Media

Northern promises

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Northern promises

On the Road (Walter Salles, US/France/UK/Brazil, 2012) Walter Salles (2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries) engages Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera to adapt Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic; it’s translated to the screen in a streamlined version, albeit one rife with parties, drugs, jazz, danger, reckless driving, sex, philosophical conversations, soul-searching, and “kicks” galore. Brit Sam Riley (2007’s Control) plays Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise, observing (and scribbling down) his gritty adventures as they unfold. Most of those adventures come courtesy of charismatic, freewheeling Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund of 2010’s Tron: Legacy), who blows in and out of Sal’s life (and a lot of other people’s lives, too, including wives played by Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). Beautifully shot, with careful attention to period detail and reverential treatment of the Beat ethos, the film is an admirable effort but a little too shapeless, maybe simply due to the peripatetic nature of its iconic source material, to be completely satisfying. Among the performances, erstwhile teen dream Stewart is an uninhibited standout. Thu/4, 6:30 and 6:45pm, Smith Rafael. (Cheryl Eddy)

Road North (Mika Kaurismäki, Finland) Mika Kaurismäki’s films are generally much more broadly accessible than the dryly minimalist ones of his brother Aki, yet the latter has by far the larger international audience. That might change a bit with this likable seriocomic road trip. Emotionally recessive concert pianist Timo (Samuli Edelmann) is less than delighted one day to find an uninvited guest slumped outside his apartment: the father who abandoned him 30-odd years earlier. Far from having improved himself in the interim, Leo (Vesa-Matti Loiri) is a corpulent slob, convenience store robber, and car thief. But he is insistent in dragging his son on a journey whose full purpose he won’t reveal until its end. Actually, you can guess where it’s headed — but getting there is full of surprises, some touching and some very funny. Fri/5, 9pm, Smith Rafael; Sun/7, 6pm, Sequoia. (Dennis Harvey)

Fat Kid Rules the World (Matthew Lillard, US) It really does suck to be Troy (Jacob Wysocki from 2011’s Terri). An XXL-sized high schooler, he’s invisible to his peers, derided by his little brother (Dylan Arnold), and has lived in general domestic misery since the death of his beloved mother under the heavy-handed rule of his well-meaning but humorless ex-military dad (Billy Campbell). His only friends are online gamers, his only girlfriends the imaginary kind. But all that begins to change when chance throws him across the path of notorious local hell raiser Marcus (Matt O’Leary), who’s been expelled from school, has left the band he fronts, and is equal parts rebel hero to druggy, lyin’ mess. But he randomly decrees Troy is cool, and his new drummer. Even if he’s just being used, Troy’s world is headed for some big changes. Actor Matthew Lillard’s feature directorial debut, based on K.L. Going’s graphic novel, is familiar stuff in outline but a delight in execution, as it trades the usual teen-comedy crudities (a few gratuitous joke fantasy sequences aside) for something more heartfelt and restrained, while still funny. O’Leary from last year’s overlooked Natural Selection is flamboyantly terrific, while on the opposite end of the acting scale Campbell makes repressed emotion count for a lot — he has one wordless moment at a hospital that just might bring you to the tears his character refuses to spill. Sat/6, 3pm, Sequoia; Oct. 11, 7pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Central Park Five (Ken Burns, US) Acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns takes on the 1989 rape case that shocked and divided a New York City already overwhelmed by racially-charged violence. The initial crime was horrible enough — a female jogger was brutally assaulted in Central Park — but what happened after was also awful: cops and prosecutors, none of whom agreed to appear in the film, swooped in on a group of African American and Latino teenagers who had been making mischief in the vicinity (NYC’s hysterical media dubbed the acts “wilding,” a term that became forever associated with the event). Just 14 to 16 years old, the boys were questioned for hours and intimidated into giving false, damning confessions. Already guilty in the court of public opinion, the accused were convicted in trials — only to see their convictions vacated years after they’d served their time, when the real assailant was finally identified. Using archival news footage (in one clip, Gov. Mario Cuomo calls the crime “the ultimate shriek of alarm that says none of us are safe”) and contemporary, emotional interviews with the Five, Burns crafts a fascinating study of a crime that ran away with itself, in an environment that encouraged it, leaving lives beyond just the jogger’s devastated in the process. Sat/6, 3:30pm, Smith Rafael; Mon/8, 3:15pm, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Rebels with a Cause (Nancy Kelly, US) The huge string of parklands that have made Marin County a jewel of preserved California coastline might easily have become wall-to-wall development — just like the Peninsula — if not for the stubborn conservationists whose efforts are profiled in Nancy Kelly’s documentary. From Congressman Clem Miller — who died in a plane crash just after his Point Reyes National Seashore bill became a reality — to housewife Amy Meyer, who began championing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area because she “needed a project” to keep busy once her kids entered school, they’re testaments to the ability of citizen activism to arrest the seemingly unstoppable forces of money, power and political influence. Theirs is a hidden history of the Bay Area, and of what didn’t come to pass — numerous marinas, subdivisions, and other developments that would have made San Francisco and its surrounds into another Los Angeles. Sat/6, 6:15pm, Sequoia; Tue/9, 4pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Sessions (Ben Lewin, US) Polio has long since paralyzed the body of Berkeley poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) from the neck down. Of course his mind is free to roam — but it often roams south of the personal equator, where he hasn’t had the same opportunities as able-bodied people. Thus he enlists the services of Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a professional sex surrogate, to lose his virginity at last. Based on the real-life figures’ experiences, this drama by Australian polio survivor Ben Lewin was a big hit at Sundance this year (then titled The Surrogate), and it’s not hard to see why: this is one of those rare inspirational feel-good stories that doesn’t pander and earns its tears with honest emotional toil. Hawkes is always arresting, but Hunt hasn’t been this good in a long time, and William H. Macy is pure pleasure as a sympathetic priest put in numerous awkward positions with the Lord by Mark’s very down-to-Earth questions and confessions. Sat/6, 7pm, Smith Rafael; Sun/7, noon, Sequoia. (Harvey)

Flicker (Patrik Eklund, Sweden) The provincial HQ of behind-the-times, inept telecommunications company Unicom is locus to a whole bunch of weirdness during the eventful work week chronicled by Swedish writer-director Patrik Eklund’s first feature. To wit: sterility by electrocution, tarantula therapy, grade-school performances of Frankenstein, Ted Danson fixations, workplace application of dunce caps, blind dates, domestic terrorism cults, and scented candle making. If you only see one Scandinavian comedy this year, make it Klown. If you only see two, however, this is definitely the other one. It’s a goofy, lightly surreal delight. Sat/6, 9pm, Smith Rafael; Mon/8, 3:15pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Jayne Mansfield’s Car (Billy Bob Thornton, US) Billy Bob Thornton’s first directing gig in over a decade is an ensemble piece set in small-town 1969 Alabama — like every U.S. town at the time, a hotbed of generational conflict over the Vietnam War and the generally changin’ times. Particularly defining that gap is the squabbling relationship between hawkish patriarch Jim Caldwell (Robert Duvall) and youngest son Carroll (Kevin Bacon), who — though a World War II veteran, like brother Skip (Thornton) — has appointed himself a sort of elder to the local hippie population. That alone is enough to set Jim’s teeth on edge; he’s put in an even crustier mood upon hearing that his ex-wife has died, and her corpse is being brought back from England by the new family (John Hurt, Ray Stevenson, Frances O’Connor) she’d acquired after leaving him. The awkward meeting between two very different clans quickly thaws in various ways, however, some sexual, some comradely. Dismissed as a garrulous mess in its other festival showings to date, this Car is indeed one rusty, leaky, wayward vehicle at times, with some forced situations and way too much speechifying in the director’s script (co-written with Tom Epperson). But the thematically over ambitious, structurally clumsy movie is watchable nonetheless, with some real strengths: most notably strong performances (especially Thornton’s own) and a real feel for a particular high-Southern Brahmin milieu that hasn’t changed much more in the last 40 years than it did in the prior 40. Thornton will receive the MVFF Award and be interviewed onstage at the film’s screening. Sun/7, 6:30pm, Smith Rafael; Oct. 14, 5pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Ricky on Leacock (Jane Weiner, France/US) Shot over the last 40 years, since she was her subject’s student, Jane Weiner’s film about globe trotting director-cinematographer Richard Leacock is a fond tribute that pays due respect to the latter’s innovations in the documentary form. Dismayed by the lack of spontaneity that cumbersome equipment forced on the genre, he began devising a series of lightweight, synch-sound cameras that could unobtrusively travel with and capture events as they occurred. While his own mostly TV-targeted fruits of that labor are relatively little-known today, their impact on nonfiction cinema was enormous — and Leacock, who died last year at 89, was clearly charming company. Sun/7, 7pm, Smith Rafael; Mon/8, 9:15pm, 142 Throckmorton. (Harvey)

In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo, Korea) This latest bit of gamesmanship from South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo (2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors) has Isabelle Huppert playing three Frenchwomen named Anne visiting the same Korean beachside community under different circumstances in three separate but wryly overlapping stories. In the first, she’s a film director whose presence induces inapt overtures from both her married colleague-host and a strapping young lifeguard. In the more farcical second, she’s a horny spouse herself, married to an absent Korean man; in the third, a woman whose husband has run away with a Korean woman. The same actors as well as variations on the same characters and situations appear in each section, their rejiggered intersections poking fun at Koreans’ attitudes toward foreigners, among other topics. Airy and amusing, In Another Country is a playful divertissement that’s shiny as a bubble, and leaves about as much of a permanent impression. Tue/9, 4:15pm, Sequoia; Oct. 12, 9:45pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

To Kill A Beaver (Jan Jakub Kolski, Poland) Furtive, paranoid, solitary Eryk (Eryk Lubos) returns from places unknown to prepare his dilapidated farmhouse for a mission that, for a long time, remains equally unclear. Veteran Polish director Jan Jakub Kolski’s enigmatic drama takes its time unfolding the mysteries of Eryk’s traumatic past, unstable present, and future purpose. He’s all suspicion when he finds local teen Bezi (Agnieszka Pawelkiewicz) trespassing on his property, but her brazen come-on and hidden vulnerabilities chip away at his ample defenses. This intricate character study in the guise of a thriller puzzle is offbeat and absorbing, thanks in large part to Lubos’ prickly performance as a man as damaged as he is dangerous. Oct. 10, 6:30pm, Smith Rafael; Oct. 11, 9:30pm, Sequoia. (Harvey)

Holy Motors (Leos Carax, France) Holy moly. Offbeat auteur Leos Carax (1999’s Pola X) and frequent star Denis Lavant (1991’s Lovers on the Bridge) collaborate on one of the most bizarrely wonderful films of the year, or any year. Oscar (Lavant) spends every day riding around Paris in a white limo driven by Céline (Edith Scob, whose eerie role in 1960’s Eyes Without a Face is freely referenced here). After making use of the car’s full complement of wigs, theatrical make-up, and costumes, he emerges for “appointments” with unseen “clients,” who apparently observe each vignette as it happens. And don’t even try to predict what’s coming next, or decipher what it all means: this wickedly humorous trip through motion-capture suits, graveyard photo shoots, teen angst, back-alley gangsters, old age, and more (yep, that’s the theme from 1954’s Godzilla you hear; oh, and yep, that’s pop star Kylie Minogue) is equal parts disturbing and delightful. Movies don’t get more original or memorable than this. Oct. 11, 6pm, Sequoia; Oct. 12, 3:15pm, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The 35th Mill Valley Film Festival runs Oct. 4-14 at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; Cinéarts@Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; and 142 Throckmorton Theatre, Mill Valley. For additional venues, full schedule, and tickets (most shows $13.50), visit www.mvff.com. Additional short reviews at www.sfbg.com.

 

‘Fire’ insight: talking with David Wojnarowicz biographer Cynthia Carr

Sue Vaughan
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‘Fire’ insight: talking with David Wojnarowicz biographer Cynthia Carr

The following interview took place with Cynthia Carr, author of Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz (Bloomsbury USA, 624 pp., $35), on an early fall afternoon at the old Odessa Restaurant on Avenue A in the Lower East Side, New York City — one of the few places left where you can still pretend you’re in the LES of Wojnarowicz’s day. Carr will be at the San Francisco Art Institute Wed/3 to discuss her book. Read Erick Lyle’s review of the book here.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Your book is the first real biography of David Wojnarowicz. Up until now, the best book on him I thought was that Semiotext(e) book, David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side. Your book has a lot of that same feel, the layers and layers of neighborhood detail. But, of course, your book has the advantage of having all of David’s thoughts and perspective on the same events because you have his journals and his correspondence. How were you able to access all of that material?

Cynthia Carr All of his papers are at Fales Library at NYU — all of his journals and the letters he kept. And I did get letters from quite a few other people, like his boyfriend in Paris, Jean-Pierre. At the beginning of the relationship, David wrote to JP at least every other day and later at least once a week.

When I went to Paris I took a scanner with me and back home I printed them out. The stack was like four inches thick! It was filled with information about what he was doing or working on every day. While the journals from those times are mostly about him going to the piers for sex, which he didn’t tell his boyfriend too much about! [Laughs.] The letters, though, are all about where he was living or where he was working, or … really, most of the time, he was looking for work… I was very fortunate to get that.

SFBG How long have you been working on this?

CC Five years. I started in ’07.

SFBG One of the things I think is really great about the book is how you break down the reporter objectivity and place yourself into the narrative. And I think it works because it’s really a story in a way that only you could tell, because it has the rich detail that could only come from an observer who was really here in this place the whole time. What led you to take this on? What was your inspiration to tell the story of David or of the neighborhood through him?

CC Well, David’s last boyfriend, Tom Rauffenbart, actually mentioned to me that he would really like there to be a book about David and that he thought I should be the person to write it. I had written another book and when that came out in 2006, I wasn’t at the [Village] Voice anymore. I was freelancing, which is rough, as you know. And Tom had mentioned this to me, and I thought maybe I should give it a try, writing a book about David.

I wasn’t sure of all the details of David’s life, but I thought it seemed like a compelling life story. Over the years, too, people had questioned “the mythology,” — I mean, people didn’t believe his childhood stories, so I thought maybe there was a mystery there I could figure out. It was a period of time when I had lived in the same neighborhood as David and this would give me a chance to write about the East Village arts scene, the AIDS crisis, and the culture wars of the 80s all in one book, because he was a central player in all of those things.

SFBG In the end of the book, David approaches you and starts to tell you things about his life before he dies. Do you feel like in some way he knew you were a reporter and he was choosing you to do this book?

CC That might be a little too mystical to get credence, but he did open up to me and reach out. He started calling me to come over a lot. He also chose Amy Scholder who will be on stage with me in San Francisco. She was an editor at City Lights and he got to know her and chose her to edit his journals.

SFBG Those last couple years of his life — even though we know how it ends, that part of the book is so full of suspense Because it was amazing to see someone be so driven to do everything they wanted to die before they died and to actually almost do it all! It was really amazing to see how much art he was able to make across so many different media in such a short time.

CC David had tremendous inner strength and very solid will power that got him through all of this stuff. For the last year or really eight or nine months of his life he actually wasn’t really able to work, but he always talked about it. He always wanted to. I describe him as workaholic who had trouble holding a job. He worked constantly.

There was a trip he went on with Tom and their friend, Anita, near the end of his life that I describe in the book. One day, they find David just lying contentedly in a hammock and Tom says, “Look! He’s not working!” Because David was always working. Like, if he was walking with you on the beach, he’d also the whole time be picking up twigs or shells or driftwood that he thought he could use in a piece. It was like that.

SFBG So obviously you were already pretty far along with this when the latest controversy with David’s art happened at the “Hide/Seek” show at the Smithsonian. What were you thinking when that happened?

CC In a way, I liked that it happened because it drew attention to David and a lot of people didn’t know who he was, so I thought it would be helpful for the book. But in another way, it was shocking that he would get back into the news in this absurd way, which was for about 11 seconds of a film that he didn’t even finish that was completely misinterpreted by everybody. I mean, even the art world people who defended David by saying that the film was about AIDS didn’t have it right.

SFBG It was such a weird déjà vu … I first encountered Wojnarowicz as a teen during the era of that culture war controversy. There was his work, the Piss Christ, Karen Finley, Mapplethorpe, of course. That’s when I first heard about a lot of cool art! But I couldn’t believe it was happening all over again. Like, “Are we still HERE?” Not really, I guess, but they are. It’s really incredible.

CC It shows that David still has the power to be a lightning rod.

SFBG Why do you think that is?

CC David was very blunt in both his imagery and his feelings about things. He didn’t pull any punches. He used powerful symbols that are hard to explain as sound bites, so it’s easy for the Right to pick them up and take them out of context.

SFBG Personally, I’ve always felt like David’s writing is more timeless than his art. Some of the art is so linked to the time and place of the AIDS/culture war era that it sometimes seems dated to me, whereas the writing is this beautiful, timeless narrative of the outlaw in America, the outsider. But it was interesting that those artworks from that time and place are still so triggering, so perhaps they are timeless after all.

CC There are certain themes of his that really live on. His work is in major museums, of course.

SFBG You’re doing this panel tomorrow at the Brooklyn Book Festival. What is it? “The Creative City”?

CC Yeah, I think it’s about the 70s and 80s in NYC…

SFBG Here’s the notice: “The Creative City: The 70’s, 80’s, AND BEYOND”! [Laughs] Beyond? That must be like a blank, white space on the map…

CC Right! [Laughs]

SFBG In the past couple years there has been so much nostalgia for the NYC of the 70s and 80s in books and films. It’s coming from all sides. What do you think accounts for all of the interest in this lost time and place?

CC Well, the city has changed so much and the culture has changed so much. I think people look back to the freedom of that era when there was so much more uncolonized space, even in Manhattan, and it was cheaper to live here so people could just come here and try things. There was room to experiment. You didn’t have to make a lot of money immediately. You could just, say, go to a vacant lot between Avenue B and C and put on a performance with a cast of 30 or 40 people and no one would bother you. I saw many things like that then but there’s no way that could happen today. It’s starting to feel like everything has a stricture on it.

Not everybody looks back with longing for those days, of course. And when I look back with longing, I try to remember how dangerous it was then, because it really was very dangerous here. There was more crime, more rats, more garbage…

SFBG The price of freedom!

CC [Laughs] Right! But it starts to look like this golden age of Bohemia because there’s nothing like it now. Everyone’s so spread out. Williamsburg is completely gentrified. There are artists living all over the city from Red Hook, Brooklyn, all the way up to the Bronx. Also, people are starting out in MFA programs and artists are going to graduate school, so it’s a different way of coming up in the art world. David was so uneducated. I was thinking tomorrow on the panel I would read something about the piers. Not just the sex piers but the two art piers where David sometimes painted and took photos. There you had people making this art in this abandoned space with a total freedom and also working with the knowledge that it was not going to last, that it would be destroyed. David loved that part of it.

SFBG That’s one of the most poignant things about the book. David really identified with this idea that the Empire was falling, that the civilization was in ruins. Like the painting he titled, Some Day All of This Will Be Picturesque Ruins. But then it turned out that it was really just his own civilization or community that would soon crumble and disappear. And now a generation later, the inhabitants of this new Lower East Side are walking around on top of this lost civilization that has disappeared without a trace and is buried just under their feet. Could anyone at that time have imagined that the neighborhood would turn into what we have here today?

CC Oh, I think not. It was clear from as early as 1990 that the neighborhood was undergoing changes. The galleries had to leave because the rents were going up. I lived between Avenue A and B and I heard about someone buying an apartment for $250,000 on my block! I couldn’t believe it. But now you have luxury hotels up in the LES and every old parking lot has a high-priced condo on it. But when you’re younger, I guess, you don’t really think about what things will turn into.

SFBG Do you still live in the neighborhood?

CC Yes, I do. I can’t afford to move! I have a rent-stabilized apartment and have been there since the 70s. When I moved in there was only one bodega between Houston and 14th street on Avenue A – that and the Pyramid Club. Before that I lived between Avenues C and D, and people wouldn’t come over to visit me.

SFBG Where do you think your book fits into this flow of books full of nostalgia for that era, then? To me it’s almost a corrective to the nostalgia, since it’s not romantic at all. It shows the struggle and loss that happened from there to here.

CC I don’t know that those other books really went into what happened in the AIDS crisis. The AIDS epidemic is a shadow that was behind the East Village arts scene the entire time right from the beginning and no one knew it. I found news stories about people coming down with Kaposi’s Syndrome as early as the late 1970s. It was starting to spread then and no one knew it. And the people that died from AIDS were the biggest risk takers, the people who were most creative… the people who had the biggest impact on the arts scene. Losing all those people changed the world for the worse.

SFBG So, the building where David lived his last few years and where he died was his late best friend, Peter Hujar’s loft. Am I right that Hujar’s loft is now that multi- screen movie theater on Second Avenue at 12th?

CC Yeah.

SFBG Have you been to see movies there?

CC Oh yeah! It’s really weird! I haven’t seen a movie there in a few years, but I do think about, about David dying right upstairs. I’ve been told that the loft is now an office space. The first time I went to the theater part of the building was for Charles Ludlum’s memorial service. It was still being converted then from an old Yiddish theater into the cinema multiplex. It’s been a couple years, and I can’t remember what I saw there last, but, sure, I’ve gone to see films there.

SFBG Where was David’s room in the building? It’s such a strange layout for a theater.

CC Well, he was up on the Third floor. There are windows shaped like Old West tombstones that face 12th street and that was where his kitchen table was, where he sat and worked. Recently, I was thinking that out of all of us who were there taking care of David in those last months, none of us took a picture of the place. I wish now I could remember what all the piles of stuff were, because David was just such a pack rat. There were piles not just of art projects and supplies, but piles of paper, The NY Post — he liked using the tabloids in his collage pieces…

SFBG That Nan Goldin photo in the book is so great. What is he sitting with here? Like are those giant sperm?

CC Yeah, they are sperm — homemade props from his In the Shadow Of Forward Motion performance. And there is his baby elephant skeleton. And some movie posters he must have brought back from Mexico…

SFBG Well, let’s talk about David and San Francisco. For such a noted queer artist and activist, he seems to have surprisingly limited connection with San Francisco. But he did make it to the city a couple of notable times, right?

CC One of his early goals in life was to go to City Lights Books and he actually took a bus all the way across the USA just to go there.

SFBG Well, he’s not the only one. That’s so great!

CC And when he took this early hitchhiking and rail-riding trip in 1976, he went to SF and stayed there at the YMCA in the Tenderloin for awhile. He liked San Francisco.

SFBG Did he also appear at the SF Arts Institute?

CC I believe he performed In the Shadow Of Forward Motion there. But he also did a reading for Close To The Knives in SF at the bookstore, A Different Light. That was the only reading he did for that book tour. His first idea was to drive across the country and do readings here and there, but he just wasn’t feeling well enough. So he decided he would only do one reading and it would be in San Francisco. That same day, he joined in a march about AIDS awareness in SF.

SFBG What do you think is next for you?

CC It might be time for me to move my work out of the East Village. My first book was a collection of my Village Voice articles and now there’s this book, so maybe I’ve told all of my story here. I got so exhausted with this. I really worked every single day except Christmas Day, working around the clock, and I got really depleted. So I’m recovering from all of that work.

SFBG Well, that work really paid off! This book is very special. Is there anything you want to add to this?

CC Well, one thing I’ve noticed is that reviewers tend not to talk about the love stories in the book. The importance of Peter Hujar and Jean Pierre to David. And Tom Rauffenbart. And maybe it’s natural that people focus on the art and the AIDS crisis. But the love stories are to me really important.

SFBG I got that from the book. His life was so improvised. He never reached a place of safety or security where he had the luxury of saying, “OK, here’s what I’m going to do next.” It was like he was reacting all of the time to whatever came up. He had difficulty trusting in the future or in relationships with other people. I think all of that is common with people who have abuse histories and I think you got that across.

CC Yes, he always reacted to stuff. Like he found an obscene drawing on the street where someone had scrawled “Fuck you, faggot fucker!”. So he used it in a painting and based a whole work around the drawing and called it Fuck You Faggot Fucker! He was always responding. The things that troubled him became the subject of his work. That is what inspired him.

David Wojnarowicz: Cynthia Carr and Amy Scholder in Conversation
Wed/3, 7:30pm, free
Lecture Hall
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut, SF
www.sfai.edu/event/CynthiaCarr

Bad and good news from the Guv

Zelda Bronstein
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Bad and good news from the Guv

First, the bad news: Jerry Brown has vetoed a couple of important bills by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, showing that he’s still a strange and unpredictable guy. He rejected a measure that would have provided some basic labor protections to domestic workers and another that would have opened up state prisons to a modicum of media access. His message on domestic workers was confusing (gee, maybe it would cost more to make sure people get meal breaks); on the media access, it was just bizarre:

“Giving criminals celebrity status through repeated appearances on television will glorify their crimes and hurt victims and their families,” Brown wrote in his veto message for Assembly Bill 1270.

What? The notion that the press might be able to interview prisoners about conditions behind bars in an agency that consumes more than $10 billion a year in state funds will “glorify crimes?” Sorry, but Jerry is out of his mind.

From Ammiano’s press release:

“Press access isn’t just to sell newspapers. It’s a way for the public to know that the prisons it pays for are well-run,” Ammiano said. “The CDCR’s unwillingness to be transparent is part of what has led to court orders on prison health care and overcrowding. We should know when the California prisons aren’t being well run before it goes to court. I invite the Governor to visit the SHU [special housing unit/solitary confinement] to see for himself why media access is so important.”

Same goes for the TRUST Act, which had the support of a lot of local police chiefs, the mayor of Los Angeles and Assembly Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

On the other hand, Brown did sign a bill by Sen. Mark Leno that could turn out to be the best budget news San Francisco’s had in years. SB 1492 would allow the Board of Supervisors and the voters to reinstate, just in this city, the vehicle license fee that former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut, to such disastrous effect, when he first took office. If the supervisors put it on the ballot and the voters approve, a two percent hike in the car tax could raise $70 million a year for the city — more than triple the amount that the mayor has agreed to raise in his weak gross receipts tax proposal.

That law goes on the books Jan. 1 — and the supes should immediately take up the challenge and approve the VLF hike for the next even-year ballot, November 2014.

Then the Guv vetoed Leno bills protecting cell phone users from warrantless searches and alloing the state to recognize more than two people as parents of a child.

Sen. Leland Yee’s bill allowing juveniles who were sentenced to life without parole to get a second chance made it passed Brown’s desk.

So what do we make of the governor? About the usual — he’s random.

SFBC keeps its distance from Critical Mass anniversary ride

Sasha Cuttler
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SFBC keeps its distance from Critical Mass anniversary ride

Today’s 20th anniversary Critical Mass ride has received overwhelming media coverage in the last few days, including a surprisingly laudatory editorial in yesterday’s Examiner, so people are expecting the ride to be huge. But the talk of last night’s CM20 birthday celebration at CELLspace was about Quintin Mecke’s widely circulated letter blasting the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for refusing to even put the event on its calendar or in its newsletter.

By contrast, even the San Francisco Planning & Urban Research Association (SPUR) – founded and funded by downtown players with little love for Critical Mass – listed today’s “special anniversary ride” and related events throughout the week in its calendar and on its newsletter, recognizing this “monthly bicycling event that began in San Francisco and inspired similar events throughout the world.”

As I wrote in this week’s cover story, SFBC and Critical Mass grew up together on a similar, symbiotic trajectory, effectively working an outside/insider strategy (think MLK/Malcolm X) that has won cyclists a recognized spot on the roadways. But SFBC always warily kept its distance from Critical Mass, worried about offending politicians, the mainstream media, or the driving public.

That’s an understandable strategy, given the persistent resentment many feel toward Critical Mass. But when considered in combination with SFBC’s increasingly corporate culture and sponsorships and its controversial recent decision to allegedly overrule its member vote in its District 5 supervisorial endorsements, SFBC is in danger of losing the allegiance of much of the cycling community (which remains a minority of road users, and thereby political outsiders almost by definition).

David Snyder — SFBC’s executive director through its biggest growth period, SPUR’s former transportation policy director, and currently the executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition — is reluctant to wade into the current controversy, but he does acknowledge the important role Critical Mass played in winning political acceptance for cyclists in San Francisco. 

“In the mid-’90s, when the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition was a couple thousand members, the brouhaha around Critical Mass [particularly the crackdown in ’97] increased our membership by 50 percent at one point,” Snyder told us. “At that time, we benefitted hugely form the attention Critical Mass paid to safe streets for bicycles. And I don’t think we need Critical Mass to do that anymore…The Bicycle Coalition’s goal these days isn’t to develop an awareness of unsafe streets, it’s to develop a bold agenda to fix them.”

I spoke with Mecke, who finished second in the 2007 mayor’s race, at last night’s event, and he was frustrated by his follow-up conversations with SFBC leaders, who seem to have taken a very defensive posture instead of welcoming this interesting conversation. I called SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum to discuss these issues, and I’m waiting to hear back from her and I’ll update this post when I do.

But in the meantime, to feed the discussion, here’s the full text of Mecke’s letter, followed by another letter to SFBC on the endorsement issue:

Dear Bike Coalition:

Sadly, I can’t say I was surprised when I read this week’s SFBC Newsletter and found absolutely zero mention of the 20th Anniversary of Critical Mass.  According to your own newsletter, apparently the only thing happening in the San Francisco bike world that is worthy of your 12,000 members knowing about on Friday, Sept. 28 is SFBC’s Valet Bike Parking at the DeYoung Museum.  Seriously?

This is the San Francisco Bike Coalition and you couldn’t even bring yourselves to stick a small mention of Critical Mass in your newsletter or on your website (or god forbid you actually celebrate/acknowledge CM and show some pride), a cycling event created here in San Francisco which has spread across the globe to multiple continents since its inception & inspired thousands of cyclists to take to the street?  It’s truly amazing that Critical Mass was on the cover of the Guardian this week and even SF Funcheap listed the event but SFBC wouldn’t even put a mention at the bottom in the “Upcoming Events” section, hidden away amongst all the SFBC sponsored events? Not even a listing of the critical mass website or the community events going on all week long?  Your website lists the celebration of the 15th anniversary of TransForm but not Critical Mass?

Wow.  I’m truly speechless.  How embarrassing but more to the point, how sad. Are you afraid of offending Chuck Nevius or Mayor Lee? I don’t know how, why or what SFBC has become as an organization at this point but it’s disappointing as a long time cyclist to see the city’s only (?) organized bike advocacy organization which continually touts how many members you have to not even show the smallest amount of solidarity to your fellow cyclists and to the city’s own cycling history.  That being the case, history will march on without you.

Contrary to our “biking” Supervisor David Chiu’s comments in today’s Chronicle (I always enjoy politicians running from anything deemed controversial), it’s actually SFBC that is simply one tiny part of a much larger movement made up of a variety of cyclists from all walks of life whose decision twenty years ago to ride freely in the street once a month for just a few short hours has laid the groundwork for cycling reforms, political action and transformative experiences across the country and the world.

What a shame that instead of celebrating all parts of the cycling community, SFBC has decided to distance itself from the historic roots of its own community in the name of moderation, families on bikes and political expediency.

Enjoy Bike Valet night at the DeYoung Museum, it sounds like an awesome event.

thanks,
Quintin

 

Dear Leah:

My name is Gus Feldman. I am an avid bicyclist, a Bike Coalition member, and the President of the District 8 Democrats.

I’m in receipt of a letter from you, dated September 12, 2012, requesting that I renew my SFBC membership. I am writing to inform you that I will only renew my membership if the SFBC Board of Directors publicly releases the results of the SFBC member vote for the District 5 supervisor race.

While it is clear that the membership vote is one of several factors used by the SFBC Board of Directors to determine endorsements, the refusal of the Board to grant SFBC members the ability to see the results of their votes demonstrates an unacceptable degree of secrecy. By withholding this information, the Board is publicly stripping SFBC members of all agency in the endorsement process.

If in fact the popular suspicion is true – that Julian Davis won the most votes from SFBC members, but the Board decided to grant Christina Olague the top endorsement in the interests of expediting the construction of separated bike lanes on Oak & Fell streets – we would greatly appreciate the Board publicly declaring and explaining the decision. Such a decision is certainly logical, as the Oak/Fell bikes lanes are a key priority for many SFBC members. The fact that the Board has elected to conceal the vote results, as opposed to explaining to SFBC members why and how Olague received the number one endorsement, is highly insulting as it insinuates that the Board does not have faith in SFBC members’ capacity to understand the rationale by which the Board arrived at their determinations. 

Please understand that if the Board elects to depart from the current practice of concealing the vote results, and transitions to one of transparency, I will promptly renew my membership.

Respectfully,
Gus Feldman

Our Weekly Picks: September 26-October 2

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 26

Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra

Massachusetts singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer has had a busy year. Well, actually she’s had a busy career. Palmer is a previous high school thespian, street performer, co-founder of the Dresden Dolls, subject of a coffee table book, half of musical duo Evelyn Evelyn, and a prolific blogger — and she’s just getting started. This year alone she’s written a song and produced a music video in defense of pubic hair, starred in a Flaming Lips video, released a new solo album, and now she’s back on the road. When Palmer decided to fund her second solo album Theater is Evil on Kickstarter earlier this year, few would have guessed over $1 million would pour in, shattering the site’s record with more than 24,000 individual donations. It looks like she won’t be slowing down any time soon. (Haley Zaremba)

With The Simple Pleasure, Jherek Bischoff, Ronald Reagan

8pm, $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

 

Ghost Parade

Over the past six months, San Francisco-based progressive rock band Ghost Parade has steadily revealed its inaugural tracks, including the particularly catchy “Reach,” whose chorus features the group’s tagline: “we are fast and real.” Intense at times and always poetic, Ghost Parade encourages you to get lost in its hard and fast wall of sound while, simultaneously, inviting you into its stories. These musicians are no strangers to Bottom of the Hill, but this time around they’re headlining. Come for the energy, come for the nascent artistic merriment and, if that’s not enough, come for vocalist-guitarist Justin Bonifacio’s hair. It ranks among the best in San Francisco. Hands down. (Mia Sullivan)

With Stomacher, Soonest

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Obituary

It may be hard to believe, but pioneering death metal titan Obituary has been grinding out tracks such as “Chopped In Half” and “Turned Inside Out” for more than 25 years now. The Florida based quartet just wrapped up a series of festival shows in Europe, and is now back for its first tour of the US in several years, part of the epic Carnival of Death tour, slaying stages alongside Broken Hope, Decrepit Birth, Jungle Rot, Encrust, and Feast. The band is promising a fan-favorite set, comprised largely of songs off of its first three classic albums, Slowly We Rot, Cause of Death, and The End Complete. (Sean McCourt)

With DJ Rob Metal

6:30pm, $14–$18

DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF.

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com


THURSDAY 27

“Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death”

The Thrillpeddlers have been killing it lately, with endlessly extended runs of Cockettes revivals and a recent hit production of Marat/Sade. Now the company is poised to kill it again — live! Onstage! With gruesome gore! — in its annual “Shocktoberfest” production. This year’s lucky 13th incarnation includes a classic Grand Guignol one-act (Coals of Fire by Fredrick Whitney, which caused a scandal in 1922 Britain); two contemporary world premieres about mad scientists (The Bride of Death by Michael Phillis and The Twisted Pair by Rob Keefe); and Scrumbly Koldewyn’s “musical spectacle” Those Beautiful Ghouls. And if you think you’re safe just sitting in the audience, wait until the uniquely terrifying spook-show finale — if you’re not afraid of the dark, you will be! (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Nov. 17

Opens Thu/27, 8pm; runs Thu-Sat, 8pm, $25-35

Hypnodrome

575 10th St., SF

www.thrillpeddlers.com


FRIDAY 28

“Animate Your Night: Where It’s AT-AT”

As part of the Walt Disney Family Museum’s new “Animate Your Night” series of after-hours events, tonight’s “Where It’s AT-AT” party celebrates the opening of a new exhibit, Between Frames: The Magic Behind Stop Motion Animation, which looks at the innovative ideas and technical wizardry of the art form that has brought life to a host of magical characters and creations. Among the items party-goers will be able to get a first look at is a classic Gumby figure, the armature of the “Robot Chicken” mascot, and a model of the awesome AT-AT Imperial Walker made by Phil Tippett, as seen in The Empire Strikes Back. (McCourt)

7-10pm, $5–$10

Walt Disney Family Museum

104 Montgomery, SF

(415) 345-6800

www.waltdisney.org

 

Vir

While “on” Vir, I can’t decide if I’d rather take mass quantities of psychedelics and, well, gaze at my shoes, or embark on an epic, intergalactic quest with a few of my closest tribesmen. Luckily, these options aren’t mutually exclusive. This Oakland-based experimental noise pop trio originally hails from New Zealand and cites Kiwi post-punk groups Gordons, Bailter Space, and HDU as chief influences. Characterized by driving, tribal beats, sardonic, echoing lyrics, and ample fuzz pedal, Vir’s music is, at times, like marching through a lush jungle-like space field and, at other times, like My Bloody Valentine. Could it get much better? (Sullivan)

With Here Come the Saviours, Erik Blood

9:30pm, $7

Hemlock

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com


SATURDAY 29

Balboa Skatepark opening ceremony

Shredding (on a skateboard) and shredding (with a guitar) go together like pizza and hot dogs — which, incidentally, there will be a whole lot of at the Balboa skateboard park opening this week. While skaters grind their newly opened park behind, local thrasher act Haunted By Heroes — a.k.a. the world’s youngest rock band — along with the Nerv, and Big Shadows will perform out front. Plus, the free event includes the aforementioned ultimate snack foods, skateboard accessory giveaways, and the Youth DJ Collective with DJ/MC Ace, of Reality Check TV. Make like the ramp locals of Thrashin’ (1986) and bring your board, check out frenetic live music, munch cheesy pizza, and relive youth, glorious youth. (Emily Savage)

Noon-5pm, free

Balboa Skatepark

San Jose Avenue and Ocean Avenue, SF

Facebook: BalboaSkateparkOpening2012

 

Vintage Couture Ball

Let’s hear it for the grown and sexy. While the rest of us drink beer and chug from flasks in the bathroom, they drink Manhattans (up) and sip from nicer flasks, out in the open because unlike some, the motion only serves to make their surroundings more G&S. Class it up and join their ranks for this weekend’s openair fashion gala in the Fillmore — the Vintage Couture Ball (once called the Black Couture Ball) brings Chicago step dancing, a vintage car show, burlesque and swing dancing to SF’s jazz district. Most importantly, heed the dress code — everyone’s fancy black gowns and suits should make the evening pop. (Caitlin Donohue)

7pm-1am, $20

Fillmore between Eddy and Geary, SF

(800) 352-4315

www.vintagecoutureball.com


SUNDAY 30

Hot Water Music

It’s been an exciting year for post-hardcore. It marks the release of industry pioneer Hot Water Music’s first album in nearly a decade and the 19th anniversary since the band’s foundation in 1993. In these two decades, the band has broken up and reunited three different times, taking years off to explore side projects and family life. Though it has been touring sporadically since 2008, the Gainseville band’s eighth album Exister truly marks its triumphant return to the rock scene. The first single off the album, “State of Grace,” tackles the issue of the additives that we ingest every day in our over-processed foods. Whether you care about GMOs or not, you’ll want to catch this tour before Hot Water Music disbands again. (Zaremba)

With Dead To Me, Heartsounds

8pm, $21

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

Bebel Gilberto

New York City and Rio de Janeiro are a potent combination. As proof, we offer you Bebel Gilberto, daughter of famed bossanova boss João Gilberto and international star in her own right. Bebel’s 2009 release All in One relies less heavily on the electronic bends and flourishes of her past, its mainly acoustic, gentle guitar strums and chimes behind Brazilian coos. In other words, go to this concert to lower your blood pressure, it will smooth you out. In fact, we’d be hard pressed a better soundtrack to your weekend comedown, or swayfest with that new boo you picked up on last night’s dancefloor. (Donohue)

7pm, $35-70

Herbst Theater

401 Van Ness, SF

www.cityboxoffice.com

 

Maria Minerva

Like a ’90s TRL countdown as envisioned by Peaking Lights, Maria Minerva’s fuzzed-out hypnagogia is the stuff of bygone pop anthems, filtered experimentally and relentlessly through Macbooks, cheap software, and a boatload of filters and effects. Commended by The Wire for her contribution to the blossoming meta-pop movement, the elusive Estonian producer strikes a captivating balance between high art and radio trash, traditional top-40 conventions and anarchic nonconformity. Minerva’s newly released Will Happiness Find Me? might be her most accessibly structured statement yet, but that doesn’t stop her dubby sonic fog from enshrouding everything in its path. Fans of electronic hooliganism everywhere: meet your new pop diva. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Father Finger, Bobby Browser, EpicSauce DJs

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


MONDAY 1

Garbage

When it first arrived on the alternative rock scene back in the mid ’90s, Garbage could have been some sort of pre-fabricated hit machine, considering its members consisted of some of the biggest producers of the time — Butch Vig, Steve Marker, and Duke Erikson — with ex-Angelfish singer Shirley Manson joining the fold. As fans know, however, it quickly became evident that they were much more than that, a band that coalesced as one and produced some of the most memorable tunes of the era. After a series of hiatuses, the quartet is back with an excellent new album, Not Your Kind of People, and a welcome return to the live stage. (McCourt)

With Screaming Females

8pm, $38–$48

Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 345-0900

www.thewarfieldtheater.com

 

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

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Previews Fri/28-Sat/29 and Oct 5, 8pm. Opens Oct 6, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Opens Wed/26, 7 and 9pm. Rns Wed, 7 and 9pm (no shows Oct 31). Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Opens Thu/27, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ annual Halloween horror extravaganza features a classic Grand Guignol one-act and two world premiere one-acts, plus a blackout spook show finale.

"The Strange Case of Citizen de la Cruz" Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Oct 7, 2pm. Through Oct 13. Bindlestiff Studio presents Luis Francia’s political thriller.

BAY AREA

Assassins Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/26-Thu/27 and Oct 3-4, 7pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 5pm. Opens Oct 5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 11. Shotgun Players performs the Sondheim musical about John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and other famous Presidential killers (and would-be killers).

Topdog/Underdog Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Previews Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 7pm. Opens Tue/2, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Oct 6 and 20, 2pm; Oct 11, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 21. Marin Theatre Company performs Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winner about a contentious pair of brothers.

ONGOING

Asteroids: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987. $20. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Interstellar comedy "based very, very loosely on the arcade game."

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

Fuck My Life (FML)/Homo File CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. $20-30. Thu/27-Sun/30, 8pm. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a bottle of Tapatío salsa is just a bottle of Tapatío salsa. But definitely not this time. This time it’s a fornicating phallus of foodie fetishism with a Latina edge — and a Latina target, which writer-performer Xandra Ibarra (a.k.a. La Chica Boom) sets about to both embody and deconstruct, and somehow rescue. On a smart-looking bathroom set, with its loving altar to Mexican movie star Lupe Vélez (designed by Richie Israel) rising ominously and significantly over the commode, Ibarra’s sharp and raunchy political burlesque channels rage and despair, dejection and defiance, from within concentric circles of representation, both social and aesthetic. With astute direction by Evan Johnson, Fuck My Life (FML), the culmination of Ibarra’s CounterPULSE residency, unfolds some lovely set pieces and magic moments, made highly persuasive by Ibarra’s sure and formidable skill and presence as a performer. A scene in which she shovels earth into a bathtub, for instance, proves an evocative, eerily beautiful and potent image. But there’s a lot here to unpack, thematically and politically, and in truth the short arc of the show only goes so far, and in ways that remain solidly within established traditions of Latino/a performance from Culture Clash to Guillermo Gomez-Peña. The exceptional charisma of La Chica Boom herself, however, remains a force and focus in its own right, and from there it’s easy to imagine much more to come. On the bill with FML is a work-in-progress performance of Homo File, writer-designer-director Seth Eisen’s multi-media and cross-disciplinary show. It already sports a formidable narrative arc and aesthetic vision as it explores the life of Samuel Steward (1909–1993), an amazingly well, um, connected English professor, writer of homoerotic fiction, famous tattoo artist, and sexual rebel. The 30-odd minutes of material on display delivers a strong sense of this fascinating figure (played by Ned Brauer, with occasional and evocative recourse to some aerial straps), who kept elaborate record of his astounding range of sexual conquests and liaisons in what he called his "stud files," a concatenation that forms a backbone to the story of a life told from the vantage of final days. Meanwhile, Eisen and his winning cast place Steward in a mise-en-scène equally as promiscuous, ranging over dramatic scenes, aerial acrobatics, shadow puppetry, and even a hilariously lewd application of the old teacher’s standby, the overhead projector. (Avila)

Invasion! Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; crowdedfire.dreamhosters.com. $20-35. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. Crowded Fire mounts the West Coast premiere of Swedish-born playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s postmodern dark comedy, a deconstruction of language and power in an American culture of perpetual war, which made a well-received New York debut last year. Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles, and directed by Evren Odcikin, the play immediately subverts the usual multi-culti narrative of otherness and tolerance with a po-faced feint (featuring ensemble members Lawrence Radecker and Olivia Rosaldo-Pratt) that ends with a boisterous disruption of the proceedings from unexpected quarters (courtesy of ensemble members George Psarras and Wiley Naman Strasser). From there, we get a series of interrelated largely comical scenes, wherein — in shades of Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life — a certain figure by the name of Abulkasem dissolves into the ultimate cipher, tied to everything from terror to pick-up lines in bars, and meaning absolutely anything and nothing. Nevertheless, in the interstices of language lurks real power — as the play implies most overly in a scene of intentional mistranslation, which twists a hapless and bemused immigrant’s tale into line with the war-on-terror mythos. In the end, the complexity the play adds does not completely dissolve that liberal narrative skewered at the outset, and its efforts remain only half-convincing. The problem may lie partly in the production’s inconsistent, often sluggish pace, as well as a tendency toward didacticism in director Odcikin’s staging. The material of this sardonic play doesn’t support too literal or even empathetic a reading, but rather seems best translated as a raucous premonition, dream, or intimation of our own guilty seduction by the sadistic, totalizing power of such stories. (Avila)

Kiss of the Spider Woman Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. Second Wind presents Manuel Puig’s acclaimed drama about cellmates in a Buenos Aires jail.

Lorraine Olsen Is Figuratively Speaking SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.theatrevalentine.com. $25. Thu-27-Sat/29, 8pm. The artist model speaks in writer-performer Lorraine Olsen’s new solo show, in which the Bay Area actress recounts her experience as a longtime dues-paying member of the Bay Area Model’s Guild, founded in 1946 by model par excellence, as well as civil rights and labor activist and columnist, Flo Allen (who appears as a character and inspiration here throughout). Audience members are invited to pick up a drawing book and a pencil before taking their seats, as Olsen, her exposed back to the audience, poses pre-show on a tall stool. The narrative opens with a peep inside the thoughts of the model before the classroom (banal ruminations, perhaps unsurprisingly, from the work-a-day world of the professional muse), before moving more substantively into Olsen’s own careening career through art, family trauma, and alcoholism — not all as grim as it sounds, but charged with real emotion just the same. All the while, Olsen, a frank and sympathetic presence, moves in and out of her robe and various poses as she describes a sometimes-chaotic life in which her career as a model provides an unexpected anchor and education. The show, directed by Val Hendrickson, could use further shaping. Several possible framing devices — including one in which the audience comprises a room full of new models — compete here in a way that undermines the coherence of the piece, although the subject in general offers an undeniably interesting perspective on the artistic process. (Avila)

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Wed/26-Thu/27, 7pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 3pm). SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a "lady" and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the "tragedy" of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs ("Wouldn’t It Be Loverly," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

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

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

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 8:30pm. Dan Hoyle’s hit show about his trip across America returns.

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

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

Tripping on the Tipping Point Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; (707) 322-5731. $15-20. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. Human Nature performs a new comedy about global warming.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Fri-Sun, 5:30pm (also Sat-Sun, noon; no performances Sun/29; evening performances only Oct 6-7). Through Oct 7. After spending the summer on Angel Island with their epic-scale production of The Odyssey, the We Players have scaled back with a lo-key rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on Hyde Street Pier. Of course when it comes to the We Players, "scaled-back" still means a two-and-a-half hour long participatory jaunt taking place mainly along the length of the pier and aboard the historic ferryboat, the Eureka, which serves primarily as the residence of the grieving Illyrian Countess, Olivia (Clara Kamunde) around whose favors much of the plot revolves. Highlights of the experience include the opportunity to visit historic Hyde Street Pier, a gypsy-jazzy score directed by Charlie Gurke (who also plays the lovelorn Duke Orsino), and the rascally quartet of the prankish Maria (Caroline Parsons), jocular drunk Toby Belch (Dhira Rauch), clueless doofus Andrew Augecheek (Benjamin Stowe), and wise fool Feste (John Hadden). But as We Players productions go, this one feels less inspired in its staging, and much of the action merely shuffles back and forth on the Eureka without incorporating many of the intriguing nooks and views the Hyde Street Pier offers, despite a promising opening scene involving a beach and a rowboat. Also, uncharacteristically for We, the comic timing seemed to be off the evening I saw it, although both Stowe and Hadden ably conveyed their wit without a flaw. Dress warmly, carry a big flask, and you’ll be fine. (Gluckstern)

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 5pm. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

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

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. Playwright Kristoffer Diaz, a self-professed fan of the aggressively-theatrical spectacle that is professional wrestling, delivers much more than a "wrestling 101" primer for the uninitiated with The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Beneath the razzle-dazzle of the arena lighting (Kurt Landisman), the gaudy costuming (Maggie Whitaker) and the giant televised image of a hot bikini babe (Elizabeth Cadd, video by Jim Gross) lies the trampled luster of an American Dream. The dreamer, Macedonio "The Mace" Guerra (Tony Sancho), a wiry fall guy for THE Wrestling, wrestles not for money or glory (he is rarely privy to either), but for his love of the strange ballet that occurs in the ring. Guerra’s job is to make his opponents look good, including the pec-flexing, bling-booted Chad Deity (Beethovan Oden), leaving him to wrestle alone with the identity politics of being a marginalized but fully capable warrior battling perennially stacked odds. Willing suspension of disbelief does get stretched pretty thin when the character Vigneshwar Paduar, a smooth-talking hustler chance-met on the basketball courts of Brooklyn, rises to championship levels in record-breaking time as the truly cringe-worthy persona known as "The Fundamentalist," but Nasser Khan’s skillfully self-possessed performance as Paduar makes it impossible not to root for him all the way. Rod Gnapp as foul-mouthed bossman "EKO" and fight director Dave Maier as a whole squadron of hapless B-list wrestlers round out the excellent cast. (Gluckstern)

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. The latest from playwright Steve Yockey (Bellwether, Skin) is an exercise in pure pleasure, not least for the devious sea creatures preying lustily and unashamedly on the hapless human flesh of a small coastal town. There, in cracked fairytale fashion, an unsuccessful fisherman named Cooper Minnow (an endearingly nerdy but passionate Maro Guevara) is preparing to set out to sea, leaving at home frustrated wife Vanessa (a wonderfully, volcanically bitchy yet complex Eliza Leoni) and their sinking marriage, when he meets an oddly brazen pair of sexy, sassy bathers in old-fashioned beach attire (the swimmingly synchronized duo of Sarah Coykendall and Roy Landaverde). At more or less the same moment, a devilishly dashing yet prim traveling salesman (poised, nicely offbeat Adrian Anchondo) is offering a clearly aroused Vanessa an erotic woodcut featuring monstrous tentacles groping human victims at a very familiar-looking dock. Will she take the woodcut? Will she ever! And later she’ll defend her husband’s honor and swap places with him too, much to the commercial advantage of the ever-accommodating salesman who — like Yockey’s smart and sure sex farce — has a little something for everyone. Directed with smooth precision by Ben Randle for Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, The Fisherman’s Wife again finds Yockey playing productively with the fine fuzzy line separating human nature from nature at large (as in Large Animal Games, the winning 2009 co-production from Impact and Dad’s Garage). The animals come through for playwright and company once more, with a thoroughly enjoyable comedy whose borrowed maritime mythos has just enough metaphorical pull to lead those so inclined out beyond the shallow waters. (Avila)

Hamlet Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Oct 14. California Shakespeare Theater performs a modernized version of the Bard’s classic drama.

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

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

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 4pm. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Bay Area Flamenco Festival" Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.festivalflamencogitano.com. Thu/27 and Sun/30, 7pm; Fri/28, 8pm. $30-125. With ¡Fiesta Jerez! Flamenco All-Stars (Thu/27); José Mercé (Fri/28); and Farruco Family (Sun/30). Visit website for information on workshops and related flamenco events.

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

Keith Hennessy/Circo Zero Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. $15-25. The company performs Turbulence (a dance about the economy).

"Naked Girls Reading: Banned Books!" Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.nakedgirlsreading.com. Tue/2, 8pm. $20. The name doesn’t lie: this is a reading series featuring naked ladies (Kristine Wilson, Ophelia Coeur de Noir, Carol Queen, and Twilight Vixen Revue performers).

"Niagara Falling" West wall of the Renoir Hotel, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.flyawayproductions.com. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8:30 and 9:30pm. Free. Flyaway Productions and Dancers’ Group/Onsite present the world premiere of choreographer Jo Kreiter and video artists David and Hi-Jin Hodge’s aerial dance, set on the outside of the Renoir Hotel.

"Picklewater Clown Cabaret Benefit for Paoli Lacy" Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; picklewaterclowncabaret.bpt.me. Mon/1, 7 and 9pm. $15. Circus extravaganza to help performer and cancer patient Paoli Lacy with her medical bills.

Sandy Perez y Su Lade Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/29, 8pm. $20. Afro-Cuban music and dance.

"Squeeze Box" Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Sun/30, 5pm. $50-500. Benefit performance of Ann Randolph’s solo Off-Broadway hit.

"Theatecture on UN Plaza" Civic Center, UN Plaza, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.ftloose.org. Tue, noon-2pm. Through Oct 16. Free. Outdoor performance of Mary Alice Fry’s Honeycomb Zone as part of the "24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival."

"Tiara Sensation Pageant" Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.rickshawstop.com. Sat/29, 9pm. $20. The Club Something Team (Vivvyanne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-e) present "SF’s only non-gender-specific drag performance."

Zhukov Dance Theatre Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zhukovdance.org. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm. $30-50. The company performs its fifth annual season, "Product 05," with a preogram that includes the world premiere of Yuri Zhukov’s Coin/C/Dance.

BAY AREA

"Access to Oddities" Central Stage, 5221 Central Ave. A-1, Richmond; www.brianscottproductions.com. Sat/29, 2 and 7:30pm. $12-20. Magic and comedy show presented in a family-friendly matinee and a later show not recommended for children under 8.

"Bay Area Flamenco Festival" Yoshi’s Oakland, 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakl; www.festivalflamencogitano.com. Wed/26, 8pm. $30. Gypsy flamenco guitar with Diego Del Morao.

"Empower: Master of the Three Rings" Chabot College Theater, 25555 Hesperian, Hayward; www.soulciety.org. Sat/29, 1 and 6pm. $20. Also Oct 27, 6pm, Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF. Soulciety performs a theatrical production that combines spoken word, urban acrobatics, and more.

"Fall Free for All" Various locations, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Sun/30, 11am. Free. Cal Performances’ annual free open house features performances across campus from Kronos Quartet, Shogun Players, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and many more.

"Flamenco Passion!" Bankhead Theater, 2400 First St, Livermore; ww.mylvpac.com. Fri/28, 8pm. $15-48. Caminos Flamencos Dance Company performs.

Rhinocéros Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 2pm. $30-90. Théâtre de la Ville of Paris performs Ionesco’s absurdist masterpiece.

The real McGee

Andrew Lam
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0
The real McGee

caitlin@sfbg.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well anyway, I sure hope so.

BARRY MCGEE

Through Dec. 9, $9.50 museum admission

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

2626 Bancroft Way, Berk.

bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

Critical Mass at 20

Andrew Lam
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20
Critical Mass at 20

steve@sfbg.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

TO THE BRIDGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

THE EARLY DAYS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

ANOTHER DAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

CELEBRATE 20 YEARS OF CRITICAL MASS

 

Wednesday 26

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

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

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

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

 

Thursday 27

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

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

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

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

 

Friday 28

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

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

The strange deal behind the SF Weekly sale

Zelda Bronstein
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13
The strange deal behind the SF Weekly sale

We all knew something like this was coming. Village Voice Media, owner of SF Weekly and 12 other alternative papers, has been looking for a way out of a seemingly intractable bind for some time now.

See, the sex ads the VVM sells on its Backpage web site have created a huge stir. After NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof started a moral crusade to rid the world of the demonic prostitution ads, a lot of national and local advertisers decided they didn’t want to be affiliated with VVM, so they pulled millions of dollars worth of print advertising. Then Goldman Sachs dumped its ownership stake. And since some of the VVM papers were already doing poorly, the cascade of bad news was a real threat to the chain’s bottom line — and possibly its future. VVM was already underwater on its bank loans, and the Bank of Montreal had in effect foreclosed and taken control of the company’s finances.

Oh, but there’s nothing that could be done about Backpage, since (according to Reuters) it pulls in about $3 million a month in sex-ad revenue. That money was paying the bankers off and keeping the whole operation afloat.

So what is a poor predatory chain to do? Can’t live with Backpage; can’t live without it.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin have been thinking about: If Backpage were just conveniently put into a separate company, then everyone would have plausible deniability. So suddenly Village Voice Media becomes Voice Media Holdings, under new management — that is, the same management that’s always been there, except for Lacey and Larkin, who now own Backpage. The headlines blare: SF Weekly has been sold! No more evil Backpage! Come on back, noble advertisers!

But let’s remember: Lacey and Larkin are Village Voice Media. They built the company and hand-picked the senior management. I know how hard it is for an owner to give up his newspaper; these guys are control freaks and there’s no way they were walking away totally from VVM.

Scott Tobias, the new CEO, isn’t responding to my messages. Neither is Lacey. But let’s take a look at the essential element here: How did Tobias and his team come up with the cash to buy VVM — which isn’t worth what it was five years ago, but is still a significant media property? How did they actually “buy” it when the Bank of Montreal owns most of VVM and would want to be paid back some $70 million in outstanding loans? How would they find private financing for a company that couldn’t pay its bills without the Backpage revenue that will suddenly be going away?

Tobias told Reuters that “some private investors” were found, and maybe so, but I bet it’s this simple: The deal was financed with the Bank of Lacey and the Larkin National Trust. Those two almost certainly still hold the note on the company, and thus are still in a way the owners, and will probably still play a management role — if only because their money (and whatever deal they wheedled out of the Bank of Montreal) is still in the game.

So yes, you can say that SF Weekly and its brother and sister papers have been “sold.” But unless Nick Kristof and the advertisers who cut off the dollars are pretty damn dumb, they’ll take a hard look at this and say: Really?

Where is Occupy SF now?

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On the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy San Francisco also celebrated its birthday.

Demonstrations throughout the day Sept. 17, focusing on a variety of topics, converged at 5pm at 555 California, Bank of America’s west coast headquarters. A lively march of about 600 became a street festival down the block. There, protesters stopped for a circus of birthday activities. In one corner, people saddled by debt wrote their debt information on pieces of paper, explained their situations to the crowd, and dropped the papers into a trash can for a symbolic burning. One person also burned cash. “Hell no, we won’t pay,” the crowd chanted.

A few feet over, protesters painted the street with a bright yellow sun declaring “democracy not debt.” Volunteers then fed a free meal to the hundreds in attendance and wheeled in a video screen to watch some recaps of the year’s best moments. Around 8pm, the group left as peacefully as they had come.

In the darkness, a few hundred headed east on Market. When they arrived in Justin Herman Plaza– or Bradley Manning Plaza, as Occupy SF has christened it, in honor of the whistle blowing soldier- a few police stood guard around the perimeter. Undeterred, protesters walked in, and shouts of “happy birthday” gave way to “welcome home.”

The birthday party continued with a night of music. Five tents were pitched, sleeping bags were brought out. Police vehicles carrying truckloads of barricades drove by, but police told protesters they would have to leave the park by 6am, the hour the park opens.

30 or 40 spent the night. In the morning police came back. As ukelele and drums continued to play, tents were dutifully broken down. A few went back to sleep.

Video by Eric Louie

Last fall, Occupy SF could basically be found here. The camp was at Justin Herman Plaza. The ever-expanding list of working groups sometimes met somewhere else, but Occupy was at camp. But after a series of police raids, from Oct. 5 to the raid that finally brought the camp down in December, this camp was no more.

Now, Occupy SF is found all over the place.

As longtime Occupy SF activist Vi Huynh said while celebrating the anniversary: “I think it’s good to honor these milestones because, unlike the mainstream media would have us believe, we haven’t gone away. We’re not dying either. They’re writing our obituaries, but we’re very much alive. And we’re doing things every day.”

Here’s an uncomprehensive list of active groups from Occupy in San Francisco.

101 Market. This is the old camp of Occupy, “re-occupied” in February in response to a national call. At least 30 sleep there every night, and the camp is a veritable fortress of furniture and belongings. They’re mere existence is a refusal to humor the concept of private property. General Assembly meetings occur at 101 Market Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm.

Action Council. Action Council is a forum meant to connect Occupy with unions, non-profits, and community groups. They played a big role in planning demonstrations like the Jan. 20 shutdown of the financial district and the May Day solidarity demonstrations. Action Council meets weekly, Sundays at 2pm at Unite Here headquarters, 215 Golden Gate Ave.

All Streets Yoga. Since last winter, All Streets Yoga, formerly known as Decolonize Yoga, has been transforming part of the sidewalk at the 16th and Mission BART station into a yoga studio free for all. Volunteer yoga teachers lay out rugs and lead personalized yoga sessions for anyone who chooses to join. They transform space and creating calm in the busy city landscape. Join them Fridays 5-7pm.

Community Not Commodity. Also known as Bay Occupride, this group formed to protest commercialization of the Pride Parade. On the Sept. 17 anniversary they did a march on the Castro banks and a sit-in to protest sit-lie at Harvey Milk Plaza. CNC describes itself as “a collective assembly of queer/trans-focused community groups with established reputations in the Bay Area that have come together to strengthen and unify our diverse communities. We have come together to confront the 1% within our movement. We work for complete liberation of queer and trans people!” They meet Sundays at noon at Muddy Waters Café, 521 Valencia. See more at www.bayoccupride.com.

Direct Action working group. Direct action is a central tenant of Occupy. It means taking action to prevent something bad or create something good without permission or help of those with political power. In a 1912 essay titled Direct Action, Voltairine de Cleyre cited the Boston Tea Party as an example and wrote that “Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him, without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist. All co-operative experiments are essentially direct action.” The direct action working group meets Wednesdays, 6pm, at the Redstone Building at 2940 16th Street.

Environmental Justice working group. The environmental justice working group keeps the pressure on the corporations that exploit the planet. They’ve protested hydraulic fracturing and the nuclear industry. They meet Tuesdays at 4pm at 101 Market.

Food bank of America. Occupy SF set up the first Food Bank of America to feed thousands of hungry protesters and passers-by on Jan. 20. A Market Street Bank of America branch locked its doors when volunteers set up a food table and passed out hot meals. Now, Food Bank of America continues in front of the mega-bank’s 23rd and Mission branch, where volunteers pass out produce, mostly donated from farmers’ markets, along with literature on switching to credit unions. They’re usually there Thursdays 5-6pm.

Ideological Liberation working group. This working group has produced pamphlets explaining Occupy, trading cards of especially greedy bankers, and postcards summarizing issues like the foreclosure crisis and the National Defense Authorization Act. They also created the Occupy SF Declaration. Brainstorm and write with them on Tuesdays, 7:30-9pm, at the decidedly ideologically un-liberated meeting spot of the Starbucks at 27 Drumm.

Occupy Bay Area United. Occupy Bay Area United spent the night outside 555 California on the eve of the Occupy SF anniversary, an occupation complete with tents and signs. They are “committed to non-violent direct action.” They meet on Sundays, 5-7pm, and post meeting locations on their website, www.obau.org.

Occupy Bernal. This neighborhood-based group is largely considered one of the most effective and desperately needed parts of the Occupy movement in San Francisco. Occupy Bernal is in the business of stopping foreclosures and evictions. “Since January no one we worked with has had an auction. People we work with who already had auctions, we’re stopping their evictions. We’ve stopped six of them so far. So we’re almost done with all the evictions, and we can go back to just stopping the auctions. We have 60 people in line to get loan modifications from Wells,” said Occupy Bernal organizer Buck Bagot. On the anniversary, Occupy Bernal hosted a rally highlighting the disproportionate effects of the foreclosure crisis and veterans and elderly and disabled people. “There were about 100 of us at the protest and five people, all over 80, veterans who are all at risk of losing their homes because they don’t have very much income,” said Bagot. Occupy Bernal meets 7-9pm on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center at 515 Cortland Ave. See www.occupybernal.org for more information.

Occupy Forum. Occupy Forum started up in early June in the Women’s Building, and has since moved to Justin Herman Plaza. The well-attended forums, usually around 70 people, are a time to discuss issues that concern people in Occupy. From the beginning Occupy has been said to have “no focus”– maybe that’s because those involved saw that everything from greedy banks to income inequality to homelessness to discrimination in loans to healthcare to racism to wars were all connected. The forum is a chance to focus in on a different topic every week. Check them out Mondays at 6pm at Justin Herman Plaza, at Market and Embarcadero.

Occupy the Richmond. A philosophical Occupy. If you’ve ever gotten sick of decrying problems in society and yearned to discuss creative solutions, Occupy the Richmond may be your cup of tea. A philosophical Occupy. Saturdays at 4pm, Occupy the Richmond gets together at 11th Ave. in Mountain Lake Park “to talk about what kind of society we want to organize together,” according to Occupy the Richmond participant Alex Zane. “Occupy opens up the possibility for talking about that. Otherwise, people would be stuck behind their screens freaking out about what kind of society we should organize. We should get together and talk with real, living people about how we’re supposed to reorganize our society,” said Zane.

Outreach working group. A group that spreads the word about Occupy and speaks with people and community organizations about working together. They meet Wednesdays at 7pm at One Rincon Center, also known as 121 Spear.

This article has been corrected. Bradley Manning served as a soldier in the Army, not a marine

Supervisors set Oct. 9 to decide Mirkarimi’s fate

Sasha Cuttler
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139
Supervisors set Oct. 9 to decide Mirkarimi’s fate

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors officially received the official misconduct case against suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi yesterday, starting the clock on the 30-day deadline that the City Charter provides for that body to take action. Board President David Chiu announced a special meeting to consider the case on Oct. 9 at 2pm.

“The last day the Board of Supervisors can act on this is Oct. 17,” Chiu told his colleagues yesterday, reiterating the schedule the board had previous agreed to: a 10-minute presentation by the Ethics Commission, 20 minutes by representatives of Mayor Ed Lee (who brought the case), 20 minutes by Mirkarimi’s side, a five-minute rebuttal by Lee, public comment (which could last for hours), and then deliberation by supervisors.

In addition, attorneys for both sides have until Sept. 25 to submit any legal briefs they want the supervisors to consider, and Mirkarimi’s attorneys are expected to raise objections to an Ethics Commission summary they considered “one-sided,” as well as getting into the issue of whether Lee committed perjury during his sworn testimony in June.

It takes at least nine of the 11 supervisors to remove Mirkarimi, and there is an open question about whether some supervisors should recuse themselves from voting because of conflicts-of-interest, which would essentially count the same as a vote in Mirkarimi’s favor.

Lee was asked on the witness stand whether he spoke with any supervisors about removing Mirkarimi, which he denied. But Building Inspection Commissioner Debra Walker said her longtime friend and political ally Sup. Christina Olague told her Lee had sought her input on the decision. Confronted by journalists, Olague denied the charge but said, “I may have to recuse myself from voting on this.”

Lee was also asked whether he tried to get Mirkarimi a city job in exchange for his resignation, which Lee denied, but former Sup. Aaron Peskin has said that permit expediter and Lee ally Walter Wong (who has refused to answer questions from the media) extended that offer through him, which Mirkarimi didn’t accept. The Ethics Commission refused to consider the perjury allegations, calling them beyond its purview, but Mirkarimi attorney David Waggoner said he plans to submit sworn declarations by Peskin and Walker to the supervisors.

Another possible recusal from the vote would be Sup. Eric Mar, who just happened to be called as a juror in Mirkarimi’s criminal case before it was settled with a plea bargain. There have also been rumors that Board President David Chiu spoke with Lee about Mirkarimi at some point. Last month, Waggoner told the board that he wanted each supervisor to declare whether they have spoken with anyone about Mirkarimi, but their team is proceeding cautiously and wary of offending the supervisors who will now decide the fate of their former colleague.

“We’re going to respectfully ask each member of the board to state under oath who they’ve talked to about the case,” Waggoner told us.

Normally, jurors would be extensively questioned during the voir dire process, and those who had served on an elected body with a defendant for years would almost certainly be removed from the jury pool, which seems to have been the case with Mar’s disqualification on the criminal case. But that’s just one more example of how this unprecedented process is anything but normal, with city officials basically making up the rules as they go along.

Mirkarimi’s wife and alleged victim, Eliana Lopez, has consistently maintained that she was never abused, except by city officials who have sabotaged and humiliated her family and taken away its livelihood. She told the Guardian that the thin charges in this case shouldn’t warrant the removal of an elected official: “You can have different opinions about Ross’s behavior, and people can have different opinions about that, but the people of San Francisco should decide who represents them.”

Lopez said she’s been dismissed and mistreated by Lee, the Ethics Commission, and domestic violence advocates: “These self-appointed white women that are part of the Domestic Violence Consortium are doing everything they can to attack me and insult me while claiming to help me, and never once reaching out to me.”

But she said that she’s hopeful the supervisors will resist political pressure during an emotionally charged election season and do the right thing: “What we need from the supervisors is brave and honest supervisors. The people of San Francisco need that.”

Our Weekly Picks: September 19-25

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 9/19

The Birds


As part of a series of ongoing celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of Universal Pictures, Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies are presenting a special one day only screening of The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1963 horror flick about rampaging flocks of fearsome feathered fiends that invade a sleepy coastal community and wreak havoc on its citizens. Filmed in San Francisco and just to the north in Bodega Bay, the film has been newly restored, and will be preceded by an introduction from TCM host Robert Osborne, along with revealing interviews that he conducted with star Tippi Hedren earlier this year. See website for participating theaters. (Sean McCourt)

2 and 7pm, $10.50–$12.50

Various Bay Area Theaters

www.fathomevents.com

THURSDAY 9/20

Azure Ray


Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor are Alabama natives, childhood friends, and progenitors of dream pop duo Azure Ray. Throughout most of their Azure work, the pair grounded their tracks in vocal harmonization and added in some folksy acoustic guitar and/or piano melodies, such as in 2010’s Drawing Down the Moon. But in the latest LP released this month, As Above So Below, Fink and Taylor immerse their warm vocals in electronic atmospherics, vocal delay effects, and a smattering of bass. Azure have said for As Above that they drew on the minimalist and electronic aspects of artists such as James Blake, Nicholas Jaar and Apparat. As Above’s tight and intricate feel can be partially credited to co-producer and Orenda’s husband, Todd Fink of The Faint. (Kevin Lee)

With Soko, Haroula Rose 8pm, $15 Swedish American Music Hall 2174 Market, SF (415) 431-7578 www.cafedunord.com

FRIDAY 9/21

Eat Real Festival


Sure, the snacks and sips for sale at Eat Real are superlative, but not all of Oakland’s three-day fest dedicated to fresh, local edibles revolves around pure functionality. Take for example, the Thai fruit carving demonstration manned by staff from mobile Bay Area catering outfit House of Siam. You can learn how to turn a watermelon into a rose, petals fading from pink meat to white rind. It’s just one of a passel of tutorials that will be taking place throughout the fest, which will also feature a beer garden of local brews curated by Eat Real neighbor, Linden Street Brewery, live music, and vendors hawking treats, all for under $5. (Caitlin Donohue) Fri/21 1-9pm; Sat/22 10:30am-9pm; 10:30am-5pm Jack London Square, Oakl. www.eatrealfest.com

FRIDAY 9/21

Pacific Pinball Expo


"Free play!" For lifelong pinball wizards in training — and those, like me, who just enjoy playing Addams Family for hours at the local gay bar — there are few better phrases in the English language. To show off its extensive (and quite historically fascinating) collection of games with balls, and to help promote its intended move to the Palace of Fine Arts from Alameda, the great Pacific Pinball Museum is hosting the supposedly largest pinball expo in the world at the Marin Civic Center. 400 games set on free play! X-Men! Ms. Pacman! Vintage Bally games like Starjet! "Woodrails" from the 1950s! Sorry, there will be no splints provided for those who, in their excitement of such flashing and dinging riches, suffer a case of "flipper wrist." (Marke B.)

Through Sun/16, 10am-midnight, $15–$60

Marin Civic Center Exhibition Hall

10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael

(510) 205-6959

www.pacificpinball.org

FRIDAY 9/21

Wilco


As recent sold-out performances at the Fox attest, Chicago’s Wilco is an easy sell. Eight albums in with 2011’s The Whole Love, Jeff Tweedy continues to catalog tender hearts at the edge of maddening fights, backgrounded arguably the most expansive band in rock. (While other groups may struggle to create a sound big enough for the Greek, drummer Glenn Kotche could do it on his own.) But the added draw this time are the openers; Friday is a second chance for anyone who missed Cibo Matto’s reunion show at Bimbo’s last year, while Saturday features beloved raconteur Jonathan Richman, with extra of room for him to let loose his signature dance moves. (Ryan Prendiville)

Fri/21 with Cibo Matto; Sat/22 with Jonathan Richman 7:30pm, $49.50 Greek Theatre 2001 Gayley Road, Berk. (510) 548-3010 www.apeconcerts.com

FRIDAY 9/21

Yob


Eugene, Oreg.’s Yob has been producing sprawling doom metal landscapes since 1996, but it’s taken until 2012 for it to get noticed. Though the mainstream press has finally picked up on the band — Spin Magazine placed its sixth album, Atma, in its top 50 records of 2011 — Yob’s masterful songwriting and awesomely sinister energy hasn’t lost any of its edge. Atma is a megalith of slow, chugging riffs and discordant melodies, the shortest song clocking in at seven minutes and 33 seconds. Vocalist (and Krav Maga instructor) Mike Scheidt shrieks and growls over the sludge like a demon that has finally been unleashed. (Haley Zaremba)

With Acid King, Norska

9pm, $12

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

SATURDAY 9/22

California Wines Road Trip


Love a variety of California wines, but don’t have the time to travel all over the state to visit all the wineries? Then head over the "California Wines Road Trip" event, where more than 90 wines from 14 different regions of the state will be available to sample, along with artisanal cheeses and other scrumptious food offerings. The party is part of California Wine Month, which will be hosting other events all throughout the state, so drink up for a good cause — part of the proceeds from the event will go to the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture and the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance. (McCourt)

2-5pm, $35.

Ferry Building, Grand Hall

One Ferry Building, SF

discovercaliforniawines.com/roadtrip

SATURDAY 9/22

7 Seconds


They say that Reno is so close to hell you can see sparks. It makes sense that this environment would create one of the most enduring hardcore punk bands in music history. 7 Seconds have been active for three decades. In this time span they’ve gone through lineup changes, genre changes, into the straight edge movement and back out of it. Since its inception in 1980, the Marvelli brothers Kevin Seconds and Steve Youth have remained the backbone of the band, tirelessly touring and releasing 15 albums and numerous EPs and compilations. You’ve seen the logo for years, on T-shirts and patched onto jean jackets, but 7 Seconds have endured based on a lot more than great branding. They’re living, breathing, shredding pioneers of American punk. (Zaremba)

With Heartsounds, Bastards of Young, City of Vain

7pm, $12

924 Gilman, Berkeley

(510) 524-8180

www.924gilman.org

SATURDAY 9/22

Cut Hands


Like an enrapturing free-jazz gig, or a moshtastic punk show, Cut Hands’ brand of crushing experimentalism must be seen live to be fully appreciated. The one-man project, commanded by British fringe-artist and Whitehouse bandleader William Bennett, fuses traditional Central African percussion with synthetic drums, laying them atop ambient drones and shrill electronics, with an industrial production sound worthy of Throbbing Gristle at their most unforgiving. Pushing his singular vision to new extremes, Bennett’s forthcoming LP, Black Mamba (the follow-up to his Wire-approved Afro Noise series) is the project’s most relentlessly pulverizing statement to date. Gluttons for avant-punishment shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to experience Bennett’s viscerally draining, yet transcendent, explorations in sound. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Burmese, Bestial Mouths, DJ Crackwhore 9:30pm, $12

Elbo Room 647 Valencia, SF (415) 552-7788 www.elbo.com

MONDAY 9/24

Wyclef Jean


Member of a supernatural hip-hop crew, singer of "Gone ‘Til November" — maybe you even got a bead on his brief, but glorious run at being the president of Haiti, in the face of Sean Penn’s wet-blanket naysaying. But unless you have read his new book Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story (if you have, back pat, the thing was released on Tuesday) you probably did not know that Jean’s pastor father relocated his family into a fire-damaged funeral home in Newark when the sensitive rapper was wee. Face it, many things about this ex-Fugee remain a mystery. Attend tonight’s event and let them be revealed, with insightful prodding by MTV2’s Hip Hop Squares host Peter Rosenberg. (Donohue)

7:30, $25–$30 Palace of Fine Arts 3301 Lyon, SF

(415) 567-6642 www.palaceoffinearts.org

MONDAY 9/24

Serj Tankian


Serj Tankian started writing his third solo album when he read about the mass disappearance of different species of animals around the world. The result is Harakiri, a self-produced record named for the Japanese idea of ritual suicide. As the frontman for System of a Down, Armenian-born Tankian has a long history of activism and influence in the music community, and now he’s taking on the uncomfortable future of environmental (un)sustainability. In response, Tankian has kicked into overdrive, touring with System, publishing his third book of poetry, collaborating with nonprofits, collaborating with other musicians, and releasing a rock opera all within the last year. With this momentum, Tankian may just take over the world. I don’t know about you, but I trust him with it. (Zaremba)

With Viza

8pm, $35

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

TUESDAY 9/25

Django Django


"Spins the phrases together ’til something starts to make sense" is generally a pretty apt description of what frequently parades as "psychedelic" songwriting, a veil of random weirdness that often obscures an underlying mediocrity and lack of musical talent. On its self-titled, Mercury Prize-nominated debut — which includes those lyrics on the track "Hail Bop" — Britain’s Django Django takes a different approach, combining the the straightforward structure of ’60s vocal pop with a nearly cribbed catalog of inward looking psych imagery, layered over surprisingly shiny production that includes influences from tribal rhythms and metronomic, driving electronica. The result is an album that’s paradoxically bold as it is bare. (Prendiville)

With Vinyl Williams 8pm, $15 Independent 628 Divisadero, SF (415) 771-1421 www.theindependentsf.com

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On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 19

Meet the artist: “Photographs From Lebanon” SF Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF. www.sfpl.org. 6pm, free. Najib Joe Hakim went back to his hometown Beirut to capture the culture that survived after Israel bombed the country. Coffee, candles, fishermen repairing nets — the resulting photo exhibit is a testament to resiliency, check it out today with the artist as your guide.

Elizabeth Rosner reads Grace Paley Pegasus Books, 1885 Solano, Berk. (510) 525-6888, www.pegasusbookstore.com. 7:30pm, free. The award-winning bookstore and Berkeley establishment Pegasus Books is starting up a brand-new reading series showcasing local writers opining on and dissecting the works of other writers. The first writer’s words to be in the spotlight will be activist Grace Paley, whose three feminist short stories will be interpreted by novelist Elizabeth Rosner.

24th Street Listening Project Brava Theater, 2781 24th St., SF. (415) 641-7657, www.brava.org. 5pm-9pm, free. In this project, artists Lynn Marie Kirby and Alexis Petty double as your tour guides as they take you on a vibrant five-block excursion complete with colorful meditation and reverberating echoes and concludes with the creation of a collective pigment poem. After the walk there will be a presentation at the Brava that will include mapping videos, local music, and story-telling.

THURSDAY 20

California history third Thursdays Society of California Pioneers, 300 Fourth St., SF. (415) 957-1849, www.californiapioneers.org. 4-7pm, free. Full of California pride, but uninformed on California history? The Society of California Pioneers will gladly school you on the history of our great state with their “Third Thursday” bargain book sale. Visitors and amateur California historians will also have the chance to check out the current exhibit “Singing the Golden State,” which showcases a collection of late 18th and early 19th century songs that pay homage to our fair state.

“Art Making in the 21st Century: Social and Subversive Practices” Yerba Buena Community Benefit District, UC Berkeley Extension, 95 Third St., (415) 644-0728, www.artsindialogue.org. 7pm, free. Reactionary artists Anthony Discenza, Dawn Weleski, and Ray Beldner will convene to tackle issues surrounding community-based art-making on a panel sponsored by the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District. These artists whose work involves re-appropriating common items of normal will be discussing interactive media, guerrilla interventions, and more.

SATURDAY 22

LOTR roundtable discussion Books Inc., 601 Van Ness, SF. www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. In honor of the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit, this bookstore hosts an open panel discussion on the books. Guinness for the grown-ups will be provided, plus birthday cake for all ages.

Tour de Fat Lindley Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.newbelgium.com. 11am-5pm, parade registration 10am, free admission, $5 parade admission. A bike-beer carnival par excellence, featuring live bands, a costumed bike parade, and an elaborate ritual in which a lucky automobilist trades in their car for a fly new cycle.

North Beach Art Walk North Beach neighborhood, SF. www.artwalk.thd.org. Also Sun/23, 11am-6pm, free. The fifth annual NB art walk visits a plethora of cafes, galleries, and studios. Snag a map from Live Worms Gallery (1345 Grant, SF), and discover the northern neighborhood’s founts of creativity.

Roadworks: A Steamroller Printing Festival Rhode Island between 16th and 17th Sts., SF. www.sfcb.org. Noon-5pm, free. San Francisco Center for the Book celebrates the art of printed matter with this street fair, which features a three-ton construction steamroller that will put the finishing touches on 3-foot square linoleum block prints.

Superhero Street Fair Cesar Chavez and Indiana, SF. www.superherosf.com. 2pm-midnight, $10 in costume, $20 otherwise. Flip those undies outside your tights and soar down to Bayview for this open-air weirdo-fest in honor of caped crusaders. Climbing walls, jousts, floating pontoon boats — plenty of trouble to get into, while sound camps like Pink Mammoth, Opel, and Dancetronauts provide beats.

Precita Eyes 35th anniversary gala Meridien Gallery, 535 Powell, SF. www.precitaeyes.org. 5:30pm, VIP cocktail reception; 7pm, gala, $35-100. Is there a single arts organization that has done more to beautify the city of San Francisco? Debatable. Tonight, the transcendent community arts program that sponsors murals by established artists and schoolchildren alike takes a moment to reflect on its achievements. Bay graff cornerstone Estria Miyashiro will be honored for his epic contributions to the culture, and Susan Cervantes gets her due for 45 years of wall painting.

SUNDAY 23

Teacher supplies swap Fontana Room, 1050 North Point, SF. www.educycle.com/party. 3-6pm, free. Maestros, bring your old classroom accoutrements and trade up with your peers. There will be wine, snacks, chances to share back to school war stories.

Yerba Buena family day Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission and Fourth St., SF. www.ybfamilyday.org. 11am-4pm, free. Grab the fam for cost-free entry at the SFMOMA, Children’s Creativity Museum, Contemporary Jewish Museum, and Museum of the African Diaspora. When the troops tire of the museum track, head to the YB Gardens for free performances by Latin jazz great Eddie Palmieri, Red Panda Acrobats, Afro-Puerto Rican group Los Pleneros de la 21, and much more.

MONDAY 24

“20 Years of Critical Mass Art” 518 Valencia, SF. www.sfcriticalmass.org. Opening reception: 6pm, free. The 20th anniversary of SF’s world-famous monthly bike parade-protest kicks off its celebrations with this show of posters, t-shirts, graphics, and more from the last two decades.

 

Opinion: Let reporters into prisons

Zelda Bronstein
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23
Opinion: Let reporters into prisons

As a young public defender, I represented an innocent man who was convicted of
murder.

John Tennison was serving a sentence of 25 years to life when, in 1997, I
contacted a 20/20 news producer, who agreed to feature the case.

Tennison had already lost seven years of his freedom. A national broadcast
exposing concealed evidence, perjury and misconduct by police and prosecutors in
the case could reverse his fate and reunite him with his family.

But when prison officials denied the television crew an interview with my
client, producers were forced to withdraw. No interview meant no story.
 
Tennison was eventually exonerated, but it took 14 years. Fortunately, a
reporter from the SF Bay Guardian named Adam Clay Thompson accompanied me during
a prison interview as my paralegal and was able to meet and interview Tennison.
He wrote a cover story that exposed the injustice of Tennison’s case and
started the ball rolling towards his eventual exoneration. I am convinced that
if media access were granted in this case, it would have restored his freedom
years earlier.
 
For the past 15 years, California’s prisons have operated in a virtual media
blackout. With the flick of his pen, Governor Jerry Brown has the opportunity to
turn on the light.
 
Now on his desk is AB 1270, also known as the Prison Media Access Bill. The
bill, authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, would restore the press’ ability to
conduct pre-arranged, face-to-face interviews with specific prison inmates.
 
Currently, reporters may interview inmates who are hand-picked by prison
officials. They are not allowed follow-up contact, making it impossible to know
whether a prisoner has suffered retaliation as a result of the interview.
 
It wasn’t always this way. During Brown’s first stint as governor, the press was
free to fulfill its watchdog role in California prisons.
 
In 1996, prison officials clamped down on press access under the guise of
discouraging tabloid media from making celebrities of notorious killers. In the
process, it also made it far harder to expose systematic abuse, fiscal
mismanagement and unsafe conditions for guards and inmates alike.
 
It was under this information shut-out that inhumane conditions were allowed to
fester to the point that the Supreme Court intervened in 2011, ordering the
release of 46,000 inmates.
 
It was nearly a century ago that US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote
that sunlight is the best disinfectant. It remains no less true today.

Government accountability is impossible without media access. The 2011-2012

state budget allocates $9.2 billion in taxpayer money to the CaliforniaDepartment of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, yet public information is limited by CDCR’s current restrictive
media policies.

Taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going. Like John Tennison,
innocent men and women languishing in California’s prisons deserve to tell their
stories.

Jeff Adachi is San Francisco’s public defender.

Ethics Commission rejects Mirkarimi delay request

Sasha Cuttler
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143
Ethics Commission rejects Mirkarimi delay request

The Ethics Commission – in a decision made by Chair Benedict Hur, to whom the commission had given the authority to make procedural decisions – today rejected a request by attorneys for suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi to delay transfer of his official misconduct case to the Board of Supervisors until after the Nov. 6 election.

Mirkarimi’s attorneys argued that the decision has been overly politicized during the election season, with supervisorial challengers turning the decision into a litmus test and interest groups polling voters on whether they would be more likely to reject supervisors who voted for reinstating Mirkarimi. The City Charter requires the board to act within 30 days of receiving the official record from Ethics, which will probably happen early next week.

“The fate of the sheriff has been made a key political issue in the election by the media, candidates, consultants, mayoral appointees to commissions, and others. Sending the record to the Board immediately prior to an election deprives the Sheriff of a neutral decision-maker, as guaranteed by the Due Process clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments,” attorney David Waggoner wrote to the commission on Sept. 10, attaching eight articles and campaign pieces linking the Mirkarimi decision to the supervisorial races.

But Hur disagreed. “There is no evidence suggesting that any member of the Board of Supervisors will disregard the facts and the law and instead vote to sustain the charges based upon perceived political pressure,” he wrote. Actually, he argued that “granting the Sheriff’s request would cause the Commission to engage in the type of political maneuvering that it seeks to avoid. The commission will not manipulate the timing of the Board’s decision in a misguided attempt to predict the nadir of public pressure on the Supervisors.”

Mirkarimi told the Guardian that he was disappointed by the decision, noting that it was Mayor Ed Lee’s piling on of excessive charges that the commission found no evidence to support that have delayed the board’s deliberations until the height of the election season. “This is so vividly and transparently political.”

Dream of the ’90s

Andrew Lam
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5
Dream of the ’90s

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC By now, Antwon’s mug has probably nestled somewhere in your brain. It’s hard to take your eyes off him in the Brandon Tauszik-directed video for Antwon’s song “Helicopter,” slowly spitting rhymes over a screaming alarm of a beat, wandering Oakland, drinking on porches, pouring hot sauce on breakfast in between scenes from the classic film, Bullit (1968). Or as one media outlet breathlessly noted, “Malt liquor, Steve McQueen, and Sriracha!”

There he is in the Mission District, in the flesh, taking time out to chat with me; the San Jose-based rapper (who’s more often found in Oakland) travels to the city twice a week to work at vintage clothing shop New Jack City, an eye-popping gem of a store, stuffed with letterman’s jackets, button-downs, and gently worn Mickey Mouse sweatshirts, mostly plucked from the 1980s and ’90s.

Now here’s his sturdy frame — which, along with his voice, has inspired not-inaccurate comparisons to Biggie — in a warped movie clip run through a VHS player in yet another music video, this time looking straight out of a ’90s positive hip-hop video for his song “Living Every Dream.”

The track, produced by witch house term-coiner Pictureplane, is on Antwon’s newest mixtape, End of Earth. It’s his third since last September’s Fantasy Beds, which produced “Helicopter.”

“Living Every Dream,” the wobbly reworking of Suzanne Vega’s a capella cinematic earworm, “Tom’s Diner” (Christian Slater with the baboon heart!) is doubtless one of the standout tracks on End of Earth, an album frankly full of surprising turns.

“I had been wanting to sample that song to make a hip-hop song for really as long as I can remember, [since] high school maybe,” says Travis Egady a.k.a Pictureplane. “It is just a great tempo and loop. I wanted to hear Antwon’s voice on it.”

“He is really relatable… no bullshit artist,” Pictureplane says of Antwon. “[He’s] a rapper you want to be friends with. He is a hip-hop everyman.”

Another side of the everyman comes out on End of Earth‘s more playful “Diamond and Pearls,” produced by his longtime DJ Sex Play (formerly Bad Slorp), who produced all of Antwon’s December 2011 release, My Westside Horizon.

Other tracks on End of Earth such as “Laugh Now,” produced by Wounderaser, and Rpldghsts-produced “Cold Sweat” more recall the hardcore scene Antwon grew up in. A scene he credits with teaching him how to perform. “I learned how to play shows by going to hardcore shows,” he says from his post in New Jack City. There are indeed mosh pits and sweaty dogpiles at his shows, which is unexpected at traditional hip-hop club nights, though those lines seem to be blurring across the board.

In particular “Laugh Now” blurs genre and scene, with themes of isolation, anxiety, and personal demons, tethered by actual howls and dragged out vocals growling “La-a-a-gh now,” and lyrics like “This for the people that talk shit about you/But when they see you they walk around you.”

Antown grew up in Sunnyvale — his mom’s from the Philippines and his dad is from Fresno. In middle school he recorded mixtapes with a friend through a karaoke machine, and sold them at school.

He later performed as his own one-man noise act, warping sound on a SP-303 and running his vocals through distortion pedals. In 2009 he traveled to Philadelphia to join the punk band Leather, but he then returned to his roots. He had rapped before, but really got started again when he came back to California. “It really kind of like, took on a life of its own.”

While for now he’s still based in San Jose, he’s most often found in Oakland, where he hangs out with Trill Team 6 (a loose crew of Oakland DJs, producers, and musicians, including figurehead Mike Melero) who rifle through jackets at New Jack City as we talk. He points to the shoppers and says he’s a part of the East Bay scene, “because of those dudes.”

“I played shows in San Jose, but it was really boring,” he adds, eyes widening. “I like the energy more in Oakland. It feels like when I was younger and just threw parties and it was about having fun and shit. It seems like that same energy is in Oakland now.”

While he’s clearly more connected to the East Bay, some of his biggest and most memorable shows yet have been in San Francisco — he opened last month for Theophilus London at the Mezzanine (flashiest) and played in the sandy Sutro Baths caves earlier this summer (unforgettable) as part of the Ormolycka Cave Series.

“That was my favorite,” he says of the beach cave show. “It was real crazy.”

Up next is his first ever show with Pictureplane — the two will play a Future | Perfect and #Y3K-presented show at Public Works. (The first time they met in person was at a massive EDM fest in the Bay Area, says Pictureplane: “We walked around and took pictures of all the teenage ravers. We watched David Guetta along with like, 50 thousand people together”).

After that Public Works date, a Mission Creek show at the Uptown in Oakland with Cities Aviv, Friendzone, and Chippy Nonstop. But then he may go back underground, or at least, play less frequently in the Bay Area for a bit. His mug might be less on your radar for a hot minute, while he gathers tracks for another full-length, just him and DJ Sexplay this time around.

ANTWON

With Pictureplane, Chippy Nonstop

Fri/14, 9pm, $15-$20

Public Works

161 Erie, SF (415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

 

Our Weekly Picks: September 12-18

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 12

Zero1 Biennial

This week, when the weather is right, SF designer Ishky will coordinate a massive 3.14-ecetera to be written by five planes over the Bay’s skyscape. The work heralds the arrival of Zero1 Biennial, sure to be a different look at Silicon Valley. SFMOMA, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Stanford will all be participating in the tech-art fest, but “Seeking Silicon Valley” is a good place to start exploring. Artists from 11 countries have created innovative odes to computerlandia at Zero1 Garage, a specially-designed new permanent art space in San Jose. Expect virtual tunnels connecting cross-Atlantic museums and the first dot com rise and fall, as interpreted through shots of a vertiginous Argentinian mountain. (Caitlin Donohue)

Through Dec. 8, Various times and Bay Area venues

“Seeking Silicon Valley”

Zero1 Garage

439 First St., San Jose

www.zero1biennial.org

 

Chelsea Wolfe

Like a gloomier incarnation of Julia Holter, or PJ Harvey with a stoner-goth edge, Chelsea Wolfe has a knack for sounding like everyone and no-one else, all at once. On last year’s Apokalypsis, her wispy, high-pitched vocals stood in stark opposition to the record’s sonic atmosphere: robust, foreboding drums and guitars a la Slint, wrapped up in lush electronics, layers upon layers of reverb, and the vague ethos of the hypnagogic pop movement. One of those “weird” records whose weirdness is rendered highly palatable by its confident execution, Wolfe’s debut was one of last year’s most compelling rock statements. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Crypts, Dia Dear, DJ S4NtA_MU3rTE, DJ Nako

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


THURSDAY 13

Femina Potens’ ASKEW Film and Performance Festival

Should your post-convention feminist outrage still be clouding the edges of your vision, mark your calendars for a weekend of smart, sex-positive female-made films and readings at YBCA. Tonight, take in multimedia memoir presentations by adult industry stars-authors Oriana Small and Lorelei Lee, then a documentary on SF strippers’ fight for justice in the workplace by Hiwa B., an ex-dancer herself. Later this weekend, Madison Young’s doc on her first year as a mama in SF sex culture awaits (Sat/14), and Mollena Williams’ interactive short on the ways racism can emerge in the world of BDSM play (Sun/15). Forget “legitimate rape,” it’s time to start developing our own vision of the way we want the world to work. (Donohue)

Through Sun/15, $10/screening

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Nommo Ogo

The Bay Area is overloaded with ambient electronic acts inviting you to lose yourself in their Pink Floyd-on-codeine haze, but Nommo Ogo’s attention to detail sets it apart from the pack. Balancing old-school, Cluster-meets-Zelda synth tones with live guitars, field recordings, jittery percussion, and the occasional buried vocal track, its records are unusually dynamic, and compositionally advanced, for “ambient” fare. This Thursday, the Oakland-via-Anchorage outfit will unleash some new material, as it celebrates the release of its forthcoming LP, Endless Dream, at Bottom of the Hill. Will the new album follow the sturdy progression of the back catalogue, or will it present a bold change of direction? (Kaplan)

With Candle Labra, Secret Sidewalk

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com


FRIDAY 14

John Cage Celebration: PICO

You have one chance this weekend to wish John Cage a Happy 100th Birthday. With a razor mind, often barely visible behind his affable façade, Cage and Merce Cunningham turned inside out cherished traditions about listening and seeing. A European composer once asked Cage whether it was not difficult for him write music so far away from the Tradition. His reply: “it must be hard for you write music so close to the Tradition.” PICO: Performance Indeterminate Cage Opera, based on Cage’s Fontana Mix — less a score than a manual for proceeding — is a very Cagean enterprise with live and recorded music, three channels of video, 20 plus dancers, and audience participation (should you be so inclined). PICO also pays tribute to kindred spirits Marcel Duchamp and Nam June Paik (Rita Felciano).

7:30pm, $7

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft Way, Berk.

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

Rustie

Who needs restraint, or tastefulness, when you’ve got Rustie? Like fellow producers Hudson Mohawke and Lone, the Glasgow-based beatmaker specializes in a high-gloss brand of dubstep-tinged electronica that overwhelms with its kitchen-sink approach. Much like an alternate Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack, as envisioned by the venerable Warp imprint, his debut LP, Glass Swords, was one of 2011’s most ecstatically go-for-broke records. Garish, fluorescent synths compete relentlessly for the spotlight, anchored (just barely) by grooving, thrashing percussion, on a hugely celebratory record with the irresistible energy of a basketful of puppies. One can only imagine the potential of Rustie’s maximalist approach in a live setting. (Kaplan)

With Kode9, Obey City, Anna Love, Dreams, Dials vs. Bogi, The Slayers Club Crew

10pm, $20

1015 Folsom, SF

(415) 264-1015

www.1015.com/onezerothree

 

Phenomena

Everyone’s heard of 1977’s Suspiria, but Dario Argento’s filmography is full of should-be horror classics — including 1985’s Phenomena, which returns to Suspiria‘s boarding-school milieu but shifts the action to Switzerland, where the new girl in class is the troubled daughter (Jennifer Connelly) of a movie star. She sleepwalks, she communicates with insects, she befriends a local professor (Donald Pleasence, Halloween‘s Dr. Loomis) and his chimpanzee companion, she runs afoul of the local murderer … man, growing up is tough! With lamé’d costumes by Giorgio Armani and songs by Iron Maiden, Motörhead, and Argento faves Goblin, Phenomena is a gloriously ’80s relic. It screens with animated classic The Iron Giant (1999) and young Connelly’s Muppet-tastic breakout film, 1986’s Labyrinth. (Cheryl Eddy)

“Midnites for Maniacs: Trix Are For Kids Triple Bill”

7:30pm, $13

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.midnitesformaniacs.com

 

J.B. Smoove

After starting his career on Russell Simmons’s Def Comedy Jam in the ’90s, J.B. Smoove has since solidified his status as a foolproof secret weapon within the comedy world. Uncredited appearances and writing work on Saturday Night Live, in addition to scene-stealing supporting roles in films such as Pootie Tang, helped land him his current role as Leon (“Pepitone, Pepitone!”), Larry David’s opportunistic house guest/sidekick on recent seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm. As a stand-up performer, Smoove combines physical comedy with hilarious storytelling, courtesy of his unmistakable vocal delivery. (Landon Moblad)

8 and 10:15pm; Sat/15, 7:30 and 9:45pm, $25

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com


SATURDAY 15

Los Straitjackets

Nashville, Tenn.’s Los Straitjackets have been pairing genuine musicianship with over-the-top gimmick for more than 20 years and 11 studio albums. True, quality songwriting and matching costumes sounds oxymoronic, but Los Straitjackets defy common sense. The foursome plays instrumental, surf-inspired rock music, with an extensive list of covers, including “Deck the Halls” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but their original material is where the band shines. During performances, they dress identically in all black with gold Aztec-inspired medallions, differentiated only by customized luchador masks. Not to worry, they also have synchronized choreography. (Haley Zaremba)

With Daddy-O Grande, Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys

9pm, $20

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com


SUNDAY 16

Faux Queen Pageant: The Next Generation

Now, San Francisco cherishes an exceptional portion of the world’s most glamorous and inventive faux queens. But in 1995, when Diet Popstitute and Ruby Toosday unleashed the Faux Queen Pageant, there were few outlets for “drag queens trapped in women’s bodies.” The doors FQP helped throw open make its 2012 reincarnation all the more intriguing, as SF’s big and brassy faux queen contest returns under the auspices of Bea Dazzler, Holy McGrail, and the Klubstitute Kollective. With MCs Leigh Crow (as Captain Kirk) and Trixxie Carr at the helm, and a firmament of local star judges (Heklina, Fauxnique, Birdie Bob Watt, Cricket Bardot, Ruby Toosday, L. Ron Hubby and Deena Davenport), Faux Queen Pageant: The Next Generation promises to take you where no woman has gone before. (Robert Avila)

8pm, $15

DNA Lounge

375 Eleventh St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.fauxqueenpageant.com


TUESDAY 18

Mark Bittman

Veteran New York Times opinion and food columnist Mark Bittman claims he’s not a chef and he’s never been professionally trained. Yet, his How to Cook Everything is recognized as a veritable recipe bible for curious home chefs. Bittman, nicknamed “The Minimalist” for his unfussy approach to cooking, delves even further into the fundamentals with this year’s updated How to Cook Everything: The Basics. The newest edition is an encyclopedia of tips, ranging from how to set up a pantry to how to tell when particular foods are done cooking (always important for those house parties). As if writing for the Times and authoring more than a dozen cookbooks was not enough, The Minimalist debuted his new Cooking Channel show of the same name earlier this fall. (Kevin Lee)

In conversation with Jessica Battilana

7:30pm, $22–$27

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness

(415) 392-4400

www.cityboxoffice.com


TUESDAY 18

Paloma Faith

Thanks to a string of hit singles such as “Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?” along with starring roles in several films, including Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, acting opposite Tom Waits, British singer Paloma Faith is a noted star over in her native UK. Fusing modern pop with sultry ’50s rock sensibilities and a classy, retro-inspired look, the 27-year-old Faith is hitting the United States for her first ever tour, in support of her new album, Fall To Grace. Fans can be sure that next time she comes around, it will be in a much bigger venue. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell St., SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

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Film Listings

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

CINE+MAS

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

OPENING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

Branded (1:46) SF Center.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reinstate Ross! Reinstate Ross!

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More than l00 women supporters of suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi gathered on the City Hall steps Sunday  to stand with Ross in a show of support and  a photo shoot.

The women held signs reading “Stand with Eliana and Ross, Reinstate our Sheriff” and “I believe Eliana” in English and Spanish.

Ross told the women that Mayor Ed Lee was seeking his ouster as sheriff as a way to knock out the top elected progressives in the city and to consolidate power against the progressive community.

But, he said, “as a community we stand our ground and we maintain the principles of what is just and fair.”

He said that Lee was orchestrating the supervisorial vote on his ouster to come before the November election and thus put maximum pressure on the supervisors.  He called on the community to fight back, contact the supervisors and the media and let them know that the public wants Ross to be reinstated as sheriff.

His outreach information, distributed at the event, stated: “Let the Board of Supervisors and media hear from you on behalf of Ross Mirkarimi.  He is a good man who has dedicated himself for years to serve the citizens of San Francisco.  Ironically, although his career is in Justice, he has experienced the lack of Justice at the hands of City Hall.”

And: “We elected Ross and should be the only ones to determine who is our sheriff.  Not the mayor, not the Ethics Commission, but the voters.”

The statement noted that Ross got more votes in November than did Lee for mayor and that the voters have been disenfranchised by Lee.  It also noted that “there is no precedent for suspending an official without pay.  What a terrible, unjust thing to do to a man.”

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