elegant catastrophes as falling down a long flight of stairs. And in his good-humored and honest reflections, the existential poignancy at the heart of such artful buffoonery begins to rise to the surface. The spoken narrative feels a little pinched or abbreviated, in truth, but there are no shortcuts to the skill or wider perspective inculcated by the charming Pisoni and (under direction of co-creator Erica Schmidt) set enthrallingly in motion. (Avila)

The Merchant of Venice Gough Street Playhouse, 1622 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-32. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Aug 19. Custom Made Theater presents director Stuart Bousel’s generally sharp staging of Shakespeare’s perennially controversial but often-misunderstood play. The lively if uneven production ensures the involved storyline cannot be reduced to the problematical nature of its notorious Jewish villain, Shylock (played with a compellingly burdened intensity by a quick Catz Forsman), but rather has to be seen in a wider landscape of desire in which money, status, sex, gender, political and ethnic affiliations, and human bodies all mix, collide, and negotiate. To this end, this Merchant is set amid a contemporary financial district coterie (given plenty of scope in Sarah Phykitt’s thoughtfully pared-down scenic design), where titular melancholic businessman Antonio (Ryan Hayes) sticks his neck out (or anyway a pound of flesh) for his beloved friend Bassanio (Dashiell Hillman) — no doubt the unspoken source of Antonio’s brooding heart as staged here — as the latter seeks a loan with which to court the lovely and brilliant Portia (a winning Megan Briggs). While the subplot concerning the wooing and flight of Shylock’s daughter, Jessica (Kim Saunders), is less adeptly rendered, fluid pacing and a confident sense of the priorities of the drama overall offer a satisfying encounter with this fascinatingly subtle play. (Avila)

Les Misérables Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.bestofbroadway-sf.com. $83-155. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 26. SHN’s Best of Broadway series brings to town the new 25th anniversary production of Cameron Mackintosh’s musical giant, based on the novel by Victor Hugo. The revival at the Orpheum does without the famous rotating stage but nevertheless spares no expense or artistry in rendering the show’s barrage of colorful Romantic scenes (with Matt Kinley’s scenic design drawing painterly inspiration from Hugo’s own oils) or its larger-than-life characters — first and foremost Jean Valjean (a slim but passionate Peter Lockyer), nemesis Javert (Andrew Varela), and rescued orphan beauty Cosette (Lauren Wiley). Chris Jahnke contributes new orchestrations to the rollicking original score by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music) and Herbert Kretzmer (lyrics) in this flagrantly sentimental, somewhat problematic but still-stirring meld of music and melodrama in dutiful overlapping service of box office treasure and powerful humanist aspirations. (Avila)

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 29. SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a "lady" and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the "tragedy" of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs ("Wouldn’t It Be Loverly," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

The Princess Bride: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; foulplaysf.com/princessbride. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 25. Dark Room Productions presents a live tribute to the cult fairy-tale movie.

Project: Lohan Costume Shop, 1117 Market, SF; www.projectlohan.com. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 19. D’Arcy Drollinger pays tribute to the paparazzi target with this performance constructed solely from tabloids, magazines, court documents, and other pre-existing sources.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Thu/9-Sat/11, 8pm (also Sat/11, 2pm). Halloween comes early this year thanks to Ray of Light Theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd and all its attendant horrors. Set in bleakest, Industrial Revolution-era London, this Sondheim musical pushes the titular Todd to enact a brutal vengeance on a world he perceives as having stolen the best of life from him, namely his family and his freedom. No fey, gothic vampire, ROLT’s Sweeney Todd (played by Adam Scott Campbell) is both physically and psychically imposing, built like a blacksmith and twice as dark. Pushed over the line between misanthropic and murderous, Sweeney Todd methodically plots his revenge on the hated Judge Turpin (portrayed with surprising sympathy by Ken Brill) while the comfortably comical purveyor of pies, Mrs. Lovett (Miss Sheldra), dreams of a sunnier future. Mrs. Lovett’s no-nonsense, wisecracking ways aside, there are few laughs to be had in this slow-burning dirge to the worst in mankind, and as the body count rises, it is made abundantly clear that all hope of redemption is also but a fantasy. Contributing to the dark mood are Maya Linke’s imposing, industrial set, Cathie Anderson’s ghostly green and hellfire amber lighting, and a spare chamber ensemble of six able musicians conducted by Sean Forte. (Gluckstern)

"Un-Abridged: The Best of Ten Years of Un-Scripted" SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 18. The veteran Bay Area company celebrates its tenth anniversary season with a four-week retrospective of its favorite long- and short-form improv shows. Check website for schedule.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 25. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

War Horse Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-300. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 9. The juggernaut from the National Theatre of Great Britain, via Broadway and the Tony Awards, has pulled into the Curran for its Bay Area bow. The life-sized puppets are indeed all they’re cracked up to be; and the story of a 16-year-old English farm boy (Andrew Veenstra) who searches for his beloved horse through the trenches of the Somme Valley during World War I, while peppered with much elementary humor too, is a good cry for those so inclined. The claim to being an antiwar play is only true to the extent that any war-is-hell backdrop and a plea for tolerance count a melodrama as "antiwar," but this is not Mother Courage and no serious attempt is made to investigate the subject. Closer to say it’s Lassie Come Home where Lassie is a horse — very ably brought to life by Handspring Puppet Company’s ingenious puppeteers and designers, and amid a transporting and generally riveting mise-en-scène (complete with pointedly stirring live and recorded music). But the simplistic storyline and its obvious, somewhat ham-fisted resolution (adapted by Nick Stafford from Michael Morpurgo’s novel) are too formulaic to be taken that seriously. And at two-and-a-half-hours, it’s a long time coming. A shorter war, the Falklands say, would have done just as well and gotten people out before the ride began to chafe. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Circle Mirror Transformation Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $20-57. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/11, Aug 16, and 25, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Though Aug 26. Marin Theatre Company and Encore Theatre Company co-present the regional premiere of Annie Baker’s comedy about a drama class.

A Doll’s House Willows Theatre, 1975 Diamond, Concord; www.willowstheatre.com. $20-29. Wed-Thu, 7:30pm (also Wed, 3:30pm); Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun/12, 3pm. Through Aug 18. The large stage at Willows Theatre is a sunken living room with walls the color of butterscotch pudding, a long rumpled powder-blue sofa, scattered seasonal decorations, and a single translucent panel that brings to mind a Bob Barker-era game show set. It’s like a cross between a showroom and homeroom without meaning to be either, but that less than winsome amalgam hits the right note for Irish playwright Frank McGuiness’s modern adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play. Here, the Helmers are just a couple of upstate New Yorkers with slightly funny-sounding names circa Christmas 1959: Nora (a captivatingly buoyant yet subtly shaded Lena Hart) is a bubbly young mother of three, and Torvald (a credibly oblivious Mark Farrell) is a smug but affable bank executive on the rise. A secret intervention in Torvald’s career by a devoted Nora, his up-to-now happily caged "little songbird," once saved them from ruin (via a reckless loan borrowed on a forged signature), but now it invites a calamitous mixing of formerly separate spheres as the man who loaned Nora the money, once-disgraced Nils Krogstad (a fine, persuasively desperate yet smooth Aaron Murphy), blackmails her to insure his precarious position at her husband’s bank. A panicked Nora confides in old friend and reluctant single-lady Christine (an impressively stoic, subtly wounded Kendra Oberhauser). Meanwhile, terminally ill family friend Dr. Rank (an initially wooden, later warmer Dale Albright) watches Nora from a devoted but helpless vantage. If the plot feels at times like a mirthless episode of I Love Lucy, that again may speak to the aptness of McGuiness’s transposition as much as the sometimes forced way playwright Ibsen has of rearranging the dramatic furniture. But the generally strong cast under Eric Inman’s able direction offers enough vivid dramatic tension to keep us engaged, while suggesting the continuing relevance and limits of the play’s robust critique of marriage and patriarchy. (Avila)

Happy Hour with Kim Jong Il Cabaret at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750,l www.themarsh.org. Free. Fri, 6pm. Through Aug 24. Comedy work-in-progress by Kenny Yun, with live music by cabaret singer Candace Roberts.

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri/10, Aug 17, Sept 13, 20, 27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Aug 26. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Check website for schedule. Through Sept 30. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

Noises Off Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun/12, 2pm. Through Aug 18. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs Michael Frayn’s backstage comedy.

Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 19. Berkeley Playhouse performs a musical based on the candy-filled book, with songs from the 1971 movie adaptation.

"TheatreWorks 2012 New Works Festival" TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-25 (fest pass, $65). Various times, through Aug 19. The 11th annual festival features a developmental production of The Trouble With Doug by Will Aronson and Daniel Maté and staged readings of Sleeping Rough by Kara Manning, The Loudest Man on Earth by Catherine Rush, Being Earnest by Paul Gordon and Jay Gruska, and Triangle by Curtis Moore and Thomas Mizer.

Upright Grand TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $24-73. Wed/8, 7:30pm; Thu/9-Fri/10, 8pm. TheatreWorks launches its 43rd season with the world premiere of Laura Schellhardt’s play about a musical father and daughter.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 8. $10-25. This week: BATS School of Improv Theatresports Championship (Thu/9); Freestyle Improv (Fri/10); Elvis Beach Party Musical (Sat/11).

"Bawdy Storytelling" Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.bawdystorytelling.com. Wed/8, 7pm. $20. The theme: "Go BIG or Go Home!"

"Comedy Returns to El Rio" El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.elriosf.com. Mon/13, 8pm. $7-20. Comedy with Nathan Habib, Brendan Lynch, Andrea Carla Michaels, and more.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race "so you don’t have to." No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

"Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks for President" Rrazz Room, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. Wed/8-Sat/11 and Aug 14-18, 8pm; Sun/12 and Aug 19, 7pm. $35-40. The "dragapella beautyshop quartet" satirizes the upcoming election.

"Indulge! Benefit" ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Tue/14, 8pm. $35-50. An evening of

desserts and dance to benefit ODC’s future programs.

"Ladies to the Rescue" CounterPulse, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Wed/8-Thu/9, 7pm. $7-20. Flyaway Productions and Oasis For Girls present an evening of youth performances, based on the question "Who is Tending the City?"

"Majestic Musical Review Featuring Her Rebel Highness" Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.herrebelhighness.com. Sun/12, 5pm. $25-65. A trio of 18th century princesses (the graceful, full-throated, international team of Velia Amarasingham, Linsay Rousseau Burnett, and Maria Mikheyenko), chafing under the patriarchal constraints of their otherwise exalted status, metamorphose into a defiant band of disco queens in this stylish, high-kitsch musical revue by writer-producer Amarasingham and composer–musical director Simon Amarasingham. The action begins in desultory fashion, bar-side in the Harlot lounge, amid scuttlebutt from a pair of chatty housemaids (Meira Perelstein and a tuneful Diana DiCostanzo) overseen by a giddy royal valet (a gregariously foppish Michael Sommers, also the show’s emcee and narrator). When the dallying princesses finally arrive (sumptuously attired in appealing period costumes by Noric Design), they ascend a small stage attended by Lady Lucinda Pilon (a Goth-inflected Amber Slemmer, alternating nights with director Danica Sena), and launch into a slick set of tightly choreographed ‘autobiographical’ numbers as the prerecorded music progresses stylistically from smooth, harpsichord-tinted dance-floor beats to all-out four-on-the-floor Donna Summer–style revelry. Despite a certain static, slightly stark ambiance in the site-specific surroundings, with the right crowd and a couple of drinks this 90-minute revue is easily a doubly retro girl-power party for all. (Avila)

"Measure for Measure" Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; sftheaterpub.wordpress.com. Tue/14, Aug 20-21, and 27, 8pm. Free ($5 suggested donation). SF Theater Pub performs the Shakespeare play.

"On Broadway" San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.mandance.org. Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm. $25-45. The Man Dance Company performs inventive, queer-themed takes on classic Broadway song and dance numbers.

"Soundwave ((5)) Humanities: Revelations: Myths + Meditations" Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, 1661 15th St, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Sun/12, 8pm. $12-25. Performances and "experiences" by Michael Elrod, Voicehandler, and Xavier Leonard and Cassidy Rast.

"Summer Sampler" ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Sat/11, 4 and 7pm. $30-40. ODC’s annual summer event — which doubles as veteran ODC dancer Daniel Santos’ farewell performances — includes KT Nelson’s Cut-Out Guy, Brenda Way’s Unintended Consequences, and Way’s Part of a Longer Story.

"Writers With Drinks" Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.makeoutroom.com. Sat/11, 7:30pm. $5-10. Readings by Jane McGonigal, Saqib Mausoof, Rachel Swirsky, and Simon Sheppard.

BAY AREA

"Al-Stravaganza: A Burlesque Tribute to the Music of Weird Al" Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl; www.hubbahubbarevue.com. Mon/13, 9pm. $5. A burlesque journey through the music and comedy of Weird Al. Admit it, you’re curious.

"Magic Jester’s Summer Breeze Show" Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St, Oakl; www.magicjestertheater.com. Sat/11, 8-10pm. $5-10. Improv comedy performance.

"Mrs. Pat’s House" La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.lapena.org. Fri/10-Sun/12, 8pm. $15. Jovelyn Richards performs her original play about a Great Depression-era brothel, accompanied by a live jazz and blues band. *

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