Internet

Teen dream machine

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Teen dream machine

arts@sfbg.com

YEAR IN TOFU AND WHISKEY Call it the Rookie Magazine trickle-down effect: Teen girl rockers ruled the world in 2013. Granted, some 20-somethings were in there too. But still, these young and fierce ladies — celebrated on either Rookie’s more polished site or eye-popping Tumblrs of a similar demographic — were the artists to take notice of this year.

The young majors of 2013 were 17-year-old New Zealander Lorde and Los Angeles sister trio Haim, all in their early 20s. There were also female rappers and soul singers, like Cameroon-raised Lorine Chia (20), and Brooklyn-based Angel Haze (22). Locally, there was teen surf pop quartet the She’s. On a smaller scale, there are emerging acts like Sacramento’s sister duo Dog Party, which, at ages 14 and 17, released its biggest record to date on Asian Man Records this August.

Rookie is the web magazine for young girls that looks more to the Sassy archetype than Seventeen, but so far beyond those bounds that it’s almost ludicrous to compare the two. Started in 2011 by now-iconic mini fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson, the website blends style, feminism, and culture into a Nylon-esque vision of rude glamour. More so, it’s become a casual, glittery hit-maker, simply by nature of showcasing exciting new talent early in the game, often before it’s been hungrily shredded by the widespread blogger industrial complex.

Musicians are featured in gushy profiles, or longer Q&As, often with more personalized questions than are found on standard music blogs. An early Rookie writeup on Lorde reviewed her full-length record Pure Heroine (Universal Music Group) in a typically conversational tone: “I first heard Lorde, when I was in the parking lot of a Target one night. It was 10:50pm and I was in the car by myself, listening to the radio; I had just been going through a breakup and was in an awful state of mind. Suddenly this song came on with a simple beat and this AMAZING voice that made me sit up straight and turn on Shazam, which told me it was Lorde’s song ‘Royals.'”

Can’t you too remember such a time? An moment in a youthful life, alone in your car or next to the stereo in your room, the disappointments of a confusing day rushing through your mind, and then the moment a song transformed that hurt into pure joy? It might not have been a pop song, but it certainly could have been.

Thanks to the thrill of that paradoxically anti-consumerist pop song “Royals,” Lorde (née Ella Yelich-O’Connor) was undoubtedly the biggest of the aforementioned bunch of teen girls who made it big in 2013. She became a bona fide pop star in black lipstick and a poof of untamed, grungy curls. And while her look and style are certainly endlessly dissected, she came to the pop charts when there was a specific need for her new breed of mainstream-yet-still-underground-enough-to-be-weirdish sound.

In her recent essay on Lorde and others of her ilk, NPR writer Ann Powers poetically described Lorde’s step away from pop stars of the tongue-out, twerked-out Miley variety we also suffered through in 2013: “Lorde is a phenomenon because of perfect timing. She came along just when listeners were craving what ‘Royals’ famously advocates: a different kind of buzz. After a few months as the new find of early musical adopters, this droll chanteuse became notorious for suggesting that some kids might prefer to stand apart from pop’s endless party.”

Angel Haze was another standout — a stunning, pansexual, artistically rare rapper who took Macklemore’s “Same Love,” and gave it meaning, singing of her own (real) struggles with sexuality. The young artist’s debut full-length, Dirty Gold, doesn’t even see release until January 2014, but her covers (she also took on Eminem’s “Cleanin’ Out My Closet”) made her a name to know in 2013.

Haze was featured on Rookie, as was soul singer Lorine Chia. A performer with a silky voice and tropical beats, Chia released an EP, Naked Truths (Make Millions Music), in October and frequently Tumbls her fascinating life and favorite musical finds. Like other young females who made their mark this year, she seems worlds apart from the sleek pop stars of yore, still enthralling but somehow approachable.

And then there was Haim, the crunchy, LA-based sister trio that hit it big with September-released Days Are Gone (Polydor Records, Columbia Records). The album went silver, selling nearly 90,000 copies stateside, which is big news in these unwieldy music industry days.

But apart from the pop and hip-hop charts, teen girls were also making waves in smaller local scenes. Case in point: The She’s. The talented, breezy-surf pop quartet started off the year playing Noise Pop and were on the cover of the Guardian, posed as a group to watch in 2013.

A few months later, there they were: life-sized on bus-stop posters plastered around downtown as part of that big Converse campaign that overran the city’s music scene this summer (not that we had anything to do with the leap). The She’s recorded a track for Converse’s Rubber Tracks popup station at Different Fur Studios, and also played a ton of shows throughout the year. Oh, and the SF natives all just graduated from high school.

As for Sacramento’s burgeoning Dog Party, the sister duo is still navigating those studious halls of yore. Singer-guitarist Gwendolyn Giles is a senior in high school, and drummer Lucy Giles is a 14-year-old sophomore. They started playing together at ages 9 and 6.

“Before [guitar] I played the flute, but that wasn’t for very long because I like guitar,” Gwendolyn tells me from their Sacramento home. “The flute made me dizzy. Also when I was in fourth grade, American Idiot came out and I was obsessed with Green Day.”

Lucy pipes up with her earliest inclination that she wanted to play rock’n’roll: “I was really into the White Stripes when I was in third grade. I like Meg White and so I just kind of decided I wanted to play the drums.”

Her dad picked up a drum set at a garage sale, and the girls soon began lessons, and then started writing songs — with angsty lyrics about worrisome BFFs and the like, and stories that were mostly autobiographical. In 2013, the Giles sisters released their third full-length, bratty pop-punk record Lost Control, on Mike Park’s legendary Asian Man Records. It stands with the Donnas, the Bangs, and a mix of other fun party punk acts before them.

Ty Segall tops their mutual list of favorite new (or new-to-them) acts of 2013, followed by the Descendents, the Babies, fellow SacTown locals Pets, and most of the Burger Records roster.

“My sister and I really love Ty Segall,” Gwendolyn gushes of the prolific rocker. “He’s amazing … my favorite artist of all time.”

Dog Party went on a full US tour with Kepi Ghoulie (of ’80s band Groovie Ghoulies) and just last week played with the Aquabats at Slim’s. Next up, they’ll play the Gilman Fri/20.

As with other female artists this year (and for the past decade), Dog Party has had to deal with web trolls intent on breaking them down.

“Now that we’ve gained a little bit of popularity, there have been some nasty things written about us on the Internet,” Lucy says. “But that doesn’t really affect us. We don’t like to listen to what they say because we don’t really care.”

While the Giles sisters hadn’t known about Rookie before they were featured on the site, they’ve heard a lot of feedback since the post, which urged readers to “stream the new album by our (and probably your) new favorite band.”

“We got a lot of attention from Rookie,” Gwendolyn says. “People have come up to us and been like ‘Hey, I heard about you from Rookie!’ It’s pretty cool.”

“Our social media sites had a pretty big boost off that article,” adds Lucy. 

 

Tofu and Whiskey’s top records (and sandwiches) of 2013

1. Weird Sister, Joanna Gruesome

2. In Dark Denim, Antwon

3. It’s Alive, La Luz

4. Run Fast, The Julie Ruin

5. Ionika, Metal Mother

6. Ride Your Heart, Bleached

7. Self-titled, Golden Grrrls

8. Mama’s Hummus sandwich, Bi-Rite

9. Tofu Banh Mi, Hella Vegan Eats

10. Vegan Reuben, Ike’s

Candy crush

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Candy crush

marke@sfbg.com

YEAR IN NIGHTLIFE The drink of the year was the Chinese Mai Tai at Lipo Lounge. It’s $9, but it’s huge and you only need one. Or maybe a half, if you want to remember your pants. Oh, just drink the whole thing.

It was another supersweet, neon-bright yet sonically sophisticated year of clubbing and dance music, full of ups, downs, and twirl-arounds. Celebrated rave cave 222 Hyde and Hayes Valley drag outpost Marlena’s closed (boooo). But Mighty and 1015 got mindblowing new sound systems, Monarch and DNA Lounge expanded, Project One inherited 222’s speakers, Public Works and F8 doubled-down on adventurous bookings, and ambitious venues Audio Discotech and Beaux opened (and are still finding their footing). And we got a new dance music record store, RS94109, and rising dark techno star, Vereker.

As far as music goes: we’ve managed to fend off the worst of pop-EDM, while welcoming the drum ‘n bass and big-room ’90s sound comeback with open underground arms. (Also, there is an actual underground!) San Francisco’s still a major destination for techno up-and-comers — and even though you may stumble across some clueless tech-bros sporting 2k7-wear or novelty rasta wigs on our finer dance floors, give them a hug and hope they improve! It’s all good.

>>Read Emily Savage’s take on the YEAR IN MUSIC 2013 

Before I get into some of my favorite 2013 things, let’s tip a hat to two legends we lost this year: Scott Hardkiss and Cheb i Sabbah. Between them, they brought a whole world’s worth of music to our dance floors and spanned generations. Dancing forever in their honor.

HIP-HOP, Q’ED UP

Hip-hop got so good in 2013, the Year that Twerking Ate the Internet. Trap sounds and molly pops seemed to invigorate the East Bay scene: E-40 dropped a zillion slaps, while Iamsu! and Sage the Gemini (who can totally get it, hellieu) swerved onto the national scene. Buffed-up SF legends Latyrx dropped a nifty disc after two decades. In the bigtime, Kanye bought up every edgy electronic producer he could to impress Pitchfork, while Danny Brown and Kendrick Lamar recontextualized essential ’90s rap tropes — gangsta and concept albums, respectively, but in a party way.

Unfortunately, another ’90s rap trope, tired homophobia, was also revived, with Eminem and Tyler, the Creator fumbling bigtime. This time, however, there was such a huge and thriving queer hip-hop party scene that we could look right past all that lazy ish. Queer rap broke big in 2012 when eye-catching artists blended witch-dark sounds, quantum vogue moves, and afro-surreal poetry with R&B licks, broken bass boost, and neon-bright performance art.

That scene deepened and brightened this year — here, at super parties like Swagger Like Us, 120 Minutes, Fix Yr Hair, and House of Babes and unstoppable homegrown talent like Micahtron, Double Duchess, and even cameo appearances by classic homohop babes Deep Dickollective — proving that spitting flames can still burn down the disco. And queer-rap resistance even grabbed the national spotlight when Daddie$ Pla$tic‘s electro-anarchic “Google Google Apps Apps” went viral.

 

SWEET AND LOW

The Honey Soundsystem crew ended its Sunday night parties at the top of its game with a huge blowout — surprise marriage proposal, performance by fabled ’80s singer Jorge Socarras, and slew of unannounced guest DJs included. Honey was an ostensibly gay club, but that might have just been a feint to pack the floor with hairdressers. While it never ceased brazenly shoving its raw homosexuality in the oft-frigid techno scene’s face, its influence went way beyond the queer sphere. For five years, it was our best weekly in terms of musical guests (Wednesdays’ fantastic Housepitality almost ties it on that score), bringing in a mind-blowing roster of international underground players.

But Honey Sundays were more. Will there ever be a party ballsy enough to take as a month-long theme the skyrocketing real estate market, condo-mapping its venue and printing “luxury house” brochures? Or base the décor of one of its biggest parties around a collection of putrid haters’ comments? What promoters, nowadays, even bother to actually design and print challenging works of art as posters and flyers, or truly transform their venues? (DJ Bus Station John, still our gold standard, is the only one I can think of.)

Fortunately, Honey parties will continue, just not weekly. But SF is full of such amazingly talented crews, both well-established (As You Like It, No Way Back, Sunset, Lights Down Low, Icee Hot, Opel, Pink Mammoth) and burgeoning (Isis, Face, Modular, Mighty Real, Trap City, Odyssey). My wish for 2014 is that many of these really invest themselves in building a whole vibe for their parties, top to bottom, instead of just relying on groovy headliners, online promotions, and audience goodwill. As the changing city chases out its artists and loses its edge, we need entire worlds of freakiness to escape into and call our own.

 

TOP SOUNDS OF 2013

>> Nebakaneza, “Expansion Project, Vols. 1-11“

What does our most forward-thinking dubstep DJ do when dubstep’s no longer an option? He deepens his crates, cycling through 12 months-worth of excellent mixes, themed by genres like yacht rock and classic soul, to rediscover his bass roots while transforming his sound into something even more thrilling.

>> Swedish House Mafia, Bill Graham Center, Feb. 16

I finally get it! All you need is a $1 million light rig, 40,000 glowsticks, an indoor fireworks show, and an arena full of half-naked teens. This EDM stuff is actually kind of fun.

>> The Disclosure Effect

Disclosure’s Grammy-nominated debut Settle (Cherrytree) will nest atop most critic’s dance picks this year, and rightly so: the young Lawrence Brothers brought lovely, 2-step-fueled house back into headphones and charts worldwide. But if it also brings more attention to breezy sonic relatives like Bondax, AlunaGeorge, Joe Hertz, the Majestic Casual roster, and the hundreds of bedroom producers who suddenly switched from making EDM and dubstep to deeper house sounds, then so much the better.

>> Deafheaven, Sunbather (Deathwish, Inc.)

Shoegaze plus death metal equals an arctic beauty and burning mystery that transcends even My Bloody Valentine’s wonderful, self-released mbv and, when listened to alongside this year’s icy electronic-ish masterworks like Tim Hecker’s Virgins (Paper Bag Records) and the Haxan Cloak’s Excavations (Tri Angle) — or more emotive ones like Chance of Rain (Hyperdub) by Laurel Halo, Psychic (Matador) by Darkside, or Engravings (Tri Angle) by Forest Swords — makes strange sense of a near future.

Steve Reich, “Music for 18 Musicians,” SF Contemporary Music Players, Jan. 28

The fact that there was a near-riot to get into a performance this hypnotic, hyper-complex 50-minute 1974 piece by minimalist icon Reich attests to SF’s ravenous appetite for “contemporary classical.” That the audience sat in stunned silence a full two minutes after the piece concluded before exploding with applause attests to the excellence of our local players. (And while we’re on “classical,” kudos, too, to the SF Opera’s summer production of Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” — three fantastic hours of the most ravishing singing I’ve ever heard.

>> Patrick Cowley, School Daze 2 x LP (Dark Entries)

The instant Internet popularity of Montag’s trippy “Porn Archives Lo-Fi Mix” earlier this year should have tipped off the coming re-evaluation of porn soundtracks as electronic artworks. But when members of Honey Soundsystem released this two-disc compilation of fascinating, atmospheric early tracks by local electronic wizard Patrick Cowley (1950-1982) used in ’80s gay porn flicks, it became a critical sensation.

>> Regis, As You Like It and Public Works, July 26

Here’s a question: Do you need to actually be at a party to enjoy it? I was out of town when this joint went down. But after witnessing my feeds blow up and listening obsessively to the Soundcloud set, later posted to Youtube, it feels like I was there when the young Brit freaked everyone out with a hard, deep techno set. No FOMO, baby.

>> Throwback monthly, Mighty

I may be fascinatingly elderly, but all the young kids flocked to the ’90s big-room house sound revival this year. This party, a SF reunion brimming with new faces, classic tracks, and legends at the decks, is like Universe plus cool straight people, or maybe the End Up in the East Bay.

>> Jay Tripwire

I fell deep(er) in love with so many DJs this year: Guy Gerber, Kyle Hall, Osunlade, J.Phlip, Greg Wilson, Catz ‘n Dogz, South London Ordnance, Finnebassen, 0Phase, MK, Vakula, Robert Hood, Huerco S., Kastle, Psychemagik, Jeff Mills, Keep Schtum, Stretford Dogs Club — but this revered Canadian DJ’s DJ always sets my (vinyl!) standard, especially with this year’s banging techno DJ Mag and expansive Electronic Groove (best deep house buildup of the year on that one, imho) mixes.

>> Divoli S’vere, Ckuntinomksz Vols. 1-3

Vogue beats continued to come into, er, vogue harder than ever this year, their flashy attitude and underground authenticity influencing musicmakers, like our own up-and-coming Soo Wavey label. Young NYCer Divoli, however, gives you real quantum fishiness to gag on all day — and goes waaay above your wig, hunty. These three volumes of lightning-made bedroom beats might be overload, but take us into some incredible sonic landscapes, beyond the balls.

>> Mexico

Forget Miami, Playa del Carmen is the new Ibiza of North America — with all the tech house festivals, bare white flesh, and urbanizing displacement (and opportunity) that entails. And Mexico’s tech scene, like its economy recently, is coming on strong with players like Rebolledo and White Visitation. But the best nightlife sound in the world still comes from Plaza Garibaldi at 3am in Mexico City, when dozens of spangled mariachi bands play all at once for your attention. Pure musical bliss.

 

 

Bus riding tech workers respond to national spotlight on evictions

Erica Hanna
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Bus riding tech workers respond to national spotlight on evictions

Evictions are rippling through San Francisco. Tensions are high. Tech workers with gobs of cash are driving up the rental market in what may be the newest tech bubble — or the city’s new reality. Protesters took to the street earlier this week, blocking a Google bus to draw attention to gentrification, and our video of a union organizer posing as a Google employee shouting down those protesters lit up the Internet. 

In the wake of that national spotlight on San Francisco’s outrage, the Bay Guardian decided to talk to the bus-riding techies themselves and ask how they felt about the new tech revolution. Are they at fault for displacing long time San Franciscans? What did they make of Monday’s outrage?

We returned to the scene of the protest, 24th and Valencia streets, where workers from Yahoo, Genentech, Google, and others line up at Muni stops to be whisked away in mammoth private buses. Most had hands in their pockets, turning away when asked questions. Others decided to talk, but none would go on the record with their names.

“We’re very aware of the sentiment in the city against us,” one tech worker with grey hair and glasses told us. “But hopefully this (protest) leads to a positive conversation.”

He said that the envy was understandable. Public transit in the city “isn’t the best,” he said, but pointing to any one company to be at fault isn’t productive. 

“Our economy lacks upward mobility, and the haves and have-nots are divided all over the country,” he said, not just in San Francisco. 

But some of the techies themselves are “have nots,” as one tech worker, a middle-aged Java programmer sitting in Muddy Waters cafe, could attest to. As we watched the tech buses ride by, he told the Guardian he’s been out of work for a few months now. He used to work for a computer sketch software company called Balsamiq. 

He’s lived in the city for 22 years. When he first moved into town, he lucked into renting a room for $175 a month. Now his rent is much, much higher, though he wouldn’t say by how much.

This is not the viral video of the staged argument, but from the same day. A protester enters the Google bus, and a bus rider shouts her out.

“I’m sympathetic,” he said, of the discord on rising rents. “But getting rid of tech isn’t the solution.” He pointed to a need for more affordable housing.

A blonde haired Apple employee told us that although he makes more money than the average San Franciscan, he can’t afford to buy a home here. He’s lived in the city three years, and worked at Apple for four. He took a balanced view of the protest, saying the stunt started a national look at inequality.

“It’s keeping (the conversation) at the front and center. You could argue it’s not fair to target one company, but I see both sides,” he said. 

Tech should do its part to pay its fair share, the 19-year cafe owner of Muddy Waters said. Hisham Massarweh said he likes the tech folk, who are great for business. But the transit issue needs to be worked out, he said. He once got a $250 ticket for parking in the same bus stop outside his store that the tech buses park in every day — ticket and permit free. 

Across the street, Jordan Reznick, a PhD student and teacher at California College of the Arts, said she’s seen many of her friends displaced. “I feel a lot of animosity towards Google and Google workers,” she said, as we sat just behind a line of Google employees waiting for their bus.

“I live in a small place with a family of four,” she told us, as it’s the best she could find in this market.

As she ran off to catch her ride to work, the Guardian approached a man who sat waiting for the same Google bus that was protested earlier in the week. 

“San Francisco doesn’t have its shit together,” he said. The protest was about housing, but San Francisco needs to address that fast. And as for the Google buses, there’s no framework for Google to pay the city, yet. “If they could (pay) they would, going forward I’m sure they will.”

We asked him point blank if he felt guilty watching longtime San Franciscans lose their homes. 

He took a drag of his cigarette, looked me in the eye, and said, “Every day. I love San Francisco with all my heart, and I feel tremendously guilty. Every day.”

As the bus pulled up he hopped on and headed to Mountain View.

Proposal seeks to improve prospects for the formerly incarcerated

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Questions concerning an individual’s criminal history have been banned from city agency employment applications in San Francisco since 2006. Now Sup. Jane Kim has proposed legislation to expand the reach of that policy into the private sector and affordable housing.

Introduced at the Board of Supervisors Tue/10, Kim’s legislation seeks to eliminate the bias of first impression that has long plagued the formerly incarcerated.

The Fair Chance ordinance builds upon existing city and state-level fair hiring policies, known as “ban the box” policies, already in place. It proposes to extend them to private businesses and affordable housing providers, as a way to remove “unnecessary barriers to stable housing and employment for individuals with conviction records,” according to a description of the legislation issued by Kim’s office.

“The most important thing to remember is that this is not a hiring mandate,” Kim explained in an interview. “We just want to create a process that’s based on merits.” She added, “We’ve also made it so you can only examine a persons arrest record for the last seven years in order to try to establish some sort of hiring standard.”

Existing “Ban the box” policies forbid employers in the public sector from asking prospective employees about prior criminal convictions in the early application process — essentially eliminating the polarizing “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” check box from online and paper employment applications. Instead, it requires those that would request a background check to at least meet the person in question first. 

And it is a popular theme: “ban the box” policies in some form can be found in 10 states and more than 50 cities nationwide. Gov. Jerry Brown signed California’s version into law back in October, while the city of Richmond established one of the most progressive “ban the box” policies in America, joining Seattle and Philadelphia as major metropolitan areas to have extended the ban into the private sector.

“Our office has been working on this since January, and we’ve spent lots of time talking to other states and municipalities about what has worked for them,” Kim said.

Under San Francisco’s current “ban the box” policy, individuals with prior felony convictions are permitted to withhold the potentially damning information only if they are applying for a position with the city.

But under the Fair Chance Ordinance, which is co-sponsored by Sup. Malia Cohen, that practice would be extended to all jobseekers looking for private-sector work, at establishments with staffs larger than 20 people, as well as applicants for public housing.

The Fair Chance Ordinance wouldn’t place an outright ban on criminal inquiries, just require employers to hold off on background checks until after the interview, theoretically allowing recently integrated individuals an opportunity to contextualize their past indiscretions.

The idea behind the ban is simple. In the age of impersonal Internet applications, prospective employees are often quickly assessed in a binary manner, separating candidates into categories of hire-able or not the instant their applications are submitted.

And in an ultra-competitive job market, checking a box that condemns your past can condemn your future. There have been myriad reports about folks whose applications have been thrown out the moment that checked box is detected, but under Fair Chance, prospective employees would have the opportunity to get in front of their past.

And that’s the idea. “We’re just trying to help people get a foot in the door,” Kim said. “And we’re just trying to get folks to apply. A lot of [formerly incarcerated individuals] won’t even apply for jobs, because of the ‘box.’”

Gore to the world

Michael Redmond
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Gore to the world

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Consider the giants of ho-ho-horror. Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974) boasted an above-average cast (Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, Keir Dullea, John Saxon). Christmas Evil (1980) was dubbed “the greatest Christmas movie ever made” by no less an authority than John Waters, who recorded an audio commentary for its 2006 special-edition DVD.

And then there’s Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), which borrows several of Christmas Evil‘s plot points: a kid suffering mental damage from a Santa-related trauma grows up, unwisely takes a job working with toys, become obsessed with the concepts of “naughty” and “nice,” and eventually snaps. Christmas Evil may have the better last shot (you’ll believe a van can fly!), but Silent Night, Deadly Night is not without its sleazy charms.

Directed by Charles Sellier Jr. — best-known for creating TV’s The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, he later segued into Christian-themed entertainment — Silent Night, Deadly Night contains scream queen Linnea Quigley, a year before her signature role as the naked, grave-dancing “Trash” in Return of the Living Dead. Though she’s only onscreen for a few minutes, her death scene (shrieking, flailing, topless, wearing jorts, piercing antlers) is Z-grade slasher gold.

Beyond Quigley’s rack (and the other boobs showcased eagerly and gratuitously herein) and some gorgeous Utah location shots, Silent Night, Deadly Night‘s memorable moments come courtesy of its creepy soundtrack. The Internet proves that least one dance remix exists of “Santa’s Watching,” a nightmarish ditty which reprises throughout the film. In the film’s opening credits, it’s a sing-songy lullaby; it plays in full-cheese form on a car radio shortly before unfortunate tot Billy Chapman sees his parents slaughtered by a baddie in a Kris Kringle costume; and it’s sung drunkenly by grown-up Billy’s co-workers at the toy store where he works.

And Santa is, indeed, watching. Early on, wee Billy’s catatonic grandfather snaps to when nobody’s looking, which is one of the film’s few genuinely frightening bits. “Christmas Eve is the scariest damn night of the year!” he croaks with cruel glee. “If you see Santa Claus tonight, you better run for your life!” Point taken, Gramps.

A few years later, Billy and baby brother Ricky are marking time at a Catholic orphanage. Billy’s still traumatized by what he witnessed (exhibit A: he punches the benevolent Santa that comes to visit the kids on Christmas), but the bitchy Mother Superior believes her punishments will set the naughty (ahem) boy right. When the film jumps ahead a few more years, Billy (played as an adult by Robert Brian Wilson) is a strapping lad employed at a dingy toy shop. He’s happy for the first time, therefore we get a peppy montage (more original music!) that spirals into darkness as soon as we realize what month it is.

Guess who’s pressed into Santa-clad service, with predictably messy results? (Not Billy’s boss, who kicks off the store’s after-hours party by announcing “Time to get shitfaced!”) Like Christmas Evil, Silent Night, Deadly Night is novel amid the 1980s slasher wave in that it follows the killer’s story, rather than empowering whatever Jamie Lee Curtis character is left standing at the end. Frankly, by the last reel, it’s a relief when put-upon weirdo Billy goes full psycho, meting out punishment among the naughty (and sparing the very few he deems “nice”).

And what about little Ricky? Oh, he survives to cause his own jingle-bell rampage in the sublimely campy, meme-spawning Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987) and the less-notable Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989). The series continued with the Clint Howard-starring, witch-themed Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990); and Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1991), featuring Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney as the titular craftsman. Spoiler alert: He’s evil. Just like Santa. *

FANGORIA PRESENTS: SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT

Sat/14, 10pm, $10

Balboa Theatre

3630 Balboa, SF

cinemasf.com/balboa

 

Tech leaders must engage their critics

Michael Redmond
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EDITORIAL It’s time for San Franciscans to have a public conversation about who we are, what we value, and where we’re headed. In the increasingly charged and polarized political climate surrounding economic displacement, the rising populist furor needs to be honestly and seriously addressed by this city’s major stakeholders.

Whether or not the technology industry that is overheating the city’s economy is to blame for the current eviction crisis and hyper-gentrification, it’s undeniable that industry and it’s leaders need to help solve this problem. They are rolling in money in right now, including tens of millions of dollars in city tax breaks, and they need to offer more than token gestures to help offset their impacts.

As we were finalizing stories for this issue on Dec. 9, the Guardian newsroom was roiled by our rollercoaster coverage of a protest blockade against a Google bus, which has become a symbol for the insulated and out-of-touch nouveau-riche techies in the emerging narrative of two San Franciscos.

Our video of an apparent Google-buser shouting at protesters “if you can’t afford it, it’s time for you to leave” went viral and burned up the Internet (and our servers) even as we discovered and reported that he was actually a protester doing some impromptu street theater.

But there was a reason why his comments resonated, and it’s the same reason why The New York Times and other major media outlets have been doing a series of stories on San Francisco and the problems we’re having balancing economic development with economic security, diversity, infrastructure needs, and other urban imperatives.

Rents have increased more than 20 percent this year, the glut of new housing coming online now is mostly unaffordable to current residents, even that new construction has done little to slow real estate speculators from cannibalizing rent-controlled apartments, and the only end in sight to this trend is a bursting of the dot-com bubble, which would cause its own hardships.

We need this city’s political leaders to convene a summit meeting on this problem, and Mayor Ed Lee and his neoliberal allies need to bring tech leaders to the table and impress upon them that they must engage with their critics in a meaningful way and be prepared to share some of their wealth with San Franciscans. Not only is the future of the city at stake, so is its present, because the housing justice movement won’t be ignored any longer. The good news is that San Francisco has a golden opportunity to test whether democracy can help solve the worst aspects of modern capitalism, offering an example to others if we succeed. But if our political leaders don’t create good faith avenues for meaningful reforms, San Francisco may offer a far messier and more contentious lesson.

On displacement, journalism, and the Guardian’s fake Google-buser video

Sasha Cuttler
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56
On displacement, journalism, and the Guardian’s fake Google-buser video

It’s been a whirlwind morning here in the Guardian newsroom. First our coverage of the surprise Google bus blockade and protest, along with a video that appeared to show a Google bus rider shouting at protesters, went viral (congratulations to getting onto our site now, it’s been hard to keep it up). Then we discovered the guy was actually protester Max Alper, who staged this intriguing bit of street theater on the spot, unbeknowst to protest organizers who had tipped us off to their event in advance.

As the editor of the Guardian, it’s tempting to second guess how we handled this incident, but I believe that we did everything right, with full transparency at every stage in the process. For better or worse, we live in an age of Internet immediacy, and sometimes stories unfold in unexpected ways right before readers’ eyes.

We were clear in our original post that we couldn’t confirm his identity as a Google employee, noting only that he had been on the bus and got off to confront the protesters. And as we pushed to confirm who he was and authenticate the video, we were the first to learn and report that he was actually a protester. We also got and ran the first interview with him. So we maintained a proper journalistic skepticism and diligence throughout the process.  

Besides, this is still a good and telling story about the current San Francisco moment. First of all, in the long and proud history of political theater in San Francisco, this is a great video. Sure, in retrospect, perhaps his comments were a little over the top, but they resonated because they seemed to represent a persistent attitude among some who want to let market forces determine who gets to live here.

“This is a city for the right people who can afford it, and if you can’t afford it, it’s time for you to leave,” Alper said, a comment that echoes posts regularly made on the Guardian website in reaction to our coverage of gentrification, eviction, and displacement issues.

As a protest tactic, I think this stunt is open to interpretation about whether it helps or hurts a housing rights movement that has caught populist fire in recent months, quickly altering this city’s political dynamics and making politicians scurry to address these issues.

But I think it does point to the need for San Franciscans to have a serious public conversation about who we are, what we value,  and where we’re headed, as we’re calling for our house editorial this week. And because print deadlines are immutable compared to the online world, I’d better turn my attention back to the paper now, thanks for reading.

UPDATE: Union organizer shouts down protesters as they block private Google shuttle

Erica Hanna
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228
UPDATE: Union organizer shouts down protesters as they block private Google shuttle

Protesters blocked a private Google shuttle on Valencia street today, decrying private shuttle’s use of public bus stops without paying fees or fines.

The group of 20 or so neon-yellow vested protesters called themselves the “San Francisco Displacement and Neighborhood Impact Agency.” The company doesn’t pay San Francisco a dime to use the Muni stops — fines that private auto drivers pay regularly.

UPDATE 3:58pm: Just how does a story go from breaking, to verification, to “holy shit it’s all over the internet now?” Here’s our interview with Fake Google Employee Max Alper, and our recount of how it all went down: http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/12/09/whyd-you-do-it-we-ask-fake-google-employee-max-bell-alper

UPDATE 12:32pm: Various tips have streamed in that this shout-out was staged. Protest organizer Leslie Dreyer talked to us on the phone and verified that this person’s identity was Max Bell Alper, a union organizer from Oakland. This person was not a Google employee, and Dreyer was not able to verify if Alper was there in the morning with the group of 20-30 protesters. The Guardian is attempting to contact Alper for comment. Dreyer said she, as an organizer, was unaware that the “performance” had been planned. We are following this as it develops.

UPDATE 1:06pm: Within an hour of our original post, the Guardian learned that Max Bell Alper, a union organizer with Unite Here Local 2850 was the man shouting down Google bus protesters earlier this morning. We asked Alper what motivated him to impersonate a Google employee.

“This is political theater to demonstrate what is happening to the city. It’s about more than just the bus. These are enormous corporations that are investing in this community. These companies, like Google, should be proud of where they’re from and invest in their communities,” he said.

When asked if he intentiionally intended to deceive media, he replied “People are talking all over the country about what’s happening in San Francisco (referring to evictions and displacement). That’s the debate we need to have here. The more we talk about it, the more we think about it, the more we’re going to see the tech companies need to contribute.”

 Alper said that he did not intend to engage in theater before going to the protest, but when there made the decision, “spontaneously,” to stage the argument. When he maintained his story that this was political theater, we again asked why he did not verify his name at the protest itself — and only after the story blew up in national and local media.

“This was improv political theater,” he said.

Original post follows:

The SFMTA has a pilot plan in the works to regulate private use of public bus stops.

Though the private shuttles were the crux of the day’s protest, the heart of the fight is over gentrification. As the tech revolution in SF leads to rising rents and longtime San Franciscans are being displaced.

In the video, a union organizer who hopped off the bus shouts down Erin McElroy, staging an argument with a protester who also heads the eviction mapping project. “How long have you lived in this city?” McElroy asked him. He shouted back “Why don’t you go to a city that can afford it? This is a city for the right people who can afford it. You can’t afford it? You can leave. I’m sorry, get a better job.”

“What kind of fucking city is this?” he shouted, and then walked off. He mentioned repeatedly that he couldn’t get to work because the bus was blocked, and did exit the bus (indicated he was a Google employee), but the Guardian (nor a nearby Al Jazeera reporter) could not verify his job title or name. If anyone has any tips as to the identity of this man, please contact us at news@sfbg.com. 

(UPDATE 12:12 PM — The Guardian amended the headline to reflect our story more accurately, that though this man exited the bus and claimed he was late for work, we have not yet verified his employment at Google)

We’ll have more on this story later in the day, for now, check out footage from the protest.)

Pros and cons(oles)

Michael Redmond
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2
Pros and cons(oles)

arts@sfbg.com

GAMER The next generation of game consoles is officially in stores and consumers demand to know — definitively — which is the superior console. Is it the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One?

Unfortunately, the comparison isn’t that simple. Although both are sleek, state-of-the-art devices that play video games, we’re talking about two machines with different aims. Sony hopes the PS4 will lure back gamers that it disenfranchised with the expensive, non-intuitive and difficult-to-love PlayStation 3 by making things simple, fun, and focused on playing and sharing games. Microsoft is high on the success of the Xbox 360 and looking to dominate home media on all fronts, creating in the Xbox One an all-in-one device that allows you to control your TV, movies, and other digital downloads.

Strictly speaking, if you want to just play games and have an experience that is the same but prettier, Sony has your interests at heart. It’s the more powerful machine, current games look a bit better, and navigating the PS4 generally is an all-around smooth experience. Upon booting the system up, you’re greeted with soothing music and a fairly straightforward, simple interface. I was able to find all my games, apps, and settings within seconds, rather than minutes. The new DualShock 4 controller has a touch pad and a light bar for motion gaming (provided you have a PlayStation camera) and it performs these new functions with a minimum of hassle.

The most “next gen” aspect of the PS4 is the share button. A new button on the DualShock 4 is dedicated to sharing your experiences with friends, whether what’s being shared is video clips or actual streams of gameplay that can be viewed on another PlayStation, computer, or phone. Game streams and Let’s Plays have become their own genre on YouTube, and, by giving people that experience on day one (Xbox One’s streaming services are set to launch next year), Sony has a real upper hand on conquering the online gaming community that enjoys watching other people play games.

The PS4 is a machine that plays games, plain and simple, and right now the games it plays are only so-so. You’ve got a new Killzone, Shadow Fall; first-party beat ’em up Knack; and a few multi-platform — and cross-generation — titles that are likely to do well, but the must-have next-gen gaming experience just isn’t here yet.

The Xbox One is not nearly as intuitive as the PS4 and your first few hours with the machine will require patience and a bit of learning. Applications and settings are hidden in sub-menus and the revelatory Kinect voice commands are exhilarating when they work and aggravating when they inevitably do not. Growing pains were inevitable; Microsoft is attempting things that have never been done on a gaming machine before — like the ability to route your cable box into the Xbox One and change channels with your voice — and, if their history of iteration is to be trusted, it’s likely that the issues with organization and un-matched voice commands will melt away sooner rather than later.

Xbox’s launch games are favorable only in comparison with the PS4’s meager lineup. Forza Motorsport 5 is a wonderful showcase for what the Xbox One is capable of, and the best buy on either console so far, but the other exclusives are essentially limited to Dead Rising 3 and Ryse: Son of Rome, which are fun in spurts but offer nothing you haven’t hacked or slashed before.

Which leaves the question, what do you want from your “next-gen” console? If you’re in the market for a new device, you’re not wrong to expect improved graphics or increased resolution and frame rate. You want games to look better. And that’s at least partially there if you want it, but it doesn’t seem to be the current focus for either machine. Even on the PS4, the visual leap we’re seeing right now isn’t worth the $400 asking price, and the lower-spec’d Xbox One is tagged at a whopping $500 for a system bundled with Kinect.

In spite of all the internet furor spouted by gamers in the past few months about sub-standard resolution and graphics, perhaps Microsoft and Sony both realize the real coup is getting people who aren’t gamers to buy these consoles. In that area, Xbox One’s ambition to do more than play games is a risky pursuit, but one that could make all the difference for consumers who have only a passing interest in traditional gaming.

Time will tell which console resonates more with the public and some day financial reports aplenty will give us a definitive resolution on which console is more successful. But calling this a “console war” is more than a little sensational. Both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One currently offer incrementally better experiences than their previous-gen counterparts, and the world of popular consumer electronics has proven a little better is often just enough. *

 

A new holiday tradition: workers’ rights

Michael Redmond
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9

The holiday season has officially started, and if you’re any kind of American, you know what that means. Hordes of wild-eyed shoppers have descended upon us.

If early morning stampedes at chain retailers and other hallmarks of the Black Friday phenomenon seem like a peculiar tradition, recent offshoots of the trend may prove even more bizarre. One is business’ attempt to claim other Thanksgiving week calendar slots as holiday-shopping bonanzas in their own right. Cyber Monday is the busiest online shopping day of the year, we’re told, while a growing number of intrepid early-birds skipped out on Turkey Day altogether to go bargain hunting on the woefully titled “Brown Thursday.”

Then there are the growing ranks of cynics who’ve found creative ways to critique in-your-face consumerism as a cultural deficiency, a sort of anti-Black Friday tradition. There’s Buy Nothing Day, an alt standby appealing to the conscience of the thoughtful consumer.

The web-based Black Friday Death Count (www.blackfridaydeathcount.com), documenting six years of violent incidents stemming from holiday shopping frenzies, reads like a stark condemnation of petty greed. Viral YouTube videos of squabbling gift buyers, meanwhile, suggest that a mass audience of Internet viewers is reaching for the popcorn and taking it all in, perhaps with the glee of blood-sport spectators.

Yet a different aspect of Black Friday 2013 deserves a second look. This year, low-wage employees who generally make Black Friday profits possible got louder in their demands for better working conditions.

Look at Walmart. It’s the nation’s largest employer, but its employees earn notoriously low wages — a fact highlighted by Black Friday protests staged outside Walmart stores nationwide, including in the Bay Area. For low-wage retail workers who can barely make ends meet let alone leave gift-wrapped digital devices under the tree, momentum seems to be building. The National Labor Relations Board recently announced its intention to pursue complaints against Walmart for illegally threatening and firing employees who participated in last year’s Black Friday protests.

Further up the supply chain, the Port of Oakland saw a work stoppage from a group of truckers last week who have fallen into dire straits financially. Classified as owner-operators instead of employees and therefore unable to unionize, many face potential job loss because they can’t afford engine retrofits needed to comply with new environmental regulations. The timing of their quasi-strike, just as container ships were coming into port with cargo destined for Black Friday sales shelves, was no coincidence.

All of which begs the question: If Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Buy Nothing Day can all be incorporated as modern American traditions that directly follow Thanksgiving, why not claim a slice of the pie as well for workers putting themselves at risk in the name of better conditions? If these struggles are effective, it will be one more thing to give thanks for.

 

Brawl fallout

Michael Redmond
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4
Brawl fallout

D’Paris “DJ” Williams spent his day the same way many San Franciscans did Nov. 15, watching young Miles Scott, aka Batkid, rescue a damsel in distress to the cheers of thousands.

Williams, 20, then biked from downtown to visit relatives in the Valencia Gardens housing project in the Mission District. It was there, as the nation continued cooing over the caped crusader, that two plainclothes police officers pulled Williams onto the ground. Police said they initially pursued Williams into the housing complex because he was coasting his bike on the sidewalk, a traffic violation.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

Neighbors quickly came to Williams’ defense, fists at the ready. The ensuing brawl was recorded on video and quickly went viral nationally. Fast forward two weeks and two protests later, and Williams’ family has joined with prominent attorney John Burris to sue the SFPD, for allegedly using excessive force and violating Williams’ civil rights.

“The violence is the grave matter of the entire thing, and the illegal detention and subsequent arrests,” Burris told the Guardian. He has not yet filed suit.

As the video went viral, allegations of improper police conduct abounded. Police are now crying foul, too. SFPD Chief Greg Suhr called for wearable cameras for police officers, saying he’s confident that it would clear police of wrongdoing.

The question that haunts the community around Valencia Gardens, though, is not only about the use of force. Residents wonder if the police profiled Williams because he’s black.

Was he really stopped because of a traffic violation? Or was that just legal justification for the police to search him on suspicion that he was carrying a firearm or controlled substance, which would amount to profiling?

 

TWO SIDES OF THE STORY

 

D’Paris’ stepfather, Frank Williams, told the Guardian that his son was in disbelief immediately following the ordeal.

The elder Williams related the story DJ told him.

While walking to his grandma’s house in Valencia Gardens, DJ walked with his bike for a bit, then sat on it and scooted it with his feet. Some people he didn’t recognize got out of a car nearby, calling “hey come here, come here.” As Williams stood in the doorway, “They grabbed him by his jeans and pulled him out,” the elder Williams said. “They kept pulling on him, and he’s saying ‘What did I do? What did I do?’ as they started punching him on the side of the face, and dragged him out.”

The police shared a different version of the story with reporters.

The plainclothes officers, who remain unnamed, identified themselves as police and displayed their badges, according to the SFPD account. When Williams “failed to comply” with their orders to stop, they caught up to him and attempted to detain him.

“He became combative, resisted arrest, and multiple subjects came out of that residence and formed a hostile crowd around the officers,” said Officer Gordon Shyy, a SFPD spokesperson.

When the Guardian asked him to explain the officers’ actions in more detail, Shyy said he didn’t have that information. The SFPD did not make the incident report public, but Shyy had a copy.

The reason the brawl broke out remains under dispute, but what happened next was captured on video and posted to the Internet.

As the plainclothes officers tried to subdue Williams, a neighbor took a swing with a cane that nearly hit an officer. A policeman threw haymaker punches at a neighbor as bystanders shouted them down. In the end, Williams and three of his cousin’s neighbors were taken into custody.

Williams’ sister was there, too, watching them fight as she held her newborn.

Video shows the four men who were detained scraped and bloodied, and Williams was bleeding and bruised as the officers took him in. All were taken to San Francisco General Hospital.

Williams was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon, which Shyy said was for biting an officer. He was then discharged pending further investigation, the District Attorney’s Office told the Guardian. Public Defender Jeff Adachi said the city doesn’t usually pursue such cases.

“The reason you discharge cases is, you can’t prove them,” Adachi explained.

While Shyy maintained that the officers pulled him aside because he was riding his bicycle on a sidewalk, those officers were outside Valencia Gardens for a particular reason. Part of a SFPD squad called the Violence Reduction Team, their unit is tasked with pulling guns off the streets.

“What were these guys doing stopping DJ for a traffic violation?” wondered Travis Jensen, a friend of Williams who publicized the incident on Instagram. It’s a fair question: The Violence Reduction Team isn’t exactly known for pulling over bicyclists.

 

GUN HUNTERS

AK47s, .45 handguns, semi-automatics, guns hidden in waistbands. That’s what the Violence Reduction Team seeks to do away with when they hit the streets.

SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy credits the team with a drop in citywide homicides. It has certainly been busy.

The Violence Reduction Team arrested 20 suspects during last year’s Fleet Week, a press release from the SFPD announced, touting the unit’s success. That Halloween, they nabbed six more guns. Just last month they made 10 arrests, pulling even more firearms off the street, Shyy said.

“The VRT officers were on their regular patrol for their shift, it had nothing to do with the Batkid event,” Shyy told the Guardian. “VRT is tasked to patrol high crime areas and conduct pro-active policing to prevent violent crimes from occurring.”

When asked directly if the officers stopped Williams because they suspected he had a gun, Shyy repeated that they lawfully detained him because he illegally rode his bicycle on the sidewalk. “If officers lawfully detain a person, and can articulate a cursory pat search of that person, they may do so,” he said.

When officers took Williams to the ground they did search him for weapons.

The Guardian contacted former Tiburon Police Chief Peter Herley, who previously served as president of the California Police Chief’s Association, to ask if plainclothes officers responsible for seizing guns would take the time to cite a bicyclist for a traffic violation.

“Generally they don’t do it, because it may blow their cover,” he said. “If the violation was grievous enough, maybe. Usually a plain clothes unit wouldn’t do it.”

Adachi put it another way. When a person is stopped for an infraction, “the expectation is there’s a ticket drawn up and a person is sent on their way.”

Based on what Shyy read to us from the police report, the officers at the scene seemed to enter the situation believing Williams could be armed. “Williams continued to resist by pushing his upper body against the sidewalk and tried to get to his feet. Williams was unhandcuffed and unsearched at this point. From my knowledge and experience I know this is a high crime area and people in this area often carry weapons. I believed if Williams were able to free himself from us, he may attempt to access a weapon.”

Ultimately the officers only found two things on D’Paris Williams: juice and a cupcake.

 

SHAKEN, BUT NOT DETERRED

Williams’ cousin Dave lives in Valencia Gardens. Dave, who refused to provide his last name because he feared retaliation, says Williams rode his bike to a Goodwill store that day to apply for a job. Dave, 36, invites some of his younger distant cousins, including Williams, over for what he calls a “positive hype.”

“They’re over here like every day. We have a big family, we’re very lovable,” he said.

Williams’ sixth grade science teacher, Norm Mattox, told the Guardian DJ was in school at City College, known as a young man with prospects.

“He’s someone we think can get out of the neighborhood, get out of the projects,” he said.

That’s why D’Paris was in disbelief too, his stepfather told us. “I did question my son about it. Why would they follow you? Explain this to me,” the elder Williams told the Guardian. He fears his son was targeted for being the wrong color, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

That’s why Burris took the case. “The young people need to know there is a place to go, that you don’t have to accept this level of brutality by an officer,” he said. “The legal issues themselves, are an illegal detention, illegal arrest, and use of excessive force. [These are] federal civil rights violations.”

D’Paris took that to heart. The younger Williams told his father something had to change, that he was determined that something good had to come from this.

“He kept repeating it. ‘This has got to stop. Got to stop. Got to stop,'” the elder Williams said.

“It makes a dad proud to hear that.”

Charges dropped in police-resident brawl at Valencia Gardens

Sasha Cuttler
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285

After spending the weekend and Monday in jail, D’Paris “DJ” Williams’s was released this morning (Tue/19) at 2am. Williams was initially charged with felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon in a widely publicized brawl between police and residents of Valencia Gardens on Friday, but the case was discharged pending further investigation, according to the District Attorney’s office.

It was Friday afternoon, and 20-year-old Williams was having a very good day. As his cousin Dave (last name withheld due to his fear of retaliation) tells it , Williams had just finished applying for a job at Goodwill, and spent the afternoon enjoying the Batkid festivities along with thousands of his fellow San Franciscans. On his way to visit his cousin in the Valencia Gardens housing complex in the Mission, plainclothes officers spotted Williams riding his bicycle on the sidewalk.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

According to the SFPD, the plainclothes officers identified themselves as police, displayed their badges, and when Williams “failed to comply” with their orders to stop, they caught up to him and attempted to detain him. As they struggled to put Williams on the ground, nearby neighbors came out to defend him.

“He became combative, resisted arrest, and multiple subjects came out of that residence and formed a hostile crowd around the officers,” Gordon Shyy, a spokesperson for SFPD, told the Guardian.

In layperson’s terms, a brawl broke out.

Someone allegedly threw a cane that nearly hit an officer. An officer let loose haymaker punches towards a backpedaling neighbor, as a crowd shouted them down. By the end, Williams and three of his cousins’ neighbors were bloodied and bruised as they were taken into custody.  

Williams was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon, which Shyy said was for biting an officer. Shyy maintains that the officers pulled him aside for a traffic infraction of riding a bicycle on a sidewalk, and the officers decided to detain Williams because he ignored their calls to stop and continued toward the residence.

But just why they decided to pull Williams over is questionable.

The officers were undercover, plainclothes narcotics and gun seizure agents called the “Violence Reduction Team,” Shyy said. Why such specialized officers would leave their vehicle only to make a traffic citation is still unclear, and the SFPD declined to answer that question.

“What were these guys doing stopping DJ for a traffic violation?” Jensen said, incredulous, to the Guardian.

When asked how the officers justified their use of force, Shyy read directly from the police report: “Williams continued to resist by pushing his upper body against the sidewalk and tried to get to his feet. Williams was unhandcuffed and unsearched at this point. From my knowledge and experience I know this is a high crime area and people in this area often carry weapons. I believed if Williams were able to free himself from us, he may attempt to access a weapon.”

Not long after, Williams’ friend Travis Jensen, a local photographer who was teaching Williams the trade, took to Instagram to sound the horn, describing it as police misconduct.

“This isn’t the DJ I know,” Jensen said of the SFPD’s characterization of how Williams reacted. None of the men involved have criminal records, as far as Jensen knows, and were just concerned about their friend.

Video of the incident widely circulated around the internet, riding the wave of Batkid publicity. All were taken to SF General Hospital, according to the SFPD.

The cops, having no other information except that Williams was riding his bike on the sidewalk, were afraid Williams would have a weapon. In the end, all he had on him was a Capri Sun and a cupcake.

Now that the case is discharged, does Williams have to wait in fear? Not likely, Public Defender Jeff Adachi told the Guardian.

“The reason you discharge cases is you can’t prove them,” Adachi said. Though this shouldn’t be taken as sacrosanct, he clarified, it’s likely Williams can leave the incident behind him. “If I was advising him I would say the case was discharged, and they’re not going to file. Generally speaking if they could, they would file it now.”

A protest is planned for tonight at 5pm in front of SFPD’s Mission station, which Williams’ cousin Dave said was a “peaceful protest. I’ll make sure of that.”

Film Listings: November 13 – 19, 2013

Michael Redmond
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0

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

OPENING

American Promise This remarkable look at race, education, parenting, and coming-of-age in contemporary America is the result of 13 years spent following African American youths Seun and Idris (the latter the son of filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson). At the beginning, the Brooklyn pals are both starting at the exclusive Dalton School, where most of their classmates are rich white kids. This translates into culture-clash experiences both comical (a 13-year-old Idris estimates he’s been to 20 bar mitzvahs) and distressing, as both boys struggle socially and academically for reasons that seem to have a lot to do with their minority status at the school. Culled from hundreds of hours of footage — a mix of interviews and cinéma vérité — Brewster and Stephenson’s film captures honest moments both mundane and monumental, sometimes simultaneously, as when Seun’s mother, driving the kids to school, discusses her battle with cancer as his younger siblings trill a Journey song in the back seat. (And even this seemingly light-hearted aside takes on heft later in the film.) Extra props to Brewster and Stephenson, who clearly made a conscious choice not to edit out any of their own foibles — for the most part, they’re caring, involved parents, but be warned: strident homework nagging is a recurrent theme. (2:20) Roxie. (Eddy)

The Armstrong Lie See “The Great Pretender.” (2:03) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

The Best Man Holiday Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan lead an ensemble cast in this seasonal sequel to 1999 hit The Best Man. (2:00)

The Book Thief One of those novels that seems to have been categorized as “young adult” more for reasons of marketing than anything else, Markus Zusak’s international best seller gets an effective screen adaptation from director Brian Percival and scenarist Michael Petroni. Liesl (Sophie Nelisse) is an illiterate orphan — for all practical purposes, that is, given the likely fate of her left-leaning parents in a just-pre-World War II Nazi Germany — deposited by authorities on the doorstep of the middle-aged, childless Hubermanns in 1938. Rosa (Emily Watson) is a ceaseless nag and worrywart, even if her bark is worse than her bite; kindly housepainter Hans (Geoffrey Rush), who’s lost work by refusing to join “the Party,” makes a game of teacher Liesl how to read. Her subsequent fascination with books attracts the notice of the local Burgermeister’s wife (Barbara Auer), who under the nose of her stern husband lets the girl peruse tomes from her manse’s extensive library. But that secret is trivial compared to the Hubermanns’ hiding of Max Vandenburg (Ben Schnetzer), son of Jewish comrade who’d saved Hans’ life in the prior world war. When war breaks out anew, this harboring of a fugitive becomes even more dangerous, something Liesl can’t share even with her best friend Rudy (Nico Liersch). While some of the book’s subplots and secondary characters are sacrificed for the sake of expediency, the filmmakers have crafted a potent, intelligent drama whose judicious understatement extends to the subtlest (and first non-Spielberg) score John Williams has written in years. Rush, Watson, and newcomer Schnetzer are particularly good in the well-chosen cast. (2:11) (Harvey)

How I Live Now As 16-year-old Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) arrives to spend the summer with cousins she’s never met, England is on the brink of war with an unnamed adversary. Daisy wants nothing to do with her new family and their idyllic countryside home — she’s too caught up in self-loathing image and diet obsessions, which manifest in the movie as overwhelming voiceover chatter. Her eldest cousin, Eddie (George MacKay), begins to draw her out of her shell, but everything changes when a nuclear explosion hits the country. At first, the cousins’ post-apocalyptic life is a charming bucolic, soundtracked by British folk-rock. But the horrors of war soon find them, and the movie’s latter half takes on a quite different tone. Adapted from Meg Rosoff’s YA novel, How I Live Now is almost eager to tackle the ugliest aspects of wartime existence — mass graves, prisoner abuse, work camps — and this unflinching approach is compelling, despite some flaws in the acting and character development. (1:41) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Stander)

Le Joli Mai See “Eternal Spring.” (2:25) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Your Day Is My Night Multidisciplinary artist Lynne Sachs returns to SF with this feature set in the world of NYC’s Chinatown “shift bed” apartments — ones whose crowded tenants take turns using sleeping space, a phenomenon that exists in many US cities and immigrant communities. An experimental mix of documentary and staged narrative, Day’s cohabiting protagonists are primarily older émigrés from China with diverse current jobs and divergent memories of life back home — from fond family reminiscences to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. The individual stories told here are related not just in verbiage (both scripted and improvised), but song, dance, theater, poetical imagery, and composer-sound designer Stephen Vitiello’s collage soundtrack. At Other Cinema, Sachs will also present several of her short film works, including 2006’s Three Cheers for the Whale, a collaboration with the late Chris Marker that revised his 1972 Viva la Baleine, which was co-directed with Mario Ruspoli. In addition to its ATA screening Fri/16, Your Day Is My Night also plays the Pacific Film Archive Nov 20. (1:03) Artists’ Television Access. (Harvey)

ONGOING

About Time Richard Curtis, the man behind 2003’s Love Actually, must be enjoying his days in England, rolling in large piles of money. Coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of that twee cinematic love fest comes Curtis’ latest ode to joy, About Time. The film begins in Cornwall at an idyllic stone beach house, as Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) describes his family members (Bill Nighy is dad; Richard Cordery is the crazy uncle) and their pleasures (rituals (tea on the beach, ping pong). Despite beachside bliss, Tim is lovelorn and ready to begin a career as a barrister (which feels as out of the blue as the coming first act break). Oh! And as it happens, the men in Tim’s family can travel back in time. There are no clear rules, though births and deaths are like no-trespass signs on the imaginary timeline. When he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), he falls in love, but if he paves over his own evening by bouncing back and spending that night elsewhere, he loses the path he’s worn into the map and has to fix it. Again and again. Despite potential repetition, About Time moves smoothly, sweetly, slowly along, giving its audience time enough to feel for the characters, and then feel for the characters again, and then keep crying just because the ball’s already in motion. It’s the most nest-like catharsis any British film ever built. (2:03) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

All Is Lost As other reviewers have pointed out, All Is Lost‘s nearly dialogue-free script (OK, there is one really, really well-placed “Fuuuuuck!”) is about as far from J.C. Chandor’s Oscar-nominated script for 2011’s Margin Call as possible. Props to the filmmaker, then, for crafting as much pulse-pounding magic out of austerity as he did with that multi-character gabfest. Here, Robert Redford plays “Our Man,” a solo sailor whose race to survive begins along with the film, as his boat collides with a hunk of Indian Ocean detritus. Before long, he’s completely adrift, yet determined to outwit the forces of nature that seem intent on bringing him down. The 77-year-old Redford turns in a surprisingly physical performance that’s sure to be remembered as a late-career highlight. (1:46) SF Center. (Eddy)

Blue is the Warmest Color The stars (Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux) say the director was brutal. The director says he wishes the film had never been released (but he might make a sequel). The graphic novelist is uncomfortable with the explicit 10-minute sex scene. And most of the state of Idaho will have to wait to see the film on Netflix. The noise of recrimination, the lesser murmur of backpedaling, and a difficult-to-argue NC-17 rating could make it harder, as French director Abdellatif Kechiche has predicted, to find a calm, neutral zone in which to watch Blue is the Warmest Color, his Palme d’Or–winning adaptation (with co-writer Ghalya Lacroix) of Julie Maroh’s 2010 graphic novel Le Blue Est une Couleur Chaude. But once you’ve committed to the three-hour runtime, it’s not too difficult to tune out all the extra noise and focus on a film that trains its mesmerized gaze on a young woman’s transforming experience of first love. (2:59) Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Blue Jasmine The good news about Blue Jasmine isn’t that it’s set in San Francisco, but that it’s Woody Allen’s best movie in years. Although some familiar characteristics are duly present, it’s not quite like anything he’s done before, and carries its essentially dramatic weight more effectively than he’s managed in at least a couple decades. Not long ago Jasmine (a fearless Cate Blanchett) was the quintessential Manhattan hostess, but that glittering bubble has burst — exactly how revealed in flashbacks that spring surprises up to the script’s end. She crawls to the West Coast to “start over” in the sole place available where she won’t be mortified by the pity of erstwhile society friends. That would be the SF apartment of Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a fellow adoptive sister who was always looked down on by comparison to pretty, clever Jasmine. Theirs is an uneasy alliance — but Ginger’s too big-hearted to say no. It’s somewhat disappointing that Blue Jasmine doesn’t really do much with San Francisco. Really, the film could take place anywhere — although setting it in a non-picture-postcard SF does bolster the film’s unsettled, unpredictable air. Without being an outright villain, Jasmine is one of the least likable characters to carry a major US film since Noah Baumbach’s underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007); the general plot shell, moreover, is strongly redolent of A Streetcar Named Desire. But whatever inspiration Allen took from prior works, Blue Jasmine is still distinctively his own invention. It’s frequently funny in throwaway performance bits, yet disturbing, even devastating in cumulative impact. (1:38) Metreon, Vogue. (Harvey)

Captain Phillips In 2009, Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by Somali pirates who’d hijacked the Kenya-bound Maersk Alabama. His subsequent rescue by Navy SEALs came after a standoff that ended in the death of three pirates; a fourth, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, surrendered and is serving a hefty term in federal prison. A year later, Phillips penned a book about his ordeal, and Hollywood pounced. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as Phillips, an everyman who runs a tight ship but displays an admirable ability to improvise under pressure — and, once rescued, finally allows that pressure to diffuse in a scene of memorably raw catharsis. Newcomer Barkhad Abdi, cast from an open call among Minneapolis’ large Somali community, plays Muse; his character development goes deep enough to emphasize that piracy is one of few grim career options for Somali youths. But the real star here is probably director Paul Greengrass, who adds this suspenseful high-seas tale to his slate of intelligent, doc-inspired thrillers (2006’s United 93, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum). Suffice to say fans of the reigning king of fast-paced, handheld-camera action will not be disappointed. (2:14) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Carrie Is the world ready for a candy-covered Carrie? It’s a sad state of affairs when the best thing about a movie, particularly a wholly superfluous remake like this, is its creepy poster. That’s the closest thing this Carrie has to offer next to that retina-scorching, iconic 1976 image of blood-saturated Sissy Spacek that continues to lend inspiration to baby Billiths everywhere. Nonetheless, like a shy violet cowering in the gym showers, this Carrie comes loaded with potential, with Boys Don’t Cry (1999) director Kimberly Peirce at the helm, the casting of Julianne Moore and Chloe Grace Moretz in the critical mother-daughter roles, and the unfortunately topical bullying theme. Peirce makes a half-hearted attempt to update the, um, franchise when the tormented Carrie (a miscast Moretz) is virally videoed by spoiled rival Chris (Portia Doubleday), but the filmmaker’s heart — and guts — aren’t in this pointless exercise. We speed through the buildup — which unconvincingly sets up Carrie’s torments at home, instigated by obviously mentally ill, Christian fundamentalist mom Margaret (Moore), and at school, where the PE teacher (Judy Greer) pep-talks Carrie and Sue Snell (Gabriella White) is mysteriously hellbent on paying penance for her bullying misdeeds — to the far-from-scary denouement. Let’s say mean-spirited reflexive revenge-taking is no real substitute for true horror and shock. Supposedly drawn to Carrie for its female-empowerment message, Peirce nevertheless isn’t cut out to wade into horror’s crimson waters — especially when one compares this weak rendition with Brian De Palma’s double-screen brio and high-camp Freudian passion play. (1:32) Metreon. (Chun)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (1:35) Metreon.

The Counselor The reviews are in, and it’s clear Ridley Scott has made the most polarizing film of the season. Most of The Counselor‘s detractors blame Cormac McCarthy’s screenplay, the acclaimed author’s first that isn’t drawn from a prexisting novel. To date, the best film made from a McCarthy tale is 2007’s No Country for Old Men, and The Counselor trawls in similar border-noir genre trappings in its tale of a sleek, greedy lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who gets in way over his head after a drug deal (entered into with slippery compadres played by Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem) goes wrong. Yes, there are some problems here, with very few unexpected twists in a downbeat story that’s laden with overlong monologues, most of them delivered by random characters that appear, talk, and are never seen again. But some of those speeches are doozies — and haters are overlooking The Counselor‘s sleazy pleasures (many of which are supplied by Cameron Diaz’s fierce, feline femme fatale) and attention to grimy detail. One suspects cult appreciation awaits. (1:57) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Dallas Buyers Club Dallas Buyers Club is the first all-US feature from Jean-Marc Vallée. He first made a splash in 2005 with C.R.A.Z.Y., which seemed an archetype of the flashy, coming-of-age themed debut feature. Vallée has evolved beyond flashiness, or maybe since C.R.A.Z.Y. he just hasn’t had a subject that seemed to call for it. Which is not to say Dallas is entirely sober — its characters partake from the gamut of altering substances, over-the-counter and otherwise. But this is a movie about AIDS, so the purely recreational good times must eventually crash to an end. Which they do pretty quickly. We first meet Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) in 1986, a Texas good ol’ boy endlessly chasing skirts and partying nonstop. Not feeling quite right, he visits a doctor, who informs him that he is HIV-positive. His response is “I ain’t no faggot, motherfucker” — and increased partying that he barely survives. Afterward, he pulls himself together enough to research his options, and bribes a hospital attendant into raiding its trial supply of AZT for him. But Ron also discovers the hard way what many first-generation AIDS patients did — that AZT is itself toxic. He ends up in a Mexican clinic run by a disgraced American physician (Griffin Dunne) who recommends a regime consisting mostly of vitamins and herbal treatments. Ron realizes a commercial opportunity, and finds a business partner in willowy cross-dresser Rayon (Jared Leto). When the authorities keep cracking down on their trade, savvy Ron takes a cue from gay activists in Manhattan and creates a law evading “buyers club” in which members pay monthly dues rather than paying directly for pharmaceutical goods. It’s a tale that the scenarists (Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack) and director steep in deep Texan atmospherics, and while it takes itself seriously when and where it ought, Dallas Buyers Club is a movie whose frequent, entertaining jauntiness is based in that most American value: get-rich-quick entrepreneurship. (1:58) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Diana The final years of Diana, Princess of Wales are explored in what’s essentially a classed-up Lifetime drama, delving into the on-off romance between “the most famous woman in the world” (Naomi Watts) and heart surgeon Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). Relationship roadblocks (his Muslim family, back home in Pakistan, is hesistant to accept a divorced, Christian Brit as their son’s partner) are further complicated by extraordinary circumstances (Diana’s fame, which leads to paparazzi intrusions on the very private doctor’s life), but there’s real love between the two, which keeps them returning to each other again and again. By the third or fourth tearful breakup — followed by a passionate reunion — Diana‘s story becomes repetitive as it marches toward its inevitable tragic end. Still, director Oliver Hirschbiegel (2004’s Downfall, another last-days-in-the-life biopic, albeit of a slightly different nature) includes some light-hearted moments, as when a giggling Diana smuggles Hasnat through the palace gates (past guards who know exactly what she’s up to). As you’d expect, Watts is the best thing here, bringing warmth and complexity to a performance that strives to reach beyond imitation. (1:52) SF Center. (Eddy)

Don Jon Shouldering the duties of writer, director, and star for the comedy Don Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has also picked up a broad Jersey accent, the physique of a gym rat, and a grammar of meathead posturing — verbal, physical, and at times metaphysical. His character, Jon, is the reigning kingpin in a triad of nightclubbing douchebags who pass their evenings assessing their cocktail-sipping opposite numbers via a well-worn one-to-10 rating system. Sadly for pretty much everyone involved, Jon’s rote attempts to bed the high-scorers are spectacularly successful — the title refers to his prowess in the art of the random hookup — that is, until he meets an alluring “dime” named Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who institutes a waiting period so foreign to Jon that it comes to feel a bit like that thing called love. Amid the well-earned laughs, there are several repulsive-looking flies in the ointment, but the most conspicuous is Jon’s stealthy addiction to Internet porn, which he watches at all hours of the day, but with a particularly ritualistic regularity after each night’s IRL conquest has fallen asleep. These circumstances entail a fair amount of screen time with Jon’s O face and, eventually, after a season of growth — during which he befriends an older woman named Esther (Julianne Moore) and learns about the existence of arty retro Swedish porn — his “Ohhh&ldots;” face. Driven by deft, tight editing, Don Jon comically and capably sketches a web of bad habits, and Gordon-Levitt steers us through a transformation without straining our capacity to recognize the character we met at the outset — which makes the clumsy over-enunciations that mar the ending all the more jarring. (1:30) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Ender’s Game Those entering Ender’s Game in search of homophobic threads or politically unsavory themes will likely be frustrated. After all, Orson Scott Card — once a board member of the National Organization for Marriage, and here serving as a producer intent on preserving the 1985 novel that netted him acclaim — has revisited what was initially a short story multiple times over the years, tweaking it to reflect a new political climate, to ready it for new expedient uses. Who knows — the times are a-changin’ fast enough, with the outcry of LGBT activists and the growing acceptance of gay military members, to hope that a gay character might enter the mix someday. Of course, sexuality of all sorts is kept firmly in check in the Ender‘s world. Earth has been invaded by an insect-like species called the Formics, and the planet unifies to serve up its best and brightest (and, it’s implied, most ruthless) young minds, sharpened on first-person-shooters and tactical games, to the cause of defeating the alien “other.” Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is the knowing hybrid of his sociopath brother Peter (Jimmy Pinchak) and compassionate sister Valentine (Abigail Breslin) — of the trinity, he’s “the One,” as Han Solo, I mean, Harrison Ford, cadet talent-spotter and trainer Colonel Graff, puts it. Ender impresses the leather off the hardened old war horse, though the Colonel’s psychologically more equipped cohort Major Anderson (Viola Davis) suspects there’s more going on within their chosen leader. Director-screenwriter Gavin Hood demonstrates his allegiance to Card’s vision, valorizing the discipline and teamwork instilled by military school with the grim purpose and dead serious pleasure one might take in studying a well-oiled machine, while Ender is sharpened and employed as a stunningly effective tool in a war he never truly conceived of. This game has a bit more in common with the recent Wii-meets-Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Godzillas of Pacific Rim than the winking, acidic satire of Starship Troopers (1997), echoing a drone-driven War on Terror that has a way of detaching even the most evolved fighter from the consequences of his or her actions. The question is how to undo, or rewrite, the damage done. (1:54) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Free Birds (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

God Loves Uganda Most contemporary Americans don’t know much about Uganda — that is, beyond Forest Whitaker’s Oscar-winning performance as Idi Amin in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland. Though that film took some liberties with the truth, it did effectively convey the grotesque terrors of the dictator’s 1970s reign. But even decades post-Amin, the East African nation has somehow retained its horrific human-rights record. For example: what extremist force was behind the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposed the death penalty as punishment for gayness? The answer might surprise you, or not. As the gripping, fury-fomenting doc God Loves Uganda reveals, America’s own Christian Right has been exporting hate under the guise of missionary work for some time. Taking advantage of Uganda’s social fragility — by building schools and medical clinics, passing out food, etc. — evangelical mega churches, particularly the Kansas City, Mo.-based, breakfast-invoking International House of Prayer, have converted large swaths of the population to their ultra-conservative beliefs. Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, an Oscar winner for 2010 short Music by Prudence, follows naive “prayer warriors” as they journey to Uganda for the first time; his apparent all-access relationship with the group shows that they aren’t outwardly evil people — but neither do they comprehend the very real consequences of their actions. His other sources, including two Ugandan clergymen who’ve seen their country change for the worse and an LGBT activist who lives every day in peril, offer a more harrowing perspective. Evocative and disturbing, God Loves Uganda seems likely to earn Williams more Oscar attention. (1:23) Roxie. (Eddy)

Gravity “Life in space is impossible,” begins Gravity, the latest from Alfonso Cuarón (2006’s Children of Men). Egghead Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is well aware of her precarious situation after a mangled satellite slams into her ship, then proceeds to demolition-derby everything (including the International Space Station) in its path. It’s not long before she’s utterly, terrifyingly alone, and forced to unearth near-superhuman reserves of physical and mental strength to survive. Bullock’s performance would be enough to recommend Gravity, but there’s more to praise, like the film’s tense pacing, spare-yet-layered script (Cuarón co-wrote with his son, Jonás), and spectacular 3D photography — not to mention George Clooney’s warm supporting turn as a career astronaut who loves country music almost as much as he loves telling stories about his misadventures. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Inequality for All Jacob Kornbluth’s Inequality for All is the latest and certainly not the last documentary to explore why the American Dream is increasingly out of touch with everyday reality, and how the definition of “middle class” somehow morphed from “comfortable” to “struggling, endangered, and hanging by a thread.” This lively overview has an ace up its sleeve in the form of the director’s friend, collaborator, and principal interviewee Robert Reich — the former Clinton-era Secretary of Labor, prolific author, political pundit, and UC Berkeley Professor of Public Policy. Whether he’s holding forth on TV, going one-on-one with Kornbluth’s camera, talking to disgruntled working class laborers, or engaging students in his Wealth and Poverty class, Inequality is basically a resourcefully illustrated Reich lecture — as the press notes put it, “an Inconvenient Truth for the economy.” Fortunately, the diminutive Reich is a natural comedian as well as a superbly cogent communicator, turning yet another summary of how the system has fucked almost everybody (excluding the one percent) into the one you might most want to recommend to the bewildered folks back home. He’s sugar on the pill, making it easier to swallow so much horrible news. (1:25) Balboa. (Harvey)

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Kill Your Darlings Relieved to escape his Jersey home, dominated by the miseries of an oft-institutionalized mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and long-suffering father (David Cross), Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enters Columbia University in 1944 as a freshman already interested in the new and avant-garde. He’s thus immediately enchanted by bad-boy fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a veteran of numerous prestigious schools and well on the road to getting kicked out of this one. Charismatic and reckless, Carr has a circle of fellow eccentrics buzzing around him, including dyspeptic William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and merchant marine wild child Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston). Variably included in or ostracized from this training ground for future Beat luminaries is the older David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), a disgraced former academic who’d known Carr since the latter was 14, and followed him around with pathetic, enamored devotion. It’s this last figure’s apparent murder by Carr that provides the bookending crux of John Krokidas’ impressive first feature, a tragedy whose motivations and means remain disputed. Partly blessed by being about a (comparatively) lesser-known chapter in an overexposed, much-mythologized history, Kill Your Darlings is easily one of the best dramatizations yet of Beat lore, with excellent performances all around. (Yes, Harry Potter actually does pass quite well as a somewhat cuter junior Ginsberg.) It’s sad if somewhat inevitable that the most intriguing figure here — Hall’s hapless, lovelorn stalker-slash-victim — is the one that remains least knowable to both the film and to the ages. (1:40) SF Center. (Harvey)

Last Vegas This buddy film may look like a Bucket List-Hangover hybrid, but it’s got a lot more Spring Breakers in it than you expect — who beats Vegas for most bikinis per capita? Four old friends reunite for a wedding in Vegas, where they drink, gamble, and are confused for legendary men. Morgan Freeman sneaks out of his son’s house to go. Kevin Kline’s wife gave him a hall pass to regain his lost sense of fun. Kline and Freeman trick Robert De Niro into going — he’s got a grudge against Michael Douglas, so why celebrate that jerk’s nuptials to a 30-year-old? The conflicts are mostly safe and insubstantial, but the in-joke here is that all of these acting legends are confused for legends by their accidentally obtained VIP host (Romany Malco). These guys have earned their stature, so what gives? When De Niro flings fists you shudder inside remembering Jake LaMotta. Kline’s velvety comic delivery is just as swaggery as it was during his 80s era collaborations with Lawrence Kasdan. Douglas is “not as charming as he thinks he is,” yet again, and voice-of-God Freeman faces a conflict specific to paternal protective urges. Yes, Last Vegas jokes about the ravages of age and prescribes tenacity for all that ails us, but I want a cast this great celebrated at least as obviously as The Expendables films. Confuse these guys for better? Show me who. (1:44) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

The Motel Life (1:25) Roxie.

Running From Crazy Can one ever escape one’s toxic genetic legacy, especially when one’s makeup, and even one’s genius, is so entangled with mental illness, the shadow of substance abuse, and a kind of burden of history? Actor, author, healthy-living proponent, and now suicide prevention activist Mariel Hemingway seems cut out to try, as, eh, earnestly as she can, to offer up hope. Part of that involves opening the door to documentarian Barbara Kopple, in this look at the 20th century’s most infamous literary suicide, Mariel’s grandfather Ernest Hemingway, and just one of his familial threads, one full of lives cut deliberately short. For Running From Crazy, Kopple generally keeps the focus on Mariel, who displays all the disarming groundedness and humility of the youngest care-taking, “good” child. Her father, Ernest’s eldest son, Jack, regularly indulged in “wine time” with his ailing wife and, according to Mariel, had a pitch-black side of his own. But we don’t look to closely at him as the filmmaker favors the present, preferring to watch Mariel mountain climb and bicker with her stuntman boyfriend, meet up with her eldest sister Muffet, and ‘fess up about the depression that runs through the Hemingway line to her own daughters. Little is made of Mariel’s own artistic contributions in acting, though Kopple’s work is aided immeasurably by the footage Mariel’s rival middle sister Margaux shot for a documentary she planned to do on Ernest. Once the highest paid model in the world, Margaux leaves the viewer with a vivid impression of her brash, raw, eccentric, and endearingly goofy spirit — she’s courageous in her own way as she sips vino with her parents and older sister and tears up during a Spanish bull fight. Are these just first world problems for scions who never hesitated to trade on their name? Kopple is more interested in the humans behind the gloss of fame, spectacle and sensation — the women left in the wake of a literary patriarch’s monumental brand of masculinity and misogyny. And you feel like you get that here, plainly and honestly, in a way that even Papa might appreciate. (1:40) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Thor: The Dark World Since any tentacle of Marvel’s Avengers universe now comes equipped with its own money-printing factory, it’s likely we’ll keep seeing sequels and spin-offs for approximately the next 100 years. With its by-the-numbers plot and “Yeah, seen that before” 3D effects, Thor: The Dark World is forced to rely heavily on the charisma of its leads — Chris Hemsworth as the titular hammer-swinger; Tom Hiddleston as his brooding brother Loki — to hold audience interest. Fortunately, these two (along with Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Idris Elba, and the rest of the supporting cast, most of whom return from the first film) appear to be having a blast under the direction of Alan Taylor, a TV veteran whose credits include multiple Game of Thrones eps. Not that any Avengers flick carries much heft, but especially here, jokey asides far outweigh any moments of actual drama (the plot, about an alien race led by Christopher Eccleston in “dark elf” drag intent on capturing an ancient weapon with the power to destroy all the realms, etc. etc., matters very little). Fanboys and -girls, this one’s for you … and only you. (2:00) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

12 Years a Slave Pop culture’s engagement with slavery has always been uneasy. Landmark 1977 miniseries Roots set ratings records, but the prestigious production capped off a decade that had seen some more questionable endeavors, including 1975 exploitation flick Mandingo — often cited by Quentin Tarantino as one of his favorite films; it was a clear influence on his 2012 revenge fantasy Django Unchained, which approached its subject matter in a manner that paid homage to the Westerns it riffed on: with guns blazing. By contrast, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is nuanced and steeped in realism. Though it does contain scenes of violence (deliberately captured in long takes by regular McQueen collaborator Sean Bobbitt, whose cinematography is one of the film’s many stylistic achievements), the film emphasizes the horrors of “the peculiar institution” by repeatedly showing how accepted and ingrained it was. Slave is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, an African American man who was sold into slavery in 1841 and survived to pen a wrenching account of his experiences. He’s portrayed here by the powerful Chiwetel Ejiofor. Other standout performances come courtesy of McQueen favorite Michael Fassbender (as Epps, a plantation owner who exacerbates what’s clearly an unwell mind with copious amounts of booze) and newcomer Lupita Nyong’o, as a slave who attracts Epps’ cruel attentions. (2:14) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy) *

 

Schooled

Michael Redmond
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10
Schooled

joe@sfbg.com

Federal politicians are blasting the commission that would close City College of San Francisco, calling the entire accreditation process a debacle.

At a forum US Rep. Jackie Speier (D-SF) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Palo Alto) convened at City College on Nov. 7, Speier trumpeted what local advocates have said all along: The evaluation of CCSF was bungled, lacked transparency, and violated federal education regulations, all pointing to a desperate need for reform of its accreditors.

Accreditation has been the means to check the quality of education in colleges, but now a growing chorus of critics says the process can be used to carry out an ideological agenda and usurp local control (“Whose college?” Aug. 13).

Yet upending the accreditation process could also have unintended consequences, perhaps letting corporate and conservative interests seize the chance to implement their long-simmering agendas.

Either way, it is beginning to look like the fight to save City College could end up being about more than just City College.

 

ACCJC UNDER FIRE

The Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges keeps a watchful eye on the community colleges of California, Guam, and Hawaii. After a six-year review, the ACCJC this summer rocked City College by terminating its accreditation, pending appeals before the sentence is carried out in July 2014.

At the forum, Speier said the debacle with the ACCJC signaled a need to reform accreditation on a national level, citing a lack of public accountability.

“I think the ACCJC has run amok, they have lost their vision — if they ever had one,” Speier said in an interview after the forum. “They are riddled with conflicts of interest and arbitrariness.”

Teachers, faculty, and education advocates packed City College’s Diego Rivera Theater, all cheering at every jibe toward the ACCJC. Pressure on the group is mounting. A third lawsuit against the body was announced the day of the forum, this one filed by the activist group Save CCSF.

But Speier sees the problems as stemming from the US Department of Education, which she said needs the tools to correct problems at the ACCJC, something she plans to meet with Education Secretary Arne Duncan to discuss.

“The Department of Education only has one hammer, and that is to deny the ACCJC certification,” she said.

The group is slated to undergo this evaluation in December, which could spell its end. But if the fight for City College sparks a change in accreditation nationally, what would take its place?

There are wolves at the door of the US education system, for-profit colleges with a history of taking vulnerable students to the bank with nothing to show for it. And they want accreditation reform too.

 

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

The ideological argument between the ACCJC and City College is taking place nationally.

President Obama called for a change to college accreditation in his last State of the Union speech, calling for higher graduation and transfer rates for community colleges (see “Who killed City College?” July 9).

One of the biggest cheerleaders of the president’s reform is the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. At a conference it held on accreditation last month, AEI and its partners lampooned accreditation as it stands now.

“This is a system that is flawed, unable to deal with the rapidly changing higher education landscape,” Anne D. Neal, a partner of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a national education reform group, said at the conference. “If meat inspections were as loose as college accreditation… most of us would have mad cow disease.”

On the surface, the critique seems reasonable. More people should transfer, and more people should graduate. But how colleges get those numbers is the challenge. The ACCJC asking City College to jettison students not aiming for a higher degree was just the start, one higher education watchdog told us.

“There are people on both sides saying that accreditation is broken. The White House is pushing this, as are Republicans. You almost never hear that,” Paul Fain, a reporter for Inside Higher Ed, told the Guardian.

But the reform may lead to the transformation of accreditation, allowing tech companies and long distance online learning universities to bypass the process entirely.

Accreditation is seen as “holding back innovators who are trying to transform the Internet,” Fain said.

These “innovators” are largely for-profit colleges that want to offer single courses or shortened courses online, like the Minerva Project or Straighterline, both online universities lobbying Congress to loosen accreditation requirements.

But for-profit colleges have been attacked nationally for their abysmal job placement rates, and their graduation rates aren’t much better. A widely circulated 2010 report by the think tank Education Trust found that for-profits in the U.S. had a graduation rate of 22 percent.

And with many of those for-profits fighting for accreditation reform by Congress, it’s unclear how a push to reform accreditation from Speier would aid or stall them.

 

FEAR FACTOR

ACCJC President Barbara Beno said that City College is having problems facing reality. Beno would only speak with the Guardian by email through a representative. She defended the accountability of the ACCJC, saying that her doors were always open.

“Colleges don’t need a forum like that held on Nov. 7; they can write to the commission at any time, or ask to address the decision-making commissioners at one of their two meetings each year, or can call up the commission chair or president,” Beno wrote.

“Instead of joining forces to help improve City College, many purported supporters of the college are bent on disrupting the ACCJC operations. It is simple to blame the messenger of bad news,” she wrote. “People unhappy with the commissioners’ decisions are targeting [me] for doing [my] job.”

But Rafael Mandelman, a newly elected member of CCSF Board of Trustees, told those assembled at the forum that ACCJC was unprofessional and unduly punitive: “I went from ACCJC agnostic, to skeptic, to foe”

Dr. Sarah Perkins, vice president of instruction of Skyline College, told the forum that ACCJC is hard to work with.

“I came here to California after spending 25 years in the middle part of the country under the Higher Learning Commission,” she said, contrasting that accrediting agency with the bullying done by ACCJC. “That I even feel like I’m putting my college at risk by speaking at this forum speaks volumes.”

Indeed, the ACCJC even makes criticism of the agency or its methods grounds for a revocation of accreditation, making “collegiality” part of its “policy on institutional integrity and ethics.” CCSF Special Trustee Bob Agrella in September cited that as one reason not to criticize the agency.

Sen. Jim Beall and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano were also in attendance at the forum, and promised to continue the fight at the state level to preserve City College. The Joint Legislative Audit Committee is evaluating ACCJC at the request of those legislators and Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber).

“We will kick a lot of butt, with class, of course,” Ammiano said.

And would City College close down? “It’s not going to happen,” Speier said to the cheering crowd.

Film Listings: November 6 – 12, 2013

Michael Redmond
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, Sam Stander, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

Dallas Buyers Club See “Life’s Work.” (1:58) Embarcadero.

The Motel Life Brothers (Stephen Dorff, Emile Hirsch) go on the run after a tragic accident. Kris Kristofferson and Dakota Fanning co-star. (1:25) Roxie.

Running From Crazy Can one ever escape one’s toxic genetic legacy, especially when one’s makeup, and even one’s genius, is so entangled with mental illness, the shadow of substance abuse, and a kind of burden of history? Actor, author, healthy-living proponent, and now suicide prevention activist Mariel Hemingway seems cut out to try, as, eh, earnestly as she can, to offer up hope. Part of that involves opening the door to documentarian Barbara Kopple, in this look at the 20th century’s most infamous literary suicide, Mariel’s grandfather Ernest Hemingway, and just one of his familial threads, one full of lives cut deliberately short. For Running From Crazy, Kopple generally keeps the focus on Mariel, who displays all the disarming groundedness and humility of the youngest care-taking, “good” child. Her father, Ernest’s eldest son, Jack, regularly indulged in “wine time” with his ailing wife and, according to Mariel, had a pitch-black side of his own. But we don’t look to closely at him as the filmmaker favors the present, preferring to watch Mariel mountain climb and bicker with her stuntman boyfriend, meet up with her eldest sister Muffet, and ‘fess up about the depression that runs through the Hemingway line to her own daughters. Little is made of Mariel’s own artistic contributions in acting, though Kopple’s work is aided immeasurably by the footage Mariel’s rival middle sister Margaux shot for a documentary she planned to do on Ernest. Once the highest paid model in the world, Margaux leaves the viewer with a vivid impression of her brash, raw, eccentric, and endearingly goofy spirit — she’s courageous in her own way as she sips vino with her parents and older sister and tears up during a Spanish bull fight. Are these just first world problems for scions who never hesitated to trade on their name? Kopple is more interested in the humans behind the gloss of fame, spectacle and sensation — the women left in the wake of a literary patriarch’s monumental brand of masculinity and misogyny. And you feel like you get that here, plainly and honestly, in a way that even Papa might appreciate. (1:40) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Spinning Plates Joseph Levy’s enjoyable documentary contrasts life at three widely disparate U.S. restaurants: the Martinez family’s modest enterprise La Cocina de Gabby, a Tucson showcase for a wife and mother’s Mexican cooking; Breitbach’s Country Dining in rural Iowa, a 151-year-old purveyor of all-American comfort food; and superstar chef Grant Achatz’s Chicago Alinea, where a 24-course meal of culinary art/science experiments can set you back $800 (yes, that’s for one diner). The latter is a global destination for serious foodies, acclaimed by the industry’s most prestigious observers. (Its nearly 24/7 supply deliveries are also a noisy nightmare for someone I know whose apartment is next door.) The teensy town that’s grown up around Breitbach’s has a population of 70; on a busy weekend, the business attracts up to 2,000, many driving long distances to get there. Yet the people we get to know the best here, the émigré Martinezes, illustrate another side of restaurant life — the side in which a majority of new eateries fail within three years, despite (as seemingly is the case at Gabby’s) all palate-pleasing, reasonable pricing and tireless labor. Tying together these three stories is … well, nothing, really, beyond some vague notion that good food is something that breeds “community.” (Yet high-ticket Alinea can hardly be said to reflect that, while Levy doesn’t actually bother interviewing any patrons to let us know whether the other two establishments’ food is anything special.) Still, and despite some rather bogus dramatic chronology-manipulation of events that happened several years ago, Spinning Plates is an entertaining sampler plate of a movie. And the Martinez family’s story lends it a bit of real gravitas. (1:32) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Thor: The Dark World The Avengers juggernaut rolls on as Thor (Chris Hemsworth) grabs his hammer for a stand-alone sequel. See review at www.sfbg.com. (2:00) Balboa, Presidio.

ONGOING

About Time Richard Curtis, the man behind 2003’s Love Actually, must be enjoying his days in England, rolling in large piles of money. Coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of that twee cinematic love fest comes Curtis’ latest ode to joy, About Time. The film begins in Cornwall at an idyllic stone beach house, as Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) describes his family members (Bill Nighy is dad; Richard Cordery is the crazy uncle) and their pleasures (rituals (tea on the beach, ping pong). Despite beachside bliss, Tim is lovelorn and ready to begin a career as a barrister (which feels as out of the blue as the coming first act break). Oh! And as it happens, the men in Tim’s family can travel back in time. There are no clear rules, though births and deaths are like no-trespass signs on the imaginary timeline. When he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), he falls in love, but if he paves over his own evening by bouncing back and spending that night elsewhere, he loses the path he’s worn into the map and has to fix it. Again and again. Despite potential repetition, About Time moves smoothly, sweetly, slowly along, giving its audience time enough to feel for the characters, and then feel for the characters again, and then keep crying just because the ball’s already in motion. It’s the most nest-like catharsis any British film ever built. (2:03) Marina, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

All Is Lost As other reviewers have pointed out, All Is Lost‘s nearly dialogue-free script (OK, there is one really, really well-placed “Fuuuuuck!”) is about as far from J.C. Chandor’s Oscar-nominated script for 2011’s Margin Call as possible. Props to the filmmaker, then, for crafting as much pulse-pounding magic out of austerity as he did with that multi-character gabfest. Here, Robert Redford plays “Our Man,” a solo sailor whose race to survive begins along with the film, as his boat collides with a hunk of Indian Ocean detritus. Before long, he’s completely adrift, yet determined to outwit the forces of nature that seem intent on bringing him down. The 77-year-old Redford turns in a surprisingly physical performance that’s sure to be remembered as a late-career highlight. (1:46) Albany, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Big Sur (1:21) 1000 Van Ness, Smith Rafael.

Blue is the Warmest Color The stars (Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux) say the director was brutal. The director says he wishes the film had never been released (but he might make a sequel). The graphic novelist is uncomfortable with the explicit 10-minute sex scene. And most of the state of Idaho will have to wait to see the film on Netflix. The noise of recrimination, the lesser murmur of backpedaling, and a difficult-to-argue NC-17 rating could make it harder, as French director Abdellatif Kechiche has predicted, to find a calm, neutral zone in which to watch Blue is the Warmest Color, his Palme d’Or–winning adaptation (with co-writer Ghalya Lacroix) of Julie Maroh’s 2010 graphic novel Le Blue Est une Couleur Chaude. But once you’ve committed to the three-hour runtime, it’s not too difficult to tune out all the extra noise and focus on a film that trains its mesmerized gaze on a young woman’s transforming experience of first love. (2:59) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Blue Jasmine The good news about Blue Jasmine isn’t that it’s set in San Francisco, but that it’s Woody Allen’s best movie in years. Although some familiar characteristics are duly present, it’s not quite like anything he’s done before, and carries its essentially dramatic weight more effectively than he’s managed in at least a couple decades. Not long ago Jasmine (a fearless Cate Blanchett) was the quintessential Manhattan hostess, but that glittering bubble has burst — exactly how revealed in flashbacks that spring surprises up to the script’s end. She crawls to the West Coast to “start over” in the sole place available where she won’t be mortified by the pity of erstwhile society friends. That would be the SF apartment of Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a fellow adoptive sister who was always looked down on by comparison to pretty, clever Jasmine. Theirs is an uneasy alliance — but Ginger’s too big-hearted to say no. It’s somewhat disappointing that Blue Jasmine doesn’t really do much with San Francisco. Really, the film could take place anywhere — although setting it in a non-picture-postcard SF does bolster the film’s unsettled, unpredictable air. Without being an outright villain, Jasmine is one of the least likable characters to carry a major US film since Noah Baumbach’s underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007); the general plot shell, moreover, is strongly redolent of A Streetcar Named Desire. But whatever inspiration Allen took from prior works, Blue Jasmine is still distinctively his own invention. It’s frequently funny in throwaway performance bits, yet disturbing, even devastating in cumulative impact. (1:38) Metreon, Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Vogue. (Harvey)

Captain Phillips In 2009, Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by Somali pirates who’d hijacked the Kenya-bound Maersk Alabama. His subsequent rescue by Navy SEALs came after a standoff that ended in the death of three pirates; a fourth, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, surrendered and is serving a hefty term in federal prison. A year later, Phillips penned a book about his ordeal, and Hollywood pounced. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as Phillips, an everyman who runs a tight ship but displays an admirable ability to improvise under pressure — and, once rescued, finally allows that pressure to diffuse in a scene of memorably raw catharsis. Newcomer Barkhad Abdi, cast from an open call among Minneapolis’ large Somali community, plays Muse; his character development goes deep enough to emphasize that piracy is one of few grim career options for Somali youths. But the real star here is probably director Paul Greengrass, who adds this suspenseful high-seas tale to his slate of intelligent, doc-inspired thrillers (2006’s United 93, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum). Suffice to say fans of the reigning king of fast-paced, handheld-camera action will not be disappointed. (2:14) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Carrie Is the world ready for a candy-covered Carrie? It’s a sad state of affairs when the best thing about a movie, particularly a wholly superfluous remake like this, is its creepy poster. That’s the closest thing this Carrie has to offer next to that retina-scorching, iconic 1976 image of blood-saturated Sissy Spacek that continues to lend inspiration to baby Billiths everywhere. Nonetheless, like a shy violet cowering in the gym showers, this Carrie comes loaded with potential, with Boys Don’t Cry (1999) director Kimberly Peirce at the helm, the casting of Julianne Moore and Chloe Grace Moretz in the critical mother-daughter roles, and the unfortunately topical bullying theme. Peirce makes a half-hearted attempt to update the, um, franchise when the tormented Carrie (a miscast Moretz) is virally videoed by spoiled rival Chris (Portia Doubleday), but the filmmaker’s heart — and guts — aren’t in this pointless exercise. We speed through the buildup — which unconvincingly sets up Carrie’s torments at home, instigated by obviously mentally ill, Christian fundamentalist mom Margaret (Moore), and at school, where the PE teacher (Judy Greer) pep-talks Carrie and Sue Snell (Gabriella White) is mysteriously hellbent on paying penance for her bullying misdeeds — to the far-from-scary denouement. Let’s say mean-spirited reflexive revenge-taking is no real substitute for true horror and shock. Supposedly drawn to Carrie for its female-empowerment message, Peirce nevertheless isn’t cut out to wade into horror’s crimson waters — especially when one compares this weak rendition with Brian De Palma’s double-screen brio and high-camp Freudian passion play. (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (1:35) Metreon.

The Counselor The reviews are in, and it’s clear Ridley Scott has made the most polarizing film of the season. Most of The Counselor‘s detractors blame Cormac McCarthy’s screenplay, the acclaimed author’s first that isn’t drawn from a prexisting novel. To date, the best film made from a McCarthy tale is 2007’s No Country for Old Men, and The Counselor trawls in similar border-noir genre trappings in its tale of a sleek, greedy lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who gets in way over his head after a drug deal (entered into with slippery compadres played by Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem) goes wrong. Yes, there are some problems here, with very few unexpected twists in a downbeat story that’s laden with overlong monologues, most of them delivered by random characters that appear, talk, and are never seen again. But some of those speeches are doozies — and haters are overlooking The Counselor‘s sleazy pleasures (many of which are supplied by Cameron Diaz’s fierce, feline femme fatale) and attention to grimy detail. One suspects cult appreciation awaits. (1:57) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Diana The final years of Diana, Princess of Wales are explored in what’s essentially a classed-up Lifetime drama, delving into the on-off romance between “the most famous woman in the world” (Naomi Watts) and heart surgeon Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). Relationship roadblocks (his Muslim family, back home in Pakistan, is hesistant to accept a divorced, Christian Brit as their son’s partner) are further complicated by extraordinary circumstances (Diana’s fame, which leads to paparazzi intrusions on the very private doctor’s life), but there’s real love between the two, which keeps them returning to each other again and again. By the third or fourth tearful breakup — followed by a passionate reunion — Diana‘s story becomes repetitive as it marches toward its inevitable tragic end. Still, director Oliver Hirschbiegel (2004’s Downfall, another last-days-in-the-life biopic, albeit of a slightly different nature) includes some light-hearted moments, as when a giggling Diana smuggles Hasnat through the palace gates (past guards who know exactly what she’s up to). As you’d expect, Watts is the best thing here, bringing warmth and complexity to a performance that strives to reach beyond imitation. (1:52) SF Center. (Eddy)

Don Jon Shouldering the duties of writer, director, and star for the comedy Don Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has also picked up a broad Jersey accent, the physique of a gym rat, and a grammar of meathead posturing — verbal, physical, and at times metaphysical. His character, Jon, is the reigning kingpin in a triad of nightclubbing douchebags who pass their evenings assessing their cocktail-sipping opposite numbers via a well-worn one-to-10 rating system. Sadly for pretty much everyone involved, Jon’s rote attempts to bed the high-scorers are spectacularly successful — the title refers to his prowess in the art of the random hookup — that is, until he meets an alluring “dime” named Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who institutes a waiting period so foreign to Jon that it comes to feel a bit like that thing called love. Amid the well-earned laughs, there are several repulsive-looking flies in the ointment, but the most conspicuous is Jon’s stealthy addiction to Internet porn, which he watches at all hours of the day, but with a particularly ritualistic regularity after each night’s IRL conquest has fallen asleep. These circumstances entail a fair amount of screen time with Jon’s O face and, eventually, after a season of growth — during which he befriends an older woman named Esther (Julianne Moore) and learns about the existence of arty retro Swedish porn — his “Ohhh&ldots;” face. Driven by deft, tight editing, Don Jon comically and capably sketches a web of bad habits, and Gordon-Levitt steers us through a transformation without straining our capacity to recognize the character we met at the outset — which makes the clumsy over-enunciations that mar the ending all the more jarring. (1:30) Elmwood, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Ender’s Game Those entering Ender’s Game in search of homophobic threads or politically unsavory themes will likely be frustrated. After all, Orson Scott Card — once a board member of the National Organization for Marriage, and here serving as a producer intent on preserving the 1985 novel that netted him acclaim — has revisited what was initially a short story multiple times over the years, tweaking it to reflect a new political climate, to ready it for new expedient uses. Who knows — the times are a-changin’ fast enough, with the outcry of LGBT activists and the growing acceptance of gay military members, to hope that a gay character might enter the mix someday. Of course, sexuality of all sorts is kept firmly in check in the Ender‘s world. Earth has been invaded by an insect-like species called the Formics, and the planet unifies to serve up its best and brightest (and, it’s implied, most ruthless) young minds, sharpened on first-person-shooters and tactical games, to the cause of defeating the alien “other.” Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is the knowing hybrid of his sociopath brother Peter (Jimmy Pinchak) and compassionate sister Valentine (Abigail Breslin) — of the trinity, he’s “the One,” as Han Solo, I mean, Harrison Ford, cadet talent-spotter and trainer Colonel Graff, puts it. Ender impresses the leather off the hardened old war horse, though the Colonel’s psychologically more equipped cohort Major Anderson (Viola Davis) suspects there’s more going on within their chosen leader. Director-screenwriter Gavin Hood demonstrates his allegiance to Card’s vision, valorizing the discipline and teamwork instilled by military school with the grim purpose and dead serious pleasure one might take in studying a well-oiled machine, while Ender is sharpened and employed as a stunningly effective tool in a war he never truly conceived of. This game has a bit more in common with the recent Wii-meets-Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Godzillas of Pacific Rim than the winking, acidic satire of Starship Troopers (1997), echoing a drone-driven War on Terror that has a way of detaching even the most evolved fighter from the consequences of his or her actions. The question is how to undo, or rewrite, the damage done. (1:54) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Enough Said Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a divorced LA masseuse who sees naked bodies all day but has become pretty wary of wanting any in her bed at night. She reluctantly changes her mind upon meeting the also-divorced Albert (James Gandolfini), a television archivist who, also like her, is about to see his only child off to college. He’s no Adonis, but their relationship develops rapidly — the only speed bumps being provided by the many nit-picking advisors Eva has in her orbit, which exacerbate her natural tendency toward glass-half-empty neurosis. This latest and least feature from writer-director Nicole Holofcener is a sitcom-y thing of the type that expects us to find characters all the more adorable the more abrasive and self-centered they are. That goes for Louis-Dreyfus’ annoying heroine as well as such wasted talents as Toni Colette as her kvetching best friend and Catherine Keener as a new client turned new pal so bitchy it makes no sense Eva would desire her company. The only nice person here is Albert, whom the late Gandolfini makes a charming, low-key teddy bear in an atypical turn. The revelation of an unexpected past tie between his figure and Keener’s puts Eva in an ethically disastrous position she handles dismally. In fact, while it’s certainly not Holofcener’s intention, Eva’s behavior becomes so indefensible that Enough Said commits rom-com suicide: The longer it goes on, the more fervently you hope its leads will not end up together. (1:33) Albany, Piedmont. (Harvey)

Escape Plan It’s fascinating how ruined faces and silvered goatees can lend an air of, uh, gravitas to even the most muscle-bound action-movie veterans. The logic: Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have been around so long that they must possess more than a few brain cells to rub together. And rub they do — to surprisingly pleasing effect in this cut-above-the-next-Expendables-sequel meeting of blockbuster behemoths. Stallone’s Ray Breslin is a prison security specialist so nerdily devoted to his work that he gets himself locked up to test his clients’ jails. He gets in over his head when he’s thrown into the most secure private prison in the world, which happens to be run by former Blackwater mercenaries. It’s essentially the next, rather permanent-looking step after your not-so-friendly rendition flight. Breslin befriends security man Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), who’s in the clink on behalf of his “digital Robin Hood” boss. Menaced by warden Hobbs (Jim Caviezel) and brawny Drake (Vinnie Jones), the two prisoners kick off a changeable game, Muslim prisoner Javed (Faran Tahir) in tow. Director Mikael Håfström lays out the plans with geeky enthusiasm by way of zippy point-of-view shots that are supposed to let you into Breslin’s noggin. Shockingly, after Stallone’s recent brain-dead exercises (2012’s Bullet to the Head), it’s not an unhappy experience in this smarter-than-it-looks post-9/11 prison-break drama that wears its complicated feelings about War on Terror-era crime and punishment — and torture — on its sleeve. Still, matters never get too bleeding-heart liberal here, at the risk of alienating the stars’ audiences. Sly obviously embraces this opportunity to play smarter than usual, while the ex-Governator sinks his choppers into his role with glee, trotting out a Commando-style slo-mo gun-swinging move that will have his geek brigade cheering. (1:56) SF Center. (Chun)

Free Birds (1:31) Elmwood, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

God Loves Uganda Most contemporary Americans don’t know much about Uganda — that is, beyond Forest Whitaker’s Oscar-winning performance as Idi Amin in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland. Though that film took some liberties with the truth, it did effectively convey the grotesque terrors of the dictator’s 1970s reign. But even decades post-Amin, the East African nation has somehow retained its horrific human-rights record. For example: what extremist force was behind the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposed the death penalty as punishment for gayness? The answer might surprise you, or not. As the gripping, fury-fomenting doc God Loves Uganda reveals, America’s own Christian Right has been exporting hate under the guise of missionary work for some time. Taking advantage of Uganda’s social fragility — by building schools and medical clinics, passing out food, etc. — evangelical mega churches, particularly the Kansas City, Mo.-based, breakfast-invoking International House of Prayer, have converted large swaths of the population to their ultra-conservative beliefs. Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, an Oscar winner for 2010 short Music by Prudence, follows naive “prayer warriors” as they journey to Uganda for the first time; his apparent all-access relationship with the group shows that they aren’t outwardly evil people — but neither do they comprehend the very real consequences of their actions. His other sources, including two Ugandan clergymen who’ve seen their country change for the worse and an LGBT activist who lives every day in peril, offer a more harrowing perspective. Evocative and disturbing, God Loves Uganda seems likely to earn Williams more Oscar attention. (1:23) Roxie. (Eddy)

Gravity “Life in space is impossible,” begins Gravity, the latest from Alfonso Cuarón (2006’s Children of Men). Egghead Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is well aware of her precarious situation after a mangled satellite slams into her ship, then proceeds to demolition-derby everything (including the International Space Station) in its path. It’s not long before she’s utterly, terrifyingly alone, and forced to unearth near-superhuman reserves of physical and mental strength to survive. Bullock’s performance would be enough to recommend Gravity, but there’s more to praise, like the film’s tense pacing, spare-yet-layered script (Cuarón co-wrote with his son, Jonás), and spectacular 3D photography — not to mention George Clooney’s warm supporting turn as a career astronaut who loves country music almost as much as he loves telling stories about his misadventures. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Inequality for All Jacob Kornbluth’s Inequality for All is the latest and certainly not the last documentary to explore why the American Dream is increasingly out of touch with everyday reality, and how the definition of “middle class” somehow morphed from “comfortable” to “struggling, endangered, and hanging by a thread.” This lively overview has an ace up its sleeve in the form of the director’s friend, collaborator, and principal interviewee Robert Reich — the former Clinton-era Secretary of Labor, prolific author, political pundit, and UC Berkeley Professor of Public Policy. Whether he’s holding forth on TV, going one-on-one with Kornbluth’s camera, talking to disgruntled working class laborers, or engaging students in his Wealth and Poverty class, Inequality is basically a resourcefully illustrated Reich lecture — as the press notes put it, “an Inconvenient Truth for the economy.” Fortunately, the diminutive Reich is a natural comedian as well as a superbly cogent communicator, turning yet another summary of how the system has fucked almost everybody (excluding the one percent) into the one you might most want to recommend to the bewildered folks back home. He’s sugar on the pill, making it easier to swallow so much horrible news. (1:25) California. (Harvey)

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Kill Your Darlings Relieved to escape his Jersey home, dominated by the miseries of an oft-institutionalized mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and long-suffering father (David Cross), Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enters Columbia University in 1944 as a freshman already interested in the new and avant-garde. He’s thus immediately enchanted by bad-boy fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a veteran of numerous prestigious schools and well on the road to getting kicked out of this one. Charismatic and reckless, Carr has a circle of fellow eccentrics buzzing around him, including dyspeptic William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and merchant marine wild child Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston). Variably included in or ostracized from this training ground for future Beat luminaries is the older David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), a disgraced former academic who’d known Carr since the latter was 14, and followed him around with pathetic, enamored devotion. It’s this last figure’s apparent murder by Carr that provides the bookending crux of John Krokidas’ impressive first feature, a tragedy whose motivations and means remain disputed. Partly blessed by being about a (comparatively) lesser-known chapter in an overexposed, much-mythologized history, Kill Your Darlings is easily one of the best dramatizations yet of Beat lore, with excellent performances all around. (Yes, Harry Potter actually does pass quite well as a somewhat cuter junior Ginsberg.) It’s sad if somewhat inevitable that the most intriguing figure here — Hall’s hapless, lovelorn stalker-slash-victim — is the one that remains least knowable to both the film and to the ages. (1:40) SF Center, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Last Vegas This buddy film may look like a Bucket List-Hangover hybrid, but it’s got a lot more Spring Breakers in it than you expect — who beats Vegas for most bikinis per capita? Four old friends reunite for a wedding in Vegas, where they drink, gamble, and are confused for legendary men. Morgan Freeman sneaks out of his son’s house to go. Kevin Kline’s wife gave him a hall pass to regain his lost sense of fun. Kline and Freeman trick Robert De Niro into going — he’s got a grudge against Michael Douglas, so why celebrate that jerk’s nuptials to a 30-year-old? The conflicts are mostly safe and insubstantial, but the in-joke here is that all of these acting legends are confused for legends by their accidentally obtained VIP host (Romany Malco). These guys have earned their stature, so what gives? When De Niro flings fists you shudder inside remembering Jake LaMotta. Kline’s velvety comic delivery is just as swaggery as it was during his 80s era collaborations with Lawrence Kasdan. Douglas is “not as charming as he thinks he is,” yet again, and voice-of-God Freeman faces a conflict specific to paternal protective urges. Yes, Last Vegas jokes about the ravages of age and prescribes tenacity for all that ails us, but I want a cast this great celebrated at least as obviously as The Expendables films. Confuse these guys for better? Show me who. (1:44) Four Star, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Vizcarrondo)

Man of Tai Chi (1:45) Metreon.

Muscle Shoals Hard on the heels of Dave Grohl’s Sound City comes another documentary about a legendary American recording studio. Located in the titular podunk Northern Alabama burg, Fame Studio drew an extraordinary lineup of musicians and producers to make fabled hits from the early 1960s through the early ’80s. Among them: Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” a slew of peak era Aretha Franklin smashes, the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” and those cornerstones of Southern rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” Tales of how particular tracks came about are entertaining, especially when related by the still-lively likes of Etta James, Wilson Pickett, and Keith Richards. (Richards is a hoot, while surprisingly Mick Jagger doesn’t have much to say.) Director Greg Camalier’s feature can be too worshipful and digressive at times, and he’s skittish about probing fallouts between Fame’s founder Rick Hall and some long-term collaborators (notably the local in-house session musicians known as the Swampers who were themselves a big lure for many artists, and who left Fame to start their own successful studio). Still, there’s enough fascinating material here — also including a lot of archival footage — that any music fan whose memory or interest stretches back a few decades will find much to enjoy. (1:51) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

12 Years a Slave Pop culture’s engagement with slavery has always been uneasy. Landmark 1977 miniseries Roots set ratings records, but the prestigious production capped off a decade that had seen some more questionable endeavors, including 1975 exploitation flick Mandingo — often cited by Quentin Tarantino as one of his favorite films; it was a clear influence on his 2012 revenge fantasy Django Unchained, which approached its subject matter in a manner that paid homage to the Westerns it riffed on: with guns blazing. By contrast, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is nuanced and steeped in realism. Though it does contain scenes of violence (deliberately captured in long takes by regular McQueen collaborator Sean Bobbitt, whose cinematography is one of the film’s many stylistic achievements), the film emphasizes the horrors of “the peculiar institution” by repeatedly showing how accepted and ingrained it was. Slave is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, an African American man who was sold into slavery in 1841 and survived to pen a wrenching account of his experiences. He’s portrayed here by the powerful Chiwetel Ejiofor. Other standout performances come courtesy of McQueen favorite Michael Fassbender (as Epps, a plantation owner who exacerbates what’s clearly an unwell mind with copious amounts of booze) and newcomer Lupita Nyong’o, as a slave who attracts Epps’ cruel attentions. (2:14) California, Embarcadero, Marina, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Wadjda Hijabs, headmistresses, and errant fathers fall away before the will and wherewithal of the 11-year-old title character of Wadjda, the first feature by a female Saudi Arabian filmmaker. Director Haifaa al-Mansour’s own story — which included filming on the streets of Riyadh from the isolation of a van because she couldn’t work publicly with the men in the crew — is the stuff of drama, and it follows that her movie lays out, in the neorealist style of 1948’s The Bicycle Thief, the obstacles to freedom set in the path of women and girls in Saudi Arabia, in terms that cross cultural, geographic, and religious boundaries. The fresh star setting the course is Wadjda (first-time actor Waad Mohammed), a smart, irrepressibly feisty girl practically bursting out of her purple high-tops and intent on racing her young neighborhood friend Abudullah (Abdullrahman Algohani) on a bike. So many things stand in her way: the high price of bicycles and the belief that girls will jeopardize their virginity if they ride them; her distracted mother (Reem Abdullah) who’s worried that Wadjda’s father will take a new wife who can bear him a son; and a harsh, elegant headmistress (Ahd) intent on knuckling down on girlish rebellion. So Wadjda embarks on studying for a Qu’ran recital competition to win money for her bike and in the process learns a matter or two about discipline — and the bigger picture. Director al-Mansour teaches us a few things about her world as well — and reminds us of the indomitable spirit of girls — with this inspiring peek behind an ordinarily veiled world. (1:37) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

Zaytoun It’s 1982 in war-torn Beirut, and on the semi-rare occasion that streetwise 12-year-old Palestinian refugee Fahed (Abdallah El Akal) attends school, he’s faced with an increasing number of empty desks, marked by photos of the dead classmates who used to sit there. His own father is killed in an air strike as Zaytoun begins. When an Israeli pilot (Stephen Dorff — a surprising casting choice, but not a bad one) is shot down and becomes a PLO prisoner, Fahed’s feelings of hatred give way to curiosity, and he agrees to help the man escape back to Israel, so long as he brings Fahed, who’s intent on planting his father’s olive sapling in his family’s former village, along. It’s not an easy journey, and a bond inevitably forms — just as problems inevitably ensue when they reach the border. Israeli director Eran Riklis (2008’s Lemon Tree) avoids sentimentality in this tale that nonetheless travels a pretty predictable path. (1:50) Smith Rafael. (Eddy) *

 

NSA spies on Google and Yahoo users

Michael Redmond
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3

More revelations on spying by the National Security Agency were published in the Washington Post on Oct. 31. Thanks again to whistleblower Edward Snowden, we now know that the NSA is capturing massive amounts of communications data flowing between data centers maintained by Bay Area-based Google and Yahoo.

According to the Post, digital information produced by Google and Yahoo account holders — texts, emails, documents, videos and yes, that does include content — is being copied by the NSA and sent to its Fort Meade headquarters, where some but not all is retained by the agency.

The NSA is intercepting Google and Yahoo user account information as it moves between data centers, but the exact collection points remain a mystery. A smiley face inserted into a hand-drawn sketch from a top-secret file was enough to cause a couple Google engineers to “explode in profanity,” the Post reporters noted.

That drawing demonstrated how encryption, a security measure meant to shield data from third parties, is “added and removed here,” at an intersection between the public Internet and Google’s internal cloud servers.

Seeing as how Google is a ubiquitous presence in our lives and a key player in Silicon Valley’s tech industry, it’ll be interesting to see how native San Franciscan US Sen. Dianne Feinstein responds to the news that the NSA has apparently been intercepting the tech giant’s data without its knowledge. Feinstein is uniquely positioned to weigh in on this activity in her capacity as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Since Snowden’s first leak, Feinstein has kept up the drumbeat that NSA’s spying program is good for national security. On Oct. 2, at a Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, she delivered the following statement:

“Our great strength today, ladies and gentlemen, in protecting this homeland, is to be able to have the kind of technology that’s able to piece together data while protecting rights. I listened to this program being described as a surveillance program. It is not. There is no content collected by the NSA. There are bits of data—location, telephone numbers—that can be queried when there is reasonable, articulable suspicion. … I will do everything I can to prevent this program from being cancelled out. To destroy it is to make this nation more vulnerable.”

But more recently, following revelations of spying on foreign leaders, Feinstein changed her tune. In an Oct. 28 statement, she said the Senate Intelligence Community was “not satisfactorily informed.”

Suddenly, rather than being notified and informed, the committee members were seemingly kept in the dark while the NSA ran wild. She said, “It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community.”

Latest NSA spying news features emoticons and Google engineers exploding with profanity

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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71

More revelations on spying by the National Security Agency were published in the Washington Post today. Thanks again to whistleblower Edward Snowden (whose actions gave this cartoonist pause with a “Post-Snowden moment”) we now know that the NSA is capturing massive amounts of communications data flowing between data centers maintained by Google and Yahoo.

According to the Post, digital information produced by Google and Yahoo account holders – texts, emails, documents, videos and yes, that does include content – is being copied by the NSA and sent to its Fort Meade headquarters, where some but not all is retained by the agency.

It’s known that the NSA is intercepting Google and Yahoo user account information as moves between data centers, but the exact collection points remain a mystery. While some of that information evidently belongs to Americans, there doesn’t seem to be detailed information about how much of it originates in the U.S. versus foreign nations. The main tool for capturing this data is a project called MUSCULAR, operated in collaboration with British intelligence agency GCHQ. 

A smiley face inserted into a hand-drawn sketch from a top-secret file was enough to cause a couple Google engineers to “explode in profanity,” the Post reporters noted. That drawing demonstrated how encryption, a security measure meant to shield data from third parties, is “added and removed here,” at an intersection between the public Internet and Google’s internal cloud servers.

Seeing as how Google is a ubiquitous presence in our lives and a key player in Silicon Valley’s tech industry, it’ll be interesting to see how native San Franciscan Sen. Dianne Feinstein responds to the news that the NSA has apparently been intercepting the tech giant’s data without its knowledge. Feinstein is uniquely positioned to weigh in on this activity in her capacity as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Since Snowden’s first leak, Feinstein has kept up the drumbeat that NSA’s spying program is good for national security.

On Oct. 2, at a Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, she delivered the following statement:

“Our great strength today, ladies and gentlemen, in protecting this homeland, is to be able to have the kind of technology that’s able to piece together data while protecting rights. I listened to this program being described as a surveillance program. It is not. There is no content collected by the NSA. There are bits of data—location, telephone numbers—that can be queried when there is reasonable, articulable suspicion. … I will do everything I can to prevent this program from being cancelled out. To destroy it is to make this nation more vulnerable. I just wanted to say that. I had to say it.” 

Speaking earlier this year, at a Sept. 26 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on FISA, Feinstein delivered a reminder of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 and sought to offer reassurance on the data collection program, saying:

“This committee as well as the Judiciary Committee have reviewed the legality of these programs, been briefed on their operation, and been notified of problems with their implementation. Further, this committee has previously informed all senators of additional classified information regarding these programs available for their review prior to Senate consideration of these measures. 

It is my opinion that the surveillance activities conducted under FISA, and other programs operated by the National Security Agency, are lawful, they are effective, and they are conducted under careful oversight.”

But more recently, following revelations of spying on foreign leaders, Feinstein changed her tune. In an Oct. 28 statement, she said the Senate Intelligence Community was “not satisfactorily informed.”

Suddenly, rather than being notified and informed, the committee members were seemingly kept in the dark while the NSA ran wild. “It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community,” she said.

Seems the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee could start by reading Washington Post articles detailing the contents of Snowden’s leaks. There’s plenty of information in there.

In the year of worms

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
In the year of worms

emilysavage@sfbg.com

TOFU AND WHISKEY That voice. Those eerie, singular vocals that are somehow both alien and intimately familiar. They sound like electric Tesla coils wrapped in whipped silk. San Francisco’s Hannah Lew is most often heard harmonizing by three with her striking post-punk trio Grass Widow. With newer project Cold Beat, it’s her vocals alone above the needling guitars and anxious synths of a different band.

Lew has been writing songs as Cold Beat for some time, in between Grass Widow releases and tours, but this week she releases her first EP under the moniker: Worms/Year 5772, with songs inspired by the trauma of Lew’s father passing away a few years back. While Cold Beat is mainly a Lew production, she enlisted many local rock ‘n’ roll luminaries to both play on the album and back her up at shows.

The record’s sound is rounded out by guitarist Kyle King, drummer Lillian Maring, and Shannon and the Clams’ Cody Blanchard on guitar and synths. The live band features King, the Mallard’s Greer Mcgettrick on guitar, and Erase Errata’s Bianca Sparta on drums. That live version will celebrate the release of the EP with a show at the Night Light in Oakland Tue/5.(Cold Beat also plays Great American Music Hall on Nov. 14.) But before that, Lew spoke with the Bay Guardian about the origins of Worms/Year 5772, her DIY record label and music video projects, and the songs she played at her wedding last week:

SF Bay Guardian What inspired you to write new music as Cold Beat, outside of Grass Widow?

Hannah Lew I always write songs and sometimes they just didn’t totally feel like Grass Widow songs. I just kept collecting them and not really knowing if I should release them. As the tunes started accumulating I decided I should get a band together and figure out a way to share the songs. When Kyle King and I started playing — his energy really enabled the songs to come to fruition.

SFBG Can you tell me a bit about the songwriting process with Worms/Year 5772 and how the themes of “death, Internet surveillance, paranoia and science fiction” translated into the music?

HL “Worms” was written as a response to my grief about my father’s death in 2009. I couldn’t help but imagine worms eating his corpse — which was a very visceral image I couldn’t get out of my head…I think the horror of this was something I couldn’t really share with anyone, and in taking time to write more songs on my own I started realizing that it was good for me to have an outlet for some other concepts that were a bit more personal.

I always turn to science fiction when I am trying to understand or relate my feelings. It gives me a change to explore depths of doom and hope that I can more easily imagine not on this earth. In writing all the lyrics alone for Cold Beat there is a little more of me just in my own head which can be great and sometimes paranoid or depressed. I get really bad insomnia and many Cold Beat songs were demoed at 5 or 6am.

Grass Widow lyrics are always more of a conversation where as Cold Beat lyrics are more like an interior dialogue. It’s kind of like describing a dream to someone.

SFBG Does “Year 5772” refer to the Jewish calendar? Why did you make this connection?

HL My late father was a rabbi and I was raised very religious. I was writing Year 5772 about a dystopian post-apocalyptic dream I had that seemed to take place in some distant future and I started thinking about how the Jewish calendar is already in Year 5772 — actually a couple years later now since the song was written a few years ago — and how our concept of the future is based in what point in time we imagine ourselves in — but the concept of linear time is very relative.

I guess being Jewish is kind of futuristic and ancient simultaneously. I like the idea of collapsing time and writing a song that takes place in a landscape outside of time. I also like thinking about existing in many times simultaneously.

SFBG Did you find the solo songwriting process freeing or more complicated without the group’s input?

HL Some of the Cold Beat songs were written during the time Grass Widow was writing our last record — Internal Logic. Somehow they just seemed more personal and better spoken from one voice instead of related by three people. I think the complicated part for me was deciphering which songs were Cold Beat songs and which ones to give to Grass Widow.

Grass Widow is a great space where the three of us would relate and abstract our feelings and dreams together. But there were some things I was going through that I couldn’t synthesize with anyone else and just had to express on my own. I like having conversations about concepts with bandmates, but I also like working alone.

Luckily I can do both! I think it is important to be able to do things on your own so you know who you are and have something to offer a collaborative project. Just like in love.

SFBG You got married last weekend — what key songs were on your playlist? Are you willing to give up any other details?

HL It’s all kind of a blur. but it was so much fun! Some friends of ours put together a wedding band with Kyle King as the band leader. My husband (whoa!) and I put together a set list for the band to play of all our favorite dancing songs. I think the party really went crazy during the Dick Dale version of “Hava Nagila” and we got lifted up in chairs and everything, but also [the Flamin’ Groovies song] “Shake Some Action” was pretty epic too.

My friend Henson Flye made giant clamshells and Raven Mahon made a moon photo backdrop. We had a choir of friends sing “I’ll Be Your Mirror” while I walked down the aisle. It was really beautiful and a beautiful way for all our friends to express their love and friendship and show us support and for us to throw a fun party for everyone. We’re lucky to have a lot of love. Still buzzing from it!

SFBG As with Grass Widow (HLR), you’re putting Cold Beat out on your own label, Crime On The Moon. Can you tell me about the label, and why you’re sticking with DIY?

HL I really enjoy doing everything myself. HLR has been a great experience and we really took the time to make critical decisions about how we wanted to do business. I figured I could easily do it myself with Crime On The Moon since I had the experience of putting out the last few Grass Widow releases. One drawback is that when you put music out on a label you have an instant fan, publicist, and advocate — so when you’re on your own you have to manufacture your own confidence for what you are doing. But having good bandmates and support from your friends goes a long way!

SFBG You also make music videos — will you make any for Cold Beat? Are you working on any others currently?

HL Mike Stoltz, who made the Grass Widow “11 of Diamonds” video and collaborated with me on “Give Me Shapes,” is in the process of editing a Cold Beat video for “Worms.” So that will be out in the next couple of weeks! I am always updating my site (www.hannahlew.com) with new finished videos I make for other bands.

SFBG Anything else you want people to know about Cold Beat or about other upcoming projects?

HL Well I’m excited for our EP to be released November 5. We’ll have copies at our record release show at the Night Light in Oakland with Screature and Pure Bliss. Then we’ll be touring the West Coast to follow that.

I’m also releasing a seven-inch [that] Raven and I recorded with Jon Shade on drums under the name Bridge Collapse. We recorded with Kelley Stoltz and I’m looking forward to releasing those songs along with a compilation of SF bands writing songs as a response to the tech boom. So a lot of exciting Crime On The Moon projects ahead!

COLD BEAT

Tue/5, 9pm, $6

Night Light

311 Broadway, Oakl.

www.thenightlightoakland.com

Film listings and reviews Oct. 30-Nov.5, 2013

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

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

OPENING

About Time Richard Curtis, the man behind 2003’s Love Actually, must be enjoying his days in England, rolling in large piles of money. Coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of that twee cinematic love fest comes Curtis’ latest ode to joy, About Time. The film begins in Cornwall at an idyllic stone beach house, as Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) describes his family members (Bill Nighy is dad; Richard Cordery is the crazy uncle) and their pleasures (rituals (tea on the beach, ping pong). Despite beachside bliss, Tim is lovelorn and ready to begin a career as a barrister (which feels as out of the blue as the coming first act break). Oh! And as it happens, the men in Tim’s family can travel back in time. There are no clear rules, though births and deaths are like no-trespass signs on the imaginary timeline. When he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), he falls in love, but if he paves over his own evening by bouncing back and spending that night elsewhere, he loses the path he’s worn into the map and has to fix it. Again and again. Despite potential repetition, About Time moves smoothly, sweetly, slowly along, giving its audience time enough to feel for the characters, and then feel for the characters again, and then keep crying just because the ball’s already in motion. It’s the most nest-like catharsis any British film ever built. (2:03) (Vizcarrondo)

A.K.A. Doc Pomus “All greatness comes from pain.” The simple statement comes from Raoul Felder, brother of legendary R&B songwriter Doc Pomus, in the beautiful, crushing mediation on his brother’s life, A.K.A. Doc Pomus, opening theatrically this week after serving as the closing-night film of the 2012 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Doc wrote some of the greatest music of a generation: R&B and early rock’n’roll standards such as “This Magic Moment,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Save the Last Dance For Me,” and “Viva Las Vegas” — songs made famous by the likes of Dion, the Drifters, and Elvis Presley. Jewish, debilitated by polio, and vastly overweight, Doc defied expectations while struggling with a lifetime of outsider status and physical pain. William Hechter and Peter Miller’s doc offers a revealing look at his remarkable life. (1:38) Vogue. (Emily Savage)

Blue is the Warmest Color See “Hot and Cool.” (2:59) Embarcadero.

Diana Naomi Watts stars in this exploration of the last two years in the life of Princess Diana. (1:52) Shattuck.

Ender’s Game Asa Butterfield (star of 2011’s Hugo), Harrison Ford, and Ben Kingsley appear in this adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi novel. (1:54) Presidio.

Free Birds Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson lend their voices to this animated turkey tale. (1:31)

God Loves Uganda Most contemporary Americans don’t know much about Uganda — that is, beyond Forest Whitaker’s Oscar-winning performance as Idi Amin in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland. Though that film took some liberties with the truth, it did effectively convey the grotesque terrors of the dictator’s 1970s reign. But even decades post-Amin, the East African nation has somehow retained its horrific human-rights record. For example: what extremist force was behind the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposed the death penalty as punishment for gayness? The answer might surprise you, or not. As the gripping, fury-fomenting doc God Loves Uganda reveals, America’s own Christian Right has been exporting hate under the guise of missionary work for some time. Taking advantage of Uganda’s social fragility — by building schools and medical clinics, passing out food, etc. — evangelical mega churches, particularly the Kansas City, Mo.-based, breakfast-invoking International House of Prayer, have converted large swaths of the population to their ultra-conservative beliefs. Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, an Oscar winner for 2010 short Music by Prudence, follows naive “prayer warriors” as they journey to Uganda for the first time; his apparent all-access relationship with the group shows that they aren’t outwardly evil people — but neither do they comprehend the very real consequences of their actions. His other sources, including two Ugandan clergymen who’ve seen their country change for the worse and an LGBT activist who lives every day in peril, offer a more harrowing perspective. Evocative and disturbing, God Loves Uganda seems likely to earn Williams more Oscar attention. (1:23) Roxie. (Eddy)

Kill Your Darlings Relieved to escape his Jersey home, dominated by the miseries of an oft-institutionalized mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and long-suffering father (David Cross), Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enters Columbia University in 1944 as a freshman already interested in the new and avant-garde. He’s thus immediately enchanted by bad-boy fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a veteran of numerous prestigious schools and well on the road to getting kicked out of this one. Charismatic and reckless, Carr has a circle of fellow eccentrics buzzing around him, including dyspeptic William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and merchant marine wild child Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston). Variably included in or ostracized from this training ground for future Beat luminaries is the older David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), a disgraced former academic who’d known Carr since the latter was 14, and followed him around with pathetic, enamored devotion. It’s this last figure’s apparent murder by Carr that provides the bookending crux of John Krokidas’ impressive first feature, a tragedy whose motivations and means remain disputed. Partly blessed by being about a (comparatively) lesser-known chapter in an overexposed, much-mythologized history, Kill Your Darlings is easily one of the best dramatizations yet of Beat lore, with excellent performances all around. (Yes, Harry Potter actually does pass quite well as a somewhat cuter junior Ginsberg.) It’s sad if somewhat inevitable that the most intriguing figure here — Hall’s hapless, lovelorn stalker-slash-victim — is the one that remains least knowable to both the film and to the ages. (1:40) Shattuck. (Harvey)

Last Vegas This buddy film may look like a Bucket List-Hangover hybrid, but it’s got a lot more Spring Breakers in it than you expect — who beats Vegas for most bikinis per capita? Four old friends reunite for a wedding in Vegas, where they drink, gamble, and are confused for legendary men. Morgan Freeman sneaks out of his son’s house to go. Kevin Kline’s wife gave him a hall pass to regain his lost sense of fun. Kline and Freeman trick Robert De Niro into going — he’s got a grudge against Michael Douglas, so why celebrate that jerk’s nuptials to a 30-year-old? The conflicts are mostly safe and insubstantial, but the in-joke here is that all of these acting legends are confused for legends by their accidentally obtained VIP host (Romany Malco). These guys have earned their stature, so what gives? When De Niro flings fists you shudder inside remembering Jake LaMotta. Kline’s velvety comic delivery is just as swaggery as it was during his 80s era collaborations with Lawrence Kasdan. Douglas is “not as charming as he thinks he is,” yet again, and voice-of-God Freeman faces a conflict specific to paternal protective urges. Yes, Last Vegas jokes about the ravages of age and prescribes tenacity for all that ails us, but I want a cast this great celebrated at least as obviously as The Expendables films. Confuse these guys for better? Show me who. (1:44) Presidio. (Vizcarrondo)

Let the Fire Burn In 1985 a long-simmering conflict between Philadelphia police and the local black liberation group MOVE came to a catastrophic conclusion. Ordered to leave their West Philly building after numerous neighborhood complaints about unsanitary conditions, incessant noise, child endangerment and more, the commune refused. An armed standoff came to a halt when a helicopter dropped two FBI-supplied water gel bombs on the roof, killing 11 MOVE members (including five kids) and creating an uncontrollable fire that destroyed some 60 nearby homes. It’s hard to deny after watching Jason Osder’s powerful documentary that MOVE then looked like one crazy cult — its representatives spouting extreme, paranoid rhetoric in and out of court; its child residents (their malnutrition-bloated stomachs nonsensically explained as being due to “eating so much”) in visibly poor health; its charismatic leader John Africa questionably stable. But whatever hazards they posed to themselves and the surrounding community, it’s also almost undeniable here that city law enforcement drastically overreacted, possibly in deliberate retaliation for an officer’s shootout death seven years earlier. The filmed and amply media-reported trials that ensued raised strong suspicions that the police even shot unarmed MOVE members trying to escape the blaze. This outrageous saga, with numerous key questions and injustices still dangling, is an American history chapter that should not be forgotten. Let the Fire Burn is an invaluable reminder. (1:35) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Man of Tai Chi Keanu Reeves directs and plays a supporting role in this contemporary Beijing-set martial-arts drama. (1:45) Metreon.

The Pin Canadian film about a romance between two Eastern European youths, in hiding during World War II. (1:23) Opera Plaza.

12 Years a Slave See “To Hell and Back.” (2:14) California, Embarcadero.

The Visitor Barbara (Joanne Nail) Directed by “Michael J. Paradise” (aka Giulio Paradisi), this 1979 Italian-US. co-production is belatedly starting to acquire a cult following. Joanne Nail is Barbara, mother of Katy (Paige Conner), a seemingly normal little girl with a disconcerting tendency to swear like a longshoreman when out of ma’s earshot. Also unbeknownst to mom is that her boyfriend (Lance Henriksen, no less), as well as characters played by Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, John Huston, Sam Peckinpah, and the inimitable Shelley Winters are all very interested — on the good and the evil side — in Katy, a “miracle of nature” with “immense powers.” Those powers apparently include making Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s basketball explode at the hoop, and sending teenage boys through plate glass at an ice rink. Some of the adults nosing around Katy really, really want Barbara to give her a similarly gifted baby brother, others do not. It all involves some kind of interplanetary conspiracy to … well, beats me, frankly. Its utter senselessness part of the charm, The Visitor includes any number of bizarre moments, including Winters’ evident enjoyment of slapping some sense into Katy (the child thesp later confirmed that the Oscar winner went a little too Method in that scene), and crusty old Huston intoning the line “I’m, uh, the babysitter.” This glossy sci-fi horror mess. which is the Roxie is showing in a new digital transfer, borrows elements freely from 1977’s Exorcist II: The Heretic (a fiasco that inspired very little imitation), 1976’s The Omen (or rather 1978’s Damien: Omen II) and, strangely, Orson Welles’ 1947 The Lady from Shanghai (directly ripping off its famous hall of mirrors scene). Yet there’s a certain undeniable originality to its incoherence. (1:48) Roxie. (Harvey)

ONGOING

All Is Lost As other reviewers have pointed out, All Is Lost‘s nearly dialogue-free script (OK, there is one really, really well-placed “Fuuuuuck!”) is about as far from J.C. Chandor’s Oscar-nominated script for 2011’s Margin Call as possible. Props to the filmmaker, then, for crafting as much pulse-pounding magic out of austerity as he did with that multi-character gabfest. Here, Robert Redford plays “Our Man,” a solo sailor whose race to survive begins along with the film, as his boat collides with a hunk of Indian Ocean detritus. Before long, he’s completely adrift, yet determined to outwit the forces of nature that seem intent on bringing him down. The 77-year-old Redford turns in a surprisingly physical performance that’s sure to be remembered as a late-career highlight. (1:46) Albany, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Blue Jasmine The good news about Blue Jasmine isn’t that it’s set in San Francisco, but that it’s Woody Allen’s best movie in years. Although some familiar characteristics are duly present, it’s not quite like anything he’s done before, and carries its essentially dramatic weight more effectively than he’s managed in at least a couple decades. Not long ago Jasmine (a fearless Cate Blanchett) was the quintessential Manhattan hostess, but that glittering bubble has burst — exactly how revealed in flashbacks that spring surprises up to the script’s end. She crawls to the West Coast to “start over” in the sole place available where she won’t be mortified by the pity of erstwhile society friends. That would be the SF apartment of Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a fellow adoptive sister who was always looked down on by comparison to pretty, clever Jasmine. Theirs is an uneasy alliance — but Ginger’s too big-hearted to say no. It’s somewhat disappointing that Blue Jasmine doesn’t really do much with San Francisco. Really, the film could take place anywhere — although setting it in a non-picture-postcard SF does bolster the film’s unsettled, unpredictable air. Without being an outright villain, Jasmine is one of the least likable characters to carry a major US film since Noah Baumbach’s underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007); the general plot shell, moreover, is strongly redolent of A Streetcar Named Desire. But whatever inspiration Allen took from prior works, Blue Jasmine is still distinctively his own invention. It’s frequently funny in throwaway performance bits, yet disturbing, even devastating in cumulative impact. (1:38) Clay, Metreon. (Harvey)

Captain Phillips In 2009, Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by Somali pirates who’d hijacked the Kenya-bound Maersk Alabama. His subsequent rescue by Navy SEALs came after a standoff that ended in the death of three pirates; a fourth, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, surrendered and is serving a hefty term in federal prison. A year later, Phillips penned a book about his ordeal, and Hollywood pounced. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as Phillips, an everyman who runs a tight ship but displays an admirable ability to improvise under pressure — and, once rescued, finally allows that pressure to diffuse in a scene of memorably raw catharsis. Newcomer Barkhad Abdi, cast from an open call among Minneapolis’ large Somali community, plays Muse; his character development goes deep enough to emphasize that piracy is one of few grim career options for Somali youths. But the real star here is probably director Paul Greengrass, who adds this suspenseful high-seas tale to his slate of intelligent, doc-inspired thrillers (2006’s United 93, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum). Suffice to say fans of the reigning king of fast-paced, handheld-camera action will not be disappointed. (2:14) Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Carrie Is the world ready for a candy-covered Carrie? It’s a sad state of affairs when the best thing about a movie, particularly a wholly superfluous remake like this, is its creepy poster. That’s the closest thing this Carrie has to offer next to that retina-scorching, iconic 1976 image of blood-saturated Sissy Spacek that continues to lend inspiration to baby Billiths everywhere. Nonetheless, like a shy violet cowering in the gym showers, this Carrie comes loaded with potential, with Boys Don’t Cry (1999) director Kimberly Peirce at the helm, the casting of Julianne Moore and Chloe Grace Moretz in the critical mother-daughter roles, and the unfortunately topical bullying theme. Peirce makes a half-hearted attempt to update the, um, franchise when the tormented Carrie (a miscast Moretz) is virally videoed by spoiled rival Chris (Portia Doubleday), but the filmmaker’s heart — and guts — aren’t in this pointless exercise. We speed through the buildup — which unconvincingly sets up Carrie’s torments at home, instigated by obviously mentally ill, Christian fundamentalist mom Margaret (Moore), and at school, where the PE teacher (Judy Greer) pep-talks Carrie and Sue Snell (Gabriella White) is mysteriously hellbent on paying penance for her bullying misdeeds — to the far-from-scary denouement. Let’s say mean-spirited reflexive revenge-taking is no real substitute for true horror and shock. Supposedly drawn to Carrie for its female-empowerment message, Peirce nevertheless isn’t cut out to wade into horror’s crimson waters — especially when one compares this weak rendition with Brian De Palma’s double-screen brio and high-camp Freudian passion play. (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Counselor The reviews are in, and it’s clear Ridley Scott has made the most polarizing film of the season. Most of The Counselor‘s detractors blame Cormac McCarthy’s screenplay, the acclaimed author’s first that isn’t drawn from a prexisting novel. To date, the best film made from a McCarthy tale is 2007’s No Country for Old Men, and The Counselor trawls in similar border-noir genre trappings in its tale of a sleek, greedy lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who gets in way over his head after a drug deal (entered into with slippery compadres played by Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem) goes wrong. Yes, there are some problems here, with very few unexpected twists in a downbeat story that’s laden with overlong monologues, most of them delivered by random characters that appear, talk, and are never seen again. But some of those speeches are doozies — and haters are overlooking The Counselor‘s sleazy pleasures (many of which are supplied by Cameron Diaz’s fierce, feline femme fatale) and attention to grimy detail. One suspects cult appreciation awaits. (1:57) Four Star, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Don Jon Shouldering the duties of writer, director, and star for the comedy Don Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has also picked up a broad Jersey accent, the physique of a gym rat, and a grammar of meathead posturing — verbal, physical, and at times metaphysical. His character, Jon, is the reigning kingpin in a triad of nightclubbing douchebags who pass their evenings assessing their cocktail-sipping opposite numbers via a well-worn one-to-10 rating system. Sadly for pretty much everyone involved, Jon’s rote attempts to bed the high-scorers are spectacularly successful — the title refers to his prowess in the art of the random hookup — that is, until he meets an alluring “dime” named Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who institutes a waiting period so foreign to Jon that it comes to feel a bit like that thing called love. Amid the well-earned laughs, there are several repulsive-looking flies in the ointment, but the most conspicuous is Jon’s stealthy addiction to Internet porn, which he watches at all hours of the day, but with a particularly ritualistic regularity after each night’s IRL conquest has fallen asleep. These circumstances entail a fair amount of screen time with Jon’s O face and, eventually, after a season of growth — during which he befriends an older woman named Esther (Julianne Moore) and learns about the existence of arty retro Swedish porn — his “Ohhh&ldots;” face. Driven by deft, tight editing, Don Jon comically and capably sketches a web of bad habits, and Gordon-Levitt steers us through a transformation without straining our capacity to recognize the character we met at the outset — which makes the clumsy over-enunciations that mar the ending all the more jarring. (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Enough Said Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a divorced LA masseuse who sees naked bodies all day but has become pretty wary of wanting any in her bed at night. She reluctantly changes her mind upon meeting the also-divorced Albert (James Gandolfini), a television archivist who, also like her, is about to see his only child off to college. He’s no Adonis, but their relationship develops rapidly — the only speed bumps being provided by the many nit-picking advisors Eva has in her orbit, which exacerbate her natural tendency toward glass-half-empty neurosis. This latest and least feature from writer-director Nicole Holofcener is a sitcom-y thing of the type that expects us to find characters all the more adorable the more abrasive and self-centered they are. That goes for Louis-Dreyfus’ annoying heroine as well as such wasted talents as Toni Colette as her kvetching best friend and Catherine Keener as a new client turned new pal so bitchy it makes no sense Eva would desire her company. The only nice person here is Albert, whom the late Gandolfini makes a charming, low-key teddy bear in an atypical turn. The revelation of an unexpected past tie between his figure and Keener’s puts Eva in an ethically disastrous position she handles dismally. In fact, while it’s certainly not Holofcener’s intention, Eva’s behavior becomes so indefensible that Enough Said commits rom-com suicide: The longer it goes on, the more fervently you hope its leads will not end up together. (1:33) Balboa, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Escape From Tomorrow Escape From Tomorrow acquired cachet at Sundance this year as a movie you ought to see because it probably wouldn’t surface again. The reason was its setting, which composites two of the most photographed (and “happiest”) places on Earth. They’re also among the most heavily guarded from any commercial usage not of their own choosing. That would be Disney World and Disneyland, where Escape was surreptitiously shot — ingeniously so, since you would hardly expect any movie filmed on the sly like this to be so highly polished, or for its actors to get so little apparent attention from the unwitting background players around them. That nobody has pulled the fire alarm, however, suggests Disney realized this movie isn’t going to do it any real harm. While its setting remains near-indispensable, what writer-director Randy Moore has pulled off goes beyond great gimmickry, commingling satire, nightmare Americana, cartooniness, pathos, and surrealism in its tale of 40-ish Jim (Roy Abramsohn), which starts on the last day of his family vacation — when his boss calls to fire him. What follows might either be hallucinated by shell-shocked Jim, or really be a grand, bizarre conspiracy, with occurrences appearing to be either imaginary or apocalyptic (or both). Lucas Lee Graham’s crisp B&W photography finds the grotesquerie lurking in the shadows of parkland imagery. Abel Korzeniowski’s amazing score apes and parodies vintage orchestral Muzak, cloying kiddie themes, and briefly even John Williams at his most Spielbergian. All the actors do fine work, slipping fluidly if not always explicably from grounded real-world behavior to strangeness. But the real achievement of Escape From Tomorrow is that while this paranoid fantasy really makes no immediate sense, Moore’s cockeyed vision is so assured that we assume it must, on some level. He’s created a movie some people will hate but others will watch over and over again, trying to connect its almost subliminal dots. (1:43) Roxie. (Harvey)

Escape Plan It’s fascinating how ruined faces and silvered goatees can lend an air of, uh, gravitas to even the most muscle-bound action-movie veterans. The logic: Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have been around so long that they must possess more than a few brain cells to rub together. And rub they do — to surprisingly pleasing effect in this cut-above-the-next-Expendables-sequel meeting of blockbuster behemoths. Stallone’s Ray Breslin is a prison security specialist so nerdily devoted to his work that he gets himself locked up to test his clients’ jails. He gets in over his head when he’s thrown into the most secure private prison in the world, which happens to be run by former Blackwater mercenaries. It’s essentially the next, rather permanent-looking step after your not-so-friendly rendition flight. Breslin befriends security man Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), who’s in the clink on behalf of his “digital Robin Hood” boss. Menaced by warden Hobbs (Jim Caviezel) and brawny Drake (Vinnie Jones), the two prisoners kick off a changeable game, Muslim prisoner Javed (Faran Tahir) in tow. Director Mikael Håfström lays out the plans with geeky enthusiasm by way of zippy point-of-view shots that are supposed to let you into Breslin’s noggin. Shockingly, after Stallone’s recent brain-dead exercises (2012’s Bullet to the Head), it’s not an unhappy experience in this smarter-than-it-looks post-9/11 prison-break drama that wears its complicated feelings about War on Terror-era crime and punishment — and torture — on its sleeve. Still, matters never get too bleeding-heart liberal here, at the risk of alienating the stars’ audiences. Sly obviously embraces this opportunity to play smarter than usual, while the ex-Governator sinks his choppers into his role with glee, trotting out a Commando-style slo-mo gun-swinging move that will have his geek brigade cheering. (1:56) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

The Fifth Estate After being our guide through the world of 1970s Formula One racing in Rush, Daniel Brühl is back serving that same role — and again grumbling in the shadows cast by a flashier character’s magnetism — for a more recent real life story’s dramatization. Here he’s German “technology activist” Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who in 2007 began collaborating with the enigmatic, elusive Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) on WikiLeaks’ airing of numerous anonymous whistleblowers’ explosive revelations: US military mayhem in Afghanistan; Kenyan ruling-regime corruption; a Swiss bank’s providing a “massive tax dodge” for wealthy clients worldwide; ugly truths behind Iceland’s economic collapse; and climactically, the leaking of a huge number of classified U.S. government documents. It was this last, almost exactly three years ago, that made Assange a wanted man here and in Sweden (the latter for alleged sexual assaults), as well as putting US Army leaker Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning in prison. The heat was most certainly on — although WikiLeaks was already suffering internal woes as Domscheit-Berg and a few other close associates grew disillusioned with Assange’s megalomania, instability, and questionable judgment. It’s a fascinating, many-sided saga that was told very well in Alex Gibney’s recent documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, and this narrative feature from director Bill Condon (2004’s Kinsey, 2006’s Dreamgirls, the last two Twilights) and scenarist Josh Singer feels disappointingly superficial by contrast. It tries to cram too information in without enough ballasting psychological insight, and the hyperkinetic editing and visual style intended to ape the sheer info-overload of our digital age simply makes the whole film seem like it’s trying way too hard. There are good moments, some sharp supporting turns, and Estate certainly doesn’t lack for ambition. But it’s at best a noble failure that in the end leaves you feeling fatigued and unenlightened. (2:04) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Gravity “Life in space is impossible,” begins Gravity, the latest from Alfonso Cuarón (2006’s Children of Men). Egghead Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is well aware of her precarious situation after a mangled satellite slams into her ship, then proceeds to demolition-derby everything (including the International Space Station) in its path. It’s not long before she’s utterly, terrifyingly alone, and forced to unearth near-superhuman reserves of physical and mental strength to survive. Bullock’s performance would be enough to recommend Gravity, but there’s more to praise, like the film’s tense pacing, spare-yet-layered script (Cuarón co-wrote with his son, Jonás), and spectacular 3D photography — not to mention George Clooney’s warm supporting turn as a career astronaut who loves country music almost as much as he loves telling stories about his misadventures. (1:31) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Informant Local filmmaker Jamie Meltzer’s complex, compelling Informant makes its theatrical bow at the Roxie a year and a half after it premiered at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival (it’s been playing festivals nearly nonstop since). The doc explores the strange life of Brandon Darby, a lefty activist turned FBI informant turned Tea Party operator who helped send two 2008 Republican National Convention protestors to jail. He’s a polarizing guy, but the film, which is anchored by an extensive interview with Darby, invites the audience to draw their own conclusions. (Side note: if you conclude that you want to yell at the screen and give Darby a piece of your mind, chances are you won’t be alone.) (1:21) Roxie. (Eddy)

Insidious: Chapter 2 The bloodshot, terribly inflamed font of the opening title gives away director James Wan and co-writer and Saw series cohort Leigh Whannell’s intentions: welcome to their little love letter to Italian horror. The way an actor, carefully lit with ruby-red gels, is foregrounded amid jade greens and cobalt blues, the ghastly clown makeup, the silent movie glory of a gorgeous face frozen in terror, the fixation with 1981’s The Beyond — lovers of spaghetti shock will appreciate even a light application of these aspects, even if many others will be disappointed by this sequel riding a wee bit too closely on its financially successful predecessor’s coattails. Attempting to pick up exactly where 2011’s Insidious left off, Chapter 2 opens with a flashback to the childhood of demonically possessed Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), put into a trance by the young paranormal investigator Elise. Flash-forward to Elise’s corpse and the first of many terrified looks from Josh’s spouse Renai (Rose Byrne). She knows Josh killed Elise, but she can’t face reality — so instead she gets to face the forces of supernatural fantasy. Meanwhile Josh is busy forcing a fairy tale of normalcy down the rest of his family’s throats — all the while evoking a smooth-browed, unhinged caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Subverting that fiction are son Dalton (Ty Simpkins), who’s fielding messages from the dead, and Josh’s mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey), who sees apparitions in her creepy Victorian and looks for help in Elise’s old cohort Carl (Steve Coulter) and comic-relief ghost busters Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson). Sure, there are a host of scares to be had, particularly those of the don’t-look-over-your-shoulder variety, but tribute or no, the derivativeness of the devices is dissatisfying. Those seeking wickedly imaginative death-dealing machinations, or even major shivers, will curse the feel-good PG-13 denouement. (1:30) Metreon. (Chun)

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Machete Kills Herewith we have the first sequel to a film (2010’s Machete) spawned from a fake trailer (that appeared in 2007’s Grindhouse). Danny Trejo’s titular killer has been tasked by the POTUS (Charlie Sheen, cheekily billed by his birth name, Carlos Estevez) to take down a Mexican madman (Demian Bechir) who’s an enemy of both his country’s drug cartels and the good ol’ USA. But it’s soon revealed (can you have plot spoilers in a virtually plotless film?) that the real villain is weapons designer Voz (Mel Gibson), a space-obsessed nutcase who’d fit right into an Austin Powers movie. The rest of Machete Kills, which aims only to entertain (with less social commentary than the first film), plays like James Bond lite, albeit with a higher, bloodier body count, and with famous-face cameos and jokey soft-core innuendos coming as fast and furious as the bullets do. As always, Trejo keeps a straight face, but he’s clearly in on the joke with director Robert Rodriguez, who’d be a fool not to continue to have his exploitation cake and eat it too, so long as these films — easy on the eyes, knowingly dumb, and purely fun-seeking — remain successful. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Metallica: Through the Never The 3D IMAX concert film is lurching toward cliché status, but at least Metallica: Through the Never has more bite to it than, say, this summer’s One Direction: This is Us. Director Nimród Antal (2010’s Predators) weaves live footage of the Bay Area thrash veterans ripping through hits (“Enter Sandman,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” etc.) into a narrative (kinda) about one of the band’s roadies (The Place Beyond the Pines‘ Dane DeHaan). Sent on a simple errand, the hoodie-wearing hesher finds himself caught in a nightmarish urban landscape of fire, hanging bodies, masked horsemen, and crumbling buildings — more or less, the dude’s trapped in a heavy metal video, and not one blessed with particularly original imagery. The end result is aimed more at diehards than casual fans — and, R-rated violence aside, there’s nothing here that tops the darkest moments of highly personal 2004 documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. (1:32) Metreon. (Eddy)

Muscle Shoals Hard on the heels of Dave Grohl’s Sound City comes another documentary about a legendary American recording studio. Located in the titular podunk Northern Alabama burg, Fame Studio drew an extraordinary lineup of musicians and producers to make fabled hits from the early 1960s through the early ’80s. Among them: Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” a slew of peak era Aretha Franklin smashes, the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” and those cornerstones of Southern rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” Tales of how particular tracks came about are entertaining, especially when related by the still-lively likes of Etta James, Wilson Pickett, and Keith Richards. (Richards is a hoot, while surprisingly Mick Jagger doesn’t have much to say.) Director Greg Camalier’s feature can be too worshipful and digressive at times, and he’s skittish about probing fallouts between Fame’s founder Rick Hall and some long-term collaborators (notably the local in-house session musicians known as the Swampers who were themselves a big lure for many artists, and who left Fame to start their own successful studio). Still, there’s enough fascinating material here — also including a lot of archival footage — that any music fan whose memory or interest stretches back a few decades will find much to enjoy. (1:51) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Runner Runner Launching his tale with a ripped-from-the-headlines montage of news reports and concerned-anchor sound bites, director Brad Furman (2011’s The Lincoln Lawyer) attempts to argue his online-gambling action thriller’s topicality, but not even Anderson Cooper can make a persuasive case for Runner Runner‘s cultural relevance. Justin Timberlake plays Richie Furst, a post-2008 Wall Street casualty turned Princeton master’s candidate, who is putting himself through his finance program via the morally threadbare freelance gig of introducing his fellow students to Internet gambling. Perhaps in the service of supplying our unsympathetic protagonist with a psychological root, we are given a knocked-together scene reuniting Richie with his estranged gambling addict dad (John Heard). By the time we’ve digested this, plus the image of Justin Timberlake in the guise of a grad student with a TAship, Richie has blown through all his savings and, in a bewildering turn of events, made his way into the orbit of Ben Affleck’s Ivan Block, a shady online-gambling mogul taking shelter from an FBI investigation in Costa Rica, along with his lovely adjutant, Rebecca (Gemma Arterton). Richie’s rise through the ranks of Ivan’s dodgy empire is somewhat mysterious, partly a function of the plot and partly a function of the plot being piecemeal and incoherent. The dialogue and the deliveries are also unconvincing, possibly because we’re dealing with a pack of con artists and possibly because the players were dumbfounded by the script, which is clotted with lines we’ve heard before, from other brash FBI agents, other sketchily drawn temptresses, other derelict, regretful fathers, and other unscrupulous kingpins. (1:31) Metreon. (Rapoport)

Rush Ron Howard’s Formula One thriller Rush is a gripping bit of car porn, decked out with 1970s period details and goofily liberated camera moves to make sure you never forget how much happens under (and around, and on top of) the hood of these beastly vehicles. Real life drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda (played by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, respectively) had a wicked rivalry through the ’70s; these characters are so oppositional you’d think Shane Black wrote them. Lauda’s an impersonal, methodical pro, while Hunt’s an aggressive, undisciplined playboy — but he’s so popular he can sway a group of racers to risk their lives on a rainy track, even as Lauda objects. It’s a lovely sight: all the testosterone in the world packed into a room bound by windows, egos threatening to bust the glass with the rumble of their voices. I’m no fan of Ron Howard, but maybe the thrill of Grand Theft Auto is in Rush like a spirit animal. (The moments of rush are the greatest; when Lauda’s lady friend asks him to drive fast, he does, and it’s glorious.) Hunt says that “being a pro kills the sport” — but Howard, an overly schmaltzy director with no gift for logic and too much reliance on suspension of disbelief, doesn’t heed that warning. The laughable voiceovers that bookend the film threaten to sink some great stuff, but the magic of the track is vibrant, dangerous, and teeming with greatness. (2:03) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Torn An explosion at a mall throws two families into turmoil in this locally-shot drama from director Jeremiah Birnbaum and scenarist Michael Richter. Maryam (Mahnoor Baloch) and Ali (Faran Tahir) are Pakistani-émigré professionals, Lea (Dendrie Taylor) a working-class single mother. Their paths cross in the wake of tragedy as both their teenage sons are killed in a shopping center blast that at first appears to have been caused by a gas-main accident. But then authorities begin to suspect a bombing, and worse, the principals’ dead offspring — one as a possible Islamic terrorist, another for perhaps plotting retaliation against school bullies. As the parents suffer stressful media scrutiny in addition to grief and doubt, they begin to take their frustrations out on each other. An earnest small-scale treatment of some large, timely issues, the well-acted Torn holds interest as far as it goes. But it proves less than fully satisfying, ending on a note that’s somewhat admirable, but also renders much of the preceding narrative one big red herring. (1:20) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Trials of Muhammad Ali If you’ve seen an Ali doc before (or even the 2001 biopic), a lot of the material in The Trials of Muhammad Ali will feel familiar. But Bill Siegel’s lively investigation, which offers interviews with Louis Farrakhan and Ali’s former wife Khalilah, among others, does well to narrow its focus onto one specific — albeit complicated and controversial — aspect of Ali’s life: the boxing champ’s Nation of Islam conversion, name change, and refusal to fight in Vietnam. And as always, the young, firebrand Ali is so charismatic that even well-known footage makes for entertaining viewing. (1:26) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Wadjda Hijabs, headmistresses, and errant fathers fall away before the will and wherewithal of the 11-year-old title character of Wadjda, the first feature by a female Saudi Arabian filmmaker. Director Haifaa al-Mansour’s own story — which included filming on the streets of Riyadh from the isolation of a van because she couldn’t work publicly with the men in the crew — is the stuff of drama, and it follows that her movie lays out, in the neorealist style of 1948’s The Bicycle Thief, the obstacles to freedom set in the path of women and girls in Saudi Arabia, in terms that cross cultural, geographic, and religious boundaries. The fresh star setting the course is Wadjda (first-time actor Waad Mohammed), a smart, irrepressibly feisty girl practically bursting out of her purple high-tops and intent on racing her young neighborhood friend Abudullah (Abdullrahman Algohani) on a bike. So many things stand in her way: the high price of bicycles and the belief that girls will jeopardize their virginity if they ride them; her distracted mother (Reem Abdullah) who’s worried that Wadjda’s father will take a new wife who can bear him a son; and a harsh, elegant headmistress (Ahd) intent on knuckling down on girlish rebellion. So Wadjda embarks on studying for a Qu’ran recital competition to win money for her bike and in the process learns a matter or two about discipline — and the bigger picture. Director al-Mansour teaches us a few things about her world as well — and reminds us of the indomitable spirit of girls — with this inspiring peek behind an ordinarily veiled world. (1:37) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Zaytoun It’s 1982 in war-torn Beirut, and on the semi-rare occasion that streetwise 12-year-old Palestinian refugee Fahed (Abdallah El Akal) attends school, he’s faced with an increasing number of empty desks, marked by photos of the dead classmates who used to sit there. His own father is killed in an air strike as Zaytoun begins. When an Israeli pilot (Stephen Dorff — a surprising casting choice, but not a bad one) is shot down and becomes a PLO prisoner, Fahed’s feelings of hatred give way to curiosity, and he agrees to help the man escape back to Israel, so long as he brings Fahed, who’s intent on planting his father’s olive sapling in his family’s former village, along. It’s not an easy journey, and a bond inevitably forms — just as problems inevitably ensue when they reach the border. Israeli director Eran Riklis (2008’s Lemon Tree) avoids sentimentality in this tale that nonetheless travels a pretty predictable path. (1:50) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

 

Film Listings: October 16 – 22, 2013

Michael Redmond
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, Sam Stander, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. Due to early deadlines for the Best of the Bay issue, theater information was incomplete at presstime.

OPENING

After Tiller Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s After Tiller is incredibly timely, as states like Texas and North Carolina continue to push forth increasingly restrictive abortion legislation. This doc focuses on the four (yes, only four) doctors in America who are able to perform late-term abortions — all colleagues of Dr. George Tiller, assassinated in 2009 by a militant anti-abortionist. The film highlights the struggles of what’s inherently a deeply difficult job; even without sign-toting (and possibly gun-toting) protestors lurking outside their offices, and ever-shifting laws dictating the legality of their practices, the situations the doctors confront on a daily basis are harrowing. We sit in as couples make the painful decision to abort babies with “horrific fetal abnormalities;” a rape victim feels guilt and relief after terminating a most unwanted pregnancy; a 16-year-old Catholic girl in no position to raise a child worries that her decision to abort will haunt her forever; and a European woman who decides she can’t handle another kid tries to buy her way into the procedure. The patients’ faces aren’t shown, but the doctors allow full access to their lives and emotions — heavy stuff. (1:25) Roxie. (Eddy)

Broadway Idiot “I can’t act, I can’t dance … compared to a lot of these people, I can’t even sing,” Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong admits, moments before he’s seen taking the Broadway stage in the musical based on his band’s American Idiot. (He played the character of St. Jimmy for stints in both 2010 and 2011.) Director Doug Hamilton’s doc mixes concert, rehearsal, and full-on musical footage; interviews (with Armstrong, show director Michael Mayer, music supervisor Tom Kitt, and others); and behind-the-scenes moments to trace the evolution of American Idiot from concept album to Broadway show. Fans will feast on those behind-the-scenes moments, as when the band stops by Berkeley Rep — where the show had its pre-Broadway workshop performances — to hear new arrangements of their songs for the first time, or cast members prep to perform with Green Day at the Grammys. For everyone else, Broadway Idiot offers a slick, energetic, but not especially revealing look at the creative process. Good luck getting any of those catchy-ass songs out of your head, though. (1:20) Vogue. (Eddy)

Carrie A high-school outcast (Chloë Grace Moritz) unleashes hell on her bullying classmates (and her controlling mother, played by Julianne Moore) in Kimberly Peirce’s take on the Stephen King classic. (runtime not available) Shattuck.

Escape Plan Extreme prison breaking (from, naturally, an “escape-proof” facility) with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, and Vincent D’Onofrio. (1:56) Shattuck.

The Fifth Estate After being our guide through the world of 1970s Formula One racing in Rush, Daniel Brühl is back serving that same role — and again grumbling in the shadows cast by a flashier character’s magnetism — for a more recent real life story’s dramatization. Here he’s German “technology activist” Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who in 2007 began collaborating with the enigmatic, elusive Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) on WikiLeaks’ airing of numerous anonymous whistleblowers’ explosive revelations: US military mayhem in Afghanistan; Kenyan ruling-regime corruption; a Swiss bank’s providing a “massive tax dodge” for wealthy clients worldwide; ugly truths behind Iceland’s economic collapse; and climactically, the leaking of a huge number of classified U.S. government documents. It was this last, almost exactly three years ago, that made Assange a wanted man here and in Sweden (the latter for alleged sexual assaults), as well as putting US Army leaker Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning in prison. The heat was most certainly on — although WikiLeaks was already suffering internal woes as Domscheit-Berg and a few other close associates grew disillusioned with Assange’s megalomania, instability, and questionable judgment. It’s a fascinating, many-sided saga that was told very well in Alex Gibney’s recent documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, and this narrative feature from director Bill Condon (2004’s Kinsey, 2006’s Dreamgirls, the last two Twilights) and scenarist Josh Singer feels disappointingly superficial by contrast. It tries to cram too information in without enough ballasting psychological insight, and the hyperkinetic editing and visual style intended to ape the sheer info-overload of our digital age simply makes the whole film seem like it’s trying way too hard. There are good moments, some sharp supporting turns, and Estate certainly doesn’t lack for ambition. But it’s at best a noble failure that in the end leaves you feeling fatigued and unenlightened. (2:04) California. (Harvey)

Vinyl When the surviving members of a long-defunct, once-popular Welsh pop punk outfit reunite for a less lucky member’s funeral, the squabbles that have kept them incommunicado for decades are forgotten — with the help of lots of alcohol. They even jam together, and lo and behold, the hungover next morning reveals recorded evidence that they’ve still “got it.” In fact, they’ve even thrown together an insanely catchy new song that would be a perfect comeback single. Only trouble is, when they shop it around to record companies (including their own old one), they’re invariably told that no matter how good the music is, audiences today don’t want old fogies performing it. (That would be “like watching your parents have sex,” they’re told.) The all-important “tweens to twenties” demographic wants stars as young as themselves, only hotter. So Johnny (Phil Daniels) and company have the bright idea of assembling a quintet of barely-legal cuties to pose as a fake band and lip-synch the real band’s new tune. Needless to say, both take off like wildfire, and eventually the ruse must be exposed. Sara Sugarman’s comedy is loosely inspired by a real, similar hoax (pulled off by ’80s rockers the Alarm), and might have dug deeper into satire of an industry that has seldom deserved mocking evisceration more than it does now. Instead, Vinyl settles for being a brisk, breezy diversion, likable if a bit formulaic — though that single, “Free Rock ‘n’ Roll,” really is catchy in an early Clash-meets-Buzzcocks way. (1:25) Roxie. (Harvey)

Zaytoun It’s 1982 in war-torn Beirut, and on the semi-rare occasion that streetwise 12-year-old Palestinian refugee Fahed (Abdallah El Akal) attends school, he’s faced with an increasing number of empty desks, marked by photos of the dead classmates who used to sit there. His own father is killed in an air strike as Zaytoun begins. When an Israeli pilot (Stephen Dorff — a surprising casting choice, but not a bad one) is shot down and becomes a PLO prisoner, Fahed’s feelings of hatred give way to curiosity, and he agrees to help the man escape back to Israel, so long as he brings Fahed, who’s intent on planting his father’s olive sapling in his family’s former village, along. It’s not an easy journey, and a bond inevitably forms — just as problems inevitably ensue when they reach the border. Israeli director Eran Riklis (2008’s Lemon Tree) avoids sentimentality in this tale that nonetheless travels a pretty predictable path. (1:50) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Zero Charisma Scott (Sam Eidson) is a raging nerd, of the staunchly old-school variety: he lives for the sacred ritual of “game night,” where as Game Master he guides his minions through Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy role-playing. His hobby, which is really more of a lifestyle, is the only thing he really likes; otherwise, he’s a self-described “loser,” in his late 20s but still living with his grandmother (a delightfully acidic Anne Gee Byrd) and working a crappy job delivering tacos and donuts, sometimes to his former co-workers (who all hate him) at a game shop straight out of The Simpsons. When “cool” nerd (and insufferable hipster) Miles (Garrett Graham) joins Scott’s game and threatens his fantasy world — at the exact moment his long-lost mother (Cyndi Williams) swoops in, intent on selling Nana’s house out from under her — chaos reigns. Writer Andrew Matthews (who co-directed with Katie Graham) clearly knows Scott’s world well; the scenes revolving around gaming (“But we’re almost to the hall of the goblin queen!”) are stuffed with authentic and funny nerd-banter, and while Scott himself is often mocked, RPGs are treated with respect. Scott’s personal journey is a little less satisfying, but Zero Charisma — an Audience Award winner at SXSW — has at least as much quirky appeal as a pair of multi-sided dice. (1:27) Roxie. (Eddy)

ONGOING

A.C.O.D. When happy-go-lucky Trey (Clark Duke) announces rather suddenly that he’s getting married, cranky older bro Carter (Adam Scott), the Adult Child of Divorce of the title, is tasked with making peace between his parents (Richard Jenkins and Catherine O’Hara). Trouble is, they haaaate each other (Jenkins: “If I ever see that woman, I’m gonna kick her in the balls”) — or so Carter thinks, until he discovers (to his horror) that there’s long-dormant passion lurking beneath all the insults. He also discovers that he was part of a book about kids of divorce written by a nutty PhD (Jane Lynch), and is drawn into her follow-up project — through which he meets fellow A.C.O.D Michelle (Jessica Alba, trying way too hard as a bad girl), a foil to his level-headed girlfriend (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). As the life he’s carefully constructed crumbles around him, Carter has to figure out what really matters, blah blah. Stu Zicherman’s comedy (co-scripted with Ben Karlin; both men are TV veterans) breaks no new ground in the dysfunctional-family genre — but it does boast a cast jammed with likable actors, nimble enough to sprinkle their characters’ sitcom-y conflicts with funny moments. Amy Poehler — Scott’s Parks and Recreation boo — is a particular highlight as Carter’s rich-bitch stepmother, aka “the Cuntessa.” (1:27) Metreon, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Baggage Claim Robin Thicke may be having the year of a lifetime, but spouse Paula Patton is clearly making a bid to leap those “Blurred Lines” between second banana-dom and Jennifer Aniston-esque leading lady fame with this buppie chick flick. How competitive is the game? Patton has a sporting chance: she’s certainly easy on the eyes and ordinarily a welcome warm and sensual presence as arm candy or best girlfriend — too bad her bid to beat the crowd with Baggage Claim feels way too blurry and busy to study for very long. The camera turns to Patton only to find a hot, slightly charming mess of mussed hair, frenetic movement, and much earnest emoting. I know the mode is single-lady desperation, but you’re trying too hard, Paula. At least the earnestness kind of works — semi-translating in Baggage Claim as a bumbling ineptitude that offsets Patton’s too-polished-and-perfect-to-be-real beauty. After all, we’re asked to believe that Patton’s flight attendant Montana can’t find a good man, no matter how hard she tries. That’s the first stretch of imagination, made more implausible by pals Sam (Adam Brody) and Janine (singer-songwriter Jill Scott), who decide to try to fix her up with her old high-flying frequent-flier beaus in the quest to find a mate in time for her — humiliation incoming — younger sister’s wedding. Among the suitors are suave hotelier Quinton (Djimon Hounsou), Republican candidate Langston (Taye Diggs), and hip-hop mogul Damon (Trey Songz), though everyone realizes early on that she just can’t notice the old bestie (Derek Luke) lodged right beneath her well-tilted nose. Coming to the conclusion that any sane single gal would at the end of this exercise, Patton does her darnedest to pour on the quirk and charm — and that in itself is as endearing as watching any beautiful woman bend over backwards, tumbling as she goes, to win an audience over. The strenuous effort, however, seems wasted when one considers the flimsy material, played for little more than feather-light amusement by director-writer David E. Talbert. (1:33) Metreon. (Chun)

Blue Jasmine The good news about Blue Jasmine isn’t that it’s set in San Francisco, but that it’s Woody Allen’s best movie in years. Although some familiar characteristics are duly present, it’s not quite like anything he’s done before, and carries its essentially dramatic weight more effectively than he’s managed in at least a couple decades. Not long ago Jasmine (a fearless Cate Blanchett) was the quintessential Manhattan hostess, but that glittering bubble has burst — exactly how revealed in flashbacks that spring surprises up to the script’s end. She crawls to the West Coast to “start over” in the sole place available where she won’t be mortified by the pity of erstwhile society friends. That would be the SF apartment of Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a fellow adoptive sister who was always looked down on by comparison to pretty, clever Jasmine. Theirs is an uneasy alliance — but Ginger’s too big-hearted to say no. It’s somewhat disappointing that Blue Jasmine doesn’t really do much with San Francisco. Really, the film could take place anywhere — although setting it in a non-picture-postcard SF does bolster the film’s unsettled, unpredictable air. Without being an outright villain, Jasmine is one of the least likable characters to carry a major US film since Noah Baumbach’s underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007); the general plot shell, moreover, is strongly redolent of A Streetcar Named Desire. But whatever inspiration Allen took from prior works, Blue Jasmine is still distinctively his own invention. It’s frequently funny in throwaway performance bits, yet disturbing, even devastating in cumulative impact. (1:38) Clay, Metreon. (Harvey)

Captain Phillips In 2009, Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by Somali pirates who’d hijacked the Kenya-bound Maersk Alabama. His subsequent rescue by Navy SEALs came after a standoff that ended in the death of three pirates; a fourth, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, surrendered and is serving a hefty term in federal prison. A year later, Phillips penned a book about his ordeal, and Hollywood pounced. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as Phillips, an everyman who runs a tight ship but displays an admirable ability to improvise under pressure — and, once rescued, finally allows that pressure to diffuse in a scene of memorably raw catharsis. Newcomer Barkhad Abdi, cast from an open call among Minneapolis’ large Somali community, plays Muse; his character development goes deep enough to emphasize that piracy is one of few grim career options for Somali youths. But the real star here is probably director Paul Greengrass, who adds this suspenseful high-seas tale to his slate of intelligent, doc-inspired thrillers (2006’s United 93, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum). Suffice to say fans of the reigning king of fast-paced, handheld-camera action will not be disappointed. (2:14) Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (1:35) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Don Jon Shouldering the duties of writer, director, and star for the comedy Don Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has also picked up a broad Jersey accent, the physique of a gym rat, and a grammar of meathead posturing — verbal, physical, and at times metaphysical. His character, Jon, is the reigning kingpin in a triad of nightclubbing douchebags who pass their evenings assessing their cocktail-sipping opposite numbers via a well-worn one-to-10 rating system. Sadly for pretty much everyone involved, Jon’s rote attempts to bed the high-scorers are spectacularly successful — the title refers to his prowess in the art of the random hookup — that is, until he meets an alluring “dime” named Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who institutes a waiting period so foreign to Jon that it comes to feel a bit like that thing called love. Amid the well-earned laughs, there are several repulsive-looking flies in the ointment, but the most conspicuous is Jon’s stealthy addiction to Internet porn, which he watches at all hours of the day, but with a particularly ritualistic regularity after each night’s IRL conquest has fallen asleep. These circumstances entail a fair amount of screen time with Jon’s O face and, eventually, after a season of growth — during which he befriends an older woman named Esther (Julianne Moore) and learns about the existence of arty retro Swedish porn — his “Ohhh&ldots;” face. Driven by deft, tight editing, Don Jon comically and capably sketches a web of bad habits, and Gordon-Levitt steers us through a transformation without straining our capacity to recognize the character we met at the outset — which makes the clumsy over-enunciations that mar the ending all the more jarring. (1:30) Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Enough Said Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a divorced LA masseuse who sees naked bodies all day but has become pretty wary of wanting any in her bed at night. She reluctantly changes her mind upon meeting the also-divorced Albert (James Gandolfini), a television archivist who, also like her, is about to see his only child off to college. He’s no Adonis, but their relationship develops rapidly — the only speed bumps being provided by the many nit-picking advisors Eva has in her orbit, which exacerbate her natural tendency toward glass-half-empty neurosis. This latest and least feature from writer-director Nicole Holofcener is a sitcom-y thing of the type that expects us to find characters all the more adorable the more abrasive and self-centered they are. That goes for Louis-Dreyfus’ annoying heroine as well as such wasted talents as Toni Colette as her kvetching best friend and Catherine Keener as a new client turned new pal so bitchy it makes no sense Eva would desire her company. The only nice person here is Albert, whom the late Gandolfini makes a charming, low-key teddy bear in an atypical turn. The revelation of an unexpected past tie between his figure and Keener’s puts Eva in an ethically disastrous position she handles dismally. In fact, while it’s certainly not Holofcener’s intention, Eva’s behavior becomes so indefensible that Enough Said commits rom-com suicide: The longer it goes on, the more fervently you hope its leads will not end up together. (1:33) Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Escape From Tomorrow Escape From Tomorrow acquired cachet at Sundance this year as a movie you ought to see because it probably wouldn’t surface again. The reason was its setting, which composites two of the most photographed (and “happiest”) places on Earth. They’re also among the most heavily guarded from any commercial usage not of their own choosing. That would be Disney World and Disneyland, where Escape was surreptitiously shot — ingeniously so, since you would hardly expect any movie filmed on the sly like this to be so highly polished, or for its actors to get so little apparent attention from the unwitting background players around them. That nobody has pulled the fire alarm, however, suggests Disney realized this movie isn’t going to do it any real harm. While its setting remains near-indispensable, what writer-director Randy Moore has pulled off goes beyond great gimmickry, commingling satire, nightmare Americana, cartooniness, pathos, and surrealism in its tale of 40-ish Jim (Roy Abramsohn), which starts on the last day of his family vacation — when his boss calls to fire him. What follows might either be hallucinated by shell-shocked Jim, or really be a grand, bizarre conspiracy, with occurrences appearing to be either imaginary or apocalyptic (or both). Lucas Lee Graham’s crisp B&W photography finds the grotesquerie lurking in the shadows of parkland imagery. Abel Korzeniowski’s amazing score apes and parodies vintage orchestral Muzak, cloying kiddie themes, and briefly even John Williams at his most Spielbergian. All the actors do fine work, slipping fluidly if not always explicably from grounded real-world behavior to strangeness. But the real achievement of Escape From Tomorrow is that while this paranoid fantasy really makes no immediate sense, Moore’s cockeyed vision is so assured that we assume it must, on some level. He’s created a movie some people will hate but others will watch over and over again, trying to connect its almost subliminal dots. (1:43) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Gravity “Life in space is impossible,” begins Gravity, the latest from Alfonso Cuarón (2006’s Children of Men). Egghead Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is well aware of her precarious situation after a mangled satellite slams into her ship, then proceeds to demolition-derby everything (including the International Space Station) in its path. It’s not long before she’s utterly, terrifyingly alone, and forced to unearth near-superhuman reserves of physical and mental strength to survive. Bullock’s performance would be enough to recommend Gravity, but there’s more to praise, like the film’s tense pacing, spare-yet-layered script (Cuarón co-wrote with his son, Jonás), and spectacular 3D photography — not to mention George Clooney’s warm supporting turn as a career astronaut who loves country music almost as much as he loves telling stories about his misadventures. (1:31) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Inequality for All Jacob Kornbluth’s Inequality for All is the latest and certainly not the last documentary to explore why the American Dream is increasingly out of touch with everyday reality, and how the definition of “middle class” somehow morphed from “comfortable” to “struggling, endangered, and hanging by a thread.” This lively overview has an ace up its sleeve in the form of the director’s friend, collaborator, and principal interviewee Robert Reich — the former Clinton-era Secretary of Labor, prolific author, political pundit, and UC Berkeley Professor of Public Policy. Whether he’s holding forth on TV, going one-on-one with Kornbluth’s camera, talking to disgruntled working class laborers, or engaging students in his Wealth and Poverty class, Inequality is basically a resourcefully illustrated Reich lecture — as the press notes put it, “an Inconvenient Truth for the economy.” Fortunately, the diminutive Reich is a natural comedian as well as a superbly cogent communicator, turning yet another summary of how the system has fucked almost everybody (excluding the one percent) into the one you might most want to recommend to the bewildered folks back home. He’s sugar on the pill, making it easier to swallow so much horrible news. (1:25) Metreon, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete (2:00) Metreon.

Insidious: Chapter 2 The bloodshot, terribly inflamed font of the opening title gives away director James Wan and co-writer and Saw series cohort Leigh Whannell’s intentions: welcome to their little love letter to Italian horror. The way an actor, carefully lit with ruby-red gels, is foregrounded amid jade greens and cobalt blues, the ghastly clown makeup, the silent movie glory of a gorgeous face frozen in terror, the fixation with 1981’s The Beyond — lovers of spaghetti shock will appreciate even a light application of these aspects, even if many others will be disappointed by this sequel riding a wee bit too closely on its financially successful predecessor’s coattails. Attempting to pick up exactly where 2011’s Insidious left off, Chapter 2 opens with a flashback to the childhood of demonically possessed Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), put into a trance by the young paranormal investigator Elise. Flash-forward to Elise’s corpse and the first of many terrified looks from Josh’s spouse Renai (Rose Byrne). She knows Josh killed Elise, but she can’t face reality — so instead she gets to face the forces of supernatural fantasy. Meanwhile Josh is busy forcing a fairy tale of normalcy down the rest of his family’s throats — all the while evoking a smooth-browed, unhinged caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Subverting that fiction are son Dalton (Ty Simpkins), who’s fielding messages from the dead, and Josh’s mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey), who sees apparitions in her creepy Victorian and looks for help in Elise’s old cohort Carl (Steve Coulter) and comic-relief ghost busters Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson). Sure, there are a host of scares to be had, particularly those of the don’t-look-over-your-shoulder variety, but tribute or no, the derivativeness of the devices is dissatisfying. Those seeking wickedly imaginative death-dealing machinations, or even major shivers, will curse the feel-good PG-13 denouement. (1:30) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Institute In 2008, mysterious flyers began popping up around San Francisco that touted esoteric inventions such as “Poliwater” and the “Vital-Orbit Human Force Field” and included a phone number for the curiously-monikered Jejuene Institute. On the other side of the phone line, a recording would direct callers to a Financial District office building where they would undergo a mysterious induction process, embarking on an epic, multi-stage, years-long alternate reality game, designed primarily to reveal the magic in the mundane. In Spencer McCall’s documentary The Institute, viewers are introduced to the game in much the same way as prospective inductees, with few clues as to what lies in store ahead. A handful of seemingly random interviewees offer a play-by-play recap of their own experiences exploring rival game entities the Jejune Institute and Elsewhere Public Works Agency — while video footage of them dancing in the streets, warding off ninjas, befriending Sasquatches, spelunking sewers, and haunting iconic Bay Area edifices gives the viewer a taste of the wonders that lay in store for the intrepid few (out of 10,000 inductees) who made it all the way to the end of the storyline. Frustratingly, however, at least for this former inductee, McCall’s documentary focuses on fleshing out the fictions of the game, barely scratching the surface of what must surely be an even more intriguing set of facts. How did a group of scrappy East Bay artists manage to commandeer an office in the Financial District for so long in the first place? Who were the artists behind the art? And where am I supposed to cash in these wooden “hobo coins” now? (1:32) Smith Rafael. (Gluckstern)

Lee Daniels’ The Butler (1:53) 1000 Van Ness.

Machete Kills Herewith we have the first sequel to a film (2010’s Machete) spawned from a fake trailer (that appeared in 2007’s Grindhouse). Danny Trejo’s titular killer has been tasked by the POTUS (Charlie Sheen, cheekily billed by his birth name, Carlos Estevez) to take down a Mexican madman (Demian Bechir) who’s an enemy of both his country’s drug cartels and the good ol’ USA. But it’s soon revealed (can you have plot spoilers in a virtually plotless film?) that the real villain is weapons designer Voz (Mel Gibson), a space-obsessed nutcase who’d fit right into an Austin Powers movie. The rest of Machete Kills, which aims only to entertain (with less social commentary than the first film), plays like James Bond lite, albeit with a higher, bloodier body count, and with famous-face cameos and jokey soft-core innuendos coming as fast and furious as the bullets do. As always, Trejo keeps a straight face, but he’s clearly in on the joke with director Robert Rodriguez, who’d be a fool not to continue to have his exploitation cake and eat it too, so long as these films — easy on the eyes, knowingly dumb, and purely fun-seeking — remain successful. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Metallica: Through the Never The 3D IMAX concert film is lurching toward cliché status, but at least Metallica: Through the Never has more bite to it than, say, this summer’s One Direction: This is Us. Director Nimród Antal (2010’s Predators) weaves live footage of the Bay Area thrash veterans ripping through hits (“Enter Sandman,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” etc.) into a narrative (kinda) about one of the band’s roadies (The Place Beyond the Pines‘ Dane DeHaan). Sent on a simple errand, the hoodie-wearing hesher finds himself caught in a nightmarish urban landscape of fire, hanging bodies, masked horsemen, and crumbling buildings — more or less, the dude’s trapped in a heavy metal video, and not one blessed with particularly original imagery. The end result is aimed more at diehards than casual fans — and, R-rated violence aside, there’s nothing here that tops the darkest moments of highly personal 2004 documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. (1:32) Metreon. (Eddy)

Muscle Shoals Hard on the heels of Dave Grohl’s Sound City comes another documentary about a legendary American recording studio. Located in the titular podunk Northern Alabama burg, Fame Studio drew an extraordinary lineup of musicians and producers to make fabled hits from the early 1960s through the early ’80s. Among them: Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” a slew of peak era Aretha Franklin smashes, the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” and those cornerstones of Southern rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” Tales of how particular tracks came about are entertaining, especially when related by the still-lively likes of Etta James, Wilson Pickett, and Keith Richards. (Richards is a hoot, while surprisingly Mick Jagger doesn’t have much to say.) Director Greg Camalier’s feature can be too worshipful and digressive at times, and he’s skittish about probing fallouts between Fame’s founder Rick Hall and some long-term collaborators (notably the local in-house session musicians known as the Swampers who were themselves a big lure for many artists, and who left Fame to start their own successful studio). Still, there’s enough fascinating material here — also including a lot of archival footage — that any music fan whose memory or interest stretches back a few decades will find much to enjoy. (1:51) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Prisoners It’s a telling sign of this TV-besotted times that the so-called best-reviewed film of the season so far resembles a cable mystery in line with The Killing and its ilk — in the way that it takes its time while keeping it taut, attempts to stretch out beyond the perimeters of the police procedural, and throws in the types of envelope-pushing twists that keep easily distractible viewers coming back. At two and a half hours plus, Prisoners feels like a hybrid, more often seen on a small screen that has borrowed liberally from cinema since David Lynch made the Twin Peaks crossing, than the large, as it brings together an art-house attention to detail with the sprawl and topicality of a serial. Incendies director Denis Villeneuve carefully loads the deck with symbolism from the start, opening with a shot of a deer guilelessly approaching a clearing and picking at scrubby growth in the cold ground, as the camera pulls back on two hunters: the Catholic, gun-toting Keller (Hugh Jackman) and his son (Dylan Minnette), intent on gathering a Thanksgiving offering. Keller and his fragile wife Grace (Maria Bello) are coming together with another family — headed up by the slightly more yuppified Franklin (Terence Howard) and his wife Nancy (Viola Davis) — for Thanksgiving in what seems like a middle-class East Coast suburb. The peace is shattered when the families’ young daughters suddenly disappear; the only clues are the mysterious RV that rumbles slowly through the quiet neighborhood and ominous closeups from a predator’s perspective. Police detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is drawn into the mystery when the RV is tracked down, along with its confused driver Alex (Paul Dano). That’s no consolation to the families, each grieving in their own way, with Keller perpetually enraged and Franklin seemingly on the brink of tears. When Alex’s aunt (an unrecognizable Melissa Leo) comes forward with information about her nephew, Keller decides to take matters into his own hands in ways that question the use of force during interrogation and the very definition of imprisonment. Noteworthy performances by Jackman, Gyllenhaal, and Dano highlight this elegant, wrenching thriller — while Villeneuve’s generally simple, smart choices might make the audience question not only certain characters’ morality but perhaps their own. (2:33) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

Romeo and Juliet Every director sees the star-crossed lovers differently: Zefferelli’s approach was sensuous, while Luhrmann’s was hip. Carlo Carlei, director of the British-Swiss-Italian production hitting theaters this week, is so hamstrung by the soapy mechanics of the Twilight series and the firmament of high school productions he fails to add much vision — what he does instead is pander to tweens as much as possible. Which means tweens might like it. Hailee Steinfeld makes Juliet’s foolishness seem like the behavior of a highly functional teenager, while Douglas Booth’s chiseled Romeo can’t help resembling a cheerful Robert Pattinson. Juliet’s maid has never been more memorable than Leslie Mansfield and Paul Giamatti is occasionally not self-consciously Paul Giamatti as the cunning friar. Yet the syrupy score is miserably persistent, and the sword fights are abundant and laughable. Tybalt (Gossip Girl‘s Ed Westwick) leads a group that walks in slo-mo, hats flopping behind them. Carlei wrong-headedly stages the double suicide to resemble Michelangelo’s Pietà, but Romeo and Juliet aren’t martyrs for our fantasies, they’re the Adam and Eve of young love. Cinematic adaptations should remind you they’re original, but this Romeo and Juliet simply doesn’t know how. (1:58) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Runner Runner Launching his tale with a ripped-from-the-headlines montage of news reports and concerned-anchor sound bites, director Brad Furman (2011’s The Lincoln Lawyer) attempts to argue his online-gambling action thriller’s topicality, but not even Anderson Cooper can make a persuasive case for Runner Runner‘s cultural relevance. Justin Timberlake plays Richie Furst, a post-2008 Wall Street casualty turned Princeton master’s candidate, who is putting himself through his finance program via the morally threadbare freelance gig of introducing his fellow students to Internet gambling. Perhaps in the service of supplying our unsympathetic protagonist with a psychological root, we are given a knocked-together scene reuniting Richie with his estranged gambling addict dad (John Heard). By the time we’ve digested this, plus the image of Justin Timberlake in the guise of a grad student with a TAship, Richie has blown through all his savings and, in a bewildering turn of events, made his way into the orbit of Ben Affleck’s Ivan Block, a shady online-gambling mogul taking shelter from an FBI investigation in Costa Rica, along with his lovely adjutant, Rebecca (Gemma Arterton). Richie’s rise through the ranks of Ivan’s dodgy empire is somewhat mysterious, partly a function of the plot and partly a function of the plot being piecemeal and incoherent. The dialogue and the deliveries are also unconvincing, possibly because we’re dealing with a pack of con artists and possibly because the players were dumbfounded by the script, which is clotted with lines we’ve heard before, from other brash FBI agents, other sketchily drawn temptresses, other derelict, regretful fathers, and other unscrupulous kingpins. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Rush Ron Howard’s Formula One thriller Rush is a gripping bit of car porn, decked out with 1970s period details and goofily liberated camera moves to make sure you never forget how much happens under (and around, and on top of) the hood of these beastly vehicles. Real life drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda (played by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, respectively) had a wicked rivalry through the ’70s; these characters are so oppositional you’d think Shane Black wrote them. Lauda’s an impersonal, methodical pro, while Hunt’s an aggressive, undisciplined playboy — but he’s so popular he can sway a group of racers to risk their lives on a rainy track, even as Lauda objects. It’s a lovely sight: all the testosterone in the world packed into a room bound by windows, egos threatening to bust the glass with the rumble of their voices. I’m no fan of Ron Howard, but maybe the thrill of Grand Theft Auto is in Rush like a spirit animal. (The moments of rush are the greatest; when Lauda’s lady friend asks him to drive fast, he does, and it’s glorious.) Hunt says that “being a pro kills the sport” — but Howard, an overly schmaltzy director with no gift for logic and too much reliance on suspension of disbelief, doesn’t heed that warning. The laughable voiceovers that bookend the film threaten to sink some great stuff, but the magic of the track is vibrant, dangerous, and teeming with greatness. (2:03) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

The Summit The fight for survival is a dominant theme this season at the movies, with astronaut Sandra Bullock grappling for her life in Gravity; lone sailor Robert Redford piloting a leaky boat in All Is Lost; and Tom Hanks battling Somali pirates in Captain Phillips. No movie stars appear in The Summit, a documentary from Irish filmmaker Nick Ryan, but that doesn’t lessen its power. In fact, this tale of a staggeringly tragic mountaineering accident — in which 11 people perished in a 48-hour period atop K2, the second-highest peak in the world — might be the most terrifying of the bunch. Along with the expected historical context, interviews, and some stunning aerial footage, The Summit crafts its tale using a seamless blend of re-enactments and archival footage shot during the deadly 2008 expedition. Editor Ben Stark picked up two awards at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and you can see why — it’s difficult at times to pick out what’s real and what’s not. The Summit also delves into the more metaphysical aspects of climbing, including “summit fever” — sharing the startling statistic that for every four people who attempt K2, one will die. It goes without saying that the danger of K2 is clearly part of its allure, and The Summit (a companion piece of sorts to 2003’s Touching the Void) does an admirable job getting inside the heads of those who willingly tempt death in order to feel more alive. (1:39) SF Center. (Eddy)

Wadjda Hijabs, headmistresses, and errant fathers fall away before the will and wherewithal of the 11-year-old title character of Wadjda, the first feature by a female Saudi Arabian filmmaker. Director Haifaa al-Mansour’s own story — which included filming on the streets of Riyadh from the isolation of a van because she couldn’t work publicly with the men in the crew — is the stuff of drama, and it follows that her movie lays out, in the neorealist style of 1948’s The Bicycle Thief, the obstacles to freedom set in the path of women and girls in Saudi Arabia, in terms that cross cultural, geographic, and religious boundaries. The fresh star setting the course is Wadjda (first-time actor Waad Mohammed), a smart, irrepressibly feisty girl practically bursting out of her purple high-tops and intent on racing her young neighborhood friend Abudullah (Abdullrahman Algohani) on a bike. So many things stand in her way: the high price of bicycles and the belief that girls will jeopardize their virginity if they ride them; her distracted mother (Reem Abdullah) who’s worried that Wadjda’s father will take a new wife who can bear him a son; and a harsh, elegant headmistress (Ahd) intent on knuckling down on girlish rebellion. So Wadjda embarks on studying for a Qu’ran recital competition to win money for her bike and in the process learns a matter or two about discipline — and the bigger picture. Director al-Mansour teaches us a few things about her world as well — and reminds us of the indomitable spirit of girls — with this inspiring peek behind an ordinarily veiled world. (1:37) (Chun)

When Comedy Went to School This scattershot documentary by Ron Frank and Mevlut Akkaya is about two big subjects — the Catskill Mountains resorts that launched a couple generations of beloved Jewish entertainers, and mid-to-late 20th century Jewish comedians in general. There’s a lot of overlap between them, but the directors (and writer Lawrence Richards) can’t seem to find any organizing focus, so their film wanders all over the place, from the roles of resort social directors and busboys to clips from History of the World Part I (1981) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971) to the entirely irrelevant likes of Larry King. That said, there’s entertaining vintage performance footage (of Totie Fields, Woody Allen, etc.) and interview input from the still-kicking likes of Sid Ceasar, Jackie Mason, Mort Sahl, Jerry Stiller, and Jerry Lewis. For some this will be a welcome if not particularly well crafted nostalgic wallow. For others, though, the pandering tone set by one Lisa Dawn Miller’s (wife of Sandy Hackett, who’s son of Buddy) cringe-worthy opening rendition of “Make ‘Em Laugh” — to say nothing of her “Send in the Clowns” at the close — will sum up the pedestrian mindset that makes this doc a missed opportunity. (1:23) (Harvey) *

 

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