Performance

Alerts

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WEDNESDAY 1

May Day immigrant rights march 24th and Mission, SF. 3pm march, 5pm rally, free. The San Francisco Bay Coalition for Immigrant Justice invites all to join this year’s May Day immigrant rights march, convened to urge Congressional representatives to fight for improvements to the recently unveiled federal immigration reform proposal bill. The march will begin at 24th and Mission and proceed to Civic Center for a 5pm rally.

 

May Day celebration 518 Valencia, SF. www.518valencia.org. 3-8pm, free. After the May Day marches and rallies have come to an end, head over to the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics for a celebration of international worker solidarity, featuring a theater performance on the history of May Day by the Shaping SF Players on the history of Mayday, live screen printing, Cumbia beats, Aztec dance, protest art, sangria and beer.

SATURDAY 4

Movies that motivate change The New Parkway Theater, 474 24th St, Oakl. tinyurl.com/chngmovie. (510) 568-0702 6:30pm, $15–$100. In honor of the 20th anniversary of the Rose Foundation, attend this party and film festival and enjoy beer, wine, a silent auction, and four film screenings. Featuring Trash, a documentary exploration of global waste; 16 Seeds, a film highlighting the role of people of color in the Bay Area food justice movement; A Fierce Green Fire (Act 2), documenting the environmental battle over Love Canal, and a film about the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment.

SUNDAY 5

Justice for Tristan art opening La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berkl. Lapena.org. 7pm, free. This art opening will feature photos and art by Tristan Anderson, an activist who sustained a serious injury when he was struck with a teargas canister fired by the Israeli Defense Forces in 2009. Anderson’s art will be set to the sounds of 40 Thieves’ revolutionary hip hop, Nepantler@s’ queer Chicano punk, and more. Free Food Not Bombs dinner at the Long Haul, across the street, at 5:30pm before the program.

MONDAY 6

Debating “sustainable capitalism” Commonwealth Club, 595 Market, SF. www.climate-one.org. 5:30pm, $20. As a consumer, how do you know if a product billed as eco-friendly is the genuine article, or just greenwashing? Join Aron Cramer, CEO of Business for Social Responsibility, and Andrea Thomas of Walmart for an intriguing discussion on “the promise and perils of a move toward so-called sustainable capitalism.”

TUESDAY 7

Panel: Communities doing it for themselves RallyPad, 144 2nd St, SF. www.communitiesforthemselves.eventbrite.com. 6pm, free. Join the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Social Enterprise Alliance for “Communities Doing it for Themselves,” a look at how UK community activists are utilizing “creative finance” to invest in local communities. Hear from panelists Jim Brown, of Community Shares; John Avalos, SF District 11 Supervisor; Charlie Sciammas of PODER and others for an exploration of how these strategies could be used by US social activists and entrepreneurs.

SFIFF + Hollywood = your weekend movie plans

Sue Vaughan
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SFIFF + Hollywood = your weekend movie plans

The San Francisco International Film Festival kicked off its 56th year last night; it continues through May 9 at venues around San Francisco and Berkeley. Read my take on standout docs here; Dennis Harvey’s appreciation of Finnish cinema here; and short takes by both of us (plus Kimberly Chun) here.

Meanwhile, down in Hollywood, Michael Bay’s musclebound latest opens today, along with a wedding comedy starring Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, and always-the-bride Amanda Seyfried. Reviews of both below, along with François Ozon’s new film, a martial-arts slo-mo-stravaganza, and, yes, even more.

Arthur Newman Colin Firth and Emily Blunt star in this tale of lost souls who find happiness after meeting on a road trip. (1:41)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTGvnMQe9a4

The Big Wedding The wedding film has impacted our concepts of matrimony, fashion, and marital happiness more than all the textbooks in the world have affected our national testing average; but it’s with that margin of mediocrity I report from the theater trenches of The Big Wedding. With this, the wedding movie again peters to a crawl. Susan Sarandon (an actress I love with a loyalty beyond sense) is Bebe, the stepmother/caterer swept under the rug by the selfishness of her live in lover Don (De Niro), his ex-wife/baby momma Elle (Diane Keaton) and their racist wackjob future in-laws. When Don and Elle faced the end of their marriage, they tried to rekindle with a Columbian orphan. Cue Ben Barnes in brownface. Alejandro is set to wed Amanda Seyfried and when his mother ascends from Columbia for the wedding, he decides Don and Elle have to act like their marriage never ended … which makes Bebe a mistress. Surprise! A decade of caring selflessly for your lover’s kids has won you a super shitty wedding you still have to cater! To give you a sense of the conflict management on display, Bebe — the film’s graceful savior — drops a drink on Don before fleeing the scene in her Alfa Romeo; she’s the one character not determined to act out her more selfish urges in the style of an MTV reality show. Despite some less imaginative conflicts and degrading “solutions,” this blended family still speaks some truth about the endearing embarrassment of the happy family. (1:29) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)

In the House In François Ozon’s first feature since the whimsical 2010 Potiche, he returns somewhat to the playful suspense intrigue of 2003’s Swimming Pool, albeit with a very different tone and context. Fabrice Luchini plays a high school French literature teacher disillusioned by his students’ ever-shrinking articulacy. But he is intrigued by one boy’s surprisingly rich description of his stealth invasion into a classmate’s envied “perfect” family — with lusty interest directed at the “middle class curves” of the mother (Emmanuelle Seigner). As the boy Claude’s writings continue in their possibly fictive, possibly stalker-ish provocations, his teacher grows increasingly unsure whether he’s dealing with a precocious bourgeoise satirist or a literate budding sociopath — and ambivalent about his (and spouse Kristin Scott Thomas’ stressed gallery-curator’s) growing addiction to these artfully lurid possible exposé s of people he knows. And it escalates from there. Ozon is an expert filmmaker in nimble if not absolute peak form here, no doubt considerably helped by Juan Mayorga’s source play. It’s a smart mainstream entertainment that, had it been a Hollywood feature, would doubtless be proclaimed brilliant for its clever tricks and turns. (1:45) (Dennis Harvey)

Mud The latest from Jeff Nichols (2011’s Take Shelter) stars Matthew McConaughey as an escaped con who befriends two Arkansas boys while he’s on the run. (2:15)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeDYibIzS8E

Pain & Gain In mid-1995 members of what became known as the “Sun Gym Gang” — played here by Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie — were arrested for a series of crimes including kidnapping, extortion, and murder. Simply wanting to live large, they’d abducted one well-off man (Tony Shalhoub) months earlier, tortured him into signing over all his assets, and left him for dead — yet incredibly the Miami police thought the victim’s story was a tall tale, leaving the perps free until they’d burned through their moolah and sought other victims. Michael Bay’s cartoonish take on a pretty horrific saga repeatedly reminds us that it’s a true story, though the script plays fast and loose with many real-life details. (And strangely it downplays the role steroid abuse presumably played in a lot of very crazy behavior.) In a way, his bombastic style is well-suited to a grotesquely comic thriller about bungling bodybuilder criminals redundantly described here as “dumb stupid fucks.” There have been worse Bay movies, even if that’s like saying “This gas isn’t as toxic as the last one.” But despite the flirtations with satire of fitness culture, motivational gurus and so forth, his sense of humor stays on a loutish plane, complete with fag-bashing, a dwarf gag, and representation of Miami as basically one big siliconed titty bar. Nor can he pull off a turn toward black comedy that needs the superior intelligence of someone like the Coen Brothers or Soderbergh. As usual everything is overamped, the action sequences overblown, the whole thing overlong, and good actors made to overact. You’ve got to give cranky old Ed Harris credit: playing a private detective, he alone here refuses to be bullied into hamming it up. (2:00) (Dennis Harvey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXdIlx29W2s

Simon Killer Antonio Campos — producer of 2011’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and director of 2008’s Afterschool — helms this dread-filled, urban-noir tale of the ultimate ugly American abroad. Smarting from a recent breakup, Simon (Brady Corbet) roams Paris’ seedier streets, composing letters to his ex in his head while blasting ironically cheerful pop songs in his headphones. But this is no twee tale of redemption: Simon is a sociopath, probably also a psychopath, and we soon fear for the willowy prostitute (Mati Diop of 2008’s 35 Shots of Rum) who is taken in by his manipulative charm. Campos has said that Simon is inspired by convicted murderer and Natalee Holloway suspect Joran van der Sloot, and Corbet’s coolly unnerving performance bears that out. The story, alas, is not nearly as compelling — even without a gold-hearted hooker it’d still hit too many predictable beats. (1:45) (Cheryl Eddy)

Tai Chi Hero Six months ago, Tai Chi Zero — Stephen Fung’s nutty tale of a martial arts savant who journeys to an isolated town to learn a top-secret technique — barreled into local theaters. A stylish kung fu flick with a high degree of WTF-ness, Zero ended on a pretty significant cliffhanger, so here’s the cheeky sequel for those who’ve been wondering what happened to Yang Lu Chan (Yuan Xiaochao) — a sweet fool when he’s not in supernatural Hulk-smash mode — and company. A brief intro gets newbies up to speed before the action starts: Lu Chan and the bossy-yet-comely daughter (Angelababy) of the local grandmaster (Tony Leung Ka Fai) have entered into a marriage of convenience — and there’s something fishy about Lu Chan’s brother-in-law, newly returned from a long exile with his own secretive bride. Meanwhile, the family worries about the dreadful “bronze bell prophecy” while the first film’s Westernized villian plots tasty revenge. In addition to all the high-flying, slo-mo scenes of hand-to-hand combat, highlights include a soundtrack filled with unexpected choices (heavy metal, accordion), a cameo by cult actor Peter Stormare (hamming it up big-time), and an army tricked out with steampunky weapons. (1:40) (Cheryl Eddy)

The Performant: More than words

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Sheetal Gandhi and Ragged Wing Ensemble stretch their forms

If an image is worth a thousand words, how much dialogue does the art of dance encompass, when every flick of the wrist can denote whole unspoken volumes? As dance in the Bay Area moves ever further into hybrid territories, where language and limbs combine to stretch the parameters of storytelling, patrons of more traditional theatrical fare may find familiarity in the broadened scope of this increasingly amalgamated artform.

Sheetal Gandhi’s “Bahu-Beti-Biwi” at ODC is a great example of this heterogeneity, bringing to life a series of characters who speak as much in gesture as with words on an almost ascetically bare stage.

When Gandhi does speak it is often in song, and just as frequently in Marwadi, a dialect of Rajasthani, a language obscure enough that it’s guaranteed to be unfamiliar to a large portion of her audiences. Which means it’s through her nuanced physicality that she connects best, blending traditional dance forms such as Kathak with the modern, inhabiting the skin of each of her creations as easily as she wraps herself in a length of striped fabric which serves sometimes as a sari, sometimes a veil, and sometimes as an evocative hobble.

Ghandi is light on her feet, even when she portrays the hunched figure of a family elder, but many of her characters do bear an internal weight—from the smiling auntie who serves the multitudes with a stretched smile to the veiled woman threatening to throw pepper in the eyes of her father-in-law to blind him, a regretful groom on the other side of an arranged marriage to the young girl being wrapped in a length of golden satin in preparation for her own wedding day. Alone and onstage for the entire piece, Gandhi’s more dramatic shifts of scene are expertly heralded by Tony Shayne’s lighting design, which expands and contracts according to the limits of her characters’ perspectives while the elegant compositions by Joseph Trapanese that frame each portion of her performance are equally atmospheric, mixing electronica and field recorded samples with the distinctive tones of the sitar, the insistent rhythm of the tabla.

Across the Bay Bridge, in a vaulted room dubbed “The Sanctuary,” Ragged Wing Ensemble debuts a new play written and directed by Artistic Director Amy Sass called “Time Sensitive.” Just as dancers such as Sheetal Gandhi are experimenting with theatrical techniques within a dance context, so are collaborative arts ensembles such as Ragged Wing creating works of theatre that incorporate far more than the spoken word as the building blocks of narrative.

In “Time Sensitive,” ensemble members don featherlight robes and enter singing “Da Pacem Cordium” (“Give Peace to Every Heart”) before morphing abruptly into suited, scowling business-persons who scuttle back and forth across the stage chanting “gotta GO GO GO” and position themselves in the manner of a flock of early birds demanding worms. In two of several alternating storylines an old clockmaker and his faithful automaton (Addie Ulrey and Keith C. Davis) travel beneath the cracks of the known world on an existential quest, while an adrenaline-seeking elevator-repair guy (Soren Santos) hurls himself from the top of the city’s tallest building and hopes his parachute (artfully rendered with a bobbing line of umbrellas) doesn’t fail. At two hours plus intermission, punctuated by a series of choppy transitions, the ambitious piece does lose some of its initial ballistic momentum, but none of the curious beauty of its dialogue-defying, sumptuously-devised ritual.

“Time Sensitive”

Through May 18, $25-$40

The Sanctuary

496 38th St, Oakl.

(800) 316-8559

www.raggedwing.org

 

 

Get out your action figures: ‘Robot Chicken’ is coming to town!

Sue Vaughan
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For those of us who grew up in the 1980s, who doesn’t have fond memories of playing with action figures? Whether you were plotting elaborate battles and all-out dirt mound warfare with GI Joe and Star Wars characters, or continuing the adventures of She-Ra and Strawberry Shortcake, those toys were a big part of our childhood.

Today, some lucky — and very talented — people still get to play with those toys, and get paid for it. Breathing life into these inanimate objects, the hit Adult Swim TV show Robot Chicken resurrects classic action figures and projects them into wild scenarios, or the everyday mundane world of real life, making for some side-splittingly hilarious situations.

Marking the end of the special exhibit “Between Frames: The Magic Behind Stop Motion Animation at the Walt Disney Family Museum,” the creative team behind the show is coming to the city this weekend for several special events celebrating their craft. Seth Green, Matthew Senreich, John Harvatine IV, Eric Towner, and Alex Kamer will be on hand Fri/26 for an after-hours party featuring food, drinks, an audience Q&A and screenings of behind the scenes footage, and then on Saturday for a special animation workshop followed by a panel discussion.

“When the Walt Disney Family Museum reached out to us as they were starting to work on the stop motion exhibit,  it was one of those surreal moments — they were talking about what they were looking to do for this exhibit, and mentioned how Gumby was going to be a part of it, and they were going to have pieces from movies like Nightmare Before Christmas, and wanted television shows like Robot Chicken — we had that moment where we were like, ‘Wait, why are you including us?’” laughs Senreich, co-creator, producer and writer for the show.

“So we had to slap ourselves, and go, ‘Well I guess this is going to happen!’ It was very surreal and amazing, and they’ve been so good to us.”

The creative group behind Robot Chicken all first met when most of them worked at Wizard Magazine, a now-defunct publication that covered comic books and toys. Green was a fan of the magazine, and after meeting Senreich they became friends. They came up with the idea for the show “after many years of just geeking out over things. For us, this is what we live for; we were the people going to Comic Con before it turned into the event that it is now, we’re the ones who are still going to the small or cult comic shows. I want to find the random bootleg thing, that’s the stuff I love,” says Senreich.

When the group first started working on Robot Chicken, which premiered in 2005, they had never really worked with stop motion animation themselves, and after a few mostly failing attempts, gathered a team of professionals to help out. The animation technique — where an object is photographed one frame at a time, and gradually moved each time to create the illusion of actual movement — has a long and influential history in filmmaking, but is an incredibly time-consuming and detail-oriented art form.

“You come to appreciate what these animators do every day and the patience that they have, and you realize that they are actors and their performance either makes or breaks the stuff that you write,” says Senreich.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPB4-EW2Fck

Although he can’t give an exact estimate of how much time is spent producing one particular episode of the show, as many multiple skits and shows are being made at once, Senreich says that they currently turn out about 20 episodes in 11 months. “We try to write as many episodes ahead of time as possible — what slows down stop motion is having to take a set off the stage, put a new set up, re-light it, re-configure it to get it ready for the next shot. If we can keep the lighting the same, and we can maintain a set that’s there, it simplifies the process.”

He adds, “If we have say 15 bathroom shots over the course of 20 episodes, we’ll keep the bathroom on the stage as long as we can and shoot all of those bathroom shots in order.”

In this day and age where so much of the work that goes into Hollywood productions is shipped overseas, or done in several places around the country, the Robot Chicken team keeps it all close to home in Southern California. “We have two buildings in Burbank where we’ll do everything from the storyboards to the building of the sets and puppets to the animation, and we have a voice booth. With the exception of our sound mixing, which is done literally down the block — everything is done in-house,” says Senreich.

Coming up with hilarious scenarios and which toys or characters to use in them is all part of the fun of working on the show. “What I like about our group of writers is that it’s a bunch of friends trying to make each other laugh; it’s really just whatever we find funny for the day, or what a topic of conversation has been about, that’s where things start. We like to take these very grandiose worlds and just find the very simple and mundane within them,  I think that’s what makes it relatable — if you can have Thundercats and simplify Lion-O to just being a cat, and being treated as such, where a spray bottle will affect him, there’s something fun about that.”

One of the toy realms that has been featured prominently on Robot Chicken over the years has been Star Wars. The first bit they did revolved around Emperor Palpatine getting a phone call from Darth Vader after the Death Star had been destroyed — and it immediately got the attention of Lucasfilm.

“We did that ‘Emperor’s Phone Call’ sketch, and right after it aired, the phone rang and the caller ID said ‘Lucasfilm,’ I thought, ‘Oh God, we’re going to get sued!’ But it turned out that George Lucas and some other people at the company had seen the show and liked it; they were calling to invite them to come take a tour of Skywalker Ranch. While there, Senreich threw out the idea of doing an entire Robot Chicken special centered around Star Wars, and within three weeks they were up and running.

“Meeting George was an experience; I was tongue-tied, and probably made a fool of myself — but now I’m the guy who can talk to him and go, ‘I don’t like that idea, George.’ It’s really nice to have that kind of relationship — he’s the first person to say back to me, ‘Well I don’t like this idea either,’ and we can have those kinds of creative conversations and we respect each other in that way, and it’s really nice,” says Senreich.

After this weekend’s festivities in San Francisco, Senreich and crew will head back to Los Angeles to start working on season seven of Robot Chicken. They’ll also be announcing several other upcoming projects in the near future. While his plate is full of work at the moment, and his schedule can be hectic at times, Senreich takes a laid-back approach when thinking about it all.

“The thing that we always come back to is that we’re playing with toys! There’s the pressure of deadlines and all of that, but you can’t get away from the fact that if the biggest stress is looking at a Star Wars figure and trying to figure out a way to make it funny, that’s not that bad!”

Robot Chicken and Stoopid Buddy Stoodios events
Fri/26, 7pm; Sat/27, 10am and 2pm, $8-$60
Walt Disney Family Museum
104 Montgomery, SF
(415) 345-6800
www.waltdisney.org

Tribeca Film Festival report: opening night (and beyond)!

Sue Vaughan
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Tribeca Film Festival report: opening night (and beyond)!

Ah, welcome to the land of Law and Order — and the Tribeca Film Festival —as Richard Belzer introduced the event’s opening night movie, Mistaken For Strangers, on April 17.

“As if Bob doesn’t have enough money with his American Express commercials …,” he drawled of festival founder Robert De Niro and its splashy sponsor. He went on to say that De Niro started Tribeca to bring people back to the neighborhood after 9/11, so it follows that this year’s fest is dedicated to those suffering the after-effects of the Boston Marathon bombings.

After a brief monosyllabic appearance by the Bob himself — it’s really not about him despite his presence on key red carpets; he quickly passed the spotlight to cofounder Jane Rosenthal — out came the grateful, guileless-looking Mistaken For Strangers director Tom Berninger, brother to the National vocalist Matt Berninger and the maker of the doc ostensibly about the band but a really about brotherly love, competition, and creation. Looking like a viking Zach Galifianakis and playing like a bumbling, hard-partying, apolitical Michael Moore in the film, Tom Berninger looked like he could not quite believe his incredible luck as he was joined on stage by the suited-up National, as well as his small crew, the latter thanked for editing down and “cleaning up this mess.”

And Mistaken for Strangers is certainly a fun, loving, and loveable mess. National fanboys (and fangirls) will love this sidelong glance into the group and the indie rock life as it stands with its endless tours of Europe, its riders, its moments of tedium and instances of performative ecstasy. But likely more — perhaps future National fans — will get this family yarn about intertwined sibling support and rivalry, spinning off a somewhat genius conceit of brother vs. brother since the combo is composed of two sets of siblings: twins Aaron and Bryce Dessner on guitars and Scott and Bryan Devendorf on bass and drums respectively. The obvious question — what of singer Matt and his missing broheim?

Turns out little bro Tom is one of those rock fans — of metal and not, it seems, the National — more interested in living the life and drinking the brewskis than making the music. So when Matt reaches out to Tom, adrift in their hometown of Cincinnati, to work as a roadie for the outfit, it’s a handout, sure, but also a way for the two to spend time together and bond.

A not-quite-realized moviemaker who’s tried to make his own z-budge scary flicks but never seems to finish much, Tom decides to document, and in the process gently poke fun at, the band (a.k.a. his authority-figures-slash-employers), which turns out to be much more interesting than gathering their deli platters and Toblerone. The National’s aesthetic isn’t quite his cup of tea: they prefer to wrap themselves in slinky black suits like Nick Cave’s pickup band, and the soft-spoken Matt tends to perpetually stroll about with a glass of white wine or bubbly in hand when he isn’t bursting into OTT, albeit elegant, fourth-wall-busting high jinks on stage.

Proud of his sib yet also intimidated by the National’s fame and not a little envious of the photo shoots, the Obama meetings, and the like, Tom is all about having fun — at one point, while he tries to commune with bearded, long-haired drummer Bryan Devendorf via praise: “You’re more metal, and they’re more coffeehouse.” But it’s not a case of us vs. them, Tom vs. Matt, he discovers, but a matter of connecting with family and oneself. In, again, a Michael Moore-ian sense, the sweet-tempered Mistaken for Strangers is as much, if not more so, about the filmmaker and the journey to make the movie than the supposed subject.

After the screening, the audience got a sampling of what the National does so well — well-timed to the movie’s premiere and the May 20 release of their next album, Trouble Will Find Me (4AD) — with a performance, just a quick subway ride uptown, at Highline Ballroom. Opening out of the blue with “O Holy Night,” the band also played new songs such as “Demons” and “Don’t Swallow the Cap,” the latter acknowledged by Matt Berninger as the topic of online criticism: he quipped that fans have renamed the song “Don’t Swallow the Cat.” The new recording’s sound comes off as bigger, more percussive, and vaguely more ’80s-ish than that of 2009’s High Violet.

Serenaded by the now-Brooklyn-based band, chomping mint ice cream pops, and throwing back espresso mousse shots, the packed crowd was clearly starting Tribeca on a high — and I was hard-pressed to imagine a better opening (though after seeing Flex Is Kings, Michael Beach Nichols and Deidre Schoo’s fantastic documentary on Brooklyn street dancers, I wished a few of those flexers found their way on stage, too).

Stay tuned for more of Kimberly Chun’s dispatches from the Tribeca Film Festival.

Stage listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

Talk Radio Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Opens Fri/26, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 15. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs Eric Bogosian’s breakthrough 1987 drama.

BAY AREA

The Dead Girl Avant Garde, 1328 Fourth St, San Rafael; www.altertheater.org. $25. Previews Wed/24, 7:30pm, and Fri/26, 8pm. Opens Sat/27, 8pm. Runs Wed, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 19. AlterTheater performs 90-year-old playwright Ann Brebner’s new family drama.

ONGOING

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm (May 11, show at 8pm). Through May 18. Playwright Lynne Kaufman invites you to take a trip with Richard Alpert, a.k.a. Ram Dass (Warren David Keith), as he recounts times high and low in this thoughtful, funny, and sometimes unexpected biographical rumination on the quest for truth and meaning in a seemingly random life by one of the big wigs of the psychedelic revolution and (with his classic book, Be Here Now) contemporary Eastern-looking spirituality. Directed by Joel Mullennix, the narrative begins with Ram Dass today, in his Hawaiian home and partly paralyzed from a stroke, but Keith (one of the Bay Area’s best stage actors, who is predictably sure and engagingly multilayered in the role) soon shakes off the stiff arm and strained speech and springs to his feet to continue the narrative as the ideal self perhaps only transcendental consciousness and theater allow. Nevertheless, Kaufman’s fun-loving and extroverted Alpert is no saint and no model of perfection, which is the refreshing truth explored in the play, but rather a seeker still, ever imperfect and ever trying for greater perfection or at least the wisdom of acceptance. As the privileged queer child of a wealthy Jewish lawyer and industrialist, Alpert was both insider and outsider from the get-go, and that tension and ambiguity makes for an interesting angle on his life as well as the complexities of his relationships with a homophobic Leary, for instance, and his conservative but ultimately loving father. Perfection aside, the beauty in the subject and the play is the subtle, shrewd cherishing of what remains unfinished. (Avila)

The Bereaved Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed/24-Sat/27, 8pm. Crowded Fire Theater launches its Mainstage season with Thomas Bradshaw’s wicked comedy about “sex, drugs, and the American dream.”

Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Through May 28. Comedian Will Durst performs his brand-new solo show.

The Bus New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $32-45. Wed/24-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2pm. NCTC performs James Lantz’s tale of two young men whose meeting place for their secret relationship is a church bus.

The Expulsion of Malcolm X Southside Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.fortmason.org. $30-42.50. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. Colors of Vision Entertainment and GO Productions present Larry Americ Allen’s drama about the relationship between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad.

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

Ghostbusters: Live On Stage Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. Rhiannastan Productions brings the beloved 1984 comedy to the stage.

How To Make Your Bitterness Work For You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.bitternesstobetterness.com. $15-25. Sun, 2pm. Through May 5. Fred Raker performs his comedy about the self-help industry.

I’m Not OK, Cupid 🙁 Shelton Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 4. Left Coast Theatre Co., a new company formed in 2012 from the gay men’s writing group GuyWriters Playwrights, offers this rocky but sometimes clever evening of seven short gay comedies about love, relationships, getting it on, getting it off, and so forth. The evening begins with Andrew Black’s A Small Fishing Village Wedged Between Estonia and Latvia, set in the Castro, where a gay couple (Chris Maltby and Dene Larson) try to foil a mixed couple of would-be robbers (Laura Espino and Richard Sargent) by injecting some homoerotic tension between their otherwise heterosexual vibe. Directed by ShawnJ West, it’s drolly if inconsistently acted, but never very funny, and followed by three more non-starters: James A. Martin’s Lollipops, Rodney “Rhoda” Taylor’s Goodbye, Cupid, and Black’s verse-bound Arlecchino’s Last Prank. The second half of the bill proves more satisfying overall — Rich Orloff’s Chekhov-inspired That Bitch, directed by Joseph Frank and featuring the able trio of Hayley Saccomano, Laura Espino, and Danielle O’Dea; Joseph Frank’s wacky The Parenthetical Trap, directed by Frank and Saccomano, wherein sibling rivalry (i.e., the amusingly puerile duo of Kyle Glasow and Dawson Montoya) meets dysfunctional family (rounded out by Gabrielle Motarjemi and Frank) reunited in musical harmony; and Alex Dremann’s randy and well-acted Four Dry Tongues, directed by ShawnJ West, in which friends Ginny (Angela Chandra) and Tristan (Michael Erickson) compete for the affection of guest Matt (Robert Rushin) by flirting with his gorgeously haughty lesbian friend Laura (Danielle O’Dea). (Avila)

The Lost Folio: Shakespeare’s Musicals Un-Scripted Theater, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 18. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs a fully-improvised, full-length musical inspired by Shakespeare.

The Lullaby Tree Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, SF; www.secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 4. In the face of the ever more extensive and controversial spread of GMO foods worldwide — not to mention last year’s state battle over Prop 37 — Second Wind premieres founding member and playwright Ian Walker’s half-whimsical, half-hardheaded drama about a boy searching for his mother in the underworld and a small band of lawyers and environmentalists going toe-to-toe with a multinational over the ownership of a mysterious crop of genetically engineered corn. It will eventually become plain that the two stories are linked, but first a ten-year-old boy (Samuel Berston) befriends a somewhat shrunken giant (Davern Wright) in an attempt to find his mother (Evangeline Crittenden) in an enchanted and hostile land of dragons. Elsewhere, Tim (Walker) and law partner Nod (Wright) prepare to do legal battle with a modern-day dragon, in the person of a corporate attorney (Cheryl Smith) for the ominous Mendes Corporation (read: Monsanto). They will argue over the ownership of the corn that has sprung up on the banks of a drowned town, and which may spell environmental disaster for the nature preserve surrounding it. In this fight Tim and Nod are in uneasy, ultimately disastrous alliance with activist Callie (Crittenden), whom Nod distrusts and with whom Tim is hopelessly smitten. The result is a convoluted plot and a fitful production (co-directed by Walker and Misha Hawk-Wyatt) in which a three-pronged story precariously balances the fairy tale, the romance, and the legal battle. It’s the last prong that offers the more interesting if formulaic scenes, in which the politics of GMOs mesh with the swashbuckling machinations of the attorneys. But the less compelling strands converge and take precedence, forcing things down a sentimental and forgettable road. (Avila)

reasons to be pretty San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through May 11. Completing a trilogy of plays about body awareness and self-image (along with The Shape of Things and Fat Pig), Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty begins with a misconstrued remark that quickly gathers enough weight and momentum to tear three sets of relationships apart in the span of a two-hour play. The SF Playhouse production begins with a bang, or rather an awesomely knock-down, blow-out breakup fight between a righteously pissed-off Steph (Lauren English) and her awkwardly passive boyfriend Greg (Craig Marker), who has inadvertently referred to her as “regular” in a conversation with his jerkish buddy Kent (Patrick Russell), which she takes to mean he finds her ugly. English’s Steph is at turns ferocious and fragile, and her comic timing as she eviscerates Greg’s looks in a mall food court zings, while the hyperkinetic Russell elevates the condition of noxiously irredeemable douchebag to an art form. But terrific acting and polished design can only make up so much for a script that feels not only flawed, barely scratching the surface of the whys and wherefores each character has internalized an unrealistic view of the importance of conventional beauty standards, but also already dated, with its circa-2008 pop culture references. Ultimately it gives the impression of being a rerun of a Lifetime television drama that wraps itself up into a too-neat package just in time for the final credits to roll to its admittedly kickass soundtrack (provided by Billie Cox). (Gluckstern)

Sam I Am: A Processional of Short Plays and Prose About Samuel Beckett Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.pustheatre.com. $10-20. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 11. Performers Under Stress remounts and revamps its series of short plays and pieces by Samuel Beckett, this time staging it throughout the basement quarters of Bindlestiff Studio, where audiences are led around an economical maze of performance spaces. Opening weekend consisted of too much text and too little in way of staging ideas, especially with several spoken selections of Beckett prose (which have reportedly since been dropped from the program). The best of what remains (in a program of six short plays total) includes Valerie Fachman’s respectable performance as the disembodied “mouth” of the brilliant Not I; and James Udom and Geo Epsilany’s duet in Rough for Theatre I, in which a wheelchair-bound food-hoarder (a softly eccentric Epsilany) strikes up a doomed friendship with a blind beggar (a solid Udom) amid a colorless and barren landscape. The bucket of Beckett dreary gets less satisfying from there, though director Scott Baker’s wordless performance as the titular Joe in Eh Joe proves poised and the doubled voices in his head (by Melissa Clason and Allison Hunter Blackwell) both haunting and intriguing. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Sheherezade 13 Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $25. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. Wily West Productions presents a short play showcase.

Show Me Yours: Songs of Innocence and Experience Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $27. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. New Musical Theater of San Francisco performs a new musical revue written by Pen and Piano, the company’s resident group of writers and composers.

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through May 18. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Stuck Elevator American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-85. Wed/24-Sat/27, 8pm (also Wed/24 and Sat/27, 2pm); Sun/28, 7pm. As federal immigration reform captures the national spotlight, ACT premieres a dynamic and entertaining new musical by Byron Au Yong (score) and Aaron Jafferis (libretto) that privileges the real-life experience of an undocumented Chinese deliveryman Ming Kuang Chen, trapped for 81 hours in a Bronx elevator in 2005. Slickly directed by Chay Yew, the memories, fears, and fantasies of Guang (a sympathetic and mellifluous Julius Ahn) become the stuff of chamber opera, wherein the chamber is a malfunctioning elevator car in a dilapidated high-rise housing complex. Initially too afraid to call for help (lest his immigration status be discovered), Guang suffers at the thought of the precious dollars he is losing with each hour spent away from work, and distracts himself with thoughts of his wife (Marie-France Arcilla) and son (Raymond J. Lee) back home in China, his mean employer (Joseph Anthony Foronda in comical drag), and his Mexican friend and coworker (Joel Perez). With the undocumented immigrant’s precarious situation become a literal cell, Daniel Ostling’s impressively kinetic, expansive scenic design pivots between grimy naturalism and a multimedia canvas for the protagonist’s unbounded thoughts and imagination. Fantastical routines ensue, sometimes wistful and romantic, sometimes comical and outlandish, throughout a story and score that prove consistently engaging but also somewhat lacking in real suspense. The impressive cast is also a highlight here, and the 80 minutes go by pleasantly enough, even if the larger complexity of the subject — the social, racial, and class dynamics that produce the protagonist’s surreal situation — is itself somewhat confined by the genre of the romantic immigrant narrative. (Avila)

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through June 1. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

The Arsonists Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $35-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 12. There’s a lot of humor to be found in Alistair Beaton’s crackling translation of Max Frisch’s The Arsonists, playing now at the Aurora Theatre, but much of the laughter it elicits is of the nervous variety, as the play’s mostly protagonist, the effete, bourgeois Herr Biedermann (Dan Hiatt) inadvertently signs off on his own destruction when he invites an uncouth arsonist to come and stay in his attic (Michael Ray Wisely). “If we assume everyone is an arsonist, where does that get us?” becomes his standard deflection, as one arsonist becomes two (adding in the unctuous, nihilistic Tim Kniffin), and the empty attic a repository for giant drums of gasoline, a detonator, and fuse wire — arousing the suspicions of a chorus of firefighters (Kevin Clarke, Tristan Cunningham, Michael Uy Kelly), who act as the conscience and guardians of the township. Although on the surface the scenario is patently absurd, the message that passivity in the face of evil is like helping to measure out the fuse wire that will eventually claim your life, is relatively clear. “Not every fire is determined by fate,” point out the firefighters right in the first act. Hiatt, as Biedermann, strikes an admirable balance between loathsome and powerless, while Gwen Loeb shines as his socialite wife, Babette, as does Dina Percia as his agitated housemaid, Anna. (Gluckstern)

Being Earnest Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Wed/24, 7:30pm; Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm (also Sat/27, 2pm); Sun/28, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks performs the world premiere of Paul Gordon’s musical take on Oscar Wilde’s comedy.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage & Shipwreck Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Shipwreck runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 5. Voyage runs Sat/27 and May 4, 3pm. Last year in the Shotgun Players’ production of Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia trilogy (also playing in repertory through May 4), we were introduced to a tight circle of Russian thinkers and dreamers, chafing against the oppressive regime of Nicholas I. In the second part, Shipwrecked, we find them older, perhaps wiser, struggling to keep their revolutionary ideals alive while also juggling familial concerns and personal passions. Focused mainly on Alexander Herzen (Patrick Kelley Jones) and family, Shipwrecked travels from Russia to Germany, France, Italy, and the English Channel, buffeted from all directions by the forces of the uprisings and burgeoning political consciousness of the European proletariat. It’s an unwieldy, sprawling world that Stoppard, and history, have built (made somewhat more so by the Shotgun production’s strangely languid pace during even the most dramatic sequences) but it’s worth making the effort to spend time absorbing the singular world views of Russian émigré Herzen, his impulsively passionate wife Natalie (Caitlyn Louchard), the cantankerous, influential critic Vissarion Belinsky (Nick Medina), professional rabble-rouser Michael Bakunin (Joseph Salazar) and up-and-coming writer Ivan Turgenev (Richard Reinholdt) as they desperately seek to carve out both their personal identities and a greater, cohesive Russian one from the imperfect turmoil of Western philosophy. (Gluckstern)

A Killer Story Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm (pre-show cabaret at 7:15pm). Through May 18. Dan Harder’s film noir-inspired detective tale premieres at the Marsh Berkeley.

The Language Archive Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.symmetrytheatre.com. $20-28. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2pm. A linguist named George (a nerdy but sincere Gabriel Grilli), obsessed with collecting languages on the cusp of extinction, reels when his unhappy wife Mary (a captivatingly distraught but spirited Elena Wright) decides to leave him in Julia Cho’s heart-tugging comedy exploring the language of love and other ineffable things. As Mary, discouraged by George’s inability to voice a reason why she should stay, heads out to who knows where, George and his secretly smitten lab assistant Emma (Danielle Levin) try to interview an older married couple who are among the last speakers of a dying language. But the couple (played winningly, in vaguely Eastern garb, by Stacy Ross and Howard Swain) spends all their time fighting with one another — in English (the language of aggression and the noncommittal, as they at various points explain). In one of the best scenes, Mary meets a despairing older gentleman (Swain again, in one of several excellent supporting turns) on a railroad platform who will change the course of her life as, meanwhile, George copes with grief and the reexamination of his faith in language, including the unabashedly utopian Esperanto, his favorite. Cho’s narrative broaches an intriguing exploration of language’s underlying dialectic of joy and suffering, and the fact that perfect understanding lies finally beyond it. The play has strained aspects in its humor and dialogue, and Symmetry Theatre’s production doesn’t navigate every turn in the story equally well. But director Chloe Bronzan ensures an overall enjoyable and well-acted production (set in the small, intimate playing area at the Berkeley City Club), while making the most of several key scenes that mine the genuine pathos and wonder in the subject matter.

Love Letters Various Marin County venues; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Through Sun/28. Porch Light Theater performs A.R. Gurney’s romantic play at four different Marin venues; check website for addresses and showtimes.

“Pear Slices” Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2pm. Nine original short plays by members of the Pear Playwrights Guild.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Thu/25 and May 23, 2pm; no matinee Sat/27; no show May 24); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2). Through May 26. Mark Wing-Davey directs Berkeley Rep’s take on the Bard.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet LAM Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.linesballet.org. Wed/24-Thu/25, 7:30pm; Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 5pm. $30-65. The company celebrates its 30th anniversary spring season with a collaboration between choreographer Alonzo King and composer Edgar Meyer.

“Dances from the Heart 2” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.helpisontheway.org. Sun/28, 7:30pm. $40-60. Dancers from top Bay Area companies, including ODC Dance and Company C Contemporary Ballet, join forces to raise funds for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation and other AIDS charities.

David Dorfman Dance Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. $25-30. Performing Prophets of Funk, a work inspired by Sly and the Family Stone.

FACT/SF ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.factsf.org. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. $23-28. World premiere of Falling, an evening-length contemporary dance piece.

“Ghetto Klown” Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm. $40-95. John Leguizamo performs his latest autobiographical show.

“Journey of the Shadow” Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfchamberorchestra.org. Fri/26, 8pm. Also Sat/27, First Palo Alto United Methodist Church, 625 Hamilton, Palo Alto; Sun/28, 3pm, First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing, Berk. All performances free. The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra presents the world premiere of musical stories, spoken and sung, with special guests composer-in-residence Dr. Gabriela Lena Franke, and Pulitzer-winning playwright Nilo Cruz.

Kunst-Stoff Dance Company Old Mint, 88 Fifth St, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. Tue/30 and May 1-2, 7pm, 7:40pm, and 8:20pm. Free. Yannis Adoniou and company celebrate 15 years of Kunst-Stoff with the world premiere of Rapport, presented at the historic Old Mint Building.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/27, 8pm. $20. BATS Improv performs an improvised stage play.

Opera Parallele Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.operaparallele.org. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2pm. $40-75. Performing a double bill of Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“The Romane Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/24, 8pm. $10. With Sean Keane, Paco Romane, Kate Willett, Matt Lieb, and more.

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

“Tickled Pink!” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.caferoyale-sf.com. Thu/25, 8pm. Free. Comedy night with Butch Escobar, Ryan Papazian, Dan “Gonzo” Mechanik, and more.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

BAY AREA

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Wed/24-Sat/27, 8pm (also Sat/27, 2pm); Sun/28, 3pm. $30-92. Four programs highlight the company’s annual Cal Performances residency, including two Bay Area premieres.

CubaCaribe Festival Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2 and 7pm. $25. Master artists performing music and dance from the Caribbean Diaspora.

“The Divine Game” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/29, 8pm. $20. A spur to thought, to reading, to listening, to sparring over the meaning and magnitude of art — they’re all there in the brilliantly expansive, acute, and sometimes barbed observations of professor Vladimir Nabokov (a delighting, animated John Mercer), as he expounds on the subject of Russian literature in this simply staged but witty, well-honed dramatic reading from First Person Singular and adapter-director Joe Christiano. Presented as part of Shotgun’s Monday night Cabaret series, The Divine Game, drawing verbatim on Nabokov’s Cornell lectures of the 1950s, is an invitation to a heady walk down several byways in the land of great literary art, and there are few more discerning or inspiring guides whether or not you share in every conclusion about the relative merits and demerits of Chekhov (Joshua Han) or Dostoyevsky (Brian Quackenbush) — both of whom appear onstage alongside their idiosyncratic peers Gogol (Colin Johnson) and Tolstoy (Jess Thomas). There’s a frisson of mental joy in a distillation like, “Chekhov’s books are sad books for humorous people,” or the sweet-talking yet penetrating pronouncement that, “Of all the great characters that a great artist creates, his readers are the best,” and their cumulative impact over the course of 90 minutes offers enough inspiration for several reckless bookstore sprees. (Avila)

Nina Haft and Company Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, 2704 Alcatraz, Berk; ninahaftandcompany.wordpress.com. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 7pm. $20. World premiere of a performance installation of dance, sound, words, and food: To begin with the ending already in sight. *

 

Film listings

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

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 25-May 9 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; and Sundance Kabuki Cinemas 1881 Post, SF. For tickets (most shows $10-15) and complete schedule, visit festival.sffs.org.

OPENING

Arthur Newman Colin Firth and Emily Blunt star in this tale of lost souls who find happiness after meeting on a road trip. (1:41)

The Big Wedding According to the poster, The Big Wedding cake-smashes everything Hollywood loves to play on repeat into a single film: it’s an ensemble comedy, a remake of a foreign film, and features Amanda Seyfried as a bride and Robert De Niro as a rascally patriarch. Plus, Robin Williams plays a priest. (1:29) Presidio.

In the House In François Ozon’s first feature since the whimsical 2010 Potiche, he returns somewhat to the playful suspense intrigue of 2003’s Swimming Pool, albeit with a very different tone and context. Fabrice Luchini plays a high school French literature teacher disillusioned by his students’ ever-shrinking articulacy. But he is intrigued by one boy’s surprisingly rich description of his stealth invasion into a classmate’s envied "perfect" family — with lusty interest directed at the "middle class curves" of the mother (Emmanuelle Seigner). As the boy Claude’s writings continue in their possibly fictive, possibly stalker-ish provocations, his teacher grows increasingly unsure whether he’s dealing with a precocious bourgeoisie satirist or a literate budding sociopath — and ambivalent about his (and spouse Kristin Scott Thomas’ stressed gallery-curator’s) growing addiction to these artfully lurid possible exposé s of people he knows. And it escalates from there. Ozon is an expert filmmaker in nimble if not absolute peak form here, no doubt considerably helped by Juan Mayorga’s source play. It’s a smart mainstream entertainment that, had it been Hollywood feature, would doubtless be proclaimed brilliant for its clever tricks and turns. (1:45) Clay. (Harvey)

Mud The latest from Jeff Nichols (2011’s Take Shelter) stars Matthew McConaughey as an escaped con who befriends two Arkansas boys while he’s on the run. (2:15) California.

Pain & Gain Michael Bay directs this action-comedy about an organized crime ring populated by bodybuilders; the cast includes Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. (2:00) Shattuck.

Simon Killer Antonio Campos — producer of 2011’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and director of 2008’s Afterschool — helms this dread-filled, urban-noir tale of the ultimate ugly American abroad. Smarting from a recent breakup, Simon (Brady Corbet) roams Paris’ seedier streets, composing letters to his ex in his head while blasting ironically cheerful pop songs in his headphones. But this is no twee tale of redemption: Simon is a sociopath, probably also a psychopath, and we soon fear for the willowy prostitute (Mati Diop of 2008’s 35 Shots of Rum) who is taken in by his manipulative charm. Campos has said that Simon is inspired by convicted murderer and Natalee Holloway suspect Joran van der Sloot, and Corbet’s coolly unnerving performance bears that out. The story, alas, is not nearly as compelling — even without a gold-hearted hooker it’d still hit too many predictable beats. (1:45) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Tai Chi Hero Six months ago, Tai Chi Zero — Stephen Fung’s nutty tale of a martial arts savant who journeys to an isolated town to learn a top-secret technique — barreled into local theaters. A stylish kung fu flick with a high degree of WTF-ness, Zero ended on a pretty significant cliffhanger, so here’s the cheeky sequel for those who’ve been wondering what happened to Yang Lu Chan (Yuan Xiaochao) — a sweet fool when he’s not in supernatural Hulk-smash mode — and company. A brief intro gets newbies up to speed before the action starts: Lu Chan and the bossy-yet-comely daughter (Angelababy) of the local grandmaster (Tony Leung Ka Fai) have entered into a marriage of convenience — and there’s something fishy about Lu Chan’s brother-in-law, newly returned from a long exile with his own secretive bride. Meanwhile, the family worries about the dreadful "bronze bell prophecy" while the first film’s Westernized villain plots tasty revenge. In addition to all the high-flying, slo-mo scenes of hand-to-hand combat, highlights include a soundtrack filled with unexpected choices (heavy metal, accordion), a cameo by cult actor Peter Stormare (hamming it up big-time), and an army tricked out with steampunky weapons. (1:40) Metreon. (Eddy)

ONGOING

The Angels’ Share The latest from British filmmaker Ken Loach (2006’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley) and frequent screenwriter collaborator Paul Leverty contains a fair amount of humor — though it’s still got plenty of their trademark grit and realism. Offered "one last opportunity" by both a legal system he’s frequently disregarded and his exasperated and heavily pregnant girlfriend, ne’er-do-well Glaswegian Robbie (Paul Brannigan) resolves to straighten out his life. But his troubled past proves a formidable roadblock to a brighter future — until he visits a whiskey distillery with the other misfits he’s been performing his court-ordered community service with, and the group hatches an elaborate heist that could bring hope for Robbie and his growing family … if his gang of "scruffs" can pull it off. Granted, there are some familiar elements here, but this 2012 Cannes jury prize winner (the fest’s de facto third-place award) is more enjoyable than predictable — thanks to some whiskey-tasting nerd-out scenes, likable performances by its cast of mostly newcomers, and lines like "Nobody ever bothers anybody wearing a kilt!" (not necessarily true, as it turns out). Thankfully, English subtitles help with the thick Scottish accents. (1:41) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Blancanieves If you saw the two crappy overblown Hollywood takes on Snow White last year, my condolences. This is probably its best cinematic incarnation ever not made by someone called Walt. Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves transplants the tale to 1920s Spain and told (à la 2011’s The Artist) in the dialogue-free B&W style of that era’s silent cinema. Here, Snow is the daughter of a famous bullfighter (a beautiful performance by Daniel Giménez Cacho) who’s paralyzed physically in the ring, then emotionally by the death of his flamenco star wife (Inma Cuesta) in childbirth. He can’t bring himself to see his daughter until a grandmother’s death brings little Carmencita (the marvelous Sofía Oria) to the isolated ranch he now shares with nurse-turned-second-wife Encarna — Maribel Verdú as a very Jazz Age evil stepmother. Once the girl matures (now played by the ingratiating, slightly androgynous Macarena García), Encarna senses a rival, and to save her life Carmen literally runs away with the circus — at which point the narrative slumps a bit. But only a bit. Where The Artist was essentially a cleverly sustained gimmick elevated by a wonderful central performance, Blancanieves transcends its ingenious retro trappings to offer something both charming and substantiative. Berger doesn’t treat the story template as a joke — he’s fully adapted it to a culture, place, and time, and treats its inherent pathos with great delicacy. (1:44) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Company You Keep Robert Redford directs and stars as a fugitive former member of the Weather Underground, who goes on the run when another member (Susan Sarandon) is arrested and a newspaper reporter (Shia LaBeouf) connects him to a murder 30 years earlier during a Michigan bank robbery. Both the incident and the individuals in The Company You Keep are fictive, but a montage of archival footage at the start of the film is used to place them in the company of real-life radicals and events from the latter days of the 1960s-’70s antiwar movement. (The film’s timeline is a little hard to figure, as the action seems to be present day.) Living under an assumed name, Redford’s Nick Sloan is now a recently widowed public interest lawyer with a nine-year-old daughter, still fighting the good fight from the suburbs of Albany, NY — though some of his movement cohorts would probably argue that point. And as Nick heads cross-country on a hunt for one of them who’s still deep underground, and LaBeouf’s pesky reporter tussles with FBI agents (Terrance Howard and Anna Kendrick) and his besieged editor (Stanley Tucci) — mostly there to pass comment on print journalism’s precipitous decline — there’s plenty of contentious talk, none of it particularly trenchant or involving. Redford packs his earnest, well-intentioned film with stars delineating a constellation of attitudes about revolution, justice, and violent radical action — Julie Christie as an unrepentant radical and Nick’s former lover, Nick Nolte and Richard Jenkins as former movement members, Brendan Gleeson as a Michigan police detective involved in the original investigation, Chris Cooper as Nick’s estranged and disapproving younger brother. But their scrutiny, and the film’s, feels blurry and rote, while the plot’s one major twist seems random and is clumsily exposed. (2:05) Albany, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Croods (1:38) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Disconnect (1:55) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Evil Dead "Sacrilege!" you surely thought when hearing that Sam Raimi’s immortal 1983 classic was being remade. But as far as remakes go, this one from Uruguayan writer-director Fede Alvarez (who’d previously only made some acclaimed genre shorts) is pretty decent. Four youths gather at a former family cabin destination because a fifth (Jane Levy) has staged her own intervention — after a near-fatal OD, she needs her friends to help her go cold turkey. But as a prologue has already informed us, there is a history of witchcraft and demonic possession in this place. The discovery of something very nasty (and smelly) in the cellar, along with a book of demonic incantations that Lou Taylor Pucci is stupid enough to read aloud from, leads to … well, you know. The all-hell that breaks loose here is more sadistically squirm-inducing than the humorously over-the-top gore in Raimi’s original duo (elements of the sublime ’87 Evil Dead II are also deployed here), and the characters are taken much more seriously — without, however, becoming more interesting. Despite a number of déjà vu kamikaze tracking shots through the Michigan forest (though most of the film was actually shot in New Zealand), Raimi’s giddy high energy and black comedy are replaced here by a more earnest if admittedly mostly effective approach, with plenty of decent shocks. No one could replace Bruce Campbell, and perhaps it was wise not to even try. So: pretty good, gory, expertly crafted, very R-rated horror fun, even with too many "It’s not over yet!" false endings. But no one will be playing this version over and over and over again as they (and I) still do the ’80s films. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

42 Broad and morally cautious, 42 is nonetheless an honorable addition to the small cannon of films about the late, great baseball player Jackie Robinson. When Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) declares that he wants a black player in the white major leagues because "The only real color is green!", it’s a cynical explanation that most people buy, and hate him for. It also starts the ball curving for a PR shitstorm. But money is an equal-opportunity leveling device: when Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) tries to use the bathroom at a small-town gas station, he’s denied and tells his manager they should "buy their 99 gallons of gas another place." Naturally the gas attendant concedes, and as 42 progresses, even those who reject Robinson at first turn into men who find out how good they are when they’re tested. Ford, swashbuckling well past his sell-by date, is a fantastic old coot here; his "been there, lived that" prowess makes you proud he once fled the path of a rolling bolder. His power moves here are even greater, but it’s ultimately Robinson’s show, and 42 finds a lot of ways to deliver on facts and still print the legend. (2:08) Four Star, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Vizcarrondo)

From Up on Poppy Hill Hayao (dad, who co-wrote) and Goro (son, who directed) Miyazaki collaborate on this tale of two high-school kids — Umi, who does all the cooking at her grandmother’s boarding house, and Shun, a rabble-rouser who runs the school newspaper — in idyllic seaside Yokohama. Plans for the 1964 Olympics earmark a beloved historic clubhouse for demolition, and the budding couple unites behind the cause. The building offers a symbolic nod to Japanese history, while rehabbing it speaks to hopes for a brighter post-war future. But the past keeps interfering: conflict arises when Shun’s memories are triggered by a photo of Umi’s father, presumed lost at sea in the Korean War. There are no whimsical talking animals in this Studio Ghibli release, which investigates some darker-than-usual themes, though the animation is vivid and sparkling per usual. Hollywood types lending their voices to the English-language version include Jamie Lee Curtis, Christina Hendricks, Ron Howard, and Gilllian Anderson. (1:31) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

GI Joe: Retaliation The plot exists to justify the action, but any fan of badass-ness will forgive the skimpy storyline for the outlandish badassery in GI Joe: Retaliation. Inspired by action figures and tying loosely to the first flick, Retaliation starts with a game of "secure the defector," followed by "raise the flag," but as soon as the stakes aren’t real, the Joes outright suck. They don’t have "neutral," which is maybe why a mission to rescue and revive the Joes as a force is the most ferocious fight that ever pit metal against plastic. The set pieces are stunning: a mostly silent sequence with Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Jinx (Elodie Yung) on a mountainside will leave the audience gaping in its high speed wake, and a prison break featuring covert explosives is nonstop amazing. You’ll notice an emphasis on chain link fences and puddles (terra nostra for action figures) and set pieces conceived as if by kids who don’t have a concept of basic irrefutable truths like gravity. It’s just that kind of imagination and ardor and limitlessness that makes this Joe incredible, memorable, and a reason to crack out your toys again. (1:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

Ginger and Rosa It’s the 1960s, nuclear war is a real possibility, and nuclear-family war is an absolute certainty, at least in the London house occupied by Ginger (Elle Fanning), her emotionally wounded mother (Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks), and her narcissistic-intellectual father (Alessandro Nivola). In this downbeat coming-of-age tale from Sally Potter (1992’s Orlando), Ginger’s teenage rebellion quickly morphs into angst when her BFF Rosa (Beautiful Creatures‘ Alice Englert) wedges her sexed-up neediness between Ginger’s parents. Hendricks (playing the accordion — just like Joan!) and Annette Bening (as an American activist who encourages Ginger’s political-protest leanings) are strong, but Fanning’s powerhouse performance is the main focus — though even she’s occasionally overshadowed by her artificially scarlet hair. For an interview with writer-director Potter, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:30) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Host (2:01) Metreon.

Jurassic Park 3D "Life finds a way," Jeff Goldblum’s leather-clad mathematician remarks, crystallizing the theme of this 1993 Spielberg classic, which at its core is more about human relationships than genetically manufactured terrors. Of course, it’s got plenty of those, and Jurassic Park doesn’t really need its (admittedly spiffy) 3D upgrade to remain a thoroughly entertaining thriller. The dinosaur effects — particularly the creepy Velociraptors and fan-fave T. rex — still dazzle. Only some early-90s computer references and Laura Dern’s mom jeans mark the film as dated. But a big-screen viewing of what’s become a cable TV staple allows for fresh appreciation of its less-iconic (but no less enjoyable) moments and performances: a pre-megafame Samuel L. Jackson as a weary systems tech; Bob Peck as the park’s skeptical, prodigiously thigh-muscled game warden. Try and forget the tepid sequels — including, dear gawd, 2014’s in-the-works fourth installment. This is all the Jurassic you will ever need. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Lords of Salem (1:41) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

No Long before the Arab Spring, a people’s revolution went down in Chile when a 1988 referendum toppled the country’s dictator, Augusto Pinochet, thanks in part to an ad exec who dared to sell the dream to his countrymen and women — using the relentlessly upbeat, cheesy language of a Pepsi Generation. In No‘s dramatization of this true story, ad man Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal) is approached by the opposition to Pinochet’s regime to help them on their campaign to encourage Chile’s people to vote "no" to eight more years under the brutal strongman. Rene’s well-aware of the horrors of the dictatorship; not only are the disappeared common knowledge, his activist ex (Antonia Zegers) has been beaten and jailed with seeming regularity. Going up against his boss (Alfredo Castro), who’s overseeing the Pinochet campaign, Rene takes the brilliant tact in the opposition’s TV programs of selling hope — sound familiar? — promising "Chile, happiness is coming!" amid corny mimes, dancers, and the like. Director-producer Pablo Larrain turns out to be just as genius, shooting with a grainy U-matic ’80s video camera to match his footage with 1988 archival imagery, including the original TV spots, in this invigorating spiritual kin of both 2012’s Argo and 1997’s Wag the Dog. (1:50) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

Oblivion Spoiler alert: the great alien invasion of 2017 does absolutely zilch to eliminate, or at least ameliorate, the problem of sci-fi movie plot holes. However, puny humans willing to shut down the logic-demanding portions of their brains just might enjoy Oblivion, which is set 60 years after that fateful date and imagines that Earth has been rendered uninhabitable by said invasion. Tom Cruise plays Jack, a repairman who zips down from his sterile housing pod (shared with comely companion Andrea Riseborough) to keep a fleet of drones — dispatched to guard the planet’s remaining resources from alien squatters — in working order. But Something is Not Quite Right; Jack’s been having nostalgia-drenched memories of a bustling, pre-war New York City, and the déjà vu gets worse when a beautiful astronaut (Olga Kurylenko) literally crash-lands into his life. After an inaugural gig helming 2010’s stinky Tron: Legacy, director Joseph Kosinski shows promise, if not perfection, bringing his original tale to the screen. (He does, however, borrow heavily from 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1996’s Independence Day, and 2008’s Wall-E, among others.) Still, Oblivion boasts sleek production design, a certain creative flair, and some surprisingly effective plot twists — though also, alas, an overlong running time. (2:05) Balboa, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Olympus Has Fallen Overstuffed with slo-mo shots of the flag rippling (in breezes likely caused by all the hot air puffing up from the script), this gleefully ham-fisted tribute to America Fuck Yeah estimates the intelligence of its target audience thusly: an establishing shot clearly depicting both the Washington Monument and the US Capitol is tagged "Washington, DC." Wait, how can you tell? This wannabe Die Hard: The White House follows the one-man-army crusade of secret service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the last friendly left standing when the President (Aaron Eckhart) and assorted cabinet members are taken hostage by North Korean terrorists. The plot is to ridiculous to recap beyond that, though I will note that Morgan Freeman (as the Speaker of the House) gets to deliver the line "They’ve just opened the gates of hell!" — the high point in a performance that otherwise requires him to sit at a table and look concerned for two hours. With a few more over-the-top scenes or slightly more adventurous casting, Olympus Has Fallen could’ve ascended to action-camp heights. Alas, it’s mostly just mildly amusing, though all that caked-on patriotism is good for a smattering of heartier guffaws. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

On the Road Walter Salles (2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries) engages Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera to adapt Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic; it’s translated to the screen in a streamlined version, albeit one rife with parties, drugs, jazz, danger, reckless driving, sex, philosophical conversations, soul-searching, and "kicks" galore. Brit Sam Riley (2007’s Control) plays Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise, observing (and scribbling down) his gritty adventures as they unfold. Most of those adventures come courtesy of charismatic, freewheeling Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund of 2010’s Tron: Legacy), who blows in and out of Sal’s life (and a lot of other people’s lives, too, including wives played by Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). Beautifully shot, with careful attention to period detail and reverential treatment of the Beat ethos, the film is an admirable effort but a little too shapeless, maybe simply due to the peripatetic nature of its iconic source material, to be completely satisfying. Among the performances, erstwhile teen dream Stewart is an uninhibited standout. (2:03) Four Star, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Oz: The Great and Powerful Providing a backstory for the man behind the curtain, director Sam Raimi gives us a prequel of sorts to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Herein we follow the adventures of a Depression-era Kansas circus magician named Oscar (James Franco) — Oz to his friends — as he cons, philanders, bickers with his behind-the-scenes assistant Frank (Zach Braff), and eventually sails away in a twister, bound for a Technicolor land of massively proportioned flora, talking fauna, and witches ranging from dazzlingly good to treacherously wicked. From one of them, Theodora (Mila Kunis), he learns that his arrival — in Oz, just to clarify — has set in motion the fulfillment of a prophecy: that a great wizard, also named Oz, will bring about the downfall of a malevolent witch (Rachel Weisz), saving the kingdom and its cheery, goodhearted inhabitants. Unfortunately for this deserving populace, Oz spent his last pre-twister moments with the Baum Bros. Circus (the name a tribute to L. Frank Baum, writer of the Oz children’s books) demonstrating a banged-up moral compass and an undependable streak and proclaiming that he would rather be a great man than a good man. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this theme is revisited ad nauseam as Oz and the oppressively beneficent witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) — whose magic appears to consist mainly of nice soft things like bubbles and fog — stand around debating whether he’s the right man for the task. When the fog clears, though, the view is undeniably pretty. While en route to and from the Emerald City, Oz and his companions — among them a non-evil flying monkey (voiced by Braff) and a rather adorable china doll (Joey King) — wander through a deliriously arresting, Fantasia-esque landscape whose intricate, inventive construction helps distract from the plodding, saccharine rhetoric and unappealing story line. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Place Beyond the Pines Powerful indie drama Blue Valentine (2010) marked director Derek Cianfrance as one worthy of attention, so it’s with no small amount of fanfare that this follow-up arrives. The Place Beyond the Pines‘ high profile is further enhanced by the presence of Bradley Cooper (currently enjoying a career ascension from Sexiest Man Alive to Oscar-nominated Serious Actor), cast opposite Valentine star Ryan Gosling, though they share just one scene. An overlong, occasionally contrived tale of three generations of fathers, father figures, and sons, Pines‘ initial focus is Gosling’s stunt-motorcycle rider, a character that would feel more exciting if it wasn’t so reminiscent of Gosling’s turn in Drive (2011), albeit with a blonde dye job and tattoos that look like they were applied by the same guy who inked James Franco in Spring Breakers. Robbing banks seems a reasonable way to raise cash for his infant son, as well as a way for Pines to draw in another whole set of characters, in the form of a cop (Cooper) who’s also a new father, and who — as the story shifts ahead 15 years — builds a political career off the case. Of course, fate and the convenience of movie scripts dictate that the mens’ sons will meet, the past will haunt the present and fuck up the future, etc. etc. Ultimately, Pines is an ambitious film that suffers from both its sprawl and some predictable choices (did Ray Liotta really need to play yet another dirty cop?) Halfway through the movie I couldn’t help thinking what might’ve happened if Cianfrance had dared to swap the casting of the main roles; Gosling could’ve been a great ambitious cop-turned-powerful prick, and Cooper could’ve done interesting things with the Evel Knievel-goes-Point Break part. Just sayin’. (2:20) California, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

Renoir The gorgeous, sun-dappled French Riviera setting is the high point of this otherwise low-key drama about the temperamental women (Christa Theret) who was the final muse to elderly painter Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), and who encouraged the filmmaking urges in his son, future cinema great Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee (who’s worked with Hou Hsiao-hsein and Wong Kar Wai) lenses Renoir’s leafy, ramshackle estate to maximize its resemblance to the paintings it helped inspire; though her character, Dédée, could kindly be described as "conniving," Theret could not have been better physically cast, with tumbling red curls and pale skin she’s none too shy about showing off. Though the specter of World War I looms in the background, the biggest conflicts in Gilles Bourdos’ film are contained within the household, as Jean frets about his future, Dédée faces the reality of her precarious position in the household (which is staffed by aging models-turned-maids), and Auguste battles ill health by continuing to paint, though he’s in a wheelchair and must have his brushes taped to his hands. Though not much really happens, Renoir is a pleasant, easy-on-the-eyes experience. (1:51) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Room 237 What subtexts, hidden meanings, conspiracy theories, and strange coincidences are hidden within Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror masterpiece The Shining? Former San Franciscan Rodney Ascher’s wonderfully spooky and unconventional doc burrows deep down the rabbit hole with five Shining-obsessed people, who share their ideas in voice-over as images from that film (and others chosen for reasons both obvious and curious) flow together on the screen. Innovative sound design and a throwback electronic soundtrack contribute to Room 237‘s spellbinding vibe. You’ll never watch The Shining the same way again. (1:42) Roxie. (Eddy)

The Sapphires The civil rights injustices suffered by these dream girls may be unique to Aboriginal Australians, but they’ll strike a chord with viewers throughout the world — at right about the same spot stoked by the sweet soul music of Motown. Co-written by Tony Briggs, the son of a singer in a real-life Aboriginal girl group, this unrepentant feel-gooder aims to make the lessons of history go down with the good humor and up-from-the-underdog triumph of films like The Full Monty (1997) — the crucial difference in this fun if flawed comedy-romance is that it tells the story of women of color, finding their voices and discovering, yes, their groove. It’s all in the family for these would-be soul sisters, or rather country cousins, bred on Merle Haggard and folk tunes: there’s the charmless and tough Gail (Deborah Mailman), the soulful single mom Julie (Jessica Mauboy, an Australian Idol runner-up), the flirty Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), and the pale-skinned Kay (Shari Sebbens), the latter passing as white after being forcibly "assimilated" by the government. Their dream is to get off the farm, even if that means entertaining the troops in Vietnam, and the person to help them realize that checkered goal is dissolute piano player Dave (Chris O’Dowd). And O’Dowd is the breakout star to watch here — he adds an loose, erratic energy to an otherwise heavily worked story arc. So when romance sparks for all Sapphires — and the racial tension simmering beneath the sequins rumbles to the surface — the easy pleasures generated by O’Dowd and the music (despite head-scratching inclusions like 1970’s "Run Through the Jungle" in this 1968-set yarn), along with the gently handled lessons in identity politics learned, obliterate any lingering questions left sucking Saigon dust as the narrative plunges forward. They keep you hanging on. (1:38) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center. (Chun)

Scary Movie 5 (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Silence Maybe "fun" is a tasteless way to describe The Silence, which hinges on pederasty and child murder — though in the end this is more an intelligent pulp thriller than serious address of those issues, uneasily as it straddles both at times. In 1986 two men abduct an 11-year-old girl — one the initially excited, then horrified observer to the second’s murderous sexual assault. Twenty-three years later, another young girl disappears in the same place under disturbingly identical circumstances. This event gradually pulls together a large cast of characters, many initial strangers — including the original victim’s mother (Katrin Sass) and the just-retired detective (Burghart Klaubner) who failed to solve that crime; parents (Karoline Eichhorn, Roeland Wiesnekker) of the newly disappeared teen, who experience full-on mental meltdown; a solidly bourgeoise husband and father of two girls (Wotan Wilke Möhring), inordinately distressed by this repeat of history; and the erstwhile friend he hasn’t contacted in decades, an apartment-complex handyman with a secret life (Ulrich Thomsen). Part procedural, part psychological thriller, part small-town-community portrait, director-scenarist (from Jan Costin Wagner’s novel) Baran bo Odar’s The Silence is just juicy and artful enough to get away with occasional stylistic hyperbole. It’s a conflicted movie, albeit handled with such engrossing confidence that you might not notice the credibility gaps. At least until thinking it over later. Which, don’t. (1:59) Four Star. (Harvey)

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

Spring Breakers The idea of enfant terrible emeritus Harmony Korine — 1997’s Gummo, 2007’s Mister Lonely, 2009’s Trash Humpers — directing something so utterly common as a spring break movie is head-scratching enough, even moreso compounded by the casting of teen dreams Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson as bikini-clad girls gone wild. James Franco co-stars as drug dealer Alien, all platinum teeth and cornrows and shitty tattoos, who befriends the lasses after they’re busted by the fun police. "Are you being serious?" Gomez’s character asks Alien, soon after meeting him. "What do you think?" he grins back. Unschooled filmgoers who stumble into the theater to see their favorite starlets might be shocked by Breakers‘ hard-R hijinks. But Korine fans will understand that this neon-lit, Skrillex-scored tale of debauchery and dirty menace is not to be taken at face value. The subject matter, the cast, the Britney Spears songs, the deliberately lurid camerawork — all carefully-constructed elements in a film that takes not-taking-itself-seriously, very seriously indeed. Korine has said he prefers his films to make "perfect nonsense" instead of perfect sense. The sublime Spring Breakers makes perfect nonsense, and it also makes nonsense perfect. (1:34) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

To the Wonder It should be a source of joy that Terrence Malick keeps getting to make large, personal, indulgent, un-commercial movies when almost no one else does. And he is indeed a poet, a visionary — but has he ever had more than passages of brilliance? Are the actors and producers who treat him with awe enabling art, or mostly high-flown pretensions toward the same? To the Wonder does provide some answers to those thorny questions. But they’re not the answers you’ll probably want to hear if you thought 2011’s The Tree of Life was a masterpiece. If, on the other hand, you found it a largely exasperating movie with great sequences, you may be happy to be warned that Wonder is an entirely excruciating movie with pretty photography, in which Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko (or sometimes Affleck and Rachel McAdams) wander around picturesque settings either beaming beatifically at each other or looking "troubled" because "something is missing," as one character puts it in a rare moment of actual dialogue. (Generally we get the usual Malick wall-to-wall whispered voiceover musings like "What is this love that loves us?" delivered by all lead actors in different languages for maximum annoyance.) Just what is missing? Who the hell knows. Apparently it is too vulgar to spell out or even hint at what’s actually going on in these figures’ heads, not when you can instead show them endlessly mooning about as the camera follows them in a lyrical daze. No doubt some will find all this profound; the film certainly acts as though it is. But at some point you have to ask: if the artist can’t express his deep thoughts, just indicate that he’s having them, how do we know he’s a deep thinker at all? (1:53) California, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Trance Where did Danny Boyle drop his noir? Somewhere along the way from Shallow Grave (1994) to Slumdog Millionaire (2008)? Finding the thread he misplaced among the obfuscating reflections of London’s corporate-contempo architecture, Boyle strives to put his own character-centered spin on the genre in this collaboration with Grave and Trainspotting (1996) screenwriter John Hodge, though the final product feels distinctly off, despite its Hitchcockian aspirations toward a sort of modern-day Spellbound (1945). Untrustworthy narrator Simon (James McAvoy) is an auctioneer for a Sotheby’s-like house, tasked with protecting the multimillion-dollar artworks on the block, within reason. Then the splashily elaborate theft of Goya’s Witches’ Flight painting goes down on Simon’s watch, and for his trouble, the complicit staffer is concussed by heist leader Franck (Vincent Cassel). Where did those slippery witches fly to? Simon, mixed up with the thieves due to his gambling debts, cries amnesia — the truth appears to be locked in the opaque layers of his jostled brain, and it’s up to hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) to uncover the Goya’s resting place. Is she trying to help Simon extricate himself from his impossible situation, seduce Franck, or simply help herself? Boyle tries to transmit the mutable mind games on screen, via the lighting, glass, and watery reflections that are supposed to translate as sleek sophistication. But devices like speedy, back-and-forth edits and off-and-on fourth-wall-battering instances as when Simon locks eyes with the audience, read as dated and cheesy as a banking commercial. The seriously miscast actors also fail to sell Trance on various levels — believability, likeability, etc. — as the very unmesmerized viewer falls into a light coma and the movie twirls, flaming, into the ludicrous. (1:44) Opera Plaza, Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Tyler Perry’s Temptation (2:06) Metreon.

Upstream Color A woman, a man, a pig, a worm, Walden — what? If you enter into Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color expecting things like a linear plot, exposition, and character development, you will exit baffled and distressed. Best to understand in advance that these elements are not part of Carruth’s master plan. In fact, based on my own experiences watching the film twice, I’m fairly certain that not really understanding what’s going on in Upstream Color is part of its loopy allure. Remember Carruth’s 2004 Primer? Did you try to puzzle out that film’s array of overlapping and jigsawed timelines, only to give up and concede that the mystery (and sheer bravado) of that film was part of its, uh, loopy allure? Yeah. Same idea, except writ a few dimensions larger, with more locations, zero tech-speak dialogue, and — yes! — a compelling female lead, played by Amy Seimetz, an indie producer and director in her own right. Enjoying (or even making it all the way through) Upstream Color requires patience and a willingness to forgive some of Carruth’s more pretentious noodlings; in the tradition of experimental filmmaking, it’s a work that’s more concerned with evoking emotions than hitting some kind of three-act structure. Most importantly, it manages to be both maddening and moving at the same time. (1:35) Roxie. (Eddy)

Screening is believing

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Screening is believing

cheryl@sfbg.com

SFIFF Most contemporary Americans don’t know much about Uganda — that is, beyond Forest Whitaker’s Oscar-winning performance as Idi Amin in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland. Though that film took some liberties with the truth, it did effectively convey the grotesque terrors of the dictator’s 1970s reign. (Those with deeper curiosities should check out Barbet Schroeder’s 1974 documentary General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait.) But even decades post-Amin, the East African nation has somehow retained its horrific human-rights record. For example: what extremist force was behind the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposed the death penalty as punishment for gayness?

The answer might surprise you, or not. As the gripping, fury-fomenting doc God Loves Uganda reveals, America’s own Christian Right has been exporting hate under the guise of missionary work for some time. Taking advantage of Uganda’s social fragility — by building schools and medical clinics, passing out food, etc. — evangelical mega churches, particularly the Kansas City, Mo.-based, breakfast-invoking International House of Prayer, have converted large swaths of the population to their ultra-conservative beliefs.

Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, an Oscar winner for 2010 short Music by Prudence, follows naive “prayer warriors” as they journey to Uganda for the first time; his apparent all-access relationship with the group shows that they aren’t outwardly evil people — but neither do they comprehend the very real consequences of their actions. His other sources, including two Ugandan clergymen who’ve seen their country change for the worse and an LGBT activist who lives every day in peril, offer a more harrowing perspective. Evocative and disturbing, God Loves Uganda seems likely to earn Williams more Oscar attention.

>>Check out our short reviews of several SFIFF films of interest.

More outrage awaits in Fatal Assistance, Port-au-Prince native Raoul Peck’s searing investigation into the bungling of post-earthquake humanitarian efforts in Haiti. So many good intentions, so many dollars donated, so many token celebrities (Bill Clinton, Sean Penn) involved — and yet millions of Haitians remain homeless, living in “temporary” shelters. Disorganization among the overabundance of well-meaning NGOs that rushed to help is one cause; there’s also the matter of nobody trusting the Haitian government to make its own financial decisions. Peck, a former Minister of Culture, offers a rare insider’s perspective. Though the film’s voice-overs (framed as letters that begin “dear friend”) can get a little treacly, the raw evidence Peck collects of “the disaster of the community not being able to respond to the disaster” is powerful stuff.

There’s more levity sprinkled amid the tragedy (and bureaucratic frustration) contained in Ilian Metev’s Sofia’s Last Ambulance. If nothing else, this doc will make you extremely cautious if you ever find yourself visiting the capital of Bulgaria; its depiction of the city’s medical care is grim at best. An underpaid, harried trio — doctor, nurse, and driver — grapple with dispatchers who don’t pick up and drivers who don’t let ambulances pass, bad directions, outdated equipment, and other unbelievable situations that would be funny if lives weren’t hanging in the balance. Metev never films the patients, instead keeping his focus on the paramedics. Sarcastic nurse Mila Mikhailova is a standout, sweetly calming down an injured child, bluntly advising a drug addict, and joking about her love life with her co-workers. Only during rare moments of downtime does her exhaustion emerge.

>>Dennis Harvey on SFIFF’s Finnish angle.

More lives in chaos — albeit slightly more existentially — are depicted in A River Changes Course, which picked up a Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Cambodian American filmmaker Kalyanee Mam followed a trio of rural Cambodian families over several years, eventually crafting a vividly-shot, meditative look at lives being forced to modernize. Talk about frustrating: farmers grapple with a new worry — debt — so the eldest daughter heads to Phnom Penh to work in a factory. But the paltry wages she earns aren’t enough to offset the money they will have to spend on food, since they can’t farm enough to eat without her around to help. Elsewhere, a teenage boy who figured he’d grow up to be a fisherman takes a backbreaking planting job when the fish grow scarce; he confesses to Mam that he’s long since given up any dreams of getting an education. “Progress” has rarely felt so bleak.

Adding a much-needed dose of quirk to all of the above is Kaspar Astrup Schröder’s Rent a Family Inc., about Ryuichi, a Tokyo man whose business name translates to “I want to cheer you up.” He’s a professional stand-in, offering himself or any of his rotating cast of staffers to pretend to be friends or relatives in situations, including weddings, where the real thing is either not available or won’t suffice.

That premise alone would make for an intriguing doc — though there’s a disclaimer that certain scenes with clients are “reconstructed” — but Ryuichi’s career choice feels even more surreal once it’s revealed how dysfunctional his own family is; among a wife and two kids, he gets along best with the family Chihuahua. Though Schröder focuses on Ryuichi’s ennui at the expense of delving into, say, what it is about Japanese culture that enables the need for fake family members, the guy is undeniably fascinating. “I’m like a handyman, fixing people’s social engagements,” he explains — but he has no clue how to mend his own. *

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

April 25-May 9, most shows $10-15

Various venues

festival.sffs.org

 

Short takes: SFIFF week one

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Short takes: SFIFF week one

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

April 25-May 9, most shows $10-15

Various venues

festival.sffs.org

The Artist and the Model (Fernando Trueba, Spain, 2012) The horror of the blank page, the raw sensuality of marble, and the fresh-meat attraction of a new model — just a few of the starting points for this thoughtful narrative about an elderly sculptor finding and shaping his possibly finest and final muse. Bedraggled and homeless beauty Mercè (Aida Folch) washes up in a small French town in the waning days of World War II and is taken in by a kindly woman (Claudia Cardinale), who seems intent on pleasantly pimping her out as a nude model to her artist husband (Jean Rochefort). As his former model, she knows Mercè has the type of body he likes — and that she’s capable of restoring his powers, in more ways than one, if you know what I mean. Yet this film by Fernando Trueba (1992’s Belle Époque) isn’t that kind of movie, with those kinds of models, especially when Mercè turns out to have more on her mind than mere pleasure. Done up in a lustrous, sunlit black and white that recalls 1957’s Wild Strawberries, The Artist and the Model instead offers a steady, respectful, and loving peek into a process, and unique relationship, with just a touch of poetry. Fri/26, 1pm, and Sun/28, 6:30pm, Kabuki. (Kimberly Chun)

The Daughter (Alexander Kasatkin and Natalia Nazarova, Russia, 2012) Imagine a serial-killer tale as directed by Tarkovsky and you’ll get an idea of this fascinating, ambiguous Russian drama by co-directors Aleksandr Kasatkin and Natalia Nazarova. Someone is murdering teenage girls in what otherwise seems a tranquil village backwater. That’s one reason the almost painfully naïve Inna (Maria Smolnikova) is kept on a fairly tight leash by her gruff, conservative widower father (Oleg Tkachev), who expects her to perform all housekeeper duties and mind a little brother. When brash, borderline-trashy new schoolmate Marta (Yana Osipova) surprisingly decides to make Inna her best friend, she’s both a liberating and dangerous influence. Less interested in narrative clarity than issues of morality, spirituality, and guilt (at one point the killer confesses to a priest whose daughter he murdered — tormenting the cleric who is bound to confidentiality), this often-gorgeous feature is a worthy addition to the long line of somber, meditative Russian art films. Fri/26, 6:15pm, and Sun/28, 1pm, Kabuki; May 6, 9pm, PFA. (Dennis Harvey)

The Kill Team (Dan Krauss, US, 2012) Dan Krauss’ documentary chronicles the shocking case of a US Army unit in Afghanistan whose squad leader, one Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, encouraged his men to kill unarmed, unaccused civilians for fun, then cover it up as alleged self-defense. (He also collected severed fingers for an eventual bone necklace.) When subordinate Adam Winfield was disturbed enough by this to tell his parents (his father a Marine vet), and ponder informing officials, he was threatened with his own lethal “accident.” Once the scandal finally broke, he found himself on military trial for murder along with Gibbs and others. While sometimes a little too slickly made in a narrative-feature kind of way, this is a potent look at the vagaries of military justice, not to mention a military culture that can foster dangerously frustrated adrenaline junkies. As one of Winfield’s fellow accused puts it, Afghanistan was “boring as fuck” because they expected to be “kickin’ ass” when “instead we’re forced to help ’em build a well, or a school, or whatever.” Another shrugs “It was nothing like everyone hyped it up to be … and that is probably partly why, uh, things happened.” Fri/26, 9pm, PFA; May 6, 3:15pm, and May 7, 6pm, Kabuki; May 9, 6pm, New People. (Harvey)

Rosie (Marcel Gisler, Switzerland, 2013) Moms: can’t live with ’em … and can’t live with ’em. Roughly, that’s the predicament of successful gay writer Lorenz (Fabian Kruger) when his hard-drinking independent mater Rosie (Sibylle Brunner) keels over with a heart attack. His heart is with his tough old bird of a mother — unlike his more conventional sister (Judith Hofmann) — though a young, adorable fanboy of a neighbor (Sebastian Ledesma) is intent on competing for his attentions. Director and co-writer Marcel Gisler spares no warmth or care when it comes to filling out the story fully, as when Lorenz discovers that he has more in common with his seemingly inaccessible late father than he ever imagined. While Rosie paints a rosier, slightly more sentimental picture, imagine a warmer and fuzzier yet still renegade Rainer Werner Fassbender nursing a wisecracking, headstrong Emmi post-1974’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Fri/26, 9:30pm, Kabuki; Sun/28, 9pm, PFA; Tue/30, 6pm, Kabuki. (Chun)

You’re Next (Adam Wingard, US, 2011) The hit of the 2011 Toronto Film Festival’s midnight section — and one that’s taking its sweet time getting to theaters — indie horror specialist (2010’s A Horrible Way to Die, 2007’s Pop Skull, 2012’s V/H/S) Adam Wingard’s feature isn’t really much more than a gussied-up slasher. But it’s got vigor, and violence, to spare. An already uncomfortable anniversary reunion for the wealthy Davison clan plus their children’s spouses gets a lot more so when dinner is interrupted by an arrow that sails through a window, right into someone’s flesh. Immediately a full on siege commences, with family members reacting with various degrees of panic, selfishness, and ingenuity, while an unknown number of animal-masked assailants prowl outside (and sometimes inside). Clearly fun for its all-star cast and crew of mumblecore/indie horror staples, yet preferring gallows’ humor to wink-wink camp, it’s a (very) bloody good ride. Sat/27, 11:30am, Kabuki; May 1, 9:45pm, Kabuki. (Harvey)

Thérèse (Claude Miller, France, 2012) Both Emma Bovary and Simone de Beauvoir would undoubtedly relate to this increasingly bored and twisted French woman of privilege stuck in the sticks in the ’20s, as rendered by novelist Francois Mauriac and compellingly translated to the screen by the late director Claude Miller. Forbiddingly cerebral and bookish yet also strangely passive, Thérèse (Audrey Tautou) looks like she has it all from a distance — she’s married to her best friend’s coarse, hunting-obsessed brother (Gilles Lellouche) though envious of her chum’s affair with a handsome and free-thinking Jewish student. Turns out she’s as trapped and close to death as the birds her spouse snares in their forest, and the suffocatingly provincial ways of family she’s married into lead her to undertake a dire course of action. Lellouche adds nuance to his rich lunk, but you can’t tear your eyes from Tautou. Turning her pinched frown right side up and hardening those unblinking button eyes, she plays well against type as a well-heeled, sleepwalking, possibly sociopathic sour grape, effectively conveying the mute unhappiness of a too-well-bred woman born too early and too blinkered to understand that she’s desperate for a new century’s freedoms. Sat/27, 3pm, Kabuki; Mon/29, 6:30pm, New People. (Chun)

Ernest & Celestine (Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, and Benjamin Renner, France/Luxembourg/Belgium, 2012) Belgian animators Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier are best known for the stop-motion shorts series (and priceless 2009 subsequent feature) A Town Called Panic, an anarchic, absurdist, and hilarious creation suitable for all ages. Their latest (co-directed with Benjamin Renner) is … not like that at all. Instead, it’s a sweet, generally guileless children’s cartoon that takes its gentle, watercolor-type visual style from late writer-illustrator Gabrielle Vincent’s same-named books. Celestine (voiced by Pauline Brunner) is an orphaned girl mouse that befriends gruff bear Ernest (the excellent Lambert Wilson), though their improbable kinship invites social disapproval and scrapes with the law. There are some clever satirical touches, but mostly this is a softhearted charmer that will primarily appeal to younger kids. Adults will find it pleasant enough — but don’t expect any Panic-style craziness. Sun/28, 12:30pm, and May 1, 7pm, Kabuki. (Harvey)

Marketa Lazarová (Frantisek Vlácil, Czech Republic, 1966) An extraordinary evocation of medieval life, this 1966 black and white epic — considered by some the greatest Czech film ever made — is being reprised at SFIFF in honor of the festival’s late board chairman and generous benefactor George Gund, for whom it was a personal favorite. The violent struggle between pagan feudalist clans and rising Christian political forces in 13th century Eastern Europe is dramatized in brutal yet poetical form here. You will be very glad you didn’t live back then, or suffer the privations director Frantisek Vlácil and his crew did during an apparently very tough rural, mostly wintertime shoot. But you won’t forget this cinematically dazzling if sometimes opaquely told chronicle based on a classic Czech novel. Sun/28, 12:30pm, PFA; May 3, 8:45pm, New People. (Harvey)

Museum Hours (Jem Cohen, US, 2012) Feature documentaries Benjamin Smoke (2000) and Instrument (2003) are probably Jem Cohen’s best-known works, but this prolific filmmaker — an inspired choice for SFIFF’s Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award, honoring “a filmmaker whose main body of work is outside the realm of narrative feature filmmaking” — has a remarkably diverse resume of shorts, music videos, and at least one previous narrative film (albeit one with experimental elements), 2004’s Chain. Cohen appears in person to discuss his work and present his latest film, Museum Hours, about a guard at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum (“the big old one,” the man calls it) who befriends a Montreal woman visiting her comatose cousin. It’s a deceptively simple story that expands into a deeply felt, gorgeously shot rumination on friendship, loneliness, travel, art history and appreciation, and finding the beauty in the details of everyday life. Sun/28, 5:30pm, Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Patience Stone (Atiq Rahimi, France/Germany/England/Afghanistan, 2012) “You’re the one that’s wounded, yet I’m the one that’s suffering,” complains the good Afghan wife of Patience Stone in this theatrical yet charged adaptation of Atiq Rahimi’s best-selling novel, directed by the Kabul native himself. As The Patience Stone opens, a beautiful, nameless young woman (Golshifteh Farahani) is fighting to not only keep alive her comatose husband, a onetime Jihadist with a bullet lodged in his neck, but also simply survive on her own with little money and two small daughters and a war going off all around her. In a surprising turn, her once-heedless husband becomes her solace — her silent confidante and her so-called patience stone — as she talks about her fears, secrets, memories, and desires, the latter sparked by a meeting with a young soldier. Despite the mostly stagy treatment of the action, mainly isolated to a single room or house (although the guerilla-shot scenes on Kabul streets are rife with a feeling of real jeopardy), The Patience Stone achieves lift-off, thanks to the power of a once-silenced woman’s story and a heart-rending performance by Farahani, once a star and now banned in her native Iran. Mon/29, 6:30pm, and Tues/30, 8:45pm, Kabuki. (Chun)

Peaches Does Herself (Peaches, Germany, 2012) Canadian-born yet the quintessential modern Berlin act — transgressively sexed-up electroclash slash-performance artist — Peaches delivers an expectedly high-concept live show in this nimbly cinematic concert movie. The first 15 minutes or so are absolutely great: raunchy, hilarious, imaginatively staged (completely with an orgiastically inclined dance troupe). But after a while it really begins to bog down in prolonged appearances by elderly burlesque-type standup Dannii Daniels, stilted ones by Amazonian transsexual Sandy Kane, and an attempt at a quasi-romantic-triangle narrative that is meant to be funny and outrageous but just kinda lies there. Diehard fans will be thrilled, but most viewers will hit an exhaustion point long before the film reaches its (admittedly funny) fadeout. Mon/29, 9:45pm, and May 2, 9:15pm, Kabuki. (Harvey) *

The San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 25-May 9 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; and Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post, SF. For tickets (most shows $10-15) and info, visit festival.sffs.org.

Bass and space

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Bass and space

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Watching premieres by artists with track records is almost as satisfying as encountering pieces by those unknown to you. With the first, you wonder what else they have come with; with the second, you look for a voice that might grow to find even greater resonance.

Alonzo King, whose LINES Ballet celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is clearly in that veteran group. We know his approach to dance; by now we even have a sense about the conceptual streams that feed his choreography. We recognize his predilections for small units within a larger context. We know his preferences for a certain type of spatial and temporal fluidity. Yet he still manages us to surprise and excite us.

King’s collaboration with composer-bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, simply called Meyer, was full of unexpected physical turns and touches of narrative that rarely manage to insinuate themselves into King’s other choreography. Most gratifying were splotches of a light spirit, and a playful sense of presence. Not that there weren’t dark moments, but Meyer‘s sense of the complexities of human behavior floated much more to the surface than in many of King’s other works. Meyer is a friendly, welcoming piece that doesn’t play down to the audience. If that is a trend, let’s have more of it.

To see Michael Montgomery again and again tear up the space with such abandon was exhilarating. In the quartet, two couples actually competed with each other; they ended the stalemate by switching partners. In Meyer‘s somewhat enigmatic “Cards” segment, David Harvey — wonderful in a long off-balance moment — shuffled what I thought were letters, throwing them at an initially unperturbed but increasingly agitated Kara Wilkes, and spreading them around the stage to other dancers. I couldn’t help thinking about the damage that the indiscriminate dissemination of information can to do people. Harvey, somewhat obviously, then tried to eat the pieces of paper. Wilkes, who joined the company in 2011, did a star turn in this performance, turning herself inside out and upside down, ending crumpled.

For the pas de deux, Meyer went into the pit to play the piano. It was so refreshing after all those string sounds (Gabriel Cabezas on cello, Robert Moose on violin). Meredith Webster and Harvey, holding hands to support each other and keep the partner away, were wonderfully contentious and complementary. They deserved their ovation.

I believe that Meyer’s score — both new and assembled — and the musicians’ sensitive presence on stage are what made Meyer such a delightful experience. The dancers and the musicians worked with such ease that some of it looked as if had come about on the spur of the moment. Perhaps King decided to step out of the way and offer the performers a jazzy sense of freedom. Refreshingly, sometimes the dancers set a section going, and the musicians stepped into the picture. The large-scale finale, however, dragged on through several line dance formations. They were probably fun to do.

King choreographed the highly dramatic Writing Ground in 2010 for the Ballet de Monte Carlo. It’s a quintet for Webster and four men who manipulated her into becoming a tool that, at times, she acquiesced to but also desperately tried to escape from. At one point, she broke into a silent scream. The consistency with which her body was literally manhandled when it refused to cooperate was disturbing.

The program opened with two even older pieces. The six selections from the 2005 Handel, set to excerpts from the composer’s Concerto Grossi, did not make a satisfying new whole. They looked as if they had been slapped together. However, individually, they offered performance spotlights for dancers in a company that treasures and encourages independent thought.

In his solo, Paul Knoblauch, who joined LINES in 2012, proved himself as a technically assured perfumer with a wide reach and secure sense of space. Courtney Henry led the finale with a whippet’s speed and an almost desperate sense of volume. And all I could think of during the second reprise, the finale from the 1994 Ocean, was how fabulous that work looked with Pharoah Sanders and his extraordinary players in the pit. Couldn’t we please get all of Ocean back — including the musicians? *

ALONZO KING LINES BALLET

Wed/24-Thu/25, 7:30pm; Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 1 and 5pm, $30-65

LAM Research Theater

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts,

700 Howard, SF

www.linesballet.org

 

River phoenix

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River phoenix

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Many who have followed the remarkable career of Campo Santo, the longtime resident theater company at Intersection for the Arts, will recognize the real-life figure inspiring the character of “Luis Jaguar” in Campo Santo’s new production, The River, penned for the company by Richard Montoya of famed Chicano theater trio Culture Clash. Luis Saguar (who died too young in 2009) was a unique and mighty presence on Bay Area stages for years, not least in the many exceptional productions with the company he helped found (with Margo Hall, Sean San José, and Michael Torres) in 1996.

The River is finally about more than Saguar. Montoya’s play — the first to be produced under the umbrella of a four-play initiative of Intersection for the Arts and California Shakespeare Theatre’s Triangle Lab called Califas, exploring California stories — embraces the nameless, heterogeneous, polyglot lives that make up this roiling culture. (Next up in the Califas series, incidentally, is another Montoya play, the local premiere in late May of American Night: The Ballad of Juan José, out at Cal Shakes’ Orinda amphitheater.)

Nevertheless, Saguar is the spirit, “the heart,” animating The River‘s central story of memory and the concessions exacted on life’s course. It’s the tale of a Mexican laborer named Luis (a warm, stoic Brian Rivera) who has died on the American side of the desert border, leaving behind his adored wife, Esme (Anna Maria Luera). His burial site, and corpse, affects the lives of two trespassing E-addled Mission District hipsters — the arty, loquacious, and oh-so-arch queer couple of Javier (Lakin Valdez) and Lance (Christopher Ward White) — like an act of possession, causing them to question many things about themselves and their worldview. Meanwhile, a circle of disparate characters gradually gathers around the couple, further blurring lines of identity: a self-consciously ineffectual Indian named Crow (Michael Torres), a fastidious and grudgingly sympathetic park ranger (an amusingly nerdy Nora el Samahy), and two life-scarred bar flies at a nearby tavern (Donald E. Lacy Jr. and Randall Nakano).

Between them all, a cacophonous bout of patter, argot, revelry, ethnocentric posturing, and micro-political mapping ensues, interrupted by gently romantic, wistful moments between Luis and Esme — who meet on an epistolary and imaginary common ground that describes a river that is part metaphor, part myth, and part real-world physical divide.

Tanya Orellana’s appealing scenic design, with its alluvial pattern-work on the floor and vertical cascade of shale steps, adds a choice set of elements to the intimate performance space at the A.C.T. Costume Shop. Live accompaniment by guitarist Steve Boss (channeling Charlie Gurke’s score in Day of the Dead face paint) and subtle video projections by Joan Osato (cast on the floor and depicting running buffalo and other scenes) add further moody, ghostly dimension to the room.

Montoya’s rapid-fire cultural dog-pile has a flow of its own that, while erratic, contains some wonderful rapids and poignant coves. Still, the story’s mystery never quite manifests the wonder or suspense it should, and the tensions present in the text are imperfectly realized across uneven performances in the production directed by Campo Santo’s Sean San José. As fans of Culture Clash might expect, the play’s often-barbed humor comes well grounded in local culture, including its array of niche and broad stereotypes, and these provide much of the fuel for the show’s limited fire.

There’s a tendency to take the loopy humor in the play’s looping narrative a little too broadly at times, but there’s both laughs and a kind of half-bitter, half-defiant recognition in the satirical zigzags, as when Lance (played with spoiled but knowing charm by White) announces his desire to have a baby “and prenatal Bikram yoga classes,” — much to the horror of his partner, unemployed Salvadoran Cal Arts grad Javier (played with a cutting, randy intensity by Valdez) — only to be gripped a moment later by a bad trip that throws all his assumptions into turmoil: “Everything I learned is wrong!” he freaks incredulously. “I got my PhD in hip-hop culture?”

If the production proves inconsistent in its navigation of The River’s demanding dialogue and snaking emotional shifts, however, the top of the second act briefly turns it all around with the introduction of Donald Lacy’s character, Brother Ballard. Lacy, a veteran of some leading Campo Santo’s productions, beautifully delivers a monologue of days-gone-by with an inspired precision and verve that recall precisely the muscular theatrical vitality, the street-wise insouciant wit and effortless cool of so many Campo Santo shows past. The confluence of present and past are never more acutely felt, and the impact is bracing. 

THE RIVER

Through May 4

Thu-Sun, 8pm, $30

A.C.T. Costume Shop

1117 Market, SF

theriver2013.eventbrite.com

 

TNGHT whips the Mezzanine’s 420 crowd into a frenzy

Tony Robles
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Like a microcosm of our ever-morphing music culture, electronic duo TNGHT stands squarely between the traditions of EDM and hip-hop, reaping the benefits of both musical forms, and generating something new in the process. Comprised of Lunice (from Montreal), and Hudson Mohawke (from Glasgow), the pair stopped by the Mezzanine this past Saturday after a two-weekend Coachella run, bringing their shiny, brassy, bass-loaded grooves to a sold-out crowd of ecstatic 420ers.

On paper, Lunice and Hudson Mohawke seem like natural collaborators. Both musicians specialize in an oversaturated, hypermelodic brand of electronica, often resembling the glossy tones of the Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack, if it were layered atop big, punchy drum loops. However, the pair’s self-titled debut EP as TNGHT is impressive in its lack of melodic drive, relying on huge bass and punishing hip-hop beats to do most of the heavy lifting. Although the lack ear-candy melodies left something to be desired, this groove-based approach resulted in the danciest output of either artist’s career so far: five songs, waiting for a hyped-up audience to whip into a frenzy.

Saturday’s show got off to a rocky start with two sets from DJ Dials and DJ Bogl. While both DJs spun a decent, eclectic selection of tracks (ranging from trap music to Flying Lotus-esque wonkiness), neither of them displayed the showmanship necessary to justify a combined four hours of stage time. Watching someone stand in front of their MacBook is only engaging for so long.

However, when it took the stage at 1am, TNGHT made up for the enthusiasm deficit, and then some. For two guys poking at electronics from behind a desk, their crowd-pleasing skills were extraordinary, with Lunice leaving his workstation every five minutes or so to run to the front of the stage and rev up the audience, crowd-surfing twice before the night was over. His infectious stage presence, combined with the duo’s relentlessly thumping beats, and seizure-inducing, strobe-laden lightshow, made for a vitalic, completely immersive performance.

For a duo with just one EP under its belt, TNGHT churned out a remarkably fluid, hour-long set, alternating between original tracks (“Higher Ground,” “Bugg’n”), a few Hudson Mohawke numbers (most memorably, “Cbat” from 2010’s Satin Panthers EP), and a number of hip-hop songs from the likes of OutKast and Rick Ross, with original productions layered on top. The sequencing of the set was basically perfect, with no dull moments to be found.

The crowd was befitting of TNGHT’s crossover appeal, ranging from snappily dressed urban professionals, to 420 bros, to hip-hop heads, to hipsters resembling the guy on the Zig Zag logo. Everyone seemed equally intent on dancing their ass off, though: a welcome alternative to the stiff, self-conscious audiences that populate all too many shows in this town.

As long as the musical landscape remains in its current state of flux and uncertainty, we should be thankful for projects like TNGHT, bent on exploring the grey area between disparate genres. The fact that Lunice and Hudson Mohawke can contribute so meaningfully to the conversation, while remaining so effortlessly, viscerally likable, is no small achievement.

Bat for Lashes brings an occult celebration to the Regency Ballroom

Tony Robles
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There’s an idea in literary theory that co-opts the philosophical notion of the concrete universal. The value of a poem, character, or story, it says, can be determined by the particular balance of how general and specific an entity it represents.

The remarkable thing about the music on the three albums of Bat For Lashes, the moniker of British musician Natasha Khan, is its melding of opposites. The songs simultaneously exist in the realm of the ancient and the new, the weird and the ordinary, and the grand and the intimate. And the even more remarkable thing is that seeing it embodied on the Regency Ballroom stage in front of an audience didn’t compromise these effects; it heightened them.

Entering a smoky stage set with lanterns in a costume of a shiny red dress and matching cape, Khan began to sing the album opener, “Lilies,” in a quiet but reverberating voice. Live as in the album, it was hard to determine how much of the otherworldly quality of her singing was due to added effects, but her magnetism, a consequence of both the force of her voice and her presence on stage, deemed that question beside the point. 

As the songs built, with drums, a cello, pulsating bass, and synthesizers entering to create a layers of ethereal noise, Bat For Lashes’ captivating movements and controlled singing provided a strong focal point for the sweeping sound. 

She never lost her audience during the journey along a spectrum of styles. In upbeat tunes such as, “Oh Yeah,” in which a surprisingly clubby backbeat motivated hip-heavy movement both onstage and in the crowd, you could picture that with a different singer and less eerie synth sounds, the music could be straight pop. 

As is, though, it wouldn’t be the soundtrack to a dance club, but an occult celebration. The performance, then, resembled theater, and a fourth wall existed between the audience and the remote but captivating spectacle on stage (which did not deter the audience’s dancing). 

On other songs like the gentle ballad, “Laura,” which Khan dedicated to her father, the wall came down. You could hear each intake of breath in a deeply personal song accompanied only by a piano. 

Most songs, though, occupied a space that combined the poles of theatrics and intimacy. “Siren Song,” which began with the singer accompanying herself on the piano and built to an explosive chorus, exemplified the extremes. In the quiet opening, she sang, “Are you my family? / Can I stay with you a while? / Can I stop off in your bed tonight? / I could make you smile.” The prosaic verse spoke from the vulnerability of a single human narrator. 

The chorus, though, which started, “Till the siren come calling, calling,” and included lofty words such as “evil,” “wickedness,” and “sin,” expanded the scope of the song to the sphere of mythology.  Like many of the others, this one spanned the realms of ancient legend and the ordinary everyday. 

In the melding together of such different scales, Bat For Lashes put on a show that was simultaneously entertaining and haunting. In the seven years that Bat For Lashes has been making music, she has developed a richness in her performance that reads like a well-rounded text. In each line of the show, the universality of myth and feeling crystallized into the concrete form of the enchanting performer. That balance is no small achievement.

Selector: April 17-23, 2013

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 17

Night Beats

Seattle’s Night Beats has all of the fixings of a good psych-garage act; the lo-fi recordings, the raspy vocals with punctuated yelps, and the noisily manipulated guitar. But the band, which takes its name from Sam Cooke’s best record, has a direct link to the more soulful breeds of music the title suggests, such as R&B. “Dial 666” is simple, 12-bar blues, “High Noon Blues” borrows sentiment and structure from that genre, and “Puppet on a String” seems to call for some old-fashioned dance moves. With the combination of vigorous rock and sensuous roll, Night Beats’ show at Brick and Mortar promises to be satisfying. (Laura Kerry)

With Cool Ghouls, Primitive Hearts, Big Drag

9pm, $10

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

Bad Religion

Mixing aggressive guitar riffs with politically-savvy lyrics and harmony-laden vocals — which the band refers to as “oozin’ aahs” in its liner notes — Southern California’s Bad Religion has been going strong for more than three decades. It just released latest album, True North on founding member Brett Gurewitz’ iconic independent label Epitaph Records last January. And the punk rock stalwarts continue to be driven by singer-author-professor Greg Graffin’s powerful songwriting, which touches on everything from global politics and religion to more personal experiences and emotions that just about anyone can relate to and share in a sense of powerful catharsis. (Sean McCourt)

With the Bronx, Polar Bear Club

8pm, $27.50–$30

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

The 2 Bears

I don’t need caffeine. My computer just starts playing “Work” by the 2 Bears at 7am, complete with rising organ, a pulsing groove, and motivational chorus: “We’ve got to work harder, for the future, my love we got to work.” It might not even be the best song on Be Strong from the 2 Bears (Hot Chips’s Joe Goddard and the Raf Daddy), as it faces stiff competition from hilarious, cuddly club anthem “Bear Hug” and the uplifting, romantic space dub on “Church.” But, it does the job of getting me moving, and by the time the disco queen vocals kick in I’m likely showered and downstairs having breakfast. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Sleazemore, Richie Panic (Lights Down Low)

10pm, $15 presale

1015 Folsom, SF

www.1015.com


THURSDAY 18

“Touching Art: Tribute to Judith Scott”

Skin, the largest organ, keeps our insides safe from the perils of the outside, but it is also the membrane through which we experience the world. In its tribute to Judith Scott, swissnex will explore this, looking at touch’s role in the creation of art. Scott, who could neither speak nor hear and therefore relied heavily on her sense of touch, made beautiful cocoon structures at Oakland’s Creative Growth Art Center for 20 years. Swissnex, in conjunction with Switzerland’s L’Art Brut, will screen a film about the artist, showcase some of her work, and host a talk by Dr. Sandra Weiss on the connection between touch and emotion. The night promises be a touching intersection of art and science. (Kerry)

6pm, $10

swissnex

730 Montgomery, SF

(415) 912-5901

www.swissnexsanfrancisco.org


FRIDAY 19

An evening with Manlio Argueta

While a hard punishment, exile can also be the place where great works of art are born. “I left with a closed fist and came back with an open hand,” said Rafael Alberti returning to Spain after 38 years of exile. Ostracized in Mexico, Pablo Neruda finished one of his masterpieces Canto General. Exiled in Costa Rica, acclaimed Salvadorean poet Manlio Argueta wrote his most celebrated novel, One Day of Life (Vintage Book, 1983). In line with his mentor, poet Roque Dalton, Argueta vividly writes about the 12-year civil war through a peasant family’s eyes. The book, available in 15 languages, was named one of the best 10 novels in Spanish of the 20th century by NY’s Modern Library. (Fernando Andres Torres)

7pm $10

ANSWER

2969 Mission, SF

(415) 902-4754

www.manlioargueta.com

 

“We Are Winning, Don’t Forget: Short works by Jean-Gabriel Périot”

Jean-Gabriel Périot developed a painstaking approach to making films. By carefully stitching together archival images, both still and moving, he creates political narratives that are poignant despite (or because of) their brevity. As a part of a US tour that begins at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the filmmaker comes to the Bay with nine short films, with subjects ranging from Hiroshima to “politics and tomatoes.” The evening at Artist’s Television Access presents a great opportunity to see these stunning films and the man behind the camera. (Kerry)

8pm, $10

Artist’s Television Access

992 Valenica, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.atasite.org

 

Sheetal Ghandi: Bahu Beti Biwis

Deconstructing cultural artifacts is just about today’s lingua franca. Sometimes you might wish that artists left well enough alone. Yet, at its best it shows creative minds at work that are willing to take the risks inherent in changing lenses. Sheetal Ghandi is one of them. Even though her performance practices are already exceptionally broad —Kathak, modern and West African dance, plus Broadway as well as Cirque du Soleil — she took a lot of imaginative leaps for her solo show Bahu Beti Biwis (Daughter-in-law, daughter, wife), a series of both humorous and poignant portraits of women and the roles traditionally assigned to them. It’s a piece that has been described as empathizing with “Indian women across time and space.” (Rita Felciano)

Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 7pm, $20–$25

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

(415) 863-9834

odctheater.org/buytickets.php


SATURDAY 20

Mishap Psychic Fair

Nothing will make sense on 420 anyway (unless you snagged tickets for Snoop Lion at the Fillmore, in which case: jealous), so you may as well go to the goofiest damn event you can find. Surely the Mishap Psychic Fair is in the running for the honorific — the (is it?) satirical set-up will feature tongue-in-cheek booths where you can align your crystals via rock opera, attune to your inner “sexy anger,” and temper it all with cocktails if you’re not too bleary-eyed from the traditional mode of celebration on this international holiday. Buy tix to the fair in advance and you’ll snag a complimentary photo of your aura, a so-called magic elixir, or henna tattoo. Heal thyself, hippie. (Caitlin Donohue)

Sat/20, 8pm, $10

Geoffrey’s Inner Circle

410 14th St., Oakl.

www.mishapproductions.com

 

The Last Unicorn screening and birthday celebration

And now for something completely magical: Peter S. Beagle, author of beloved 1968 fantasy novel The Last Unicorn (among dozens of other works), turns 74 today, and he’ll journey from his home in Oakland for a pair of birthday- and unicorn-themed San Francisco events. (Hooves up if you ever had a unicorn-themed birthday party! I know I did … maybe more than once.) First is a screening of the 1982 animated film adapted from the book, with voices by Mia Farrow, Jeff Bridges, and Alan Arkin; Beagle will be on hand to answer questions and sign books. Diehards can continue the festivities at the Cartoon Art Museum, which hosts a reading and further signings by the author, plus an auction of some mighty nifty original artwork to benefit the museum and Beagle’s imminent multi-city tour. Costumes are encouraged, obvi. (Cheryl Eddy)

Screening, noon-3pm, $8.50

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

VIP reception, 6-8pm, $25

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

www.cartoonart.org

 

“Bill Frisell presents Hunter S. Thompson’s The Kentucky Derby“

Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell has tackled many an avant-garde project in his 40-plus year career, and his latest foray beckons fans of music, stage, and literature. Bringing life to Hunter S. Thompson’s memorable “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” this weekend, Frisell will be joined by narrator Tim Robbins in a multimedia production featuring set design by the iconic writer’s longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman. Considered the first of Thompson’s pieces to truly reflect his “Gonzo” style of journalism, the story and production will no doubt envelop audience members in an aural and visual way never before experienced. Buy the ticket, take the ride. (McCourt)

Sat/20, 7:30pm; Sun/21, 4 and 7:30pm, $35–$80

SF Jazz Center

201 Franklin, SF

www.sfjazz.org

 

Maria Minerva

Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom. That’s what I’ve found out on Wikipedia. What I’ve found out about Estonian lo-fi electronic chanteuse Maria Minerva is that she’s an art school graduate/critic/glossolalia expert/comedy student. But, all I really know is that her Bless EP on 100% Silk is excellent. “Soulsearchin’,” focuses on the anxiety of options, built around George Carlin’s “Modern Man,” but it’s the laid-back guitar, slightly off-kilter percussion, and circling vocals on “Symbol of My Pleasure” that stay with me. (Prendiville)

With Butterclock (live), Marco De La Vega, and more

9pm, $10 presale

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com


MONDAY 22

Oakland Veg Week

Perhaps you are deluged by the information regarding sustainable eating available today. This is completely understandable — at times, we feel as though we will surely perish under the mountainous weight of fair trade quinoa foisted upon us by Bay Area foodie culture. Luckily, Oakland Veg Week is going on, with its host of events meant to dispel myths about what to eat. Go on a farm field trip, take vegan cheese-making classes (both April 27), attend a talk by Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society on why eating animals is bad for the earth (April 25), snack your way through a delicious grand finale at the Lake Merritt Sailboat House (April 28), or check out the host of other, veg-friendly events this week. (Donohue)

Through April 28

Various Oakland locations

www.oaklandveg.com


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Stage listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Opens Sun/21, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

ONGOING

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm (May 11, show at 8pm). Through May 18. Lynne Kaufman’s play (starring Warren Keith David as the spiritual seeker) moves from Berkeley to San Francisco.

The Bereaved Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Crowded Fire Theater launches its Mainstage season with Thomas Bradshaw’s wicked comedy about “sex, drugs, and the American dream.”

Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Through May 28. Comedian Will Durst performs his brand-new solo show.

The Bus New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $32-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 28. NCTC performs James Lantz’s tale of two young men whose meeting place for their secret relationship is a church bus.

Carnival! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstreetmoon.org. $25-75. Wed/17, 7pm; Thu/18-Fri/19, 8pm; Sat/20, 6pm; Sun/21, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs the Tony Award-winning musical.

The Expulsion of Malcolm X Southside Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.fortmason.org. $30-42.50. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. Colors of Vision Entertainment and GO Productions present Larry Americ Allen’s drama about the relationship between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad.

Ghostbusters: Live On Stage Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Rhiannastan Productions brings the beloved 1984 comedy to the stage.

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

The Happy Ones Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Wed/17-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 2:30pm. An Orange County appliance store owner finds his life turned upside down in Julie Marie Myatt’s drama at Magic Theatre.

How To Make Your Bitterness Work For You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.bitternesstobetterness.com. $15-25. Sun, 2pm. Through May 5. Fred Raker performs his comedy about the self-help industry.

I’m Not OK, Cupid 🙁 Shelton Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 4. Left Coast Theatre Co. presents a new collection of one-act, LGBT-themed comedies about dating and relationships.

The Lost Folio: Shakespeare’s Musicals Un-Scripted Theater, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 18. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs a fully-improvised, full-length musical inspired by Shakespeare.

The Lullaby Tree Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, SF; www.secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 4. In the face of the ever more extensive and controversial spread of GMO foods worldwide — not to mention last year’s state battle over Prop 37 — Second Wind premieres founding member and playwright Ian Walker’s half-whimsical, half-hardheaded drama about a boy searching for his mother in the underworld and a small band of lawyers and environmentalists going toe-to-toe with a multinational over the ownership of a mysterious crop of genetically engineered corn. It will eventually become plain that the two stories are linked, but first a ten-year-old boy (Samuel Berston) befriends a somewhat shrunken giant (Davern Wright) in an attempt to find his mother (Evangeline Crittenden) in an enchanted and hostile land of dragons. Elsewhere, Tim (Walker) and law partner Nod (Wright) prepare to do legal battle with a modern-day dragon, in the person of a corporate attorney (Cheryl Smith) for the ominous Mendes Corporation (read: Monsanto). They will argue over the ownership of the corn that has sprung up on the banks of a drowned town, and which may spell environmental disaster for the nature preserve surrounding it. In this fight Tim and Nod are in uneasy, ultimately disastrous alliance with activist Callie (Crittenden), whom Nod distrusts and with whom Tim is hopelessly smitten. The result is a convoluted plot and a fitful production (co-directed by Walker and Misha Hawk-Wyatt) in which a three-pronged story precariously balances the fairy tale, the romance, and the legal battle. It’s the last prong that offers the more interesting if formulaic scenes, in which the politics of GMOs mesh with the swashbuckling machinations of the attorneys. But the less compelling strands converge and take precedence, forcing things down a sentimental and forgettable road. (Avila)

reasons to be pretty San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through May 11. Completing a trilogy of plays about body awareness and self-image (along with The Shape of Things and Fat Pig), Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty begins with a misconstrued remark that quickly gathers enough weight and momentum to tear three sets of relationships apart in the span of a two-hour play. The SF Playhouse production begins with a bang, or rather an awesomely knock-down, blow-out breakup fight between a righteously pissed-off Steph (Lauren English) and her awkwardly passive boyfriend Greg (Craig Marker), who has inadvertently referred to her as “regular” in a conversation with his jerkish buddy Kent (Patrick Russell), which she takes to mean he finds her ugly. English’s Steph is at turns ferocious and fragile, and her comic timing as she eviscerates Greg’s looks in a mall food court zings, while the hyperkinetic Russell elevates the condition of noxiously irredeemable douchebag to an artform. But terrific acting and polished design can only make up so much for a script that feels not only flawed, barely scratching the surface of the whys and wherefores each character has internalized an unrealistic view of the importance of conventional beauty standards, but also already dated, with its circa-2008 pop culture references. Ultimately it gives the impression of being a rerun of a Lifetime television drama that wraps itself up into a too-neat package just in time for the final credits to roll to its admittedly kickass soundtrack (provided by Billie Cox). (Gluckstern)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Sheherezade 13 Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Wily West Productions presents a short play showcase.

Show Me Yours: Songs of Innocence and Experience Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $27. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 27. New Musical Theater of San Francisco performs a new musical revue written by Pen and Piano, the company’s resident group of writers and composers.

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through May 18. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Stuck Elevator American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-85. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm (no evening performances Sun/21 or April 28). Through April 28. American Conservatory Theater presents the world premiere of Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis’ musical (sung in English with Chinese supertitles) about a Chinese immigrant trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through June 1. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

BAY AREA

The Arsonists Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $35-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 12. There’s a lot of humor to be found in Alistair Beaton’s crackling translation of Max Frisch’s The Arsonists, playing now at the Aurora Theatre, but much of the laughter it elicits is of the nervous variety, as the play’s mostly protagonist, the effete, bourgeois Herr Biedermann (Dan Hiatt) inadvertently signs off on his own destruction when he invites an uncouth arsonist to come and stay in his attic (Michael Ray Wisely). “If we assume everyone is an arsonist, where does that get us?” becomes his standard deflection, as one arsonist becomes two (adding in the unctuous, nihilistic Tim Kniffin), and the empty attic a repository for giant drums of gasoline, a detonator, and fuse wire — arousing the suspicions of a chorus of firefighters (Kevin Clarke, Tristan Cunningham, Michael Uy Kelly), who act as the conscience and guardians of the township. Although on the surface the scenario is patently absurd, the message that passivity in the face of evil is like helping to measure out the fuse wire that will eventually claim your life, is relatively clear. “Not every fire is determined by fate,” point out the firefighters right in the first act. Hiatt, as Biedermann, strikes an admirable balance between loathsome and powerless, while Gwen Loeb shines as his socialite wife, Babette, as does Dina Percia as his agitated housemaid, Anna. (Gluckstern)

Being Earnest Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 28. TheatreWorks performs the world premiere of Paul Gordon’s musical take on Oscar Wilde’s comedy.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage & Shipwreck Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Shipwreck runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 5. Voyage runs Sat/20, April 27, and May 4, 3pm. Last year in the Shotgun Players’ production of Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia trilogy (also playing in repertory through May 4), we were introduced to a tight circle of Russian thinkers and dreamers, chafing against the oppressive regime of Nicholas I. In the second part, Shipwrecked, we find them older, perhaps wiser, struggling to keep their revolutionary ideals alive while also juggling familial concerns and personal passions. Focused mainly on Alexander Herzen (Patrick Kelley Jones) and family, Shipwrecked travels from Russia to Germany, France, Italy, and the English Channel, buffeted from all directions by the forces of the uprisings and burgeoning political consciousness of the European proletariat. It’s an unwieldy, sprawling world that Stoppard, and history, have built (made somewhat more so by the Shotgun production’s strangely languid pace during even the most dramatic sequences) but it’s worth making the effort to spend time absorbing the singular world views of Russian émigré Herzen, his impulsively passionate wife Natalie (Caitlyn Louchard), the cantankerous, influential critic Vissarion Belinsky (Nick Medina), professional rabble-rouser Michael Bakunin (Joseph Salazar) and up-and-coming writer Ivan Turgenev (Richard Reinholdt) as they desperately seek to carve out both their personal identities and a greater, cohesive Russian one from the imperfect turmoil of Western philosophy. (Gluckstern)

Fallaci Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Wed/17 and Sun/21, 7pm (also Sun/21, 2pm); Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm (also Sat/20, 2pm). Berkeley Rep performs Pulitzer-winning journalist Lawrence Wright’s new play about Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci.

A Killer Story Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm (pre-show cabaret at 7:15pm). Through May 18. Dan Harder’s film noir-inspired detective tale premieres at the Marsh Berkeley.

Love Letters Various Marin County venues; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Through April 28. Porch Light Theater performs A.R. Gurney’s romantic play at four different Marin venues; check website for addresses and showtimes.

“Pear Slices” Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 28. Nine original short plays by members of the Pear Playwrights Guild.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Opens Wed/17, 8pm. Runs Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and April 25 and May 23, 2pm; no matinee April 27; no show May 24); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2). Through May 26. Mark Wing-Davey directs Berkeley Rep’s take on the Bard.

The Whipping Man Marin Theatre Center, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Wed/17, 7:30pm; Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm (also Sat/20, 2pm); Sun/21, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs the Bay Area premiere of Matthew Lopez’s Civil War drama.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet LAM Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.linesballet.org. Fri/19 and April 26-27, 8pm; Sat/20, 6pm; Sun/21 and April 28, 5pm; April 24-25, 7:30pm. $30-65. The company celebrates its 30th anniversary spring season with a collaboration between choregrapher Alonzo King and composter Edgar Meyer.

“Another Way Home” and “The Fox and the Beast” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; www.cieloverticalarts.com. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm. $18. Cielo Vertical Arts presents a new aerial dance work with music by Jesse Olsen Bay, followed by a new work by Fog Beast.

“Anywhere But Here” SF Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.goathall.org. Sat/20-Sun/21, 8pm. $15. Goat Hall Productions, San Francisco’s Opera Cabaret Company, presents this show of works by Mozart, Weill, and Menotti.

“The Buddy Club Children’s Shows” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/21, 11am. $8. Comedy magician Phil Ackerly performs.

“Concert to End Bullying” Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; ayayale.tix.com. Sat/20, 8pm. $25-150. Stage and screen star Taye Diggs and the Yale Whiffenpoofs join forces for this show benefitting the New Conservatory Theatre Center’s Youth Aware Program.

“Crosscurrent” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.975howard.com. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm. $15. Original dance theater, improvisation, and live music with dancers Daria Kaufman and Bianca Brzezinski, and composer Richard Warp.

CubaCaribe Festival This week: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri/19, 7pm. $35. Next week: Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl. April 26-27, 8pm; April 28, 2 and 7pm. $25. Master artists performing music and dance from the Caribbean Diaspora.

“Goodbye Taxes, Hello Mary Lou” Brick and Mortar Music Hall, 1710 Mission, SF; www.brickandmortarmusic.com. Fri/19, 9pm. $10. Music by Jugtown Pirates, a performance by Salacious Underground Burlesque, and more.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. $20. BATS Improv performs an improvised stage play.

“The Original Scratch-N-Sniff Variety Show” 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.questforzest.org. Thu/18, 7pm. $10. Variety show with “scratch-n-sniff elements” between acts.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir: Revolt of the Golden Toad Bay Area Tour” Various Bay Area venues; www.revbilly.com. April 22-27. The performance artist and activist visits the Bay Area for book readings from The End of the World, as well as a variety of performances and direct action events.

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

“Sheetal Gandhi: Bahu Beti Biwi” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 7pm. $25-35. The North Indian choreographer and performer presents a work that combines dance, vocalization, and percussive text.

BAY AREA

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. April 23-27, 8pm (also April 27, 2pm); April 28, 3pm. $30-92. Four programs highlight the company’s annual Cal Performances residancy, including two Bay Area premieres.

“The Divine Game” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. April 29, 8pm. $20. A spur to thought, to reading, to listening, to sparring over the meaning and magnitude of art — they’re all there in the brilliantly expansive, acute, and sometimes barbed observations of professor Vladimir Nabokov (a delighting, animated John Mercer), as he expounds on the subject of Russian literature in this simply staged but witty, well-honed dramatic reading from First Person Singular and adapter-director Joe Christiano. Presented as part of Shotgun’s Monday night Cabaret series, The Divine Game, drawing verbatim on Nabokov’s Cornell lectures of the 1950s, is an invitation to a heady walk down several byways in the land of great literary art, and there are few more discerning or inspiring guides whether or not you share in every conclusion about the relative merits and demerits of Chekhov (Joshua Han) or Dostoyevsky (Brian Quackenbush) — both of whom appear onstage alongside their idiosyncratic peers Gogol (Colin Johnson) and Tolstoy (Jess Thomas). There’s a frisson of mental joy in a distillation like, “Chekhov’s books are sad books for humorous people,” or the sweet-talking yet penetrating pronouncement that, “Of all the great characters that a great artist creates, his readers are the best,” and their cumulative impact over the course of 90 minutes offers enough inspiration for several reckless bookstore sprees. (Avila)

“Flamencio from Sevilla to Jerez” La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.eventbrite.com. Sun/21, 7:30pm. $25-40. Spanish flamenco artists Javier Herida and Kina Menez perform.

“Man, Oh Man!” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.oebgmc.org. Sat/20, 7pm; Sun/21, 5:30pm. $15-25. The Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus performs a program of “music written for men to sing,” from chants to a world premiere.

Film listings

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

OPENING

The Angels’ Share The latest from British filmmaker Ken Loach (2006’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley) and frequent screenwriter collaborator Paul Leverty contains a fair amount of humor — though it’s still got plenty of their trademark grit and realism. Offered “one last opportunity” by both a legal system he’s frequently disregarded and his exasperated and heavily pregnant girlfriend, ne’er-do-well Glaswegian Robbie (Paul Brannigan) resolves to straighten out his life. But his troubled past proves a formidable roadblock to a brighter future — until he visits a whiskey distillery with the other misfits he’s been performing his court-ordered community service with, and the group hatches an elaborate heist that could bring hope for Robbie and his growing family … if his gang of “scruffs” can pull it off. Granted, there are some familiar elements here, but this 2012 Cannes jury prize winner (the fest’s de facto third-place award) is more enjoyable than predictable — thanks to some whiskey-tasting nerd-out scenes, likable performances by its cast of mostly newcomers, and lines like “Nobody ever bothers anybody wearing a kilt!” (not necessarily true, as it turns out). Thankfully, English subtitles help with the thick Scottish accents. (1:41) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Blancanieves See “Able Fables.” (1:44) Embarcadero.

Let My People Go! See “Able Fables.” (1:28) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

The Lords of Salem Rob Zombie’s latest gorefest takes on Salem’s OG witches. (1:41)

Oblivion Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman star in this dystopian sci-fi tale set on a ravaged planet Earth, circa 2077. (2:05) Balboa, Marina.

Room 237 See “Looking Over the Overlook.” (1:42) Roxie.

ONGOING

The Call (1:34) Metreon.

The Company You Keep Robert Redford directs and stars as a fugitive former member of the Weather Underground, who goes on the run when another member (Susan Sarandon) is arrested and a newspaper reporter (Shia LaBeouf) connects him to a murder 30 years earlier during a Michigan bank robbery. Both the incident and the individuals in The Company You Keep are fictive, but a montage of archival footage at the start of the film is used to place them in the company of real-life radicals and events from the latter days of the 1960s-’70s antiwar movement. (The film’s timeline is a little hard to figure, as the action seems to be present day.) Living under an assumed name, Redford’s Nick Sloan is now a recently widowed public interest lawyer with a nine-year-old daughter, still fighting the good fight from the suburbs of Albany, NY — though some of his movement cohorts would probably argue that point. And as Nick heads cross-country on a hunt for one of them who’s still deep underground, and LaBeouf’s pesky reporter tussles with FBI agents (Terrance Howard and Anna Kendrick) and his besieged editor (Stanley Tucci) — mostly there to pass comment on print journalism’s precipitous decline — there’s plenty of contentious talk, none of it particularly trenchant or involving. Redford packs his earnest, well-intentioned film with stars delineating a constellation of attitudes about revolution, justice, and violent radical action — Julie Christie as an unrepentant radical and Nick’s former lover, Nick Nolte and Richard Jenkins as former movement members, Brendan Gleeson as a Michigan police detective involved in the original investigation, Chris Cooper as Nick’s estranged and disapproving younger brother. But their scrutiny, and the film’s, feels blurry and rote, while the plot’s one major twist seems random and is clumsily exposed. (2:05) Albany, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Croods (1:38) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Disconnect (1:55) SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

Evil Dead “Sacrilege!” you surely thought when hearing that Sam Raimi’s immortal 1983 classic was being remade. But as far as remakes go, this one from Uruguayan writer-director Fede Alvarez (who’d previously only made some acclaimed genre shorts) is pretty decent. Four youths gather at a former family cabin destination because a fifth (Jane Levy) has staged her own intervention — after a near-fatal OD, she needs her friends to help her go cold turkey. But as a prologue has already informed us, there is a history of witchcraft and demonic possession in this place. The discovery of something very nasty (and smelly) in the cellar, along with a book of demonic incantations that Lou Taylor Pucci is stupid enough to read aloud from, leads to … well, you know. The all-hell that breaks loose here is more sadistically squirm-inducing than the humorously over-the-top gore in Raimi’s original duo (elements of the sublime ’87 Evil Dead II are also deployed here), and the characters are taken much more seriously — without, however, becoming more interesting. Despite a number of déjà vu kamikaze tracking shots through the Michigan forest (though most of the film was actually shot in New Zealand), Raimi’s giddy high energy and black comedy are replaced here by a more earnest if admittedly mostly effective approach, with plenty of decent shocks. No one could replace Bruce Campbell, and perhaps it was wise not to even try. So: pretty good, gory, expertly crafted, very R-rated horror fun, even with too many “It’s not over yet!” false endings. But no one will be playing this version over and over and over again as they (and I) still do the ’80s films. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Harvey)

42 Broad and morally cautious, 42 is nonetheless an honorable addition to the small cannon of films about the late, great baseball player Jackie Robinson. When Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) declares that he wants a black player in the white major leagues because “The only real color is green!”, it’s a cynical explanation that most people buy, and hate him for. It also starts the ball curving for a PR shitstorm. But money is an equal-opportunity leveling device: when Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) tries to use the bathroom at a small-town gas station, he’s denied and tells his manager they should “buy their 99 gallons of gas another place.” Naturally the gas attendant concedes, and as 42 progresses, even those who reject Robinson at first turn into men who find out how good they are when they’re tested. Ford, swashbuckling well past his sell-by date, is a fantastic old coot here; his “been there, lived that” prowess makes you proud he once fled the path of a rolling bolder. His power moves here are even greater, but it’s ultimately Robinson’s show, and 42 finds a lot of ways to deliver on facts and still print the legend. (2:08) Four Star, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Vizcarrondo)

From Up on Poppy Hill Hayao (dad, who co-wrote) and Goro (son, who directed) Miyazaki collaborate on this tale of two high-school kids — Umi, who does all the cooking at her grandmother’s boarding house, and Shun, a rabble-rouser who runs the school newspaper — in idyllic seaside Yokohama. Plans for the 1964 Olympics earmark a beloved historic clubhouse for demolition, and the budding couple unites behind the cause. The building offers a symbolic nod to Japanese history, while rehabbing it speaks to hopes for a brighter post-war future. But the past keeps interfering: conflict arises when Shun’s memories are triggered by a photo of Umi’s father, presumed lost at sea in the Korean War. There are no whimsical talking animals in this Studio Ghibli release, which investigates some darker-than-usual themes, though the animation is vivid and sparkling per usual. Hollywood types lending their voices to the English-language version include Jamie Lee Curtis, Christina Hendricks, Ron Howard, and Gilllian Anderson. (1:31) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

GI Joe: Retaliation The plot exists to justify the action, but any fan of badass-ness will forgive the skimpy storyline for the outlandish badassery in GI Joe: Retaliation. Inspired by action figures and tying loosely to the first flick, Retaliation starts with a game of “secure the defector,” followed by “raise the flag,” but as soon as the stakes aren’t real, the Joes outright suck. They don’t have “neutral,” which is maybe why a mission to rescue and revive the Joes as a force is the most ferocious fight that ever pit metal against plastic. The set pieces are stunning: a mostly silent sequence with Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Jinx (Elodie Yung) on a mountainside will leave the audience gaping in its high speed wake, and a prison break featuring covert explosives is nonstop amazing. You’ll notice an emphasis on chain link fences and puddles (terra nostra for action figures) and set pieces conceived as if by kids who don’t have a concept of basic irrefutable truths like gravity. It’s just that kind of imagination and ardor and limitlessness that makes this Joe incredible, memorable, and a reason to crack out your toys again. (1:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

Ginger and Rosa It’s the 1960s, nuclear war is a real possibility, and nuclear-family war is an absolute certainty, at least in the London house occupied by Ginger (Elle Fanning), her emotionally wounded mother (Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks), and her narcissistic-intellectual father (Alessandro Nivola). In this downbeat coming-of-age tale from Sally Potter (1992’s Orlando), Ginger’s teenage rebellion quickly morphs into angst when her BFF Rosa (Beautiful Creatures‘ Alice Englert) wedges her sexed-up neediness between Ginger’s parents. Hendricks (playing the accordion — just like Joan!) and Annette Bening (as an American activist who encourages Ginger’s political-protest leanings) are strong, but Fanning’s powerhouse performance is the main focus — though even she’s occasionally overshadowed by her artificially scarlet hair. For an interview with writer-director Potter, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision. (1:30) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Host (2:01) Metreon.

Jack the Giant Slayer (1:55) Metreon.

Jurassic Park 3D “Life finds a way,” Jeff Goldblum’s leather-clad mathematician remarks, crystallizing the theme of this 1993 Spielberg classic, which at its core is more about human relationships than genetically manufactured terrors. Of course, it’s got plenty of those, and Jurassic Park doesn’t really need its (admittedly spiffy) 3D upgrade to remain a thoroughly entertaining thriller. The dinosaur effects — particularly the creepy Velociraptors and fan-fave T. rex — still dazzle. Only some early-90s computer references and Laura Dern’s mom jeans mark the film as dated. But a big-screen viewing of what’s become a cable TV staple allows for fresh appreciation of its less-iconic (but no less enjoyable) moments and performances: a pre-megafame Samuel L. Jackson as a weary systems tech; Bob Peck as the park’s skeptical, prodigiously thigh-muscled game warden. Try and forget the tepid sequels — including, dear gawd, 2014’s in-the-works fourth installment. This is all the Jurassic you will ever need. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

My Brother the Devil Though its script hits some unsurprising beats, Sally El Hosaini’s drama is buoyed by authentic performances and a strong command of its setting: diverse London ‘hood Hackney, where sons of Egyptian immigrants Rashid (James Floyd) and Mo (Fady Elsayed) stumble toward maturity. After his best friend is killed in a gang fight, older “bruv” Rashid turns away from a life of crime, but dropping his tough-guy façade forces him to explore feelings he’s been desperately trying to deny, especially after he meets photographer Sayyid (Saïd Taghmaoui). The only thing he knows for certain is that he doesn’t want his little brother to start running with the drug-dealing crew he’s lately abandoned. The less-worldly Mo, already dealing with a tidal wave of typical teenage emotions, idolizes his brother — until he finds out Rashid’s secret, and reacts … badly, and the various conflicts careen toward a suspenseful, dread-filled, life-lessons-learned conclusion. Added bonus to this well-crafted film: sleek, vibrant lensing, which earned My Brother the Devil a cinematography prize at Sundance 2012. (1:51) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

No Long before the Arab Spring, a people’s revolution went down in Chile when a 1988 referendum toppled the country’s dictator, Augusto Pinochet, thanks in part to an ad exec who dared to sell the dream to his countrymen and women — using the relentlessly upbeat, cheesy language of a Pepsi Generation. In No‘s dramatization of this true story, ad man Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal) is approached by the opposition to Pinochet’s regime to help them on their campaign to encourage Chile’s people to vote “no” to eight more years under the brutal strongman. Rene’s well-aware of the horrors of the dictatorship; not only are the disappeared common knowledge, his activist ex (Antonia Zegers) has been beaten and jailed with seeming regularity. Going up against his boss (Alfredo Castro), who’s overseeing the Pinochet campaign, Rene takes the brilliant tact in the opposition’s TV programs of selling hope — sound familiar? — promising “Chile, happiness is coming!” amid corny mimes, dancers, and the like. Director-producer Pablo Larrain turns out to be just as genius, shooting with a grainy U-matic ’80s video camera to match his footage with 1988 archival imagery, including the original TV spots, in this invigorating spiritual kin of both 2012’s Argo and 1997’s Wag the Dog. (1:50) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

No Place on Earth “Every cave I enter has a secret,” muses caver Chris Nicola in his clipped New York accent at the start of No Place on Earth. An interest in his family’s Eastern Orthodox roots brought him to the Ukraine soon after the Soviet Union dissolved; while exploring one of the country’s lengthy gypsum caves, he literally stumbled over what he calls “living history:” artifacts (shoes, buttons) that suggested people had been living in the caves in the not-too-distant past. Naturally curious, Nicola investigated further, eventually learning that two families of Ukrainian Jews (including young children) hid in the caves for 18 months during World War II. Using tasteful re-enactments and interviews with surviving members of the families, as well as narration taken from memoirs, director Janet Tobias reconstructs an incredible tale of human resilience and persistence; there are moments of terror, literally hiding behind rocks to escape roaming German soldiers, and moments of joy, as when a holiday snowfall enables precious outdoor playtime. Incredibly, the film ends with now-elderly survivors — one of whom lived just seven miles from Nicola in NYC — returning to “say thank-you to the cave,” as one woman puts it, with awed and grateful grandchildren in tow. (1:24) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

Olympus Has Fallen Overstuffed with slo-mo shots of the flag rippling (in breezes likely caused by all the hot air puffing up from the script), this gleefully ham-fisted tribute to America Fuck Yeah estimates the intelligence of its target audience thusly: an establishing shot clearly depicting both the Washington Monument and the US Capitol is tagged “Washington, DC.” Wait, how can you tell? This wannabe Die Hard: The White House follows the one-man-army crusade of secret service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the last friendly left standing when the President (Aaron Eckhart) and assorted cabinet members are taken hostage by North Korean terrorists. The plot is to ridiculous to recap beyond that, though I will note that Morgan Freeman (as the Speaker of the House) gets to deliver the line “They’ve just opened the gates of hell!” — the high point in a performance that otherwise requires him to sit at a table and look concerned for two hours. With a few more over-the-top scenes or slightly more adventurous casting, Olympus Has Fallen could’ve ascended to action-camp heights. Alas, it’s mostly just mildly amusing, though all that caked-on patriotism is good for a smattering of heartier guffaws. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

On the Road Walter Salles (2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries) engages Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera to adapt Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic; it’s translated to the screen in a streamlined version, albeit one rife with parties, drugs, jazz, danger, reckless driving, sex, philosophical conversations, soul-searching, and “kicks” galore. Brit Sam Riley (2007’s Control) plays Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise, observing (and scribbling down) his gritty adventures as they unfold. Most of those adventures come courtesy of charismatic, freewheeling Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund of 2010’s Tron: Legacy), who blows in and out of Sal’s life (and a lot of other people’s lives, too, including wives played by Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). Beautifully shot, with careful attention to period detail and reverential treatment of the Beat ethos, the film is an admirable effort but a little too shapeless, maybe simply due to the peripatetic nature of its iconic source material, to be completely satisfying. Among the performances, erstwhile teen dream Stewart is an uninhibited standout. (2:03) Four Star, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Oz: The Great and Powerful Providing a backstory for the man behind the curtain, director Sam Raimi gives us a prequel of sorts to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Herein we follow the adventures of a Depression-era Kansas circus magician named Oscar (James Franco) — Oz to his friends — as he cons, philanders, bickers with his behind-the-scenes assistant Frank (Zach Braff), and eventually sails away in a twister, bound for a Technicolor land of massively proportioned flora, talking fauna, and witches ranging from dazzlingly good to treacherously wicked. From one of them, Theodora (Mila Kunis), he learns that his arrival — in Oz, just to clarify — has set in motion the fulfillment of a prophecy: that a great wizard, also named Oz, will bring about the downfall of a malevolent witch (Rachel Weisz), saving the kingdom and its cheery, goodhearted inhabitants. Unfortunately for this deserving populace, Oz spent his last pre-twister moments with the Baum Bros. Circus (the name a tribute to L. Frank Baum, writer of the Oz children’s books) demonstrating a banged-up moral compass and an undependable streak and proclaiming that he would rather be a great man than a good man. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this theme is revisited ad nauseam as Oz and the oppressively beneficent witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) — whose magic appears to consist mainly of nice soft things like bubbles and fog — stand around debating whether he’s the right man for the task. When the fog clears, though, the view is undeniably pretty. While en route to and from the Emerald City, Oz and his companions — among them a non-evil flying monkey (voiced by Braff) and a rather adorable china doll (Joey King) — wander through a deliriously arresting, Fantasia-esque landscape whose intricate, inventive construction helps distract from the plodding, saccharine rhetoric and unappealing story line. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Place Beyond the Pines Powerful indie drama Blue Valentine (2010) marked director Derek Cianfrance as one worthy of attention, so it’s with no small amount of fanfare that this follow-up arrives. The Place Beyond the Pines‘ high profile is further enhanced by the presence of Bradley Cooper (currently enjoying a career ascension from Sexiest Man Alive to Oscar-nominated Serious Actor), cast opposite Valentine star Ryan Gosling, though they share just one scene. An overlong, occasionally contrived tale of three generations of fathers, father figures, and sons, Pines‘ initial focus is Gosling’s stunt-motorcycle rider, a character that would feel more exciting if it wasn’t so reminiscent of Gosling’s turn in Drive (2011), albeit with a blonde dye job and tattoos that look like they were applied by the same guy who inked James Franco in Spring Breakers. Robbing banks seems a reasonable way to raise cash for his infant son, as well as a way for Pines to draw in another whole set of characters, in the form of a cop (Cooper) who’s also a new father, and who — as the story shifts ahead 15 years — builds a political career off the case. Of course, fate and the convenience of movie scripts dictate that the mens’ sons will meet, the past will haunt the present and fuck up the future, etc. etc. Ultimately, Pines is an ambitious film that suffers from both its sprawl and some predictable choices (did Ray Liotta really need to play yet another dirty cop?) Halfway through the movie I couldn’t help thinking what might’ve happened if Cianfrance had dared to swap the casting of the main roles; Gosling could’ve been a great ambitious cop-turned-powerful prick, and Cooper could’ve done interesting things with the Evel Knievel-goes-Point Break part. Just sayin’. (2:20) California, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

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

Renoir The gorgeous, sun-dappled French Riviera setting is the high point of this otherwise low-key drama about the temperamental women (Christa Theret) who was the final muse to elderly painter Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), and who encouraged the filmmaking urges in his son, future cinema great Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Cinematographer Mark Ping Bin Lee (who’s worked with Hou Hsiao-hsein and Wong Kar Wai) lenses Renoir’s leafy, ramshackle estate to maximize its resemblance to the paintings it helped inspire; though her character, Dédée, could kindly be described as “conniving,” Theret could not have been better physically cast, with tumbling red curls and pale skin she’s none too shy about showing off. Though the specter of World War I looms in the background, the biggest conflicts in Gilles Bourdos’ film are contained within the household, as Jean frets about his future, Dédée faces the reality of her precarious position in the household (which is staffed by aging models-turned-maids), and Auguste battles ill health by continuing to paint, though he’s in a wheelchair and must have his brushes taped to his hands. Though not much really happens, Renoir is a pleasant, easy-on-the-eyes experience. (1:51) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Sapphires The civil rights injustices suffered by these dream girls may be unique to Aboriginal Australians, but they’ll strike a chord with viewers throughout the world — at right about the same spot stoked by the sweet soul music of Motown. Co-written by Tony Briggs, the son of a singer in a real-life Aboriginal girl group, this unrepentant feel-gooder aims to make the lessons of history go down with the good humor and up-from-the-underdog triumph of films like The Full Monty (1997) — the crucial difference in this fun if flawed comedy-romance is that it tells the story of women of color, finding their voices and discovering, yes, their groove. It’s all in the family for these would-be soul sisters, or rather country cousins, bred on Merle Haggard and folk tunes: there’s the charmless and tough Gail (Deborah Mailman), the soulful single mom Julie (Jessica Mauboy, an Australian Idol runner-up), the flirty Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), and the pale-skinned Kay (Shari Sebbens), the latter passing as white after being forcibly “assimilated” by the government. Their dream is to get off the farm, even if that means entertaining the troops in Vietnam, and the person to help them realize that checkered goal is dissolute piano player Dave (Chris O’Dowd). And O’Dowd is the breakout star to watch here — he adds an loose, erratic energy to an otherwise heavily worked story arc. So when romance sparks for all Sapphires — and the racial tension simmering beneath the sequins rumbles to the surface — the easy pleasures generated by O’Dowd and the music (despite head-scratching inclusions like 1970’s “Run Through the Jungle” in this 1968-set yarn), along with the gently handled lessons in identity politics learned, obliterate any lingering questions left sucking Saigon dust as the narrative plunges forward. They keep you hanging on. (1:38) Albany, Piedmont, SF Center. (Chun)

Scary Movie 5 (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Silence Maybe “fun” is a tasteless way to describe The Silence, which hinges on pederasty and child murder — though in the end this is more an intelligent pulp thriller than serious address of those issues, uneasily as it straddles both at times. In 1986 two men abduct an 11-year-old girl — one the initially excited, then horrified observer to the second’s murderous sexual assault. Twenty-three years later, another young girl disappears in the same place under disturbingly identical circumstances. This event gradually pulls together a large cast of characters, many initial strangers — including the original victim’s mother (Katrin Sass) and the just-retired detective (Burghart Klaubner) who failed to solve that crime; parents (Karoline Eichhorn, Roeland Wiesnekker) of the newly disappeared teen, who experience full-on mental meltdown; a solidly bourgeoise husband and father of two girls (Wotan Wilke Möhring), inordinately distressed by this repeat of history; and the erstwhile friend he hasn’t contacted in decades, an apartment-complex handyman with a secret life (Ulrich Thomsen). Part procedural, part psychological thriller, part small-town-community portrait, director-scenarist (from Jan Costin Wagner’s novel) Baran bo Odar’s The Silence is just juicy and artful enough to get away with occasional stylistic hyperbole. It’s a conflicted movie, albeit handled with such engrossing confidence that you might not notice the credibility gaps. At least until thinking it over later. Which, don’t. (1:59) Four Star. (Harvey)

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

Spring Breakers The idea of enfant terrible emeritus Harmony Korine — 1997’s Gummo, 2007’s Mister Lonely, 2009’s Trash Humpers — directing something so utterly common as a spring break movie is head-scratching enough, even moreso compounded by the casting of teen dreams Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson as bikini-clad girls gone wild. James Franco co-stars as drug dealer Alien, all platinum teeth and cornrows and shitty tattoos, who befriends the lasses after they’re busted by the fun police. “Are you being serious?” Gomez’s character asks Alien, soon after meeting him. “What do you think?” he grins back. Unschooled filmgoers who stumble into the theater to see their favorite starlets might be shocked by Breakers‘ hard-R hijinks. But Korine fans will understand that this neon-lit, Skrillex-scored tale of debauchery and dirty menace is not to be taken at face value. The subject matter, the cast, the Britney Spears songs, the deliberately lurid camerawork — all carefully-constructed elements in a film that takes not-taking-itself-seriously, very seriously indeed. Korine has said he prefers his films to make “perfect nonsense” instead of perfect sense. The sublime Spring Breakers makes perfect nonsense, and it also makes nonsense perfect. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Eddy)

To the Wonder It should be a source of joy that Terrence Malick keeps getting to make large, personal, indulgent, un-commercial movies when almost no one else does. And he is indeed a poet, a visionary — but has he ever had more than passages of brilliance? Are the actors and producers who treat him with awe enabling art, or mostly high-flown pretensions toward the same? To the Wonder does provide some answers to those thorny questions. But they’re not the answers you’ll probably want to hear if you thought 2011’s The Tree of Life was a masterpiece. If, on the other hand, you found it a largely exasperating movie with great sequences, you may be happy to be warned that Wonder is an entirely excruciating movie with pretty photography, in which Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko (or sometimes Affleck and Rachel McAdams) wander around picturesque settings either beaming beatifically at each other or looking “troubled” because “something is missing,” as one character puts it in a rare moment of actual dialogue. (Generally we get the usual Malick wall-to-wall whispered voiceover musings like “What is this love that loves us?” delivered by all lead actors in different languages for maximum annoyance.) Just what is missing? Who the hell knows. Apparently it is too vulgar to spell out or even hint at what’s actually going on in these figures’ heads, not when you can instead show them endlessly mooning about as the camera follows them in a lyrical daze. No doubt some will find all this profound; the film certainly acts as though it is. But at some point you have to ask: if the artist can’t express his deep thoughts, just indicate that he’s having them, how do we know he’s a deep thinker at all? (1:53) California, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Trance Where did Danny Boyle drop his noir? Somewhere along the way from Shallow Grave (1994) to Slumdog Millionaire (2008)? Finding the thread he misplaced among the obfuscating reflections of London’s corporate-contempo architecture, Boyle strives to put his own character-centered spin on the genre in this collaboration with Grave and Trainspotting (1996) screenwriter John Hodge, though the final product feels distinctly off, despite its Hitchcockian aspirations toward a sort of modern-day Spellbound (1945). Untrustworthy narrator Simon (James McAvoy) is an auctioneer for a Sotheby’s-like house, tasked with protecting the multimillion-dollar artworks on the block, within reason. Then the splashily elaborate theft of Goya’s Witches’ Flight painting goes down on Simon’s watch, and for his trouble, the complicit staffer is concussed by heist leader Franck (Vincent Cassel). Where did those slippery witches fly to? Simon, mixed up with the thieves due to his gambling debts, cries amnesia — the truth appears to be locked in the opaque layers of his jostled brain, and it’s up to hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) to uncover the Goya’s resting place. Is she trying to help Simon extricate himself from his impossible situation, seduce Franck, or simply help herself? Boyle tries to transmit the mutable mind games on screen, via the lighting, glass, and watery reflections that are supposed to translate as sleek sophistication. But devices like speedy, back-and-forth edits and off-and-on fourth-wall-battering instances as when Simon locks eyes with the audience, read as dated and cheesy as a banking commercial. The seriously miscast actors also fail to sell Trance on various levels — believability, likeability, etc. — as the very unmesmerized viewer falls into a light coma and the movie twirls, flaming, into the ludicrous. (1:44) Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Tyler Perry’s Temptation (2:06) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Upstream Color A woman, a man, a pig, a worm, Walden — what? If you enter into Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color expecting things like a linear plot, exposition, and character development, you will exit baffled and distressed. Best to understand in advance that these elements are not part of Carruth’s master plan. In fact, based on my own experiences watching the film twice, I’m fairly certain that not really understanding what’s going on in Upstream Color is part of its loopy allure. Remember Carruth’s 2004 Primer? Did you try to puzzle out that film’s array of overlapping and jigsawed timelines, only to give up and concede that the mystery (and sheer bravado) of that film was part of its, uh, loopy allure? Yeah. Same idea, except writ a few dimensions larger, with more locations, zero tech-speak dialogue, and — yes! — a compelling female lead, played by Amy Seimetz, an indie producer and director in her own right. Enjoying (or even making it all the way through) Upstream Color requires patience and a willingness to forgive some of Carruth’s more pretentious noodlings; in the tradition of experimental filmmaking, it’s a work that’s more concerned with evoking emotions than hitting some kind of three-act structure. Most importantly, it manages to be both maddening and moving at the same time. (1:35) Roxie. (Eddy)

On the Cheap listings

Andrew Lam
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Listings compiled by Cortney Clift and Caitlin Donohue. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 17

My Foreign Cities reading Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. In her heartfelt and much discussed piece from the New York Times’ "Modern Love" series, Elizabeth Scarboro shares her experience being married to a terminally ill husband who wasn’t expected to live past 30. Scarboro will be at Booksmith to share her new memoir Foreign Cities, which delves further into her relationship and subsequent widowhood.

Smack Dab open mic Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF. www.magnetsf.org. Signup 7:30pm, show 8pm, free. The featured reader at this monthly open mic night will be William Benemann, a historian who focuses on the history of gay men in America throughout the early 19th century. The evening is also open to musicians or writers who wish to perform.

Ian Svenonius Book Signing City Lights, 261 Columbus, SF. www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. Underground rock musician Svenonius has recently released Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock N’ Roll Group, a satirical "how-to" guide for aspiring rock stars. Also the author of The Psychic Soviet, Svenonius will be at City Lights tonight to speak and sign copies of his new release.

THURSDAY 18

Poems Under the Dome City Hall, North Light Court, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF. www.poemdome.net. 5:30-8pm, free. Forget dimly lit poetry readings in the corner of the bar, now you can perform your material in a grand manner — under the dome of City Hall. In celebration of National Poetry Month, San Francisco’s poet laureate will read the first ode. Head over early, aspiring bards, to enter the open mic lottery.

FRIDAY 19

Cal Day 2013 UC Berkeley, Sproul Plaza, Berk. www.calday.berkeley.edu. 8am-6pm, free. Whether you’ve always dreamed of going to Berkeley or simply aching to relive your glory days, today is the day. The university hosts 300 free lectures, performances, tours, concerts, and more to showcase the campus and the school’s programs. Chose from activities such as a pre-med information session, a circus exhibit, a make-your-own-antlers project, and much more.

"Goodbye Taxes, Hello Mary Jane" Brick and Mortar, 1710 Mission, SF. www.brickandmortarmusic.com. Doors open at 8pm, show starts at 9pm, $7 advance, $10 door. Relieve yourself from the stress of filing your taxes at this pre-420 event, which includes live music, face and body painting, and dance contests. Underground Burlesque will also be putting on a sultry performance.

SATURDAY 20

Cherry Blossom Festival Japantown, Post between Laguna and Fillmore. www.sfcherryblossom.org. 10am-5pm, free. Also occurring 4/21. Back for its 46th year, the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown celebrates Japanese culture and the diversity of the Japanese American community. The festival will include food booths, cultural performances, martial arts, live bands, and more. The grand parade finale will begin at City Hall at 1pm and ends up at the festival around 3pm.

Goat Festival Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, Embarcadero and Market, SF. www.cuesa.org/markets. 10am-1pm, free. Wait, dude — am I petting a goat? Start your 420 the right way, with an adorable baby goat petting zoo at the Ferry Building’s farmers market. It’s the Goat Fest, meaning goat product samples, aforementioned cuties, and talks by goat-oriented business owners about why they like workings with these fine fellows.

Jack London Square Earth Day Festival Jack London Square, Oakl. www.jacklondonsquare.com. 9am-2pm, free. The perfect excuse to visit this sunny plaza’s farmers market — today, you’ll get the chance to enjoy free Popsicles from a solar-powered truck, sustainable living exhibits, crafts for the kiddos, gardening activities, and the weekly free yoga class, all in celebration of this year’s day for the planet.

Pedals, Pipes, and Pizza Cathedral of Christ the Light, 2121 Harrison, Oakl. www.ctlcathedral.org. 11am-1pm, $5 donation requested. Children under 5 are free. Peter and the Wolf is a timeless folktale with a serious honesty lesson. Bring the kids to the Cathedral of Christ the Light for a unique performance in which the story is told through narration, percussion, and organ. After the story wraps, and kids promise never to lie again, head outside for a pizza party on Cathedral Plaza.

Varnish Fine Art 10-year anniversary show Varnish Fine Art, 16 Jessie, SF. www.varnishfineart.com. Through May 18. Opening reception: 6-9pm, free. Gallerists Jen Rogers and Kerri Stephens set out to create a fine space for contemporary art 10 years ago and look at them now — hosting "DECADE-1", a show of 14 artist that commemorate the pair’s decade of success with pieces that reflect mind-soul journeys.

World Naked Bike Ride Ride starts at noon, free. Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero and Market, SF. www.sfbikeride.org. Remember the Deepwater Horizon-Macondo Well oil spill? It was only the worst natural disaster in industrial history and wrecked havoc on the coastline of Louisiana and adjacent states. The free spirits behind the World Naked Bike Ride haven’t — this edition of the clothing-optional two-wheeled group ride falls on the spill’s third anniversary.

SUNDAY 21

Swap Not Shop Earth Day Edition Soundwave Studios, 2200 Wood, Oakl. www.swapnotshop.info. Snagging up a bag of new (to you) threads is good for both your wallet and the planet. Celebrate Earth Day with Homeygrown a collective of artist and friends putting on its biannual clothing swap. Bring in a bag of gently used, clean clothes, let Homeygrown separate the good from the bad, and then help yourself to as much as you’d like.

Union Square Live kick-off concert Union Square, SF. www.unionsquarelive.org. 2-4pm, free. The best place in San Francisco to recover from heavy retail migraines is hosting 75 free concerts and performances this summer season, and it kicks off today with Sila, of Afrofunk Experience fame. Breeze through for R&B with Kenyan inflections and a passel of Afro-reggae, Afro-Brazilian, and other references.

Vintage Paper Fair Elks Lodge, 1475 Creekside, Walnut Creek. www.vintagepaperfair.com. 10am-5pm, free. With over a million items for sale, the Vintage Paper Fair has one of the West Coast’s biggest selection of postcards, trade cards, photography, brochures, Victorian memorabilia, and an array of curious, beautiful, and interesting old paper.

TUESDAY 23

Filipino Heritage Festival at AT&T Park Lefty O’ Doul Plaza. SF. sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com. 5-7pm. Pregame festivities are free. Head to AT&T Park before the Giants play the Diamondbacks to take part in the biannual Filipino heritage celebration. Attendees can expect live music and cultural food vendors outside the stadium. Head inside and sit in one of the Filipino heritage sections to enjoy on-field cultural performers leading up to the start of the game. All special event ticket holders will also receive a limited-edition Tim Lincecum scarf.

Able fables

Andrew Lam
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Able fables

arts@sfbg.com

FILM The weak recent likes of Jack the Giant Slayer and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters revealed the extent of expensive, formulaic action-movie lameness with which Hollywood is now determined to treat every story of universal familiarity (and conveniently, no pesky copyright). No doubt there will be a Cinderella: Bitch is Goin’ Postal somewhere in our future before the cycle spins out, if it ever does.

But fairy tales have such appeal that it’s hard not to want filmmakers to do interesting things with them, as opposed to the things they generally are doing with them. Two new European movies for grown-ups take elements of such tales — one a very familiar story template, the other just the tenor of a shiny, hyper real fable — and while they haven’t a great deal else in common, they both happen to be among the most delightful entertainments we’re likely to see this year.

Mikael Buch’s French first feature Let My People Go! is a fairy tale in the sense of something like Ma vie en rose (1997) or Potiche (2010) — it’s a warmhearted social satire stylized as if everyday life were constantly poised to break into a production number. Also, its protagonist is such a fairy: in what’s possibly the most inspired physical comedy performance by a French (or maybe any) actor since Jean Dujardin was last sighted, Nicolas Maury plays Ruben, a Parisian who came to Finland to pursue a masters in “comparative sauna studies” but stayed on for perfect boyfriend Teemu (Jarkko Niemi). With his skinny body language so floppy it’s like a master class in theatrical nelliness, Ruben gives off an air of someone ready at any moment to deliver a shrill hissy fit or world-class sulk. Not that he has occasion to, however, in this northern paradise of friendly moose, candy-colored villages, and postal delivery customers (the sauna thing didn’t pan out) who invariably greet him at the door with tasty snacks.

Of course, it’s a paradise he must be cast out of, after an inexplicably violent altercation with a customer on his route results in Teemu calling Ruben a “thieving murderer” and sending him back to (as the BF’s mother puts it) “that horrible country.” There, torn from the political correctitude of the great white north, he’s forced to deal with his ever-dysfunctional family: Mom (Carmen Maura) still thinks he just needs to meet “a nice Jewish girl,” Dad (Jean-François Stevénin) is cheating on her, sis (Amira Casar) is probably divorcing her “asshole goy husband,” and bro (Clément Sibony) is fed up with having to hold their hands through every new crisis.

Written by Buch and Christophe Honoré (not a guy usually associated with levity), Let My People Go! wends its way toward the predictable reconciliations all around with a certain sweetness and a great deal of inspired silliness. None more inspired than everything done by Maury, whose extreme stereotype might be offensive in another context — but in this endearing fable of tolerance, Ruben is as lovable as he is haplessly funny.

Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves is something else — Snow White, to be exact, transplanted to 1920s Spain and told (à la 2011’s The Artist) in the dialogue-free B&W style of that era’s silent cinema. If you saw the two crappy overblown Hollywood takes on that fairy tale last year, my condolences, but this is probably its best cinematic incarnation ever not made by someone called Walt.

Here, Snow is the daughter of a famous bullfighter (a beautiful performance by Daniel Giménez Cacho) who’s paralyzed physically in the ring, then emotionally by the death of his flamenco star wife (Inma Cuesta) in childbirth. He can’t bring himself to see his daughter until a grandmother’s death brings little Carmencita (the marvelous Sofía Oria) to the isolated ranch he now shares with nurse-turned-second-wife Encarna — Maribel Verdú as a very Jazz Age evil stepmother, whose vanity expresses itself in outrageous fashion spreads for the socialite columns. Once the girl matures (now played by the ingratiating, slightly androgynous Macarena García), Encarna senses a rival, and to save her life Carmen literally runs away with the circus — at which point the narrative slumps a bit. But only a bit.

Where The Artist was essentially a cleverly sustained gimmick elevated by a wonderful central performance, Blancanieves transcends its ingenious retro trappings to offer something both charming and substantiative. Berger doesn’t treat the story template as a joke — he’s fully adapted it to a culture, place, and time, and treats its inherent pathos — you didn’t see much of that in last year’s Mirror Mirror or Snow White and the Huntsman, did you? — with great delicacy. It’s hard to imagine who wouldn’t enjoy Blancanieves — well, excepting the audience for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

LET MY PEOPLE GO! and BLANCANIEVES open Fri/19 in Bay Area theaters.

Billy and the golden toads

Andrew Lam
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Billy and the golden toads

Reverend Billy Talen and his Church of Stop Shopping — which evolved from anti-consumerism street theater in San Francisco in the 1990s into a venerable New York City protest/performance institution — is bringing its creative environmentalist prayers and ploys back to the Bay Area next week.

Talen is a talented talker and writer whose most recent book, The End of the World, is a poetic plea for people to finally get serious about climate change, loss of biodiversity, and other environmental indicators that are passing irreversible global tipping points, all of them fed by the relentless growth of global capitalism.

“When Hurricane Sandy hit New York, there was no discussion of the underlying causes,” Talen told us. “There’s a disconnect. We have a 1,000-mile wide storm that seems to be aimed at Wall Street, and we’re not mentioning Wall Street.”

Billy and his crew are, using street theater to make their point. As he spoke, Talen said he was surrounded by two dozen costumes of the extinct Golden Toad that his crew has been donning to invade and engage in media-friendly civil disobedience at branches of Chase Bank, which the Rainforest Action Network concluded is the leading investor in carbon-emitting projects.

“Amphibians are going extinct around the world, and if I can mix my metaphors, that’s the canary in the coal mine,” Talen said, calling climate change a systemic result of an economic system predicated on consumption and growth. “Corporations are made to not be sustainable. They have to expand every quarter.”

Talen begins his visit on Monday, April 22, with a 7pm reading at Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, and he wraps up on April 27 at 8pm with a full 17-member Church of Stop Shopping performance at Victoria Theater, 2961 16th St., SF. In between, they’ll be Lone Mountain College in SF on April 24, Pt. Reyes Dance Palace on April 25, the Chalkupy event at Oakland City Plaza on April 26, the Live Coast West taping on April 27 — and perhaps exorcising a Chase Bank or two along the way.

Jessie Ware eats pizza at Little Star, connects with her fans at the Independent

Tony Robles
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Jessie Ware eats pizza at Little Star, connects with her fans at the Independent

Last Thursday, when the lights came up on the stage at the Independent, they revealed a woman who was relishing the reverential shouts of the sold-out crowd. With a dramatic bun on top of her head, large hoop earrings, and tall heels, Jessie Ware appeared to embody the fully realized pop star that the world is starting to recognize in her.

Throughout the night, though, it became clear that what makes Ware so compelling isn’t the idolizing distance of pop-stardom, but its opposite. Between each song, she charmed the audience with candid and often self-deprecating banter. To a loud response of cheers and clapping, she spoke of her boyfriend who had joined her on tour and enjoyed planting himself in the audience to gauge its mood. “If someone comes up to you being a bit pervy, it’s just ‘cause he’s really proud of me,” she said, then laughed along with the crowd.

It’s tempting to say that the best part of the night was this sort of endearingly comedic chat, but that wouldn’t be doing justice to her performance. On Ware’s album, Devotion, the music has an understated ease, and though that is part of what makes it so good – in a world of over-the-top pop, restraint is refreshing – live music requires more than subtlety. Ware and her band delivered.

The music, already catchy on the album, achieved greater depth on stage. In the ballad-like “Wildest Moments,” added emphasis on the reverberant drums and Ware’s responding rhythmic changes gave the audience more to sink its teeth into, while the simplification of quieter tunes such as “Sweet Talk” emphasized the intimacy of Ware’s largely romantic repertoire.

The strength of Ware’s singing also came through more in a live venue than in the album, where the rule of restraint controls her voice, too. On Thursday, commercial but expressive vocals added the right amount of embellishment and variation to soulful tunes such as “What You Won’t Do For Love” (despite the four slices of Little Star Pizza and strawberry ice cream that she admitted to eating before the concert). She is a more talented singer than her recordings suggest.

Because of this, occasionally I wanted her voice to come through even more. On some songs, including that opener, “Devotion,” a jangly guitar and swirling synth that aspired to match their recorded versions obscured Ware and diminished the force of the singer.

This, however, is one complaint in a performance that was otherwise flawless – though “flawless” suggests a show more sterile, glossy, and lifeless than what happened that night. The best moments felt unpracticed and organic, enjoyable because of their imperfections. Ware reacted to the dance moves of the front row, rambled occasionally, and when she plugged her album, which comes out in the US on Tuesday, she gave a bashful look when caught herself clapping along with the audience. Flawlessness would imply that Ware has completely filled her newfound role as a pop-star, but instead, she seems both amused and humbled by it.

Maybe it isn’t enough to equate the quality of a show with how endearing the performer is, but I think it’s significant that the 500 people at the Indy had fun because Ware was so obviously having fun.
One sign of a successful show is its ability to evoke the sensation of a personal stake in the performer. Last Thursday, Ware’s audience became invested in her future career, which, with all of her talent and charm, will inevitably thrive.

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