History Archives — Page 77 of 155 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

A long time ago, in a galaxy not far away

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

A long time ago, in a galaxy not far away

arts@sfbg.com

SCI-FI DOCUMENTARY Recalling a simpler time — before mass commercialization and marketing took over the world of science fiction, pop culture, and fan conventions — local filmmaker Tom Wyrsch’s new documentary Back To Space-Con conveys the story of the home-grown, grassroots-fueled sci-fi conventions of the 1970s, told through interviews with the people behind the events, fans who were there, and rare footage shot on location here in the Bay Area more than 30 years ago.

Coming off the successes of his first two projects, 2008’s Watch Horror Films, Keep America Strong, which looked at the local TV phenomenon Creature Features and last year’s wildly popular Remembering Playland At The Beach, about the now-gone San Francisco beach-side amusement park, it wasn’t hard for Wyrsch to decide on what subject to tackle next.

Several years ago, the late Bob Wilkins, former host of Creature Features, had given Wyrsch a treasure trove of one-of-a-kind 16mm footage taken for his show at a series of Star Trek and sci-fi conventions, showing a great array of fans, their handmade costumes, and of course, the many special guests and celebrities who were on hand.

Wyrsch himself had attended some of these events, the larger ones called “Space-Con,” when he was growing up in the Bay Area. “At that time they were a brand new experience,” says Wyrsch. “To go to these conventions was just fabulous. And they definitely left a mark.”

With his fond memories in place and the opportunity to use Wilkins’ rare original footage, Wyrsch decided to interview the people who helped put on the shows, along with those who had attended the conventions as fans, all to help share the feeling of what it was like back then, which the film does very effectively.

“My approach to making documentaries is to really do two things: First, I want to take people back who actually experienced it. The other part is, I want to be able to take people there who never had a chance to go because they either weren’t in the area or they were too young,” says Wyrsch.

One of the great things about Back To Space-Con is seeing all the homespun costumes that fans wore — this was before the Star Trek movies started being made, and for some of the conventions included here, just before and at the beginning of the Star Wars (1977) phenomenon. There were virtually no official costumes or merchandise, and many of the people interviewed remark how wonderful it was to see such creativity and excitement in their fellow fans.

“[Space-Cons] were fan-based conventions that really did not have anything to do with the industry. They were the fans putting on shows for each other,” says Wyrsch. “In the film you can see how they are the grassroots movement of conventions that led to the ones we have today.”

Wyrsch is grateful to have been able to use so much original film footage, and he hopes viewers will appreciate how rare it is that material like this has survived all this time.

“What the younger generation doesn’t know was that it was very difficult and very expensive to go out in the field and do an interview or to film indoors because of lighting and the old cameras,” he explains. “With video and all the high-tech electronics and computers you can put in the camera [today], you don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore. But back then, it was tough, and with a lot of interviews they would go out and do them and then throw the film away because there was no use to it anymore and it took up a lot of storage space. Bob [Wilkins] kept this, and he kept part of history.”

Wyrsch will be on hand at a special Back to Space-Con premiere event at the Balboa Theater, along with former Chronicle writer and Creature Features host John Stanley, and Ernie Fosselius, the man behind the Star Wars spoof Hardware Wars (1978).

“I think people get to see the simplicity that was there in the seventies, it wasn’t so regimented like they are nowadays,” says Wyrsch. “And people love that.”

BACK TO SPACE-CON

Thurs/14, 7 p.m., $10

Balboa Theater

3630 Balboa, SF

(415) 221-8184

www.balboamovies.com

Hear me howling!

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

1

MUSIC Last November, with little fanfare, homegrown roots music empire Arhoolie Records turned 50, an almost unbelievable milestone for a niche music label dedicated to the lasting preservation of regional music in an increasingly disposable MP3 world.

It wasn’t until this February that Arhoolie even scheduled a celebration, the proceeds of which went to fund the Arhoolie Foundation, the 16-year-old nonprofit dedicated to making a digital archive of founder Chris Strachwitz’s vast miscellany of Mexican and Mexican American recordings — the Frontera Collection — widely considered to be the largest of its kind on both sides of the border. Conceived as a research resource and historical documentation of the recordings, the digitized files are stored and accessible at the Chicano Studies Research Center library at UCLA (www.chicano.ucla.edu). The physical collection of approximately 46,000 units, housed in a climate-controlled basement in El Cerrito, stands as a fragile yet monumental testament to the mostly under-recognized talents of literally thousands of music-makers.

Strachwitz himself, a seemingly boundless wellspring of enthusiasm at 79, slowed only by a recalcitrant hip (recently replaced), attributes the label’s longevity in part to his own stubborn “fanaticism” for music, a trait shared by his small yet dedicated staff. From Strachwitz’s well-documented obsession with tracking down Lightnin’ Hopkins to record him in 1959, to his increasingly far-flung forays into the backwoods and swamps of the musically-diverse South, his emphasis has been on excavating the genuine, the raw, and the regionally significant. The diversity of music that Arhoolie publishes and records ranges in style from dirty blues to folk ballads, Cajun zydeco to conjunto. The tie that binds them isn’t genre, but emotional content.

“They are all very down to earth, totally alive and vibrant, from people who have mostly had a rough life,” Strachwitz explains. Perhaps best known for their bang-for-your-buck compilations assembled by region or genre: 15 Early Tejano Classics, Angola Prisoner’s Blues, Masters of the Folk Violin, Arhoolie has also released a number of seminal single-artist albums. Bogalusa Boogie by recent Grammy Hall of Fame inductee Clifton Chenier, Flaco Jiménez’s 1986 Grammy-winning ranchera album Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio, and the Pine Leaf Boys’ 2007 Grammy-nominated Cajun dance album Blues de Musicien exemplify Arhoolie’s commitment to unadorned authenticity.

Though it’s been a few years since Arhoolie recorded any new material, there’s a stockpile of one-of-a-kind field recordings patiently awaiting release. A recent addition to the Arhoolie canon is 2010’s Hear Me Howling, a four-CD collection housed in the handsome confines of a hardcover scrapbook. This 72-track compilation of raw material, gleaned from a series of Bay Area recording sessions from 1954-71, captures the essence of the music as well as the musicians in the moment: a humorous reference about Strachwitz’s “new recording machine,” improvised by skiffle group The Skid Band; a soft-spoken call for requests by bluesman Mance Lipscomb; a brief but earnest sermon delivered by the Rev. Louis Overstreet before he launches into an anthem on his electric guitar.

On several of Hear Me Howling‘s tracks, you can hear Strachwitz’s distinctive laugh carrying above the responsive noises of the audience. The intimacy of these mostly home recordings brings the circumstances they were recorded in to life in a way that no studio polish can mimic. Each is an aural document of a precise place and time.

Aural documents are what head Frontera Collection archivist (and trombonist for radical ska-punk ensemble La Plebe) Antonio Cuellar specializes in. His Sisyphean task is to scan and digitize a copy of every album — he’s been working for nine years, focusing primarily on the 78s and 45s that make up the bulk of the collection. After listening to a recording, Cuellar compiles a list of keywords to append to the digital file. Recurring themes and keywords such as “patriotism” (four hits), “praise of beauty” (3,590 hits), “executions” (32), and “trabajo de emigrante” (277) are entered into the digital database, along with a high-quality scan of the physical vinyl, and notes on the artists (Hermanas Segovia, Narciso Martínez, Orquesta La Campaña) and style of music (conjunto, ranchera, bolero, vals bajito, and Latino rock and soul).

“Often the only information left about a recording is on the label,” explains Cuellar, who extracts what he can from each. But besides collecting discards from jukebox joints, radio stations, and major label back-stock, Strachwitz acquired several now-defunct labels lock, stock, and-barrel, including Falcón and Ideal. This has allowed him to expand on the information he archives, noting, for example, what a particular recording artist was paid ($10 and a six-pack) or who was in the backing band. It’s painstaking, “sometimes tedious” work, but Cuellar, who may be the only person besides Strachwitz to have listened to so much of the collection, has a clear sense of its historical importance.

“Probably 99.9 percent of these artists are unknown,” Cuellar points out. “If I do a search for them online, it directs me back to Arhoolie, to the information that we have here … [Whereas] I can go and search for information about the most obscure blues guy, and he’s going to have something written about him.”

“It was Guillermo Hernandez [the late former director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center] who made me aware that this music was really the literature of the campesinos,” Strachwitz muses. “When he discovered I had all these damn old records, he became totally intrigued. Because nobody at that time seemed to know they had such a long history.” “It definitely influences me,” notes Cuellar, who was born in Mexico. “It’s helped open my eyes to my own history.”

Outside and inside

Andrew Lam

-

April 12, 2011

7

arts@sfbg.com

PERFORMANCE Some dramatic clouds hung darkly over the Headlands Center for the Arts on the last Sunday in March, threatening more than the prickly spray that had started to whip around in the cold and gusty air. By contrast, everything was bright and bustling inside Building 944, the repurposed 1907-era military barracks at the center of the Marin County artists retreat’s secluded, picturesque coastal campus. The first-floor dining hall was still open until 3 p.m. — when the latest edition of SQUART was scheduled to begin upstairs — so arriving audience members gravitated to the long tables lining the unexpectedly beautiful room, revivified from spartan army drabness by artist Ann Hamilton.

Uncle Sam was not anticipating this crowd in 1907, let alone the anarchic spirit of creative community fostered by SQUART (short for spontaneous queer art). Then and now, Uncle Sam wants “you,” but not your yoke-slipping imagination please. The performers running around loopy for lack of sleep — together with the center’s varied flock of international resident-artists and the crowd arriving from the city to watch the results of SQUART’s 24-hour venture in collaborative art-making — formed an alternative community, low-key and self-assured, the majority queer-identified, well-versed in strategies of critical resistance and up for anything. In striking ways, the four performance pieces communally created for that afternoon — and for that history-haunted place — eloquently registered the gaps and links in a century of social chaos.

All told, a moment from the last piece was probably my favorite. In a large first-floor room elegantly and eccentrically composed like something from a Peter Greenaway film, a good chunk of the audience had been pressed to the wall by a relentlessly advancing line of screaming men and women with their arms outstretched. Then a man rushed to the window and (with a vaguely camp bellicosity) ordered a small group of performers out the windows and up the hill. There in the cold drizzle they stood on the access road in shorts and tees, doing exercises, as two of the performers began to wrestle aggressively.

This “fight” inspired an unwitting passerby to come between them with real violence, as the audience gasped loudly in surprise and alarm at the unscheduled event. The good Samaritan, flushed and angry, cocked a confused glance at the audience of maybe 60 people filling the windows, and trudged back to his car and family and drove away, visibly shaken. The performance continued, in fact did not miss a beat, the performer at the window shouting a beautiful broken monologue full of yearning, confusion, and wonder interspersed with loud calls to “Retreat!” that sent the performers scrambling up the slippery hillside in the rain, bare limbs flailing, helpless, comical, and heartbreaking.

SQUART is the initiative of San Francisco–based choreographer Laura Arrington, one of a new generation of mostly queer artists under or around 30 who are making serious waves in the performance scene. Her own bounding, sharp-cornered, mercurial work has been staged at CounterPULSE (where she shared a much acclaimed bill with fellow artist-resident Jesse Hewit in August of 2010), Women on the Way, the National Queer Arts Festival, The Lab, and the Too Much! queer performance marathons. But SQUART is a unique undertaking in which the artist functions as a channel for collaborative expression. As such, it both epitomizes and catalyzes the current queer performance movement as a whole.

SQUART also epitomizes a community and an ethic of DIY art production that is on the rise just now across a range of insider/outsider artists in the Bay Area. It’s a generational movement, but at the same time it’s building on, and building relationships with, earlier generations of artists. It’s predominately queer, but genuinely inclusive; it’s DIY, but skilled and knowing; it’s anti-institutional but includes many with practical and critical training from university programs; and it’s been producing some of the most appealing, challenging, vital work in performance in the last few years. It’s a highly fertile scene that, taken as a whole, amounts to a movement and a rare moment.

Modeled on reality-TV talent contests — but in opposition to the social Darwinism normally on display there — SQUART gives random teams of artists a set of parameters and two hours to come up with an original performance piece. A panel of “celebrity judges” from the wider arts community evaluates the results. The results have been surprising enough to participants and audiences alike to keep SQUART going through several iterations since its 2010 inception, always with the quick and affable Arrington as the host sporting her now trademark bullhorn.

“It began out of a sincere desire to get people working together and to get ideas out,” says Arrington about SQUART’s origins. “I’m suspicious of how isolating working can be — with grants, residencies, artist statements, etc. — how everything is ‘my project,’ ‘my work.’ I think ideas get better the more they are bounced around, and that stripping away the traditional hierarchies is important. It’s dangerous when work becomes precious. [With] SQUART, you just have to create. There’s no time to do anything else. It can be a big mess; often it’s a really beautiful mess.”

Arrington says SQUART started as a side project but has developed into something larger. “The Headlands SQUART was a big step,” she says, crediting program director Brian Karl with open-minded support of the undertaking. “We kind of took over the main building for 24 hours. It was crazy, but in the end some of the work was just staggering. The timing was pretty magical too. We got [choreographer] Meg Stuart [as a celebrity judge] because she was in town doing Auf Den Tisch! at Yerba Buena [Center for the Arts], and Big Art Group [Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson] happened to be up at Headlands while I was. Jess Curtis is back for a few months from Berlin. It was all quite perfect.”

The coincidental calendar-pairing of SQUART and Auf Den Tisch! (which means “to put things on the table”) was a striking alignment of the leading, established international contemporary performance represented by Berlin-based American Stuart and the new but internationally aware local scene. In making her long-overdue Bay Area debut (courtesy of YBCA), Stuart not only brought a project exploring the nature of collective improvisation, but drew performers from a local artistic milieu that included emerging queer performers like Julie Phelps and Jorge De Hoyos.

Keith Hennessy, the renowned interdisciplinary artist and performance maven who was both a performer and organizer for Auf Den Tisch!, says there are similarities between Stuart’s improvisation project and SQUART.

“In some ways, the Auf Den Tisch! project is like a weeklong SQUART, with a much tighter selection of who’s in it. There’s a certain camp in contemporary dance and performance that was born out of really early queer theater, like Theater of the Ridiculous and Jack Smith, and that came to some people through performance art. I see that in both SQUART and Auf Den Tisch!“

But Hennessy adds a key distinction. “Auf Den Tisch! is more about improvisation than SQUART,” he points out. “In SQUART you have to use improvisational strategies to survive, but it’s actually about collective composition, which is really kind of amazing.”

Hennessy — who was among the celebrity judges at the Headlands SQUART — has been a motive power himself in stitching together this younger generation of artists. Dancer/performer Harold Burns says he moved here from the East Coast partly inspired by Hennessy’s work, “the idea of merging queer and radical with powerful performance that really broke boundaries.” Burns joined workshops Hennessy led in November 2009 in the lead-up to Hennessy’s anniversary season (workshops that would inspire the two annual Too Much! queer marathons). Burns calls those workshops an important catalyst in the development of the community and its momentum. “The relationships were already there,” he explains, “but it personalized them more and took them to the next level.” Arrington agrees. “I met a lot of the people I consider close personal friends and colleagues there. After that, Jesse [Hewit] and I (with our friend Hana Erdman) started a little workshop/experiment where we tried to gather collaborators with similar interests.”

For his part, Hennessy got introduced to many of the younger artists through his participation judging earlier SQUARTs. In fact, SQUART and its larger community have been acquiring the regard of older, more established colleagues in a relatively short time.

David Szlasa can concur. “When I judged SQUART in October, there were 50 incredibly talented people making work who I barely knew,” confesses the artist and programming director at Z Space (which, significantly, will be presenting new work by Laura Arrington and Jesse Hewit on its massive stage in December). “I realized the 20-something crew just came to town, and they’re kicking ass.”

Szlasa credits SQUART with opening his eyes to the recent shift in approach as well. “One of the things that distinguished [the new work] was its nonreliance on the institution. SQUART is a hugely successful, hugely popular thing put together through Facebook.” For Szlasa, committed arts presenters like CounterPULSE and Z Space go only so far in explaining the success being enjoyed by artists like Arrington and Hewit or other of their peers.

“It’s artists who are being built up on the support of a community,” Szlasa notes, “rather than artists looking to institutions to find the support in the community for their work, which is a really different thing. It might be a small community that they’re rallying, but it’s significant. Maybe it’s 200 people and they all see everything everybody does, but, you know, that’s a thing. And it appears to be a mindset change also, which I really appreciate. And I think that there’s something for us — I say “us” as a representative of Z Space or that sort of institution — to consider and learn from that.”

CounterPULSE’s Jessica Robinson Love agrees. “These artists are not just interested in getting their own work out there. Most of them are also engaged in curating and producing each other’s work, serving as dramaturge, writing about it, and generally working to support the community and not just themselves. That’s where the strength comes from.”

MAMA’S BIG HOUSE

In any preliminary mapping of the scene, such as the piece you are reading, SQUART is only one point of reference, albeit a prominent one. At the very least, one would need to include now-defunct Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, which for three years, under Dwayne Calizo, consistently supported exceptional work by queer artists, especially queer artists of color, in the old Jon Sims Center for the Arts space.

Just as crucial has been Mama Calizo’s still venue-less but highly active successor organization, THEOFFCENTER, whose director Ernesto Sopprani helped organize and run the SQUART event at the Headlands. In fact, TOC includes a good swath of the community. Says artist and codirector Julie Phelps, “THEOFFCENTER rose from the dust [as] a loose collective of 20 to 30 people who just keep showing up, and keep making things happen.”

You’d also need, for sure, to include Philip Huang’s Home Theater Festival, BJ Dini’s anarchist-inspired QAZ (queer autonomous zones); venues like CounterPULSE and The Garage as well as their residency programs; mentoring and collaborating queer performance elders like Hennessy, Jess Curtis, and Monique Jenkinson; the drag series led by Mica Sigourney; and a broad and often highly political host of outsider warehouse and home-based queer performance, as well as music-based work, across San Francisco and the East Bay.

“The artists in our network are making work without permission or money,” says THEOFFCENTER’s Sopprani. “We support one another and let the work and the questions motivating it speak for themselves. Laura Arrington’s SQUART is the perfect example of that credo. Laura is a genius when it comes to building synergy. We support her work because we feel it supports the larger community. In both SQUART and TOC, artists are autonomous and free. It’s a loose collective with the intention and desire to make something out of the ordinary happen. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about for us.”

HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS

The Dana Street Theater is an inconspicuous venue, serving most of the year as Philip Huang’s bedroom. In the first week of March, prospective patrons were alerted to upcoming performances by a blog site and a piece of yellow notepaper taped to the front door of his Berkeley apartment building, where some hasty red lettering announced, “Home Theater Festival. ‘Eat, Pray, Tron.'”

The audience for the opening show of the festival — and there were about 30 of us the night I went — sat in a tight squeeze on the floor, camped on cushions or blankets. Huang greeted people as they came in. No reservations were necessary. The prices were $7.99 a ticket, or $4.99 if you’re down on your luck. The scheduled curtain time was 8 p.m., though by the time Huang returned from a last-minute beer run it was more like 20 minutes after the hour. No one cared about the time, or that it seemed Huang hadn’t really bothered to pick up his room before the show. Even before the malt liquor and box wine started circulating, the audience was primed.

The monthlong, second annual Home Theater Festival is Huang’s Internet-orchestrated DIY affair. (And newly international: the same day I saw “Eat Pray Tron,” people Down Under attended a program at Rebecca Cunningham’s pad in Brisbane, Australia. In all, five countries and 30 shows are represented.)

Huang began in character as Ellen Fu, a bracingly frank Taiwanese lady in a black sleeveless number and clip-on earrings. Ellen led a seminar on how to pleasure your black lover. There was more: a disabled man making balloon animals, for instance. Huang was sharp but loose, ready to go with the moment. There was a lot of back-and-forth with pal Bryan Dini of the League of Burnt Children and the aforementioned QAZ. Seated sublimely against a wall, Dini interjected commentary as the mood struck him. Later in this carefree, careening, and irresistible evening, Huang paused for a special message to artists: “You have everything you need to do what you do right now,” he told them. “You have everything you need to be happy.”

The DIY spirit of Home Theater Festival, and of the larger movement it’s part of, couldn’t have asked for a more eloquent summation — or one that hinted so neatly at its radical response to a larger context of economic crisis and control. Huang is a charismatic figure, quick-witted and generous, lanky and handsome in thick-framed glasses and a beaming smile. He’s a fearless, unflappable performer and activist (some of his interventions are documented in must-see YouTube videos). He also makes the most outspoken people sound awfully tactful.

“I think most arts institutions, galleries, foundations, and theaters are useless,” he says. “They keep artists in a state of dependency; they encourage a mindset that they hold all opportunities and paths to legitimacy and artists are only ever on the receiving end. That’s why they keep putting out tired workshops and seminars that teach people to do lame shit like write grants and fundraise and network and do marketing and write press releases. All of that shit makes my dick limp, and none of it is necessary.

“I, in particular, believe that queer artists should not be professionals,” Huang explains. “We should burn bright and burn out. We have a responsibility to society as a whole to scare the shit out of people. We should be the monsters they accuse us of being. Every society needs to enact its shadows, and it’s our sacred duty, our sacred function, to do that for the world.”

Huang argues the fulfillment of that function, the fulfillment of a truly subversive art, necessarily takes place outside of institutions. “Institutions, for the most part, are run by fearful, well-meaning people, to apply a phrase by Kirk Read, and to keep their heads above water, they can never really disturb the status quo. So I encourage queers to break away from institutions for their own independence, certainly, but also to restore queer art to its grimy gutter.”

“This is quite a topic at the moment,” acknowledges Arrington when I ask her about the DIY-versus-institution issue. “For myself, I like hybrid situations. I will always have house shows and do the less structured stuff, but I also love rigorously worked art. I love high production value. In my experience, most institutions are made up of incredibly hard-working people sincerely trying to nurture art. SQUART happening at Headlands is a great example. It’s a totally nontraditional format happening in quite a traditional space.” At the same time, she insists, “institutional success is not all there is. I think, actually I know, bigger issues of politics, economics, and environment are going to reshape how art gets made, both inside and outside institutions.”

Jesse Hewit agrees that the issue of institutional support has become a serious dividing line, though he finds positive aspects to the debate as well. “People are really talking about this right now. On the one hand there’s this group of people, myself included, who are working in conjunction with Angela Maddox over at YBCA curatorially to mobilize the community [around] what’s going on in an international scene in terms of contemporary performance. And there are a lot of people who feel at odds with that. There’s this weird tension.” Hewit notes the change has occurred over the last six months: “The big love fest is over. People are getting more critical, which is good. It’s good for the work. The work has been becoming more excellent.”

Hewit suggests the uneven distribution of funding among the larger community plays some part in the increased tension, which seems all but inevitable, but he also cites a resistance to engaging an international context for contemporary performance. “We’re just not a super savvy contemporary performance/dance community,” he admits. At the same time, he appreciates the invention and novelty of the work being done on its own terms: “We’re doing our own thing. We’re kind of creating our own mini canon.”

Hennessy echoes the notion that the work is generally growing stronger, wherever it may stand with respect to funding. On the anti-institutional side, he stresses the shrewdness in something like the Home Theater Festival. “Part of it is an empowerment strategy,” he says, pointing out that Huang’s project grew from Huang’s experiments with private performances, which granted him—despite a lack of formal training or connections—the permission to consider himself an artist. “He took that personal experience and is using it as almost a viral infection,” says Hennessy. “The Home Theater Festival is simultaneously a super sophisticated aesthetic strategy and an amateur hour—anyone can do whatever they want and it’s not precious. It’s just in your house and it’s 20 people and they paid $7.99.”

Hennessy stresses that this is more than just a theoretical move. “There are all these practical things: no middleman, a really accessible door price, money goes directly to the artist.” In a society that easily dismisses artist labor, Hennessy sees the Home Theater Festival “starting to rebuild this broken bond between the artist and society by making everything really transparent, inviting people into your home. I think all the issues around private and public are really fascinating [and] very much inspired by certain feminist issues that have come to be in the foreground of what queer is. There’s all kinds of lineage in that.”

Wherever the contradictions and tensions may ultimately lead, this continues to be an exciting moment across a range of contemporary performance in the Bay Area. For its part, THEOFFCENTER is looking ahead to their second season with a conviction born of early but impressive successes many can rally behind. Sopprani says TOC will be pushing work “that integrates the arts and artists across platforms and communities.” His examples include Killer Queen: The Story of Paco the Pink Pounder, a show about a gay boxer that will be staged in actual boxing rings in San Francisco and Los Angeles; and Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge, in which TOC comes on board as a community partner in the Magic Theatre’s much anticipated Bay Area premiere.

“We are hoping to stick around for the long term,” says Sopprani, marveling at all they’ve accomplished thus far. “It’s amazing what comes out of putting the artist first. Entire houses continue to get filled. People are liking what they see, and I am very proud of us all.”

Special thanks to Mark McBeth (markmcbethprojects.com) for his invaluable “field recordings in performance anthropology,” which gave audiovisual access to some of the performances and artists drawn on for this article.

Heady

Andrew Lam

-

April 12, 2011

0

culture@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED “Just to let you know, this class is different than other yoga classes,” warns the receptionist at the San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute. It’s Monday night and I’ve just shown up at the institute to try my first restorative yoga class. “You roll around on pillows …” he continues.

I get it — restorative yoga is not your typical barrage of sun salutations and yogic pretzel bends — so I nod reassuringly and head up the flights of stairs to the top floor of the institute’s Victorian-style mansion-cum-yoga-palace, emerging in the dark, candle-lit room where the class will be held. There are high wood ceilings and plenty of space on the carpeted floor, where a pile of pillows wait for each student.

Our instructor will be Divya Nanda, a guest teacher who has been affiliated with the institute for more than 40 years. Wearing silky orange garments from head to toe, she radiates a calming, peaceful presence.

Here we go. Let’s just get it out there. I’m not a yoga person. If I happen to take a break from Internet-beer time long enough to exercise, I prefer to do it alone with my iPod rather than in a room full of strangers.

But I’m a stressed-out soul, generally speaking, and restorative yoga’s smooth, centering movements sound appealing. This form of yoga is geared toward relaxation and uses slow-moving techniques to give students a sense of peacefulness, spiritual fulfillment, and mind-body connection — all things yours truly is 100 percent lacking. Most yoga studios in the city offer some form of restorative class, which can be perfect for those suffering from injuries or just in need of a little slow-paced nurturing.

“Restorative yoga is based in the philosophy of the whole yoga practice, which is to be peaceful,” Nanda says. “Peace is within you, so we go within.”

Within we go, starting with “oms,” “hari oms,” and simple warm-ups — downward dog pose interspersed with concentrated breathing exercises and stretches. All the while, Nanda circulates throughout the room, adjusting our positions and making sure that we’re completely relaxed and comfortable.

During one warm-up that involved sitting with our knees tucked under us, Nanda looked over at me and said, “Hannah, you might want to do this one in the cross-legged position, I don’t want you to hurt your ankles.” I was shocked. How did she know my ankles were aching — x-ray yogi vision?

After the deep breathing, we move on to poses that entailed lying in super-comfortable, unconventional asanas. They make me feel like a sleepy baby. Designed to place minimal pressure on joints, they include splaying out our legs and arms, every part of our bodies supported by soft pillows.

Along the way, Nanda shares soothing thoughts: “The future is a mystery. The past is history. What we have is now, the golden present.” “Beyond the thinking mind there is a great peacefulness,” and so on. We end the class with guided meditation and this Sanskrit chant: “From the unreal to the real, from the darkness to the light, from our fears to the knowledge of our immortal natures.”

Leaving Nanda’s world was bittersweet: I’m sad to go, realizing I’ve never given myself a sanctioned stretch of time to nurture my reflective side. But emerging from the institute, walking back out into the gentle buzz of Dolores Street, I feel so centered that I can almost hear my body whispering to me. Was that an “om shanti,” relaxed core of mine? I can’t be sure — but I know it won’t be my last time in restorative yoga. Below, a brief list of ways to learn to nurture yourself in the Bay.

Restorative yoga

Mondays 7:30 p.m. –9 p.m., $9 for first class, $12 for subsequent classes, Integral Yoga Institute, 770 Dolores, SF. www.integralyogasf.org

INTERPRETING DREAMS WITH HORARY ASTROLOGY

You may not have heard of the San Francisco Astrological Society, but as far as Bay Area star sign enthusiasts are concerned, it’s a big deal. This year it will be hosting astrology-focused lectures on topics like “The Cycle of Saturn,” “2012 and Beyond.” If you’re interested in what your dreams can tell you about the future, you’ll have to check out this upcoming talk. It promises to teach about the basic techniques needed to unlock your dreams for clues on what’s to come using ancient Greek dream interpretation methods and horary astrology, a sect of astrology based on creating a horoscope for the exact moment in which a question is asked.

May 26, 7:30 p.m., $7 for members, $12 for nonmembers. Building C, Fort Mason Center, SF., www.sfastrologicalsociety.com

SENSUAL TOUCH AND DEEPER CONNECTION (IN AND OUT OF THE BEDROOM)

If you’re not big on touching people, then this class is probably not for you — although it might have the power to change your mind on the subject. This one-time workshop with somatic therapist and intimacy coach Shara Ogin teaches you how to take physical contact to the next level. From intimacy to sex to sensual massage, Ogin plans to show students how to make each experience more intimate and cosmically close.

April 19, 6–8 p.m., $40/pair advance, $45 at door. Good Vibrations, 1620 Polk, SF. www.goodvibes.com

EVOLVING WESTERN HERBAL TRADITIONS

Medical herbalist, new age crusader, and self-proclaimed member of the herbal renaissance, David Hoffman teaches this class focusing on the history of herbalism in the United States and the world. The workshop ranges from discussions about herbs in science and medicine to ways herbs are used in the our country and the changing role of botanical medicine in a modern global context. Rolling papers not included.

Aug. 23, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., $100. Charlotte Maxwell Complimentary Clinic, 2601 Mission, SF. www.ohlonecenter.org

Behind the panel

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

2

caitlin@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED Graphic novelist Gene Yang has a theory about how the comic industry came to be home to more Asian American artists than probably any other North American media form. “American comics have always been an outsider’s medium,” he wrote in a recent e-mail correspondence with the Guardian. “Most of the American comic book icons — Superman, Batman, the Hulk, Captain America — were created by poor Jewish boys living in the ghettos of New York. All you needed was a pencil, some paper, and a tiny bit of talent. Asian Americans took advantage of the same dynamic.”

Suppositions aside, Yang’s point is this: these days, Asian Americans are at the top of the comic book game. Yang has published many comic titles that creatively explore what it was like for him and his siblings growing up in the Bay Area (he was born in Alameda). American Born Chinese pits a high schooler against a monkey king from Chinese folklore who compels him to face his discomfort with his family’s heritage. Level Up looks at a video game fanatic’s transition to med school, a journey undertaken by Yang’s brother in real life.

Yang is by no means the only Asian American excelling in the comic industry. Jim Lee, a Korean American who was named copublisher of DC Comics last year, is often regarded as the modern era’s quintessential comic artist. And many of the genre’s biggest names — including the man behind DC’s Supergirl series; Bernard Chang, creator of the syndicated strip Liberty Meadows Frank Cho; and Human Target illustrator Cliff Chiang (all interviewed via e-mail for this article) — are first- or second-generation Asian Americans.

“If you were to ask any comic book fan who their favorite artists are, odds are there will be an Asian American creator — or two, or three, if not four — on that list,” Chang says.

This wasn’t always the case. When most of today’s comic book artists were growing up, there were few stories being told about Asian Americans in popular entertainment. Chang moved to Miami from Taiwan as a child, and apart from comic books sent to him by relatives overseas, saw very little in the mass media that could relate to his own experience. “For the most part, you had the Bruce Lee kung fu movies that played on the secondary television stations on the weekends,” he says.

“Everything seemed to be about people in Asia or recent immigrants,” remembers American-born Chiang. “I didn’t go out of my way to seek out those stories. What I did respond to was art and animation created by Asians in the form of cartoons like Speed Racer or Battle of the Planets.”

He wasn’t the only one who turned to cartoons as a child. Yang fondly remembers the commonalities he found in superhero comics, even going as far as attributing his and other Asian American boys’ attraction to Superman to a subconscious recognition of a kindred soul. It was a connection he copped from Jeff Yang, editor of Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, a collection that assembled some of today’s top comic art talent in creating an illustrated shadow history of the United States.

To wit: “Here’s a guy with two identities, one American and the other foreign — Kryptonian. He has two names, one American — Clark — and the other foreign with a hyphen in the middle, Kal-El. He came to America at a young age. He’s black haired, mild-mannered, and wears glasses. All of his superpowers derive from the fact that he’s a foreigner.”

And there’s the art form itself, Yang continues: words and pictures side by side, typically avoided in Western art save in children’s books and advertising but embraced in Asian tradition. “You could have the best brush-painted image in the world,” Yang says, “but if the poem paired with it sucked, the whole piece sucked.”

THE SAGA OF RYAN CHOI

But if so many of the genre’s artists are Asian American, why are so few of its protagonists? Despite the prevalence of minority fans at comic conventions and the ever-diversifying profile of the people who create comics, their characters — with the important exception of those in manga — are mainly Caucasian.

And the big publishing houses in comics appear to sticking with this monotone. For a time, Marvel and DC experimented with retiring their big name heroes, replacing them — in the words of Yang — with “younger, hipper, often ethnic versions.” As an example, he offers the saga of the Atom, originally a white guy named Ray Palmer. Palmer was made to disappear mysteriously, and in the logic of the comic universe, was replaced by his
Chinese protégé, Ryan Choi.

But “the young ones just weren’t selling,” says Yang. Ryan Choi got a blade to the chest and Ray Palmer got his job back.

Most of the widely-known artists we spoke to think diversifying the superhero world wasn’t something that could happen overnight. Most fans, they said, are attracted to comics out of a sense of nostalgia that doesn’t hold up well with change, especially one as drastic as switching up a character’s race.

“Supergirl is an established character with years of history and story lines,” Chang says. “I can’t simply come in and change her to be an Asian girl, that wouldn’t make sense. But I make an effort to draw new supporting characters with different ethnicities, not just Asians but blacks, Latinos, and others.”

Cho thinks the reason Asians have thrived in the comics industry is the genre’s relative anonymity. “You have to understand there’s a strong and subtle undercurrent of racism in America. But comics are color-blind. It’s the ideas, art, and stories that matter — not how you look or who you are.” And he wants to keep it that way. “I don’t want to read any Asian-centric stories, or any black stories. I just want to read a good story.”

“I DEMAND SOME REPRESENTATION!”

Of course, not everyone shares his views. Hellen Jo is a SF comic artist who draws because she considers comics “a beautiful narrative medium with boundless potential.”

“Despite the ‘enlightened’ age we live in, I still can’t find many Asian American narratives that resonate with me personally,” Jo says. So she makes her own gorgeous comic strips and books that tell stories that fall far outside the standard comic canon, distinct even from the genre’s occasional tries at depicting Asian women.

“We don’t often see Asian American women shown as brash, plain, ugly, dirty, and without ambition — and it certainly isn’t because those types of API [Asian Pacific Islander] women don’t exist,” Jo says. “I identify as a gross, stupid, ugly Asian American girl and I demand some representation!”

But she’s not waiting for Marvel to release Gross, Stupid, Ugly API No. 1. Jo is taking the bull by the horns — just like Yang, who draws his own works, and the many mainstream artists we spoke with who contribute to books like Secret Identities and have side projects that speak more directly to the API experience. Sure, these books don’t sell as much as the blockbuster Batman and Avengers titles — but at least they exist now.

As do more and more Asian Americans and other minorities among the genre’s most talented creators. It’s hard not to believe that Ryan Choi will rise again, in his own series this time, with a decidedly unambitious API girl at his side.

The failed experiment

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

27

news@sfbg.com

For three decades we have conducted a massive economic experiment, testing a theory known as supply-side economics. The theory goes like this: Lower tax rates will encourage more investment, which in turn will mean more jobs and greater prosperity — so much so that tax revenues will go up, despite lower rates.

The late Milton Friedman, the libertarian economist who wanted to shut down public parks because he considered them socialism, promoted this strategy. Ronald Reagan embraced Friedman’s ideas and made them into policy when he was elected president in 1980.

For the past decade, we have doubled down on this theory of supply-side economics with the tax cuts sponsored by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, which President Barack Obama has agreed to continue for two years.

You would think that whether this grand experiment worked would be settled after three decades. You would think the practitioners of the dismal science of economics would look at their demand curves and the data on incomes and taxes and pronounce a verdict, the way Galileo and Copernicus did when they showed that geocentrism was a fantasy because the Earth revolves around the sun (known as heliocentrism). But economics is not like that. It is not like physics with its laws and arithmetic with its absolute values.

Tax policy is something the framers of the Constitution left to politics. And in politics, the facts often matter less then who has the biggest bullhorn.

The Mad Men who once ran campaigns featuring doctors extolling the health benefits of smoking are now busy marketing the dogma that tax cuts mean broad prosperity, no matter what the facts show.

As millions of Americans prepare to file their annual taxes, they do so in an environment of media-perpetuated tax myths. Here are a few points about taxes and the economy that you may not know, to consider as you prepare to file your taxes. (All figures are inflation adjusted.)

1. Poor Americans do pay taxes.

Gretchen Carlson, the Fox News host, said last year “47 percent of Americans don’t pay any taxes.” John McCain and Sarah Palin both said similar things during the 2008 campaign about the bottom half of Americans.

Ari Fleischer, the former Bush White House spokesman, once said “50 percent of the country gets benefits without paying for them.”

Actually, they pay lots of taxes — just not lots of federal income taxes.

Data from the Tax Foundation shows that in 2008, the average income for the bottom half of taxpayers was $15,300.

This year the first $9,350 of income is exempt from taxes for singles and $18,700 for married couples, just slightly more than in 2008. That means millions of the poor do not make enough to owe income taxes.

But they still pay plenty of other taxes, including federal payroll taxes. Between gas taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes and other taxes, no one lives tax free in America.

When it comes to state and local taxes, the poor bear a heavier burden than the rich in every state except Vermont, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculated from official data. In Alabama, for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1 percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more.

2. The wealthiest Americans don’t carry the burden.

This is one of those oft-used canards. Senator Rand Paul, the tea party favorite from Kentucky, told David Letterman recently that “the wealthy do pay most of the taxes in this country.”

The Internet is awash with statements that the top 1 percent pays, depending on the year, 38 percent or more than 40 percent of taxes.

It’s true that the top 1 percent of wage earners paid 38 percent of the federal income taxes in 2008 (the most recent year for which data is available). But people forget that the income tax is less than half of federal taxes and only one-fifth of taxes at all levels of government.

Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance taxes (known as payroll taxes) are paid mostly by the bottom 90 percent of wage earners. That’s because, once you reach $106,800 of income, you pay no more for Social Security, though the much smaller Medicare tax applies to all wages. Warren Buffett pays the exact same amount of Social Security taxes as someone who earns $106,800.

3. In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service issues an annual report on the 400 highest income-tax payers. In 1961, there were 398 taxpayers who made $1 million or more, so I compared their income tax burdens from that year to 2007.

Despite skyrocketing incomes, the federal tax burden on the richest 400 has been slashed, thanks for a variety of loopholes, allowable deductions and other tools. The actual share of their income paid in taxes, according to the IRS, is 16.6 percent. Adding payroll taxes barely nudges that number.

Compare that to the vast majority of Americans, whose share of their income going to federal taxes increased from 13.1 percent in 1961 to 22.5 percent in 2007.

(By the way, during seven of the eight Bush years, the IRS report on the top 400 taxpayers was labeled a state secret, a policy that the Obama overturned almost instantly after his inauguration.)

4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.

John Paulson, the most successful hedge fund manager of all, bet against the mortgage market one year and then bet with Glenn Beck in the gold market the next. Paulson made himself $9 billion in fees in just two years. His current tax bill on that $9 billion? Zero.

Congress lets hedge fund managers earn all they can now and pay their taxes years from now.

In 2007, Congress debated whether hedge fund managers should pay the top tax rate that applies to wages, bonuses and other compensation for their labors, which is 35 percent. That tax rate starts at about $300,000 of taxable income; not even pocket change to Paulson, but almost 12 years of gross pay to the median-wage worker.

The Republicans and a key Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, fought to keep the tax rate on hedge fund managers at 15 percent, arguing that the profits from hedge funds should be considered capital gains, not ordinary income, which got a lot of attention in the news.

What the news media missed is that hedge fund managers don’t even pay 15 percent. At least, not currently. So long as they leave their money, known as “carried interest,” in the hedge fund, their taxes are deferred. They only pay taxes when they cash out, which could be decades from now for younger managers. How do these hedge fund managers get money in the meantime? By borrowing against the carried interest, often at absurdly low rates — currently about 2 percent.

Lots of other people live tax-free, too. I have Donald Trump’s tax records for four years early in his career. He paid no taxes for two of those years. Big real-estate investors enjoy tax-free living under a 1993 law President Clinton signed. It lets “professional” real-estate investors use paper losses like depreciation on their buildings against any cash income, even if they end up with negative incomes like Trump.

Frank and Jamie McCourt, who own the Los Angeles Dodgers, have not paid any income taxes since at least 2004, their divorce case revealed. Yet they spent $45 million one year alone. How? They just borrowed against Dodger ticket revenue and other assets. To the IRS, they look like paupers.

In Wisconsin, Terrence Wall, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010, paid no income taxes on as much as $14 million of recent income, his disclosure forms showed. Asked about his living tax-free while working people pay taxes, he had a simple response: everyone should pay less.

5. And (surprise!) since Reagan , only the wealthy have gained significant income.

The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and similar conservative marketing organizations tell us relentlessly that lower tax rates will make us all better off.

“When tax rates are reduced, the economy’s growth rate improves and living standards increase,” according to Daniel J. Mitchell, an economist at Heritage until he joined Cato. He says that supply-side economics is “the simple notion that lower tax rates will boost work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship.”

When Reagan was elected president, the marginal tax rate for income was 70 percent. He cut it to 50 percent and then 28 percent starting in 1987. It was raised by George H.W. Bush and Clinton and then cut by George W. Bush. The top rate is now 35 percent.

Since 1980, when President Reagan won election promising prosperity through tax cuts, the average income of the vast majority — the bottom 90 percent of Americans — has increased a meager $303, or 1 percent. Put another way, for each dollar people in the vast majority made in 1980, in 2008 their income was up to $1.01.

Those at the top did better. The top 1 percent’s average income more than doubled to $1.1 million, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. The really rich, the top 10th of 1 percent, each enjoyed almost $4 in 2008 for each dollar in 1980.

The top 300,000 Americans now enjoy almost as much income as the bottom 150 million, the data show.

6. When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same — less taxes.

Corporate profits in 2008, the latest year for which data is available, were $1.8 billion, up almost 12 percent from $1.6 billion in 2000. Yet even though corporate tax rates have not been cut, corporate income-tax revenues fell to $230 billion from $249 billion — an 8 percent decline, thanks to a number of loopholes. The official 2010 profit numbers are not added up and released by the government, but the amount paid in corporate taxes is: in 2010 they fell further, to $191 billion — a decline of more than 23 percent compared with 2000.

7. Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.

Despite all the noise that America has the world’s second highest corporate tax rate, the actual taxes paid by corporations are falling because of the growing number of loopholes and companies shifting profits to tax havens like the Cayman Islands.

And right now America’s corporations are sitting on close to $2 trillion in cash that is not being used to build factories, create jobs or anything else, but act as an insurance policy for managers unwilling to take the risk of actually building the businesses they are paid so well to run. That cash hoard, by the way, works out to nearly $13,000 per taxpaying household.

A corporate tax rate that is too low actually destroys jobs. That’s because a higher tax rate encourages businesses (who don’t want to pay taxes) to keep the profits in the business and reinvest, rather than pull them out as profits and have to pay high taxes.

The 2004 American Jobs Creation Act, which passed with bipartisan support, allowed more than 800 companies to bring profits that were untaxed but overseas back to the United States. Instead of paying the usual 35 percent tax, the companies paid just 5.25 percent.

The companies said bringing the money home — “repatriating” it, they called it — would mean lots of jobs. Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican, put the figure at 660,000 new jobs.

Pfizer, the drug company, was the biggest beneficiary. It brought home $37 billion, saving $11 billion in taxes. Almost immediately it started firing people. Since the law took effect, it has let 40,000 workers go. In all, it appears that at least 100,000 jobs were destroyed.

Now Congressional Republicans and some Democrats are gearing up again to pass another tax holiday, promoting a new Jobs Creation Act. It would affect 10 times as much money as the 2004 law.

8. Republicans like taxes too.

President Reagan signed into law 11 tax increases, targeted at people down the income ladder. His administration and the Washington press corps called the increases “revenue enhancers.” Among other things, Reagan hiked Social Security taxes so high that by the end of 2008, the government had collected more than $2 trillion in surplus tax.

George W. Bush signed a tax increase, too, in 2006, despite his written ironclad pledge to never raise taxes on anyone. It raised taxes on teenagers by requiring kids up to age 17, who earned money, to pay taxes at their parents’ tax rate, which would almost always be higher than the rate they would otherwise pay. It was a story that ran buried inside The New York Times one Sunday, but nowhere else.

In fact, thanks to Republicans, one in three Americans will pay higher taxes this year than they did last year.

First, some history. In 2009, President Obama pushed his own tax cut—for the working class. He persuaded Congress to enact the Making Work Pay Tax Credit. Over the two years 2009 and 2010, it saved single workers up to $800 and married heterosexual couples up to $1,600, even if only one spouse worked. The top 5 percent or so of taxpayers were denied this tax break.

The Obama administration called it “the biggest middle-class tax cut” ever. Yet last December the Republicans, poised to regain control of the House of Representatives, killed Obama’s Making Work Pay Credit while extending the Bush tax cuts for two more years — a policy Obama agreed to.

By doing so, Congressional Republican leaders increased taxes on a third of Americans, virtually all of them the working poor, this year.

As a result, of the 155 million households in the tax system, 51 million will pay an average of $129 more this year. That is $6.6 billion in higher taxes for the working poor, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated.

In addition, the Republicans changed the rate of workers’ FICA contributions, which finances half of Social Security. The result:

If you are single and make less than $20,000, or married and less than $40,000, you lose under this plan.

But the top 5 percent, people who make more than $106,800, will save $2,136 ($4,272 for two-career couples).

9. Other countries do it better.

We measure our economic progress, and our elected leaders debate tax policy, in terms of a crude measure known as gross domestic product. The way the official statistics are put together, each dollar spent buying solar energy equipment counts the same as each dollar spent investigating murders.

We do not give any measure of value to time spent rearing children or growing our own vegetables or to time off for leisure and community service.

And we do not measure the economic damage done by shocks, such as losing a job, which means not only loss of income and depletion of savings, but loss of health insurance, which a Harvard Medical School study found results in 45,000 unnecessary deaths each year

Compare this to Germany, one of many countries with a smarter tax system and smarter spending policies.

Germans work less, make more per hour and get much better parental leave than Americans, many of whom get no fringe benefits such as health care, pensions or even a retirement savings plan. By many measures the vast majority live better in Germany than in America.

To achieve this, single German workers on average pay 52 percent of their income in taxes. Americans average 30 percent, according to the Organizations for Economic Cooperation and Development.

At first blush, the German tax burden seems horrendous. But in Germany (as well as Britain, France, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, and Japan), tax-supported institutions provide many of the things Americans pay for with after-tax dollars. Buying wholesale rather than retail saves money.

A proper comparison would take the 30 percent average tax on American workers and add their out-of-pocket spending on health care, college tuition, and fees for services and compare that with taxes that the average German pays. Add it all up and the combination of tax and personal spending is roughly equal in both countries, but with a large risk of catastrophic loss in America, and a tiny risk in Germany.

Americans take on $85 billion of debt each year for higher education, while college is financed by taxes in Germany and tuition is cheap to free in other modern countries. While soaring medical costs are a key reason that since 1980 bankruptcy in America has increased 15 times faster than population growth, no one in Germany or the rest of the modern world goes broke because of accident or illness. And child poverty in America is the highest among modern countries — almost twice the rate in Germany, which is close to the average of modern countries.

On the corporate tax side, the Germans encourage reinvestment at home and the outsourcing of low-value work, like auto assembly, and German rules tightly control accounting so that profits earned at home cannot be made to appear as profits earned in tax havens.

Adopting the German system is not the answer for America. But crafting a tax system that benefits the vast majority, reduces risks, provides universal health care and focuses on diplomacy rather than militarism abroad (and at home) would be a lot smarter than what we have now.

Here is a question to ask yourself: We started down this road with Reagan’s election in 1980 and upped the ante in this century with George W. Bush.

How long does it take to conclude that a policy has failed to fulfill its promises? And as you think of that, keep in mind George Washington. When he fell ill his doctors followed the common wisdom of the era. They cut him and bled him to remove bad blood. As Washington’s condition grew worse, they bled him more. And like the mantra of tax cuts for the rich, they kept applying the same treatment until they killed him.

Luckily we don’t bleed the sick anymore, but we are bleeding our government to death.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

David Cay Johnston is a columnist for tax.com and teaches the tax, property, and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and Whitman School of Management. He has also been called the “de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States” because his reporting in The New York Times shut down many tax dodges and schemes, just two of them valued by Congress at $260 billion.

Johnston received a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for exposing tax loopholes and inequities. He wrote two bestsellers on taxes, Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch. Later this year David Cay Johnston will be out with a new book, The Fine Print, revealing how big business, with help from politicians, abuses plain English to rob you blind.

Our Weekly Picks: April 13-19, 2011

Maria Poblet

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April 12, 2011

0

THURSDAY

APRIL 14

MUSIC

Two Door Cinema Club

Featured as a “You Oughta Know” artist on VH1, Northern Ireland’s Two Door Cinema Club is an indie electropop trio comprised of Alex Trimble (lead vocals/guitar), Sam Halliday (vocals/guitar), and Kevin Baird (bass/vocals). (What of the drummer, you ask? Sometimes human, sometimes a computer.) The band’s Tourist History recently picked up the 2010 Choice Music Prize for Irish album of the year, suggesting its making good on the promise shown by opening for indie rock greats like Foals, Phoenix, and Delphic. If you’re one of the working schmucks who can’t take the time off for Coachella, catch Two Door Cinema Club before it goes to Indio. (Jen Verzosa)

With Globes and Work Drugs

8 p.m., $20

Fillmore

1850 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.livenation.com

EVENT

“Charles Phoenix Retro Slide Show”

Oddball Americana guru Charles Phoenix has explored and celebrated the best in kitschy, cool, kooky artifacts and history for many years now, having written several books on mid-20th century deep-fried pop culture, fashion, lifestyles, and more. The author of tomes such as Southern California In The ’50s and Americana The Beautiful brings his hilarious slide show and talk to the city, set to roast the imagery found in some of the thousands of vintage Kodachrome slides has collected at flea markets over the years. Be sure to keep an eye out for some familiar places and things — Phoenix has promised to include a bevy of vintage San Francisco slides for this entertaining ode to the odd and unique. (Sean McCourt)

8 p.m., $25

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

PERFORMANCE

Our Daily Bread

Carb load on this: in a collaboration between Amara Tabor-Smith’s Deep Waters Dance Theater, director Ellen Sebastian Chang, and visual artist Lauren Elder, Our Daily Bread delves into the folklore and stories surrounding food traditions. The socially conscious hybrid theater experience draws from a family gumbo tradition, examining how industrialized agriculture, fast food culture, and our global food crisis affect current food practices. In addition, CounterPulse resident artist Tabor-Smith also considers who is missing from the sustainable food movement. With red beans and rice on the mind, expect to fill your plate with individual food legacies and questions regarding your own relationship to food. You are what you eat. (Julie Potter)

Thurs/14–Sun/17, 8 p.m., $18–$22

CounterPulse

1310 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2060

www.counterpulse.org

EVENT

Nikki Sixx

Known not only for his fiery stage presence and key songwriting contributions as bassist for Mötley Crüe, Nikki Sixx also gained a notorious reputation for his off-stage antics, particularly his legendary appetite for drugs and debauchery. Sober now for several years, Sixx detailed many of these early escapades and horrors in his 2007 book The Heroin Diaries. He returns — just before a major summer tour, which includes a June stop in SF — with the follow-up, This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography, and Life through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx, a look at his post-addiction life that finds him a successful author, radio host, and of course, still rocking the stage with the Crüe. (McCourt)

6 p.m., $29.99 (includes book)

Book Passage

One Ferry Building, SF

(415) 835-1020

www.bookpassage.com

FRIDAY

APRIL 15

DANCE

Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet

The longer I watch Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet, the more this choreographer manages to surprise me. What intrigues is not so much his language — intricate, idiosyncratic, and demanding — or even the way he uses it on his dancers. But there is a vision, a philosophy behind his work, that we get glimpses of in every new piece. That’s what good dance is supposed to do. King also goes out of his way to find collaborators who can envelop his choreography in the mantle of new contexts. Of course, it helps that these other-than-dance contributions, in particular, are often spectacular on their own. But to get Mickey Hart, who actually is philosophically pretty close to King, create a score for Lines Ballet is a coup even for a choreographer with a growing international reputation. Architect Christopher Haas, who worked on the de Young Museum, created the set. (Rita Felciano)

Through April 24

Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; April 20–21, 7:30 p.m.;

April 24, 5 p.m., $25–$65

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Novellus Theater

700 Howard, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.linesballet.org

MUSIC

The Residents

Hang on to your eyeballs, San Francisco’s most enigmatic art-rock collective the Residents will storm the stage at Bimbo’s in support of its for-no-particular-reason, ghost-story themed “Traveling Light” tour. The calculatedly anonymous group (currently a trio), as well known for its elaborately costumed stage personae and mixed-media presentations as for its deconstructed lyrics and dystopian musical baditude, is fast approaching its fourth decade. But don’t expect a set stuffed merely with humdrum nostalgia. Actually, don’t expecting any particular thing, because defying expectations is what the Residents do best. Word is the group will be recording the proceedings in three (possibly four ) dimensions, so wearing your very best top hat to the show might not be a bad idea. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Fri/15–Sat/16, 9 p.m., $30

Bimbo’s

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

PERFORMANCE

Zaccho Dance Theatre

With a title — The Monkey and the Devil — taken from racial slurs, Joanna Haigood’s dance theater performance installation, performed by Zaccho Dance Theatre, addresses lingering contemporary racism, rooted in the lasting effects of America’s slave trade. Even in the age of Obama, the performance acknowledges how Americans grapple with the residue of slavery and reunite a split house. Surrounded by two massive, rotating set pieces designed by visual artist Charles Trapolin, audience members are free to navigate the continuously running performance installation in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum. A post-performance discussion follows Friday’s installment. Don’t miss this immersive, compelling work. (Potter)

Fri/15, 8–10 p.m.;

Sat/16-Sun/17, 12-2 p.m. and 3–5 p.m., free

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-5210

www.ybca.org

SATURDAY

APRIL 16

EVENT

“How-to Homestead: 11 in 11 Tour”

You can go on tour without ever leaving your city. That’s the idealistic message of How-to Homestead’s “11 in 11 Tour,” a yearlong barnstorming series with dates planned for each of San Francisco’s districts. Spearheaded by Melinda Stone, a University of San Francisco professor equally knowledgeable in matters of celluloid and soil, How-to Homestead’s homebrew of entertainment and education draws on alternative cinema, practical workshops, and live music to create a distinctly flavorful commons. The fourth “11 in 11” program takes place at the historic Bayview Opera House and features a “Chickens in the City” workshop and contra dance call, in addition to the usual potluck dinner and film treats. With spring in the air, it should be an especially lively installment. (Max Goldberg)

4–10:30 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Bayview Opera House

4705 Third St., SF

www.howtohomestead.org

DANCE

ODC Dance Jam

At first the ODC Dance Jam consisted of half a dozen cute kids showing their prowess on an ODC/Dance opening night. Today ODC’s youth program is much too big for such capers, and the tables have been turned. This year the professional company will make an appearance — with Brenda Way’s John Somebody — at ODC Dance Jam’s own concert, “Make the Road by Walking.” Taking classes five times in addition to rehearsing, the 14-member troupe, ages 13-18, may not call itself pre-professional, but its dancers surely are on the way. KT Nelson, Kimi Okada, Bliss Kohlmeyer-Dowman, Greg Dawson, and Kim Epifano, about as professional a group as any, created choreography for them. (Felciano)

Sat/16, 8 p.m.; Sun/17, 4 and 7 p.m., $12

ODC Dance Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9830

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/166923

SUNDAY

APRIL 17

MUSIC

Foxtails Brigade

(((folkYeah!))) and Antenna Farm Records host a release party in honor of San Francisco duo Foxtails Brigade’s full-length debut, The Bread and the Bait. On its surface, The Bread and the Bait is as delicate as lace — the album art depicts a ladylike tea party in progress. But look closer (why are two of the women blindfolded? And why is one clutching a knife?) and listen closely: there’s an underlying darkness cloaked in those ethereal vocals set against simple cello and violin melodies. Join in the celebration with musical performances by ‘Tails and Rachel Fannan of Sleepy Sun, plus comedy by Brent Weinbach and Moeshe Kasher, and a fashion show featuring designs by Verriers and Sako, Lecon de Vetement, and Zoe Hong. (Verzosa)

With Rachel Fannan

8 p.m., $15

Swedish American Music Hall

2174 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.swedishamericanhall.com MUSIC

Wire

On a recent trip to New York City, I won tickets to watch Wire from the “Band Bench” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Arriving at 30 Rock, I found a few other awkward music nerds who refused to take off their jackets looking forward to the performance. In a bit of TV magic, they filled out the 30 or so “hardcore fans” with tourists eager for a glimpse of Fallon guest Keanu Reeves. It could just be the standard practice, but it’s also typical of the U.K. band’s U.S. reception, remaining relatively unknown despite being perpetual critical darlings and inspiring alternative rock bands throughout a career spanning from the release of 1977’s influential punk album, Pink Flag, to their most recent, Red Barked Tree. (Ryan Prendiville) With Lumerians and DJ Callum McGowan

8 p.m., $21

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

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Film Listings

Maria Poblet

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April 12, 2011

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

OPENING

An Affirmative Act A lesbian couple fights for their right to stay married in this narrative courtroom drama. (1:33) Four Star.

*Circo The old notion of “running away with the circus” seldom seemed appealing — conjuring images of following an elephant around with a shovel — and it grows even less so after watching Aaron Schock’s warm, touching documentary. The kids here might one day run away from the circus. They’re born into Grand Circo Mexico, one of four circuses run by the Ponce family, which has been in this business for generations; if they’re old enough to walk, they’re old enough to perform, and help with the endless setup and breakdown chores. (Presumably child labor laws are an innovation still waiting to happen here.) Touring Mexico’s small towns in trucks with a variety of exotic animals, it’s a life of labor, with on-the-job training in place of school — arguably not much of a life for child, as current company leader Tino’s wife Ivonne (who really did run away with the circus, or rather him, at age 15) increasingly insists. Other family members have split for a normal life, and Tino is caught between loyalty to his parents’ ever-struggling business and not wanting to lose the family he’s raised himself. This beautifully shot document, scored by Calexico and edited by Mark Becker (of 2005’s marvelous Romantico), is a disarming look at a lifestyle that feels almost 19th century, and is barely hobbling into the 21st one. (1:15) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Conspirator It may not be your standard legal drama, but The Conspirator is a lot more enjoyable when you think of it as an extended episode of Law & Order. The film chronicles the trial of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), the lone woman charged in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. It’s a fascinating story, especially for those who don’t know much of the history past John Wilkes Booth. But while the subject matter is compelling, the execution is hit-or-miss. Wright is sympathetic as Surratt, but the usually great James McAvoy is somewhat forgettable in the pivotal role of Frederick Aiken, Surratt’s conflicted lawyer. It’s hard to say what it is that’s missing from The Conspirator: the cast — which also includes Evan Rachel Wood and Tom Wilkinson — is great, and this is a story that’s long overdue to be told. Still, something is lacking. Could it be the presence of everyone’s favorite detective, the late Lennie Briscoe? (2:02) Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Peitzman)

Henry’s Crime See “Breaking Point.” (1:48) California, Embarcadero.

Meet Monica Velour Kim Cattrall stars as an aging porn star in this comedy. (1:37)

Rio Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway lend their voices to this animated bird adventure. (1:32) Presidio.

Scre4m It’s kinda fun to just look at the cast list and wonder which demi-star will suffer the most hideous death at the hands of ol’ Ghostface: Emma Roberts? Adam Brody? Shanae Grimes? (run time not available)

Some Days Are Better Than Others First-time director Matt McCormick doesn’t break any new stylistic or thematic ground with his ensemble drama, but Some Days Are Better Than Others does boast an interesting bit of stunt casting. Indie rock fans will recognize the Shins’ James Mercer as mopey Eli, who drifts between temp jobs trying to earn enough money to go back to school because he hates working so much; fellow musician Carrie Brownstein appears as Katrina, a recently-dumped, reality TV-obsessed dog-shelter worker; her character is the kind of emo thrift-shopper that Portlandia would had no trouble poking fun at. Other points on this sad-sack square are a lonely woman ((Renee Roman Nose) who finds an erstwhile cremation urn, and an elderly man (David Wodehouse) obsessed with the kaleidoscope-like patterns he captures while filming soap bubbles. Moments of wry humor (Katrina checks messages at “mumblemail.net”) and some Ghost World-ish jabs at mainstream go-getters (including a moving-company douchebag who hires Eli to help clean out a recently-deceased woman’s house) keep Some Days from being a total downer, but be warned: this is one melancholy movie. Shins fans will enjoy the scene where Eli, alone in his room, rehearses for a yearned-for karaoke date with a Bonnie Tyler classic. (1:33) Roxie. (Eddy)

ONGOING

The Adjustment Bureau As far as sci-fi romantic thrillers go, The Adjustment Bureau is pretty standard. But since that’s not an altogether common genre mash-up, I guess the film deserves some points for creativity. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau takes place in a world where all of our fates are predetermined. Political hotshot David Norris (Matt Damon) is destined for greatness — but not if he lets a romantic dalliance with dancer Elise (Emily Blunt) take precedence. And in order to make sure he stays on track, the titular Adjustment Bureau (including Anthony Mackie and Mad Men‘s John Slattery) are there to push him in the right direction. While the film’s concept is intriguing, the execution is sloppy. The Adjustment Bureau suffers from flaws in internal logic, allowing the story to skip over crucial plot points with heavy exposition and a deus ex machina you’ve got to see to believe. Couldn’t the screenwriter have planned ahead? (1:39) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Arthur (1:45) Empire, Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

*Battle: Los Angeles Michael Bay is likely writhing with envy over Battle: Los Angeles; his Transformers flicks take a more, erm, nuanced view of alien-on-human violence. But they’re not all such bad guys after all; these days, as District 9 (2009) demonstrated, alien invasions are more hazardous to the brothers and sisters from another planet than those trigger-happy humanoids ready to defend terra firma. So Battle arrives like an anomaly — a war-is-good action movie aimed at faceless space invaders who resemble the Alien (1979) mother more than the wide-eyed lost souls of District 9. Still reeling from his last tour of duty, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is ready to retire, until he’s pulled back in by a world invasion, staged by thirsty aliens. In approximating D-Day off the beach of Santa Monica, director Jonathan Liebesman manages to combine the visceral force of Saving Private Ryan (1998) with the what-the-fuck hand-held verite rush of Cloverfield (2008) while crafting tiny portraits of all his Marines, including Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo, and True Blood‘s Jim Parrack. A few moments of requisite flag-waving are your only distractions from the almost nonstop white-knuckle tension fueling Battle: Los Angeles. (1:57) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*Bill Cunningham New York To say that Bill Cunningham, the 82-year old New York Times photographer, has made documenting how New Yorkers dress his life’s work would be an understatement. To be sure, Cunningham’s two decades-old Sunday Times columns — “On the Street,” which tracks street-fashion, and “Evening Hours,” which covers the charity gala circuit — are about the clothes. And, my, what clothes they are. But Cunningham is a sartorial anthropologist, and his pictures always tell the bigger story behind the changing hemlines, which socialite wore what designer, or the latest trend in footwear. Whether tracking the near-infinite variations of a particular hue, a sudden bumper-crop of cropped blazers, or the fanciful leaps of well-heeled pedestrians dodging February slush puddles, Cunningham’s talent lies in his ability to recognize fleeting moments of beauty, creativity, humor, and joy. That last quality courses through Bill Cunningham New York, Richard Press’ captivating and moving portrait of a man whose reticence and personal asceticism are proportional to his total devotion to documenting what Harold Koda, chief curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, describes in the film as “ordinary people going about their lives, dressed in fascinating ways.” (1:24) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Sussman)

*Cedar Rapids What if The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) got so Parks and Rec‘d at The Office party that he ended up with a killer Hangover (2009)? Just maybe the morning-after baby would be Cedar Rapids. Director Miguel Arteta (2009’s Youth in Revolt) wrings sweet-natured chuckles from his banal, intensely beige wall-to-wall convention center biosphere, spurring such ponderings as, should John C. Reilly snatch comedy’s real-guy MVP tiara away from Seth Rogen? Consider Tim Lippe (Ed Helms of The Hangover), the polar opposite of George Clooney’s ultracompetent, complacent ax-wielder in Up in the Air (2009). He’s the naive manchild-cum-corporate wannabe who never quite graduated from Timmyville into adulthood. But it’s up to Lippe to hold onto his firm’s coveted two-star rating at an annual convention in Cedar Rapids. Life conspires against him, however, and despite his heartfelt belief in insurance as a heroic profession, Lippe immediately gets sucked into the oh-so-distracting drama, stirred up by the dangerously subversive “Deanzie” Ziegler (John C. Reilly), whom our naif is warned against as a no-good poacher. Temptations lie around every PowerPoint and potato skin; as Deanzie warns Lippe’s Candide, “I’ve got tiger scratches all over my back. If you want to survive in this business, you gotta daaance with the tiger.” How do you do that? Cue lewd, boozy undulations — a potbelly lightly bouncing in the air-conditioned breeze. “You’ve got to show him a little teat.” Fortunately Arteta shows us plenty of that, equipped with a script by Wisconsin native Phil Johnston, written for Helms — and the latter does not disappoint. (1:26) Shattuck. (Chun)

Certified Copy Abbas Kiarostami’s beguiling new feature signals “relationship movie” with every cobblestone step, but it’s manifestly a film of ideas — one in which disillusionment is as much a formal concern as a dramatic one. Typical of Kiarostami’s dialogic narratives, Certified Copy is both the name of the film and an entity within the film: a book written against the ideal of originality in art by James Miller (William Shimell), an English pedant fond of dissembling. After a lecture in Tuscany, he meets an apparent admirer (Juliette Binoche) in her antique shop. We watch them talk for several minutes in an unbroken two-shot. They gauge each other’s values using her sister as a test case — a woman who, according to the Binoche character, is the living embodiment of James’ book. Do their relative opinions of this off-screen cipher constitute characterization? Or are they themselves ciphers of the film’s recursive structure? Kiarostami makes us wonder. They begin to act as if they were married midway through the film, though the switch is not so out of the blue: Kiarostami’s narrative has already turned a few figure-eights. Several critics have already deemed Certified Copy derivative of many other elliptical romances; the strongest case for an “original” comes of Roberto Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy (1954). The real difference is that while Rossellini’s masterpiece realizes first-person feelings in a third-person approach, Kiarostami stays in the shadow of doubt to the end. (1:46) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Goldberg)

*Hanna The title character of Hanna falls perfectly into the lately very popular Hit-Girl mold. Add a dash of The Boys from Brazil-style genetic engineering — Hanna has the unfair advantage, you see, when it comes to squashing other kids on the soccer field or maiming thugs with her bare hands — and you have an ethereal killing/survival machine, played with impassive confidence by Atonement (2007) shit-starter Saoirse Ronan. She’s been fine-tuned by her father, Erik (Eric Bana), a spy who went out into the cold and off the grid, disappearing into the wilds of Scandinavia where he home-schooled his charge with an encyclopedia and brutal self-defense and hunting tests. Atonement director Joe Wright plays with a snowy palette associated with innocence, purity, and death — this could be any time or place, though far from the touch of modern childhood stresses: that other Hannah (Montana), consumerism, suburban blight, and academic competition. The 16-year-old Hanna, however, isn’t immune from that desire to succeed. Her game mission: go from a feral, lonely existence into the modern world, run for her life, and avenge the death of her mother by killing Erik’s CIA handler, Marissa (Cate Blanchett). The nagging doubt: was she born free, or Bourne to be a killer? Much like the illustrated Brothers Grimm storybook that she studies, Hanna is caught in an evil death trap of fairytale allegories. One wonders if the super-soldier apple didn’t fall far from the tree, since evil stepmonster Marissa oversaw the program that produced Hanna — the older woman and the young girl have the same cold-blooded talent for destruction and the same steely determination. Yet there’s hope for the young ‘un. After learning that even her beloved father hid some basic truths from her, this natural-born killer seems less likely to go along with the predetermined ending, happy or no, further along in her storybook life. (1:51) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Hop (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck.

I Am File in the dusty back drawer of An Inconvenient Truth (2006) wannabes. The cringe-inducing, pretentious title is a giveaway — though the good intentions are in full effect — in this documentary by and about director Tom Shadyac’s search for answers to life’s big questions. After a catastrophic bike accident, the filmmaker finds his lavish lifestyle as a successful Hollywood director of such opuses as Bruce Almighty (2003) somewhat wanting. Thinkers and spiritual leaders such as Desmond Tutu, Howard Zinn, UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, and scientist David Suzuki provide some thought-provoking answers, although Shadyac’s thinking behind seeking out this specific collection of academics, writers, and activists remains somewhat unclear. I Am‘s shambling structure and perpetual return to its true subject — Shadyac, who resembles a wide-eyed Weird Al Yankovic — doesn’t help matters, leaving a viewer with mixed feelings, less about whether one man can work out his quest for meaning on film, than whether Shadyac complements his subjects and their ideas by framing them in such a random, if well-meaning, manner. And sorry, this film doesn’t make up for Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994). (1:16) Shattuck. (Chun)

*In a Better World Winner of this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, this latest from Danish director Susanne Bier (2004’s Brothers, 2006’s After the Wedding) and her usual co-scenarist Anders Thomas Jensen (2005’s Adam’s Apples, 2003’s The Green Butchers) is a typically engrossing, complex drama that deals with the kind of rage for “personal justice” that can lead to school and workplace shootings, among other things (like terrorism). Shy, nervous ten-year-old Elias (Markus Rygaard) needs a confidence boost, but things are worrying both at home and elsewhere. His parents are estranged, and his doting father (Mikael Persbrandt) is mostly away as a field hospital in Kenya tending victims of local militias. At school, he’s an easy mark for bullies, a fact which gets the attention of charismatic, self-assured new kid Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen), who appoints himself Elias’ new (and only) friend — then when his slightly awed pal is picked on again, intervenes with such alarming intensity that the police are called. Christian appears a little too prone to violence and harsh judgment in teaching “lessons” to those he considers in the wrong; his own domestic situation is another source of anger, as he simplistically blames his earnest, distracted executive father (Ulrich Thomsen) for his mother’s recent cancer death. Is Christian a budding little psychopath, or just a kid haplessly channeling his profound loss? Regardless, when an adult bully (Kim Bodnia as a loutish mechanic) humiliates Elias’ father in front of the two boys, Christian pulls his reluctant friend into a pursuit of vengeance that surely isn’t going to end well. With their nuanced yet head-on treatment of hot button social and ethical issues, Bier and Jensen’s work can sometimes border on overly-schematic melodrama, meting out its own secular-humanist justice a bit too handily, like 21st-century cinematic Dickenses. But like Dickens, they also have a true mastery of the creating striking characters and intricately propulsive plotlines that illustrate the points at hand in riveting, hugely satisfying fashion. This isn’t their best. But it’s still pretty excellent, and one of those universally accessible movies you can safely recommend even to people who think they don’t like foreign or art house films. (1:53) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Insidious (1:42) 1000 Van Ness.

*Jane Eyre Do we really need another adaptation of Jane Eyre? As long as they’re all as good as Cary Fukunaga’s stirring take on the gothic romance, keep ’em coming. Mia Wasikowska stars in the titular role, with the dreamy Michael Fassbender stepping into the high pants of Edward Rochester. The cast is rounded out by familiar faces like Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, and Sally Hawkins — all of whom breathe new life into the material. It helps that Fukunaga’s sensibilities are perfectly suited to the story: he stays true to the novel while maintaining an aesthetic certain to appeal to a modern audience. Even if you know Jane Eyre’s story — Mr. Rochester’s dark secret, the fate of their romance, etc. — there are still surprises to be had. Everyone tells the classics differently, and this adaptation is a thoroughly unique experience. And here’s hoping it pushes the engaging Wasikowska further in her ascent to stardom. (2:00) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Kill the Irishman If you enjoy 1970s-set Mafia movies featuring characters with luxurious facial hair zooming around in Cadillacs, flossing leather blazers, and outwitting cops and each other — you could do a lot worse than Kill the Irishman, which busts no genre boundaries but delivers enjoyable retro-gangsta cool nonetheless. Adapted from the acclaimed true crime book by a former Cleveland police lieutenant, the film details the rise and fall of Danny Greene, a colorful and notorious Irish-American mobster who both served and ran afoul of the big bosses in his Ohio hometown. During one particularly conflict-ridden period, the city weathered nearly 40 bombings — buildings, mailboxes, and mostly cars, to the point where the number of automobiles going sky-high is almost comical (you’d think these guys would’ve considered taking the bus). The director of the 2004 Punisher, Jonathan Hensleigh, teams up with the star of 2008’s Punisher: War Zone, Ray Stevenson, who turns in a magnetic performance as Greene; it’s easy to see how his combination of book- and street smarts (with a healthy dash of ruthlessness) buoyed him nearly to the top of the underworld. The rest of the cast is equally impressive, with Vincent D’Onofrio, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, and Linda Cardellini turning in supporting roles, plus a host of dudes who look freshly defrosted from post-Sopranos storage. (1:46) Lumiere. (Eddy)

The King’s Speech Films like The King’s Speech have filled a certain notion of “prestige” cinema since the 1910s: historical themes, fully-clothed romance, high dramatics, star turns, a little political intrigue, sumptuous dress, and a vicarious taste of how the fabulously rich, famous, and powerful once lived. At its best, this so-called Masterpiece Theatre moviemaking can transcend formula — at its less-than-best, however, these movies sell complacency, in both style and content. In The King’s Speech, Colin Firth plays King George VI, forced onto the throne his favored older brother Edward abandoned. This was especially traumatic because George’s severe stammer made public address tortuous. Enter matey Australian émigré Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, mercifully controlled), a speech therapist whose unconventional methods include insisting his royal client treat him as an equal. This ultimately frees not only the king’s tongue, but his heart — you see, he’s never had anyone before to confide in that daddy (Michael Gambon as George V) didn’t love him enough. Aww. David Seidler’s conventionally inspirational script and BBC miniseries veteran Tom Hooper’s direction deliver the expected goods — dignity on wry, wee orgasms of aesthetic tastefulness, much stiff-upper-lippage — at a stately promenade pace. Firth, so good in the uneven A Single Man last year, is perfect in this rock-steadier vehicle. Yet he never surprises us; role, actor, and movie are on a leash tight enough to limit airflow. (1:58) Empire, Red Vic, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Limitless An open letter to the makers of Limitless: please fire your marketing team because they are making your movie look terrible. The story of a deadbeat writer (Bradley Cooper) who acquires an unregulated drug that allows him to take advantage of 100 percent of his previously under-utilized brain, Limitless is silly, improbable and features a number of distracting comic-book-esque stylistic tics. But consumed with the comic book in mind, Limitless is also unpredictable, thrilling, and darkly funny. The aforementioned style, which includes many instances of the infinite regression effect that you get when you point two mirrors at each other, and a heavy blur to distort depth-of-field, only solidifies the film’s cartoonish intentions. Cooper learns foreign languages in hours, impresses women with his keen attention to detail, and sets his sights on Wall Street, a move that gets him noticed by businessman Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro in a glorified cameo) as well as some rather nasty drug dealers and hired guns looking to cash in on the drug. Limitless is regrettably titled and masquerades in TV spots as a Wall Street series spin-off, but in truth it sports the speedy pacing and tongue-in-cheek humor required of a good popcorn flick. (1:37) California, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

*The Lincoln Lawyer Outfitted with gym’d-tanned-and-laundered manly blonde bombshells like Matthew McConaughey, Josh Lucas, and Ryan Phillippe, this adaptation of Michael Connelly’s LA crime novel almost cries out for an appearance by the Limitless Bradley Cooper — only then will our cabal of flaxen-haired bros-from-other-‘hos be complete. That said, Lincoln Lawyer‘s blast of morally challenged golden boys nearly detracts from the pleasingly gritty mise-en-scène and the snappy, almost-screwball dialogue that makes this movie a genre pleasure akin to a solid Elmore Leonard read. McConaughey’s criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller is accustomed to working all the angles — hence the title, a reference to a client who’s working off his debt by chauffeuring Haller around in his de-facto office: a Lincoln Town Car. Haller’s playa gets truly played when he becomes entangled with Louis Roulet (Phillippe), a pretty-boy old-money realtor accused of brutally attacking a call girl. Loved ones such as Haller’s ex Maggie (Marisa Tomei) and his investigator Frank (William H. Macy) are in jeopardy — and in danger of turning in some delightfully textured cameos — in this enjoyable walk on the sleazy side of the law, the contemporary courtroom counterpart to quick-witted potboilers like Sweet Smell of Success (1957). (1:59) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Max Manus One of Norway’s most expensive films to date, Max Manus follows the rise to infamy of the title character, a charismatic World War II resistance fighter whose specialty was blowing up German ships docked in occupied Oslo harbor. Again, I emphasize: this is a World War II movie about Norway made by Norwegians — though the Brits play a role, there’s nary a mention of the United States. That fact is the single most refreshing part of a movie that’s nonetheless clearly been inspired by stateside war epics, with traumatic flashbacks, male bonding, sadistic Nazis, rousing if familiar-sounding dialogue (“Being a commando takes more than courage!”), etc. Star Aksel Hennie anchors a film that’s painted in pretty broad strokes with a nuanced performance befitting the real-life Manus’ legacy as an everyman who became a hero. (1:58) Balboa. (Eddy)

Miral (1:42) Opera Plaza.

*Of Gods and Men It’s the mid-1990s, and we’re in Tibhirine, a small Algerian village based around a Trappist monastery. There, eight French-born monks pray and work alongside their Muslim neighbors, tending to the sick and tilling the land. An emboldened Islamist rebel movement threatens this delicate peace, and the monks must decide whether to risk the danger of becoming pawns in the Algerian Civil War. On paper, Of Gods and Men sounds like the sort of high-minded exploitation picture the Academy swoons over: based on a true story, with high marks for timeliness and authenticity. What a pleasant surprise then that Xavier Beauvois’s Cannes Grand Prix winner turns out to be such a tightly focused moral drama. Significantly, the film is more concerned with the power vacuum left by colonialism than a “clash of civilizations.” When Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson) turns away an Islamist commander by appealing to their overlapping scriptures, it’s at the cost of the Algerian army’s suspicion. Etienne Comar’s perceptive script does not rush to assign meaning to the monks’ decision to stay in Tibhirine, but rather works to imagine the foundation and struggle for their eventual consensus. Beauvois occasionally lapses into telegraphing the monks’ grave dilemma — there are far too many shots of Christian looking up to the heavens — but at other points he’s brilliant in staging the living complexity of Tibrihine’s collective structure of responsibility. The actors do a fine job too: it’s primarily thanks to them that by the end of the film each of the monks seems a sharply defined conscience. (2:00) Albany, Opera Plaza. (Goldberg)

Paul Across the aisle from the alien-shoot-em-up Battle: Los Angeles is its amiable, nerdy opposite: Paul, with its sweet geeks Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), off on a post-Comic-Con pilgrimage to all the US sites of alien visitation. Naturally the buddies get a close encounter of their very own, with a very down-to-earth every-dude of a schwa named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), given to scratching his balls, spreading galactic wisdom, utilizing Christ-like healing powers, and cracking wise when the situation calls for it (as when fear of anal probes escalates). Despite a Pegg-and-Frost-penned script riddled with allusions to Hollywood’s biggest extraterrestrial flicks and much 12-year-old-level humor concerning testicles and farts, the humor onslaught usually attached to the two lead actors — considered Lewis and Martin for pop-smart Anglophiles — seems to have lost some of its steam, and teeth, with the absence of former director and co-writer Edgar Wright (who took last year’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to the next level instead). Call it a “soft R” for language and an alien sans pants. (1:44) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*Poetry Sixtysomething Mija (legendary South Korean actor Yun Jung-hee) impulsively crashes a poetry class, a welcome shake-up in a life shaped by unfulfilling routines. In order to write compelling verse, her instructor says, it is important to open up and really see the world. But Mija’s world holds little beauty beyond her cheerful outfits and beloved flowers; most pressingly, her teenage grandson, a mouth-breathing lump who lives with her, is completely remorseless about his participation in a hideous crime. In addition, she’s just been disgnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and the elderly stroke victim she housekeeps for has started making inappropriate advances. Somehow writer-director Lee Chang-dong (2007’s Secret Sunshine) manages not to deliver a totally depressing film with all this loaded material; it’s worth noting Poetry won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Yun is unforgettable as a woman trying to find herself after a lifetime of obeying the wishes of everyone around her. Though Poetry is completely different in tone than 2009’s Mother, it shares certain elements — including the impression that South Korean filmmakers have recognized the considerable rewards of showcasing aging (yet still formidable) female performers. (2:19) Balboa, Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Potiche When we first meet Catherine Deneuve’s Suzanne — the titular trophy wife (or potiche) of Francois Ozon’s new airspun comedy — she is on her morning jog, barely breaking a sweat as she huffs and puffs in her maroon Adidas tracksuit, her hair still in curlers. It’s 1977 and Suzanne’s life as a bourgeois homemaker in a small provincial French town has played out as smoothly as one of her many poly-blend skirt suits: a devoted mother to two grown children and loving wife who turns a blind eye to the philandering of husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini), Suzanne is on the fast track to comfortable irrelevance. All that changes when the workers at Robert’s umbrella factory strike and take him hostage. Suzanne, with the help of union leader and old flame Babin (Gerard Depardieu, as big as a house), negotiates a peace, and soon turns around the company’s fortunes with her new-found confidence and business savvy. But when Robert wrests back control with the help of a duped Babin, Suzanne does an Elle Woods and takes them both on in a surprise run for political office. True to the film’s light théâtre de boulevard source material, Ozon keeps things brisk and cheeky (Suzanne sings with as much ease as she spouts off Women’s Lib boilerplate) to the point where his cast’s hammy performances start blending into the cheery production design. Satire needs an edge that Potiche, for all its charm, never provides. (1:43) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Sussman)

*Rubber This starts out just on the right side of self-conscious prank, introducing a droll fourth-wall-breaking framework to a serenely surreal central conceit: An old car tire abandoned in the desert miraculously animates itself to commit widespread mayhem. Credit writer-director-editor-cinematographer-composer Quentin Dupieux for an original concept and terrific execution, as our initially wobby antihero wends its way toward civilization, discovering en route it can explode (or just crush) other entities with its “mind.” Which this rumbling black ring of discontent very much enjoys doing, to the misfortune of various hapless humans and a few small animals. Rubber is an extended Dadaist joke that has adventurous fun with filmic and genre language. Beautifully executed as it is, the concept tires (ahem) after a while, reality-illusion games and comedic flair flagging by degrees. Still, it’s so polished and resourceful a treatment of an utterly peculiar idea that no self-respecting cult film fan will want to say they didn’t see this during its initial theatrical run. (1:25) Lumiere. (Harvey)

Soul Surfer (1:46) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*Source Code A post-9/11 Groundhog Day (1993) with explosions, Inception (2010) with a heart, or Avatar (2009) taken down a notch or dozen in Chicago —whatever you choose to call it, Source Code manages to stand up on its own wobbly Philip K. Dick-inspired legs, damn the science, and take off on the wings of wish fulfillment. ‘Cause who hasn’t yearned for a do-over — and then a do-over of that do-over, etc. We could all be as lucky — or as cursed — as soldier Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who gets to tumble down that time-space rabbit hole again and again, his consciousness hitching a ride in another man’s body, while in search of the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. On the upside, he gets to meet the girl of his dreams (Michelle Monaghan) — and see her getting blown to smithereens again and again, all in the service of his country, his commander-cum-link to the outside world (Vera Farmiga), and the scientist masterminding this secret military project (Jeffrey Wright). On the downside, well, he gets to do it over and over again, like a good little test bunny in pinball purgatory. Fortunately, director Duncan Jones (2009’s Moon) makes compelling work out of the potentially ludicrous material, while his cast lends the tale a glossed yet likable humanity, the kind that was all too absent in Inception. (1:33) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Sucker Punch If steampunk and Call of Duty had a baby, would it be called Baby Doll? That seems to be the question posed by director-cowriter Zack Snyder with his latest edge-skating, CGI-laden opus. Neither as saccharine and built-for-kids as last year’s Legend of the Guardians, nor as doomed and gore-besotted as 2006’s 300, Sucker Punch instead reads as a grimy Grimm’s fairy tale built for girls succored on otaku, Wii, and suburban pole dancing lessons. Already caught in a thicket of storybook tropes, complete with a wicked stepfather and vulnerable younger sister, Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is tossed into an asylum for wayward girls, signed up for a lobotomy that’s certain to put her in la-la land for good. Fortunately she has a great imagination — and a flair for disassociating herself from the horrors around her —and the scene suddenly shifts to a bordello-strip club populated by such bad-girls-with-hearts-of-gold as Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and sister Rocket (Jena Malone). There Baby Doll discovers yet another layer in the gameplay: like a prospective hoofer in Dancing with the Stars, she must dance her way to the next level or next prize — while deep in her imagination, she sees herself battling giant samurai, robot-zombie Nazis, dragons, and such, assisted by the David Carradine-like, cliché-spouting wise man (Scott Glenn) and accompanied by an inspiring score that includes Björk’s “Army of Me” and covers of the Pixies and Stooges. Things take a turn for the girl gang-y when she recruits Sweet Pea, Rocket, and other random stripper-‘hos (Vanessa Hudgens and Real World starlet Jamie Chung) in her scheme to escape. Why bother, one wonders, since Baby Doll seems to be a genuine escape artist of the mind? The ever-fatalistic Snyder obviously has affection for his charges: when the shadows inevitably close in, he delicately refrains from the arterial spray as the little girls bite the dust in what might be the closest thing to a feature-length anime classic that Baz Luhrmann would give his velvet frock coat to make. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Super Naive, vaguely Christian, and highly suggestible everyman Frank (Rainn Wilson) snaps when his wife (Liv Tyler) is seduced away by sleazy drug dealer Jacques (Kevin Bacon). With a little tutoring from the cute girl at the comic store, Libby (Ellen Page), he throws together a pathetically makeshift superhero costume and equally makeshift persona as the Crimson Bolt. Time to dress up and beat down local dealers, child molesters, and people who cut in line with cracks like, “Shut up, crime!” Frank’s taking stumbling, fumbling baby steps toward rescuing his lady love, but it becomes more than simply his mission when Libby discovers his secret and tries to horn in on his act as his kid sidekick Boltie. Alas, what begins as a charming, intriguing indie about dingy reality meeting up with violent vigilantism goes full-tilt Commando (1985), with all the attendant gore and shocks. In the process director James Gunn (2006’s Slither) completely squanders his chance to peer more deeply into the dark heart of the superhero phenom, topping off this vaguely Old Testament reading of good and evil with an absolutely incoherent ending. (1:36) Lumiere. (Chun)

*Win Win Is Tom McCarthy the most versatile guy in Hollywood? He’s a successful character actor (in big-budget movies like 2009’s 2012; smaller-scale pictures like 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck; and the final season of The Wire). He’s an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (2009’s Up). And he’s the writer-director of two highly acclaimed indie dramas, The Station Agent (2003) and The Visitor (2007). Clearly, McCarthy must not sleep much. His latest, Win Win, is a comedy set in his hometown of New Providence, N.J. Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer who’s feeling the economic pinch. Betraying his own basic good-guy-ness, he takes advantage of a senile client, Leo (Burt Young), when he spots the opportunity to pull in some badly-needed extra cash. Matters complicate with the appearance of Leo’s grandson, Kyle (newcomer Alex Shaffer), a runaway from Ohio. Though Mike’s wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), is suspicious of the taciturn teen, she allows Kyle to crash with the Flaherty family. As luck would have it, Kyle is a superstar wrestler — and Mike happens to coach the local high school team. Things are going well until Kyle’s greedy mother (Melanie Lynskey) turns up and starts sniffing around her father’s finances. Lessons are learned, sure, and there are no big plot twists beyond typical indie-comedy turf. But the script delivers more genuine laughs than you’d expect from a movie that’s essentially about the recession. (1:46) Bridge, California, Piedmont, SF Center. (Eddy)

Winter in Wartime (1:43) Smith Rafael.

Your Highness One of the dangers of reviewing a film like Your Highness is that stoner comedies have a very specific intended audience. A particular altered state is recommended to maximize one’s enjoyment. I tend not to show up for professional gigs with Mary Jane as my plus-one, so I had to view the latest from Pineapple Express (2008) director David Gordon Green through un-bloodshot eyes. While Express was more explicitly ganja-themed, Your Highness is instead a comedy that approximates the experience of getting as high as possible, then going directly to Medieval Times. Never gut-bustingly funny, Your Highness still reaps chuckles from its hard-R dialogue and plenty of CG-assisted sight gags involving genetalia. James Franco and Danny McBride star as princes, one heroic and one ne’er-do-well, who quest to save a maiden kidnapped by an evil wizard (Justin Theroux). Natalie Portman turns up as a thong-wearing warrior, just ’cause it’s that kind of movie. Forget the box office; only time and the tastes of late-night movie watchers will dictate whether Your Highness is a success or a bust. Case in point: nobody thought much of Half Baked (1998) when it was released, but in certain circles, it’s become a bona fide classic. Say it with me now: “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, and fuck you. I’m out!” (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

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tredmond@sfbg.com

Does anybody else feel as if the whole country is collapsing around us?

I mean, I’m not an apocalypse fan. I remember when Ronald Reagan was elected and we had a big meeting at the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, where I worked, and a lot of people were on the edge of a serious panic, and Miles Rapoport, the staff director, told us all to calm down: the organization, and our work, would survive. So would the nation. I spent a lot of time with serious anarchist types in the 1980s, and I never really bought the notion that the revolution was at hand (alas, it was not) or that the United States of America and the corporate world order were on the brink of collapse (alas, again).

I think I slept through the great Harmonic Convergence on Aug. 17, 1987 (“the point at which the counterspin of history finally comes to a momentary halt”) and I’m not terribly concerned about the Mayan calendar.

But I’m getting so I wake up every morning these days asking myself exactly what the fuck is going on.

I called my old friend Calvin Welch the other day to talk about the San Francisco mayor’s race, and when I asked him how he was doing, he told me: “Well, other than the fact that America is falling apart everywhere I look, I’m doing fine.” And he’s not any crazier than me.

It’s funny. I never felt as nervous about the state of the nation under Reagan or Bush as I’m feeling right now under President Obama. And I wasn’t as scared about California when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor as I am now, with Jerry Brown in charge.

Not that Reagan and Bush weren’t far, far worse, or that Brown isn’t doing a decent job, all thing considered. But when our folks are in charge — decent, smart folks who, for all their flaws, have essentially decent ideas about politics and humanity — and they can’t seem to make anything better … I guess that’s when I start to wonder if anyone can.

I’m not one to make sweeping generalizations (well, not usually), but in 2011, the country, and the state, are being run by a handful of bullies. They’re wrecking the economy, wrecking the schools, wrecking the future — and nobody seems to be able to stand up to them. And even this diehard optimist is starting to wonder when it will ever end.

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

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April 12, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/13–Tues/19 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and quadruple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “Radical Light: That Little Red Dot,” curated and presented by Dale Hoyt, Thurs, 7:30. “Other Cinema:” “Jesse and Glenda Drew,” country music doc-in-progress and other clips, Sat, 8:30.

BRAVA 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $15. Will The Real Terrorist Please Stand Up? (Landau, 2011), Sat, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. True Grit (Coen and Coen, 2010), Wed, 3, 5:30, 8. •Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir, 1975), Thurs, 2:30, 7, and The Passenger (Antonioni, 1975), Thurs, 4:35, 9:05. •Bullitt (Yates, 1968), Fri, 7, and Freebie and the Bean (Rush, 1974), Fri, 9:15. “Midnites for Maniacs: Heavy Metal Monster Mash:” •Heavy Metal (Potterton, 1981), Sat, 2:30; The Monster Squad (Dekker, 1987), Sat, 4:45; This Is Spinal Tap (Reiner, 1984), Sat, 7:30; Trick or Treat (Smith, 1986), Sat, 9:45; Monster Dog (Fragasso, 1984), Sat, 11:45. The Ten Commandments (DeMille, 1956), Sun, 2, 7. All five films, $13.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-15. Certified Copy (Kiarostami, 2010), call for dates and times. Poetry (Yun, 2010), call for dates and times. Potiche (Ozon, 2010), call for dates and times. Winter in Wartime (Koolhoven, 2009), call for dates and times.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Coal Country (Evans and Geller, 2011) Wed, 7.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: French Twist:” Purple Noon (Clement, 1960), Fri, 6.

MISSION CULTURAL CENTER FOR LATINO ARTS 2868 Mission, SF; www.writerscorps.org. Free. “Poetry Projection Project: A WritersCorps Film Event,” short films based on youth writing, Sat, 2. Program repeats Tues/19, 11am and 1pm, San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin, SF.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Film 50: History of Cinema: Fantasy Films and Realms of Enchantment:” Alien (Scott, 1979), Wed, 3:10. “Alternative Visions:” A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory (Robinson, 2007), Wed, 7:30. “First Person Rural: The New Nonfiction:” Tropic of Cancer (Polgovsky, 2004), Thurs, 7; Sweetgrass (Taylor and Barbash, 2010), Sun, 5:30. “Under the Skin: The Films of Claire Denis:” Friday Night (2002), Fri, 7; Vers Mathilde (2005), Fri, 8:50; 35 Shots of Rum (2008), Sat, 8:40. “Patricio Guzmán:” The Pinochet Case (2001), Sat, 6:30; •Chile, Obstinate Memory (1997) and A Village Fading Away (1995), Sun, 3.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. Blue Valentine (Cianfrance, 2010), Wed, 2, 7, 9:20. The King’s Speech (Hooper, 2010), Thurs-Sat, 7, 9:30 (also Sat, 2, 4:30). Another Year (Leigh, 2010), Sun-Mon, 8 (also Sun, 2, 5). The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1998), Tues, 7, 9:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “It’s the Paul Meinberg! Show:” Ladies Love Danger (Humberstone, 1935), Wed, 7, 9:30; Girl in 313 (Cortez, 1940), Wed, 9. “Charles Phoenix Retro Slide Show,” Thurs, 8. This event, $25. Some Days Are Better Than Others (McCormick, 2010), April 15-21, 7 and 9 (also Sat-Sun, 2:30, 4:45). “Playback: ATA Film and Video Festival 2006-2010,” Tues, 7:30. This event, $10.

VICTORIA THEATRE 2961 24th St, SF; www.peacheschrist.com. $15-20. “2011 San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival,” Fri, 7:30 (shorts); Devious, Inc. (xuxE, 2011), Fri, 10:30. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Fearless: Chinese Independent Documentaries:” 1428 (Du, 2009), Thurs, 7:30; Fortune Teller (Xu, 2010), Sun, 2.

The online-learning challenge

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

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culture@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED Mixing, mashing, chatting, tweeting: This is how the University of California envisions the future of learning for what it calls a new breed of students. Also on the syllabus? Podcasting, vodcasting, blogging, and Skype.

Last week, UC was awarded a $750,000 Next Generation Learning Challenges grant, moving it one step closer to a curriculum composed of words that barely existed a decade ago. But some fear — with good reason — that online education will become a low-cost, high-return alternative to traditional instruction. And the students will be the losers.

UC’s Online Instruction Pilot Program grew out of recommendations to explore online learning discussed by the UC Commission on the Future over the past two years. This spring, a subcommittee of faculty and administrators selected 29 courses to be developed over the next two years.

The pilot program is a long-term initiative to evaluate and ultimately increase the role of online education as a regular part of the UC curriculum — a chance to respond, according to the program’s website, to a “transformation” in the way students learn.

The commission promotes online learning as a boon without trade-offs, a way of answering questions of accessibility, efficiency, and, ultimately, costs — and is not shy about outlining the relationship between the three. Chartered to help wiggle UC out of a “vise of rising costs and drastically reduced resources,” the commission is proposing sweeping changes to California’s public university system.

ALL BUT THE KEG PARTY

UC envisions a greater number of students served and increased diversity, “from Kentucky to Kuala Lampur,” according to Law School Dean Chris Edley, cochair of the commission’s Education and Curriculum Working Group.

Edley, one of the most enthusiastic proponents of digital learning, initially referred to online education as an 11th UC campus, promising it would offer an equivalent college experience — minus only the “keg party.”

Critics were quick to condemn the plan as overblown excitement. Concerned undergraduates and skeptical faculty raised questions about the quality of online learning. Angry graduate student instructors (understandably) balked at Edley’s grandiose vision of a cybercampus where “squadrons of GSIs” will serve on the “frontline of online contact” with undergraduates.

Political science professor Wendy Brown is one of the leading critics. “Personal engagement with students is crucial,” she told us in a phone interview. “Real teachers don’t just teach subject matter. You have to know students and where their experience and level of engagement is. I don’t want them just to come out with content — I want them to come out as thinkers … have a new way to analyze the world.”

Brown said she believes that acclimating to the intellectual culture of a university — especially important in the first year — can’t be achieved online. Yet first-year courses are exactly where administrators are looking to channel online efforts.

Administrators hope to relieve pressure on overcrowded gateway math and science courses, as well as freshman reading and composition. As many as 40 percent of first-year students test out of their first semester of reading and composition, indicating that the students remaining are those most in need of attention. Even so, a generous smattering of general chemistry, intro calculus, and reading and composition classes like Humanities 1A are among the pilot courses moving forward.

Craig Evans, professor of mathematics and chair of the course committee for calculus, echoes Brown’s concerns. “I don’t think it’s impossible to make this work, but I think it would be very, very difficult,” he said. “Part of what we do as teachers is applied psychology, things like checking in with students and keeping up morale, in addition to teaching classical mathematics. It’s hard to see how to convey that in an online course.”

Robert Anderson, faculty representative to the Board of Regents and professor of economics and mathematics, agreed that there is “something important about being on campus for four years, rubbing shoulders with students and faculty.”

And when short-term goals — taking pressure off overcrowded introductory courses — are met, what comes next?

The academic senate approved the pilot program on the condition that the necessary funding — as much as $7 million — come from outside sources. With the exception of the $750,000 NGLF grant, that money hasn’t materialized. The university has borrowed money from internal sources; half of that will be directed toward infrastructure development, according to Anderson.

With money-saving rhetoric underlining every stage of the program’s development and millions to be invested in online infrastructure, how will UC officials avoid the temptation to simply use online learning as a revenue source — regardless of what academic benefits pilot program researchers find?

CASH COWS

The answer is: they won’t.

In a post on the Berkeley Blog last summer, Edley attempted to allay fears that an online program would eliminate campus learning by assuring that future online pupils would be “new, tuition-paying, UC-eligible students we otherwise wouldn’t have the room or resources to serve. And any net revenue would be plowed back into supporting the on-campus program.” In this model, off-campus students would be cash cows milked for the additional revenue they could produce.

Though the committee has delayed visions of an entirely online degree since then, crucial questions regarding a long-term trajectory remain: Would online students pay the same price? Would they be accepted exclusively for online matriculation? Would their degrees be identical?

Nobody knows, but already the pilot program is relying on projected revenue from off-campus students to help recoup some of the borrowed $7 million, according to Anderson.

Keith Williams, Edley’s cochair on the commission’s education and curriculum working group, confirmed that UC is planning to offer newly developed classes on a per-credit basis to students enrolled at UC and others.

According to Williams, these new courses will offer full course credit — and the full price tag. Pricing was made consistent with brick-and-mortar courses, Williams explained, to avoid causing UC students to make a tough decision: either pay full price for an on campus course or save money by taking a less desirable online course.

And yes, conveniently, offering the courses at full price does generate revenue to be reinvested. (Williams balked at the phrase “skimmed off the top.”)

Now that the pilot program is underway, administrators are treading more lightly around its money-making intentions. But for a reminder of the project’s origins, one need only look at the commission’s recommendation to up enrollment quotas for nonresident students — a recommendation slated to be met next year.

The commission’s final report explicitly calculates the amount of money ($12,000) that can be generated for each Californian replaced with a nonresident student, stating “each 1 percent increase in nonresident students would generate almost $1 million” — a dubious maneuver at a time when the university claims it must expand online education to meet the shortages of space for its own residents.

The culture betrayed by this vision of UC education is clear — one in which educational models are constructed according to business practices.

Despite the pilot program’s rhetoric of innovation and breakthrough, it’s not the first to fuse Internet with education. Brown is quick to note that despite her criticism of the pilot program “[she] is not a Luddite.” She described to us how the faculty is increasingly making use of online educational aids.

Many professors choose to broadcast their lectures online, allowing students — and anyone else for that matter — to virtually peek in on a lecture, either live or with a delay of hours or days.

Currently, more than 40 UC Berkeley lecture halls are fitted for video and/or audio recording. Thousands of transmissions, from biology to history, have been uploaded to iTunes and YouTube (see sidebar).

Although webcasts are highly popular with students — and students are undoubtedly the main priority for the program — people are tuning in from all continents, according to Benjamin Hubbard, who runs the webcast program.

For Hubbard, webcasts “[broaden] the window of access to all the scholarly activity on campus. We are fortunate in that we are public university, so first and foremost we have a mission of community service and making this content freely and publicly available matches this mission.”

THE PUBLIC OPTION

Recognizing the enormous challenges of decreased accessibility and increasing cost, a growing consortium of educators and researchers are building momentum and developing a vision for a truly public online educational program.

Lisa Petrides, president and founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, calls herself a “public education fanatic.” She told us that the instead of using online teaching as a money-maker, schools can adopt a principled, egalitarian approach.

Petrides is a signatory of the Capetown Declaration, a manifesto for the open education movement. The declaration calls for collaboration that cuts across institutional lines; for the use and promotion of free educational resources; and for policy support for open education.

“You start to have this pedagogical collaborative community that can use resources in this way, changing how we teach and how we learn,” she said. To take analogy for computer software, Petrides says her movement is akin to the open source movement.

Now there’s an innovative approach to online education — with its eyes on the future, not its pocket.

iPod voyeur: YACHT looks into the future of the past

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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April 12, 2011

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iPod voyeur: YACHT looks into the future of the past

The future has potential to be totally fun. Eco-friendly flying cars, new friends from outer space and moon parties sound like a great way to spend the year 3000, but these are only amateur, optimistic predictions. The Portland-bred dance duo YACHT has been surveying the possibilities for years, taking notes and spacey tips from musical scientists of days past. And today, a retro-futuristic playlist has been born.

Don’t panic– the near future still looks hot. YACHT is currently touring its upcoming album, Shangri-La, their follow-up to 2009’s See Mystery Lights, coming out on DFA in June. And they’re playing a yet to be sold-out show at Bimbos (Wed/13) this week.

Beyond that, there’s good news and there’s bad news. Looks like band members Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans aren’t thinking things will turn out so hot, hence their own new song, Dystopia, a totally amazing African-inspired electronic track about upcoming apocalyptic events. The good news: they’re not scared of fire nor jackals. I’m thinking they have a collection of magic lasers and protective suits prepared.

The Guardian has requested proof of their research in playlist form; their current top 10 most-played tracks. Take note, drink water and wear comfortable shoes.

Zager & Evans, “In the Year 2525”

This song is the musical equivalent of one of our favorite books, Olaf Stapledon’s “Last and First Men,” a science-fiction future history that tells the tale of the next two billion years of time, touching on eighteen distinct versions of the human race, from regular flesh-and-blood people to birdlike creatures living on Neptune. Zager & Evans only go about ten thousand years into the future, put they hit some classic sci-fi themes on the way, like genetic engineering, mechanical automation, and test-tube babies.

Chromium, “Fly On UFO”

This is a sentiment we at YACHT can all get down with. You see a UFO in the sky, beaming with promise, lights in primary colors like an 80s movie, and you yell up to the sky: “Come back later!”

Incredible String Band — Way Back in the 1960s

A psychedelic future-past ballad, about an old-timer looking back fondly on the 1960s — a time before World War three, before England “went missing and we moved to Paraguay,” and we still used the wheel.

Cerrone. “Supernature”

In a world of depleted resources, the ambitions of science have no limits. Wouldn’t we do anything to feed the starving masses? Including poison the world with chemicals that would create mutants “down below”? If Mary Shelley was a French disco producer, “Frankenstein” would have sounded like Supernature.

Hawkwind. “Silver Machine”

Simplicity is king. This song has the best lyrics in the world: “I just took a ride/ in a silver machine/ and I’m still feeling mean/I got a silver machine.” This is like ZZ Top for space hogs, an all-night truckin’ jam for the long haul to Alpha Centauri.

Ganymed, “Future World”

Sick, almost disgustingly slick space disco from a band whose whole deal was wearing full-deck silver space costumes.

Dee D. Jackson, “Automatic Lover”

Amid a soft pink haze, Miss Jackson looks at the erotic robot in her bed, polished chrome gleaming under white satin sheets, come-hither, raises her perfectly glossed lip in a snarl, and utters: “Your body’s cold.”

Marvin Gaye, “A Funky Space Reincarnation”

Is the future going to be a cold impersonal landscape dictated by the efficient will of our machine overlords? Or, light years ahead, are you and me going be getting down on a space bed, smoking some new shit from Venus? The prophet Marvin Gaye proposes the latter.

Toni Basil, “Space Girl Blues”

Toni Basil is known for “Hey Mickey (You’re So Fine),” a song so ubiquitous in the brain of kids who grew up in the 80s that it doesn’t even seem like it should have an author. She also did this bonkers cover of Devo’s “Space Girl Blues,” perfectly embodying the new-wave space girl, cold as ice, destroying your mechanism.

Charlie, “Spacer Woman”

Neo, neo, neo, neo, neo, neo, neo-feminism. In 2096, what wave will we be on?

YACHT
w/Bobby Birdman and DJ Pickpocket
Wed/13, 7:00pm
Bimbo’s 365 Club
1025 Columbus Ave, SF
www.Bimbos365Club.com

More on environmental justice in the Bay Area

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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April 7, 2011

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As part of our 2011 Green Issue, the Guardian is spotlighting several pollution-plagued areas throughout the region and the environmental justice campaigns aiming to improve public health for surrounding residents.

My reporting on this topic took me to Richmond, where Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) Organizer Jessica Guadalupe Tovar told me about how her organization worked on halting Chevron’s Richmond Refinery expansion project with a lawsuit after uncovering the oil company’s plans to start refining heavier crude, which could worsen air-quality impacts.

As we drove along a ridgeline street searching for the perfect place to photograph the refinery (Chevron doesn’t like it when people show up on site with cameras, Tovar explained), she talked about how CBE had set up a Refinery 101 workshop to inform residents about the facility and its plans for expansion. “Our job was to, A, tip people off who live here, and, B, give people the information they need to fight this thing,” she said.

The expansion has been suspended for now, but Tovar said she wouldn’t be surprised if the issue resurfaced. Here’s a video taken some distance from Chevron’s oil refinery.

I also spent a few hours in the Bayview Hunters-Point neighborhood with Marie Harrison, a Bayview resident and longtime organizer with San Francisco-based Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice.

Over coffee, Harrison told me about her experiences as a youth working at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, at a time when asbestos dust from the naval ships was routinely airborne. “This is not just a campaign because I live here,” Harrison said. “I have a personal history.”

She remembers being covered with dust at the end of her shifts and, after awhile, realizing that it wasn’t safe. “I became conscious even then,” she reflected, about not wanting to exchange hugs with friends so as not to spread around the hazardous dust.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Exposure to airborne friable asbestos may result in a potential health risk because persons breathing the air may breathe in asbestos fibers. Continued exposure can increase the amount of fibers that remain in the lung. Fibers embedded in lung tissue over time may cause serious lung diseases including asbestosis, lung cancer, or mesothelioma.”

Harrison and I drove around the shipyard parcels, where Lennar’s major residential project will be constructed. We went past Parcel A, a fenced-in area situated in very close proximity to a Nation of Islam school for students from kindergarten through the 12th grade.

Parcel A sits on a hill above what was once the site of the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, and a decontamination site for ships returning from testing nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

Lennar’s failure to monitor or properly control asbestos dust on Parcel A during construction in 2006 and 2007 resulted in citations against the developer, and the company eventually faced a fine from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District of more than $500,000.

Around the perimeter of a different shipyard parcel were poles with mist spraying out the top. The purpose of the mist, Harrison explained, was to wet down the dirt so that hazardous dust particles couldn’t blow around – but as we drove by, we could clearly see that this method wasn’t entirely effective, since the wind was blowing the mist backward onto a grassy hillside below the contaminated parcel instead of effectively moistening the dirt.

Across the street and down the road a little, a cleanup effort at the site of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s decommissioned Hunters Point power plant was underway. While the facility has been disassembled, toxic residue remains in the soil, and mitigation measures must be taken to prevent it from going airborne. “When the wind picks up they’re supposed to stop,” Harrison noted, gesturing toward earth-moving equipment parked on the site as we drove by. She added that workers had become familiar enough with her that they knew there would be trouble if they deviated from that protocol in her presence.

All of these post-industrial sites are located in very close proximity to a residential area that ranks among the lowest income neighborhoods in San Francisco. Meanwhile, there are a number of other pollution sources clustered nearby, which Harrison listed off during our brief visit to a waterfront park that abuts the old power plant.

For years, Greenaction fought to have a warning sign posted in that park to let people know that it was unsafe to regularly consume fish caught there, Harrison said. When PG&E’s power plant was still in operation, some Bayview residents – particularly non-English speaking Asian immigrants – would fish in the area where the warm-water outflow from the power plant attracted marine life. At long last, Greenaction won the battle and Harrison got her warning sign posted – but it was a tremendous disappointment. With cautionary notices printed in multiple languages, the sign is above eye level and about the size of a piece of notebook paper. The font is practically microscopic, and I had to squint just to read it. For those who cannot read, there is an image of a fish with a slash through it printed in light tones behind the lettering – but one must study it closely to pick up on that detail. The moral of the story, she said, was “be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”

Here’s a word from Harrison. You can see the sign posted in the background.

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

Look out for further coverage of the court hearings on the appeal of Lennar’s environmental impact review in coming weeks.

Video produced by Rebecca Bowe.

Find this author on Twitter.

First Thursday: Deathly portraits, cubic rams, smudgy painted mutts, and Aids 3-D

John Elberling

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April 7, 2011

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First Thursday: Deathly portraits, cubic rams, smudgy painted mutts, and Aids 3-D

April is usually one of the liveliest months for the make-your-own-maze blitz of art openings that is “first Thursday,” and this year is no exception. One highlight is definitely the debut solo show by Dean Dempsey, who graced the cover of the 2010 Photo Issue of the Guardian, and was interviewed on the Pixel Vision blog. Dempsey has since relocated to New York, and “Selected Works” at Togonon Gallery offers a new glimpse into his idiosyncratic “pictorial sculpture” take on portraiture. Speaking of which, glitter painter Jamie Vasta invokes Caravaggio in a new show at Patricia Sweetow Gallery. More about hers and other openings after the jump.

In “After Caravaggio,” 2007 Guardian “Flaming Creator” Vasta gathers friends and associates as subjects for a take on the master painter that coincides with the 400th anniversary of his death. There’s a deathly presence in more than one or two first Thursday shows, from Dempsey’s and Vasta’s to the X-ray images in Guardian Photo Issue alum David Maisel’s “History’s Shadow” at Haines Gallery, a logically dis-ease oriented extension of his recent large-scale renderings of rusty urns containing the ashes of anonymous mental institution patients.

Other first Thursday shows, works, and exhibitions of note: Aids 3-D (Daniel Kollar and Nik Kosmas) bring audience-energy solar panels to Altman Siegel Gallery; Shawn Smith serves up a colorful cubic ram at Cain Schulte Contemporary Art; Eric Zener presents emotionally evocative tree paintings at Hespe Gallery; Eric Ginsberg’s smudgy mutts and other dogs find a home at Mina Dresden; and Fauxnique talks about performance at Gallery 16.

Choices, choices at this weekend’s Green Fest

Andrew Lam

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April 6, 2011

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Red, white, or green? You can go for all three, at least at this weekend’s celebration of all things sustainable. Jon Frey’s biodynamic vineyard will be pouring away — alongside 190 other exhibitors — at Sat/9-Sun/10’s Green Festival.

If the extensive alphabetical list of vendors gives an apt portrayal of Green Fest’s floorplan, Frey will shack up alongside From War to Peace, a husband-wife jewelry team that creates fashion from dismantled nuclear missile systems. One booth over, Frontier Angel Soap will leave passer-bys sweet-smelling and squeaky clean. Displays of sustainable goodies in other aisles of the Concourse Exhibition Center? Eco-friendly river rafting, passively-powered thermal art, and rolfing, a holistic system of soft tissue massage created by Dr. Ida Rolf.

In addition to the dozens of exhibitions, more than 130 speakers from the US and abroad will cover topics ranging from environmental justice to green finance to the chic new farming movement (courtesy of Planet Green’s “Beekman Boys,” Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge). Despite the festival’s distinctly international appeal, some home-grown representatives will peddle their nifty goods – or pedal, in the case of San Francisco-based electric bike company New Wheel.

Also in attendance, with one comfy, sustainably-sandaled foot in SF and one in Bali, will be IndoSole, a shoemaker that uses salvaged motorbike tires for its soles with soul. And for the fully foreign, be sure to visit Mr. Ellie Pooh LLC. Though based in Brooklyn, the company specializes in fair trade exotic gifts and paper made from – you guessed it – elephant excrement. The, er, raw material comes from Sri Lanka, and helps ensure the elephant’s continued presence in that increasingly densely settled county.

And just in case you were wondering the Green Festival has a history of offsetting its impact through recycling, composting, and other programs — both here in its SF incarnation and in the five other cities where it unleashes the green team.

For more info on getting green in the big city, check out this week’s SFBG Green Issue, on newsstands today.

Green Festival SF

Sat/9, 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Sun/10, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., $10-$25

Concourse Exhibition Center

635 Eighth St., SF

www.greenfestivals.org/sf

Inside job

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

THEATER A man lies in the woods, his arm in a hole. A mystic? A mushroom hunter? A mad monk maybe? He’s in tatters, grimy, seemingly unconscious, bearded.

Magnificently leafless tree trunks (courtesy of scenic designer Lisa Clark) rise ominously around the man, while nestled among them lurks a somewhat inconspicuous string quintet. Finally, the local peasant who owns the land (Josh Pollock) asks for some explanation. He brings the man home to his wife (Sarah Mitchell), who looks askance at the stranger as she shaves the evening’s fare with a sharp knife. She soon finds herself inexorably charmed by the magnetic outsider as he breaks into a self-promotional song, inspiring the peasant to pound the kitchen table with a soft mallet and his wife to take knife to potato in the manner of a Puerto Rican güiro.

Those who thought Rasputin just sold records on Telegraph Avenue are in for a musical and cunningly skewed history lesson, in addition to a wholly agreeable evening. In the opening salvo of its 20th anniversary season, Shotgun Players hits a raucous, ribald, and consistently clever bull’s eye with Beardo, the latest from Brooklyn-based Banana Bag & Bodice, creators of 2008’s Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage. Each detail of this exquisite production — from a pitch-perfect cast to the rich palette employed by composer Dave Malloy to Christine Crook’s gorgeously layered, vibrantly crimson-marked costuming — serves an inspired reappraisal of madness and revolution in and beyond the never-named Romanov household.

Concepts of inside and outside percolate productively throughout Jason Craig’s book and lyrics, as Beardo (Ashkon Davaran), guided by a resolute yet warped-sounding inner voice, penetrates the household of Imperial Russia’s grief-stricken Tsarista (Anna Ishida) and her affably effete tsar-husband (Kevin Clarke). His way with their sickly child (Juliet Heller) has them deeply in his debt and enthralled. Meanwhile, Beardo shakes and shimmies behind competing, maybe complimentary, countenances: that of the mystic healer, and that of the debauched cowboy on one hell of a bender. A transcultural mashup of outlaw whimsy, class war, and the banalities of upper-class decadence take flight in some inspired set pieces too fresh to give away here, and a wonderfully orchestrated score.

Composer and musical director Dave Malloy, whose gifts for composition and drama have been growing apace since relocating to New York City (where his beautiful and rollicking venture Three Pianos at the New York Theatre Workshop recently won a well-deserved Obie), conjures a very convincing Russian cabaret atmosphere. Doses of Rachmaninoff and other authentic samplings strategically arise amid his brisk Weimar-esque rhythms, lilting melodies, and one fantastic choral arrangement — a startling convergence of roughly 40 “peasants” who suddenly erupt into song.

Shotgun’s artistic director Patrick Dooley helms the production with a deft hand, his witty detailing and precise staging perfectly in sync with the loose and wild composure of writer Craig’s sure, literate, post-punk poetics. The cast is uniformly terrific. As the hirsute healer and unlikely royal heartthrob, Davaran delivers — in a Wild West drawl reminiscent of a young Tom Waits crossed with John Huston — a performance that accomplishes the seemingly impossible: making utterly magnetic and finally sympathetic a preposterously unkempt and ridiculous antihero.

From Rasputin to Putin, Russia’s political history has been one long cabaret act in much poorer taste than anything you’ll find here. But Beardo, virile and viral, is less about Russia (although it lends tacit support to the long-standing theory that the Russian Revolution was in part galvanized by Rasputin’s undermining of tsarist authority) than about a crazy social hierarchy so steep and brittle, so vast in its gulf between high and low, that a single does of mayhem can become a political force “where the outside meets the inside.” It’s then that a little disorder is what’s in order.

BEARDO

Through April 24; $17–$26

Ashby Stage

1901 Ashby, Berk.

(510) 841-6500

www.shotgunplayers.org

Two for the road

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

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MUSIC Erik “Ripley” Johnson is on the road. As the mastermind behind psych rock quartet Wooden Shijps and krautrockers Moon Duo, he spent eight months on tour last year. When he started Moon Duo with Sanae Yamada, Johnson knew that there’d be a degree of convenience in traveling as a twosome: it’s cheaper and much easier to be flexible and mobile. He was ready to tour as a full-time job.

Since Moon Duo began in 2009, Johnson and Yamada have put out two singles, the EP Killing Time (Sacred Bones) and the album Escape (Woodsist). Moon Duo’s just-released second full-length, Mazes (Sacred Bones), relays the story of a wandering life.

“We decided to name the album Mazes after we moved from San Francisco,” Johnson says over the phone, while the pair is on the road from New York to Massachusetts for their next gig. “That song is about choosing a path in life, but how you don’t necessarily know where it’s going to take you.”

Moon Duo creates trance-inducing music that builds minimalist, rhythmic repetition from drum samples and keyboards that support Johnson’s guitar freak-outs. It’s an experience of texture and tone that is sustained and then rerouted.

Most of Mazes was recorded lo-fi in Johnson’s and Yamada’s Mission District apartment last spring, when the couple was in transition. While they worked on the album, Johnson and Yamada packed up. “We needed to get out of the city because we were never there and we were paying all this rent,” Johnson says. By summer, the pair had moved to the wild highlands of Blue River, Colo.

“We thought we’d finished recording the album in San Francisco, but we weren’t happy with some elements,” he adds. So Moon Duo headed to Germany. Although Johnson acknowledges the synchronicity of recording in Berlin, he says it wasn’t motivated by his interest in krautrock, which he came to through Julian Cope’s influential book Krautrocksampler. “Every record he talks about, he’s so enthusiastic,” he says of Cope’s writing. “I can’t say I agree with all his choices, but it’s a guide book, and I went through it and bought stuff that sounded cool.”

The process of making Mazes reached Germany because Johnson and Yamada’s friends in Berlin had a studio and offered to help mix the album. “It just seemed like we should try it out in a different perspective, and go into a proper studio,” Johnson explains. There, the pair rerecorded some parts, tweaked things, and played with a collection of vintage drum machines.

The results are tight. Mazes‘ opening track “Seer” is a variant of a song off Escape, but lighter on the fuzz and denser with the rock ‘n’ roll. It gives you a good hint of where the band is heading on the rest of the many-layered album. Forerunners in the current kraut revival, Moon Duo is inspired by two-piece predecessors Silver Apples and Suicide while also exploring other sounds, including psychedelic wanderings, Velvet Underground-style hypnosis, and Modern Lovers post-punk.

“When You Cut” starts with lush synth and deep-throated vocals, and upbeat claps keep the song going steady, providing the framework for an untamed guitar solo. The band goes pop with the two-step “Run Around,” then gets dark again on the reverb-drenched “In the Sun” and on the closer, “Goners.” Ultimately, Mazes is a personal journey through music history, but one that also reflects the travels of life.

MOON DUO

With Lilac, Royal Baths

Mon./11, 9 p.m., $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

Tome time

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

LIT This week brings the 30th installment of the National California Book Awards. Some of the books up for awards have been written about in the Guardian during the past year, including Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, Richard O. Moore’s Writing the Silences, and Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, by the 2011 Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement winner Tamim Ansary. Local authors, editors, and translators among this year’s nominees include Solnit, Moore, Aife Murray, Brian Teare, Damion Searls, Michael Alenyikov, John Sakkis (who has contributed to the Guardian), Kate Moses, Matthew Zapruder, Lewis Buzbee, Neelanjana Bannerjee, and Pireeni Sundaralingam.

The 2011 edition of NCBA arrives at a time when the value and resolve of independent booksellers is clear. For many years, Borders and other chain stores seemed poised to kill small businesses devoted to selling books, and in fact, chain marketing undoubtedly has had a negative impact on individual shops. But Borders recently filed for bankruptcy, while a number of unique booksellers in the Bay Area and beyond continue to survive and thrive. Thanks to the Berkeley-based Small Press Distribution and San Francisco shops such as Needles & Pens, small publishing is also alive and within real-life reach. Here is the list of this year’s NCBA nominees, for the next time you venture into the neighborhood bookshop or library.

FICTION

• Ivan and Misha, stories, Michael Alenyikov (TriQuarterly Books, 212 pages, $18.95)

• Heidegger’s Glasses, Thaisa Frank (Counterpoint, 320 pages, $25)

• Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, stories, Yiyun Li (Random House, 240 pages, $25)

• Death is Not an Option, stories, Suzanne Rivecca (W.W. Norton, 22 pages, $23.95)

• The More I Owe You, Michael Sledge (Counterpoint, 320 pages, $15.95)

GENERAL NONFICTION

• Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson (Simon & Schuster, 368 pages, $27)

• The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Michael Lewis (W. W. Norton, 320 pages, $15.95)

• Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson’s Life and Language, Aífe Murray (University Press of New England, 324 pages, $35)

• Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future, Robert B. Reich (Alfred A. Knopf, 273 pages, $27.95)

• The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons, Richard Rhodes (Alfred A. Knopf, 400 pages, $29.95)

CREATIVE NONFICTION

• Not by Chance Alone: My Life as a Social Psychologist, Elliot Aronson (Basic Books, 304 pages, $27.50)

• A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California, Laura Cunningham (Heyday, 352 pages, $50)

• Cakewalk, a memoir, Kate Moses (The Dial Press, 368 pages, $26)

• Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, Rebecca Solnit (University of California Press, 167 pages, $24.95)

• Deep Blue Home: An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean, Julia Whitty (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 256 pages, $24)

POETRY

• Suck on the Marrow, Camille T. Dungy (Red Hen Press, 88 pages, $18.95)

•Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems, Andrew Joron (City Lights Publishers, 120 pages, $14.95)

• Writing the Silences, Richard O. Moore (University of California Press, 136 pages, $19.95)

• Rough Honey, Melissa Stein (The American Poetry Review, 96 pages, $14)

• Pleasure, Brian Teare (Ahsahta Press, 88 pages, $17.95)

• Come on All You Ghosts, Matthew Zapruder (Copper Canyon Press, 96 pages, $16.95)

TRANSLATION, FICTION

• Translation by Anne Milano Appel, Blindly, by Claudio Magris, from Italian (Penguin Group Canada)

•Translation by David Frick, A Thousand Peaceful Cities, by Jerzy Pilch, from Polish (Open Letter Books, 143 pages, $14.95)

• Translation by Damion Searls, Comedy in a Minor Key, by Hans Keilson, from German (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 144 pages, $22)

POETRY

• Translation by Kurt Beals, engulf—enkindle, by Anja Utler, from German (Burning Deck, 96 pages, $14)

• Translation by Joshua Edwards, Ficticia, by María Baranda, from Spanish (Shearsman Books)

• Translation by John Sakkis and Angelos Sakkis, Maribor, by Demosthenes Agrafiotis, from Greek (Post-Apollo Press, 86 pages, $15)

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

• Arroz con leche/Rice Pudding: Un poema para cocinar/A Cooking Poem, Jorge Argueta, illustrator Fernando Vilela (Groundwood Books/Libros Tigrillo, 32 pages, $18.95)

• The Haunting of Charles Dickens, Lewis Buzbee (Feiwel and Friends, 368 pages, $17.95)

• The Vinyl Princess, Yvonne Prinz (HarperTeen/HarperCollins Publishers, 320 pages, $16.99)

• Other Goose: Re-Nurseried!! and Re-Rhymed!! Children’s Classics, J. Otto Seibold (Chronicle Books, 80 pages, $19.99)

• Shooting Kabul, N.H. Senzai (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers/Paula Wiseman Books, 272 pages, $16.99)

SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD

Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry, edited by Neelanjana Banerjee, Summi Kaipa, and Pireeni Sundaralingam (University of Arkansas Press, 220 pages, $24.95)

FRED CODY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

Tamim Ansary

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARDS

Sun/10, 1 p.m.–2:30 p.m.

Koret Auditorium

San Francisco Main Library

100 Larkin, SF

(510) 525-5476

www.poetryflash.org

Hanna and her sisters

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM With great girl power comes great responsibility — words that only a few of the Powerpuff Girls of 2011 have lived by. Behold the new generation, too young to settle down, prepped to suit up in skintight Lycra or schoolgirl gear, and eager to mete out punishment to the baddies. Girls mature faster than boys, sure, but that diary-keeping wimpy kid reigning the other half of the cineplex would have plenty to jot down in his diary if he met up with one of these slay-belles.

These babes in boyland, with all its the traditionally masculinized violence and bloodshed, aren’t exactly the next Supergirls. They’re nowhere near as bloodless or wholesome as the original DC product (or the 1984 Helen Slater film), and they’re less likely to fall prey to the dangers of womanly representation for a mainstream fanboy audience that, say, 2004’s Catwoman succumbed to. But the little girls understand — what it’s like to grapple with a strength that just might spiral out of control. The tension between their innocuous, angelic looks and semi-socialized, she-tiger ferocity parallels the balance between their highly trainable programmability and their own desires. They’re damaged kid sisters of Lisbeth Salander more than they are the mutant second-banana femme students of the X-Men, and they’re itching for freedom like Ellen Page’s reality-hampered Boltie in Super, or the fantasy girl-gang hos in Sucker Punch. Or they’ve been souped up as angels of vengeance at the service of embittered father figures, much like Kick-Ass scene-stealer Chloe Moretz’s pint-sized Hit-Girl with her Saturday-morning-cartoon purple wig and stone-cold killer instincts. STAY ON TARGET

The title character of Hanna falls perfectly into the Hit-Girl mold. Add a dash of The Boys from Brazil-style genetic engineering — Hanna has the unfair advantage, you see, when it comes to squashing other kids on the soccer field or maiming thugs with her bare hands — and you have an ethereal killing/survival machine, played with impassive confidence by Atonement (2007) shit-starter Saoirse Ronan. She’s been fine-tuned by her father, Erik (Eric Bana), a spy who went out into the cold and off the grid, disappearing into the wilds of Scandinavia where he home-schooled his charge with an encyclopedia and brutal self-defense and hunting tests.

The repellent association with real-life child soldiers who are forcibly conscripted to fight wars for corrupt elders is somewhat dispelled by the back-to-the-land-of-the-Vikings backdrop, with the film opening on Hanna hunting, clad in furs and skins, hidden in the white-on-white snowy woods beside other predators and prey. Atonement director Joe Wright plays with a palette associated with innocence, purity, and death — this could be any time or place, though far from the touch of modern childhood stresses: that other Hannah (Montana), consumerism, suburban blight, and academic competition. The 16-year-old Hanna, however, isn’t immune from that desire to succeed. Her game mission: go from a feral, lonely existence into the modern world, run for her life (the Chemical Brothers’ score gives her the ideal Run Lola Run-ish background music), and avenge the death of her mother by killing Erik’s CIA handler, Marissa (Cate Blanchett). The nagging doubt: was she born free, or Bourne to be a killer?

Much like the illustrated Brothers Grimm storybook that she studies, Hanna is caught in an evil death trap of fairytale allegories. One wonders if the super-soldier apple didn’t fall far from the tree, since evil stepmonster Marissa oversaw the program that produced Hanna — the older woman and the young girl have the same cold-blooded talent for destruction and the same steely determination. Yet there’s hope for the young ‘un. After learning that even her beloved father hid some basic truths from her — and that family life can be less desperately cutthroat, especially when she encounters the celebrity-gossip-spouting tourist teen Sophie (Jessica Barden) and her family — this natural-born killer seems less likely to go along with the predetermined ending, happy or no, further along in her storybook life.

CABARET DURING WARTIME

It’s a mental game for Baby Doll in Sucker Punch, Zack Snyder’s exercise in supergirl action fantasy and gothic Lolita dread. Emily Browning’s puffy-lipped, anime-eyed darling is far from infallible, except in the crazed, mixed-metaphor war games in her mind. Her talent for disassociation kicks off with her primal crime: she mistakenly kills her younger sister while trying to protect them both from a menacing stepfather. Escape and heroism can be had via one’s fertile yet traumatized imagination: Baby Doll is imprisoned in an asylum for girls where she’s next in line for a lobotomy, thanks to her stepdad’s machinations. And like a multilayered fantasy game, reminiscent of Dorothy’s dreamy recasting of friends and family in The Wizard of Oz (1939), she’s transported to a brothel-dancehall, along with other girlish inmates.

Here Baby Doll has just a few days to hatch a plan that will allow the girls to escape before her virginity is sold off. Her very special defense: she mesmerizes all who see her dance, and then goes far, far away, into a dream world where she’s dressed like a sexy J-pop schoolgirl and battles giant samurai or robot-zombie Nazis. Thoughts of Burlesque (2010) are mercifully vanquished.

Though Baby Doll’s initial battle scene at a Japanese temple evokes Quentin Tarantino’s take on girl-power revenge fantasy, Kill Bill (2003-2004) — while catering to the fanboys who ogle (and fear) deadly hotties in vixenish costume — Sucker Punch distinguishes itself not with its blatant po-mo plundering of movie, game, and music history, but with its adherence to the idea that sisterhood is powerful, as Baby Doll forms a girl gang of super-fighters with her fellow inmates-dancers. Therein lies the real super-heroism: the organizing, hearts-and-minds might of an underdog who can imagine overcoming huge odds. Even if the hero and the final girl, Baby Doll, is only a legend in her mind.

HANNA opens Fri/8 in Bay Area theaters.

Our Weekly Picks: April 6-12, 2011

Maria Poblet

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April 5, 2011

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THURSDAY 7

FILM

“An Evening with Les Blank”

The man who held Werner Herzog to a bet that involved the consumption of footwear (and filmed it, in 1980’s literally-titled Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe) comes to the Red Vic to present two of his best-loved films: 1969’s The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins and 1978’s Always for Pleasure. The Bay Area resident is famed for his ability to seek out and artfully capture American folkways, and this screening includes intimate looks at Texas blues and New Orleans street parties. The latter will be presented in “Smellaround!,” which I think is the Red Vic’s way of suggesting you’ll be unable to resist the rice and beans cooking up free for each attendee — using “Les’ own special recipe.” Let’s hope no boots are in the pot! (Cheryl Eddy)

7:30 p.m., $15

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com DANCE

DANCE

Lemi Ponifasio

You have never heard of Lemi Ponifasio, the Samoan chief with a full-body tattoo who now lives and works primarily in New Zealand? If you had been lucky enough to attend recent Edinburgh, Sidney, Lincoln Center, or Holland festivals, you might have encountered his Mau (“Vision”) company, which earned accolades in ceremonial dance theater that may be culturally-specific but is not culturally-limited. Ponifasio has said that his work always explores issues around “power and life.” Tempest: Without A Body draws on Shakespeare, Paul Klee, and political philosopher Giorgio Agamben. A Maori activist, Tami Iti, appears in the piece to make a case for his people and for social change. On opening night, director Peter Sellars engages Ponifasio in a pre-performance conversation. (Rita Felciano)

Thurs/7, 8:15 p.m. (pre-performance conversation, 7:15 p.m.);

Fri/8–Sat/9, 8 p.m., $30

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission St., SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

EVENT

“Wicked Plants”

Inspired by Northern California writer Amy Stewart’s 2009 New York Times bestseller about deadly plants and their place in human history, the new exhibit “Wicked Plants: Botanical Rogues and Assassins” features a bevy of beautiful (but dangerous and sometimes lethal) flora. Poison hemlock, white snakeroot, castor bean, and more are among the living examples of plants whose effects on people can range from skin irritation, severe pain, and even agonizing death. Explore more than 30 species of this mysterious greenery, all displayed in a spooky Victorian garden — a setting that would make Agatha Christie proud — if you dare. (Sean McCourt)

Through Oct. 30

Tues.–Sun., 10 a.m.–4 p.m., $1.50–$7

Conservatory of Flowers

100 John F. Kennedy Drive

Golden Gate Park, SF

(415) 831-2090

www.conservatoryofflowers.org

DANCE

San Francisco Ballet

The exquisite range of the San Francisco Ballet will be on display this week as it continues its spring season by opening two mixed programs. Program 6 features the company’s premiere of Wayne McGregor’s Chroma, set to compositions by Joby Talbot and arrangements by Jack White (best known for the recently-disbanded White Stripes, though his musical outlets are legion), along with works by Christopher Wheeldon (with a score by erstwhile Winger frontman-turned-composer Kip Winger), and artistic director Helgi Tomasson. Program 7 includes Michel Fokine’s Petrouchka, the tragic tale of a puppet who possesses a human soul. Choreographed to Stravinsky’s mysterious and haunting score, this century-old ballet was originally danced by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. (Julie Potter)

Through April 20

Performance times vary, $20–$135

War Memorial Opera House

301 Van Ness, SF

(415) 865-2000

www.sfballet.org PERFORMANCE

COMEDY

Brian Posehn

After getting his start doing stand-up in Northern California, comedian Brian Posehn has since gone on to lend his many talents to a wide variety of other media: TV shows such as The Sarah Silverman Program, films including Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects (2005), and albums like 2006’s Live In: Nerd Rage. The album featured the side-splitting parody song “Metal By Numbers,” where he skewered modern “false metal” with his searing lyrics and growled incantations of “Cookie Cookie Cookie!” Fans are sure to be in for a treat when Posehn returns to the live stage, free to riff on whichever hilarious subjects — music, pop culture, and more — he chooses. (McCourt)

Thurs/7–Sun/10, 8 p.m.

(also Fri/8–Sat/9, 10:15 p.m.), $17.50–$20.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

MUSIC

Big Freedia and Rusty Lazer

Words fail. One would be best served by simply looking live videos of “Azz Everywhere” up on YouTube, to be greeted by the sight of sweaty dancers in booty shorts shaking it for the MC, to the call of “Ass all over/ Like I told ya/ Bend over/ Like I told ya.” This indelible image comes courtesy of bounce (or “sissy bounce”), a New Orleans-regional, bass-heavy, call-and-response style of hip-hop. And Big Freedia is its “Queen Diva.” Too heavy for radio, too sexual for TV, but just right for a killer night on the floor. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Richie Panic, Hot Tub DJs, and more

9 p.m., $10

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

www.publicsf.com

FRIDAY 8

DANCE

“Triptych: New work by Kelly Bowker, Gretchen Garnett, Ishika Seth”

If you look at the history of modern dance, you’ll encounter a group of (mostly) women passionate about their discoveries of the body’s expressive potential. They scraped by financially and danced for and with each other, getting paid if there was money — which was rarely the case. Guess what? Not that much has changed. The Bay Area is still a welcoming place for young artists who just have to do what they have to do. Kelly Bowker, Gretchen Garnett, and Ishika Seth are familiar to those who hunt out the less familiar performance venues. That’s probably how they met and found that they could share precious resources. Bowker calls her piece Parallel Uncertainties; Garnett’s is Six Years Dreaming; and Seth’s two works are Death and Other Things and Khwaish. (Felciano)

Fri/8–Sat/9, 8 p.m., $15–$20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

FILM

“Jane Russell 1921-2011”

Don’t let Elizabeth Taylor hog the dead non-blonde former sex symbol spotlight. Jane Russell was so hot she changed censorship in the United States. The promotional pictures for 1943’s The Outlaw got director Howard Hughes in trouble with the Hollywood Production Code and the film was delayed for years until cleavage cuts were made. (Not to mention giving new meaning to the term “double feature” — rim shot!) Sure, Marilyn gets the titular nod with 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but the alluring Russell proves that not all men are gentlemen. (Prendiville) The Outlaw, 1, 5, and 9 p.m.;

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 3:15 and 7:15 p.m., $7.50–$10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

MUSIC

Akron/Family

True or false: band monikers that contain punctuation marks are penned just to screw with the minds of music and copy editors. Either way, the bicoastal trio Akron/Family is undoubtedly a genre-fuck. It’s avant-garde sans the pretentiousness, combining folk, Japanese noise, fuzzed-out rock, and psychedelic elements. To boot, it injects found-sounds like the creaking of a chair into its music à la The Books. While accusations of it being a cult have been refuted, its newest LP, S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT, was purportedly written in a cabin perched upon an active volcano on a Japanese island. The album’s origins are simultaneously weird and awesome, just like the band. (Jen Verzosa)

With Delicate Steve, Honeymoon, and DJ Britt Govea

9 p.m., $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

www.theindependentsf.com

DANCE

Fact/SF

With a sense of humor and a solid group of daring, theatrical performers, Charles Slender’s Fact/SF burst onto San Francisco’s dance scene with a steady output of new work. Prior to founding his company in 2008, the U.C. Berkeley graduate danced abroad, spending time in Russia studying with choreographer Tatiana Baganova and performing in her Provincial Dances Theatre company. Slender creates with a dance-theater edge, resulting in compositions that range from the minimal to highly physical, some serious and others lighthearted. His company’s third home season, running for two consecutive weekends, features company repertory as well as a premiere. (Potter)

Fri/8–Sun/10, 8 p.m., $20

Garage

975 Howard, SF

(800) 838-3006

www.975howard.com

SATURDAY 9

MUSIC

Cold War Kids

With overwhelmingly positive cyberspace reviews of self-released EPs With Our Wallets Full and Up in Rags, Long Beach indie-rock foursome Cold War Kids has music bloggers to thank for its popularity — and notoriety. (Pitchfork famously described the band as “skinny-jeaned Christians” because three members attended a Los Angeles bible college). But Cold War Kids has withstood the so-called damnation of this label; newest release Mine Is Yours is more polished than past albums, and the band has joined the ranks of other indie-turned-mainstream greats like Kings of Leon. As they say, bigger is better. (Verzosa)

With Sean Hayes

8 p.m., $25

Fox Theatre

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.thefoxoakland.com

MUSIC

Papercuts

Frequently revered by critics but never quite matching the praise with comparable commercial success, Papercuts frontman Jason Robert Quever may finally break the pattern with Fading Parade, a beautiful new album that marks his first release on Sub Pop. The San Francisco songwriter creates lush, ethereal music full of 1980s dream-pop touchstones and traces of the shimmering lo-fi of artists such as Ariel Pink and Wild Nothing. A healthy dose of reverb surrounding Quever’s melancholic delivery, and the sustained organ and synth lines buried underneath, help evoke the feelings of nostalgic longing he’s no doubt shooting to convey. He may be more than a decade into his career, but one listen to Fading Parade makes it seem like Quever is just starting to get warmed up. (Landon Moblad)

With Banjo or Freakout

9:30 p.m., $14

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

MONDAY 11

EVENT

“The Spirit of Montmartre: Cafes, Cabarets, and Other Cacophony”

You don’t have to go to Paris to delve into the Moulin Rouge lifestyle and bohemian pleasures. Indeed, you can check out this multimedia presentation by professor William Eddelman, a costume designer and theater historian, exploring the rise of the Paris avant-garde. The evening reveals the world of Toulouse- Lautrec and his contemporaries, a hotbed of collaborative performance art, bold design, laughter, and high spirits in the early 20th century. Francophiles won’t want to miss this sensory event, which includes corset fashions by Dark Garden and an absinthe tasting. (Potter)

7 p.m., $15–$20

Museum of Performance and Design

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 255-4800

www.mpdsf.org

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Film Listings

Maria Poblet

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April 5, 2011

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

OPENING

Arthur For those keeping score at home, this is 456th remake of 2011. And it’s only April! (1:45) Four Star, Marina.

*Bill Cunningham New York See “The Joy of Life.” (1:24) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

Born to Be Wild Morgan Freeman narrates this IMAX nature doc. (:40)

*Hanna See “Hanna and Her Sisters.” (1:51) Presidio.

*In a Better World Winner of this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, this latest from Danish director Susanne Bier (2004’s Brothers, 2006’s After the Wedding) and her usual co-scenarist Anders Thomas Jensen (2005’s Adam’s Apples, 2003’s The Green Butchers) is a typically engrossing, complex drama that deals with the kind of rage for “personal justice” that can lead to school and workplace shootings, among other things (like terrorism). Shy, nervous ten-year-old Elias (Markus Rygaard) needs a confidence boost, but things are worrying both at home and elsewhere. His parents are estranged, and his doting father (Mikael Persbrandt) is mostly away as a field hospital in Kenya tending victims of local militias. At school, he’s an easy mark for bullies, a fact which gets the attention of charismatic, self-assured new kid Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen), who appoints himself Elias’ new (and only) friend — then when his slightly awed pal is picked on again, intervenes with such alarming intensity that the police are called. Christian appears a little too prone to violence and harsh judgment in teaching “lessons” to those he considers in the wrong; his own domestic situation is another source of anger, as he simplistically blames his earnest, distracted executive father (Ulrich Thomsen) for his mother’s recent cancer death. Is Christian a budding little psychopath, or just a kid haplessly channeling his profound loss? Regardless, when an adult bully (Kim Bodnia as a loutish mechanic) humiliates Elias’ father in front of the two boys, Christian pulls his reluctant friend into a pursuit of vengeance that surely isn’t going to end well. With their nuanced yet head-on treatment of hot button social and ethical issues, Bier and Jensen’s work can sometimes border on overly-schematic melodrama, meting out its own secular-humanist justice a bit too handily, like 21st-century cinematic Dickenses. But like Dickens, they also have a true mastery of the creating striking characters and intricately propulsive plotlines that illustrate the points at hand in riveting, hugely satisfying fashion. This isn’t their best. But it’s still pretty excellent, and one of those universally accessible movies you can safely recommend even to people who think they don’t like foreign or art house films. (1:53) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Max Manus One of Norway’s most expensive films to date, Max Manus follows the rise to infamy of the title character, a charismatic World War II resistance fighter whose specialty was blowing up German ships docked in occupied Oslo harbor. Again, I emphasize: this is a World War II movie about Norway made by Norwegians — though the Brits play a role, there’s nary a mention of the United States. That fact is the single most refreshing part of a movie that’s nonetheless clearly been inspired by stateside war epics, with traumatic flashbacks, male bonding, sadistic Nazis, rousing if familiar-sounding dialogue (“Being a commando takes more than courage!”), etc. Star Aksel Hennie anchors a film that’s painted in pretty broad strokes with a nuanced performance befitting the real-life Manus’ legacy as an everyman who became a hero. (1:58) Balboa. (Eddy)

*Poetry Sixtysomething Mija (legendary South Korean actor Yun Jung-hee) impulsively crashes a poetry class, a welcome shake-up in a life shaped by unfulfilling routines. In order to write compelling verse, her instructor says, it is important to open up and really see the world. But Mija’s world holds little beauty beyond her cheerful outfits and beloved flowers; most pressingly, her teenage grandson, a mouth-breathing lump who lives with her, is completely remorseless about his participation in a hideous crime. In addition, she’s just been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and the elderly stroke victim she housekeeps for has started making inappropriate advances. Somehow writer-director Lee Chang-dong (2007’s Secret Sunshine) manages not to deliver a totally depressing film with all this loaded material; it’s worth noting Poetry won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Yun is unforgettable as a woman trying to find herself after a lifetime of obeying the wishes of everyone around her. Though Poetry is completely different in tone than 2009’s Mother, it shares certain elements — including the impression that South Korean filmmakers have recognized the considerable rewards of showcasing aging (yet still formidable) female performers. (2:19) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Soul Surfer Biopic about teen surfer and shark-attack survivor Bethany Hamilton. (1:46)

Your Highness Failed Oscar host James Franco goes back to his day job in his anachronistic medieval comedy from David Gordon Green (2008’s Pineapple Express). (1:42) Presidio.

ONGOING

The Adjustment Bureau As far as sci-fi romantic thrillers go, The Adjustment Bureau is pretty standard. But since that’s not an altogether common genre mash-up, I guess the film deserves some points for creativity. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau takes place in a world where all of our fates are predetermined. Political hotshot David Norris (Matt Damon) is destined for greatness — but not if he lets a romantic dalliance with dancer Elise (Emily Blunt) take precedence. And in order to make sure he stays on track, the titular Adjustment Bureau (including Anthony Mackie and Mad Men‘s John Slattery) are there to push him in the right direction. While the film’s concept is intriguing, the execution is sloppy. The Adjustment Bureau suffers from flaws in internal logic, allowing the story to skip over crucial plot points with heavy exposition and a deus ex machina you’ve got to see to believe. Couldn’t the screenwriter have planned ahead? (1:39) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Battle: Los Angeles Michael Bay is likely writhing with envy over Battle: Los Angeles; his Transformers flicks take a more, erm, nuanced view of alien-on-human violence. But they’re not all such bad guys after all; these days, as District 9 (2009) demonstrated, alien invasions are more hazardous to the brothers and sisters from another planet than those trigger-happy humanoids ready to defend terra firma. So Battle arrives like an anomaly — a war-is-good action movie aimed at faceless space invaders who resemble the Alien (1979) mother more than the wide-eyed lost souls of District 9. Still reeling from his last tour of duty, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is ready to retire, until he’s pulled back in by a world invasion, staged by thirsty aliens. In approximating D-Day off the beach of Santa Monica, director Jonathan Liebesman manages to combine the visceral force of Saving Private Ryan (1998) with the what-the-fuck hand-held verite rush of Cloverfield (2008) while crafting tiny portraits of all his Marines, including Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo, and True Blood‘s Jim Parrack. A few moments of requisite flag-waving are your only distractions from the almost nonstop white-knuckle tension fueling Battle: Los Angeles. (1:57) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

*Carancho What Psycho (1960) did for showers this equally masterful, if far more bloody, neo-noir is bound to do for crossing the street at night. Argentine director Pablo Trapero has spun his country’s grim traffic statistics (the film’s opening text informs us that more than 8,000 people die every year in road accidents at a daily average of 22) into a Jim Thompson-worthy drama of human ugliness and squandered chances. Sosa (Ricardo Darín of 2009’s The Secret in Their Eyes) is the titular “carancho,” or buzzard, a disbarred lawyer-turned-ambulance chaser who swoops down on those injured in road accidents on behalf of a shady foundation that fixes personal injury lawsuits. It’s only a matter of time before he crosses paths with and falls for Lujan (a wonderful Martina Gusman, also of Trapero’s 2008 Lion’s Den), a young ambulance medic battling her own demons and a grueling work schedule. A May-December affair begins to percolate until Sosa botches a job and incurs the wrath of the foundation, kicking off a chain reaction that only leads to further tragedy for him and his newfound love. Trapero keeps a steady hand at the wheel throughout, deftly guiding his film through intimate scenes that lay bare Lujan’s quiet desperation and Sosa’s moral ambivalence as well as genuinely shocking moments of violence. The Academy passed over Carancho as one of this year’s nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, but Hollywood would do well to learn from talent like Trapero’s. (1:47) Lumiere. (Sussman)

*Cedar Rapids What if The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) got so Parks and Rec‘d at The Office party that he ended up with a killer Hangover (2009)? Just maybe the morning-after baby would be Cedar Rapids. Director Miguel Arteta (2009’s Youth in Revolt) wrings sweet-natured chuckles from his banal, intensely beige wall-to-wall convention center biosphere, spurring such ponderings as, should John C. Reilly snatch comedy’s real-guy MVP tiara away from Seth Rogen? Consider Tim Lippe (Ed Helms of The Hangover), the polar opposite of George Clooney’s ultracompetent, complacent ax-wielder in Up in the Air (2009). He’s the naive manchild-cum-corporate wannabe who never quite graduated from Timmyville into adulthood. But it’s up to Lippe to hold onto his firm’s coveted two-star rating at an annual convention in Cedar Rapids. Life conspires against him, however, and despite his heartfelt belief in insurance as a heroic profession, Lippe immediately gets sucked into the oh-so-distracting drama, stirred up by the dangerously subversive “Deanzie” Ziegler (John C. Reilly), whom our naif is warned against as a no-good poacher. Temptations lie around every PowerPoint and potato skin; as Deanzie warns Lippe’s Candide, “I’ve got tiger scratches all over my back. If you want to survive in this business, you gotta daaance with the tiger.” How do you do that? Cue lewd, boozy undulations — a potbelly lightly bouncing in the air-conditioned breeze. “You’ve got to show him a little teat.” Fortunately Arteta shows us plenty of that, equipped with a script by Wisconsin native Phil Johnston, written for Helms — and the latter does not disappoint. (1:26) California, Four Star. (Chun)

Certified Copy Abbas Kiarostami’s beguiling new feature signals “relationship movie” with every cobblestone step, but it’s manifestly a film of ideas — one in which disillusionment is as much a formal concern as a dramatic one. Typical of Kiarostami’s dialogic narratives, Certified Copy is both the name of the film and an entity within the film: a book written against the ideal of originality in art by James Miller (William Shimell), an English pedant fond of dissembling. After a lecture in Tuscany, he meets an apparent admirer (Juliette Binoche) in her antique shop. We watch them talk for several minutes in an unbroken two-shot. They gauge each other’s values using her sister as a test case — a woman who, according to the Binoche character, is the living embodiment of James’ book. Do their relative opinions of this off-screen cipher constitute characterization? Or are they themselves ciphers of the film’s recursive structure? Kiarostami makes us wonder. They begin to act as if they were married midway through the film, though the switch is not so out of the blue: Kiarostami’s narrative has already turned a few figure-eights. Several critics have already deemed Certified Copy derivative of many other elliptical romances; the strongest case for an “original” comes of Roberto Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy (1954). The real difference is that while Rossellini’s masterpiece realizes first-person feelings in a third-person approach, Kiarostami stays in the shadow of doubt to the end. (1:46) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Goldberg)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.

Even the Rain It feels wrong to criticize an “issues movie” — particularly when the issues addressed are long overdue for discussion. Even the Rain takes on the privatization of water in Bolivia, but it does so in such an obvious, artless way that the ultimate message is muddled. The film follows a crew shooting an on-location movie about Christopher Columbus. The film-within-a-film is a less-than-flattering portrait of the explorer: if you’ve guessed that the exploitation of the native people will play a role in both narratives, you’d be right. The problem here is that Even the Rain rests on our collective outrage, doing little to explain the situation or even develop the characters. Case in point: Sebastian (Gael García Bernal), who shifts allegiances at will throughout the film. There’s an interesting link to be made between the time of Columbus and current injustice, but it’s not properly drawn here, and in the end, the few poignant moments get lost in the shuffle. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Peitzman)

Hop (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck.

I Am File in the dusty back drawer of An Inconvenient Truth (2006) wannabes. The cringe-inducing, pretentious title is a giveaway — though the good intentions are in full effect — in this documentary by and about director Tom Shadyac’s search for answers to life’s big questions. After a catastrophic bike accident, the filmmaker finds his lavish lifestyle as a successful Hollywood director of such opuses as Bruce Almighty (2003) somewhat wanting. Thinkers and spiritual leaders such as Desmond Tutu, Howard Zinn, UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, and scientist David Suzuki provide some thought-provoking answers, although Shadyac’s thinking behind seeking out this specific collection of academics, writers, and activists remains somewhat unclear. I Am‘s shambling structure and perpetual return to its true subject — Shadyac, who resembles a wide-eyed Weird Al Yankovic — doesn’t help matters, leaving a viewer with mixed feelings, less about whether one man can work out his quest for meaning on film, than whether Shadyac complements his subjects and their ideas by framing them in such a random, if well-meaning, manner. And sorry, this film doesn’t make up for Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994). (1:16) Shattuck. (Chun)

*The Illusionist Now you see Jacques Tati and now you don’t. With The Illusionist, aficionados yearning for another gem from Tati will get a sweet, satisfying taste of the maestro’s sensibility, inextricably blended with the distinctively hand-drawn animation of Sylvain Chomet (2004’s The Triplets of Belleville). Tati wrote the script between 1956 and 1959 — a loving sendoff from a father to a daughter heading toward selfhood — and after reading it in 2003 Chomet decided to adapt it, bringing the essentially silent film to life with 2D animation that’s as old school as Tati’s ambivalent longing for bygone days. The title character should be familiar to fans of Monsieur Hulot: the illusionist is a bemused artifact of another age, soon to be phased out with the rise of rock ‘n’ rollers. He drags his ornery rabbit and worn bag of tricks from one ragged hall to another, each more far-flung than the last, until he meets a little cleaning girl on a remote Scottish island. Enthralled by his tricks and grateful for his kindness, she follows him to Edinburgh and keeps house while the magician works the local theater and takes on odd jobs in an attempt to keep her in pretty clothes, until she discovers life beyond their small circle of fading vaudevillians. Chomet hews closely to bittersweet tone of Tati’s films — and though some controversy has dogged the production (Tati’s illegitimate, estranged daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel claimed to be the true inspiration for The Illusionist, rather than daughter and cinematic collaborator Sophie Tatischeff) and Chomet neglects to fully detail a few plot turns, the dialogue-free script does add an intriguing ambiguity to the illusionist and his charge’s relationship — are they playing at being father and daughter or husband and wife? — and an otherwise straightforward, albeit poignant tale. (1:20) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Inside Job Inside Job is director Charles Ferguson’s second investigative documentary after his 2007 analysis of the Iraq War, No End in Sight, but it feels more like the follow-up to Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). Keeping with the law of sequels, more shit blows up the second time around. As with No End in Sight, Ferguson adeptly packages a broad overview of complex events in two hours, respecting the audience’s intelligence while making sure to explain securities exchanges, derivatives, and leveraging laws in clear English (doubly important when so many Wall Street executives hide behind the intricacy of markets). The revolving door between banks, government, and academia is the key to Inside Job‘s account of financial deregulation. At times borrowing heist-film conventions (it is called Inside Job, after all), Ferguson keeps the primary players in view throughout his history so that the eventual meltdown seems anything but an accident. The filmmaker’s relentless focus on the insiders isn’t foolproof; tarring Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, and Timothy Geithner as “made” guys, for example, isn’t a substitute for evaluating their varied performances over the last two years. Inside Job makes it seem that the entire crisis was caused by the financial sector’s bad behavior, and this too is reductive. Furthermore, Ferguson does not come to terms with the politicized nature of the economic fallout. In Inside Job, there are only two kinds of people: those who get it and those who refuse to. The political reality is considerably more contentious. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Goldberg)

Insidious (1:42) 1000 Van Ness.

*Jane Eyre Do we really need another adaptation of Jane Eyre? As long as they’re all as good as Cary Fukunaga’s stirring take on the gothic romance, keep ’em coming. Mia Wasikowska stars in the titular role, with the dreamy Michael Fassbender stepping into the high pants of Edward Rochester. The cast is rounded out by familiar faces like Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, and Sally Hawkins — all of whom breathe new life into the material. It helps that Fukunaga’s sensibilities are perfectly suited to the story: he stays true to the novel while maintaining an aesthetic certain to appeal to a modern audience. Even if you know Jane Eyre’s story — Mr. Rochester’s dark secret, the fate of their romance, etc. — there are still surprises to be had. Everyone tells the classics differently, and this adaptation is a thoroughly unique experience. And here’s hoping it pushes the engaging Wasikowska further in her ascent to stardom. (2:00) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Kill the Irishman If you enjoy 1970s-set Mafia movies featuring characters with luxurious facial hair zooming around in Cadillacs, flossing leather blazers, and outwitting cops and each other — you could do a lot worse than Kill the Irishman, which busts no genre boundaries but delivers enjoyable retro-gangsta cool nonetheless. Adapted from the acclaimed true crime book by a former Cleveland police lieutenant, the film details the rise and fall of Danny Greene, a colorful and notorious Irish-American mobster who both served and ran afoul of the big bosses in his Ohio hometown. During one particularly conflict-ridden period, the city weathered nearly 40 bombings — buildings, mailboxes, and mostly cars, to the point where the number of automobiles going sky-high is almost comical (you’d think these guys would’ve considered taking the bus). The director of the 2004 Punisher, Jonathan Hensleigh, teams up with the star of 2008’s Punisher: War Zone, Ray Stevenson, who turns in a magnetic performance as Greene; it’s easy to see how his combination of book- and street smarts (with a healthy dash of ruthlessness) buoyed him nearly to the top of the underworld. The rest of the cast is equally impressive, with Vincent D’Onofrio, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, and Linda Cardellini turning in supporting roles, plus a host of dudes who look freshly defrosted from post-Sopranos storage. (1:46) SF Center. (Eddy)

The King’s Speech Films like The King’s Speech have filled a certain notion of “prestige” cinema since the 1910s: historical themes, fully-clothed romance, high dramatics, star turns, a little political intrigue, sumptuous dress, and a vicarious taste of how the fabulously rich, famous, and powerful once lived. At its best, this so-called Masterpiece Theatre moviemaking can transcend formula — at its less-than-best, however, these movies sell complacency, in both style and content. In The King’s Speech, Colin Firth plays King George VI, forced onto the throne his favored older brother Edward abandoned. This was especially traumatic because George’s severe stammer made public address tortuous. Enter matey Australian émigré Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, mercifully controlled), a speech therapist whose unconventional methods include insisting his royal client treat him as an equal. This ultimately frees not only the king’s tongue, but his heart — you see, he’s never had anyone before to confide in that daddy (Michael Gambon as George V) didn’t love him enough. Aww. David Seidler’s conventionally inspirational script and BBC miniseries veteran Tom Hooper’s direction deliver the expected goods — dignity on wry, wee orgasms of aesthetic tastefulness, much stiff-upper-lippage — at a stately promenade pace. Firth, so good in the uneven A Single Man last year, is perfect in this rock-steadier vehicle. Yet he never surprises us; role, actor, and movie are on a leash tight enough to limit airflow. (1:58) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*Last Lions It’s hard being a single mom. Particularly when you are a lioness in the Botswana wetlands, your territory invaded and mate killed by an invading pride forced out of their own by encroaching humanity. Add buffalo herds (tasty yes, but with sharp horns they’re not afraid to use) and crocodiles (no upside there), and our heroine is hard-pressed to keep herself alive, let alone her three small cubs. Derek Joubert’s spectacular nature documentary, narrated by Jeremy Irons (in plummiest Lion King vocal form) manages a mind-boggling intimacy observing all these predators. Shot over several years, while seeming to depict just a few weeks or months’ events, it no doubt fudges facts a bit to achieve a stronger narrative, but you’ll be too gripped to care. Warning: those kitties sure are cute, but this sometimes harsh depiction of life (and death) in the wild is not suitable for younger children. (1:28) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Limitless An open letter to the makers of Limitless: please fire your marketing team because they are making your movie look terrible. The story of a deadbeat writer (Bradley Cooper) who acquires an unregulated drug that allows him to take advantage of 100 percent of his previously under-utilized brain, Limitless is silly, improbable and features a number of distracting comic-book-esque stylistic tics. But consumed with the comic book in mind, Limitless is also unpredictable, thrilling, and darkly funny. The aforementioned style, which includes many instances of the infinite regression effect that you get when you point two mirrors at each other, and a heavy blur to distort depth-of-field, only solidifies the film’s cartoonish intentions. Cooper learns foreign languages in hours, impresses women with his keen attention to detail, and sets his sights on Wall Street, a move that gets him noticed by businessman Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro in a glorified cameo) as well as some rather nasty drug dealers and hired guns looking to cash in on the drug. Limitless is regrettably titled and masquerades in TV spots as a Wall Street series spin-off, but in truth it sports the speedy pacing and tongue-in-cheek humor required of a good popcorn flick. (1:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

*The Lincoln Lawyer Outfitted with gym’d-tanned-and-laundered manly blonde bombshells like Matthew McConaughey, Josh Lucas, and Ryan Phillippe, this adaptation of Michael Connelly’s LA crime novel almost cries out for an appearance by the Limitless Bradley Cooper — only then will our cabal of flaxen-haired bros-from-other-‘hos be complete. That said, Lincoln Lawyer‘s blast of morally challenged golden boys nearly detracts from the pleasingly gritty mise-en-scène and the snappy, almost-screwball dialogue that makes this movie a genre pleasure akin to a solid Elmore Leonard read. McConaughey’s criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller is accustomed to working all the angles — hence the title, a reference to a client who’s working off his debt by chauffeuring Haller around in his de-facto office: a Lincoln Town Car. Haller’s playa gets truly played when he becomes entangled with Louis Roulet (Phillippe), a pretty-boy old-money realtor accused of brutally attacking a call girl. Loved ones such as Haller’s ex Maggie (Marisa Tomei) and his investigator Frank (William H. Macy) are in jeopardy — and in danger of turning in some delightfully textured cameos — in this enjoyable walk on the sleazy side of the law, the contemporary courtroom counterpart to quick-witted potboilers like Sweet Smell of Success (1957). (1:59) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Miral (1:42) Embarcadero.

*Of Gods and Men It’s the mid-1990s, and we’re in Tibhirine, a small Algerian village based around a Trappist monastery. There, eight French-born monks pray and work alongside their Muslim neighbors, tending to the sick and tilling the land. An emboldened Islamist rebel movement threatens this delicate peace, and the monks must decide whether to risk the danger of becoming pawns in the Algerian Civil War. On paper, Of Gods and Men sounds like the sort of high-minded exploitation picture the Academy swoons over: based on a true story, with high marks for timeliness and authenticity. What a pleasant surprise then that Xavier Beauvois’s Cannes Grand Prix winner turns out to be such a tightly focused moral drama. Significantly, the film is more concerned with the power vacuum left by colonialism than a “clash of civilizations.” When Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson) turns away an Islamist commander by appealing to their overlapping scriptures, it’s at the cost of the Algerian army’s suspicion. Etienne Comar’s perceptive script does not rush to assign meaning to the monks’ decision to stay in Tibhirine, but rather works to imagine the foundation and struggle for their eventual consensus. Beauvois occasionally lapses into telegraphing the monks’ grave dilemma — there are far too many shots of Christian looking up to the heavens — but at other points he’s brilliant in staging the living complexity of Tibrihine’s collective structure of responsibility. The actors do a fine job too: it’s primarily thanks to them that by the end of the film each of the monks seems a sharply defined conscience. (2:00) Albany, Lumiere. (Goldberg)

*Orgasm, Inc. Liz Canner’s doc begins as she’s hired to do some editing work for a drug company in need of a loop of erotic videos to excite the women who’re testing its latest invention: a cream targeting so-called “Female Sexual Dysfunction.” As it turns out, basically everyone with a lab is frantically trying to develop a female Viagra; potential profits could rake in billions. Canner’s intrigued enough to leave the porn-editing bay and further investigate the race to scientifically calculate exactly what women need to achieve orgasm. Of course, it’s not as simple as what men need — though that doesn’t stop pharmaceutical giants from pushing potentially harmful drugs, inventors from convincing women to get invasive operations to test something called the “Orgasmatron” (note: Woody Allen not included), surgeons from pimping scary “genital reconstruction surgery,” or TV doctors from defining what a “normal” woman’s sex life should be. San Francisco’s own Dr. Carol Queen is among the inspiring experts interviewed to help cut through all the big-money bullshit. (1:19) Roxie. (Eddy)

Paul Across the aisle from the alien-shoot-em-up Battle: Los Angeles is its amiable, nerdy opposite: Paul, with its sweet geeks Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), off on a post-Comic-Con pilgrimage to all the US sites of alien visitation. Naturally the buddies get a close encounter of their very own, with a very down-to-earth every-dude of a schwa named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), given to scratching his balls, spreading galactic wisdom, utilizing Christ-like healing powers, and cracking wise when the situation calls for it (as when fear of anal probes escalates). Despite a Pegg-and-Frost-penned script riddled with allusions to Hollywood’s biggest extraterrestrial flicks and much 12-year-old-level humor concerning testicles and farts, the humor onslaught usually attached to the two lead actors — considered Lewis and Martin for pop-smart Anglophiles — seems to have lost some of its steam, and teeth, with the absence of former director and co-writer Edgar Wright (who took last year’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to the next level instead). Call it a “soft R” for language and an alien sans pants. (1:44) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Potiche When we first meet Catherine Deneuve’s Suzanne — the titular trophy wife (or potiche) of Francois Ozon’s new airspun comedy — she is on her morning jog, barely breaking a sweat as she huffs and puffs in her maroon Adidas tracksuit, her hair still in curlers. It’s 1977 and Suzanne’s life as a bourgeois homemaker in a small provincial French town has played out as smoothly as one of her many poly-blend skirt suits: a devoted mother to two grown children and loving wife who turns a blind eye to the philandering of husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini), Suzanne is on the fast track to comfortable irrelevance. All that changes when the workers at Robert’s umbrella factory strike and take him hostage. Suzanne, with the help of union leader and old flame Babin (Gerard Depardieu, as big as a house), negotiates a peace, and soon turns around the company’s fortunes with her new-found confidence and business savvy. But when Robert wrests back control with the help of a duped Babin, Suzanne does an Elle Woods and takes them both on in a surprise run for political office. True to the film’s light théâtre de boulevard source material, Ozon keeps things brisk and cheeky (Suzanne sings with as much ease as she spouts off Women’s Lib boilerplate) to the point where his cast’s hammy performances start blending into the cheery production design. Satire needs an edge that Potiche, for all its charm, never provides. (1:43) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Sussman)

Rango (1:47) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

Red Riding Hood In order to appreciate a movie like Red Riding Hood, you have to be familiar with the teen supernatural romance genre. Catherine Hardwicke’s sexy reinterpretation of the fairy tale is not high art: the script is often laughable, the acting flat, and the werewolf CGI embarrassing. But there’s something undeniably enjoyable about Red Riding Hood, especially in the wake of the duller, more sexually repressed Twilight series. Amanda Seyfried stars as Valerie, a young woman living in a village of werewolf cannon fodder. She’s torn between love and duty — or, more accurately, Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and Henry (Max Irons). Meanwhile, a vicious werewolf hunter (Gary Oldman) has arrived to overact his way into killing the beast. It’s a silly story with plenty of hamfisted references to the original fairy tale, but if you can embrace the camp factor and the striking visuals, Red Riding Hood is actually quite fun. Though, to be fair, it might help if you suffer through Beastly first. (1:38) SF Center. (Peitzman)

*Rubber This starts out just on the right side of self-conscious prank, introducing a droll fourth-wall-breaking framework to a serenely surreal central conceit: An old car tire abandoned in the desert miraculously animates itself to commit widespread mayhem. Credit writer-director-editor-cinematographer-composer Quentin Dupieux for an original concept and terrific execution, as our initially wobby antihero wends its way toward civilization, discovering en route it can explode (or just crush) other entities with its “mind.” Which this rumbling black ring of discontent very much enjoys doing, to the misfortune of various hapless humans and a few small animals. Rubber is an extended Dadaist joke that has adventurous fun with filmic and genre language. Beautifully executed as it is, the concept tires (ahem) after a while, reality-illusion games and comedic flair flagging by degrees. Still, it’s so polished and resourceful a treatment of an utterly peculiar idea that no self-respecting cult film fan will want to say they didn’t see this during its initial theatrical run. (1:25) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*Source Code A post-9/11 Groundhog Day (1993) with explosions, Inception (2010) with a heart, or Avatar (2009) taken down a notch or dozen in Chicago —whatever you choose to call it, Source Code manages to stand up on its own wobbly Philip K. Dick-inspired legs, damn the science, and take off on the wings of wish fulfillment. ‘Cause who hasn’t yearned for a do-over — and then a do-over of that do-over, etc. We could all be as lucky — or as cursed — as soldier Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who gets to tumble down that time-space rabbit hole again and again, his consciousness hitching a ride in another man’s body, while in search of the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. On the upside, he gets to meet the girl of his dreams (Michelle Monaghan) — and see her getting blown to smithereens again and again, all in the service of his country, his commander-cum-link to the outside world (Vera Farmiga), and the scientist masterminding this secret military project (Jeffrey Wright). On the downside, well, he gets to do it over and over again, like a good little test bunny in pinball purgatory. Fortunately, director Duncan Jones (2009’s Moon) makes compelling work out of the potentially ludicrous material, while his cast lends the tale a glossed yet likable humanity, the kind that was all too absent in Inception. (1:33) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Sucker Punch If steampunk and Call of Duty had a baby, would it be called Baby Doll? That seems to be the question posed by director-cowriter Zack Snyder with his latest edge-skating, CGI-laden opus. Neither as saccharine and built-for-kids as last year’s Legend of the Guardians, nor as doomed and gore-besotted as 2006’s 300, Sucker Punch instead reads as a grimy Grimm’s fairy tale built for girls succored on otaku, Wii, and suburban pole dancing lessons. Already caught in a thicket of storybook tropes, complete with a wicked stepfather and vulnerable younger sister, Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is tossed into an asylum for wayward girls, signed up for a lobotomy that’s certain to put her in la-la land for good. Fortunately she has a great imagination — and a flair for disassociating herself from the horrors around her —and the scene suddenly shifts to a bordello-strip club populated by such bad-girls-with-hearts-of-gold as Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and sister Rocket (Jena Malone). There Baby Doll discovers yet another layer in the gameplay: like a prospective hoofer in Dancing with the Stars, she must dance her way to the next level or next prize — while deep in her imagination, she sees herself battling giant samurai, robot-zombie Nazis, dragons, and such, assisted by the David Carradine-like, cliché-spouting wise man (Scott Glenn) and accompanied by an inspiring score that includes Björk’s “Army of Me” and covers of the Pixies and Stooges. Things take a turn for the girl gang-y when she recruits Sweet Pea, Rocket, and other random stripper-‘hos (Vanessa Hudgens and Real World starlet Jamie Chung) in her scheme to escape. Why bother, one wonders, since Baby Doll seems to be a genuine escape artist of the mind? The ever-fatalistic Snyder obviously has affection for his charges: when the shadows inevitably close in, he delicately refrains from the arterial spray as the little girls bite the dust in what might be the closest thing to a feature-length anime classic that Baz Luhrmann would give his velvet frock coat to make. (2:00) Empire, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Super Naive, vaguely Christian, and highly suggestible everyman Frank (Rainn Wilson) snaps when his wife (Liv Tyler) is seduced away by sleazy drug dealer Jacques (Kevin Bacon). With a little tutoring from the cute girl at the comic store, Libby (Ellen Page), he throws together a pathetically makeshift superhero costume and equally makeshift persona as the Crimson Bolt. Time to dress up and beat down local dealers, child molesters, and people who cut in line with cracks like, “Shut up, crime!” Frank’s taking stumbling, fumbling baby steps toward rescuing his lady love, but it becomes more than simply his mission when Libby discovers his secret and tries to horn in on his act as his kid sidekick Boltie. Alas, what begins as a charming, intriguing indie about dingy reality meeting up with violent vigilantism goes full-tilt Commando (1985), with all the attendant gore and shocks. In the process director James Gunn (2006’s Slither) completely squanders his chance to peer more deeply into the dark heart of the superhero phenom, topping off this vaguely Old Testament reading of good and evil with an absolutely incoherent ending. (1:36) Embarcadero, California. (Chun)

*Win Win Is Tom McCarthy the most versatile guy in Hollywood? He’s a successful character actor (in big-budget movies like 2009’s 2012; smaller-scale pictures like 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck; and the final season of The Wire). He’s an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (2009’s Up). And he’s the writer-director of two highly acclaimed indie dramas, The Station Agent (2003) and The Visitor (2007). Clearly, McCarthy must not sleep much. His latest, Win Win, is a comedy set in his hometown of New Providence, N.J. Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer who’s feeling the economic pinch. Betraying his own basic good-guy-ness, he takes advantage of a senile client, Leo (Burt Young), when he spots the opportunity to pull in some badly-needed extra cash. Matters complicate with the appearance of Leo’s grandson, Kyle (newcomer Alex Shaffer), a runaway from Ohio. Though Mike’s wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), is suspicious of the taciturn teen, she allows Kyle to crash with the Flaherty family. As luck would have it, Kyle is a superstar wrestler — and Mike happens to coach the local high school team. Things are going well until Kyle’s greedy mother (Melanie Lynskey) turns up and starts sniffing around her father’s finances. Lessons are learned, sure, and there are no big plot twists beyond typical indie-comedy turf. But the script delivers more genuine laughs than you’d expect from a movie that’s essentially about the recession. (1:46) Bridge, California, Piedmont, SF Center. (Eddy)

Winter in Wartime (1:43) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

On the Cheap Listings

Maria Poblet

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April 5, 2011

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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 6

Fantomas by the Bay City Lights Books, 261 Columbus, SF; (415) 362-8193 , www.citylightsf.com. 7pm, free. Help kick off a four day celebration of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain’s literary pulp arch-villain, Fantomas, with a reception and absinthe-tasting featuring readings, lectures, film screenings, art exhibitions, and performances by Robin Walz, Daniel Handler, Mel Gordon, Howard Rodman, Jill Tracy, and more.

Japan relief fundraiser Project One Gallery & Lounge, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 938-7173, www.p1sf.com. 7pm-2am, $10. Join forces with the American Red Cross to raise money for those who have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan with DJs, drinks, and dancing. All proceeds from the bar – including tips! – as well as the door price will go directly to the cause. While you’re here, check out the gallery’s current exhibition, “Warhol Reimagined: The New Factory”.

THURSDAY 7

Iconic gay paper celebrates 40th anniversary GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th St., SF; (415) 621-1107, www.glbthistory.org. 7pm, $5. Tonight, the Bay Area Reporter, the country’s oldest continuously published newspaper, celebrates its 40th anniversary and will launch their first ever Best of the Gays reader’s poll with an awards ceremony – be sure to vote online beforehand. Plus, a new special exhibit chronicling B.A.R.’s struggle to secure justice and equality for the entire gay-munity.

FRIDAY 8

West Portal Avenue sidewalk sale West Portal between Ulloa and 15th St., SF; www.pacificfinearts.com. 10am-5pm, free. Today, the West Portal neighborhood — bustling with quaint stores, restaurants, and coffeehouses — will line it’s main thoroughfare with an arts and crafts exhibition. Come admire the work of over 60 artists, including Mendy Marks and Locke Heemstra. Expect to find everything from jewelry and photography to handcrafted leather bags, sheepskin slippers, and more.

Community Wellness Fair Glide Memorial Church, 330 Ellis, SF; www.glide.org. 10am-2pm, free. While the rest of the country debates health care reform, we in San Francisco enjoy plenty of health care options for the under-insured. Today, everyone can celebrate health and wellness as Glide Health Services launches their new Wellness Center – which will build upon their holistic healthcare approach by adding nutrition and cooking classes, stress reduction services, and even relationship help. There will be games, prizes, healthy vendors, and free health screenings for the whole family.

SATURDAY 9

Cesar Chavez Day celebration Dolores Park, Dolores and 19th St., SF; www.cesarchavezday.org. 10am-6pm, free. Celebrate the legacy of Caesar Chavez, the American farm worker and activist who helped found the National Farm Workers Association, at this day-long celebration featuring a parade and street fair. Assemble at Dolores park at 10 am and march toward the 24th Street fair where festival booths, speakers, and other entertainment await.

Obscura Day festivities Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, 2465 34th Ave., Oakl.; www.peraltahacienda.org. 2:30-5:30pm, free. Peek behind the scenes at Peralta Hacienda on Obscura Day, an international day of expeditions, back-room tours, and hidden treasures in cities and towns around the world. Here, step back in time and experience a Victorian farmhouse by candlelight while enjoying tamales in the kitchen. Or, if you’re brave enough, try to catch a glimpse of the ghost of Maria Peralta!

SUNDAY 10

Sunday Streets Great Highway, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 11am-4pm, free. The second “Streets” of the season will begin at the SF Zoo and follow the Great Highway down to Golden Gate Park and continue down JFK Drive, ending at Sloat. Bring your roller skates, unicycle, skateboard, or just a plain pair of walking shoes and enjoy the activities and vendors that line the nearly six miles of car-free roads.

MONDAY 11

“How to coexist with coyotes” San Francisco Public Library Sunset Branch, 1305 18th Ave., SF.; (415) 355-2808, www.sfpl.org. 7-8:30pm, free. Coyotes are making a comeback here in San Francisco, and the resident expert on the topic, filmmaker Melissa Peabody, will show and discuss her film San Francisco: Still Wild at Heart and tell you how our new furry friends add richness and surprise to our already kooky town.

TUESDAY 12

Lit & Lunch with Yiyun Li Minna Street gallery, 111 Minna, SF.; www.catranslation.org. 12:30-1:30pm, free. Fans of Yiyun Lee the novelist may not be aware of her lesser known translations of the works of the late Chinese writer Shen Congwen. Tonight, Li will discuss Congwen’s modernist style and how he challenged the political sensors in China.

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

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April 5, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/6–Tues/12 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. Amreeka (Dabis, 2009), Thurs, 7:30. Woven (Vargas), Fri, 8. With live music by Ever Isles and Honeycomb. “Other Cinema:” “All-16mm, All Retro Music-on-Film Party,” Sat, 8:30.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-15. “A Quarter Century of Chernobyl:” Chernobyl4Ever, Sun, 4. With panel discussion featuring anti-nuclear activists.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. The Fighter (Russell, 2010), Wed, 3, 5:30, 8. “Orson Welles Double Feature:” •The Lady From Shanghai (1947), Thurs, 3, 7, and Touch of Evil (1958/1998), Thurs, 4:45, 8:45. “Jane Russell Double Feature:” •The Outlaw (Hughes, 1943), Fri, 1, 5, 9, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks, 1953), Fri, 3:15, 7:15. “Justin Vivian Bond in Concert,” Sat, 8. This performance, $27-75; call (415) 863-0611 or visit www.ticketfly.com. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954), Sun, 2:30, 7.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-15. Certified Copy (Kiarostami, 2010), call for dates and times. Trophy Wife (Ozon, 2010), call for dates and times. Winter in Wartime (Koolhoven, 2009), call for dates and times. Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (Cross, 2010), Wed, 7. Filmmaker Joe Cross in person. Poetry (Yun, 2010), April 8-14, call for times.

CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO Cloud Hall, Room 246, 50 Phelan, SF; (415) 23903580. Free. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (Irving, 2003), Wed, 7. With filmmaker Judy Irving in person.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Crude: The Real Price of Oil (Berlinger, 2009) Wed, 7.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: French Twist:” Irma Vep (Assayas, 1996), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Film 50: History of Cinema: Fantasy Films and Realms of Enchantment:” Dreamchild (Millar, 1985), Wed, 3:10. “Alternative Visions:” “The Chicago Survey Trilogy” (Cornerford, 2002-2010), Wed, 7:30. “Patricio Guzmán:” The Southern Cross (1992), Thurs, 7; The Battle of Chile (1975-1978), Sun, 1 (part one), 3 (part two), 5:30 (part three). “Under the Skin: The Films of Claire Denis:” The Intruder (2004), Fri, 6:30 and Sat, 8:30; •U.S. Go Home (Denis and Kahn, 1994) with Claire Denis: The Wanderer (Lifshitz, 1996), Fri, 9. “First Person Rural: The New Nonfiction:” Alamar (González-Rubio, 2009), Sat, 6:30.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. The Housemaid (Im, 2010), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:20. “An Evening with Les Blank,” Thurs, 7:30. Enter the Void (Noé, 2009), Fri-Sun, 8:30 (also Sat-Sun, 2, 5:15). Blue Valentine (Cianfrance, 2010), Mon-Tues, 7, 9:20.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Orgasm, Inc. (Canner, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 6:45, 8:30, 10. “San Francisco International Women’s Film Festival,” Wed-Sun. Visit www.sfwfi.com for program info. “It’s the Paul Meinberg! Show:” All-American Co-Ed (Prinz, 1941), Tues, 7 and 9:45; Big Town Girl (Werker, 1937), Tues, 8.

SEBASTANI THEATER 476 First St East, Sonoma; www.sonomafilmfest.org. $15. “14th Annual Sonoma International Film Festival,” documentaries, world cinema, and more, including a Susan Sarandon tribute, Wed-Sun. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Fearless: Chinese Independent Documentaries:” Tape (Li, 2010), Thurs, 7; Ghost Town (Zhao, 2008), Sun, 2.

How to move 200,000 people around America’s Cup

Mary Magee

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April 4, 2011

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How to move 200,000 people around America’s Cup

I’ve been wondering how the city plans to move the thousands of spectators expected to show up for a series of regattas in 2012 and 2013, leading up to and including the 34th America’s Cup Final.

And today I had a chance to start perusing the city’s draft People Plan which aims to move up to 200,000 residents and visitors daily to the city’s waterfront and is promising to be “the most transit, bicycle and pedestrian-friendly major sporting event in history.”

(Note to compulsive printers of online government documents: thanks to some nifty maps in this document, your printer may experience replication difficulties. For instance, I had to print everything but the maps on pages 13 and 14 of the document.)

Anyways, my preliminary review revealed that there is a special section in the draft dedicated to the “special transportation needs” of America’s Cup “participants” and that these participants include teams, event staff and, ta da!, accredited media.

“Special transportation needs for the ‘participant” group include but are not limited to staff access to race-related areas and other constricted waterfront areas,” states the plan. “These activities may require unique and frequent vehicle access to various sites.”

[Note to self: Remember to check out what is required to qualify as “accredited media” for a seat in one of the vehicles frequently accessing the area.]

Just kidding, and now, back to the needs of regular people who want to see the event.

“Part of the appeal that brought the Events to San Francisco Bay was the opportunity to create a new kind of viewing experience for the highest level of competitive sailing, with races held in close proximity to urban areas and accessible shoreline instead of open seas,” states the plan’s “Strategic Adaptability” section.

“The novelty of this concept creates excitement but it also creates uncertainty, in that there are few instructive examples of how spectators will choose to attend an America’s Cup Final-level sailing event in the middle of a weekend day, or how a large event in San Francisco Bay during a weekday will affect the ability of Bay Area residents to commute to work or their other daytime destinations,” the section notes.

{This sounds like the city is trying to figure out how many of us will choose to be anywhere but San Francisco on the weekends in question, how many of us who work in San Francisco are planning to play hookey to attend week day events, and how many will show up even if the Bay is swathed in fog.]

Un its draft plan, the city promises “to seed the strategies set forth in the People Plan with a measure of adaptability to allow for the strategic deployment of a finite amount of transportation resources across the spectrum of transportation demands associated with the Events in accordance with the expected demands of each day.”

Beyond that, the document is divided into three main parts. One itemizes likely destinations, the next describes transportation strategies to serve these key destinations, and the final section describes “additional considerations and strategies.”

To learn a) which race facilities, waterfront locations, and race viewing locations will be accessible to the public, b) which bus, rail, cable car, bike, automobile and ferry routes will be modified, and c) which parking and special locations will be added, be sure to check out the plan. And then eave your comments at the city’s feedback site here.

For, as the city’s website warns, “The early draft of the People Plan is the product of analysis by city and SFMTA staff, with early input from stakeholder groups. The draft People Plan announced today will also undergo significant and further revisions, following input from members of the public, advocates, city and agency staff, the environmental community and other stakeholders in the coming months. Final approval and consideration will occur following the completion of environmental review.”

In other words, review the documents now and speak your piece soon, otherwise your ideas won’t have any chance of making it into the final plan.

Or at Mayor Ed Lee put it in a press release, “We are moving rapidly to meet our commitments to host a spectacular 34th America’s Cup in 2013 and set a new standard for sustainable event-planning. The America’s Cup is a unique opportunity to leverage our region’s transportation resources and our enthusiasm to deliver the most transit, bicycle and pedestrian-friendly international major sporting event in history for residents and visitors alike.”

And here’s hoping that we will all be “moving rapidly” when the regatta finally rolls into town…