International Archives — Page 53 of 100 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Holy high whoreiday

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 14, 2010

caitlin@sfbg.com

SEX It started with a serial killer. Porn star-feminist Annie Sprinkle was reading about mass murderer Gary Ridgeway slaughter of, on his count, 71 prostitutes in the 1980s and ’90s. She came across this in Ridgway’s explanation of his choice of victims: “I picked prostitutes because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they … might never be reported missing. I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”

It was a wake-up call for Sprinkle. “We don’t have equal protection,” says the busty self-termed “ecosexual,” who was a sex worker for 20 years and now serves as a role model to many in the radical sex community. Sprinkle reacted by organizing the first International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers on Dec. 17, 2003. It’s an event that is now recognized in cities around the world.

In San Francisco, Sprinkle’s “whore holy high holiday” will be marked by a City Hall vigil for all the sex workers affected by discrimination and violence this year and performance art, followed by a march to the Center for Sex and Culture (sexandculture.org). All the events are free and open to anyone who wants to stand up for those that get paid to lay down.

This year, event organizers have a dangerously prude city policy in their sights: the toxic San Francisco Police Department practice of checking suspected prostitutes’ pockets for condoms to serve as proof of intent to have sex for money. It’s a policy that Mayor Gavin Newsom and the state’s first Latina attorney general, Kamala Harris, support. Sprinkle finds it completely at odds with the mission of promoting safe sex among anyone who could be walking down the street with a rubber in their pocket, as well as dangerous to sex workers. “It’s nasty, and really stupid, and so counterproductive — is that the message that we want to be sending?”

Which is not to say that Friday will be devoid of sweet, sexy joy entirely. After all, where would be the fun in gathering up SF’s sex-positive community if no one got naked? Later that evening, the Center for Sex and Culture will host a special edition of the national literary series Naked Girls Reading showcasing — yep — naked girls reading literature written by those who spread their legs to make their living.

“It’s a great opportunity for feminism and art,” says event organizer Lady Monster, who heard about Miss Erotic World 2005 Michelle L’amour’s original Naked Girl Chicago series and thought it a perfect fit for our pervy-intellectual burg. She held the first event in April and “it took off like wild blazes,” packing venues across town.

An ex phone sex operator who dabbled in private peep shows in her home state of Ohio without being told that the work was illegal, Lady Monster notes that the poor economy and demise of Craigslist escort ads in response to outside pressure has introduced even greater risks to sex workers, pressure that can lead them to accept unsafe working conditions. She feels that the nationwide observance of Dec. 17 “is a way to give people an opportunity to celebrate sex workers’ rights.”

On stage, her reading event will celebrate their contribution to arts and literature. Sexologist Dr. Carol Queen will be leafing through a book at the night’s nudie show; as well as burlesque star Dottie Lux; sex worker activist Robyn Few; Lady Monster herself (who’ll be reading from Some Girls, the memoir of Jillian Lauren, the American who lived and worked in a Brunei harem); and Sprinkle, among others. Lady Monster says the requirements needed to be onstage fall into three categories: readers must be accomplished writers, have public speaking experience, and — perhaps the most obvious — they’ve got be down to make the scene in the all together.

“Three hundred and sixty-four days a year we talk about how much we like our work, and one day a year we take time to realize that there are real victims out there,” Sprinkle says. It may be the oldest profession, but even in Gomorrah by the Bay, sex work is still a far cry from society’s respected elder.

INTERNATIONAL DAY TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST SEX WORKERS

Fri., Dec. 17

4 p.m., free

City Hall

Civic Center, SF

www.swopusa.org

NAKED GIRLS READING

9 p.m., $15–$20

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.nakedgirlsreading.com/sanfrancisco

Libidinous literature with Naked Girls Reading

Andrew Lam

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December 13, 2010

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I had asked Lady Monster, over a pair of red wine glasses and the pleasant buzz of nearby patrons at Revolution Cafe, to tell me what story she’d read at the Halloween installation of her Naked Girls Reading literary series. We were chatting in anticipation of her International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers edition of NGR (Fri/17) which will take place at the Center for Sex and Culture after the day’s City Hall vigil and march.

The curvaceous redhead is quite the story teller, even clothed. “I did the elevator scene from The Shining,” she told me, launching into a brief summary of the Torrance family’s elevator travails. By the end of it I had the crap scared out of me – and she was fully clothed! Imagine what this lady can get done in the buff – surely, a live literary luminary not to be trifled with.

Lady Monster first heard of the Naked Girls Reading series circa its Chicago inception by burlesque showgirl Michelle L’Amour in 2009. The series sits down sex-positive female role models (SF’s chapter features sexologist Carol Queen, sex activists, and burlesque beauty Dottie Lux among others) for a theme night of literary lustiness. The event struck a chord (books and boobies yay!), and not just among Chicago pervs – the series has been featured on the Carson Daly show and has spread to nine other cities. “Like wild blazes,” says Monster.

“Almost immediately Michelle had people wanting to franchise the series,” she continues. Naked girls getting brainy? Lady Monster had an inkling that her own San Francisco community would gag for a NGR chapter of their own. She scheduled NGR’s SF breakout in May of this year and the show’s played to packed houses every two months since – and will score a regular monthly gig at Viracocha come the new year. “It’s so much fun, so silly. It’s all about being comfortable in your own skin,” Monster asserts.

That’s something that she’s had little trouble with – even growing up on an Ohio farm, Monster started hosting her (initially PG-13 rated) play parties in fifth grade. “I’d have all my friends over and make sure everyone was coupled off. Then we’d go into my room and close the door. At first we’d all just make out, but as we got older it got more serious. I was my own sexually liberated role model!” With a little help from some open-minded parents, of course. “They didn’t bother us, they let us have our time together.”

From grade school groping, Monster graduated to more advanced expressions of sexuality. She worked the graveyard shift at a phone sex line and loved the intimacy and honesty she could find in horny men just getting home from last call. “I wanted to hear their secrets all the time,” she confesses. But she wanted it to happen face to face, so she tripped her way into a job doing “legal escort work.” Private peep show stuff, for which Monster would strip or faux-masturbate for a paying customer.

Only it wasn’t legal, a fact that her employer neglected to tell her. And even though she was getting face to face time, the sexual intimacy she’d felt with men on the other end of the phone line was gone. “There was no talking! Yeah, the money was a lot better but I had to get out of there.” All the way to San Francisco, in fact – where Monster has put her open sexuality to work in service to SF Sex Information and pens sex stories and erotic poetry. She’s also a long time performer in the burlesque scene – she’s been known to create her own astronomically-inspired LED-lit costumes and accesorize with glitter-dipped viking axes. Oh, and she toured with Ministry.

Like NGR, The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers was created by an empowered sexual superstar and has grown into a far-reaching event, marked by vigils in cities around the globe and marches of men and women carrying red umbrellas (the adopted symbol of the movement). It was started by the Bay’s own feminist porn star Annie Sprinkle, an ex-sex worker who Monster counts amongst her role models: “she’s not really a mother figure, more like a respected aunt,” Monster says.

“Sex workers need protection,” she continues, noting that Sprinkle started the annual day of memorial after reading a serial killer’s confession that he killed over 40 prostitutes because he knew they were less likely to be reported missing or inspire dedicated police investigations.

Lady Monster’s convinced that sex worker safety is an issue that carries particular import this year for a variety of reasons. First: shitty profits. “Business is definitely being affected by the economy,” she says. “And on top of that the market’s flooded,” with all the men and women out of work in other industries. Lack of work can make it harder to avoid risky working situations that put sex workers at risk of withheld wages, assault, or rape. The shut-down of Craigslist’s casual encounters listings has made it more difficult to find clients in the first place, and in the midst of all of this, SFPD has adopted an evidenciary policy that discourages condom usage: if cops find a rubber on a suspected prostitute, they’ll use it as evidence of intent to have sex for money.

That’s why Monster’s event Friday (which follows a vigil and march from City Hall that starts at 4 p.m.) will give voice to those that often go unheard in our society. Monster, her regular NGR cast, and Sprinkle will all read from literature penned by sex workers, including Jillian Lauren’s memoir of her time in the prince of Brunei’s harem and Scarlet Harlot’s account of becoming a radical prostitute, Unrepentant Whore.

“This is such a great opportunity for feminism and art,” Monster says. Undeniably, giving naked women a stage on which to talk about reclamation of body and sex issues is a unique approach. NGR, sex worker edition: sure to be a hot night, but also a reflection of the power of corpus woman when framing its own literary discourse.

Naked Girls Reading: International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Fri/17 9 p.m., $15-20

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 255-1155

www.nakedgirlsreading.com

Film Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 7, 2010

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

OPENING

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader It’s no secret that C.S. Lewis’ Narnia saga is a big ol’ Christian allegory. And hey, that doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining. The film adaptations of his novels have been decent, in that they’ve worked to please both mainstream audiences and religious zealots who want to see the Jesus lion die for our sins. But while The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) and Prince Caspian (2008) were essentially passable, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is an overwhelming failure. It’s lazy, the plotting is uneven, the CGI is cringe-worthy, and the 3D is the kind of sloppy post-production mess that makes the actors’ faces look concave. Add to that the moral message, which is more hamfisted than ever. In his lengthy climactic sermon, Aslan — he’s known by a different name in our world — tells Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) that all their adventures have been about bringing them closer to him. Suck it, atheists. (1:52) (Peitzman)

The King’s Speech See “Highbrow-Beaten.” (1:58) Embarcadero.

The Legend of Pale Male In Frederic Lilien’s second documentary honoring the life of one Pale Male, a red-tailed hawk sets up residence near Central Park on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, finds amour on the terrace of Woody Allen’s penthouse, gains the patronage of Mary Tyler Moore, builds an international fan base, and sparks a battle between his outraged legions of admirers and the dark lords of the co-op board of 927 Fifth Avenue. He proves a transfixing subject: by the time Lilien has completed The Legend of Pale Male, he’s spent some 20 years as the hawk’s cinematic biographer. He’s matched in his admiration and investment by a core group of aficionados, including a Wall Street Journal columnist and a guy who begins by calling the bird-watchers “freaks” and ends up acquiring a high-powered telescope and spending a night in jail for the sake of Pale Male. Lilien’s voice-over is an over-forceful if heartfelt presence, but it becomes hard not to catch the fever of Pale Male’s swelling collection of devotees. We see his toddler fans turn into tweens; more painfully, we see him outlive steadfast admirers. And while a more zoomed-out mental camera provokes discomforting thoughts regarding the themes of housing and eviction, there is something sweet and encouraging about seeing a wild hawk become famous and heroic to groups of schoolchildren, pilgrimaging tourists, cops and cabbies, and the readers of the Wall Street Journal, who swoon over Pale Male’s hunting prowess, his sex life, and his offspring’s first panicked ventures from the nest, and who see in his parental actions examples to be followed. (1:25) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Night Catches Us Director Tanya Hamilton’s exploration of manhood is largely an attempt to recreate a time and a place: 1976 Philadelphia. Race tensions are high, as Marcus Washington (Anthony Mackie) returns home for his father’s funeral. The threat of violence looms large as the town’s Black Panthers believe him to be a snitch, having turned over his best friend to be assassinated by the police. (Hamilton routinely sets the context by including interludes of documentary footage, including clips from 1971’s The Murder of Fred Hampton.) Kerry Washington plays Patricia, the widow, and Marcus’s only remaining friend in town. Scenes between the two have an intense quality, as we wait for them to talk about the ghost in the room. Otherwise characters are largely left underdeveloped, particularly a pushy cop (David Gordon) and a thuggish Panther (Jamie Hector), a waste of two alums of The Wire. Tariq Trotter of the Roots, who contribute to the film’s referential score, is woefully unexplored as Marcus’s brother. At best the film recalls the early work of Charles Burnett, although the degree of understatement is questionable. (1:28) Lumiere. (Prendiville)

Queen of the Lot See “Hollywood Ho-Hum.” (1:54) Opera Plaza.

The Tempest First things first: Julie Taymor’s misguided film adaptation of The Tempest isn’t entirely her fault. Even at his worst, Shakespeare is still — you know — Shakespeare, but The Tempest, his last completed play, has its fair share of flaws. Add to that Taymor, a director often criticized for choosing style over substance, and you have a messy, disorienting film. Helen Mirren is predictably great as Prospera: the gender switch from the original is Taymor’s invention. But despite a solid performance, Mirren can’t overcome the material, a condensed version of the play that jumps all over the place before reaching an unsatisfying conclusion. There are interesting moments, to be sure, particularly the trippy delights of Taymor’s trademark visuals. In the end, however, The Tempest drags. Even the sight of naked Ben Whishaw flittering about as Ariel doesn’t make the enterprise worthwhile. O brave new world that has such crappy movies in it! (1:50) (Peitzman)

*Tiny Furniture Aura (Lena Dunham) has returned home to Manhattan after four undergraduate years cocooning in a Midwestern liberal arts education; either big-city life has gotten harder, or she has gotten very soft. She’s rather reluctantly welcomed back into their blindingly white TriBeCa loft by a successful artist mother (Laurie Simmons) and caustic, ambitious younger sister (Grace Dunham). Neither seemed to miss her much, and both are played by the writer-director-star’s actual family members. “I don’t know what to do with my life” is a very typical state post-graduation, but Aura’s stasis is positively Oblomov-ian — and since she is our protagonist, this movie, too, is all about the comedy of rudderlessness. Recently abandoned by a feminist college boyfriend who needed to “find himself,” she tries glomming on to such dubious romantic prospects as visiting filmmaker Jed (Alex Karpovsky), who gladly accepts free room and board but barely seems to register her as female. “Best friend” Charlotte (Jemima Kirke) is a spectacular wellspring of ideas meant to improve Aura’s lot, though since Aura basically walks around with a “Kick Me” sign on her posterior and Charlotte is sexy, moneyed, endlessly entitled trainwreck, her advice (e.g. “Just take him somewhere and grab his cock”) are bound make things worse. Tiny Furniture is indeed small, as first-feature achievements go. It’s anyone’s guess whether Dunham has it in her to make good movies less baldly autobiographical, as she’ll need to if she wants to have a career. That said, few films — certainly nothing Woody Allen’s done for ages — have been so dryly hilarious about the kind of NYC art-social milieux in which being a nobody really, truly sucks. Because everyone else is already somebody, if only in their own minds. It also has, hands down, the greatest three-minute, single-shot whiny meltdown speech of 2010 or nearly any other year. (1:38) Bridge, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Tourist Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie sharing the screen? How will our pitiful, ordinary-people eyeballs be able to absorb such a high level of gorge? (1:44) Four Star, Shattuck.

ONGOING

*Black Swan “Lose yourself,” ballet company head Thomas (Vincent Cassel) whispers to his leading lady, Nina (Natalie Portman), moments before she takes the stage. But Nina is already consumed with trying to find herself, and rarely has a journey of self-discovery been so unsettling. Set in New York City’s catty, competitive ballet world, Black Swan samples from earlier dance films (notably 1948’s The Red Shoes, but also 1977’s Suspiria, with a smidgen of 1995’s Showgirls), though director Darren Aronofsky is nothing if not his own visionary. Black Swan resembles his 2008 The Wrestler somewhat thematically, with its focus on the anguish of an athlete under ten tons of pressure, but it’s a stylistic 180. Gone is the gritty, stripped-down aesthetic used to depict a sad-sack strongman. Like Dario Argento’s 1977 horror fantasy, the gory, elegantly choreographed Black Swan is set in a hyper-constructed world, with stabbingly obvious color palettes (literally, white = good; black = evil) and dozens of mirrors emphasizing (over and over again) the film’s doppelgänger obsession. As Nina, Portman gives her most dynamic performance to date. In addition to the thespian fireworks required while playing a goin’-batshit character, she also nails the role’s considerable athletic demands. (1:50) California, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Burlesque Burlesque really wants your love. Much like its heroine Ali, the small-town girl with showbiz dreams (and the not-so-secret pipes to make those dreams a reality), Burlesque knows all the moves by heart and is determined to land a spot in the chorus-line next to Cabaret (1972), Pretty Woman (1990), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), and Gypsy (1962). “Come on,” it implores, firing off Bob Fosse finger-snaps and leg-bearing kicks, “I’ve got Christina Aguilera as the plucky newcomer and Cher as the seasoned stage-vet and owner of the Burlesque Lounge, a kind of music video purgatory in which the Pussycat Dolls never broke up.” [snap snap snap] “I’ve got Stanley Tucci trapped in the makeover montage closet, again, as the sassy gay-in-waiting to both female leads.” [snap snap snap] “I’ve got girls gyrating in a Victoria’s Secret catalog worth of risqué underthings.” [snap snap pant] “I’ve got melisma!” [pant pant pant] “Did I mention Cher’s eleventh-hour power ballad?” Yes, it’s true. Burlesque has all of the above (and can’t you just hear the hunger in its voice?) And yet, it is afflicted by a particularly unfortunate kind of mediocrity. Not terrible enough to be redeemable as camp, Burlesque also lacks what Kay Thompson would call “bazazz” — none of the leads have any chemistry with each other, or the camera for that matter — to make this musical truly sing. In the words of many a casting agent: “Maybe next time, kid.” (1:48) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Sussman)

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer Was Eliot Spitzer’s very public disgrace the result of his own hubris or a loose conspiracy of business interests and conservative politicians aligned against him? Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (2007’s Taxi to the Dark Side) gives credence to both explanations in Client 9, though his sane interest in revisiting the case stems from knowing what happened next: Spitzer left office in March 2008, months before the economy shattered. As New York’s hard-charging Attorney General, Spitzer made his reputation prosecuting white-collar crime in lieu of meaningful regulatory action at the federal level. This earned him several powerful enemies (among them former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg and billionaire Ken Langone) as well as the general scorn of Wall Street (we see footage of the market floor breaking out into cheers when Spitzer announces his resignation). Gibney scores exclusive sit-downs with the former governor as well as his regular “escort” (not pseudo-celebrity Ashley Dupré), and the multiple cameras on Spitzer (as well as the attendant “rise and fall” structure of a born fighter) makes me think the prolific filmmaker thought Client 9 might be his Tyson (2008). But alas, Spitzer merely appears diplomatic, expressing contrition and leaving the raised eyebrows to an indistinguishable slew of talking heads. And while Gibney seems to be saying that most of the tabloid sensationalism was a distraction from more serious problems, Client 9 is constantly distracted by the same material. The many titillated screen shots of the “Emperor’s Club” website are indicative of the film’s unfortunate ratio of chaff to wheat. (1:57) Opera Plaza. (Goldberg)

Due Date One delayed appearance for a baby’s birth does not a Hangover (2009) make. After all, even the most commited baby daddy isn’t totally required to be at the blessed event, unlike a wedding ceremony. So even two films into what seems like a trilogy of bromancey men’s coming-of-age terror, director Todd Phillips already seems to working a tired old bone. Slick LA architect Peter (Robert Downey Jr.) has a self-satisfied mean streak that doesn’t seem to be abating with the birth of his first child halfway across the country, or his run-ins with budding thespian Ethan (Zach Galifianakis) — the two collide cute in the airport on their way to the so-called Best Coast. One no-fly list leads to another, and Peter is reluctantly hightailing it by rental car with the uncoolest dude in school. Oh dear: Roadtrip for Schmucks, anyone? Due Date proves that, yes, contrary to what I once believed, there is such a thing as too much Galifianakis, in perpetual shtick mode here. And even though the weathered, well-textured Downey can build character with a single well-placed, black-hearted glare, he’s saddled with such a sorry misanthropic creep here that the audience is hard-pressed to care. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

*Fair Game Doug Liman’s film effectively dramatizes yet another disgraceful chapter from the last Presidential administration: how CIA agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts), who’d headed the Joint Task Force on Iraq investigating whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs, was identified by name in the Washington Post as a covert agent — thus ending her intelligence career and placing many of her subordinates and sources around the world in danger. This info was leaked to the press, it turned out, by highest-level White House officials as “punishment” for the New York Times editorial former ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) — Plame’s husband — wrote condemning their insistence on those WMDs to justify the Iraq invasion by then already well in progress. (The CIA task force had also found zero evidence of mass-destruction weapons, but Bush and co. chose to come up with their own bogus “facts” to sway US public opinion.) Purportedly, Karl Rove clucked to CNN’s Chris Matthews that Wilson’s awkwardly-timed dose of sobering truth rendered his spouse “fair game” for exposure. Unfortunately opening here several days after it might theoretically have done some election-day good — not that many Republican voters would likely be queuing up — Fair Game may be a familiar story to many. But its gist and details remain quite enough to make the blood boil. While the political aspects are expertly handled in thriller terms, the personal ones are a tad less successful. That’s partly because we never quite glimpse what brought these two very busy, business-first people together; but largely, alas, because so many of Wilson’s diatribes come off all too much as things that might be said by Sean Penn, Rabble-Rouser and Humanitarian. This is perhaps a case of casting so perfect it becomes a distracting fault. (1:46) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Harvey)

Faster Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been living down his WWE celebrity roots for some time, demonstrating real movie star presence and deft comic chops. So why would he sign on for this knucklehead thriller fit for Ah-nold, Diesel, or Seagal at their most robotically badass? He plays “Driver” — the characters here being too cool to have boring regular names — who gets out of prison after ten years and immediately peels off in his hell-yeah kustom sportscar to shoot a guy point-blank in a crowded office. This attracts the attention of junkie Cop (Billy Bob Thornton) and hired Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), though being pursued by them and having his face plastered all over the news can’t slow this tower of glowering machismo’s quest to wreak vengeance those who killed his brother. Why, you surely ask? Because Driver is like the wind! He’s there, then … WTF! He’s gone! Even with the Rock’s chest thrust out here like Jayne Mansfield in a bullet bra, he’s about as inconspicuous as the Eiffel Tower on wheels. Anyway, vigilante justice takes its inevitable cliché-riddled course in this sub-Michael Baysian exercise in squealing tire, gratuitous slo-mo, spasti-cam, often laughable big-swingin’-dick heroics. Sample dialogue, warden inexplicably complimenting Driver’s prison survival upon his release: “It was as if you were born to the darkness in this place.” Multimillionaire thrill-junkie assassin guy being asked by girlfriend what he’ll do next: “Something more ultra!” If you’ve ever flexed biceps in the mirror and said “Yeah baby!” to yourself without irony, this may be the movie for you. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

*The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest If you enjoyed the first two films in the Millennium trilogy — 2009’sThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire — there’s a good chance you’ll also like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Based on the final book in Stieg Larsson’s series, the film begins shortly after the violent events at the conclusion of the second movie. There are brief flashes of what happened — the cinematic equivalent of TV’s “previously on&ldots;” — but it’s likely an indecipherable jumble to Girl first-timers. Hornet’s Nest presents the trial of Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the much-abused, much-misunderstood, entirely kick-ass protagonist of the series. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and his sister Annika (Annika Hallin) as her lawyer, Lisbeth finally gets her day in court. The conspiracy that drives the story is somewhat convoluted, and while it all comes together in the end, Hornet’s Nest isn’t an easy film to digest. Still, it’s a well-made and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy — as long as you caught the beginning and middle, too. (2:28) Albany, Lumiere, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1 As enjoyable as the Harry Potter films are for fans, they never really hold their own. And that’s OK. They’re not Oscar bait the way the Lord of the Rings movies were, but they’re competent adaptations of a much beloved book series. While Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1 may not be a perfect film, it’s a solid translation of the source material, sure to appease the loyal readers who still can’t quite cope with the fact that the saga is nearly over. I count myself among them, and I’ll admit that it’s difficult to look at any Harry Potter movie with a critical eye. But even for an outsider, part one of Harry’s final chapter is likely to entertain, with plenty of action and a streamlined pace that helps the film move faster than past entries in the series. For devotees, the effect is greater, and the emotional wallop Deathly Hallows packs should not be underestimated. (2:26) Empire, Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*I Love You Phillip Morris Given typically imitation-crazed Hollywood’s failure to built on the success of 2005’s Brokeback Mountain success — or see it as anything more than a fluke — the case of I Love You Phillip Morris is interesting for what it is and isn’t. It is, somewhat by default, the biggest onscreen gay romance (not including foreign and indie productions, which are always ahead of the curve) since that earlier film. What Phillip Morris is not, however, is a Hollywood or even American film, all appearances to the contrary. Its financing was primarily French — presumably because there wasn’t enough willing coin on this side of the Atlantic. We meet Steven Jay Russell as an uber-perky all-American lad — a nascent Jim Carrey. A near-fatal accident, however, induces him to merrily chuck it all and live life to the fullest by moving from Georgia to South Beach and becoming a “big fag.” He soon discovers that “being gay is really expensive,” or at least his chosen A-lister lifestyle is, so he turns to crime as a means of support. During one hoosegow stay, he meets the non-tobacco-related Phillip Morris (McGregor), a sweet Southern sissy. Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa approach their fascinating material with brashness and some skill, but without the control to balance its steep tonal shifts. Surprisingly, it’s in the “love” part that they often succeed best. While their comic aspects sometimes tip into shrill, destabilizing caricature — the excess that brilliant but barely-manageable Carrey will always drift toward unless tightly leashed — this movie’s link to Brokeback is that it never makes the love between two men look inherently ridiculous, as nearly all mainstream comedies now do to get a cheap throwaway laugh or three. (1:38) Shattuck. (Harvey)

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

Love and Other Drugs Whatever kind of movie you think Love and Other Drugs is, you’re wrong. To be fair, it’s hard to pin down. This is a romantic comedy about two people who can’t commit, a serious drama about a young women living with Parkinson’s, a dark satirical look at the pharmaceutical industry, and — well, you get the idea. Love and Other Drugs shouldn’t work, really: the story is overstuffed and the script isn’t always cohesive. But leads Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway sell the material well. In the end, it almost doesn’t matter that the film isn’t sure what it wants to be. “Almost” is key: there are moments in which Love and Other Drugs slips into Judd Apatow comedy territory, and others when it completely devolves into a sexual farce. It works on several different levels, but all together, it’s admittedly a bit of a mess. No bother. Just focus on the attractive naked people making out and you’ll likely enjoy the movie regardless. (1:53) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Made in Dagenham I hesitate to use the word “spunky,” lest I sound condescending, but indeed that’s what we have here: the spunky tale, drawn from real life, of women who worked sewing seats at a British Ford factory in the late 60s — and fought for equal pay, despite the tide of sexism that desperately tried to hold them down. Heading the charge is Rita (Sally Hawkins from 2008’s Happy-Go-Lucky), a married mom who becomes a feminist icon (and a labor hero) without really meaning to; she’s the most developed character in a script that mostly calls forth types (Bob Hoskins as the encouraging union man; Rosamund Pike as the frustrated intellectual-turned-housewife; Rita’s slutty factory co-worker with the enormous beehive; steely-eyed Ford execs). Adding spark is Miranda Richardson as Britain’s no-nonsense Secretary of State Barbara Castle, a legendary Labour party politician. Though it’s packaged a bit too neatly — from frame one, the film’s peppy tone all but guarantees a happy ending — Made in Dagenham‘s message is uplifting and worthy, and a reminder that it wasn’t so long ago that women were fighting for the seemingly most obvious of rights. (1:53) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

*Megamind Be careful what you wish for, especially if you’re a blue meanie with a Conehead noggin and a knack for mispronunciation and mayhem. Holding up hilariously against such animated efforts as The Incredibles (2004) and Monsters, Inc. (2001), Megamind uses that nugget of wisdom as its narrative springboard and takes off where most superhero-vs.-supervillain yarns end: the feud between baddie Megamind (voiced by Will Farrell) and goody-two-shoes Metro Man (Brad Pitt) goes waaay back, to the ankle-biter years. They’ve battled so often over intrepid girl reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fay) that she’s beyond bored by every nefarious torture device and disco crocodile the Blue Man throws at her. When Mega finally, unexpectedly vanquishes his foe, he finds himself with a bad case of the blues. With the help of his loyal Minion (David Cross), he decides to change the game and create his own worthy opponent, who just happens to be Roxanne’s schlubby cameraman (Jonah Hill). Chortles ensue, thanks to the sarcastic sass emanating from the Will and Tina show, although the 3-D effects seem beside the point. The resemblance to this year’s Despicable Me is more than a little passing, from the bad guy on the moral turnaround to the adorable underlings, but Megamind‘s smart satire of comic hero conventions, its voice actor’s right-on riffs, and the rock and pop licks on the soundtrack make it the nice and nasty winner. (1:36) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Morning Glory Unless you’ve never seen a romantic comedy before, there’s not much in Morning Glory that will surprise you. It’s about exactly what you’d expect —but that doesn’t actually make it any less charming. Morning Glory rests on the appeal of its leads: Rachel McAdams as our heroine Becky, Diane Keaton as the self-obsessed Colleen Peck, and Harrison Ford as crotchety newscaster Mike Pomeroy. All three of these actors, despite their talents, have made bad movies. But Morning Glory succeeds despite itself — the formulaic script, the shoehorned romance, and the predictable twists are all secondary to the undeniable chemistry between the actors. Will Becky be able to rejuvenate the morning show she’s executive producing? Will Colleen learn to be a team player? Will Mike drop the ego and show America his tender, frittata-loving heart? You know the answers already, but that doesn’t mean you won’t smile broadly when all the pieces fall into place. (1:47) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

The Next Three Days The new Paul Haggis human dramedy is so overripe and ludicrous it already seems set for satire: “Hey, honey, I’m home – and guess what, I’m getting put away for life for supposedly murdering my boss.” “Oh, awesome, hon, I’ll just break you out of prison — right after I pick up the kids. No problemo.” But no, all involved in this far-fetched, morally ambiguous exercise take it dead seriously. The Next Three Days starts with the absurd premise that the likable, chatty every mom Laura (Elizabeth Banks) could have possibly offed her coworker in a fit of office-politics pique. Desperate to save his suicidal spouse, Laura’s college instructor hubby John (Russell Crowe) must turn into a ferociously quick study in DIY jail breaking. The things we do for love, darling. This remake of 2008 French film Anything for Her certainly plays to a kind of noirish romantic willing to suspend disbelief at all costs — and Crowe throws all his sweaty, beady-eyed passion into his performance (though Banks seems somewhat overstretched in what’s kind of a Gloria Grahame role) — but bets are that most viewers with even a slight grasp of reality will simply roll their eyes in disbelief at the denouement, even while their most outlandish fantasy is fulfilled. (2:02) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

127 Hours After the large-scale, Oscar-draped triumph of 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours might seem starkly minimalist — if director Danny Boyle weren’t allergic to such terms. Based on Aron Ralston’s memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place, it’s a tale defined by tight quarters, minimal “action,” and maximum peril: man gets pinned by rock in the middle of nowhere, must somehow free himself or die. More precisely, in 2003 experienced trekker Ralston biked and hiked into Utah’s Blue John Canyon, falling into a crevasse when a boulder gave way under his feet. He landed unharmed … save a right arm pinioned by a rock too securely wedged, solid, and heavy to budge. He’d told no one where he’d gone for the weekend; dehydration death was far more likely than being found. For those few who haven’t heard how he escaped this predicament, suffice it to say the solution was uniquely unpleasant enough to make the national news (and launch a motivational-speaking career). Opinions vary about the book. It’s well written, an undeniably amazing story, but some folks just don’t like him. Still, subject and interpreter match up better than one might expect, mostly because there are lengthy periods when the film simply has to let James Franco, as Ralston, command our full attention. This actor, who has reached the verge of major stardom as a chameleon rather than a personality, has no trouble making Ralston’s plight sympathetic, alarming, poignant, and funny by turns. His protagonist is good-natured, self-deprecating, not tangibly deep but incredibly resourceful. Probably just like the real-life Ralston, only a tad more appealing, less legend-in-his-own-mind — a typical movie cheat to be grateful for here. (1:30) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie As an 80s baby, Woodstock conjures images of MTV’s disastrous attempt to recreate the festival in 1999, so please forgive me for thinking Wavy Gravy was just a guy with an ice cream named after him. In Michelle Esrick’s well produced Gravy bio doc, it turns out there’s more to the man than brown acid and a hazelnut fudge swirl. A man of the world who prays to all gods, including Lenny Bruce and Albert Einstein (two of his former mentors), Wavy Gravy’s life story is one of cultural transformation: a beatnik poet and roommate with Bob Dylan, dropping acid with the Merry Pranksters, a smarter-than- he-looks icon of counterculture at Woodstock, and beyond. For his contemporaries who probably weren’t able to hold onto the dream quite as long, Saint Misbehavin’ is a nostalgic return to idealism. For those of us that came after, it’s a reminder that experimentation, culture jamming, and Burning Man aren’t revolutionary ideas. (1:27) Red Vic. (Prendiville)

Skyline (1:40) SF Center.

*The Social Network David Fincher’s The Social Network is a gripping and entertaining account of how Facebook came to take over the known social-networking universe. In this version of events — scripted by Aaron Sorkin and based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires, in turn based substantially on interviews with FB cofounder Eduardo Saverin, with input from Mark Zuckerberg icily absent — a girlfriend’s dumping of Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) on a crisp evening in 2003 is the impetus in his headlong quest for a “big idea.” The film is structured around the conference-room depositions for two separate lawsuits, brought against Zuckerberg by Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and by fellow Harvard entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) for crimes involving intellectual property and vast scads of retributive money. Unless Zuckerberg decides to post it on Facebook (which he probably shouldn’t, given the nondisclosure vows that capped off the first round of lawsuits), we’ll never know what truly motivated him and how badly he screwed over his friends and fellow students. But Fincher and Sorkin have crafted a compelling, absorbing, and occasionally poignant tale of how it could have happened. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Tangled In its original form, Rapunzel‘s a pretty brutal fairy tale: barely pubescent girl gets knocked up by a prince — who’s then blinded by her evil witch guardian — leaving Rapunzel to fend for herself as she’s exiled into the desert and bears twins. Relax, that isn’t the story Tangled tells. The new Disney film is a complete revamping of the tale: Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) escapes the clutches of Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) with the help of ne’er-do-well Flynn Ryder (Zachary Levi). Along the way, there are songs and slapstick moments and, yes, anthropomorphic animals. But unlike the classic feel of last year’s The Princess and the Frog, Tangled comes across as recycled. It’s just not as fresh and sharp as it should be, especially given recent Disney accomplishments like Toy Story 3. Kids will enjoy it and adults won’t be bored, but it’s a step backward for the House of Mouse. And don’t expect to be humming any of the songs after you exit the theater. (1:32) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Peitzman)

*The Temptation of St. Tony This beguiling slice of exquisite-corpse surrealism from Estonian writer-director Veiko Ounpuu didn’t get much notice at Sundance, and certainly seemed one of that festival’s less likely candidates for non-festival exposure in the U.S. So credit the Roxie for gambling that its utterly unpredictable charms will draw (if not pack) ’em in for a week’s run. Middle manager Tony (Taavi Eelmaa) is first glimpsed marching in his father’s funeral procession, and the first indication that nothing here will go as expected comes when said parade is briefly surprised by a passing motorist’s 180 flip nearby. From there on hapless Tony is subjected to a series of increasingly bizarre trials that advance from family and work weirdnesses to a climactic, David Lynchian orgy-cabaret-human sacrifice-costume party. If you see one Estonian-Swedish-Finnish coproduction this year, let it be this cipherous black comedy. (1:50) Roxie. (Harvey)

*Today’s Special This food comedy, written by and starring the Daily Show‘s Aasif Mandvi, is not an original recipe. It opens with an appetite-igniting cooking montage à la Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) and follows The Big Night (1996) structure. Samir (Mandvi) is a sous chef in a modern NYC restaurant, laboring under the dickish Dean Winters and next to the patently unnattractive Kevin Corrigan. He’s never made Indian food, despite his parents’ owning a struggling restaurant called Tandoori Palace. What is Samir to do when he gets turned down for a promotion, because his cooking is soulless? Things pick up in the film with the arrival of Mary Poppins in the form of worldly taxi driver and master chef, Akbar (Naseeruddin Shah). The course of this voyage of personal and cultural discovery is obvious, but the humor is as genuine as the performances, with the ingredients just needing a bit of time to come together. (1:39) Albany, Smith Rafael. (Prendiville)

Unstoppable After a dunderheaded train-yard worker essentially flicks the “hellbent” switch on an unmanned train loaded with hazardous materials, it’s up to odd-couple operators Denzel Washington (old; cranky; in endearing subplot, his daughters work at Hooters) and Chris Pine (young; cocky; in weirdly off-putting subplot, his wife has a restraining order against him) to chase down that loco-motive and prove the movie’s title wrong. The film mostly darts between the interior of a train car, for Washington-Pine bickering; railroad mission control, where a miscast Rosario Dawson literally phones in her performance; TV news reports, lazily illustrating the train’s flight through rural Pennsylvania; and various low angles relative to the speeding train, so sinister it’s bright red and numbered 777 (which is, like, almost 666!) Veteran action director Tony Scott does what he can with the based-on-true-events storyline, but Unstoppable is so deadly serious and predictable it just gets boring after awhile. At least the runaway vehicle in 1994’s similar Speed had a villain to enjoy; here, there’s just an angry choo-choo. Miss you, Dennis Hopper. (1:38) Empire, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

The Warrior’s Way (1:40) 1000 Van Ness.

*White Material Claire Denis was raised in colonial Africa, and White Material is her third feature set in its wake (the first two were 1988’s Chocolat and 1999’s breathtaking Beau Travail). This new film is very much about Africa, compositing elements of several different “troubles” (child soldiers, a strong man’s militia, radio broadcasts fomenting violence) into an abstract of conflict. Between the dead-eyed rebels in the bush and the brutally efficient forces in town stands Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert), a colonial holdout. As the troubles mount, Maria buries the signs of encroaching threats; her refusal to be terrorized is a trait we typically ascribe to male action heroes, though Maria’s resolute blindness is its own kind of privilege in the African context. Unusually for Denis, the film is both a literary adaptation (cowritten with author Marie NDiaye and based on Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing) and a star vehicle for Huppert, whose stringy musculature is a nice match for Yves Cape’s lithe camerawork. The idea of Maria’s character already tends toward the parabolic, though, and all these different inputs can result in too much dramatic underlining. But for all White Material‘s novelistic concessions, Denis’ subtle command of composition and rhythm as elements of narration is beyond doubt. Her use of the handheld camera remains preternaturally attuned to her characters’ pleasures and anxieties. (1:42) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Goldberg)

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 7, 2010

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Schedules are for Wed/8–Tues/14 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7. “Other Cinema: Dead Media,” innovative works using repurposed material, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Pink Smoke Over the Vatican (Hart), Thurs, 7.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; www.peacheschrist.com. $15. “Midnight Mass:” Christmas Evil (Jackson, 1980), Sat, midnight. With director Lewis Jackson in person.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-12. La Strada (Fellini, 1954), Wed, 2:30, 7. “Holiday Horrors:” Gremlins (Dante, 1984), Thurs, 7; Black Christmas (Clark, 1974), Thurs, 9:05. “Midnites for Maniacs: Push It to the Limit Triple Feature:” •Just One of the Guys (Gottlieb, 1985), Fri, 7:30; Point Break (Bigelow, 1991), Fri, 9:30; Maniac: The Restored Director’s Cut (Lustig, 1980), Fri, midnight. With director William Lustig in person. •Cabaret (Fosse, 1972), Sat, 2:35, 7, and Xanadu (Greenwald, 1980), Sat, 5, 9:30. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Selick, 1993), Sun, 2, 3:45, 5:30, 7:15, 9. “San Francisco Film Society Presents:” Sir Arne’s Treasure (Stiller, 1919), Tues, 8. With live score by the Mountain Goats; tickets for this event ($22.50) at www.sffs.org.

CERRITO 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. $7. “Cerrito Classics:” White Christmas (Curtiz, 1954), Thurs, check website for showtime.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. Inside Job (Ferguson, 2010), call for dates and times. Today’s Special (Kaplan, 2009), call for dates and times. “San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:” The Elixir of Love, Thurs, 7 and Sat, 10am. “Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010,” Wed-Thurs. These shows, $12. Remembering Playland (Wyrsch, 2010), Sun, 4:15. Director Tom Wyrsch in person.

FORBIDDEN ISLAND TIKI LOUNGE 1304 Lincoln, Alameda; www.forbiddenislandalameda.com. Free. “Forbidden Thrills: Creepy Crazy Christmas Classics!:” •Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Webster, 1964), and Santa Claus (Cardona, 1959), Mon, 7:30.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. “More Bay Area Culture and Performance Art,” presented by video activist Steve Jacobson, Wed, 7:30.

ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE 814 Montgomery, SF; (415) 788-7142. $3. “Giallo:” Deadly Sweet (Brass, 1967), Tues, 6:30.

LUMIERE 1572 California, SF; www.landmarkafterdark.com. Free. Thurs, 7. “Anime Club:” “Space and Wolf,” Thurs, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism:” Il grido (Antonioni, 1957), Wed, 7; Accattone (Pasolini, 1961), Fri, 8:45; Bandits of Orgosolo (De Seta, 1961), Sun, 3. “Grin, Smile, Smirk: The Films of Burt Lancaster:” Birdman of Alcatraz (Frankenheimer, 1962), Thurs, 7; A Child is Waiting (Cassavetes, 1963), Sat, 6:30; The Swimmer (Perry, 1968), Sat, 8:40. “Carl Theodor Dreyer:” Two People (1944-45), Fri, 7; Gertrud (Dreyer, 1964), Sun, 5.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie (Esrick, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:15 (also Wed, 2). Machete (Maniquis and Rodriguez, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). Breathless (Godard, 1959), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4). The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 2003), Dec 14-15, 7:15, 9:15 (also Dec 15, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Howl (Epstein and Friedman, 2010), Wed, 7:15. The Temptation of St. Tony (Ounpuu, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. “NorCal FreeFly Film Festival,” Thurs, call for times. Bad Santa (Zwigoff, 2003), Fri, 7:15, 9:15. “An Evening with John Waters,” Sat, 7:30. Fundraiser for the Roxie; tickets $250. Home Alone (Columbus, 1990), Sun, 4. Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch, 1980), Mon, call for times. Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, 1984), Tues, call for times.

SUNDANCE KABUKI 1881 Post, SF; www.eggsploitation.com. $20. Eggsploitation (Lahl), Thurs, 7.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $15-25. “Cinematheque Benefit:” Face (Warhol, 1965) and The Velvet Underground In Boston (Warhol, 1967), Wed, 6:30.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-12. Cast Me If You Can (Ogata, 2010), Dec 10-19, check website for times. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “International Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010:” Shugendo Now (Abela and McGuire, 2009), Thurs, 7:30; •Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden (Junkerman, 1991), and Inland Sea (Carra, 1992), Sun, 2. “Luminous Darkness,” transgressive videos focusing on erotic ritual and performance, curated by Daniel McKernan, Fri, 9pm-2am (screening continuously during YBCA’s “Noel Noir” fundraiser; tickets $25). “Go to Hell for the Holidays:” Meat Grinder (Moeithaisong, 2009), Sat, 7:30.<\!s>

Saint Gravy

Andrew Lam

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December 3, 2010

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There is a certain faction of society — I think it’s pretty large, if you judge by NorCal standards — that regards Wavy Gravy as some sort of mystical deity from their parents’ generation. We’re not sure what he did, but you should probably address him as Mr. Gravy ’til he tells you not to.

This is a perception that is left unquibbled-with by director Michelle Esrick’s ten year labor of docu-love, Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie (opening Fri/3 in Bay Area theaters), and further untouched by my interview with Esrick and the man himself.

Saint Misbehavin’ opening scenes are an iteration of a tie-died holy man’s daily routine. We start out in Wavy’s corner bedroom, awash in sitting Buddha figurines, plastic Disney toys, beads, books, and other sacred objects. Wavy enters, and says a pray and a brief recitation of his heroes.

This spoken list serves as a blueprint for the bio-pic to come: Jesus, Mohammed, Ghandi, MLK Jr., Jerry Garcia are among those name-dropped. They serve as a background compass for the movie’s neatly plotted trajectory of Wavy’s life: Gravy is born in New York, goes from folk-beatnik Greenwich Village, to acid be-ins with Kesey in California, to the Further Bus.

And then: a stint with the Hopi tribe, and later, off to the East: to Nepal to heal blindness (with the aide of his international medical non-profit Seva). Of course, his creation of Camp Winnarainbow, a summer camp that has been teaching West Coast flower children how to play for three generations now. Today, Wavy is an elder statesman of hippies and their descendents as well as a frozen dessert. His sold-out birthday spectaculars attract crowds like a Phish concert.

A more recognizable Gravy. Photo Courtesy of Ripple Effect Films

But for our movie-viewing purposes those names at the start also essential because we don’t get to hear a whole lot about Wavy’s inner monolouge in the flick – he’s onstage here, clowning away as he does, well everywhere, not really dishing per se. Saint Misbehavin’ is no E! True Hollywood Story.

So when I got the chance to sit face to face with the man (I wore a Ringling Brothers clown hat, he had on a blue bowler and carried his familiar fish on a leash), I thought maybe we’d talk a little about how he got so Gravy. “It’s not too many kids that grow up to be a seminal member of so many artistic scenes,” I say. “Washington Park in the early ’60s, SF during the ’60s, Woodstock… but what was special about Hugh Romney (that was his square name from before he was Wavy — even before his first nom de nonsense Al Dente), how’d you get to where you are today?”

Gravy, just a little sleepy-looking in the warm office building where our interview takes place, tells me “one thing just followed from another, listing off his general path across the world.” Such is the role of a tribe elder talking to a youngster: there are things that we are not to know. What more do we need to know, really? He quotes Thelonius Monk, a friend who stand-up comedian Hugh Romney opened for. “Everyone is a genius by just being themselves.”

That’s his deal: the rainbow he travels on is available to us all, if we can only see it and trust to it’s pretty suspended bands of color. Luckily, we do have Saint Misbehavin’ to get literal with. Esrick has put together a wild ride and the information it contains teaches about Wavy’s contributions to the hippie and anti-Vietnam war movement. He was on the front lines back then – Esrick tells me that the way he deals with the chronic pain he sustains from police beatings from those days is one of the most impressive things she learned about Wavy in the 10 years she spent researching for the film with him.

I ask Wavy his reaction to seeing his epic life laid out on celluloid for thousands of strangers’ viewing pleasure. He refused to see early versions of the film when Esrick was still editing: what was it like to finally view the real thing? “You realize what a long strange trip it was – and continues to be,” he says after a moment’s pause. “It was the only time I’ve ever seen Wavy speechless,” Esrick smiles.

And so I leave our interview without really having gained any insider info on the life of Gravy. But I haven’t departed without a few gems, the primos being the story of meeting his wife (“she put peanuts in my hamburger and I fell in love,”) tips for graceful protests: “I always gave the best cop my rose. They were always very touched,” vegetarianism: “remember you are not what you eat, you are what you don’t shit,”and the truth about relations with the Middle East, spoken by a man who traveled through Iraq and Afghanistan on a rainbow bus in the 1970s: “They know the difference – there are ugly Americans that you see, and there are fellow travelers on the path of life. They recognized us as the latter.”

This from Michelle: “A full biography of Wavy’s would be 10 movies. I was interested in stringing a necklace of pearls together.” Maybe there are things we’re not supposed to know about those on high, or rather, that we don’t have to in order to know that they’re up there.

Epilogue: To gauge what maybe I am missing from the story of Wavy by virtue of not having been there in the glory days, I texted my mom today. “What did Wavy Gravy mean to you back in the day? Was he cool?” She wrote back “I don’t remember him!” Which of course, means she was really there.

Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie opens Fri/3 in Bay Area theaters.

Party Radar: Tiara Sensation Pageant will be Some Thing special

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 2, 2010

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Party Radar: Tiara Sensation Pageant will be Some Thing special

Right out of the glitter-strewn gate, when it launched a year ago, I knew that Some Thing was “special.” The weekly Friday drag night (with crafts table!) at the Stud not only filled the city’s missing weekly alternative drag hole left behind by Trannyshack, but it managed to bring something unique, channeling a new sensibility rising in the children that respected traditional performance as well as punk-rock theatrics, and loved to play with the expectations that had arisen around both. The club, headed by VivvyAnne ForeverMore, Glamamore, and DJ Downey, grew out of their ambitiously arty Monday weekly Tiara Sensation, also at the Stud. The threesome — who emanate a intellectual grace as well as a healthy appreciation of improvisatory surrealism and wry humor — have made Some Thing not just the Friday night home base for altqueers, but also a showcase of the diversity of queer dance music styles, with ear-opening DJs guesting every week.

It’s time for the annual, incredibly creative Miss Tiara Sensation Pageant, Sun/5, and the popular Some Thing crew is moving it from the Stud to Temple to accomodate their larger dreams for the contest. (You can read the particulars in my Super Ego column this week). This year, the pageant will be a star-studded fundraiser for awesome local fringe theater The Offcenter. I spoke with philosophy-clad cyber-showgirl Vivvy about Some Thing’s anniversary, the big Tiara to-do, and some of her favorite glamour looks.

TIARA SENSATION PAGEANT Sun/5, 8 p.m.–midnight, $35. Temple, 540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com, Facebook: Some Thing

SFBG How does it feel for Some Thing to be one year old? How has the club evolved and changed over the past 12 months? Surely it’s grueling to put on a weekly party. But to put one on with two big drag shows every night, eek. Aren’t you exhausted?

VivvyAnne ForeverMore While the club known as SOME THING is one year old we have been working together for 3 years on Tiara Sensation and other projects. The club has gotten bigger over the past 12 months, and we’ve expanded our family of performers. Also our audience, while it’s changing and growing constantly, has gotten to a really lovely point, there is comraderie. We are all there for each other. The craft table has gotten even more ambitious than in the past. Folks go nuts for it, [crafts leader] Hot Gloo often runs out of supplies before the show even begins. We’ve also gotten to pull in great DJs from SF and abroad, and increased our DJs so now we have two residents Stanley Frank and Juanita MORE!

Also, we’ve made connections with other parties around town, and promoters. Which strengthens the nightlife, and the fringe culture of San Francisco generally. Which is very important to us. We love San Francisco and the creative weird people that land here. We want the nightlife to be vibrant, whether you are at our party or somewhere else. Throwing this party is like having a big fat happy baby, it takes alot of work (fun work) but we love it and it loves us back.

SFBG One of the things I admire most about Some Thing is your willingness to embrace the abstract in terms of theme. You always utilize the phrase Some Thing — like on 9/11 your theme was “If You See Some Thing Say Some Thing” and the themes can always be interpreted a number of ways (although sometimes, hilariously, you make it extremely narrow, like Some Roisin Thing — all Roisin Murphy songs — or other divas I can’t remember at the moment). But I love how you treat the whole theme notion ironically. How do you come up with the ideas?

VVFM Our themes come from anywhere and everywhere often they arise when the three of us are joking around and playing. We know a theme is a good idea if we laugh a lot about it. It’s a collaboration of our weird senses of humor and quirks. People constantly suggest themes to us. We find that if there is a way to misunderstand the assignment a theme can work on many levels, and the show will be suprising. For instance Some Thing Like it Hot could be a lot of different things. For VivvyAnne it was a Marilyn Monroe night, for others it was about spiciness or sexiness, or the beach.

SFBG Why are you going rather upscale with the pageant and having it at Temple? It seems like a big change in a way — are there other changes or ambitious projects coming?

VVFM While Temple is upscale-r than the Stud it is a matter of logistics. We want to produce a large scale event and provide a platform for our performers to really shine for a big audience. There’s a thing that happens when a performer hears 700 folks cheering for them, it’s trans-formative. The Stud is our home, but it couldn’t fit the crowd that we want to draw.

We aren’t leaving our weekly show behind, just augmenting it. For us its not about upscale or downscale, we just wanna have fun and take our family on a big ride. Temple made sense to us because we’ve known [events manager] David Peterson for years, so we are keeping it in the family.

As you know we do SOME ARE CAMP, our summertime weekend in Guerneville, and we will continue with that. We have some designs on international travel and other trips as well. SOME THING can and should be everywhere. Most immediately coming up at the Stud, we have SOME THING NEW, New Year’s Eve with Juanita MORE! and our anniversary on January 14th.

SFBG Run down one of your favorite looks of the year for me.

VVFM Our favorite looks on ourselves are:

Vivvyanne — Long see through gown worn over a flesh toned boy corset made by Mr. David, with bangs and a clip on pony tail.
Glamamore — Rectangual hoop skirt with huge hair floating 8 feet above the ground lipsynching to Nina Hagen
Downey — Teddy bear onesy.

On others:

Monistat — a unicorn for Halloween
Beff Amphetamine — as a Turkey stage diving
Martha T. Lipton — dressed as popcorn by taping white balloons to herself.
Suppositori Spelling — as a rich woman with plastic surgery by gluing her upper lip open to look like surgery gone awry.
Alotta Boutte — Spinning a huge skirt around, so big in fact that it kept hitting the walls.

But our whole family is so beautiful!

One latte, art therapy on the side

Andrew Lam

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December 2, 2010

2

What will your art look like when you have trouble remembering your last painting — or offspring? On the week of next, you’ll be able to sip your Cafe International espresso and ponder the answer. In the cafe’s new art installation, one-third of the pieces on the walls will be by Alzheimer patients (Tues/7).

What you can look forward to: “The pointillist and – let’s call it aboriginal flavor of some of the work can be seen as a common trait,” says Patricia Ris, co-curator of the exhibit. “Some artists will bend their vertical lines, and there seems to be a tendency toward some aspects of surrealism and superimposition. But I’m being very unscientific here.”

Ris (a creative activities coordinator at an SF adult day care center) and gerontologist-theater artist Caitlin Morgan of the Alzheimer’s Association decided to bring attention to their innovative work with seniors by integrating their art into the Care International’s regular wall fare of professional etchers and sketchers.

The pieces are created as part of a therapeutic program that allows patients to take their mind off of memory loss for a moment. With the help of an instructor, Alzheimer’s sufferers create vivid canvas evocations that can bring up elemental reactions in the viewer. In one, a red-headed woman holds a hand over her shocked face — a key indication at discomfort over what is coming out of her mouth.

Morgan also runs weekend camps for these older folk that not only give caretakers a chance to have a 24-hour period to focus on their own lives, but also give the Alzheimer’s patients a chance to try some new things. A recent NPR piece on her work highlighted Morgan’s focus on letting patients do what they feel needs to be done – telling a grandmother who insists she’s late for school that there’s no classes that day, or letting an elderly ex-carpenter work at a chair leg for the better part of an hour with invisible tools. It’s all a part of “reading between the lines,” fostering that interior mind that can seem to be in jeopardy for many people, but that is often just struggling to adjust to a new world.

“Having worked with many Alzheimer’s patients who have lost their word-finding ability, I have seen firsthand, over and over, that art is a way for them to express what words no longer can,” says Morgan, who first came into contact with senior citizen patients while she was performing with a traveling theater troupe. She says that art can be a method of alleviating frustration for those that can’t deal with early symptoms of the disease – as well as a way of describe the weird, wacky world that they are coming into contact with through their memory loss. “The connection between Alzheimer’s and art is one of necessity,” concludes Ris.

Morgan says that the work of Alzheimer’s patients probably shouldn’t be judged by the same yardsticks as other coffee shop work, that it’s primary use is that of therapy for the artist themselves. But I can imagine sitting next to Maurice’s eerie bird-woman, or Patricia’s bouquet of impressionist flowers and reflecting on an entirely different breed of cleansing: that life — even in the midst of degenerative disease — will go on and on, and in color no less.

(From top to bottom, paintings by Tamara, Maurice, and Patricia)

“Painting from the Heart: Alzheimer’s Art”

Opening reception Tues/7 6-9:30 p.m., free

Cafe International

508 Haight, SF

(415) 867-4617

Sip Snack and Shop on Chestnut Street

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 2, 2010

0

The Marina Merchants Association & The San Francisco Bay Guardian Present:

Sip Snack & Shop on Chestnut Street

Thursday, December 2nd from 6-9PM — Start your holiday shopping this season in the Marina, woo! There’ll be great deals and yummy treats all evening.

Ticket includes:
Tastings from over 20 restaurants and more than 25 beverage sponsors! Raffles & discounts of 15% or more at all participating businesses. Live Entertainment!

$30 Tickets available at http://sipsnackshop.eventbrite.com

Ticketed guests may pick up your wristbands, wine glass, and program guide at either of these locations on Dec. 2nd starting at 6PM:
Eastside West – 3154 Fillmore Street (at Greenwich)
Wells Fargo – 2197 Chestnut Street
Kelly Keiser Splendid Interiors – 2381 Chestnut St.

*All proceeds benefit the Marina Merchants Association.

Entertainment
The Clef Divers | The Lollipop Guild, a San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus ensemble | Marina Middle School Band

For a family-friendly affair on the next night check out Chestnuts on Chestnut: http://www.face

Playlist

Andrew Lam

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November 30, 2010

0

JANE BIRKIN

Di Doo Dah

(Light in the Attic)

Arriving in the wake of Light in the Attic’s reissue of the masterful L’Histoire de Melody Nelson, this, Birkin’s first proper — if such a word can be applied to anything involving Serge Gainsbourg — solo album, is a series of light delights. Jean-Claude Vannier trades his characteristic dark orchestration for a string sound that is agile and brighter. On the title track, Birkin revels — in a melancholy way — in her tomboyish characteristics, setting the stage for more pun-filled escapades in androgynous amorousness. Elsewhere, she’s a hitchhiker, a sidewalk cruiser, a hotel trick, a girl on a motorcycle, and other fantasy figurines. The most audacious song is “Les capotes anglaises,” which begins with her blowing up condoms and letting them float off a balcony. The special treat is “Le décadanse,” not so much a failed attempt at creating a dance craze as a successful erotic mockery of dance crazes. There, Gainsbourg appears for another classic duet.

DÂM-FUNK

Adolescent Funk

(Stones Throw)

The album’s name is apt, as these tracks, recorded between 1988 and 1992, capture Dâm-Funk’s sound and outlook in a teenage stage of sonic bumptiousness and lyrical lustiness. The content is spelled out in the titles: songs like “I Like Your Big Azz (Girl),” “Sexy Lady,” and “When I’m With U I Think of Her,” are a world away from the mystic leanings of more recent Dâm-Funk tracks like “Mirrors.” Equally direct are the album’s musings on existence, such as “I Love My Life.” The sound owes a debt to — or is a youthful outgrowth of — the early 1980s electro funk of Prince, Mandre, and others. Dâm-Funk has been honing his use of analog keyboards for a long time — when it comes to Korgs and Casios, he’s no new kid on the block, though he was back when these songs were captured on tape. The homecoming-dance cover art, selected by Peanut Butter Wolf from Dâm’s photo albums, captures the vintage feel perfectly.

THE FLYING LIZARDS

The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards

(Staubgold)

Flying Lizards are best known for creating possibly the cheapest British chart-topper in history, a pots-and-pans 1979 cover of “Money (That’s What I Want),” distinguished by Deborah Evans’ hilarious deadpan vocal. As the title hints, Evans isn’t present on The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards, nor are any other traditional vocalists — instead, main Lizard David Cunningham remixes 1978 source material by Jah Lloyd. The catch was that Cunningham only had a mono master tape to work with, rather than the plethora of tracks usually associated with dub. A lost gem from the early days of reggae-punk fusions and collisions, this album — with loops built from tape-splicing — reveals the dub underpinnings of Cunningham’s brash and innovative work on “Money.” An irreverent vanguard producer, he uses ping-pong balls to create ricochet effects on one track, just as “Money” seems to throw everything but the kitchen sink at listeners.

GIRLS

Broken Dreams Club EP

(True Panther Sounds)

One of the things that makes Girls so special is Christopher Owens’ ability to write so directly about the unavoidable aspects of life without falling into cliché. So it is on “Heartbreaker,” which begins with the observation, “When I look in the mirror/ I’m not as young as I used to be/ I’m not quite as beautiful as when you were next to me.” A newer addition to Girls’ nascent greatness, as displayed on this six-song collection, is their facility at traversing various genres while always sounding like themselves. The reggae and early rock ‘n’ roll fusion “Oh So Fortunate One,” the bossa nova touches of “Heartbreaker,” and the country lament of the superb title track (complete with pedal steel) sound like … Girls. While the sonic palette shifts from song to song — and sometimes within them — more than one composition evokes the anthemic balladry of their 2009 debut album’s “Hellhole Ratrace.” That’s no small achievement. The outlook, though, is less hopeful and more disillusioned. Who knows what the future holds.

GOLD PANDA

Lucky Shiner

(Ghostly International)

There should probably be a moratorium placed on the use of the word panda in group names, but the man known as Gold Panda can be forgiven, based on the sheer zinging energy of this album, which has nothing in common with any Beach Boys-flavored Animal Collective endeavors. One of Gold Panda’s trademarks is a sharply-edited, sped-up approach to vocal samples that makes Kanye West’s sound like screw. Instrumental tracks such as “Vanilla Minus,” “Snow & Taxis,” and the incandescent “Marriage” call the crackling warmth of the Field to mind, but their energy is more hyper, their outlook much more colorful. “Same Dream China” takes the glassy percussion of Pantha Du Prince’s “Stick to My Side” into out there realms — it’s one of a few tracks that maneuvers across a high wire just above exotica and Orientalism. A late contender for techno album of the year.

THE MANTLES

Pink Information

(Mexican Summer)

San Francisco’s the Mantles deliver great straightforward rock ‘n’ roll. Dressed in a cover by local artist Michelle Blade, this EP picks up where their debut album left off, as guitarist-singer Michael Olivares leads the charge with vocals that somehow manage to sneer and snarl and seem amiable at the same time. “Situations” is actually kind of harsh, taking a scenester or gold-digger to task for his or her shallow and failure-fated state of being. “Lily Never Married” is more reflective, a portrait of a spinster that opens into thoughts about family within a changing world. “Waiting Out the Storm” finds the group trying on its epic journey boots, and they fit just fine.

BRIAN MCBRIDE

The Effective Disconnect

(Kranky)

A disturbing subject yields mournful tone poems on this album by Stars of the Lid’s McBride, which collects elements of his soundtrack for Vanishing of the Bees, a 2009 documentary on colony collapse disorder. (Mercifully, voice over by Ellen Page is left off the album.) There’s no flight-of-the-bumblebee whimsy in McBride’s musical testimony to the spirit of the beehive. In the liner notes, he writes that filmmakers George Langworthy and Maryam Henein suggested he focus on “the gloriousness of the bees, the endurance and hardships of traditional beekeepers, pesticides, and the holistic nature of non-industrial agriculture.” These elements aren’t always clearly distinguished, but they are present in a manner that avoids cliché.

ARTHUR RUSSELL AND THE FLYING HEARTS FEATURING ALLEN GINSBERG

Ballad of the Lights

(Presspop Music)

“Ballad of the Lights” was performed by a friend at the late Arthur Russell’s funeral, which is as strong a proof as any that it is an important entry within his vast and diverse songbook. This two-song 10-inch vinyl release couples it with another recording from Russell’s many studio collaborations with Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg’s recitals within “Ballad of the Lights” almost come off superfluous, except that they set the glory of the song’s resurrection-like structure in greater relief. The B-side, “Pacific High Studio Mantras,” is a Buddhist chant accompanied by instrumentation, and perhaps not intended for commercial release. (Ginsberg himself hinged back and forth about whether it should presented in this fashion.) Bob Dylan even figured briefly within Ginsberg’s and Russell’s endeavors, but with so few of them available, it’s hard to discern whether “Ballad of the Lights” is their best work. That it’s pretty great is clear, even if coupled with portraits by Archer Prewitt that play into the more cloying aspects of viewing artists as icons.

THE SOFT MOON

The Soft Moon

(Captured Tracks)

It’s no surprise that the debut album by Bay Area musician Luis Vasquez is dark and densely claustrophobic — nor is it a surprise that it’s excellent. It kicks off with one highlight from his earlier EPs, “Breathe the Fire,” where his whispered vocal — dancing over doom-laden bass and guitar worthy of Pornography-era Cure — manifests maximum sinuous menace. The death dance of “Circles” is more Sister of Mercy-like, but really, Vasquez transcends well-known goth and more obscure dark wave poses and influences through sheer intensity of focus. “Sewer Sickness” might be the album’s darkest and most compelling black pit, as Vasquez’s susurrant vocals take on the quality of a malevolent primal incantation.

SOLAR BEARS

She Was Coloured In

(Planet Mu)

Like Gold Panda, Solar Bears counter a dodgy name by delivering solid tunes. She Was Coloured In is more melodic than most recordings on Planet Mu. “Children of the Times” mixes Johnny Marr-caliber guitar shimmer with a Vocoder chorus that is sure to evoke comparisons to Air. Likewise, the title composition places Air-y elements up against Aphex Twin-like ambience. Enjoyably ham-fisted prog keyboard flourishes dive in and out of techno terrain on the title track. The chord changes and underpinnings of “Head Supernova” evoke Angelo Badalamenti’s scores for David Lynch. The riddle of Solar Bears is whether all these touchstones or influences add up to an act with its own identity or — perhaps no less an achievement in 2010 — a generically beautiful album.

JIM SULLIVAN

UFO

(Light in the Attic)

When an excellent songwriter disappears, his or her voice remains. There is proof of this in the recent issuing of Connie Converse’s priceless previously-private recordings, and now in this reissue of the 1969 debut album by Jim Sullivan, a ten-song collection that fuses orchestral ornamentation and plainspoken brevity. Sullivan vanished into the New Mexico desert one day in 1975, but his musical legacy is being revived, and rightfully so, as the best moments here are reminiscent of better-known contemporaries such as Fred Neil and Tim Hardin. All the doomed young men: there’s something eerie about the funereal string intro of the opening track “Jerome,” yet Sullivan’s music also possesses vitality and good cheer. Best of all is “UFO,” a graceful piece of baroque pop (and quintessential example of a California paranormal mindset), adorned with echo-laden effects that Malibu kinfolk and relative survivor Linda Perhacs might appreciate.

WILD NOTHING

Golden Haze EP

(Captured Tracks)

Captured Tracks is home to some of the most beautiful guitar sounds being made today, thanks to Beach Fossils and this group, who see no shame in sheer ’80s-ness. Wild Nothing hail from California, but England meets Australia (and gets along with it better than usual) on “Your Rabbit Feet,” as Slowdive-gone-fast guitar radiates around a vocal that’s equal parts Morrissey and Robert Forster in its offhand debonair delivery. “Take Me In” has another immediate, whirligig guitar melody, and a chorus as big as 100,000 violins. Gorgeous stuff.

The America’s Cup rip-off

Andrew Lam

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November 30, 2010

10

EDITORIAL Gigantic international sporting events tend to be great fun for the people who attend. They make great promotional videos for the host city. They can generate big revenue and profits for some private businesses.

But when the party’s over and the bills come due, these extravaganzas aren’t always a boon to the municipal treasury. And at a time when San Francisco can’t afford to pay for teachers and nurses and recreation directors, the supervisors ought to be giving much greater scrutiny to the deal that could bring the America’s Cup yacht races to the bay.

In 2009, as the city of Chicago was preparing an unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Olympics, the Chicago Tribune took a look at what the 1996 games had meant to another U.S. city, Atlanta. The Trib’s conclusion: lots of private outfits and big institutions did well — the Atlanta Braves got a new baseball stadium and the Georgia Institute of Techology got a new swimming and diving center — but the city itself didn’t get much money at all.

That’s exactly the way the deal that Mayor Gavin Newsom negotiated with Larry Ellison, the multibillionaire database mogul and yachtsman, is shaping up. A shadowy new corporation controlled by Ellison would get control of more than 30 acres of prime waterfront land worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The city could lose $42 million, and possibly as much as $128 million.

We don’t dispute the huge economic impact of holding an event that could attract more than 1 million visitors to the Bay Area. Those people will spend money in bars, restaurants, shops, and hotels. The waterfront improvements and increased tourism will create, according to economic reports, 8,840 jobs.

But as the Board of Supervisors budget analyst points out, those are not permanent, full-time jobs; much of the increased employment needs would be met by increased productivity (bartenders and waiters handling more customers than usual), overtime, and temporary jobs. And again: Most of the benefits will go to the private businesses in the tourist industry. The city’s increased tax revenue won’t be nearly enough to cover the expenses. Even if the America’s Cup group raises $32 million — and that’s not guaranteed in the deal — the city would still be down $10 million.

So in effect, San Francisco is preparing to spend $42 million of taxpayer money (and to forego as much as $86 million more by giving away waterfront land that could be developed) to benefit the sixth-richest person in the world, a new company he’s going to create and control, and the tourist-related businesses in town.

Oh, and to make it even juicier: the city is promising to seek state approval for Ellison to build condos or a hotel on the waterfront — something nobody else can legally do.

This doesn’t strike us as a terribly good deal.

It looks worse when you consider how the negotiations proceeded: The mayor and other city officials insisted they were scrambling to give Ellison everything he wanted to make sure that San Francisco beat out two other competitors. But as Rebecca Bowe reports on page 12, there were no other formal bids; Ellison’s team, based at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, was only negotiating with one city, San Francisco.

There are alternative proposals. The Telegraph Hill Dwellers Association wants to see the race complex moved from the Central Waterfront to the Northern Waterfront, and there may be ways of saving money. And Sup. Ross Mirkarimi points out that if Ellison wins the races in 2013 and comes back again the next time around, San Francisco could become what Newport, R.I., once was: a repeat host to an event that will bring more and more benefits as time goes on. That, however, involves a number of risks and variables that are far from certain at this point.

We’d like to know a lot more about what Ellison’s development plans are. We’d like to know who, exactly, will be running his new corporation that will get development rights for a couple of nice waterfront parcels.

But before the supervisors sign off on any deal, they need to set a bottom line: this can’t cost the city any net revenue. The San Francisco city treasury and local taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing an event created by and for the very wealthy.

The biggest fish

Andrew Lam

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November 30, 2010

6

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Shortly after Larry Ellison, the billionaire CEO of Oracle Corp. and owner of the BMW Oracle Racing Team, won the 33rd America’s Cup off the coast of Valencia, Spain, in February 2010, a reception was held in his honor in the rotunda at San Francisco City Hall.

The event drew members of Ellison’s sailing crew, business and political heavyweights such as former Secretary of State George Schultz, and other VIPs. Attendees posed for photographs with the tall, glittering silver trophy at the base of the grand staircase.

As part of the celebration, Ellison helped Mayor Gavin Newsom into an official BMW Oracle Racing Team jacket, and Newsom granted Ellison a key to the city, a symbolic honor usually reserved for heads of state and the San Francisco Giants after they won the World Series. Shortly after, the mayor and the guest of honor, whom Forbes magazine ranked as the sixth-richest person in the world, sat down for a face-to-face.

That meeting marked the beginning of the city’s bid to host the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco in 2013. Since securing the Cup, Ellison has made no secret of his desire to stage the 159-year-old sailing match against the iconic backdrop of the San Francisco Bay, a natural amphitheater that could be ringed with spectators gathered ashore while media images of the stunningly expensive yachts are broadcast internationally.

Newsom and other elected officials have feverishly championed the idea, touting it as an opportunity for a boost to the region’s anemic economy. The city’s Budget & Legislative Analyst projects roughly $1.2 billion in economic activity associated with the event — the real prize, as far as business interests are concerned. It would also create the equivalent of 8,840 jobs, mostly in the form of overtime for city workers and short-term gigs for the private sector.

While the idea has won preliminary support from most members of the Board of Supervisors, serious questions are beginning to arise as the finer details of the agreement emerge and the date for a final decision draws near.

Ellison and the race organizers would be granted control of 35 acres of prime waterfront property in exchange for selecting San Francisco as the venue for the Cup and investing $150 million into Port of San Francisco infrastructure. But the event would result in a negative net impact to city coffers.

Hosting the event and meeting Ellison’s demands for property would cost the city about $128 million, according the Budget & Legislative Analyst, just as city leaders grapple with closing a projected $712 million deficit in the budget cycle spanning 2011 and 2012.

Part of the impact is an estimated $86 million in lost revenue associated with rent-free leases the city would enter into with Ellison’s LLC, the America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA). In exchange for selecting San Francisco as a venue and investing in port infrastructure, ACEA would win long-term control of Piers 30-32, Pier 50, and Seawall Lot 330 — waterfront real estate owned by the Port of San Francisco, with development rights included. Seawall Lot 330, a 2.5-acre triangular parcel bordered by the Embarcadero at the base of Bryant Street, would either be leased long-term or transferred outright to ACEA.

The most vociferous opponent of the America’s Cup plan is Sup. Chris Daly, who has voiced scathing criticism of the notion that the city would subsidize a billionaire’s yacht race at a time of fiscal instability. “The question is whether or not the package that San Francisco’s putting together is good or bad for the city,” Daly told the Guardian, “and whether or not it’s the best deal the city can get.”

THE CREW

According to a Forbes calculation from September 2010, Ellison’s net worth is $27 billion, making him several times wealthier than the City and County of San Francisco, which has a total annual budget of about $6 billion. Ellison reportedly spent $100 million and a decade pursuing the Cup.

As soon as Ellison expressed interest in bringing the Cup to San Francisco, Newsom began charting a course. Park Merced architect and Newsom campaign contributor Craig Hartman of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was tapped to reimagine the piers south of the Bay Bridge as the central hub for the event, and soon Hartman’s vision for a viewing area beneath a whimsical sail-like canopy was forwarded to the media.

The mayor also issued letters of invitation to form the America’s Cup Organizing Committee (ACOC), a group that would be tasked with soliciting corporate funding for the event. ACOC was convened as a nonprofit corporation, and it’s a powerhouse of wealthy, politically connected, and influential members.

Hollywood mogul Steve Bing, who’s donated millions to the Democratic Party and funded former President Bill Clinton’s 2009 trip to North Korea to rescue two imprisoned American journalists, is on the committee. So is Tom Perkins, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, billionaire, and former mega-yacht owner who was once dubbed “the Captain of Capitalism” by 60 Minutes. George Schultz and his wife, Charlotte, are members. Thomas J. Coates, a powerful San Francisco real estate investor who dumped $1 million into a 2008 California ballot initiative to eliminate rent control, also has a seat. Coates resurfaced in the November 2010 election when he poured $200,000 into local anti-progressive ballot measures and the campaigns of economically conservative supervisorial candidates.

Billionaire Warren Hellman, San Francisco socialite Dede Wilsey, and former Newsom press secretary Peter Ragone are also on ACOC. There are representatives from Wells Fargo, AT&T, and United Airlines. One ACOC member directs a real estate firm that generated $2.5 billion in revenue in 2009. Another is Martin Koffel, CEO of URS Corp., an energy industry heavyweight that made $9.2 billion in revenue in 2009. There’s Richard Kramlich, a cofounder of a Menlo Park venture capital firm that controls $11 billion in “committed capital.” And then there’s Mike Latham, CEO of iShares, which traffics in pooled investment funds worth about $509 billion, according to a BusinessWeek article.

There’s also an honorary branch of ACOC composed of elected officials including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and others. Their role is to help the Cup interface with various governmental agencies to control air space, secure areas of the bay exclusively for the event, set up international broadcasts, and bring foreign crew members and fancy sailboats into the United States without a hassle from immigration authorities.

ACOC is expected to raise $270 million in corporate sponsorships for the America’s Cup. That money will be funneled into the budget for ACEA. It’s unclear whether the $150 million ACEA is required to invest in city piers will be derived from ACOC’s fund drive.

The city also anticipates that ACOC would raise $32 million to help defray municipal costs. “However,” the Budget & Legislative Analyst report cautions, “there is no guarantee that any of the anticipated $32 million in private contributions will be raised.”

A seven-member board, chaired by sports management executive Richard Worth, will direct the ACEA, according to Newsom’s economic advisors, but the other six seats have yet to be filled. ACEA’s newly minted CEO is Craig Thompson, a native Californian who previously worked with a governing body for the Olympics and has helped coordinate major sporting events internationally. In an interview with sports blog Valencia Sailing, Thompson provided some insight on why major corporations might be inspired to donate to the cause. Basically, the Cup is the holy grail of networking events.

“It’s a very difficult economic situation we are going through, and it’s not the best time to be looking for sponsors for a major event,” Thompson acknowledged. “On the other hand, the America’s Cup is one of the very few activities … that offer access to really top-level individuals in terms of education or economic situation. The America’s Cup is a unique platform for a lot of companies that want access to those individuals that are very difficult to reach under normal circumstances. I can tell you for example that Oracle is very pleased with the marketing opportunity the America’s Cup has presented to them. They invite their best customers and are very successful in turning the America’s Cup into a platform for generating business. The same thing can be true for a lot of different companies that need access to wealthy individuals.”

But should San Francisco taxpayers really be subsidizing a networking event for the some of the business world’s richest and most powerful players?

TRANSFORMING THE WATERFRONT

Over the past four months, Newsom’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) has been negotiating with race organizers to hash out a Host City Agreement outlining the terms of bringing the America’s Cup to San Francisco.

The proposal will go before the Board of Supervisor’s Budget & Finance Committee on Dec. 8, and to the full board Dec. 14. A final decision on whether San Francisco will host the race is expected by Dec. 31. ACEA and ACOC will each sign onto the agreement with the City and County of San Francisco.

From the beginning, the event was envisioned as “the twin transformation,” according to OEWD — the America’s Cup would be transformed by attracting greater crowds and heightened commercial interest while San Francisco’s crumbling piers would be revitalized through ACEA’s $150 million investment in port infrastructure.

The plan paints downtown San Francisco as the “America’s Cup Village” during the sailing events, and a study produced by Beacon Economics estimates that the financial boost would come primarily from hordes of visitors flocking to the event — more than 500,000 are expected to attend. The city expects a minimum of 45 race days, including one pre regatta in 2011 and one in 2012 (or two in 2012 if the one in 2011 doesn’t happen), a challenger series in 2013, and a final match in 2013.

The transformation of the city’s waterfront would be dramatic. In addition to the rent-free leases for Piers 30-32, 50, and Seawall Lot 330, ACEA would be granted exclusive use of much of the central waterfront, water, and piers around Mission Bay, and water and land near Islais Creek during the course of the event. Under the Host City Agreement, race organizers would have use of water space spanning Piers 14 to 22 ½; Piers 28, 38, 40, 48, and 54, a portion of Seawall Lot 337, and Pier 80, where a temporary heliport would be sited.

Seawall Lot 330, a 2.5-acre parcel valued by the Port at $33 million, lies at the base of Bryant Street along the Embarcadero and has a nice unimpeded view of the bay. Piers 30-32 span 12.5 acres, and Pier 50 is 20 acres.

The Budget & Legislative Analyst’s study predicts that the ACEA could opt to build a 250-unit condo high-rise on Seawall Lot 330, deemed the most lucrative use. Under the Host City Agreement, the city would be obligated to remove Tidelands Trust provisions from Seawall Lot 330, which guarantee under state law that waterfront property is used for maritime functions or public benefit. Tweaking the law for a single deal would require approval from the State Lands Commission, but Newsom, in his new capacity as lieutenant governor, would cast one of the three votes on that body.

The combination of construction, demolition, lost rent revenue, police and transit, environmental analysis, and other event costs would hit the city with a bill totaling around $64 million, according to the Budget & Legislative Analyst study. Since city government would recoup around $22 million in revenue from hosting the Cup, the net impact would be around $42 million. That doesn’t include the potential $32 million assistance from ACOC.

At the same time, the city would stand to lose another $86.2 million by granting long-term development rights to 35 acres of Port property for 66 to 75 years without charging rent, bringing the total cost to $128 million. OEWD representatives played down that loss in potential revenue, saying past attempts to redevelop piers hadn’t been successful because none could handle the upfront investment to revitalize the crumbling piers.

The Host City Agreement has raised skepticism among Port staff and the Budget Analyst that tempered initial enthusiasm for the event. “The terms of the Host City Agreement will require significant city capital investment and will result in substantial lost revenue to the Port,” a Port study determined. Faith in that plan seems to be eroding and it may be scrapped for an alternative plan that’s cheaper for the city.

The Northern Waterfront alternative substitutes Piers 19-29 as the primary location for the event and eliminates the Mission Bay piers from the equation. Under this scenario, ACEA would invest an estimated $55 million, instead of $150 million. In exchange, it would receive long-term development rights to Piers 30-32 and Seawall 330 on “commercially reasonable terms,” according to a Port staff report.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu requested that the Port explore that second option more fully, and the Port report notes that it would reduce the strain on Port revenue. The Northern Waterfront plan would cost the Port a total of $15.8 million, instead of $43 million, the report notes. Port staff recommended in its report that both the original agreement and the alternative be forwarded to the full board for consideration.

PHANTOM BIDS?

Under the competition’s official protocol, Ellison, as defender of the Cup, has unilateral power to decide where the next regatta will be held. Race organizers have said it’s a toss-up between San Francisco and an unnamed port in Italy — though it’s anyone’s guess how seriously a European site is being considered by a team headquartered at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, a stone’s throw from the Golden Gate Bridge.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle article published in early September, Newsom issued a memo stating that San Francisco was competing against Spain and Italy to become the chosen venue. Valencia was said to be offering a “generous financial bid,” and a group in Rome was rumored to have offered some $645 million to bring the Cup to Italian shores, the memo noted. It was a call for the city to present Ellison with the most attractive deal possible to compel him to pick San Francisco.

Speaking at an Oct. 4 Land Use Committee hearing, OEWD director Jennifer Matz told supervisors: “San Francisco was designated the only city under consideration back in July. Now we are competing against the prime minister of Italy and the king of Spain.”

However, the veracity of those claims came into question in mid-November. Daly, incensed that the Mayor’s Office never communicated with him about the Cup despite wanting to hold it in his sixth supervisorial district, launched his own personal investigation. He fired off an e-mail to Team Alinghi, a prior America’s Cup winner, and began communicating with other European contacts until he got in touch with someone in Valencia’s municipal government.

“I got a call back from a representative who basically said I should know something,” Daly recounted. Valencia, his source said, never submitted a bid to host the Cup. At a Nov. 13 press conference, Valencia’s mayor Rita Barbera confirmed this claim, according to a Spanish press report, expressing disappointment that the city had been eliminated from consideration as a host venue. “There was no formal bidding process,” she charged. She also denied reports that any money had been offered.

Meanwhile, the Budget Analyst was unable to find any concrete evidence that other host city bids had been submitted. “We have nothing to confirm that other offers have been made,” Fred Brousseau of the Budget Analyst’s office told the Guardian.

In response to Guardian queries about whether the Mayor’s Office had evidence that Italy had indeed submitted a bid, Project Manager Kyri McClellan of the OEWD forwarded a one-page resolution from the Italian prime minister assuring race organizers that there would be tax breaks, accelerated approvals, and other perks guaranteed if the Cup came to Italy. However, an Italian journalist who looked over the resolution told the Guardian that the document didn’t appear to be a formal bid, merely a response to a query from race organizers.

Daly has his doubts that either Valencia or the Italian port were ever seriously considered. “I think they were phantom bids,” he said, “created by either Larry Ellison or the Newsom administration … to place pressure on the Board of Supervisors.”

A representative from OEWD told the Guardian that officials have no reason to doubt that the European bids, and accompanying offers of money, were real. However, the city wasn’t privy to race organizer’s discussions about possible European venues. A final decision is expected before the end of the year.

Daly hasn’t held back in voicing opposition to the America’s Cup and blasted it at an Oct. 5 Board meeting. “This tacking around Sup. Daly will not get you in calmer waters,” Daly said. “I told myself I was not going to make a yachting reference. But I will bring a white squall onto this race and onto this Cup, and I will do everything in my power starting on Jan. 8 to make sure these boats never see that water.”

WIND IN WHOSE SAILS?

The America’s Cup would undoubtedly bring economic benefit to the area and create work at a time when jobs are scarce. Police officers would get overtime. Restaurant servers would be scrambling to keep up with demand. Construction workers seeking temporary employment would get gigs. Hotels would rake it in. Pier 39 would be booming. However, the Budget Analyst report cautioned: “It is unlikely that any labor benefits would remain in the years after the America’s Cup event is completed.”

Certain small businesses would catch a windfall. John Caine, owner the Hi Dive bar at Pier 28, didn’t hesitate when asked about his opinion on the city hosting the Cup. “Please come fix our piers. It’s a shout-out to Larry Ellison,” he said. Caine said he supports the America’s Cup bid 100 percent, and is excited about the boost it could give his business. The Hi Dive would not be required to relocate under the proposal, he added.

At the same time, other small business would be negatively affected, particularly those among the 87 Port tenants who would be forced to relocate to make way for the America’s Cup. The Budget Analyst’s report also notes that retail businesses in the area whose services had no appeal to race-goers might suffer from reduced access to their stores, since crowding and street closures would shut out their customers.

The sailing community has rallied in support of the Cup, and Newsom has received hundreds of e-mails from yachting enthusiasts from as far away as Hawaii and Florida promising to travel to San Francisco with all their sailing friends to watch the world-famous vessels compete.

Ariane Paul, commodore of a classic wooden boat club called the Master Mariners Benevolent Association, told the Guardian that she was excited about the opportunity for the America’s Cup to showcase sailing on the bay. “In the long term, it’s a win-win,” Paul said. “It would be great to have that boost.” As for the financial terms of the deal, she remained confident, saying, “I don’t think that the city is going to let Larry Ellison walk all over them.”

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is often politically aligned with Daly, but not when it comes to the issue of the America’s Cup. As a kid growing up on the island of Jamestown, a tiny blue-collar community located off the coast of Rhode Island, Mirkarimi learned to sail and occasionally spent summers working as a deckhand. Every few years, the America’s Cup would come to nearby Newport, transforming the area into a bustling hub and bringing the locals into contact with famous sailors. It left an everlasting impression. When the BMW Oracle Racing Team secured the 33rd Cup off the coast of Valencia, Mirkarimi did a double-take when he saw a photograph of the winning team — his childhood friend from Rhode Island was on the crew.

Mirkarimi told the Guardian he supports bringing the Cup to San Francisco because of the economic boost the area will receive — if the Cup continues to return to San Francisco as it did for 53 years in Newport, he said, the city could look forward to a free gift in improved revenue associated with the event, and that could help quiet the tired annual debates over painful budget cuts.

At the same time, he acknowledged that the Budget Analyst report had prompted what he called healthy skepticism. “I think the onus is on the city and Cup organizers to make sure the benefits far, far outweigh the investment,” Mirkarimi said. “This effort is not just about making one of the wealthiest men in the United States that much more wealthy … That can’t be the case,” he said. “It has to be about what will the Cup do in order to be a win-win for the people of San Francisco.” Mirkarimi said he expected scrutiny of the details of the agreement at the Dec. 8 Budget and Finance Committee hearing: “Naturally, in this time of economic downturn … people want to know, what’s the outlay of cost, and what are we going to get in return?”

The Dozen

Andrew Lam

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November 24, 2010

0

DANCE The Hip-Hop Dance Fest has grown up. What started 12 years ago as a showcase for local crews and studios has become an excellently balanced showcase of national and international artists. Only four of this year’s 11 participants came from the Bay Area. Sad to say, the sorriest performance all night long came from a local one. Still, the future for hip-hop dance on stage looks brighter than ever.

One of the most moving and wildly applauded works on Nov. 19 was South African dancer/choreographer Jane Sekonya-John’s deftly and economically choreographed Spoti. She donned an old spoti — fisherman’s cap — and transformed herself from a limping, bent old woman into a victorious (though scar-bearing) freedom fighter. Another highlight was Raphael Xavier’s almost oppressively serious Black Canvas, in which breakdancing, much of it floor-bound, became the paint that portrayed three men in fractious, competing, and cooperating relationships. It’s one of the best examples I’ve seen of hip-hop’s theatrical expressiveness.

Los Angeles’ exuberant VersaStyle Dance Company’s Legacy paid tribute to hip-hop’s ancestry by weaving live dance with beautifully chosen video clips from past greats such as Bill Bailey (inventor of the moonwalk), Fred Astaire, Peg Leg Bates, and the Nicholas Brothers. DS Players from San Jose returned with Before Old School, a tribute to the ballroom style of the 1930s and ’40s. Anything this trio touches is blessed with understated wit and a sense of camaraderie.

Also from Southern California, One Step Ahead presented Tables and Chairs, which brought split-second timing and a sometimes humorous approach to the subject of an argumentative family. The kitchen table became the locus for blame-assigning, with flips, kicks, and leaps as synchronized as clockwork. Everyone took as much as they got. Bringing up the L.A. contingent was the b-boying duet between Rock Steady Crew’s YNOT and BailRok, a pint-size virtuoso with a mountains of attitude. Remember the name.

Pro-Phenomen, seven men from France, closed the program with a performance of Signum that justifiably brought down the house. Thematically, the piece had something to do with the preservation of freedom. Impeccably performed, the dancers’ silken combinations and fabulous sense of timing were mesmerizing. Gestures ran down a line or through a circle. Helicopter-like movement popped up like an afterthought from otherwise engaged groups, and tiny dramatic or tender duets exploded out of nowhere and evaporated as quickly. Huge stretches went into military-type push-ups; dancers “fainted,” were thrown, or ended up on the sidelines.

The 12th Hip-Hop Fest also embraced more traditional presentations. Future Shock Bay Area, a large studio company, opened the evening with Rappin Da Bay. The choreography broke what could have been tedious unisons into ever-shifting small ensembles, with a spot for a soloist or two. Perhaps not terribly original, Rappin stayed vital through its performers skill and commitment. SoulForce Dance Company enlivened its choreography by assigning it to characters such as Brandy Logue as “the Elder” and Meegan Hertensteiner as “Miss Meow Meow,” among others. The piece was an amusing, successful mashup of individuality.

Mind over Matter was this year’s serious misstep. Choreographer Allan Frias, who recently appeared on So You Think You Can Dance, has made it something of a specialty to go for sex and violence. Psyke was probably inspired by gangsta rap and underground aspects of gay culture. (The performance was announced as having “adult material.”) Raunch — in this case, simulated violence against women and simulated sex — can be funny, ironic, and pornographic. What it should never be is boring.

Facebook or die?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 24, 2010

11

arts@sfbg.com

CULTURE There’s a party going on and I’m not there. But everyone else is, and I can see it from here — it’s that warm, golden light at the end of this tunnel. The door is half open, spilling a glittery radiance into the chill darkness, as if to say: Hey, baby. Why don’t you come back inside? No need to be lonely out there in the cold. My body tenses — will I move through the blackness? Will I meet the light?

Hell no. You can’t make a big fuss about quitting Facebook, then come back crying. Plus, I admit I lost it toward the end — in a self-destructive fit of Facebook rage, impulsively running my mouth and hammering out declarations on absolutely anything, even cheese.

After two years of playing nice with 500 mouth-breathers all stuck on one train, a prickly impatience began to emerge, resulting in the rise of emotionally ruinous fights about burritos, white people, rape, and mites. On Facebook I witnessed a level of savagery that can only be compared to how a grizzly bear kills a man: by tearing out his chest in one clean rip of the claw. You couldn’t even talk about deviled eggs without someone calling you ignorant. Like the Donner party, there was nothing left to feast on but ourselves.

I fought to stay alive amid the carnage by using Facebook as the means to disseminate inflammatory statements about castration, or to pick meaningless fights with bro-hams, particularly those who couldn’t spell — then I’d leave each and every one like a bullet-ridden coyote flung over a barbed wire fence. It was, without a doubt, one of the most spectacular times of my life.

My unquestioning, slave-like allegiance to this singular corporate platform started off so pleasant: it was a giddy and polite neverending tea party with sugary treats, Seinfeld-y gosh-it’s-Monday whimsy, and astute weather and slow-drip coffee observations. I got to reconnect with many wonderful people from my past, the majority of whom I guess I met in a blacked-out state. For the very first time, I learned the names of people I slept with, temped for, and still owed money to. I even made some brand-new best friends — none of whom I’ll ever hear from again. But the intensely codependent commenter relationships we nurtured were beautiful and perfect — beacons of dependability in this big, scary world.

And wasn’t it nice to see how the few losers I actually knew had totally cleaned up and sold out? Wasn’t it inspiring to read the self-affirmations of people who had lost their dreams? Or to know that, despite how very, very extremely busy everyone claimed to be — creating great works of art, penning riveting novels, and churning out dope beats — they could still find the time to fire off a million misspelled run-on sentences about their “process” between the hours of five and seven a.m.?

Finally, I was relieved of ever having to LOL face to face again. Facebook is a pinnacle of civilization that is fully accessible while taking a dump — and there isn’t a person on earth who doesn’t find that reassuring. Only bums, waiters, and asexual religious martyrs don’t mind being breathed on anymore.

Indeed, Facebook alleviates all pain associated with sustained eye contact, accidental brushes of the thigh, vomit splashes on the chin, moles, wrinkles, puffy eyes, and talking out loud. You can even end longstanding feuds without uttering a word by offering the passive-aggressive overture of the message-free add, or the quiet headfuck of the like. Clearly, Facebook is to friendship as Hitler is to spring.

Which brings me to the fakemance with Dope Dancer. It seemed so real at first — even an illiterate would have been blinded by the powerful vibes that scampered off the interface when we’d go at it — feverishly jousting and teasing one another in an unselfconscious flurry of authentic desire, which was the intimate prelude to … a follow-up like. It was our unique way of saying “I got you, babe” without actually having to.

I’d met Dope Dancer nearly 20 years ago in a moment of semiconscious raving. Then — as now, according to his bustling wall — he was an international superstar rave DJ (who now peddles cartoon collectibles on Haight Street sidewalks every weekday from noon till six — help a brother out, and don’t bring $20s), and we’re both pretty sure we held hands once, while on E in 1993 at the Endup.

Staring at his outdated profile pic on Facebook all day long was a seductive flashback to the glory years, when I could party for three days and still look cute. When all I had to worry about was finding the next party, the shortest dress. Real life had changed, but the fantasies had stayed the same.

And as with my commenter BFFs, transitioning to person-to-person contact was an awkward conundrum neither of us was equipped to handle. After six months of Facebook foreplay, we decided to interface live — specifically, under one roof, in the same room, on the same couch, at the same time.

However, face-to-face we had little to say. Oh, that’s not fair: we talked about Facebook. The sexual tension that climaxed onscreen fizzled into the needling desire to check my phone. There on his couch in plain daylight, we saw each other for what we were: two imperfect human beings. And that, of course, was a letdown. I actually didn’t mind the missing teeth and the curious forehead dent, details that never surfaced in his enormous collection of attractive profile pix. Even now, I am still too embarrassed to admit the truth: the pretend magic we shared could only flourish within the corporate safety zone of Facebook.

“Wake up, Roberta!” I told myself, “None of this is real. These tweekers aren’t your friends.” Facebook is simply a place to collectively drown in a wash of nostalgia and endless jibber jabber — solving nothing and doing even less. It is a stadium full of cracked-out narcissists, each with a podium and a mic, none of whom have anything interesting to say anymore but me. Of course, nearly every post I crafted was a jewel, a living and breathing Mona Lisa, even toward the end when I couldn’t stop because of the OCD.

Which begs the question: Was I sharing thoughts with a supportive, ever-expanding community, or squandering precious seminal fluid among strangers from the past?

After whipping out a particularly snappy status update one recent morning (“If eyes really could burn holes, how many assholes would I have by now?”), I thought, “Shouldn’t I be transcribing this shit into some kind of book — maybe one made with raw silk and pressed papyrus — instead of creating free content all day long for some rich asshole’s website?”

For certain, there would be no Mona Lisa if da Vinci had been a total Fakecracker. In Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, the clearly bi-curious Sigmund Freud argues that the artist was able to achieve supreme genius status through the sublimation of his sexual urges, which he redirected into an obsession for making art. In other words, if da Vinci had been banging court jesters all day, there’d be no creamy side sauce for that The Last Supper. And let’s be honest — Facebook is nothing if not a substitute for the sex, cigarettes, and crack. Therefore, if da Vinci would not fuck, Seawhore would not post.

So like the stately albatross who knows in an instant she must fly east, or the lone soldier instinctively shifting course, I knew deep in my body the time to go was now (or maybe after posting two weeks of heartbreaking farewells).

Of course, the unexpected threat of dismemberment also helped speed my departure.

Alleged friend Louise Haghole showed up at my house last Friday night, unwittingly interrupting a super-juicy, hot-button Facebook gangbang that had placed me against 20 or so misinformed assholes, one of whom called me “stupid.” Stupid! Well, I never! Haghole sat at the kitchen table drinking wine and listening to me as I plotted the harshest kick to the balls.

“Oh, maybe I should wait until the morning to bring up misogyny — after they’ve slept on all my points. That way they’ll never know what hit ’em. Or — “

“Sit down, Roberta!” shouted Haghole. “You touch that computer and I’ll hack your arms off. It is the only way to keep you away.”

“Well, hmph!” was the best I could manage because, goddammit, Haghole was right: Nothing would stop me from battling for the last word — over and over again — except the complete removal of my arms. And that just seemed kind of sad.

And I thought, “Who the fuck are these people, anyway?” Whoever they were, they bore no significance whatsoever to my everyday life, and yet, here I was having a full-blown panic attack. I was mortified.

The eve I revealed plans for immediate departure, I received a litany of pathetic pleadings and hysterical OMG/WTFs. They all cried, “Don’t do it, Roberta!” “That’s too drastic,” and “How could you leave?” — as if this was a real place.

And I thought, “Really, guys? I mean, it’s just Facebook. We haven’t maxed out on human invention yet, have we?”

Later that evening, after one last romp across the clean blue-and-white screen, I permanently deleted my account. To be specific, I started the deletion process — there’s a 14-day grace period, during which you can always change your mind, baby.

I woke up the next morning with a pep in my step, as if I’d just retired after 70 years of service at a meat-packing plant, with a huge marijuana, cat, and vibrator pension in the Bahamas. The very real stress of constant communication evaporated overnight, and suddenly I could fully relax. From now on, I could spend every online moment reading about LiLo on Dlisted.

But after a few days of silence — aside from a haphazard speakerphone conversation with Haghole, who wondered if I’d moved out of town — I realized that I’d completely fallen off the face of the earth. Clean disappeared. I didn’t know shit about anything — like who was DJing at the Nordstrom Rack happy hour, who hated Tuesdays in addition to Mondays, and who was still verklempt about that nasty oil-spill fish massacre. And no one bothered to call, e-mail or text — none of them. I had returned to the pre-Facebook level of socializing — which meant only hearing from the same crusty old scabs you can’t ever get rid of. Come to think of it, those people were eerily absent, too.

I began to notice that, although life still had some meaning, it lacked all poignancy. For what good is seeing a hummingbird fluttering in the bright yellow sun if you can’t instantly manhandle the moment into a corny update? And who cares if you’re depressed, lost, or oversexed if you can’t insinuate it on Facebook and then reap the empty reward of “Oh, I feel you” feedback from 500 million strangers?

World tragedy took on a lackluster appeal. I found I did not give a rat’s ass about female genital mutilation or baby seal slaughter if I could not share my wise impressions with 500 other users. Which made me think I’d been a faker all along. And what about all those perfect status updates that no longer have a home? Where do they go to die? In this silky hand-sewn notebook? Oh, please. I can’t be bothered with that.

But in truth, the most annoying thing about leaving Facebook hasn’t been the absence of hilarious “What Famous Lazy Slag Am I” quiz results or even the social alienation. It’s the realization that everyone I know, or sort of know, is a sheep. Facebook is for them, as is it for one in every 12 human beings, the umbilical cord of all communication, and to sever it is to die. No one has the balls to take the risk. Yes, it’s cold out here all alone. But don’t mind me — I still have four more days of pre-deletion limbo. I can still come back, and I know everything will be exactly as I left it, smartly formatted in blue.

Alerts

Andrew Lam

-

November 23, 2010

0

alert@sfbg.com

THURSDAY, NOV. 25

Indigenous People’s Thanksgiving

Join this annual sunrise celebration on Alcatraz Island to honor Mother Earth, the spirit of popular resistance to exploitation, and generations past and future. Sponsored by the International Indian Treaty Council and American Indian Contemporary Arts and featuring guest speakers, drummers, dancers, and MC Lakota Harden.

4:45-6 a.m., $14 (for adult ferry ticket)

Pier 33, SF

(415) 981-7625

FRIDAY, NOV. 26

Malling of the Sacred

Join this Black Friday protest at Emeryville’s Bay Street Mall. The mall was built on top of an ancient Ohlone burial site, and even after years of protest actions by the local Native American community, the construction of the mall was completed after the human remains were unearthed.

11a.m.–3p.m., free

Shellmound and Ohlone, Emeryville

(510 )575-8408

Fur-free Friday

Thousands of animals are slaughtered for their fur each year. Join in a peaceful protest against the fur industry on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Noon–2 p.m., free

Union Square, SF

(415) 448-0058

SATURDAY, NOV. 27

South of the Border

Director Oliver Stone journeys south to interview Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to investigate how the United States media has depicted him. He also speaks with several other South American presidents and creates an eye-opening documentary in the process.

1:30–4 p.m., free

Fremont Library

2400 Stevenson, Fremont

(510) 745-1400

TUESDAY, NOV. 30

Talking Trotsky

Join the Freedom Socialist Party for a screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s 1927 film The History of the Russian Revolution. The film is part of the Leon Trotsky discussion circle and encapsulates the world’s first socialist uprising.

7 p.m., $2–$5 sliding scale

New Valencia Hall

625 Larkin, Room 202, SF

(415) 864-1278

Death of Liberalism

Come hear journalist and author Chris Hedges discuss his latest book, The Death of the Liberal Class, which chronicles the gradual corruption and death of liberalism in the U.S., which was for decades a defense against the worst excesses of power.

6:30 p.m., $12

First Congregation Church

2345 Channing, Berk.

(510)967-4495

Green Film Festival

Enjoy a lively selection of short films including Matt Briggs; The Krill is Gone, which raises awareness of the growing threat to the world’s oceans, and Dive, in which filmmaker Jeremy Seifert and friends Dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of Los Angeles supermarkets. 6–9p.m., $10–$20 sliding scale

Ninth Street Independent Film Center

145 Ninth St., SF

www.sfgreenfilmfest2011launch.eventbrite.com

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

How California exports water

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

-

November 16, 2010

0

By Patrick Porgans

In 2009, the last year of the so-called great California drought, a strange thing happened: Sacramento Valley growers produced a near record amount of rice, and down south, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Met), the largest urban water supplier in the nation, experienced record-breaking water sales. All this despite repeated mainstream media accounts in 2009 of an economy-wrecking dust bowl water shortage.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the California rice harvest in 2009 was up 9 percent from the previous year and approached the record crop of 2004.

Rice consumes a great deal of water for its dollar value and produces little net income. According to a report by the University of California, Davis, the minimum amount of water required to grow a crop of rice is about 42 inches per acre. Unavoidable losses can add to this amount — so that the amount of water consumed (or evaporated) can be as much as 100 inches per acre, depending on the soil. That appears to be enough water to drown the tallest person on earth.

The California Rice Commission, a trade group representing 2,500 rice farmers, estimates that rice uses 2.2 million acre-feet of irrigation water yearly, about 2.6 percent of the state’s total water supply. According to records obtained from Met, that’s equal to the annual average water it supplied to all of its 19 million customers.

UC Davis data from 2008 show that California exported 52 percent of its rice production, much of it to Japan. For every pound of rice exported, about 250 gallons of embedded water used in growing and processing that rice leaves along with it, according to “Water Footprints of Nations,” a 2004 UNESCO study. (The report spawned the Web site www.waterfootprint.com.)

The rice harvest should be of great consolation to the chairman of the California State Water Resources Control Board, Charles Hoppin, who is also a rice grower, vice-chairman of the Rice Growers Cooperative, and immediate past chairman of the California Rice Industry Association. Chairman Hoppin, in a March 2010 speech in Yuma, Ariz., complained that the regulatory community, including much of his staff, doesn’t know or understand the issues facing agriculture and “doesn’t give a rat’s ass.”

According to the Environmental Working Group, rice subsidies in California totaled $2.4 billion from 1995-2009. In that period, the single largest recipient of subsidies was the Farmers’ Rice Cooperative of Sacramento, California, totaling more than $146 million.

Farm recipients of USDA subsidies in California totaled $9.1 billion from 1995-2009.According to EWG, “Washington paid out a quarter of a trillion dollars in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009. But to characterize the programs as either a big government bailout or another form of welfare would be manifestly unfair — to bailouts and welfare.” Then there’s hay — another water-gulping product that’s getting exported, with much of it going to Japan.

Writer Melinda Burns, in a June 10, 2009 story on Miller-McCune.com, notes: “In the Imperial Valley of California, a region drier than part of the Sahara Desert, farmers have found a lucrative market abroad for a crop they grow with Colorado River water: They export bales of hay to land-poor Japan. Since the mid-1980s, this arid border region of California has been supplying hay and feed for Japan’s dairy cows and black-haired cattle, the kind that get daily massages, are fed beer, and produce the most tender Kobe beef.”

She quotes Patrick Woodall, research director at Food and Water Watch, an international consumer advocacy group with headquarters in Washington, D.C.: “There is a kind of insanity about this,” Woodall said. “Exporting water in the form of crops is giving water away from thirsty communities and infringing on their ability to deal with water scarcity.”

Film Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 16, 2010

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

OPENING

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer Was Eliot Spitzer’s very public disgrace the result of his own hubris or a loose conspiracy of business interests and conservative politicians aligned against him? Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (2007’s Taxi to the Dark Side) gives credence to both explanations in Client 9, though his sane interest in revisiting the case stems from knowing what happened next: Spitzer left office in March 2008, months before the economy shattered. As New York’s hard-charging Attorney General, Spitzer made his reputation prosecuting white-collar crime in lieu of meaningful regulatory action at the federal level. This earned him several powerful enemies (among them former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg and billionaire Ken Langone) as well as the general scorn of Wall Street (we see footage of the market floor breaking out into cheers when Spitzer announces his resignation). Gibney scores exclusive sit-downs with the former governor as well as his regular “escort” (not pseudo-celebrity Ashley Dupré), and the multiple cameras on Spitzer (as well as the attendant “rise and fall” structure of a born fighter) makes me think the prolific filmmaker thought Client 9 might be his Tyson (2008). But alas, Spitzer merely appears diplomatic, expressing contrition and leaving the raised eyebrows to an indistinguishable slew of talking heads. And while Gibney seems to be saying that most of the tabloid sensationalism was a distraction from more serious problems, Client 9 is constantly distracted by the same material. The many titillated screen shots of the “Emperor’s Club” website are indicative of the film’s unfortunate ratio of chaff to wheat. (1:57) Opera Plaza. (Goldberg)

*Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould The Canadian piano virtuoso acquired a cult of personality granted very few 20th century classical musicians. His onstage manner was as strikingly idiosyncratic as his technique: the former marked by his sitting very low to the keyboard, often absentmindedly humming or singing along with the composition played; the latter by an exceptional clarity and control much influenced by a teacher’s formative training in “finger tapping” discipline, though also vulnerable to criticism in the realm of interpretive validity. (That debate commenced with his very first recording, the astonishingly popular 1955 Bach Goldberg Variations.) Offstage, his perceived eccentricities ranged from curious clothing to hypochondria, from the unreliable (frequently canceling gigs or whole tours) to the inaccessible (he retired from concert performance at age 32 in 1964, turning to the recording studio as better suited to his control-freakdom). He was a loner so demanding of his few trusted friends, lovers, and collaborators that one of the latter sighs in retrospect, “It was a whole career, being Glenn’s friend.” His ideas about health maintenance being bizarre to say the least, he died just after turning 50, the premature demise only enhancing his allure as artist and enigma. This documentary by fellow Canucks Michele Hozer and Peter Raymont is fascinating whether or not you’re already acquainted with Gould, or even a classical music enthusiast. A lot of the subject’s contemporaries are still around to reminisce about him, but most compelling here is the copious footage of him in performance, or as a surprisingly witty and relaxed interviewee. It doesn’t hurt that, while not quite so conventionally handsome, he holds the camera as magnetically as Chet Baker in 1988’s Let’s Get Lost. (1:46) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1 As enjoyable as the Harry Potter films are for fans, they never really hold their own. And that’s OK. They’re not Oscar bait the way the Lord of the Rings movies were, but they’re competent adaptations of a much beloved book series. While Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1 may not be a perfect film, it’s a solid translation of the source material, sure to appease the loyal readers who still can’t quite cope with the fact that the saga is nearly over. I count myself among them, and I’ll admit that it’s difficult to look at any Harry Potter movie with a critical eye. But even for an outsider, part one of Harry’s final chapter is likely to entertain, with plenty of action and a streamlined pace that helps the film move faster than past entries in the series. For devotees, the effect is greater, and the emotional wallop Deathly Hallows packs should not be underestimated. (2:26) Marina. (Peitzman)

*Kings of Pastry Between doubly unnecessary reality TV shows Ace of Cakes and Cake Boss, I thought I had just as but much fluff and frosting shoved down my throat as I could tolerate. Enter Kings of Pastry, a documentary from D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Style-wise, the filmmakers are far removed from grating Food Network build-up, and to a degree their characteristic, subdued restraint is suiting to the subject of a very French, very serious competition, the Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, or “MOF.” A competition unparalleled in the US, for the chefs involved it’s basically the World Series of Baking, with three days of nonstop puffery and sugar spinning, to the death. Okay, not to the death, but when a contestant’s towering sculpture of glass candy comes tumbling down like a Jenga set, you get the feeling that one person’s trifle is another’s tragedy. Let’s just say it’s no piece of cake. (1:24) Balboa, Elmwood. (Prendiville)

The Next Three Days From writer-director Paul Haggis and star Russell Crowe comes a drama many will avoid simply because those two names are involved. (2:02) Shattuck.

*”Psycho Geography” This Other Cinema program at Artists’ Television Access explores landscapes whose present tense is dominated by absence — the shadowy recollection of a past full of promises long since abandoned. Matt McCormick’s new Future So Bright meditates upon locations that are now detritus left behind by conquest and development of the American West — Gold Rush ghost towns, WWII military outposts, Route 66 roadside attractions, defunct farms, etc. Naomi Uman’s hour-long Ukranian Time Capsule captures the tiny village she moved to in 2006 to “get a glimpse” of her great-grandparents’ lives over a century ago. Still based around agriculture, brick-making, and vodka, things haven’t changed much — unless being even more threadbare-desperate counts. Ira and Lynne Sachs’ Last Address is a short cinematic poem silently viewing the erstwhile NYC abodes of AIDS-felled artists including Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jack Smith, and Charles Ludlam. Marcy Saude’s This Kind of Town similarly casts a lyrical eye on the ramshackle yet resilient present of 150-year-old onetime mining boomtown Ward, Colorado. Appearing in person are Rich Bott (of Animal Farm) and Bryan Boyce, respectively premiering Hard Feelings and Valencia Gardens — the former exploring “Southern California’s pharmaceutical landscape,” the latter the bulldozing of the Mission’s late housing project. Artists’ Television Access. (Harvey)

*Today’s Special This food comedy, written by and starring the Daily Show‘s Aasif Mandvi, is not an original recipe. It opens with an appetite-igniting cooking montage à la Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) and follows The Big Night (1996) structure. Samir (Mandvi) is a sous chef in a modern NYC restaurant, laboring under the dickish Dean Winters and next to the patently unnattractive Kevin Corrigan. He’s never made Indian food, despite his parents’ owning a struggling restaurant called Tandoori Palace. What is Samir to do when he gets turned down for a promotion, because his cooking is soulless? Things pick up in the film with the arrival of Mary Poppins in the form of worldly taxi driver and master chef, Akbar (Naseeruddin Shah). The course of this voyage of personal and cultural discovery is obvious, but the humor is as genuine as the performances, with the ingredients just needing a bit of time to come together. (1:39) Albany, Bridge, Smith Rafael. (Prendiville)

*Waste Land English documentarian Lucy Walker accompanied internationally successful artist Vik Muniz back to his native Brazil, where he settled in for a long-term project benefiting poor favela dwellers living the life he narrowly escaped. His object is to photograph workers who collect recyclable materials from the Jardim Gramacho — largest garbage dump in the world, located on the outskirts of Rio — and turn their portraits into massive mixed-media works. Their scaled-down reproductions will eventually fetch tens of thousands on Christie’s high-end auction block in London. The gap between subsistence-scrabbling in a landfill and the world of high-end art dealers, collectors, and institutions is a dizzying one. It might easily have made Waste Land a depressing measure of globalization’s un-equalizing impact. Yet Muniz’s impoverished subjects have an amazingly positive attitude despite all adversity, and their benefactor (who himself runs an emotional gamut from merely happy to giddy) really does improve their lot, as well as that of their community in general. Adding to this upbeat document’s appeal is an original score by Moby. (1:38) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

ONGOING

Carlos Carlos, Olivier Assayas’s biopic of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, begins with a warning, that while the film is the subject of historical and journalistic research, “relations with other characters have been fictionalized.” In other words: there be contradictions ahead. But I suppose that’s the least you can expect when you’re watching a 330 minute theatrical miniseries that gives the rock ‘n’ roll biopic treatment to a terrorist who, under an alias, professes “the pleasure of doing one’s duty in silence.” Much of this is intentional, questioning the convictions of extremists. One particularly well-shot scene involves Carlos (Édgar Ramírez) sexually dominating a cell member, only moments after she admits to being a German feminist. After about four hours, though, the intellectual irony begins to feel more like a filmmaker attempting to cover his bases. Carlos is an idealist, but also a sellout. An egalitarian revolutionary, but also a sexist bigot. (And so vain.) Still, the film, full of actors speaking a bevy of languages and propelled by a international punk rock soundtrack, manages to be engaging. Keep in mind, though, that the miniseries was originally aired in three parts, and viewing Carlos in one sitting should be left to the cinemasochists. (5:30) Roxie. (Prendiville)

Conviction A cross between 2001’s Legally Blonde and 1999’s The Hurricane, Conviction tells the real-life story of Betty Anne Waters, a high school dropout who spent 20 years trying to overturn her brother’s life sentence for murder. As this is clearly a film designated for Oscar season, Hilary Swank plays Betty, delivering another performance that is easy to appreciate, yet hard to enjoy. To her heavy gravity, Sam Rockwell brings a little levity as her brother Kenneth, once again playing a guy you can’t help but like, even if there’s no reason. If Conviction does anything perfectly, it’s casting, almost to a comedic degree, particularly with Clea DuVall and a scenery-devouring Juliette Lewis as Kenneth’s trashy exes. Otherwise, the story fails to convey an appropriate sense of struggle and time, as two decades behind books and bars pass onscreen all too easily. (1:47) Four Star, SF Center. (Prendiville)

Due Date One delayed appearance for a baby’s birth does not a Hangover (2009) make. After all, even the most commited baby daddy isn’t totally required to be at the blessed event, unlike a wedding ceremony. So even two films into what seems like a trilogy of bromancey men’s coming-of-age terror, director Todd Phillips already seems to working a tired old bone. Slick LA architect Peter (Robert Downey Jr.) has a self-satisfied mean streak that doesn’t seem to be abating with the birth of his first child halfway across the country, or his run-ins with budding thespian Ethan (Zach Galifianakis) — the two collide cute in the airport on their way to the so-called Best Coast. One no-fly list leads to another, and Peter is reluctantly hightailing it by rental car with the uncoolest dude in school. Oh dear: Roadtrip for Schmucks, anyone? Due Date proves that, yes, contrary to what I once believed, there is such a thing as too much Galifianakis, in perpetual shtick mode here. And even though the weathered, well-textured Downey can build character with a single well-placed, black-hearted glare, he’s saddled with such a sorry misanthropic creep here that the audience is hard-pressed to care. (1:35) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Fair Game Doug Liman’s film effectively dramatizes yet another disgraceful chapter from the last Presidential administration: how CIA agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts), who’d headed the Joint Task Force on Iraq investigating whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs, was identified by name in the Washington Post as a covert agent — thus ending her intelligence career and placing many of her subordinates and sources around the world in danger. This info was leaked to the press, it turned out, by highest-level White House officials as “punishment” for the New York Times editorial former ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) — Plame’s husband — wrote condemning their insistence on those WMDs to justify the Iraq invasion by then already well in progress. (The CIA task force had also found zero evidence of mass-destruction weapons, but Bush and co. chose to come up with their own bogus “facts” to sway US public opinion.) Purportedly, Karl Rove clucked to CNN’s Chris Matthews that Wilson’s awkwardly-timed dose of sobering truth rendered his spouse “fair game” for exposure. Unfortunately opening here several days after it might theoretically have done some election-day good — not that many Republican voters would likely be queuing up — Fair Game may be a familiar story to many. But its gist and details remain quite enough to make the blood boil. While the political aspects are expertly handled in thriller terms, the personal ones are a tad less successful. That’s partly because we never quite glimpse what brought these two very busy, business-first people together; but largely, alas, because so many of Wilson’s diatribes come off all too much as things that might be said by Sean Penn, Rabble-Rouser and Humanitarian. This is perhaps a case of casting so perfect it becomes a distracting fault. (1:46) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

For Colored Girls Sprinkling many tears and Janet Jackson’s blue steel throughout his high-camp, muy melodramatic adaptation of Ntzoke Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Tyler Perry deserves at least an E for effort in attempting to bring Shange’s choreopoem masterpiece to the screen. The result is a free-floating, somewhat tortured contemporary collection of vignettes centered on a clutch of African American women residing in an Harlem apartment building — a structure that remotely evokes an early Wong Kar-Wai omnibus like Days of Being Wild (1991), sans the narrative ambiguity and sublime cinematography — with its “colored girls,” each representing a hue in Shange’s rainbow, occasionally pouring out the poet’s original verse. Crystal (Kimberly Elise) appears to have it the hardest, burdened with an abusive baby daddy (Michael Ealy), a veteran dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dance teacher Yasmine (Anika Noni Rose) is the beacon of positivity who finds her trust horribly betrayed. Tangie (Thandie Newton) is the saucy slut, baby sister Nyla (Tessa Thompson) is the good girl with a secret, and their mother Alice (Whoopi Goldberg) is the building’s extremely annoying holy roller. Overseeing all is the apartments’ de facto matriarch Gilda (Phylicia Rashad), safe sex activist Juanita (Loretta Devine), and social worker Kelly (Kerry Washington). Oh, yes, and there’s Miss Jackson, who plays the leather-tough, magazine-editing devil wearing Prada, and spends most of her time looking wrecked about possibly ruining her makeup with an actual facial expression. Yes, they will survive, hey, hey, and though Perry may not have been the best moviemaker to adapt Shange’s groundbreaking work, a few of his players, particularly Newton and Elise, rise above the rainbow with wrenching, scene-stealing performances. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*Four Lions If you think terrorism is no laughing matter you might resist English director-cowriter Chris Morris’ first film, which does make it pretty damn funny — it being the fanaticism, doggerel, and dim-bulbdom that can create suicide bombers, not the suicide bombing (or other murderous acts) themselves. Yes, people get hurt here, but within the Three Stooges tradition of folks who can’t stop boinking themselves or one another with mallets, or in this case (somewhat) more sophisticated weaponry. The protagonists here are working-class Sheffield Muslims, two of whom (Kayvan Novak, Riz Ahmed) just spectacularly flunked out of terrorist training camp in Pakistan. The others include a recent convert to Islam (Nigel Lindsay) who seems to be in it solely to lend his all-purpose rage an excusing “cause,” and a guy (Adeel Akhtar) training crows to deliver bombs — well, he’s trying. Their goal: getting blown to smithereens (hopefully taking as many infidels with them as possible) during the London Marathon. So … what’s their jihad? Let’s just say zeal outstrips cogency of moral mission, let alone competency at becoming a public threat, amongst these arbitrarily Koran-misquoting bozos. Four Lions manages to mix the credible and farcical, satirizing holy-terrorism without insulting religion (or culture, or ethnicity) itself. Despite very deft performances, script and direction remain hit ‘n’ miss to a point — but at that point, encompassing the long marathon-centered climax, it all turns freakin’ hilarious. (1:42) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest If you enjoyed the first two films in the Millennium trilogy — 2009’sThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire — there’s a good chance you’ll also like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Based on the final book in Stieg Larsson’s series, the film begins shortly after the violent events at the conclusion of the second movie. There are brief flashes of what happened — the cinematic equivalent of TV’s “previously on&ldots;” — but it’s likely an indecipherable jumble to Girl first-timers. Hornet’s Nest presents the trial of Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the much-abused, much-misunderstood, entirely kick-ass protagonist of the series. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and his sister Annika (Annika Hallin) as her lawyer, Lisbeth finally gets her day in court. The conspiracy that drives the story is somewhat convoluted, and while it all comes together in the end, Hornet’s Nest isn’t an easy film to digest. Still, it’s a well-made and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy — as long as you caught the beginning and middle, too. (2:28) Albany, Clay, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Hereafter Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial effort starts out with an unusually flashy (for him) but effective setpiece: Parisian TV journalist Marie (Cécile De France) is at the end of a beach resort vacation with producer/lover Didier (Thierry Neuvic) when a tsunami hits, turning the market street on which she’s shopping into a rapids of rushing water and crushing debris. Meanwhile, two inseparable young London twins (Frankie and George McLaren), already coping with social service workers who want to take them from their junkie mother (Lyndsey Marshal), get duly separated in a less anticipated, cruel-hand-of-fate manner. And in San Francisco, loner George (Matt Damon) struggles to forget his “curse” — since a childhood near-death incident he’s been able to communicate with the dead — while an insensitive brother (Jay Mohr) insists this “gift” is a surefire moneymaker. What our main protagonists have in common is an unwanted ability, or desperate need, to glimpse the “hereafter.” It takes a very long time for Peter Morgan’s script to orchestrate their inevitable, accidental (or is it…??) paths-crossing. You might conjecture that at age 80, Eastwood felt ready to deal with the subject of mortality in a gentler, more mystical fashion than before. Perhaps Morgan wanted a break from his excellent usual docudrama terrain (2009’s The Damned United, 2008’s Frost/Nixon, 2006’s The Queen) by doing something purely, even fancifully fictive. But nothing in the film’s execution (after that startling beginning) indicates the very literal-minded Eastwood feels comfortable with or even interested in this story’s supernatural gist — was he mostly attracted by the opportunity to shoot in three swell cities? While just possibly the screenplay might have worked in other hands (Peter Weir? Werner Herzog?), here it marches listlessly toward increasing implausibility and boredom. The performers do what they can, although in the case of the child actors that’s very little indeed, while Bryce Dallas Howard overacts horribly in a support role. As composer, Eastwood does what he does — which means blanketing this DOA dud, which so badly needs tension and atmosphere, in the kind of cocktail-lounge noodling best suited for waiting rooms and pre-operative sedation. (2:09) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

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

It’s Kind of a Funny Story Largely self-inflicted scholastic pressures having manifested themselves in an array of symptoms from “stress vomiting” to suicidal ideations, depressive Brooklyn teen Craig (Keir Gilchrist) rides his bicycle to a local hospital and announces he needs help. Expecting to be fussed over a bit and given some nice tranquilizing pill, he’s dismayed instead when the no-nonsense intake psychiatrist (Viola Davis) tells him it’s her obligation to commit him for a minimum five days’ observation. Worse, the facility’s youth psych ward is being renovated, so he’s tossed in with the crazy adults. Other residents are led by comely but self-cutting fellow teen Noelle (Emma Roberts) and mentoring yet self-sabotaging Bobby (Zach Galifianakis). Based on Ned Vizzini’s semi-autobiographical novel, Funny Story is well acted (even or especially by the atypically subdued Galifianakis), its mixed humor and poignancy nicely negotiated by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck in their third feature. But compared to the duo’s prior Half Nelson (2006) and Sugar (2008), this seems conventional and a little soft — hewing dangerously close to that sentimentally twee notion (popularized in 1966’s King of Hearts, 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, et al.) that we’re all “crazy” and lunatics are really the wisest fools of all. Heartwarming life lessons get learned, needless to say. The cuteness climaxes with an “Under Pressure” music video fantasy that belongs in an episode of Glee — not, perhaps, in a movie that begins with a 15-year-old seriously considering jumping from a bridge. (1:51) Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Jackass 3D How to capture the magic of Jackass: The Movie (2002), after 2006’s Jackass Number Two‘s bitter yuks, desperate striving for kicks, and pained grimaces? So much of Jackass has to do with body abuse: it hybridizes skate vids’ physical derring-do, backyard wrestling’s amateur one-upmanship, and the absurd lengths machismo will take boys to. What to do when the body crumbles and the imagination flags? Jackass 3D finds the remedy in the faux-excitement of 3-D, while thankfully jettisoning much of the sour, been-there tone and desperate striving of Two. Bless Johnny Knoxville and company for lampooning the 3-D medium with all the nose-thumbing gusto they can muster: tossing bowlfuls of dildos at the camera, blowing crap up until the shards rain down like Avatar (2009) jungle spew, and shooting each other with fluorescent-bright paint balls in a rainbow-hued opening that recalls ’70s kindergarten-colored memories and the gay pride flag. The ass in Jackass is foregrounded, big-time, in 3D. The perpetual shit stream — including Steve O’s bungee bounce in an overflowing port-o-potty and the human volcano that spews diarrhea — as well as stunts like Lamborghini dental surgery and the quaffing of writer Preston Lacy’s sweat will drive folks who used to frequent the carnival freak show to the cineplex, not the micro-cameos by aiders and abettors like co-producer Spike Jonze (his 2009 Where the Wild Things Are doesn’t seem so far afield from this Dickhouse production), Corin Tucker spouse Lance Bangs (who vomits on his own camera), the Margera parentals, and Rip Taylor. The inclusion of Taylor, though, tells you exactly where the boys are coming from, laughing at their own OTT antics and scattering debris like confetti along the way. (1:30) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*Leaving Few beauties — French, English, French-English, or otherwise — have managed the transformation Kristin Scott Thomas has, in using her considerable beauty to convey unfathomable hunger. In this romantic thriller with a touch of Madame Bovary and more than a dab of noir, Scott Thomas is Suzanne, the efficient if somewhat taken-for-granted wife of a doctor (Yvan Attal, director of 2001’s My Wife Is an Actress and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s partner), whose marriage resembles a business arrangement more than a love match. The couple enlist Catalan ex-con Ivan (Sergi Lopez) to build an office for her budding physical therapy practice, and after a minor car accident, Ivan falls into Suzanne’s care, and as she grows to care more deeply about him, an affair begins. Director Catherine Corsini’s tough-eyed look at what follows — concerning the economics of marriage and the price of one woman’s individuation and passionate choices — calls to mind women’s melodramas of the ’40s and ’50s, though Corsini renders her oft-told tale of awakening with considerably less heavy-handedness and minimal condescension. That approach and Scott Thomas’ performance — the movie almost turns on the motionless, slowly evolving look in Suzanne’s eyes when she realizes what she must do — makes Leaving a departure from your average coming-of-liberation romance. (1:30) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*Mademoiselle Chambon Stéphane Brizé’s new Mademoiselle Chambon is a movie whose protagonists lunge toward each other — even though they shouldn’t, for their own sakes and everyone else’s. Grave-voiced, craggy-faced Jean (Vincent Lindon) is a construction-site laborer; Anne Marie (Aure Atika) his assembly-line worker wife; Jeremy (Arthur Le Hourerou) the eight-year-old offspring who’s already better educated than either of them. One day Anne Marie suffers a temporarily disabling factory accident, leaving Jean to pick up Jeremy from school. There, Jean first encounters Jeremy’s teacher, Véronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain). She has the willowy body of a veteran ballet dancer and a naturally refined air — at least by his limited experiential standards. There’s an immediate if unadmitted spark between them, yet Mademoiselle Chambon doesn’t get cheap about it. None of these people are more than ordinary, kinda-attractive. As temptations and related tensions unravel their stability, Brize allows his characters to slip grip gracefully. No one behaves well, but they do behave credibly. Mademoiselle Chambon sees rational folk with well-organized lives stubbornly resisting a mutual pull whose logical outcome will surely suck for all concerned. It’s a fine, measured drama presented with typical Gallic insouciance — tenderly discreet even when conventional art and commerce shout for something more crudely dramatic. (1:41) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Megamind Be careful what you wish for, especially if you’re a blue meanie with a Conehead noggin and a knack for mispronunciation and mayhem. Holding up hilariously against such animated efforts as The Incredibles (2004) and Monsters, Inc. (2001), Megamind uses that nugget of wisdom as its narrative springboard and takes off where most superhero-vs.-supervillain yarns end: the feud between baddie Megamind (voiced by Will Farrell) and goody-two-shoes Metro Man (Brad Pitt) goes waaay back, to the ankle-biter years. They’ve battled so often over intrepid girl reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fay) that she’s beyond bored by every nefarious torture device and disco crocodile the Blue Man throws at her. When Mega finally, unexpectedly vanquishes his foe, he finds himself with a bad case of the blues. With the help of his loyal Minion (David Cross), he decides to change the game and create his own worthy opponent, who just happens to be Roxanne’s schlubby cameraman (Jonah Hill). Chortles ensue, thanks to the sarcastic sass emanating from the Will and Tina show, although the 3-D effects seem beside the point. The resemblance to this year’s Despicable Me is more than a little passing, from the bad guy on the moral turnaround to the adorable underlings, but Megamind‘s smart satire of comic hero conventions, its voice actor’s right-on riffs, and the rock and pop licks on the soundtrack make it the nice and nasty winner. (1:36) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Morning Glory Unless you’ve never seen a romantic comedy before, there’s not much in Morning Glory that will surprise you. It’s about exactly what you’d expect —but that doesn’t actually make it any less charming. Morning Glory rests on the appeal of its leads: Rachel McAdams as our heroine Becky, Diane Keaton as the self-obsessed Colleen Peck, and Harrison Ford as crotchety newscaster Mike Pomeroy. All three of these actors, despite their talents, have made bad movies. But Morning Glory succeeds despite itself — the formulaic script, the shoehorned romance, and the predictable twists are all secondary to the undeniable chemistry between the actors. Will Becky be able to rejuvenate the morning show she’s executive producing? Will Colleen learn to be a team player? Will Mike drop the ego and show America his tender, frittata-loving heart? You know the answers already, but that doesn’t mean you won’t smile broadly when all the pieces fall into place. (1:47) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Peitzman)

127 Hours After the large-scale, Oscar-draped triumph of 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours might seem starkly minimalist — if director Danny Boyle weren’t allergic to such terms. Based on Aron Ralston’s memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place, it’s a tale defined by tight quarters, minimal “action,” and maximum peril: man gets pinned by rock in the middle of nowhere, must somehow free himself or die. More precisely, in 2003 experienced trekker Ralston biked and hiked into Utah’s Blue John Canyon, falling into a crevasse when a boulder gave way under his feet. He landed unharmed … save a right arm pinioned by a rock too securely wedged, solid, and heavy to budge. He’d told no one where he’d gone for the weekend; dehydration death was far more likely than being found. For those few who haven’t heard how he escaped this predicament, suffice it to say the solution was uniquely unpleasant enough to make the national news (and launch a motivational-speaking career). Opinions vary about the book. It’s well written, an undeniably amazing story, but some folks just don’t like him. Still, subject and interpreter match up better than one might expect, mostly because there are lengthy periods when the film simply has to let James Franco, as Ralston, command our full attention. This actor, who has reached the verge of major stardom as a chameleon rather than a personality, has no trouble making Ralston’s plight sympathetic, alarming, poignant, and funny by turns. His protagonist is good-natured, self-deprecating, not tangibly deep but incredibly resourceful. Probably just like the real-life Ralston, only a tad more appealing, less legend-in-his-own-mind — a typical movie cheat to be grateful for here. (1:30) Embarcadero, California, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Paranormal Activity 2 Taking a cue from the Paranormal Activity 2 audience member who called “Bullshit!” before the final credits rolled at a recent screening, I’m haunted by the many way the filmmakers (Tod Williams directs with original writer-director Oren Peli relegated to co-producer role) could have taken Paranormal to another level, while maintaining some of the original’s DIY 21st-century-video-folk-art charm and resourcefully low-budge creepiness. How about kicking off with a good body hurl at the camera — or two or six? Or turning up the horror the in the sequel’s haunted McMansion, beyond misbehaving cabinetry — I do know that if I have to look at that kitchen island one more time I’ll have to hurt the wall-to-wall beige carpeting. Or have the demonically possessed (yes, you have to see the first installment for part two to make a lick of sense) do something genuinely, messily nasty, or having something truly dreadful happen to the innocents, namely the baby and dog? After all Night of the Living Dead (1968) and The Beyond (1981) provided the blueprint for Oedipal and pet owner horror several decades ago — but then that says something about the quickie cash-in quality of Paranormal 2, which mistakes the original’s minimal action and special-effects de-emphasis for banal shots of interiors and poor pacing. The writing never quite rises beyond the level of basic-cable scares — or threatens to add much to the source material. Yep, you still have the blinkered man, willfully ignoring the red flags of intuition; the women who hesitate to go there; the mediums or brujas who offer dire warnings; and the demonic force who shall remain nameless that likes to take a bite out of human ass. This time the prize is the first male born into the family of Katie (Katie Featherston) and Kristi (Sprague Grayden) in, er, quite a while — don’t bother the movie makers with the details. And considering how annoyingly clueless most men are in Paranormal‘s world, I’d say we’re better off letting the kid go. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Red Boomers — and rapidly aging Gen-Xers — rejoice: you’re still a force to be reckoned with, even as the hairline recedes and the paunch descends. The sleeker Hollywood companion to Michael Caine’s recent turn as a killer pensioner “Dirty Harry” in 2009’s Harry Brown, Red (based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner) turns the world of black ops, convert assassinations, and the government-approved killers that make it all happen — and happen to survive long enough to retire into humdrum civilian life — into the stuff of action comedy. Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) isn’t quite ready to go quietly into the good night: he’s restless, bored, and lonely enough to strike up a telephone flirtation with Sarah, the woman charged with issuing his pension checks. Luckily she’s Mary-Louise Parker, applying the wide-eyed and game yet sarcastic and knowing qualities she brings to Weeds to the current “situation”: an assassination plot against Frank via the archetypal “Company” man (Karl Urban). The thrown-together couple is swiftly tracked from city to city while Frank rounds up the old gang, namely the very charismatic and watchable Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren. Half the fun here, evident in the TV teasers, is watching Mirren quickly switch from Martha Stewart-like flower arranging to the steely application of machine gun fire, in a full-tilt formalwear. Consider Red the action-dappled, lightly entertaining wish fulfillment of so many oldsters, who have found themselves still toiling for a paycheck at time when they hoped to retire, frustrated and feeling betrayed by the so-called system and wishing they could also take it out on the proper baddies with seriously effective firepower. (1:51) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

*Secretariat In this biopic of one of the most-celebrated horses in U.S. history, Denver housewife and mother of four Penny Chenery (Diane Lane) returns to the Kentucky horse-breeding farm where she grew up, drawn to the project of reviving the ailing business. She pins her hopes on an unborn foal of questionable marketability, who she comes to believe is destined for greatness. Secretariat — or Big Red, as he’s known to his friends — is raised in the light of this belief by a small, reverent circle including his trainer (John Malkovich), his jockey (professional rider Otto Thorwarth), his groom (True Blood‘s Nelsan Ellis), and the farm’s longtime secretary (Margo Martindale), and he goes on to attain the status of a national folk hero. Director Randall Wallace has crafted an appropriately epic tale — and heavily salted the film with messages about unswerving faith and determination and hope and glory, mostly delivered in ringing, overwrought tones by Lane (which undercuts the pleasure of seeing her character quietly pursue a larger setting than the domestic scene she inhabits at Secretariat‘s outset). But somehow it’s harder to poke fun when the hero of the story is a horse, especially one of such majestic stature and jaw-dropping prowess. Each time Secretariat goes surging around the oval, in one of the film’s white-knuckle race sequences, the clichés fly and then fall away like dirt on the track. (1:56) 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Skyline (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*The Social Network David Fincher’s The Social Network is a gripping and entertaining account of how Facebook came to take over the known social-networking universe. In this version of events — scripted by Aaron Sorkin and based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires, in turn based substantially on interviews with FB cofounder Eduardo Saverin, with input from Mark Zuckerberg icily absent — a girlfriend’s dumping of Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) on a crisp evening in 2003 is the impetus in his headlong quest for a “big idea.” The film is structured around the conference-room depositions for two separate lawsuits, brought against Zuckerberg by Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and by fellow Harvard entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) for crimes involving intellectual property and vast scads of retributive money. Unless Zuckerberg decides to post it on Facebook (which he probably shouldn’t, given the nondisclosure vows that capped off the first round of lawsuits), we’ll never know what truly motivated him and how badly he screwed over his friends and fellow students. But Fincher and Sorkin have crafted a compelling, absorbing, and occasionally poignant tale of how it could have happened. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

*Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields The release of the 1999 collection 69 Love Songs put the Magnetic Fields and Stephin Merritt, the group’s prickly mastermind, into the spotlight for the first time. Since then, the group has willingly slinked back into the arms of its devoted fan base while continuing to write some of the prettiest, cleverest, and most timeless-sounding pop songs around. Typically known as a bit of a recluse, Merritt allowed full access to the filmmakers, who captured over ten years of live footage, recording sessions, and personal interviews. Pulling back the curtain in this case isn’t a bad thing at all, as the group’s overall charm is balanced out with Merritt’s mysterious ambiguity intact. Some of the best moments — Merritt playing with his Chihuahua, casually arguing with his band mates, musing on the differences between Los Angeles and New York gay bars — find beauty in the mundane; just like the songs themselves. (1:22) Roxie. (Landon Moblad)

The Town While not quite on par with The Departed (2006) or Gone Baby Gone (2007), The Town is a solid entry into the Boston crime drama genre. Ben Affleck directs — it’s his second full-length feature after Gone Baby Gone — and stars as Doug MacRay, a lifelong bank robber who wants out of the family business. His desire to change is further complicated when he falls for Claire (Rebecca Hall), the woman he and his gang took hostage during their latest robbery. The Town doesn’t offer much in the way of surprises: if you’re familiar with the genre, you know what to expect. But it’s sleek and well-paced, with a script that at least raises some thought-provoking questions. The film also boasts a universally accomplished cast. Affleck, Hall, and Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner are predictably good, but the two standouts are actors better known for their television work: Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm as an FBI agent and Gossip Girl‘s Blake Lively (yes, really) as a drug-addled single mom. (2:10) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Peitzman)

Unstoppable After a dunderheaded train-yard worker essentially flicks the “hellbent” switch on an unmanned train loaded with hazardous materials, it’s up to odd-couple operators Denzel Washington (old; cranky; in endearing subplot, his daughters work at Hooters) and Chris Pine (young; cocky; in weirdly off-putting subplot, his wife has a restraining order against him) to chase down that loco-motive and prove the movie’s title wrong. The film mostly darts between the interior of a train car, for Washington-Pine bickering; railroad mission control, where a miscast Rosario Dawson literally phones in her performance; TV news reports, lazily illustrating the train’s flight through rural Pennsylvania; and various low angles relative to the speeding train, so sinister it’s bright red and numbered 777 (which is, like, almost 666!) Veteran action director Tony Scott does what he can with the based-on-true-events storyline, but Unstoppable is so deadly serious and predictable it just gets boring after awhile. At least the runaway vehicle in 1994’s similar Speed had a villain to enjoy; here, there’s just an angry choo-choo. Miss you, Dennis Hopper. (1:38) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen Born almost a 1,000 years ago and long regarded a feminist groundbreaker, Hildegard von Bingen was a composer, scientist, healer, writer, visionary, and game-changer in her humanist view of faith. A Benedictine nun who became the noted female spiritual leader when there were none, she built her own convent, and attracted the attention of the Pope with her waking visions, images she would interpret as dispatches from God. The feminist director of such classics of German new wave moviemaking as The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975), Marianne and Juliane (1981), and Rosa Luxemburg (1986), Margarethe von Trotta is still focused on revolutionary women, albeit, with Vision, one who finds a way to work nonviolently, within the system. The challenge here is to bring the potentially stolid and static life of a medieval mystic to the screen — there are few concrete historical details about everyday life within a convent. But aided by Barbara Sukowa — the fiery radical center of both Marianne and Juliane and Rosa Luxemburg — von Trotta manages to give Hildegard human dimensions: the abbess is far from modest and retiring when, for instance, she needs to navigate the byzantine politics of the church or when her most devoted acolyte Richardis (Hannah Herzsprung) is wrenched away. Ornamented by Hildregarde’s compelling compositions and careful never to stray into kitsch, Vision only occasionally lapses into the flatness of a standard biopic — Hildegard (and Sukowa) are too fascinating, and von Trotta has been too long absent from moviemaking. (1:51) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*Waiting for “Superman” As was the case with Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth, his latest documentary has an active internet campaign: pledge to see Waiting for “Superman.” The films seem like apples and oranges at first glance — Truth warned about the extinction of our species, the end of life as we know it, while “Superman” takes on the public education system. But the picture Guggenheim paints in the latter is a bleak one: our schools are failing America’s youth. In clear, relatable words, he reveals the causes of this national epidemic lack of funding, misguided unions, no accountability. Like Truth, “Superman” is a smart and inspiring call to arms. Guggenheim’s wisest choice was following a group of young schoolchildren who want nothing more than to get a good education. Their struggle provides a necessary contrast to the bureaucracy. In showing the problem’s human face, the film offers further proof — as if we needed more—that something must be done to fix a broken system. For supplemental interview, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:51) Four Star, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Peitzman)

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Woody Allen’s latest, once again set in tony London, has all the moving parts for a satisfying farce of self-sabotage, but the writer-director never gets past touching up his character sketches — which are far from interesting in themselves. There is Helena (Gemma Jones), elderly and recently divorced; she wants something stronger than tea and a psychic to rescue her from reality. Her daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) either wants a child or her boss, Greg (Antonio Banderas). She gets migraines and has an eye for art, and that’s about all. Meanwhile, hubby Roy (Josh Brolin) eyes the available young body across the way from his study (Freida Pinto) when he’s not grousing about his fledgling career as a novelist. Helena’s ex Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) is off in his own corner of the movie, taking up with a dopey prostitute (Lucy Punch) who, unlike his wife, is not old. There are sparks of life when these fine actors are allowed to play off one another — Jones and Brolin, in particular, work up a nicely caustic repartee — but a chirpy narrator belies the wobbly narrative construct. And unlike 2008’s Vicky Christina Barcelona, the ethnically marked objects of desire don’t get any good lines. Banderas as an art dealer is paint-by-numbers fantasy, while Pinto’s Dia is embarrassingly elaborated: always in red, a musicology PhD student who wants to be someone’s muse, she responds favorably to Roy’s slovenly flirtations, and, the kicker, has a father who translates Eastern European authors. Jones’ spiritualist is the only one who gets a Hollywood ending, and while I suppose that’s meant ironically, there’s plenty of soft-headedness to go around. (1:38) Shattuck. (Goldberg)

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 16, 2010

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alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 17

“The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”

Will corporations consolidate power over the Internet the way they have with television — or will it remain a source of free-flowing information? The Commonwealth Club presents a conversation on the possibilities with Tim Wu, author; policy advocate, and professor at Columbia University.

5:30 p.m., $8 members, $20 nonmembers

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, 2nd floor, SF

(415) 597-6700

THURSDAY, NOV. 18

Halt, thief!

To draw attention to the National Day of Action Against Wage Theft, the San Francisco Progressive Workers Alliance holds a rally and press conference highlighting how low-wage workers can have their wages withheld from them.. National surveys show that 68 percent of low-wage workers report minimum-wage violations, illegal pay deductions, denied overtime pay, and other forms of economic exploitation.

11 a.m., free

SF City Hall,

Polk Street steps

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett, SF

crain100@gmail.com, shawsan@cpasf.org.

Fight the right

The International Socialist Organization presents Alan Maass, editor of the SocialistWorker.org and author of The Case for Socialism, giving a lecture entitled “The Right Turn in U.S. Politics: How It Happened … and What We Can Do To Stop It.”

1 p.m., free

CCSF Ocean Campus,

Statler Wing Room 14

Phelan and Juson, SF

iso@norcalsocialism.org

(415) 452-5481

SATURDAY, NOV. 20

A Progressive platform

The West Coast Regional Congress hosts plenary sessions and workshops on living-wage jobs, universal health care, affordable housing, Social Security, high-quality education, progressive taxation of corporations and the wealthy, and peace and self-determination.

9 a.m., free

Horace Mann Middle School

3351 23rd St. SF

(415) 863-1225

Be the change

Aimee Allison moderates a free talk on “Weaving through Change: Identifying Intersections Between Education, Health and Economics.” In the organizers’ words, “the event aspires to provide a safe space for discourse and structure to improve the quality of our thoughts, our actions, and most important, our results as change agents.”

9 a.m.–2 p.m., free

Laney College

900 Fallon, Oakl.

(510) 464-3424

SUNDAY, NOV. 21

The Legacy of Thanksgiving

This Free Land Project event brings together artists, activists, and communities to explore the complex history of Thanksgiving and acknowledge the legacy of US colonialism and genocide against Native Americans. Featuring Audiopharmacy, Jeremy Goodfeather, Mohawk , Yvonne Swan, Sinixt Arrow Lakes Nation Raw-G.

7 p.m., $10–$25 sliding scale

La Peña Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 849-2568 2

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Music Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 9, 2010

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Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Weekly Picks.

WEDNESDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bobs Café Du Nord. 8pm, $24.

Chicago Afrobeat Band Boom Boom Room. 9:45pm, $8.

Delorean, Lemonade, Butterfly Bones Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Grinn and Barrett, Coyotes, Red Light Circuit El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Have Special Power, Poison Control Center, Guitar vs. Gravity Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Derick Hughes Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $16.

Gregg Laswell, Harper Blynn Independent. 8pm, $15.

Mae, Terrible Things, Windsor Drive Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $14.

Terry Malts, Devon Williams, Lilac Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Personal and the Pizzas, Natural Child, Wrong Words Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Slick Rick Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $25.

Stars, Delays Fillmore. 8pm, $27.50.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Qbar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm, $3. Jualina More!, Joshua J, and guests spin booming, booty-shaking beats.

Fixup 222 Hyde; www.fixupsf.com. 9:30pm, $5. Bass music monthly with special guest Submerse.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

Mods vs. Rockers Make-Out Room. 9pm. With Nectarine Pie and mod, garage, punk, and new wave DJs.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Leila Broussard, Bess Rogers, Allison Weiss Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Marc Broussard Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

Collie Buddz and New Kingston, Los Rakas Independent. 9pm, $30.

Candy Claws, Chain Gang of 1974, Blackbird Blackbird Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Ghostface Killah, Sheek Louch, Music by Frank Dukes Slim’s. 9pm, $22.

Jack Grisham and the West Coast Dudes, Stagger and Fall Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10-12.

Mayer Hawthorne and the County, Gordon Voidwell Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $16.

Mental 99 El Rio. 7pm, free.

RJ Mischo Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $16.

Nitzer Ebb, //Tense//, Soft Metals, Terminal Twilight Mezzanine. 8:30pm, $20.

Taxes, Fake Your Own Death, Kill Moi, DJ Ted Bagel Radio Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Tyrone Wells, Andrew Belle, Crown Point Café Du Nord. 8pm, $18.

Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $8.

Zoobombs, Uzi Rash, Cruddy Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz with special guest Black Pearl 504 spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF; www.wishsf.com. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip hop.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Kissing Booth Make-Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80’s, and electro.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk, SF; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Roger Sanchez Vessel. 9:30pm, $10-20. “The Return of House Tour” with Sidney Samson.

Wax Candy Ambassador, 673 Geary, SF; www.ambassador415.com. 9pm, free. Disco-licious party jams with Andre Lucero, Worker, Travis Dalton, and Sergio.

FRIDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Bohemian Carnival” DNA Lounge. 9pm, $20. With Vau de Vire Society, Gooferman, Bambi Killers, and DJ Smoove.

Doomtree, POS, Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Lazerbeak, Paper Tiger, Rec-League Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Emmitt-Nershi Band, Hot Buttered Rum Special String Band Independent. 9pm, $25.

Holy Shit, Bitter Honeys Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Talib Kweli Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26.

Mayday Parade, Breathe Carolina, Every Avenue, Artist vs. Poet, Go Radio Regency Ballroom. 6pm, $20.

Narrows, Skinwalker, New Trust Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Charles Neville, Youssoupha Sidibe and the Mystic Rhythms Coda. 9pm, $17.

Nosaj Thing, Toro Y Moi, Jogger Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $18.

Number Prophets, Pebble Theory, Heart Touch Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Rod Piazza and Mighty Flyers Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $22.

Rocket Summer: Bruce Avary, his instruments and your voices, He Is We, Travis Hayes and An-Nhein Le Thee Parkside. 9pm, $15.

Le Serpent Rouge, Mardi Love and Zoe Jakes, Brass Menazeri Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

Sista Sekunden, Roller, Lecherous Gaze, Fast Asleep Submission, 2183 Mission, SF; www.sf-submission.com. 9pm, $8.

This Charming Band, For The Masses Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Young Offenders, Northern Towns, Sydney Ducks Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Paul Dresher Ensemble ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. 8pm, $18.

SF Jazz High School All-Stars Concert Jewish Community Center, 3200 California, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $5-15.

3 Leg Torso Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Hobbyhorse Red Vic, 1665 Haight, SF; www.myspace.com/redvicsessions. 7:45pm, $2.

Marco Periera and Brasil Guitar Duo Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.omniconcerts.com. 8pm, $24-38.

DANCE CLUBS

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs B-Cause, Vinnie Esparza, Mr. Robinson, Toph One, and Slopoke.

Fo’ Sho! Fridays Madrone Art Bar. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris and Makossa spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Heartical Roots Bollywood Café. 9pm, $5. Recession-friendly reggae.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing The Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Strictly Video 111 Minna. 9pm, $10. With VDJs Shortkut, Swift Rock, GoldenChyld, and Satva spinning rap, 80s, R&B, and Dancehall.

Treat Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop, funk, and more with DJs Vinnie Esparza and B. Cause, plus guest Primo.

SATURDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blisses B, Tyler Matthew Smith, Vandella Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Cat Party, Pins of Light Bender’s, 800 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 10pm, $5.

Dead to Me, Cobra Skulls, Thousand Watt Stare, Invalids Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Full On Flyhead, Stomacher, Swoon, Nosebleed Academy Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

Hank IV, Carlton Melton, Circle Pit, Outlaw Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Hot Lunch, Spider Fever, Harderships El Rio. 9pm, $7.

Junip, Sharon Van Etten Independent. 9pm, $20.

Talib Kweli Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26.

Charles Neville, Youssoupha Sidibe and the Mystic Rhythms Coda. 10pm, $17.

Over the Rhine, Lucy Wainwright Roche Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $25.

Sista Monica Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $22.

Trophy Fire, Ash Reiter, Foolproof Four Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Two Headed Spy, Deeper, Thumper, Cold Steel Renegade Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Dean Wareham Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Jazz Mafia, Realistic Orchestra, Latryx Mezzanine. 9pm, $20.

Jazz Sawyer 3rio Coda. 7-9pm, $5.

Paul Dresher Ensemble ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. 8pm, $18.

3 Leg Torso San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St, SF; www.ticketweb.com. 10am, $5-18.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Banda de Turistas, Pacha Massive Elbo Room. 4pm, $5.

Broceliande Seventh Avenue Performances, 1329 Seventh Ave, SF; www.sevenperforms.org. 7:30pm, $15-20.

Go Van Gogh Café International, 508 Haight, SF; www.cafeinternational.com. 7pm.

Slavic Soul Party! Swedish American Hall (above Café Du Nord). 8pm, $30.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Nuxx.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with guest DJ Axel.

Frolic Stud. 9pm, $3-7. DJs Dragn’Fly, NeonBunny, and Ikkuma spin at this celebration of anthropomorphic costume and dance. Animal outfits encouraged.

Prom Milk. 9pm, $8. Wave not Wave DJs Jacob Fury and Mario Muse spin rock ‘n’ roll at this prom-themed dance party.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

Spotlight Siberia, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 552-2100. 10pm. With DJs Slowpoke, Double Impact, and Moe1.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm. Electro cumbia with DJs Spoke Mathambo and Mshini Wam, Zuzuka Poderosa, Disco Shawn and Oro 11, and Panamami.

SUNDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Macy Blackman and the Mighty Fines Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Cornershop, Tyde, Mar Carroll Independent. 8pm, $25.

High Places, Soft Circle, Sun Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Erin Mckeown Café Du Nord. 8pm, $15.

Nile, Ex Deo, Psycroptic, Keep of Kalessin Slim’s. 7:30pm, $30.

Tennis, Eulogies Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Thralls, Reverse Dotty, Spiro Agnew Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Sepia Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $22.

Vijay Iyer Trio Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $30-50.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Rosanne Cash Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-65.

Hammerlock, K-9 Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, dubstep, roots, and dancehall with DJ Sep, J Boogie, and guest Spliff Skankin’.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Hacienda Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 10pm, $3. Classic electronic tracks with DJs Inquilab, Robots in Heat, Tristes Tropiques, and guest Chris Orr.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

Pachanga Coda. 5pm, $10. Salsa with DJs Fab Fred and Antonio, plus Orquesta La Moderna Tradición.

Play T-Dance DNA Lounge. 5pm-midnight, $25. House with DJ Rich Russ and DJ John LePage.

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

Tensnake Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9pm, $10. Cosmic disco.

MONDAY 15

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alejandro Chavez, Korelenko, Upwords Movement El Rio. 7pm, $7.

Pomegranates, Oh No Oh My, Big Tree Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Rattlesnakes, Silent Comedy, Scrote with Stripminers, Pink Snowflakes Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Lonely Forest, Alright Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Thermals, Night Marchers, White Fang Independent. 8pm, $16.

Nico Vega, Imagine Dragons, Saint Motel Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bright Blues, Drums and Color, Moonshine and the Drugs Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Cermak, Califia El Rio. 7pm, free.

Curse of Panties, Red Light Mind, Stowaways Hotel Utah. 9pm, $6.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Generalissimo, Pegataur, Nero Order Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, Jookabox, Burnt Ones Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Bruno Mars, Donnis Slim’s. 8pm, $19.

Perfect Circle Fillmore. 8pm, $40.

Sole and the Skyrider Band, Egadz and Edison, Epcot, DJ Bomarr Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Twiztid, Blade, Mclordz and Sauce Funky, Kung Fu Vampire Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $23.

Vaccuum, Unlearn, Kruel, Neo Cons Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ Ken Prank and DJ Grenadine.

Brazilian Wax Elbo Room. 9pm, $7. With Samba de Raiz featuring Jorge Alabe, plus DJs Carioca and P-Shot.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

SIP SNACK & SHOP ON CHESTNUT STREET

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November 4, 2010

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The Marina Merchants Association & The San Francisco Bay Guardian Present
SIP SNACK & SHOP ON CHESTNUT STREET

Thursday, December 2nd from 6-9PM

Start your holiday shopping this season in your neighborhood!

Ticket includes:
Tastings from over 20 restaurants and more than 25 beverage sponsors! Raffles & discounts of 15% or more at all participating businesses. Live Entertainment!

$30 Tickets available at http://sipsnackshop.eventbrite.com

Ticketed guests may pick up your wristbands, wine glass, and program guide at either of these locations on Dec. 2nd starting at 6PM:
Eastside West – 3154 Fillmore Street (at Greenwich)
Wells Fargo – 2197 Chestnut Street
Kelly Keiser Splendid Interiors – 2381 Chestnut St.

*All proceeds benefit the Marina Merchants Association.

Entertainment
The Clef Divers | The Lollipop Guild, a San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus ensemble | Marina Middle School Band

For a family-friendly affair on the next night check out Chestnuts on Chestnut: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=165481863479249

Film Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 2, 2010

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

OPENING

The Blue Tower Smita Bhide’s debut film, The Blue Tower, part of the 3rd I South Asian International Film Fest, begins with Mohan (Abhin Galeya) in the sort of loveless marriage that has become a standard cliché. It’s unnecessary to give any reason why the relationship is failing; as a viewer I accept it just as easily as I realize that with the introduction of Judy (Alice O’Connell), a young white nurse working for Mohan’s overbearing Auntie, Mohan will have an affair. However, this predictable fare, like a straight version of My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), takes a dark turn about halfway through, as every character and plot point emerges as more nefarious and twisted than originally imagined, and Mohan finds himself in a situation full of Lynchian perversion and Kafkaesque disorientation. The boldness and speed at which developments occur shifts the deadpan, suburban drama into a black-humored, grotesque ride — the sort you half want to stop, and you half want to see where it’s going. (1:25) Castro. (Prendiville)

*Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers Focusing on Portland-based league Rose City Rollers, Chip Mabry’s Brutal Beauty offers some insights into the recent roller derby revival. The documentary follows the league travel team’s attempt to make it to Nationals over the course of the 2009 season. Ultimately though, the narrative really isn’t all that exciting (spoiler alert: they don’t make it very far). The real heart of the movie lies in the backgrounds and interviews of the tatted-up, foul-mouthed, dyed-haired derby girls from teams like the Break Neck Betties and Guns ‘N’ Rollers. Their personalities and stories of how derby helped shatter their ideas of self-expression and traditional gender norms helps keep the majority of the film’s 80-minute running time interesting, even when the action is not. (1:20) Red Vic. (Landon Moblad)

Butte, America: The Saga of a Hard Rock Mining Town This documentary follows the life and death of a great American mining town, following Butte, Montana’s rise as a mining town through to its inevitable environmental collapse. Once home to one of the world’s largest (and most dangerous) copper mines, Butte saw an influx of immigrants drawn to “the richest hill on earth.” Its story is definitely rich in terms of subject matter, particularly with the town’s role in the labor struggle; it could easily be the background for great early 20th century stories (as is the case with Atlantic City in HBO’s current Boardwalk Empire). But Butte, America is decidedly not cinematic, despite the voice-over narration by Gabriel Byrne, and is better suited to PBS than the big screen. (1:06) Victoria. (Prendiville)

Carlos Carlos, Olivier Assayas’s biopic of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, begins with a warning, that while the film is the subject of historical and journalistic research, “relations with other characters have been fictionalized.” In other words: there be contradictions ahead. But I suppose that’s the least you can expect when you’re watching a 330 minute theatrical miniseries that gives the rock ‘n’ roll biopic treatment to a terrorist who, under an alias, professes “the pleasure of doing one’s duty in silence.” Much of this is intentional, questioning the convictions of extremists. One particularly well-shot scene involves Carlos (Édgar Ramírez) sexually dominating a cell member, only moments after she admits to being a German feminist. After about four hours, though, the intellectual irony begins to feel more like a filmmaker attempting to cover his bases. Carlos is an idealist, but also a sellout. An egalitarian revolutionary, but also a sexist bigot. (And so vain.) Still, the film, full of actors speaking a bevy of languages and propelled by a international punk rock soundtrack, manages to be engaging. Keep in mind, though, that the miniseries was originally aired in three parts, and viewing Carlos in one sitting should be left to the cinemasochists. (5:30) Sundance Kabuki. (Prendiville)

Due Date Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis star in this Todd Phillips-directed road trip movie. (1:35) Four Star, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Fair Game Doug Liman’s film effectively dramatizes yet another disgraceful chapter from the last Presidential administration: how CIA agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts), who’d headed the Joint Task Force on Iraq investigating whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs, was identified by name in the Washington Post as a covert agent — thus ending her intelligence career and placing many of her subordinates and sources around the world in danger. This info was leaked to the press, it turned out, by highest-level White House officials as “punishment” for the New York Times editorial former ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) — Plame’s husband — wrote condemning their insistence on those WMDs to justify the Iraq invasion by then already well in progress. (The CIA task force had also found zero evidence of mass-destruction weapons, but Bush and co. chose to come up with their own bogus “facts” to sway US public opinion.) Purportedly, Karl Rove clucked to CNN’s Chris Matthews that Wilson’s awkwardly-timed dose of sobering truth rendered his spouse “fair game” for exposure. Unfortunately opening here several days after it might theoretically have done some election-day good — not that many Republican voters would likely be queuing up — Fair Game may be a familiar story to many. But its gist and details remain quite enough to make the blood boil. While the political aspects are expertly handled in thriller terms, the personal ones are a tad less successful. That’s partly because we never quite glimpse what brought these two very busy, business-first people together; but largely, alas, because so many of Wilson’s diatribes come off all too much as things that might be said by Sean Penn, Rabble-Rouser and Humanitarian. This is perhaps a case of casting so perfect it becomes a distracting fault. (1:46) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

For Colored Girls Sprinkling many tears and Janet Jackson’s blue steel throughout his high-camp, muy melodramatic adaptation of Ntzoke Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Tyler Perry deserves at least an E for effort in attempting to bring Shange’s choreopoem masterpiece to the screen. The result is a free-floating, somewhat tortured contemporary collection of vignettes centered on a clutch of African American women residing in an Harlem apartment building — a structure that remotely evokes an early Wong Kar-Wai omnibus like Days of Being Wild (1991), sans the narrative ambiguity and sublime cinematography — with its “colored girls,” each representing a hue in Shange’s rainbow, occasionally pouring out the poet’s original verse. Crystal (Kimberly Elise) appears to have it the hardest, burdened with an abusive baby daddy (Michael Ealy), a veteran dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dance teacher Yasmine (Anika Noni Rose) is the beacon of positivity who finds her trust horribly betrayed. Tangie (Thandie Newton) is the saucy slut, baby sister Nyla (Tessa Thompson) is the good girl with a secret, and their mother Alice (Whoopi Goldberg) is the building’s extremely annoying holy roller. Overseeing all is the apartments’ de facto matriarch Gilda (Phylicia Rashad), safe sex activist Juanita (Loretta Devine), and social worker Kelly (Kerry Washington). Oh, yes, and there’s Miss Jackson, who plays the leather-tough, magazine-editing devil wearing Prada, and spends most of her time looking wrecked about possibly ruining her makeup with an actual facial expression. Yes, they will survive, hey, hey, and though Perry may not have been the best moviemaker to adapt Shange’s groundbreaking work, a few of his players, particularly Newton and Elise, rise above the rainbow with wrenching, scene-stealing performances. (2:00) (Chun)

Honest Man: The Life of R. Budd Dwyer Everyone of a certain age or with morbid curiosities has heard of R. Budd Dwyer, thanks to the very public way he died — by committing suicide at a televised-live press conference. The 1987 footage, of a portly middle-aged man with anguish in his eyes and a finger on the trigger, has been recycled in a number of contexts; thanks to the internet, it’s now freely viewable for shock value more than anything else (the incident created a controversy as to how much should be shown during news replays — when Dwyer takes out the gun? When he sticks it in his mouth?) Along the way, who Dwyer was, and why he shot himself, have kind of been lost by the general public. However, as director James Dirschberger discovers, the Pennsylvania politician’s widow, children, colleagues, and even the man whose testimony lead to a conviction in Dwyer’s corruption trial have never forgotten him. Honest Man suggests that Dwyer was actually innocent, but decided in despair to end his life before he’d been removed from office, thus allowing his family to collect full benefits. The full story will probably never be known, but Honest Man‘s attempts to show the man behind the gruesome film clip are sincere, if couched in the understanding that he’ll always be first associated with his infamous, well-documented death. (1:16) Red Vic. (Eddy)

*Megamind Be careful what you wish for, especially if you’re a blue meanie with a Conehead noggin and a knack for mispronunciation and mayhem. Holding up hilariously against such animated efforts as The Incredibles (2004) and Monsters, Inc. (2001), Megamind uses that nugget of wisdom as its narrative springboard and takes off where most superhero-vs.-supervillain yarns end: the feud between baddie Megamind (voiced by Will Farrell) and goody-two-shoes Metro Man (Brad Pitt) goes waaay back, to the ankle-biter years. They’ve battled so often over intrepid girl reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fay) that she’s beyond bored by every nefarious torture device and disco crocodile the Blue Man throws at her. When Mega finally, unexpectedly vanquishes his foe, he finds himself with a bad case of the blues. With the help of his loyal Minion (David Cross), he decides to change the game and create his own worthy opponent, who just happens to be Roxanne’s schlubby cameraman (Jonah Hill). Chortles ensue, thanks to the sarcastic sass emanating from the Will and Tina show, although the 3-D effects seem beside the point. The resemblance to this year’s Despicable Me is more than a little passing, from the bad guy on the moral turnaround to the adorable underlings, but Megamind‘s smart satire of comic hero conventions, its voice actor’s right-on riffs, and the rock and pop licks on the soundtrack make it the nice and nasty winner. (1:36) Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Monsters After a NASA space pod bearing samples of extraterrestrial life crashes in northern Mexico, a large swath of the now massively walled-off U.S. border area becomes an “Infected Zone,” with frequent unpleasant contact between humans and giant octopus-like creatures. Photographer Andrew (Scoot McNairy) is reluctantly charged with delivering his publisher’s daughter Sam (Whitney Able) to safety. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned. The duo find themselves making a dangerous journey northward straight through the Zone, right at the start of an annual “migration season” that always makes the critters especially ornery. Just as 2009’s District 9 commented obliquely on Apartheid, Gareth Edwards’ feature similarly riffs on our own illegal-alien debate. But there’s no need to look for deep meanings here. Taken as a slow build (sometimes a little too slow) toward the inevitable perils, Monsters is a successfully low-key, lower-budget spin on aspects of The War of the Worlds, Cloverfield (2008), The Mist (2007), etc. Those looking for lots of graphic horror-fantasy content may be frustrated, but on its own terms the film is creepy and credible enough. (1:33) California, Lumiere. (Harvey)

*36 Quai des Orfèvres It’s taken six years for this major French policier to get a proper U.S. release, which is a little strange considering its genre appeal and lack of conflict with an English-language remake (Martin Campbell, director of 2006’s Casino Royal, might make one within the next couple years). Leaving for another post, Paris’ Chief of Police (Andre Dussolier) wants to wrap things up tidily before he goes, and that means nailing the violent gang that’s been robbing armored trucks and killing their guards. Though he’d prefer his post be inherited by the honorable Leo Vrinks (Daniel Auteil) rather than the latter’s ex-friend, shamelessly ambitious and underhanded Denis Klein (Gerard Depardieu), internal politics necessitate he give it to whichever man and his team end this crime spree. When a con (Roschdy Zem) gives Vrinks a tip — albeit under seriously compromising, blackmail-ready circumstances — it seems the murderous gang will be caught under his supervision. Drunk and raging with envy, Klein pulls a stunt that has catastrophic consequences. Yet a chance windfall allows him to turn things to his advantage, and greatly against Vrinks. To a point the story is very loosely inspired by events that actually occurred in the mid-1980s, when director-writer Olivier Marchal was a Parisian cop. His script (penned in collaboration with three others) is intricate and dramatic, with some startling twists of fate; the casting, which includes a number of other leading French actors, is impeccable. 36 has been called a Gallic Heat — though it lacks the visually and thematically epic, larger-than-life qualities Michael Mann provided that film. Which leaves it a very good story competently executed, but not the great movie it could have been. (1:51) Roxie. (Harvey)

Tibet in Song It’s often a bad sign when directors are subjects in their own documentaries. With Tibet in Song, Ngawang Choephel has good cause to disprove this theory. In 1995, he returned to Tibet for the first time since fleeing with his mother as a child. An ethnomusicologist and Fulbright scholar, he wanted to record traditional Tibetan music. Instead he was arrested, lost half his footage, and charged with spying, eventually serving six years in jail. Tibet in Song is the completion of his original project, and although the director does give due attention to the circumstances of his own story, it’s always within the larger context of the music, as a culture is being held captive by Chinese pop and propaganda. As Choephel argues that the traditional Tibetan music has been manipulated to change the country’s identity generation by generation, we don’t just hear the music, but understand what it means. (1:26) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Prendiville)

ONGOING

Cairo Time (1:29) Opera Plaza.

Conviction (1:47) Empire, Piedmont, SF Center.

*Easy A (1:30) Shattuck.

Enter the Void (2:17) Lumiere.

*The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest If you enjoyed the first two films in the Millennium trilogy — 2009’sThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire — there’s a good chance you’ll also like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Based on the final book in Stieg Larsson’s series, the film begins shortly after the violent events at the conclusion of the second movie. There are brief flashes of what happened — the cinematic equivalent of TV’s “previously on&ldots;” — but it’s likely an indecipherable jumble to Girl first-timers. Hornet’s Nest presents the trial of Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the much-abused, much-misunderstood, entirely kick-ass protagonist of the series. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and his sister Annika (Annika Hallin) as her lawyer, Lisbeth finally gets her day in court. The conspiracy that drives the story is somewhat convoluted, and while it all comes together in the end, Hornet’s Nest isn’t an easy film to digest. Still, it’s a well-made and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy — as long as you caught the beginning and middle, too. (2:28) Bridge, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Hereafter (2:09) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

Inside Job (2:00) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story (1:51) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

*Jackass 3D (1:30) 1000 Van Ness.

*The Kids Are All Right (1:47) Red Vic.

*Leaving Few beauties — French, English, French-English, or otherwise — have managed the transformation Kristin Scott Thomas has, in using her considerable beauty to convey unfathomable hunger. In this romantic thriller with a touch of Madame Bovary and more than a dab of noir, Scott Thomas is Suzanne, the efficient if somewhat taken-for-granted wife of a doctor (Yvan Attal, director of 2001’s My Wife Is an Actress and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s partner), whose marriage resembles a business arrangement more than a love match. The couple enlist Catalan ex-con Ivan (Sergi Lopez) to build an office for her budding physical therapy practice, and after a minor car accident, Ivan falls into Suzanne’s care, and as she grows to care more deeply about him, an affair begins. Director Catherine Corsini’s tough-eyed look at what follows — concerning the economics of marriage and the price of one woman’s individuation and passionate choices — calls to mind women’s melodramas of the ’40s and ’50s, though Corsini renders her oft-told tale of awakening with considerably less heavy-handedness and minimal condescension. That approach and Scott Thomas’ performance — the movie almost turns on the motionless, slowly evolving look in Suzanne’s eyes when she realizes what she must do — makes Leaving a departure from your average coming-of-liberation romance. (1:30) Albany, Clay. (Chun)

Let Me In (1:55) Four Star.

Life as We Know It (1:52) 1000 Van Ness.

*Mademoiselle Chambon (1:41) Opera Plaza.

My Dog Tulip (1:22) Smith Rafael.

Never Let Me Go (1:43) Four Star, Lumiere.

*Nowhere Boy (1:37) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Paranormal Activity 2 (1:45) California, 1000 Van Ness.

Red (1:51) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Saw 3D (1:31) 1000 Van Ness.

*Secretariat (1:56) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*The Social Network (2:00) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

Stone (1:45) Opera Plaza.

The Town (2:10) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck.

*Waiting for “Superman” (1:51) Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2:13) Presidio.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (1:38) Albany, Opera Plaza, Presidio.

GOLDIES 2010 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Slumberland Records

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 2, 2010

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GOLDIES 2010 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Slumberland Records

Look at the key critically acclaimed and popular indie (or subsidiary) releases of the past few years, and certain label names recur: Captured Tracks, Mexican Summer, Sincerely Yours, True Panther, Slumberland. Most of these names belong to new kids on the block, but Mike Schulman has been at the helm of Slumberland for more than 20 years. If anything, his label, a home for perfect guitar pop, is stronger than ever, with bands such as Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Crystal Stilts on the roster. Slumberland has outlived many of the legendary indie labels — from Postcard to Creation to Rough Trade — that inspired it. Sometimes dedication reaps rewards.

In 1989, when Slumberland began in Washington, D.C., indie rock was a postal affair. The foundation of an international pop underground was being forged through letters and records and zines sent among fans and small record stores. From the beginning, Schulman was uniquely out of step, focusing on melodicism when the D.C. scene was known for punk abrasion. When Slumberland relocated to the Bay Area a few years later, releases by Stereolab, Henry’s Dress, Aisler’s Set, and the unjustly obscure Rocketship had nothing to do with grunge mania. “I felt painted into a corner,” Schulman, who was working at the Berkeley record store Mod Lang, remembers. “It seemed like there weren’t a lot of opportunities to get stuff heard, unless you took bigger deals. It was a craven time.”

Slumberland endured, and Schulman’s deep and abiding love of music is a major reason. One can argue that the label is more refined or restrictive in terms of sound than most — simply put, it offers the true wild heart of what has been more calculatedly and generically marketed as noise pop. But Schulman’s musical taste runs deep and wide. In the mid-1990s he started an electronic label, Drop Beat, and today he DJs at Oakland’s Actual Cafe, spinning rock steady, ’60s hard bop, Blue Note classics, and ’70s soul, funk, and reggae.

Schulman draws from a deep library — he has 30,000 records in his basement. “It’s out of control,” he admits with a smile. “I don’t sell anything. I buy new records every week: dubstep, soul and jazz reissues, and more indie than I have in the recent past. But currently it’s hard for me to listen to new stuff because I’m spending so much time listening to [Slumberland] test pressings.”

For Schulman, the process of assembling an album is one of the greatest pleasures of running a label. “I was really happy when they started sending me mixes,” he says when asked about the newest Slumberland release, Sports by the Bay Area trio Weekend, an album that promises future greatness and mass appeal. “The only reason I do this is to help bands get their music out there. I’ve been doing it long enough that I can give advice to a young band doing their first record. It’s gratifying talking to a band, listening to demos, and hearing an album come to fruition.”

Another gratifying moment for Schulman was Slumberland’s 20th anniversary mini-tour, when new bands and older bands — including his own, Black Tambourine — united for shows on both coasts. “The SF show was crazy,” he says. “There were so many people I hadn’t seen since the Aisler’s Set broke up [in the late ’90s]. So many people came to see Henry’s Dress.” Contrary to what one might assume from Slumberland’s music, Schulman is the opposite of a sentimentalist, but in this instance, he’s unabashedly romantic: “It was magical. It was kind of heartwarming. When I started doing a label I was so into music and supporting labels and I wanted to contribute. There was something about those shows that made me feel like, oh, maybe I did.”

He did — and he’s still contributing, with support and inspiration from his wife Nomi and son Theo. Through well-timed and still-strong acts of fidelity, Slumberland has forged its own community of friends who now have a shared history. The label’s present — 2010 brought powerful debut albums by Weekend and Frankie Rose and the Outs — is vital. Its future looks even livelier. Schulman is excited about upcoming releases by Brown Recluse and Emitt Rhodes-like baroque pop troubadour Devon Williams, and he drops some big name hints regarding the next Pains of Being Young at Heart album. For Slumberland, the pains of being young at heart have matured into the rewards of being true.

www.slumberlandrecords.com

>>MORE GOLDIES 2010

GOLDIES 2010: Jesse Hewit/Strong Behavior

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 2, 2010

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GOLDIES 2010: Jesse Hewit/Strong Behavior

Most shows start with a request to turn off your cell phones. Tell Them That You Saw Me begins with an implicit request to leave your virtual mind outside. As the lights come up in this latest work from Jesse Hewit/Strong Behavior (which premiered after a residency at CounterPULSE in August), five utterly gobsmacked women, sprawled in enervated postures on floor and furniture, stare back at the audience for a very long time. The audience is still, but maybe still not seeing everything in front of them, as a micro-choreography of breath and saliva and eyelash unfolds amid a glacial volley of questions and answers. The real seeing takes time and patience and something like courage, things that feel in short supply these days — unless you attend this piece, which requires as well as rewards “attending.”

“It’s a study in focus,” says Hewit, “and it’s a study in what we’re looking at and why, and how we deal with each other for long periods of time.” The piece, he says, made him conscious of a concern he’s had with duration as a condition of social life and a strategy for art. Like an aikido master, Hewit uses the sheer weight of time to unsettle our usual, predictable, and tyrannical rhythms. In doing so he advances an invigorating and revelatory body of work exploring our myriad personal and social identities.

For his part, the 30-year-old choreographer and theater maker is both a unique artist and part of a tight-knit milieu making serious waves across the Bay Area’s performance scene. Much of this network of young, bold, savvy, and mostly queer artists gathers under the banner of The Off Center, an ongoing artist-run performance initiative originally formed around recently-shuttered queer performance incubator Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory. (The group includes close colleague Laura Arrington, the other CounterPULSE summer residency artist, whose Hot Wings shared the bill with Tell Them.)

From ages 8 to 13, Hewit studied ballet in Montreal. But dance went by the wayside as his family kept pulling up stakes and moving, since in most places “it wasn’t cool to be a boy who was a dancer.” He got back into dance while at New York University in Tisch’s Experimental Theater Wing. Then, unexpectedly, he headed to a psychology program in central Florida: “I don’t know what the deal was, but something didn’t agree with me in New York anymore.” After a year-and-a-half, Hewit found San Francisco State’s graduate program in sexuality studies. “I thought I was going to be a sociologist,” he admits. “[But] my mode of expression while in graduate school kept coming back to mounting performances or looking at bodies and posturings, so I realized, ‘Oh, okay, I have to go back and do dance stuff.'”

The theoretical rigor explicitly informs Hewit’s work, but he’s also inspired by an international discourse among dance/theater makers. He recently trained with choreographer Meg Stuart and names among other significant influences New York–based choreographer Miguel Gutierrez, Bulgarian-born physical theater artist Ivo Dimchev, North Carolina–raised feminist choreographer-provocateur Ann Liv Young, and New York’s Big Art Group. Locally Hewit cites people like Erika Chong Shuch, Jess Curtis/Gravity, and Sara Kraft.

Hewit particularly credits Keith Hennessy, a friend and mentor, with drawing his work into an international context. He brings up Hennessy’s balancing of two boards on his head in his Bessie Award–winning show Crotch. “It’s really relentless and impossible and it takes way too long,” he recounts with satisfaction. “It’s nice. It’s always these little sites of resistance — just how quickly do we think things are supposed to happen?”

www.jessehewit.com

>>MORE GOLDIES 2010

Calls for justice

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 2, 2010

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

Since the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant III on New Year’s Day in 2009, a photograph of the 22-year-old African American man from Hayward has become iconic. The picture shows Grant’s smiling face, and the black ski cap and a hooded sweatshirt he was wearing the day it was taken.

It has been copied onto posters and displayed like wallpaper in downtown Oakland cafes and along city blocks, manipulated with different hues and accents to produce scores of flyers, banners, hip-hop album jackets, T-shirts, and even masks. An expansive mural in Oakland displays Grant’s image on a larger-than-life scale, framed with roses.

The ubiquitous pictures of Grant, the victim of a shooting by police, are a constant reminder that his life was taken suddenly when BART cop Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back on the Fruitvale train platform. At the time, Grant was unarmed and physically restrained, having been arrested following reports of a fight.

Cell phone camera footage of the shooting went viral, and the case drew national attention. The defense argued that it was all a tragic accident, saying Mehserle had mistakenly drawn his firearm when he meant to draw his Taser.

Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and his sentencing is expected Nov. 5. With all the attention surrounding the case, this final determination has taken on the proportions of a moment of truth.

Mehserle could be sent to prison for as long as 14 years, or merely be placed on probation. For many Grant supporters, it’s a question of whether the justice system will incarcerate a police officer for killing a young person of color, after so many other youths have been slain in police shootings that never went to trial. For Mehserle’s supporters, the outcome will signify something else entirely.

RIVAL NARRATIVES

Mehserle, a white Napa native in his late 20s who resigned from BART after the shooting, was tried on a murder charge. But a jury in Los Angeles (where the trial was moved because of the publicity here) found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter on July 8. Protesters, decrying the verdict as too lenient, converged in downtown Oakland for a street rally directly afterward that later gave way to bursts of rioting and looting.

The grassroots community leaders who urged supporters into the streets aren’t the only people now mobilizing around the sentencing. In the months following the verdict, the law enforcement community rallied in support of Mehserle, whose conviction for on-duty police conduct stood out as a rarity.

The former cop’s supporters have set up websites, hosted vigils, and arranged media interviews for Mehserle and his allies. A website called Justice4Johannes.com decries his conviction, denouncing the justice system as biased against police. “Do not let our officers fall victim to a spineless system,” the website urges, “who would rather protect criminals than protect our law enforcement officers who daily put their lives on the line for you!”

As the date of the sentencing approaches, each side has demonstrated that they are as active as ever. When the Giants played in AT&T Park in October, Mehserle’s father, Todd, made an appearance in McCovey Cove on a stately sailboat with “Free Johannes Mehserle” banners ruffling on its tall masts. But a smaller wooden ketch with activist Jared Aldrich at the helm, hoisted banners that read “Justice for Oscar Grant” and, on another occasion, “Jail Killer Cops.”

On Oct. 23, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 shut down Bay Area ports, using a stop-work day to hold a rally at the Port of Oakland calling for the maximum sentence for Mehserle.

“The litany of police killings of innocent young black and Latino men has evoked a public outcry in California,” Jack Heyman, a co-organizer of the rally, wrote in an article in CounterPunch. “Yet when it comes to killer cops, especially around election time, with both the Democratic and Republican parties espousing law and order, the mainstream media either expunges or whitewashes the issue.”

Heyman told the Guardian that he had visited Oakland high school classes to speak about the issue and found that in some classes, every single student raised a hand when asked if they knew the name Oscar Grant. “They happen to be sensitive to the issue of police brutality,” he noted. “A number of them had had problems with police.”

PRISON OR PROBATION?

On Oct. 26, opposing briefs on the sentencing were filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Defense Attorney Michael Rains submitted a 126-page memo urging the judge to drop the gun-enhancement charge and place Mehserle on probation, which would keep him out of prison. Meanwhile, prosecutors with the Alameda County District Attorney filed a 20-page memo indicating that Mehserle should be sent to prison, but stopped short of advocating for the maximum sentence.

Rains’ motion goes into great detail, quoting from letters sent to the court in Mehserle’s defense, in which the former transit officer is said to be “a gentle giant.” It even goes so far as to suggest that Mehserle’s infant son (born New Year’s Day, 2009) could suffer psychological difficulties later in life if he is separated from his father.

Grant, too, was a father — his daughter, Tatiana, is six — but the prosecution’s motion doesn’t mention how she may be psychologically affected later in life by her loss. Grant supporters sent some 2,000 letters to the judge, according to a posting on civil rights attorney John Burris’ website, but none were referenced in the briefing.

The DA argues that Mehserle intentionally shot Grant, implying that the Taser argument was a fabrication. In the moments following the shooting, the document notes, Mehserle told his fellow officer that he thought Grant was going for a gun. “If the sentence in this case is to serve any purpose whatsoever,” it notes, “it must serve as punishment.”

INSIDE THE POLICE LOBBY

The Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) covered the cost of Mehserle’s defense. The 85,000-member, politically powerful police organization maintains a legal defense fund for officers facing legal troubles.

Technically, Mehserle wasn’t entitled to the financial assistance. According to PORAC’s website, an officer who voluntarily resigns may be ineligible for benefits, and Mehserle quit shortly after the shooting. Still, PORAC stepped up and put itself on the hook for millions in legal fees to ensure he had the best possible defense. PORAC was a driver behind the Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights, which established a unique set of protections for law enforcement officers under investigation for misconduct.

PORAC president Ron Cottingham acknowledged that its decision to fund Mehserle’s defense was discretionary, but declined to say more. It’s possible that PORAC was interested in preventing Mehserle’s trial from setting a precedent for other cases involving officers who use deadly force against unarmed suspects.

PORAC also played a role in the BART civilian oversight structure that was ultimately approved by the California Legislature. The transit agency’s lack of civilian oversight became a flashpoint in the wake of the shooting, prompting Assemblymember Tom Ammiano to draft legislation that would have created an Office of Citizen Complaints (OCC) for BART patterned after the system in place in San Francisco. PORAC fought it and the effort was stymied.

“PORAC … will actively oppose your bill as it is written,” Jesse Sekhon, president of the BART Police Officers’ Association, wrote in a letter to Ammiano’s office. “They also said that they will have every law enforcement agency in the state oppose the bill.” Ammiano’s bill would have prevented police officers from serving in oversight roles and would have granted more power to the OCC.

The bill that went forward instead, Assembly Bill 1586, was crafted by BART, supported by PORAC, and introduced by Assemblymember Sandre Swanson (D-Oakland). Under this system, the oversight process begins with a police auditor selected by the BART Board of Directors, and a citizen board — which may include police officers.

According to Lynette Sweet, a member of the BART Board who spoke about the bill during a community meeting in Oakland in August 2009, PORAC opposed Ammiano’s bill because it would have allowed the state to direct municipalities throughout California to create civilian-oversight offices. “PORAC doesn’t want to see that happen. So we’ve now become the lesser of two evils for them,” she said.

On Oct. 29, BART held a dedication ceremony for the new police auditor office and honored Swanson for bringing the legislation forward. The transit agency has initiated a search to fill the civilian-oversight positions. But the rifts in the community over this shooting are far from healed.

On one side, a politically powerful and financially robust police lobby is actively influencing civilian-oversight legislation and spending top dollar trying to keep Mehserle out of prison. On the other, a grassroots community movement furious about police brutality against black and Latino youth is gaining momentum.

Only Judge Robert Perry knows what his own personal interpretation of justice is, and he alone will determine if or for how long Mehserle will spend time behind bars. If he is spared from prison, the community will be outraged. If he is incarcerated, Mehserle supporters will be outraged. But regardless of the decision, Mehserle’s life will go on.

California’s secret death drug

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 2, 2010

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news@sfbg.com

California was forced to postpone the execution of convicted murderer Albert Greenwood Brown in September because the state had run out of sodium thiopental, part of the death drug cocktail used in lethal injections.

The last batch of the drug expired Oct. 1 and the manufacturer won’t have more until 2011. So as of early October, all executions had been postponed until next year.

But on Oct. 6 the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced in a court filing that it had obtained 12 grams of sodium thiopental, also known as sodium pentothal, with an expiration date of 2014. That could mean some swifter executions.

But it also raises a critical legal question: where did the drug come from, and did the state violate federal or international laws obtaining it?

CDCR isn’t talking. Terry Thornton, deputy press secretary, refused to identify the source of the newly acquired drug. But it clearly didn’t come from the manufacturer Hospira. The company, the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium pentothol, says it has none available and is in no rush to sell it to the CDCR. In a statement released by Hospira, company spokesperson Daniel Rosenberg announced that “the drug is not indicated for capital punishment and Hospira does not support its use in this procedure.”

Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director for the ACLU of Northern California, said it would be tricky for the state to buy the drug from anyone else. “Hospira is the only approved manufacturer in the U.S.,” she said.

But there’s a hint of where California’s supply might have come from. Arizona also recently obtained some of the death drug — Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told the Arizona Republic that it was delivered from an unidentified source in Britain.

But the British press has raised questions about the deal. No European country has the death penalty and both British and European Union laws bar exporting for profit materials used for executions.

Both the Arizona and California batches have the same expiration date.

Ty Alper, associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at Boalt Hall School of Law, explained that to his knowledge, “California got [the sodium thiopental] from a foreign source,” He raised questions about the possible risks of obtaining the drug from an unknown outfit.

“If the drug is not FDA approved, could it have contaminants in it? Could it perform differently?” Alper asked. “If that drug doesn’t work right then, everybody knows the execution will be horribly painful and torturous.”

So far, the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t bought that argument. Oct. 25 the court voted 5-4 to clear the way for Arizona to execute Jeffrey Landrigan, a convicted murderer. “There is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe … There was no showing that the drug was unlawfully obtained, nor was there an offer of proof to that effect,” the unsigned opinion stated.

Landrigan was executed Oct 27.

However, we can’t find any evidence that California obtained the drug legally. There are no FDA-approved importers, and federal law strictly limits the ability of anyone to bring powerful drugs directly into the country. Title 21 United States Code of the Controlled Substances Act, Section(b) states: “It shall be unlawful to import into the customs territory of the United States from any place outside thereof (but within the United States), or to import into the United States from any place outside thereof, any nonnarcotic controlled substance in Schedule III, IV, or V, unless such nonnarcotic controlled substance … (1) imported for medical, scientific, or other legitimate uses”

Sodium pentothal is a Schedule III drug.

Executing a human being clearly doesn’t count as a “medical or scientific” use — no doctor is involved in administering the lethal drugs. Of course, there might be an opinion from the state attorney general concluding that killing a condemned prisoner is an “other legitimate use” but the office won’t produce one. When we asked if obtaining the drug from a foreign supplier was legal, Christine Gasparac, a spokesperson for Attorney General Jerry Brown, stated in an e-mail that “You’ll have to contact the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for a response to your questions” and that “this office was not involved in the procurement of the drug.”

CDCR hasn’t presented any import license, purchase order, chain of custody documents, or anything else to show where the deadly stuff originated. We’ve filed a written request under the California Public Records Act for the data, but have not received a reply.

That bothers state Sen. Mark Leno (D-SF), who chairs the Public Safety Committee. “I am concerned that a state agency, using taxpayer money, is buying something and refusing to disclose where the money went,” he told us.

Procuring sodium thiopental may become even harder in the future — it has only limited use in medicine.

Dr. Philip Lumb, chair of department of anesthesiology at the University of Southern California medical school, said that over the past few years the drug Propofol has replaced sodium thiopental in the majority of surgical cases. (Propofol is the same drug Michael Jackson overdosed on.)

“It is still available — we still have it,” Lumb said. “It is used sometimes for brain procedures.”

But if Hospira isn’t making much and doesn’t want to sell it to prisons for executions, and European companies can get in trouble for exporting it, California may find that a drug it relies on to kill people isn’t available from any legitimate source. Which means the custodians of our prison system could, in effect, be buying lethal drugs on the black market.

They put other people in prison for that.