International

The real McGee

Andrew Lam
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The real McGee

caitlin@sfbg.com

STREET ART Gone are the days when Barry McGee, or Twist, or Ray Fong, or whatever alias he happened to be painting under at the time, stalked the San Francisco streets throwing up 3-D screws, Clarion Alley stunners, and his much-admired tags. Nowadays, he exhibits in big-deal gallery shows, like his mid-career retrospective that opened to much fanfare at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on August 24.

BAM/PFA devoted a space the size of a downtown parking garage to McGee’s works, which have ballooned in size as the years go on. Walls literally bulge with clusters of photos and drawings, a homage to the multifarious chorus of the street. A four-pack of dummies from his show at Pittsburgh’s 55th Carnegie International perch on each other shoulders, the uppermost’s arm mechanically waving a spray can. Look, an upended white van! Curator Lawrence Rinder had “no idea” how McGee and his henchmen managed to fit the vehicle into the gallery, as Rinder told a passel of press types at a media preview.

Recently-completed behemoth wall of his patched acid tests in Brooklyn notwithstanding, McGee is the poster child for decades-old genre of “street artist” — those who may have gotten started on the street, but now focus their creative oeuvre on recreating street art-style works indoors.

You’ll never miss the graffiti cultural reference at the retrospective — outside BAM/PFA, tags covered one wall of the museum (“SNITCH” the faker said, tricking me for a moment into thinking that someone had beef with McGee, which would be heresy in these parts) and its glass front doors.

This juxtaposition may be the main thing that keeps McGee’s art interesting. Small tropes impregnate the Berkeley retrospective: on one red wall McGee’s buffed his own work, then overlaid it with blank speech bubbles. Creation, censure, empty creation — it’s the weird feedback loop of his gallery-street life encapsulated.

“I appreciates his early stuff more than the esoteric stuff he’s doing today,” says muralist Sirron Norris when I call him at his Valencia Street studio to talk about McGee’s influence. “That stuff just goes right over my head.”

Norris moved to SF in 1997. Initially a commercial artist, “I was just blown away by the fact that there were cartoons in museums and galleries, and that was because of Barry,” he said. “I thought, I can do that.” McGee and his partner Margaret Kilgallen were instrumental in Norris’ decision to paint his now-signature blue bears and Victorion anti-gentrification Transformer on walls in the Mission and Western Addition. (Catch his most recent, whimsical mega-wall, info in this week’s rundown of our favorite Bay Area murals)

“He was doing something different.” Susan Cervantes co-founded Precita Eyes Mural Arts in 1977, and since then has been at the nexus of community mural-making in San Francisco and the Mission. The kind of murals that Precita Eyes sponsors tend to more neighborhood, family-based than McGee’s works, which even then smacked of high art potential (or were they high art already? A graduate of the SF Art Institute, the “street artist cum gallery artist” cliché was never apt in describing McGee.) Cervantes has known him since before he got into street art, and once he started on her neighborhood’s walls, she says his influence on other artists was undeniable.

“He showed us another way of seeing the world around us,” she tells me in a phone interview. “There’s things that have more content in them than just doing your name, or doing different styles of lettering.”

Looking around at the murals in the Bay today, the possibilities McGee exposed us to are evident. But I wonder sometimes who is becoming inspired by his gallery works, or those of other “street artists” who have found a way to support themselves in the art world. Are there baby taggers out there who are having their minds blown by this street-gallery mashup, who see possibilities for the once-and-sometimes-subversive art, not just increased the potential commercial viability?

Well anyway, I sure hope so.

BARRY MCGEE

Through Dec. 9, $9.50 museum admission

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

2626 Bancroft Way, Berk.

bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

Chronic youth

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Chronic youth

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM It can’t be a coincidence that within a week, a pair of films have been released about 35-year-olds who contemplate hooking up with 19-year-olds. That 16-year age gap — with an immature or other otherwise emotionally stunted thirtysomething on one end, and a precocious millennial on the other — is narrow enough to be plausible, but just wide enough to be awkward.

Now in theaters, Hello I Must Be Going traces the existential flailings of Amy (Melanie Lynskey), so discombobulated post-divorce that she moves back home and takes up with Jeremy (Christopher Abbott), the son of one of her father’s potential clients. Despite their chic Connecticut lifestyle, Mom (Blythe Danner) and Dad (John Rubinstein) have been hit by the recession; Amy’s self-pitying second adolescence only makes the household tension worse. Meanwhile, her hot, clandestine fling with Jeremy, an uninhibited actor, is tested less by their age difference than by his connection to the lucrative account that Amy’s father is desperately trying to land. Of course, there is a cringe-worthy scene where Amy crashes a party, looking for Jeremy, and the bleary-eyed youth who answers the door announces “Someone’s mom is here!”

This week’s Liberal Arts reverses the genders of the controversial couple, with Jesse (How I Met Your Mother‘s Josh Radnor, who also wrote and directed) falling for Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), a student at the leafy Ohio university he graduated from years before (never named, but filmed at Kenyon College, Radnor’s own alma matter). The two meet when Jesse, now a jaded Brooklynite, visits to celebrate the retirement of Professor Hoberg (Richard Jenkins); unlike Hello‘s Amy and Jeremy, who waste no time knocking boots, the question of whether to consummate the relationship becomes a major plot point.

Liberal Arts is at its best when delineating a specific type of collegiate experience — as safe, privileged bubble where, as Jesse explains, you can announce “I’m a poet!” without anyone punching you in the face. It can also be an oppressive space, as illustrated by a cranky prof who feels trapped by academia (a razor-sharp Lucinda Janney), and a morose classmate of Zibby’s who identifies a little too closely with David Foster Wallace.

And it’s stuff like the Wallace references (again, never named — just identified via heavily dropped hints, for all the cool viewers to catch) that’re ultimately Liberal Arts‘ undoing. Radnor explores some interesting themes, but the film is full of indie-comedy tropes — the friendly stoner (Zac Efron) who randomly appears to dispense life lessons; an anti-Twilight rant that’s a bit too pleased with itself; the unusually attractive character who appears in the first act and is obviously destined for inclusion in the inevitable happy ending.

By contrast, “airless” and “predictable” are not words anyone would use to describe the life of legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland, colorfully recounted in Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, a doc directed by her granddaughter-in-law, Lisa Immordino Vreeland. The family connection meant seemingly unlimited access to material featuring the unconventionally glamorous (and highly quotable) Vreeland herself, plus the striking images that remain from her work at Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Narrated” from interview transcripts by an actor approximating the late Vreeland’s husky, posh tones, the film allows for some criticism (her employees often trembled at the sight of her; her sons felt neglected; her grasp of historical accuracy while working at the museum was sometimes lacking) among the praise, which is lavish and delivered by A-listers like Anjelica Huston, who remembers “She had a taste for the extraordinary and the extreme,” and Manolo Blahnik, who squeals, “She had the vision!”

Glamour also factors into Peter Ford: A Little Prince, a 40-minute documentary directed by Alexander Roman, who’ll attend both Sun/30 screenings with film subject Peter Ford. “My whole life has been defined by being Glenn Ford’s son,” the sixtysomething Peter says. (For all the Jeremys and Zibbys out there, Glenn Ford was a Hollywood superstar in the 1950s.) Home movies and snapshots depicting a blissful domestic life contrast with Peter’s rambling interview, which spans the length of the film and reveals that all those happy scenes were staged for publicity purposes. Less a bio of Glenn, Peter, or Peter’s mother, dancer Eleanor Powell, A Little Prince is more a peek into the psyche of someone who’s spent his life in the shadow of a legend. “Being a movie star’s child is the hardest job in the world,” Peter says — hyperbole clearly wrought from a lifelong identity crisis.

And it wouldn’t be a week in San Francisco without a film festival (or two: check out Nicole Gluckstern’s take on the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival elsewhere in this issue). The folks at SF IndieFest — who already program their flagship fest, plus DocFest and genre showcase Another Hole in the Head — add another to the rolls with the Northern California Action/Sports Film Festival.

Aimed at athletes rather than typical film-fest types (evidence: movies screen at Sports Basement locations, where you can gear up for your next adventure on the way out the door), this three-day event contains the expected array of skiing, skateboarding, and surfing flicks — check out Manufacturing Stoke, which takes a look at how the surf industry has been transformed by a recent trend toward using environmentally-friendly materials to build boards — but also films focusing on more specialized pursuits like bouldering and slacklining.

Fans of Into Thin Air won’t want to miss 40 Days at Base Camp. The base camp in question is the bustling, ever-shifting village — filled with an international population of guides, climbers both soulful and breezy, Sherpas, volunteer medics, and assorted support staff — perched beneath Mount Everest. As personal triumphs mingle with day-to-day activities (and grimmer tasks, like clearing away long-dead bodies that have worked their way up through the ice), one observer accurately dubs the scene “a fascinating microcosm.” *

Liberal Arts and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel open Fri/28 in Bay Area theaters.

Peter Ford: A Little Prince screens Sun/30, 11am and 3pm, at Delancey Street, 600 Embarcadero, SF. For tickets ($8) and more information, visit www.alittleprince.net.

Northern California Action/Sports Film Festival runs Fri/28-Sun/30 with films screening simultaneously at Sports Basement locations in SF, Walnut Creek, and Sunnyvale, and Mission Cliffs, 2295 Harrison, SF. For tickets ($5; festival pass, $25) and schedule, visit www.sfindie.com.

Critical Mass at 20

Andrew Lam
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Critical Mass at 20

steve@sfbg.com

I was in Zeitgeist on a Friday summer evening, at a planning meeting for the 20th anniversary of Critical Mass, when I first heard about the idea of kicking off the celebration week with a renegade bicycle ride over the Bay Bridge.

The people who first shook up the city’s commute two decades ago were going to take the idea of seizing space from cars a step further — and fulfill a longtime cyclist fantasy. They were going to take the bridge.

Chris Carlsson, the author/activist who helped found Critical Mass and has evangelized the concept around the world, reminded me of this super-secret ride last Wednesday when I finally got around to starting my reporting for this story. I was surprised that I’d forgotten about it — but yes, I told him, I still wanted to be there.

>>JOIN IN ON THE FESTIVITIES WITH OUR GUIDE TO THIS WEEK’S CRITICAL MASS EVENTS

“This will galvanize our sense of the week,” Carlsson told me, explaining that Critical Mass has always been about “opening up a space for a conversation,” whether it’s about how urban space is used or who gets to make that decision.

“There is a real necessity to have a place for people to start thinking creatively. That’s Critical Mass’s enduring contribution, 20 years ago and today.”

What started in September 1992 with 48 cyclists pedaling together through San Francisco has become an enduring worldwide phenomenon. On the last Friday of every month, without leaders or direction, this group bike ride simply meanders through the streets, riders smiling and waving at motorists often perplexed at the temporary alteration of traffic laws by a crowd too big to stop or ignore. While views of Critical Mass may differ, the conversation about urban cycling that it started has had an undeniable impact on how people see cities and their power to shape them, placing it high on the list of San Francisco’s proudest cultural exports.

Last Friday evening — a week before thousands of people are expected to show up for the 20th anniversary ride Sept. 28 — I rode over to a meeting in the back of the art gallery at 518 Valencia, the welcome center for the week. The first international arrivals were there: four Europeans who flew to Mexico City, where most of them built tall bikes to cycle up to San Francisco for the anniversary ride, arriving last week after a four-month trek.

They were veterans of Critical Mass events all over Europe, which borrowed the concept from the Bay Area, and they were happy to be going back to its core.

Andrea Maccarone is a 31-year-old Italian who lives in Paris when he isn’t bike touring, which he does quite a bit, last year riding to consecutive Critical Mass events in Paris, Toulouse, Rome, and Madrid. “It began here and spread everywhere,” he said. “A lot of my lifestyle — I’ve been a bike messenger and worked in bike kitchens — is based on what started here.”

His French girlfriend, Marie Huijbregts, described a cultural happening that began when she was 8 years old. “It’s a political movement of cyclists to release the streets from the cars,” the 28-year-old told me. “It’s environmental, do-it-yourself, and a great way to meet people.”

She said she wanted to be here “because it’s supposed to be the biggest one and all the world was invited. It’s symbolic and I wanted to be a part of it.”

Carlsson has watched the event he helped popularize spread to hundreds of cities around the world, from the Biciletada in Sao Paulo to the Cyklojizda in Prague. He loves to see young people who have been energized by Critical Mass and the larger renegade cyclist movement that grew up around it — from DIY bicycle kitchens and art bikes to creative political actions that seize public spaces — “who dream of San Francisco with stars in their eyes.”

But he often feels like we’re the “hole in the donut” of this international urban cycling movement, unable to retain the same intention and energy that it had when Carlsson, Jim Swanson, and a group of their bike messenger and anarchist cyclist friends conceived of the idea (originally called Commute Clot) in the Market Street office of a zine called Processed World.

Carlsson still hears the stories from people whose lives were changed by Critical Mass. But it was only in the last year or so, as the 20th anniversary approached, that he started regularly riding Critical Mass again, with a new generation of participants often drawn by confrontational yahooism, riding well-trod routes and rejecting efforts to suggest destinations as counter to its leaderless ethos.

“It’s extremely predictable now and I’m sick of it,” Carlsson admitted to me, a less diplomatic version of what he wrote in the introduction to the newly released book of essays he edited, Shift Happens: Critical Mass at 20, writing that the “euphoria of cooperative, joyful reinhabitation of urban space is hard to sustain after a awhile.”

Yet that powerful central idea is still there, and it remains as relevant as ever in cities dominated by fast-moving cars. People working together to create “an organized coincidence” can still change the rules of the road, opening up all kinds of new possibilities.

“It is an unpredictable space and you never know what’s going to happen,” Carlsson told me. That’s true of the history of Critical Mass around the world — with its storied clashes with cops and motorists, and its glorious convergences and joyful infectiousness — and it was true of our quest to take the Bay Bridge the next day.

 

 

TO THE BRIDGE

We weren’t just being daredevils. The idea of fighting for a freeway lane against six lanes of fast-moving cars, drivers distracted by that epic view of San Francisco, was conceived by Carlsson as a political statement protesting current plans to rebuild the Bay Bridge with a bike lane going only from Oakland to Treasure Island, leaving out that final 2.5-mile stretch into The City.

And for years, the Bay Bridge had been out there as a symbol of where bikes couldn’t go — and in dozens of demonstrations, riders have sought to make it up those ramps, particularly during the Bikes Not Bombs rides protesting the US invasion of Iraq, only to be blocked by police.

Carlsson handed out flyers headlined “A Bay Bridge for Everyone,” harking back to the early pre-Internet “xerocracy” that used flyers to promote Critical Mass ideas or suggest routes. A local historian, Carlsson included photos and descriptions of the Bay Bridge with three lanes of cars in each direction on the top deck, back when the lower deck had trains.

Why couldn’t we have one lane back for bikes? Well, it’s actually under consideration — sort of.

The idea of creating a bicycle/pedestrian lane on the western span is the subject of an ongoing $1.6 million study by Caltrans and the Bay Area Toll Authority, which are looking at attaching paths to the sides of the bridge. That would likely require replacing the decks on the bridge with a lighter new surface to compensate for the added weight, all at a cost of up to $1 billion.

Carlsson thinks that’s ridiculous overkill, and probably intended to scuttle the idea (or else put the blame on bicyclists for the cost of resurfacing the bridge). “For five grand, in three hours it could be done,” he said, arguing that all cyclists need is a lane, a protective barrier, perhaps a lowering of the speed limit — oh, and the political will to recognize that we have as much right to this roadway as motorists.

“It is a sad commentary on the nature of our government that the only way the state transit agency will take bicycling seriously as everyday transportation is when pressured by demonstrations and organized public demands,” Carlsson wrote on the flyer. “Why don’t they take the lead in opening space for cycling instead of doing everything to obstruct, deny, and prevent cycling?”

Even getting to Treasure Island for a bike ride isn’t easy for the car-free. Muni only allows two bikes at a time on its 108 bus, so Carlsson borrowed a van to shuttle almost 20 of us out there in multiple trips. Among the crew were the group that rode up from Mexico City, a Peruvian, and many regular local Critical Mass riders, including Bike Cavalry founder Paul Jordan and LisaRuth Elliott, a 10-year Critical Mass rider who helped edit Shift Happens and coordinate volunteers for the anniversary week, along with a couple of its very early adherents: Hugh D’Andrade and Glenn Bachmann.

“Nobody knew what we were doing,” Bachmann said of that first ride. “We didn’t know what was going to happen. But displacing cars left us this intense euphoria.

Elliott said she was drawn to Critical Mass shortly after she got into urban cycling, attracted by the sense of community that had developed around her transportation choice. She was later inspired to visit Paris and Marseille and other cities that adopted Critical Mass rides.

“They have taken charge and are leading their movements to better bicyclable cities. It’s an adaptable idea,” she told me as we prepared to load our bikes on the van bound for Treasure Island.

Once we were out there, we gathered for a picnic on the beach in Cooper Cove, where we got some sobering news from David Wedding Dress, who talked us through the ride and was going to be trailing our crew in his Mercedes as a safety measure.

“Prepare to be in jail until Monday morning,” he told us. There were also the high winds and dangerous gaps to contend with, offering a bleak prognosis.

A veteran radical activist and bicyclist, Dress has ridden the bridge before and been arrested most times, and he didn’t share Carlsson’s view that we were most likely to get away with it. When Carlsson arrived, he tried to shore up our spirits, saying we’d probably be okay if we maintained the element of surprise.

“We have a right to do this and make that point,” Carlsson said.

Elliott, who was already a wobbler going in, decided not to ride, but 16 of us decided to do it anyway, feeling nervous but excited. When a CHP patrol pulled over a car near our spot and it turned into an hour-long arrest and towing ordeal, which we were forced to wait out, we had plenty of time to think about what we were doing.

As D’Andrade told me as we waited to ride up to the bridge entrance, “What feels to me like the early days of Critical Mass is how scary this is.”

 

THE EARLY DAYS

In the beginning, the Critical Mass activists say their battle for space was a safety issue infused with a political message, delivered with a smile derived from the joyous new discovery that riding with friends made it much easier. San Francisco streets were designed for automobiles, and to a lesser extent public transit, with cycling relegated to the bike messengers and a few renegades seen by most as simply refusing to grow up.

Even the nascent San Francisco Bicycle Coalition of that era — which grew in numbers and power on a similar trajectory as Critical Mass, despite its policy of maintaining a defensible distance from that outlaw event — was initially dominated by the philosophy that urban cyclists should ride quickly with car traffic and didn’t need separate lanes.

“That’s what I like to remind people is how scary bicycling was in San Francisco in the early ’90s,” D’Andrade said.

I first encountered Critical Mass in 2001 when I was the news editor for the Sacramento News & Review, and Berkeley resident Jason Meggs brought the movement into automobile-centric Sacramento. My reporters and I covered those early rides, which were met with a harsh crackdown by police, who often cited every minor traffic violation.

But Meggs was committed to the concept, as he wrote in his Shift Happens! essay entitled, “The Johnny Appleseed of Critical Mass,” a role he has played over the last 19 years. “Critical Mass made me a video activist and filmmaker; it sent me to jail and then to law school, and again to graduate school for healthy cities. It provided us the space to build a vibrant bicycle culture, and to feel free and alive in cities that otherwise felt hostile, caustic, and alien,” he wrote.

Meggs calculates that he’s been arrested more than 20 times and received more than 100 traffic tickets during Critical Mass events, beginning with the Berkeley Critical Mass that he started in March of 1993, in part to protest plans to widen I-80.

“Those early rides were legendary — moment to moment ecstatic joy and street theater,” he remembered. “The combination of bike activists and freeway fighters with anarcho-environmentalists on wheels was a combination that couldn’t be beat. Like a newscaster once said of Critical Mass, back then we were drunk with power.”

Yet in almost city where it’s sprouted, Critical Mass has had to battle through crackdowns by police, which are often met with greater determination by the cycling community. San Francisco fought through a showdown with Mayor Willie Brown in 1997, when his threats to shut Critical Mass down turned out thousands of cyclists for the next ride.

In 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle sensationalized a conflict between a motorist and Critical Mass, beginning a media campaign that led Mayor Gavin Newsom to order a heavy police presence on subsequent rides — a show of force, but one without any apparent plan or directive — again increasing number of cyclists.

Each time, San Francisco city officials were forced to accept the inevitability of Critical Mass, opting to avoid the route of the harsh, sustained, and costly crackdowns employed in New York City, whose police and city officials essentially went to war with Critical Mass in 2004 and have all-but destroyed it. Portland has also had a tumultuous relationship with its Critical Mass, with police there essentially shutting it down.

Yet Carlsson noted in his Shift Happens essay that the bicycle activism that formed along with those rides still prevailed: “Both cities — not coincidentally I think — have implemented extensive and intensive street-level redesigns to accommodate the enormous increase in daily cycling that followed the rapid growth and ultimate repression of their Critical Mass rides.”

San Francisco has seen an even greater explosion in the number of cyclists on the roadways, so many that spontaneous “mini-Masses” of cyclists form up during the daily commutes on Market Street and elsewhere. But despite the near-universal City Hall support for cycling here, and the SFBC’s status as one of the city’s largest grassroots political advocacy organizations, Carlsson said San Francisco’s cyclists still lack the infrastructure and policies needed to safely get around the city.

That’s one reason why the challenge of Critical Mass is still relevant, he said, and one reason why we were determined to ride our bikes into San Francisco on the Bay Bridge.

 

ANOTHER DAY

The cops left a little before 6pm, so we massed up and headed for the Bay Bridge, pedaling single-file up a long hill. Soon, the long western span of the bridge came into view, stretching to the downtown destination that we all hoped to reach without incident or arrest, as we passed a sign reading “Pedestrians and Bicycles Prohibited.”

As we crested the hill and dropped down toward the freeway entrance, our pathway seemed clear, with the only real variable being coordinating with Dress in the Mercedes trail car, but Carlsson was on the phone with him and we all assumed that we were about to ride our bikes onto the Bay Bridge.

We were in a fairly tight pack, Maccarone smiling atop the tall bike that had traveled so far to this point, as we rounded the swooping right turn to the point where even cars make a dangerously quick entrance onto the bridge from a complete stop, merging into loud and dense traffic moving at freeway speeds.

We stopped, looked back for Dress, and he wasn’t there. A minute crept by, then another, as cars drove cautiously past us to get onto the freeway, their drivers giving us the same quizzical, confused looks that we’d seen on Critical Mass so many times. Another minute passed, then another, as Carlsson lit one of the road flares that we planned to use as a secondary safety measure to the Mercedes.

Then, a CHP patrol car rounded the bend, the officer sternly telling us over his PA system, “Don’t even think you’re getting on this bridge with those bikes.”

So we turned around and began to head back when Dress finally arrived in his Mercedes, presenting a moment of truth. Did we proceed anyway, even though we had been warned and knew the officer had probably radioed in our presence, taking away the element of surprise and increasing our chances of arrest?

There was dissension in ranks and a clear division among those urging opposite courses of action, but Carlsson and others continued to ride away after talking the Dress, who proceeded onto the freeway. Later, Carlsson said he was still game to go at that moment, but tried to be responsive to the collective: “I was not comfortable imposing going on the bridge on everyone.”

D’Andrade advocated for going anyway, but most felt it was too risky at that point, siding with Carlsson’s argument that is wasn’t about getting arrested: “I like to do something and get away.”

And so it was decided that we would choose a strategic retreat, some pledging to take the bridge some other day, hopefully with greater numbers. Besides, we all had a big week ahead of us, starting the next day with the first official event of Critical Mass’s anniversary week: the Art Bike/Freak Bike Ride and BBQ.

We gathered the next afternoon on the waterfront under sunny blue skies, our aborted bike crew increased in size 10-fold, joined by underground DIY bike crews from San Francisco’s own Cyclecide to the Black Label crews from Minneapolis, Oakland, and Los Angeles, infusing the ride with a countercultural edge.

Urban bike culture is now vast and varied — from the eco-warriors and urban thinkers to wage slaves and renegade tinkerers — and they’ve all found a regular home in Critical Mass. “Twenty years on, people are kinda nostalgic about it, even if they don’t ride in it or think it’s a good idea,” an activist name rRez told me during that beautiful Sunday ride, the one we were able to take because we weren’t in jail.

Carlsson told me on the ride that he was at peace with our failed mission of the day before, a sign that being radical isn’t the same thing as being reckless. “That was a good strategic retreat moment. It’s very adult,” he said. “It was a good experience for all of us, and nothing bad happened and nobody is in jail.”

In a way, that’s the essence of Critical Mass. It isn’t pure anarchy, and it’s not about fighting with the cops or the motorists, something Carlsson sees as straying from its original intent. It’s a joyful gathering, an exercise in the power of people who are willing to challenge the status quo and take well-considered risks to create a society of their choosing.

“In a modern capitalist society, the roads are the lifeblood,” Carlsson said, “and if you block them, you’re a threat.”

 

CELEBRATE 20 YEARS OF CRITICAL MASS

 

Wednesday 26

East Bay Ride, meet at West Oakland BART station, 11:45am. Ride along the east shore of the bay to the Rosie the Riveter monument in Richmond.

NOIZ Ride, McKinley statue on the Panhandle at Baker Street, noon. Bring food, drink, and layers for a several hour, non-strenuous ride featuring three live bands.

Shift Happens book release party and discussion, Main SF Library, Latino-Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin St, 5:45 p.m. Discuss Critical Mass and this new book with its writers.

Book release concert, Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF, $15, 8pm. Featuring Seaweed Sway, Aaron Glass and Friends, and Kelly McFarling

 

Thursday 27

Mosquito Abatement Ride, Meeting place TBA near 16th & Valencia, SF, 11am. One-hour rides with a cycling city contractor.

NYC Critical Mass discussion and video, 518 Valencia, SF, 2pm. Hosted by Times Up New York City.

Bike Polo, Jose Coronado Playground, 21st and Shotwell, SF, 7-9pm. Play with locals and visitors, share a beer.

Bikes, Bands, and Brew: CM’s 20th Bday party, CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, 7pm, $10-20. Bike cultural offerings and music by Grass Widow, Apogee Sound Club, The Rabbles, and Future Twin.

 

Friday 28

20th Anniversary Critical Mass Ride, Justin “Pee Wee” Herman Plaza, Market and Embarcadero, SF, 6pm

Vintage Bicycle Film Festival, Oddball Films, 275 Capp, SF, $10. Saturday 29 International Critical Mass Symposium, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission, Rooms 303/304, 5-8pm. Event will include an open mic and CM20 Anniversary Week photo contest at 7pm Sunday 30 Farewell Bike Ride and Party, 1pm departure from 518 Valencia, 2pm at Ocean Beach. Bring food and drink to share with your new friends and listen to bands on Rock the Bike’s pedal-powered stage. For more events and details, visit www.sfcriticalmass.org

Frenemies in this life, enemies in the next: ‘The Master’ and other new films

Sue Vaughan
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Frenemies in this life, enemies in the next: ‘The Master’ and other new films

It’s here at last! Clear your mind and join the Cause!

Yep, The Master opens today, along with a pair of cop movies (one set in gritty LA, the other set in an even grittier megacity of the future). Already in progress is the 3rd i’s San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival. Check out my take on all of the above right herre.

The most excellent Caitlin Donohue takes on Stephen Elliott’s porn-themed About Cherry (screening at the Castro tonight!) here.

As-yet unreviewed due to various reasons (two being: aversions to PG-13 horror flicks, and Channing Tatum overload … seriously, guy, take a vacation!), but most certainly opening today, are House At the End of the Street (alas, not the House Hunters suspense thriller we’ve all been waiting for) and high-school reunion comedy 10 Years. I didn’t make it to my 10-year reunion but I feel confident saying that NOBODY in my class (go Tigers!) showed up with Magic Mike-style abs.

But wait, there’s more! Read on for the rest of the best (and meh-st) of the week.

Hello I Must Be Going Blindsided by her recent divorce, 35-year-old Amy (Melanie Lynskey) flees New York City for quaint Westport, Conn., where she nurses her wounds, mostly by sleeping and watching Marx Brothers movies. Amy’s protracted moping rankles her perfectionist mother (Blythe Danner, bringing nuance to what could have been a clichéd character) and concerns her workaholic father (John Rubenstein). Dad’s trying to land a big client so he can “make back some of the money we lost in the market” — a subtle aside in Sarah Koskoff’s script that suggests Amy’s parents aren’t as well-heeled as they used to be, despite the ongoing renovations to their swanky home, catered dinners, and expensive art purchases. Money woes are just one of Amy’s many concerns, though, and when a distraction presents itself in the form of 19-year-old Jeremy (Girls‘ Christopher Abbott), she finds herself sneaking out at night, making out in her mom’s car, smoking weed, and basically behaving like a teenager herself. As directed by indie actor turned director Todd Louiso (2002’s Love Liza), Hello I Must Be Going is a nicely contained, relatable (self-loathing: we’ve all been there) character study — and props for casting the endearing Lynskey, so often seen in supporting roles, as the film’s messy, complex lead. (1:35) (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQbM4bb6Zpk

How to Survive a Plague David France’s documentary chronicles the unprecedented impact political activism had on the course of AIDS in the US — drastically curtailing its death toll within a few years despite considerable institutional indifference and downright hostility. As the epidemic here first surfaced in, and decimated, the gay male community, much of Reagan America (particularly in religious quarters) figured the death sentence was deserved. The President himself infamously refrained from even saying the word “AIDS” publicly until his final year of office, after thousands had died. Both terrified and outraged, the gay community took it upon themselves to demand treatment, education, and research. Most of this urgent 1980s overview is concerned with the rise of ACT-UP, whose angry young men successfully lobbied and shamed corporate, academic, medical, and pharmaceutical bodies into action, with the result that by the mid-90s new drugs existed that made this dreaded diagnosis no longer a necessarily terminal one. France is a journalist who’s been covering AIDS practically since day one, and his first feature (made with the help of numerous first-rate collaborators) is authoritative and engrossing. Just don’t expect much (or really any) attention paid to the contributions made by SF or other activist hotspots — like many a gay documentary, this one hardly notices there’s a world (or gay community) outside Manhattan. (1:49) (Dennis Harvey)

Somewhere Between Five years ago, when filmmaker Linda Goldstein Knowlton adopted a baby girl from China, she was inspired to make Somewhere Between, a doc about the experiences of other Chinese adoptees. The film profiles four teenage girls, including Berkeley resident Fang “Jenni” Lee, whose American lives couldn’t be more different (one girl has two moms and attends a fancy prep school; another, raised by devout Christians, dreams of playing her violin at the Grand Ole Opry) but who share similar feelings about their respective adoptions. The film follows the girls on trips to London (as part of an organized meeting of fellow adoptees), Spain (to chat with people interested in adopting Chinese babies, and where the question “What does it feel like to be abandoned?” is handled with astonishing composure), and China (including one teen’s determined quest to track down her birth family). Highly emotional at times, Somewhere Between benefits from its remarkably mature and articulate subjects, all of whom have much to say about identity and personal history. Lee and filmmaker Goldstein Knowlton will appear in person at select opening shows; visit www.landmarktheatres.com for more information. (1:28) (Cheryl Eddy)

Trouble with the Curve Baseball scout Gus (Clint Eastwood) relies on his senses to sign players to the Atlanta Braves, and his roster of greats is highly regarded by everyone — save a sniveling climber named Sanderson (Matthew Lillard), who insists his score-keeping software can replace any scout. Gus’ skill in his field are preternatural, but with his senses dwindling, his longtime-friend Pete (a brilliant John Goodman) begs Gus’ daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) to go with him — to see how bad the situation is and maybe drive him around. Ultimately, the film’s about the rift between career woman Mickey, and distant dad Gus, with some small intrusions from Justin Timberlake as Mickey’s romantic interest. Trouble with the Curve is a phrase used to describe batters who can’t hit a breaking ball and it’s a nuance — if an incontrovertible one — unobservable to the untrained eye. While Mickey and Gus stumble messily toward a better relationship (with a reasonable amount of compromise), Curve begins to look a bit like The Blind Side (2009), trading the church and charity for therapy and baggage. But what it offers is sweet and worthwhile, if you’re tolerant of the sanitized psychology and personality-free aesthetics. But it’s a movie about love and compromise — and if you love baseball you won’t have trouble forgiving some triteness, especially when Timberlake, the erstwhile Boo-Boo, gets to make a Yogi Berra joke. (1:51) (Sara Vizcarrondo)

Cup-of-tea diplomacy

Zelda Bronstein
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Cup-of-tea diplomacy

In the spring of 2008, I was invited to give a briefing on human rights to a Bush-appointed US ambassador scheduled to be posted to the Middle East. But the ambassador had little interest in talking about human rights.

“What I want to know is this,” he said. “Is Islam the problem here? Is Islam retarding progress—economically, socially, politically?”

I tried to steer the meeting back to human rights but the ambassador kept persisting. “I mean you’re a Muslim…so do you think Islam is standing in the way?”

I had participated in enough of these discussions to know that in agreeing to meet, both us were checking off boxes: He could say he was listening to the concerns of a human rights advocate; I was able to say I relayed the concerns of my employer, Amnesty International, to a US ambassador.

Most of the ambassadors I met were like this: They thought it neither important nor virtuous to understand—let alone to love—the people of the Middle East. The role of the ambassador, they reminded me, was not to listen to people’s ideals and hopes but rather to convey to people America’s ideals and hopes for them.

When I learned of the killing of the US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens last week, I mourned the sad irony that a US diplomat who wore his love for the Middle East and North Africa on his sleeve would be killed serving the very people who inspired him.

In a YouTube video posted soon after his murder, Ambassador Stevens is seen standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, the cherry blossoms in full bloom behind him, introducing himself to the Libyan people.

“As-salaam alaikum,” he begins using the traditional Islamic greeting that means “Peace be upon you.” He looks happy, giddy almost.

“Growing up in California, I didn’t know much about the Arab world,” he says. “Then after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I traveled to North Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer.” He taught for two years in the mountains of Morocco and “grew to love this part of the world.”

Colleagues and friends who knew him spoke about his passion for listening. French writer Bernard-Henri Levy admired his “great capacity to listen and his strategy to speak last.” Elizabeth Dibble, his colleague at the State Department, spoke about Stevens’ unique diplomatic style.

“It takes a lot of tea,” she said. “You don’t rush into talking points, you develop a relationship and a personal connection, and a series of connections becomes a network.”

In a moving tribute published on CNN’s website, his friend Judith Drotar spoke about Steven’s remarkable judicious restraint. “What really made Chris exceptional to me, however, was his ability to distance himself,” she writes. “Not the aloof kind of distancing that you might expect from someone in his position, but the kind where one puts emotion and ego aside in order to truly listen, to understand, and then to find a way to build bridges.”

But in the aftermath of Stevens’ death, we are tearing down those very bridges that he worked so hard to build.

The cover of this week’s Newsweek features a close up photo of two bearded, turban clad Muslim men, clutching an Egyptian flag, shouting to the camera under a headline that reads, “Muslim Rage: How I survived it and how we can end it.”

In the article, Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes, “In the age of globalization and mass immigration, such intolerance has crossed borders and become the defining characteristic of Islam.”

Stevens would be ashamed. He worked his whole life to add nuance to our understanding of the Middle East and North Africa. To suggest that one film—or the religion of Islam—alone caused the violence that swept across 16 countries is as incomplete as suggesting that the LA riots of 1992 were sparked only by the Rodney King verdict.

But it’s easy to blame the protests that erupted in 16 Muslim majority countries as a reaction to a film. It is more difficult to examine the policies of our government that have sparked this resentment.

A week before Stevens died, the US fired two drone strikes 80 miles southeast of Sanaa, Yemen. One hit an Al Qaeda operative; the other missed its target, hitting a commuter mini-bus. Fourteen were killed, including three women and a child.

Mansoor al-Maweri was nearby when the attack happened.  “You want us to stay quiet while our wives and brothers are being killed for no reason,” he said. “This attack is the real terrorism.” Hundreds of angry people took to the street. Few cameras were there to beam these protests to television sets in America.

It is attacks like this, as well as the film, that sparked the current outcry. The tragedy is that Stevens would have understood this perhaps more than any other diplomat. Sometimes the explanations are painful; sometimes we do not know what is happening; and sometimes the best course of action for the United States is to pour a cup of tea and listen.

Zahir Janmohamed recently completed a fellowship at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto and is writing a book about Juhapura, the largest ghetto of Muslims in India

Life boat

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Life boat

THEATER “No one is stupid on a cruise.”

Now that’s a line that puts the dumb in wisdom, which is the point. For no one can be stupid where everyone is by definition stupid. And that, in turn, might become the basis for a transformation of some kind.

Not surprisingly, this refrain drops from the lips of a habitual cruise-line passenger (and, arguably, the goofiest, most awkward member in a set of goofy, awkward passengers) aboard the Crown of the Sea, the sleek tourist liner headed out into international waters and some secrecy-shrouded ritual in Port Out, Starboard Home, a new play by Sheila Callaghan (That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play) developed closely with commissioning company foolsFURY.

The culmination of a four-year collaboration between San Francisco’s foolsFURY and the New York playwright (whose We Are Not These Hands also premiered locally in a Crowded Fire production in 2006), Port Out is an ensemble-driven work of physical theater in a high-pitched comic-tragic vein, helmed by foolsFURY artistic director Ben Yalom. The production features some fairly elaborate choreographed sequences devised alternately by company and cast member Debórah Eliezer and SF choreographer Erika Chong Shuch (who, among other things, stages a balletic feeding frenzy at the all-you-can-eat buffet). The current run at Z Space marks the first half of a bicoastal world premiere (with the production opening at New York’s La MaMa in November). Cast and crew hail from both coasts too.

It’s an impressive achievement on the surface. Unfortunately, the play that opened last week is practically all surface. Despite its pretense, and operative nautical metaphor, it never ventures into anything deep, but contentedly bobs around the shallows of the familiar — the commodification of spiritual values and experience — in a satirical key that is more flip than ferocious. If there are things to enjoy along the way (the best scene is a group therapy session that allows fuller scope to some dynamic ensemble acting), they never lead to the storm we sense brewing (but which, at least for the audience, never really breaks).

Milling around a smooth, sloping two-tier white fiberglass hull (a marvelous setting in Dan Stratton’s large and impressive minimalist design), we meet an assortment of types — the repressed but giddy loser (Calder Shilling), the unshackled divorcée (Eliezer), the recklessly over-excited plain woman (Angela Santillo), the obnoxiously sloppy rich white guy (Josiah Polhemus), his meticulous and much put-upon son (Benjamin Stuber), and the half-wild and half-bewildered underage teen with a fake ID (Jessica Unker).

Managing the passengers are a brashly exotic cruise director named Johnny O (Brian Livingston) — sporting a tattooed torso reminiscent of Queequeg — and the mysterious Maya (Amy Prosser), a waifish woman with an abnormally small infant in a shoulder sling whose slow, deliberate movements and pacific mien stand in stark contrast to the frenetic and self-conscious energy of her adult charges (who she’s gearing up for some ominous ritual in international waters, where apparently anything goes).

Callaghan endows these characters with choice details often announced by the opining cast in choral unison: “Gary likes to quote movie lines … it’s fucking annoying,” or “Mack believes people need to think of themselves as unique, and they’ll do anything to preserve this façade. This makes him hate everyone. Especially himself.”

Such lines, reveling in unnecessary insights and an arch specificity, too often ring twee and smug, their garish particulars only rarely of more value than the occasional chuckle. The dialogue between characters or in direct address to the audience tends to retain the same superficial tone.

Much of the dialogue was reportedly digested and recast by Callaghan from improvisations and research conducted by the company (including, at one point, aboard a real cruise ship), but there’s little that feels true to life. The portraiture here is a long way, for instance, from the photographic portrait-masquerades in Cindy Sherman’s work from the 1990s and 2000s, currently on view in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art retrospective. Sherman’s art projects a series of worn-out debutantes, former prom queens, backyard pool bunnies, celebratory single ladies, and so on — types you might find on a cruise, in fact, but conveyed with a force wholly missing here because in Sherman’s work we can identify the real in the type, and the type in the real. This dissonance is powerful — mixing horror and humor, compassion and revelation — and it remains in the open seas just beyond Port Out‘s horizon. *

PORT OUT, STARBOARD HOME

Wed/19-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm, $12-35

Z Space, 450 Florida, SF

www.foolsfury.org

TIFF happens! Toronto fest picks, part one

Sue Vaughan
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TIFF happens! Toronto fest picks, part one

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival showcased 289 films. I attended 32. Mark down any titles that sound interesting, because this upcoming year is gonna be one to remember.

Outrage Beyond (Takeshi Kitano, Japan) The sequel to Takeshi Kitano’s return-to-gangster-form Outrage (2010) sports the same no-nonsense editing that matches extreme violence with perfectly primed pauses. Kitano’s knack for offbeat crime films began almost 25 years ago with his nasty neo-noir classic Violent Cop (1989). Since then, he’s found a perfect blend of humor and artistry over the years, with such masterpieces as Sonatine (1993) and Hana-Bi (1997). Even his more eccentric deliveries, such as the sentimental Kikujiro (1999) and Brother (2000) —  his American crossover, co-starring Omar Epps — have the power to make fans out of first-time Takeshi viewers. Outrage Beyond methodically introduces (then destroys) main characters, creates tons of twists and turns that mangle the melodrama, and will either hypnotize you to all its inverted genre glory or leave you completely cold, confused, and unaffected. Either way, Takeshi is his own boss and I will watch everything he touches.

Rhino Season (Bahman Ghobadi, Iraq/Kurdistan/Turkey) This beautifully political narrative is a terrifying tribute to outspoken Iranian artists who find themselves threatened with decades of prison if they dare to question the contradictions around them. Ghobadi himself had to leave Iran a few years ago just so this film could actually be made; fellow film festival fave Jafar Panahi, director of The White Balloon (1995), Crimson Gold (2003), and Offside (2007), is still incarcerated under house arrest and is banned from writing and directing for what looks like 20 more years.

Panahi’s situation brings an extra importance to Ghobadi’s Rhino Season. The casting of Italian superstar Monica Bellucci and Behrouz Vossoughi (one of Iran’s most popular and prolific actors) could make this Ghobadi’s most accessible film since his 2004 Turtles Can Fly. This is cinema of the now — and combined with Ghobadi’s lyrical images, it solidifies him as a leading cinematic voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqqgrUna28w

Dredd 3D (Pete Travis, US/UK) The new and improved Judge Dredd adaptation (which was presented in the Midnight Madness category, and opens in Bay Area theaters Fri/21) takes a much different approach than the uneven (yet under appreciated) 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle by making the obvious choice to darken the mood (and not to take Dredd’s helmet off.) By bringing in the screenwriter of 28 Days Later (2002) and 28 Weeks Later (2007), Alex Garland, the story kicks into absolute overdrive, saving an origin script for the already much-anticipated sequel.

While the special effects are spectacular and the deadpan one-liners are delivered with an enjoyable amount of irony, Dredd’s voice (which is quite reminiscent of a certain superhero in Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster franchise) reminds you that every decade has its own dated elements. Perhaps Danny Cannon’s 1995 Judge Dredd is just as representational of its own era as this rambunctious Escape from New York-meets-The Raid homage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI3uhHh3DgM

To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, US) For those who were wishing Terrence Malick would explore relationships sans dinosaurs and throbbing solar systems, look no further. Utilizing recognizable techniques like a glorious Steadicam shot gliding through golden fields at dusk, To the Wonder is in fact much more spiritual and even overtly religious than anything else at TIFF.

Especially after 2011’s polarizing The Tree of Life, Malick has become a loaded name for haters and lovers alike — bringing unfair expectations to a filmmaker who is clearly attempting to create ethereal art. To the Wonder features a stunning performance by Rachel McAdams and a curiously perfect, Robert Bresson-esque role for Ben Affleck. This film has to been seen in an actual movie theater.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0sxqycgYNA

The Lords of Salem (Rob Zombie, US) When Rob Zombie took the stage for the world premiere of his fifth feature film (also a Midnight Madness selection), audience members greeted him with a standing ovation. “Are you guys ready to see a bunch of sexy dancing naked witches?” Zombie yelled. When the audience erupted with “YES!” he replied, “Well … this movie doesn’t have any of that!” and humorously walked off the stage.

What followed was hands-down the most terrifying opening sequence of Toronto (much less 2012). It literally left the entire audience dumbfounded. And when the title The Lords of Salem appeared, you could feel the subconscious collective bracing themselves for what going to be yet another disturbingly brilliant Zombie horror classic.

Let’s take a step back to remember Zombie’s debut House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and sequel The Devil’s Rejects (2005). Both films caught both horror critics and music fans by surprise with how powerful his filmmaking aesthetics are. He arrived on the horror scene smack dab in the middle of the “torture porn” craze; in my opinion, Zombie was tops in the “Splat Pack” (amid Eli Roth, James Wan, Alexandre Aja, etc.) due to his Tarantino-style cinephilia (casting horror icons of the past in major roles; paying homage to genre classics like the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre series), but more importantly his contemporary understanding of music. With his remakes of the Halloween series (2007 and 2009), which many horror fans may need to revisit, Zombie further proved himself a filmmaker who has a lot to say to his audiences.

Which brings us to The Lords of Salem, a contemporary witch tale influenced by Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973). Showcasing serious suspense, a psychotic soundtrack, and purposeful pacing, the film also boasts one of the most deliciously diabolical denouements in years. Avoid all spoilers and add this creepfest to your must-see list. All hail Salem!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks is the Film History Coordinator at the Academy of Art University and hosts Midnites for Maniacs, a film series devoted to underrated, overlooked, and dismissed cinema.

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

Family Programming: An Evening of Short Comedic Plays Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 13. Left Coast Theatre Company performs short plays about gay and alternative families.

ONGOING

Asteroids: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Interstellar comedy “based very, very loosely on the arcade game.”

Henry V Presidio of San Francisco, Main Post Parade Ground Lawn, SF; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Sat/22-Sun/23, 2pm. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival celebrates the 30th anniversary of Free Shakespeare in the Park with this history play.

Invasion! Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; crowdedfire.dreamhosters.com. $20-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Crowded Fire mounts the West Coast premiere of Swedish-born playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s postmodern dark comedy, a deconstruction of language and power in an American culture of perpetual war, which made a well-received New York debut last year. Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles, and directed by Evren Odcikin, the play immediately subverts the usual multi-culti narrative of otherness and tolerance with a po-faced feint (featuring ensemble members Lawrence Radecker and Olivia Rosaldo-Pratt) that ends with a boisterous disruption of the proceedings from unexpected quarters (courtesy of ensemble members George Psarras and Wiley Naman Strasser). From there, we get a series of interrelated largely comical scenes, wherein — in shades of Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life — a certain figure by the name of Abulkasem dissolves into the ultimate cipher, tied to everything from terror to pick-up lines in bars, and meaning absolutely anything and nothing. Nevertheless, in the interstices of language lurks real power — as the play implies most overly in a scene of intentional mistranslation, which twists a hapless and bemused immigrant’s tale into line with the war-on-terror mythos. In the end, the complexity the play adds does not completely dissolve that liberal narrative skewered at the outset, and its efforts remain only half-convincing. The problem may lie partly in the production’s inconsistent, often sluggish pace, as well as a tendency toward didacticism in director Odcikin’s staging. The material of this sardonic play doesn’t support too literal or even empathetic a reading, but rather seems best translated as a raucous premonition, dream, or intimation of our own guilty seduction by the sadistic, totalizing power of such stories. (Avila)

Kiss of the Spider Woman Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 29. Second Wind presents Manuel Puig’s acclaimed drama about cellmates in a Buenos Aires jail.

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

The Normal Heart American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sun, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm (also Sept 23, 8pm). Through Oct 7. Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking 1985 drama about the AIDS epidemic — winner of a 2011 Tony for Best Revival of a Play — has a limited run at ACT.

The Other Place Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Previews Wed/19, 8pm. Opens Thu/20, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/22 and Oct 3, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30 (Oct 7 show at 7pm instead). Through Oct 7. Sharr White’s plot-twisty thriller has its West Coast premiere at Magic Theatre.

Port Out, Starboard Home Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.foolsfury.org. $12-35. Wed/19-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. foolsFURY performs the world premiere of Sheila Callaghan’s black comedy.

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 29. Dan Hoyle’s hit show about his trip across America returns.

Rigoletto War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $10-340. Wed/19 and Sept 25, 7:30; Fri/21, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 30. “Fidelity is for weaklings!” Despite this rousing cry from its philandering villain, SF Opera opens its 90th season with a faithful and winsome double-cast production of Giuseppe Verdi’s immortal Rigoletto. Based on a play by Victor Hugo, the story concerns the titular court jester and hunchback (played opening night by the imposing Serbian baritone Zeljko Lucic, who alternates nights with Italian Marco Vratogna) whose attempt to revenge himself on the goatish Duke of Mantua (Sardinian tenor Francesco Demuro, alternating with Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz) for seducing his beautiful daughter, Gilda (the thoroughly enchanting Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, alternating with Russian coloratura soprano Albina Shagimuratova), backfires with tragic consequences. The production includes free simulcast presentations at AT&T Ballpark on consecutive weekends for those more inclined to recline, especially in the fresh free air, but either way the show’s a little staid but charming and the music, under SF Opera’s Nicola Luisotti, utterly transporting. (Avila)

Strange Travel Suggestions MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 29. Author and Ethical Traveler founder Jeff Greenwald (Shopping for Buddhas, Snake Lake) has done his solo show Strange Travel Suggestions dozens if not hundreds of times and still has no idea where it’s going. No wonder he and his audience keep coming back for more. The unknown, an aphrodisiac to the traveler, also makes great catnip for the storyteller. Still, there are consistent elements. There is no need to reinvent the wheel — or the impressive Wheel of Fortune that sits just off center stage, painted with a map of the globe and ringed with symbols abstract and evocative enough to conjure up myriad adventures, peak experiences, and humbling encounters from the vivid grab-bag memory of an accomplished travel writer and inveterate globetrotter. There’s also a real grab bag, just in case, and an oversize tarot card, a sort of visual aid cum talisman sporting a classic image of the Fool, patron saint of the traveler’s heedless leaps of faith. Greenwald’s stories possess a fine sense of humor and a knack for the shrewd detail and telling observation. They also contain a Zen-inflected homespun wisdom no doubt born of leaving home on a regular basis. If slightly self-conscious at times, these tales are always genuine and appealing. In the end, Greenwald’s show, as reliable as it is unpredictable, mimics a genie-from-a-bottle experience: What you get is three spins, three stories, and a lot of unexpected truth. Note: capsule condensed from 2008 feature review of this production. (Avila)

Tripping on the Tipping Point Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; (707) 322-5731. $15-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Human Nature performs a new comedy about global warming.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Fri-Sun, 5:30pm (also Sat-Sun, noon; matinee only Sat/22; no performances Sept 29; evening performances only Oct 6-7). Through Oct 7. We Players board the Balclutha and the Eureka for this jazzy take on Shakespeare’s romance.

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

BAY AREA

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show Oct 5; additional 2pm show Oct 4); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Oct 7. Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) delivers this inconsistent but generally lively and fascinatingly au courant comedy about a down-on-his-luck American businessman (Alex Moggridge) who visits China hoping to win a contract for English-language signage. Hiring a British expat (Brian Nishii) to smooth the way for him, he enters negotiations with a local official (Larry Lei Zhang). Although things seem to be going well (across some hilarious scenes of half-assed simultaneous translation), he finds the deal running inexplicably aground, then finds unexpected help from a hard-nosed, initially hostile, and beautiful Party official (a standout Michelle Krusiec), with whom he soon begins an extramarital affair. But the American (who has a past of his own that eventually comes to light with surprising consequences) has no idea of the machinations taking place behind the formal business meetings and other confused cross-cultural encounters. What unfolds is a sometimes stretched but generally shrewd and laugh-out-loud funny assessment of has-been American delusions through the prism of rising Chinese ambitions and clout, cultural and otherwise. If the central dynamic between the lovers is not always convincing on the individual or metaphorical level, Leigh Silverman directs for Berkeley Rep a super slick production, complete with rotating sets and precisely timed entrances, featuring an enjoyable cast rounded out by Vivian Chiu, Celeste Den, and Austin Ku. (Avila)

The Death of the Novel San Jose Rep, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose; www.sjrep.com. $23-69. Wed/19, 7:30pm; Thu/20-Sat/22, 8pm (also Sat/22, 3pm). Vincent Kartheiser (a.k.a. Pete Campbell from Mad Men) stars in Jonathan Marc Feldman’s drama about creativity in post-9/11 America at San Jose Rep.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 30. Playwright Kristoffer Diaz, a self-professed fan of the aggressively-theatrical spectacle that is professional wrestling, delivers much more than a “wrestling 101” primer for the uninitiated with The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Beneath the razzle-dazzle of the arena lighting (Kurt Landisman), the gaudy costuming (Maggie Whitaker) and the giant televised image of a hot bikini babe (Elizabeth Cadd, video by Jim Gross) lies the trampled luster of an American Dream. The dreamer, Macedonio “The Mace” Guerra (Tony Sancho), a wiry fall guy for THE Wrestling, wrestles not for money or glory (he is rarely privy to either), but for his love of the strange ballet that occurs in the ring. Guerra’s job is to make his opponents look good, including the pec-flexing, bling-booted Chad Deity (Beethovan Oden), leaving him to wrestle alone with the identity politics of being a marginalized but fully capable warrior battling perennially stacked odds. Willing suspension of disbelief does get stretched pretty thin when the character Vigneshwar Paduar, a smooth-talking hustler chance-met on the basketball courts of Brooklyn, rises to championship levels in record-breaking time as the truly cringe-worthy persona known as “The Fundamentalist,” but Nasser Khan’s skillfully self-possessed performance as Paduar makes it impossible not to root for him all the way. Rod Gnapp as foul-mouthed bossman “EKO” and fight director Dave Maier as a whole squadron of hapless B-list wrestlers round out the excellent cast. (Gluckstern)

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. The latest from playwright Steve Yockey (Bellwether, Skin) is an exercise in pure pleasure, not least for the devious sea creatures preying lustily and unashamedly on the hapless human flesh of a small coastal town. There, in cracked fairytale fashion, an unsuccessful fisherman named Cooper Minnow (an endearingly nerdy but passionate Maro Guevara) is preparing to set out to sea, leaving at home frustrated wife Vanessa (a wonderfully, volcanically bitchy yet complex Eliza Leoni) and their sinking marriage, when he meets an oddly brazen pair of sexy, sassy bathers in old-fashioned beach attire (the swimmingly synchronized duo of Sarah Coykendall and Roy Landaverde). At more or less the same moment, a devilishly dashing yet prim traveling salesman (poised, nicely offbeat Adrian Anchondo) is offering a clearly aroused Vanessa an erotic woodcut featuring monstrous tentacles groping human victims at a very familiar-looking dock. Will she take the woodcut? Will she ever! And later she’ll defend her husband’s honor and swap places with him too, much to the commercial advantage of the ever-accommodating salesman who — like Yockey’s smart and sure sex farce — has a little something for everyone. Directed with smooth precision by Ben Randle for Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, The Fisherman’s Wife again finds Yockey playing productively with the fine fuzzy line separating human nature from nature at large (as in Large Animal Games, the winning 2009 co-production from Impact and Dad’s Garage). The animals come through for playwright and company once more, with a thoroughly enjoyable comedy whose borrowed maritime mythos has just enough metaphorical pull to lead those so inclined out beyond the shallow waters. (Avila)

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

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

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

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Comikaze Lounge” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.comikazelounge.com. Wed/19, 8pm. Free. Comedy with Kevin Camia, Mike Drucker, Paco Romane, Lydia Papovich, and more.

“Dogsbody” Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; dogsbody.eventbrite.com. Fri/21-Sun/23, 8pm. $10. Erik Ehn’s play about child soldiers features choreography by Erika Chong Shuch.

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

“The Ella Effect” Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.ftloose.org. Fri/21, 8 and 9:30pm. $15. Josh Klipp and the Klipptones join with a crew of local dancers to honor the music of Ella Fitzgerald.

“Fauxgirls! San Francisco’s Favorite Drag Revue” Infusion Lounge, 124 Ellis, SF; www.fauxgirls.com. Thu/20, 8pm. Free. With Victoria Secret, Alexandria, Chanel, Maria Garza, and more.

“Hella Gay Comedy Show: Bear Comedy Night” Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. Sun/23, 8pm. $10. Comedy with host Charlie Ballard and performers Kurt Weitzmann, David Gborie, Nick Leonard, Antwan Johnson, and more.

Kathy Mata Ballet San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.kathymataballet.com. Fri/21, 8pm. Free-$30. The company performs a variety of dance styles, including ballet, jazz, modern, and belly dance, plus guest performers the Gnosis Dance Collective and live musical accompaniment.

Napoles Ballet Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Buchanan, SF; www.napolesballet.org. Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 7pm. $18-25. The new company presents Carlos Molina in the world premiere of Fausto.

“Open” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/21-Mon/24, 8pm. $20. When a couple decides to try an open marriage, hilarity (and jealousy) ensues in Jeff Bedillion’s play, performed by Back Alley Theater Productions.

“Second City for President” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.captivatearts.com. Sun/23, 3pm. $30-55. Political comedy revue by the renowned Second City troupe.

Gina Yashere Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/22, 8pm. $18-20. The British Nigerian comedian performs.

BAY AREA

“Freedom House” Eastside Cultural Center, 2277 International, Oakl; (510) 420-0920. Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. $10-25. dNaga, Eastside Arts Alliance, and the Asian Pacific Islander Center present this “dance art experience” inspired by the experiences of people of color who live in Oakland.

“Risk for Deep Love” Temescal Art Center, 511 48th St, Oakl; www.eroplay.com. Fri/21, 8pm. Free. Frank Moore leads this “ritual audience participation experience experiment.”

 

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

3RD I

The San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival runs Sept. 19-30 at various Bay Area venues. Tickets and schedule at thirdi.org/festival. For commentary, see "Cinetology."

OPENING

About Cherry See "Sex Things We Love." (1:42) Castro.

Dredd 3D See "Cinetology." (1:38)

End of Watch See "Cinetology." (1:49) Marina.

Hello I Must Be Going Blindsided by her recent divorce, 35-year-old Amy (Melanie Lynskey) flees New York City for quaint Westport, Conn., where she nurses her wounds, mostly by sleeping and watching Marx Brothers movies. Amy’s protracted moping rankles her perfectionist mother (Blythe Danner, bringing nuance to what could have been a clichéd character) and concerns her workaholic father (John Rubenstein). Dad’s trying to land a big client so he can "make back some of the money we lost in the market" — a subtle aside in Sarah Koskoff’s script that suggests Amy’s parents aren’t as well-heeled as they used to be, despite the ongoing renovations to their swanky home, catered dinners, and expensive art purchases. Money woes are just one of Amy’s many concerns, though, and when a distraction presents itself in the form of 19-year-old Jeremy (Girls’ Christopher Abbott), she finds herself sneaking out at night, making out in her mom’s car, smoking weed, and basically behaving like a teenager herself. As directed by indie actor turned director Todd Louiso (2002’s Love Liza), Hello I Must Be Going is a nicely contained, relatable (self-loathing: we’ve all been there) character study — and props for casting the endearing Lynskey, so often seen in supporting roles, as the film’s messy, complex lead. (1:35) SF Center. (Eddy)

House At the End of the Street Oh, Jennifer Lawrence, don’t you know better than to poke around in that creepy house where all those murders happened? (1:43)

How to Survive a Plague David France’s documentary chronicles the unprecedented impact political activism had on the course of AIDS in the U.S. — drastically curtailing its death toll within a few years despite considerable institutional indifference and downright hostility. As the epidemic here first surfaced in, and decimated, the gay male community, much of Reagan America (particularly in religious quarters) figured the death sentence was deserved. The President himself infamously refrained from even saying the word "AIDS" publicly until his final year of office, after thousands had died. Both terrified and outraged, the gay community took it upon themselves to demand treatment, education, and research. Most of this urgent 1980s overview is concerned with the rise of ACT-UP, whose angry young men successfully lobbied and shamed corporate, academic, medical, and pharmaceutical bodies into action, with the result that by the mid-90s new drugs existed that made this dreaded diagnosis no longer a necessarily terminal one. France is a journalist who’s been covering AIDS practically since day one, and his first feature (made with the help of numerous first-rate collaborators) is authoritative and engrossing. Just don’t expect much (or really any) attention paid to the contributions made by S.F. or other activist hotspots — like many a gay documentary, this one hardly notices there’s a world (or gay community) outside Manhattan. (1:49) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

The Master See "Cinetology." (2:17) Embarcadero, Presidio.

Somewhere Between Five years ago, when filmmaker Linda Goldstein Knowlton adopted a baby girl from China, she was inspired to make Somewhere Between, a doc about the experiences of other Chinese adoptees. The film profiles four teenage girls, including Berkeley resident Fang "Jenni" Lee, whose American lives couldn’t be more different (one girl has two moms and attends a fancy prep school; another, raised by devout Christians, dreams of playing her violin at the Grand Ole Opry) but who share similar feelings about their respective adoptions. The film follows the girls on trips to London (as part of an organized meeting of fellow adoptees), Spain (to chat with people interested in adopting Chinese babies, and where the question "What does it feel like to be abandoned?" is handled with astonishing composure), and China (including one teen’s determined quest to track down her birth family). Highly emotional at times, Somewhere Between benefits from its remarkably mature and articulate subjects, all of whom have much to say about identity and personal history. Lee and filmmaker Goldstein Knowlton will appear in person at select opening shows; visit www.landmarktheatres.com for more information. (1:28) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

10 Years Channing Tatum and Rosario Dawson star in this high-school reunion comedy. Which one of them invented Post-its, again? (1:50)

Trouble with the Curve Baseball scout Gus (Clint Eastwood) relies on his senses to sign players to the Atlanta Braves, and his roster of greats is highly regarded by everyone — save a sniveling climber named Sanderson (Matthew Lillard), who insists his score-keeping software can replace any scout. Gus’ skill in his field are preternatural, but with his senses dwindling, his longtime-friend Pete (a brilliant John Goodman) begs Gus’ daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) to go with him — to see how bad the situation is and maybe drive him around. Ultimately, the film’s about the rift between career woman Mickey, and distant dad Gus, with some small intrusions from Justin Timberlake as Mickey’s romantic interest. Trouble with the Curve is a phrase used to describe batters who can’t hit a breaking ball and it’s a nuance — if an incontrovertible one — unobservable to the untrained eye. While Mickey and Gus stumble messily toward a better relationship (with a reasonable amount of compromise), Curve begins to look a bit like The Blind Side (2009), trading the church and charity for therapy and baggage. But what it offers is sweet and worthwhile, if you’re tolerant of the sanitized psychology and personality-free aesthetics. But it’s a movie about love and compromise — and if you love baseball you won’t have trouble forgiving some triteness, especially when Timberlake, the erstwhile Boo-Boo, gets to make a Yogi Berra joke. (1:51) Four Star, Marina. (Sara Vizcarrondo)

ONGOING

Arbitrage As Arbitrage opens, its slick protagonist, Robert Miller (Richard Gere), is trying to close the sale of his life, on his 60th birthday: the purchase of his company by a banking goliath. The trick is completing the deal before his fraud, involving hundreds of millions of dollars, is uncovered, though the whip-smart daughter who works for him (Brit Marling) might soon be onto him. Meanwhile, Miller’s gaming his personal affairs as well, juggling time between a model wife (Susan Sarandon) and a Gallic gallerist mistress (Laetitia Casta), when sudden-death circumstances threaten to destroy everything, and the power broker’s livelihood — and very existence — ends up in the hands of a young man (Nate Parker) with ambitions of his own. It’s a realm that filmmaker Nicholas Jarecki is all too familiar with. Though like brothers Andrew (2003’s Capturing the Friedmans) and Eugene (2005’s Why We Fight), Jarecki’s first love is documentaries (his first film, 2006’s The Outsider, covered auteur James Toback), his family is steeped in the business world. Both his parents were commodities traders, and Jarecki once owned his own web development firm and internet access provider, among other ventures. When he started writing Arbitrage‘s script in 2008, he drew some inspiration from Bernard Madoff — but ultimately, the film is about a good man who became corrupted along the way, to the point of believing in his own invincibility. (1:40) Metreon, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Bachelorette A movie called Bachelorette is inevitably going to be accused of riding Bridesmaids‘ coattails, even if — as it happens — Bachelorette‘s source-material play was written years before the 2011 comedy hit theaters. (That said, there are inevitable similarities, what with the shared wedding themes and all.) Playwright turned scriptwriter-director Leslye Headland does a good job of portraying women who are repulsive in realistic ways: a decade ago, Regan (Kirsten Dunst), Gena (Lizzy Caplan), Katie (Isla Fisher) were the popular "B-Faces" at their high school and haven’t matured much since. Competitive Regan is a Type A blonde; Gena’s the queen of one-night stands; and Katie’s a self-destructive party girl. All of them are pushing 30, and though Regan’s the most functional among them, she’s the hardest-hit when she learns that Becky (Bridesmaids‘ Rebel Wilson), always treated as a second-tier B-Face by virtue of being plus-sized, is engaged. "I was supposed to be first," Regan wails via three-way cell call to Gena and Katie, who’re sympathetic to this sense of entitlement. The wedding is a fancy New York City affair, so the B-Faces reunite for what they think will be a bachelorette party for the ages. Most of the film takes place during that single night, a madcap, coke-fueled, mean-spirited spiral into chaos. It’s raunchy and funny, but every character is utterly unlikable, which becomes more of a problem and less of an amusement as the movie trundles onward toward the expected happy ending. Bachelorette would’ve been better served by sticking with its rallying cry — "Fuck everyone!" — to the bitter end. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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

Beauty is Embarrassing You may not recognize the name Wayne White offhand, but you will know his work: he designed and operated many of the puppets on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, including Randy (the blockheaded bully) and Dirty Dog (the canine jazzbo). Neil Berkeley’s Beauty Is Embarrassing — named for a mural White painted on the side of a Miami building for Art Basel 2009 — charts the life of an artist whose motto is both "I want to try everything I can!" and "Fuck you!" The Southern-born oddball, who came of age in the early-1980s East Village scene, is currently styling himself as a visual artist (his métier: painting non-sequitur phrases into landscapes bought from thrift stores), but Beauty offers a complex portrait of creativity balanced between the need to be subversive and the desire to entertain. (1:27) Roxie. (Eddy)

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

Branded (1:46) SF Center.

The Bullet Vanishes Veteran Hong Kong actor Lau Ching-wan stars as a Sherlock Holmes type in 1930s Shanghai, bumped up from prison-guard detail to homicide detective by top brass impressed with his talent, if not his unusual methods. Good timing, since there’s been a series of killings at the local munitions factory, an operation run by a Scooby Doo-ish villain — in cahoots with corrupt cops — who’s prone to snappy hats and checkered overcoats. Adding to the mystery: a tragic back story involving Russian roulette and blood-written graffiti promising "The phantom bullets will kill you all!" Helping solve the crimes is Nicholas Tse as "the fastest gun in Tiancheng," no slouch of an investigator himself; together, the sleuths compile evidence and recreate scenes of murders, including one that seemingly transpired in a locked room with only one exit. The Bullet Vanishes contains more plot twists, slightly fewer steampunk flourishes, and way less slo-mo fist action than Guy Ritchie’s recent attempts at Holmes; though it’s no masterpiece, it’s a fun enough whodunit, with a reliably great and quirky performance from Lau. (2:00) Metreon. (Eddy)

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

Cane Toads: The Conquest They’re baaack — and in 3D. Director Mark Lewis returns to the subject that made him famous, or notorious, in Cane Toads: The Conquest. Lewis’ 1988 short doc Cane Toads: An Unnatural History — about the warty critters’ population explosion after being imported to Australia as part of an unsuccessful pest-control experiment, after which they became pests themselves — is by now a cult hit, thanks to its droll tone, quirky interview subjects, and toad’s-eye-view P.O.V. shots. These days, Australia’s toad situation has, predictably, gotten worse — and weirder, thanks in part to the popularity of the first film, as Lewis chats up a mix of scientists, government officials, and everyday folk on the subject. High points: a man whose "traveling toad show" includes dioramas of costumed, taxidermied toads (there’s a wrestling match, a nightclub scene, a highway accident, and an Aussie rules football game); advanced production values, which render our bulging-eyed buddies in lush detail; and fun 3D flourishes, as when a squeezed poison gland splatters the lens. (1:25) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

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

Chicken With Plums Steeped in whimsy — and a longing for love, beauty, and home — this latest effort from brilliant Persian-French cartoonist-filmmaker Marjane Satrapi and director Vincent Paronnaud flaunts the odd contours of its eccentric narrative, enchants with its imaginative tangents, sprawls like an unincapsulated life, and then takes off on aching, campy romantic reverie—a magical realistic vision of one Iranian artist’s doomed trajectory. Master violinist Nasser Ali Khan (Mathieu Amalric) is seeking the ineffable — a replacement for his destroyed instrument — and otherwise he’s determined to die. We trace the mystery of his passing, backward, with wanders through the life of his family and loved one along the way in this playful, bittersweet feast. Despite Amalric’s glazed-eyed mugging, which almost spoils the dish, Satrapi’s wonderfully arch yet lyrical visual sensibility and resonant characters — embodied by Maria de Medeiros, Jamel Debbouze, Golshifteh Farahani, and Isabella Rossellini, among others — satisfy, serving up so much more than chicken with plums. (1:31) (Chun)

The Cold Light of Day (1:33) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

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

Cosmopolis With end times nigh and the 99 percent battering the gates of the establishment, it’s little wonder David Cronenberg’s rendition of the Don DeLillo novel might rotate, with the stately rhythm of a royal funeral and deliciously tongue-in-cheek humor, around one of the most famed vampire heartthrobs at the cineplex. Sadly, a recent paparazzi scandal threatens to eclipse this latest, enjoyably blighted installment in the NYC urban nightmare genre. Robert Pattinson’s billionaire asset manager Eric Packer takes meetings with his new wife Elise (Sarah Gadon) and staffers like his monetary theorist Vija (Samantha Morton) in his moving office: a white, leather-bound stretch limo that materializes like a sleek, imposing extension of his pale frame. Seriously disassociated from reality on multiple levels, Eric is a 28-year-old boy in a bubble, speaking of himself in third person and willing to spend all day making his way across town to get a haircut at his father’s old barbershop, even though his head of security (Kevin Durand) warns him that at least one "credible threat" has designs on his life. The passing of his favorite Sufi rapper (K’Naan), a possible Rothko for sale, a mad pie-thrower, and an asymmetrical prostate all threaten to capsize those, as it turns out, not-so-humble plans. Warning: the brainier members of Team Edward might plan on finding their minds blown by this thoughtful and mordantly humorous meditation on this country’s cult of money, while Cronenberg watchers will be gratified to pluck out his recurring themes, here dealt with a lighter hand than usual. At this date, rather than telegraphing how one might feel about a scene by way of, say, music, the director is increasingly comfortable with the ambiguity — and the uneasy, pleasing mix of sneaking repulsion and gimlet-eyed humor, of these scenes and their language. Thus the autoerotic-car fetishism of Crash (1996) and hallucinatory culture grazing of Naked Lunch (1991) — and that fascination with how a body intersects sexually or otherwise with a machine or "other" — seems completely natural here. Or perhaps it’s a measure of how much Cronenberg’s preoccupations and cinematic language have made themselves at home in the vernacular. (1:49) (Chun)

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

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

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

Finding Nemo 3D (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

For a Good Time, Call&ldots; Suffering the modern-day dilemmas of elapsed rent control and boyfriend douchebaggery, sworn enemies Katie (Ari Graynor) and Lauren (Lauren Miller) find themselves shacking up in Katie’s highly covetable Manhattan apartment, brought together on a stale cloud of resentment by mutual bestie Jesse (Justin Long, gamely delivering a believable version of your standard-issue young hipster NYC gay boy). The domestic glacier begins to melt somewhere around the time that Lauren discovers Katie is working a phone-sex hotline from her bedroom; equipped with a good head for business, she offers to help her go freelance for a cut of the proceeds. Major profitability ensues, as does a friendship evoking the pair bonding at the center of your garden-variety romantic comedy, as Katie trains Lauren to be a phone-sex operator and the two share everything from pinkie swears and matching pink touch-tone phones to intimate secrets and the occasional hotline threesome. Directed by Jamie Travis and adapted from a screenplay by Miller and Katie Anne Naylon, the film is a welcome response to the bromance genre, and with any luck it may also introduce linguistic felicities like "phone-banging" and "let’s get this fuckshow started" into the larger culture. The raunchy telephonic interludes include cameos by Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen (Miller’s husband) as customers calling from such unfurtive locations as a public bathroom stall and the front seat of a taxicab. But the two roomies supply plenty of dirty as Katie, an abashed wearer of velour and denim pantsuits, helps the more restrained Lauren discover the joys of setting free her inner potty mouth. (1:25) SF Center. (Rapoport)

Girl Model Everyone wants to be special — though of course that only works if other people aren’t. The disturbingly instructive new documentary Girl Model makes a good case for not encouraging such desires in your child, because the likelihood is that someone will come along to exploit that desire, convincingly promise them fame, then leave them worse off than before. "The first secret to a successful modeling career is to start modeling at five or ten years old," says an emcee at a cattle-call showcase early on in David Redmond and Ashley Sabin’s film. It’s Russia, where the relatively new capitalism trickles down even less than here, so the families are even more eager to turn little Svetlana into a moneymaker. But that way lies madness, or at least deceit and disappointment. Plucked from a couple hundred pretty, rail-thin girls, 13-year-old wide-eyed blonde Nadya Vall is yanked from her rural Siberian village and mother and sent to Japan, where she fits a general type sought there. The younger the better, as talent scout Ashley Arbaugh tells us, qualifying that it’s not her taste, but she’s learned to see through the clients’ eyes. An ex-model herself, Ashley gives off disillusioned, compromised vibes. (It takes a while for us to realize that she’s a user and a hypocrite — not a buffer between the girls and harsh reality but a key part of the problem herself.) Needless to say, Nadya ends up owing rather than making money. Meanwhile Ashley lounges around the immaculate, expansive, coldly all-white house her job as middleman has earned; at the end of the film, she’s telling a new group of parents "Every model has success in Japan, unlike other markets where they might go into debt. They never do in Japan." For a longer version of this review, visit sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:17) (Harvey)

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

The Inbetweeners The bro-bacchanal never stops being funny in some circles, and those acolytes might want to attempt to penetrate the thick, juicy UK accents in this writ-large version of the English sitcom of the same name. The deliciously awkward teenage boy gang’s all here — with an added dose of ultragross-out humor that one-ups the American Pie gang. Brainy Will (Simon Bird), aggressively gelled Simon (Joe Thomas), super-horndog Jay (James Buckley), and lanky oddity Neil (Blake Harrison) are off on summer break before "uni" on a booze- and sex-swathed Greek isle. The goal: to get soundly laid and eradicate Simon’s heartbreak over recently departed girlfriend Carli (Emily Head). As luck would have it, the bunch even stumble over some nubile, nice cuties — including doll-faced blonde Allison (Laura Haddock) and far-too-accommodating brunette Lucy (Tamla Kari) — in their quest for "fit" slatterns. In between them and a very certain happy ending, in more ways than one, are plenty of excess, barf, poo, blackouts on ant hills — what’s not to love, provided you can overlook the very un-PC rumblings from this dude-a-rama? A self-fellatio interlude even takes on the Jackass posse on their own physically challenging turf. (1:37) Metreon. (Chun)

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

Keep The Lights On In Ira Sachs’ intensely discomfiting Keep the Lights On, Erik (Thure Lindhardt) is a Danish documentarian in late-1990s New York City, prodding his career along, spending time with friends, having casual sex with strangers. One of the latter is Paul (Zachary Booth), a publishing-house lawyer who first tells him "I have a girlfriend, so don’t get your hopes up." Yet some time later they’ve become a tentative couple, then a live-in one. Erik is patient and easygoing, but Paul has secrets and problems all the more difficult to deal with because he denies, hides, or lies about them. He disappears for days at a time, then turns up wrecked. Crack is just the addiction we see; there are evidently others. Erik tries everything — group interventions, rehab, endless attempts at frank conversation that invariably turn into Paul accusing him of being unreasonable — but nothing sticks. It takes Erik a decade to come to terms with, and extricate himself from, a relationship in which all his best efforts only bring torment, grief, and exasperation. Keep the Lights On is the kind of excellent movie a lot of people don’t like: it’s not just depressing in the sense of having downbeat, difficult subject matter, it actually sets out to be unpleasant and succeeds. There is a point to that. Leaping forward a couple years at a time, leaving us to figure out how things have shifted in the interim, Sachs’ script (co-written with Mauricio Zacharias) induces in the viewer the disoriented helplessness of dealing with a loved one who can’t or won’t tell the full truth — it’s his best defense. (1:42) Lumiere. (Harvey)

Kumaré Just as there was a certain bullying pride of snark that made Bill Maher and Larry Charles’ Religulous (2008) more mean-spirited than necessary, Kumaré leaves a sour, smug aftertaste. Raised in New Jersey by a first-generation immigrant family of Hindus, Vikram Gandhi proclaims himself a skeptic who started out wanting to make a documentary about the opportunistic charlatans one can find passing as spiritually enlightened gurus in both India and around the booming US yoga industry. "I wanted to prove to others looking for answers that no one is more spiritual than anyone, that spiritual leaders are just illusions," he tells us. A noble impulse. Yet somehow this took the form of growing his hair and beard out, wearing saffron robes, and posing as Sri Kumaré, a fresh-off-the-boat guru who arrives in Phoenix, Ariz. to open up shop as a one-stop spiritual guide for the gullible. He asks "Could people find the same peace in a made-up religion that they would in a real one?" But too often the real question here seems to be "How silly can I make these chumps look while starring in my very own nonfiction version of The Love Guru?" The comedy Kumaré has been primarily compared to is 2006’s Borat, another Larry Charles joint. As unhappy as their portraiture in Borat made its duped participants, it was hard to feel sorry for them — given enough rope they gladly hung themselves expressing racism, homophobia, sexism, and sheer Ugly Americanism. But those who fall under Kumaré‘s farcical spell don’t deserve to be exposed and ridiculed; they’re just people with real-world issues — financial struggles, low self-esteem, empty-nest loneliness, etc. — looking for somebody to tell them what to do. (1:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

Lawless Lawless has got to be the most pretentiously humorless movie ever made about moonshiners — a criminal subset whose adventures onscreen have almost always been rambunctious and breezy, even when violent. Not here, bub. Adapting Matt Bondurant’s fact-inspired novel The Wettest County in the World about his family’s very colorful times a couple generations back, director John Hillcoat and scenarist (as well as, natch, composer) Nick Cave have made one of those films in which the characters are presented to you as if already immortalized on Mount Rushmore — monumental, legendary, a bit stony. They’ve got a crackling story about war between hillbilly booze suppliers and corrupt lawmen during Prohibition, and while the results aren’t dull (they’re too bloody for that, anyway), they’d be a whole lot better if the entire enterprise didn’t take itself so gosh darned seriously. The Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Va. are considered "legends" when we meet them in 1931, having defied all and sundry as well as survived a few bullets: mack-truck-built Forrest (Tom Hardy); eldest Howard (Jason Clarke), who tipples and smiles a lot; and "runt of the litter" Jack (Shia LeBeouf), who has a chip on his shoulder. The local law looks the other way so long as their palms are greased, but the Feds send sneering Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), it’s an eye for an eye for an eye, etc. The revenge-laden action in Lawless is engaging, but the filmmakers are trying so hard to make it all resonant and folkloric and meta-cinematic, any fun you have is in spite of their efforts. (1:55) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Little White Lies In the wake of a serious accident that puts magnetic Ludo (Jean Dujardin, just briefly seen) in the hospital, his circle of closest friends go without him on their annual vacation at a beachfront summer home, courtesy of well-off restaurateur Max (Francois Cluzet) and wife Vero (Valerie Bonneton). But this year they’ve all got a lot of drama going on. Marie (Marion Cotillard) is suffering the uncomfortable consequences of all the lovers (male and female) she’s run out on when "commitment" reared its head. Similarly, the roving eye of actor Eric (Gilles Lellouche) threatens the stable relationship he’s finally sorta settled on. Hapless boy-man Antoine (Laurent Lafitte) obsesses over the longtime girlfriend who’s dumping him. And Vincent (Benoit Magimel) endangers his marriage to Isabelle (Pascale Arbillot) by privately proclaiming more-than-platonic love for best friend Max — whose discomfort manifests itself in hostile behaviors that threaten to ruin everyone’s stay. Actor Guillaume Canet’s third film as writer-director (following the 2006 hit thriller Tell No One) has been compared, even by himself, to 1983’s The Big Chill. But while that slick, somewhat glib seriocomedy’s characters had 1960s activist pasts and faded ideals to square with encroaching midlife, this slicker, glibber ensemble piece is about people who’ve never shared much more than good times and mutual self-absorption. Though Canet has worked with most of these actors before, and developed Lies in collaboration with them, the thinly amusing, often contrived results hardly tax anyone’s resources. (Nor are they equal-opportunity: star attraction Cotillard aside, he barely seems interested in the women here.) It takes two and a half hours for this overblown fluff to arrive at a group-hug freeze frame (ugh), aiming for emotional heft it still hasn’t earned. (2:34) (Harvey)

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

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2:05) SF Center.

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

The Possession (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Premium Rush "Fixed gear. Steel frame. No brakes. Can’t stop … don’t want to." Thus goes the gear breakdown and personal philosophy of New York City bike messenger Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an aggro rider who uses his law school-refined brain to make split-second decisions regarding which way to dart through Midtown traffic. Though bike messengers had a pop culture moment in the 1990s, Premium Rush is set in the present day, with one of Wilee’s numerous voice-overs explaining the job’s continued importance even in the digital era. One such example: a certain envelope he’s tasked with ferrying across the city, given to him by the troubled roommate (Jamie Chung) of the pretty fellow messenger (Dania Ramirez) he’s romantically pursuing. The contents of the envelope, and the teeth-gnashingly evil-cop-with-a-gambling-problem (Michael Shannon, adding some weird flair to what’s essentially a stock villain) who would dearly love to get his mitts on it, are less crucial to Premium Rush than the film’s many, many chase scenes featuring Wilee outwitting all comers with his two-wheeled Frogger moves. Silly fun from director David Koepp (2008’s Ghost Town), but not essential unless you’re a fixie fanatic or a JGL completist. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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

Red Hook Summer It seems like lifetimes ago that Michelle and Barack found each other beneath the flicker of filmmaker Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), so the director-cowriter’s cameo in his now-graying, still-pizza-delivering Mookie guise, in this hot, bothered return to Brooklyn, reverberates with meaning. Less polemical and now complicated by an acute, confused love and loathing for certain places and faces, Red Hook Summer takes a different tact — the Red Hook projects rather than the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant — and narrows its focus on Flik Royale (Jules Brown), the reluctant young visitor to the humble home of his grandfather, Da Good Bishop Enoch Rouse (Clarke Peters from Treme and The Wire). A true child of his time and place, the introverted, rebellious Atlanta kid would rather hide behind his favorite screen, a.k.a. the iPad that he’s using to document his world, than engage with reality, even when it’s raging in his face by way of his grandfather’s fiery sermons or threats from the glowering rapper Box (Nate Parker). Only a charismatic girl his age, Chazz Morningstar (Toni Lysaith), seems to get through, despite the Bishop’s passionate efforts to bond with the boy. Alas, Lee himself doesn’t seem to quite get his youthful protagonist — one who’s predisposed to turn inward rather than turn a politicized lens outward — and instead casts about restlessly to the detriment of this supposed coming-of-age narrative. No shock that somehow Red Hook Summer gets caught in the undertow of the magnetic Peters, who will turn heads with his take on a tormented believer, eager to forgive and equally hopeful for forgiveness. (2:01) Roxie. (Chun)

Resident Evil: Retribution (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

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

Samsara Samsara is the latest sumptuous, wordless offering from director Ron Fricke, who helped develop this style of dialogue- and context-free travelogue with Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and Baraka (1992). Spanning five years and shooting on 70mm film to capture glimmers of life in 25 countries on five continents, Samsara, which spins off the Sanskrit word for the "ever-turning wheel of life," is nothing if not good-looking, aspiring to be a kind of visual symphony boosted by music by the Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard and composers Michael Stearns and Marcello De Francisci. Images of natural beauty, baptisms, and an African woman and her babe give way to the madness of modern civilization — from jam-packed subways to the horrors of mechanized factory farming to a bizarre montage of go-go dancers, sex dolls, trash, toxic discarded technology, guns, and at least one gun-shaped coffin. After such dread, the opening and closing scenes of Buddhist spirituality seem almost like afterthoughts. The unmistakable overriding message is: humanity, you dazzle in all your glorious and inglorious dimensions — even at your most inhumane. Sullying this hand wringing, selective meditation is Fricke’s reliance on easy stereotypes: the predictable connections the filmmaker makes between Africa and an innocent, earthy naturalism, and Asia and a vaguely threatening, mechanistic efficiency, come off as facile and naive, while his sonic overlay of robot sounds over, for instance, an Asian woman blinking her eyes comes off as simply offensive. At such points, Fricke’s global leap-frogging begins to eclipse the beauty of his images and foregrounds his own biases. (1:39) Embarcadero. (Chun)

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

Sleepwalk with Me Every year lots of movies get made by actors and comedians who want to showcase themselves, usually writing and often directing in addition to starring. Most of these are pretty bad, and after a couple of festival appearances disappear, unremembered by anyone save the credit card companies that vastly benefited from its creation. Mike Birbiglia’s first feature is an exception — maybe not an entirely surprising one (since it’s based on his highly praised Off-Broadway solo show and best-seller), but still odds-bucking. Particularly as it’s an autobiographical feeling story about an aspiring stand-up comic (Mike as Matt) who unfortunately doesn’t seem to have much natural talent in that direction, but nonetheless obsessively perseveres. This pursuit of seemingly fore destined failure might be causing his sleep disorder, or it might be a means of avoiding taking the martial next step with long-term girlfriend (Lauren Ambrose, making something special out of a conventional reactive role) everyone else agrees is the best thing in his life. Yep, it’s another commitment-phobic man-boy/funny guy who regularly talks to the camera, trying to find himself while quirky friends and family stand around like trampoline spotters watching a determined clod. If all of these sounds derivative and indulgent, well, it ought to. But Sleepwalk turns a host of familiar, hardly foolproof ideas into astute, deftly performed, consistently amusing comedy with just enough seriousness for ballast. Additional points for "I zinged him" being the unlikely most gut-busting line here. (1:30) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

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

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

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

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

The Words We meet novelist Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) as he’s making his way from a posh building to a cab in the rain; it’s important the shot obscures his generally shiny exterior, because we’re meant to believe this guy’s a sincere and struggling novelist. Jeremy Irons, aged with flappy eye makeup, watches him vengefully. Seems Rory fell upon the unpublished novel Irons’ character wrote in sadness and loss — and feeling himself incapable of penning such prose, transcribed the whole thing. When his lady friend (Zoe Saldana) encourages him to sell it, he becomes the next great American writer. He’s living the dream on another man’s sweat. But that’s not the tragedy, exactly, because The Words isn’t so concerned with the work of being a writer — it’s concerned with the look and insecurity of it. Bradley and Irons aren’t "real," they’re characters in a story read by Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) while the opportunistic, suggestive Daniella (Olivia Wilde) comes onto him. She can tell you everything about Clay, yet she hasn’t read the book that’s made him the toast of the town — The Words, which is all about a young plagiarist and the elderly writer he steals from. "I don’t know how things happen!", the slimy, cowering writers each exclaim. So, how do you sell a book? Publish a book? Make a living from a book? How much wine does it take to bed Olivia Wilde? Sure, they don’t know how things happen; they only know what it looks like to finish reading Hemingway at a café or watch the sun rise over a typewriter. Rarely has a movie done such a trite job of depicting the process of what it’s like to be a writer — though if you found nothing suspect about, say, Owen Wilson casually re-editing his 400-page book in one afternoon in last year’s Midnight in Paris, perhaps you won’t be so offended by The Words, either. (1:36) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Torture, for real

Andrew Lam
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3

OPINION Last week I walked into my favorite café in SoMa and noticed the barista wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the black and orange word “torture.”

I froze. I knew I was holding up the line but I didn’t care. I had to ask about that shirt.

“Oh, it’s to promote the San Francisco Giants,” he said. He continued speaking, not noticing my umbrage. “So do you want your coffee hot or cold today?”

I wanted to keep talking about that shirt, but I didn’t know what to say. “I will have my coffee cold please,” I told him.

For the past ten years, torture has never been far from me. When I worked at Amnesty International, it was two doors down in the person of my colleague Kumar, who was tortured in Sri Lanka for advocating for Tamil rights. When I was on Capitol Hill as a foreign policy aide in the House of Representatives, I saw lawmakers justify President Obama’s lackadaisical attitude towards US torture.

One of the first things I learned at Amnesty International is the power and the responsibility of words. Human-rights work is about finding and verifying stories and then giving those stories names: war crime, rape, genocide … torture. It’s in the naming that our action begins. When we use the word torture it carries weight—and can heal wounds—because for so many people, their torture is denied, rationalized, or trivialized.

When I see the word torture on a t-shirt I do more than cringe: I mourn how far we are as a nation from a serious discussion of the use of torture by our own government.

Just last week Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department was closing the last two cases examining harsh CIA interrogation tactics during the Bush administration.

According to the ACLU, “(CIA) Interrogators were told they could use, among other tactics, extended sleep deprivation; ‘stress positions’ such as forced-standing, handcuffing in painful crouched positions and shackling people to the ceiling, usually for hours or even days; confining prisoners to small, coffin-like boxes with air and light cut off; extended forced nudity; sensory bombardment; extreme temperatures; hooding; and physical beatings, including slamming prisoners into walls.”

I can understand and I can attest that watching your team blow a lead in the bottom of the ninth is painful, excruciating even. It might cause you to drink or curse or smoke more. But it’s not torture. It doesn’t violate the core of your being. It doesn’t terrorize your nights.

Standing in line at the café that day, I thought of my friend Firoze who was tortured so badly he can no longer have sex. I wonder what he would say if were staring at the Barista with the “torture” t-shirt.

He would probably laugh and say it’s just a game. And then he might say what he told me each time we met: “People have no idea.”

Zahir Janmohamed recently completed a fellowship at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto and is writing a book about Juhapura, the largest ghetto of Muslims in India

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A studied approach

Andrew Lam
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2
A studied approach

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE In 1992, Donald Abrams was in an Amsterdam hotel room watching the arrest of a volunteer at his hospital, SF General, on TV. 73-year old Mary Jane “Brownie Mary” Rathburn was being taken to jail for providing AIDS patients with THC-infused pastries.

The fact that Abrams, an oncologist who had turned his attention to HIV/AIDS in the midst of the virus’ attack on San Francisco, learned of Rathburn’s plight via international news was particularly biting, given the circumstances. He was in the Netherlands attending the International AIDS Conference, which was originally slated to be held in Boston. The conference had to be moved when it became apparent that many of its most important participants would be unable to attend — in 1987, the US Senate unanimously passed a ban that prevented HIV-positive people from getting into the country. (Kudos to the government, by the way, for lifting that ban. Ahem, last year.)

One can imagine the questions that arose for Abrams regarding his country’s commitment to fighting the disease.

So later, when Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) wrote to General’s AIDS program suggesting that “Brownie Mary’s institution” take the lead in researching the effect of cannabis on AIDS wasting syndrome, Abrams swung into action.

He was watching his community waste away from the disease. And he wasn’t happy with existing treatments. The data supporting AZT’s efficacy was faulty, he thought, a quick fix by a government under pressure to come up with a solution to an epidemic.

In the pre-Proposition 215 era, large numbers of AIDS patients were getting pot from illegal cannabis clubs to combat the nausea and vomiting caused by AIDS wasting syndrome. The substance had to be studied, reasoned Abrams.

But organizing investigations into a federally-controlled substance is no easy matter. Since marijuana is a Schedule I drug with no officially-acknowledged medicinal use, research facilities have to get the go-ahead from several different government agencies (which focus on preventing drug abuse, not finding ways to use them to medical advantage) to be able to run experiments that use the stuff.

The process was interminable, though finally Abrams managed to complete important experiments with the drug which suggest marijuana is a useful tool in counteracting painful nerve damage, and that vaporization is just as effective a way to consume THC as smoking, among other findings.

After taking a break from researching pot for years, Abrams has once again submitted grant proposals for a few cannabis-related studies. He’s one half of a pot power couple — his husband, cannabis activist Clint Werner, is the author of 2011’s Marijuana: Gateway to Health and suggested at a June Commonwealth Club lecture that cannabis be as prevalent as ice packs in NFL locker rooms, so useful is the drug in ameliorating brain damage.

Of course, regardless of whether Abrams — who has since stepped down from AIDS research to focus on oncology — secures funding and permission for these new studies, and regardless of his findings thereafter, he hardly thinks his work will convince the government to legalize marijuana. He’s been a little disappointed with our elected officials lack of “backbone” in standing up to federal agencies that are making it harder for his older patients to access dispensaries.

Because see, the War on Drugs isn’t about the drugs at all, but politics. The man who has been researching the power of pot for decades is, sadly, resigned to the fact. Says Abrams one Thursday afternoon, sitting in his office in the SF General oncology ward: “It’s clear to me after doing this for 15 years that science is not driving the train.”

Even if the general public is of the 215-supporting sort — after all, he quips, “more people [in California] voted for marijuana than Meg Whitman.”

East Bay buzz

Andrew Lam
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0
East Bay buzz

caitlin@sfbg.com

BEER I will not re-enter the one-sided debate of whether the East Bay is cooler than San Francisco (we covered that in our much hullabalooed April 11 cover story, helpfully titled “San Francisco’s loss”) But I will tell you this: one side of the Bay Bridge has less hills. Less hills being a boon for the drunk biker in us all.

If that is not enough motivation to embark upon a self-guided cycling tour of the East Bay beer scene, then I don’t know what is. Let me tell you about a recent, successfully-completed jaunt from which my team and I emerged with double IPA paunches, and a newfound appreciation for the San Francisco Bay Trail (of which you can find maps here: baytrail.abag.ca.gov).

EL CERRITO

Hook up your handlebars for a pleasant BART ride out to this north-of-Berkeley, family-friendly area, where a cruise of mere blocks will take you to the airy brewpub of Elevation 66 (10082 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 525-4800, www.elevation66.com). Stainless steel fermentation tanks make for tasty eye candy from the bar, where we wound up setting our messenger bags and ordering a sampler flight of seven beers. For such a tiny operation, Elevation 66 offers a swath of pours: on tap the day we visited were seven of its in-house brews, including a heavenly Contra Costa kölsch, the perfect light beverage with which to begin a day of exercising and drinking, and five guest pours, of which we tried a bubbly, sweet Two Rivers blood orange cider. Important matters settled, we tackled the extensive food menu, which stocks homemade potato chips, a Peruvian causa made with poached prawns, avocados, Yukon potatoes, and habanero, and more.

Now, leave the brewery (I know, but there’s lots to see.) Take the beautiful, wetlands-lined Bay Trail south, feeling free to jump off at the overpass when you see the Golden Gate Fields (1100 Eastshore Frontage Road, Berk. (510) 559-7300, www.goldengatefields.com). If it’s Sunday, all the better — $1 entry, $1 beers, $1 hot dogs.

BERKELEY

Note the USDA community garden that will zip by on your right (at 800 Buchanan, Berk.) as you emerge from the Bay Trail into the Albany-Berkeley area, home to some of the largest breweries in the East Bay, besides of course the mega-fermenters at the Budweiser factory in Fairfield.

Your first stop will be at Pyramid Alehouse (91 Gillman, Berk. (510) 528-9880, www.pyramidbrew.com), and though you may find the quality of some of the beers at this Seattle-born chain brewery to be just about what you’d expect from a space tinged with notes of T.G.I. Friday’s, you can make a game of counting the pyramids incorporated into the décor for extra stimulation. If you dare, embark upon a 40-minute free tour given every day at 4pm by a bartender who may or may not include gems like: “if you like metaphors, you’ll love this one.” At any rate, it’s a good primer for people who have no idea how beer is made and it includes tons of free booze at the end. Check out Trumer Pils Braueri (1404 Fourth St., Berk. (510) 526-1160, www.trumer-international.com) a few blocks away for another free tour that runs daily at 3:45pm.

Head back to the Bay Trail, unless you feel like a trip further inland to Berkeley’s two fun brewpubs Jupiter (2181 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-8277, www.jupiterbeer.com) and Triple Rock Brewery (1920 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-2739, www.triplerock.com). Between Berkeley and Oakland you have three lovely miles of trail ride, and if I’m not mistaken we are in the thick of blackberry season, which means the indigo clumps you’ll see on your right just past Sea Breeze Market and Deli (598 University, Berk.) are ripe for picking.

OAKLAND

You could while away a day within just a few blocks in downtown Oakland, such a prime sitting-out-with-a-microbrew kinda neighborhood it is.

In terms of places that make their own brew, there is none better than the 1890s warehouse building that houses Linden Street Brewery (95 Linden, SF. (510) 812-1264, www.lindenbeer.com), the little brewery that could. There’s only a few meters in between tank and tap here, and on weekdays you can sit in the joint’s tap room and suck down golden pints of its Urban Peoples’ Common Lager, while hearing the story from the bartender of how it came to the forefront of Oakland’s craft beer scene.

You may not even guess, right off the bat, that Pacific Coast Brewing Company (906 Washington, Oakl. (510) 836-2739, www.pacificcoastbrewing.com) is brewing the suds that wind up in your $9/five beer sampler — but it is. The charming brick pub has all the fried pickles one has come to expect from a solid bar menu, and a latticed patio that provides a little privacy from the Oakland cityscape. Out front, you can park your steed and walk it out — the rest of your stops are within stumbling distance, unless you’re trying to really make a day of it and head south to Drake’s Brewing (1933 Davis, San Leandro. (510) 568-2739, www.drinkdrakes.com) and its tucked-away pint parlor.

You may just have saved the best for last. The Trappist (460 Eighth St., Oakl. (510) 238-8900, www.thetrappist.com) and Beer Revolution (464 Third St., SF. (510) 452-2337, www.beer-revolution.com) are two of my favorite Bay beer bars, regardless of area code. Both have superlative selection and cute, sunny patios, but considerably different vibes.

The Trappist is a classy, under-lit place with two bars and an elegant rotating list of beers at each, some local and some from far-flung locales. On our visit, we tried a trio of superb sour beers, including the transcendent red-brown Belgian Rodenbach Grand Cru. Trappist’s food menu is full of elegantly spare, small plates packed with big flavors, like a recent Mahon Reserva cheese platter with truffled almonds and shisito peppers. I’m no meat eater, but I heard rave reviews of the comparatively proletarian Trappist dog, which was studded with bacon and seemed an apt pairing for a beer that may out-class you.

Beer Revolution, as the name would imply, is a populist place — local brewers regularly roll through to share their fermentation philosophies. Though their draft menu is impressively large, the beauty of this place is variety. Inside the bar there is a vast refrigerator land where bottles await for your to-go/for-here fancy. We vote for-here, because you’ll want to savor every drop of your East Bay booze cruise.

Still soaring

Andrew Lam
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3
Still soaring

yael@sfbg.com

“I was 18 years old the first time they locked me up in a psych ward.”

So begins “The Bipolar World,” an article published in the Bay Guardian‘s literature section 10 years ago, on September 18, 2002. The writer, Sascha Altman DuBrul, tells the story of his life. He’d been arrested walking on New York subway tracks after the year he first experienced what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder.

In the article, DuBrul wrote that the ideas shooting through his head were like a pinball game and he was convinced the radio was talking to him and that the CIA was recording his thoughts via secret neurotransmitters under his skin. But when he was diagnosed and told that he would need to take daily pills for the rest of his life, he wrote, “I wasn’t convinced, to say the least, that gulping down a handful of pills every day would make me sane.”

“I think it’s really about time we start carving some more of the middle ground with stories from outside the mainstream and creating a new language for ourselves that reflects all the complexity and brilliance that we hold inside,” the article concludes.

DuBrul was right—the time was ripe.

“Within a couple of days of it being out on the street, I got about 40 emails from strangers,” DuBrul told me. “And it wasn’t just one or two line emails that were,’ hey, great article.’ It was people pouring out their stories to me.”

One of those people was Oakland artist Jacks McNamara, and the two instantly connected.

“You know the myth of Icarus, right? It’s the boy who flies too close to the sun. It’s from Greek mythology. So we were two people who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and we were like, instead of seeing ourselves as diseased or disordered, we see ourselves as having dangerous gifts, like having wings,” DuBrul said. “And so, we put up a website that said, ‘The Icarus Project, navigating the space between brilliance and madness.'”

The Icarus Project began as a website, whose forums quickly filled with discussions as more people shared their stories and connected. Today, The Icarus Project has published three books, including a guide to starting support groups, dozens of which have sprung up around the country. More than 14,000 people have registered on the website.

The Bay Area-born radical mental health project celebrates its 10 year anniversary this year. An art show, concerts, spoken word, film screening, and skill share will take place this coming week. “Icaristas” will do what they do best: share their stories in language that feels right, building connections and community.

“When Sascha and I started it, we’d never seen anything written about bipolar that we could relate to. Everything was sterile and clinical and very mainstream, and didn’t really situate these sort of struggles within a larger political context,” McNamara recalls.

Now, there are Icarus Project books translated into six languages, and a huge collection of writing and art in what one zine editor, Jonah Bossewitch, calls the Icarus “sphere of influence and inspiration.”

“Our lives are made of fleeting moments, and to create documentation — whether in print or online or on canvas — is to make a fleeting moment into something to be shared. The Icarus Project and others who share similar ideas of liberation need to live our lives of beautiful fleeting moments, but also need to create documentation so that we can be heard,” said Laura-Marie Taylor, creator of Functionally Ill, an Icarus-inspired mental health zine now in its 13th edition.

“We’re in competition with the loud voices of psychiatry, advertising, governments, and other forces that want to tell us who we are. We need to broadcast our stories far and wide in order to counteract the forces that want to tell us who we are,” Taylor said.

That was also the view of Ken Paul Rosenthal, whose film, Crooked Beauty, will be screened at the 10-year anniversary celebration.

“She who does not write is written upon,” Rosenthal told me. “Society’s narratives will overwrite your authentic self.”

“I think more than anything, Icarus is about hearing stories,” he said.

And that story telling is intimately connected to the building of community and networks.

Rosenthal first got acquainted with Icarus when he read a line Mcnamara had written: “The world seemed to hit me so much harder and fill me so much fuller than anyone else I knew. Slanted sunlight could make me dizzy with its beauty and witnessing unkindness filled me with physical pain.”

“We really wanted to create materials that were beautiful and inspiring and that people actually wanted to read,” said McNamara. “And that they could relate to if they came from more of a subcultural perspective or just had suspicions about the mental health industry and the ways that it diagnoses people and treats them. “

Icarus concepts also spread through means other than their support groups and publications.

“A lot of long-term Icarus members have gone on to become social workers, or to become therapists, or in various ways to have careers that are based in mental health and are bringing alternative perspectives,” McNamara said.

One such Icarista is Kathy Rose. She met McNamara at a screening of Crooked Beauty in 2010, and began participating in support groups and volunteering with Icarus. A teacher at Five Keys Charter School, which operates in San Francisco county jails, Rose said that the understanding and language of mental health she got from Icarus have been useful in her classroom.

“I see how many of my students are struggling with their own mental health, how they are treated, and how so much is related to the trauma they’ve experienced in their lives and lack of support,” said Rose. She said that she has used Icarus materials in the classroom and screened Crooked Beauty.

Those materials explore questions of over-medication and independence and autonomy in decision-making and question the role of institutions like psychiatric hospitals and prisons.

“Institutionalization in prisons and mental hospitals isn’t helping anyone and isn’t getting us anywhere,” Rose said.

The Icarus Project isn’t the first effort to resist the mental health establishment. The Mental Patients Liberation Front, and the larger Psychiatric Survivors movement grew out of civil rights efforts of the 1960s and 70s, as patients demanded an end to coerced and forced psychiatric interventions like electroshock. Today, Mind Freedom International and other groups continue that pressure; most recently, hundreds protested an American Psychiatric Associations meeting discussing new definitions for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition on May 5.

The Icarus Project is also intimately connected to activist movements, but plays a unique role.

“There’s support networks that get started in activist communities, but there’s a lot of ways that people have a really hard time being supportive of each other if they haven’t done the work themselves to be able to be supportive of themselves,” said DuBrul. “What happens in activist communities is that people burn out, which is kind of the ultimate Icarus project. I mean, that’s the Icarus myth.”

He called the Occupy movement, with its distinctive tent cities packed with people, many of whom were hurting financially and emotionally, a “test case” for implementing Icarus concepts.

In fact, Occupy has led to yet another Icarus-inspired book, Mindful Occupation, due to be released this year. The book “aims to address the need for attention to mental health, healing, and emotional first aid within Occupy and other movement groups.”

Mental health professionals, along with other non-professionals who were a part of Occupy Wall Street, formed the Support working group to intervene when people seemed to be in crisis and patrol the park at night. But Jonah Bossewitch, a member of the working group and one of the editors of Mindful Occupation, said that the broad critique of society and authority present in most of Occupy didn’t always extend to Support.

“Nobody was going to go to the cops after people got into a fight. Yet people were getting forced treatment and psych evaluations, ” Bossewitch said. “Folks are ready to critique the outside world — capitalism, banks — but it’s way harder to look in at their own profession.”

For DuBrul, the emotional tensions that played out at Occupy, as well as the trauma of police beatings, jail, and exposure to chemicals, proved the need to continue and grow The Icarus Project.

“If you know how you are when you’re well, it’s much easier to get back there,” said DuBrul said. “I’m telling you, a movement full of people, an Occupy movement full of people that have a sense of how they are when they’re well, then it’s much easier to work towards what it is that you want. If you’re operating from a place where you’re having a really hard time, it’s much harder to get to where you’re going.”

So where is Icarus going? They hope to formalize the mentorship and education that has already happened, borrowing in some ways from the “sponsorship” approach that groups like Alcoholics Anonymous take.

“We started with a vision of creating a new language and culture about what gets considered mental illness,” DuBrul said. “It’s alright to be ‘mad’ and still be brilliant.”

The schedule of Icarus anniversary events is available at www.theicarusproject.net/10thanniversary

Fall wine, uncorked

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Fall wine, uncorked

virginia@sfbg.com

WINE Recommended bottles, fall events in Sonoma, urban wine classes … here are a few wine tips for true autumn flight. Check out my online Appetite column on the Pixel Vision blog at SFBG.com this week for restaurants making some of Napa’s best cocktails, a family vineyards wine-tasting report, and more Wine Country dining reviews.

 

URBAN EXPLORATIONS

An in-house wine club with storage facilities and a wine school launched in April, SF Wine Center (757 Bryant, SF. 415-655-7300, www.sfwinecenter.com) hosts intimate classes, held in owners Brian and Hillary McGonigle’s inviting City Room. With kitchen, library, and comfy leather chairs, it feels more like a friend’s home than a classroom. This room is available for private parties, as is a wood-lined, speakeasy-like room tucked away above the wine storage area — it feels ready for a cigar, a glass of Pinot, and a round of cards and good friends.

Recently, a class led by James Beard award-winning writer and Burgundy expert Jordan Mackay was a walk through regions and wines of Burgundy in the best way possible: by tasting a wide range side-by-side. We discussed styles and regions as we sipped nine different wines — a steal considering class price (generally $60-75) vs. costs of wines poured. Tastes ranged from a meaty 2009 Dujac Fils & Pere Cambolle Musigny ($65 a bottle) boasting excellent acidity and earthiness, to a rare 1976 Domaine Leroy Romanee St. Vivant Grand Cru ($500), with sediment and funkiness (it’s a whole cluster wine, after all), and notes of black tea, mushroom, leather, smoke, moss, tart cherry. Fall classes start up September 25th and sell out quickly. Watch the website for the fall schedule.

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Bluxome Street Winery (53 Bluxome, SF. 415-543-5353, www.bluxomewinery.com) wins cool points just for being an urban winery whose product is actually made right here in the city with grapes from various Sonoma plots. It’s already a wine-tasting respite, and some change is afoot with new winemaker Web Marquez, who is also one of three winemakers at Anthill Farms and one of two at C. Donatiello. His early days interning at the excellent Williams Selyem — and in New Zealand and France — give him a balanced perspective on Old and New World wine styles.

While we have to wait until next year’s bottling to see the results of his approach with Bluxome’s wines, in the meantime we can enjoy a tart 2011 Rose of Pinot Noir, or the acidic, balanced 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, or a Chardonnay and three Pinots (all bottles under $45). Taste in the candlelit space while watching winemaking through glass windows under a projected movie (shining on a brick wall) showcasing San Francisco in pre-1906 quake days when winemaking in the city was common — there were no less than 120 wineries and commercial cellars in SoMa alone. Here’s to Bluxome reviving our rich urban wine history.

 

SUNNY SONOMA EVENTS

A foodie’s dream event: Slow Food’s Fresh Food Picnic (Sun/15, 11am-6pm, $40–$125. Rancho Mark West, Santa Rosa, www.slowfoodrr.org) is a picnic and then some. Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food himself, flies out from Italy for a rare appearance, while Alice Waters and Nikki Henderson (of Oakland’s People’s Grocery) join him as speakers for the event. Then there’s the chef line-up. A family-style picnic will be served by Christopher Kostow (Meadowood), Dennis Lee (Namu Gaji), Ryan Farr (4505 Meats), Christopher Kronner (formerly Bar Tartine, Slow Club), Thomas McNaughton (flour+water, Central Kitchen), Christopher Thompson (A16), and more There will be tastes from farmers, food artisans and winemakers, local bands, a petting zoo, guided hikes and tours of Rancho Mark West, the event’s farm setting. Proceeds benefit A Thousand Gardens in Africa, a Slow Food International project, and California-based Slow Food initiatives focused on food and farm education. As a zero waste event, bring your own plates, flatware, and napkins — provide glassware will be provided.

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Jordan Winery (1474 Alexander Valley Road, Healdsburg. www.jordanwinery.com) is a pioneer in Sonoma’s wine history, started by Tom and Sally Jordan in 1972. These Bordeaux wine lovers built a Bordelais inspired chateau on their 275-acre Alexander Valley vineyard in 1976, a gorgeous structure overseeing the winery’s soothing grounds (tastings by appointment only). With spectacular chateau apartments reserved for overnight guests, the 1100 acre grounds go beyond winery to full working ranch with cattle, chickens, gardens, olive oil groves, and fishing lake with Tiki bar and hammock. As from the beginning, Jordan stays refreshingly focused on only two varietals, a green apple-inflected Chardonnay ($29) and elegant Cabernet ($52 for a bold but balanced 2008 Cab). It’s a family business with son John as CFO, while Rob Davis has been Jordan’s head winemaker for 35 years, since the inaugural vintage in 1976.

Now is the time to shop for your holiday wine with them to earn a fabulous Jordan Winery harvest lunch. You must sign up for their email newsletter and purchase wines to earn the points which can be used towards winemaker tours, Christmas library tastings, and the coveted harvest lunches, which begin this week and run through mid-October. Harvest season is the most enchanting time in Wine Country, ideal for a family-style, weekday feast alongside winemaking staff and a tour of the grounds during crush season.

 

FALL BOTTLE RECOMMENDS

Where to shop for the below? K&L Wines, Jug Shop, Bi-Rite, Arlequin, Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, SF Wine Trading Co., and D&M offer excellent wine selections in the city.

CALIFORNIA

Au Bon Climat “Hildegard” White Table Wine, Santa Maria Valley

Au Bon Climat’s is one of the state’s great, small wineries, and Hildegard ($35) is one of my top California whites. A blend of 55 percent Pinot Gris, 40 percent Pinot Blanc, 5 percent Aligoté, it’s layered and complex, unfolding with apple, almond, violet.

www.aubonclimat.com

Heitz Cellar Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc, St. Helena

Heitz Cellar is one of my longtime Napa favorites for a beautifully balanced, lively Sauvignon Blanc ($19.75), and splurge-worthy Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon ($110-200) — the far more affordable 2007 Napa Valley Cab ($45) is a worthy substitution. This family-run winery has been going strong since 1964 with Old World balance, one of Napa’s true gems.

www.heitzcellar.com

Lucia Vineyards LUCY, Santa Lucia Highlands

Lucia Vineyards’ LUCY ($18) is a a beauty of a rosé boasting zippy acidity pairs well with a wide range of dishes — another Santa Lucia treasure.

www.luciavineyards.com

Tatomer Riesling Vandenberg, Santa Barbara

2008 Tatomer Riesling Vandenberg ($24.99), named for the neighboring air force base, is easily one of the best wines in the Santa Barbara region. Maintaining an Old World ethos, dry, crisp, it still boasts a New World uniqueness. Incredibly balanced, pear and apple skins shine with minerality that’s gorgeous with food.

www.tatomerwines.com

Amapola Creek’s 2009 Cuvee Alis, Sonoma Valley

Glen Ellen’s Amapola Creek, from Richard Arrowood (who founded Arrowood Winery), is a small, boutique winery. Cuvee Alis ($48) is named after Richard’s wife, a hand-harvested, unfined and unfiltered blend of 55 percent Syrah, 45 percent Grenache, organically grown on a slope of the Mayacamas Mountains on the Arrowood’s 100-acre ranch. The wine gives of a nose of cherry pie, gentle pepper, smoke, tasting of dark berries, spicy meat, with silky tannins and acidic balance.

www.amapolacreek.com

EUROPE

Viña Tondonia Rosé Gran Reserva Rosado, Rioja, Spain One of the best rosés I’ve ever had, 2000 Viña Tondonia Rosé Gran Reserva ($30) is not for novices. At 12 years of age, this blend of 60 percent Garnacha, 30 percent Tempranillo, 10 percent Viura exhibits a velvety, rosy hue, unfolding with damp, funky, mushroom notes dancing alongside bright blood orange, berries, hazelnuts, rhubarb. It’s so unusual, it pairs beautifully with spicy foods from a range of cuisines. Thanks to sommelier Ted Glennon of Restaurant 1833 in Monterey for introducing me to this stunner, available through K&L Wines. Every time I have it, it’s a pleasure.

www.lopezdeheredia.com

Vidal-Fleury Saint Joseph & Muscat, Rhone Valley, France

Vidal-Fleury is produced by winemaker and managing director Guy Sarton du Jonchay, who understands the balance between New and Old World having made wine in France, Chile, Argentina and Australia. “Old world is terroir… New World is winemakers”, he says, as he pursues a balance of both. Stand-outs are a 2007 Vidal-Fleury Saint Joseph Syrah ($28.99), full, bright, earthy, with dark berry, black tea, pepper, and meaty notes (he only releases best vintages so there will not be a 2008 — 2009 releases next); and 2009 Vidal-Fleury Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise ($18.99), tasting of elderflower, dried apricot, lychee, nuts, with a balanced sweetness and minerality.

www.vidal-fleury.com

 

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, and Lynn Rapoport. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. Due to the Labor Day holiday, theater information was incomplete at presstime.

CINE+MAS

The San Francisco Latino Film Festival runs Sept. 13-28 at various Bay Area venues. For tickets (most shows $12) and schedule, visit www.sflatinofilmfestival.com. For commentary, see "Got Movie Fever?"

OPENING

Arbitrage See "All in the Game." (1:40) Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

Bangkok Revenge After witnessing the murder of his parents as a child (and suffering an injury that renders him incapable of feeling emotions), a man (Jon Foo) grows up with one thing on his mind: payback. First he gets insanely good at martial arts, though. (1:20) Metreon.

Beauty is Embarrassing See "Got Movie Fever?" (1:27) Roxie.

Cane Toads: The Conquest See "See Got Movie Fever?" (1:25) Smith Rafael.

Finding Nemo 3D Pixar’s Oscar-winning undersea tale returns, spiffed-up from its 2003 version with 3D. (1:40) Presidio, Shattuck.

Girl Model Everyone wants to be special — though of course that only works if other people aren’t. The disturbingly instructive new documentary Girl Model makes a good case for not encouraging such desires in your child, because the likelihood is that someone will come along to exploit that desire, convincingly promise them fame, then leave them worse off than before. "The first secret to a successful modeling career is to start modeling at five or ten years old," says an emcee at a cattle-call showcase early on in David Redmond and Ashley Sabin’s film. It’s Russia, where the relatively new capitalism trickles down even less than here, so the families are even more eager to turn little Svetlana into a moneymaker. But that way lies madness, or at least deceit and disappointment. Plucked from a couple hundred pretty, rail-thin girls, 13-year-old wide-eyed blonde Nadya Vall is yanked from her rural Siberian village and mother and sent to Japan, where she fits a general type sought there. The younger the better, as talent scout Ashley Arbaugh tells us, qualifying that it’s not her taste, but she’s learned to see through the clients’ eyes. An ex-model herself, Ashley gives off disillusioned, compromised vibes. (It takes a while for us to realize that she’s a user and a hypocrite — not a buffer between the girls and harsh reality but a key part of the problem herself.) Needless to say, Nadya ends up owing rather than making money. Meanwhile Ashley lounges around the immaculate, expansive, coldly all-white house her job as middleman has earned; at the end of the film, she’s telling a new group of parents "Every model has success in Japan, unlike other markets where they might go into debt. They never do in Japan." For a longer version of this review, visit sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:17) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Keep The Lights On See "Dark and Stormy." (1:42) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

ONGOING

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

The Apparition Does this horror flick stand a ghost of a chance against its predecessors? So many bodies, so many mysteriously slammed doors, so many girl ghouls — they all surface in this obviously low-budget cash-in on the coattails of the Paranormal Activity franchise. Look to the signs: the slow build of zero-CGI/bucks tension-building devices like flung-open doors that are supposed to be locked, scarily grainy, nausea-inducing handheld video footage and spastic editing, and screams in pitch blackness—with a dash of everything from 1979’s Phantasm to Fulci to J-Horror. Prefaced by the story of psychics’ attempts to rouse a spirit, then a flashback to a group of college students’ try at recreating the séance by magnifying their brainwaves, The Apparition opens on the cute, perfectly made-up, and way-too-glamorous-for-suburbia Kelly (Ashley Greene) and her boyfriend Ben (Sebastian Stan), who have just moved into a new faceless development in the middle of nowhere, into a house her family has bought as an investment. Turns out they aren’t the only ones playing house, as the building’s alarm is continually bypassed, mysterious mold appears, and the neighbor’s adorable pup whimpers at thin air and obligingly dies in their laundry room. Matters go from bad to worst, as some invisible force does in Kelly’s cactus, messes up her closet, and blows the lights — all of which also sounds like the antics of a lousy roommate. Add in choppy, continuity-destroying editing; throwaway dialogue; music that sounds like it came from Kelly’s favorite store, Costco; overt appropriations like a slithery, long-haired ghoul girl that slimes her way out of a cardboard box; and that important, indelibly spooky image that comes far too late to count — and you’ll find yourself rooting for the fiend to put these kids out of their misery. (1:22) Metreon. (Chun)

Bachelorette A movie called Bachelorette is inevitably going to be accused of riding Bridesmaids‘ coattails, even if — as it happens — Bachelorette‘s source-material play was written years before the 2011 comedy hit theaters. (That said, there are inevitable similarities, what with the shared wedding themes and all.) Playwright turned scriptwriter-director Leslye Headland does a good job of portraying women who are repulsive in realistic ways: a decade ago, Regan (Kirsten Dunst), Gena (Lizzy Caplan), Katie (Isla Fisher) were the popular "B-Faces" at their high school and haven’t matured much since. Competitive Regan is a Type A blonde; Gena’s the queen of one-night stands; and Katie’s a self-destructive party girl. All of them are pushing 30, and though Regan’s the most functional among them, she’s the hardest-hit when she learns that Becky (Bridesmaids‘ Rebel Wilson), always treated as a second-tier B-Face by virtue of being plus-sized, is engaged. "I was supposed to be first," Regan wails via three-way cell call to Gena and Katie, who’re sympathetic to this sense of entitlement. The wedding is a fancy New York City affair, so the B-Faces reunite for what they think will be a bachelorette party for the ages. Most of the film takes place during that single night, a madcap, coke-fueled, mean-spirited spiral into chaos. It’s raunchy and funny, but every character is utterly unlikable, which becomes more of a problem and less of an amusement as the movie trundles onward toward the expected happy ending. Bachelorette would’ve been better served by sticking with its rallying cry — "Fuck everyone!" — to the bitter end. (1:34) Metreon, Presidio. (Eddy)

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

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

Branded (1:46) SF Center.

The Bullet Vanishes Veteran Hong Kong actor Lau Ching-wan stars as a Sherlock Holmes type in 1930s Shanghai, bumped up from prison-guard detail to homicide detective by top brass impressed with his talent, if not his unusual methods. Good timing, since there’s been a series of killings at the local munitions factory, an operation run by a Scooby Doo-ish villain — in cahoots with corrupt cops — who’s prone to snappy hats and checkered overcoats. Adding to the mystery: a tragic back story involving Russian roulette and blood-written graffiti promising "The phantom bullets will kill you all!" Helping solve the crimes is Nicholas Tse as "the fastest gun in Tiancheng," no slouch of an investigator himself; together, the sleuths compile evidence and recreate scenes of murders, including one that seemingly transpired in a locked room with only one exit. The Bullet Vanishes contains more plot twists, slightly fewer steampunk flourishes, and way less slo-mo fist action than Guy Ritchie’s recent attempts at Holmes; though it’s no masterpiece, it’s a fun enough whodunit, with a reliably great and quirky performance from Lau. (2:00) Metreon. (Eddy)

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

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

Chicken With Plums Steeped in whimsy — and a longing for love, beauty, and home — this latest effort from brilliant Persian-French cartoonist-filmmaker Marjane Satrapi and director Vincent Paronnaud flaunts the odd contours of its eccentric narrative, enchants with its imaginative tangents, sprawls like an unincapsulated life, and then takes off on aching, campy romantic reverie—a magical realistic vision of one Iranian artist’s doomed trajectory. Master violinist Nasser Ali Khan (Mathieu Amalric) is seeking the ineffable — a replacement for his destroyed instrument — and otherwise he’s determined to die. We trace the mystery of his passing, backward, with wanders through the life of his family and loved one along the way in this playful, bittersweet feast. Despite Amalric’s glazed-eyed mugging, which almost spoils the dish, Satrapi’s wonderfully arch yet lyrical visual sensibility and resonant characters — embodied by Maria de Medeiros, Jamel Debbouze, Golshifteh Farahani, and Isabella Rossellini, among others — satisfy, serving up so much more than chicken with plums. (1:31) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

The Cold Light of Day (1:33) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

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

Cosmopolis With end times nigh and the 99 percent battering the gates of the establishment, it’s little wonder David Cronenberg’s rendition of the Don DeLillo novel might rotate, with the stately rhythm of a royal funeral and deliciously tongue-in-cheek humor, around one of the most famed vampire heartthrobs at the cineplex. Sadly, a recent paparazzi scandal threatens to eclipse this latest, enjoyably blighted installment in the NYC urban nightmare genre. Robert Pattinson’s billionaire asset manager Eric Packer takes meetings with his new wife Elise (Sarah Gadon) and staffers like his monetary theorist Vija (Samantha Morton) in his moving office: a white, leather-bound stretch limo that materializes like a sleek, imposing extension of his pale frame. Seriously disassociated from reality on multiple levels, Eric is a 28-year-old boy in a bubble, speaking of himself in third person and willing to spend all day making his way across town to get a haircut at his father’s old barbershop, even though his head of security (Kevin Durand) warns him that at least one "credible threat" has designs on his life. The passing of his favorite Sufi rapper (K’Naan), a possible Rothko for sale, a mad pie-thrower, and an asymmetrical prostate all threaten to capsize those, as it turns out, not-so-humble plans. Warning: the brainier members of Team Edward might plan on finding their minds blown by this thoughtful and mordantly humorous meditation on this country’s cult of money, while Cronenberg watchers will be gratified to pluck out his recurring themes, here dealt with a lighter hand than usual. At this date, rather than telegraphing how one might feel about a scene by way of, say, music, the director is increasingly comfortable with the ambiguity — and the uneasy, pleasing mix of sneaking repulsion and gimlet-eyed humor, of these scenes and their language. Thus the autoerotic-car fetishism of Crash (1996) and hallucinatory culture grazing of Naked Lunch (1991) — and that fascination with how a body intersects sexually or otherwise with a machine or "other" — seems completely natural here. Or perhaps it’s a measure of how much Cronenberg’s preoccupations and cinematic language have made themselves at home in the vernacular. (1:49) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

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

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

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

For a Good Time, Call&ldots; Suffering the modern-day dilemmas of elapsed rent control and boyfriend douchebaggery, sworn enemies Katie (Ari Graynor) and Lauren (Lauren Miller) find themselves shacking up in Katie’s highly covetable Manhattan apartment, brought together on a stale cloud of resentment by mutual bestie Jesse (Justin Long, gamely delivering a believable version of your standard-issue young hipster NYC gay boy). The domestic glacier begins to melt somewhere around the time that Lauren discovers Katie is working a phone-sex hotline from her bedroom; equipped with a good head for business, she offers to help her go freelance for a cut of the proceeds. Major profitability ensues, as does a friendship evoking the pair bonding at the center of your garden-variety romantic comedy, as Katie trains Lauren to be a phone-sex operator and the two share everything from pinkie swears and matching pink touch-tone phones to intimate secrets and the occasional hotline threesome. Directed by Jamie Travis and adapted from a screenplay by Miller and Katie Anne Naylon, the film is a welcome response to the bromance genre, and with any luck it may also introduce linguistic felicities like "phone-banging" and "let’s get this fuckshow started" into the larger culture. The raunchy telephonic interludes include cameos by Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen (Miller’s husband) as customers calling from such unfurtive locations as a public bathroom stall and the front seat of a taxicab. But the two roomies supply plenty of dirty as Katie, an abashed wearer of velour and denim pantsuits, helps the more restrained Lauren discover the joys of setting free her inner potty mouth. (1:25) SF Center. (Rapoport)

Hit and Run Annie (Kristen Bell) has a Stanford doctorate but is treading in the academic backwaters until the prospect is raised of an ideal department-heading position at UCLA. She’s thrilled, but also conflicted, because live-in beau Charlie (Dax Shepard) is in the Federal Witness Protection program, and can’t leave the nowhere burg he lives in incognito — particularly for Los Angeles — without risking serious personal harm. However, for love he decides he’ll risk everything so she can take the job. Unfortunately, this fast attracts the attention of various people very much interested in halting this exodus, for various reasons: notably Charlie’s inept U.S. Marshall "protector" (Tom Arnold), Annie’s psycho ex (Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum), and a guy with an even more serious grudge against Charlie (Bradley Cooper in a dreadlock wig). A whole lot of wacky chases and stunt driving ensues. The second feature Shepard’s co-directed (with David Palmer) and written, this aims for a cross between 1970s drive-in demolition derbies (1977’s Smokey and the Bandit, 1974’s Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, etc.) and envelope-pushing comedy thrillers like 1993’s True Romance. There’s a lot of comic talent here, including some notable cameos, yet Hit and Run is one of those cases where the material is almost there, but not quite. It moves breezily enough but some of the characters are more annoying than funny; the dialogue is an awkward mix of bad taste and PC debates about bad taste; and some ideas that aim to be hilarious and subversive (naked old people, a long discussion about jailhouse rape) just sit there, painfully. Which makes this only the second-best Dax Shepard movie with incarceration rape jokes, after 2006’s Let’s Go to Prison. (1:38) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

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

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

The Inbetweeners The bro-bacchanal never stops being funny in some circles, and those acolytes might want to attempt to penetrate the thick, juicy UK accents in this writ-large version of the English sitcom of the same name. The deliciously awkward teenage boy gang’s all here — with an added dose of ultragross-out humor that one-ups the American Pie gang. Brainy Will (Simon Bird), aggressively gelled Simon (Joe Thomas), super-horndog Jay (James Buckley), and lanky oddity Neil (Blake Harrison) are off on summer break before "uni" on a booze- and sex-swathed Greek isle. The goal: to get soundly laid and eradicate Simon’s heartbreak over recently departed girlfriend Carli (Emily Head). As luck would have it, the bunch even stumble over some nubile, nice cuties — including doll-faced blonde Allison (Laura Haddock) and far-too-accommodating brunette Lucy (Tamla Kari) — in their quest for "fit" slatterns. In between them and a very certain happy ending, in more ways than one, are plenty of excess, barf, poo, blackouts on ant hills — what’s not to love, provided you can overlook the very un-PC rumblings from this dude-a-rama? A self-fellatio interlude even takes on the Jackass posse on their own physically challenging turf. (1:37) Metreon. (Chun)

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

Kumaré Just as there was a certain bullying pride of snark that made Bill Maher and Larry Charles’ Religulous (2008) more mean-spirited than necessary, Kumaré leaves a sour, smug aftertaste. Raised in New Jersey by a first-generation immigrant family of Hindus, Vikram Gandhi proclaims himself a skeptic who started out wanting to make a documentary about the opportunistic charlatans one can find passing as spiritually enlightened gurus in both India and around the booming US yoga industry. "I wanted to prove to others looking for answers that no one is more spiritual than anyone, that spiritual leaders are just illusions," he tells us. A noble impulse. Yet somehow this took the form of growing his hair and beard out, wearing saffron robes, and posing as Sri Kumaré, a fresh-off-the-boat guru who arrives in Phoenix, Ariz. to open up shop as a one-stop spiritual guide for the gullible. He asks "Could people find the same peace in a made-up religion that they would in a real one?" But too often the real question here seems to be "How silly can I make these chumps look while starring in my very own nonfiction version of The Love Guru?" The comedy Kumaré has been primarily compared to is 2006’s Borat, another Larry Charles joint. As unhappy as their portraiture in Borat made its duped participants, it was hard to feel sorry for them — given enough rope they gladly hung themselves expressing racism, homophobia, sexism, and sheer Ugly Americanism. But those who fall under Kumaré‘s farcical spell don’t deserve to be exposed and ridiculed; they’re just people with real-world issues — financial struggles, low self-esteem, empty-nest loneliness, etc. — looking for somebody to tell them what to do. (1:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

Lawless Lawless has got to be the most pretentiously humorless movie ever made about moonshiners — a criminal subset whose adventures onscreen have almost always been rambunctious and breezy, even when violent. Not here, bub. Adapting Matt Bondurant’s fact-inspired novel The Wettest County in the World about his family’s very colorful times a couple generations back, director John Hillcoat and scenarist (as well as, natch, composer) Nick Cave have made one of those films in which the characters are presented to you as if already immortalized on Mount Rushmore — monumental, legendary, a bit stony. They’ve got a crackling story about war between hillbilly booze suppliers and corrupt lawmen during Prohibition, and while the results aren’t dull (they’re too bloody for that, anyway), they’d be a whole lot better if the entire enterprise didn’t take itself so gosh darned seriously. The Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Va. are considered "legends" when we meet them in 1931, having defied all and sundry as well as survived a few bullets: mack-truck-built Forrest (Tom Hardy); eldest Howard (Jason Clarke), who tipples and smiles a lot; and "runt of the litter" Jack (Shia LeBeouf), who has a chip on his shoulder. The local law looks the other way so long as their palms are greased, but the Feds send sneering Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), it’s an eye for an eye for an eye, etc. The revenge-laden action in Lawless is engaging, but the filmmakers are trying so hard to make it all resonant and folkloric and meta-cinematic, any fun you have is in spite of their efforts. (1:55) California, Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Little White Lies In the wake of a serious accident that puts magnetic Ludo (Jean Dujardin, just briefly seen) in the hospital, his circle of closest friends go without him on their annual vacation at a beachfront summer home, courtesy of well-off restaurateur Max (Francois Cluzet) and wife Vero (Valerie Bonneton). But this year they’ve all got a lot of drama going on. Marie (Marion Cotillard) is suffering the uncomfortable consequences of all the lovers (male and female) she’s run out on when "commitment" reared its head. Similarly, the roving eye of actor Eric (Gilles Lellouche) threatens the stable relationship he’s finally sorta settled on. Hapless boy-man Antoine (Laurent Lafitte) obsesses over the longtime girlfriend who’s dumping him. And Vincent (Benoit Magimel) endangers his marriage to Isabelle (Pascale Arbillot) by privately proclaiming more-than-platonic love for best friend Max — whose discomfort manifests itself in hostile behaviors that threaten to ruin everyone’s stay. Actor Guillaume Canet’s third film as writer-director (following the 2006 hit thriller Tell No One) has been compared, even by himself, to 1983’s The Big Chill. But while that slick, somewhat glib seriocomedy’s characters had 1960s activist pasts and faded ideals to square with encroaching midlife, this slicker, glibber ensemble piece is about people who’ve never shared much more than good times and mutual self-absorption. Though Canet has worked with most of these actors before, and developed Lies in collaboration with them, the thinly amusing, often contrived results hardly tax anyone’s resources. (Nor are they equal-opportunity: star attraction Cotillard aside, he barely seems interested in the women here.) It takes two and a half hours for this overblown fluff to arrive at a group-hug freeze frame (ugh), aiming for emotional heft it still hasn’t earned. (2:34) Albany. (Harvey)

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

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2:05) Four Star, SF Center.

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

The Possession (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Premium Rush "Fixed gear. Steel frame. No brakes. Can’t stop … don’t want to." Thus goes the gear breakdown and personal philosophy of New York City bike messenger Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an aggro rider who uses his law school-refined brain to make split-second decisions regarding which way to dart through Midtown traffic. Though bike messengers had a pop culture moment in the 1990s, Premium Rush is set in the present day, with one of Wilee’s numerous voice-overs explaining the job’s continued importance even in the digital era. One such example: a certain envelope he’s tasked with ferrying across the city, given to him by the troubled roommate (Jamie Chung) of the pretty fellow messenger (Dania Ramirez) he’s romantically pursuing. The contents of the envelope, and the teeth-gnashingly evil-cop-with-a-gambling-problem (Michael Shannon, adding some weird flair to what’s essentially a stock villain) who would dearly love to get his mitts on it, are less crucial to Premium Rush than the film’s many, many chase scenes featuring Wilee outwitting all comers with his two-wheeled Frogger moves. Silly fun from director David Koepp (2008’s Ghost Town), but not essential unless you’re a fixie fanatic or a JGL completist. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

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

Red Hook Summer It seems like lifetimes ago that Michelle and Barack found each other beneath the flicker of filmmaker Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), so the director-cowriter’s cameo in his now-graying, still-pizza-delivering Mookie guise, in this hot, bothered return to Brooklyn, reverberates with meaning. Less polemical and now complicated by an acute, confused love and loathing for certain places and faces, Red Hook Summer takes a different tact — the Red Hook projects rather than the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant — and narrows its focus on Flik Royale (Jules Brown), the reluctant young visitor to the humble home of his grandfather, Da Good Bishop Enoch Rouse (Clarke Peters from Treme and The Wire). A true child of his time and place, the introverted, rebellious Atlanta kid would rather hide behind his favorite screen, a.k.a. the iPad that he’s using to document his world, than engage with reality, even when it’s raging in his face by way of his grandfather’s fiery sermons or threats from the glowering rapper Box (Nate Parker). Only a charismatic girl his age, Chazz Morningstar (Toni Lysaith), seems to get through, despite the Bishop’s passionate efforts to bond with the boy. Alas, Lee himself doesn’t seem to quite get his youthful protagonist — one who’s predisposed to turn inward rather than turn a politicized lens outward — and instead casts about restlessly to the detriment of this supposed coming-of-age narrative. No shock that somehow Red Hook Summer gets caught in the undertow of the magnetic Peters, who will turn heads with his take on a tormented believer, eager to forgive and equally hopeful for forgiveness. (2:01) Roxie. (Chun)

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

Samsara Samsara is the latest sumptuous, wordless offering from director Ron Fricke, who helped develop this style of dialogue- and context-free travelogue with Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and Baraka (1992). Spanning five years and shooting on 70mm film to capture glimmers of life in 25 countries on five continents, Samsara, which spins off the Sanskrit word for the "ever-turning wheel of life," is nothing if not good-looking, aspiring to be a kind of visual symphony boosted by music by the Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard and composers Michael Stearns and Marcello De Francisci. Images of natural beauty, baptisms, and an African woman and her babe give way to the madness of modern civilization — from jam-packed subways to the horrors of mechanized factory farming to a bizarre montage of go-go dancers, sex dolls, trash, toxic discarded technology, guns, and at least one gun-shaped coffin. After such dread, the opening and closing scenes of Buddhist spirituality seem almost like afterthoughts. The unmistakable overriding message is: humanity, you dazzle in all your glorious and inglorious dimensions — even at your most inhumane. Sullying this hand wringing, selective meditation is Fricke’s reliance on easy stereotypes: the predictable connections the filmmaker makes between Africa and an innocent, earthy naturalism, and Asia and a vaguely threatening, mechanistic efficiency, come off as facile and naive, while his sonic overlay of robot sounds over, for instance, an Asian woman blinking her eyes comes off as simply offensive. At such points, Fricke’s global leap-frogging begins to eclipse the beauty of his images and foregrounds his own biases. (1:39) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Chun)

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

Sleepwalk with Me Every year lots of movies get made by actors and comedians who want to showcase themselves, usually writing and often directing in addition to starring. Most of these are pretty bad, and after a couple of festival appearances disappear, unremembered by anyone save the credit card companies that vastly benefited from its creation. Mike Birbiglia’s first feature is an exception — maybe not an entirely surprising one (since it’s based on his highly praised Off-Broadway solo show and best-seller), but still odds-bucking. Particularly as it’s an autobiographical feeling story about an aspiring stand-up comic (Mike as Matt) who unfortunately doesn’t seem to have much natural talent in that direction, but nonetheless obsessively perseveres. This pursuit of seemingly fore destined failure might be causing his sleep disorder, or it might be a means of avoiding taking the martial next step with long-term girlfriend (Lauren Ambrose, making something special out of a conventional reactive role) everyone else agrees is the best thing in his life. Yep, it’s another commitment-phobic man-boy/funny guy who regularly talks to the camera, trying to find himself while quirky friends and family stand around like trampoline spotters watching a determined clod. If all of these sounds derivative and indulgent, well, it ought to. But Sleepwalk turns a host of familiar, hardly foolproof ideas into astute, deftly performed, consistently amusing comedy with just enough seriousness for ballast. Additional points for "I zinged him" being the unlikely most gut-busting line here. (1:30) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

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

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

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

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

The Words We meet novelist Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) as he’s making his way from a posh building to a cab in the rain; it’s important the shot obscures his generally shiny exterior, because we’re meant to believe this guy’s a sincere and struggling novelist. Jeremy Irons, aged with flappy eye makeup, watches him vengefully. Seems Rory fell upon the unpublished novel Irons’ character wrote in sadness and loss — and feeling himself incapable of penning such prose, transcribed the whole thing. When his lady friend (Zoe Saldana) encourages him to sell it, he becomes the next great American writer. He’s living the dream on another man’s sweat. But that’s not the tragedy, exactly, because The Words isn’t so concerned with the work of being a writer — it’s concerned with the look and insecurity of it. Bradley and Irons aren’t "real," they’re characters in a story read by Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) while the opportunistic, suggestive Daniella (Olivia Wilde) comes onto him. She can tell you everything about Clay, yet she hasn’t read the book that’s made him the toast of the town — The Words, which is all about a young plagiarist and the elderly writer he steals from. "I don’t know how things happen!", the slimy, cowering writers each exclaim. So, how do you sell a book? Publish a book? Make a living from a book? How much wine does it take to bed Olivia Wilde? Sure, they don’t know how things happen; they only know what it looks like to finish reading Hemingway at a café or watch the sun rise over a typewriter. Rarely has a movie done such a trite job of depicting the process of what it’s like to be a writer — though if you found nothing suspect about, say, Owen Wilson casually re-editing his 400-page book in one afternoon in last year’s Midnight in Paris, perhaps you won’t be so offended by The Words, either. (1:36) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Sara Vizcarrondo)

East Bay buzz

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East Bay buzz

caitlin@sfbg.com

BEER I will not re-enter the one-sided debate of whether the East Bay is cooler than San Francisco (we covered that in our much hullabalooed April 11 cover story, helpfully titled “San Francisco’s loss”) But I will tell you this: one side of the Bay Bridge has less hills. Less hills being a boon for the drunk biker in us all.

If that is not enough motivation to embark upon a self-guided cycling tour of the East Bay beer scene, then I don’t know what is. Let me tell you about a recent, successfully-completed jaunt from which my team and I emerged with double IPA paunches, and a newfound appreciation for the San Francisco Bay Trail (of which you can find maps here: baytrail.abag.ca.gov).

 

EL CERRITO

Hook up your handlebars for a pleasant BART ride out to this north-of-Berkeley, family-friendly area, where a cruise of mere blocks will take you to the airy brewpub of Elevation 66 (10082 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 525-4800, www.elevation66.com). Stainless steel fermentation tanks make for tasty eye candy from the bar, where we wound up setting our messenger bags and ordering a sampler flight of seven beers. For such a tiny operation, Elevation 66 offers a swath of pours: on tap the day we visited were seven of its in-house brews, including a heavenly Contra Costa kölsch, the perfect light beverage with which to begin a day of exercising and drinking, and five guest pours, of which we tried a bubbly, sweet Two Rivers blood orange cider. Important matters settled, we tackled the extensive food menu, which stocks homemade potato chips, a Peruvian causa made with poached prawns, avocados, Yukon potatoes, and habanero, and more.

Now, leave the brewery (I know, but there’s lots to see.) Take the beautiful, wetlands-lined Bay Trail south, feeling free to jump off at the overpass when you see the Golden Gate Fields (1100 Eastshore Frontage Road, Berk. (510) 559-7300, www.goldengatefields.com). If it’s Sunday, all the better — $1 entry, $1 beers, $1 hot dogs.

 

BERKELEY

Note the USDA community garden that will zip by on your right (at 800 Buchanan, Berk.) as you emerge from the Bay Trail into the Albany-Berkeley area, home to some of the largest breweries in the East Bay, besides of course the mega-fermenters at the Budweiser factory in Fairfield.

Your first stop will be at Pyramid Alehouse (91 Gillman, Berk. (510) 528-9880, www.pyramidbrew.com), and though you may find the quality of some of the beers at this Seattle-born chain brewery to be just about what you’d expect from a space tinged with notes of T.G.I. Friday’s, you can make a game of counting the pyramids incorporated into the décor for extra stimulation. If you dare, embark upon a 40-minute free tour given every day at 4pm by a bartender who may or may not include gems like: “if you like metaphors, you’ll love this one.” At any rate, it’s a good primer for people who have no idea how beer is made and it includes tons of free booze at the end. Check out Trumer Pils Braueri (1404 Fourth St., Berk. (510) 526-1160, www.trumer-international.com) a few blocks away for another free tour that runs daily at 3:45pm.

Head back to the Bay Trail, unless you feel like a trip further inland to Berkeley’s two fun brewpubs Jupiter (2181 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-8277, www.jupiterbeer.com) and Triple Rock Brewery (1920 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-2739, www.triplerock.com). Between Berkeley and Oakland you have three lovely miles of trail ride, and if I’m not mistaken we are in the thick of blackberry season, which means the indigo clumps you’ll see on your right just past Sea Breeze Market and Deli (598 University, Berk.) are ripe for picking.

 

OAKLAND

You could while away a day within just a few blocks in downtown Oakland, such a prime sitting-out-with-a-microbrew kinda neighborhood it is.

In terms of places that make their own brew, there is none better than the 1890s warehouse building that houses Linden Street Brewery (95 Linden, SF. (510) 812-1264, www.lindenbeer.com), the little brewery that could. There’s only a few meters in between tank and tap here, and on weekdays you can sit in the joint’s tap room and suck down golden pints of its Urban Peoples’ Common Lager, while hearing the story from the bartender of how it came to the forefront of Oakland’s craft beer scene.

You may not even guess, right off the bat, that Pacific Coast Brewing Company (906 Washington, Oakl. (510) 836-2739, www.pacificcoastbrewing.com) is brewing the suds that wind up in your $9/five beer sampler — but it is. The charming brick pub has all the fried pickles one has come to expect from a solid bar menu, and a latticed patio that provides a little privacy from the Oakland cityscape. Out front, you can park your steed and walk it out — the rest of your stops are within stumbling distance, unless you’re trying to really make a day of it and head south to Drake’s Brewing (1933 Davis, San Leandro. (510) 568-2739, www.drinkdrakes.com) and its tucked-away pint parlor.

You may just have saved the best for last. The Trappist (460 Eighth St., Oakl. (510) 238-8900, www.thetrappist.com) and Beer Revolution (464 Third St., SF. (510) 452-2337, www.beer-revolution.com) are two of my favorite Bay beer bars, regardless of area code. Both have superlative selection and cute, sunny patios, but considerably different vibes.

The Trappist is a classy, under-lit place with two bars and an elegant rotating list of beers at each, some local and some from far-flung locales. On our visit, we tried a trio of superb sour beers, including the transcendent red-brown Belgian Rodenbach Grand Cru. Trappist’s food menu is full of elegantly spare, small plates packed with big flavors, like a recent Mahon Reserva cheese platter with truffled almonds and shisito peppers. I’m no meat eater, but I heard rave reviews of the comparatively proletarian Trappist dog, which was studded with bacon and seemed an apt pairing for a beer that may out-class you.

Beer Revolution, as the name would imply, is a populist place — local brewers regularly roll through to share their fermentation philosophies. Though their draft menu is impressively large, the beauty of this place is variety. Inside the bar there is a vast refrigerator land where bottles await for your to-go/for-here fancy. We vote for-here, because you’ll want to savor every drop of your East Bay booze cruise.

 

Slutwalk’s tomorrow! Whatcha not wearing?

Andrew Lam
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It’s only a year old, but the international Slutwalk movement — born in Canada when a police officer affirmed that rape could be avoided if women could “avoid dressing like sluts” during a panel on crime prevention — has enraged the sexphobic, galvanized many feminists, and inspired thousands to yes, walk the streets. Tomorrow (Sat/8), the fun comes to Dolores Park.

Sick of the noise? Canadian organizers sure were — and their response to the officer’s comments led them to don fishnets, cake on the makeup, basically kit themselves out in whatever they were feeling that day, and take to the streets to show that women, and everyone else for that matter, should be able to wear anything they feel like without fear of being violated. 

The guest speakers at SF’s second Slut Walk tomorrow include Good Vibrations staff sexologist Carol Queen, queer activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca (who called out Pride on its lameness as a radical event this summer in the Guardian), and state assemblyperson Sally Leiber. You can catch the organized rally from 11am-noon, though there will be sluts all over Dolo from 9am-1pm. 

Slutwalk

Sat/8 9am-1pm

Dolores Park

19th St. and Dolores, SF

www.slutwalksfbay.org

 

The park bond battle

Andrew Lam
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The park bond battle

yael@sfbg.com

Recreation and Parks clubhouses are privatized and cut off from public access. Public spaces like the Botanical Gardens and the Arboretum in Golden Gate Park are closed to people who can’t pay the price of admission. Event fees and permit processes have become so onerous that they’ve squeezed out grassroots and free events.

It’s been enough to infuriate a long list of neighborhood groups who have been complaining about the San Francisco Recreation and Park  Department for years.

And now those complaints have led to a highly unusual coalition of individuals and groups across the political spectrum coming together to do what in progressive circles was once considered unthinkable: They’re opposing a park bond.

From environmentalists, tenant advocates, labor leaders, and Green Party members to West Side Republicans and fiscal conservatives,  activists are campaigning to try to defeat Proposition B, the Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond. 

The bond would allow the city to borrow $195 million for capital projects in several parks around the city. It comes five years after the voters passed a $185 million park bond. 

Environmental groups like San Francisco Tomorrow and SF Ocean Edge oppose the bond, and even the Sierra Club doesn’t support it because “In recent years, we have had many concerns with management of the city’s natural places,” as Michelle Meyers, director of the Sierra Club’s Bay Chapter, told us.  

Matt Gonzalez, the only Green Party member ever to serve as Board of Supervisors president, is part of the opposition, as is progressive leader Aaron Peskin.  Joining them is retired Judge Quentin Kopp, darling of the city’s fiscal conservatives.

The San Francisco Tenants Union wrote a ballot argument opposing Prop. B. The left-leaning Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council and the more centrist Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods both want the bond defeated.

Many of the people opposing Prop. B have never before opposed a city bond act. “This is very difficult for me,” said labor activist Denis Mosgofian. “Some of us always support public infrastructure spending.”

When we called Phil Ginsburg, the director of Rec-Park, for comment, his office referred us to Maggie Muir, who’s running the campaign for Yes on B. She sent a statement saying: “Unfortunately, a small group of individuals are opposing Proposition B because they disapprove of Recreation and Park Department efforts to improve our parks and better serve San Francisco’s diverse communities.” The statement refers to Prop B’s opponents as “single issue activists”

 So who are these activists, and why have they come together to oppose the parks bond?

 Many started with, as Muir put it, a single issue.  Journalist Rasa Gustaitis  didn’t want to see fees to enter the Botanical Gardens and Arboretum in Golden Gate Park.  West of Twin Peaks resident George Wooding was upset that Rec-Park has been leasing public clubhouses to private interests. Landscape Architect Kathy Howard took issue with a plan to renovate Beach Chalet soccer fields, complete with artificial turf and stadium lighting.

After a few years of fighting these small battles, people like Gustaitis, Wooding, and Howard started to see a pattern.  Park property was being privatized.

THE ENTERPRISE

Some city departments, like the airport and the port, are so-called enterprise agencies. They don’t receive allocations from the city’s general fund, and operate entirely on money they charge users. In the case of the airport, most of the money comes from landing fees paid by airlines. The port charges ships that dock here, and takes in rent from its real-estate holdings.

Other departments, like Recreation and Parks, provide free services, funded by taxpayer money. In theory, the department creates and maintains open spaces for public use. The recreation side offers services like classes and after-school activities, many of which are centered in recreation centers and clubhouses in parks throughout the city. 

These have been staffed in the past by recreation directors, adults who coordinated and supervised play, in many cases becoming beloved community figures.

But some city officials want that mission to change. In a time of tight budgets (and facing significant cuts to its operating funds), Rec-Park has been looking for ways to increase revenue by charging fees for what was once free.

In fact, in a 2010 Rec-Park Commission meeting, interim General Manager Jared Rosenfeld said, “the sooner we become an enterprise agency, the better off we will be.”

In August 2010, the department fired 48 recreation directors.  In their place, Rec-Park hired part-time workers who were paid to put on programs but not to staff neighborhood rec centers. The department also hired six more employees in the Property Management Division, tasked with leasing out and renting parks property.

In 2010, the commission also approved a plan to impose a fee for non-residents and require residents to show ID to enter the Arboretum. The once-free public garden was on its way to becoming a cash cow (operated in part by the private San Francisco Botanical Society).

A fledgling group formed to fight the fees – and its members soon connected People from SF Ocean Edge, the Parks Alliance and SPEAK who were not pleased with a proposal to install artificial turf and floodlights at the Beach Chalet soccer field and people who opposed the leasing of clubhouses.

 Mosgofian, a member of the Labor Council and worker with Graphic Communications International Union Local 4-N, helped bring together many disparate groups who, they realized, have a common goal in halting the privatization of the parks system.

“It started with a number of different people who were involved in a number of different efforts to get the Rec and Park Department to do the right thing running into each other and eventually getting together,” said Mosgofian “People from these groups found themselves listening to each other’s efforts and got together.”

Subhed: The empty clubhouse

One of the turning points was the fight over J.P. Murphy Clubhouse in the Sunset.

 In July 2010, Rec-Park quietly began taking clubhouses, previously free and open to anyone in the neighborhood, and putting them up for lease. Nonprofits, some of them offering expensive programs,  took exclusive control of public facilities.

For Rec-Park, it was more money. For neighborhood residents, it was a sign they were being cut off from the resources their tax dollars built and funded.

“They would put a notice on the clubhouse door for a hearing, they would have four or five concerned mothers show up, and they would lease the facility,” said George Wooding, then-president of the West of Twin Peaks neighborhood group that got involved in opposing the clubhouse privatization.

The J.P. Murphy clubhouse in the inner sunset had benefitted from the 2008 bond. The building was renovated at a cost of $3.8 million. But when the shiny new rec center was finished, Rec-Park tried to put it up for lease.

Wooding helped organize strong opposition to the lease. They had already paid for the clubhouse through taxes and bond money, the opposition figured—why shouldn’t it be kept open to the public, free? 

 “I’d had enough. We felt, this is our park,  they just spent a ton of money. They fired the rec director. When Rec-Park came to rent out the facility, we just said no way,” Said Wooding.

The department gave up, and J.P. Murphy wasn’t leased. But without a lessee, the department simply closed the center. It’s empty and dark – although it’s available for $90 an hour rent.

Other similarly frustrating battles were going on around the city. 

Muir called the opposition “short-sighted.” 

“This opposition is punishing the people who use the facilities across the city, children who need safe parks to play in, seniors, and those who are disabled who need ADA compliance,” said Muir.

But Friends of Ethics, another group opposing the bond, argues that Rec-Park shouldn’t get another cent until the agency cleans up its act. In a paid ballot argument against Prop B, the group brought up the controversial process of leasing out the Stowe Lake Boathouse last year. The move to put Bruce McLellan, longtime operator of the family business that sold snacks and rented paddle boats, on a month-to-month lease before auctioning a new lease to the highest bidder created a serious backlash.

 On top of that, commission officials were accused of bias when they recommended a lobbyist, Alex Tourk, to one of the companies vying for the contract. 

 “It’s unseemly and it clouds public trust,” said No on Prop B proponent Larry Bush,  who publishes Citireport. 

The boathouse isn’t the only much-beloved tradition ended under the current Rec-Park administration’s reign. The Power the Peaceful festival, which brought big name musicians and thousands of attendants, all for free, has been priced out due to dramatic increases in fees. So has the Anarchist Book Festival. 

 Bob Planthold, a disability rights advocate who is also a member of Friends of Ethics, says that there are issues in the ADA compliance plans for the Parks Bond as well. Planthold says that money from the last bond measure in 2008 was misspent in terms of disability access.

 “Trails weren’t graded properly. There was no attention to whether there were tree roots that might be rising above the level of the trail that could trip somebody,” said Planthold. “They didn’t do a good, proper, fair job on making trails accessible.”

 The bond got unanimous support from the Board of Supervisors. That’s because it earmarks money for parks that desperately need it throughout the city. 

 But that doesn’t mean all the supervisors are pleased with the way Rec- is being run, either. In July 2010, Sup.  David Campos and then-Sup.  Ross Mirkarimi tried to pass a Charter Amendment to split the appointments to the commission among the mayor and the supervisors. 

 But they couldn’t get the measure through, and the commission remains entirely composed of mayoral appointees.  

So now the voters have a choice: Give more money to what  many say is a badly managed department moving toward the privatization of public property – or shoot down what almost everyone agrees is badly needed maintenance money. Of course, the critics say, Rec-Park can always change its direction then come back and try again in a year or two – but once public facilities become pay-per-use private operations, they tend to never come back. 

Tasty reads

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Tasty reads

virginia@sfbg.com

LIT A harvest of cookbooks, some set for release in the fall, some ready for your shelf, cupboard, or bar hot off the press.

THE BLUE BOTTLE CRAFT OF COFFEE: GROWING, ROASTING, AND DRINKING, WITH RECIPES

By James Freeman, Caitlin Freeman, and Tara Duggan

Ten Speed Press

240 pp, paper $24.95

Since its first kiosk opened in January 2005, Blue Bottle has been my first choice in coffee, from ethos (served immediately, individually brewed, beans sold fresh after roasting) to taste. Musician James Freeman dove into coffee after being laid off from a corporate job post-9/11: the inspiring story of how he began is detailed in this book. Written with his wife, Caitlin, and James Beard-nominated food writer Tara Duggan, with photography by Clay McLachlan, Craft contains sections on global growing regions, roasting, cupping, pour-over, siphon, espresso machines, and multiple techniques. Caitlin, resident Blue Bottle pastry chef and former owner of Miette, contributes more than 75 pages of recipes — not so much utilizing coffee itself, but including breakfast recipes to go with morning coffee from Blue Bottle cafés, desserts and treats for dunking, and recipes from chef friends like Stuart Brioza of State Bird Provisions’ tuna melt with piquillo peppers. Although Blue Bottle has now gone nationwide with New York locations, these pages allow one to wax nostalgic over this Bay Area success story bringing us all better coffee. To be released October 9.

DESTINATION COCKTAILS: THE TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO SUPERIOR LIBATIONS

By James Teitelbaum

Santa Monica Press

408 pp, paper $19.99

Chicago resident James Teitelbaum wrote the kind of book I would happily pen, the first I’ve seen to detail the world’s best craft cocktail bars. Destination Cocktails (www.destinationcocktails.com) is a cocktail aficionado’s trusty guide to destinations both obvious (NYC and SF) and overlooked (Reno and Cleveland). As for the international scene, the book runs the gamut from Wellington to Edinburgh. While there are a few missing great drinks and bartenders — and info can change so quickly, even since Destination‘s September 1 release date — Teitelbaum’s book offers a comprehensive collection that would set any budding or well-traveled cocktailian on the right path. From London (Worship St. Whistling Shop, 69 Colebrooke Row) to Denver (Williams & Graham), many of my global tops are highlighted, alongside cities and bars I’ve been hankering visit (ah, Tokyo!)

SPQR: MODERN ITALIAN FOOD AND WINE

By Shelley Lindgren and Matthew Accarrino with Kate Leahy

Ten Speed Press

304 pp, hardcover $35

A beautiful, visual tribute to Italy, local restaurant SPQR releases a book by its wine director, Shelley Lindgren (also of A16), and executive chef Matthew Accarrino with Kate Leahy. The book features eight regions of Italy, each influencing creative recipes from SPQR’s kitchen and from which Lindgren chooses wines. Her essays explore lesser-known producers and varietals succinctly but with depth. Accarrino’s artful skill with Italian cuisine may not appear easy for most of us, but there are tips and photo breakdowns of recipes, small animal butchery, and pasta-making. Photos by Sara Remington inspire with a romantic eye tempered by realism. To be released October 16.

FORAGED FLAVOR: FINDING FABULOUS INGREDIENTS IN YOUR BACKYARD OR FARMER’S MARKET

By Tama Matsuoka Wong with Eddy Leroux

Clarkson Potter

224 pp, hardcover $25

At a recent intimate gathering at Coi, I was privileged to spend time with Tama Matsuoka Wong, forager for Daniel restaurant in NYC (Daniel Boulud wrote this book’s forward), sampling bites made with ingredients she’d foraged with Coi staff while visiting the Bay Area. We celebrated Foraged Flavor, released earlier this summer. I learned of her career change from lawyer to forager in New Jersey (my former stomping grounds), where her three daughters are involved in her foraging and cooking lifestyle. The book’s clean, classic layout includes botany-style plant diagrams, seasonal groupings, and approachable gourmet recipes like dandelion leaves with poached eggs and bacon. There are foraging and growth tips and info on key characteristics of each wild plant.

COOKING OFF THE CLOCK: RECIPES FROM MY DOWNTIME

By Elizabeth Falkner

Ten Speed Press

224 pp, hardcover $29.99

Longtime local favorite and Top Chef Master star Elizabeth Falkner recently moved to NYC and released her second book August 28. As a James Beard-nominated pastry chef, her first book, Demolition Desserts, focused on the sweet side, while new Cooking Off the Clock is a volume of everyday, accessible recipe favorites. There are sections on condiments (kimchee, tahini sauce), flavorful salads, playful snacks (three types of hot wings: Moroccan, Tabasco-honey, black bean-sesame-ginger), a few of her beloved desserts (two versions of cherry pie), and pizzas, including her amazing pastrami version — like a Reuben pie, with Russian dressing, shredded cabbage, and thinly-sliced pastrami — which I never forgot from her restaurant Orson.

DAILY DECADENCE: THE ART OF SENSUAL LIVING

By Sherri Dobay

Flying Archer Press

231 pp, paper $14.99

Sherri Dobay feels like a kindred spirit… although young, her romantic, sensual verbiage communicates that “old soul,” the kind of view with which I’ve seen the world since girlhood. Food, wine, art, nature, horses (she’s a rider) are her subject, and she is as inspiring as she is comforting. More memoir than cookbook — and published in a format that’s hard to open while working in the kitchen — the book’s draw is its tone, not its recipes. Sections are grouped around themes of decadence (Divine Decadence, Decadent Simplicity, Decadence of the Seasons, Decadence of Letting Go), and wine recommendations are explored from a right-brain perspective rather than thorough analytical tasting notes. Reading bits of the book at a time is like a sip of crisp, refreshing wine.

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