Media Archives — Page 61 of 121 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Bay Area assemblage

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 10, 2010

arts@sfbg.com

FILM/MUSIC/VISUAL ART Since July 9, local artist David Wilson has programmed the Friday night L@TE shows at the Berkeley Art Museum, in conjunction with “Gatherings,” his installment in the site’s MATRIX series. On Friday the 13th, Wilson concludes his summer contributions to L@TE with presentations by Jamie Stewart, the veritable prince of darkness for Oakland-based indie band Xiu Xiu, and Bay Area film critic Max Goldberg. The program is not only about gatherings in nature but also the assemblage of disparate art forms. Wilson has traversed between media to suss out the kind of aesthetics you can see, and invisible aesthetics that can only be heard. Or as he puts it in an e-mail: “I have been organizing a seasonal series of performances that foster collaborations with different artists and performers and bring people together in unique circumstances.”

Adjacent to Thom Faulder’s BAMscape — a massive orange installation that doubles as sculpture and furniture, beckoning spectators to “sit on it” but also turning them off with its uncomfortable wood seating — Wilson has placed what he calls “a large cove structure of found wood.” It works like an indoor amphitheater. This summer it has become the playing space of musicians such as Grouper and Gamelan Sekar Jaya. Wilson also has framed some works in conjunction with the interactive architecture installed in the gallery. “I’ve been making art about place and experience in place,” he writes. “Often this takes shape as a series of drawings made during explorations through the hills, or as a single drawing of a place.”

When he’s not brooding onstage or exploring childhood trauma in Xiu Xiu, Oakland native Stewart has cultivated a rather self-effacing hobby: bird-watching. “I find myself inexplicably in North Carolina,” he tells me in a phone interview. He’s been living there for about two years. “There are a lot of hunting stores … [with] rows and rows of different animal calls. A lot of these are really horrifying. The hunting bird calls sound like the environment completely exploding.”

I ask Stewart not to be totally forthcoming about his performance, as the element of mystery and the unexpected will be crucial to this event. “It’s an ambient piece,” he says. “I have a really extensive collection of gongs and animal calls and I will be using these together, but with long periods of silence. It’s an attempt to incorporate ideas of 1950s minimalist composition insofar as focusing on the pauses in sound, animal sounds, and a certain amount of physicality.”

In trying to realize the chasm between din and utter silence, Stewart cites composer Rhys Chatham’s Two Gongs (1971) as an inspiration. Of ambient music, Stewart explains, “It ends up being less of a musical experience and more of a psychological and physical experience.”

The aural and physical aspects of Stewart’s contribution — since he will be running from gong to gong — collide with the almost exclusive visual focus of Goldberg’s carefully curated selection of short films, all culled from Canyon Cinema. In the same way that the aural, physical, and visual get cozy and find a crossroads at BAM, the trio of Wilson, Stewart, and Goldberg will gather and treat BAM like a bazaar for the exchange of artistic interests.

Goldberg, a friend of Wilson’s and an admirer of Xiu Xiu (and Guardian contributer), says in an interview that the films he curated are “tuned into different ideas about recording nature. It’s not just observing. You’re in the midst and you encounter it.” For the exhibit, he sought “aesthetically amazing works” because he is “eager to capture the eyes of people who might not know about experimental cinema.”

The six shorts include films by Jeanne Liotta, Len Lye, and avant-garde household name (because there are so many of those!) Stan Brakhage. One of the most stunning works is Ben Russell’s 2007 Black and White Trypps Number Three, which turns a mosh pit into a fugue state with epileptic, chiaroscuro-heavy visuals. “They’re all films with no spoken language, and that was unintended,” Goldberg tells me. He’s curious about BAM-as-theater since it is “not a controlled environment for viewing films.” The projector will be placed right in the audience, in BAMscape’s center.

While Stewart’s performance and Goldberg’s handpicked film selection will not occur at the same time, they will operate in tandem, addressing the aesthetic concerns of place — and its, well, place in nature — while creating a multisensory experience: a disquieting yet provocative full-course feast for the open eyes, ears, and mind.

L@TE: JAMIE STEWART AND FILM PROGRAM BY MAX GOLDBERG

7:30 p.m., $5

Berkeley Art Museum

2625 Durant, Berk.

(510) 642-0808

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

The trick to Tweets

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 10, 2010

caitlin@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED Social media consultant Hermione Way is showing me the tools of her trade, an impressive arsenal. There’s the laptop, of course, and and iPhone and iPad, both fetchingly clad in pink rubber casing. “I don’t really need that one,” she says of the last gewgaw. “But it does look rather cool when I pull it out to show people things in meetings.”

And there it comes, that smile. A darling blonde who regularly posts to three blogs — including two websites she started herself (www.newspepper.com and www.techfluff.tv) — she is ardently read by 8,000 Twitter followers, has maxed out her Facebook friend limit, and has a regular segment on a British news channel. Way, freshly relocated to the Bay from London, is teaching me how to social network, professionally.

Which is — do I need to say this, even? — a rapidly growing field and one that’s starting to become a lucrative option for Web-savvy job seekers. Most social network streams for celebrities, politicians, and products are currently helmed by an enthusiastic combination of eager interns and youth-conscious marketing firms. But using social marketing to brand yourself as you work your way up the corporate ladder is good way to get your foot in the door for interviews and build connections with other like-minded professionals.

Due to its DIY ethic and nascent stage, however, branding yourself through social networking is also something that has yet to be established in academia, apart from occasional seminars like those offered by UC Berkeley in association with marketing firms. Way attended university back home in journalism but “the word ‘blog’ wasn’t mentioned once in my entire program,” she says. She wanted to provide a way for students to learn about online reporting skills, so she put out the British equivalent of a Craigslist ad and started making low budget promo videos for companies and marketing them virally.

I think. It was kind of hard to grok what some of the social networking heads I interviewed were telling me — it’s all just so haphazard-seeming, which I guess is the point. “It’s all about being audacious and being strategic about it,” said Matt Van Horn, who runs business development and publisher relationships for social news aggregator Digg.com. (He helpfully explained his job to me as “helping others in optimizing traffic from Digg and the placement of their Digg buttons.” Thanks, bro.) Van Horn got his start pretty much stalking down his future Digg bosses after graduating college. “I liked the site and I knew I wanted to work there — it’s pretty easy to guess people’s e-mail addresses.”

Cake, right? So why do I stare at my woefully underused Twitter account wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life? Way and Van Horn were kind enough to counsel me. Here are their dos: Be human — building your personal brand is tantamount to the career of a social networker. Have an angle, be regular (Way posts on Twitter three to eight times a day: “You’ve always got to be in people’s minds”) and follow up with, well, pretty much everyone you meet.

This from Van Horn: “I friend everyone I have a meaningful conversation with.” Oh, and forget that whole boundary between online work and play, it’s so 2008. Van Horn tells me he resents people who expect him to keep professional contacts restricted to his account on professional contact site LinkedIn. “That line is completely blurred.”

Don’ts? No “pure promotion,” please. “There is a way to do this that is informative and intelligent rather than just trying to sell to people,” Way said, sipping from her caffeinated beverage. And no blind thrusts into the Internet abyss. Van Horn finds it nearly impossible to take mass e-mails seriously. Take the time to learn a little before you poke him and “we’ll go out for a beer and we’ll talk,” he says.

I will not be the only one to find some of these rules a bit daunting, if not disturbing. But if many of the online gurus are to be believed, social networking signals a seismic shift in our culture. Studies are showing that it not only affects our professional world, but also how we structure our free time — even our sense of self. There’s no doubt that in some fields the spoils go to those who can parse retweets and hash marks. Which, to those who can ride the wave, is thrilling. Way was able to break into big-league journalism on the basis of her drive. “As a student with no budget, I’ve leveraged Facebook and Twitter to do all my marketing for free. You don’t have to have a rich dad that works on CNN.”

So c’mon, get your Internet celebrity already! After our interview, I checked Hermione’s Facebook profile (she made room in her friends list for me, don’t be jealous). There it was, at 5:36 p.m.: “Just had an interview with the San Francisco Bay Guardian on how to become a social media expert.” Hot dang — I guess now I’m famous too.

Get that paper

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 10, 2010

caitlin@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED Our fair state gives out the most postsecondary degrees in the country. We’re so smart! But we rank somewhere around 43rd when you convert that number to a per capita figure — and of course there’s a budget kerfuffle afoot. Shucks. Still, there are a passel of innovative, unique degree programs available now to suit your unique self and give your career a boost. Consider these.

NATIVE STUDIES

Inspired by the Alcatraz takeover and the university’s late 1960s student strike, SF State’s Native studies was the nation’s first degree program of its kind. Students focus on how Native American populations are affected by everything from environmental justice issues to health practices.

San Francisco State, 1600 Holloway, SF. (415) 338-1111, www.sfsu.ca

HUMAN SEXUALITY

The institution that awarded the world’s first PhD to a porn star (Annie Sprinkle took home a diploma from IASHS) certainly has what it takes in this field. The school offers legit advanced degrees in that most delicate of our instruments.

Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, 1523 Franklin, SF. (415) 928-1133, www.iashs.edu

DOCTOR OF PSYCHOLOGY

It’s hard to say no to a psychologist with more field experience. The PsyD program at CIIS takes a relatively new approach to the advanced psychology degree, focusing less on lab and library research and more on clinical opportunities.

Center for the Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission, SF. (415) 575-6100, www.ciis.edu

TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Yup, looks like Sarah Palin’s rearing her aspirational highlights again — that trip overseas is looking more attractive all the time. A TEFL certificate makes you eligible to teach English abroad, a perfect gig for the wannabe expat.

Teach English Abroad, www.onlinetefl.com

MUSIC FOR VISUAL MEDIA

Jingle writers, hum-along gamers, and stock characters in middling comedies like Three and a Half Men, Last Chance Harvey, and The Good Night: up your musical game to professional levels. Academy of Art offers a flexible schedule to help you reach your earworming goals.

Academy of Art University, SF. (800) 544-2787, www.academyart.edu

FIBER AND POLYMER SCIENCE

Sure, your Etsy store is kicking ass, but when it’s time to move to the next level, this program can deepen your understanding of the hang of that skirt. And how. Study physics, chemistry, and consumer science on this fashion-spelunking expedition.

UC Davis, Davis. (530) 752-2580, www.ucdavis.edu

Selective electives

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 10, 2010

caitlin@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED Heed we now Mark Twain: “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Holler, MT — that degree on your wall don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing. Why not finish out your coldest winter with an unexpected course in a new — and maybe even marketable — skill?

INTRODUCTION TO FIELD ORNITHOLOGY

“Isn’t that a magnificent sulfur-bellied flycatcher!” Joe Morlan has been teaching this City College course for more than 30 years, and his weekend field trips are sure to increase your feathered friend-spotting wingspan.

Sept 14–Oct 26, 7–9:30 p.m., $130–$140. Marina Middle School, 3500 Fillmore, SF. (415) 561-1860, www.ccsf.edu

INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION

What kid doesn’t live in her own cartoon strip? Sirron Norris (painter of sardonic blue bears and “Victorion,” the gentrification bot) empowers young people to give birth to their illustrated worlds at his Mission District studio and gallery.

Aug 26–Sept. 16, 4–5 p.m. $100. Sirron Norris Studio and Gallery, 1406 Valencia, SF. (415) 648-4191, www.sirronnorris.com

VIDEO ACTION SKILLSHARE

Calling all activists: up the evocation of your iPhone captures, share production tips with camerapeople-in-arms, even make your footage into an episode of Berkeley’s BeTV at this East Bay Free Skool offering.

Third Thursdays, 7–8:30 p.m., free. Berkeley Community Media, 2238 Martin Luther King, Berk. eastbayfreeskool.wikia.com

BELLY DANCE FUNDAMENTALS

Grab your zils (scientific name: handheld clicky-clackers) and turn your paunch to power in this six-week course, which starts at hand floreos and undulates up to the shimmy step.

Tues and Fri 6:30–-7:30 p.m., Sat 11 a.m.–12 p.m., $10 drop-in, $48 for six classes. Fat Chance Belly Dance, 670 South Van Ness, SF. (415) 431-4322, www.fcbd.com

YOUTH SUPER SCULPTURE

The perfect class for young’uns to get started on their fire arts career — eight to eleven-year-olds can enjoy this Crucible primer on the joy of creative building.

Sept 20- Oct 26, 4–6 p.m. $240. The Crucible, 1260 Seventh St., Oakl. (510) 444-0919, www.thecrucible.org

HONEYBEE BASICS

Their hives were recently the victims of a distressing insecticide attack — but the urban agriculturists at Hayes Valley Farm soldier on in their mission to educate peeps on the beauty of urban beekeeping.

Sept 20, 10 a.m.- 12 p.m. $20–$40 sliding scale. Hayes Valley Farm, 450 Laguna, SF. www.hayesvalleyfarm.com

EXTREME STRETCHING

It’s the fast track to that contortionist career you’ve always dreamed about! A crash course in control, stability, and limber limbs at SF’s premier spot for circus learnin’.

Sept.8–Dec 8, 5:30–7:30 p.m., $480. Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. (415) 759-8123, www.circuscenter.org

To try a cop

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 10, 2010

news@sfbg.com

Proponents of civilian oversight for the San Francisco Police Department are hopeful that fresh blood on the Police Commission, along with a new set of rules designed to expedite disciplinary hearings, will improve the often-criticized, delay-plagued system of citizens policing cops.

The commission’s backlog of pending cases — which at its worst ballooned to more than 70, with at least one more than nine years old — prompted massive media coverage in 2009; a San Francisco Chronicle editorial calling for the system to be reformed early this year; and former Police Commissioner and District 10 Candidate Theresa Sparks’ recent statements to the Guardian that SFPD’s civilian oversight system is “broken” and that the power to fire police officers should go to the chief.

As it stands now, SFPD Chief George Gascón can handle any case in which punishment will not exceed more than a 10-day suspension, whether initiated from within the department and investigated by the Management Control Division — SFPD’s version of internal affairs — or resulting from complaints made by civilians through the Office of Citizen Complaints. The Police Commission must hold hearings for any case in which more severe discipline is recommended by either office.

“There are litigation delays that occur outside the control of the commission,” OCC Director Joyce Hicks told the Guardian. Appeals to superior courts can indefinitely stall cases before the commission, she said.

The OCC has its own backlog of investigations, which Hicks primarily attributes to budget constraints. San Francisco’s charter dictates that the OCC have one full-time investigator for every 150 SFPD officers. There are 2,317 sworn officers in the SFPD, according to the department’s most recent citywide CompStat report, which means that the OCC should have at least 15.5 investigators. Hicks says she has 14, and that supervising investigators are taking on cases to pick up the slack. OCC’s 2010 second-quarter report states that, due to budget constraints, the office will not be able to meet its full compliment of 17 front-line investigators.

“We do not have an adequate number of investigators for the size of our caseload,” Hicks said. “We are working very hard with the Police Commission to reduce the backlog. But they have to be scheduled by the commission for us to prosecute them.”

Hicks would like to see the number of investigators dictated by the number of complaints the OCC receives instead of the size of the SFPD, as a critical 2007 report by the Controller’s Office suggested.

Police Commissioner Jim Hammer, who was appointed by the Board of Supervisors early this year and has been instrumental in crafting new rules to speed hearings before the commission, said he believes the current system is beginning to work better and will continue to improve with future tweaks.

“I would not be opposed to the chief having more authority to impose discipline as long as a civilian body has the authority to make the final check on it,” he told the Guardian. “This isn’t just about Chief Gascón — this is about the system. Someday there will be another chief.”

A swelled backlog at the commission has real consequences for the city’s available police force and overall budget. Despite numerous attempts, no one in SFPD’s media relations unit, chief’s office, personnel division, or MCD could provide the Guardian with the number of officers taken off active police duty to work a desk while their complaint cases stall before the Police Commission.

Gascón refused to comment directly for this story, stating through SFPD spokesman Sgt. Troy Dangerfield that his thoughts on police discipline were “already out there.” But the chief did tell the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee that the lag in the discipline process was hurting the usable number of officers at his disposal. San Francisco’s charter mandates that the number of full-duty sworn police officers cannot fall below 1,971.

“Two weeks ago, we had an individual who had a case that was pending for nine years,” Gascón told the Budget Committee in June. “I am unable to use him in the field. He will be one of the many who will not be able to do police work as we would expect of someone with a police officer rank.”

And when Budget Committee Chair John Avalos asked if the officer was still on the payroll, Gascón responded: “Absolutely.”

The commission’s Procedural Rules Governing Trial of Disciplinary Cases, which were adopted in April, limit hearings to less than four hours and state several times that requests for delays, called continuances, are generally disfavored. “In the past they’ve turned into trials,” Hammer said. “But these are administrative hearings.”

Angela Chan, a stalwart San Francisco immigrant rights advocate and staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus and new police commissioner appointed in May, said the commission is prioritizing tackling the backlog. “I know how to manage a docket,” she told the Guardian. “The very first thing I do when I have an initial conference call is set a hearing date.”

But if officers say their attorneys can’t make that date and request a continuance? “My response is to get another attorney,” Chan said. “There is no haggling. As a commission, we have to stay on top of the docket.”

In addition to the rules pushing police commissioners to hold prompt, fair hearings, Hammer and former Police Commissioner David Onek instituted an accountability report for the commission. The commissioners envisioned a monthly report published on the commission’s website — similar to the OCC’s quarterly reports — that outline the total number of disciplinary cases before the commission, the number of cases assigned to each commissioner for evidence intake, and measurements to gauge how well the commission was sticking to the rules adopted in April.

The actual document is a far cry from what the commission envisioned, listing only active cases before the commission, cases filed to date for 2010, and individual commissioner’s number of assigned hearings. It is not available online.

As of July 31, the commission has 44 pending cases, including appeals. Police Commission President Joe Marshall, whose recent reappointment stalled in the Board of Supervisors because of ambiguity about his position on the Secure Communities program, completed no hearings in 2010. He has been assigned eight. Hammer completed six hearings, has an additional three in progress, and has two more scheduled.

Commission Vice President Thomas Mazzucco has held and decided two hearings this year and has three more scheduled. Petra DeJesus completed one hearing, settled two cases, and has two more hearings scheduled. Angela Chan has scheduled four of the five cases she has been assigned. New mayoral Police Commission appointee Carol Kingsley was not included in the latest report because she began her term Aug. 4.

Hammer also wants to refine what is known as the hearing officer process, in which accused officers can elect to have the evidence portion of their case heard by a hearing officer. That officer then reports to the full commission, which makes the final ruling on disciplining the officer. The problem is that getting all parties to agree on a hearing officer takes a lot of time. In addition, final reports to the commission sometimes can take months to generate.

“They’re agreeing to it [using hearing officers] now because it builds in a huge delay,” Hammer said.

Chan wants to convince officers that quickly airing a hearing is just as likely to exonerate them as to create a headache, long suspension, or termination. Hicks, Chan, and Hammer all agreed that the value of civilian oversight of the SFPD outweighed slow, sometimes messy system. “The overwhelming majority of police officers are conscientious, hard-working public servants,” Hammer said. “The overwhelming majority of cops and citizens have a strong interest in making sure the few bad apples are weeded out.”

Film listings

David Talbot

August 10, 2010

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

OPENING

Eat Pray Love Julia Roberts has a midlife crisis. (2:30) Cerrito, Elmwood, Marina.

The Expendables Sylvester Stallone directs and stars (along with just about every other action hero, ever) in this mercenaries-in-the-jungle-with-big-guns adventure. (1:43)

The Extra Man The polar opposite of buddy cop action flicks and spoofs a la The Other Guys, with only a faint resemblance to the bromances of Judd Apatow, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, and so on, The Extra Man is a gently weird throwback to another era, much like its title character, Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline). Sweet, cross-dressing-curious teacher and would-be writer Louis Ives (Paul Dano) is drifting though life passively when he stumbles on eccentric playwright Harrison’s room-for-let and his oddball realm of hangers-on. A blustery, prickly, proudly misogynistic collector of Christmas balls, given to spasms of improvisational dancing, Harrison relishes his role as an escort to aged socialites, crankily shucking and jiving to score invites to fancy dinner parties and vacation homes in Florida. When Ives isn’t courting environmental magazine editor Mary (Katie Holmes) or hiding from the fearsome-looking wooly recluse Gershon (John C. Reilly), the mentor-able young man turns out to be more adept at the role than Harrison ever imagined. And like fossilized grande dames in Chanel, literate audiences also might be charmed by director-writer Shari Springer Berman’s unassuming, crushed-out bon mot, based on the novel by Jonathan Ames, to a few mannered, less-than-examined, happily twisted New York City subcultures. (1:45) Elmwood, Embarcadero. (Chun)

Harimaya Bridge The Harimaya Bridge might be the first film I’ve seen that portrays the American-Japanese culture clash so beloved by stateside filmmakers (see: 2003’s Lost in Translation) from the viewpoint of an African American man in Japan. The debut feature for short-film director Aaron Woolfolk, Bridge follows a retired man who travels to Japan after the death of his estranged son, with intentions to retrieve his son’s paintings for an art show. Likely based on Woolfolk’s personal experiences living in Japan, The Harimaya Bridge has both the look and feel of a short, an attribute that makes the otherwise agreeable film seem much too long and drawn-out. Or maybe, all along Woolfolk intended to replicate the dour melodrama and often glacial pacing of popular Japanese film. Meta-filmmaking? (2:00) Presidio. (Peter Galvin)

Lourdes Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes is a film about the people who things happen to rather than the things that happen to people. This is one of its merits yet also its greatest handicap because, really, not much does happen. Wheelchair-bound Christine (Sylvie Testud) makes the pilgrimage to the titular site of Catholic healing in the Pyrenees. When a miracle occurs and Christine walks, the other, less-enlightened denizens of Lourdes lampoon her, and God, for her inexplicable recovery. Hausner limns every scene with exaggerated blues, reds, and whites while relying on long takes and a certain clinical distance from the characters. The film’s atmosphere recalls Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) but since Christine, unlike Jean-Dominique in that film, can speak and move, she doesn’t need to rely on her imagination to make sense of the world, and that would’ve been nice. Testud is subtle and sweet, but personality falls short here. Maybe it went out with her character’s legs. (1:39) Roxie. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Patrik Age 1.5 Freshly settled in suburbia, gay couple Goran (Gustaf Skarsgard) and Sven (Torkel Petersson) are eager to adopt a child — or at least Goran is, with Sven reluctantly caving in. But when against the odds they’re informed a native-born boy is available, a misplaced bit of bureaucratic punctuation means they get not the 18-month-old toddler expected but 15-year-old Patrik (Tom Ljungman). He’s a foul-tempered foster home veteran who makes it clear he’s no happier cohabiting with two “homos” than they are with him. Nevertheless, they’re stuck with each other at least through the weekend, allowing a predictable mutual warming trend to course through Ella Lemhagen’s agreeable seriocomedy. While formulaic in concept, the film’s low-key charm and conviction earn emotions that might easily have felt sitcomishly pre-programmed. (1:38) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Peepli Live Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan uses his powers for good in producing Peepli Live, Anusha Rizvi’s occasionally funny but also sobering satire. Poor and possibly a bit simple-minded, farmer Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) declares he’ll commit suicide after learning his family will receive enough benefits to save their land if he offs himself. He’s encouraged by his unmarried brother, received with skepticism by his exasperated wife, and harangued (as he clearly has been his entire life) by his sharp-tongued, bedridden mother. Once the media gets wind of Natha’s decision, he becomes a cause célèbre; ambitious reporters descend on Peepli, his tiny village, hoping to launch or further their careers with exclusive scoops (including one camera crew who proudly shares an exclusive close-up of Natha’s bowel movements). The bewildered man also becomes a political pawn among government muckety-mucks, who eagerly use him as leverage in a fast-approaching election. Though obviously an exaggeration, Peepli Live is grounded by the fact that India has had a real-life epidemic of farmer suicides. Stirring original music (though the film is not a musical) and an unpretentious filming style help Peelpli Live convey pressing themes of class and economics without slipping into preachiness. (1:46) Balboa. (Eddy)

The Oxford Murders One doesn’t need the deductive skills of Sherlock Holmes to see that things don’t quite add up in The Oxford Murders, cult Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia’s surprisingly stuffy adaptation of Guillermo Martinez’s 2003 murder mystery of the same name. Martin (Elijah Wood), an American graduate student, arrives at Oxford with the hopes of studying with the famous and prickly Wittgenstein scholar Arthur Seldom (John Hurt). After Seldom drubs Martin in a post-lecture Q&A, both men simultaneously come upon the corpse of Martin’s elderly landlady, a discovery appended by a cryptic note that reads, “the first of the series.” What follows is both a philosophical and criminal investigation as professor and student seek to prevent the next murders by determining whether the killer is a master domino layer or just a bookish nut-job. Iglesia has built his following on flash, and aside from one impressive tracking shot cribbed from 1958’s Touch of Evil and a few grisly air kisses to 1995’s Se7en, he yields far too much screen time to Seldom and Martin’s tendentious Philosophy 101 sparring matches. Although certainly more clever than your average Dan Brown whodunit, The Oxford Murders is no less ludicrous (or entertaining for that matter) for kitting out the bones of a CSI episode in the upper-crust finery of a university don. (1:50) Opera Plaza. (Sussman)

*Scott Pilgrim vs. The World See “Geek Love.” (1:52) California, Four Star, Presidio.

Tales from Earthsea Goro Miyazaki (son of Hayao) directs this animated, environmentally-themed fantasy. (1:55)

Vengeance See “Triad Quartet.” (1:48) Sundance Kabuki.

ONGOING

Agora There’s a good movie somewhere in Agora, but finding it would require severe editing. It’s not that the film is too long, though it does drag in stretches. The problem is that there are too many stories being told: Hypatia of Alexandria, the central figure, only emerges as the focus well into the film. Meanwhile, there’s Davus (Max Minghella), the slave boy in love with her; Orestes (Oscar Isaac), the student who tries to win her affection; Synesius (Rupert Evans), the devout Christian. We jump from character to character and plot to plot — the conflict between the pagans and the Christians, the conflict between the Christians and the Jews, and Hypatia’s studies in astronomy. Agora is so scattered that by the time it reaches its tragic conclusion — only a spoiler if you haven’t already Googled Hypatia — there’s little room to breathe, let alone grieve. While Hypatia herself is a fascinating subject, Agora is weighed down by all the stories it’s intent on cramming in. (2:06) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Peitzman)

*Alamar Pedro González-Rubio’s gorgeous Alamar (“to the sea”) is set between landscapes (land and sea) and ways of telling (fiction and documentary). The bare frame of a plot places a young boy with his father and grandfather, Mayan fishermen working the Mexican Caribbean. The sweetness of this idyll is tempered by its provisional bounds: the boy will return to his mother in Rome at the end of his compressed experience of a father’s love. Every shot is earned: there are several in which the camera bucks with the boat, physically linked to the actors’ experience. The child is at an age of discovery, and González-Rubio channels this openness by fixing on the details of the fisher’s elegant way of life and the environmental contingencies of their home at sea. (1:13) Sundance Kabuki. (Goldberg)

*Anton Chekhov’s The Duel Conformity vs. freedom, small-town whispers vs. the heavy hand of the law — Georgian director Dover Kosashvili successfully teases out some of the tensions in the Anton Chekhov novella, encapsulating the provincial pressures brought to bear on deviants and nonconformists during a steamy summer in a seaside resort town in the Caucasus. Dissolute civil servant and would-be intellectual Laevsky (Andrew Scott) is in the bind, as he gripes to the town doctor Samoylenko (Niall Buggy). Laevsky has everything he wants: he’s coaxed the creamy, married Nadya (Fiona Glascott) into living with him openly, yet now that her husband has died, he desires nothing more than to be free of her. In the meantime upstanding zoologist Von Koren (Tobias Menzies) simmers in the background, gaging Laevsky’s social mores and practically oozing contempt. Matters come to a head as Laevsky begs a loan from Samoylenko to escape his ripening paramour, who is also beginning to feel the gracious perimeters of the town closing in around her. From the buttons-and-bows millinery details to the oppressive dark wood furnishings, Kosashvili even-handedly builds a compelling Victorian-era mise en scene that seems to perfectly evoke the Chekhov’s milieu — it’s only when the title entanglement comes to pass that we finally see which side he’s on. (1:35) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

Charlie St. Cloud The best thing one can say about Charlie St. Cloud is that it isn’t quite as terrible as the trailers would have you believe. Yes, the story is Nicholas Sparks-level silly: the eponymous Charlie (Zac Efron) loses his brother Sam (Charlie Tahan) in a tragic drunk driving accident, then spends the rest of the film playing baseball with his ghost. Add to that a romantic subplot involving fellow sailor Tess (Amanda Crew). There’s nothing you don’t already know about Charlie St. Cloud: each scene is laid out far in advance. So while the film itself is reasonably competent, it never surprises or unnerves an audience well-versed in its tropes. Efron, star of Disney’s delightful High School Musical series, is predictably charming, but even a few wet t-shirt scenes — yes, really — don’t distract from the story. Not to mention the fact that Tahan’s Sam is seriously grating. You’re dead, it sucks: no need to whine about it. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

The Concert (1:47) Embarcadero.

Cyrus It’s tempting to label Mark and Jay Duplass’ Cyrus as “mumblecore goes mainstream.” Yes, the mumblecore elements are all there: plentiful moments of awkward humiliation, characters fumbling verbally and sometimes physically in desperate attempts to establish emotional connections, and a meandering, character-driven plot, in the sense that the characters themselves possess precious little drive. The addition of bona fide indie movie stars John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, and Marisa Tomei — not to mention Hollywood’s chubby-funny guy du jour, Jonah Hill — could lead some to believe that the DIY-loving Duplass brothers (2005’s The Puffy Chair, 2008’s Baghead) have gone from slacker disciples of John Cassavetes (informally known as “Slackavetes”) to worshippers at the slickly profane (with a heart) altar of Judd Apatow. But despite the presence of Apatow protégé Hill (2007’s Superbad) in the title role, Cyrus steers clear of crowd-pleasing bombast, instead favoring small, relatively naturalistic moments. That is to say, not much actually happens. Mumblecore? More or less. Mainstream? Not exactly. Despite playing a character with some serious psychological issues, Hill comes off as likeable. Unfortunately the movie is neither as broadly comic nor as emotionally poignant as it needs to be — the two opposing forces seem to cancel each other out like acids and bases. (1:32) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Devereaux)

Despicable Me Judging from the adorable, booty-shaking, highly merchandisable charm of its sunny-yellow Percocet-like minions, Despicable Me‘s makers have more than a few fond memories of the California Raisins. That gives you an idea of the 30-second attention-span level at work here. Thanks to Pixar and company, our expectations for animated features are high, but despite the single lob at Lehman Brothers aimed toward the grown-ups, the humor here is pitched straight at the eight and younger crowd: from the mugging, child-like minions to the all-in-good-fun, slightly quease-inducing 3-D roller-coaster ride. Gru (Steve Carell) is Despicable‘s also-ran supervillain — a bit too old and too unoriginal for a game that’s been rigged in the favor of the youthful, annoyingly perky Vector (Jason Segel), who’s managed to swipe the Giza Pyramids and become the world’s number one bad dude. When Vector steals away the crucial shrink ray needed for Gru’s plot to thieve the moon, the latter pulls out the big guns: three adorable orphans who have managed to penetrate Vector’s defenses with their fund-raising cookie sales. It turns out kids have their own insidiously heart-warming way of wrecking havoc on one’s well-laid plans. Filmmakers Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud do their best to exploit the 3-D medium, but Avatar (2009) this is not. Nor will many adults be able to withstand the onslaught of cute undertaken by all those raisins, I mean, minions. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

Dinner for Schmucks When he attracts favorable notice and a possible promotion from his corporate boss, Tim (Paul Rudd) is invited to an annual affair in which executives compete to see who can dig up the freakiest loser dweeb for everyone to snicker at. He literally runs into the perfect candidate: Barry (Steve Carrell), an IRS employee whose hobby is making elaborate tableaux with stuffed dead nice in tiny human clothes. He’s also the sort of person who, in trying to be helpful, inevitably wreaks havoc on the unlucky person being helped. Which means the 24 hours or so before the “Biggest Idiot” contest provide plenty of time for well-intentioned Barry to nearly destroy Tim’s relationship with a girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak), reunite him with Crazy Stalker Chick (Lucy Punch), and imperil his wooing of a multimillion-dollar account. Director Jay Roach (of the Austin Powers and Meet the Fockers series) has a full load of comedy talent on board here. So why are the results so tepid? This remake softens the bite of Francis Veber’s 1998 original French The Dinner Game by making Tim not a yuppie scumbag but a nice guy who just happens to have a jerk’s job (his company seizes ailing firms and liquidates them), and who doesn’t really want to expose hapless Barry to humiliation. But even with that satirical angle removed and a wider streak of sentimentality, it should cough up more laughs than it does. (1:50) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Harvey)

*The Disappearance of Alice Creed The reliably alarming Eddie Marsen (concurrently Life During Wartime‘s pederast) plays bullying Vic, one-half of a criminal duo — with puppyish Danny (Martin Compston) his younger subordinate — who abduct grown child of wealth Alice (Gemma Arterton) for ransom in a carefully-thought-out kidnapping. This simple setup, for the most part very simply set in the two abandoned-apartment-complex rooms where Alice is held captive, allows talented British writer-director J. Blakeson to spring a number of escalating narrative surprises. The whole endeavor is almost too chamber-scaled to justify being seen on the big screen (let alone being shot in widescreen format). But it does have some mighty satisfying tricks up its sleeve. (1:40) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Farewell (1:53) Lumiere, Shattuck.

Get Low Born from the true story of Felix Bush, an eccentric Tennessee hermit who invited the world to celebrate his funeral in advance of his own death, Get Low is a loose take on what might inspire a man to do a thing like that. It’s a small story, and unlikely to attract the attention of popcorn-addled viewers in the midst of the summer blockbuster season, but Get Low has a whopper of a character in Felix Bush. Robert Duvall becomes Bush, constructing a quiet man who sees it all and speaks only when he has something to say, and supporting roles from Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray are expectedly solid, but the real surprise is what a strong eye director Aaron Schnieder has. In allowing scenes to unfold on their own terms and in their own time, Schneider gives a real humanity to what could have been a Hallmark movie. (1:42) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Galvin)

*The Girl Who Played With Fire Lisbeth Salander is cooler than you are. The heroine of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling book series is fierce, mysterious, and utterly captivating: in the movie adaptations, she’s perfectly realized by Noomi Rapace, who has the power to transform Lisbeth from literary hero to film icon. Rapace first impressed audiences in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009), a faithful adaptation of Larsson’s premiere novel, and she returns as Lisbeth in The Girl Who Played With Fire. The sequel, as is often the case, isn’t quite on par with the original, but it’s still a page-to-screen success. And while the first film spent equal time on journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), The Girl Who Played With Fire is almost entirely Lisbeth’s story. Sure, there’s more to the movie than the hacker-turned-sleuth — and the actor who plays her — but she carries the film. Rapace is Lisbeth; Lisbeth is Rapace. I’d watch both in anything. (2:09) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo By the time the first of Stieg Larsson’s so-called “Millennium” books had been published anywhere, the series already had an unhappy ending: he died (in 2004). The following year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became a Swedish, then eventually international sensation, its sequels following suit. The books are addicting, to say the least; despite their essential crime-mystery-thriller nature, they don’t require putting your ear for writing of some literary value on sleep mode. Now the first of three adaptive features shot back-to-back has reached U.S. screens. (Sorry to say, yes, a Hollywood remake is already in the works — but let’s hope that’s years away.) Even at two-and-a-half hours, this Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by necessity must do some major truncating to pack in the essentials of a very long, very plotty novel. Still, all but the nitpickingest fans will be fairly satisfied, while virgins will have the benefit of not knowing what’s going to happen and getting scared accordingly. Soon facing jail after losing a libel suit brought against him by a shady corporate tycoon, leftie journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) gets a curious private offer to probe the disappearance 40 years earlier of a teenage girl. This entangles him with an eccentric wealthy family and their many closet skeletons (including Nazi sympathies) — as well as dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), androgynous loner, 24-year-old court ward, investigative researcher, and skillful hacker. Director Niels Arden Oplev and his scenarists do a workmanlike job — one more organizational than interpretive, a faithful transcription without much style or personality all its own. Nonetheless, Larsson’s narrative engine kicks in early and hauls you right along to the depot. (2:32) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*I Am Love I Am Love opens in a chilly, Christmastime Milan and deliberately warms in tandem with its characters. Members of the blue-blood Recchi family are content hosting lavish parties and gossiping about one another, none more than the matriarch Emma (Tilda Swinton). But when prodigal son Edoardo befriends a local chef, Emma finds herself taken by both the chef’s food and his everyman personality, and is reminded of her poor Soviet upbringing. The courtship that follows is familiar on paper, but director Luca Guadagnino lenses with a strong style and small scenes acquire a distinct energy through careful editing and John Adams’ unpredictable score. Swinton portrays Emma’s unraveling with the same gritty gusto she brought to Julia (2008), and her commitment to the role recognizes few boundaries. You’ve probably seen this story before, but it has rarely been this powerful. (2:00) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Galvin)

Inception As my movie going companion pointed out, “Christopher Nolan must’ve shit a brick when he saw Shutter Island.” In Nolan’s Inception, as in Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio is a troubled soul trapped in a world of mind-fuckery, with a tragic-vengeful wife (here, Marion Cotillard) and even some long-lost kids looming in his thoughts at all times. But Inception, about a team of corporate spies who infiltrate dreams to steal information and implant ideas, owes just as much to The Matrix (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and probably a James Bond flick or two. Familiar though it may feel, at least Inception is based on a creative idea — how many movies, much less summer blockbusters, actually require viewer brain power? If its complex house-of-cards plot (dreams within dreams within dreams) can’t quite withstand nit-picking, its action sequences are confidently staged and expertly directed, including a standout sequence involving a zero-gravity fist fight and elevator ride. Though it’s hardly genius — and Leo-recycle aside — Inception is worth it, if you don’t mind your puzzle missing a few pieces. (2:30) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work Whether you’re a fan of its subject or not, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s documentary is an absorbing look at the business of entertainment, a demanding treadmill that fame doesn’t really make any easier. At 75, comedian Rivers has four decades in the spotlight behind her. Yet despite a high Q rating she finds it difficult to get the top-ranked gigs, no matter that as a workaholic who’ll take anything she could scarcely be more available. Funny onstage (and a lot ruder than on TV), she’s very, very focused off-, dismissive of being called a “trailblazer” when she’s still actively competing with those whose women comics trail she blazed for today’s hot TV guest spot or whatever. Anyone seeking a thorough career overview will have to look elsewhere; this vérité year-in-the-life portrait is, like the lady herself, entertainingly and quite fiercely focused on the here-and-now. (1:24) Empire, Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*The Kids Are All Right In many ways, The Kids Are All Right is a straightforward family dramedy: it’s about parents trying to do what’s best for their children and struggling to keep their relationship together. But it’s also a film in which Jules (Julianne Moore) goes down on Nic (Annette Bening) while they’re watching gay porn. Director Lisa Cholodenko (1998’s High Art) co-wrote the script (with Stuart Blumberg), and the film’s blend between mainstream and queer is part of what makes Kids such an important — not to mention enjoyable — film. Despite presenting issues that might be contentious to large portions of the country, the movie maintains an approachability that’s often lacking in queer cinema. Of course, being in the gay mecca of the Bay Area skews things significantly — most locals wouldn’t bat an eye at Kids, which has Nic and Jules’ children inviting their biological father (“the sperm donor,” played by Mark Ruffalo) into their lives. But for those outside the liberal bubble, the idea of a nontraditional family might be more eye-opening. It’s not a message movie, but Kids may still change minds. And even if it doesn’t, the film is a success that works chiefly because it isn’t heavy-handed. It refuses to take itself too seriously. At its best, Kids is laugh-out-loud funny, handling the heaviest of issues with grace and humor. (1:47) Bridge, California, Cerrito, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center. (Peitzman)

*Let It Rain Well-known feminist author Agathe Villanova (writer-director Agnès Jaoui) is taking a rare break from her busy Paris life, visiting her hometown to see family, vacation with boyfriend Antoine (Frédéric Pierrot), and do a little stumping for her nascent political career. But despite the ever-picturesque French countryside as background, all is not harmonious. Antoine complains Agathe’s workaholism (among other things) is killing their relationship, particularly once she agrees to be time-consumingly interviewed for film about “successful women” by shambling documentarian Michel (coscenarist Jean-Pierre Bacri) and local Karim (Jamel Debbouze). Her married-with-children sister Florence (Pascale Arbillot) is having a secret affair with Michel, but seems more focused on old resentments springing from Agathe being their late mother’s favorite. Karim — son of the family’s longtime housekeeper (Mimouna Hadji) — bears his own grudge against the clan and brusque, officious Agathe in particular. Being happily wed, he’s further bothered at his hotel day job by his attraction to co-worker Aurélie (Florence Loiret-Caille). These various conflicts simmer, then boil over as the documentary shooting goes from bumbling to disastrous. In 2004, Jaoui delivered a pretty near perfect Gallic ensemble seriocomedy in Look at Me. This isn’t quite that good. Still, her seemingly effortless skill at managing complex character dynamics, eliciting expert performances (including her own), and weaving it all together with insouciant panache makes this a real pleasure. The problem with Agnès Jaoui: she’s so good it chafes that (acting-only gigs aside) she’s made just three films in ten years. Pick it up, girl! (1:39) Elmwood, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Life During Wartime The Kids Are Alright isn’t the only film this summer that subtly skewers the suburban upper-middle class by following a seemingly well-adjusted family as they’re thrown into crisis when a shadowy father figure attempts to enter their orbit. Only in the case of Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime, instead of a sperm donor, Dad is a convicted child molester. A quasi-sequel to 1998’s Happiness, Life picks up 10 years later to survey the still-damaged Jordan sisters. After discovering that her husband Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams) is still making sexually harassing phone calls, mousy Joy (squeaky-voiced British actress Shirley Henderson) flees to Florida, where her older sister Trish (Allison Janney) has attempted to start a new life for herself and her children. Oldest Billy (Chris Marquette) is now a bitter college student, and youngest son Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder) still doesn’t know the horrible truth about his father Bill (Ciarán Hinds), who has just been released from prison. Third sister Helen (Ally Sheedy), has had success in Hollywood, but still feels victimized by her family. Despite the entirely new cast, happiness remains just as elusive as before. Pleasure, when it can be found, is fleeting. Characters’ awkward conversations with each other inevitably sputter and stall, and even the best intentions are no measure against disaster. Solondz may be a scathing observer, but he is not above being sympathetic when its called for. Neither does he gloss over the serious questions — what are the limits of forgiveness? When is forgetting necessary? (1:37) Clay, Shattuck. (Sussman)

Making Plans for Lena Christophe Honoré’s latest presents an ensemble of difficult characters related to or entangled with a recently divorced mother of two. The titular Lena (Chiara Mastroianni) feels somewhat like a Noah Baumbach protagonist, a failing human being who is nonetheless pitiable and even relatable. At the core of this tense family drama are Lena’s relationships with her young son Anton (Donatien Suner), who is in many ways more mature than she is, and with her ex-husband Nigel (Jean-Marc Barr), whose name inspired the pun of the title, which refers to the XTC track “Making Plans for Nigel.” In the film’s most intriguing sequence, bookworm Anton reads his mother a story, which is in turn reproduced onscreen, of a woman who kills many suitors by dancing them to death. Besides that fantastical interlude, which hardly lightens the movie’s fundamental sadness, the film’s naturalistic depiction of family life rings true if also worryingly dissonant. (1:47) Sundance Kabuki. (Sam Stander)

Middle Men George Gallo’s Middle Men, though far beyond the salvage of so-bad-it’s-good, makes for the ultimate airplane movie (re: mind-numbing). Nothing audible is ever interesting, there are visual gimmicks galore, and you can more or less doze off and avoid missing much. Purportedly the events that unfold, from the 80s onward, are based on actual ones — but that’s like the Coen Brothers claiming Fargo (1996) was a true story. Pish posh. Jack (Luke Wilson) is a Texan who cleans up people’s messes. He gets entangled with the biggest idiots of all time, played by Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht, and soon they launch what will become the bastion of Americana: Internet porn. Everything is tits-and-giggles until the Russian mob wants a cut. It’s downright apoplexing how shallow, flashy, and lazy this movie is. If you must go, bring a friend and play I Spy A Desperate Has-Been (James Caan, Kelsey Grammer, Kevin Pollak). And Luke Wilson, formerly known as Fire of My Loins? Definitely not cute anymore. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Lattanzio)

The Other Guys Will Ferrell and Adam McKay can do no wrong in some bro-medy aficionados’ eyes, but The Other Guys is no Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) or Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). The other two Ferrell-McKay team-ups made short work of men’s jobs, in addition to genre filmmaking tropes, with crisper, cut-to-the-gag punchiness. And despite its laugh-out-loud first quarter — and some surprising TLC references by Michael Keaton, of all people, The Other Guys is about half a genuinely hilarious film that pokes fun at masculinity, as well as, interestingly, whiteness and beyond-the-pale, big-bucks white-collar crime. This lampoon of action buddy-cop flicks is dealt a semi-fatal blow when excess-loving, damage-dealing supercops Samuel Jackson and Dwayne Johnson exit, manically chewing scenery as they go. Two forgotten desktop jocks, forensic accounting investigator-with-a-past Allen (Ferrell) and ragaholic screwup Terry (Mark Wahlberg), must step it up when the dynamic duo dissipates, and go after crooked financier David Ershon (Steve Coogan). The second half of The Other Guys could have used some of the dramatic tension budding between buddy team Jackson-Johnson and reluctant cohorts Ferrell-Wahlberg, especially when Wahlberg begins to get bogged down in single-gear disbelief. But perhaps we should just be grateful for what few yuks we can glean from the atrocities of Great Recession-era robber barons. (1:47) California, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Chun)

Salt Angelina Jolie channels the existential crisis of Jason Bourne and the DIY spirit of MacGyver in a film positing that America’s most pressing concern is extant Russian cold warriors, who are plotting to reestablish their country’s pre-glasnost glory via nuclear holocaust and a Dark Angel–style army of spy kids. Jolie plays CIA agent Evelyn Salt, a woman who can stymie the top-shelf surveillance system at work using her undergarments and fashion a shoulder-mounted rocket out of interrogation-room furniture and cleaning supplies. These talents surface after Salt is accused of being a Russian operative in league with the aforementioned disturbers of the new world order and takes flight, with her agency coworkers (Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor) in hot pursuit. What ensues is a vicious and confounding assault on the highest levels of the U.S. government, most known rules of logic, and the viewer’s patience and powers of suspending disbelief. Salt’s off-the-ranch maneuverings are moderately engaging, particularly in the first leg of the chase, but clunky expository flashbacks, B-movie-grade dialogue, and an absurd plotline slow the momentum considerably. (1:31) Empire, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Socially awkward science nerd Dave (Jay Baruchel) toils away on his suspiciously elaborate NYU physics project, unaware that he’s about to have a Harry Potter-style moment of awakening. Enter Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), a centuries-old, steampunky sorcerer who believes Dave to be “the Prime Merlinian” — i.e., the greatest conjurer since Merlin himself. (Literally) rising from ashes to provide conflict are fellow sorcerers Horvath (Alfred Molina) and Morgana (Alice Krige); signing on for romantic-interest purposes are Monica Bellucci and newcomer Teresa Palmer. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice spins off Disney classic Fantasia (1940) in only the loosest sense, though there is a scene of dancing brooms. The bland Baruchel’s rise to fame continues to mystify, but at least Cage and Molina seem to be having a blast exchanging insults and zapping each other around. (1:43) SF Center. (Eddy)

Step Up 3D The third installment of the Step Up enterprise graduates performing arts high school and moves to the sidewalks, rooftops, and warehouses of New York City, as well as the occasional venue — part underground club, part ad-plastered sports arena — where packs of street dancers battle and mop up the floor with their rivals, employing only the weaponry of a fierce routine. That, and the fast-forward button in the editing suite — beyond drop kicks and droplets of water coming out of the screen at your face, Step Up 3D unabashedly adopts the choreographed F/X of contemporary action films, manipulating footage to make the dancers look like nimble, ferocious, supernatural creatures with a youthful disdain for gravity and the space-time continuum. There is a plot of sorts, involving a crew called the Pirates; their fearless leader Luke (Rick Malambri); his mysterious lady friend Natalie (Sharni Vinson); an NYU freshman named Moose (Adam Sevani of 2008’s Step Up 2: The Streets), who was, in Luke’s oft-repeated words, “born from a boombox” (or BFAB); and the warehouse wonderland where the Pirates live and train, amid a decor of tape-deck-womb walls and galleries of limited-edition sneakers. It’s best, though, not to follow along too closely on the rare occasions when director Jon Chu (Step Up 2) mistakenly lets more than four lines of earnest dialogue stack up without a dance-scene intervention. The near-continuous wave of choreographed outbursts is like eye candy injected with multiple shots of 5-Hour Energy drink, but those who flinch at the idea of Auto-Tuning dance performance may want to stay home and rent 2000’s Center Stage. (1:46) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Rapoport)

*Toy Story 3 You’ve got a friend in Pixar. We all do. The animation studio just can’t seem to make a bad movie — even at its relative worst, a Pixar film is still worlds better than most of what Hollywood churns out. Luckily, Toy Story 3 is far from the worst: it’s actually one of Pixar’s most enjoyable and poignant films yet. Waiting 11 years after the release of Toy Story 2 was, in fact, a stroke of genius, in that it amplifies the nostalgia that runs through so many of the studio’s releases. The kids who were raised on Toy Story and its first sequel have now grown up, gone to college, and, presumably, abandoned their toys. For these twentysomethings, myself included, Toy Story 3 is a uniquely satisfying and heartbreaking experience. While the film itself may not be the instant classic that WALL-E (2008) was, it’s near flawless regardless of a viewer’s age. Warm, funny, and emotionally devastating—it’s Pixar as it should be. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest The Everest documentary has, by now, become a genre unto itself. It’s got its own tropes (sweeping shots of the mountain’s face, somber voice-over philosophizing about the human struggle with nature) and its own canon (topped, perhaps, by the harrowing 1998 IMAX hit Everest). The latest entry into this field is National Geographic Entertainment’s The Wildest Dream, which chronicles early-20th century explorer George Mallory’s lifelong — and ultimately life-ending — quest to reach Everest’s summit, and modern mountaineer Conrad Anker’s attempt to recreate his predecessor’s final climb. Director Anthony Geffen unfolds his tale in standard adventure-doc fashion. We get a lot of scratchy footage from Mallory’s climbs, a few risibly awkward dramatic re-creations, and quite a lot of portentous voiceover work. These are worn techniques, to be sure, but that doesn’t make the story told any less compelling. Mallory himself emerges as a particularly fascinating figure — a talented and charming scholar, a devoted husband, and an irresponsible, borderline suicidal obsessive. It’s a shame that we’re only able to observe him at a century’s distance. (1:33) Embarcadero. (Zach Ritter)

*Winter’s Bone Winter’s Bone has already won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, but it’s the kind of downbeat, low-key, quiet film that may elude larger audiences (and, as these things go, Oscar voters). Like Andrea Arnold’s recent Fish Tank, it tells the story of a teenage girl who draws on unlikely reserves of toughness to navigate an unstable family life amid less-than-ideal economic circumstances. And it’s also directed by a woman: Debra Granik, whose previous feature, 2004’s Down to the Bone, starred Vera Farmiga (2009’s Up in the Air) as a checkout clerk trying to balance two kids and a secret coke habit. Drugs also figure into the plot of the harrowing Winter’s Bone, though its protagonist, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), is faced with a different set of circumstances: her meth head father has jumped bail, leaving the family’s humble mountain home as collateral; the two kids at stake are her younger siblings. With no resources other than her own tenacity, Ree strikes out into her rural Missouri community, seeking information from relatives who clearly know where her father is — but ain’t sayin’ a word. It’s a journey fraught with menace, shot with an eye for near-documentary realism and an appreciation for slow-burn suspense; Lawrence anchors a solid cast with her own powerful performance. Who says American independent film is dead? (1:40) Empire, Lumiere, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Gods of Distortion: The Interviews (Part Two)

Sue Vaughan

August 5, 2010

Gods of Distortion: The Interviews (Part Two)

Check out Ben Richardson’s story on the Southern Lord Mini-Tour in this week’s Guardian. Here, he talks with Mike Dean, bassist and singer of Corrosion of Conformity.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: You guys are practicing in North Carolina now, in preparation for the tour?

Mike Dean: That’s right, yeah. It might be useful.

SFBG: How long has it been since you’ve played all these Animosity songs?

MD: Quite a while. Easily 23, 24 years, something like that. 23 years!

SFBG: How does that feel? Is it like putting on an old garment?

MD: Either I remember the stuff precisely, and it is like putting on an old garment – it feels just like yesterday, and I can play it – or there are parts of songs that I have no recollection of. It’s either completely natural or kind of strange.

SFBG: Can you point to any particular parts that seem unfamiliar?

MD: There’s a bridge-like part in the middle of the song “Holier,” that I completely forgot about!

SFBG: This must be due in part to the fact that your technique has changed a lot over the years. At this point you’re a veteran, a very well-schooled musician – not to say that you weren’t good to begin with…

MD: It’s funny that you should mention that. It’s an astute observation, because sometime around the time we did [1987’s] Technocracy, I started to play with my fingers more and more, and sort of leave the picking thing behind. Basically, it was like starting all over again, to some extent. Now, I can do all the things on Animosity and Technocracy with my fingers, as opposed to a pick, which I would just be dropping anyway.

SFBG: So you recorded Animosity playing with a pick, but now you can play all those parts with your fingers.

MD: Yeah, I guess I’m losing points for authenticity that way.

SFBG: Well, I’m a fan of the pick-less bass playing, in general, so I gotta support that approach.

MD: I am too, but I try to have a real open mind about it now. You’ll see videos, certain songs in which John Entwistle [of the Who] or John Paul Jones [of Led Zeppelin] use a pick to mix it up.

SFBG: Tell me a little bit about how you got involved with this Southern Lord Mini-Tour. How did it all come together?

MD: That’s an interesting story. I’ve done a little recording for a band that was on Southern Lord called Earthride. Maybe about five years ago. I kinda knew Greg [Anderson, owner of Southern Lord Records] from that business. Greg was kind of a hardcore fan when he was really young. I believe that Corrosion of Conformity stayed at his house in Seattle back in the day. I have a foggy recollection of that happening. It took me a while to sort of put that person together with the guy in SunnO)))) and Goatsnake, but eventually I made that connection. Dealing with him is pretty cool, and there are a lot of artists on his label that I admire, like Wino and Goatsnake, whom I thought were really good the first time I heard them – it’s hard to go wrong with basically the rhythm section from the California version of The Obsessed and the singer for Scream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk3rlgFrL3w&feature=related

SFBG: Did he reach out to you, or you to him?

MD: He reached out to us. He was looking to re-issue some old stuff, and that still hasn’t happened too much. We mentioned that we were gonna record a new release, and that may happen. So we just started talking to him about doing that, and he said “hey you wanna play some shows out here?” and we were like “oh yeah!” It kinda lit a fire under our ass to get some new songs down and go out and play ’em.

SFBG: This is the new release as a trio that I’m hearing rumors about, with the Animosity line-up?

MD: Yeah. The only tangible thing that’s done is a seven-inch vinyl, two versions of one song called “Your Tomorrow.” That should be available by the time we’re out playing on the West Coast. It was kind of a hurry-up production, though it sounds really good, and looks really good too.

SFBG: Are there any plans to do any new C.O.C. material with [singer-guitarist] Pepper [Keenan]?

MD: There are plans to do that. We have a multi-pronged general plan, to perhaps take this and do a full-length three-piece release, and get out there and play it some. That’ll be quite a story – it’s been a long time, and I think we have some new material that we’re excited about. I think at the point after we’ve done that, it’ll be a story to get the Deliverance line-up together. Before we got the three-piece together, we were supposed to go to Europe and play some festivals, we had some offers, but Pepper’s busy with his other group, Down, so his schedule’s a little jacked up. So almost as a joke, I said, “Well we should do a three-piece tour!” Everybody stopped and went “Uhhhh….maybe we should!”

SFBG: What had you been up to since C.O.C. went on hiatus, in 2006? You mentioned recording Earthride…

MD: Well, C.O.C. had been going without [drummer] Reed [Mullin], and in some point around 2004, we decided to make a record with Stanton Moore, from Galactic – In the Arms of God. That’s something I’m pretty proud of, something we did ourselves in Galactic’s now-demolished rehearsal space, which was flooded out of the warehouse district of New Orleans. We had a nice little tour with Clutch, in the UK. At that point, [C.O.C. guitarist] Woody [Weatherman] and I started a band that we tentatively called Righteous Fool, and he moved up to the mountains, to basically go into agriculture and have a kid — that kind of put a damper on our plans. Then I started getting in contact with Reed for the first time in quite a few years, and we started jamming together, and that became Righteous Fool, and through that combination of circumstances we have Righteous Fool opening up for the three-piece-C.O.C gigs we have lined up in a couple weeks. It’s a slightly greasier kind of feel.

SFBG: I was gonna ask, since there’s only one song up on the Righteous Fool MySpace, and it seems more in the uptempo vein, like the older C.O.C. stuff: what are your plans for the Righteous Fool sound? What side of your musical personality do you get to express in that project?

MD: Well…it’s kind of in its infancy. We’re a couple years into it, and some good songs have emerged, but it’s difficult to call where that’s gonna go. We have a pretty solid musical presence in the form of Jason Browning. I don’t really know what to say about that. There’re a lot of directions we could go. I think there’s going to be more of an emphasis on vocal harmonies, things like that. We have a couple fun things we do, with a Fleetwood Mac song, and a Skip James song.

SFBG: Well I think people are curious to see what’s going to happen with that, and excited to see the band live. You’ll be playing two sets in a pretty short duration on this tour. What do you think the audience reaction is going to be, going from a super-slow, enveloping Goatsnake set right into this pissed-off hardcore Animosity stuff.

MD: It’ll be interesting to see. There are a lot of people who perform that kind of music [doom metal, a la Goatsnake] at some point in their life, in their younger life, in their previous life, who might have been into the hardcore kind of thing, so there’s a lot of overlap there, in terms of the cast of characters who perform that kinda stuff well. At the time – it’s kind of humorous to think, now – some of the parts on Animosity that were slower, briefly dirge-like, somewhat Black Sabbath inspired – that was considered slow, and within a certain kind of close-minded scene, was actually controversial. It was a controversy that you would play a few measures of something slow or heavy rock-inspired.

I think we were credited with being on the forefront of that, but in a way, we were just imitating Black Flag, but taking our Black Sabbath influence a little more literally, and indulging some more regressive influences. We did something original with borrowed ideas. There are people that would say we were involved in the beginnings of that type of thing, y’know. I don’t think that would be too pompous to say. [Laughs] If it is, I just said it, so…

SFBG: You mentioned having respect for Wino earlier. Being in Saint Vitus in that SST scene, he encountered people who would really be pissed off that he would play slow, super-Sabbathy songs.

MD: That was a pretty crazy thing. I’d already been initiated to the music of the Obsessed by that time, and picked up an appreciation for it. And so to see that dude in Saint Vitus not playing a guitar! It was just absurd, but it kind of wound him up, and made him a more intense vocalist. He’s been playing some shows with Saint Vitus recently, and I’ve heard that that’s still the case. I haven’t witnessed any Saint Vitus in quite a few years.

SFBG: You should take the opportunity, if it arises. I’ve seen two shows in this resurrected Saint Vitus era and…

MD: There’s no Armando on drums…they have some other dude on drums…

SFBG: Yeah, they have a different drummer, but Wino and Dave [Chandler, guitarist] are still really potent.

MD: So Saint Vitus comes to Raleigh, NC in like 1986, and Wino stays at my house (it’s a house a lot of people live at) and here he is on this tour not playing guitar. He picks up an acoustic guitar and plays tunes in a couple funny different ways, and plays Robert Johnson songs verbatim, as they are on the one LP – Robert Johnson Complete Recordings – we were just like, “Oh, my God!”

SFBG: I’m curious as to how you got from playing hardcore with Sabbath interludes to playing that reinvented C.O.C. sound from the early nineties, which is much more directly Sabbath-influenced. But that transition corresponds with the time when you were out of the band…

MD: I think we were already looking in that direction. You go out there and you play hardcore music, and you’re on tour, and the quality of it – of some of the bands you see – isn’t that great, and you’re listening to music partially devoid of melody. You want to unwind, and listen to some older stuff, and you realize that the craftsmanship of the older stuff is a little more advanced, even though its time has come and gone. Whats the next logical thing if you’re listening to Sabbath, or the next logical regression, to try to take something new? Deep Purple! We were listening to a lot of that. It’s funny, because after I quit the band they ended up with a singer [Pepper Keenan] who’s obviously really Ian Gillian-inspired, and they hooked up with a producer who had really sound music theory ideas. That resulted in Blind.

I had kinda moved on. I met a nice girl and moved to San Francisco for half a year. I lived in Philadelphia and I was delivering things on my bike. I heard the Blind record, and I was like “Oh mah god, its really good!” That minute came and went, and around the end of 1993, they had a dispute coming up with new material, and they were looking for a bass player and a singer. They asked me, did I want to come and make a record, and I was like “Yeah, all right!”

SFBG: That’s been the thing doing research for this interview…I think the archetypal narrative for rock bands is that they have members in and out and it gets complicated, and there are a lot of hard feelings, whereas it seems like with C.O.C. there’ve been all these people in and out of the band, but it’s been very amicable. You left and came back; you’re playing in Righteous Fool with guys who had been in the band before…

MD: Well, you know, that’s not to say that there weren’t heated incidents involved in some of this revolving door activity. There might be some negativity that occasionally rears its head. But I think everybody tries to be an adult, and a compassionate person. I think Kyuss would be the band that had that more amicable situation. Drummers in and out, a couple bass players…

SFBG: I thought some guys from that band don’t even speak anymore…

MD: Well now, yeah, you’re right. The funny thing is that they were all supposed to be on Roadburn in Holland like the same day. Nick Oliveri playing his acoustic stuff. Mr. Garcia doing some Kyuss stuff…

SFBG: It seems like a lot of these differences are being put aside in the interest of these tours that are resurrecting bands – bands that have been broken up for awhile and are coming back to tour.

MD: There’s a big rash of that right now, and it’s one of things that actually kinda gives me pause about doing this, to some extent. The only thing I can do to allay my feelings of not wanting to be part of that is to attempt to offer something new. At this point, we have four or five new songs that we can perform. We’re doing this as part of readying ourselves to do something new. And I know people are excited about the old stuff, and its fun to play, fun to reinterpret, and we enjoy it, but it’s also about having something new. Because there are a lot of 40-, 45-year-old people who were in some moderately famous musical endeavor when they were 20, and they’re all coming out of the woodwork. There’s just a new market for it.

SFBG: Is it possible for you to expand on the drawbacks of these nostalgia tours? Not asking you to slag anyone off, obviously. Are there things that you could point to that give you the bad vibe with that trend?

MD: No, not really. I’m not going to point to anyone who’s substandard or insincere. At some point it just becomes a little redundant. I’m kind of an unlikely subject [for a retro-focused tour] because I’ve never been real big on the nostalgia factor. But here we are.

SFBG: It just seems like if it’s overdone, it can take away the spotlight from some of the cool new bands. But it cuts both ways, right, because if you have these nostalgia tours, you can have new bands as openers, and take advantage of the known quantity, the big name. If there’s a similarity in the music, then the fans of Saint Vitus, say, get exposed to up-and-coming bands in the same genre that the older cats who listen to Saint Vitus might not have heard of.

MD: Well Saint Vitus this doesn’t really even apply to…

SFBG: Well, yeah. You’re right…

MD: …regular time, the laws of time, don’t really apply to them. They started off working this old crazy freedom-rock ethos anyway. They started off being out of style, and they’re a special case.

SFBG: A bad example for me to cite. In general, do you think it’s a good time in musical history to be a metal band?

MD: It might be! One of these trips has a corporate sponsorship, so apparently someone believes that this can help with product placement and identity. That’s…pretty crazy.

SFBG: Do you follow any newer, up-and-coming music? I’ve been impressed in recent years by the resurgence of a lot of North Carolina-based bands that have been making names for themselves…

MD: You know, the funny thing is, Between the Buried and Me…we had no earthly idea that they were from Raleigh, North Carolina. I was just like “that band with the really badass drummer, and sort of exaggerated dynamics – they’re from Raleigh?! Really?!” I’m not actively following stuff like that, but I’ve heard of them, and I’ve heard them.

SFBG: How about Valient Thorr?

MD: Valient Thorr I’ve actually seen, and the funny thing is I do a lot of…I work a lot of events, I do rigging, and I used to do straight-up stagehand stuff, so I’ve moved Valient Thorr’s gear, at the Warped Tour. They were like, “No, no, you can’t move our gear, you’re Mike Dean!” And I was like, “Dude, the rent is due, every month, I will move it.” I like them, I like their crazy anti-war video from several years ago, with Mr. Brian Walsby. Have you seen that? Being on the Volcom label, no one ever sees their shit.

SFBG: It seems to me like Southern metal has experienced a crazy boom in the last five, 10 years or so. All these bands out of Georgia – Baroness, Mastodon, Kylesa, Black Tusk. You’re sort of in a unique position to speak to how well Southern rock can combine with heavy music.

MD: A lot of the bands that you just mentioned there are good, non-stereotypical versions of what you would call “Southern metal.” There are other acts that kind of exploit that in an uninteresting way. There’s a lot interesting musicianship in that stuff, which is pretty cool. I’m not a big flag-waver, but all those bands are pretty good. It’s kind of astounding how popular and successful Mastodon are.

SFBG: It’s crazy. I’ve seen them go from the club shows to the college amphitheaters. It’s crazy to see the change in the kind of people who you see at the show.

MD: I’ve never been to a Mastodon show. I’ve may have seen them open for somebody a long time ago, but I’ve never been to one of these big shows. I’d be curious to see.

SFBG: They’re total pros in one sense – the performance is really top notch. But the guitarist, Brent, is kind of a wild man, and I think they’re almost better when he’s three sheets to the wind, because it ups the intensity. If he’s getting angrier and angrier as the show goes on, his solos get more expressive…

MD: A whole album based on Moby Dick.

SFBG: Can’t argue with that, right?

MD: Those kids’ English teachers gotta be proud!

SFBG: One of the things I was struck by, listening to Animosity to prepare for this interview, was the strident political nature of a lot of the lyrics. Even though we live in very politically contentious times, there really hasn’t been the kind of musical reaction that existed under Reagan, when people were using music as a channel for their dissent. Do you have any insight, having written a seminal political hardcore album, about why that isn’t going on today?

MD: That’s an interesting observation. I don’t really know the answer to that. I don’t think there’s as much consensus, because of the disparate nature of media now, or the wider number of outlets. At that time, we had cable TV in its infancy, we had print media, we had three networks – I think that people would be more tuned in to the same media outlets at that point, and they would either accept it or reject it. I think there was more potential for mass consensus even in terms of dissent. Now it’s just so diffuse; people just look at things that reinforce their worldview. A lot of those worldviews don’t have anything to do with reacting to political situations, or reacting to wars that are going on. Also, I think expressing oneself through music didn’t result in any massive type of change. I don’t think its really an effective means of effecting any kind of change. It’s just blowing of steam…

SFBG: Well, Bono cured hunger in Africa. So, there’s that.

MD: I crewed for U2 on their 360 show as a local, working the spotlight, and the guy on the spotlight above me pissed himself in the spot chair – I got to watch the piss drip down.

SFBG: He couldn’t leave?

MD: Yeah, he couldn’t leave. I watched him drink some coffee beforehand, and I was wondering…

SFBG: You said it was the spotlight above you? That sounds like a bad situation…

MD: Fortunately, they were offset.

SFBG: Did you see a trickle of urine going by, a couple feet from you?

MD: I did. Yeah, I did.

SFBG: That’s brutal.

MD: They landed the truss, and the guy just left – he resigned on the spot.

THE SOUTHERN LORD WEST COAST MINI TOUR

Corrosion of Conformity, Goatsnake, Black Breath, Eagle Twin, Righteous Fool

Tue/10, 7 p.m., $25

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

www.dnalounge.com

A rainbow plays tug of war: East Oakland photo contest winners

Andrew Lam

August 4, 2010

East Oakland: beautiful, isn’t it? Deep in the Flickrs of its residents, the truth is out. Streets plagued by media images of gang violence and poverty are fodder for shots of kid’s games and preternatural beauty — and artists out there that care enough to capture it. Rene Yung, an artist who is heading the Our Oakland project, took issue with the way the community was being portrayed on TV: all the stories she saw were either crime or “rise above” tales of success. “I think so much of people’s everyday lives deserve to be celebrated.” The website she created for Our Oakland, meant to be a pride pump for this much maligned area of the Bay, sponsored a photography contest to find the photos they knew were out there. They received 22 entries, but this has gotta be due to the vagaries of Internet awareness and less a reflection of the material they sought, cuz they came up with some real pretty pictures. Care for an intro to the civic aesthetes who took the prizes? Wish granted. Check out this week’s SFBG for more stellar shots by Bay shutterbugs.

Oacia Williams has lived in East Oakland off and on since 2002. But she hasn’t seen too many rainbows there — at least skyward. The diversity on her street is part of the reason why she loves where she lives. “All the different colors and nationalities, everyone coming together. It is gorgeous,” Williams told us during the round of phone interviews we conducted with the Our Oakland winners. She took People’s Choice photo “See!! There is a Pot of Gold” (the same shot we picked out as an early favorite in the contest — see, who says community media isn’t influential?) on a day at home playing with her and her boyfriend’s kids. “The kids were tripping off the rainbow – first it was one rainbow and then the double. We were able to see it real well, which I was surprised because it was so dark out,” Williams remembered. Out came her Samsung. “Im always snapping it because you never know what you can do with it or who needs it.” She found out that Our Oakland needed it. Done and done.

“Tug of War” by Pauline Russell-Silva

“It’s just an authentic picture – I didn’t plan it. It’s from the perspective I have as an elementary school teacher, and of the kids in the area where I work,” says Pauline Russell-Silva of her first place shot. Russell Silva, a K-5 teacher at Encompass Elementary, Russell-Silva works with children on their English language development and reading skills. Her dynamic shot was taken on field day at Encompass. “We believe in educating the whole child, developing healthy body, mind and spirit,” she says. The days outside always end in a tug of war match, and the teacher’s Nikon D40 captured the shifting demographics in the East Oakland community. Russell-Silva finds it an apt photo of her neighborhood. “Sometimes there’s conflict and strife, sometimes there’s people working together.” She heard of the contest through the public library adjoining her school.

“Fanea” by Fanea Easterling

“We were so pleased by range of ages of winners in the contest,” Yung says. Taking the organization’s second place prize (and a Ipod shuffle in the bargain) was young person Fanae Clark, a student at the East Oakland Boxing Association who snapped her winning photo when Our Oakland hosted a photography workshop at the athletic center where she spars. In her artist’s statement, she said of her shot. “I also think this image shows hard work, which can get you where you want to be in life.” Yung found her shot appealing for the distinct perspective it offers. “As a young person she was being thoughtful relating to her life.”

Worth the wait

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 4, 2010

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

(Blizzard Entertainment)

PC, Mac OS X

Even for a company known for its notoriously long development cycles, Blizzard took its sweet time with StarCraft II. Though thousands of people now have their fevered hands on a copy, the reality of its arrival hasn’t really sunk in. Playing it feels like the first time I listened to Chinese Democracy, except with fewer unnecessary keyboard tracks.

When it came out in 1998, the original StarCraft was a big hit, selling 1.5 million copies in its first year. In the 12 years that followed, it turned into cultural behemoth; total sales now top 11 million — 4.5 million in South Korea alone, where it became a wildly popular pseudo sport.

With this massive success in mind, it’s no surprise that the Irvine wunderkinds at Blizzard avoided revolutionary redesigns. The gameplay is still built around the three real-time strategy pillars: resource-gathering, base-construction, and frenzied tactical combat. Players will still choose between the meticulously-balanced rock-paper-scissors of the game’s three factions: Terran, Protoss, and Zerg.

Considering its endless wait time, the game’s detractors can be forgiven for complaining that the title shipped with only one faction’s single-player campaign (the Terran’s), or that it amounts to little more than a 3-D re-skin of the same old game. But Blizzard was never going to please everyone, and it’s clear that it eschewed this impossible task in favor of perfecting what it could, which was a lot. The production values are simply astounding, and consistent across a range of categories — the animation, voice acting, sound design, user interface are all impeccable. For a media subculture (gaming) that has made taking the good with the bad something of an art form, a title in which every decision has been carefully considered and executed is truly to be treasured.

The single-player campaign is narrative-driven and exciting, and rife with entertaining cut-scenes that play up the game’s drawling, honky-tonk version of the future. Looking back, it’s clear that the StarCraft series was a sci-fi Western four years before Firefly hit the airwaves.

Multiplayer, of course, is the real draw, and Blizzard’s online utility Battle.net has been overhauled to bring gaming and social networking together in a way that isn’t totally stupid. The way the company is preparing to bind your life together with the sinews of Facebook, StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, and the forthcoming Diablo III would be terrifying, if it wasn’t so goddamn fun.

Our Weekly Picks: August 4-10, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 3, 2010

WEDNESDAY 4

MUSIC

Blondie

Emerging from the early punk and new wave scenes of New York City in the mid-1970s, Blondie incorporated a variety of musical styles into its overall sound, helping to set itself apart from its contemporaries and creating a following that perseveres today. It’s hard to believe that firebrand singer Deborah Harry is now 65, but she, along with founding members Chris Stein and Clem Burke, continues to powerfully rollick through the band’s impressive back catalog of favorites such as “Call Me,” “Heart of Glass,” “Atomic,” and its cover of The Paragons’ “The Tide Is High.” With Gorvette (featuring Nikki Corvette alongside Amy Gore of the Gore Gore Girls). (Sean McCourt)

With Gorvette

8 p.m., $55

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

COMEDY

Tim Lee

There are many career paths available to someone with an advanced degree in biology, but standup comedy usually isn’t one of them. That explains the immediate appeal of Tim Lee, a PhD from UC Davis who’s made his name mining the rich comedic veins of fossil records and molecular geometry. This is actually way better than it sounds — think of the guy as your witty high school science teacher writ large. His use of PowerPoint slides makes him a kind of Demetri Martin for the un-stoned. But what ultimately sets Lee apart is his undeniably charming wonkiness. Sure, you’ve heard a million Larry King jokes, but have you heard one that manages to work in the Cambrian explosion? (Zach Ritter)

8 p.m., $20

Punch Line Comedy Club

444 Battery, SF

(415) 397-7573

www.punchlinecomedyclub.com

THURSDAY 5

DANCE/THEATER

CounterPULSE artists-in-residence

What is feminine? Answering such a broad and loaded question undoubtedly generates some anxiety. Not so for CounterPULSE’s summer artists-in-residence, Laura Arrington and Jesse Hewit. Merging dance and theater, these two emerging choreographers aren’t afraid to dive head-first into notions of sex, gender, and authenticity. Their shared showcase at CounterPULSE (a nonprofit community performance space) features Arrington’s latest piece, Hot Wings — which centers around four women in a cardboard castle — and Hewit’s newest creation, Tell Them That You Saw Me, a work with everything from lipstick and large tanks of water to sacred hymns and sex stories. (Katie Gaydos)

Thurs/5-Sat/7, 8 p.m.; Sun/8, 3 p.m., $15–$20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2060

http://counterpulse.org

THEATER

Sex Tapes for Seniors

If you have a comfortable relationship founded on bridging the generational gap, Sex Tapes For Seniors is a show you can see with your grandparents. They can relate to, or at least chuckle at, the plight of old folks clinging to their libidos before slipping into senility, and you can appreciate it because this is your future. Yet as Mario Cossa –– playwright, director, and choreographer –– fills your imagination, you might realize you don’t want to be sitting with grandma and grandpa after all. Upon retiring, a group of seniors starts making their own instructional sex tapes and thus, the locals get all verklempt. In the words of the late TV series Party Down, this musical is “seniorlicious!” (Lattanzio)

Through Aug. 22

Previews tonight, 8 p.m.

Runs Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun, 2 p.m., $20–$40

Victoria Theater

2961 16th St, SF

(415) 863-7576

www.stfsproductions.com

EVENT

“Exploratorium After Dark: Nomadic Communities”

As thousands of Bay Area residents prepare for their annual pilgrimage to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man, the monthly Exploratorium After Dark series takes on the topic of nomadic communities. “While true nomads are rare in industrialized countries, hybrids of whimsical and economically inventive itinerancies are evolving here in the Bay Area,” notes the program. Burning Man board member and chief city builder Harley Dubois will discuss the evolution of Black Rock City while attendees have the chance to nosh on one of the blue plate specials at the mobile Dust City Diner, a project developed by Burning Man artists that brings the ’40s-style diner experience to the most random spots. Exploratorium biologist Karen Kalumuck will also talk about nomads from the animal world and how they’ve come to live and thrive in the Bay Area, with interactive exhibits. (Steven T. Jones)

6–10 p.m., $15

Exploratorium

3601 Lyon, SF

(415) 561-0360

www.exploratorium.edu

FRIDAY 6

THEATER

The Norman Conquests

The Shotgun Players invade the Ashby Stage with British playwright Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests, a triptych of farce, lunacy, and suburban malaise. The Conquests feature three freestanding yet complementary plays set in separate rooms of a house revolving around the same characters: Table Manners happens in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and finally Round and Round the Garden in the … well, you get it. In 2009, a revival garnered one Tony and five nominations. A three-play package affords you many chances to catch each, but on Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, you can see them all in one marathon. (Lattanzio)

Through Sept. 5

Performance times vary, $20–$25 (three-play package, $50)

Ashby Stage

1901 Ashby, Berk.

(510) 841-6500

www.shotgunplayers.org

VISUAL ART

“Gangsters, Guns, and Floozies”

The cinematic microverse populated by shamuses and femmes fatales is fodder for plenty of critical writing as well as contemporary neo-noir film, but a gallery of visual art inspired by the form stands to capture the shadows from a different angle. Nicole Ferrara’s works depict harsh gray moments in time, with the titular floozies, guns, and gangsters as primary subjects. The immediacy of the faces on Ferrara’s characters is enough to convey the continued relevance of this decades-old aesthetic. Whether painted or caught on film, the desperate acts of desperate people are riveting and revealing. Ferrara also paints B-movie inspired art, apparently drawing inspiration from the alternate visual reality presented in such films. (Sam Stander)

Through Aug. 31

Reception 6 p.m., free

Hive Gallery

301 Jefferson, Oakl.

www.hivestudios.org/hive_gallery.html

VISUAL ART

“Por Skunkey”

Big Umbrella Studios is a cooperative gallery and a community of artists, and with them comes DIY-chic culture to the Divisadero Corridor. “Por Skunkey” brings together the artists-in-residence –– including the abstract, gestural paintings of Umbrella co-owner Chad Kipfer –– along with a few guests to pay tribute to Skunkey, also known as canine-in-residence, also known as Mama Skunk. And if you’d like some oil spill on the side of your oil painting, then under the Umbrella you’ll find artist responses to this summer’s BP disaster. Here’s hoping Skunkey herself shows up, so be nice and pet the pooch. When you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you. (Lattanzio)

Through Aug. 31

7 p.m., free

Big Umbrella Gallery

906 1/2 Divisadero, SF

(415) 359-9211

www.bigumbrellastudios.com

SATURDAY 7

MUSIC/PERFORMANCE

Slammin’ All-Body Band

Clap, snap, stomp, slap, step, tap. Try it and you’ll see it’s easy to make sound with your body. Making music though, proves far more difficult. Keith Terry — a trained percussionist and drummer for the original Jazz Tap Ensemble — has mastered what he terms body music. He’s been clapping and stomping his way through awe-inspiring kinetic soundtracks for more than 30 years. In 2008 he founded the International Body Music Festival out of his nonprofit Oakland arts organization, Crosspulse. This benefit show with Slammin’ All-Body Band — plus guest dancers and renowned hambone artist Derique McGee — highlights the artists before they head off to the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival. Proceeds help fund the group’s NYC debut. (Gaydos)

8 p.m., $25–$100

La Peña Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 849-2568

www.crosspulse.com

FILM/PERFORMANCE

“Night of 1,000 Showgirls“

Can you believe it’s been 15 years since Showgirls was first released? The crowning achievement in a directing career that also included 1997’s Starship Troopers, 1992’s Basic Instinct, 1990’s Total Recall, and 1987’s RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven’s trashiest, most glorious film is, by extension, probably the trashiest, most glorious film of all time. Peaches Christ (now a filmmaker in her own right, thanks to alter ego Joshua Grannell’s All About Evil) hosts “Night of 1,000 Showgirls,” maybe the biggest tribute the tit-tastic classic has ever enjoyed. In addition to a Goddess–themed preshow, there’ll be a contest for Nomi Malone look-alikes — don’t forget the nails! And don’t eat all the chips … or the doggie chow. (Cheryl Eddy)

8 p.m., $18

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.peacheschrist.com

SUNDAY 8

DANCE

San Francisco Ballet

An afternoon at the ballet doesn’t come cheap. Rarely ever, free. But thanks to the annual performing series Stern Grove Festival, park-goers can see one of the nation’s top ballet companies, San Francisco Ballet, for a grand total of zero dollars. In its one and only Bay Area summer appearance, SFB performs Christopher Wheeldon’s romantic pas de deux, After the Rain; Mark Morris’ playful ensemble piece, Sandpaper Ballet; the classic pas de deux from act three of Petipa’s Don Quixote; and the neoclassical work Prism by SFB artistic director Helgi Tomasson. So skip out on Dolores Park for one Sunday this summer, trade in your tall can for a bottle of wine, and head to Stern Grove for a tutu-filled midsummer afternoon. (Gaydos)

2 p.m., free

Sigmund Stern Grove

19th Ave. and Sloat, SF

www.sterngrove.org

MONDAY 9

EVENT

“The Evolving Landscape of Local Journalism”

In the face of the ever more hectic state of print journalism, as exemplified by the recent strife at the San Francisco Chronicle and the disappearance of other local publications, new modes of reporting are cropping up to fill the need for engaged investigative coverage. Tonight at the Booksmith, Lisa Frazier from the recently opened Bay Citizen, SF Public Press’s Michael Stoll, and Mission Local’s Lydia Chavez discuss the future of local journalism as a significant alternative to our standard methods of news delivery and consumption. If these three aren’t enough San Francisco journalistic players for you, the panel discussion will be moderated by Christin Evans, co-owner of the Booksmith and a contributor to the Huffington Post. (Stander)

7:30 p.m., free

Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

www.booksmith.com

TUESDAY 10

MUSIC

Weird Al Yankovic

Must we seek to encapsulate Weird Al Yankovic in 130 words or less? Some would call this treason against the United States of Awesome. Yankovic has been marshaling the ludricrousness of pop culture music into parodies no less farcical since 1979 — and his campaign (surprise!) continues to this day. Certainly, “Eat It,” “I Love Rocky Road,” and “Amish Paradise” — the track that incurred the wrath of Coolio at the height of his celebrity powers — were classics seared into our souls like the brand on a cow’s behind. But rest assured of the future’s brightness by his recent offerings, like an ode to that modern day zeitgeist, “Craigslist.” (Caitlin Donohue)

8 p.m., $36-50

Warfield

982 Market, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

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The curve of the lens

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 3, 2010

arts@sfbg.com

PHOTO ISSUE It wasn’t until Julian ArtPorn (www.ArtPorn.com) was taping the back hem of my red and white polka dot dress up over the seat of my Nishiki road bike that I realized the Coppertone dog-girl duo of yore is, in fact, one of our most visible illustrative renditions of boudoir photography. Then, my derriere suitably exposed to his basement studio — the most revealing shot of our session — and he had arranged my hips just so, and coached me on the appropriate pin up “surprised” face, ArtPorn resumed with the flash bulbs.

“So cute!” he giggled sweetly. I vamped to his praise. A girl could get used to this.

And it would appear that many have. Boudoir photography, that classic art form old as photography itself, is a growing market, burgeoning alongside its onstage cousin, burlesque. Many wedding shutterbugs are now including a clothing-off (or clothing artfully draped over favorably lighted curves) session with the bride to value-add to their package promotions. It’s a version of risqué that newbie subjects can control completely: a good way to be bad, a cute way to be sexy?

Photo by Julian ArtPorn

But for the photographers I spoke with for this article, boudoir photography was more than a means to a paycheck. ArtPorn, who in his bohemian upbringing was “hitch-hiking alone and smoking pot at the age of five,” finds the preservation of his subjects’ sexuality a precious task. He shoots almost exclusively on a bright white background, gleeful captures of countless freaky people he’s photographed both on the Burning Man playa and his basement studio in Excelsior.

Julian’s into people’s natural sexiness — whether it takes the form of one of my “cute” booty-baring bike photos, or something rather kinkier. He’s shot ecosexual porn stars, randy leather couples, women hanging by ropes from the ceiling. Whatever gets you hot, dig? Sexuality is “one of the most magical things about anybody,” he tells me after our shoot. “It’s an amazing, powerful, and wonderful thing. The media doesn’t do a great job of representing that.”

Michelle Athanasiades, whom I meet sipping white wine in a Moroccan lounge next to Dollhouse Bettie, her Haight Street lingerie shop (www.dollhousebettie.com), would concur. “The standards that are set for beauty — they seem so unattainable in so many ways that the idea of giving yourself the freedom to express your own sexuality and beauty is a gift.” Athanasiades got into the boudoir photog game by necessity, shooting models in her retro silk and satin whispers back when her undie trade was conducted solely on the Internet.

Photo by Michelle Athanasiades

New to photography, she’s never shot outside her third floor Edwardian flat, decorated only with her romantic aesthetic and the “best diffuser ever,” San Francisco fog outside the windows. Customers began to come to her to look like her catalog of Mae Wests and Bettie Pages. “People are captivated by the elegance and sexuality of the pre-women’s liberation era,” Athanasiades tells me between sips. “There were women back then who embodied that pioneering spirit and also that sexuality.” Still a side gig to Dollhouse Bettie, her clients want photos for wedding/engagement presents, a fun thing to do with their girlfriends, or just to have ravishing, seductive photos of themselves.

As for the bike shoot — well sure, it was for the article, of course! But now that the vital background research is accessibly located in my computer hard drive, I click open the photos when I want a reminder of beauty. It was massively fun to pick out which frilly panties I wanted to sport, to bring my beloved bike along for the ride when he suggested I come up with a fun prop (even if it lacked the star quality, perhaps, of his other subjects’ interlocking nipple rings and patent leather corsets). And if I look particularly fetching, comfortable, happy in my skin — well gosh, you’re too kind! — we must consider it a reflection of the photographers themselves.

FAIR: WikiLeaks and the U.S. Press

David Talbot

July 30, 2010

Media resistance to exposure of government secrets

The website WikiLeaks posted tens of thousands of classified intelligence documents relating to the Afghanistan War on Sunday, July 25. Spanning the years 2004-09, the documents had been shared in advance with reporters from the New York Times, the British Guardian and the German Der Spiegel, all of which produced long pieces offering their interpretations of the documents.

In corporate U.S. media, the documents produced several narratives. For some, the WikiLeaks revelations were either not all that important, or certainly not as important as the leak of the Vietnam War-era Pentagon Papers. As a Washington Post story put it (7/27/10), “Unlike the Pentagon Papers, these documents–although they are closer to a real-time assessment and although they land in the superheated Internet era–do not reveal any strategy on the part of the government to mislead the public about the mission and its chances for success.” The New York Times (7/26/10) noted that

overall, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements–attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles, or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.

Such comments reflect a somewhat puzzling standard for what qualifies as official deception. But the overriding message of some prominent outlets was that there was little to glean from the disclosures. The July 27 Washington Post provided a remarkable case study. One news story, headlined “WikiLeaks Disclosures Unlikely to Change Course of Afghanistan War,” presented the leaks as good news for the war effort, asserting that the “release could compel President Obama to explain more forcefully the war’s importance,” and conveying White House claims that “the classified accounts bolstered Obama’s decision in December to pour more troops and money into a war effort that had not received sufficient attention or resources from the Bush administration.”

Another Post story, headlined “WikiLeaks Documents Cause Little Concern Over Public Perception of War,” suggested that the White House and Congress were trying to turn the leaks into “an affirmation of the president’s decision to shift strategy and boost troop levels in the nearly nine-year-long war.” The same could be said for the Washington Post, which also editorialized that the WikiLeaks release “hardly merits the hype offered by the website’s founder.”

One area of obvious concern were documents that described attacks on civilians by U.S. and NATO forces. The WikiLeaks files brought this issue back into the media spotlight, but it’s worth considering how different papers treated the issue. One of the Guardian‘s July 26 stories began with this lead:

A huge cache of secret U.S. military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and NATO commanders fear neighboring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency.

While the British paper led with civilian deaths, the New York Times‘ July 26 story reported that the archive of classified documents “offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.” The article’s second paragraph describes it as a “daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.” Ten paragraphs into the piece there is a reference to commando missions that “claim notable successes, but have sometimes gone wrong, killing civilians and stoking Afghan resentment.” But the documents’ numerous accounts of civilians killed by U.S. or allied forces got little attention in the Times‘ write-up, a choice justified that executive editor Bill Keller (NYTimes.com, 7/25/10) attempted to justify by saying that “all of the major episodes of civilian deaths described in the War Logs had been previously reported in the Times.”

The possibility that the leaked documents might lead to more discussion of civilian casualties was frequently raised as a concern in U.S. media. The Washington Post editorial tried to minimize the documents’ revelations on this issue: “The British newspaper in turn highlights what it says are 144 reported incidents in which Afghan civilians were killed or wounded by coalition forces. But the 195 deaths it counts in those episodes, though regrettable, do not constitute a shocking total for a four-year period.” That point of view was echoed on CBS Evening News by correspondent Lara Logan:

Well, the issue of civilian casualties is a major one. And the U.S. has taken a lot of criticism because of this. However, what’s interesting to note is that according to the documents, 195 Afghan civilians have been killed. But also according to the documents, 2,000 Afghan civilians have been killed by the Taliban, which is more than 10 times the number said to be killed by U.S. and NATO forces. And very little is being made of that. If the coverage would indicate that it’s more of an issue for the U.S. to kill Afghan civilians than it is for the Taliban to do so.

The suggestion that this tally of 195 Afghan civilian deaths is comprehensive is absurd on its face, given that the WikiLeaks documents are in no way at all a comprehensive account of any aspect of the war. As the Guardian noted, that number “is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.” Estimates of civilian casualties vary, but several thousand noncombatant Afghans were killed by U.S. and coalition forces during these years of the war. As for Logan’s point about who bears more responsibility for civilian killings, there have been various attempts to make such determinations. In 2008, for instance, U.N. monitors counted over 2,000 civilian casualties; when responsibility could be determined, 41 percent of the deaths were attributed to U.S./NATO forces.

On the same broadcast in which Logan offered her critique, CBS reporter Chip Reid stressed that civilian deaths would remain a potent issue for the White House. Reid feared that the Obama administration

may be underestimating the problems here because, yes, people were aware and certainly the president was aware of the problem with civilian casualties, but if we’re now going to be bombarded for days on end with a long series of specific examples, that’s going to make it more difficult for both the Afghan people and the American people to support this war.

It is difficult to imagine that corporate media would be “bombarding” anyone “for days on end” with stories of dead Afghan civilians. Liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson (7/27/10), for instance, downplayed the importance of WikiLeaks‘ information about civilian deaths:

We already knew that U.S. and other coalition forces were inflicting civilian casualties that had the effect of enraging local villagers and often driving them into the enemy camp. The documents merely reveal episodes that were previously unpublicized–an October 2008 incident in which French troops opened fire on a bus near Kabul and wounded eight children, for example, and a tragedy two months later when a U.S. squad riddled another bus with gunfire, killing four passengers and wounding 11 others.

Old news, in other words–albeit news about which we were unaware.

Post columnist Anne Applebaum struck a different note (7/29/10), congratulating the media for already thoroughly documenting the sorts of events described in the WikiLeaks documents: “If you don’t know by now that the ISI helped create the Taliban, or that civilian casualties are generally a problem for NATO, or that special forces units are hunting for Al-Qaeda fighters, all that means is that you don’t read the mainstream media. Which means that you don’t really want to know.” (It’s true that regular readers of outlets like the Post may be under the impression that Afghan civilian deaths are more of a problem for NATO than they are for Afghan civilians–FAIR Blog, 5/7/09.)

In the new issue of Time magazine (dated 8/9/10), managing editor Rick Stengel notes that WikiLeaks “has already ratcheted up the debate about the war,” and that Time is trying “to contribute to that debate.” They do so with a cover photo of a disfigured Afghan woman with the headline “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” The clear implication is that the Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. It is difficult to imagine the magazine proposing the opposite: a headline like “What Happens If We Stay in Afghanistan,” accompanied by a photo of the corpse of an Afghan child killed in an airstrike or a house raid.

Stengel argues, “We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it,” adding: “What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead.”

The idea that the way to respond to the WikiLeaks documents is to highlight atrocities committed by the Taliban is precisely what CBS correspondent Lara Logan called for. And it’s also more propaganda than it is journalism.

FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.

My buddy and meme: Winnebago Man’s unlikely star turn

Andrew Lam

July 30, 2010

An irascible ex-TV news anchor shoots a promo video for Winnebago in Iowa in the summer of 1988. It’s hot out, the crew isn’t giving him what he needs, and he swears. A lot. Fast forward 20 years, and the video that damn crew complied of his least flattering outtakes has garnered over 20 million hits on YouTube. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer hired a detective to find out what happened to the star of his favorite viral video, and the ensuing film, Winnebago Man (which starts Fri/30), turns up some surprising conclusions about the notion of, as Steinbauer put it to me in our recent interview at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, “accidental notoriety.” Some people are calling the film an exploitation of the alternately crude and eloquent Jack Rebney, a new media naïf – but my half hour with the pair raised questions in my eyes of who was using who to tell what story.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: So Jack, tell me about the last time you were in San Francisco. That’s the climax of the film.

Jack Rebney: Well of course, just when we were finishing the movie we had the opportunity to be up in the Haight playing [at the 2008 Found Footage Festival at Red Vic Movie House] and that was the first opportunity for Ben and I to do our dog and pony show. We had just an incredible time.

Ben Steinbauer: You’l l never guess who the pony is.

JR: The people were just, it was electric. It was just quite unusual. I was enormously taken with it. You could feel the vibes between the people and Ben and I.

SFBG: That’s Haight-Ashbury for you. Ben, I have a question for you. Did your intent and motivation for this film change throughout filming it?

BS: No question. I started out making the movie because I was a big fan of the clip. I got the VHS tape in 2001, my friends and I would all quote it. Cut to four years later when YouTube was popping up and there was this idea of accidental celebrity, or unwanted notoriety. I thought, I wonder how the star of my favorite clip is dealing with this same thing? It just started from there with me as a fan wanting to meet Jack and understand this new technological and cultural phenomenon.

SFBG: Jack, do you remember the original Winnebago shoot?

JR: Like a boil. It was horrible, it was a violent, violent moment in my life. I was used to operating with camera crews, and audio people, and grips, ecetera who were at the highest levels of media. I never had to do a damn thing. All I had to do was babble, do my patented babble. As it was the middle of the summer in Iowa it was 100 degrees or more. The humidity was 98%. There were billions upon billions of flies. There’s a quote that always amuses me, apparently a lot of other people too: God in his infinite wisdom created the fly and they’re all in Iowa. But you have to keep in mind that there was never any of what today we categorize as anger. Its been said I’m the angriest man on earth — that’s actually not true at all. The Winnebago corporation had hired me to do the very best possible marketing film I could do, they percieved that I would be able to do a good film for them. So when it didn’t work right, I swear. Because I think it’s marvelously expressive. If you hit your thumb with a hammer, you don’t say golly wompers.

BS: Jack worked in media at a time when the news was shot on 16mm film. The concept that you could leave the cameras rolling to capture outtakes was foreign, let alone the idea that you could rapidly share video like this and 20 plus years later people in Japan could be laughing – it’s literally science fiction.

SFBG: Jack, did you know the cameras were rolling?

JR: No! Because I would say “cap it!” which in the vernacular means shut it down, stop rolling.

SFBG: Do you guys think after going through this process that it’s important for people these days to be aware of what’s going on with the Internet?

BS: My interest in this was the realization that we all have digital reputations. That’s a new concept.

JR: Harry Truman made the comment, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. It is for me a total absence of interest. I get a lot of film shot at me, I’ve shot a lot of film at people, stuck a lot of microphones in the face of a lot of people who are actually of some consequence. This was an irrelevancy. But now it’s taken on something else, a life unto itself.

SFBG: When did you become vested in this film, Jack?

JR: After the first time Ben came up to my little cabin. As is explained in the film, I was on my best behavior, Mary Poppin-esque.

BS: He basically fooled me.

JR: There are two things that are terribly important here. One, this kid knows what he’s doing: he teaches media at the University of Texas. Could this be an adjunct at the beginning of what is possibly his film career? Could this help him? Could this be something? I have people that when I was a youngster make it possible for me to get positions that normally I could never have attained. On the other hand, for years and years I’ve been a socio-political commentator and I’ve attacked very nearly everything, and I love it because it strikes that the vast majority of people are not thinking, they’re not given anything in media. They’re given milk and honey. Well there’s no more milk and honey! It’s over. It’s time to either fall into a very deep abyss or we’re going to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and I thought wait a minute, I can enunciate this. I thought well, okay, this kid wants to shoot me? He wants to turn the camera on? I’ll give him something to think about.

SFBG: Are you having a good time traveling together? You’re spending a lot of time together.

BS: Well we just had the best lunch I think I’ve ever eaten –

JR: Years ago when I had the opportunity to come to SF, I would eat lunch or dinner at Scoma’s [random note: this year’s Best of the Bay seafood restaurant!]. It is absolutely nonpareil.

BS: We tried to order that on the menu.

JR: Shut up Ben. In any event, it was absolutely magnificent. San Francisco is a city that has – there is nothing lacking here. There’s an enormous number of absolute nutcases running around, but that what gives it it’s vitality.

Winnebago Man

Starts Fri/30 2:25, 4:45, 7:15, and 9:45 p.m.

With introduction by the Dead Kennedys East Bay Ray and post show Q&A with Jack Rebney and Ben Steinbauer at Fri/30 and Sat/31’s 7:15 and 9:45 shows

Landmark Lumiere Theatre

1572 California, SF

(415) 267-4893

www.landmarktheatres.com

also playing at Shattuck Cinemas (2230 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 464-5980, www.landmarktheatres.com)

Mid season huddle: roller derby’s Bay Bombers talk track

Andrew Lam

July 29, 2010

Oh Bay Bombers, won’t you stop in your roller derby tracks and tell us how you’ve been? San Francisco’s famed co-ed blocking, pivoting, jamming squadron has been packing ever-increasing crowds into Kezar Pavilion, their historical home this year – and no wonder, they’re killing it on track. To tell us by just how much, we wrangled a phone interview with general manager Jim Fitzpatrick, who we last checked in with shortly before his home opening match with league Lucifer Georgia Hase’s Brooklyn Red Devils.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Jim you old so-and-so! We hear you’ve been hit with a typhoon of reality TV shows [this year Bombers have been featured on both Jerry Seinfeld’s Marriage Ref and TLC’s Ultimate Cake-Off] What’s up with that? Is derby just the larger than life kind of visuals those shows look for?

Jim Fitzpatrick: We’ve been hit with a lot of great media coverage. We even have the German version of Borat coming to film the tournament next month and there’s another potential project – that’s what’s so bizarre about this. Years ago I skated, I blew out my shoulder, roller derby ended. Then I became a firefighter, got hurt, that ended. My doctor is actually working on a reality show about dealing with people with chronic pain, and I was so successful in that, I’ll be on of the first people they profile on the show.

SFBG: Damn, superstar. So how’s the actual season been going?

JF: It’s been going great. The crowds have dramatically increased. It’s bizarre, but if you look back and trace the history of the sport from the Depression on up, during bad economic times and times of war — it’s one of those things, it’s an outlet for people that they can get their aggressions out and root for somebody that reminds them of themselves. Some of our skaters are kind of small, they wouldn’t be able to compete in traditional sports like football and basketball. But put them on skates and they’re amazing athletes! If you look at the crowd you see anything there from grandmas to little kids.

A man that just screams reality TV: Bombers general manager Jim Fitzpatrick. Photo by Tim Figueras

SFBG: What’s the Bombers’ record right now?

JF: We’ve won all four of our regular season games.

SFBG: Nice. What’s your secret?

JF: Me. [laughs] It’s one of those things, roller derby has so many diverse people that get into it. Our group is so diverse, but we really get along – it’s the camaraderie.

SFBG: You have a lot of history with some of the team managers you’ve been going head to head with. Does it change a game for you when you’re competing against someone you’re acquainted with?

JF: I don’t let it get to me. Dave [“Wildman”] Marez was a guy I broke in with, trained with — we both started out with the Bay Bombers, but he left the team and we skated against each other for most of our years in the league. We get together off the track and get along great — but on the track it’s an intense rivalry.

Kezar Stadium cradles those that throw the bows. Photo by Tim Figueras

SFBG: A favorite on track moment from the season so far?

JF: Theres a couple. I have a girl on my team, Lisa Hartmayer, that blows me away. She’s a registered nurse and she was one of the Olympic torch bearers in San Francisco for the Beijing Olympics. She’s taken off this year, scoring a lot of points. Very physical. She’s got an advantage because she’s an ice hockey skater, so she loves the physical.

SFBG: Prediction for your upcoming tournament?

JF: I’m predicting we’re going to be in the finals against the Red Devils. The last few championship games we’ve ended up facing them. It’s been close, but we’ve beat them both times. They’re one of the best teams out there.

The Bombers will be one of the top four teams in the league playing in next month’s Calvello Cup (Fri/27-Sat/28). You can also catch recordings of past games on KFTY TV50 digital 199. They’ll air Aug 15 and Aug 22, 11 a.m.- 12 p.m.

The Calvello Cup

Fri/27 and Sat/28 7:30 p.m., $5-20

Kezar Pavilion

755 Stanyan, SF

www.arsdbombers.com

Big Brother? Body cams, face-recognition apps, and liquid body armor

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

July 28, 2010

Big Brother? Body cams, face-recognition apps, and liquid body armor

The San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday that several police departments in California are equipping officers with tiny cameras to wear while on duty. San Jose and Oakland police departments are reportedly testing out similar technology, and the so-called body cams are under consideration in Seattle too.
To be sure, this could be a welcome development for police-watchdog organizations who’ve found that it is difficult to hold an officer accountable for misconduct when you have little to go on besides an officer’s word versus that of the person alleging abuse.

According to a Popular Mechanics article about the Axon, a body cam worn behind the ear manufactured by Taser International, the technology was conceived of to fend off abuse allegations against police officers. It’s an ironic twist, considering that for 20 years activists affiliated with volunteer-run Copwatch groups have shadowed cops with their own cameras to capture police misconduct on film. Taser International also makes a miniature camera that clips onto a Taser and starts recording when the weapon is deployed.

Steve Tuttle of Taser International is quoted in the article explaining how body cams could benefit police:

“At first blush, it sounds like Big Brother. But if we’re not doing it, it’s the kid next door recording it with his cellphone. And what if he didn’t flip it open in time, and he doesn’t catch his buddy making verbal threats or attacking the officers first? What happens then?”

The presence of a camera lens could possibly deescalate situations by inducing violent offenders to think twice about their actions, or dissuading officers from using excessive force. But it gives rise to plenty of questions. What if people are recorded without probable cause? What if an officer decides to stop recording just before delivering a baton blow to someone’s head? Will the technology further erode community trust in law enforcement? Will police officers experience more anxiety because their every move could be subject to scrutiny?

Kellie Evans, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said the body cams have the potential to benefit police and police watchdogs, but warned that success would depend on regulations pinned down during implementation.

“Departments need to have very clear rules about when the camera will be turned on,” Evans said. It’s essential that departments clearly spell out how the recordings will be used and how the integrity of the footage will be preserved, she added. “We all know that police misconduct is taken more seriously when a video tape is involved,” she said.

We put in a call to the San Francisco Police Department to find out if anything is in the works to test out police body cams in the city, but haven’t received a response yet. Media Relations Officer Samson Chan did, however, chuckle ruefully and offer that he doubted if the department’s budget would permit such a thing. Axon cameras cost $1,700 each, according to the Chronicle story.

Meanwhile, there are other noteworthy developments on the high-tech police gear front. A new iPhone app that can instantly identify suspects is being tested out by a Massachusetts police department, PC World reports. Using facial recognition software, the app — called MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System) — allows officers to point their mobile phones at a person to call up identifying information. If a biometric match is found, information associated with that person is immediately sent back to the iPhone.

Asked what she thought about the app, Evans — who hadn’t heard anything about it before we forwarded her the article — told us, “This technology isn’t a substitute for traditional police work.”

Facial recognition technology is fraught with problems, she said, and agencies have abandoned it before because it tends to churn out a high degree of false positives and false negatives. “Too many mistakes can be made,” she cautioned.

“This does raise a lot of red flags for us,” Evans added. “It would be critical that police not be using it in some roving fashion.”

The third new product to land on our radar is perhaps the most sci-fi of all. Fast Company reports that team of U.K. scientists has unveiled liquid body armor that hardens on impact to become bulletproof, using something called “non-Newtonian fluid mechanics” that we do not pretend to understand.

We didn’t bother asking if police departments in Oakland or San Francisco have any plans to outfit their officers with liquid body armor just yet. Apparently, it’s anyone’s guess when it would be put to use in the field, and even then it will likely be shielding U.S. soldiers.

Our Weekly Picks: July 28-August 3, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

July 27, 2010

WEDNESDAY 28

VISUAL ART

“(Por)trait Revealed: A Juried Exhibition of Portrait Photography”

The latest RayKo offering runs the gamut of portraiture in American photography: Elvis impersonators, Arbus-esque twins (potentially Kubrick-esque too), among others. Combining You Are What You Eat by Mark Menjivar and Fritz Liedtke’s Skeleton in the Closet, this exhibit looks up and down the non-proverbial food chain and an obsession with keeping up appearances: the ectomorphic, the body-dysmorphic, and finally, the contents of the American fridge. This raw size-up of eating disorders and trends might leave you hungry, so I found several nearby restaurants (Supperclub, La Briciola, Chaat Café) with decent reviews on Yelp to make you feel better –– or possibly worse –– about yourself. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Through Sept. 10

Reception 6 p.m., free

RayKo Photo Center

428 Third St., SF

(415) 495-3773

www.raykophoto.com

THURSDAY 29

COMEDY

Tracy Morgan

Getting his first major mainstream exposure on the TV show Martin in the mid-1990s, Tracy Morgan quickly went on to join the cast of Saturday Night Live based on the strengths of his hilarious comedic talents. On SNL he created classic characters such as the moonshine-swilling “Uncle Jemima” and performed a host of side-splitting celebrity impersonations. Now turning the tables, in a manner of speaking, he pokes fun at his own celebrity on the hit NBC show 30 Rock in the guise of “Tracy Jordan” — Morgan has proven on the air that anything is possible, so expect nothing less when he hits the stage in front of a live audience. (Sean McCourt)

Thurs/29–Sat/31, 8 p.m. (also Fri/30–Sat/31, 10:15 p.m.);

Sun/1, 7:30 p.m., $40.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.livenation.com

DANCE

Napoles Ballet Theater

Napoles Ballet Theater might be considered a newbie in terms of other dance companies in the Bay Area, but this ballet-based modern dance company has a Cuban flair that says: NBT is here to stay. Under the artistic direction of Cuban choreographer Luis Napoles, NBT’s “First Home Season” features six different ballets by Napoles and includes the world premiere of his newest work, Lecuona. Reinventing classical ballet with elements of Afro-Cuban dance, contemporary movement, theater, and jazz, it wouldn’t be surprising if NBT’s first full-length performance in SF marks the first of many seasons to come. (Katie Gaydos)

Thurs/29-Sat/31, 8 p.m.; Sun/1, 4 p.m., $20

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St., SF

(415) 273-4633

www.napolesballet.org

FRIDAY 30

DANCE

“ODC’s Summer Sampler”

If you’re in the mood for modern dance but not sure if you can commit to sitting through a full-length performance, contemporary dance company ODC has what you want. With wine sampling, hors d’oeuvres, and a one-hour showing of some of ODC’s best works, its fourth annual “Summer Sampler” will satisfy your appetite without overloading your senses. The dance portion of the evening includes choreography by ODC artistic directors Brenda Way and KT Nelson, with audience favorites such as Nelson’s Stomp a Waltz (2006), Way’s John Somebody (1993), and ODC’s most recent premiere: Way’s sassy satire on feminine manners, Waving Not Drowning (A Guide to Elegance). (Gaydos)

Through Sat/31

6:30 p.m. (also Sat/31, 4:30 p.m.), $20

ODC Dance Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

www.odcdance.org

MUSIC

Zola Jesus

Opera is hardly the musical language of the young, but 21-year-old Nika Roza Danilova is as suited to the form as any goth kid from Madison, Wis/, can be. Danilova’s opera is no Carmen after all; she uses the techniques but favors atmospheric noise and murky echo, letting those sounds take the foreground over her powerful voice. As a sometime member of the band Former Ghosts and one-half of the synth-pop duo Nika + Rory (where she makes a significant case for the benefits of Auto-Tune), Danilova seems primed to find herself the catalyst for a new generation of opera singers — and fans. (Peter Galvin)

With Wolf Parade and Moools

8 p.m., $27.50

Fox Theatre

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

1-800-745-3000

www.thefoxoakland.com

DANCE

Man Dance

His experiences running Central Dancer Theater in Nebraska had taught Man Dance Company founder Bryon Heinrich that audiences like theme-based programs. So for the company’s (sold-out) opening season last year, he let himself be inspired by ballet. This time he looked to romance in ballroom dancing. Joining his own company of seven men — women appear as guest artists — are ballroom professionals Roby Tristan, Chelsea Wielstein, and Eric Koptke. The first half of the evening offers mixed choreography, including young Alec Guthrie’s award-winning trio which he will perform in pointe shoes. The second half, “It Takes Two to Tango,” is a love story for ballroom and ballet dancers. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sat/31

8 p.m., $25–$45

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

50 Oak, SF

1-800-838-3000

www.mandance.org

VISUAL ART

“Between Currencies”

Texas-raised artist Erik Parra’s collage works prominently feature photographic images with an abiding retro aesthetic (probably because they appear to be actual old photographs), dappled with blobs or confetti-like clouds of color. The appealing result is vibrant and surprising, humorous but also a bit eerie, as colors creep into a black-and-white plane like so many stills from a forgotten, more austere version of Pleasantville (1998). Though perhaps it’s irrelevant to the ideas behind Parra’s art, this critically skewed lens on images of the not-so-distant past seems curiously complementary to the recent premier of Mad Men‘s fourth season. The gallery show opens today, but the official reception happens a week later. (Sam Stander)

Through Sept. 11

Reception Aug. 6, 5–8 p.m., free

Johansson Projects

2300 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 444-9140

www.johanssonprojects.com

SATURDAY 31

EVENT

Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory wake for 1519 Mission

Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, having a few years ago taken over the space formerly occupied by the Jon Sims Center for the Arts, has carried forward nearly three decades of work by queer artists at 1519 Mission St. MCVF (and its new but unaffiliated off-shoot, THEOFFCENTER) promises to continue the mission of incubating queer performance, but the traditional Mission Street incubator must close its doors at the end of the month. A search for a new permanent home is underway, but in the meantime, MCVF will hold a “final performance and wake” on Saturday night to mourn, remember, and celebrate. (Robert Avila)

8 p.m., free

Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory

1519 Mission, SF

www.mcvf.org

www.theoffcenter.org

MUSIC

Swingin’ Utters

San Francisco’s street-punk stalwarts the Swingin’ Utters have steadily built a loyal following since they formed back in the late ’80s in Santa Cruz, and the band is back in action with a new seven-inch titled “Brand New Lungs.” Teeming with all the working-class attitude and piss and vinegar that fueled their early releases, the three-track single features Johnny Bonnel’s wonderfully ragged vocals once again mixing with Darius Koski’s searing guitars and the jackhammer rhythms of the rest of the group. A new full-length album, Here, Under Protest, is due in October, so catch them now before they hit the road for extended U.S. and European tours. (McCourt)

With Cute Lepers and Stagger and Fall

9 p.m., $16

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimstickets.com

EVENT

25th Annual Berkeley Kite Festival

Only in Berkeley do the world’s largest octopi fly through the sky in a giant octopile. No, the East Bay is not home to a freak show aquarium (as far as I know) — but it does host the annual Berkeley Kite Festival. So bust out your most impressive kites — bigger is not always better (especially when you’re trying to avoid kite-on-kite collisions) — and head over to Berkeley Marina. This might be your only chance to watch 30,000 square feet of creature kites take flight, eat corn on the cob at the kite ballet, and cheer on the Berkeley Kite Wranglers in the West Coast Kite Championships. (Gaydos)

Through Sun/1

10 a.m.–5 p.m., free

(free shuttle service to and from North Berkeley BART, 11 a.m.–5:30 p.m.)

Berkeley Marina, Cesar Chavez State Park

www.highlinekits.com

FILM

“Midnites for Maniacs: Macho Man-iacs Quadruple Feature”

In typical Castro Theatre tradition, Midnites For Maniacs unites Bay Area movie geeks with esoteric tastes and a palate for the weird and cult-y. Saturday is “Macho Man-iacs,” the quinto-mother of all manly movies with Stallone-starring Nighthawks (1981), Jean Claude Van Damme’s breakout film Bloodsport (1986), and two gems from the mine of John Carpenter B-movie bliss: They Live (1988) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986). Finally, this testosterone-charged program, with no X chromosomes in sight, concludes with a “Secrete Midnite Film.” All we know is it’s from 1989, not on DVD, and as the website insists, “You won’t believe there’s a 35mm print of this!” I’d bet money it’s a low-budget action flick starring a retrosexual with bad hair. (Lattanzio)

Films start at 2 p.m., $10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

MONDAY 2

MUSIC

Bomb the Music Industry!

If punk rock’s traditional values are DIY and egalitarianism, then Jeff Rosenstock of Bomb the Music Industry! is a stone cold reactionary. He’s known for blurring the line between fans and bandmates until it’s more or less invisible — bring a guitar or horn to a BTMI show, and there’s a good chance you’ll be invited onstage. Unswerving as the band’s commitment to aesthetic integrity might be, however, nobody could ever accuse BTMI of taking itself too seriously. Like their labelmates Andrew Jackson Jihad, Rosenstock and company leaven their scathing social commentary with lighthearted wit and eminently pogo-worthy arrangements. (Zach Ritter)

With Shinobu and Dan Potthast

9 p.m., $8

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

TUESDAY 3

THEATER

MacHomer: The Simpsons Do Macbeth

Two of the most influential cultural icons ever, Shakespeare and The Simpsons, and two of art’s saddest sacks, Homer and Macbeth, finally arrive together on one stage, and in the form of one actor, in MacHomer: The Simpsons Do Macbeth. This solo show puts the Bard in Bart as Canadian import Rick Miller performs a daunting feat of incantation –– aside from that bewitching incantation “Double, double, toil and trouble” –– with voice impressions of more than 50 characters from the animated series. Miller is damn’d spot on, in both his display of an uncanny vocal talent and a commitment to making Shakespeare more accessible for younger audiences. (Lattanzio)

Through Aug.. 7

8 p.m. (also Aug. 6–7, 10:30 p.m.), $30–$40

Bruns Amphitheater

100 California Shakespeare Way, Orinda

(510) 548-9666

www.calshakes.org

Local ‘bucha bottlers rise effervescently over booze content controversy

Andrew Lam

July 27, 2010

At first, we were frightened. My god, they’re taking our kombucha! But though distribution of our liquid love has drastically slowed, there’s one good thing about the ‘bucha alcohol labeling debacle: it’s been great for local businesses. That’s because while bigger companies are halting production, the small scale of the Bay Area’s local kombucha operations are allowing them to dodge the labeling problems of national chains.

In mid-June the hammer dropped. Trashy media found a way to link the sudden dearth of kombucha on shelves to Lindsey Lohan’s hot mess, but the official verdict was that the alcohol content in the live-fermentation tea drinks had tested at levels above the .5% legal limit for non-alcoholic beverages, causing a nationwide forehead slapping Eureka moment who all those who use the stuff as holistic hangover cure. Bay Area distributor UNFI stopped delivering the stuff. Whole Foods and Rainbow Grocery nearly emptied their shelves of our liquid love. GT’s, the country’s largest kombucha producer, halted production of its lines, its current voicemail stating “We are working quickly to identify the possible causes and which lot codes and or regions are being potentially affected. We are trying our best to have product back on the shelves of stores as soon as possible.”

But a few kombuchas remained serene in their squat little bottles. SoMa’s House Kombucha, which has been selling its wares in farmers markets since the fall of 2009 and bottling for stores since early this year, was one of them. “Rather than it sitting on a shelf for six months in a warehouse somewhere, we get our product to our customers pretty fast,” says founder Rana Chang. “We’re not distributing to Michigan.” The problem of heightened alcohol levels has been shown to be caused by the continued fermentation that takes place after kombucha has been bottled, usually after it has left company facilities. In other words, the longer your bottle of ‘bucha sits and waits to be shipped to you or yet another warehouse, the more boozy it will be.

So small outfits, which distribute to their local retail sources a few times a week, have a leg up on the competition. For once! “It’s about time,” says Chris Campagna of Bay Area-based Rejuvenation Company, who says his company ran “a gamut of tests” on its kombucha, but did not pull their bottles from shelves because no labeling disreprencies were found. “It’s becoming apparent the benefit of small local companies. We have to fight for the small amount of shelf space we get, but now we’re seeing an increase in volume, better presence in accounts, and new accounts on the horizon.”

Chang also noted a considerable uptick in business and said that House is now looking for expanded facilities and to hire new staff to keep up with demand. “It’s been an extraordinary opportunity to get into some stores where [before the voluntary recalls] shelves were so crowded with other products we couldn’t get in,” she told SFBG. A full list of stores selling both Rejunevation and House are available on their websites (including health food standards Rainbow, Other Avenues, and Berkeley Bowl), so dry your eyes, hop on your trike, and head out for some pro-biotic lovin’.

Best of the Bay 2010 Editors Picks: Arts and Nightlife

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

July 27, 2010

Best of the Bay 2010 Editors Picks: Arts and Nightlife

BEST DANCE FLOOR TRANSCENDENCE

Diehard club kids always call their favorite club “church” — there’s something sacred and comforting about returning to a certain dance floor regularly to commune with your friends and the music. But what if your favorite club really is a church? Not a former church like New York’s storied Limelight — an actual frickin’ functioning Episcopal cathedral? The Young Rev. Bertie Pearson, a staple of the SF club scene, made it his mission to transform Grace Cathedral into one of the hottest club venues in town with his monthly EpiscoDisco extravaganzas. Live bands, underground DJs, and thought-provoking art installations curated by Paradise Now draw an eclectic, forwardly-dressed crowd and fill the incredible, cavernous location with evening energy and the sounds of now. Pearson’s not out to convert anyone — “We just want to open up this amazing space and have a great party,” he tells us — but you’ll get lifted by EpiscoDisco’s transcendent spirit all the same.

Third Fridays, 7 p.m.–10 p.m., free. Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF. www.episcodisco.com

BEST WHORE FOR SATAN

If you go to local metal shows, you know Shawn Phillips. He’s the tall guy with the long ponytail, inevitably found either helping a band load its gear in or out of the venue or standing on the sidewalk by the exit, handing out flyers containing one or more examples of bands who use that totally illegible, totally evil font for their logos. Phillips means business, but he’s also good-natured enough to name his apparently one-man promo machine Whore for Satan Productions. Recent shows under the Whore for Satan banner have included big names like Pentagram and Saint Vitus at the DNA Lounge, as well as showcases for smaller, up-and-coming outfits like Zoroaster at Thee Parkside. This is a guy who really loves metal. And that’s why we love him. And Satan.

www.myspace.com/whoreforsatan

BEST POLKA IN YOUR PUNKY PANTS

Ein, zwei, drei, polka! Don your lederhosen, grab your freundin, and get ready to party with Polkacide. This beloved San Francisco punk rock polka band is 25 years young, and still as gloriously frenetic as a baby gorilla on an overdose of moonpies. Whatever you call it — polka, pulka, galop — Polkacide offers a crash course on accordion- and horn-driven global dance sounds. Its peppy repertoire includes such perennial crowd-pleasers as the “Chicken Dance,” the “Pennsylvania Polka,” and the “Weiner Dog Polka,” along with favorites from afar such as “Frailich,” “Viva Seguin,” and “Zosia.” A typical Polkacide show attracts an esoteric consortium of punkers, polkers, porn clowns, damsels, and dandies — colliding cheerfully like so many carnival bumper cars on the dance floor. Punk rock and polka: two great tastes that taste great together. With beer.

www.polkacide.com

BEST REASON TO DITCH NETFLIX

Spending another Saturday evening stuck in front of your ipadkindleplasmascreentivo-thing? Not if Artist’s Television Access can help it. A stronghold of experimental film, outsider art, and the musical underground for 26 years, the ATA space has weathered many an economic storm to bring rabble-rousing, cerebral cortex-corrupting, and ocular spectaculars to the huddled masses (the ones with their feet up on the backs of the chairs and brown paper bags clutched in their hands). Modern-day homesteaders, historians, pranksters, activists, indie bands, burners, bicyclists, brainiacs, cosmonauts, communists, and absurdists are all given their moments to shine on the screen and off it, while cheap booze, obscure tunes, and easy camaraderie flow. Also host to some of the most intriguing window art and festival lineups in town, the occasional “Neighborhood Public Radio” project, a weekly cable access show, and open-submission screenings, ATA is an invaluable community resource in every possible way.

992 Valencia, SF. (415) 824-3890, www.atasite.org

BEST PODER TO THE PEOPLE

Photo by Neil Motteram

In a city full of high-minded “concept bands” that often fall flat when it comes to actual musicianship, La Plebe, a tightly-knit ensemble playing the sickest, slickest ska-punk around, is a sonic gem. That alone would elicit major props from nosotros, but what we also love about La Plebe are its unapologetically leftist leanings. Singing multilingual songs about border politics, class, race, and general injustice with sharply infectious rhythm, humor, and panache, the Plebes make anarchy fun again. Sweaty, happy chaos always reigns supreme at their shows. One of the hardest working ska bands in town, you can catch La Plebe several times a month in various Bay venues, not to mention Eastern Europe and Mexico. Oh yes, it’s still possible to rock with conscience and not suck.

www.laplebe.com

BEST CLUB FOR THE FEINT AT HEART

In a building slathered with blue and white graphic prints of feints and lunges, one hardly expects to find nuanced classes in an antique art. But that’s exactly what’s going down at the Halberstadt Fencer’s Club, where young épée-wielding athletes go from portly to Porthos, zero to Zorro … We could go on, but the fact of the matter is that at Halberstadt, fencing is practiced by those who hunger for more than just a postmodern post as a swashbuckling musketeer. Here, fencing is an art prized for its purity of form, noble vigor, and character building qualities. Children and adults alike spar on hardwood floors beneath vintage posters from competitions past, and the truly sabre-riffic have been known to rise to the ranks of national champs, following in the footwork of club founder, Olympian Hans Halberstadt.

621 South Van Ness, SF. (415) 863-3838, www.halberstadtfc.com

BEST UNDERCOVER RUM RUNNERS

Bring on the kitschy maritime decor behind a nondescript storefront’s tinted windows. Add plentiful fruity (but never too sweet) cocktails, featuring a stellar, connoisseur’s-dream rum selection served by some of the city’s best bartenders. Now cue up the exotic music in this enchanting three-level spot. It’s tiki heaven! It’s Smuggler’s Cove, brought to us by tiki mastermind — yes, they exist — Martin Cate. The hype was heavy surrounding its December opening and waits to get in can still be painful at certain hours. But the Cove rules a unique San Francisco niche, offering refinement, experience, and an exquisite dedication to Polynesian, Caribbean, and Cuban traditions. Cocktail-wise, our love rummeth over for the Chadburn, a complex mix of private reserve rum, tawny port, pear liqueur, and a dash of chocolate mole bitters. Or dive into the Cove’s banana daiquiri, the best you’ll ever sip. Watch out, though — it’ll sneak up on you.

650 Gough, SF. (415) 869-1900, www.smugglerscovesf.com

BEST SKY-HIGH IRIE

Sometimes a weekend comes along that doesn’t quite cut it. But if your two days off didn’t cushion the blow of Monday sufficiently, why worry? You have the sky-high Skylarking joint to smooth away the rough edges. For years, this DJ-run reggae party has been rocking Skylark’s sleeker version of a Mission bar on the other side of Sunday. Beatnok and Mr. Lucky’s jams always seem to attract a diverse, happy crowd eager to extend their irie past Sunday. Stoners and stylists, hipsters and hoppers — everyone loves Jah love, right? At least, that’s the case here, where if you can part the clouds of smoke, you’ll find a bangin’ dance floor that lasts well into the night. And, oh hi, free.

Mondays, 10 p.m.–2 a.m., free. 3089 16th St., SF. (415) 621-9294, www.skylarkbar.com

BEST PRESS PLAY

Throwing your iPod on shuffle in your living room might get the party started, but it’s not exactly an art. Wu-Tang Clan transitioning to Joan Baez, then fading into live AC/DC? That’s not a statement: that’s just random (and a bit nausea-inducing). When it comes to reviving the comfy character and craft of old-school cassette mix culture, the San Francisco Mixtape Society has its finger firmly pressed on “play.” Once every three months, Mixtape Society members meet at the Make-Out Room to trade lovingly sequenced tapes, CDs, or MP3 collections which combine a lovelorn eighth-grader’s DIY work ethic with the philosophy of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. Mixtapes are submitted beforehand for judging in multiple categories, compilations are swapped in a spirited raffle (you must bring one of your own to leave with someone else’s), and brainy themes sweeten the reels. A Mixtape night is equal parts social outing and music seminar for those who view handwritten playlists as transmissions from the heart.

www.sfmixtapesociety.com

BEST STREET-LEVEL KARAOKE

Karaoke takes place in all kinds of settings with different crowds. You can rent a karaoke room with friends and party at Do Re Mi Music Studio. You can enjoy live accompaniment on saxophone at the Bar on Church’s Karaoke Mondays. You can steel yourself and step to the mic in between the polished regulars at the Mint. But there’s only one place that takes karaoke to the streets: Nap’s 3. The microphone at this little bar is right by the front door, and the front door opens onto a well-traveled block of Mission Street, which means you’re going to serenade passersby as well as regulars with your version of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” or “Gypsy.” Nap’s 3’s block of the Mission hasn’t been hipsterized to death yet, and the Nap’s crowd keeps it fast and loose — so don’t stay uptight and out of sight (unless you’re attempting to channel Stevie Wonder).

3152 Mission, SF. (415) 648-1226

BEST IRON MAIDENS IN LEGWARMERS

When it comes to aerobics, it’s no secret that Jane Fonda was the original twisted sister. So why not soundtrack her 1980s-defining workout with some classic hair metal? Workout instructor Donnelle Malnick and the folks at Workshop have slipped on their unitards and hopped aboard that crazy train already, offering a weekly Heavy Metal Aerobics class that will rock you like a hurricane (and incorporates yoga and weight-training). Your heart couldn’t beat any faster if you just ran out of the cellar with your balls to the wall. After you’re slippery when wet, check out Workshop’s myriad other class offerings, from beginning screen-printing to Mad Men-style mixology. Headed by Indie Mart pioneer Kelly Malone, the collective is cooler than the ace of spades in Panama.

Tuesdays, 7 p.m., $10. 1798 McAllister, SF. 415-874-9186, www.workshopsf.org

BEST BAY BRAWLER

Sporting a deadly mixture of beauty and beast, boxing phenomenon Ana “The Hurricane” Julaton has punched her way to becoming the Bay Area’s most notable rising sports star. Julaton has blazed a wide trail in the last year for women’s boxing, making her name and standing her ground in a field more commonly celebrated for its gloved males. Employing a precision technique with dazzling speed, Julaton has attained two championship belts in unprecedented time. Her Filipino background matched with her knockout prowess has caused many to compare her to fellow countryman and boxing superstar Manny Pacquaio. Shaping up to be America’s first female boxing gold medallist in the next Olympics, Julaton’s future is bright — even as she delivers lights out.

www.teamjulaton.us

BEST MIDWESTERN FLASHBACK

It’s a Wisconsin dive bar to a tee: the draft beer (including Moose Drool) is plentiful and served in Mason jars, antlers and animal heads adorn the wood-paneled walls, and the pool table always has a line of quarters on it. Stepping inside is a bittersweet moment for any Minnesota or Dakota transplant, immediately calling up memories of string cheese, snow days, and grandma’s favorite flannel. But the true sign of Bloodhound‘s Middle America roots: Big Buck Hunter, the video game that transports you and your digital rifle back to the homeland for a simulated hunt. While the fashion may be a bit more, er, refined than Bloodhound’s actual Midwest counterparts — no blaze orange or Carhartt to be found here — there’s a laid-back attitude and post-ironic appreciation for the backcountry. Oh, and your dog is welcome to join you for a frosty one, don’t ya know.

1145 Folsom, SF. (415) 863-2840, www.bloodhoundsf.com

BEST SUNSET RISING STAR

Sonny Smith once seemed like the most avid self-promoter in town, sending out about a jillion copies of his 2002 CD, This Is My Story, This Is My Song and pestering music writers about town to sing his praises. But instead of evaporating with the hype, Smith has followed through on the promise of his early work, casting his creative nets far and wide: in film, theater, journalism, and visual art (this year, Smith exhibited “100 Records,” which combined imaginary band bios and songs with 100 artists’ images). Maybe Smith just needed to get some distance from his beloved Mission — now that he’s moved to the Sunset, he appears to have hit his stride with a genuinely fabulous, rotating, rock ’n’ roll supergroup, Sonny and the Sunsets, which includes such local lights as Kelley Stoltz, John Dwyer, Tim Cohen, and Tahlia Harbour. (Pitchfork raved about S&S 2010 debut, Tomorrow Is Alright). Now, Smith looks likely to become the smash sensation he was always meant to be. No hype.

www.myspace.com/sonnythesunsets

BEST CHIRPS OFF THE NOISE BLOCK

Clipd Beaks can’t decide if it’s local or not. Since the combo relocated from the Midwest, members have flitted south to warmer climes in L.A., then back. Are they the best of California — or simply sonic channelers of the general zeitgeist? Regardless, the trio managed to get it together long enough to fly in this year’s damn intriguing, daring long-player, To Realize — a post-punk drone monkey of a recording that enjoys smashing its sonic bananas into the sidewalk, or grinding bassy bottom-feeder figures against a cage of clattering, thrumming reverb damage. Clipd Beaks sound like a band caught in the same glittered labyrinth as global-dance electronic-folk experimentalists Gang Gang Dance and Psychic Ills. All concerned seem like wide, avid listeners, driven by the wantonly diffuse reinterpretations of the ghostly funk they hear in their heads.

www.myspace.com/clipdbeaks

BEST HAPKIDO HEROES

Don’t let the small size of its Ocean Avenue storefront location fool you: the Korean Martial Arts Center houses some mighty big kicks. Leading one of the best known and most successful training schools in Northern California, Grandmaster M. W. Jung and his staff have trained some of the top martial artists in the country. The center specializes in judo, taekwondo, and, especially, hapkido, the noble Korean fighting practice that fuses a variety of skill styles. Beginners and youngsters are welcome. Even if you can barely make a fist, you get to work with Jung and the other top-ranked instructors. Traditional training, including weapon combat and tai chi, emphasizes respect and humility. Still, the grandmaster’s got a chokehold on the wisecracks: while he makes the kids work hard, he also makes them laugh.

1414 Ocean, SF. (415) 333-1050, www.koreanmartialarts.com

BEST TRIBAL TRIBUTE

As much as we love Native American art, the spirit of the crafts are largely lost when displayed as alien relics in a museum’s sterilizing vitrines. Not to mention the sticky subject of how items like burial jewelry and ceremonial objects have traditionally been “gathered” for such display. (As Yaqui-Mescalero-Apache-Zuni artist Michael Horse says, “I don’t go into some of the cemeteries here and dig up Grandma because I want to see what pearls she wore.”) This complex context is what led Horse and wife Pennie Opal Plant, both longtime Native activists, to create Gathering Tribes gallery. The work of contemporary indigenous craftspeople from all over the western hemisphere is showcased in a respectful manner, and a visit to the space might reveal Horse working on one of his beautiful ledger painting, in which he recreates scenes from our nation’s past on historical documents. Here, Native American can breathe — and rest — easy.

1412 Solano, Albany. (510) 528-9038, www.gatheringtribes.com

BEST GAZETTE REFRESH

In this glorious age of ubiquitous streams, shares, tweets, and TiVos, what does it mean to be truly “live”? To create a unique moment in the presence of others that cannot be repeated, duplicated, or fast-forwarded through to the naughty bits? Pop Up Magazine headily explores this notion while blowing good-natured raspberries at media old and new. For Pop Up Magazine is not a magazine at all. It’s a regular installment of performance spots in which journalists, artists, historians, and innovators present short, informative segments of nonfiction works in progress that cover a broad range of subjects, using photography, video, live music, interviews, and more. This is a news feed of a different sort, ephemeral yet vital. No photos or broadcasts are allowed — each “magazine” is a unique experience shared between cutting-edge presenters and information-hungry crowd, preserved through memory alone. Even though the organizers promote Pop Up by word-of-mouth only, the events usually sell out in less than 30 minutes to drooling masses scanning their Facebook and Twitter threads. Guess we can’t shake the virtual after all, but this is the kind of live worth refreshing for.

www.popupmagazine.com

BEST YOUNG PUNK EXPLOSION

It’s hard out there for a punk. And harder still for the too young to vote crowd, not because of the voting part — duh — but because of the real dearth of all-ages music venues in the city. Despite efforts on the part of showcases such as Thee Parkside’s Club Feral, Parlez Vous Rock and Roll at the Knockout, and Club Sandwich’s online rundowns to fill that void, there just isn’t a lot out there for the truly young, as opposed to the merely young at heart. Happily for youthful lovers of loud, the Latino-run Sub-Mission (formerly Balazo 18) books a plethora of all-ages shows, from monthly Maximum Rock and Sounds of Rebellion nights to heavy metal, local psychedelia, roots vinyl, art shows, activist benefit shows, and more. And while Sub-Mission’s sonic sensibilities may skew toward the generally chaotic, its newly remodeled interior’s low-rider aesthetic is pura Mission.

2183 Mission, SF. (415) 225-7227, www.sf-submission.com

BEST HOME TURFERS

Sorry New York and L.A. The Bay Area’s where it’s at in terms of street dance. If the hyphy movement wasn’t enough to convince everyone that the YAY AREAAA reigns supreme, the newest generation of SF and Oakland turf dancers definitely will. Combining elements from hip-hop, popping, locking, gliding, and more, turf dance — turf stands for “taking up room on the floor” — is inspiring some versatile swagger. Because there is so much talent out there, it was impossible to choose just one “best” crew. Some of the most prominent names in the turf scene right now? The dancers of Best Alive and Turf Feinz have achieved local and national recognition with the help of media companies like Get Wet Entertainment, which organizes and hosts dance battles, and Yak Films, which not only films battles but helps lead the media literacy and production program out of East Oakland’s Youth Uprising. What better way to empower youth than through dance?

BEST FLOCKING COCKTAILS

It’s bar time — which is any time at all for you, really. But you want to hit somewhere that’s stylish yet laid back, hip but not so hip you need to squeeze yourself into a $300 pair of gray acid wash peg-legs to feel accepted and completely devoid of the gay-straight segregation that plagues many of the city’s watering holes. Spread your thirsty wings and heed the call of Blackbird, the new hotspot from up-and-coming bar impresario Shawn Vergara. Picky drinkers will shake their tail feathers in appreciation at Blackbird’s impressively crafted cocktail menu (the bar even hand-infuses the fig-balsamic vinegar used in its luscious, grapefruit-and-Aperol granita, for flock’s sake). And socialites who get ruffled by stodgy categories can alight among fellow revelers of all orientational stripes. An impeccable wine list, sweet staff, and cutting-edge wall art round out this genial night-bird nest.

2124 Market, SF. (415) 503-0630, www.blackbirdbar.com

BEST DOORSLAMMIN’ BLUES

The Saloon is a gritty neighborhood bar that serves up stiff drinks and release seven nights a week. Established in 1861, this ex-brothel — and the oldest bar in the city — allegedly survived the 1906 earthquake and ensuing fires because the firefighters made sure to always protect the working girls. Now, a century later, the saloon provides a place to drown your sorrows, minus the ill repute and a watchful madam’s eye. The Saloon also has established itself as one of the city’s classic live blues spots, with swinging bands and searing guitar licks sound tracking the North Beach night. When you’re feeling like “one of the roughs,” grab a shot and rock with the no-nonsense, freewheeling staff and crowd. The bands are on fire (especially honorary house band Johnny Nitro and the Doorslammers), dancing is always an option, and pretty soon daily troubles melt away like panhandlers’ gold.

1232 Grant, SF. (415) 989-7666, www.sfblues.net/Saloon.html

BEST MONEY SHOT OF LOVE

When it comes to sex on film, few have been the reels that blur narrative romance and straight-up thrusting. But crossovers like Behind the Green Door and Shortbus have shown that sometimes filmgoers like a little carnal reality to their storyline and a little storyline with their money shot. In this, director Travis Mathews’ gay cuddles-and-cocks film short feature I Want Your Love doesn’t disappoint. (A full-length version arrives later this year.) Mathews has says his aim was to capture a candid honesty conspicuously absent in most porn. Realistic? Perhaps not in a conventional sense — but in an SF sense, yeah probably. Less a frenzied sex marathon between two larger-than-life, gym-stretched Olympians and more an intimate (and sometimes wince-inducing) recording of the playful fumblings of two fuzzy friends straight from Dolores Park central casting, IWYL presents the viewer with something beyond mere breathless five-minute satisfaction.

www.iwantyourlovethemovie.com

BEST TECHNO HULA

There are three sides to the island dance magic of Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēki, the 25-year-old, internationally renowned hula school and performance troupe headed by powerhouse director Patrick Makuakāne. There is the classic side emphasizing picture-postcard-perfect tiki dreams of pretty girls in grass skirts and Hawaiian-shirted men dancing sensuously beneath the moon to wistful ukulele hits of the 1950s. Then there’s the kickass ancient cultural side, from a time before the arrival of stringed instruments and European settlers, set to heavy percussive beats and heart-pumping primal chants. And finally there’s the contemporary — and controversial — side, where Nā Lei Hulu’s enthusiastic and graceful members throw everything you know about hula to the warm breezes, kicking up their bare heels to some good ol’ techno and house hits. Superbly choreographed, and with enough cheeky humor to keep the audience gleefully engaged (yes, there are drag queens involved), this last side is its truly San Franciscan one. But when all three come together in the troupe’s many local performances, the spirit of Hawaii comes alive.

www.naleihulu.org

BEST COMMUNITY CUT-UPS

Circus Bella wants to entertain you. Abigail Munn and David Hunt, the creators of this nonprofit circus, saw a gaping hole in the Bay Area’s center ring back in 2008. Simply put, the area didn’t have enough of them. The performance art had been overtaken by heady, Cirque du Soleil-type cerulean orbs and over-reaching narratives. As Hunt asks, “What the hell is wrong with just a ring?” So the two set out to create a circus troupe in the traditional, ring-centric mold, with juggling clowns, bendy contortionists, dazzling slack-wire and aerial acts, a live band, and those epauleted, spangly costumes we all remember from the tents of our youth. Moreover, they wanted the action accessible to all. Circus Bella can be seen wowing ’em wildly at street fairs and public parks, bringing laughter to children of all ages — most of the time for the low, low price of free.

www.circusbella.com

BEST SOME THING

After Trannyshack loosened its goo-spattered grip on the weekly alternative drag club scene, many amazing gender clown romps sprang up to claim its tawdry tiara. But only one combined taste-bending theatrics and questionable musical choices with a high sense of style and an eye toward reviving commedia dell’arte drag traditions. This was Some Thing, Friday nights at the Stud, which has drawn overflowing crowds with a taste for avant-garde performance and ribald humor. Hell, there are even some flawlessly performed non-ironic Broadway show tune numbers! Some Thing’s proprietors, Glamamore, VivvyAnne Forevermore, and Downey Friend know exactly what they’re doing: the numbers they book for their stage walk a fine line between jawdrop and sunbeam that just feels right for this drag moment. Better, they incorporate some of the Bay’s best DJs into the party, insuring the DIY delirium lasts all night.

Fridays, 10 p.m.–late. The Stud, 399 Ninth St., SF. www.studsf.com

BEST TWIT LIT

Publishing an entire novel on Twitter may seem a dubious achievement — even the author admits the medium is a “terrible way to read my book or any book” — but local scribe Matt Stewart did it first, so there. Stewart’s bawdy debut, The French Revolution, which zanily reimagines the events of its title through the contemporary intergenerational exploits of pastry chef Esmerelda Van Twinkle and her twins Robespierre and Marat, started hitting the global feed on Bastille Day last year. Some 3,700 tweets and a ton of press coverage later, Stewart (whose background in PR certainly paid off) found himself in the midst of a full-on media phenomenon. For meatspace diehards, a paperback version of The French Revolution has just been released on Soft Skull Press. For everyone else, mais oui, there’s a Revolution-ary phone app.

www.matt-stewart.com

BEST BASS-MENT

Fans of small-batch, big-boom nightlife, rejoice: 222 Hyde will energize you almost every night of the week. When owner Emilio Giraubit took over the already bangin’ location last year, he made sure to keep the intimate feel of the club while amping up the wattage. Navigating through the long, thin bar area upstairs can get tricky, especially with friendly bartenders and scrumptious pizzas to derail you. But once you descend to the tiny basement, all cares are blasted off by the superb Turbosound system and the stellar array of local and international DJs. 222’s adventurous sonic palette embraces everything from Afrohouse to purple dubstep, post-minimal techno to UK Funky — it’s a dance music connoisseur’s dream come true. Experiencing the latest tracks while rubbing shoulders with other bass fanatics is the icing on 222’s too-too-too fab cake.

222 Hyde, SF. (415) 345-8222, www.222hyde.com

BEST EYES ON THE CITY

“As a group, we’re not taking Hallmark postcard pictures. This is the San Francisco we live in. It’s not a sunset at Crissy Field or the Painted Ladies,” says Julie Michelle, one quarter of rapaciously keen-eyed photography collective Caliber. Michelle and equally excellent fellow lensers Stuart Dixon, Travis Jensen, and Troy Holden formed Caliber after admiring each other’s work on Flickr, with the goal of “promoting photography in the city while acknowledging the present as well as the past, in whichever form it may show itself.” The spine-tingling results, posted on Caliber’s website encompass the amazing architectural and personal diversity of San Francisco — everything from candidly-snapped SoMa street kids flashing wadded up $1 bills to splendiferous sepia-toned upshots of the Shell Building’s façade. Caliber also leads overlooked-detail-seeking photo walks of various city neighborhoods for amateurs of all skill levels and shutterbug meet-up nights to spread the light-sensor love.

www.calibersf.com

BEST BOOGIE-LICIOUS

For three years, DJs (and brothers) Señor Oz and Pleasuremaker have unleashed a weekly dose of get-down at the Elbo Room called Afrolicious. A beautiful crowd of global-eared dance fans rushes to the floor for the addictive Afrolicious sound — Afro-tropi-electro-funk-disco-house, the brothers call it, but we just call it soul-fantastic. Live percussion, bass, and horns often fill out the tunes, as Oz and Pleasuremaker’s sets range far a wide, to Africa, South America, Asia, and beyond. It’s an aural map of the world, combining the classic with the new to transcendent effect. James Brown to Zombie Disco Squad, Jali Bakary Conteh to Una Mas Trio, rollerskate jams to cumbia: the sonic sky miles rack up mighty quickly. “We’re connecting the dots from funk, blues, and jazz to afrobeat, Latin, and newer electronic sounds,” Oz says. “We run the gamut. We don’t stand still.” Neither do their eager fans.

Thursdays, 9:30 p.m., $7. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. afroliciousoriginal.blogspot.com

BEST (ACTUALLY) BUDDING ART GALLERY

With all the bad news about the economy, it’s a testament to SF’s deep love of art that new small galleries continue to sprout all over the city. One of the most vital ones is Lake Gallery, thanks to the curating by local musician and artist Dan Johnson Lake. And because it’s next to and practically within the hydroponic wonderland that is Plant’it Earth, you can also have the earthy smells (and views) of at least some forms of greenery than make art appreciation a little livelier. There’s a unique pleasure to art juxtaposed with nature in the heart of the city, and that’s one of the pleasures you’ll discover on a trip to the Lake, where the music of Dinosaur Jr. grew into a group show and local artists such as Ryan Coffey and Naoki Onodera have flowered and flourished.

661 Divisadero, SF. www.lakegallery.com

BEST MISSION MUSIC EVANGELISTS

Perhaps tapping in to the locavore zeitgeist, there has been a lot of recent attention paid to local, homegrown music. And what better scene to tune in to for organic-yet-edgy vibes than that of the small but ever-morphing Mission music revival? Right place, right time, perhaps, but the fledgling Porto Franco Records has stepped in to document — and more important — support a whole slew of local musicians and artists. Torn-hearted troubadour Mark Growden, acoustic groove-goddess Meklit Hadero, and psychedelic time-traveler Mark Matos all call Porto Franco (“free port”) home, and the label’s list of signed local talent just keeps growing. Though Russian father-and-son team Peter and Sergei Varshavsky seem at first glance unlikely advocates of these diverse sonic strands of Californicana, they are clearly embracing their role in this resurgence. In turn, their featured artists are being embraced by concert-goers from as far as Santa Fe, N.M., and as near as Stern Grove.

www.portofrancorecords.com

BEST BLACKBOX SEASON

Times are tough and money’s still tight, even for the biggest theatres in the Bay Area. That makes it doubly amazing that this tiny company should be closing a record-busting 10-show season of “reimagined” classics with its most ambitious project to date — a three-play repertory schedule of Tennessee Williams that runs through Aug. 28th. But the Boxcar Theatre troupe is used to exceeding expectations from its very first performance, “21/One,” which won a Best of the Fringe award for Best New Company in 2005, to its successful occupation and transformation of the previously rundown venue at 505 Natoma St., all within five short years. (Word on the street is that Boxcar just signed on to expand into a second space.) With a reputation for risk-taking, a sense of historical imperative and community involvement, and an emphasis on access — including at least one completely free, site-specific production per season — the Boxcar children have rapidly matured into a theatrical establishment that ranks among the very best SF has to offer.

505 Natoma, SF. (415) 776-1747, www.boxcartheatre.org

BEST KICK IN THE EARS

Local all-ages punk shows are always a hoot, but for those of us whose Mohawks have grown a bit, uh, dusty, they can often feel a bit uncomfortable. Who wants to come off as the moshin’ grandma? The awesomely inclusive Thursday Night Live at the Eagle Tavern may be full of freewheeling, bar-aged young things — programmer Doug Hilsinger has managed to crowd the classic gay biker bar with punk and rock fans of all persuasions — but there are always a few OG punks to balance it out. All categorical divisions melt away once the stellar lineups of fresh-faced screamers and experienced thrashers take to the Eagle’s tiny stage, conveying a true underground spirit. TNL doesn’t confine itself solely to punkish strains — crazy country drag crooners, bearish electronic experimentalists, and rockabilly porn stars always have a place here. But the result’s the same: a weekly a kick in the ears that makes you feel alive.

Thursdays, 10 p.m., $5. Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880, www.sfeagle.com

BEST FIGHTERS FOR OUR RIGHT TO PARTY

For the last several years, we at the Guardian have been on an often lonely crusade to highlight and repel the various assaults on nightlife, special events, and the urban culture of San Francisco, from the “Death of fun” (5/24/06) to the “New war on fun” (3/2/10). The attacks come from intolerant neighbors, aggressive cops, grandstanding politicians, and persnickety bureaucrats, and they’ve succeeded in shutting down events (such as Halloween in the Castro), clubs (Caliente), and private parties. But party people have finally organized and fought back, this year forming the well-funded and widely supported California Music and Culture Association to advocate for keeping the fun flowing and give the party purveyors the advice, support, and allies they need to maintain San Francisco as a world class city that isn’t afraid to throw great parties. The association also functions as a network of promoters, club owners, and DJs who aren’t afraid to speak out for the right to shut up and dance.

www.cmacsf.org

Best of the Bay 2010 Editors Picks: City Living

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

July 27, 2010

Best of the Bay 2010 Editors Picks: City Living

BEST SMACKDOWN FROM THE MOUND

You can’t script ’em this good. Upstart A’s pitcher Dallas Braden gives New York Yankee peacock Alex Rodriguez an earful after A-Rod breaks an unspoken code of the baseball diamond by trotting across the pitching mound on his way back to first base. It’s not the first time A-Rod has disregarded one of these rules (see Toronto series, May 2007), and Braden doesn’t stand for it. A-Rod, and New York sports radio, quickly respond by belittling Braden as a smaller-timer. Lo, the Yankees eat their words a few weeks later when Braden pitches a perfect game — effectively putting himself in the company of baseball’s Hall of Fame immortals. But that’s not even the best part. Having lost his mother at a young age, Braden pitched his masterpiece on Mother’s Day … with the grandmother that raised him in attendance. It was a sports story for the ages. And after all that has and will be said about this feat, it was Braden’s grandma who summed it up best in a post game interview: “Stick it, A-Rod.”

www.oaklandathletics.com

BEST OPEN SOURCE PLAYPEN

Perhaps you are a geek. Or perhaps you just wish you were. Maybe you think all geeks are geniuses with mandatory Mensa memberships and haven’t tapped into your inner geek for fear of failure. Hie thee to Noisebridge, where dyed-in-the-wool geeks and their wannabe compatriots come together to explore technology and gaming in a nonscary, mostly noncompetitive environment. Want to learn how to circuit hack, program in Python, create apps for your overpriced cellular device — or speak a foreign language, play Go, pick locks, tie knots, and take over the world? Noisebridge is the place to test your skills, acquire new ones, and maybe pass along your own skills to the life hack community, which is growing by the week. The roomy warehouse space (formerly a clothing sweatshop) is large enough to fit a small herd of quasi-geniuses at one time, and the vibe is welcoming and smart.

2169 Mission, SF. (415) 425-3264, www.noisebridge.net

BEST BOTTLED BEAUTY

The haters didn’t think she’d make it out of the Bay. After all, she is made of trash. Well, not quite — Plastiki, the boat brainchild of David Rothschild and his Adventure Ecology team, was built from recycled plastics. A hull fashioned from 12,500 discarded plastic bottles was one of her more notable attributes, as were the vertical kitchen garden that twines about her mast and a bicycle-powered energy generator. The craft was fashioned as an apt calling card for Rothschild and crew’s planned visit to the North Pacific Gyre, the neighborhood where the Pacific Trash Vortex (or if you like, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) dismayingly swirls. Plastiki’s launch three months ago from Sausalito began a journey of nearly 8,000 miles to the pole of pollution (at an average speed that barely rivals that of your mom’s morning jog). She made it to Sydney on July 19, slightly worse for wear but having raised many an eyebrow and consciousness regarding our disastrous penchant for plastics.

www.theplastiki.com

BEST FOUR-ON-FOUR BALLIN’

Still got a mad case of World Cup fever? There’s a lot of time between now and Brazil’s hosting gig in 2014, but there’s no reason to let your newfound love of football — er, soccer — dwindle. Why not try hitting the pitch yourself? All abilities and ages are welcome at SoccerFours, a four-on-four league that meets weekly at various SF and East Bay fields. The “games” are more like training workshops: there’s no scoreboard, ergo no hooligan-style competitiveness. Instead, players are encouraged to work on their moves in a supportive (and fun!) environment. SoccerFours’ website — which declares the program’s focus to be on “fitness, teamwork, and skills” — lists currently available sessions ($7 for a single game; multi-session passes are also available). How else are you gonna discover that you have an inner Lionel Messi waiting to break out?

www.soccerfours.com

BEST ON-RAMP TO OVERALLS

Photo by Caitlin Donohue

Pop quiz: which is better for an inner city neighborhood: a freeway or a farm? The answer’s a no-brainer for the volunteers at Hayes Valley Farm, which occupies the area on and around an unused on-ramp damaged in the Loma Prieta quake and abandoned since 1989. Those volunteers have already put thousands of hours into the new urban farming oasis. From the fava beans planted to purge the exhausted soil of the petrochemicals that once spewed from passing cars to the hundreds of fruit trees that now occupy the still-there on-ramp’s ascent to blue sky (“the biggest garden patio in the city,” as volunteers have dubbed its leafy lanes), the farm is providing an educational opportunity for all those who thought they forsook their farmer fantasies when they chose to live here. Now offering kids’ classes, permaculture boot camp for the uninitiated, and environmental movie nights for all comers, Hayes Valley has planted a seed in the ‘hood for food security.

450 Laguna, SF. (415) 763-7645, www.hayesvalleyfarm.com

BEST AIRBORNE ASHTANGA

A good yoga class often makes your body feel light as a feather — but Oakland’s new Flying Yoga Shala is all about making your practice feather-like in a more literal fashion. Jump, stretch, dance, cartwheel off your mat’s restrictive rectangle, and levitate your way to transcendent meditation. This airborne Temescal spot offers classes in acrobatic circuit training, aerial yoga, dance, and even some traditional basics — but nothing ordinary whatsoever, and definitely nothing even close to boring. Break the yoga mold and shape your body into a ridiculously sexy form with a range of thrill-seeking instructors, including the incredible Laura Camp, the studio’s owner and director who part-times as a circus aerialist and writer. While there are multiple classes with a not-so-beginner curriculum, the studio does offer options for every level. Just wear something airy and be prepared to soar.

4308 Telegraph, Oakl. www.flyingyogashala.com

BEST FEE FOR BIG QI

Perhaps in the battle over health care, we’d do well to consider the preventive approach of Eastern medicine: regularly maintain your health and therefore avoid the health care industry altogether. It’s a perspective that is keenly addressed at Bu Tong Acupuncture. Run by Julie Baumhoffer, a graduate of the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Potrero Hill, this community wellness center offers an array of affordable holistic options for self-health as a priority rather than a burden. In addition to acupuncture, Bu Tong offers massage therapy, nutritional counseling, and creative arts psychotherapy in a sort of one-stop shopping for your physical well-being. And with beginning acupuncture rates starting as low as $10 per session, you can probably afford to stick it to Big Pharma.

2390 Mission, SF. (415) 282-7246, www.butongacupuncture.com

BEST STAND AGAINST SIT/LIE

Photo by Julian Davis

Andy Blue has been a stalwart political activist on a variety of progressive San Francisco campaigns for years, doing whatever needed to be done in big election races from Matt Gonzalez’s 2003 mayoral run to this year’s underdog effort to defeat the PG&E-funded Proposition 16. But it was when cops and NIMBYs started pushing for a sit/lie ordinance to criminalize the simple act of kicking it on a San Francisco sidewalk that Andy’s creativity, leadership abilities, and tireless advocacy really shone. He organized and promoted the Stand Against Sit/Lie campaign that encouraged dozens of small protests and events on sidewalks throughout the city, an effort that shifted the momentum of the debate and helped lead to the defeat of the ordinance. Although Mayor Gavin Newsom has placed the measure on the November ballot, Blue and his crew plan to keep fighting it — and anyone who tries to score cheap political points in pushing it.

www.standagainstsitlie.org

BEST LOCAL LOQUAT LOCATORS

Well, what do you know. San Francisco really is the land of fruits and nuts. Our hedgerows are bustling with bounty, our byways bursting with ripe Meyer lemons, Marina strawberries, olives, apples, loquats, almonds, and figs. Where? All around — if you know where to look. Juicy online guide Neighborhood Fruit will tell you exactly where to find fresh, seasonal goodies right in your own or your neighbor’s backyard. Led by founders Kaytea Petro and Oriana Sarac, the Neighborhood Fruit team has registered thousands of wild fruit trees ripe for the picking. Got more yummy yield than you can possibly can? Sign up to let other fruit fiends knock on your door and pick those extraneous plums with aplomb. It’s the most delicious kind of community bonding.

www.neighborhoodfruit.com

BEST SOARING PROSE

Sling a bookmark any direction in the city and you’ll hit a cache of literary history. Nowhere more so than on the fertile inking grounds of North Beach, where the ghosts of Kerouac, Ginsberg, et al. can easily be convinced to grab a beer or 12 with you at Vesuvio. After carousing with those ruminative spirits, you’d be forgiven for mistaking the sight of 23 glowing books floating above the intersection of Broadway and Columbus as mere Beat-stricken hallucination. But hark, mad one, to the call of those illuminated manuscripts: Brian Goggin and Dorka Keehn’s “Language of the Birds” art installation is solid as flesh. The tomes are part of the Department of Public Works’ 2008 Broadway streetscape improvement project, helping to make your pedestrian carousing a better-lit and therefore safer one. But enough about the earthly machinations. Dance like a dervish ‘neath the flashing pages and check under your toes for lines they’ve left behind.

Broadway and Columbus, SF

BEST PLACE TO PARK YOUR DINGY

The Guardian’s giving a Best of the Bay award … to a boat club? Blistering barnacles! You knew we’d sell out one of these days, right? Just. Kidding. See, the Bayview Boat Club isn’t your typical, exclusive “golden epaulet and waxed mustache” kind of operation, looking down at you from a platinum prow. (Wait a minute — waxed mustaches are actually kind of cool these days.) Since 1961, its China Basin doors have been open to membership applications from anyone with two member sponsors and at least a one-quarter interest in a seafaring vehicle — although its definition of “boat” is flexible. The BVBC also is well known for its giddy annual Beer Can Races and good time-bar times in the members-only clubhouse once the schooners ease into their slips. Live music, nautical-themed movies, art openings, and strong drinks are standard issue for its sailors. Shiver our timbers, you could be one of them.

489 Terry A Francois Blvd, SF. (415) 495-9500, www.bayviewboatclub.org

BEST SLOW GAME PINCH HITTERS

The pitcher adjusts his cap. The batter steps out of the box. The infielders huddle at the mound. Then six fastballs get fouled into the seats. Damn, baseball is exciting. At least in the AT&T Park bleachers you’ve got options (pretty girls, big cups of booze, Baywatch). But Giants fans at home must rely on the sportscasters for entertainment during the many lulls. So bully for you if you’re tuned in to the best in the business, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper of KNBR 680/1050 AM and CSN Bay Area TV. Mirthfully striding the base line that separates fill-time prattle from full-on provocation, the two banter like old pals, cracking wise about their combined 24 seasons in the majors and drawing on those years for pithy insights about the game at hand. When “America’s game” starts to sag, Kruk and Kuip happily resort to their second favorite pastime: using the tele-scribbler to “eliminate” people wearing Dodgers gear.

BEST POLITICAL SHIT-SIFTERS

Political websites are full of crap. Cranks, crooks, straight up sensationalism … We love it all, of course. But when we want to know what’s really going on in the down and dirty, smoke-filled backrooms of California politics, we click our way to progressive open source news site Calitics.com. East Bay keyboard-clackers Brian Leubitz and Robert Cruikshank stay well abreast of Sacramento’s whiz-bang wool-pulling, and you can get a bead on the biggest stories all around the state from the site’s open threads and links. Yet Calitics offers a lot more than shit-sifting: these folks understand what the news really means. Their analyses and interpretations are far more acute than those of the state’s lumbering daily newspapers. And Cruikshank is one of the few writers of any political slant who actually understands economics. Now, can they please work on getting some visuals up there? Photos, people, photos!

www.calitics.com

BEST ROYAL SCRUBDOWN

For spa-lovers seeking a simple, clean, quiet place for relaxation (with a lovely red clay sauna that “removes toxic superannuation”), it’s time to take a royal journey — to Imperial Spa. Hidden in a strip mall, also near Japan Center, Imperial also offers a rough touch: intense, full-body scrubs sure to remove all of the dead skin from your carcass. The masseuses here don’t play — their Korean massage passes the threshold of mere exfoliation to revive circulation and concludes with a combination of cucumber, yogurt, and milk that leaves you feeling shiny and new. Imperial Spa has separate men’s and women’s facilities, which means that it’s open to two genders seven days a week.

1875 Geary, SF. (415) 771-1114, www.imperialdayspa.com

BEST CHECK (ONE-TWO, ONE-TWO) ON YOUTH POVERTY

We’ve all heard the stereotypes about East Oakland. The drugs, the gangs — the future media superstars? Fearmongers aside, this neighborhood has some serious bright spots. Launched in 1997 in a colorful building next to Castlemont High School at the behest of students sick of violence in their schools, Youth Uprising infuses the lives of young people with the skills they need to get to where they want to go. On-the-job training programs that hook kids onto college tracks? Check. Top-of-the-line media arts center that teaches video production, music recording, and web design? Check. Dance studio, art classes, holistic health care center, and a staff who has walked — successfully — the same streets as YU’s members? You bet. The mic is set, can you hear them now?

877 MacArthur, Oakl. (510) 777-9909, www.youthuprising.org

BEST MURALS FOR DREAMERS

The way artist-appropriated, color-covered walls keep popping up in SF, it can be hard to pull your out-of-town friends indoors, even for some shut-eye. But book them a room at Hotel Des Arts. and they can revel in our city’s Technicolor bubble letters and moody characters, even in their dreams. That’s because Des Arts has tapped street art luminaries Chor Boogie, Sam Flores, Brian Barneclo, Tricia Choi (see above), Shepard Fairey, and others to make regular hotel décor look as lame as, well, regular hotel décor. It’s a dream collection of underground art. All four walls in each of the hotel’s painted rooms — even the bathrooms are tagged up — feature art work by the greats themselves. It’s the perfect spot to stash a buddy from abroad who can’t get enough of these city streets.

447 Bush, SF. (800) 956-4322, www.sfhoteldesarts.com

BEST MINI MEDITATION

Labyrinth lover Janet Scheuer had a dream to “create a quiet, restful spot” for people in San Francisco. The realization of her dream, the 23-foot wide Scott Street Labyrinth at Duboce Park, is just right for some brief lunchtime meditation, without the tourist crowds at Grace Cathedral’s marble behemoth or the somewhat harrowing journey through the Marin Headlands to reach the one at Eagle’s Point. A little avocado sandwich from Courtney’s up the street, a little ambulatory journey through the metaphor of life … What could be more perfectly serene? The jury’s still out on the recent refurbishment of the park in general — too much asphalt, not enough foliage, enormous cost — but this added gem puts an ingratiatingly spiritual polish on the whole project. There’s even a raised scale model to finger-trace for the sight-impaired or for those who want some practice before embarking on their brief-but-invigorating spiral contemplation cycle.

Scott Street between Duboce and Waller, SF

BEST WAG ‘N’ WASH

Photo by Ben Hopfer

Take it from Jules Winnfield, Samuel Jackson’s character in Pulp Fiction: “I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy, but they definitely dirty.” And when it’s bath time, pooches can turn any home into a wet, hairy, muddy nightmare. Avoid this by taking them to Pawtrero Bathhouse and Feed Company. The front of the Potrero Hill location looks like a typical pet store, but the back room is doggie-bath heaven. The floor is concrete, with a drain. Two large stainless steel baths cover one wall. You can walk your doggie up a ramp, close the door, throw on a complimentary rubber smock, and unleash a powerful warm-water hose on your sloppy Snoopy. Pawtrero offers a wide selection of organic, skin-sensitive soaps and shampoos to leave your mutt looking and smelling squeaky clean. Use the free towels to dry the beast off, put the smock back on the hook, and you’re out of there — for just $15.

199 Mississippi, SF. (415) 863-7279 and 199 Brannan, SF. (415) 882-7297, www.pawtrero.com

BEST SLIP ‘N’ SLIDES

For two years, Hamilton Recreation Center had been closed for renovations, depriving Western Addition residents of a public space to gather, get down, and, yes, exercise. But it reopened in March, tickling West Addys pink with a grade-A public place to play. We’re totally digging on the sparkling new b-ball courts, the vast acreage of tennis pitches and playground, the free-use cardio workout room, and the glorious pool. But alongside that pool is something that really churns our butterfly stroke: Hamilton Recreation Center’s water slides. That’s right — there are two of those slip ‘n’ slide babies, fit to dump squealing future Thorpedoes into the water with a great big splash. Pick your poison, spiral yellow or L-curve orange, and launch into the lanes below. Forget Six Flags, there are wet and wild times to be had closer to home. All ages welcome. (Alas, no coolers of ice-cold brewskis allowed.)

1900 Geary, SF. (415) 292-2008, www.sf-recpark.org

BEST ONLINE TIMESINKERS

Farmville. Fishville. Frontierville. Mafia Wars. Treasure Isle. Here you’ve gone through all the trouble of locating your old classmates and ex-coworkers on Facebook, and the only regular updates you receive from them are about the last virtual person they iced or how some orphan cow wandered onto their digital acreage. Moo! Blame the insidious explosion of social network gaming on SF’s own Zynga, the up-and-coming tech company founded by Mark Pincus and named after his bulldog, with a nod to an African warrior queen. Dedicated to “connecting people through games” (although in many cases disconnecting them as well) Zynga’s many addictive timesinks have claimed the afternoons of millions who should know better but just. Can’t. Stop. Collecting. Pixelated. Piranhas. Fine, we admit it, us too. That’s OK, feel free to hide our streams. But first, can you spare a bushel of virtual corn?

www.zynga.com

BEST DIRTY WORK IN THE WILD

As lovely as Golden Gate Park is to us city slickers, wilderness it’s not. That is, 96 percent of it isn’t. But the remaining 4 percent does qualify as “natural area,” which the San Francisco Natural Areas Program defines as spots where our little peninsula is preserved in all its original, biodiverse beauty. The organization should know — SFNAP is in charge of keeping these corners (which comprise some 500 acres in 35 parks including Bernal Hill, Corona Heights, and Glen Canyon Park) healthy and species-wealthy. The organization relies on the work of thousands of volunteers who get dirty in the name of preventing erosion, planting food for wildlife, pulling invasive species, and other saintly duties. The city is a jungle? Maybe not — but it is a salt marsh, desert, grassland, and woodland, and SFNAP means to keep it that way.

www.sfnap.org

BEST CITY HALL CROONER

A regular fixture at City Hall, Walter Paulson, a.k.a. “the singing guy,” stands out for his creative use of the two minutes allotted for public comment at board and commission sessions. He serenades supervisors with his own original a cappella ditties, taking full advantage of the mic and acoustics in the majestic board chambers without ever wandering off topic. His songs have been known to introduce comic relief to tense meetings, forcing even the most serious-minded supes to crack a smile and occasionally drawing a smattering of applause. Paulson proves that inspiration can be derived from even the driest, wonkiest policy discussions. And as he belts out melodies about planning documents or salary ordinances, he infuses something distinctly San Franciscan into the public record.

BEST KINKY ARROYO

An open secret: a freshwater creek flows freely through the Mission, albeit entombed beneath layers of concrete and asphalt. Water shortages and ground stabilization concerns have the city contemplating daylighting this ancient arroyo, but for now it remains hidden from view. Well, sort of. When the National Guard decided to build a new Armory at the intersection of Mission and 14th streets after the 1906 earthquake destroyed the old one, it kept a wee bit of creek exposed in the basement, just in case it might need an independent water source if the populace grew restless. (Good call on its part: the Armory served as a retreat when the guard shot strikers on Bloody Thursday in 1934.) The Armory has a new owner, of course, one that specializes in a more extreme form of militaristic fetishism and wet exposure. But you can still get a glimpse of that mossy bit of Mission Creek in Kink.com’s basement if you snag a spot on one of the BDSM adult film company’s tours of its jaw-dropping headquarters — and ask (beg?) nicely.

1800 Mission, SF. www.sfarmory.com, www.kink.com

Tours: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/120429

BEST HARD-BOILED PEREGRINATION

There’s been more than one Sam Spade — Dashiell Hammett’s prototypical The Maltese Falcon character was adapted many times from that hard-boiled 1930 novel, most famously by Bogart himself. But there’s only one Don Herron, author and intrepid creator of the Dashiell Hammett Tour. Meet the snap-brimmed Herron in the Civic Center (possibly with your favorite femme fatale in tow) for a fog-shrouded journey through Hammett’s San Franciscan haunts. The guide has been stalking these means streets since 1977, and he’ll gladly enumerate and elucidate the back alleys and byways where Hammett set his much-beloved private eye paperbacks. With Herron, you’re in good hands. So cinch that trench coat a notch tighter, keep ’em peeled for clues, and, please, beware of heavily lipsticked knockouts with an ax to grind.

www.donherron.com

BEST EMERALD TRAILS

“Every time I get on the green, it’s like a sigh of relief.” No, we didn’t just impel Renée Rivera, executive director of SF Bike Coalition, to get real about Proposition 19. She’s talking about the new protected green bike lanes on Market Street, one of the most exciting steps taken in the last year toward making our streets safer for cruisers of the two-wheel variety. The green lanes, which extend from Eighth Street to Gough, are partitioned from cars by waist-high, safe-hit white posts. And a movement is afoot to stretch the lanes further afield: the Bike Coalition got a commitment from the mayor to extend the verdant zone as far as the Ferry Building and is in talks to put similar lanes on Oak, Fell, Townsend, San Jose, and the Embarcadero.

Market between Eighth and Gough, SF

BEST SAND DUNE SLEUTHS

It’s been a wild world out in the western neighborhoods of San Francisco. Before the sidewalks came, the Richmond, Sunset, and other oceanside districts were a wonderland of sand dunes and historical curiosities. What was it like? Lack of information about the area’s past proved primo ponder fodder for Woody LaBounty, and inspired him to launch the Western Neighborhoods Project. Today the curious need only to partake in one of the group’s history walks, or look to its spectacularly detailed Outside Lands blog to benefit from the project’s insightful research on the bygone days of the avenues. Western wonderings have turned up tales that will hold even those on the other side of Twin Peaks rapt. LaBounty’s recently released book Carville-by-the-Sea excavates the intriguing bohemian vacation town of retired streetcars that cropped up on Ocean Beach back at the turn of the 20th century.

www.outsidelands.org

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD CANOODLING

Despite immediate proximity, rarely do the leaders of North Beach and Chinatown collaborate on an event, or do the residents of the two neighborhoods gather together in celebration of their shared heritage. What could break the ice more than a steaming heap of that Asian-Italian delicacy — noodles? This year the Chinatown Community Development Center and North Beach Merchants Association got together in the most delicious way possible: Noodlefest took Grant Avenue by storm, placing restaurant pasta powerfuls from both neighborhoods streetside in honor of the almighty macaroni and mein. The slurping multitudes — tasting tickets, which entitled purchasers to six hefty mini-meals, sold out in hours — dove into massive piles of (chow) fun and fettuccine. Besides the romantic appeal of reenacting that scene from Lady and the Tramp beneath decorative Chinese lanterns, this hopefully yearly event provided a warm, slippy bridge between these two intercontinental culinary titans.

www.chinatowncdc.org, www.northbeachmerchants.com

BEST OLD-FASHIONED SUMMER CAMP

Remember when summer camp was all about wandering around the woods, catching bugs, getting wet and muddy in the stream, roasting marshmallows, and doing stupid skits that involved cracking eggs on your head? Well, even in this city of fancy arts camps, computer camps, and other high-end sources of academic and personal growth for the urban child, there’s still a chance to be a kid. Right in town. And it’s cheap. More than 2,000 San Francisco kids make their way every summer to Glen Canyon Park, where Silver Tree Camp, run by SF Recreation and Park Department, eschews classroom lessons, electronic equipment, and intensive instruction of any kind. There are hikes, arts and crafts, and songs and skits in one of the few places in the big city that feels like wilderness. But a lot of the time, particularly in the before and after-care programs, is unstructured: the kids play outside. Like kids.

www.sfkids.org

BEST ‘DO FOR YOUR “I DO”

Weddings: they’re all fun and games and exorbitant expenses and heterosexual privilege — until the bride’s hair falls. Then? Disaster! Avoid any potential Bridezilla moments by calling upon the wizardly hair (and makeup) skills of one Armando Sarabia. His mobile beauty service, Get Your Do Up, brings the look to you, with on-location consultations and makeovers sure to guarantee love, honor, and obedience. He’ll take you through it all in style, from initial makeup color palette consultation to frisky honeymoon runway takeoff look. Sarabia’s talents aren’t just reserved for romantic matrimonials, either: girls’ nights out, media appearances, boudoir photography sessions, holiday gatherings, and just general cuts, colors, and styling all benefit from a good dose of Get Your Do Up glamour.

www.getyourdoup.com

BEST GOON SQUAD

SF native Mark Barbeau lives thousands of miles from the home stadium of his beloved Arsenal F.C. soccer team, a.k.a. the Gunners, in Islington, England. It could have been a lonely life had he not hit upon the idea to pull together some local Gunner goodwill. And thus was born the Bay Area Gooners, a ragtag bunch who gather in a North Beach Irish pub to pint their way through those early morning (time zone differences can’t stop this soccer spirit) footie matches between the “greatest team of all time” and whosoever dares to challenge them. Arsenal love runs strong in this group: during a recent power outage that affected the Gooners’ regular game-day perch at Maggie McGarry’s, Barbeau offered up his apartment’s living room to his Gunner-lovin’ brethren. Oh to be, oh to be, oh to be a Gooner!

www.bayareagooners.com

BEST PEOPLE POWER VS. CORPORATE POWER

When Pacific Gas and Electric Co. decided to put a measure on the California ballot that would effectively outlaw public power in the state, the situation looked bleak. PG&E set aside $30 million to spend pushing the measure, a total that later rose to more than $45 million. And yet, against some of the worst odds in American political history, a grassroots crew defeated one of the nation’s largest private utilities. The No on 16 campaign managed to line up almost every newspaper in the state against PG&E. It created and posted Web ads. It lobbied local government agencies to pass resolutions against the measure. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi led the effort in San Francisco, pushing other officials in the state to organize against it. Assembly Member Tom Ammiano and Sen. Mark Leno helped raise money and led the fight in Sacramento. Campaign consultant Gale Kaufman coordinated the effort. Matt Freedman, Mindy Spatt, and Mark Toney of the Utility Reform Network hosted meetings and handled campaign affairs that elected officials couldn’t. Volunteer public power activists including Eric Brooks, Bruce Wolfe, and Paul Fenn contributed time and effort, and Ben Zolno produced the campaign videos. And they saved public power in California.

Film listings

David Talbot

July 27, 2010

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide at www.sfbg.com. Due to early deadlines for this issue, theater information was incomplete at press time.

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

The 30th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival runs through Aug 9 at the Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; CineArts@Palo Alto Square, 3000 El Camino Real Bldg Six, Palo Alto; and Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, 118 Fourth St, San Rafael. Tickets (most shows $11) are available by calling (415) 256-TIXX or visiting www.sfjff.org. All times pm unless otherwise indicated.

WED/28

Castro Mrs. Moskowitz and the Cats 11:30am. Ingelore with "Surviving Hitler: A Love Story" 1:15. Budrus 4. Arab Labor: Season Two 6:30. Army of Crime 9.

THURS/29

Castro "Panel: Is Dialogue Possible? How Films Help Us Talk About Israel (…Or Not) 11:30am. Bugsy 1. Sayed Kashua: Forever Scared with Arab Labor: Season One, Episode 10 3:45. A Film Unfinished 8:45. The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground with "Seltzer Works" 8:45.

SAT/31

CineArts A Small Act noon. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story 2. A Film Unfinished 4:15. Saviors in the Night 6:45. Father’s Footsteps 9.

Roda Bena noon. "Arab Labor: Season Two" 2. "Utopia in Four Movements" (live event) 4:30. The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground with "Seltzer Works" 7. Protektor 9:45.

SUN/1

CineArts My So Called Enemy noon. My Perestroika 2. The Worst Company in the World with "Baabaa the Sheep" 4. Anita 6:30. "Arab Labor: Season Two" 8:45.

Roda "Grace Paley: Collected Shorts" (shorts program) noon. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story 2:15. A Film Unfinished 4:15. Budrus 6:45. Gruber’s Journey 9:15.

MON/2

CineArts Ahead of Time 2. Surrogate with "Guided Tour" 4. Te Extraño (I Miss You) with "Escape from Suburbia" 6:15. Bena 8:30.

Roda Long Distance with "You Can Dance" 2:15. Sayed Kashua: Forever Scared with "Arab Labor: Season One, Episode 10" 4. A Room and a Half 6. "Jews in Shorts: Focus on Israeli Narratives" (shorts program) 8:45.

TUES/3

CineArts Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats 2. Long Distance with "You Can Dance" 4. The Wolberg Family with "Perfect Mother" 6. Jaffa with "The Orange" 8.

Roda 9 Years Later with "Perin’s Dual Identity" 2:30. Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams 4:30. Anita 6:30. Illusiones Ópticas with "What About Me?" 8:45.

OPENING

*Alamar Pedro González-Rubio’s gorgeous Alamar ("to the sea") is set between landscapes (land and sea) and ways of telling (fiction and documentary). The bare frame of a plot places a young boy with his father and grandfather, Mayan fishermen working the Mexican Caribbean. The sweetness of this idyll is tempered by its provisional bounds: the boy will return to his mother in Rome at the end of his compressed experience of a father’s love. Every shot is earned: there are several in which the camera bucks with the boat, physically linked to the actors’ experience. The child is at an age of discovery, and González-Rubio channels this openness by fixing on the details of the fisher’s elegant way of life and the environmental contingencies of their home at sea. (1:13) Sundance Kabuki. (Goldberg)

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore Secret agent pets return, in 3-D. (1:40)

Charlie St. Cloud Zac Efron goes boating. (1:40)

Countdown to Zero This documentary takes on the nuclear arms race. (1:30) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

Dark House On a dare, a little girl enters the house "where the weird kids live," and finds a slew of children slaughtered, their murdering foster mother in suicidal death throes. Fourteen years later, Claire (Meghan Ory) is plagued by nightmares. Her therapist has the bright idea that she should "face the past" and unlock her repressed memories by visiting the house in question. Yeah, that’ll work. The arrival of high-tech spookhouse impresario Walston (Jeffrey Combs) provides a convenient plan of action, as he wants to hire her entire college acting class as live performers in a press preview of his latest creepy creation, a house of holographic horrors tastelessly located in the still-vacant site of that child massacre. Natch, before you can say "avenging evil spirit," the illusory frights turn into cast-winnowing real perils. This allows director-scenarist Darin Scott (who previously wrote 1995 horror omnibus Tales from the Hood) to toss in a bevy of genre familiars, from zombies to an axe-wielding scary clown. But Dark House isn’t meta-horror so much as a fairly ordinary slasher that’s more silly than it is self-aware (let alone scary). Meh. (1:26) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Dinner for Schmucks When he attracts favorable notice and a possible promotion from his corporate boss, Tim (Paul Rudd) is invited to an annual affair in which executives compete to see who can dig up the freakiest loser dweeb for everyone to snicker at. He literally runs into the perfect candidate: Barry (Steve Carrell), an IRS employee whose hobby is making elaborate tableaux with stuffed dead nice in tiny human clothes. He’s also the sort of person who, in trying to be helpful, inevitably wreaks havoc on the unlucky person being helped. Which means the 24 hours or so before the "Biggest Idiot" contest provide plenty of time for well-intentioned Barry to nearly destroy Tim’s relationship with a girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak), reunite him with Crazy Stalker Chick (Lucy Punch), and imperil his wooing of a multimillion-dollar account. Director Jay Roach (of the Austin Powers and Meet the Fockers series) has a full load of comedy talent on board here. So why are the results so tepid? This remake softens the bite of Francis Veber’s 1998 original French The Dinner Game by making Tim not a yuppie scumbag but a nice guy who just happens to have a jerk’s job (his company seizes ailing firms and liquidates them), and who doesn’t really want to expose hapless Barry to humiliation. But even with that satirical angle removed and a wider streak of sentimentality, it should cough up more laughs than it does. (1:50) (Harvey)

Farewell In Joyeux Noel (2005) director Christian Carion’s new drama, a KGB agent slips top-secret documents to a French businessman, hoping to bring about the end of the Cold War. Fun fact: Fred Ward plays Reagan. (1:53) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

*Kisses Sweet as a lingering caress or a smooch swiftly snatched, Kisses is besotted with the feel, lights, and ambiance of Dublin and the sensation of being young, free, and all too ready to plunge into the mysteries of adulthood. Next-door neighbors living on the outskirts of the big city, Kylie (Kelly O’Neill) and Dylan (Shane Curry) have a few things in common: they’re both children forced to grow up far faster than they like. When Dylan strikes back at his abusive father, the two flee, vowing never to return. Their goal is to find Dylan’s older brother, who ran from their father’s beatings long ago. And through their street-wise but still innocent eyes — and Kisses‘ gradual, graceful transition from black and white to color — Dublin takes on a subtle magic, one that darkens as the night and its dangers progress. To his credit, director and writer Lance Daly avoids striving for epic statements with Kisses. Rather, he keeps his unashamedly romantic focus tight on the moment and his two riveting leads, coaxing a wonderful performance in particular from O’Neill, whose angelic contenance, giving-as-good-as-it-gets lip, and bulldog feistiness stays with you long after Kisses‘ tender touch has faded. (1:15) (Chun)

*Orlando The director Sally Potter recently revealed during a panel discussion in New York that she was once told, "There’s only one golden rule: nobody should ever try to adapt Virginia Woolf!" Eighteen years later Potter’s fantastic Orlando (1992) stands as proof to the contrary. As whip smart and thick with history and allusion as Woolf’s 1928 "biography" of its titular time-traveling, gender-bending hero, Orlando feels less like an adaptation of its source material than a collaboration with it. While the sumptuous costumes and lush production design certainly do their part, Woolf’s sharp humor and nuanced observations about art, nature, gender, and, well, nearly everything else, truly come alive thanks to Tilda Swinton’s performance in the title role. With her androgynous features, dry delivery, and winking, direct addresses to the camera, Swinton carries Orlando‘s journey from male consort to Queen Elizabeth (Quentin Crisp, in a brilliant bit of casting that would be his last onscreen appearance), to the most desired woman in 18th century London, to modern day published author and mother, with the practiced ease of a prima ballerina. Orlando elevated the flame-haired actor from Derek Jarman-muse to full-blown art house star. Come and see why. (1:33) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Sussman)

Winnebago Man This documentary tells the strange story of Jack Rebney, a YouTube sensation (thanks to a cussin’-tastic RV commercial outtake) who has no idea of his viral fame. (1:15) Shattuck.

ONGOING

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo Opening with the humid buzz of crickets and the probings of bug aficionados in the thick of a forest, first-time documentarian Jessica Oreck puts Japan’s fascination with insects under the microscope. Preferring to let the images and interview subjects speak for themselves, she turns a lens to young children who clamor to buy sleek, shiny, obsidian beetles, as well as the giant big city gatherings of insect collectors — events that likely are less than familiar to western audiences. Oreck’s intent is to get at the ineffable attraction behind such astonishing sales as that of a single beetle for $90,000 not so long ago, and to that end, she weaves in looks at insect literature and art, visits to Buddhist temples, and historical factoids about, for instance, the first cricket-selling business in the early 1800s. (1:30) (Chun)

Breathless (1:30)

*City Island The Rizzo family of City Island, N.Y. — a tiny atoll associated historically with fishing and jurisdictionally with the Bronx — have reached a state where their primary interactions consist of sniping, yelling, and storming out of rooms. These storm clouds operate as cover for the secrets they’re all busy keeping from one another. Correctional officer Vince (Andy Garcia) pretends he’s got frequent poker nights so he can skulk off to his true shameful indulgence: a Manhattan acting class. Perpetually fuming spouse Joyce (Julianna Margulies) assumes he’s having an affair. Daughter Vivian (Dominik García-Lorido) has dropped out of school to work at a strip joint, while the world class-sarcasms of teenager Vinnie (Ezra Miller) deflect attention from his own hidden life as an aspiring chubby chaser. All this (plus everyone’s sneaky cigarette habit) is nothing, however, compared to Vince’s really big secret: he conceived and abandoned a "love child" before marrying, and said guilty issue has just turned up as a 24-year-old car thief on his cell block. Writer-director Raymond De Felitta made a couple other features in the last 15 years, none widely seen; if this latest is typical, we need more of him, more often. Perfectly cast, City Island is farcical without being cartoonish, howl-inducing without lowering your brain-cell count. It’s arguably a better, less self-conscious slice of dysfunctional family absurdism than Little Miss Sunshine (2006) — complete with an Alan Arkin more inspired in his one big scene here than in all of that film’s Oscar-winning performance. (1:40) (Harvey)

Cyrus It’s tempting to label Mark and Jay Duplass’ Cyrus as "mumblecore goes mainstream." Yes, the mumblecore elements are all there: plentiful moments of awkward humiliation, characters fumbling verbally and sometimes physically in desperate attempts to establish emotional connections, and a meandering, character-driven plot, in the sense that the characters themselves possess precious little drive. The addition of bona fide indie movie stars John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, and Marisa Tomei — not to mention Hollywood’s chubby-funny guy du jour, Jonah Hill — could lead some to believe that the DIY-loving Duplass brothers (2005’s The Puffy Chair, 2008’s Baghead) have gone from slacker disciples of John Cassavetes (informally known as "Slackavetes") to worshippers at the slickly profane (with a heart) altar of Judd Apatow. But despite the presence of Apatow protégé Hill (2007’s Superbad) in the title role, Cyrus steers clear of crowd-pleasing bombast, instead favoring small, relatively naturalistic moments. That is to say, not much actually happens. Mumblecore? More or less. Mainstream? Not exactly. Despite playing a character with some serious psychological issues, Hill comes off as likeable. Unfortunately the movie is neither as broadly comic nor as emotionally poignant as it needs to be — the two opposing forces seem to cancel each other out like acids and bases. (1:32) (Devereaux)

*Exit Through the Gift Shop Exit Through the Gift Shop is not a film about the elusive graffiti-cum-conceptual artist and merry prankster known as Banksy, even though he takes up a good chunk of this sly and by-no-means impartial documentary and is listed as its director. Rather, as he informs us — voice electronically altered, face hidden in shadow — in the film’s opening minutes, the film’s real subject is one Thierry Guetta, a French expat living in LA whose hangdog eyes, squat stature, and propensity for mutton chops and polyester could pass him off as Ron Jeremy’s long lost twin. Unlike Jeremy, Guetta is not blessed with any prodigious natural talent to propel him to stardom, save for a compulsion to videotape every waking minute of his life (roughly 80 percent of the footage in Exit is Guetta’s) and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. When Guetta is introduced by his tagger cousin to a pre-Obamatized Shepard Fairey in 2007, he realizes his true calling: to make a documentary about the street art scene that was then only starting to get mainstream attention. Enter Banksy, who, at first, is Guetta’s ultimate quarry. Eventually, the two become chummy, with Guetta acting as lookout and documenter for the artist just as the art market starts clambering for its piece of, "the Scarlet Pimpernel of street art," as one headline dubs him. When, at about three quarters of the way in, Guetta, following Banksy’s casual suggestion, drops his camcorder and tries his hand at making street art, Exit becomes a very different beast. Guetta’s flashy debut as Mr. Brainwash is as obscenely successful as his "art" is terribly unimaginative — much to the chagrin of his former documentary subjects. But Guetta is no Eve Harrington and Banksy, who has the last laugh here, gives him plenty of rope with which to truss himself. Is Mr. Brainwash really the ridiculous and inevitable terminus of street art’s runaway mainstream success (which, it must be said, Banksy has handsomely profited from)? That question begs another: with friends like Banksy, who needs enemies? (1:27) Roxie. (Sussman)

Get Him to the Greek At this point movie execs can throw producer Judd Apatow’s name on the marquee of a film and it’s a guaranteed blockbuster. It’s hard to say whether this Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) spin-off benefits from the Apatow sign of approval or if it would be better off standing on its own, but it definitely doesn’t benefit from comparisons to its predecessor. Russell Brand returns as the British rock star Aldous Snow, and Jonah Hill, playing a different character this time, is given the task of chaperoning the uncooperative Snow from London to LA in 48 hours. Despite a great cast, including a surprisingly animated P. Diddy, the story is pretty bland and can’t match the blend of drama and comedy that Marshall achieved. Of course, none of that matters because the movie execs are right: if you like Apatow’s brand of humor, you’re going to have a good time anyway. (1:49) (Peter Galvin)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo By the time the first of Stieg Larsson’s so-called "Millennium" books had been published anywhere, the series already had an unhappy ending: he died (in 2004). The following year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became a Swedish, then eventually international sensation, its sequels following suit. The books are addicting, to say the least; despite their essential crime-mystery-thriller nature, they don’t require putting your ear for writing of some literary value on sleep mode. Now the first of three adaptive features shot back-to-back has reached U.S. screens. (Sorry to say, yes, a Hollywood remake is already in the works — but let’s hope that’s years away.) Even at two-and-a-half hours, this Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by necessity must do some major truncating to pack in the essentials of a very long, very plotty novel. Still, all but the nitpickingest fans will be fairly satisfied, while virgins will have the benefit of not knowing what’s going to happen and getting scared accordingly. Soon facing jail after losing a libel suit brought against him by a shady corporate tycoon, leftie journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) gets a curious private offer to probe the disappearance 40 years earlier of a teenage girl. This entangles him with an eccentric wealthy family and their many closet skeletons (including Nazi sympathies) — as well as dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), androgynous loner, 24-year-old court ward, investigative researcher, and skillful hacker. Director Niels Arden Oplev and his scenarists do a workmanlike job — one more organizational than interpretive, a faithful transcription without much style or personality all its own. Nonetheless, Larsson’s narrative engine kicks in early and hauls you right along to the depot. (2:32) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Great Directors Sussing taste in movies isn’t always as easy as perusing a shelf — not everyone necessarily cares to watch repeatedly even the films they esteem most. (Of course 1941’s Citizen Kane is brilliant, but do I own that? Nix. But 2000’s Dude, Where’s My Car? Yup.) Thus Angela Ismailos’ new documentary Great Directors is as interesting for what it reveals about the curator as for insights from "great" filmmakers themselves. Ismailos has tony taste: good if idiosyncratic, the kind you can respect yet argue with. She’s a real cineaste. And a narcissist, falling into that realm of filmmakers who make movies about other people yet incessantly insert themselves into the frame. Still, there have been far worse offenders in the realm of Gratuitous Me: The Documentary, and Ismailos chooses her subjects — plus filmic excerpts — with beguiling intelligence. The interviewees are very articulate. Are all "great"? Well, it’s hard to argue against Bernardo Bertolucci and David Lynch. Richard Linklater and Todd Haynes are inspired next-generation American choices. With John Sayles we enter the land of good intentions. Likewise Ken Loach and Stephen Frears. The jury’s still out on Catherine Breillat, while one truly odd choice is Liliana Cavani (1974’s S–M Nazi romance The Night Porter); offering contrast is Agnès Varda, whose puckish cinema is hobbit-like in its denial of sex. Several participants share tales of production travails, like Lynch claiming "It’s beautiful to have a great failure" (i.e., 1984’s Dune) since it freed him to make smaller, more personal projects like next-stop Blue Velvet (1986). Preening and adoring her idols in camera view, Ismailos flashes her good taste around. This would be more annoying if her taste wasn’t, in fact, pretty choice. (1:26) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Grown Ups In order of star power, Grown Ups casts Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade as five fortysomething friends who reunite to attend the funeral of their high school basketball coach, and play catch-up over a long weekend together at a cabin by the lake. If you’re expecting five of America’s biggest comedy stars to form like Voltron and make the most hilarious movie of the year, you’ve got a sad day coming. Grown Ups is never the sum of its parts, it’s about on par with Sandler’s other producing/starring affairs, and probably features a lot of the same jokes. People fall in poop and little kids say cute things designed to make audiences awww, but history has shown that’s exactly what a popcorn viewer is looking for. By these standards, Grown Ups is a perfectly summer-y movie. (1:42) (Galvin)

Inception As my movie going companion pointed out, "Christopher Nolan must’ve shit a brick when he saw Shutter Island." In Nolan’s Inception, as in Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio is a troubled soul trapped in a world of mind-fuckery, with a tragic-vengeful wife (here, Marion Cotillard) and even some long-lost kids looming in his thoughts at all times. But Inception, about a team of corporate spies who infiltrate dreams to steal information and implant ideas, owes just as much to The Matrix (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and probably a James Bond flick or two. Familiar though it may feel, at least Inception is based on a creative idea — how many movies, much less summer blockbusters, actually require viewer brain power? If its complex house-of-cards plot (dreams within dreams within dreams) can’t quite withstand nit-picking, its action sequences are confidently staged and expertly directed, including a standout sequence involving a zero-gravity fist fight and elevator ride. Though it’s hardly genius — and Leo-recycle aside — Inception is worth it, if you don’t mind your puzzle missing a few pieces. (2:30) (Eddy)

*Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work Whether you’re a fan of its subject or not, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s documentary is an absorbing look at the business of entertainment, a demanding treadmill that fame doesn’t really make any easier. At 75, comedian Rivers has four decades in the spotlight behind her. Yet despite a high Q rating she finds it difficult to get the top-ranked gigs, no matter that as a workaholic who’ll take anything she could scarcely be more available. Funny onstage (and a lot ruder than on TV), she’s very, very focused off-, dismissive of being called a "trailblazer" when she’s still actively competing with those whose women comics trail she blazed for today’s hot TV guest spot or whatever. Anyone seeking a thorough career overview will have to look elsewhere; this vérité year-in-the-life portrait is, like the lady herself, entertainingly and quite fiercely focused on the here-and-now. (1:24) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

John Rabe John Rabe (Ulrich Tukur) was the Oskar Schindler of Nanking: A man who, under discreetly opportunist pretenses, attempted to keep the Chinese in a safety zone from the Japanese in the late 30s. Steve Buscemi plays Robert Wilson, a surly American doctor. He’s to Tukur as Ben Kingsley was to Liam Neeson in 1993’s Schindler’s List, but without the nuance or iconic chemistry. Tukur is understated, bordering on uninteresting, and Buscemi is just over-the-top. Unlike Spielberg’s film, John Rabe grants us little access to the stories of civilians. The film is so preoccupied with people of power and those like Rabe, couched in a world of privilege, that the film lacks an emotional, human center. It’s impossible to feel much of anything because we’re never asked to feel, nor are we ever asked to endure any especially difficult scenes. Even the occasional rain of hellfire isn’t as wallop-packing as it ought to be. (2:14) (Ryan Lattanzio)

*The Kids Are All Right In many ways, The Kids Are All Right is a straightforward family dramedy: it’s about parents trying to do what’s best for their children and struggling to keep their relationship together. But it’s also a film in which Jules (Julianne Moore) goes down on Nic (Annette Bening) while they’re watching gay porn. Director Lisa Cholodenko (1998’s High Art) co-wrote the script (with Stuart Blumberg), and the film’s blend between mainstream and queer is part of what makes Kids such an important — not to mention enjoyable — film. Despite presenting issues that might be contentious to large portions of the country, the movie maintains an approachability that’s often lacking in queer cinema. Of course, being in the gay mecca of the Bay Area skews things significantly — most locals wouldn’t bat an eye at Kids, which has Nic and Jules’ children inviting their biological father ("the sperm donor," played by Mark Ruffalo) into their lives. But for those outside the liberal bubble, the idea of a nontraditional family might be more eye-opening. It’s not a message movie, but Kids may still change minds. And even if it doesn’t, the film is a success that works chiefly because it isn’t heavy-handed. It refuses to take itself too seriously. At its best, Kids is laugh-out-loud funny, handling the heaviest of issues with grace and humor. (1:47) (Peitzman)

*Knight and Day A Bourne-again Vanilla Sky (2001)? Considerably better than that embarrassingly silly stateside remake, though not quite as fulfilling as director James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma (2007) rework, this action caper played for yuks still isn’t the most original article in the cineplex. But coasting on the dazzling Cheshire grins of its stars, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, reunited for the first time since Sky, you can just make out the birth of a beautiful new franchise. Everygirl June Havens (Diaz) is on her way to her sister’s wedding when she collides-cute at the airport with Roy Miller (Cruise). After killing the passengers and pilots on their plane, he literally sweeps her off her feet — thanks to some potent drugs. Picture a would-be Bond girl dragged against a spy-vs.-spy thriller semi-against-her-will — grappling with the subtextual anxiety rushing beneath all brief romantic encounters as well as some very justifiable survival fears. Can June overcome her trust issues? Is Roy the man of her dreams — or nightmares? Mangold and company miss a few opportunities to have more fun with those barely teased out ideas, and the polished, adult-yet-far-from-knowing charisma of the leads doesn’t quite live up to sophisticated interplay of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, or even the down-home fun of Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, but it’s substantial enough for Knight and Day to coast on, for about 90 minutes tops. (2:10) (Chun)

The Last Airbender There must be some M. Night Shyamalan fans out there. How else does one explain the fact that he keeps making movies? And yet, most of his post-Sixth Sense (1999) work has ranged from forgettable to downright reviled. His latest disaster is sure to fall into the latter category: in The Last Airbender, he takes a much-loved Nickelodeon cartoon and transforms it into an awkwardly paced, poorly acted mess. Woefully miscast Noah Ringer stars as Aang, the avatar with the power to end the Fire Nation’s dominion. Along with his friends, siblings Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz), Aang must — oh, just watch the damn show. For newcomers, the film is as confusing as Shyamalan’s equally self-indulgent Lady in the Water (2006). For fans of the TV show, The Last Airbender is nearly unbearable, condensing the entire first season into one film by removing the humor, the heart, and the complexity of the characters. There’s no twist here — we expect Shyamalan to disappoint, and he does. (1:34) (Peitzman)

*Let It Rain Well-known feminist author Agathe Villanova (writer-director Agnès Jaoui) is taking a rare break from her busy Paris life, visiting her hometown to see family, vacation with boyfriend Antoine (Frédéric Pierrot), and do a little stumping for her nascent political career. But despite the ever-picturesque French countryside as background, all is not harmonious. Antoine complains Agathe’s workaholism (among other things) is killing their relationship, particularly once she agrees to be time-consumingly interviewed for film about "successful women" by shambling documentarian Michel (coscenarist Jean-Pierre Bacri) and local Karim (Jamel Debbouze). Her married-with-children sister Florence (Pascale Arbillot) is having a secret affair with Michel, but seems more focused on old resentments springing from Agathe being their late mother’s favorite. Karim — son of the family’s longtime housekeeper (Mimouna Hadji) — bears his own grudge against the clan and brusque, officious Agathe in particular. Being happily wed, he’s further bothered at his hotel day job by his attraction to co-worker Aurélie (Florence Loiret-Caille). These various conflicts simmer, then boil over as the documentary shooting goes from bumbling to disastrous. In 2004, Jaoui delivered a pretty near perfect Gallic ensemble seriocomedy in Look at Me. This isn’t quite that good. Still, her seemingly effortless skill at managing complex character dynamics, eliciting expert performances (including her own), and weaving it all together with insouciant panache makes this a real pleasure. The problem with Agnès Jaoui: she’s so good it chafes that (acting-only gigs aside) she’s made just three films in ten years. Pick it up, girl! (1:39) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Lottery (1:21) Roxie.

Micmacs An urge to baby-talk at the screen underlines what is wrong with Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s new film: it is like a precocious child all too aware how to work a room, reprising adorable past behaviors with pushy determination and no remaining spontaneity whatsoever. There will be cooing. There will be clucking. But there will also a few viewers rolling their eyes, thinking "This kid rides my last nerve." It’s easy to understand why Jeunet’s movies (including 2001’s Amélie) are so beloved, doubtless by many previously allergic to subtitles. (Of course, few filmmakers need dialogue less.) They are eye-candy, and brain-candy too: fantastical, hyper, exotic, appealing to the child within but with dark streaks, byzantine of plot yet requiring no close narrative attention at all. The artistry and craftsmanship are unmissable, no ingenious design or whimsical detail left unemphasized. In Micmacs, hero Bazil (Dany Boon) is a lovable misfit who lost his father to an Algerian landmine, then loses his own job and home when he’s brain-injured by a stray bullet. He falls in with a crazy coterie of lovable misfits who live underground, make wacky contraptions from junk, and each have their own special, not-quite-super "power." They help him wreak elaborate, fanciful revenge on the greedy arms manufacturers (André Dussollier, Nicolas Marié) behind his misfortunes, as well as various human rights-y global ones. So there’s a message here, couched in fun. But the effect is rather like a birthday clown begging funds for Darfur — or Robert Benigni’s dreaded Life is Beautiful (1997), good intentions coming off a bit hubristic, even distasteful. (1:44) (Harvey)

Predators Anyone who claims to be disappointed by Predators has clearly never seen parts one and two in the series; all three are straight B-movie affairs (though 1990’s Predator 2 takes everything oh-so-slightly over the top. Gary Busey’ll do that). And if you’ve seen either of the recent Predator-versus-Alien flicks, Predators should feel like a masterpiece. Nimród Antal directs under the banner of Robert Rodriguez’s production company, which explains the presence of Danny "Machete" Trejo in the cast. Adrien Brody stashes his Oscar in a safe place to star as Royce, a well-armed mercenary who awakes to find himself in free fall, plummeting into a strange jungle along with other elite-forces types (including Brazilian Alice Braga, playing an Israeli soldier). It doesn’t take long before Royce realizes that "this is a game preserve, and we’re the game." I wish Predators had allowed itself to have a little more fun with its uniquely skilled characters (the yakuza guy does have a nice, if culturally-stereotyped, swordplay scene); there’s also an underdeveloped "plot twist" involving the presence of the decidedly un-badass Topher Grace among the human prey. But all is forgiven when Laurence Fishburne turns up as Crazy Old Dude Who’s Been Hiding Out With Predators a Little Too Long. Fishburne’s presence also adds to the heart-of-darkness vibe the movie seems vaguely interested in conveying. (1:51) (Eddy)

Ramona and Beezus (1:44)

*Restrepo Starting mid-’07, journalists-filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger spent some 15 months off and on embedded with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, a Taliban stronghold with steep, mountainous terrain that could hardly be more advantageous for snipers. Particularly once a second, even more isolated outpost is built, the soldiers’ days are fraught with tension, whether they’re ordered out into the open on a mission or staying put under frequent fire. Strictly vérité, with no political commentary overt or otherwise, the documentary could be (and has been) faulted for not having enough of a "narrative arc" — as if life often does, particularly under such extreme circumstances. But it’s harrowingly immediate (the filmmakers themselves often have to dive for cover) and revelatory as a glimpse not just of active warfare, but of the near-impossible challenges particular to foreign armed forces trying to make any kind of "progress" in Afghanistan. (1:33) (Harvey)

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07)

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Socially awkward science nerd Dave (Jay Baruchel) toils away on his suspiciously elaborate NYU physics project, unaware that he’s about to have a Harry Potter-style moment of awakening. Enter Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), a centuries-old, steampunky sorcerer who believes Dave to be "the Prime Merlinian" — i.e., the greatest conjurer since Merlin himself. (Literally) rising from ashes to provide conflict are fellow sorcerers Horvath (Alfred Molina) and Morgana (Alice Krige); signing on for romantic-interest purposes are Monica Bellucci and newcomer Teresa Palmer. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice spins off Disney classic Fantasia (1940) in only the loosest sense, though there is a scene of dancing brooms. The bland Baruchel’s rise to fame continues to mystify, but at least Cage and Molina seem to be having a blast exchanging insults and zapping each other around. (1:43) (Eddy)

South of the Border After a prolific career of dramatic films steeped in political commentary, Oliver Stone drops the pretext. South of the Border is his Michael Moore moment, a chance for the filmmaker to make a direct and focused documentary in which his bias is readily apparent. Stone travels to South American nations and meets with their political leaders, men and women — including Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa — who have long been considered enemies of the United States. His goal is to show that they are not ruthless dictators but rather democratically elected representatives of their country, cast in a negative light by a mainstream media with ulterior motives. Stone’s rapport with these politicians is intimate: at one point, he plays soccer with Morales. Even if you’re skeptical of his assertions, you can at least appreciate the unique perspective South of the Border offers. As a film, it’s somewhat slipshod, not nearly as glossy as a Moore production. But provided you’re willing to fill in the blanks, it’s a captivating and well-intentioned endeavor. (1:18) (Peitzman)

*Stonewall Uprising On the night of June 28, 1969, police embarked on what they thought would be a routine raid on a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, the sleazy, Mafia-run Stonewall Inn. The ensuing three days of rioting — during which mostly young men and drag queens accustomed to being marginalized and hauled off to jail stood their ground and fought back — became what historian Lillian Faderman has called "the shot heard round the world" for LGBT activism: a spontaneous expression of street-level outrage that fueled the birth of a movement. Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s solid documentary Stonewall Uprising takes a "just the facts, ma’am" approach to this historic flashpoint that makes for an information-packed, if at times dry, 80 minutes. Working around the paucity of photographic documentation of the actual riots (itself a testament to the marginalization of homosexuality in the late 1960s), Davis and Heilbroner make extensive use of period news footage and photography, reenactments, and most important, the first-person testimonies of who those who witnessed and participated in what one interviewee terms "our Rosa Parks moment." The filmmakers’ contextual groundwork is as impressive for its archival research as it is repetitive in its message: pre-Stonewall life was hell. The documentary becomes more nuanced as it zeros in on reconstructing the first night of rioting via eyewitness accounts. (1:22) (Sussman)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse The only person more bored by the Twilight franchise than I am is Kristen Stewart. In Eclipse, the third installment of the film series, she mopes her way through further adventures with creepily obsessive vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson). Look, you’re either sold on this star-crossed love story or you’re not, and it’s clear which camp I fall into. Besides, Eclipse is at least better than New Moon, the dreadful Twilight film that preceded it last year. But the story is still ponderous and predictable — Eclipse sets up a conflict and then quickly resolves it, just so it can spend more time on the Bella-Edward-Jacob love triangle. (As if we don’t know how that ends.) Then there’s the unfortunate anti-sex subtext: carnal relations are cast as dirty, wrong, and soul-destroying. I’m not saying we should be encouraging all teenagers to have sex, but that doesn’t mean we should make them feel ashamed of their desires. And what parent would approve of Eclipse‘s conclusion? Marrying your first boyfriend at 18 — not always the best move. (2:04) (Peitzman)

Drugs also figure into the plot of the harrowing Winter’s Bone, though its protagonist, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), is faced with a different set of circumstances: her meth head father has jumped bail, leaving the family’s humble mountain home as collateral; the two kids at stake are her younger siblings. With no resources other than her own tenacity, Ree strikes out into her rural Missouri community, seeking information from relatives who clearly know where her father is — but ain’t sayin’ a word. It’s a journey fraught with menace, shot with an eye for near-documentary realism and an appreciation for slow-burn suspense; Lawrence anchors a solid cast with her own powerful performance. Who says American independent film is dead? (1:40) (Eddy)

Van Jones misses Walter Cronkite

Zelda Bronstein

July 26, 2010

The world has become a very strange place when someone like Van Jones — a certified left-liberal, a member of the progressive political movement that has spent decades denoucning the biases and unfair coverage of the mainstream media — says he misses the old days when a few editors controlled what the public saw. From an oped he wrote in the NYTimes July 26:

Anyone with a laptop and a flip camera can engineer a fake info-virus and inject it into the body politic. Those with cable TV shows and axes to grind can concoct their own realities. The high standards and wise judgments of people like Walter Cronkite once acted as our national immune system, zapping scandal-mongers and quashing wild rumors. As a step toward further democratizing America, we shrunk those old gatekeepers — and ended up weakening democracy’s defenses.

Jones also wrote — and I agree — that the era of rampant character assassination by fraudulent bloggers will eventually end:

The worst of the partisans will get their comeuppance and become cautionary tales for others. Public leaders will learn to be more transparent. We will teach our children not to rush to judgment. Technology will evolve to better expose fakers.

But wow, when we start to miss the old CBS/ABC/NBC monopolies, things have gotten pretty bad. Or else we’ve finally started to realize that, in an era when anyone can be a mass-media publisher, credibility, standards and principles still matter.

Looking for silver lining in SF bee hate crime

Mary Magee

July 22, 2010

SF Bee Cause director and beekeeper extraordinaire Karen Peteros talked to the media last afternoon, as a group of reporters clustered around the sad sight of thousands of dead bees in and around two of three hives that were attacked by an unknown person who sprayed insecticide into their entrances, probably on Tuesday night.

A few of the bees were still wiggling a little, but Peteros said none of them can be saved.
“They’ve been poisoned,” she said, as a carnivorous wasp pulled at a dead bee carcass next to her feet.

“We’ll be able to salvage the bee hive boxes,” Peteros added, explaining how she’ll have to scorch and set the boxes aside for a year to make sure they are clear of poisons.

Peteros acknowledged that some folks are deadly afraid of bees, and noted that the Hayes Valley Farm had a number of interactions with a neighbor who complained about bees.
“But when fear takes over any rational consideration of science, that’s too bad,” she said.

Peteros told reporters how bees are crucial pollinators to the world’s food supply, and produce honey, which has anti-microbial properties, and propolis (the resin bees collect from trees to help glue their hive together), which is used in the cosmetics industry.

“And then there’s apitherapy, in which people get bees to sting them at the site of arthritis or other degenerative disorders, to shock their immune systems in a beneficial way.

Peteros said she is not aware of any other violence against honey bees being committed in San Francisco, other than folks perhaps kicking over hives and/or trying to steal honey.

“I’ve never heard of anyone spraying pesticide into a hive,” she said. “I get it that for some folks, a bee sting can be deadly. But bees aren’t interested in people, they are interested in flowers, and only certain flowers that produce nectar and pollen that they want. So, just because some folks are afraid of bees, mostly because they are confusing them with yellow jacket wasps which are aggressive and sting repeatedly, is no reason to exclude hives from a city, especially a city that encourages urban agriculture and therefore needs pollinators.”

Hayes Valley Farm is planning a wake for all their poor dead bees this Sunday afternoon.

“But we can’t compost them because they are contaminated with pesticide,” Peteros said.
“Bees are wildlife, wonderful creatures right in our midst,” she added. “We are trying to create transitional job opportunities based on apiculture, so folks can assist community gardens who want to attract and cultivate bees.

“We have other hives at Alemany Farm, so we can sell honey to get revenue,” she said. “If people want to contribute to help us replace the lost hives and bees, they can got to the Hayes Valley Farm website and mark their donation for bees. No amount is too small.”

Looking into the future, Peteros said the farm has a vision of getting an acre of land at McLaren Park, which has a lot of wild areas.

“The dream is to do a pollinator demonstration garden that attracts a multitude of pollinators, including bees and butterflies,” Peteros said. “And we are talking to the Friends of the Urban Forest about the ‘wildlife factor’ when they do plantings.”

Last but not least, Peteros explained why San Francisco is a particularly great city to raise and attract bees.

“It’s because of all our eucalyptus trees,” Peteros said, acknowledging that her answer likely won’t please native plant enthusiasts. “But because the blue gums bloom in December and the red gum bloom until October, there are only two months when something isn’t blooming that’s a good source of pollen and nectar.”

Our Weekly Picks: July 21-27, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

July 20, 2010

WEDNESDAY 21

MUSIC

Nobunny

There’s no telling where Justin Champlin, clad in tighty-whiteys and a bunny mask, got his rabbit obsession, though Bunnicula comes to mind. Known for his stage antics, the Nobunny leader — and sole member, really, if you exclude the backing musicians shuffling in and out — is something of a rock ‘n’ roll animal classified in the punk rock phylum (or garage rock class). Love Visions (2008), with homages like “Chuck Berry Holiday,” produced catchy tracks faster than a rabbit could procreate. Champlin’s histrionics, and even messier sound, recall the Ramones or more recently, Hunx and His Punx. (Ryan Lattanzio)

With Spits, Scumby, and Carolyn the DJ

9 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

THURSDAY 22

FILM

Five Easy Pieces

A few years after creating wannabe-pop group the Monkees, Bob Rafelson wrote — along with Carole Eastman — and directed 1970’s Five Easy Pieces. Like Easy Rider (1969), it’s a man-is-a-lonely-island-unto-himself picture starring Jack Nicholson and the squalid splendor of the American landscape. Bobby leaves his affluent family for the life of an oil rigger, but what he finds are consequences both understated and overwhelming. Nominated for four Oscars, Pieces is not an easy film. Like the literature of Cormac McCarthy or Hemingway, it’s biblical, masculine stuff. Yet for all its ruggedness, it has a bittersweet side worth noting for Laszlo Kovacs’ muted cinematography, as well as the weepy country tunes of Tammy Wynette. (Lattanzio)

7 p.m., $5.50–$9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-5249

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

VISUAL ART

“Wondrous Strange: A Twenty-First Century Cabinet of Curiosities”

The medieval notion of a cabinet of curiosities or Wunderkammern holds great fascination to this day, even though a room filled with animal bones, coins, and unmarked pottery shards would seem a fairly undisciplined display format for scientific artifacts at this point. But if the Wunderkammern is academically anachronistic, the folks at SFMOMA Artists Gallery still find it a useful vehicle for conveying art and culture. The opening of “Wondrous Strange” will feature a time traveler costume contest, burlesque performance by the Burley Sisters, and music from the Grannies. The opening ceremonies will also extend to the nearby Long Now Foundation (also in Fort Mason’s Building A), where interested parties can check out their prototypes for the 10,000 Year Clock. (Sam Stander)

Through Aug 28

5:30 p.m., free

SFMOMA Artists Gallery

Bldg. A, Fort Mason Center

Marina at Laguna, SF

(415) 441-4777

www.sfmoma.org

FILM

Behind the Burly Q

While relatively tame by today’s standards, burlesque was once perceived as a scandalous art form. Featuring comedians, strippers, and satire, burlesque threatened conservative views about sex and sought to undermine accepted social norms. Even though vaudeville-inspired acts have recently made a nostalgic comeback, their roots remain widely misunderstood. Director Leslie Zemeckis’ documentary Behind the Burly Q goes straight to the source to uncover more than just pasties. By interviewing many of the women and men who starred and worked in the industry, Zemeckis traces the often overlooked history of American burlesque and honors all those who managed to use a g-string as a political weapon. (Katie Gaydos)

Thurs/22-Sat/24, 7:30 p.m.;

Sun/25, 4 and 6 p.m., $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

FRIDAY 23

MUSIC

Cynic

Along with most of the rest of his band, Cynic guitarist Paul Masvidal avoided an awkward ’90s-metal swan song by disappearing into the jazz scene. Suddenly, in 2006, Masvidal and his main collaborator, drummer Sean Reinert, resurfaced with a renewed sense of purpose, and the release of 2008’s Traced in Air ushered in an era of relentless touring that saw the prog-metallers quickly reestablish their towering reputation. This summer’s Decibel-sponsored headlining tour features the band playing its 1993 classic Focus in its entirety, so prepare for Mixolydian assault. (Ben Richardson)

With Intronaut, Dysrhythmia

8 p.m., $17

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

DANCE

Carmina Burana: Revisited

For a few years, choreographer Enrico Labayen disappeared from the local radar screen. He now has reemerged with an ambitious full-evening work based on two rituals from opposing sides of the planet. Turns out that Labayen, an early member of Alonzo King’s LINES Dance Company who also has 15 years’ experience as an independent choreographer, spent the intervening years in his native Philippines to study the matriarchal aspects of its culture that have long fascinated him. His new Carmina Burana: Revisited delves into Carl Orff’s raucous reimagining of Medieval European Christianity for a work that explores the choreographer’s own memory of Tadtarin, a Philippine ritual that celebrates femininity. (Rita Felciano)

Fri/23-Sat/24, 8 p.m.; Sun/25, 7 p.m., $30

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St., SF

(415) 273-4633

www.brownpapertickets.com

MUSIC

Grouper

Portland, Ore.’s Liz Harris, who records and performs ambient drone music as Grouper, has composed a new piece specifically for the Berkeley Art Museum, which incorporates video as well as tape music and live instrumentation. This continues the “L@TE: Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA” series’ dedication to avant-garde performance. Previously, L@TE has brought in such luminaries as Terry Reilly and the Residents; later this summer the series features sometime Grouper collaborator Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu. Grouper’s premiere of “SLEEP” will be preceded by music from Eugene Petrushansky, who plays early music on a harpsichord of his own construction, an interesting juxtaposition and perhaps fitting complement to Harris’ intense soundscapes. (Stander)

7:30 p.m., $5

Berkeley Art Museum, Gallery B

2625 Bancroft, SF

(510) 642-0808

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

SATURDAY 24

EVENT

Tori Spelling

The Oxygen Network — the equivalent of an unclaimed baggage room for celebrities past their prime — still airs Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, where Tori Spelling can be seen redecorating her house or renewing her vows (eep!) But unlike most stars in the dreary constellation of reality TV, Spelling actually isn’t that dumb. With a resume longer than the New York Times best seller list she topped in 2008, she’s the ultimate media mogul. In her new book, uncharted terriTORI, she returns to the Narcissus pool of sTORI Telling with some fresh anecdotes like her bout with H1N1 and her life as a Twit. Err … I mean, a Tweeter. (Lattanzio)

7 p.m., free

Books, Inc.

2251 Chestnut, SF

(415) 931-3633

www.booksinc.net

DANCE/MUSIC

“Salsa on the Fillmore”

Why watch Dancing With the Stars when you can dance under the stars? All right, the summer fog might not stay away long enough for us to actually see any stars, but thanks to dance festival “Salsa on the Fillmore,” we can safely say, for once, a night in SF will be hot and sweaty. Forget bar hopping in the Mission. With open dance floors and live music at Yoshi’s, Rasselas Jazz Club, Sheba Piano Lounge, and 1300 on Fillmore, it’s time to go rumba hopping! Start off the night at Fillmore Center Plaza with free salsa lessons by Bay Area Latin dance instructors Juan Gil and Rebecca Miller, and live music by Los Bolores. (Gaydos)

7 p.m.–2 a.m., free–$25

Fillmore between Eddy and Geary, SF

(808) 352-4315

www.salsaonfillmore.com

MUSIC

Bay Area Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus

If you have any affinity at all for the American labor movement, these are depressing times. All that populist energy generated in the wake of 2008’s financial meltdown seems to have been wasted on fruitless antigovernment paranoia, while essential state services are being eliminated nationwide, taking thousands of union jobs with them. Those sympathetic to the cause of social justice can be forgiven for not feeling much like singing. On the other hand, nothing rabble-rouses like a good anthem, and no movement ever got far on despair. The Bay Area Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus realizes this, and is presenting, as part of the Bay’s yearly LaborFest, a program of union songs old and new, celebrating victories won and anticipating those still to come. (Zach Ritter)

7 p.m., $5

ILWU 34 Hall

801 Second St., SF

(415) 648-3457

www.laborfest.net

SUNDAY 25

MUSIC

Queensryche

Queensryche and burlesque. On the one hand, it’s a completely arbitrary juxtaposition, akin to, say, “submarines and kumquats.” On the other, it makes perfect sense. The veteran Seattle prog-metal act have always had a flair for the theatrical, the lushly orchestrated, the ever-so-slightly over the top. And during a break in the recording of its new album, the band decided to really go for broke, setting out on the road with the “world’s only adults-only rock show,” featuring contortionists, trapeze artists, jugglers, and other delights. If you’ve been waiting your entire life to combine scantily clad women and immaculately composed concept albums, wait no longer. (Richardson)

8 p.m., $40

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com

MUSIC

Bomba Estéreo

While our government issues frantic safety advisories to Colombia-minded travelers, Locumbia ticks out a merry beat toward a perch atop South America’s creative culture heap. Medellín, Bogotá, Chico Trujillo, the via-L.A. party tunes of Very Be Careful — this a land where you festivate like you mean it, even if a decades-long battle between the guerrillas and army rages in the hinterlands. Lucky for media-boozled us: the international tour. Bomba Estéreo mixes hawt psychedelic cumbia beats with Caribbean folkloric sound and enough echo to qualify as a dance group. Speaking of dance group — start one under the Stern Grove green at the group’s free show. (Caitlin Donohue)

With Jovanotti

2 p.m., free

Sigmund Stern Grove

Sloat and 19th Ave., SF

(415) 252-6252

www.sterngrove.org

TUESDAY 27

MUSIC

Obits

The album cover for Obits’ I Blame You claims it is “Xtra Compressed for Maximum Listener Fatigue,” and, while 41 minutes doesn’t seem like such a short album these days, the music itself has a tight, claustrophobic intensity that really good garage rock delivers so well. Lead guitarist Rick Froberg, formerly of Hot Snakes and Drive Like Jehu, journeys through all manner of rock in those 41 minutes, skewing the familiar sounds of surfer twang and post-punk into a nonstop groove that leaves the listener just as breathless as the cover promises. Obits knows you don’t have to break any musical barriers to crack a few eardrums. (Peter Galvin)

With Night Marchers and Moonhearts

9 p.m., $14

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

EVENT

“Visions of the Gameocalypse”

In a world where gaming is “no longer just for kids!” or nerds, and where major members of the artistic establishment (cough-Ebert-cough) take up arms against the perceived aesthetic immaturity of videogames for no good reason, it would do us all a little good to get a firmer grasp on how computerized gaming has developed. Jesse Schell, CEO of Schell Games and author of The Art of Game Design: a book of lenses, will be presenting his thoughts on the “social, cognitive, and technological trends” in gaming. We can only hope the event’s gloomy title, “Visions of the Gamepocalypse,” is tongue-in-cheek, though it definitely implies a refreshingly futurist approach to games. (Stander)

7:30 p.m., $10

Novellus Theater

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

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