Live

Don’t just stand there — squat!

Zelda Bronstein
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Don’t just stand there — squat!

You know I love this story. I love it so much I am going to be following it for weeks, and I hope for years. A homeless guy takes over a $2 million mansion in Florida, which was sitting empty while Bank of America dicked around and never sold or rented it, and now the bank is going to have a tough time getting rid of him.

Did I say I love this story?

Check it out:

It only gets more complicated. By invoking an obscure but never rescinded nor revised Florida law, Barbosa is using “adverse possession” to justify his claim in the house, as it allows a person to move in and claim title of a property “if they can stay there seven years.” Florida has suffered more than one similar case. The Sun Sentinel makes reference to a “handful” of adverse possession claims making their way through the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office, but Barbosa’s stands out because the house he’s possessing (adversely) is so valuable. And though Barbosa is certainly eccentric, posting a sign that he is the “living beneficiary to the Divine Estate being superior of commerce and usury” on the front of the home, he isn’t stupid. He even contacted the Appraiser’s Office to alert them that his tenancy had begun, presumably as he intends to stay for the required seven years.

We haven’t had any good high-profile public squats like this in San Francisco in years. Back in the day, my old friend Paul Kangas and his brother John were the kings of squats; Paul found an empty house in the Sunset in the late 1970s, with the paint peeling and the shutters hanging off the windows, moved into it, fixed it up, had the water and power turned on in his name and lived there for years. He didn’t operate in secret or the middle of the night; he got the lock re-keyed, moved all his stuff in, and acted like he owned the place. He fixed it up nicely, took care of the yard — and the neighbors loved him. An empty eyesore was now a clean, inhabited house.

Paul was no fool; he had researched the place and found out that the owner had died without leaving direct descendants or a clear will, and for a long time, nobody in the city or the legal system could figure out who actually did own it. Paul needed a place to live; this one was going to be empty for a long time. Why not use it?

John did the same thing with an abandoned house in the Mission, except that to open the door, he had to climb in a window. Somebody saw him, called the cops …. and he was arrested for burglary (for taking the front door knob, which he was going to replace.) He took the case to trial, and it was spectacular: His lawyer, Jonathan McCurdy, called a bunch of city officials and asked them who John had stolen the door knob from; “who,” he kept asking, “actually owns this property?” The title was unclear; nobody could answer the question.

Then John took the stand and said he wasn’t a burglar at all; he was a squatter, who was planning to take over, fix up, and live in an abandoned house.

The jury took about an hour to come back with a verdict of not guilty.

There are plenty of pieces of property around the Bay Area that are owned by banks and sitting vacant. Some of them are becoming eyesores. Somebody ought to be living there.

As we used to say, Don’t just stand there — squat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Performant: Sexcapades, no ice

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“SPANK!” and “Sex and the City: Live!” heat things up a little

The Regency Ballroom is awash in estrogen and vodka martinis, overrun by neatly-coifed former sorority sisters sheathed in tasteful rayon suits and drop earrings. The few men in attendance fall into two distinct camps—balding bruisers wrestled into button-down shirts, and fidgety-looking younger men who know they have just been dragged into the theatrical equivalent of a chick flick. One only hopes that a reciprocal arrangement involving the Super Bowl or some racy bedroom activity was reached earlier on, the latter being the most appropriate to the occasion — an evening of E.L. James-inspired comedy, “SPANK! The Fifty Shades parody.”

Apparently not to be confused with “50 Shades! The Musical,” nor “Fifty Shades of Grey: a XXX Adaptation,” “Spank!” bills itself as a musical review, and features just three performers as writer E.B. Janet (Amanda Barker), “smoldering” anti-hero Hugh Hanson (Drew Moerlein) and the painfully two-dimensional ingénue Tasha Woode (Michelle Vezilj).

As Soft Cell blares from the Regency’s imposing bank of speakers stage fog begins to drift across the stage and Moerlein bursts through the giant red curtains, gyrating to the music with the practiced wink-and-nudge finesse of a Chippendale. Eventually the two others join him, Vezilj dancing, and Barker drinking Chardonnay from a giant wineglass, her constant companion. Barker is our narrator and guide into the world of grey we are about to descend into.

She’s also about the best thing in the play — with a flirty dirty attitude and brazen laugh, she controls the stage far better than the supposedly dominant Moerlein, whose “dark” character is likened multiple times to that of Batman, but whose goofy antics including a pitch-perfect Gilbert and Sullivan song, instead bring the Tick to mind. He does get a moment where he strips all the way down to his Wonderoos, by far the raciest vignette in the otherwise bare-bones, vanilla-beige show, which still appears to satisfy its target oddience, who laugh at all the appropriate moments and even inject their own humor into the event during the potentially-awkward participatory bits, ring-led by Vezilj. And isn’t it the potentially-awkward participatory bits what we remember most in life? In love?

Speaking of bits, fan favorite, live action glamour-com “Sex and the City: Live!” is staging a revival down at Rebel, with all-new episodes and plenty of costume changes for all you drag-fashionistas. Dragonistas.

Starring the redoubtable Heklina as Carrie, Lady Bear as Miranda, Trixie Carr as Charlotte, and D’Arcy Drollinger as the best-known cougar since Mrs. Robinson, Samantha, the “Sex” crew promises to be as racy and raucous (if not more so) as the televised version. “Airing” on hump day Wednesdays, at both 7 and 9 p.m. each performance features two episodes, highlighting themes of promiscuity, dirty talk, romantical quandaries, and expensive shoes, a campy cocktail of fun escapism to get you through the week. And for the risk-adverse, fear not, the only participation the “Sex” ladies demand of you is laughter. Now that’s hot!

Sex and the City: Live!, open-ended run
7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Rebel
1760 Market, SF
$20
www.trannyshack.com

Live Shots: Wovenhand at Bottom of the Hill

Tony Robles
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Although the notoriously devout David Eugene Edwards would probably be appalled to hear it, attending his shows is about as close to a religious experience as I ever get.

The ferociously intense frontperson of Wovenhand (as well as the former 16 Horsepower), Edwards was instrumental in the foundation of the hyper-localized alt-Americana/gothic-folk genre known as the Denver Sound, a category filled with moody ballads of shaken faith and raucous, C&W-tinged fire-and-brimstone.

And there’s just something about the sheer unapologetic bombast of his live presence that makes me want to don sackcloth and ashes on the spot and follow the path of the righteous — a feeling which lasts at least until I manage to break away from his sermon on the mount (or any rate, the Bottom of the Hill) to stumble home, still a sinner.

Clearly I’m not the only heathen who feels this way, as evidenced by a cluster of audience members at Saturday’s show clad earnestly in t-shirts proclaiming pagan-esque affinities (“Keep Thor in Thursday” is my favorite) bobbing their heads solemnly like everyone else to Edwards’ unmistakably Christian lyrics; music our common sacrament.

Watching Edwards onstage is not unlike watching the charismatic theatre of a revival-meeting minister, from his unwavering focus, to his fearless exhortations for repentance and mercy. Himself the grandson of a traveling preacher man on one side of the family, and a nomadic Native American entertainer who traveled (it’s said) from town to town with a trained bear, Edwards always appears to be equally influenced by both.

At one point speaking in tongues, eyes rolled back, at another whooping into the mic as Ordy Garrison on drums pounds out a tribal rhythm seemingly pulled from the very bones of the continent. In various incarnations, Edwards has displayed facility with all kinds of instruments, but for Saturday’s show he limited himself to three — two guitars and his signature hybrid mandolin-banjo built in the late 1800s, which gives off an almost ethereal twang from four nylon strings.

A word about Garrison. A Wovenhand collaborator for every album since ‘03’s Blush Music, he may well be the unsung driving force behind the evolution of the music, which grows heavier and more deeply layered with every progressive album. His timing is impeccable and he clearly sits in a position of power, directing much of the ebb and flow from his upstage perch.

A much newer recruit, Sir Charles French, who played guitar on Wovenhand’s latest album The Laughing Stalk (Sounds Familyre, 2012), but bass for the show, gave off a less anchored aura, perhaps due to less familiarity with the instrument in his hands, perhaps for other reasons, but fortunately with Wovenhand there are few fancy bass lines to worry about — a throbbing pulse sufficed quite well, pairing neatly with an undercurrent of pre-recorded drone — another Edwards signature.

The set-list, comprised in large part with tracks from The Laughing Stalk included representatives from almost every album since Consider the Birds — including a melancholy old favorite, “Swedish Purse,” an introspective “Kingdom of Ice,” and a bone-shaking “Long Horn”. 

But ultimately with Wovenhand, it’s rarely the precise setlist that gets remembered, so much as the overall effect of spending a solid hour communing with the band. You could almost liken the experience to a midnight mass for lost souls in search of redemption in song — we the flock, and Wovenhand the guiding light.

Continuity

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Hoolibloo lives next door, where Elsa the Very Very Old Peruvian Woman used to live. I changed light bulbs for Elsa in the ’90s, and reset her clock every time the time changed or the power went out. Or a battery died.

Then, when I moved back into the building 10 years later, she didn’t recognize me. A lot had changed. I tried to explain, but she didn’t understand, but maybe she did and I didn’t understand her understanding. Her ability to speak English started and ended with asking for help and bragging about how very very old she was. And my understanding of Spanish is limited to the meats. So a typical conversation between us would go something like this:

HER: Please can you help me?

ME: (helping her) Carnitas, Elsa. Carnitas!

HER: I am very very old. Very old.

ME: (finishing up with the helping her) Carne asada. Um, pollo.

HER: Thank you. Thank you very mucho.

ME: De nada, Elsa. Hasta lechuga.

And all of us, everyone in the building, would help her up the stairs. Whereas Hoolibloo, my friend who moved in when Elsa (sniff) moved out, takes the stairs by herself — often even briskly.

“Here, let me help you,” I say, out of habit. But she turns me down, arguing that she’s 25.

Fluently! She doesn’t even have to draw the numbers in the air, like Elsa used to do. But I guess that’s the difference between Chicago and Peru, coming-fromwise. Not to mention 50 years.

In spite of her relative youthfulness, Hoolibloo does not play on my football team, or even in a band. Still, she is our closest friend. When Hedgehog and I sit on our couch and she sits on hers, we are only two sheets of drywall and six inches of insulation apart.

She helps Hedgehog make movies, and me find restaurants. Why, just the other day she showed me to Poc-Chuc. We were both working at home, and were craving sandwiches, only when Hooli called up Ike to place our order they said it would take about an hour, that’s how crowded they were.

So then we started to crave empanadas instead.

One thing I love about hanging with people half my age is they talk about interestinger stuff than I do. I’m all, Oh, my knee is gone! I blacked out in the bathroom! What’s wrong with my butt! . . . and meanwhile they’re working out what to do with their life.

Which makes much more lively dinner conversation.

Lunch too, come to think of it.

Over Empanadas we discussed guns, Israel, guns in Israel, and writing. Hoolibloo would like to write something, she said, but not necessarily a whole book.

“You’re talking to the right person,” I said. I start and don’t finish books with a level of expertise seldom seen outside the world of professional bowling.

But that kind of wasn’t what she was talking about.

She had just come back from Israel, where her grandma lives, and was fixing to fly off somewhere else. Her dream job would entail a lot of travel. And autonomy. “But I also really like to be part of a team,” she said.

“I can teach you football,” I said. Ever the recruiter.

Poc chuc, the signature dish of Poc-Chuc, is thinly sliced pork marinated in citrus, grilled, and served with onions, tomatoes, rice, and a small bowl of pureed black beans that I almost forgot to even taste, everything else was so freaking delicious and plentiful.

I don’t normally like empanadas, but I loved Poc-Chuc’s ones. They were less doughy and more flavorful than most, maybe because of the same black bean puree. Which also found its way into the Panuchos. And believe me, as someone who changes diapers for a living . . . black bean puree in the panuchos? That’ll happen.

Really though: really really awesome Mayan food. The Panuchos, which also feature shredded turkey, avocado, and pickled red onions, were fantastic. Kinda somewhat similar to empanadas, only fried.

I can’t wait until Hedgehog comes back from L.A. so I can show this to her.

POC-CHUC

Mon-Wed 10:30am-8:30pm; Thu-Sat 10:30am-10pm; Sun 4-9:30pm

2886 16th St., SF

(415) 558-1583

AE/D/MC/V

No alcohol

 

Dynamic duo

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Dynamic duo

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE The Bebe Miller Company’s A History at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts last weekend proved to be both exhilarating and frustrating. First, the good: watching two gorgeous dancers engage each other in one encounter after another — both huge and tiny — for over an hour. Gradually, they emerged as two completely different and yet ever-so-compatible characters.

Angie Hauser can look almost demure, but there is such fierceness to her presence that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of that intensity. Darrell Jones, a tall, lanky dancer with limbs that can (and do) shoot in all directions simultaneously, is unstoppable — yet he also has teasing sense of humor about him. If Hauser could be almost earnest in her focus, Jones brought an often relaxed, quasi-casual quality to their work.

In the program notes, Miller says that History is a work about making work, specifically about having worked with Hauser and Jones for the last decade. On video Miller is a tiny figure, planted like a tree in a lush meadow, telling us that her body — and by implication that of her dancers — is "possessed by past dances." So History is a piece about excavating shards, remembering, or as one of the texts says, "remember remembering," everything that goes into the creative process. That’s a tough assignment. While conceptually intriguing, the 70-minute work didn’t completely convince because it didn’t stand as its own artifact with its own parameters. Hence the frustration.

History‘s collaborators, including the choreographer and her long-time dramatist Talvin Wilks, conceived of the work as a multi-media experience in which spoken and projected text, video images, and live dance would collide with each other. Unfortunately, the co-existence of these elements too often didn’t spark, proving to be more distracting than illuminating. Viewing History thus became an exercise in both reveling in and rebelling against the experience.

Even as History continued to slip one’s grasp, it was beautiful to watch. Mimi Lien’s semi-transparent panels enveloped the dancers in a neutral yet luminous space. At its best moments, Lily Skove’s video ran alongside the dancers and sometimes almost reached to grab them. The opening and closing images resonated particularly well. Michael Wall and Darren Morze’s score ranged from soft humming to a dance-y tune that sent the performers into paroxysms of joyous.

But it was Hauser and Jones who carried History. Their rich interactions were in a constant state of flux. Some were funny, some contentious; others were intimate, still others playful. Their sense of ease with each other may have developed over the last decade, but on stage it didn’t make any difference where it came from. Hauser is the verbal dynamo to Jones’ high-speed physicality; when she exploded into one of her speed monologues, he responded with a tease, or by simply rolling off their shared bed. They wearily watched each other using space, but also companionably loped around the periphery and engaged in hand games at the table. They did things as ordinary as taking off a partner’s shoe, or kneading one another like a piece of rising dough. If he came close, she flipped him off with a gesture. In an extended contact-improv inspired section, their bodies attempted to fuse almost to the point of eroticism. But they didn’t go all the way there.

One of History’s ingenuous devices was the use of headphones — the big, old-fashioned kind. The dancers raced to them periodically for a kind of grounding. Were they gateways to the past or did the simple act of listening — or yakking back — offer a respite from the physicality of moving? The headphones also highlighted the differences between the two dancers. Hauser devoured whatever she got from them, while Jones’ reactions were a lot more nonchalant.

Ultimately one walks away from History, imperfect vehicle that it is, with a sense of two dancers whose humanity is so closely integrated with what they do that you couldn’t tell the difference between the person and the persona. It was a rich idea to take home.

Libertine dream

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Libertine dream

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO One of my supreme happy places, apparently, turned out to be the packed dancefloor of an underground fundraiser for Radical Faerie Burning Man camp Comfort and Joy, right around 3am a couple Fridays ago, when the drag queen DJ dropped “Rock the Casbah” and some behooded elfin rogue’s giant LED rainbow wings lit up and blinded me. Joe Strummer smiles from heaven, surely.

Alas, that drag queen, mi amiga grande Ambrosia Salad, will soon join the current nightlife exodus to Los Angeles, to follow her twinkling star (and cheaper rent) along the path to immortality — or at least an all-night churro cart. Can we get one here please thanks. But just when I despair of the city emptying of its precious idiosyncracies and after-dark characters, someone amazing pops up to charm the hotpants off of me and remind me of both San Francisco’s resilient weirdness and its cyclical subcultural nature.

“Oh, I moved out of the Castro when the drones moved in. Everyone started wanting to look the same, dress the same. It really took the fun out of the gay scene, these marching costumes coming in and stamping out the magic.” That’s twinkle-toned Todd Trexler, poster artist, AIDS nurse, and legendary bon vivant, speaking over the phone — not about about the samey-samey Wienerville the Castro has become, but the Castro clones of the mid-1970s. For all the renewed interest in the workboots, cut-offs, and mustaches of pre-AIDS SF gay culture (see local director Travis Mathews’ exciting, upcoming, James Franco-starring Interior. Leather Bar, which imagines the lost orgy footage from classic homoerotic/gay panic slasher flick Cruising and wowed ’em at Sundance last week), it’s good to remember there were also some fabulous butterfly dissenters to that macho wannabe world.

Trexler was a player in one of the seminal moments of alternative gay culture — after snagging an art degree from SF State, he designed the posters for the queer-raucous, acid-kaleidoscopic performance troupe The Cockettes’ first official shows, as well as the Midnight Movie series, later the Nocturnal Dream Shows at the Palace Theater in North Beach in the early ’70s, back when North Beach was a magnet for free-lovin’ freaks and nightlife oddities. (See, anything can happen). Now, he’s reprinted many of those iconic and visually stunning “Art Deco revival meets Aubrey Beardsley louche meets underground comics perversion” ink-and-photo masterpieces for surprisingly affordable purchase at www.toddtrexlerposters.com.

Divine in her iconic, kooky crinoline (“Basically she just threw on a bunch of stuff from the trunk of our car and voila, Divine!”) outside the Palace of Fine Arts for the “Vice Palace” play and, later, starring in Multiple Maniacs and “The Heartbreak of Psoriasis”; Sylvester looking his sultry best for a New Year’s Eve concert, and featured on a controversially explicit piece for decidedly hetero rock outfit the Finchley Boys; Tower of Power, Zazie dans le Metro, Mink Stole as Nancy Drew, the Waterfront gay bar — Trexler’s platinum stash of memorabilia will reinvigorate anyone zoinked out by our increasingly conformist, consumerist moment. (Trexler was prodded into reprinting by my favorite classic SF eccentric, Strange de Jim.)

And hey, there’s some hope for a freakish future, even: lauded local theater troupe Thrillpeddlers, which includes a couple gorgeous surviving Cockettes itself, will put on the Cockettes’ 1971, Trexler-postered “Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma” starting March 28, www.thrillpeddlers.com.

Trexler’s importance to gay culture doesn’t end with his glamourous posterization, however. After his ’70s time “crafting assemblage sculptures from gems found at Cliff’s Variety Store, hand-drawing the posters in the flat at 584B Castro Street, smoking weed with Sebastian [Bill Graham’s accountant, who instigated the whole Nocturnal Dream Emissions insanity], and hanging out at the Palace and the Upper Market Street Gallery,” he moved down to Monterey and became a registered nurse, cared for the first GRID, aka AIDS, patient in the area, and pitched in on the groundbreaking early work on the epidemic with UCSF and the National Institutes of Health.

“What troubles me most now,” he says, reflecting on his experience, “is the rising prevalence of HIV infections among young gay men.” Some cycles don’t need repeating, k?

 

BROWN SUGAR

Heck yes — the classic hip-hop soul joint is back, scooping you up for free after the Oakland Art Murmur’s First Fridays blast, which is amazing. Brown Sugar crew Jam the Man, The C.M.E, and Sake 1 spin with the Local 1200 crew on the street and then take it inside to the spanking new Shadow Lounge (formerly Maxwell’s). Welcome back, fellas.

Fri/1 and first Fridays, 9:30pm, free. Shadow Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakl.

 

MATTHEW DEAR

Moody-poppy Detroit techno pretty boy is a favorite around these parts. He may have started the recent (sometimes regrettable) trend of DJs singing, but he’s one of the best at it — and his compositions aren’t afraid to get deep and edgy.

Fri/1, 9pm, free. 1015 Folsom, SF. www.1015.com

 

VINTAGE

Icon Ultra Lounge is dead — please welcome new, neater venue F8 in its place. Also, after a horrific hit-and-run accident last year, beloved and crazy DJ Toph One is alive! He’s returned with his crew to reboot this eclectic-tuned early evening fave every Friday to fly you into the weekend.

Fridays, 5:30-9:30, free. F8, 1192 Folsom, SF. www.feightsf.com

 

KAFANA BALKAN SIXTH ANNIVERSARY

Holy Balkans, Batman! Six years of wild, whirling, stomping, shouting Romani-inspired music goodness from one of the best and most unique parties anywhere, with DJ Zeljko, the Inspector Gadje brass band, and a Balkan bellydance blowout with the inimitable Jill Parker and the Foxglove Sweethearts. Get there early.

Sat/2, 9pm, $15. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

 

GAVIN AND ROBBIE HARDKISS

OK, the headliner for this event is actually the excellent old-school California techno wizard John Tejada (along with fellow mage Pezzner playing live) downstairs in the big room of Public Works — but the big news is a reunion of two of SF’s wiggy, wowza Hardkiss Brothers all night long upstairs in the loft. Bigness!

Sat/2, $12 advance, $15 door. Public Works, 131 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

Hello goodbye

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Hello goodbye

emilysavage@sfbg.com

TOFU AND WHISKEY While it’ll be hard to say goodbye, Brass Menažeri’s founder Peter Jaques might have the best possible reason for dissolving his decade-old, San Francisco band. He got a Fulbright grant to study traditional Greek music — in Greece.

He’ll be traversing the Grecian island of Crete, coastal Epiros, mountainous Florina, and capitol city Athens, studying with Greek master musicians. So yeah, don’t cry for Jaques. It’ll more be the Bay Area Balkan scene’s loss than his, given the group’s influence on the local set, lo these past 12 years. (Remember that Tofu and Whiskey column on the bumping Bay Balkan scene a few weeks back? That wouldn’t have happened without it.)

With two full sets of Balkan dance music, the band will bid adieu at a final show this Fri/1 (New Parish, 579 18th St., Oakl. www.thenewparish.com. 9pm, $15). That night will include four-part horn melodies, special guest dancer Zoe Jakes of Beats Antiques, and the debut of trumpeter eO’s new DJ set of “glitch-seasoned, heavy Balko-electronic compositions and remixes.”

With that in mind, I asked Jaques to give me the rundown on the highlights — and low points — in the life of Brass Menažeri.

There are those less-than-ideal band situations: “the sound guy who insists he needs to boost the ‘kick drum’ (we don’t have one) in a room with overwhelming bass resonance. We could hear nothing at all aside from the drum; playing an outdoor festival at Civic Center 100 feet from a techno stage; getting stiffed for a measly $200 when a venue said they’d paid our money to the other band (why?) and the other band denied it.”

And then there are the inspiring moments that kept the band humming: “collaborating with Boston MC Mr. Lif at the Seattle Folk Fest in 2010; playing for Ruth Hunter’s 50th birthday party while the sun was setting on a beachfront in Seattle; crowd surfers at Amnesia; the 2008 CD release at Great American Music Hall with Aphrodesia, and returning there for Kafana Balkan last year with Fishtank Ensemble; crowd reactions at the Sebastopol Apple Blossom Festival; chasing Rupa around the Mission during her birthday procession a few years ago; double bill Balkan brass afterparty for the Goran Bregovic show, with Inspector Gadje last year; the first Kafana Balkan at ArtSF in the Mission, with people hanging from the rafters”

Wouldn’t you know it, there’s a Kafana Balkan night this weekend as well. As Jaques mentioned, Brass Menažeri played the first of these raucous Balkan dance parties. This Sat/2 is the club night’s sixth anniversary show, with Inspector Gadje, Jill Parker and Foxglove Sweethearts, and DJ Zeliko (Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com. 9pm, $15).

So yes, you can pretty much spend your whole weekend reveling in the Balkans.

 

PETRA HADEN

For those more interested in the scores than the moving pictures on the screen, indie rock icon — and master jazz spawn — Petra Haden has done something quite unique with her newest album, Petra Goes to the Movies, released last week on Anti-. She’s rearranged classic film scores — think Psycho, A Fistful of Dollars, Superman, and 8 1/2 — mainly using her extraordinary voice to flesh out the formerly instrumental sections. For “Psycho,” that means high, layered a capella vocals creating that haunting paranoia so associated with the film’s theme. “Goldfinger” is a fun one as it also features Haden’s sultry lyric singing, and bum-da-bum “Hand Covers Bruise” from The Social Network stands out as an unexpected new gem. “When I saw the film Social Network, I thought it was a great movie but it was the music that really drew me in,” Haden said in a statement to her record label. The former That Dog vocalist’s interpretations on this album have minimal instrumental contributions courtesy of her famous father, jazz bassist Charlie Haden, pianist Brad Mehldau, and guitarist Bill Frisell.

 

PUSSY RIOT LIBERATION NIGHT

To celebrate the release of new book, Pussy Riot! A Punk Prayer for Freedom (Feminist Press), City Lights is hosting an evening of reading, declarations, and manifestos, with Frightwig (Deanna Mitchell, Mia Simmans, Cecelia Kuhn, Eric Drew Feldman), Daphne Gottlieb, Penelope Houston (of the Avengers), Deborah Iyall (of Romeo Void),Sophia Kumin, and Michelle Tea. Pull up some neon tights, tug a hot pink ski mask over your head, and join the movement.

Wed/30, 7pm, free. City Lights, 261 Columbus, SF. www.citylights.com.

 

JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER

Experimental, ’90s-born Portland act Jackie-O Motherfucker live at Mexican restaurant Casa Sanchez, where I can also eat chips and salsa during the set? That’ll do just fine, thank you. With You Nori, Cuttle Buttle, Baus.

Thu/31, 7:30pm, free. Casa Sanchez, 2778 24 St, SF. www.casasanchezfood.com.

 

BAGEL RADIO ANNIVERSARY SHOW

Ted Leibowitz has been doing Internet radio far longer than the majority of your favorite podcast hosts. His indie rock-oriented Internet radio station, BAGel Radio, is turning 10 this year. So the station founder-music director is throwing this show with local rock bands including Pixies-honoring Mister Loveless, angsty Churches, and tender Birdmonster. A lineup worth showing up early for.

Fri/1, 9:30pm, $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com.

It’s the end of Brass Menažeri, the 10th anniversary of BAGel Radio, and the start of Petra Haden’s foray into a capella film scores. Plus: Pussy Riot Night at City Lights!

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/30-Tue/5 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

BAY MODEL 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito; www.tiburonfilmfestival.com. Free. "Tiburon Film Society:" Banganà (Sincich, 2012), Tue, 6.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. Noir City: The 11th Annual San Francisco Film Noir Festival: •The Sniper (Dmytryk, 1952), Wed, 1:30, 7, and Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962), Wed, 3:30, 9; •The Other Woman (Haas, 1954), Thu, 7:30, and The Come-On (Birdwell, 1956), Thu, 9:15; •Man in the Dark (Landers, 1953), Fri, 7:30, and Inferno (Ward Baker, 1953), Fri, 9; •Street of Chance (Hively, 1942), Sat, 1, 6; The Chase (Ripley, 1946), Sat, 2:35, 7:30; and The Window (Tetzlaff, 1949), Sat, 4:20, 9:15; •Smooth as Silk (Barton, 1946), Sun, 12:30; Mary Ryan, Detective (Berlin, 1949), Sun, 1:50; Strange Impersonation (Mann, 1946), Sun, 3:20; and Fly By Night (Siodmak, 1942), Sun, 4:45; •Night Editor (Levin, 1946), Sun, 7:30, and High Tide (Reinhardt, 1947), Sun, 9. More info at www.noircity.com; advance tickets ($10-15) at www.brownpapertickets.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Amour (Haneke, 2012), call for dates and times. Quartet (Hoffman, 2012), call for dates and times. The Rabbi’s Cat (Sfar and Delesvaux, 2011), call for dates and times. Sparrows (Beaudine, 1926), Thu, 7. With live piano accompaniment and introduction by Mary Pickford expert Christel Schmidt. This event, $12. "World Ballet on the Big Screen:" "An Evening With Sol León and Paul Lightfoot from the Netherlands Dance Theater," Sun and Tue, 6:30. This event, $15.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $9-10. "Midnight Movies:" Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968), Sat, midnight. With host Miss Misery.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). "CinemaLit Film Series: Hollywood Dames: In the Name of Love:" Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophüls, 1948), Fri, 6.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. Free. "Documentary Film Series:" The Loving Story (Buirski, 2011), Tue, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Film 50: History of Cinema: The Cinematic City:" Metropolis (Lang, 1926), Wed, 3:10. With lecture by Marilyn Fabe; advance tickets (special pricing: $5.50-$11.50) recommended as programs often sell out. "Alfred Hitchcock: The Shape of Suspense:" North by Northwest (1959), Wed, 7; Suspicion (1941), Fri, 9. "Campus Connections: Playwright-Director Stan Lai:" The Peach Blossom Land (1992), Thu, 7. "The Sounds of Silence:" Silence (Collins, 2012), Fri, 7; "A Kind of Hush: Experimental Works," Sun, 5. "Screenagers: 15th Annual Bay Area High School Film and Video Festival," Sat, 3. "On Location in Silent Cinema:" Études sur Paris (Sauvage, 1928), Sat, 6. "African Film Festival 2013:" How to Steal 2 Million (Vundla, 2011), Sat, 8:20; Our Beloved Sudan (Elsanhouri, 2011), Sun, 2:30; Broken Stones (Felin, 2012), Tue, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Beware of Mr. Baker (Bulger, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. Yes, We’re Open (Wong, 2012), Wed, 7:15. First Generation (Fenderson and Fenderson, 2011), Thu, 7. Presented by ScholarMatch with a post-screening discussion moderated by Dave Eggers. Sound City (Grohl, 2012), Jan 31-Feb 6, call for times. Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (Neilan, 1924), Fri, 7:15. With introduction by Mary Pickford expert Christel Schmidt. "SF Sketchfest:" The Bitter Buddha (Feinartz, 2012), Sat, 1, with subject Eddie Pepitone in person, Sat, 1; "The Benson Movie Interruption:" The Notebook (Cassavetes, 2004), Sat, 4:20; "On Cinema with Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington:" Beyond the Doors (Buchanan, 1984), Sat, 7; "Olde English: The Exquisite Corpse Project with Colin Mahan in ‘Preview: The Movie!’," Sat, 10; American Splendor (Springer Berman and Pulcini, 2003), Tue, 9. More info and advance tickets (these events, $15-20) at www.sfsketchfest.com. "Superbowl XLVII: Men in Tights," Sun, 3. Superbowl viewing party; $10 donation to benefit SF IndieFest and the Roxie. "A Tribute to Arch Hall, Jr:" The Choppers (Jason, 1961), Mon, 6:30; The Sadist (Landis, 1963), Mon, 8; Wild Guitar (Steckler, 1962), Mon, 9:45. Hosted by Johnny Legend.

SUNDANCE KABUKI 1881 Post, SF; www.sundancecinemas.com. $15. "Sundance Film Festival USA:" In a World… (Bell, 2012), Thu, 7:15. With director Lake Bell in person.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. "The Wooster Group On Screen:" Rumstick Road (1977), Sun, 2.

Psychic Dream Astrology: January 30-February 5, 2013

Andrew Lam
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Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2013

ARIES

March 21-April 19

You may feel caught up in petty power struggles this week, even if it’s against your better judgment. Instead of tallying who owes what to whom, stay focused on your responsibilities. Be true to yourself, follow through on your word, and allow yourself be vulnerable with others when it feels right.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

If you’re plagued with doubt things will feel wrong, no matter how right-on your choices are. Do what you have to in order to cultivate as much calm and peace within your self as you can this week, Taurus. Eat well and sleep enough. You needn’t be perfect, but you do need to stop berating yourself.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Devote your time and attention to the things that are giving you the greatest returns, Gemini. Don’t scatter your energy by looking to the past or obsessing on what’s not working for you. Invest in your successes in the efforts to multiply them and express gratitude whenever you feel it this week.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Things cannot stay the same. Change is for the best, no matter how scary that prospect may be. Tie up loose ends, do your spring-cleaning early, and generally clear the decks, Moonchild. Something new is entering your life and the more open you are to it, the better.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Acting gradually can feel vulnerable. Moving fast creates a distracting momentum while slowing your pace down forces you to experience all of your feelings as they come up. This week’s progress will happen little by little; take note of what’s uncomfortable and let it help you to better understand yourself.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

The particulars in your life that are out of your control may tug at your brains and stress you out this week. Keep your attention focused on the big picture, Virgo, and let the minutia work themselves out in their own time. Don’t try to dam the flow of your life, even if you don’t understand where it’s taking you.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

It’s hard to get what you want if you don’t know what that is, Libra. Concentrate on figuring out what is true for you for reals, so that you’ll be ready to receive it when it comes your way. The best recipe for self-determination this week is equal parts working with what you’ve got and innovating your path, pal.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

It’s a really important time for you, Scorpio. The way you do what you do will have consequences for a long time coming. Compulsive behaviors create blind spots on the roadway of life that easily lead to trouble, so watch out for yours. Take responsibility for how you choose to participate this week.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Nothing is forever, and it’s important to not be too invested in the things that aren’t working. Practice the fine art of "live and let live" or "nonattachment" or "this too shall pass," Sagittarius. Things are changing of their own accord. Don’t take the events of your life so personally that you forget to be interested in what they’re trying tell to you.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You may be tempted to run over the details of your life with a fine-toothed comb this week, but that will not help you at all. You’re likely to think the worst if you overanalyze things! Your life is shifting so much that you will do best by riding the waves of change instead of strategizing the best time to jump in the water.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Rejection, failure and disappointments are part of life. On some level, you must decide to take on the challenges that are being presenting to you instead of sinking under the weight of them. While you may not be able to be optimistic this week, you should strive to make opportunities out of your hardships, Aquarius.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

If you push yourself too far ahead of what you can emotionally handle, things will backfire, no matter how inspired you are, Pisces. You’ve got to trust that there is time enough for everything that you are meant to do. Pace yourself steadily enough to stay in the game but slow enough that you play it to the best of your abilities.

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

Our Weekly Picks: January 30-February 5

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 30

Testament

Bay Area thrash metal legend Testament has been unleashing its sonic assault, and inspiring untold legions of fans, for nearly 30 years now. Propelled by the powerful lead single “Native Blood,” which draws from singer Chuck Billy’s Native American roots and experiences, the band’s newest album, Dark Roots of Earth (Nuclear Blast) was released last summer, and features the band’s signature frenzied formula for pit-inducing anthems. With longtime members Eric Peterson, Greg Christian, and Alex Skolnick joined by former Death drummer Gene Hoglan, don’t miss the band as it kicks off a new titanic tour right here in the city. (Sean McCourt)

With Overkill, 4Arm, the Butlers

6:45pm, $32.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

Local Natives

Local Natives stole our collective hearts in 2009 with their self-funded debut Gorilla Manor, an irresistible slice of unearthly folk rock, before cruelly fading into the background. Finally, four years later, they’ve resurfaced with a sophomore effort, Hummingbird. Though the Orange Country-bred group recorded the album in Brooklyn, the California sunshine still shines through its meandering, ethereal soundscapes. The band’s songs draw heavily from indie peers Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes, but manage to add a refreshing, summery glow to the reverb-heavy pop murk. The album, which was produced by Aaron Dessner of the National, promises to translate well to a live format, keeping the band’s trademarked harmonies in place while also allowing vocalist Kelcey Ayer’s dreamy falsetto to soar. (Haley Zaremba)

With Superhumanoids

8pm, $25

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakland

(510) 302-2250

www.thefoxoakland.com


THURSDAY 31

“The Eyes: San Francisco Beat Film” If you’ve already read Dharma Bums, had a drink at Vesuvio’s, or paid homage to Beat culture in the number of other ways available in San Francisco, here’s something different. Beat artists such as Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman, and ruth weiss made movies that captured the living, breathing world of their generation. Complementing the Jay DeFeo retrospective (on view until February 2), the five short films that SFMOMA will screen tonight are intriguing not only as historical documents, but also as an expansion of the artistic vocabulary of dislocation and spontaneity that contribute to the Beat Generation’s continuing allure. (Laura Kerry)

7pm, $10

SFMOMA, Phyllis Wattis Theater

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

 

Geographer

As a fiercely dedicated San Franciscan, I often feel obligated to rep local acts and tout their worth over artists from, say, Los Angeles. Out of all our hometown heroes, however, few deserve my praise as much as the wonderfully spaced-out indie outfit Geographer. The trio combines digital, analog, and a bit of experimentation to create gorgeous, lush pop songs that break the mold while still managing to stick in your head. Though Geographer has racked up a fair amount of buzz both locally and nationally over five years, it somehow continues to be one of the Bay Area’s best-kept secrets. So throw on your Niners jersey, pedal your fixie to the Fillmore, and show your SF pride by shoegazing your heart out. (Zaremba)

With Midi Matilda, ON AN ON

8pm, $20

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com


FRIDAY 1

“Ice Cream Girl”

It’ll be like a Lisa Frank trapper-keeper, come to life. Paint Pens in Purses, an all-female urban art collective, will present its newest collection this weekend: “Ice Cream Girl” — a blend of “urban, contemporary, and low-brow artwork” created by lady-artists from across the country. There will be Lauren Max’s photography, works by Tofusquirrel, who brings vibrant, cartoonish ice cream critters (with cheeky names like Mr. Pattymint Cone, and Sherby Sprinkles); and colorful drawings by curator Shayna Yasuhara, among works by other artists. Oh, and Paint Pens in Purses will raffle off four of Dayna Gilbert and Yasuhara’s two-foot-tall ice cream buddies. Plush! Plus, this thing has free drinks. (Emily Savage)

8pm, free

D-Structure

520 Haight, SF

www.paintpensinpurses.com

 

Killers

Don’t go to see Killers if you want a smoothly polished performance. Do go to observe two deeply-thinking artists, Jesse Hewit and Laura Arrington, work on finding a vehicle to tackle questions as fundamental as living and dying. The performance is likely to be rough, messy, and fierce. Don’t be surprised if some of it also looks fragile, that’s the nature of living — and performing. Hewit and Arrington —calling themselves Jarry for this project — have worked alongside one another, but separately for several years. Now their energies are flowing together for what at this point is a two-act creation: first a funeral, than a killing. Originally, they had called the project Adult — perhaps not very sexy, but accurately describing the two of them and what they do. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sun/3, 8pm

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission St., SF

$10-30

www.counterpulse.org

 

Life and Death Label Showcase

I spent a couple weeks of the new year coveting Mexico’s BPM festival; not just the beaches of Playa del Carmen, but some talent-packed, label-centric showcases. Particularly the one from Italy’s Life and Death, an upstart label that’s forging a deep-dug sound somewhere between the soulful, well-paced grooves of NYC’s Wolf+Lamb collective, and the smart, deep tech of Germany’s Kompakt. Luckily, label founder DJ Tennis is taking a scenic trip back to Rome, stopping in town for a stacked lineup that includes ever-playful Thugfucker, Berlin’s rising duo Tale of Us, and SF’s own PillowTalk. With each act individually known for putting its own spin on the party, expectations here are high. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Jimmy Edgar, Adnan Sharif

9pm, $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

w00tstock

Geeks were picked on for generations. With the advent of the 21st century computer age and mainstream successes of all manner of tech-related products, and even the acceptance of watching sci-fi and reading comic books, we can now proudly come together for a celebration of our collective nerdiness! Join Adam Savage from Mythbusters, Wil Wheaton from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and singers Paul and Storm for a night of comedy, music, readings, and much more — all embracing geek pride. Be sure to think of clever cover band names and prepare for double-entendre sing-alongs about sailors, because when it comes to being one of the funniest groups of geeks around, they sure ARRGHH! (McCourt)

7pm, $35.

Marines Memorial Theatre

609 Sutter, Second Floor, SF

www.sfsketchfest.com


SATURDAY 2

Driss Ouadah

In Fences IV, Algerian artist Driss Ouadahi depicts a hazy sky with pink-tinted clouds behind the delicate geometry of a fence. Sounds picturesque, right? But the chain-links expand to the borders of the canvas, trapping and disorienting the viewer. In “Trans-Location,” the artist’s latest show largely comprised of cityscape paintings, Ouadahi builds on this tension between promise and enclosure. The gridded and abstracted architectural spaces invite the viewer in but ultimately fail to allow them passage or clarity. Viewable from the comparatively accessible architectural space of Hosfelt Gallery, the works enacts an elegant commentary on modernity’s failure to deliver its political and social promises. And the paintings look cool too. (Kerry)

Through Mar. 23

Reception 4-6pm, free

Hosfelt Gallery

260 Utah, SF

(415) 495-5454

www.hosfeltgallery.com

 

Adam Green and Binki Shapiro

Opposites do attract. Adam Green is a so-called “anti-folk” Manhattanite with an extensive catalog of foul-mouthed, tongue-in-cheek ballads and admirably humble beginnings as Kimya Dawson’s counterpart in the Moldy Peaches. Binki Shapiro hails from LA, is a retro fashion icon and former member of Brazilian-American supergroup Little Joy, along with her ex-boyfriend and Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. The duo’s vastly different backgrounds and musical leanings don’t seem compatible at first glance, but in practice they blend beautifully. During the writing of the record, both Green and Shapiro were going through romantic rough patches, which ultimately pushed the musicians to help write each other’s breakup albums, creating a finished product rife with earnestness and vulnerability. (Zaremba)

With the Range of Light Wilderness

9pm, $18

The Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com


SUNDAY 3

Vieux Farka Toure

It should be enough to say that Vieux Farka Touré follows the footsteps of his father, the late, Grammy-winning Ali, or that he’s known as “the Hendrix of the Sahara.” But not quite. In “Gido (featuring John Scofield)” — yes, of jazz-rock fame — an acoustic guitar expertly noodles in a Malian scale, a bend on an electric cues bass and drums, then the two guitars continue to converse. It’s tempting to fashion this into some metaphor about the melding of African music and Western rock, and though this wouldn’t be misplaced, the main takeaway from “Gido” and the whole album, The Secret (2011), is that it sounds great. As Yoshi’s will prove, Touré creates his own breed of music, and he does it well. (Kerry)

With Markus James

7pm, $25

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Not a Genuine Black Man Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Opens Fri/1, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm (Sat/2, show at 8pm). Through Feb 23. What, the unapologetically middle-class Brian Copeland asks, is the real meaning behind the phrase “a genuine black man”? By way of an answer, the stand-up comic and KGO radio host offers up a simultaneously funny and disarmingly frank story about growing up African American in the racist suburb that was San Leandro in the early 1970s. Letting his narrative bounce back and forth between his boyhood memories and a period of depression that overtook him as a parent in 1999 — and interlacing the autobiography with verbatim utterances from both sides of the fight his family joined to desegregate the city — Copeland brings admirable chops as a comedian to bear on some difficult and disturbing, if ultimately hopeful, material. Note: review from an earlier run of the same show. (Avila)

You Know When the Men Are Gone Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $30-55. Previews Wed/30-Thu/31, 7pm; Fri/1, 8pm. Opens Sat/2, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Feb 24. Word for Word performs two short stories by Siobhan Fallon (the author, not the film actor): “The Last Stand” and “Gold Star.”

ONGOING

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Buriel Clay Theater at the African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-15. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Feb 17. African-American Shakespeare Company performs Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer-winning classic.

Dear Harvey New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Feb 24. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Patricia Loughrey’s play about Harvey Milk, drawn from over 30 interviews.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

4000 Miles Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-150. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 8pm; Tue, 7pm. Through Feb 10. ACT performs Amy Herzog’s comedy about growing up and growing old, and the moments in between.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 5pm). Through March 2. Hold onto your hairpiece, Boxcar Theatre is reprising their all-too short summer run of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and just in case you think you saw it already, be forewarned — you ain’t seen nothing yet. Recast, redesigned, and re-vamped, this outcast-rock musical familiarly follows the misadventures of one Hedwig Robinson (né Hansel Schmidt) with glam, guts, and glitter. But unlike the movie version penned by and starring John Cameron Mitchell as the titular chanteuse, or other staged versions, director Nick A. Olivero splits the larger-than-life, would-be rock sensation into eight different characters, who are each given a solo turn as well as plenty of ensemble harmonizing during the course of the two hour-plus performance. The effect is often electric, and just as frequently hilarious, as when the four female actors playing the role stomp across the stage swinging imaginary dicks in the air to the lyric “six inches forward and five inches back, I got a, I got an angry inch!” Supported by a tight quartet of rock musicians led by Rachel Robinson, and the phenomenal Amy Lizardo as Hedwig’s beleaguered “man Friday” Yitzhak, Hedwig keeps on extending for what appears to be an indefinite run, employing the time-honored Thrillpeddlers’ tradition of rotating cast members and comeback performances, which means you could theoretically go multiple times and never see quite the same show twice. I certainly plan to. (Gluckstern)

The Little Foxes Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Feb 23. Tides Theatre Company performs a modern take on the Lillian Hellman classic.

Se Llama Cristina Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-60. Opens Wed/30, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/2 and Feb 13, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm. Magic Theatre performs the world premiere of Octavio Solis’ multi-layered drama.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl ACT Costume Shop Theater, 1117 Market, SF; www.manicpixiedreamgirl.org. $25-35. Thu-Sun, 8pm. Through Feb 10. Billed as a “graphic-novel” play, first-time playwright Katie May’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl reaches out to a demographic frequently left out of the theatrical conversation — the geek chic, 20-something set. Marrying projected panels of black-and-white graphic novel-style drawings with dialogue and action provided by the actors onstage, this PlayGround co-production attempts to combine two very different mediums into a smooth narrative, a rocky but valiant effort. Much of the live action appears cartoonish rather than nuanced, and the two central protagonists — struggling painter and wannabe graphic novel artist Tallman (Joshua Roberts) and his new muse Lilly (Lyndsy Kail), a waifish mute with pockets full of candy wrappers chance-met in his neighborhood dive bar — are awkwardly incomplete ciphers. If you’re looking for the depth of detail and the visual impact of a Transmetropolitan or a Berlin, you won’t find it in MPDG, but what you will get is a glad eyeful of Rob Dario’s striking graphics, and some impeccable support acting courtesy of Lucas Hatton (who plays several welcome roles including a buttinsky, bro of a bartender and a “evil” real estate agent with all the charm and smarm of an overgrown frat boy), Liz Anderson’s bitch-queen supernova ex-girlfriend, and Michal Barrett Austin’s winsome cynicism as Tallman’s best buddy. (Gluckstern)

Princess Ivona Performance Art Institute, 75 Boardman, SF; www.thecollectedworks.org. $20-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Feb 9. The first play by the great Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) receives its first professional Northern California production in this admittedly uneven, sometimes sluggish but always intelligent and frequently inspired staging by newcomers the Collected Works. Set in the foyer and back room of co-presenter Performing Art Institute’s spacious SOMA warehouse, the action — peppered throughout by old-time American ballads enchantingly rendered by musician-singer Meredith Axelrod — initially unfolds amid an audience milling around a pond. There a haughty prince (the sharp, charismatic Ryan Tacata) and his aristo pals make sport of the plebs until the Prince takes things too far by impetuously proposing marriage to a slow, anemic, deeply dull and disheveled young woman, the anti-heroine of the title (played with a moody lethargy and savage intelligence by Tonyanna Borkovi). As the audience and the characters, including the worried King (Barry Kendall) and Queen (Florentina Mocanu-Schendel), all retire to the court, the presence of Ivona becomes a catalyst for the unsettling of ill-feelings, bad memories, and ugly impulses formerly buried beneath a surface of the luxury, grandeur, and privilege of the beautiful people. The absurdity of their lives revealed, how will harmony be restored? Astutely staged by director and company-cofounder Michael Hunter, with excellent design support — including from costumer Latifa Medjdoub — this captivating play makes for a worthwhile outing and a very promising company debut. (Avila)

“Risk Is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 for reserved seating; $50 for five-play reserved seating festival pass). Through Feb 9. Three new works (by Sean San José, Dipika Guha, and Basil Kreimendahl) and two new “Risk Translations.”

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. Lady Bear, Trixie Carr, Heklina, and D’Arcy Drollinger star in this drag tribute to the long-running HBO show.

SF Sketchfest: The San Francisco Comedy Festival Various venues, SF; www.sfsketchfest.com. Ticket prices vary according to event. Through Feb 10. The popular fest returns for its 12th year, featuring an array of comedy programs including tributes to Portlandia, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, and Bruce Campbell; a series of Reggie Watts performances; film screenings; sketch and improv shows; and more.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Extended through March 17. The Amazing Bubble Man (a.k.a. Louis Pearl) continues his family-friendly bubble extravaganza.

BAY AREA

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Extended through Feb 17. Lynne Kaufman’s new play stars Warren David Keith as the noted spiritual figure.

Hippy Icon, Flower Geezer and Temple of Accumulated Error Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Feb 10. Wavy Gravy holds forth on his legendary life and times.

Our Practical Heaven Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Previews Wed/30, 8pm. Opens Thu/31, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through March 3. Aurora Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Anthony Clarvoe’s play about a family that gathers in a home they’ll soon lose due to a rising sea.

Somewhere Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Feb 10. TheatreWorks performs Matthew Lopez’s play about a 1960s Puerto Rican family caught up in the filming of West Side Story.

Troublemaker, or the Freakin Kick-A Adventures of Bradley Boatwright Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Wed/30 and Sun/3, 7pm (also Sun/3, 2pm); Thu/31-Sat/2, 8pm (also Sat/2, 2pm). Berkeley Rep presents the world premiere of a play — about a 12-year-old wannabe superhero — it commissioned from writer Dan LeFranc.

Waiting for Godot Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-52. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/2 and Feb 16, 2pm; Feb 7, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Feb 17. Marin Theatre Company performs Samuel Beckett’s modern classic.

The Wild Bride Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $35-89. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Feb 17. Berkeley Rep performs a return engagement of Emma Rice’s grown-up fairy tale.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Adult” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/1-Sun/3, 8pm. $10-30. Performance duo Jarry (Jesse Hewit and Laura Arrington) present a new, two-act work.

“Cabaret Showcase Showdown, Year #4: Contest for Best Comedic Cabaret Act” Martuni’s, 4 Valencia, SF; (415) 241-0205. Sun/3, 7pm. With up-and-coming acts judged by Lisa Geduldig, Trauma Flintstone, and Katya Smirnoff-Skye, plus guest performer Darlene Popovic.

“David Mills is Smart Casual” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.thevisibletheater.org. Sun/3, 8pm. $12. the comedian performs.

“In a Room Full of Strangers” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/30-Thu/31, 8pm. $10-20. Erik Wagner presents a new dance-theater work.

“In and Out of Shadow” Marsh, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Sat/2, 5pm; Sun/3, 3pm; Feb 8-9, 8pm (also Feb 9, 2pm); Feb 10 and 17, 3pm; Feb 16, 2pm. $12-35. Marsh Youth Theater’s teen troupe performs Gary Soto’s musical play, based on oral histories gathered by the young actors themselves.

“The One Year Anniversary and Sweetheart Edition of The News” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; somarts.org/thenews. Tue/5, 7:30pm. $5. The new and experimental performance works series celebrates its first anniversary with hosts WithLove and Peter Max Lawrence, plus performers Peter Griggs with Aurora Switchblade, Lambert, Erin Malley, and more.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“San Francisco Symphony Lunar New Year Concert and Celebration” Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfsymphony.org. Sat/2, 4pm. $25-72. Celebrate the Lunar New Year and Year of the Snake with pre-concert festivities (3pm) including lion dancing and children’s arts and crafts, followed by a performance of traditional Asian music and orchestral works composed by Asian and Asian American artists.

“[title of show]” Band Candy Theatre Company, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/1-Sat/2, 8pm; Sun/3, 2pm. $18. Band Candy performs a musical about … two guys writing a musical.

Film Listings

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

OPENING

Bullet to the Head Walter Hill directs this tale of a hired gun (Sylvester Stallone) and a cop (Sung Kang) who become unlikely partners in vengeance. (1:32)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated" If you caught Wreck-It Ralph, nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, you’ve already seen John Kahrs’ Paperman, about a junior Mad Men type who bumbles through his pursuit of a lovely fellow office drone he spots on his commute. Or, if you saw Ice Age: Continental Drift, you’ve seen Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, starring Homer and Marge’s wee one as she grapples with the social order at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Among the stand-alones, Minkyu Lee’s Adam and Dog features a quick appearance by Eve, too, but the star is really the scrappy canine who gallops through prehistory playing the world’s first game of fetch with his hairy master. Two minutes is all PES (nom de screen of Adam Pesapane) needs to make Fresh Guacamole — which depicts grenades, dice, and other random objects as most unusual ingredients. The only non-US entry, UK director Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels, is about an elderly married couple whose relationship has deteriorated to the point where they (literally) no longer see eye to eye on anything. The program is rounded out by three more non-Oscar-nominated animated shorts: Britain’s The Gruffalo’s Child, featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane; French art-thief caper Dripped; and New Zealand’s sci-fi tale Abiogenesis. (1:28) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentary" Selections include San Francisco filmmaker Sari Gilman’s poignant study of a Florida retirement community, Kings Point; Cynthia Wade’s Mondays at Racine, about a beauty salon that provides free services for women who have lost their hair to cancer treatments; Sean Fine and Andrea Nix’s Inocente, a profile of a young, homeless, aspiring artist; Redemption, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill’s take on New York dumpster divers; and Open Heart, Keif Davidson’s look at Rwandan children who travel to Sudan for high-risk surgery. (3:29) Embarcadero.

"Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Live Action" Selections include Bryan Buckley’s Asad, about a Somali boy who must choose between fishing and piracy; Sam French’s Buzkashi Boys, about two young friends coming of age in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan; Shawn Christensen’s babysitting yarn Curfew; Tom Van Avermaet’s supernatural love story Death of a Shadow; and another (sort-of) love story, Canadian Yan England’s Henry. (1:54) Embarcadero.

Sound City Dave Grohl adds "documentary director" to his ever-lengthening resume with this tribute to the SoCal recording studio, where the grimy, funky décor was offset by a row of platinum records lining its hallway, marking in-house triumphs by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Neil Young, and others (even, yep, Rick Springfield). Top acts and producers (many of whom appear in the doc to dish and reminisce) were lured in by a unique recording console, installed in the early 1970s, whose legend grew with every new hit it helped engineer. Despite its reputation as a hit factory — and the attraction of its laid-back vibe and staff — old-school Sound City began to struggle once the highly-polished sound of digital technology overtook the music industry. That is, until Grohl and Nirvana recorded Nevermind there, keeping the studio alive until the unstoppable march of Pro Tools hammered the final nails in. Or did it? Sound City‘s final third follows Grohl’s purchase of the studio’s iconic console ("A piece of rock ‘n’ roll history," he proclaims, though he installs it in a swanky refurbished space) and the recording of an album featuring luminaries from the studio’s past … plus Paul McCartney. The resulting doc is nostalgic, sure, but insider-y enough to entertain fans of classic rock, or at least anyone who’s ever sneered at a drum machine. (1:46) Roxie. (Eddy)

Stand Up Guys Call it oldster pop, call it geriatricore, just don’t call it late for its meds. With the oncoming boomer elder explosion, we can Depends — har-dee-har-har — on the fact that action-crime thrillers-slash-comedies like 2010’s Red, 2012’s Robot and Frank, and now Stand Up Guys are just the vanguard of an imminent barrage of grumpy old pros locking and loading, grousing about their angina, and delivering wisdom with a dose of hard-won levity. As handled by onetime teen-comedy character actor Fisher Stevens, Stand Up Guys is a warm, worthy addition to that soon-to-be-well-populated pantheon. It grows on you as you spend time with it — much like the two aging reprobates at its core, Val (Al Pacino) and Doc (Christopher Walken). Val, the proverbial stand-up guy who took the fall for the rest of his gang, has just completed a 25-year-plus stint in the pen. There to meet him is his only pal, and former partner in crime, Doc, who has been leading a humble life but has one last hit to commit for their old boss Claphands (Mark Margolis), who’s inexplicably named after a Tom Waits song. Sex, drugs, and some Viagra commercial-esque bluesy guitars are in order, but first Val and Doc must find their drive, in the form of their old driver buddy Hirsch (Alan Arkin), who they break out of a rest home, and, perhaps, their moral compass, which arrives with the discovery of a victim (Vanessa Ferlito) of baddies much less couth than themselves. The pleasure comes with following these stand-up guys as they make that leap from craven self-preservation to heroism, which might seem implausible to some. But to the cast’s, and Stevens’s, credit, they make it work — and even give the sentiment-washed finale a swashbuckling buddy-movie romanticism, the kind that a young Tarantino might dislike and an older Tarantino would be loathe to begrudge his lovable louses. (1:34) (Chun)

Warm Bodies Zombies need love too! (1:37)

ONGOING

Amour Arriving in local theaters atop a tidal wave of critical hosannas, Amour now seeks to tempt popular acclaim — though actually liking this perfectly crafted, intensely depressing film (from Austrian director Michael Haneke) may be nigh impossible for most audience members. Eightysomething former music teachers Georges and Anne (the flawless Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are living out their days in their spacious Paris apartment, going to classical concerts and enjoying the comfort of their relationship. Early in the film, someone tries to break into their flat — and the rest of Amour unfolds with a series of invasions, with Anne’s declining health the most distressing, though there are also unwanted visits from the couple’s only daughter (an appropriately self-involved Isabelle Huppert), an inept nurse who disrespects Anne and curses out Georges, and even a rogue pigeon that wanders in more than once. As Anne fades into a hollow, twisted, babbling version of her former self, Georges also becomes hollow and twisted, taking care of her while grimly awaiting the inevitable. Of course, the movie’s called Amour, so there’s some tenderness involved. But if you seek heartwarming hope and last-act uplift, look anywhere but here. (2:07) Clay, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Argo If you didn’t know the particulars of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, you won’t be an expert after Argo, but the film does a good job of capturing America’s fearful reaction to the events that followed it — particularly the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran. Argo zeroes in on the fate of six embassy staffers who managed to escape the building and flee to the home of the sympathetic Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Back in Washington, short-tempered CIA agents (including a top-notch Bryan Cranston) cast about for ways to rescue them. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs), exfil specialist and father to a youngster wrapped up in the era’s sci-fi craze. While watching 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with what Cranston’s character calls "the best bad idea we have:" the CIA will fund a phony Canadian movie production (corny, intergalactic, and titled Argo) and pretend the six are part of the crew, visiting Iran for a few days on a location shoot. Tony will sneak in, deliver the necessary fake-ID documents, and escort them out. Neither his superiors, nor the six in hiding, have much faith in the idea. ("Is this the part where we say, ‘It’s so crazy it just might work?’" someone asks, beating the cliché to the punch.) Argo never lets you forget that lives are at stake; every painstakingly forged form, every bluff past a checkpoint official increases the anxiety (to the point of being laid on a bit thick by the end). But though Affleck builds the needed suspense with gusto, Argo comes alive in its Hollywood scenes. As the show-biz veterans who mull over Tony’s plan with a mix of Tinseltown cynicism and patiotic duty, John Goodman and Alan Arkin practically burst with in-joke brio. I could have watched an entire movie just about those two. (2:00) Balboa, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

Beware of Mr. Baker This mesmerizing bio-doc about volatile, wildly talented drummer Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith) begins with the 70-something musician clocking director Jay Bulger in the face. After this opening, Bulger — who also wrote a deeply compelling article about Baker for Rolling Stone last year — wisely pulls himself out of the narrative, instead turning to a wealth of new interviews (with Baker, his trademark red locks faded to gray, and many of his musical and personal partners, including Eric Clapton and multiple ex-Mrs. Bakers), vintage performance footage, and artful animation to weave his tale. Baker’s colorfully-lived, improbably long life has been literally all over the map; he overcame a hardscrabble British childhood to find jazz and rock stardom, and along the way jammed with Fela Kuti in Nigeria (where he picked up his fierce love of polo), broke many hearts (his own kids’ among them) and lost multiple fortunes, spent a stint in the US, and eventually landed at his current farm in South Africa. Two constants: his musical genius, and his frustratingly jerky behavior — the consequence of a naturally prickly personality exacerbated by copious drug use and bitterness. A must-see for musicians and those who love them. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Broken City Catherine Zeta-Jones’ measured performance and killer wardrobe run away with this uneven political thriller about a made-up Manhattan with real(-ish) problems. Russell Crowe is only slightly improving his record post-Les Mis, as he plays another harried and morally confused agent "for the people." Here, he’s Mayor Hostetler, a swaggering politico with fingers in New York’s real estate cookie jar and the sort of "get shit done" directive that results in bodies lying in NYC’s overfilled gutters. Good thing he has Mark Wahlberg in his back pocket, a cop who slipped a murder wrap and now scrapes the bottom for gigs as a private detective. Seven years ago Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) was seeking vigilante justice for the victim of a rape-murder in the city’s biggest ghetto. The victim became a household name but the killer was let off, leading to cries about the validity of NY’s justice system and to allusions to the Central Park Five. Broken City is less about a broken City and more about broken Men, and there are certain elements that seem too subtle for a story built on such bald-faced and predictable strategy. Between a script that’s struggling to demonstrate moral compromise and integrity, and direction (by Allen Hughes) that’s as sensitive to nuance as a border collie, it’s hard to find much beyond Zeta-Jones’ shoe stylings to admire. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western homage features a cameo by the original Django (Franco Nero, star of the 1966 film), and solid performances by a meticulously assembled cast, including Jamie Foxx as the titular former slave who becomes a badass bounty hunter under the tutelage of Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing the evil yet befuddlingly delightful Nazi Hans Landa in Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds, is just as memorable (and here, you can feel good about liking him) as a quick-witted, quick-drawing wayward German dentist. There are no Nazis in Django, of course, but Tarantino’s taboo du jour (slavery) more than supplies motivation for the filmmaker’s favorite theme (revenge). Once Django joins forces with Schultz, the natural-born partners hatch a scheme to rescue Django’s still-enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), whose German-language skills are as unlikely as they are convenient. Along the way (and it’s a long way; the movie runs 165 minutes), they encounter a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose main passion is the offensive, shocking "sport" of "Mandingo fighting," and his right-hand man, played by Tarantino muse Samuel L. Jackson in a transcendently scandalous performance. And amid all the violence and racist language and Foxx vengeance-making, there are many moments of screaming hilarity, as when a character with the Old South 101 name of Big Daddy (Don Johnson) argues with the posse he’s rounded up over the proper construction of vigilante hoods. It’s a classic Tarantino moment: pausing the action so characters can blather on about something trivial before an epic scene of violence. Mr. Pink would approve. (2:45) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Gangster Squad It’s 1949, and somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a man has been tied hand and foot to a pair of automobiles with the engines running. Coyotes pace in the background like patrons queuing up for a table at Flour + Water, and when dinner is served, the presentation isn’t very pretty. We’re barely five minutes into Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and fair warning has been given of the bloodletting to come. None of it’s quite as visceral as the opening scene, but Fleischer (2009’s Zombieland) packs his tale of urban warfare with plenty of stylized slaughter to go along with the glamour shots of mob-run nightclubs, leggy pin-curled dames, and Ryan Gosling lounging at the bar cracking wise. At the center of all the gunplay and firebombing is what’s framed as a battle for the soul of Los Angeles, waged between transplanted Chicago mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — who wields terms like "progress" and "manifest destiny" as a rationale for a continental turf war — and a police sergeant named John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), tasked with bringing down Cohen’s empire. The assignment requires working under cover so deep that only the police chief (Nick Nolte) and the handpicked members of O’Mara’s "gangster squad" — ncluding Gosling, a half-jaded charmer who poaches Cohen’s arm candy (Emma Stone) — know of its existence. This leaves plenty of room for improvisation, and the film pauses now and again to wonder about what happens when you pit brutal amorality against brutal morality, but it’s a rhetorical question, and no one shows much interest in it. Dragged down by talking points that someone clearly wanted wedged in (as well as by O’Mara’s ponderous voice-overs), the film does better when it abandons gravitas and refocuses on spinning its mythic tale of wilder times in the Golden State. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters So here’s something you may not have been wondering: what exactly happened to Hansel and Gretel after they killed the gingerbread-house witch and made their way to freedom? Did they really live happily ever after? Did they land in the foster care system? Did they enter adulthood bearing the deep psychic wounds a person might well suffer after shoving a living creature into an oven and listening to her agonized howls as she burned alive? Or did they realize they’d discovered their life’s vocation without even having to complete the Myers-Briggs test? Shutting his eyes and pointing at random, director and screenplay cowriter Tommy Wirkola (2009’s Dead Snow) chooses the latter scenario, keeping his eyes closed to stab out some weak dialogue and half a plot for a script that leans heavily on the power of 3D technology to send eviscerated-witch guts and other biological shrapnel flying toward the eyeballs of audience members. Hansel (why, Jeremy Renner?) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) have grown up to share the intense sibling bond and wandering ways you might expect from a brother and sister abandoned at a tender age to starve and be rent limb from limb by wild animals. They’ve also taken full advantage of a niche witch-slaying market in and around the gloomy forest where they made their first kill. When they’re hired to track down a particularly loathsome practitioner of the dark arts (Famke Janssen) who’s been snatching up local children, multidimensional mayhem ensues. Arterton’s Gretel is pretty much a badass and the brains of the operation, while Renner’s Hansel is more of a strong, silent, and occasionally shit-faced type. Neither makes for a particularly memorable protagonist, but that flat look on their faces could just be disappointment or boredom with the material. (1:41) California, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Make no mistake: the Lord of the Rings trilogy represented an incredible filmmaking achievement, with well-deserved Oscars handed down after the third installment in 2003. If director Peter Jackson wanted to go one more round with J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved characters for a Hobbit movie, who was gonna stop him? Not so fast. This return to Middle-earth (in 3D this time) represents not one but three films — which would be self-indulgent enough even if part one didn’t unspool at just under three hours, and even if Jackson hadn’t decided to shoot at 48 frames per second. (I can’t even begin to explain what that means from a technical standpoint, but suffice to say there’s a certain amount of cinematic lushness lost when everything is rendered in insanely crystal-clear hi-def.) Journey begins as Bilbo Baggins (a game, funny Martin Freeman) reluctantly joins Gandalf (a weary-seeming Ian McKellan) and a gang of dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen homeland and treasure, batting Orcs, goblins, Gollum (Andy Serkis), and other beasties along the way. Fan-pandering happens (with characters like Cate Blanchett’s icy Galadriel popping in to remind you how much you loved LOTR), and the story moves at a brisk enough pace, but Journey never transcends what came before — or in the chronology of the story, what comes after. I’m not quite ready to declare this Jackson’s Phantom Menace (1999), but it’s not an unfair comparison to make, either. (2:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Impossible Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (2007’s The Orphanage) directs The Impossible, a relatively modestly-budgeted take on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on the real story of a Spanish family who experienced the disaster. Here, the family (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, three young sons) is British, on a Christmas vacation from dad’s high-stress job in Japan. Beachy bliss is soon ruined by that terrible series of waves; they hit early in the film, and Bayona offers a devastatingly realistic depiction of what being caught in a tsunami must feel like: roaring, debris-filled water threatening death by drowning, impalement, or skull-crushing. And then, the anguish of surfacing, alive but injured, stranded, and miles from the nearest doctor, not knowing if your family members have perished. Without giving anything away (no more than the film’s suggestive title, anyway), once the survivors are established (and the film’s strongest performer, Watts, is relegated to hospital-bed scenes) The Impossible finds its way inevitably to melodrama, and triumph-of-the-human-spirit theatrics. As the family’s oldest son, 16-year-old Tom Holland is effective as a kid who reacts exactly right to crisis, morphing from sulky teen to thoughtful hero — but the film is too narrowly focused on its tourist characters, with native Thais mostly relegated to background action. It’s a disconnect that’s not quite offensive, but is still off-putting. (1:54) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

In Another Country This latest bit of gamesmanship from South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo (2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors) has Isabelle Huppert playing three Frenchwomen named Anne visiting the same Korean beachside community under different circumstances in three separate but wryly overlapping stories. In the first, she’s a film director whose presence induces inapt overtures from both her married colleague-host and a strapping young lifeguard. In the more farcical second, she’s a horny spouse herself, married to an absent Korean man; in the third, a woman whose husband has run away with a Korean woman. The same actors as well as variations on the same characters and situations appear in each section, their rejiggered intersections poking fun at Koreans’ attitudes toward foreigners, among other topics. Airy and amusing, In Another Country is a playful divertissement that’s shiny as a bubble, and leaves about as much of a permanent impression. (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

The Last Stand With gun control issues dominating the news, what better time to release a movie that lovingly glorifies the wonders of excessive firepower? Fortunately for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his return to leading-man status after that little fling with politics, The Last Stand is stupidly enjoyable enough to make any such PC-minded realizations relatively fleeing ones. When a Mexican drug lord (who also happens to be an expert race-car driver) escapes from federal custody and begins speeding home in a super-Corvette, the lead FBI agent (Forest Whitaker, slumming big-time) realizes his only hope is a teeny Arizona border town that happens to be overseen by Sheriff Schwarzenegger. (Other residents include a couple of hapless deputies; an Iraq war vet; and a gun nut played by a cartoonishly obnoxious Johnny Knoxville.) Can this ragtag crew hold off first the drug lord’s advance team (led by a swaggering Peter Stormare), and then the head baddie himself? Duh. The biggest surprise The Last Stand offers is that it’s actually pretty fun — no doubt thanks to the combo of Korean director Kim Jee-woon (2008’s eccentric The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; 2003’s spooky A Tale of Two Sisters) and the heft of Schwarzenegger’s still-potent charisma. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s "unfilmable" novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Mama From bin Laden to wild babes in woods, Jessica Chastain can’t seem to grab a break. Equipped with just the bare outlines of a character, however, she’s one of the few pleasures in this missed-opportunity of a grim, ghostly fairy tale. Expanding his short of the same name, director Andres Muschietti kicks off his yarn on a sadly familiar note in these days of seemingly escalating gun violence: little sisters Victoria and Lily have disappeared from their home, shortly after their desperate father (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has gone on a shooting spree. They repair to an abandoned cabin scattered with mid-century modern furniture. Five years on, the girls’ scruffy artist uncle Lucas (also Coster-Waldau) is still searching for them, supported by his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The little girls lost are finally found by trackers — and they appear to be hopelessly feral, with the angelic-looking Victoria (Megan Charpentier), acting as the ringleader and the younger, bedraggled Lily (Maya Dawe) given to sleeping under beds and eating on all fours next to the dog bowl. The arty couple take them in and move into a "test house" provided by the sisters’ enthralled therapist (Daniel Kash), obviously psyched to study not one but two Kaspar Hausers. The traumatized kids are clearly haunted by their experience — in more ways than one — as inexplicable bumps go off, night and day, and Misfits t-shirt-clad Annabel discovers the real meaning of goth while getting in touch with her seemingly deeply buried maternal urges. Unfortunately, despite possessing the raw material for a truly scary outing that plunges to the core of our primal instincts (what’s scarier than an unsocialized kid that’s capable of anything?) and showing off Muschietti’s occasional instances of cinematic flair (as when multiple rooms are shown using split-screens), Mama ends up running away from the filmmaker and is finally simply spoiled by its mawkishly sentimental finale. It doesn’t help that the inadequate script sports logic holes that a mama could drive a truck though. (1:40) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Master Paul Thomas Anderson’s much-hyped likely Best Picture contender lives up: it’s easily the best film of 2012 so far. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Lancaster Dodd, the L. Ron Hubbard-ish head of a Scientology-esque movement. "The Cause" attracts Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, in a welcome return from the faux-deep end), less for its pseudo-religious psychobabble and bizarre personal-growth exercises, and more because it supplies the aimless, alcoholic veteran — a drifter in every sense of the word — with a sense of community he yearns for, yet resists submitting to. As with There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson focuses on the tension between the two main characters: an older, established figure and his upstart challenger. But there’s less cut-and-dried antagonism here; while their relationship is complex, and it does lead to dark, troubled places, there are also moments of levity and weird hilarity — which might have something to do with Freddie’s paint-thinner moonshine. (2:17) Albany, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Les Misérables There is a not-insignificant portion of the population who already knows all the words to all the songs of this musical-theater warhorse, around since the 1980s and honored here with a lavish production by Tom Hooper (2010’s The King’s Speech). As other reviews have pointed out, this version only tangentially concerns Victor Hugo’s French Revolution tale; its true raison d’être is swooning over the sight of its big-name cast crooning those famous tunes. Vocals were recorded live on-set, with microphones digitally removed in post-production — but despite this technical achievement, there’s a certain inorganic quality to the proceedings. Like The King’s Speech, the whole affair feels spliced together in the Oscar-creation lab. The hardworking Hugh Jackman deserves the nomination he’ll inevitably get; jury’s still out on Anne Hathaway’s blubbery, "I cut my hair for real, I am so brave!" performance. (2:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Movie 43 (1:37) Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Parker (1:58) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Move over, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series — there’s a new shrinking-violet social outcast in town. These days, life might not suck quite so hard for 90-pound weaklings in every age category, what with so many films and TV shows exposing, and sometimes even celebrating, the many miseries of childhood and adolescence for all to see. In this case, Perks author Stephen Chbosky takes on the directorial duties — both a good and bad thing, much like the teen years. Smart, shy Charlie is starting high school with a host of issues: he’s painfully awkward and very alone in the brutal throng, his only friend just committed suicide, and his only simpatico family member was killed in a car accident. Charlie’s English teacher Mr. Andersen (Paul Rudd) appears to be his only connection, until the freshman strikes up a conversation with feline, charismatic, shop-class jester Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his magnetic, music- and fun-loving stepsister Sam (Emma Watson). Who needs the popular kids? The witty duo head up their gang of coolly uncool outcasts their own, the Wallflowers (not to be confused with the deeply uncool Jakob Dylan combo), and with them, Charlie appears to have found his tribe. Only a few small secrets put a damper on matters: Patrick happens to be gay and involved with football player Brad (Johnny Simmons), who’s saddled with a violently conservative father, and Charlie is in love with the already-hooked-up Sam and is frightened that his fragile equilibrium will be destroyed when his new besties graduate and slip out of his life. Displaying empathy and a devotion to emotional truth, Chbosky takes good care of his characters, preserving the complexity and ungainly quirks of their not-so-cartoonish suburbia, though his limitations as a director come to the fore in the murkiness and choppily handled climax that reveals how damaged Charlie truly is. (1:43) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Quartet Every year there’s at least one: the adorable-old-cootfest, usually British, that proves harmless and reassuring and lightly tear/laughter producing enough to convince a certain demographic that it’s safe to go to the movies again. The last months have seen two, both starring Maggie Smith (who’s also queen of that audience’s home viewing via Downton Abbey). Last year’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which Smith played a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself in India, has already filled the slot. It was formulaic, cute, and sentimental, yes, but it also practiced more restraint than one expected. Now here’s Quartet, which is basically the same flower arrangement with quite a bit more dust on it. Smith plays a bitchy old spinster appalled to find herself forced into spending her twilight years at a home for the elderly. It’s not just any such home, however, but Beecham House, whose residents are retired professional musicians. Gingerly peeking out from her room after a few days’ retreat from public gaze, Smith’s Jean Horton — a famed English soprano — spies a roomful of codgers rolling their hips to Afropop in a dance class. "This is not a retirement home — this is a madhouse!" she pronounces. Oh, the shitty lines that lazy writers have long depended on Smith to make sparkle. Quartet is full of such bunk, adapted with loving fidelity, no doubt, from his own 1999 play by Ronald Harwood, who as a scenarist has done some good adaptations of other people’s work (2002’s The Pianist). But as a generator of original material for about a half-century, he’s mostly proven that it is possible to prosper that long while being in entirely the wrong half-century. Making his directorial debut: 75-year-old Dustin Hoffman, which ought to have yielded a more interesting final product. But with its workmanlike gloss and head-on take on the script’s very predictable beats, Quartet could as well have been directed by any BBC veteran of no particular distinction. (1:38) Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Rabbi’s Cat A rabbi, a Muslim musician, two Russians (a Jew and a boozy Christian), and two talking animals hop into an antique Citroën for a road trip across Africa. No, it’s not the set-up for a joke; it’s the premise for this charming animated film, adapted from Joann Sfar’s graphic novel (the author co-directs with Antoine Delesvaux). In 1930s Algiers, a rabbi’s pet cat suddenly develops the ability to talk — and read and write, by the way — and wastes no time in sharing opinions, particularly when it comes to religion ("God is just a comforting invention!") When a crate full of Russian prayer books — and one handsome artist — arrives at the rabbi’s house, man and cat are drawn into the refugee’s search for an Ethiopian city populated by African Jews. Though it’s not suitable for younger kids (there’s kitty mating, and a few bursts of surprising violence) or diehard Tintin fans (thanks to a randomly cranky spoof of the character), The Rabbi’s Cat is a lushly illustrated, witty tale of cross-cultural clashes and connections. Rockin’ soundtrack, too. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Rust and Bone Unlike her Dark Knight Rises co-star Anne Hathaway, Rust and Bone star Marion Cotillard never seems like she’s trying too hard to be sexy, or edgy, or whatever (plus, she already has an Oscar, so the pressure’s off). Here, she’s a whale trainer at a SeaWorld-type park who loses her legs in an accident, which complicates (but ultimately strengthens) her relationship with Ali (Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, so tremendous in 2011’s Bullhead), a single dad trying to make a name for himself as a boxer. Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to 2009’s A Prophet gets a bit overwrought by its last act, but there’s an emotional authenticity in the performances that makes even a ridiculous twist (like, the kind that’ll make you exclaim "Are you fucking kidding me?") feel almost well-earned. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

The Sessions Polio has long since paralyzed the body of Berkeley poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) from the neck down. Of course his mind is free to roam — but it often roams south of the personal equator, where he hasn’t had the same opportunities as able-bodied people. Thus he enlists the services of Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a professional sex surrogate, to lose his virginity at last. Based on the real-life figures’ experiences, this drama by Australian polio survivor Ben Lewin was a big hit at Sundance this year (then titled The Surrogate), and it’s not hard to see why: this is one of those rare inspirational feel-good stories that doesn’t pander and earns its tears with honest emotional toil. Hawkes is always arresting, but Hunt hasn’t been this good in a long time, and William H. Macy is pure pleasure as a sympathetic priest put in numerous awkward positions with the Lord by Mark’s very down-to-earth questions and confessions. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Silver Linings Playbook After guiding two actors to Best Supporting Oscars in 2010’s The Fighter, director David O. Russell returns (adapting his script from Matthew Quick’s novel) with another darkly comedic film about a complicated family that will probably earn some gold of its own. Though he’s obviously not ready to face the outside world, Pat (Bradley Cooper) checks out of the state institution he’s been court-ordered to spend eight months in after displaying some serious anger-management issues. He moves home with his football-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) and worrywart mother (Jacki Weaver of 2010’s Animal Kingdom), where he plunges into a plan to win back his estranged wife. Cooper plays Pat as a man vibrating with troubled energy — always in danger of flying into a rage, even as he pursues his forced-upbeat "silver linings" philosophy. But the movie belongs to Jennifer Lawrence, who proves the chops she showcased (pre-Hunger Games megafame) in 2010’s Winter’s Bone were no fluke. As the damaged-but-determined Tiffany, she’s the left-field element that jolts Pat out of his crazytown funk; she’s also the only reason Playbook‘s dance-competition subplot doesn’t feel eye-rollingly clichéd. The film’s not perfect, but Lawrence’s layered performance — emotional, demanding, bitchy, tough-yet-secretly-tender — damn near is. (2:01) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon, Sundance Kabuki. (Ben Richardson)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of "realness" that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that "America does not torture." (The "any more" goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or "CIA black sites" in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations ("KSM" for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon ("tradecraft") without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. "Washington says she’s a killer," a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) Balboa, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Big Bones and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo Organ Lounge, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Cellar Doors, Spyrals, POW! Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Dandelion War, Caledcott Elbo Room. 9pm.

Jeremy Jones Band Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

Judy Experience, Miss Massive Snowflake, Little Debbie Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $5-$8.

Keith Crossan Blues Showcase Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Rin Tin Tiger, Lower 48, Standard Poodle Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $8.

Spanish Channel Hotel Utah. 8pm, $7.

Testament, Overkill, 4Arm, Butlers Fillmore. 6:45pm, $32.50.

Mycle Wastman, Austin Jenckes Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Terry Disley’s Mini-Experience Burritt Room, 417 Stockton, SF; www.mystichotel.com. 6-9pm, free.

Keiko Matsui Rrazz Room, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.liveattherrazz.com. 8pm, $40-$45.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Cafe Divine, 1600 Stockton, SF; www.cafedivinesf.com. 7pm,free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Timba Dance Party Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm, $5. Timba and salsa cubana with DJ Walt Diggz.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Slate Bar, 2925 16th St, SF; www.slate-sf.com. 10pm, free. With Vinyl Ambassador, DJ Silverback, DJs Green B and Daneekah.

Hardcore Humpday Happy Hour RKRL, 52 Sixth St, SF; (415) 658-5506. 6pm, $3.

Martini Lounge John Colins, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 7pm. With DJ Mark Divita.

Obey the Kitty: Miss Kittin, Justin Milla, Dang Dang Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm, $10.

THURSDAY 31

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP.

Roem Baur Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Ben Fold Five, Nataly Dawn Warfield. 8pm, $42-$45.

Bill Champlin Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $24.

Dengue Fever, Maus Haus Independent. 8pm, $8.

Fox and Woman, Brooke D, Indianna Hale Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

Kyle Glass Band, Adversary, Shaufrau Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $10-$15.

John Nemeth Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Radar Bros, Michael Zapruder Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $10.

Struts, New York City Queens, Wicked Mercies Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Aly Tadros 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.

Team Candy, Cure for Gravity, Hope Chest Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Urban Cone, In the Valley Below, Tom Odell Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Ralph Carney’s Serious Jazz Project Chapel, 777 Valencia, SF; www.thechapelsf.com. 9pm, free.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Keiko Matsui Rrazz Room, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.liveattherrazz.com. 8pm, $40-$45.

Two Sides of Joshua Raoul Brody Lost Church, 65 Capp, SF; www.thelostchurch.com. 8pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and old time jam Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 8-10pm, free.

Irvin Dally, Aly Tadros Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. With Senor Oz and Pleasuremaker.

All 80s Thursday Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). The best of ’80s mainstream and underground.

Base: Worthy, Ambey Reyn Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm, $20-$30.

Darling Nikki Slate Bar, 2925 16th St, SF; www.slate-sf.com. 9pm, free. Queer dance party.

Ritual Dubstep Temple. 10pm-3am, $5. Trap and bass.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aristocrats Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $30.

Tommy Castro and the Painkillers, Paul Thorn Slim’s. 9pm, $20.

Bart Davenport, Hot Lunch, Lenz, Puce Moment, DJ Neil Martinson Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $8-$10.

Destroyer (Kiss tribute), Butlers, Cruella Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $12.

Funkin’ Fridays with Swoop Unit Amnesia. 6pm.

Hammond Organ Soul Blues Party Royal Cuckoo Organ Lounge, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

He’s My Brother She’s My Sister, Sioux City Kid, Song Preservation Society Independent. 9pm, $15.

Jrod Indigo 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 10pm, $5.

Chris M, Nathan Temby, Greg Zema Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm, free.

Mister Loveless, Churches, Birdmonster Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.

Rappin’ 4-Tay, Black C, Cellski, Berner Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $5-$8.

Porter Robinson, Seven Lions, Penguin Prison Warfield. 9pm, $30-$40.

Robert Walter’s Brand New Slang Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Warm Soda, Cocktails, DSTVV Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9pm, $10.

Leela James: In the Spirit of Etta Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $25.

Keiko Matsui Rrazz Room, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.liveattherrazz.com. 7 and 9:30pm, $40-$45.

Neurohumors, SF Latin Jazz Society Connecticut Yankee. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Canyon Johnson Plough and Stars. 9pm, $6.

Kardash Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-$15.

Lagos Roots AfroBeat Ensemble Elbo Room. 10pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs, shirt-off drink specials.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Twitch DNA Lounge. 10pm, $5-$8. With Max and Mara, Vice Device, resident DJs Justin, Omar, and more.

SATURDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Back Pages Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Marco Benevento, Mike Dillon Independent. 9pm, $16.

Jules Broussard Royal Cuckoo Organ Lounge, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Chris Cain Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Dos Four, Mestiza, DJ Walt Digz Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $7-$10.

Adam Green and Binki Shapiro, Rage of Light Wilderness Chapel, 777 Valencia, SF; www.thechapelsf.com. 9pm, $15-$18.

Paul Kelly, Kail Baxley Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $17-$20.

Mad Maggies 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 7pm, free.

Reckless Kind Riptide. 9pm, free.

Shady Maples, Goodnight Texas, Heavy Guilt Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $10.

Nathan Temby, Chris M, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm, free.

Two Gallants, Akron/Family Fillmore. 9pm, $22.50.

Ultimate Bearhug, Josh Hoke Amnesia. 9pm.

Robert Walter’s Brand New Slang Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Wood Brothers, Seth Walker Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $22-$25.

Wounded Lion Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Zeparella, Gretchen Menn Band, Stars Turn Me On Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Keiko Matsui Rrazz Room, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.liveattherrazz.com. 7 and 9:30pm, $40-$45.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kafana Balkan sixth anniversary, Inspector Gadje Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $15.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 4-6pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bootie SF: West Coast DJ Battle DNA Lounge. 10pm, $15. With DJs Tripp, ShyBoy, Destrukt, and more.

Cockfight Underground SF, 424 Haight, SF; (415) 864-7386. 9pm, $7. Rowdy dance night for gay boys.

Foundation Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, $5-$10. DJs Shortkut, Apollo, Mr. E, Fran Boogie spin Hip-Hop, Dancehall, Funk, Salsa.

Haceteria Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 9pm, free before 11pm, $3 after.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-$10. With Lucky, Paul Paul, Phengren Oswald, and more.

Swank: Pheeto Dubfunk and Friends Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm, $20-$30.

SUNDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

DJ Horizons Hemlock Tavern. 10pm, free.

Hammond Organ Soul Blues Party Royal Cuckoo Organ Lounge, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cyril Guiraud American Quartet Bliss Bar, 4026 24 St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

Kally Price Old Blues and Jazz Band Amnesia. 8pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Brazil and Beyond Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 9pm, free.

Vieux Farka Toure, Markus James Yoshi’s SF. 7pm, $25.

Cieran Marsden and Friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. With DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2.

MONDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Love Dimension, SXO, Victoria Victrola and the Vaudevilles Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"Cool Music – Clear Water" SF Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.leftcoastensemble.org. 8pm, $15-$30.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Roy Schneider Osteria, 3277 Sacramento, SF; www.kcturnerpresents.com. 7pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Crazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $5. With Decay, Joe Radio, Melting Girl.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Soul Cafe John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. R&B, Hip-Hop, Neosoul, reggae, dancehall, and more with DJ Jerry Ross.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza, and more.

TUESDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alvon Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Suzanne Cronin and Friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, $6.

Hey Ocean! Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $8.

JRo Project Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

Benjamin Francis Leftwich, We Became Owls, Owl Paws Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Painted Palms, Yalls, Doom Bird, Ears of the Beholder (DJ) Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, free.

Rec-League, Illusion of Self, Genie, Zig Zag Robinson, Cozmost, DJ Mr Bean Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Replica, Diehard, Light, New Flesh Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

Sean Smith Amnesia. 9:30pm.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Terry Disley’s Mini-Experience Burritt Room, 417 Stockton, SF; www.mystichotel.com. 6-9pm, free.

"Three Men and a Baby…Grand!" Rrazz Room, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.liveattherrazz.com. 8pm, $35.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Chris Amberger and Aaron Garner Cafe Divine, 1600 Stockton, SF; www.cafedivinesf.com. 7pm,free.

Brazilian Zouk Bissap Baobab, 3372 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 8:30pm, $5-$12.

Ultra World X-Tet Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $15.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

WEDNESDAY 30

“Red Bull Curates: The Canvas Cooler Project” Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. 9pm, free. The Canvas Cooler Project pairs selected artists with local bar, lounge, and restaurant owners. Artists are then given 24 hours to transform a blank, canvas wrapped Red Bull Cooler into a work of art representative of their venue. The end results will be on display tonight where guests and selected judges vote on each piece — the winners get a trip to Miami for Art Basel week 2013.

THURSDAY 31

“Voices of Japan: Tanka after the Tsunami” SFSU Cesar Chavez Student Center, 1650 Holloway, SF. . Through Feb. 14. Opening reception: 5-8pm, free. Since the traumatic tsunami hit Japan in March of 2011, the country’s newspapers have been publishing tanka poems written by a wide range of Japanese citizens affected by the natural disaster. This exhibit takes a look at what these victims had to say, showing 29 selected poems from the papers. Photo collages, calligraphy, and video will also be on display alongside the translated words. Tonight’s reception will include a live calligraphy and story-telling performance.

FRIDAY 1

“A Hella Space” MOCO gallery, 371 17th St., Oakl. . Through Feb. 21. Opening reception: 6-10pm, free. Long time friends and artists Sam Turner, Meighan Moore, and Noelle Dexter share their artistic interpretation of life in Oakland through digital prints, watercolor, and pen and ink drawings. Tonight’s reception will also include a musical act by Noelle Dexter.

“Peace, Pies & Prophets: I’d Like to Buy and Enemy” First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway, Oakl. 7pm, $12 donation accepted. There will be pie. And comedy. Need we say more? This Positive Peace Warrior and Christian Peacemaker Team fundraiser will include a homemade pie auction and a performance addressing issues of peace and justice in a comedic light.

SATURDAY 2

Fourth Annual German Family Karneval 1581 LeRoy, Berk. . 3-7pm, free. Bring the little ones out to help support the German School of Silicon Valley’s growing Berkeley campus. Enjoy a performance by a Brazilian-style marching band, snack on German food and drink, and let the kiddos take part in the various children’s activities offered.

“Chantey Sing at Hyde Street Pier” San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, 499 Jefferson, SF. (415) 561-7171. 8pm-midnight, free. RSVP by phone, required. Pick out your best blue-and-white striped shirt and channel your inner Popeye for this sailor sing along. Park rangers will lead you in sea chanteys under the stars and aboard a historic ship at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Bring your own mug and soothe your vocal chords with free cider.

“Mud & Blood: A Swamp Noir Fairy Tale” The Lost Church, 65 Capp, SF. . 8pm, $10. Singer-songwriter Wesley Morgan introduces you to a new sort of story time. Through a mixture of story and song, Morgan and his guitar tell a Gothic, fantastical tale of a boy found in the mud, still attached to his mother in the aftermath of a tragic flood. Years later, the boy sets out on an adventure where he meets intoxicating temptresses, precious songbirds, and more.

Tomboy Tailors store opening Crocker Galleria, 50 Post, first floor, SF. . 2-6pm, free. Eventbrite RSVP requested. Tomboy Tailors, a fine clothier specializing in made-to-measure, custom suits for the butch among us, is opening up shop this afternoon in its new retail space. Check out the new store with champagne in one hand and hor d’oeuvres in the other. Maybe even get fitted for a suit while live jazz plays in the background?

SUNDAY 3

“Janet Jackson Flash Mob ‘Together Again'” Dance Mission Theatre, 3316 24th St., SF. . Noon-2pm, $3. On May 18th Bay Area Flash Mob will gather in various locations around San Francisco to perform “Together Again” in honor of Janet Jackson’s birthday. But before you can be part of the flash mob fun you’ve got to master the moves. Get some knowledge of the dance beforehand with free online tutorial videos and then join your mob mates this afternoon to learn part four of eight to the dance.

Fourth Annual Super Bowl Heavy Metal Chili Cookoff Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. . 1-6:30pm. Doors open at 1pm, game at 3:30pm, free. Spice up your Super Bowl Sunday with some home-style cooking. To give this cook-off an extra kick, all participants must also give their dish a heavy metal name. Prizes will be given away at halftime for best chili, best chili (popular vote), and best heavy metal name. Chili entrants must RSVP in advance. Everyone else is free to bring other food to share.

MONDAY 4

“Quiet Lighting’s Tour Through Town”826 Valencia, SF. . 6:30pm, $5 donation accepted. Quiet Lightning kicks off their citywide tour alongside Valencia Street literary staple, 826 Valencia for its first show of the year. Snack on some goodies from Bi-Rite Market, OneBar, and Cheddar and Chutney, sit back, relax and enjoy an evening of poetry and fiction readings by some of the city’s best young authors. This specific Quiet Lighting event will showcase pieces by written by six to 18-year-olds.

 

Housing stability for all

Andrew Lam
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9

OPINION San Francisco is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. It’s way too expensive to live here, and for those fortunate enough to have housing they can afford, we need to provide stability. This need for housing stability applies to renters as well as homeowners. If we’ve learned anything from the foreclosure crisis, homeowners are not all rich, and they are not all stable in their housing.

Last week’s Guardian argued against legislation I’m co-sponsoring, which provides one-time relief to owners of tenancies-in-common (TICs) — mostly middle- and working-class first-time homeowners who reside in their units — while providing strong protection to renters. While the editorial correctly stressed the need to support rent control, it failed to acknowledge the need to support housing stability for homeowners as well.

Rent control is one of the pillars of our city. It stabilizes housing prices, recognizes that housing isn’t just another commodity, keeps communities intact, and helps maintain San Francisco’s diverse fabric. I’ve long supported rent control, as reflected by my voting record. I supported a series of rent control measures designed to reduce evictions, including requiring sales disclosure of a unit’s eviction history, requiring increased relocation benefits to evicted tenants, outlawing harassment of tenants, and restricting use of the Ellis Act by real-estate speculators. As a member of the Board of Supervisors, I authored successful legislation to ban conversion of rent-controlled units to student dorms and to provide temporary affordable units to renters displaced by disasters.

The current legislation I’m co-sponsoring will provide needed relief to struggling TIC owners, many of whom are experiencing serious financial distress, while protecting the small number of tenants who live in these units. TIC owners have group mortgages, meaning that if one owner defaults, all owners default. They pay double the interest rate other homeowners pay and usually cannot refinance. The legislation will allow them to convert their units to condos and obtain their own mortgages, at lower rates and less foreclosure risk.

While some caricature TIC owners as speculators and wealthy people, that’s untrue. Many TIC owners are quite middle class, former renters who scraped together a down payment to purchase a home. Many are teachers, social workers, public employees, and other workers who are anything but speculators. These are people who, if they didn’t own TICs, would be renting. They aren’t Martians who dropped out of the sky. They’re our neighbors, co-workers, and fellow San Franciscans. They are part of the city’s fabric.

Under the legislation, owner-occupied TICs that are in the condo lottery will be able to convert to condos by paying a fee of $20,000 per unit, with the proceeds dedicated to affordable housing. Buildings with Ellis Act and other problem evictions are typically prohibited from condo converting in San Francisco, under a 2006 law, and that restriction applies to this legislation. In other words, this legislation won’t encourage Ellis Act evictions. Moreover, buildings that aren’t owner-occupied can’t condo convert. Nor can buildings with more than six units. The legislation is one-time in nature and not an ongoing invitation to condo convert.

The legislation covers very few units with tenants — 85% are owner-occupied — and protects this small number of tenants by mandating they receive lifetime leases, with full rent and eviction controls identical to our rent control laws. This protection is stronger than what most tenants receive in buildings that win the condo lottery currently.

Renters and homeowners both deserve housing stability. This legislation moves us in that direction.

Supervisor Scott Wiener represents District 8.

 

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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2

This week holds big, anticipated-return shows like Local Natives at the Fox and Cody ChesnuTT at the Independent, new pairings like Adam Green and Binki Shapiro at the Chapel, an anniversary celebration at BAGel Radio’s locally curated Bottom of the Hill night with Mister Loveless and CHURCHES, legendary Malian offspring Vieux Farka Touré at Yoshi’s, and a possible faux listing (Jackie-O Motherfucker is supposedly playing Casa Sanchez).

Only time will tell. Go out, Bay Area music lovers, into the chilly night, and report back to us.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Cody ChesnuTT
The soul troubadour returns. Aside from his debut double-album, The Headphone Masterpiece (Ready Set Go), Roots collaboration, and brief 2010 EP Black Skin No Value (Vibration Vineyard), singer-songwriter Cody ChesnuTT just hasn’t been on the radar enough, given his powerful pipes. He brought it all back in late 2012, releasing socially-conscious soul gem, Landing on a Hundred (Redeye Label), which he’s touring on now.
Tue/29, 8pm, $15
Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF
www.theindependentsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAlAmbewaZo

Local Natives
“Local Natives stole our collective hearts in 2009 with their self-funded debut Gorilla Manor, an irresistible slice of unearthly folk rock, before cruelly fading into the background. Finally, four years later, they’ve resurfaced with a sophomore effort, Hummingbird. Though the Orange Country-bred group recorded the album in Brooklyn, the California sunshine still shines through its meandering, ethereal soundscapes. The band’s songs draw heavily from indie peers Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes, but manage to add a refreshing, summery glow to the reverb-heavy pop murk. The album, which was produced by Aaron Dessner of the National, promises to translate well to a live format, keeping the band’s trademarked harmonies in place while also allowing vocalist Kelcey Ayer’s dreamy falsetto to soar.” — Haley Zaremba
With Superhumanoids
Wed/30, 8pm, $25
Fox Theater
1807 Telegraph, Oakland
(510) 302-2250
www.thefoxoakland.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1dFjloBZYo

Jackie-O Motherfucker
[Disclaimer: I’ve found this show on two different punk listservs, yet nowhere else thus far. Got a call in to the shop.] Experimental, ’90s-born Portland act Jackie-O Motherfucker live at Mexican restaurant, Casa Sanchez, where I can also eat chips and salsa during the set? That’ll do just fine, thank you.
With You Nori, Cuttle Buttle, Baus.
Thu/31, 7:30pm, free
Casa Sanchez
2778 24 St, SF.
www.casasanchezfood.com

Brass Menažeri
The 12-year-old Balkan dance party band bids farewell at this final concert, with two live sets. Check this week’s issue (Wed/30) for more on the group’s demise.
Fri/1, 9pm, $15
New Parish
579 18th St., Oakl.
www.thenewparish.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twGgff89eno

BAGel Radio Anniversary Show
Ted Leibowitz has been doing Internet radio far longer than the majority of your favorite podcast hosts. His indie rock-oriented Internet radio station, BAGel Radio, is turning 10 this year. So the station founder-music director is throwing this show with local rock bands including Pixies-honoring Mister Loveless, angsty Churches, tender Birdmonster. A lineup worth showing up early for.
Fri/1, 9:30pm, $12
Bottom of the Hill,
1233 17th St., SF
www.bottomofthehill.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n990CcF_uuA

Adam Green and Binki Shapiro
“Opposites do attract. Adam Green is a so-called “anti-folk” Manhattanite with an extensive catalog of foul-mouthed, tongue-in-cheek ballads and admirably humble beginnings as Kimya Dawson’s counterpart in the Moldy Peaches. Binki Shapiro hails from LA, is a retro fashion icon and former member of Brazilian-American supergroup Little Joy, along with her ex-boyfriend and Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. The duo’s vastly different backgrounds and musical leanings don’t seem compatible at first glance, but in practice they blend beautifully. During the writing of the record, both Green and Shapiro were going through romantic rough patches, which ultimately pushed the musicians to help write each other’s breakup albums, creating a finished product rife with earnestness and vulnerability.” — Haley Zaremba
With the Range of Light Wilderness
Sat/2, 9pm, $18
The Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
(415) 551-5157
www.thechapelsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrbeDDiU92g

Vieux Farka Touré
“It should be enough to say that Vieux Farka Touré follows the footsteps of his father, the late, Grammy-winning Ali, or that he’s known as “the Hendrix of the Sahara.” But not quite. In “Gido (featuring John Scofield)” — yes, of jazz-rock fame — an acoustic guitar expertly noodles in a Malian scale, a bend on an electric cues bass and drums, then the two guitars continue to converse. It’s tempting to fashion this into some metaphor about the melding of African music and Western rock, and though this wouldn’t be misplaced, the main takeaway from “Gido” and the whole album, The Secret (2011), is that it sounds great. As Yoshi’s will prove, Touré creates his own breed of music, and he does it well.” — Laura Kerry
With Markus James
Sun/3, 7pm, $25
Yoshi’s
1330 Fillmore, SF
(415) 655-5600
www.yoshis.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMI46WhdjRE

Live Shots: Jessie Ware at the Rickshaw Stop

Tony Robles
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0

It’s only a matter of time before British R&B-pop sensation Jessie Ware outgrows the small, cozy Rickshaw Stops of the music world. Last Thursday, at her first-ever SF show, Ware’s commanding, poised performance showed massive potential, more befitting of a full-on diva for the 21st century than a blog-popster du jour.

While her stateside popularity hasn’t yet caught up to her reputation across the pond, Ware captured the full attention of the indie-music press with her debut LP, Devotion, released last year. Influenced by her earlier work with producers like SBTRKT, the album demonstrated a level of artfulness and musical nuance, atypical of your average vocal pop album. Much like Katy B and AlunaGeorge, Ware has raised eyebrows by integrating big, upfront, Sade-esque vocals into the music-first world of bloggy electronica.

The integrity of Ware’s productions calls for a solid touring band to bring them to life onstage, which her live ensemble delivered in full. With real drums, guitars, and bass added to her synth-dominated textures, live renditions of “Still Love Me” and “Devotion” were noticeably groovier, funkier, and harder-hitting than their studio counterparts. Vigorous cuts like “Running” and “No to Love” lent themselves perfectly to the live treatment, with robust drum kicks, bass slaps, and guitar stabs punctuating Ware’s soaring vocals to great effect.

“Wildest Moments” and “If You’re Never Gonna Move” (titled “110%” before a recent legal dispute) were slightly less successful, if only due to their live interpretations not deviating much from the originals. Still, they were the biggest crowd-pleasers of the night, working the sold-out crowd into a frenzy.

A cover of Bobby Caldwell’s soul ballad “What You Won’t Do For Love” came about halfway through the set, performed solely by Ware and her guitarist, while Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” made an appearance, right smack in the middle of her own “No to Love.” Though her hour-long set was never in danger of going stale, these little surprises and dynamic shifts made it all the more engaging.

Despite the steely professionalism of her musical output, and the elegance of her public image, Ware’s stage presence was completely disarming. She seemed awestruck by her success, approaching the audience with endearing modesty and self-deprecation, while never failing to make a compelling case for her talent.

Ware’s vocal delivery was impressive and magnetic, but not the least bit showy, revealing a level of restraint and refinement beyond her years. This, coupled with her engaging persona, and her backing band’s cool competence, resulted in a wholly captivating hour of music, which left little room for criticism or deduction.

It’s quite amazing that Ware has arrived on the scene so fully formed, and with such a righteous vision of pop music’s potential. She is clearly going places, and on Thursday night, 350 lucky fans likely witnessed the start of something big.

Ed Lee’s State of the City: What evictions? What displacement?

Zelda Bronstein
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196
Ed Lee’s State of the City: What evictions? What displacement?

Mayor Ed Lee punctuated his State of the City speech with a nice little quip: “Every San Franciscan deserves a clean, safe place to call home.” I agree.

So why, in a speech lasting more than an hour, did the mayor not once mention that thousands of San Franciscans are facing the loss of their homes — and will be forced out of the city — because of the same policies that he’s proudly promoting?

These things are always self-congratualtory and full of the requisite bullshit. But Lee’s description of the State of the City was nothing more than a fantasy to the two-thirds of San Franciscans who live in rental housing, many of whom are living with an unacceptable level of insecurity. Much of the city’s rental stock — and the effectiveness of rent control — is at risk at speculators are buying up properties, tossing the tenants out with the Ellis Act, and converting them to tenancies in common. This is a massive civic crisis, brought on in part by the boom in tech jobs and the consequent boom in high-paid young people who want to live in a city that has virtually no vacant housing.

We saw this before, under Mayor Willie Brown; we called it the Economic Cleansing of San Francisco. It was awful, and it’s happening again.

But you wouldn’t know that to hear the mayor completely ignore the issue.

Oh, Lee gave it a toss-off line; gee, the rent is too high, but we can’t ignore the laws of supply and demand. Gee, we’re going to build 45,000 new housing units, and that will fix everything.

But Lee, of all people, ought to know that housing in San Francisco has never followed the laws of supply and demand. This is a highly irregular market, because demand is essentially unlimited. Housing fills us as fast as you build it. And none of the new housing that’s currently under construction or in the pipeline will be affordable to current SF residents who live in rent-controlled units and are at risk for eviction.

When you’re evicted under the Ellis Act in San Francisco today, to make room for someone with more money, you wind up having to leave the city. That’s the bottom line. And everywhere you turn, tenants are facing that ugly prospect.

The mayor spent much of his time talking about jobs. That’s fine; he’s proud that the unemployment rate in the city has fallen to 6.5 percent, but he insists he won’t rest until everyone has a job. Actually, most economists would say that’s impossible; capitalism, by its nature, exists with a structural unemployment rate that rarely falls below 4 percent. In fact, 4 percent is generally considered “full employment.”

More important, the overall rate is 6.5 percent, but it’s way higher for people without college degrees, for youth, and for African Americans. (It’s above 50 percent for transgender people.) The tech boom isn’t providing jobs for all of the unemployed current San Francisco residents; a lot of the jobs are going to people who don’t live here and are moving here for employment. They are putting pressure on the existing housing stock. That always leads to displacement.

None of this is to say that tech jobs are bad or that we shouldn’t have companies that pay high wages locate in San Francisco. What it means is that the city first has to protect its existing vulnerable populations — and that’s not happening.

I would encourage Mayor Lee to talk to the Housing Rights Committee, or the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, or any of the other tenant lawyers who are fighting desperately every day to state off evictions. He’d get a very different picture of the state of the city.

Our freak of a governor

Zelda Bronstein
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17
Our freak of a governor

We all know this, but I have to say it again: Jerry Brown is one strange agent.

His State of the State address was blessedly short: Jer doesn’t waste a lot of time. In fact, a few minutes in, the crowd in the state Assembly chambers was applauding for the second or third time, and he told them to stop; “this is my longest speech and we’re not going to get out of here.” I clocked it, applause and all, at about 16 minutes.

But lordy, lordy, what a crazy amalgam of stuff he packed in. From Montaigne to the Little Engine that Could, the Ten Commandments to Pharoh’s dream about the seven cows, Franklin Roosevelt to Gaspar Portola … all over the map would be a gentle way of describing it.

And that was the political message, too: We can do great things, spend billions on a massive underground peripheral canal and high-speed rail — but we can’t backfill the cuts that are leaving tens of thousands in poverty because we have to live within our means. The mandate for renewable energy is great, but we shouldn’t just keep on passing laws:

Constantly expanding the coercive power of government by adding each year so many minute prescriptions to our already detailed and turgid legal system overshadows other aspects of public service. Individual creativity and direct leadership must also play a part. We do this, not by commanding thou shalt or thou shalt not through a new law but by tapping into the persuasive power that can inspire and organize people. Lay the Ten Commandments next to the California Education code and you will see how far we have diverged in approach and in content from that which forms the basis of our legal system.

Serious, Guv? “Constantly expanding the coervice power of government?” That’s channelling your inner Ronald Reagan, no? Oh, and weren’t you the mayor of Oakland who let the cops do pretty much anything they wanted in the name of public safety — and who is the darling and best pal of the prison guards union? Talk about the coercive power of government. And one of the bills you’ve never supported is Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s effort to legalize marijuana — eliminating a particularly troubling “coercive power of government” — because you’re worried that we can’t compete with China if everybody’s stoned.

I like high-speed rail, and investing in education, and I agree that there’s too much emphasis on one-size-fits-all standardized tests and measurement tools in the public school system. The school funding formula is, generally, a good idea. And I am utterly on the side of our tightwad leader in the battle to keep tuition from rising at CSU and UC.

So on some of the substance, Brown’s speech made sense. But I’ve been a Jerry watcher for many, many years, and he never ceases to baffle me. I supose that’s part of his point.

Let’s remember: Brown grew up in a wealthy patrician family, and he’s never had to worry about working for a living or finding an affordable place to live. He’s way out of touch with what millions of Californians face every day — and that’s why it’s easy for him to sit up in Sacramento and talk about “living within our means.”

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

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

OPENING

Beware of Mr. Baker This mesmerizing bio-doc about volatile, wildly talented drummer Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith) begins with the 70-something musician clocking director Jay Bulger in the face. After this opening, Bulger — who also wrote a deeply compelling article about Baker for Rolling Stone last year — wisely pulls himself out of the narrative, instead turning to a wealth of new interviews (with Baker, his trademark red locks faded to gray, and many of his musical and personal partners, including Eric Clapton and multiple ex-Mrs. Bakers), vintage performance footage, and artful animation to weave his tale. Baker’s colorfully-lived, improbably long life has been literally all over the map; he overcame a hardscrabble British childhood to find jazz and rock stardom, and along the way jammed with Fela Kuti in Nigeria (where he picked up his fierce love of polo), broke many hearts (his own kids’ among them) and lost multiple fortunes, spent a stint in the US, and eventually landed at his current farm in South Africa. Two constants: his musical genius, and his frustratingly jerky behavior — the consequence of a naturally prickly personality exacerbated by copious drug use and bitterness. A must-see for musicians and those who love them. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton star in this fairy-tale action film directed by Tommy Wirkola (2009’s Dead Snow). (1:41) California.

In Another Country This latest bit of gamesmanship from South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo (2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors) has Isabelle Huppert playing three Frenchwomen named Anne visiting the same Korean beachside community under different circumstances in three separate but wryly overlapping stories. In the first, she’s a film director whose presence induces inapt overtures from both her married colleague-host and a strapping young lifeguard. In the more farcical second, she’s a horny spouse herself, married to an absent Korean man; in the third, a woman whose husband has run away with a Korean woman. The same actors as well as variations on the same characters and situations appear in each section, their rejiggered intersections poking fun at Koreans’ attitudes toward foreigners, among other topics. Airy and amusing, In Another Country is a playful divertissement that’s shiny as a bubble, and leaves about as much of a permanent impression. (1:39) (Harvey)

Movie 43 An A-list ensemble cast (Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Kate Winslet) and multiple directors (Peter Farrelly, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk) combine their star power for this 12-chapter comedy film. (1:37)

Parker "Jason Statham" is pretty much a distinct genre at this point, yeah? (1:58) Shattuck.

Quartet See "Smith Happens." (1:38) Embarcadero.

ONGOING

Amour Arriving in local theaters atop a tidal wave of critical hosannas, Amour now seeks to tempt popular acclaim — though actually liking this perfectly crafted, intensely depressing film (from Austrian director Michael Haneke) may be nigh impossible for most audience members. Eightysomething former music teachers Georges and Anne (the flawless Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are living out their days in their spacious Paris apartment, going to classical concerts and enjoying the comfort of their relationship. Early in the film, someone tries to break into their flat — and the rest of Amour unfolds with a series of invasions, with Anne’s declining health the most distressing, though there are also unwanted visits from the couple’s only daughter (an appropriately self-involved Isabelle Huppert), an inept nurse who disrespects Anne and curses out Georges, and even a rogue pigeon that wanders in more than once. As Anne fades into a hollow, twisted, babbling version of her former self, Georges also becomes hollow and twisted, taking care of her while grimly awaiting the inevitable. Of course, the movie’s called Amour, so there’s some tenderness involved. But if you seek heartwarming hope and last-act uplift, look anywhere but here. (2:07) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Argo If you didn’t know the particulars of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, you won’t be an expert after Argo, but the film does a good job of capturing America’s fearful reaction to the events that followed it — particularly the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran. Argo zeroes in on the fate of six embassy staffers who managed to escape the building and flee to the home of the sympathetic Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Back in Washington, short-tempered CIA agents (including a top-notch Bryan Cranston) cast about for ways to rescue them. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs), exfil specialist and father to a youngster wrapped up in the era’s sci-fi craze. While watching 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with what Cranston’s character calls "the best bad idea we have:" the CIA will fund a phony Canadian movie production (corny, intergalactic, and titled Argo) and pretend the six are part of the crew, visiting Iran for a few days on a location shoot. Tony will sneak in, deliver the necessary fake-ID documents, and escort them out. Neither his superiors, nor the six in hiding, have much faith in the idea. ("Is this the part where we say, ‘It’s so crazy it just might work?’" someone asks, beating the cliché to the punch.) Argo never lets you forget that lives are at stake; every painstakingly forged form, every bluff past a checkpoint official increases the anxiety (to the point of being laid on a bit thick by the end). But though Affleck builds the needed suspense with gusto, Argo comes alive in its Hollywood scenes. As the show-biz veterans who mull over Tony’s plan with a mix of Tinseltown cynicism and patiotic duty, John Goodman and Alan Arkin practically burst with in-joke brio. I could have watched an entire movie just about those two. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Broken City Catherine Zeta-Jones’ measured performance and killer wardrobe run away with this uneven political thriller about a made-up Manhattan with real(-ish) problems. Russell Crowe is only slightly improving his record post-Les Mis, as he plays another harried and morally confused agent "for the people." Here, he’s Mayor Hostetler, a swaggering politico with fingers in New York’s real estate cookie jar and the sort of "get shit done" directive that results in bodies lying in NYC’s overfilled gutters. Good thing he has Mark Wahlberg in his back pocket, a cop who slipped a murder wrap and now scrapes the bottom for gigs as a private detective. Seven years ago Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) was seeking vigilante justice for the victim of a rape-murder in the city’s biggest ghetto. The victim became a household name but the killer was let off, leading to cries about the validity of NY’s justice system and to allusions to the Central Park Five. Broken City is less about a broken City and more about broken Men, and there are certain elements that seem too subtle for a story built on such bald-faced and predictable strategy. Between a script that’s struggling to demonstrate moral compromise and integrity, and direction (by Allen Hughes) that’s as sensitive to nuance as a border collie, it’s hard to find much beyond Zeta-Jones’ shoe stylings to admire. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away (1:31) Metreon.

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western homage features a cameo by the original Django (Franco Nero, star of the 1966 film), and solid performances by a meticulously assembled cast, including Jamie Foxx as the titular former slave who becomes a badass bounty hunter under the tutelage of Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing the evil yet befuddlingly delightful Nazi Hans Landa in Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds, is just as memorable (and here, you can feel good about liking him) as a quick-witted, quick-drawing wayward German dentist. There are no Nazis in Django, of course, but Tarantino’s taboo du jour (slavery) more than supplies motivation for the filmmaker’s favorite theme (revenge). Once Django joins forces with Schultz, the natural-born partners hatch a scheme to rescue Django’s still-enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), whose German-language skills are as unlikely as they are convenient. Along the way (and it’s a long way; the movie runs 165 minutes), they encounter a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose main passion is the offensive, shocking "sport" of "Mandingo fighting," and his right-hand man, played by Tarantino muse Samuel L. Jackson in a transcendently scandalous performance. And amid all the violence and racist language and Foxx vengeance-making, there are many moments of screaming hilarity, as when a character with the Old South 101 name of Big Daddy (Don Johnson) argues with the posse he’s rounded up over the proper construction of vigilante hoods. It’s a classic Tarantino moment: pausing the action so characters can blather on about something trivial before an epic scene of violence. Mr. Pink would approve. (2:45) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Gangster Squad It’s 1949, and somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a man has been tied hand and foot to a pair of automobiles with the engines running. Coyotes pace in the background like patrons queuing up for a table at Flour + Water, and when dinner is served, the presentation isn’t very pretty. We’re barely five minutes into Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and fair warning has been given of the bloodletting to come. None of it’s quite as visceral as the opening scene, but Fleischer (2009’s Zombieland) packs his tale of urban warfare with plenty of stylized slaughter to go along with the glamour shots of mob-run nightclubs, leggy pin-curled dames, and Ryan Gosling lounging at the bar cracking wise. At the center of all the gunplay and firebombing is what’s framed as a battle for the soul of Los Angeles, waged between transplanted Chicago mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — who wields terms like "progress" and "manifest destiny" as a rationale for a continental turf war — and a police sergeant named John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), tasked with bringing down Cohen’s empire. The assignment requires working under cover so deep that only the police chief (Nick Nolte) and the handpicked members of O’Mara’s "gangster squad" — ncluding Gosling, a half-jaded charmer who poaches Cohen’s arm candy (Emma Stone) — know of its existence. This leaves plenty of room for improvisation, and the film pauses now and again to wonder about what happens when you pit brutal amorality against brutal morality, but it’s a rhetorical question, and no one shows much interest in it. Dragged down by talking points that someone clearly wanted wedged in (as well as by O’Mara’s ponderous voice-overs), the film does better when it abandons gravitas and refocuses on spinning its mythic tale of wilder times in the Golden State. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Make no mistake: the Lord of the Rings trilogy represented an incredible filmmaking achievement, with well-deserved Oscars handed down after the third installment in 2003. If director Peter Jackson wanted to go one more round with J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved characters for a Hobbit movie, who was gonna stop him? Not so fast. This return to Middle-earth (in 3D this time) represents not one but three films — which would be self-indulgent enough even if part one didn’t unspool at just under three hours, and even if Jackson hadn’t decided to shoot at 48 frames per second. (I can’t even begin to explain what that means from a technical standpoint, but suffice to say there’s a certain amount of cinematic lushness lost when everything is rendered in insanely crystal-clear hi-def.) Journey begins as Bilbo Baggins (a game, funny Martin Freeman) reluctantly joins Gandalf (a weary-seeming Ian McKellan) and a gang of dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen homeland and treasure, batting Orcs, goblins, Gollum (Andy Serkis), and other beasties along the way. Fan-pandering happens (with characters like Cate Blanchett’s icy Galadriel popping in to remind you how much you loved LOTR), and the story moves at a brisk enough pace, but Journey never transcends what came before — or in the chronology of the story, what comes after. I’m not quite ready to declare this Jackson’s Phantom Menace (1999), but it’s not an unfair comparison to make, either. (2:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

The Impossible Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (2007’s The Orphanage) directs The Impossible, a relatively modestly-budgeted take on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on the real story of a Spanish family who experienced the disaster. Here, the family (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, three young sons) is British, on a Christmas vacation from dad’s high-stress job in Japan. Beachy bliss is soon ruined by that terrible series of waves; they hit early in the film, and Bayona offers a devastatingly realistic depiction of what being caught in a tsunami must feel like: roaring, debris-filled water threatening death by drowning, impalement, or skull-crushing. And then, the anguish of surfacing, alive but injured, stranded, and miles from the nearest doctor, not knowing if your family members have perished. Without giving anything away (no more than the film’s suggestive title, anyway), once the survivors are established (and the film’s strongest performer, Watts, is relegated to hospital-bed scenes) The Impossible finds its way inevitably to melodrama, and triumph-of-the-human-spirit theatrics. As the family’s oldest son, 16-year-old Tom Holland is effective as a kid who reacts exactly right to crisis, morphing from sulky teen to thoughtful hero — but the film is too narrowly focused on its tourist characters, with native Thais mostly relegated to background action. It’s a disconnect that’s not quite offensive, but is still off-putting. (1:54) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

The Last Stand With gun control issues dominating the news, what better time to release a movie that lovingly glorifies the wonders of excessive firepower? Fortunately for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his return to leading-man status after that little fling with politics, The Last Stand is stupidly enjoyable enough to make any such PC-minded realizations relatively fleeing ones. When a Mexican drug lord (who also happens to be an expert race-car driver) escapes from federal custody and begins speeding home in a super-Corvette, the lead FBI agent (Forest Whitaker, slumming big-time) realizes his only hope is a teeny Arizona border town that happens to be overseen by Sheriff Schwarzenegger. (Other residents include a couple of hapless deputies; an Iraq war vet; and a gun nut played by a cartoonishly obnoxious Johnny Knoxville.) Can this ragtag crew hold off first the drug lord’s advance team (led by a swaggering Peter Stormare), and then the head baddie himself? Duh. The biggest surprise The Last Stand offers is that it’s actually pretty fun — no doubt thanks to the combo of Korean director Kim Jee-woon (2008’s eccentric The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; 2003’s spooky A Tale of Two Sisters) and the heft of Schwarzenegger’s still-potent charisma. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

The Law in These Parts Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s documentary is a rather extraordinary historical record: he interviews numerous retired Israeli judges and lawyers who shaped and enforced the country’s legal positions as occupiers of Palestinian land and "temporary guardians" of a Palestinian populace living under foreign occupation. The key word there is "temporary" — in using here a different (military rather than civil) justice from the one Israeli citizens experience, Israel has been able to exert the extraordinary powers of an invading force in wartime. But what is "temporary" about an occupation that’s now lasted nearly 45 years? How can the state justify (under Geneva Convention rules, for one thing) building permanent Jewish settlements that now house about half a million Israelis on land that is as yet not legally Israel’s? By constantly changing the terms and laws of occupation, they do just that. If many policies have been perhaps necessary to control terrorist attacks, one can argue that they and other policies have created the climate in which oppositional fervor and terroristic acts were bound to flourish. That, of course, is a political-ethical judgement far beyond the public purview of the judges and others here, whose dry legalese admits no personal culpability — and indeed sometimes seems almost absurdly divorced from real-world ethics and consequence, which of course serves an increasingly rigid governmental stance just fine. Without preaching, The Law in These Parts raises a number of discomfiting questions about bending law to suit an agenda that in any other context would seem frankly unlawful. (1:40) Roxie. (Harvey)

Let Fury Have the Hour Though its message — that creative expression is a powerful, meaningful way to fight oppression — is a valuable one, Antonino D’Ambrosio’s Let Fury Have the Hour covers turf well-trod for anyone who has ever seen a documentary about punk rock and social justice. (Especially when it contains usual suspects like Ian MacKaye, Shepard Fairey, and Billy Bragg waxing nostalgic about how nonconformist they were in the 1980s.) In truth, Fury is more collage than doc, pasting together talking-head interviews (also here: Chuck D, John Sayles, Van Jones, Tom Morello, Boots Riley, and Wayne Kramer, plus a few token women, chiefly Eve Ensler) with a mish-mash of sepia-toned stock footage that more or less thematically compliments what’s being discussed at the time. A more focused examination of D’Ambrosio’s thesis might have resulted in a more effective film — like, say, an in-depth look at how Sayles’ politically-themed films (here, he reads from the script for 1987’s Matewan in a frustratingly brief segment) are echoed in works by contemporary artists and citizen journalists, particularly now that the internet has opened up a global platform for protest films. Listen: I admire what the film is trying to do. I am OK with watching yet another doc that contains the phrase "Punk rock politicized me." But with too much lip service and precious little depth, Fury‘s fury ends up feeling a bit diluted. (1:40) Balboa. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s "unfilmable" novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

LUV Baltimore native Sheldon Candis drew from his own childhood for this coming-of-age tale, which takes place in a single day as 11-year-old "little man" Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) tags along with his uncle, Vincent (Common), recently out of jail and rapidly heading back down the criminal path. With both parents out of the picture, Woody’s been raised by his grandmother (Lonette McKee), so he idolizes Vincent even though it’s soon clear the short-tempered man is no hero. Of course, things go horribly awry, bloody lessons are learned, tears are shed, etc. Despite the story’s autobiographical origins, the passable LUV suffers greatly by inviting comparisons to The Wire — the definitive docudrama examining drug crime in Baltimore. Most blatantly, sprinkled into an all-star cast (Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton) are supporting characters played by Wire icons Michael K. "Omar" Williams (as a cop) and Anwan "Slim Charles" Glover (as a meaner Slim Charles, basically). Perhaps if you’ve never seen the show this wouldn’t be distracting — but if that’s the case, you should really be watching The Wire instead of LUV anyway. (1:34) Metreon. (Eddy)

Mama From bin Laden to wild babes in woods, Jessica Chastain can’t seem to grab a break. Equipped with just the bare outlines of a character, however, she’s one of the few pleasures in this missed-opportunity of a grim, ghostly fairy tale. Expanding his short of the same name, director Andres Muschietti kicks off his yarn on a sadly familiar note in these days of seemingly escalating gun violence: little sisters Victoria and Lily have disappeared from their home, shortly after their desperate father (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has gone on a shooting spree. They repair to an abandoned cabin scattered with mid-century modern furniture. Five years on, the girls’ scruffy artist uncle Lucas (also Coster-Waldau) is still searching for them, supported by his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The little girls lost are finally found by trackers — and they appear to be hopelessly feral, with the angelic-looking Victoria (Megan Charpentier), acting as the ringleader and the younger, bedraggled Lily (Maya Dawe) given to sleeping under beds and eating on all fours next to the dog bowl. The arty couple take them in and move into a "test house" provided by the sisters’ enthralled therapist (Daniel Kash), obviously psyched to study not one but two Kaspar Hausers. The traumatized kids are clearly haunted by their experience — in more ways than one — as inexplicable bumps go off, night and day, and Misfits t-shirt-clad Annabel discovers the real meaning of goth while getting in touch with her seemingly deeply buried maternal urges. Unfortunately, despite possessing the raw material for a truly scary outing that plunges to the core of our primal instincts (what’s scarier than an unsocialized kid that’s capable of anything?) and showing off Muschietti’s occasional instances of cinematic flair (as when multiple rooms are shown using split-screens), Mama ends up running away from the filmmaker and is finally simply spoiled by its mawkishly sentimental finale. It doesn’t help that the inadequate script sports logic holes that a mama could drive a truck though. (1:40) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Les Misérables There is a not-insignificant portion of the population who already knows all the words to all the songs of this musical-theater warhorse, around since the 1980s and honored here with a lavish production by Tom Hooper (2010’s The King’s Speech). As other reviews have pointed out, this version only tangentially concerns Victor Hugo’s French Revolution tale; its true raison d’être is swooning over the sight of its big-name cast crooning those famous tunes. Vocals were recorded live on-set, with microphones digitally removed in post-production — but despite this technical achievement, there’s a certain inorganic quality to the proceedings. Like The King’s Speech, the whole affair feels spliced together in the Oscar-creation lab. The hardworking Hugh Jackman deserves the nomination he’ll inevitably get; jury’s still out on Anne Hathaway’s blubbery, "I cut my hair for real, I am so brave!" performance. (2:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

My Worst Nightmare First seen locally in the San Francisco Film Society’s 2012 "French Cinema Now" series, My Worst Nightmare follows icy art curator Agathe (Isabelle Huppert) as her airless, tightly-controlled world begins to crumble — thanks in no small part to an exuberantly uncouth, down-on-his-luck Belgian contractor named Patrick (Benoît Poelvoorde). (His obnoxious, freewheeling presence in Agathe’s precision-mapped orbit gives rise to the film’s title.) Director and co-writer Anne Fontaine (2009’s Coco Before Chanel) injects plenty of offbeat, occasionally raunchy humor into what could’ve been a predictable personal-liberation tale — the sight of classy dame Huppert driving through a bikini car wash, for instance. (1:43) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Parental Guidance (1:36) Metreon.

Promised Land Gus Van Sant’s fracking fable — co-written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, from a story by Dave Eggers — offers a didactic lesson in environmental politics, capped off by the earth-shattering revelation that billion-dollar corporations are sleazy and evil. You don’t say! Formulated like a Capra movie, Promised Land follows company man Steve Butler (Matt Damon) as he and sales partner Sue (Frances McDormand) travel to a small Pennsylvania town to convince its (they hope) gullible residents to allow drilling on their land. But things don’t go as smoothly as hoped, when the pair faces opposition from a science teacher with a brainiac past (Hal Holbrook), and an irritatingly upbeat green activist (Krasinski) breezes into town to further monkey-wrench their scheme. That Damon is such a likeable actor actually works against him here; his character arc from soulless salesman to emotional-creature-with-a-conscience couldn’t be more predictable or obvious. McDormand’s wonderfully biting supporting performance is the best (and only) reason to see this ponderous, faux-folksy tale, which targets an audience that likely already shares its point of view. (1:46) SF Center. (Eddy)

The Rabbi’s Cat A rabbi, a Muslim musician, two Russians (a Jew and a boozy Christian), and two talking animals hop into an antique Citroën for a road trip across Africa. No, it’s not the set-up for a joke; it’s the premise for this charming animated film, adapted from Joann Sfar’s graphic novel (the author co-directs with Antoine Delesvaux). In 1930s Algiers, a rabbi’s pet cat suddenly develops the ability to talk — and read and write, by the way — and wastes no time in sharing opinions, particularly when it comes to religion ("God is just a comforting invention!") When a crate full of Russian prayer books — and one handsome artist — arrives at the rabbi’s house, man and cat are drawn into the refugee’s search for an Ethiopian city populated by African Jews. Though it’s not suitable for younger kids (there’s kitty mating, and a few bursts of surprising violence) or diehard Tintin fans (thanks to a randomly cranky spoof of the character), The Rabbi’s Cat is a lushly illustrated, witty tale of cross-cultural clashes and connections. Rockin’ soundtrack, too. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Silver Linings Playbook After guiding two actors to Best Supporting Oscars in 2010’s The Fighter, director David O. Russell returns (adapting his script from Matthew Quick’s novel) with another darkly comedic film about a complicated family that will probably earn some gold of its own. Though he’s obviously not ready to face the outside world, Pat (Bradley Cooper) checks out of the state institution he’s been court-ordered to spend eight months in after displaying some serious anger-management issues. He moves home with his football-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) and worrywart mother (Jacki Weaver of 2010’s Animal Kingdom), where he plunges into a plan to win back his estranged wife. Cooper plays Pat as a man vibrating with troubled energy — always in danger of flying into a rage, even as he pursues his forced-upbeat "silver linings" philosophy. But the movie belongs to Jennifer Lawrence, who proves the chops she showcased (pre-Hunger Games megafame) in 2010’s Winter’s Bone were no fluke. As the damaged-but-determined Tiffany, she’s the left-field element that jolts Pat out of his crazytown funk; she’s also the only reason Playbook‘s dance-competition subplot doesn’t feel eye-rollingly clichéd. The film’s not perfect, but Lawrence’s layered performance — emotional, demanding, bitchy, tough-yet-secretly-tender — damn near is. (2:01) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon, Sundance Kabuki. (Ben Richardson)

Texas Chainsaw 3D (1:32) Metreon.

This is 40 A spin-off of sorts from 2007’s Knocked Up, Judd Apatow’s This is 40 continues the story of two characters nobody cared about from that earlier film: Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife) and Pete (Paul Rudd), plus their two kids (played by Mann and Apatow’s kids). Pete and Debbie have accumulated all the trappings of comfortable Los Angeles livin’: luxury cars, a huge house, a private personal trainer, the means to throw catered parties and take weekend trips to fancy hotels (and to whimsically decide to go gluten-free), and more Apple products than have ever before been shoehorned into a single film. But! This was crap they got used to having before Pete’s record label went into the shitter, and Debbie’s dress-shop employee (Charlene Yi, another Knocked Up returnee who is one of two people of color in the film; the other is an Indian doctor who exists so Pete can mock his accent) started stealing thousands from the register. How will this couple and their whiny offspring deal with their financial reality? By arguing! About bullshit! In every scene! For nearly two and a half hours! By the time Melissa McCarthy, as a fellow parent, shows up to command the film’s only satisfying scene — ripping Pete and Debbie a new one, which they sorely deserve — you’re torn between cheering for her and wishing she’d never appeared. Seeing McCarthy go at it is a reminder that most comedies don’t make you feel like stabbing yourself in the face. I’m honestly perplexed as to who this movie’s audience is supposed to be. Self-loathing yuppies? Masochists? Apatow’s immediate family, most of whom are already in the film? (2:14) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Wreck-It Ralph Wreck-It Ralph cribs directly from the Toy Story series: when the lights go off in the arcade, video game characters gather to eat, drink, and endure existential crises. John C. Reilly is likable and idiosyncratic as Ralph, the hulking, ham-fisted villain of a game called Fix-It-Felix. Fed up with being the bad guy, Ralph sneaks into gritty combat sim Hero’s Duty under the nose of Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch), a blond space marine who mixes Mass Effect‘s Commander Shepard with a PG-rated R. Lee Ermey. Things go quickly awry, and soon Ralph is marooned in cart-racing candyland Sugar Rush, helping Vanellope Von Schweetz (a manic Sarah Silverman), with Calhoun and opposite number Felix (Jack McBrayer) hot on his heels. Though often aggressively childish, the humor will amuse kids, parents, and occasionally gamers, and the Disney-approved message about acceptance is moving without being maudlin. The animation, limber enough to portray 30 years of changing video game graphics, deserves special praise. (1:34) Metreon. (Ben Richardson)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of "realness" that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that "America does not torture." (The "any more" goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or "CIA black sites" in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations ("KSM" for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon ("tradecraft") without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. "Washington says she’s a killer," a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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