Local

SF in top 38 counties nationwide that deport “non-criminal aliens”

Mary Magee
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SF in top 38 counties nationwide that deport “non-criminal aliens”

So much for San Francisco being a sanctuary city. The National Day Laborer Organization (NDLON) and two other organizations have unearthed statistics that show San Francisco in the nation’s “top 38” counties, when it comes to deporting immigrants who had not been convicted of crimes.

The statistics, which the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department provided as part of a public records request,  also show that California is the top state in the nation, when it comes to deporting “non-criminal aliens,” which is how federal authorities categorize immigrants who lack visas and green cards, since both are simply violation of civil administrative law, and not criminal acts.

These revelations come as internal documents, procured by the New York Times, suggest that federal immigration officers, facing resistance from Chicago and Cook County to join ICE’s controversial Secure-Communities program, pushed local officials to secure the participation of reluctant police departments.

Immigrant advocates say these newly released documents are fueling concerns that S-Comm is being used to circumvent due process for immigrants, and futher illustrate the need for reform, at the statewide level, to avoid abuse.

But ICE refutes charges that it is circumventing due process and primarily deporting immigrants who have not committed serious crimes.
“Secure Communities is a comprehensive initiative to modernize the criminal alien enforcement process,” an ICE spokesperson told the Guardian. “While ICE prioritizes the removal of convicted criminal aliens, the agency still enforces the law with regard to other aliens who are subject to removal. In addition to criminal aliens, ICE’s priorities include other individuals who pose a potential threat to public safety – such as those with known gang affiliations and prior drunk driving arrests – as well as immigration fugitives and individuals who have tried to game the immigration system.”

ICE officials also said that their review of the latest S-Comm statistics for San Francisco County show that “more than 60 percent of the aliens who’ve come into ICE custody since Secure Communities’ local activation are convicted criminals. What’s more, nearly one third of those cases involve individuals who’ve been convicted of Level 1 offenses [felony crimes].

But NDLON spokesperson B. Loewe said the newest data show that, several years into the S-Comm program, problems that immigrant advocates have been raising since S-Comm began, are continuing.
“There is no protection for the innocent, or even victims of crime, and the program appears to lend itself to circumventing due process,” Loewe said. “The latest numbers should raise concerns for anyone who cares not just fro civil rights but also for public safety for all.”

The S-Comm statistics emerged as part of a Freedom of Information Act request that NDLON, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law filed pertaining to ICE’s controversial Secure -Communities program.

Launched in Texas in March 2008, S-Comm involves state and local entities in the enforcement of federal immigration law by turning on a mechanism to run fingerprints through various databases when individuals are arrested, even if those individuals are brought in on minor charges or if their charges are subsequently dismissed.

“What’s most significant is that San Francisco is among the top 38 counties nationwide, and among the top 13 California counties,” said Jon Rodney, communications project coordinator at the California Immigrant Policy Center.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Angela Chan, a San Francisco Police Commissioner and Asian Law Caucus staff attorney. Chan noted that between October 2008, when California began implementing S-Comm, and February 2011, California has deported 35,643 local residents.
“That’s 10,000 more than Texas, which deported 24,152 residents,” Chan observed. She also noted that California is the state that deports the highest numbers of residents nationwide.
 
The top 13 counties in California deporting the highest percentage of non-criminal?  Merced, Fresno, Tulare, Solano, Monterey, Kern, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco San Joaquin, Contra Costa, Riverside, Sonoma, and Alameda, in that order.

This latest round of charges comes ten months after S-Comm was first activated in San Francisco, and fresh on the heels of Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s announcement of AB 1081, a bill that would honor the right of local governments to opt out of the federal S-Comm and set basic safeguards for those municipalities that do decide to participate.

Chan notes that the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee will hold a hearing on AB 1081 on April 26.

“Ammiano’s bill is timely and crucial,” Chan said, noting  that California signed an S-Comm agreement without public input, notice or negotiations.

“That [process] raised concerns that California signed a boilerplate agreement that was dictated by ICE” Chan said. “And it’s part of the reason why we have such high numbers of deportations,” she continued, noting that Ammiano’s bill “connects to an existing clause,” in the memorandum of understanding  that the California Attorney General’s Office signed with ICE, back when Gov. Jerry Brown was still California Attorney General.

Ammiano’s bill would require the California Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information to modify the agreement it entered into with the US Department of Homeland Security in May 2009, regarding S-Communities. 

Meanwhile, in a March 7 memo (a copy was procured through NDLON’s public records request) ICE noted that its Secure-Comm program produced over 133,000 matches in the first five months of 2011, compared to 248,000 matches in 2010.

ICE also noted that since the program was first activated in Harris County, Texas, on Oct. 27, 2008, the agency has removed over 94,000 aliens and over 24,600 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 (felony offenses) that were identified through the program.

“Deployment continues to be the primary driver for increased identifications,” ICE stated, observing that in the first five months of 2011, ICE will deploy S-Comm in 409 new jurisdictions. This means that by the end of May, 1,067 jurisdictions will be activated in 39 states, “covering 70 percent of the foreign non-citizen population.”

ICE’s goal is to deploy the program to an additional 488 jurisdictions by the end of 2011, bringing the total jurisdictions deployed by year’s end to 897.

But as Chan notes, Ammiano’s AB 1081 has implications for how and whether S-Comm gets activated in any more California counties,
“AB 1081 requires needed modifications to California’s S-Comm agreement, which was signed in April 2009 by California,” Chan said. “ It was one of the first, if not the first, agreement signed by a state to enter into S-Comm.  AB 1081 taps into this contract term, which allows modification and termination of the agreement, to allow counties to opt in or out of the deeply flawed program.”
 
 

Board delays Yellow Pages vote

Sasha Cuttler
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Board delays Yellow Pages vote

In an attempt to assuage big business interests, the Board of Supervisors decided yesterday (Tues/29) to delay the vote on an ordinance regulating the Yellow Pages, a piece of legislation that would create a three-year pilot program to rid the city of unsolicited phone books. A vote on the legislation is set for May 10.

The ordinance by Board President David Chiu passed the Land Use Committee on March 22. In attendance was a large opposition including the Yellow Pages Association, representatives of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and AT&T Advertising Solutions to stress the importance of the directory to small businesses and local jobs.

Although it appears the votes are there to pass it, supervisors including progressive David Campos and business-friendly Sean Elsbernd pushed for the delay so the city’s chief economist could undertake an analysis to understand how the “ban” would affect city businesses and to allow the public to continue to voice its opinions on the issue.

According to a previous Guardian article on the ordinance, many local businesses have chosen to advertise elsewhere, and many residents, including populations generally seen to use the Yellow Pages such as the elderly and non-English speakers, will still be able to easily obtain phone books if need be.

Alexia Marcous, Vice President of the Green Chamber of Commerce and a strong advocate in favor of the ordinance, said she was disappointed that the board chose to delay the vote.

“It’s politically motivated,” she told the Guardian. “Instead of doing what’s best for the city, they are stalling.”

While Marcous noted that it’s always prudent to obtain more information, it was unnecessary for the public to “provide further rebuttal” on the ordinance that she believes already has overwhelming support. Marcous states that some of the consequences of delaying the vote include the costs the city incurs for “dealing with the blight and litter and diverting the vital funds from more important issues.”

If the board decides to authorize the ordinance, Marcous sees San Francisco as a success story for other cities to emulate.

“It shows we are willing to do something about the egregious distribution practices that are only helping the Yellow Pages,” she said.

YPA Vice President of Public Policy and Sustainability Amy Healy posted on the Yellow Pages blog last week, before the vote was made, that the Yellow Pages Coalition “will be working diligently over the next week to influence the other members of the Board of Supervisors.”

Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

The San Francisco City Planning Department is revising its housing plan, and there’s a lot of indignation on the west side of town. See, the Housing Element of the city’s General Plan calls for a little bit of increased density in some of the neighborhoods that have fought density for years.

The unwritten law of San Francisco housing politics is that you don’t even talk about density west of 19th Avenue, and it’s pretty hard to talk about it anywhere beyond the western borders of Districts 3, 5, 8 and 11. So all the new housing gets pushed into the eastern neighborhoods — and all the rational planning people agree that the other side of town should absorb at least some of it. Density doesn’t always mean big, tall buildings, by the way — legalizing in-law units would create more housing, and more density, in single-family-home areas. But you run into the problem of everyone wanting a car — and turning garages into apartments means more cars fighting for that almighty parking space. Housing cars in this town sometimes seems more important than housing people.

So we’re going to hear some squawking — and a lot of it’s going to be misplaced. Because the real issue in the Housing Element isn’t density — it’s affordability.

The city acknowledges, in its own documents, that based on local needs, more than 60 percent of the new housing in the city has to be available at below-market-rate prices. The planners also admit they have no idea how to make that happen:

“The city will not likely see the development 31,000 new units, particularly its affordability goals of creating over 12,000 units affordable to low and very low income levels projected by the [city’s needs assessment] … [But] realizing the city’s housing targets requires tremendous public and private financing, [which] given the state and local economy and private finance conditions, is not likely to be available during the period of this Housing Element.”

Translation: we can’t afford to do what everyone agrees we have to do.

San Francisco city planning has been driven for decades by the needs of the private sector. It’s made good money for the developers (building housing in SF is still highly lucrative). But as public policy, the model has failed.

Until we set clear policies saying that the needs of local residents come first — and that high-end housing isn’t meeting those needs — we’re going to keep living with a serious disconnect.

Progressive pension reform

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Progressive pension reform

EDITORIAL It’s entirely possible that San Francisco voters will see three different pension proposals on the November ballot. Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who failed to pass a harsh pension-reform plan last year, is determined to try again. A working group headed by investment banker Warren Hellman is working on a plan, and Sup. Sean Elsbernd expects some version of that to move forward. And organized labor may do its own initiative.

But before any of those efforts are finalized, it’s worth understanding where this so-called crisis originated — and how to fashion a progressive approach to the issue.

The idea behind San Francisco’s fixed-benefit system is simple. Every year, the city and it’s employees contribute to a pension fund, which is invested under strict rules, and when an employee retires, he or she gets paid a predetermined amount out of that fund. Until the financial system imploded and the stock market crashed in 2008, San Francisco’s pension fund was solid. The reserves more than covered expected payouts. In fact, the fund was so healthy, and growing so fast, that some years the city didn’t have to contribute anything at all.

Under Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, the city used its flush pension fund as a way to avoid tough decisions on employee pay. Instead of giving raises, for example, the city offered to pick up the contributions some workers were making to the fund (which would cost the city nothing as long as the stock market kept booming).

Now things aren’t so rosy, and the city’s having to put hundreds of millions a year into the fund to keep it solvent. For the record, that’s not the fault of the city employees who negotiated their contracts in good faith — and who weren’t players in the Wall Street greed and corruption that wrecked the economy. In fact, if the city had continued paying into the fund in good times, the costs would be far lower now.

The various pension proposals look at a wide range of approaches, but in essence, both Adachi and Hellman’s group are going to ask city employees to put more of their paychecks into the pension fund. That’s the equivalent of a pay cut — they’ll be taking home less money for the same benefits they currently receive.

It’s true that city employees now get better pensions than most private-sector workers (a result in part of the fact that corporate American, aided by Congress, shifted most retirement plans to the 401(k) model, which puts all the risk on the employees and leaves employers largely off the hook). And there’s some horrendous abuse, particularly by senior police and fire staffers (former Police Chief Heather Fong is getting $229,000 a year for life, which is ridiculous).

It’s also true that the average midlevel city worker gets a pension between $20,000 and $24,000 a year.

Labor has already given back some $500 million in concessions over the past four years (and most of that money has come from lower and midlevel workers) City programs and services have been cut, by most estimates, by close to $1 billion.

The city has raised only $90 million in new taxes.

The bottom line is that over the past four years, the rich and big corporations, which are radically undertaxed in our society, have given back almost nothing to the city, have felt almost no pain. Unless pension reform takes that into account, it won’t be fair or acceptable.

The first element of any new pension plan should be progressive in scale: capping pensions at, say, $100,000 (or lower); eliminating pension spiking; and requiring high-paid employees to contribute a higher percentage to the fund than low-paid workers would make sense. Policy makers should treat this as what it is, a pay cut — and any cuts should fall disproportionately on those who are more able to afford it. Requiring the city to put its share into the fund every year, even if the market is booming, would help ease the pain in bad years.

But there should be no pension reform without tax reform. If San Francisco is going to ask its employees to do more to balance the local budget — and that probably has to happen — then city officials should be willing to ask the richest residents and businesses to share the pain too.

The world Maclaine made

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
The world Maclaine made

arts@sfbg.com

FILM For a biographical abstract of Christopher Maclaine, try the famous first lines of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. For greater precision, observe poet David Meltzer’s letter to film historian P. Adams Sitney (reproduced in Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000): “Poet, filmmaker, stand-up comic, bagpiper, chaser of mysteries.” Meltzer’s letter continues, “In the mid-’60s sacrificed his nervous system to methedrine.” Stan Brakhage wrote of Maclaine, “He courted madness and he finally got it.” Before he did, he completed four films, the first of which — his preemptive magnum opus, The End (1953) — flattened a very young Brakhage at its infamous Art in Cinema premiere. Sixty-seven years after the museum crowd balked at Maclaine’s celluloid testament, the film is back at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

We still haven’t found the categories that will contain Maclaine’s non-sync film of revelations: a found-footage narrative composed of original materials; a lettrist pulp fiction; a proto-punk murder ballad radioed to the void; a hipster “duck and cover” drill with time enough for Beethoven and Bartok. Like Sunset Blvd. (1950), The End is narrated from beyond the grave — only this voice (Maclaine’s) speaks behind nuclear holocaust rather than mere murder. First thing, we see the mushroom cloud (annihilation was in the air: America had recently tested the hydrogen bomb in the Pacific). Maclaine insinuates us over extended black leader: “Soon we shall meet the cast. Observe them well. See if they are not yourselves. And if you find none of them to be so, then insert yourself into this revue.” The cast, he explains, were his friends: “They all have stories. We shall be able to learn a little about each of them before our time runs out.”

The following 30 minutes snakes through six sections and four clearly identified characters. Though the cast is unwitting of the coming apocalypse, they are not innocent of its destructive energies. Before the blast, two die by their own hand and one on the wrong side of a stranger’s gun. The fourth, an innocent poet in a cruel world (played by Wilder Bentley II, who will be in attendance for the Thurs., March 31 screening), seeks redemption as a leper. They are all on the run from America — each “couldn’t face the 20th century.” Maclaine’s montage scatters images from the different mini-narratives and pulls together a mash of insert motifs that function as another layer of poetic commentary — a lyrical compliment to the voice-over’s epic address.

The cubist construction of these episodes is such that you would know a bomb had gone off even if you hadn’t seen the mushroom cloud. Scholar J.J. Murphy helpfully suggests Charlie Parker’s phrasing as a possible influence on Maclaine’s frenzied cutting, though the North Beach Scotsman also seems to anticipate the rhythms of Blank Generations to come. There are many jolting connections throughout The End, some delightfully unforeseen (the Powell Street trolley turnaround next to a gun barrel’s spin) and others simply damning (dramatization of a suicide’s collapse intertwined with documentary footage of a homeless man flat on the street). The montage reaches its zenith in the film’s closing moments, when a tumble of images registering sexual release and last-gasp poignancy are set to “Ode to Joy” as final shards of the known world.

It’s hard to fathom The End‘s originality now that so many of its techniques have become familiar avant-garde strategies. At the time, most experimental films strove for self-conscious lyricism, drawing on abstraction, silence, and psychosexual expressionism to articulate a space outside society. Maclaine dramatizes the break, never more explicitly than when he directly addresses the audience (“The person next to you is a leper!”) With its strong conviction that death itself has changed, The End is often discussed as an expression of atomic-age nihilism. Even more radical is the way Maclaine channels what was then still a new mode of address: the live television feed, which Sen. Joe McCarthy was just then exploiting in his Voice of America hearings. A decade before Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media, Maclaine intuits the connections between medium and message — the mushroom cloud and television being two sides of the same terrifying totality.

Maclaine made only three short films after The End, all of which will be shown Thursday night: The Man Who Invented Gold (1957), Beat (1958), and Scotch Hop (1959). None of these match The End‘s x-ray vision, although The Man Who Invented Gold and Beat both unfold the same vivid imagination of the San Francisco terrain. Scotch Hop is something different and, on first viewing, my favorite of the later works: the Scotsman’s equivalent of Olympia (1938), with low angles and slow motion placing bagpipers, log-throwers, and fiercely proud dancers on a heroic plain. Brakhage claims it a masterpiece in his poignant remembrance of Maclaine in his book Film at Wit’s End, but there’s little doubt that The End had the more profound impact on his own filmmaking — specifically in the way it demonstrated the liberating effects of a film grammar built of “mistakes.”

Meanwhile, the search for Maclaine continues in a serial analysis of The End on SFMOMA’s Open Space blog by filmmaker and projectionist Brecht Andersch in collaboration with Hell on Frisco Bay blogger Brian Darr. As of this writing, “The The End Tour” has reached its 15th installment. All together, it constitutes a supremely dedicated work of media archaeology, and one of the liveliest works of film criticism I’ve encountered in some time. Andersch and Darr’s spirited dissection of the film’s psychogeographic dynamics has illuminated the film’s subliminal operations as well as its creative mapping of the local landscape. Most remarkable is their discovery that a prominent patch of graffiti (“PRAY”) that appears in the film is still tattooed on a China Beach wall — as if Maclaine’s imagined nuclear blast fixed it there for all time.

IN SEARCH OF CHRISTOPHER MACLAINE: MAN, ARTIST, LEGEND

Thurs/31, 7 p.m., $10

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

 

Our Weekly Picks: March 30-April 5, 2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

WEDNESDAY 30

DANCE

Paul Taylor Dance Company

Forget retirement. Choreographer Paul Taylor is going strong, continuing to make new work at 80, and his illustrious company brings to the West Coast eight dances between three different repertory programs, presented by San Francisco Performances. A cornerstone of American dance, the company showcases newer works like the heralded Promethean Fire alongside Taylor’s classic dances such as the iconic Cloven Kingdom and the radiant Brandenburgs. The April 2 performance features a “Dance With the Dancers” soiree immediately following the concert, an opportunity to meet the artists who make the work of this dance master come to life (event ticket required). (Julie Potter)

Wed/30–Sat/2, 8 p.m.; Sun/3, 2 p.m., $35–$60

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Novellus Theater

701 Mission, SF

(415) 392-2545

www.sfperformances.org

 

THURSDAY 31

DANCE

Nrityagram Dance Ensemble

Hailing from a true dance village built on 10 acres of converted farmland in Bangalore, the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble considers dance a way of life and practices the art of transferring knowledge from guru to disciple. In addition to training skilled performers, the intentional community, founded by Odissi dancer Protima Gauri, requires each dancer to closely study mythology and the epics, Sanskrit, yoga, meditation, and the martial arts. This haven for the study, practice, and teaching of classical dance leads to a brilliant ensemble. Watch the layers of tradition and driving rhythms of hands, feet, and ankle bells unfold onstage in the their latest work, Pratima: Reflection. (Potter)

8 p.m., $25––$75

Palace of Fine Arts Theater

3301 Lyon, SF

(415) 392-4400

www.palaceoffinearts.org

 

EVENT

“The State of Sex and Dating in SF”

Although it’s touted as one of the most romantic cities in the U.S., San Francisco is overrun with single folk. Sure, our fair city is sex-positive and open-minded — but a seemingly endless number of possibilities can mean that hook-ups and relationships can be more complicated here than in other places. Examining the state of the union(s) — and the happily unattached — is a panel of dating gurus and sexperts, including San Francisco Writer’s Grotto cofounder Ethan Watters, Sasha “Quirkyalone” Cagen, OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone, author N.W. Smith, and sex blogger Violet Blue. (Jen Verzosa)

6:30 p.m., $7–$20

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, SF

(After party 7:30 p.m., Eve, 575 Howard, SF)

www.tickets.commonwealthclub.org

 

FRIDAY 1

EVENT

WonderCon

The world of superheroes, monsters, fantasy, science fiction, and other realms of the imagination come to life in San Francisco as the 25th annual WonderCon gets underway, attracting thousands of fans to one of the largest such gatherings in the country. A variety of special events, including panel discussions, meet and greets, screenings, and workshops accompany the hundreds of vendors, comic book artists, and writers who turn the Moscone Center into a geek paradise. Highlights this year include a sneak peak at the new Green Lantern film, a talk with The Walking Dead writer Robert Kirkman , and local filmmaker Tom Wyrsch’s new documentary Back To Space-Con, about the roots of Bay Area sci-fi conventions. (Sean McCourt)

Fri/1, noon–-7 p.m.; Sat/2, 10 a.m.–7 p.m.;

Sun/3, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., $5–$40

Moscone Center South

747 Howard, SF

www.comic-con.org/wc

 

PERFORMANCE

“Roccopura: The Misadventures of Pancho Sanza”

Mash together circus zaniness, a rock opera, and gratuitous audience immersion and you get Roccopura: The Misadventures of Pancho Sanza. Boenobo the Klown, frontman of the band Gooferman, has been writing this show for two years and intensively developing the production for the last five months, working with his cohorts in Gooferman, Sisters of Honk, Vau de Vire Society, Circus Metropolus, and the Burley Sisters. The resulting two-act extravaganza promises to take SF’s burgeoning indie circus scene (see “Cue the clowns,” 12/3/08) higher heights and more decadent depths at the same time. It appropriately premieres on April Fool’s Day, but these fools also hope for a longer run, so catch it now and give them the bounce they need. (Steven T. Jones)

8 p.m., $25–$45

DNA Lounge

375 11th St, SF

www.roccopura.com

 

MUSIC

Lozen

With arms outstretched and praying, the Apache warrior, Lozen, could ascertain the movements of her enemies, be they U.S. or Mexican cavalries — a useful prophetic power as she fought alongside the likes of Geronimo. It’s doubtful the band Lozen has any foes, for the Tacoma, Wash., twosome synergistically embodies more raw force than most bands twice its size. Sometimes recalling a weirder side of the Breeders, or a sludgy-drudgy Luscious Jackson, or the Melvins (but with roaming female harmonies), the power of Lozen is in being experimental and fun while still super-heavy. As for their namesake fighter, she died of tuberculosis as a P.O.W. in an Alabama jail. (Kat Renz)

With Walken, Dog Shredder, Pins of Light

9 p.m., $8

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

SATURDAY 2

MUSIC

Baseball Project

Just in time for the start of the 2011 baseball season and the Giants’ home opener comes the Baseball Project, an all-star band that sings about — you guessed it — America’s favorite pastime. Featuring Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Steve Wynn (Gutterball), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows), and Linda Pitmon (The Miracle 3), these heavy hitters of rock just released their second album, Vol. 2: High and Inside, featuring loving odes to players of the past, as well as an infectious tribute track to San Francisco’s own World Series Champions, “Panda and The Freak.” (McCourt)

With Minus 5 and Steve Wynn

9 p.m., $17

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

 

MUSIC

Sonny Smith

A massive undertaking that reads like something Stephin Merritt would have dreamed up, Sonny Smith’s 100 Records project is a clever exercise in songwriting and a reminder of just how cool music packaging can be. Writing 100 in whatever style he felt like at the time, Smith created fictional bands with fully fleshed-out bios to accompany them. He’s slowly since been releasing them in beautiful 45 box-sets with sleeves and artwork assigned to each group. Psych-rock, surf, reggae, garage … all are touched on, and this will be your chance to see Smith embody some of these personas (Loud Fast Fools, Fuckaroos, Earth Girl Helen) live. If that wasn’t enough, he’ll be throwing in a set with his main project, Sonny and the Sunsets. (Landon Moblad)

With Sandwitches

9 p.m., $15

Amnesia

853 Valencia, SF

(415) 970-0012

www.amnesiathebar.com

 

SUNDAY 3

MUSIC

Crowbar

Few bands are as instantly recognizable as Crowbar. Hear a couple depressing, chromatic bars of guitarist Kirk Windstein’s impossibly low, grinding tone, and you’ll know immediately who you’re dealing with. After staggering out of the swamp of New Orleans’ fertile early-’90s sludge metal scene, the band has clung to survival for two decades, churning out an inexhaustible repertoire of ugly, Sabbath-derived riffs, muddying them liberally with hardcore’s urgency and anger. Crowbar’s dirge-like compositions are a musical representation of its members’ often harrowing lives, and the band’s lyrics speak unflinching truth on many subjects, including Windstein’s struggle with addiction. Unadorned, unvarnished, and unapologetic, the band also leaves no head un-banged. (Ben Richardson)

With Helmet, Saint Vitus, Kylesa, Red Fang, Howl, and Atlas Moth

8 p.m., $25

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

FILM

“Fearless: Chinese Independent Documentaries”

There is a long history of radical documentaries that contest official histories and sanctioned depictions of everyday life, but rare is the concentrated activism we see in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts series “Fearless: Chinese Independent Documentaries.” These risk-taking records of injustice bear no resemblance to the easy history lessons and celebrity profiles that pass for documentary in the HBO/Sundance sphere. With extended running times and steadfast dedication to witnessing people, places, and histories the Chinese government would just as soon erase, the films are monumental in the deepest sense. “Fearless” opens with Karamay, Xu Win’s six-hour examination of a tragic fire that killed 323 people while leaving several officials unharmed. As with several of the films that follow, the exhaustiveness of the treatment is itself a rebuke to the government’s suppression of the facts. (Max Goldberg)

April 3–21

Karamay today, 1 p.m., $8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org

 

MONDAY 4

PERFORMANCE

Los Muñequitos de Matanzas

Cuba’s biggest export used to be sugar. These days what the country sends abroad — or at least tries to — is much sweeter and much healthier: dance and music. Whether ballet or folklórico, the product is consistently astounding. Yet our benighted government does everything it can to “protect” us — from what? Professionalism made possible by a government that believes arts education is integral to the GNP? What’s wrong about getting to know expressions of a country’s soul? Last time Los Muñequitos de Matanzas performed here, to huge acclaim, was in 1992. Now, as a kind of preview, the San Francisco International Arts Festival (coming up May 18-June 5) brings these master percussionists back. Of course, they’ll bring dancers — six of them. Have you ever heard of rumbas and sambas without dancers? (Rita Felciano)

7 p.m., $15–$50

Mission High School

3750 18th St. SF

1-800-838-3006

www.sfiaf.org

 

TUESDAY 5

MUSIC

Ben Kweller

Hate to break it to you, but the heyday of emo music is long gone. But before you rip your heart out of your chest, cheer up, emo kid: singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Ben Kweller is back in town to rock your striped socks off. In 2002, Kweller released his first full length album, Sha Sha (with the hit “Wasted and Ready”), showcasing the versatility of his pop-to-folk-to-punk sound. Although he has the astonishing aptitude for challenging the limitations of these genres, Kweller comes full circle in 2009’s Changing Horses as he returns to his small-town roots. Isn’t country kind of the original emo, anyway? (Verzosa)

With Pete Yorn and Wellspring

8 p.m., $25

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.theregencyballroom.com 


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Animal instinct

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Animal instinct

PETS A pet-free existence — who needs it? Creature comfort can’t be underestimated, whether you’re ready for a one-time volunteer session, a casual relationship, or some long-term lovin’.

 

ADOPT AWAY

In this country of serious pet overpopulation, there’s no need to buy your next animal companion from a pet store. Whatever you’re looking for — cats, dogs, parakeets, rabbits, mice, rats, chickens, snakes, lizards, even chinchillas — the odds are good that some local shelter or rescue group will have one waiting to be adopted.

Animal advocates (and even some pet stores) urge seekers of furry, scaly, or feathered companions to think adoption first. “That’s been our message for years,” said Jennifer Scarlett, co-president of the San Francisco SPCA.

In most cases adopted pets work out better for the animal and the human, notes Deb Campbell, spokesperson for the city’s Animal Control Commission. “People who impulsively buy pets tend to have more problems,” she said.

In this city alone, there are too many unwanted dogs and cats — many the result of backyard breeders and owners who fail to get their animals spayed or neutered. And with the recession, more people have been forced to give up their pets. So adoptable creatures abound.

If dogs are your thing, the SPCA (www.sfspca.org) and the city shelter (www.animalshelter.sfgov.org) have dozens waiting for the right home. So do several local rescue groups. Wonder Dog Rescue (www.wonderdogrescue.org), Rocket Dog Rescue (www.rocketdogrescue.org), Family Dog Rescue (www.norcalfamilydogrescue.org), and Grateful Dogs Rescue (www.gratefuldogsrescue.org) all offer large and small pups of all ages and breeds for adoption— you can even snag a ex-racer from Golden State Greyhound Rescue (www.goldengreyhounds.com).

Many adoption programs are able to give you the lowdown on your prospective pet’s personality. “Our dogs all live in foster homes, so we have a real sense of what they’re like and how they interact,” says Wonder Dog’s Linda Beenau.

Muttville (www.muttville.org) specializes in placing older dogs. “With a senior dog, you know exactly what you’re going to get,” said Sherri Franklin, the group’s founder. “We evaluate the people who are looking to adopt, evaluate the dogs, and try to fill everyone’s need. We’re matchmakers.”

Shelters and rescue groups spend a lot of money making sure the animals they adopt out are in good medical condition (and won’t reproduce).

Cats are the most popular pets in the city, and the SPCA and the city shelter both offer cat adoptions. “We adopt out about 4,000 animals a year, and two-thirds are cats,” said Scarlett. There’s even a working-cat program for feral cats that may not be cuddly but can offer businesses an organic solution to rodent problems.

But the list doesn’t stop there. The city shelter “adopts out small exotic animals, fish, birds, poultry — you name it,” Campbell said. “It’s illegal to buy a rabbit in San Francisco, but you can adopt one from us.”

“Chickens are very popular pets these days,” she added. “They can give you breakfast.” (Tim Redmond)

 

FOSTER BLISS

We don’t know about you, but seeing precious pets cooped up in cramped shelter cages — well, it makes us knock over garbage cans, spray urine on an expensive sofa, and caterwaul at the moon. And this is a country that euthanizes between 50 percent and 70 percent of its shelter animals. Sorry to be a bummer. But you can help, even if you’re not ready for a 10-year commitment. Really — you can!

Fostering a pet serves a lot of purposes. First, for us flighty city creatures, it provides a low-commitment avenue to pet ownership. Second, to foster is to play a vital role in the shelter system. Many of the city’s smaller animal rescue organizations and humane societies couldn’t exist without a network of caring foster homes to nurture pets while their shelter facilities are full. And for some, saving animals from shelter euthanasia wouldn’t be possible without temporary homes.

“We’re a grassroots organization that doesn’t have a brick and mortar location besides our three adoption sites,” says Lana Bajsel of Give Me Shelter cat rescue, a group that typically cares for 54 cats at a time. “The fosters serve as our safety net. Their role is crucial.”

Cats and dogs aren’t the only cuddly creatures that can join your family for a short period of time. Wonder Cat (wondercatrescue.petfinder.com), Pets in Need (www.petsinneed.org), Furry Friends Rescue (www.furryfriendsrescue.org), and Rocket Dog Rescue do concentrate on dogs and cats, but you can also foster a rabbit through Save A Bunny (www.saveabunny.org) or birds through Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue (www.mickaboo.org).

Foster systems provide a way for many shelters to save furry friends that are long-shot adoptees or would fare poorly in cages. The SPCA’s “fospice” program can match you with a chronically ill (but not contagious) pet that needs your love. As in most foster programs, the SPCA will pay for any medical care fospice animals need (although as a foster parent, you’re usually responsible for food and other daily needs).

Organizational requirements vary from group to group, but Bajsel says that most of the time all it takes to be a foster parent is a safe home (for example, no windows without screens that open onto busy streets), your landlord’s permission, and preferably, a little animal savvy. “But we’ve placed cats with fosters who have never had one before. In those cases, we can provide a little more hand holding” she says.

With such demonstrable need, most organizations will accept any help you can give — even if it means a little something before you leave on your summer vacation. It’s really contingent on you, the foster parent. “The time commitment can be as little as two weeks,” Bajsel says. (Caitlin Donohue)

 

VICARIOUS

Say your flea trap apartment or Scrooge-like landlord prohibits adopting or fostering — you can always volunteer at one of the many Bay Area organizations dedicated to animal welfare. Once you catch the scent of the needy pooches, cats, rats, and people dedicated to saving them, it’ll be tough not to volunteer.

Cat lovers will feel right at home at Give Me Shelter cat rescue, which can use your help with anything from petting a purr-er to cleaning cages to lending a hand at adoption events. If you’re more of a man’s best friend kind of gal or boy, lend a hand at one of the city’s incredible dog shelters. Muttville can hook you up with a variety of ways to get involved, including matching elderly dogs with lonely older folks as part of its heart-melting “seniors for seniors” program.

Rocket Dog Rescue is another all-breed dog rescue organization with a mission to save animals “at the speed of light.” Learn more at one of its volunteer orientations on second Sundays of the month.

Bad Rap (www.badrap.org) stands for Bay Area Dog Lovers Responsible About Pit Bulls, a group that’s serious about reeducating the public about pits, as well as getting perfectly adoptable pits placed with loving owners. Volunteers with the group will discover the secret world of big, barrel-headed sweethearts — and their ardent admirers. Bad Rap needs volunteers who can show up on Saturdays to train pits on leash skills at Berkeley Animal Care Service.

It doesn’t take an overly sappy soul to see the appeal in puppies and kitties, but can all our rodent people please stand up? Rattie Ratz (www.rattieratz.com) is a sweet-hearted organization in Woodside that rescues rats and treats these surprisingly amenable pets with respect. The group is all about rat rescue, resources, and referrals, and needs volunteers to help with animal therapy programs, adoption, fostering, and education.

Finally, we know that some of the sweetest creatures can’t be happily held — but they can still use your help! You can lend a hand at the Marine Mammal Center (www.marinemammalcenter.org) by getting trained to find and transport stranded animals and bring them to medical centers. Wild Care also (www.wildcarebayarea.org) has plenty of volunteer opportunities to help save Bay Area wildlife — it needs folks to work the hotline call center, do outreach education, and work directly with pet hospital staff. (Hannah Tepper)

Paw bump

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Paw bump

For the past couple of years, Pawesome.net has been the Gawker of fuzzy cuddliness, collecting all the coolest, most relevant pet news onto one — yes — awesome blog. From in depth stories about Dogs of the Ninth Ward and Japanese disaster animal rescue help to peeps at intriguing and sometimes scandalous pet trends and products, Pawesome covers it all with fine feathered flair. Local BFF founders Sonia Zjawinski and Sarah Han (formerly of the Guardian) chatted with us over e-mail. 

SFBG Pawesome is very active about animal welfare — what are some of the issues you’ve covered that have meant the most to you?

Sonia Zjawinski It’s the awful stories of abuse and neglect that often go viral, but for every horrible person out there we believe there are thousands of kind, selfless people who truly care about animals. For example, last year we posted about a group of Brooklyn bartenders who got together to save an abused and sick stray puppy. A lot of people walk past animals in need and think there’s nothing they can do, but this generous group proved that it doesn’t take much to help and the reward is priceless.

Sarah Han I’m a huge advocate for getting people to adopt from shelters and rescue groups. I find it really sad that there are so many perfectly adoptable animals in shelters that are at risk of being put down because people are still buying pets from breeders and pet stores. I’m all for the ban of selling animals in pet stores in San Francisco, and everywhere else in the country. I’m also a fan of rescue groups that focus on older pet adoptions, like Muttville in San Francisco. I love senior cats and dogs because they’re usually pretty chill dudes.

SFBG Which Pawesome post is your favorite?

SZ Last year’s April Fool’s joke — we wrote that Stephen Colbert bought Cat Fancy and was rebranding the magazine as Colbert’s Cat Nation. No calls from Colbert’s people asking us to come on the show yet, though.

SFBG What are some interesting trends or story lines happening now on the pet scene?

SZ One of the most exciting areas in the pet industry is the influx of goods on Etsy. The world of toys and accessories used to be very limited, and you were stuck with ones made out of eco-unfriendly materials produced in even more eco-unfriendly countries. With Etsy, there’s an amazing collection of handmade gear crafted out of organic or sustainable materials, and made right here in the States. And it’s stuff you won’t gag at when you see it in your home.

SH I’ve noticed that people are paying more attention to what their pets are eating these days. The pet food recalls definitely got people thinking about all the crap that big commercial companies (and even some pet “health food” companies) get away with. People are also concerned with pet obesity. As our lives get busier, we get fatter and so do our pets. There’s a pet-people gym in Bernal Heights (Fit Bernal Fit) and doggy yoga classes for folks to get in shape while exercising their dogs, too.

I think we’ll be hearing about more of those kinds of services in the future, and maybe because of the off-leash dog issue that’s been raging in SF. Dog owners are feeling very threatened by the GGNRA possibly ending their off-leash privileges in outdoor spaces. I’m torn on the issue because I think dogs need and love outdoor time, but I also believe in protecting what wildlife we have left in the city. Hopefully we can come to an agreement that allows for everyone, including dogs, to enjoy the outdoors.

Fernando Di Leo, glorious bastard

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Fernando Di Leo, glorious bastard

ITALIAN CRIME CINEMA Italian cinema has a long history of innovators, but — like every other country, albeit more so — it survived commercially for decades via genre imitators. Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti, Pasolini, Bertolucci, and so on couldn’t have existed without the fiscal cushion provided by genre-feeds to the international market: first via mythological muscle man fantasies that reduced Hollywood’s Cecil B. DeMille-styled antiquity epics to more cost-effective displays of simple brawn, spear-throwing, and horse-riding over Hollywood-level stars and production values. Then via spaghetti westerns that made Clint Eastwood the star he hadn’t become on home turf, reworking a quintessentially American genre toward border-blurring maxi-minimalism.

That was the 1950s and ’60s. Fernando Di Leo began as a scenarist, contributing to myriad spaghetti westerns including Sergio Leone’s Dollars films, though he never liked the genre. (“Happily, I have a great capacity for writing incredible crap.”) He stirred controversy with early directorial efforts about female sexual frigidity and juvenile delinquency, really hitting his stride with a series of the violent crime dramas that dominated 1970s Italian commercial cinema — alongside horror films and the neverending sex comedy genre.

Often tapping the “elephant’s graveyard” of past-prime Hollywood actors who preferred to take starring or lucrative “guest star” roles in European films rather than support whippersnappers back home, these movies were made with the international market in mind. Some are even baldly imitative of The French Connection (1971), The Godfather (1972), Serpico (1973), and other influential U.S. hits of the era, to the point of unconvincingly fudging cultural and geographic compasses.

But while Di Leo’s films duly mixed veteran American actors into “Europudding” casts, his poliziotteschi exercises (he later voiced a preference for the term “noir”) were specifically Italian, with strong undercurrents of social criticism toward corrupt cops, politicians, and church officials — particularly those who’d disingenuously claim the Mafia “no longer existed.”

It certainly existed in these movies, four of which are showcased in “Fernando Di Leo: The Italian Crime Collection,” a box set representing DVD specialty label RaroVideo’s launch into the U.S. market. (It’s simultaneously releasing Fellini’s 1971 circus homage The Clowns as well.) It’s quickly apparent why this director was a professed huge influence on Quentin Tarantino, though they differ in politics (does QT have any?) and taste for verbal pyrotechnics (of which QT has arguably too much). The flamboyant tough guys played by beloved character actors, intricately internecine plots, explosions of outré violence, and vintage leisure-suited cool, however, passed from one to the other like DNA.

Caliber 9 (1972), first of the “Milieu Trilogy,” starts out as an unremarkable series of you-hit-me, I-hit-you shootings and explosions in the wake of the disappearance of $300,000 after a robbery. Primary suspicion falls on stony Ugo (Gastone Moschin, hitherto a comic actor), a bagman just out of prison who steadfastly denies that he absconded with the loot belonging to crime boss “the Americano.” But by the end every last viewer certainty has been overturned.

Mario Adorf, cast as the loudest, most obnoxious of Ugo’s mob tormentors, becomes the lead in that same year’s The Italian Connection, playing a small-time Milan pimp framed for a heroin shipment’s theft — and as a result hunted by two imported U.S. hit men. They’re sleazy career villain Howard Silva and John Ford’s towering, poker-faced fave Woody Strode, who both worked for Di Leo again. (He enjoyed repeatedly working with certain actors.) They provided the model for John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson’s scrapping double team in 1994’s Pulp Fiction.

A private-screening-room massacre at the start of 1973’s The Boss doubtless provided blueprint for the fiery climax of 2009’s Inglourious Basterds. Not that the two are otherwise related — this tale of Sicilian mob wars has a don’s university-student daughter kidnapped by rivals as revenge for that earlier act, then “rescued” by Silva’s stone-cold contract killer.

But the misogyny that surfaces fairly briefly in Caliber and Connection takes alarming precedence here: adapting to her gang-raping captors like fish to water, Rina (Antonia Santilli) proves a nymphomaniac pothead alcoholic, insatiable every which way. She’s a degrading “rich bitch” cartoon that must have horrified its few female viewers at the height of women’s lib. (No wonder Santilli abandoned her short screen career almost immediately afterward.) At least The Boss outruns that sour shit with a last lap of spectacular twistiness. A professed womanizer, Di Leo now seems like an auteur who should have left female characters the hell alone.

The RaroVideo box ends with 1976’s exceptionally stylish and perverse Rulers of the City, a.k.a. Mr. Scarface, in which a child survivor of a mob slaughter (Fassbinder regular Harry Baer) grows up to avenge himself on don Jack Palance (“Just looking at him and my asshole twitches,” an underling opines), who exercised reptilian zest decades before his exhibitionist-pushup Oscar comeback. But he’s not the only one: a Shirley Temple-bewigged chanteuse vamp (Gisela Hahn) in see-through lingerie sings about abortion just before being glimpsed in a postcoital five-way with participants including too-pretty ice-blond Al Cliver (a.k.a. Pierluigi Conti). Culminating in a foot race as clever as the automotive climaxes of Bullitt (1968) and The French Connection, this is a baroque, self-mocking melodrama you’d be hard-pressed not to love.

Di Leo ended the decade with two highlights among many lurid debtors to 1972’s Last House on the Left: Notorious To Be Twenty (1978), whose free-spirited young heroines meet a brutal fate all the more shocking for its coming out of the blue after 80-odd minutes of comic frivolity; and Madness (1980), wherein Joe Dallesandro terrorizes a bourgeoisie household. But the films Di Leo liked to make were now unfashionable in a shrunken market, Italian financiers favoring crass new local tastes for gore-horror and softcore sleaze. After two dispirited mid-1980s action films he retired, still in his early 50s. Before his 2003 death he enjoyed revived attention thanks to cult enthusiasts led by guess who. These movies all look sharp in their DVD restorations, offered English both dubbed and subtitled. (There were precious few “original language” Italian features then — everything was post-synched, into whatever required languages.) The box set’s accompanying booklet features a 2001 interview with the director in which he’s both frankly self-critical and astonishingly hubristic.

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

*Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Thurs/31. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 1. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

ONGOING

*Caliente Pier 29, The Embarcadero; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. $117-145. Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Open-ended. Teatro Zinzanni presents a new production conceived in San Francisco.

Lady Grey (in ever lower light) EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 10. Cutting Ball Theater presents the Bay Area premiere of three short plays by Will Eno.

M. Butterfly Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.custommade.org. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also April 3 and 10, 7pm). Through April 16. Custom Made Theatre presents David Henry Hwang’s award-winning play.

*Obscura: A Magic Play Exit Studio, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.sffringe.org. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 16. Christian Cagigal is back with the magical. Over the last several years, the popular Bay Area writer/performer has developed a series of dramatically structured magic shows (the most recent being the autobiographical Now and at the Hour), each a different attempt at blending expert prestidigitation with elements of narrative theater. Tightly focused and deliberately small-scale, Obscura is in some ways his most successful foray yet. In the Exit Theater’s new studio space, Cagigal (with occasional help from his audience) unfolds a series of sly Gothic stories combined with extremely clever, sometimes dementedly playful card and coin tricks—the majority a collection of favorite pieces from other magicians—all played out on a delicately managed little table augmented by overhead projection (a set-up that offers various visual opportunities, including use of title cards). Rapid-fire narration (occasionally indistinct but generally articulate) and a laid back, slightly mischievous demeanor combine here with consummate skill in an intimate and very enjoyable evening of crafty little tales. If there’s an overarching theme, it probably has something to do with human folly, the persistence of mystery, and the devil, but then any good fable involving a deck of cards probably should. (Avila)

*The Oldest Profession Brava Theater, 2781 24th St; 647-2822, www.brava.org. $10-25. Brava Theater presents a play by Paula Vogel, directed by Evren Odcikin. Who says tricks are for kids? Five elderly women of the night (Linda Ayres-Frederick, Lee Brady, Tamar Cohn, Cec Levinson, Patricia Silver) converge by day at a park bench to swap stories, cavil, and defend their turf amid a changing world and one or two last hurrahs in Brava Theater’s production of Paula Vogel’s 1988 play about sex work, aging, and class solidarity. The subject matter is ripe, but the drama feels somewhat undeveloped. Although consciously set on the cusp of the Reagan era—an era culminating now in roiling confrontations everywhere you look—this fitfully amusing if generally well-acted and enjoyable feminist drama-cum-floorshow gives only a gentle political bite, preferring the tickle and caress of heartfelt comedy centered on the seeming incongruity of streetwise matrons. As the group dwindles, each final bow comes as a sexy and/or raunchy swan song—highlights of the evening—accompanied with Old New Orleans ambience by Angela Dwyer’s jaunty upright piano. It’s a bit like Cabaret meets Going in Style, and as directed by Evren Odcikin makes for a short but sweet ride. (Avila)

Party of 2 — The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Fri, 9pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Regrets Only New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/3. New Conservatory Theatre presents a play by Paul Rudnick, directed by Andrew Nance.

7 Sins…One More Time! EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-40. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 10. James Judd’s long-running comedy hit has a return engagement.

Shopping! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.shoppingthemusical.com. $27-29. Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. A musical comedy revue about shopping by Morris Bobrow.

*Wirehead SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-50. Tues-Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3and 8pm. Through April Perfectionism’s ruthless class dimensions come to the fore in SF Playhouse’s smart, fun, and sharply staged Bay Area premiere about the super-smart posthumans of the near future, and the rest of us. A shady China-based conglomerate with a name that sounds like Sin-Tell sells a scintillating if dangerous procedure for those already well connected: a hardwire boost to the neural circuitry that gives the recipient more than an edge on the competition and something just shy of godlike powers. Two friends and colleagues in a banking firm (Craig Marker and Gabriel Marin) and their variously class-marked but equally ambitious girlfriends (Lauren Grace and Madeline H.D. Brown) are all drawn into this cyborgian gold rush, and it gets sticky in more ways than one, as meanwhile a brash local DJ named RIP (Scott Coopwood) raps sardonically over the airwaves about this latest twist in an old game. SF Playhouse’s Susi Damilano directs a charismatic cast (including a terrific Cole Alexander Smith in a related series of frenetic roles) in Matt Benjamin and Logan Brown’s culture-jamming riposte to tech-mad humanist hogwash about Progress. It gets you thinking. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Free Range Thinking Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 9. The Marsh Berkeley presents a new comedic solo show by Robert Dubac.

The Iliad Berkeley City Club, 1802 Fairview, Berk; (510) 698-4030. $12-24. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/3. Inferno Theatre Company presents an adaptation of Homer’s ancient tale.

Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Berkeley Playhouse, 2640 College; (510) 845-8542, www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $15-33. Call for dates and times. Through Sun/3. Berkeley Playhouse presents a musical fantasy based on the C.S. Lewis story.

The North Pool TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefiled, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $24-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sun/3. TheatreWorks presents a psychological thriller by Rajiv Joseph.

Not a Genuine Black Man The Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Thurs, 7:30pm. Through Thurs/31. Brian Copeland’s one-man show returns to the stage.

*Ruined Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-73. Call for dates and times. Through April 10. Berkeley Rep presents Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play about the lives of women in Africa.

Singing at the Edge of the World The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 16. The Marsh presents a one-man show by Randy Rutherford.

World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Through Sun/3. The Amazing Bubble Man extends the bubble-making celebration. 

Film Listings

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

OPENING

*The Elephant in the Living Room Or, the mountain lion in the kitchen. The gaboon viper in the garage. Americans are crazy enough without needing to keep dangerously exotic pets, but keep them they do, as director Michael Webber discovers in this surprisingly emotional documentary. The film focuses on a pair of Ohio men: the fearless, big-hearted Tim Harrison, a cop and firefighter who’s also the point person when a cast-off or escaped pet’s in a jam; and Terry Brumfield, weakened by depression and the effects of a lingering truck accident, who keeps a pair of fully-grown lions in a dilapidated cage in his junk-strewn yard. As Tim tends to his real-life superhero duties (including going incognito to an exotic pet show and purchasing the deadliest snake on offer, then taking it to a venom lab where it’s put to work saving lives), Terry worries over the continued care of his prized pets, who he sees as family members. The two men inevitably meet, and their relationship is the heart of Webber’s film, which touches on the more sensational aspects of wild-animal ownership via news reports (remember that chimpanzee who ate that woman’s face off?) while never making Terry out to be a villain. On a more selfish note, here’s hoping any puff adder habitats in my neighborhood remain securely latched. (1:43) Four Star. (Eddy)

Hop Comedy about a live-action guy tangling with an animated Easter bunny, from the same director who made Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006). (1:30) Presidio, Shattuck.

Insidious Saw (2004) and Paranormal Activity (2007) creators join forces for this PG-13 horror movie about a family whose young son is menaced by evil spirits. (1:42)

Miral Slumdog Millionaire (2008) beauty Freida Pinto stars in Julian Schnabel’s drama about an orphan girl growing up amid Israel-Palestine unrest. (1:42) Embarcadero.

*Orgasm, Inc. Liz Canner’s doc begins as she’s hired to do some editing work for a drug company in need of a loop of erotic videos to excite the women who’re testing its latest invention: a cream targeting so-called “Female Sexual Dysfunction.” As it turns out, basically everyone with a lab is frantically trying to develop a female Viagra; potential profits could rake in billions. Canner’s intrigued enough to leave the porn-editing bay and further investigate the race to scientifically calculate exactly what women need to achieve orgasm. Of course, it’s not as simple as what men need — though that doesn’t stop pharmaceutical giants from pushing potentially harmful drugs, inventors from convincing women to get invasive operations to test something called the “Orgasmatron” (note: Woody Allen not included), surgeons from pimping scary “genital reconstruction surgery,” or TV doctors from defining what a “normal” woman’s sex life should be. San Francisco’s own Dr. Carol Queen is among the inspiring experts interviewed to help cut through all the big-money bullshit; she’ll be part of a panel discussion after the film’s Monday, April 4, 6:45 p.m. show. Director Canner will appear Saturday, April 2, from 8:30-9:30 p.m. at Good Vibrations (www.goodvibes.com) on Valencia Street. (1:19) Roxie. (Eddy)

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

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

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

Desert Flower Based on the best-selling “model memoir,” Desert Flower spins the remarkable tale of Waris Dirie, who fled across the Somalian desert as a young teen to escape an arranged marriage. The marriage was not the most cruel tradition to be imposed on the girl, however — as a toddler, she’d been circumcised, and the crude operation (designed to keep her “pure” until marriage) caused her pain for years after. Waris (played as an adult by Ethiopian supermodel Liya Kebede) eventually makes her way to London, where she’s discovered by a top photographer (Timothy Spall) while mopping floors at a fast-food restaurant. Part culture-clash drama, part girl-power success story (Waris befriends a spunky Topshop clerk, played by Sally Hawkins), Desert Flower is directed (by Sherry Hormann) with the heavy-handedness of a TV movie. But the film does a powerful job drawing attention to a subject not often discussed — despite the efforts of activists like the real-life Dirie, female circumcision still affects some 6,000 girls a day — and for that it cannot be faulted. (2:00) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mars Needs Moms (1:28) 1000 Van Ness.

The Music Never Stopped Based on a Dr. Oliver Sacks case history, this neurological wild-ride focuses on the generation gap in extremis: after a ’60s teenage son rebels against his parents, staying incommunicado in the interim, he resurfaces over two decades later as a disoriented, possibly homeless patient they’re called to identify at a hospital. He’s had a benign brain tumor removed — yet it had grown so large before surgery that it damaged gray-matter areas including those handling recent memory. As a result, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci) relates to Mr. (J.K. Simmons) and Mrs. Sawyer (a terrific but underutilized Cara Seymour) as if they were still his upstate NY domestic keepers. A radiant Julia Ormond plays the music therapist who convinces them Gabe might respond to music, which had helped serially glue and sever the father-son bond decades earlier. This is an inherently fascinating psychological study. But director Jim Kohlberg and his scenarists render it placidly inspirational, with too little character nuance, scant period atmosphere (somewhat due to budgetary limitations), and weak homage to the Grateful Dead (ditto) rendering an unusual narrative oddly formulaic. (1:45) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

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

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

*Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune When Phil Ochs was at his peak, he was one of the finest polemical folksingers to come out of the ’60s, and when he tumbled from those heights, the fall was terrible: he lost more than friends and fame — he appeared to completely lose himself, to substance abuse and mental illness. Director Kenneth Bowser does the singer-songwriter justice with this documentary, threading to-the-ramparts tunes like “Hazard, Kentucky,” questioning numbers a la “Love Me, I’m a Liberal,” and achingly beautiful songs such as “Jim Dean of Indiana” throughout political events of the day, scenes from a protest movement that were inextricably entangled with Ochs’ oeuvre. Along with the many clips of Ochs in performance are interviews with the artist’s many friends, cohorts, and fans including Van Dyke Parks (who is becoming a Thurston Moore-like go-to for a generation’s damaged voices), brother (and music archivist) Michael Ochs, Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Peter Yarrow, Billy Bragg, daughter Meegan Ochs, and Ed Sanders. Expect an education in Ochs’ art, but also, perhaps more importantly (to the singer-songwriter), a glimpse into a time and place that both fed, fueled and bestowed meaning on his songs. Bowser succeeds in paints the portrait of a performer that was both idealistic and careerist, driven to fight injustice yet also propelled to explore new creative avenues (like recording with local musicians in Africa). Did Ochs fall — by way of drink, drugs, and mental illness — or was he pushed, as the artist claimed when he accused CIA thugs of destroying his vocal chords? The filmmaker steps back respectfully, allowing us to draw our own conclusion about this life lived fully. (1:38) Balboa, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? There are plenty of docs out there detailing the slow decline of the human race — self-inflicted decline, that is, thanks to our disregard for long-term environmental damage caused by our greedy, polluting ways. But unlike the recent Carbon Nation (2010), for example, which took a broad look at renewable energy, Queen of the Sun studies a far more specific issue. A tiny one, in fact: the size of a honeybee. Of course, as the movie points out, this honeybee-sized disaster is actually a global disaster in the making. The latest from Taggart Siegel, director of 2005’s The Real Dirt on Farmer John, investigates the global bee crisis, talking to numerous beekeepers and scientists to discover why bees are disappearing, how their mass-vanishing act affects the food chain, and what (if anything) can be done before it’s too late. Creative animation and quite a few characters (including a shirtless French guy who tickles his hive with his graying mustache) keep Queen of the Bees from feeling too much like a lecture; in fact, it’s quite an eye-opener. You’ll think twice before ever swatting another bee. (1:23) Roxie. (Eddy)

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

Red Riding Hood In order to appreciate a movie like Red Riding Hood, you have to be familiar with the teen supernatural romance genre. Catherine Hardwicke’s sexy reinterpretation of the fairy tale is not high art: the script is often laughable, the acting flat, and the werewolf CGI embarrassing. But there’s something undeniably enjoyable about Red Riding Hood, especially in the wake of the duller, more sexually repressed Twilight series. Amanda Seyfried stars as Valerie, a young woman living in a village of werewolf cannon fodder. She’s torn between love and duty — or, more accurately, Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and Henry (Max Irons). Meanwhile, a vicious werewolf hunter (Gary Oldman) has arrived to overact his way into killing the beast. It’s a silly story with plenty of hamfisted references to the original fairy tale, but if you can embrace the camp factor and the striking visuals, Red Riding Hood is actually quite fun. Though, to be fair, it might help if you suffer through Beastly first. (1:38) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Peitzman)

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

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

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

REP PICKS

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead Joe Cross appears in person for a special screening of his weight-loss documentary; visit www.balboamovies.com for details and advance tickets. (1:40) Balboa.

*Some Girls Do, The President’s Analyst This last double bill in the Vortex Room’s March of vintage espionage offers something silly and something sublime. The former is journeyman U.K. director Ralph Thomas’ 1969 feature, a slick 007 knockoff with Richard Johnson — a homelier Sean Connery lookalike — being pursued far and wide by foes of “the world’s first supersonic airliner.” Plus a lot of sexy girls, natch, including Ohio-born starlet Synde Rome — whose stunning filmography would include roles opposite Marty Feldman, David Bowie, and The Pumaman (1960), not to mention a Polanski movie — as miniskirted twit “Flicky,” and Israeli bombshell Daliah Lavi. The semi-spoof no doubt taxed the finances of Rank Organization, that British studio remembered for its muscleman-striking-gong logo, which had missed out on the Bond bonanza. It’s enjoyably dated disposable entertainment. By contrast, 1967’s The President’s Analyst by writer-director Theodore J. Flicker, whose non-promotion to the status of Woody Allen or Mel Brooks deprived us of unimaginable comic gold, is possibly the greatest of all 1960s movie satires. A marvelous James Coburn plays the title figure, whose privileged access to the Oval Office results in tracking by assassins worried he “knows too much,” to the free world’s peril. Parodying everything from spy flicks to emergent hippie culture, it’s an undervalued classic you’ll remain unacquainted with at your peril. Vortex Room. (Harvey)

 

On the Cheap Listings

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

WEDNESDAY 30

Decent Exposure Project One, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 938-7173, www.p1sf.com. 6pm, free. Whether you make stuff or just like other people’s cool art-things, everyone is welcome to take part in this art swap and sale. An exciting list of local participating artists are highlighted including Matt Furie, Sam Snowden, and Audrey Erickson, as well as a slew of other talents, so support local art and stock up on zines, prints, stickers and other goodies.

FRIDAY 1

Jay Howell zine release party 111 Minna, SF; www.punksgitcut.blogspot.com, www.111minnagallery.com. 5pm, free. Celebrate the release of multi-talented California-based artist Jay Howell’s new zine Punks Git Cut at a party thrown by Unpiano Books and Last Gasp. A ton of zines, original Howell t-shirts, and other fun surprises will be available for purchase.

Lawrence Waters solo show Station 40, 3030B Valencia, SF; www.station40events.wordpress.com. 7-10pm, free. Tonight, attend Lawrence Waters first solo art show, which happens to double as a fundraising event for his tattoo business. All artwork will be priced to meet anyone’s means, so come on out and help support this pillar of the tattoo community.

St. Stupid’s Day parade Meet at Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero and Market, SF; www.saintstupid.com. 12-2pm, free. Get stupid today. Whether that means dressing up in a silly and satirical costume or getting hyphy like Mac Dre is up to you, but craziness is always more fun – and slightly less creepy – when done en masse. Meet at Justin Herman Plaza and parade around to such “stupid” places as the Federal Reserve and The Tomb of the Stupid (a.k.a. 101 California, the home of several financial institutions). Check the admittedly flaky event website for further – er, confusing – details.

SATURDAY 2

Free-cycle for the planet Lake Merritt Amphitheater, Lakeshore and Grand, Oakl.; www.eastbayfreeschool.wikia.com. Noon-4pm, free. East Bay Hella Free Day is the ultimate swap meet where everything is, well, hella free. Bring whatever you want to get rid of and come get your free on. Who knows what treasures you’ll find! Plus, you’re helping to keep good, usable stuff out of landfills.

Rise Japan Gallery Heist, 679 Geary, SF; www.galleryheist.com, www.kokorostudio.com. 7pm-midnight, free. In response to the devastating disaster that has struck Japan, Heist Gallery is teaming up with their neighbors Kokoro Studios for a salon-style art exhibition and a reasonably priced sale – everything will be priced at $100 or less – where 100 percent of the proceeds will go to Give2Asia, a relief fund for Japan. Artists donating their work to the cause include Akko Terasawa, Ryan McGinness, Superdeux, and more, with artists being added daily.

Hard French El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.hardfrench.com. 3-8pm, $7 including free BBQ from 3-5pm. Everyone’s favorite queer soul dance party made some improvements to this month’s installment worth noting. Oh, the usual sweet sounds of yesteryear, artery-clogging BBQ, and babe-a-licious go-go dancers will remain the same, however to reduce that dreaded line down the block, the good folks at El Rio have decided to open the gates of soul an hour early. Now you may get yourself situated well in time for the music to begin at 3pm. They have also added a second bar out back and included a $1 coat check. Smart!

SUNDAY 3

Cesar Chavez community health celebration Healthy Hearts Youth Market Garden at the Dover Street Park, 57th St. and Dover, Oakl.; www.phatbeetsproduce.com. Noon-3pm, free. Celebrate the legacy of Caesar Chavez, the American farm worker and activist who helped found the National Farm Workers Association, at this day-long celebration featuring speakers, Aztec ceremonies, a mural installation, cooking demonstrations, and much more. This event is organized by Phat Beets, a non-profit connecting urban communities to local and healthy produce.

TUESDAY 5

Bad ass Ben Thompson in town The Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; 7:30pm, free. Ben Thompson, creator of the website Badass of the Week, a guide to the most epic heroes the world has ever known – including Hideaki Akaiwa, the dude who recently scuba-dived through the tsunami in Japan to save his wife and mother – will be presenting his new book Badass: The Birth of a Legend and telling even more stories of incredible ass-kickery. Oh yeah, and there will be free food and wine. Who’s down?

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5 Things: March 29, 2011

Andrew Lam
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>>EYES OUT FOR LIL’ ONES What does a San Francisco look like where everyone is safe to ride their bikes? Well, a lot like next Thursday, April 7, we hope. That’s the day that 3,000 (at least) schoolkiddos will be hopping their two-wheelers to over 40 different schools. The San Francisco Safe Routes to School program is still looking for volunteer bike chaperones and mechanics to help families for the day, who wants to put on their teacher’s hat?


Betabrand’s Greed Pants: but one of many ways to support your local manufacturers

>>MADE YOU LOOK What do a Dogpatch bike bag factory, a fancy men’s shirt maker, SF’s biggest beer brand, and a socially-conscious print shop have in common? They’re all members of SFMade, a business association comprised of companies that manufacture their goodies inside city limits. Need to know more? The NYT gave them a sterling writeup in the op-ed section this past Sunday. 

>>SKOOL SOMEBODY East Bay Free Skool‘s starting a newsletter for adherents to its circus skill-sharing-Spanish learning-urban studying sessions for the shallow-pocketed, yet deserving-of-education masses. And the skool longs for your voice to be represented within its Xeroxed reams! Holler at eastbayfs@gmail.com if you’ve got a tale to tell from a class you’ve gone to/taught at, submissions due by Friday, April 1. 

>>LISTEN UP SLACKERS SF’s own Jenny Blake, a Career Development Program Manager at Google – something like an internal cheerleader and guidance counselor for the Google masses – launches her book today, Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want. Check out her blog to glower at the hundreds of pics in which Blake looks consistently clean and well-fed (something many of us post-collegiate-types still strive for), or simply check out her promo video – it’s filmed in front of the Bay Bridge, and there are some nice birds in the background. 

>>GETTING STOKED FOR TOMORROW’S PET ISSUE After our slow loris scare yesterday we’re all on edge of the abuse of animals in adorable videos, but this one seems okay:

Dogboarding from DANIELS on Vimeo.

Editorial: Toward progressive pension reform

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It’s entirely possible that San Francisco voters will see three different pension proposals on the November ballot. Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who failed to pass a harsh pension-reform plan last year, is determined to try again. A working group headed by investment banker Warren Hellman is working on a plan, and Sup. Sean Elsbernd expects some version of that to move forward. And organized labor may do its own initiative.

But before any of those efforts are finalized, it’s worth understanding where this so-called crisis originated — and how to fashion a progressive approach to the issue.

The idea behind San Francisco’s fixed-benefit system is simple. Every year, the city and it’s employees contribute to a pension fund, which is invested under strict rules, and when an employee retires, he or she gets paid a predetermined amount out of that fund. Until the financial system imploded and the stock market crashed in 2008, San Francisco’s pension fund was solid. The reserves more than covered expected payouts. In fact, the fund was so healthy, and growing so fast, that some years the city didn’t have to contribute anything at all.

Under Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, the city used its flush pension fund as a way to avoid tough decisions on employee pay. Instead of giving raises, for example, the city offered to pick up the contributions some workers were making to the fund (which would cost the city nothing as long as the stock market kept booming).

Now things aren’t so rosy, and the city’s having to put hundreds of millions a year into the fund to keep it solvent. For the record, that’s not the fault of the city employees who negotiated their contracts in good faith — and who weren’t players in the Wall Street greed and corruption that wrecked the economy. In fact, if the city had continued paying into the fund in good times, the costs would be far lower now.

The various pension proposals look at a wide range of approaches, but in essence, both Adachi and Hellman’s group are going to ask city employees to put more of their paychecks into the pension fund. That’s the equivalent of a pay cut — they’ll be taking home less money for the same benefits they currently receive.

It’s true that city employees now get better pensions than most private-sector workers (a result in part of the fact that corporate American, aided by Congress, shifted most retirement plans to the 401(k) model, which puts all the risk on the employees and leaves employers largely off the hook). And there’s some horrendous abuse, particularly by senior police and fire staffers (former Police Chief Heather Fong is getting $229,000 a year for life, which is ridiculous).

It’s also true that the average midlevel city worker gets a pension between $20,000 and $24,000 a year.

Labor has already given back some $500 million in concessions over the past four years (and most of that money has come from lower and midlevel workers) City programs and services have been cut, by most estimates, by close to $1 billion.

The city has raised only $90 million in new taxes.

The bottom line is that over the past four years, the rich and big corporations, which are radically undertaxed in our society, have given back almost nothing to the city, have felt almost no pain. Unless pension reform takes that into account, it won’t be fair or acceptable.

The first element of any new pension plan should be progressive in scale: capping pensions at, say, $100,000 (or lower); eliminating pension spiking; and requiring high-paid employees to contribute a higher percentage to the fund than low-paid workers would make sense. Policy makers should treat this as what it is, a pay cut — and any cuts should fall disproportionately on those who are more able to afford it. Requiring the city to put its share into the fund every year, even if the market is booming, would help ease the pain in bad years.

But there should be no pension reform without tax reform. If San Francisco is going to ask its employees to do more to balance the local budget — and that probably has to happen — then city officials should be willing to ask the richest residents and businesses to share the pain too.

 

Appetite: 3 reasons 2011 Whiskies of the World worked

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: 3 reasons 2011 Whiskies of the World worked

There’s always fine pours to be had at the (12th) annual Whiskies of the World, a.k.a. WoW, particularly from smaller distilleries. Bourbon, rye, scotch, Japanese and Irish whiskies all flow freely. As I said in my coverage last year when it was held at Hotel Nikko, the downside was tight, body-to-body crowds. This year, that was remedied in the still packed but ample space of the SF Belle. 

Classes and panels are a highlight at WoW, though this year there was some confusion about where they were held since most were actually on a neighboring boat. But the riverboat setting with cigar pairings, smoking deck, Bushmills rousing pipe and drum band, and convivial spirit set it apart among whisky events. 

1. Whiskies on a boat

A little bit Reno and a whole lot of Mississippi, Hornblower’s SF Belle evokes a classic riverboat with pleasingly dated kitsch in casino-reminiscent carpeting and gold brass. As our docked home for the 5-10:30pm event, climbing aboard for dinner and whiskies was transporting. The dispersion of buffet dinner on the bottom floor, spirits on second and third levels, and cigar bar on the top deck, allowed for proper flow and plenty of diversions. Though walking up and down steep steps on a gently rocking boat while whisk(e)y tasting could be hazardous (and was for some), it certainly was great exercise. 

2. Small, craft distillers 

Whiskyfest may have more whiskies and all those special pours (like 30 and 40 year old scotches during VIP hour), but WoW showcases (alongside bigger names) smaller distillers that may not be able to afford a booth at Whiskyfest, like Corsair out of Nashville, or Bend Distillery in Bend, OR. This year I noticed newer Northern California distillers making white whisky or rye, like Petaluma-based Wylie Howell Spirits or Fog’s End near Salinas. Award-winners like Copper Fox from Virginia had unaged versions of their rye and single malt alongside the aged product. Distillers showcased latest releases of established product. As ever, I take pleasure in sipping the latest from local treasures like Old World Spirits (try their rye or brandy!), or returning to Prichard’s for delightful rum or double barrel bourbon. 

There were a few fine cocktails on hand during the event from the likes of the Bon Vivants and Rye on the Road. Jon Gasparini of Rye served his frothy, bright Royal Warrant with a peaty punch from Laphroaig 10yr scotch, balanced by Earl Grey syrup, lemon, egg whites, kumquat bitters and bergamot zest.  

3. Cigars on the top deck

Here’s the magic you can’t get at any indoor drinking event in California: on the riverboat’s top deck was an open air cigar bar replete with stunning views of the water, Bay Bridge and city skyline. Sure, cigars ran out early (complimentary, thanks to Rocky Patel — though I fear some attendees did not play fair, as I saw guys walking by with six in their coat pocket). But some of us shared, reveling in the crisp night air and twinkling lights before heading back for more whisk(e)y tasting. 

–Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

 

A creative way out of the state budget mess

Zelda Bronstein
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A creative way out of the state budget mess

With no Republicans willing at this point to go along with the governor’s June election plans, Jerry Brown has quite the problem on his hands. There never really was a Plan B. And now he’s got to find one, fast. He’s already made the cuts, and they’re awful. He’s not going to get his own party to go along with much more. But it’s legally dubious whether he can put taxes on a special election ballot without any Republican support, and he clearly doesn’t want to.


So what’s the best option? Well, the deep thinkers over at CalBuzz have a brilliant scheme. The idea: Pass an all-cuts budget, a devastating, ugly, puke-inducing thing — then


gather signatures to place that on the November ballot, with a provision that if the measure fails the cuts will not occur because the 2009 taxes and fees will be re-instated for five years. As a practical matter, cuts can be delayed to occur after November. And costs can be shifted to local government for local responsibilities whether the measure wins or loses.


Then let Grover Norquist, Jon Fleischman, radio heads John and Ken and the rest of their not-our-problem cadre be forced to argue for the budget ballot measure while Democrats and labor argue against it.


It’s much easier to get a vote against something in California — particularly when that something contains provisions that nobody wants. A No vote means Yes on taxes and No on cuts.


Man, why aren’t these guys running for office?


 


5 Things: March 24, 2011

Andrew Lam
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>>BEES ARE BACK IN TOWN On March 24, Hayes Valley Farm welcomes back the bees. Hives previously kept at the urban farm were wiped out by a mysterious pesticide sabotage, but head beekeeper Karen Peteros, co-founder of San Francisco Bee-Cause, has stayed busy bringing the pollinators back. Tonight’s oddly matched Return of the Bees event at the Korean American Community Center will feature a discussion about the new hives, as well as a meet-and-greet with San Francisco Sups. Jane Kim (D-6) and Scott Wiener (D-8) and Ross Mirkarimi (D-5). Catching the buzz of urban farming politics? Become a budding apiarist by signing up for an urban beekeeping workshop.

>>A NEW KIND OF NINJA  A recent New York Times editorial by 24-year-old Matthew Klein started out by drawing a parallel between Western youth and those young people in the Arab world who keep fomenting uprisings. “We all enjoy speculating about which Arab regime will be toppled next, but maybe we should  be looking closer to home. High unemployment? Check. Out-of-touch elites? Check. Frustrated young people?” he wrote. “About one-fourth of Egyptian workers under 25 are unemployed, a statistic that is often cited as a reason for the revolution there. In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January an official unemployment rate of 21 percent for workers ages 16 to 24.” What all these unemployed young’uns do with all their free time? Apparently, they re-imagine themselves as ninjas on YouTube.

>>GENDER MYSTIC Didik Nini Thowok, a popular dancer, choreographer and comedian from Indonesia, will be in San Francisco April 21 through 24. According to a post on the Asian Art Museum website, “Didik is one of the few remaining Indonesian dancers today who explores transgender culture and its historical connection with mystical practices in Indonesia.” Didik will give a short talk about his creative process and a dance performance, followed by audience Q&A, on Saturday, April 23 at the Asian Art Museum. The talk is free with museum admission. 

You know your spring closet is begging for this Dry Bones “Hep Cat” button-down from Self Edge. Buy it Saturday AND help out communities in Japan? Me-yow. 

>>LAND OF THE RISING CREDIT CARD BILL Bust out those pocketbooks, cause it’s time to lend a hand across the Pacific. Local retailers like Valencia Corridor holder-downers Five and Diamond, Self Edge, and The Summit are among those participating in Saturday’s worldwide Shop For Japan event. So open up that studded hand-tooled leather clutch, dive into the pocket of your artisan Japanese jeans, indulge your soy mocha addiction — whatever, just do it to it, moneybags.

>>UGLY DOG, PRETTY CAUSE Can’t hardly wait for this summer’s Petaluma Sonoma-Marin Fair ugliest dog contest? The O.G. ugly dog pagaent has spawned its share of imitation events and Associated Press kowtows, and now there’s a kooky little documentary about the bonkers owners that parade their boxers with underbites and Chinese crested with… well, the typical Chinese crested attributes, with a little extra wartage and askew tounge thrown into the mix. Assuage your barely contained anticipation with tonight’s Worst in Show screening in Berkeley. Bonus: half of your ticket price goes to help out East Bay furry friends! That’s enough to make us wanna grab some fuzzy hips and f’in conga:

Appetite: Cynar buzz… the next Fernet?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Cynar buzz… the next Fernet?

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but Cynar, a classic Italian bitter (that works as both aperitif and digestif), is taking over your local cocktail bars. Otherwise remembered as the artichoke liqueur (among the 13 total herbs and plants that go into it), its label stands out with a green artichoke over a red background.

But don’t expect Cynar to actually taste like artichokes. It does not. Compared more often to Fernet Branca, it’s in that amaro family, most commonly drunk in Europe straight, on the rocks, with a splash of soda or even orange juice. It’s bitter just like other amari greats, with an elusive, herbal richness.

Cynar really makes a drink like the Kentucky Bubble Bath at LA’s Library Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel. Without the gently bitter tinge Cynar imbues, it could easily have been a sweet and soapy bourbon/lavender cocktail. Or here in SF at The Hideout speakeasy in Dalva, Cynar is a stimulating layer in the appetite-inducing Nobody’s Dirty Business: Batavia Arrack, Bonal, Maraschino liqueur, lime, and Cynar, topped with Prosecco.

Though a European classic since released in the 1950s, Cynar has been growing in popularity in US cocktail bars the last couple years, lately reaching a fever pitch. After I decided to comment on the trend, I received an email from the USBG about an upcoming bartenders cocktail contest where Cynar is the base ingredient. No doubt about it, the “artichoke liqueur” has arrived when it has a seminar and bartender showdown surrounding it.

Try a shot of Cynar or behold it adding intriguing layers to your next cocktail.

–Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

5 Things: March 23, 2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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5 Things: March 23, 2011

>>PILLOW TALK “Luxury-tech” home furnishings line DQtrs is releasing a really clever collection of limited edition tapestry wall hangings and pillows that links ancient Greco-Roman imagery and Sputnik-era space age fantasies. (Cue the gorgeous Apollo jokes.) Catch the launch tomorrow (3/24) at nifty Hayes Valley store Propeller, 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Plus: Food trucks!

>> SAFETY IN BURGERS? Thai didn’t fly, French didn’t fry, and now, after months of pondering grungy vacant windows, Greenburger’s burger joint has opened at 518 Haight Street. The latest entrant in this ill-fated spot, which looks out onto views of a Muni stop and Toronado street ruckus, is couple-run operation specializing in beef and veggie burgers, sweet potato fries and burger-y sides, milkshakes, salads, and so on, all with a greenish (grass fed, locally sourced, yadda, yadda, yadda) cast. The street has seen its share of flux lately — Pandora’s trunk, gone; Burger Joint, gone; RNM gone — so let’s hope that “sustainable” burgers are the elusive thing that Lower Haightians have been waiting for

>>CLAM-A-RAMA PART I This week’s issue of the Guardian captures the latest wave of Bay Area garage rock, with special attention to what makes it unique and even innovative. When she isn’t rocking the mic with Shannon and the Clams, current Guardian cover star Shannon Shaw is trading vocals with Hunx (a.k.a. Seth Bogart). The most recent addition to Hunx’s colorful music videos, directed by longtime collaborator Justin Kelly, “Too Young to Be in Love” provides an alternate, uptempo version of the title track on the group’s new album. Take a fateful trip to an endangered Coney Island and ride the Cyclone of love with Hunx, Shaw, and a fickle cutie. (Keep an eye out for a cameo by director Kelly — whose editing creates all kinds of architectural rhymes — at the very end.)

>>CLAM-A-RAMA PART II On the subject of Shaw, two YouTube preview clips showcase songs from Shannon and the Clams’ new album Sleep Talk, as well as amazing shots of the band by local photographer (and 2007 Guardian “Flaming Creator” honoree) Keith Aguiar. “The Cult Song” starts out with a harmonic reference to Tod Browning’s Freaks that doubles as a a nod to the Ramones before making a break from mind control. And then there’s Sleep Talk‘s hair-raising title track, which finds Shaw at her most sultry and powerful.

>>YOUCOLLAGE Youtube musical mosaic genius Kutiman just released another stunner …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIl4LkHYRkg

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